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始めに神は天と地を創造された hajime ni kami wa ten to chi o sōzōsareta In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth

Japanese Scroll of In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth (hajime ni kami wa ten to chi o sōzōsareta) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
始めに神は天と地を創造された Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

始めに神は天と地を創造された, in the beginning God created heaven and earth, is Genesis 1:1, and no Japanese Bible read here prints it character for character. It is the sentence of the Kōgoyaku 口語訳, the colloquial Bible of 1955: はじめに神は天と地とを創造された, with 始め for はじめ and the second と dropped; the Seisho kyōkai kyōdōyaku 聖書協会共同訳 of 2018 is one character away, 初 for 始. Before 1955 each of the three churches read here had the verse in a sentence of its own: the Protestant Meiji Bible 元始に神天地を創造たまへり, Orthodox books 元始ニ神ハ天地ヲ造レリ or 元始ニ神天地ヲ創造セリ, the Catholic books quoted here, but for one priest's history of 1931, with 天主 for God, and none is the scroll's. In the nineteenth century the nearest is Orthodox: a book of 1891 quotes the verse as 始メニ神ハ天地ヲ造レリ, and a few pages on sets out the reading some scholars give verses 1 and 2 in the words 始メニ神ハ天ト地; the Catholic priest 浦川和三郎 came nearer in 1931, 始めに神は天と地とを創造し給うた; outside the churches, the Ministry of Education's Japanese Chambers, in a printing of 1884, quotes the verse as 始ニ於テ神ガ天ト地トヲ創造シタリ.

A reading

始めに神は天と地を創造された is the 口語訳's sentence with 始め for はじめ and the second と dropped, one character from the 聖書協会共同訳 of 2018, and no Japanese Bible's exactly of those read here; if the index reads the 1952 page right, and if the revision that page quotes is the 口語訳's, the と it lacks was missing from the 口語訳's own draft. Before 1955 the verse sounded different in each church, and in none of them like the scroll: the Protestant 元始に神天地を創造たまへり, the Orthodox 元始ニ神ハ天地ヲ造レリ in two books and 元始ニ神天地ヲ創造セリ in a third, the Catholic 天主. In the nineteenth century the Orthodox is the nearest, with the scroll's 神は in two of its books, and one Orthodox book of 1891 already begins the verse 始メニ神ハ; in 1931 a Catholic priest, 浦川, wrote it nearer still, 始めに神は天と地とを創造し給うた. The scroll's 天と地 was a translator's before any Bible read here printed it: the Ministry of Education's Chambers quotes the verse with 始, 神 and 天と地とを by 1884, seventy-one years before the 口語訳. The scroll's 始 is the character 浦川 glossed in 1931 as the instant time begins, where the Bibles that write the word in kanji now choose 初, which the デジタル大辞泉 gives for the senses the earliest time and first in order. Read as the Japanese Bibles and the King James read it, the verse is a whole sentence, and the scroll carries it whole.

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Overview

The sense. The first verse of the Bible: in the beginning, God, and the making of heaven and earth. In the King James it is a whole sentence [1], as it is in every Japanese Bible read here. The Hebrew can also be read as the opening clause of a longer one. Rashi read its first words as at the beginning of God's creating, with verse 2 describing the earth and the main clause in verse 3, God said, "Let there be light" [2]; the Jewish Publication Society's Tanakh prints When God began to create heaven and earth—, with In the beginning God created in its note [3], and the New Revised Standard reads In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, [1].

