In the Beginning: Genesis 1:1
Nearly every English Bible opens with the words: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The UPDV retains this traditional rendering. In recent decades, however, an increasing number of translations have adopted a different opening: "When God began to create the heavens and the earth." This change is significant. It affects whether Genesis begins with an absolute declaration of God creating the universe at the outset of time, or with a temporal clause describing an initial state as God began to order existing chaos.
The question turns on the grammar of the Hebrew.
🔗The Hebrew
Genesis 1:1 reads:
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ
The first word, בְּרֵאשִׁית (bǝrēʾšît), combines the preposition בְּ ("in") with רֵאשִׁית ("beginning"). The argument for the construct reading rests on the fact that the prefixed form בְּרֵאשִׁית appears four other times in the Hebrew Bible (Jeremiah 26:1; 27:1; 28:1; 49:34), always in the construct state, "in the beginning of the reign of King So-and-so."1 In Hebrew, the construct state ties two nouns together, often translated with "of" (e.g., "the beginning of the reign"). An absolute noun stands independently (e.g., "the beginning"). At Genesis 1:1, a construct reading would mean that בְּרֵאשִׁית governs the following words as its genitive, "in the beginning of God's creating." But the next word is not a noun; it is a finite verb.
The second word, בָּרָא (bārāʾ), is pointed in the Masoretic Text as a Qal perfect third-person masculine singular, a finite verb: "he created." If a construct temporal clause were intended, the expected form would have been the infinitive construct בְּרֹא (bǝrōʾ, "creating"), as it appears in Genesis 5:1: בְּיוֹם בְּרֹא אֱלֹהִים אָדָם ("on the day of God's creating humankind").2 בָּרָא and בְּרֹא share identical consonants but differ in vowels. This raises the question of whether the Masoretic vocalization preserves the original reading or requires correction.
🔗The case for the construct reading
In this reading, the first word governs what follows, "In the beginning of God's creating", making the verse a temporal clause rather than an independent sentence. The construct reading has valid grammatical grounds. It was first proposed by Rashi in the eleventh century, who noted that if the author intended the absolute sense ("in the beginning"), Hebrew might have used בָּרִאשֹׁנָה (bāriʾšōnâ). Rashi translated it: "at the beginning of God's creating."3 His view was later adopted by Ibn Ezra and, in modern times, by Speiser (Anchor Yale Bible), who translated it "When God set about to create heaven and earth." Speiser referred to the Enuma Elish, which starts with a similar temporal clause: "When on high heaven had not been named…"4
A substantial modern defense of the construct reading comes from Robert Holmstedt, who suggests that the Masoretic vocalization can be preserved as-is if בָּרָא is read as an unmarked relative clause — "In the beginning [during the time] that God created." This interpretation does not alter the verb's vowels, and it appeals to Akkadian parallels and the behavior of unmarked relative clauses in Biblical Hebrew for support.5
The NRSVue, NJPS, NABRE, and CEB have adopted variations of the construct reading.6
🔗The case for the absolute reading
In this reading, the first word stands alone, "In the beginning God created" — making the verse an independent declarative sentence. The UPDV maintains the traditional absolute reading on grammatical, text-critical, and historical grounds.
🔗1. The Masoretic vocalization
The Masoretic Text points the first word as an absolute noun and the second as a finite verb, consistent with the Septuagint's second-century BCE translation, which treats Genesis 1:1 as an independent clause.7
🔗2. The author's own usage
The same author who wrote Genesis 1:1 also wrote Genesis 5:1, with both verses beginning with a בְּ-prefixed time expression. However, their constructions differ:
| Genesis 1:1 | Genesis 5:1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Text | בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים | בְּיוֹם בְּרֹא אֱלֹהִים אָדָם |
| Noun state | Absolute (רֵאשִׁית) | Construct (יוֹם) |
| Verb form | Qal perfect (בָּרָא), finite | Qal infinitive construct (בְּרֹא), non-finite |
| Clause type | Independent sentence | Temporal clause |
Genesis 5:1 illustrates a construct temporal clause: בְּ + construct noun + infinitive construct. By contrast, Genesis 1:1 uses: בְּ + absolute noun + finite verb, suggesting an intentional distinction.8
🔗3. The word choice
Biblical Hebrew distinguishes three words for temporal beginnings. Among תְּחִלָּה (tǝḥillâ), רִאשֹׁנָה (riʾšōnâ), and רֵאשִׁית (rēʾšît), the first two frequently accompany "the second" or "the next." However, רֵאשִׁית pairs with אַחֲרִית ("the end"):
