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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 sōzō sareta In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth

始めに神は天と地を創造された (hajime ni kami wa ten to chi o sōzō sareta), in the beginning God created heaven and earth, is Genesis 1:1. No Japanese Bible read here prints it character for character, and the Bible of 2018 is one character away. This study reads the three churches' sentences before 1955, of which an Orthodox book of 1891 is nearest.

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

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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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 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 Japan's three churches read 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 with 天主 for God. None is the scroll's, but the nearest is Orthodox: a book of 1891 quotes the verse as 始メニ神ハ天地ヲ造レリ, and paraphrases it a few pages on with 神は and then 天と地.

Overview

The sense. The first verse of the Bible: in the beginning, God, and the making of heaven and earth. In every Japanese Bible read here, and in the King James, it is a whole sentence [1]. 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 how the 口語訳 speaks of what God does, as 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

1852 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 of 1852 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].

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 [11]. Rozhdestvensky's 神学汎論, in the same translator's Japanese (正教会編輯局, second volume 1891), quotes it in those words, 『元始ニ神ハ天地ヲ造レリ』〔創世記一ノ一〕, and again, thirty-eight scans on, as 『始メニ神ハ天地ヲ造レリ』 [12]: the scroll's first five characters, with a katakana particle. 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 [13]. Three scans later the same book sets out a reading it argues against, 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 [12]: 神は and then 天と地, in print in 1891.

1887, 1907 and 1937. The Meiji Old Testament. The Meiji committee's Old Testament of 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 [14] and again in the 1937 引照附 printing [15]. 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.

1897, 1936 and 1954. The Catholic books. The Catholic books named God 天主. 公教釈義, edited by 堀江幸治 in 1897, quotes Genesis as 大初天主天地ヲ創造セシガ地ハ混沌荒禿ニテ [16]. A Catholic monthly of 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 [17].

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 [18]. Giovanni Papini's autobiography, translated by 新居格 in 1924, has 「始めに神は天と地を作つた。」 [19], 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 [20] 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, 「始めに神は天と地とを創造し給うた。」, the scroll's first nine characters 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 [21]. 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 [22].

1952 and 1953. The colloquial Genesis in draft. The Japan Bible Society began its colloquial translation in April 1951 and issued Genesis and Exodus as trial fascicles in 1953 [23]. A dental journal of December 1952 quotes Genesis from 1952年改譯(未完稿), the 1952 revision (unfinished draft), and 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 [24]. A magazine of April 1953 quotes the verse with とを [25].

1955. The colloquial 口語訳. The Old Testament was completed on 14 January 1955 and the whole Bible published in April [23]; 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 [26]. 始めに神は天と地を創造された is this Bible's sentence with 始 for はじめ and one と dropped.

1970, 2003 and 2017. The 新改訳. The 新改訳's Old Testament appeared in June 1970, five years after its New Testament [27]; its 2003 text reads 初めに、神が天と地を創造した [28] and its 2017 text はじめに神が天と地を創造された [29]: 神が for 神は, and in 2003 without the honorific.

1987. The 新共同訳. 新共同訳, published September 1987, reads Genesis 1:1 初めに、神は天地を創造された [30].

2018. The 聖書協会共同訳. 聖書協会共同訳, published December 2018, reads 初めに神は天と地を創造された [31]: 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.

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 for はじめ and the second と dropped, one character from the 聖書協会共同訳 of 2018, and no printed Bible's exactly; if the index reads the 1952 page right, 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. 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. The scroll's 始 is the character of an origin, as 浦川 glossed it in 1931, where the Bibles that write the word in kanji now choose 初, the character of a first time. Read as the Japanese Bibles and the King James read it, the verse is a whole sentence, and the scroll carries it whole.

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 Catholic フランシスコ会訳 and バルバロ訳, two twentieth-century Catholic translations still in copyright, with no public verse-search endpoint. Their text of this verse would show whether the Catholic church's modern Bible differs from the older Bibles read here.

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), 1852, at zh.wikisource. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/聖經_(委辦譯本或稱代表譯本)/創世記
  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. 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
  12. 神学汎論 (Rozhdestvensky, tr. 堀江復), 正教会編輯局, 1891, second volume, 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
  13. 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
  14. 旧新約全書, 1907, scan 5 (Genesis 1:1). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992555/1/5
  15. 舊新約聖書 引照附, 1937, scan 7 (Genesis 1:1). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1030419/1/7
  16. 公教釈義, 堀江幸治 編, 1897, scan 45. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/824434/1/45
  17. 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
  18. 夢幻劇 (August Strindberg, tr. 永島直昭), 1922, scan 89. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/962333/1/89
  19. 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
  20. 「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
  21. 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
  22. 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. 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
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. ニューエイジ, April 1953, National Diet Library pid 2310481, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2310481
  26. 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
  27. 「新改訳聖書」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/新改訳聖書
  28. 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/
  29. 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/
  30. 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
  31. 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

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Not yet reviewed.

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 sōzō sareta)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/hajime-ni-kami-wa-ten-to-chi-o-sozo-sareta.