[medved]

The hardest question is what was before matter.

My own GUESS would be that the material universe is eternal, and always has and always will be here. Creation stories in literature invariably refer to the creation of the visible cosmos, i.e. our own solar system and its near environs.

[Moby Grape]

But if Einstein was right, and time can only exists where there is matter, then there would have to be a beginning.