'In the beginning' — LXX, Philo, Basil, Josephus
Four tellings of the same opening: the Septuagint's Greek, Philo's incorporeal model made 'on the image of God', Basil's Hexaemeron homily opening on Moses' history, and Josephus' retelling in the Antiquities. No dependence is claimed between the retellings.
Passages side by side
“ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.”
“for God, as apprehending beforehand, as a God must do, that there could not exist a good imitation without a good model, and that of the things perceptible to the external senses nothing could be faultless which was not fashioned with reference to some archetypal idea conceived by the intellect, when he had determined to create this visible world, previously formed that one which is perceptible only by the intellect, in order that so using an incorporeal model formed as far as possible on the image of God, he might then make this corporeal world, a younger likeness of the elder creation, which should embrace as many different genera perceptible to the external senses, as the other world contains of those which are visible only to the intellect.”
“In the Beginning God made the Heaven and the Earth.”
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”