H1823

• {"n":"Genesis 1:26b","s":"In our image, after our likeness. Two nouns, and probably one idea.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=genesis-1-26b","r":"Genesis 1:26","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Every version reads image and likeness. Some older theological systems treat them as separate endowments, one lost at the fall and one retained."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"**Safe and sound.** **Null and void.** English pairs words that mean nearly the same thing all the time, and nobody hunts for the difference between null and void. Hebrew does the same, and readers hunt anyway."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"Tselem is a physical representation, including a carved idol. Demut is a resemblance. In Genesis 5:3 the two are swapped around with the prepositions reversed, which is what makes a technical distinction hard to sustain. Read together they say one thing: humanity is God's representative image on the ground, the way a king's statue in a province represented the king."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"English can print both nouns but cannot signal that the pair is a single idea, so readers naturally assume two."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When two near-synonyms appear together, check whether the writer ever swaps or reverses them. If he does, the distinction you are looking for is probably not there."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"There is no translation dispute. There is a long tradition of distinguishing the two, and the internal evidence at Genesis 5:3 is the argument against it."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05e6\u05b6\u05dc\u05b6\u05dd tselem \u00b7 H6754 \/ \u05d3\u05b0\u05bc\u05de\u05d5\u05bc\u05ea demut \u00b7 H1823"}],"src":["Genesis 5:3 reverses the prepositions and the order","tselem of an idol: 2 Kings 11:18; Amos 5:26","The royal-statue background is standard in ANE treatments; Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament"]}