UNDERSTANDING THE BEGINNING OF GENESIS:

JUST HOW MANY BEGINNINGS WERE THERE?

DANIEL M. BERRY

The first word of the Hebrew text of Genesis "‫ "בראשית‬as traditionally
vocalized means literally "In a beginning." However, tradition gives it the
meaning and translation "In the beginning." The literal meaning is considered
as contradicting reality. Therefore, Rashi suggested a syntactic solution that
maintains the traditional meaning. However, this syntactic solution, as is
shown later, requires a change in the vocalization of the second word of Ge-
nesis. This paper argues that we should accept the traditional Masoretic voca-
lization along with its literal meaning, and explores the implications of that
literal meaning.

A POSSIBLE MISTRANSLATION AND MISUNDERSTANDING

The most commonly given English translation of Genesis 1:1, b'reshit bara
elohim et hashamayim v'et ha'aretz, is: In the beginning, God created the
heavens and the earth. This translation, however, may be wrong. If so, the
misunderstanding is not restricted to renderings into English but may occur in
direct biblical translations into every language that I have seen and unders-
tood.
The problem is that "b'reshit" is translated "In the beginning." If the mean-
ing were, in fact, In the beginning, the first word would have been vocalized
slightly differently, with a "qamatz" vowel underneath the "bet," making the
word "bareshit." What we have, however, is a "shva" under the "bet," making
the word "b'reshit," meaning "In a beginning." That is, the "qamatz" serves
as a definite article, while a "shva" would serve as an indefinite article.
In its traditional written form, the Bible has no vowel signs to distinguish
between these two possible readings. The vocalization that has been handed
down by tradition, and documented in vocalized versions of the Bible, is the
one that has the first word spoken and written as b'reshit, with the indefinite
article. This is the vocalization that is used in every standard and scholarly
Daniel M. Berry got his Ph.D. in computer science from Brown University in 1974. He taught at
UCLA, 1972-1987, at the Technion, 1987-1999, and has been a professor of computer science at
the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, since 1999. He has always been interested in
things other than computer science.
UNDERSTANDING THE BEGINNING OF GENESIS

text of the Hebrew Bible and in every synagogue. I have heard it on Simhat
Torah and on Shabbat B'reshit when the annual Torah-reading cycle begins
anew with the first chapter of Genesis.
It should be noted that it is not just translations that may be wrong. It ap-
pears, at least today, that even in Israel those whose mother tongue is Hebrew
understand the word "b'reshit" as meaning "In the beginning" and are sur-
prised when I point out that it really means "In a beginning." Once over the
initial surprise, they agree with me. This reading perhaps derives from fami-
liarity with the Bible's translations into other languages. Even in the standard
1
multi-volume Even-Shoshan dictionary of the Hebrew language, the first
entry for "b'reshit" is "bat'hila, barishona" [in the beginning], both with defi-
nite articles. It is not totally surprising that native speakers of Hebrew might
understand differently from what they hear themselves say, because English
has many expressions that literally mean other that what people believe they
mean, such as "head over heels", which should be "heels over head" when its
intent is to describe someone flipping through the air, either literally or figu-
ratively.

A SYNTACTIC SOLUTION
I am not the first to note the problem of the meaning of the first word of the
Bible. It was noted as early as the 11th century by Rashi, who provided a
grammatical solution. That is, he treated what is normally considered the first
sentence as a relative clause modifying what is normally considered the
second sentence. In Rashi's treatment, the traditional first sentence is treated
as a relative clause; vocalized as b'reshit b'ro elohim et hashamayim v'et
ha'aretz. It leads into the traditional second sentence, v'ha'aretz hay'ta tohu
vavohu v'hoshekh `al-p'ney t'hom v'ruah elohim m'rahefet `al-p'ney hamayim
(Gen. 1:2), now considered the main clause modified by the relative clause.
Under this vocalization, the relative clause (Gen. 1:1) can be translated as In
the beginning of God's creation of the heavens and the earth, leading into the
main clause, translated as the earth was unformed and void, and darkness
was on the face of the deep, [and] God's wind hovered on the face of the wa-
ters (1:2).
This different division into sentences is not a problem. In the original text
there is no mark to show where a sentence ends, and the division is also
something determined by tradition. Here, b'reshit b'ro elohim is a construct

