In the beginning, what?

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". Every English Bible I have seen starts with this or its equivalent. When modern readers see this they immediately think of planet earth, because that is the contemporary meaning of 'earth', but the concept of planets did not influence the use of English until after the King James version was written.

Today we are blessed with public well documented Hebrew versions of the original Genesis account which were available only to very few when the King James Bible was translated from an intermediate Latin version, so today any lay person can attempt to determine for themselves what God actually meant, with free Internet resources like a Strong's Hebrew and Greek Concordance integrated with scriptures.

Some might wonder if it is proper for a lay person to question how a Bible was translated. All such doubts are answered by Jesus own command to His apostles that they should not let themselves be called master, father, or teacher because they are all brothers and will continue to have the presence of God Himself to be their Master, Father, and Teacher. He promised that to all believers who trust completely in the resurrected Messiah and what God had written about Him, God Himself would live in their hearts and prompt them what to do, study, teach, and share (Matthew 23). His promise is true even today in my own life, which is why I am here.

Paul put it another way as a command:

But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. 1st Thessalonians 5:21-22, NASB

So what does God mean when we read "earth"? In most cases of "earth" in any Bible we can usually assume it is a translation of the Hebrew erets(h), which means the land or country where men might pass through or inhabit, much the same as the archaic English meaning of 'earth' contemporary with King James.

The Definer of all human understanding takes care to make this clear in Genesis 1:9-10, which in modern English might be ...

Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry (land) appear"; and it was so. God called the dry erets(h) 'the land', and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:9-10, from NASB

So I am advocating that the first verse of Genesis might be better translated as: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the land" (from NASB). Since the "heavens and the land" is a Hebrew term for the entire known universe this changes nothing about Genesis 1:1 but it properly sets up our understanding later for God's creation user's manual when erets(h) is read as land.

But still within Genesis 1:1 there is yet another problem with every English Bible version of Genesis 1:1 I have seen, including the King James.

Modern Bible translations most always have a deliberate purpose of providing a Bible in contemporary English.