Page 220 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

CHAPTER 14 IN THE BEGINNING …

CHAPTER 14

“In the beginning …
the earth was without form and void” (?)

14.1 Biblical Description of the Beginning and Its Hebrew Context

The book of Genesis starts with the story of creation:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was
without form, and void.”

This is a strange way to start description of a newborn Earth (whatever that
means). In this chapter we analyze what is really meant by the Hebrew original
words for “form” and “void.” Indeed, the translated English words convey the real
meaning of the Hebrew words. Yet, the latter convey “without form and void” in
an extremely indirect way, so that not being familiar with the true original sense
of the words may deprive one of the full context of the only biblical depiction of
Earth at the moment of creation. Furthermore, how these words may be inter-
related to most modern cosmological theories and most recent space observations

is also lost.
1
2
The Hebrew words for “without form and void” are just tohu and bohu.
What is meant by these words? The answer may be vague, since a combination of
these words reappears only once in the whole Bible, with the words of the prophet
2
1
Jeremiah: “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste [tohu ] and void [bohu ]; And
the heavens, and they had not their light” (Jer. 4:23). For lack of any other source
1
to lend sense to these words, it is apparent that this translation of the tohu and
2
bohu relies on what comes next in Jeremiah: “For thus says the Lord, The whole
land shall be desolate; Yet will I not make a full end” (Jer. 4:27). Thus, if the

199
199