Vol. 31, No. 2, 2003

 DANIEL M. BERRY

form in which the definite article would show up only in the last word, and
only if that last word were not a proper noun. Since in this case the last word
is is the proper noun "elohim" the definite article is only implied.
The primary support offered for this interpretation is that the traditional
first sentence now has a grammatical construction that is identical to that
found in the so-called second Creation narrative that begins in the second half
of Genesis 2:4: b'yom `asot hashem elohim eretz v'shamayim. This narrative
can be translated as on the day of the Lord God's making earth and heavens.
There is one main reason to discount Rashi's interpretation. It requires a
change from the traditional vocalization of "‫ "ברא‬from "bara" to "b'ro." This
interpretation is taken to avoid a problem arising from the traditional vocali-
zation of "‫ "בראשית‬as "b'reshit" and to avoid having to vocalize it different-
ly, as "bareshit." Thus, Rashi offers one change in vocalization to avoid
another change in vocalization. Who is to say which change is more accepta-
ble, especially in a tradition that devoutly adheres to traditional vocaliza-
tions?
The grammatical approach to solving the problem arose from an attempt to
keep to the understanding that God is talking about the beginning of the un-
iverse. That is, a syntactic change is accepted to preserve the understood se-
mantics.
2
Nahum Sarna's recent translation is: When God began to create heaven
and earth, . . . Sarna thus skirts the issue entirely by converting beginning to
a verb form, thus avoiding the need for any article.

A SEMANTIC SOLUTION
The thrust of this paper is basically: Let us see what happens if we keep the
traditional vocalizations and understand it as written. That is, let us see the
implications of the semantics of the text as it is written.
So, let us now accept that the first sentence of Genesis says b'reshit bara
elohim et hashamayim v'et ha'aretz, and that it means what can be translated
into English as In a beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There
are several advantages to doing so:
1. This interpretation fits the traditional vocalization.
2. God is indeed literally talking about more than one Creation. The first is
that of the universe on Day One. Then there are a myriad of creations of

JEWISH BIBLE QUARTERLY

UNDERSTANDING THE BEGINNING OF GENESIS

light, night, day, the earth, oceans, plants, animals, and finally human beings,
created in God's own image.
3. This interpretation of multiple creations solves the age-old question of the
origin of Cain's wife (4:17). At the time she is mentioned, there had been
only four people mentioned, Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. Cain had killed
Abel. There was no mention of any sister. Besides, would Cain marry his
sister? Perhaps God is describing with Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel, only one
representative creation among many. Another of these creations could easily
provide a proper and unrelated woman for Cain to marry. Indeed, this inter-
pretation is more appealing than to conjecture that Cain married a previously
unmentioned sister.
4. This interpretation provides the other creations that can explain the exis-
tence of the people who might want to kill Cain for having murdered Abel
(4:14) and of the people for whom Cain built a city (4:17).
The Midrash speculating about the great flood in Noah's time remarks that
there were many creations. "Rabbi Abbahu said: 'The Almighty created many
worlds and destroyed them . . . until our present world was formed.'"

CONCLUSIONS
I have noted a problem with the translation and understanding of the first
sentence of the Bible. A literal translation and understanding says that the
creation of the universe described in Genesis was only one of possibly many
creations. This literal meaning was considered contradicting reality, and thus
incorrect. Rashi attempted a syntactic solution to resurrect what is believed to
be the intended understanding. I have argued that we should accept the literal
semantics, for it answers some other questions about Genesis, namely:
Whence came the other people that are mentioned in the text?
In addition, the literal meaning of multiple creations might be God's clue to
solve some mysteries in cosmology. For all the details, please see the full
3
report, from which this paper is derived.

NOTES
1. A. Even-Shoshan, The New Dictionary: Complete Treasury of the Hebrew Language (Jerusa-
lem: Kiryat-Sefer, 1983).
2. JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh (New York, NY: Jewish Publication Society, 1999).
3. http://se.uwaterloo.ca/~dberry/FTP_SITE/tech.reports/breshit.pdf

Vol. 31, No. 2, 2003