As an illustration of this indefiniteness of rendering in the ordinary English version let us consider the opening sentences of the narrative: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." In the "beginning" of what? Does it mean the beginning of our own solar system? or of all systems? or of all space? or of Jehovah (for He has not yet been mentioned or described)? or of the Aleim themselves,--that is, did the work begin as soon as the forces began? and did the latter originate spontaneously, or otherwise? What "God" is meant? Is it Jehovah, or Aleim, or some other God not yet mentioned or described? If we will take every name in the Bible which is translated God (and it may be any of these according to the English rendering), we will have legion. We shall even find that the same word which is translated "God" was applied by Jehovah on one occasion to Moses. "Created"? What is meant by this word? Was the creating a creation out of nothing? out of something pre-existing? or something coexisting elsewhere? Was the creation a direct or an indirect one? by the use of the forces of nature, or by overriding the forces of nature? Was it a physical creation by an inconceivable action of mere thought, or will? and if so, was this thought, or will, God himself, or one of his attributes or powers only? "The heaven"? What heaven? Was it that to which the virtuous are supposed to go after death? or was it some more physical heaven? Was the heaven the atmospheric heaven, the interplanetary heaven, the heaven of interstellar space, or that more extended heaven which lies beyond our knowledge? Was the heaven one of these which He created, or did He create all the different heavens of all the solar systems and nebulæ at the same time? "Without form"? Was the earth without any form at all? or merely without its present form? or without some particular form not mentioned? If the earth was a physical structure it must have had some form; what was it? "And void"? Was the earth void like a soap-bubble? or void like a ray of light? or a vacuum? If it was empty, what was it that was empty? How could the heaven and earth be void after they had been brought into existence? "Darkness was upon the face of the deep"? What deep? Was it the sea not yet created? or the earth, which is anything but a "deep"? was it the atmosphere? or all space? If the latter, did all other systems of space wait for their light on ours? or did we wait on theirs? are there no new systems now forming, and none to be formed hereafter? If all space is meant, where was its outside, or its face? and what occupied the intervening regions? was it a physical face or the face of a vacuum? Were these statements to be accepted by faith or reason? If the former, was it a faith which could only have come from the experience of after-ages? or was it based on the ipse