So, when I don't blog much in a while, I get hassled by some people. Some people do it nicely, others are all like "so, why aren't you blogging then?" (see how "street" I am?) I've not blogged much in July so far because I haven't had the time or frankly, the inclination. Sometimes one just needs a rest from broadcasting what's going on in one's life to the whole world.

Anyway. Yesterday, I basically got sent home from our church prayer meeting by the various people who saw me as looking pretty rough (which is indeed how I was feeling). It was just as well too because almost immediately after I got home, CJ embarked upon what is now a 19 hour or so bout of sickness and it was definitely a two-person job to clean him and comfort him. We thought he was over it this morning but he started again after his nap so A's taken him to the doc's.

In my sermon on Sunday, I made reference to the possibility that in Genesis 2, where Adam (prior to Eve's arrival) is called the man in English translations, it's perhaps not a great translation and that "he" may not be male until woman arrives. I invited people to ask me about it afterwards and people who have seen me have done so but here's some thoughts on it (and I hope the Hebrew script shows up okay):

A lot of recent biblical scholarship suggests that "the man" is not the best way to translate האדם (ha-adam) in Genesis. There's another Hebrew word איש (eesh) which is the usual way of indicating a masculine "man" (as opposed to a woman - אשה (ishah)). In verse 23, when we are told "she shall be called 'woman' for she was taken out of man, the distinction is made and she is אשה and he is איש. The two words share the same root in Hebrew.

The most helpful suggestions of how to describe האדם in Genesis are either "the human" or "the groundling" - I prefer the former as it makes it easier to see that Adam is the archetype for the whole of humanity.

It's also worth noting of course that some of the scholars who take this line are less kind to poor Adam, one even translating it as "the clod" (of earth presumably) - they tend to be working from a feminist perspective with which I have no inherent problem but which - sadly - sometimes lose some academic rigour in their hermeneutics.

Update: I think the Hebrew script now works - it certainly does for me in Firefox on openSUSE 11.0.

Recorded Sunday at St Paul's. 23 minutes long including reading and response. Available as Ogg Vorbis or MP3:

No presentation this week but some reflections coming on the question I threw in as an aside about Adam.