| Genesis 1:1 | |
|---|---|
1:2 → | |
 The first chapter of Genesis (B'reshit in Hebrew) written on an egg in the Israel Museum | |
| Book | Book of Genesis |
| Hebrew Bible part | Torah |
| Order in the Hebrew part | 1 |
| Christian Bible part | Old Testament |
| Order in the Christian part | 1 |
Genesis 1:1 is the first verse of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and the opening of the Genesis creation narrative.
The Hebrew is as follows:
It can be translated into English in at least three ways:
Genesis 1:1 forms the basis for the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing ( creatio ex nihilo ). Some scholars still support this reading, [5] but most agree that on strictly linguistic and exegetical grounds this is not the preferred option, [6] [7] [8] and that the authors of Genesis 1, writing around 500–400 BCE, were concerned not with the origins of matter (the material which God formed into the habitable cosmos), but with the fixing of destinies. [2]
A creation myth or cosmogonic myth is a type of cosmogony, a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term myth often refers to false or fanciful stories, members of cultures often ascribe varying degrees of truth to their creation myths. In the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths – metaphorically, symbolically, historically, or literally. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, they describe the ordering of the cosmos from a state of chaos or amorphousness.
The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, Bereshit. Genesis is an account of the creation of the world, the early history of humanity, and the origins of the Jewish people.
In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden or Garden of God, also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2–3 and Ezekiel 28 and 31.
A creator deity or creator god is a deity responsible for the creation of the Earth, world, and universe in human religion and mythology. In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator. A number of monolatristic traditions separate a secondary creator from a primary transcendent being, identified as a primary creator.
Elohim, the plural of אֱלוֹהַּ, is a Hebrew word meaning "gods" or "godhood". Although the word is grammatically plural, in the Hebrew Bible it most often takes singular verbal or pronominal agreement and refers to a single deity, particularly the God of Israel. In other verses it refers to the singular gods of other nations or to deities in the plural.
Biblical cosmology is the account of the universe and its laws in the Bible. The Bible was formed over many centuries, involving many authors, and reflects shifting patterns of religious belief; consequently, its cosmology is not always consistent. Nor do the biblical texts necessarily represent the beliefs of all Jews or Christians at the time they were put into writing: the majority of the texts making up the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament in particular represent the beliefs of only a small segment of the ancient Israelite community, the members of a late Judean religious tradition centered in Jerusalem and devoted to the exclusive worship of Yahweh.
Merism is a rhetorical device in which a combination of two contrasting parts of the whole refer to the whole.
Creatio ex materia is the notion that the universe was formed out of eternal, pre-existing matter. This is in contrast to the notion of creatio ex nihilo, where the universe is created out of nothing. The idea of creatio ex materia is found in ancient near eastern cosmology, early Greek cosmology such as is in the works of Homer and Hesiod, and across the board in ancient Greek philosophy. It was also held by a few early Christians, although creatio ex nihilo was the dominant concept among such writers. At some point, creatio ex materia came to be accepted in Mormonism.
The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity, told in the Book of Genesis ch. 1–2. While the Jewish and Christian tradition is that the account is one comprehensive story modern scholars of biblical criticism identify the account as a composite work made up of two stories drawn from different sources.
Creatio ex nihilo is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act. It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe came to exist. It is in contrast to creation ex materia, sometimes framed in terms of the dictum Ex nihilo nihil fit or "nothing comes from nothing", meaning all things were formed ex materia.
Ancient Semitic religion encompasses the polytheistic religions of the Semitic peoples from the ancient Near East and Northeast Africa. Since the term Semitic represents a rough category when referring to cultures, as opposed to languages, the definitive bounds of the term "ancient Semitic religion" are only approximate but exclude the religions of "non-Semitic" speakers of the region such as Egyptians, Elamites, Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni, Urartians, Luwians, Minoans, Greeks, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Medes, Philistines and Parthians.
Genesis 1:2 is the second verse of the Genesis creation narrative. It is a part of the Torah portion Bereshit.
Genesis 1:3 is the third verse of the first chapter in the Book of Genesis. In it God made light by declaration: God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. It is a part of the Torah portion known as Bereshit.
In ancient near eastern cosmology, the firmament means a celestial barrier that separated the heavenly waters above from the Earth below. In biblical cosmology, the firmament is the vast solid dome created by God during the Genesis creation narrative to separate the primal sea into upper and lower portions so that the dry land could appear.
Sons of God is a phrase used in the Tanakh or Old Testament and in Christian Apocrypha. The phrase is also used in Kabbalah where bene elohim are part of different Jewish angelic hierarchies.
In linguistic typology, a verb–subject–object (VSO) language has its most typical sentences arrange their elements in that order, as in Ate Sam oranges. VSO is the third-most common word order among the world's languages, after SOV and SVO.
Deus is the Latin word for "god" or "deity". Latin deus and dīvus ("divine") are in turn descended from Proto-Indo-European *deiwos, "celestial" or "shining", from the same root as *Dyēus, the reconstructed chief god of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon.
Tohu wa-bohu or Tohu va-Vohu is a Biblical Hebrew phrase found in the Genesis creation narrative that describes the condition of the earth immediately before the creation of light in Genesis 1:3.
"In the beginning" is the opening-phrase or incipit used in the Bible in Genesis 1:1. In John 1:1 of the New Testament, the word Archē is translated into English with the same phrase.
Textual variants in the Book of Genesis concerns textual variants in the Hebrew Bible found in the Book of Genesis.
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