Talmud do Rodzaju 1:26

It also happened that King Ptolemy assembled seventy-two elders and placed them in seventy-two [separate] rooms without telling them the reason for which he had assembled them. He then went to each one of them and said to him,¹⁷lit. ‘to them’. ‘Write for me [a translation of] the Torah of Moses your master’. The Omnipresent inspired them¹⁸lit. ‘put counsel in the heart of each one of them’. and the mind of all of them was identical, so that each on his own¹⁹So GRA. wrote the [same translation of the] Torah, introducing [the same] thirteen alterations²⁰Deviations from the traditional text. In the extant Versions of the Septuagint only some of these are found. as follows: ‘God created in the beginning’.²¹Instead of In the beginning God created (Gen. 1, 1) the Heb. of which might be misinterpreted to mean that a power named ‘Bereshith’ (in the beginning) created God. ‘And God said I shall make a man in image and likeness.’²²The Heb. text reads: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (Gen. 1, 26). The plural us and our might erroneously suggest a plurality of deities. ‘And He finished on the sixth [day] and rested on the seventh [day].’²³For the Heb.: And He finished on the seventh day (Gen. 2, 2) which could be understood to imply that God did some work on the seventh day. ‘Male and female He created him.’²⁴Instead of created them (ibid. V, 2) from which it might be inferred that man and woman were, from the first, two separate beings, contrary to ibid. II, 21. ‘Come let Me go down and there confound their language.’²⁵Instead of let us go down (ibid. XI, 7). ‘And Sarah laughed among her relatives,²⁶i.e. she laughed in the presence of people and therefore incurred censure (ibid. XVIII, 12). The Heb. means ‘within herself’ as Abraham had done when he laughed … in his heart (ibid. XVII, 17) and had not been rebuked. saying.’ ‘For in their anger they slew oxen²⁷So GRA, H and M. V incorrectly ‘a man’. and in their self-will they digged up a stall.’²⁸Changing men (ibid. XLIX, 6) to ‘oxen’ and oxen to ‘stall’ in order to remove the stigma of murder from Jacob’s sons. ‘And Moses took his wife and his children and set them upon a carrier²⁹So M. V and H read ‘carriers of men’. of men.’³⁰i.e. an animal conformable with the dignity of Moses, instead of ass (Ex. 4, 20). ‘Now the time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt and in the land of Canaan and in other lands³¹So M. V omits ‘and in other lands’. [The reading of the Septuagint is ‘in the land of Canaan and in the land of Egypt’.] was four hundred and thirty years.’³²Instead of the Heb. which omits ‘in the land of Canaan and in other lands’ (Ex. 12, 40), and implies that all the 430 years were spent in Egypt when, in fact, they could not have dwelt there more than 210 years (cf. Rashi to Meg. 9a). ‘And he sent the elect of the children of Israel.’³³So GRA and Meg. 9a but omitted in V. ‘Elect’ is substituted for young men (ibid. XXIV, 5), the former being regarded as more suitable persons for the service. ‘And upon the elect of the children of Israel He laid not His hand.’³⁴Here also ‘elect’ was substituted for the Heb. for nobles (ibid. 11). The alteration was not essential, but ‘elect’ which was mentioned earlier was preferred. It should be noted that in the total of thirteen alterations, this and the preceding are counted as one. ‘I have not taken one desirable thing³⁵A ‘desirable thing’ [which occurs in the Septuagint] for the Heb. ass (Num. 16, 15) to avoid the suggestion that Moses did not take an ass but more precious objects. from them.’ ‘The [beast] with small legs.’³⁶Instead of the Heb. for the hare (Lev. 11, 6) which is arnebeth, so as not to give offence to Ptolemy the name of whose queen was Arnebeth. ‘Which the Lord thy God hath allotted to give light unto all the peoples under the whole heaven.’³⁷The insertion ‘to give light’ (Deut. 4, 19) removes the possible misunderstanding that the heavenly bodies enumerated in the verse were intended by God to be objects of worship. ‘Which I commanded should not be served.’³⁸Deut. 17, 3 reads which I have commanded not. This might be taken to mean that God did not desire their existence and their creation was consequently due to a power beyond His control. It should be noted that the last two alterations are regarded as one in the enumeration because both deal with heavenly bodies as objects of worship.

