B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Hi,

I am a newbie here and to the study of the Biblical Hebrew language. I am wondering the difference between Strong's #120 which is translated as "man" or "the man" and the name "Adam" which is Strong's 121.

I have been looking at the original word(s) in the Westminster Leningrad codex and they appear the same to me.

How can they differentiated these? What is the difference that results in a separate "Strong's" classification?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

we-live-now (Duane)

Duane,

Welcome to B-Hebrew! Just a note on procedure:

We ask all members to sign their posts with their real first and last names. You can do this automatically by adding your name to your signature, like mine below. Any other info besides your name is optional.

Thanks!

Duane:

we-live-now wrote:I am wondering the difference between Strong's #120 which is translated as "man" or "the man" and the name "Adam" which is Strong's 121.

Please list what are Strong’s 120 and 121 for those of us who don’t have a copy of Strong’s.

we-live-now wrote:I have been looking at the original word(s) in the Westminster Leningrad codex and they appear the same to me.

How can they differentiated these? What is the difference that results in a separate "Strong's" classification?
we-live-now (Duane)

Strong was not a Biblical Hebrew scholar, as a result we on this list often disagree with him. In fact, that’s one reason I don’t have a copy of his work.

Karl W. Randolph.

Strong's #H120 is the noun אדם/man/humans/humankind ; #H121 is the personal noun אדם/Adam.

(This topic might be better placed in the "Beginners' " forum )

Hi,
Sorry about the name thing. I will try to remember that. I never received an email response or I would have replied earlier. Funny enough I found this post (my own) when I Googled the question.

I have been studying the original words of Genesis as the Westminster-Leningrad codex displays them (which is basically the same as biblehub.com). I don't see a difference between the original words of Strong's #H120 and #H121. They look exactly the same to me as S_Walch posted above.

I am trying to understand how one could arrive at an interpretation of "human" for one (#H120) and "Adam" (the name) for the other (#H121). What am I missing? I don't know how to post the actual words here, so I attached a screenshot.

Thanks for any help or direction you can provided. There is so LITTLE online info about this question.

Duane

Duane:

As far the pointing of medieval Hebrew, there was no difference between “man”, “mankind”, and the name “Adam”. We don’t know if there were different vowels during Biblical times. It is only from the context that we recognize which meaning we should take when reading the text.

As for Strongs, that he listed them separately is his arbitrary decision. Why he made it that way? Your guess is as good as mine. He was not a Hebrew language scholar, so he didn’t have linguistic reasons for that decision. I suspect he did so for theological reasons.

I recommend that you don’t put much weight on Strongs, his numbers and his glosses.

Karl W. Randolph.

Strongs lists Adam as a personal noun due to his 'English' language thinking. Strictly speaking, in hebrew, Adam is not a personal noun, it is a collective noun meaning 'man' ie, mankind. But since Adam was the first and all alone, one sees this as a personal noun in English translation and probably a little bit of theological persuasion maybe, but in hebrew it is a collective noun without doubt.

Genesis 2:19 for example (this is the first time in English translations where Adam is translated as Adam and not as 'man' as in genesis 2) does not strictly speaking say 'Adam', it says: and the Lord God brought ..."to THE man"... most bibles have just put Adam instead of, "..to THE man..."

Strongs rendering of H121 is, as Karl said above, is purely arbitrary and does not reflect the hebrew thought at all.

As a side note it might be worthy to mention that within the concept of 'אדם' is the word Red, and also 'דם' without the aleph means 'blood'. God created 'man' as flesh with blood "דם" and then breathed into him His Spirit so that he became a living soul אדם. God gives the name to reflect the character of what he has created. Flesh and blood with the life of God in him. Hence this sums up all of mankind.
Hope something here helps.
Kind regards

Galena wrote:As a side note it might be worthy to mention that within the concept of 'אדם' is the word Red, and also 'דם' without the aleph means 'blood'.…

True, but I don’t make that much of that.

As far as red—I worked for a while as a professional photographer. Our eyes don’t catch it, but film does, that the underlying color of all skin, from the whitest to the blackest, is red. The black and white film that gives the best skin tones is one that is blind to the red color. Now with all the pictures from the digital cameras being in color, if you want to get a good black and white image for printing in black and white, open the picture in GIMP or PhotoShop, zero out the red color—the result looks awful—then change it to black and white.

So Adam, being red, the connection is there.

Karl W. Randolph.

Thank you for your replies.

Galena wrote:Strongs lists Adam as a personal noun due to his 'English' language thinking. Strictly speaking, in hebrew, Adam is not a personal noun, it is a collective noun meaning 'man' ie, mankind. But since Adam was the first and all alone, one sees this as a personal noun in English translation and probably a little bit of theological persuasion maybe, but in hebrew it is a collective noun without doubt.

Genesis 2:19 for example (this is the first time in English translations where Adam is translated as Adam and not as 'man' as in genesis 2) does not strictly speaking say 'Adam', it says: and the Lord God brought ..."to THE man"... most bibles have just put Adam instead of, "..to THE man..."

Strongs rendering of H121 is, as Karl said above, is purely arbitrary and does not reflect the hebrew thought at all.

As a side note it might be worthy to mention that within the concept of 'אדם' is the word Red, and also 'דם' without the aleph means 'blood'. God created 'man' as flesh with blood "דם" and then breathed into him His Spirit so that he became a living soul אדם. God gives the name to reflect the character of what he has created. Flesh and blood with the life of God in him. Hence this sums up all of mankind.
Hope something here helps.
Kind regards

I find that extremely interesting. Thank you so much.

I have come across the similar word meaning "red" in one of the verses where Esau tells Jacob to give me some of that "red" stuff.

Duane