The Sadducees' ridiculous story
Sermon for Pentecost XXII, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: Luke 20:27-38 We are all familiar with the very first verse of the Bible, you know, the one that says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep…” It’s been in every Bible we’ve ever opened, but there’s one small problem with that wording and our belief based on it, because that is not exactly what the original Hebrew says. The very first Hebrew word in Genesis is “Bere’sheet,” which indicates an ongoing action. Translating the Hebrew closely, the first sentence of Genesis would read in English, “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep…” This creates a problem for us because it changes a possible understanding of the story of Creation. Where we might read “In the beginning…” to say God created the Earth out of no...