Texts in Conversation
In Genesis, God makes humanity in his own image and resemblance. The Samaritan Pentateuch adds one small word, an extra “and,” which makes the image and the resemblance sound like two separate qualities, not one idea said twice.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 1:26
Hebrew Bible
25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the cattle according to their kinds, and all the creatures that creep along the ground according to their kinds. God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” 27 God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Samaritan Genesis 1:26
Samaritan Penteteuch
Samaritan
25 And God made the animals of the earth according to their kind and the cattle according to their kind, and every crawling creature on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 And God said: “Let us make man in our image, and according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the earth.” 27 And God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Date: 130–120 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The anthropomorphic idea that one may get from Genesis 1:26–27, that man was created in the material image of God (בצלם אלהים), is rejected in a kind of parenthesis. It is stated clearly that the human being resembles God in his inner substance (צורת הלבב), not in his outer appearance (צורת התאר). The effort to avoid anthropomorphic representations of God is reflected in the Samaritan Arabic version of the Pentateuch (approximately 11th century) which renders אלהים as אלמלאיכה, “the angels”, in Genesis 1. While old manuscripts of the Samaritan text are rarely concerned with the “humanization” of God, younger manuscripts tend to eliminate anthropomorphisms (Genesis 5:1; 9:6; etc.). At this particular spot in the Arabic column follows this trend: אלמלאיכה. This led Macdonald to opt for the translation “the Angels”, although no evidence in the neo-Samaritan Hebrew column exists. Note the unusual use of the negative particle אין, which substitutes the negative adverb לא. One possible explanation of this anomaly is the influence of the AC negation of existence ליס ..."
Abraham Tal, Tibåt Mårqe: The Ark of Marqe: Edition, Translation, Commentary (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 148.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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