Texts in Conversation
Genesis 2:7 describes God breathing life into the man’s nostrils, but the Greek Septuagint translates “nostrils” as “face,” likely reflecting the translator’s interpretation of the Hebrew through Aramaic, where the same word means “face.”
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 2:7
Hebrew Bible
6 Springs would well up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 7 The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man he had formed.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Genesis 2:7
Septuagint
6 But there rose a fountain out of the earth, and watered the whole face of the earth. 7 And God formed the man of dust of the earth, and breathed upon his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and placed there the man whom he had formed.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In this verse, the creation of man is described in slightly different terms in Hebrew and in Greek: in the Massoretic Text God breathes into man's nostrils; in the Septuagint he breathes upon his face. The deviation in the Greek text is readily explained as reflecting Aramaic 'apin', 'face'." ..."
Martin Rösel, Collected Studies on the Septuagint (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 68.
* 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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