The words. 天地 is cited from 756 [4]; 創造, in the sense of God making the universe, is first cited from 箕作麟祥's 泰西勧善訓蒙 of 1873, and in its general sense from 中村正直's 西国立志編 of 1870–71 [5]. はじめ is written two ways. The 精選版日本国語大辞典's first sense is 物事の起こり。原初, the origin of a thing, and its first example is 開闢之初, read あめつちのひらくるはじめ, the beginning when heaven and earth opened; the デジタル大辞泉 notes that the senses the earliest time and first in order are usually written 初め [6]. The scroll writes 始; the 新共同訳 and the 聖書協会共同訳 write 初; the 口語訳 writes the word in kana. された is the verb する with the auxiliary れる, which attaches to such a verb at さ, in its honorific sense [7]; it is the form the 口語訳 uses of God here and at Genesis 1:3, 神は「光あれ」と言われた [8].

The text in English. Genesis 1:1: the King James reads the heaven and the earth; the American Standard, the New International, the English Standard and the New Revised Standard all read the heavens and the earth [1].

The historical record

1854 and 1919. The Chinese Bibles beside the Japanese. Two Chinese translations stand beside the Japanese wording, read here for what they share with it, not as its source. The Delegates' Version, whose New Testament was printed in 1852 and whose Old Testament, finished in 1853, was bound with it in 1854, reads 上帝創造天地 for the opening of Genesis [9]; the Union Version of 1919 reads 神創造天地 [10].

1878 and 1884. 天と地とを in translations from English. Two Meiji translations of English books set 天と地とを before 創造 long before any Bible read here prints 天と地. 藤田九二's translation of Maury's geography, 地理誌, issued on 25 March 1878, writes in its chapter on the great craftsman of geology, 地質學ノ大工匠, 其始ノ天神、天ト地トヲ創造セリ (the small mark after 始 is read ノ; it may be a worn メ), a sentence of the translator's, not marked as a quotation [11]. The Ministry of Education's translation of Chambers's encyclopedia, in its article on chronology, 時學及時刻學, reports the view of some commentators that the Bible leaves the date of the creation vague, since it says only 「始ニ於テ神ガ天ト地トヲ創造シタリ」 [12]. That is the verse in a translator's Japanese, with 始, 神 and 天と地とを創造 together. It is read here at the page in Maruzen's printing of January 1884; the Ministry had issued the article as a fascicle of its own, which CiNii dates 1876, and that fascicle is not read here [13].

1884 and 1891. The Orthodox books. The Japanese Orthodox church published Georgii Vlastov's commentary on Genesis, 創世記精義, in 堀江復's translation, in April 1884; reviewing the creation story, it quotes the verse 元始ニ神ハ天地ヲ造レリ [14]. Rozhdestvensky's 神学汎論, in the same translator's Japanese (its later volume, 後編, 正教会, 1891), quotes it in those words, 『元始ニ神ハ天地ヲ造レリ』〔創世記一ノ一〕, and, thirty-eight scans on, twice on one page as 『始メニ神ハ天地ヲ造レリ』 [15]: the scroll's 始めに神は, in katakana where the scroll has hiragana. Where the Protestant Bible has 神天地を, these two books write 神ハ, the scroll's 神は; the Orthodox dogmatic theology of Macarius, in 上田将's translation of August 1889, quotes the verse without the particle, 元始ニ神天地ヲ創造セリ [16]. Three scans after its second quotation, 神学汎論 sets out the reading some scholars give verses 1 and 2, that God first made a finished world which then fell into chaos, in the words 始メニ神ハ天ト地即チ全宇宙ヲ齊整完全ナル有樣ニ造リシガ其後地ハ形無ク空曠ナル者ト爲レリ [15]: 神は and then 天と地, in print in 1891.

1887, 1907 and 1937. The Meiji Old Testament. The Meiji Old Testament, completed in 1887, reads Genesis 1:1 元始(はじめ)に神(かみ)天地(てんち)を創造(つくり)たまへり, in the 1907 旧新約全書 printing [17] and again in the 1937 引照附 printing [18]. Where 始めに神は天と地を創造された has 神は … 創造された, the Meiji Bible has 神天地を創造たまへり, with 創造 read つくり.

