Pastoral considerations and religious framework

Music and concordance. (Sounds like a poem, Concord, concord and time.)
Then there are a host of other issues.
Religious framework, the style and play of the Hebrew re e.g. parallelism and word play, audience, and modern cultural assumptions, like issues of gender inclusiveness, archaic language, etc.

I wrote that my audience were my teachers of 70 years ago. My work is a product of the stone that I am, pulled back and shot from a sling of rebellion against cultural assumptions. I harbour anger against violence, male superiority, sexual repression, and the ongoing exploitation we see in the news every day. The Bible is not supposed to confirm our assumptions but undermine them. Babylon is fallen. It is not supportable. The Bible forms a community that has a critical response to culture. It does not support a culture that cannot criticize itself.

So what about the examples in the review of Bray and Hobbins, (Gen 1-11) and Goldingay (The first Testament) that I noted in an earlier post.

The Bray and Hobbins work is mostly commentary ("the actual translation of the text fills only 19 of the book’s 326 pages"). It is one of my problems that I am neither an academic nor a pastor. And John Hobbins is both. He is steeped in Hebrew from his youth. I began to learn in my early 60s. I should fear to step here. There is no commentary in my volumes except a short introduction, tailored to the volume, and the musical examples. The music invites the reader to stop and sing a verse in Hebrew. My English must stand on its own. 

So I would never say now: 'Let us make man in our image.' But John and I probably agree on God.

My Genesis 1:26a is this׃ And God said, Let us construct humanity in our image according to our likeness.

I cannot agree with the comment that the use of man serves recurrence. By itself, it does not. It depends on what one does with the stem throughout the translation. I can agree that this is a large problem.

What stem do I use man for? Never for אדם, (which is the stem used here), many times for אישׁ and in the phrases old man זקן and young man בהר, and man of valour גבר. When it comes to the recurrence of man in the scripture as we have it traditionally, it is a dog's breakfast. KJV uses the gloss man for several stems. Stirring a dog's breakfast is not a solution to the horror that our assumptions have brought upon us. (I cite the holocaust, gun violence in America, worship of Mammon, pervasive sexual misconduct and so on.)

I have a desire to know what this humanity is that we share from the ground, evolved from stardust, but I do not wish to use words carelessly as tradition has.

What is a mortal? for you remember it. And a child of humanity? for you visit it. אדם is repeated in Psalm 8, but not אישׁ, rather אנושׁ. Close but not the same. From the point of view of recurrence, it is not man and son of man. It is humanity and mortal. What is the son of man construct that we have created? "Does one bring up a snare from the ground and have caught nothing?"

Psalm 8:5 note the reversal of this frame in Psalm 144:3,
Yahweh, what is this humanity that you know it, a mortal child that you devised it?
Each of these poems is celebrated by the acrostic that follows (Psalms 9-10, and 145).

In Genesis, it seems to me that we have a progression from the cosmos to the emergence of a people. In chapters 1 to 3, the stem אדם has to move from the species to the specific named man and woman who begin the generation of what will become the people chosen for the role of example for the world. I have used several glosses for אדם.

אדם humanity (229) ground (210) human (198) earthling (127) ruddy (21) Adam (9) humus (8) 'the adam' (6) dyed red (6) debris of the ground (4) sard (3) ruddy stuff (2) Adamah (1) Ruddies (1) agriculture (1) dust-bowl (1). Hmm two artificial hapaxes.

James Howell, the reviewer, points out something that moved him to think about the words and that does serve recurrence.

And Bray and Hobbins can break away from old-timey English. I came up short when I read their Genesis 12:3, “And in you all the families of the ground be blessed,” but their commentary explains “ground” as an echo in Hebrew of the curse of the same ground after Adam’s sin. The notion that this cursed ground is about to be redeemed opened my eyes to something I had never pondered.

It is worth pondering, But I have to say it is a problem. Generally for אדמה, I also use ground, but not in this case, though it is the same word form of אדם as in the cursing of the ground. I have four instances where I use humanity for this word form. Genesis 12:3, 28:14 (but not 15), Isaiah 24:21 for one of the two instances and Amos 3:2 but not 3:5.

