Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world — and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.
Professer van Wolde says that the opening line of the Bible's first sentence should in fact read "In the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth." She says that God did not create something out of nothing.
On a slightly related note, I read the first half of Robert Crumb's incredibly faithful adaptation of the Book of Genesis last night, and it's a really impressive work. So far, it's perhaps the most readable version of the Book of Genesis I've ever read, and I've read quite a few. If you're a Crumb fan and you're skipping this one because you're not a religious person, you're missing out.