1883, 1897, 1936 and 1954. The Catholic books. Of the Catholic books quoted here, all but 浦川's history of 1931 (below) name God 天主. 聖教理緒, a book published in Osaka on 28 February 1883 that names God so and dates its title page 天主降生一千八百八十三年, the 1883rd year since 天主 came down to be born, quotes Genesis 1:1–3 as the words of the 舊約聖書傳: 太初ノ時。天主天地ヲ創造セシガ。地ハ混沌荒禿 [19]. 公教釈義, edited by 堀江幸治 in 1897, quotes it in nearly the same words, 大初天主天地ヲ創造セシガ地ハ混沌荒禿ニテ [20]. The Catholic periodical カトリック of November 1936 prints the verse 元始に天主天地を創造し給へり, and the Old Testament translated from the Latin Vulgate in 1954 元始に天主天地を創造り給えり, as the index reads it around three unread marks [21].

1922, 1924 and 1931. The sentence outside the Bibles. In the 1922 translation of Strindberg's A Dream Play, by 永島直昭, the figure of Theology says 世の始めに神は天と地とを虛無から創られたのだ [22]. Giovanni Papini's autobiography, translated by 新居格 in 1924, has 「始めに神は天と地を作つた。」 [23], the first nine characters of 始めに神は天と地を創造された exactly. In 1931 the Catholic priest 浦川和三郎 [24] wrote the verse, in his Old Testament history, as 「始(はじめ)に神は天と地とを創造し給うた」 and, on the next scan, opens a quotation of the first verses with 始(はじ)めに神は天と地とを創造し給うた。 and runs it on into verse 2: the scroll's first eight characters, then とを and its 創造; he glossed the character: 「始」とは時の始まる刹那を指したもの, 始 points to the instant time begins [25]. The National Diet Library's Digital Collections search finds 始めに神は天と地 in 96 items, the oldest the 1891 Orthodox book; the next-generation search finds three, of 1922, 1924 and 1931 [26].

1952 and 1953. A Genesis in draft, and the colloquial trial. The Japan Bible Society's board decided on 26 December 1950 to translate both Testaments into modern Japanese, and the Society issued Genesis and Exodus as trial fascicles in 1953 [27]. A dental journal of December 1952 quotes Genesis from 1952年改譯(未完稿), the 1952 revision (unfinished draft), the excerpt naming no reviser, in a year the 口語訳 was in progress [27]; the full-text index reads its first verse as はじめに神は天と地を創造された, without the second と: the scroll's sentence but for 始. That reading is one witness, and the library's machine reading of a page can drop a character [28]. A periodical of April 1953 quotes the verse with とを [29].

1955. The colloquial 口語訳. The Old Testament was completed on 14 January 1955 and the whole Bible published in April [27]; it reads はじめに神は天と地とを創造された at the Japan Bible Society's own verse-search endpoint [8]. The Society's list of the wordings it revised in 1975, 1984 and 2002 does not touch this verse [30]. 始めに神は天と地を創造された is this Bible's sentence with 始め for はじめ and one と dropped.

1970, 2003 and 2017. The 新改訳. The 新改訳's Old Testament was completed in June 1970 and published that year, five years after its New Testament [31]; its 2003 text reads 初めに、神が天と地を創造した [32] and its 2017 text はじめに神が天と地を創造された [33]: 神が for 神は, and in 2003 without the honorific.

1987. The 新共同訳. 新共同訳, the translation the Catholic and Protestant churches made together, published on 5 September 1987, reads Genesis 1:1 初めに、神は天地を創造された [34].

2018. The 聖書協会共同訳. 聖書協会共同訳, published on 3 December 2018, reads 初めに神は天と地を創造された [35]: 始めに神は天と地を創造された with 初 for 始, and every other character the same. Of the six Japanese Bible texts of this verse read here at the leaf or at the publisher's endpoint, this is the one a single character away.

