Passages
Genesis 1:1-3
The Bible
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Verse numbers omitted from the running text; the reference carries them. The ASV renders the divine name as Jehovah elsewhere in the book, which is one of its distinguishing choices, though it does not arise in these three verses.
Facts
Passage
TextIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 1 Reference Scheme Translation
TranslationThe Holy Bible, American Standard Version 1 TranslatorAmerican Revision Committee 1 Learn More
The Letter Bet and Why the Midrash Would Not Start With Aleph
Genesis Rabbah opens its commentary on this verse by asking a question the plain text never raises: why does the Torah begin with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, bet, the first word being Bereshit, rather than with aleph, the first letter and by rights the more obvious choice for a beginning. The midrash offers several answers rather than settling on one, which is its usual method. Bet is closed on three sides and open only toward the front, so its shape teaches that a person may inquire into what happened from the day of creation onward but not into what, if anything, came before it. Bet is also the first letter of berakhah, blessing, read as a favorable omen for the world about to be spoken into being, while aleph opens arirah, curse.
The same passage of Genesis Rabbah reads Bereshit alongside Proverbs, where Wisdom says she stood beside God at the beginning of his work, and treats the Torah itself as the beginning named in this verse, a blueprint God consulted the way an architect consults a plan before building. Neither answer resolves what the earth was waste and void before God spoke into it; the midrash's method throughout is to multiply readings rather than to close the question, and it never fully closes this one.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Concerns
1, Numbers In the beginning: the first day and the first act.
The Babylonian creation account this passage is usually read against.
Passage Of
The first three verses of the work.
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