The first part of this verse serves as a title or heading for chapter 5.

This is the book of the generations of Adam: This refers to the list contained in Genesis 5. Book suggests to modern readers a printed book; however, the Hebrew term means any written record, account, or document, and here applies to a “list”; so Good News Translation has “This is the list,” and New English Bible “This is the record.” Generations translates the same word used in 2.4, where it was used in a wider sense to apply to the creation of the universe. The word is a noun related to the verb meaning “to give birth.” Generations refers literally to the succession of births from parent to child to grandchild and so forth. Here the idea is a list of the persons born in descending order, and so “list of the descendants” (Good News Translation). New International Version has “written account of Adam’s line,” and Anchor Bible “the record of the line of Adam.” Adam in the context of a list of descendants refers clearly to Adam as the name of a man.

When God created man: When is literally “in the day,” and so some take the expression to refer to a particular day: New English Bible “On the day when…,” Bible en français courant “The day when….” God here is ʾelohim. For created see comments on 1.1. Man again translates the Hebrew ʾadam. The reference is to God’s creative act in 1.26-28, in which “God created man in his own image.” See comments on ʾadam in 1.26, where the following verb suggests that it is a plural or collective noun: “human beings.”

He made him is the literal wording of the Hebrew, and in Revised Standard Version ʾadam is taken as singular. However, “them” is necessary to agree with “human beings” (see Good News Translation, and so also the rendering of Revised English Bible).

In the likeness of God: likeness translates a different word than the one used in 1.26 but having the same sense. See there for comments. God is again ʾelohim. Many translators will have to follow the model of Good News Translation here and say “He made them like himself.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .