Texts in Conversation
In Genesis, God appears to Abram near Shechem and promises the land to his descendants, and Abram builds an altar there. The Samaritan Pentateuch describes the appearance in the same language as the Masoretic text and adds only that God spoke to him.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 12:7
Hebrew Bible
5 And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they left for the land of Canaan. They entered the land of Canaan. 6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the oak tree of Moreh at Shechem. (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 Then he moved from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and worshiped the Lord. 9 Abram continually journeyed by stages down to the Negev.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Samaritan Genesis 12:7
Samaritan Penteteuch
Samaritan
5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the souls that they had acquired in Haran; and they set out to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to the land of Canaan. 6 And Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to Elon Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. 7 And Shema appeared to Abram, and said to him: “I will give this land to your offspring.” And he built an altar there to Shema, who had appeared to him. 8 And he moved from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and he built there an altar to Shema and invoked the name of Shema. 9 And Abram journeyed, still going toward the south.
Date: 130–120 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Search:
Notes and References
"... Genesis 12:7: “Envisioned” — The Israelite Samaritan concept of the way that the Almighty appeared to a human being was only through vision, and not face to face. Even in the case of the greatest personality, Mooshe. This concept eliminates any possibility of seeing the Almighty face to face because He said “You cannot see My Face, for no man can see Me and live!” (Exodus 33:20). In the case of angels, this possibility of seeing them is obvious, and appearances of the Almighty by the cloud or by His Honor ..."
Benyamim Tsedaka and Sharon Sullivan, eds., The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version, trans. Benyamim Tsedaka (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 27.
* 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.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.
User Comments
,