adamah
Hebrew word · ʾădāmâ, Hebrew · Ground, soil
The ground the man, ʾādām, is formed from in Genesis 2:7. The pair of words makes a pun the English can’t keep: the earthling from the earth.
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What’s what
The Hebrew words, ancient texts and terms the pages use, in plain English.
A
Atrahasis
Ancient text · Babylonian flood epic
An older Babylonian poem of creation and a great flood, known from copies of the 1600s BC. The gods send the flood partly because the noise of crowded humanity keeps them awake.
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B
balal
Hebrew word · bālal, Hebrew · To mix, confuse
The verb behind Genesis 11:9’s pun: the city is called Babel because there the LORD confused, bālal, the language of the whole earth. In Babylon’s own language the name was read as Bāb-ili, “gate of god,” probably a reinterpretation of an older name of unknown meaning.
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C
cubit
Term · A forearm’s length
The ancient measure from elbow to fingertip, about 18 inches (45 cm). A span, half a cubit, was the width of a spread hand.
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D
Dead Sea Scrolls
Term · Scrolls from the caves at Qumran
Some 900 manuscripts found from 1947 to 1956 in caves near the Dead Sea, copied between about 250 BC and AD 70. They include the oldest known copies of books of the Hebrew Bible.
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E
Elohim
Hebrew word · ʾĕlōhîm, Hebrew · God
The usual Hebrew word for God, plural in form but used with singular verbs for Israel’s God. Genesis 1 uses it throughout; Genesis 2–3 pairs it with the name YHWH, “the LORD God.”
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1 Enoch
Ancient text · Jewish apocalypse
A collection of Jewish writings, its oldest parts from the 300s to 200s BC, that tells how the “sons of God” of Genesis 6, fallen angels it calls Watchers, fathered giants. The letter of Jude quotes it (Jude 14–15).
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Enuma Elish
Ancient text · Babylon’s creation epic
Named for its first words, “When on high,” it tells how the god Marduk defeats the sea goddess Tiamat and splits her body to make the sky and the earth. Most of its copies come from the first millennium BC.
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G
Epic of Gilgamesh
Ancient text · Babylonian epic
The tale of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and his search for life without death. In its eleventh tablet Utnapishtim tells of the flood he survived in a boat, a story George Smith found in 1872.
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K
Ketiv and qere
Term · What is written, what is read
Aramaic for “written” and “read.” Where the reading handed down aloud differed from the written letters, the Masoretes left the letters alone and noted the reading in the margin, as in Job 13:15 and Psalm 100:3.
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M
Masoretic Text
Term · The standard Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew text of the Bible as the Masoretes, Jewish scribes of roughly AD 600 to 1000, passed it on, with vowels and accents added. Most English Old Testaments are translated from it.
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P
paqad
Hebrew word · pāqad, Hebrew · To attend to, visit
A verb for turning one’s attention to someone, for good or ill: to care for, to visit, to call to account. Psalm 8:4 uses it of God’s care for people; Job 7:18 turns it into God inspecting Job every morning.
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S
satan
Hebrew word · śāṭān, Hebrew · Adversary, accuser
A Hebrew word for an opponent or accuser, used of human enemies (1 Kings 11:14) and of the LORD’s angel blocking Balaam (Numbers 22:22). In Job 1–2 it carries “the”: haśśāṭān, “the satan.” Later Jewish and Christian writings use Satan as a name for the devil.
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Septuagint
Term · The Greek Old Testament
The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, begun in Alexandria with the Torah in the 200s BC. It sometimes follows a different Hebrew text from the Masoretic, as in 1 Samuel 17–18.
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Shaddai
Hebrew word · šadday, Hebrew · The Almighty
An old name for God, usually translated “the Almighty.” Exodus 6:3 says God appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai. Job uses it more often than the rest of the Bible together.
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Shephelah
Hebrew word · šəpēlâ, Hebrew · The lowland
The low hills between the coastal plain and the hill country of Judah, crossed by valleys such as Elah: for centuries the border country between Judah and the Philistines.
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Sumerian King List
Ancient text · Kings before and after the flood
A list of Mesopotamian kings that sets a flood between its first kings and the later ones. The first, Alulim, reigns 28,800 years, far longer than the long lives of Genesis 5.
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T
Talmud
Ancient text · Rabbinic teaching and debate
The vast record of rabbinic discussion built on the Mishnah. The Babylonian Talmud took shape over several centuries and was largely complete by about AD 600; its tractate Bava Batra discusses who wrote the books of the Bible.
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tehom
Hebrew word · təhôm, Hebrew · The deep
The dark primeval waters of Genesis 1:2. The word shares a root with Tiamat, the sea goddess of the Babylonian Enuma Elish, though in Genesis the deep is no rival god.
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