Texts in Conversation
In Genesis 3, God calls out with a general question to ask where the man is. The Greek Septuagint updates this so God calls out the name “Adam,” turning the question into a direct address, perhaps to add drama to the narrative.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 3:9
Hebrew Bible
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 The man replied, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Genesis 3:9
Septuagint
8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the afternoon; and both Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the trees of the garden. 9 And the Lord God called Adam and said to him, Adam, where are you? 10 And he said to him, I heard your voice as you walked in the garden, and I feared because I was naked and I hid myself.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... LXX Genesis makes the narrative even livelier by having the Lord God call Adam by name: 'Adam, where are you'? as though he did not know where Adam was. The Masoretic text lacks 'Adam,' and a popular L text omits it as well; this shorter text may well be an instance of an early prehexaplaric correction based on the Hebrew., i.e. 'Yahweh God called out to Adam,' which LXX Genesis interpreted by an accusative 'called Adam' ..."
John William Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis, SCS 35 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1993), 41.
* 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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