"Declaring the end from the beginning" (Isaiah 46:10) "Though your beginning was small, yet your end will be very great" (Job 8:7) "Better is the end of a thing than its beginning" (Ecclesiastes 7:8)
In choosing רֵאשִׁית, the author employed an eschatological pair. This serves as an opening frame to a narrative complete at "the end." Such framing is most naturally viable if רֵאשִׁית is absolute. A construct temporal clause ("when God began to create…") does not provide the same basis for this duality.9
Even Rashi, a proponent of the construct reading, acknowledged the significance of this word pair in his commentary on Genesis 1:1 and sought to explain it elliptically.10
🔗4. The article question
The absence of the definite article in בְּרֵאשִׁית, often cited in support of the construct reading, is anachronistic according to Benjamin Kantor. During the Hebrew composition period, definite articles were not mandatory for unique referents after prepositions. Earlier reading traditions reveal less article use than Tiberian Hebrew. On this view, the construct reading's emergence in the medieval period resulted from later readers applying their own grammatical norms to an earlier text.11
Kantor's findings are supported by second-century BCE evidence. Ben Sira 15:14 (MS A margin) reads מִבְּרֵאשִׁית אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אָדָם — "God from in-beginning created man." The configuration מִן + בְּ + רֵאשִׁית suggests that the phrase was already a fixed adverbial structure meaning "in the beginning," not a living construct chain.12
🔗5. Every ancient version reads it as absolute
Consistently, ancient translators — Jewish or Christian, interpreted Genesis 1:1 as an independent clause. The evidence is cohesive:13
| Version | Text | Verb form | Clause type |
|---|---|---|---|
| LXX (2nd c. BCE) | ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεός | Aorist indicative (finite) | Independent |
| Peshitta | ܒܪܫܝܬ ܒܪܐ ܐܠܗܐ | Perfect 3ms (finite) | Independent |
| Vulgate | In principio creavit Deus | Perfect (finite) | Independent |
| Targum Onqelos | בֲקַדמִין בְרָא | Perfect 3ms (finite) | Independent |
| Targum Neofiti | מלקדמין בחכמה ברא | Perfect 3ms (finite) | Independent |
| Targum Pseudo-Jonathan | מן אוולא ברא | Perfect 3ms (finite) | Independent |
The LXX is especially important, since it is our earliest record of Hebrew understanding and predates Masoretic vocalization by nearly a millennium. The translator used the aorist indicative ἐποίησεν, not an infinitive or participial construction, and no manuscript variants exist for Genesis 1:1.14 Had the translator understood a construct temporal clause, a different Greek structure would likely have been used.
🔗6. The New Testament reads it as absolute
New Testament authors, building on the LXX reading, treated "the beginning" as an absolute temporal anchor.
John 1:1 echoes the LXX Genesis 1:1, ἐν ἀρχῇ — as a fixed point: "In the beginning was the Word." If Genesis 1:1 were read as a temporal clause ("when God began to create…"), John's allusion would be difficult to account for.15
In Mark 10:6, "the beginning of the creation" (ἀπὸ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως) is a defined temporal reference: "from the beginning of the creation, male and female he made them."16 This usage presupposes Genesis 1:1 as an absolute independent clause.
🔗7. HOTTP rates the MT as secure
The Hebrew Old Testament Text Project evaluated the construct reading, rating the MT's absolute reading, absolute noun + finite verb — as secure ({A} rating), and classifying the alternative as conjectural with no direct attestations.17
🔗8. The origin of the construct reading
The construct reading's grammatical argument first formally appeared with Rashi in the eleventh century CE. It is not reflected in ancient translators or Church Fathers, such as Basil of Caesarea, Tertullian, Augustine, and Jerome, who interpreted Genesis 1:1 as an independent clause.18 The pre-medieval reception history appears to be unanimous.
Rashi's motivation extended beyond grammar. As Sailhamer noted, Rashi's belief that the "waters" of verse 2 existed before the creation in verse 1 led to the construct reading as a solution to a content-related issue. Ibn Ezra, who followed Rashi's view, expressed grammatical reservations about this construction.1920
🔗The UPDV rendering
The UPDV renders: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
This decision upholds the Masoretic vocalization, the consistent testimony of ancient versions, the New Testament's interpretation, the HOTTP's assessment, the author's deviation from his construct-temporal pattern at Genesis 5:1, the intentional word-pair רֵאשִׁית/אַחֲרִית, and Kantor's demonstration of the anachronistic nature of the article argument for the construct reading.
