creation tidbit

i'm finding it really helpful to be taking hebrew and old testament at the same time. my most recent connection had to do with the creation account... apparently, though the english translates genesis 1:1 to "in the beginning," the hebrew has no definite article attached to 'beginning' and so the more literal translation would be "in a beginning"...... this makes a huge difference to me! the hebrew allows for an indefinite period of time to be assigned to 'beginning'... on top of that, the counting of 'days' is also indefinite according to hebrew grammar, so instead of "the first day" it should actually be "a first day," etc... and just when i'd had enough, the possibility of 'subordinate clause' was thrown in my face as well... as in, "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" could possibly be translated as "in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth..." my goodness, all of this allows for stuff like gap theory or pre-creation chaos theory... and these theories have always bothered me greatly. i'm gonna have to do more research on this... and may God grant me wisdom along the way.