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth (hajime ni kami wa ten to chi o sōzōsareta) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
始めに神は天と地を創造されたVB5CBlock
Japanese Scroll of In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth (hajime ni kami wa ten to chi o sōzōsareta) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
始めに神は天と地を創造されたVC4BCursive
Japanese Scroll of In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth (hajime ni kami wa ten to chi o sōzōsareta) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
始めに神は天と地を創造されたVD6BEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth (hajime ni kami wa ten to chi o sōzōsareta) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
始めに神は天と地を創造されたVS4CSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

The page of the December 1952 dental journal, and the 1953 trial fascicle of Genesis. Either would show whether the 口語訳's draft read 天と地を, as the index reads the journal's quotation.

The 1936 Catholic monthly and the 1954 Vulgate translation at their pages.

The Ministry of Education's own fascicle of the Chambers article, 時學及時刻學篇, which CiNii dates 1876, and the 有隣堂 printing of the encyclopedia, both served only in Japan; the National Archives of Japan catalogues three copies of the fascicle without images. They would show whether the quotation the 1884 printing carries stood in the 1876 fascicle.

The フランシスコ会訳 and バルバロ訳, two twentieth-century translations by Catholic scholars. Their text of this verse would show how Catholic translators of the century wrote it, beside the 新共同訳 the Catholic church shares with the Protestant.

