how to translate in such a way as to be faithful to the original text, the answers are not always easy. When considering Gen. 1:1, the problem becomes still more difficult, because the concept “beginning” has different shades of meaning. A point of departure can refer to a discrete moment in time. We might say, for example, “The train began its trip at 7:25 p.m.,” and following this usage, the preference of contemporary translators for a more temporal and restricted sense of “beginning” is certainly