As is well known, the reading and interpretation of the first three verses of the Hebrew Bible has been the subject of an ongoing debate among scholars for centuries. This continues with the two most recent critical commentaries by David M. Carr, who reads v. 1 is a dependent temporal clause (“At the beginning when God created . . . the earth was utterly desolate . . .”), and Jan Christian Gertz, who takes v. 1 to be a heading or epigraphy (“In the beginning, God created . . . And the earth was an empty void . . .).
Scholars generally agree that the eleven fold occurrence of the “generations” or “accounts” (toledot) formula gives structure to the Book of Genesis (see 2:4a; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10 and 27; 25:12 and 19; 36:1 and 9; 37:2). Gen 2:4a is unusual, “These are the generations of the earth when they were created.” In all of its other uses in the Hebrew Bible, toledot always refers to generations and stories about people. Genesis 2:4a does not. This stands out. Like the others, however, Gen 2:4a refers to what comes before it and binds it forward to what follows, “the heavens and the earth” (cf. Adam in Gen 2-4 and the line of Adam in Gen 5). Genesis 1:1 has no story before it, so the toledot formula would not have been suitable, but Genesis 1:1 and 2:4a are mirror images of each other, syntactically and lexically. Compare:
1:1 “In the beginning (A) God created (B) the heavens and the earth” with
2:4a “These are the generations of (B) the heavens and the earth (A) when they were
created.”
This suggests that Gen 1:1 functions on the level of the larger discourse toledot structure of the book, its macro grammar, so to speak. Verse 1 is a title, labeling the story that follows. Like a chapter title in a book, it is not connected to the grammar of v. 2. Genesis 1:2 begins the creation story with a disjunctive vav: “Now the earth was formless and empty . . .,” which provides needed background for the action that begins in v. 3,”And God said . . .” Genesis 1:3-2:3 eliminate the uncreated conditions in v. 2. Grammatically, this is a common way to begin a (new section of a) story in the Hebrew Bible. Consider, for example, Gen 3:1-2, “Now the serpent was . . . And the woman said . . .” and 16:1-2, “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had born him no children . . . And Sarai said to Abram . . .”