Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

I see what you mean about fruit, Vadim (although technically the priests did 
accept the first fruits), but I'm not sure it transfers over to Gen 1.1. The 
first word in Genesis is merely adverbial meaning something like 'At 
first...' Our usual translation of 'In the beginning' has been conditioned by 
old translations, and is fine, though it creates the false impression that 
there might be something wrong since the pointed Hebrew does not preserve an 
article 'the'. But it really presents no problem in Hebrew itself.


Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au