高橋道雄's article on the place of bereshit, はじめに, in Genesis 1:1 (青山学院大学, 1986), the Japanese scholarship on the verse's two readings.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. Genesis 1:1, English versions in parallel, at biblehub.com. https://biblehub.com/genesis/1-1.htm
  2. Rashi on Genesis 1:1, the second comment (בראשית ברא), in the translation of M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929–1934, at Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.1.1.2
  3. Genesis 1:1–3, Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures, Jewish Publication Society, at Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.1.1-3?ven=Tanakh:_The_Holy_Scriptures,_published_by_JPS
  4. 「天地」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/天地
  5. 「創造」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/創造
  6. 「始め」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/始め-601123
  7. 「れる」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/れる-661976
  8. 口語訳, 日本聖書協会, at the publisher's verse search (Genesis 1:1 and 1:3). https://www.bible.or.jp/read/vers_search.html
  9. 創世記, 聖經 (委辦譯本或稱代表譯本), at zh.wikisource, with the dates of its New Testament (1852) and Old Testament (1853, bound with the New in 1854) from the edition's introduction page there. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(委辦譯本或稱代表譯本)/創世記 · https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(委辦譯本或稱代表譯本)
  10. 創世記, 聖經 (和合本), 1919, at zh.wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(和合本)/創世記
  11. 地理誌 (Matthew Fontaine Maury, tr. 藤田九二), 資弘書肆, 25 March 1878 (the colophon, scan 97), scan 25. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/761456/1/25
  12. 百科全書 上巻 (William and Robert Chambers, eds., 文部省 摘訳), 丸善商社, January 1884 (the title leaf, scan 1), 時學及時刻學, scan 385. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/897086/1/385
  13. 百科全書 時學及時刻學篇, 文部省, National Diet Library pid 899159, served only in Japan, its record dating the set 1876–1883; 時學及時刻學 : 全, 文部省, 1876, CiNii Books BN09785214. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/899159 · https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BN09785214
  14. 創世記精義 (Georgii Vlastov, tr. 堀江復), 正教会, April 1884, scan 208. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/825607/1/208
  15. 神学汎論 後編 (Rozhdestvensky, tr. 堀江復), 正教会, January 1891 on its title leaf (scan 1), issued 7 February 1891 by its colophon (scan 474), scans 202, 240 and 243. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824601/1/202 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824601/1/240 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824601/1/243
  16. 基督正教定理神学 (瑪加理乙, tr. 上田将), August 1889, scan 78. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824360/1/78
  17. 旧新約全書, 1907, scan 5 (Genesis 1:1). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992555/1/5 · the Old Testament's completion in 1887, 「明治元訳聖書」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/明治元訳聖書
  18. 舊新約聖書 引照附, 1937, scan 7 (Genesis 1:1). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1030419/1/7
  19. 聖教理緒 (安治川漁徒, 小嶋準治 編), 盤石軒, Osaka, 28 February 1883 (the title leaf, scan 2; the colophon, scan 82), scan 10. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824723/1/10
  20. 公教釈義, 堀江幸治 編, 1897, scan 45. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824434/1/45
  21. カトリック, November 1936, and 旧約聖書 ヴルガタ全訳, 光明社 訳, 1954, National Diet Library pid 1470846 and pid 12217330, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1470846 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12217330
  22. 夢幻劇 (August Strindberg, tr. 永島直昭), 1922, scan 89. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/962333/1/89
  23. パピーニ自叙伝 終りし人 (Giovanni Papini, tr. 新居格), アテネ書院, 1924, scan 23 (Genesis 1:1). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/983321/1/23
  24. 「浦川和三郎」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・20世紀日本人名事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/浦川和三郎-35286
  25. 旧約史要 (浦川和三郎), 1931, scans 16 and 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1055724/1/16 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1055724/1/17
  26. National Diet Library full-text search on 始めに神は天と地, 30 September 2026: the Digital Collections search, 96 items, the oldest dated 1891; the next-generation search, 3 books, of 1922, 1924 and 1931, the same three when re-run on 4 November 2026. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=始めに神は天と地&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC · https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=始めに神は天と地
  27. 戦後の口語訳ー現代日本語への翻訳, 聖書和訳史概説, 明治学院大学図書館デジタルアーカイブス. https://mgda.meijigakuin.ac.jp/bible/gaisetsu/sengo.html
  28. 日本歯科医師会雑誌, December 1952, National Diet Library pid 3423463, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3423463
  29. ニューエイジ, April 1953, National Diet Library pid 2310481, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2310481
  30. 聖書語句訂正一覧（口語訳聖書）, 日本聖書協会, the 1975 · 1984 · 2002 revisions. https://www.bible.or.jp/read/si_word_correction/jc_word_correction.html
  31. 「新改訳聖書」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/新改訳聖書
  32. 新改訳 第三版, 新日本聖書刊行会, 2003 text, at the publisher's verse search (Genesis 1:1). https://www.seisho.or.jp/biblesearch/
  33. 新改訳2017, 新日本聖書刊行会, 2017 text, at the publisher's verse search (Genesis 1:1). https://www.seisho.or.jp/biblesearch/
  34. 新共同訳, 日本聖書協会, 1987, at the publisher's verse search (Genesis 1:1). https://www.bible.or.jp/read/vers_search.html · its date and its making by the Catholic and Protestant churches together, 「新共同訳聖書」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/新共同訳聖書
  35. 聖書協会共同訳, 日本聖書協会, 2018, at the publisher's verse search (Genesis 1:1). https://www.bible.or.jp/read/vers_search.html · its date, 「聖書 聖書協会共同訳」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/聖書_聖書協会共同訳

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Sonnet 5 and Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-11-04, citations: every cited address the script could open was checked against the quotation it carries, and nothing it opened was contradicted; most of the library's page images, the web pages, and the books served only in Japan and known from their excerpts could not be opened by the check, and the page images were read at the page instead; nothing cited was missing · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-11-04, every claim in the page's summary traced to its source: the word nearest is now said of the church sentences of the nineteenth century, with a Catholic priest's sentence of 1931 named as nearer still; the 1891 Orthodox book is said to quote the verse twice on one page; the dates of three Bibles are given their sources; the 1891 passage is called the reading some scholars give the first two verses, as the book sets it out, not a reading it argues against; and each claim of scope says what was read here

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 始めに神は天と地を創造された (hajime ni kami wa ten to chi o sōzōsareta)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/hajime-ni-kami-wa-ten-to-chi-o-sozo-sareta.