Genesis 1 "Literal" Translation
Literal is in quotes because there is simply no direct translation from Biblical Hebrew to modern English. Most Hebrew words have multiple meanings (as do English words), and the intended meaning of the author is subject to interpretation by the hearer (reader).
Biblical Hebrew has no tenses of verbs. Some words in Genesis are simply unknown, because there are no other similar words to compare them to. The pronoun “of” was not discovered, and had to be supplied by context and the common sense of the day. “Elohim”, literally gods, is a common masculine plural, and was understood as such until later theologians back-interpreted it as a totally unique exception to the rule. Hebrew had a direct object marker "et", untranslatable in English, to show that the next word was a direct object, and not the subject of the sentence. I arbitrarily chose Ð to denote it in the text below.
The first people who heard Genesis 1 heard something like this:
1:1 In beginning create gods Ð the heavens and Ð the earth.
1:2 And the earth be (formless, empty), and darkness on face (deep, sea, abyss, Tiamat?). And spirit gods hovering on face the waters.
1:3 And say gods "Be light", and be light.
1:4 And see gods Ð the light that good. And separate gods between the light and the darkness.
1:5 And call gods to light day, and to darkness call night. And be evening and be morning day one.
1:6 And say gods, "Be Ð extended surface in midst the waters, and be separating between waters to waters."
1:7 And (make, do) gods the extended surface, and separate between the waters which under to extended surface and between the waters which above to extended surface. And be (so, thus).
1:8 And call gods to extended surface heavens. And be evening and be morning day two.
1:9 And say gods, "Be collected the waters under the heavens (to, towards) (place of standing) one. And (cause to appear) the dry place." And be (so, thus).
1:10 And call gods the dry place earth. And to collection the waters call seas. And see gods that good.
1:11 And say gods, "(Cause to sprout) the earth grass herbage seeding seed, and tree fruit make fruit (to its kind) which its seed in it on the earth. And be (so, thus).
1:12 And (cause to bring forth) the earth grass herbage seeding seed (to its kind), and tree make fruit which seed in it to its kind. And see gods that good. And be evening and be morning day three.
You get the idea. I could continue this, if there appears to be any interest in it. Whats the point? Mainly that primitive languages are clunky. And to expect modern day precision of them is not realistic.