Page 13 - Yahwehs Book

Genesis/Bereshith 1:1
In the beginning (bereshith) Elohim created the heavens and the earth.

The Hebrew word bereshith means “in the beginning.”

Exodus/Shemoth 1:1
And these are the names (shemoth) of the children of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each one
with his household.

The Hebrew word shemoth means “names.”

Leviticus/Wayyiqra 1:1
And Yahweh spoke unto Moses, and he called (wayyiqra) to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying,

The Hebrew word wayyiqra means “and he called.”

Numbers/Bemidbar 1:1
And Yahweh spoke to Moses in the Wilderness (bemidbar) of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the
first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying,

The Hebrew word bemidbar means “in the wilderness.”

Deuteronomy/Debarim 1:1
These are the words (debarim) which Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness,
in the desert plain opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth and Dizahab.

The Hebrew word debarim means “words.”

If we were to literally carry the Hebrew names for these books into English, we would refer to the
first five books of the Old Testament as:

In the Beginning
Names
And He Called
In the Wilderness
Words

The English word Genesis associated with the first book of the Bible means “Beginning.” We can
therefore see some correspondence between the Hebrew and Christian naming conventions for the
first book of the Bible. We see no correspondence between Names/Exodus, And He
Called/Leviticus, In the Wilderness/Numbers, or Words/Deuteronomy. How then did our Bibles
come to bear these book names?

The Christian names for these books are derived from the Greek Septuagint. The Septuagint was a
translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. A group of 72 Jewish scholars translated their