They [all] introduced [the same] thirteen alterations:¹⁶For a comparison of these variants with the Heb. text, cf. on Sof. I, 8. ‘God created in the beginning’; ‘I shall make a man in image and likeness’; ‘And He finished on the sixth [day] and rested on the seventh [day]’; ‘Male and female He created him’; ‘Come let Me go down’; ‘And Sarah laughed among her relatives, saying’; ‘For in their anger they slew oxen and in their self-will they digged up a stall’; ‘And Moses took his wife and his children and set them upon a carrier of men’; ‘Now the time that the children of Israel dwelt in the land of Canaan and in the land of Egypt was four hundred and thirty years’; ‘I have not taken one desirable thing from them’; ‘And the [beast] with small legs’; ‘Which the Lord thy God hath allotted unto all the peoples to give light under the whole heaven’; ‘And they offer sacrifices to the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven which I commanded should not be served’.

They came back and asked him: What is that which is written (Gen. 1:26): “Let us make a human in our image, as in our pattern.” He answered them, it is not written: “ĕlōhīm created man in their image” but (Gen. 1:27): “God created man in His image.” His students told him: these you pushed away with a stick, what can you answer us²⁹The verse presents a real difficulty, not for the plural, which is one of majesty, but for shape and form which cannot be attributes of God.? He said to them: Adam was created from dust, Eve was created from Adam. After Adam “in our image, like our pattern;” it is impossible for a man without a woman, or for a woman without a man, and for both of them without the Shekhinah³⁰In the Babli (Niddah 31a) this is formulated as: There are three partners in the creation of a child: Father, mother, and the Holy One, praise to Him (who gives soul and intelligence.).

Thirteen things they changed for King Ptolemy. They wrote for him, “God created the beginning³⁷⁶Gen. 1:1; change not found in LXX..” “I shall make man in stature and form³⁷⁷Gen. 1:26; change not found in LXX..” “Male and his openings He created them³⁷⁸Gen. 1:27; change not found in LXX..” “He finished on the Sixth and rested on the Seventh³⁷⁹Gen. 2:2; change found in LXX.” “Now I shall descend³⁸⁰Gen. 11:7; change found in LXX..” “Sarah laughed in her surroundings, saying.³⁸¹Gen. 18:12; LXX: “in herself”.” “For in their rage they slew a bull and in their will uprooted a trough³⁸²Gen. 49:6; change not found in LXX..” “Moses took his wife and his sons and let them ride on people-carriers³⁸³Ex. 4:20. LXX: “beast of burden”..” “The dwelling of the Children of Israel, which they dwelled in Egypt and other lands, was 430 years.³⁸⁴Ex. 12:40. LXX: “In the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan.”” And the hare³⁸⁵Lev. 11:6 (in LXX 11:5). LXX: “rough-foot”, a designation of the hare., “and the young of foot.” King Ptolemy’s mother was called “hare³⁸⁶The dynasty of the Ptolemies was called the Lagides, after an ancestor Lagos “hare”.”. “Not one precious thing I took from them³⁸⁷Num. 16:15; change found in LXX.” “Which the Eternal, your God, distributed them to give light to all peoples under all the heavens.³⁸⁸Deut. 4:19; change not found in LXX.” “Which I did not command peoples to worship them.³⁸⁹Deut. 17:3; change not found in LXX.
The comparisons with the LXX text was done on the basis of Rahlfs’s edition; the history of the text between the time of the Jewish translation in Alexandria and its adaptation by Christian editors in the Roman Empire is unknown. The same list is in the Babli 9a.”