Genesis 5:1-2 Revisited

"This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them. And He called their name man in the day when they were created."

I’ve had a few emails ask basically the same questions.

“Doesn’t these verses prove that Adam and man, as mentioned so far in Genesis, one and the same?”

“Doesn’t this prove that God created Adam and the rest of mankind came from him?”

I agree, on the surface, the view of two separate creations, one of Adam and a separate one of man and female, appears to be in jeopardy. However, a closer look at the text reveals the bias of the translators.

Let’s perform an exegesus of the troubling verses. Before I go any further, even though I’m going to include the transliteration of the original Hebrew, I am going to keep them in the order written in English in order to ease the troubleshooting of the verse.

First of all, “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” is pretty straight forward. The genealogy following these verses, is all about Adam and his offspring, no one else.

Now comes the first evidence of biased translating.

“In the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.”

In Hebrew, it is:

yom Elohim bara adam d’muth Elohim asah

Now let’s perform a word for word translation.

yom means day.
“Yom” can either imply a specific day or and era. This is the reason, “In the day…” was used.

Elohim means G-ds
“Elohim” Implies the multidimensionality of G-d in the form of the Father, Son and Spirit.but as “echad”, one

bara means created.
“Bara” implies creation out of nothing or the basic elements, usually a specific creation. In this case, specifically Adam referring back to the “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” Section of the verse.

adam means man
Even though pronounced the same, this is not the same as “Adam”, the name of the first man.

d’muth means likeness.
Used prior to a noun of whom the likeness was. This is the reason for the translators to use “…in the likeness of”

Elohim means G-ds.
Same as above.

Asah means created.
This "created" is different from “bara” in that is a general creation usually in the plural.

More correctly, the verse so far should have been translated as:

“This is the book of the generations of Adam, who G-d created in the day G-d made man in the likeness of G-d.”

Notice that the word, “him” isn’t in or even implied in the original Hebrew. The addition of “him” changes the meaning of the verse.

Let’s do the same with the rest of the verse.

"zakar nekaybaw bara barak kawraw eth shame Adam yom bara"

zakar means male

nekaybaw means female

bara means created

barak means praise, kneel before in adoration. Can be used in reverse.

kawraw means to call one out

eth not translated in English, but used to “specifically” point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely. THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT IN UNDERSTANDING THIS VERSE.

shame means an appellation, as a mark or memorial of individuality; Otherwise used as “namely”

Adam, the name of the first man.

yom means “…in the day”

bara means created.

Let’s put it all together,

“This is the book of the generations of Adam, who G-d created in the day G-d made man in the likeness of G-d. Male and female was created to kneel in adoration. Called out was one specifically named Adam, in the day “he was” created”.

If you translate word for word, you get an unbiased translation. But don’t take my word for it, dig into it yourself. Let G-ds Holy Spirit guide you.

Shabbat Shalom my friends