While a construct reading is grammatically plausible, with Holmstedt providing a legitimate framework without altering consonants — the UPDV regards the absolute reading as better supported by the grammar relevant to the composition period, the ancient interpretive tradition, and the internal comparison with Genesis 5:1. On this reading, the author composed an absolute independent sentence, as early readers consistently understood it. The UPDV preserves this understanding.
1 The four instances of the prefixed form בְּרֵאשִׁית outside Genesis 1:1 — Jeremiah 26:1; 27:1; 28:1; 49:34 — are all in the construct state, each followed by a noun in the genitive specifying the king whose reign is in view. The bare noun רֵאשִׁית occurs about 51 times in the MT with 6 absolute-state occurrences (Gen 1:1; Lev 2:12; Deut 33:21; Ps 105:36; Isa 46:10; Neh 12:44).
2 The morphology of Genesis 5:1 confirms יוֹם is in the construct state and בְּרֹא is a Qal infinitive construct — the standard Hebrew template for a construct temporal clause.
3 Rashi on Genesis 1:1: "Everywhere the word ראשית occurs in Scripture, it is in the construct state" (citing Jer 26:1; Gen 10:10; Deut 18:4). Translates: "at the beginning of God's creating." Proposes Hosea 1:2 as a parallel for construct + finite verb. If the author had wanted the absolute sense, Rashi argued, Hebrew would have used בָּרִאשֹׁנָה. See Rashi on Genesis, §1 (Sefaria); John H. Sailhamer, "Genesis," in Genesis–Numbers, vol. 2 of The Expositor's Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), notes on Gen 1:1.
4 E. A. Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Yale Bible 1 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1964), 3, 12–13. Speiser translates: "When God set about to create heaven and earth, the world being then a formless waste…" He compares the opening to the Enuma Elish: "When on high heaven had not been named…" Speiser's rendering was adopted by the NEB, NJPS, and NAB.
5 Robert D. Holmstedt, "The Restrictive Syntax of Genesis i 1," Vetus Testamentum 58 (2008): 56–67; "The Syntax of Genesis 1:1–3," Journal for Semitics 31, no. 2 (2023): 16 pages. DOI: 10.1163/156853308X246333 and 10.25159/2663-6573/11647. Holmstedt's 2008 article argues that Gen 1:1 is an unmarked restrictive relative clause preserving the Masoretic consonants; the 2023 follow-up extends the analysis to vv. 2–3 and concludes that neither linguistically plausible analysis matches the traditional rendering.
6 NRSVue: "When God began to create the heavens and the earth." NJPS/Tanakh: "When God began to create heaven and earth." NABRE: "In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth." CEB: "When God began to create the heavens and the earth."
7 The Masoretic vocalization points רֵאשִׁית as an absolute noun and בָּרָא as a Qal perfect 3ms finite verb. The LXX (Rahlfs) translates Genesis 1:1 as ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεός, an independent clause with a finite aorist verb, confirming that the earliest translators understood the Hebrew the same way the Masoretic vocalization later encoded.
8 The contrast between Genesis 1:1 (בְּ + absolute noun + finite verb) and Genesis 5:1 (בְּ + construct noun + infinitive construct) was developed by Sailhamer, "Genesis," EBC 2 (1990), notes on Gen 1:1. Both verses begin with a בְּ-prefixed time expression with the verb ברא and the subject אלהים, and the deliberately different syntax is the clearest internal evidence for the author's intent.
9 Sailhamer, "Genesis," EBC 2 (1990), notes on Gen 1:1. Sailhamer demonstrates that within Genesis itself, תְּחִלָּה and רִאשֹׁנָה are used for "first in a sequence" (e.g., Gen 13:3–4; 28:19; 38:28; 41:21; 43:18, 20), always paired with "the second/next." The author's choice of רֵאשִׁית, whose natural opposite is אַחֲרִית ("the end") — is deliberate. The same word-pair appears at Job 8:7; 42:12; Eccl 7:8; and Isa 46:10. See also Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 103–108, who discusses the word-choice argument among his four translation options.
10 Rashi, Genesis 1:1 commentary (Sefaria): "Should you insist it means they were created first, the meaning would be 'At the beginning of everything He created these'…" Rashi acknowledged the absolute reading could be defended but tried to explain it away elliptically. Sailhamer (EBC, notes on Gen 1:1) discusses Rashi's treatment of the Isa 46:10 exception.
