I have had quite a bit of feedback on the question of how to translated the very first verse of the Hebrew Bible–Genesis 1:1. It is so familiar to English ears the world over, in its traditional rendering, that any variation seems to immediately raise a flag with people. The Transparent English Bible has:
Chapter 1:1 At the first of (bereshit) ELOHIM creating the skies and the land—

The traditional translation, known and loved by so many, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” ignores an important grammatical element in Hebrew. The first word is in a special grammatical form in Hebrew called the construct. This means it implies a prepositional phrase in relation to what follows. The precise phrase occurs in Jeremiah. 26:1: At the first of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, came this word from Jehovah, saying…

The meaning here is clear and the two verses are quite parallel. The TEB has opted for a fairly literal reading, but one could actually even be more literal since the feminine form of the world “first” comes from the Hebrew word Rosh or “head.” So one might translate the phrase: “At the head of…” Either way, the meaning is clear. When Elohim began to create the skies and the land–this was the state of things, namely “desolation and emptiness.” The whole point of the verse is not to tell us about when or how things began, but rather, what was the state of the “land and skies” when God began to create or bring order and form to the chaos.

Also, even though the definite article is not present in the first word, bereshit, we have added “the” in lower italics, because the subject of this preposition, namely “God” or ELOHIM, justifies the “definite” sense here. We could have just as easily said “When ELOHIM began to create the skies and the land,” as many other modern translations have done, but thought it better to be as “transparent” with the original words as possible. Also, there is a tiny Hebrew word before the object of the verbal phrase: ’et, that we have left untranslated. This is not because we are trying to remove any words from the original, but this, in Classical (and even Modern) Hebrew, is a sign of a Direct Object to follow, and in this form is simply not translated. It functions as a kind of signal for what follows. This first verse, if read as we have it, finally connects with verse 3—when God says, “Let there be light.” If you read it aloud as we have it, from verse one through verse 3, you will see the idea. Verse two is actually describing the “state of things” when God began, but before the declaration, “Let there be light.” It is a very powerful and moving opening to the first verses of the Bible.