Gen 1:1-3; *smikhut or not?

[Jason]

But what about consistency with the Hebrew grammar?  Bara, elsewhere, is a masculine, singular verb, not a noun. Genesis 2 verse 3, only one example and there are more,  bara is a verb, including on the Chabad website.  How can that word be rendered a noun in one place while a verb in the others?

It's really about the use of רֵאשִׁית rather than the use of בָּרָא. We can agree that if the real meaning is בָּרָא, then we are forced to read it as an independent verb, which leads to the idea of creatio ex nihilo in that verse alone. However, Rashi suggests that רֵאשִׁית is most naturally followed by a noun or by an infinitive absolute (which functions, like the gerund in English, similarly to a noun).

You can see all the 51 appearances of רֵאשִׁית here. There are some verses in which it functions as the absolute noun in a construct chain (such as קָרְבַּן רֵאשִׁית "offering of the first fruits," in which it represents the longer expression רֵאשִׁית קְצִירְכֶם "the first [fruits] of your harvest"). However, it is most naturally used in expressions like "the beginning of wisdom/knowledge" and "the beginning of someone's rulership" or "beginning of the year."

It's most natural to read the first verse of Genesis as in the beginning of God's creating.... That's just how we see the word used again and again, as the beginning of a construct chain.