11 Benjamin Kantor, "The Origins of 'In the Beginning …': Genesis 1:1 in Light of the Biblical Hebrew Reading Traditions," Journal of Biblical Literature 144, no. 4 (2025): 601–636. DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1444.2025.2. The published abstract states: "the lack of an article in the prepositional phrase בראשית is actually entirely compatible with the 'adverbial' interpretation according to the grammars of Second Temple–period Hebrew reading traditions, provided that ראשית is construed either as a generic referent… or as a globally unique referent." The article demonstrates that earlier (non-Tiberian) reading traditions consistently show less article usage after prepositions than Tiberian Hebrew, and that the construct/relative interpretation is unattested before the tenth century CE.
12 Ben Sira 15:14, MS A margin (Cairo Geniza, 2nd c. BCE). The marginal variant replaces the main text's מראש with the stacked preposition form מבראשית plus the addition of אלהים. Kantor (2025, 627–628) discusses this reading as evidence that בראשית was already entrenched as a frozen adverbial unit by the Second Temple period. The LXX of Sirach 15:14 renders the Hebrew as ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐποίησεν ἄνθρωπον, a simple preposition + genitive absolute temporal phrase — confirming the Greek translator also understood בראשית as a lexicalized adverbial expression, not a live construct chain.
13 LXX: Rahlfs edition. Vulgate: Clementine edition. Peshitta: Leiden edition. Targum Onqelos, Neofiti, and Pseudo-Jonathan: Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon. All use finite verbs in independent clauses. Targum Neofiti and the Fragment Targums expand with בחכמה ("by wisdom") but retain finite verbs in independent clauses.
14 The Rahlfs Septuaginta: Apparatus Criticus has no entry for Genesis 1:1; the first apparatus entry in Genesis is at 1:11. Zero manuscript variants exist across the Greek tradition for this verse. When the LXX encounters actual Hebrew temporal clauses elsewhere, it deploys explicit Greek constructions: compare Genesis 2:4 (ὅτε ἐγένετο…ᾗ ἡμέρᾳ ἐποίησεν, "when it came about…on the day that God made").
15 John 1:1: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος. The first two words are identical to LXX Genesis 1:1. The literary dependence of John's prologue on Genesis 1 is widely recognized; see, e.g., C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 151–53.
16 Mark 10:6: ἀπὸ δὲ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως, ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν αὐτούς (quoting Gen 1:27). The phrase treats "the beginning" as an absolute noun-concept modified by a genitive — a construction that grammatically presupposes the independent-clause reading of Genesis 1:1.
17 Hebrew Old Testament Text Project (HOTTP), Critique textuelle de l'Ancien Testament, vol. 1 (Fribourg/Göttingen, 1995), Genesis 1:1, rating {A}. Three translation options are identified, all preserving the Masoretic vowels and the finite verb בָּרָא: (1) implicit relative clause confined to v. 1 with v. 2 parenthetic; (2) implicit relative clause spanning vv. 1–2 with v. 3 as apodosis; (3) absolute independent sentence. The alternative reading revocalizing to the infinitive construct [ברשית בְּרֹא אלהים] is classified under factor 14 ("conjectural, not directly attested") and factor 8 ("misunderstanding of linguistic data").
18 Basil of Caesarea, Homilia in Hexaemeron I (PG 29.63–64): "Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν." Tertullian, Adversus Hermogenem 19–20, 26 (CSEL): explicitly argues that in principio is temporal, not material — "si principium materiam significaret, non ita scriptura instruxisset: in principio deus fecit, sed ex principio" (if "beginning" meant matter, Scripture would have said "from the beginning," not "in the beginning"). Augustine, Sermones (PL 38): "In principio fecit Deus caelum et terram." Jerome, Divina Bibliotheca (PL 28): "In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram." No Church Father, Greek or Latin, read Gen 1:1 as a dependent temporal clause.
19 Sailhamer, "Genesis," EBC 2 (1990), notes on Gen 1:1. Sailhamer demonstrates that Rashi's construct reading was motivated by his belief that the heavens (שָׁמַיִם) were formed from fire (אֵשׁ) and water (מַיִם). If water, present in v. 2 as part of the primordial deep — pre-existed the creation act of v. 1, v. 1 could not describe an absolute beginning. The construct reading resolved this content difficulty by making v. 1 a temporal clause rather than an independent declaration of absolute creation.
20 Ibn Ezra on Genesis 1:1, cited in Sailhamer, "Genesis," EBC 2 (1990), notes on Gen 1:1. Ibn Ezra warned readers: "Do not be astonished that the word בָּרָא is in the construct state, even though it is a verb." That he needed to warn readers reveals his own awareness of the grammatical strain.