QuRE: mistranslation of 'adam (was: The wrong horse in evolution education)

Hi Don:
 
Well, let's take a look at a few more verses.
 
Numbers 23:19: "God is not a man ('ish), that he should lie; neither the
son of man (bene 'adam), that he should repent ."
 
I would read that as God is not a generic man or common man that he
should lie, neither is he a son of Adam that he should repent. All men
can lie, but only those in the covenant line from Adam can receive
forgiveness through repentance.
 
How would you read that? Is Numbers a poetic book?
 
Jeremiah 50:40: "As
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=0430&version=
kjv> God
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=04114&version
=kjv> overthrew
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=05467&version
=kjv> Sodom and
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=06017&version
=kjv> Gomorrah and the
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=07934&version
=kjv> neighbour cities thereof,
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=05002&version
=kjv> saith the
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=03068&version
=kjv> LORD; so shall no
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=0376&version=
kjv> man ('ish)
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=03427&version
=kjv> abide there, neither shall any
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=01121&version
=kjv> son of
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=0120&version=
kjv> man (bene 'adam)
<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=01481&version
=kjv> dwell therein."
 
All men are sons of men, so the prophet is saying the same thing twice
in the KJV. No men will live there, neither will any men live there.
Whaat? However, if you understand Jeremiah as saying that no common men
(i.e. gentiles) live there, neither will any sons of Adam live there,
then he's saying something. But then you have to recognize a difference
between 'ish and 'adam.
 
Quoting Dominick M'Causland writing in 1864: "The words "Adam" and "ish"
are clearly different in meaning; and to use them indiscriminately, as
having the same signification, tends obviously to obscure the true
import and significance of the Scripture text. Had the translation been
literal, the sense of the sacred record would have been more readily
discovered, and the reader would recognize at a glance, that the history
which he has conceived to be a history of the origin of all mankind, is
simply a record of the creation of "the Adam," the last, and not the
first of created men, and a history of his lineal descendants."
 
I won't re-quote Isaiah, but I question your use of the word "poetry" to
describe his writings. We're not talking Job or Jonah here.
 
Also, most of us north of the equator use the KJV or the NIV, not the
RSV. You can find commentators who disagree with me, that's not
difficult, but if they had gotten it right in the first place I wouldn't
have to do this at all.
 
Dick Fischer
Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>
 
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Don Nield
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 6:16 PM
To: Dick Fischer
Cc: ASA
Subject: mistranslation of 'adam (was: The wrong horse in evolution
education)
 
Dick Fischer wrote:
 
>
> If /'adam /had been translated "Adam" every time it came up in Genesis

> 1-11 we wouldn't be having these discussions at all. But the KJV
> translators had preconceived notions and we're stuck with them.
>
> As I have pointed out before, /'adam/ and /'ish/ are both used for
> "man." Translators have carelessly commingled them, however, so we
> can't see the differences in pertinent verses.
>
> Once you have given up the distinction as you do by conferring /'adam/

> on generic man in Genesis 1:27, you have lost the ability to make any
> further conclusions on subsequent verses that would aid your (and my)
> case that Adam comes late in the progression of mankind and that the
> Adamic race is not the same as the human race.
>
> By keeping the proper distinction between /'adam/ and /'ish/ there are

> other verses that make better sense where the KJV translation that
> blurs the distinction makes little sense.
>
> Psalm 49:1-2 is a case in point: /"Hear this all ye people; give ear
> all ye inhabitants of the world: both low and high, rich and poor,
> together."/
>
> The two Hebrew words /bene// 'adam/, translated "low" in the second
> verse, are literally "sons of Adam." What comes to us as "high" is
> /bene// 'ish/. The word '/ish/ is a more general term meaning "man,"
> "male," "human being," or "mankind." Instead of "low and high," which
> bear no semblance of meaning from the original Hebrew, either "sons of

> Adam and sons of man," or "Adamite and Non-Adamite" would have been
> literal translations, faithful to the Hebrew text.
>
> Ah, but who could the sons of man be who are not sons of Adam?
> Non-Adamites? How could that be possible? So, the translators avoided
> certain controversy by substituting the benign "low and high," virtual

> synonyms for "poor" and "rich." Modern translators of newer versions
> have simply followed along.
>
> This technique of substituting words of convenience where /'adam/ and
> /'ish/ are contained in the same sentence is used also in Psalm 62:9,
> where we do not read, "Surely vanity are the sons of Adam, a lie are
> the sons of man ..." Instead we read, "Surely men of low degree are
> vanity, and men of high degree are a lie ..."
>
> In Isaiah 2:9, do we see the Adamite bow down, and the Non-Adamite
> humble himself? No, we see instead, "And the mean man (/'adam/) boweth

> down, and the great man (/'ish/) humbleth himself ..."
>
> This same pattern is repeated in Isaiah 31:8, where the term for
> generic man /'ish/ becomes a "mighty man," while /'adam/ is a "mean
> man." So, thanks to a sanitizing translation process, even a prophet
> may have difficulty getting his message to the people.
>
> And that's my point. Blurring the distinction between /'adam/ and
> /'ish/ may be tempting in the opening verse of Genesis, but it sets
> you up for error interpreting the rest of the Old Testament as it did
> for the KJV translators.
>
Dick's interpretation is an example of eisegesis, not exegesis.
 
1. Because a word like /'adam/ can have a range of connotations, that
does not mean that we are allowed select from that range in an arbitrary

fashion. It is essential that the word must be considered in context.
2. The passages in Psalms and Isaiah cited by Dick are poetry (set out
as such in many Bible versions such as the RSV). A feature of Hebrew
poerty is the parallelism in pairs of consecutive phrases. In Ps 49: 2
(RSV translation) "both high and low, rich and poor together" this
should be obvious.
3. Idioms must be recognized as such (e. g. in the context of a naval
battle a "man of war" is not an individual militant man.) In Hebrew
/bene 'adfam/ and /ben 'ish/ are common idioms.
4. The Hebrew scriptures should not be isolated from other relevant
documents. The translation of Hebrew into Greek of Ps 49: 2 in the
Septuagint should settle the matter. The word used there is "anthropos",

not "Adam". The implicatiion is that the verse means "sons of mean men
and sons of great men", that is the low and the high.
 
Don
Received on Tue Apr 11 23:50:48 2006