We’ve started our close reading of the creation story with a thorough discussion of just the first two words of the first verse of the Bible, the verse that you see below. Those first two words are translated by the English words in bold.
1 When God began to create the sky and the earth —
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
Today’s post will cover just one more word – but it is a major one.
Now … the Hero of Our Story
That word is אֱלֹהִים elohim. It occurs more than 2600 times in the Bible, and many of those times – but not all – it refers to the being whom we call in English “God.” That’s how I’ve translated it as well, but that is not only possible translation for this word.
The most important point to start out with is that elohim is not a name – it is a job description, like “pope” or “president.” That is, this is a common noun and not a proper noun. We often capitalize “God” in English, as I’ve also done, but we often do the same with “the Pope” or “the President,” because there is generally only one person at a time whom we mean when we use that word.
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