"בתחילת הבריאה, כשברא אלוהים את העולם, והארץ היתה שוממה וריקה..."
"At the beginning of creation, when God created the world/universe, the earth was desolate and empty..."
— Bereshit/Genesis 1:1-2a in the modern Hebrew translation of Avraham Ahuvia, a 90-year-old Israeli kibbutznik
According to BAR:
- “I didn’t say ‘heaven and earth’ but ‘the world,’” Ahuvia said, “because on the second day he created the firmament and called it heaven. In the Bible, the phrase ha-shamayim ve-ha’aretz means ‘the world.’”
- Drora Halevy, national supervisor of Bible studies at the Ministry of Education, claims: “This translation cuts out the heart of the Bible. It reduces the Bible to just another book. In the Bible, form and content are bound together. The translation kills it."
See also an older article in הארץ.
