Genesis 1:1 & The Triune God

I just picked up Driscoll's "Doctrine" book to read, and in the first chapter I came across something that was very interesting and new to me. Because I don't make a mistake in the communication process, the section is quoted before (with a minor commentary of my own). But, before I do, I did want to encourage you (especially men) to pick up this book. As men we have a high calling of being responsible to train and exhort our families and people in our churches. We need to point them to God and we need to be in the Word - knowing God more and more so we can be saturated with Him. Regarding this book, James MacDonald (Senior Pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel in the Chicago area) said, "A challenging yet easy-to-understand guide to the major doctrines of Scripture. I commend it to you as a companion to your study of God's Word."

So, without further adieu, here's the quote:

The opening lines of Scripture reveal God in a most surprising way:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was
without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

We see both God the Father and the Spirit of God involved in creation.

It gets even more interesting when we look at how ancient Jewish rabbis understood this passage as they did their interpretative translation of the Hebrew Bible in Aramaic, the common language of the people. they did a word study of "beginning" (re'shit in Hebrew) and found that it is used in synonymous parallelism with the Hebrew word for "firstborn" (bekor in Hebrew) four times in teh Old Testament. This would mean that the two words, "Beginning" and "firstborn," can have the same meaning. Thus, their translation of the opening words of the Bible includes both words:

In the beginning, by the firstborn, God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the
deep. And the Spirit of god was hovering over the face of the waters.

In this important translation, predating the birth of Jesus Christ by approximately two hundred years, we find three divine persons-the Firstborn, God the Father, and the Spirit-at work in creation.

This is me speaking now. You could stop at this point and say, "Well, this is Jewish Scripture that may or may not be inspired. It's just their translation." That may be the case, but get this next point.

Paul reflects this pre-Christian Trinitarian understanding when he describes the Son as "the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him."

Thoughts? Reflections? I'd love to hear them!