Babylonian Talmud

English

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: everywhere the minim blasphemed, their refutation is beside them. 'Let us make a human in our image' (Gen 1:26) — and it says, 'and God created the human in his image' (Gen 1:27). 'Come, let us go down and confound their language there' (Gen 11:7) — 'and the LORD came down to see the city and the tower' (Gen 11:5). 'For there the divine beings were revealed to him' (Gen 35:7) — 'to the God who answers me in the day of my distress' (Gen 35:3).

Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson · cc-by

Hebrew / Aramaic

b. Sanhedrin 38b (Vilna) · cc-by-sa

Notes

⚠ Anchor note: this is a comment on Gen 1:26, not on Gen 1:1–5. It is on the daf under the second clause of the anchor rule — it argues the same philological question the Elohim of Gen 1:1 raises, whether a plural form of speech about God implies a plurality in God — and is anchored on Gen 1:2 beside that material. The rule of R. Simlai at Bereshit Rabbah 8:9 stated as a rule and then run down a list, and the list is what matters here. Three verses where God speaks or is spoken of in the plural, each with the singular that follows it set beside it as its own answer: na'aseh adam against va-yivra, havah nerdah at Babel against va-yered YHWH, niglu elav ha-Elohim against la-El ha-oneh oti. The first two are exactly the pair Augustine takes up at De civitate Dei XVI.6 in a chapter headed what kind of speech is to be understood, by which God speaks to the angels, where Gen 1:26 is refused to the angels because of the image clause and Gen 11:7 is granted to them because there is nothing to prevent it; and they are exactly the pair the Glossa Ordinaria joins at PL 113:114D, glossing venite at Babel by faciamus hominem and answering both with their singulars. Three benches select the same two verses out of the whole Pentateuch and apply the same test to them. Nobody is reading anybody. The selection is forced by the Hebrew, and the disagreement is only about what the plural was doing there in the first place. Note the word: pakru, they blasphemed or broke loose — a harder verb than the she'elu, they asked, of the midrash's version, and the Bavli has dropped the disputation and kept the rule.

Threads

• ← parallel · Augustine
  The strongest structural parallel on the site, and neither side can have known the other. R. Yoḥanan's rule at Sanhedrin 38b lists the places where the minim broke loose with the refutation beside each, and the first two are Gen 1:26, answered by the singular of Gen 1:27, and Gen 11:7 — havah nerdah, come let us go down — answered by the singular of Gen 11:5. Augustine's chapter is headed 'qualis intelligenda sit esse locutio, qua Deus Angelis loquitur' and takes up the same two verses in the same order: at Gen 1:26 the angels are excluded, because ad imaginem nostram forbids them, and 'non dixit, Fecerunt dii'; at Gen 11:7, where there is no image clause, 'si aliquid esset, quod Angelos prohiberet intelligi' — and nothing is, so the angels stand. Two benches select the same pair out of the Pentateuch by the same criterion, a plural verb of divine speech, and apply the same test, the singular that follows. They disagree only about what the plural was doing there.
• ← parallel · Glossa ordinaria (school of Laon)
  The Gloss joins Gen 11:7 to Gen 1:26 and answers both with their singulars — 'Ad angelos dixisse intelligitur; vel secundum illud: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram. Nam singulari numero subjunctum est: et divisit eos, sicut ibi: Fecit Deus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem suam' — which is R. Yoḥanan's list and R. Yoḥanan's test, in a Latin schoolbook, with the conclusion left open. It is the one place in the Gloss where the angel reading is printed as the plain sense, and it is printed at the verse where the argument from the image cannot be run.
• → echoes · Bereshit Rabbah
  R. Simlai's rule become R. Yoḥanan's, with the disputation dropped and the list extended. In the midrash the rule is said between two exchanges and is illustrated by them; in the Bavli it is stated flat and followed by three verse-pairs, Gen 1:26 with 1:27, Gen 11:7 with 11:5, Gen 35:7 with 35:3. The verb hardens too: she'alu ha-minim, the minim asked, becomes kol makom she-pakru ha-minim, everywhere the minim broke loose.