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Copyright © 1979 by Basic Books, inc.
This segment appears on page 18 in Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, first ed. (without any further instruction about what it might be). Does anybody here have any idea on what it is and/or what it conveys?
Translated to Hebrew characters:
בראשית ברא אלהים ויאמר אלהים יהי אור ויאמר אלהים יהי רקיע ויאמר אלהים יקוו המים ויאמר אלהים תדשא
Which roughly translates to:
In the beginning god created and god said let there be light and god said let there be sky and god said let there be vegetation
It’s mentioned on page 14:
Facing Words of Thanks: The beginning of Genesis, in ancient Hebrew (xviii)
As @BeastyGerbil notes, it’s probably a substitution cipher. The Shin (fourth letter on the first line, starting from the right) is recognizable, but the others not so much. Unless it’s a script I’m not familiar with?
It seems to be written in the Samaritan alphabet (note: those letters don't render in Firefox for me, but they do in Safari), which is different from the present Hebrew alphabet I'm familiar with.
