Lester says that When the Beginning Began was originally intended to be a retelling of the midrashim of others, but instead he found himself so caught up in the tradition of midrashim that he created his own. His subject became the story behind the Creation, a fanciful expansion of cryptic passages, asserting, "Where there is no possibility of arriving at a rationally definitive answer, we use our imagination because it can go where reason cannot." In When the Beginning Began, imagination is a tool for understanding difficult concepts and for creating rational explanations for the mysteries of creation. The playful language, gentle humor, and African-American folklore motifs are part of Lester's imagination, and thus they are reflected in his midrashim.

Several of the chapters of When the Beginning Began open with Biblical quotations.

These quotations are Lester's own translations from Hebrew and are shaped somewhat by...