Ain\'t nature wonderful (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, September 16, 2010, 19:06 (5181 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained


> Translator Notes on Gen 1:26
> 
> The Hebrew word is אָדָם ('adam), which can sometimes refer to man, as opposed to woman. The term refers here to humankind, comprised of male and female. The singular is clearly collective (see the plural verb, "[that] they may rule" in v. 26b) and the referent is defined specifically as "male and female" in v. 27. Usage elsewhere in Gen 1-11 supports this as well. In 5:2 we read: "Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and called their name 'humankind' (אָדָם)." The noun also refers to humankind in 6:1, 5-7 and in 9:5-6.
> 
> And the Difference between that and Gen 2:18
> tn Here for the first time the Hebrew word אָדָם ('adam) appears without the article, suggesting that it might now be the name "Adam" rather than "[the] man." Translations of the Bible differ as to where they make the change from "man" to "Adam" (e.g., NASB and NIV translate "Adam" here, while NEB and NRSV continue to use "the man"; the KJV uses "Adam" twice in v. 19).-Translations certainly vary. I'm not a student of Hebrew. I know a few words and barely learned the alphabet for my bar Mitzvah. The two translations of Genesis I have used are Judah Landa's "In the Begining Of" and my Masoretic Bible. Landa's interpretation is totally tainted by his translation of the first word, "biraishit" as 'in the begining of', the title of the book, instead of 'in the beginning', making the stories a more active evolutionary transformation.-Gerald Schroeder always refers to 'adam' as 'a man'. But that is an aside in his books on science and religion.-Landa uses adam as the man in 2.18 and Adam in 2.19. The Masoretic keeps ' the man' in both verses. Adam does not appear until God talks to him, in 3.17 about his punishment after the serpent episode.- 
Landa's 5.2 is: 'Male and female created He them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created'. The Masoretic text is the same.-As I have mentioned before the KJV is notoriously bad as a translation.