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31 July 2022 Navigate 'up to the Genesis index: index-genesis.
And Yahweh God formed from the ground every wild animal and every flying bird, and brought it to the human to see what he would call it. And whatever the human called it, a living being, that was its name.
Instead of "And Yahweh God formed," the Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint read "And again Yahweh God formed." The force of the "again" in this statement would not be to imply that this was God's second creation of the animals (despite the apparent repetitions caused by putting Genesis 1 and 2) next to each other. It would be that this was God's second formation of living things from dirt, after the first instance: man.
For a similar use of "again" (though the Hebrew wording is different) see Genesis 4:2, "And again she gave birth, to his brother Abel." Not, of course, that Abel was born twice, but that Abel was the second birth.
In Hebrew, before "every wild animal," the Hebrew object marker et is missing in the Masoretic Text, but it does appear in the Samaritan Pentateuch.
Kittel suggests, probably due to the apparent awkwardness, that a living being is a later addition to the text.
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