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[jayrandom]

The first sentence of the Torah, BRAShYTh BRA ALHYM ET HShAMYM VET HAyRTz has been long translated in the King James Bible as "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." The word BRAShYTh is, indeed, held to have some relationship to the idea of a beginning, although proposed translations have changed since the days of King James. Modern alternatives include "When the beginning" or "With beginning". The second word, BRA, does mean created. And of course, ALHYM means "the Gods." What about BRA ALHYM? In some languages, the subject normally precedes the verb, while others are more flexible. Traditional translations simply assume flexible verb/subject sequence and assume the BRA ALHYM really means "God (or, the Gods) created" But in a portion of the Zohar, the sequence is read more strictly: BRA ALHYM means "created the Gods." So BRAShYTh BRA ALHYM now means, "With beginning created the Gods." Just a bit more linguistic smoothing give us the following translation of Genesis 1:1: "With beginning, __ created the Gods, the heavens and the earth." Who created the Gods? It's never stated. It's not knowable.

-- Marc H Gerstein, "The nature of God".