Genesis 4				Min	Max	Syll
וַֽיְהִ֖י מִקֵּ֣ץ יָמִ֑ים וַיָּבֵ֨א קַ֜יִן מִפְּרִ֧י הָֽאֲדָמָ֛ה מִנְחָ֖ה לַֽיהוָֽה	3		And it happened at the end of days, that Cain brought from the fruit of the ground, a gift for Yahweh.	3c	4B	6 14

Genesis 28				Min	Max	Syll
וְהָיָ֤ה זַרְעֲךָ֙ כַּעֲפַ֣ר הָאָ֔רֶץ וּפָרַצְתָּ֛ יָ֥מָּה וָקֵ֖דְמָה וְצָפֹ֣נָה וָנֶ֑גְבָּה וְנִבְרֲכ֥וּ בְךָ֛ כָּל־מִשְׁפְּחֹ֥ת הָאֲדָמָ֖ה וּבְזַרְעֶֽךָ	14		And your seed will be like the dust of the earth, and you will break out seaward, and eastward, and northward, and southward, and all the families of humanity will be blessed in you, and in your seed.	3d	4C	28 18
וְהִנֵּ֨ה אָנֹכִ֜י עִמָּ֗ךְ וּשְׁמַרְתִּ֙יךָ֙ בְּכֹ֣ל אֲשֶׁר־תֵּלֵ֔ךְ וַהֲשִׁ֣בֹתִ֔יךָ אֶל־הָאֲדָמָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את כִּ֚י לֹ֣א אֶֽעֱזָבְךָ֔ עַ֚ד אֲשֶׁ֣ר אִם־עָשִׂ֔יתִי אֵ֥ת אֲשֶׁר־דִּבַּ֖רְתִּי לָֽךְ	15		And behold, I am with you and will keep you everywhere that you walk, and I will return you to the this ground, for I will not forsake you until I have done that which I have spoken about to you.	3e	4C	31 20

Isaiah 24				Min	Max	Syll
וְהָיָה֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֔וּא יִפְקֹ֧ד יְהוָ֛ה עַל־צְבָ֥א הַמָּר֖וֹם בַּמָּר֑וֹם וְעַל־מַלְכֵ֥י הָאֲדָמָ֖ה עַל־הָאֲדָמָֽה	21		And it will happen in that day, Yahweh will visit the host of the exalted on high, and the sovereigns of humanity on the ground.	3c	4B	20 13

Amos 3		Fn		Min	Max	Syll
רַ֚ק אֶתְכֶ֣ם יָדַ֔עְתִּי מִכֹּ֖ל מִשְׁפְּח֣וֹת הָאֲדָמָ֑ה עַל כֵּן֙ אֶפְקֹ֣ד עֲלֵיכֶ֔ם אֵ֖ת כָּל עֲוֺנֹֽתֵיכֶֽם	2	C	Solely you I have known from all the families of humanity, therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.	3e	4C	15 14
הֲתִפֹּ֤ל צִפּוֹר֙ עַל פַּ֣ח הָאָ֔רֶץ וּמוֹקֵ֖שׁ אֵ֣ין לָ֑הּ הֲיַֽעֲלֶה פַּח֙ מִן הָ֣אֲדָמָ֔ה וְלָכ֖וֹד לֹ֥א יִלְכּֽוֹד	5		Will a bird fall into a snare on the earth and there is no trap for it? Does one bring up a snare from the ground and have caught nothing?	3e	4C	15 16

I wonder if I can justify these exceptions to strict 1:1 concordance at the word level for this stem. I think it is never far from the Hebrew mind that humanity is from the ground. Rather than earthling, groundling might have been a preferable gloss (but I refrained). The example really stretches the mind. Genesis 4:1-14 is very much about the ground. The word for אדמה of the stem אדם occurs 6 times, 5 with the definite article. (KJV uses the earth for 2 of them, something I never do since earth is used for a different stem ארץ.) Should the first instance without the definite article have a definite article in English? Sometimes definiteness is implied. KJV assumes it as does JB and NIV. In this case, it is automatic in English to say the ground without thinking. NIV and JB have soil, a gloss I did not use for this stem. NIV and JB pay no attention to concordance in chapter 28. They both use earth for this stem.

How important is such detail? One can still ponder if one knows from the consistency of translation that the stem אדם applies to these glosses. Humanity is ground-based. And to curse the ground is indirectly to curse the human, the one who is from the humus. The phrase families of humanity occurs 3 times in the Bible, Gen 12:3, 14, and Amos 3:2. In Isaiah I might consider using the ground. In the others, I think the sense is awkward. The pairing of the words מִשְׁפְּח֣וֹת הָאֲדָמָ֑ה families of humanity, is my justification. It is possible that our language will change to say families of the ground. A Bible translation that did this might have such an effect. But it's a step too far for me at the moment.

There are times I am brought up short by my own work. I have to stop and reread. If I have to go back to the Hebrew, I know there's a problem if the English does not stand on its own.