Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
adam / adamah
Human, and the ground he was taken from. The pun is the point.
Genesis 2:7, in every translation this tool compares.
Human and humus are related in English, and almost nobody knows it. Now imagine the connection being obvious to every reader and used as an argument.
Because the name and the material share a root, and the connection is announced by the text rather than discovered by a commentator.
Versions read man, Adam, mankind, or human beings; adamah is ground or land.
אָדָם adam · H120
Adam is humanity collectively and also the personal name. Adamah is the ground. Genesis 2:7 forms the one from the other and 3:19 returns him to it, and the wordplay frames the whole account.
English man and ground share nothing, so the pun has to be footnoted every time.
Hebrew narrative argues with sound as often as with statement. When a name is explained in the text, the sound is usually doing the explaining.
Man is the majority rendering; mankind and human beings are increasingly common where the collective is in view.
- Genesis 2:7; 3:19, 23
- adam as humanity: Genesis 1:26-27
- adamah as ground: Genesis 4:10-12
