The wisdom of God

I just read an interesting thing about the first line of the Bible in http://www.geraldschroeder.com/HiddenFace.aspx/

Schroeder says the Hebrew actually makes more sense if you translate it “With wisdom, God created” rather than “In the beginning, God created.”

The Hebrew can mean either “in the beginning of” or “with wisdom.” The latter makes sense syntactically and he cites a number of places in Scripture that also support the “wisdom” translation theologically.

The Catholic Bible (New American Bible Revised Edition) chose to render the passage “In the beginning, when God created.” The footnote says:

Until modern times the first line was always translated, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Several comparable ancient cosmogonies, discovered in recent times, have a “when…then” construction, confirming the translation “when…then” here as well. “When” introduces the pre-creation state and “then” introduces the creative act affecting that state. The traditional translation, “In the beginning,” does not reflect the Hebrew syntax of the clause. http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/1

I confess, I am very disappointed at the Catholic translators’ decision to choose extra-Biblical sources (i.e., pagan creation stories) to justify going with “when…then” especially seeing as it ALSO does not reflect the Hebrew syntax of the clause!