Secrets of biblical names. Adam and Eve
ADAM
Among all the biblical names, Adam is a unique name. This name, popular around the world, was not given in the Bible - neither in the Old nor the New Testaments - to anyone except the forefather. Moreover, in the Jewish tradition, boys are not given this name at all. It can be said that in the Jewish culture it comes from, it is not considered a name at all. It is reserved for the person of the forefather.
Where does this approach to the name Adam come from? Well, in Hebrew, the word adam is a common noun meaning "man." This is confirmed by the fact that the word is used with a definite article (which is not done in the case of names). This is how the word functioned in the Bible, and it is so in modern Hebrew. Adam means "man" in general - both the individual and the collective, the entire human race. The word can therefore be translated as "man", "people" or "humanity". This Hebrew noun therefore has no plural, it does not need it, since the plural is contained in the word Adam. Do you see how this affects the understanding of the first chapters of the Bible and the statement that God created Adam? These sentences can be understood more broadly: God created the entire human race.
The Scriptures derive the word adam (אדם) from the word adama (אדמה) - earth, soil. In Genesis 2: 7 there is a very interesting play on words related to this etymology. It says that God created Adam out of adama, out of the dust of the earth. This stylistic figure is practically impossible to render in English, because to convey it, you would have to translate it in English: God created a landowner from the earth - which would sound quite strange. In such places the beauty of the original language of the Bible and a certain degree of its untranslatability into modern languages becomes apparent.
Another connection between the word adam (אדם) is also evident in the original text of the Bible: with the word dam - blood (דם) hidden in it. We know that for the people of the Bible, blood was the essence of life, human life was enchanted in blood. It filled a person and gave life, and its passing was connected with death (hence the total ban on eating it). This belief is visible in the very structure of the word adam, filled with an essential part of dam.
Words related to the Hebrew adam appear not only in the Bible but also in the older Semitic languages. In the oldest forms, it appears in Akkadian, where it means"dark red soil, clay" or "red blood" - which would be in line with the biblical etymology (soil, blood) shown above. The red color in Hebrew has the same root and is adom, so it also seems to be related to the name of Adam. In North Semitic languages very similar to Hebrew, such as Ugaritic and Phoenician, the word adam means man or mankind, as in the Bible. The Scriptures repeatedly use this word to designate all mankind, which shows the universalism of Hebrew thinking: God's creative and saving action extends to all people.
The Lord Jesus, describing himself as ben-adam, the Son of Man, points to his human nature, being a man. At the same time, this favorite self-definition of Jesus announces him as the descendant of Adam, the Second Adam, the one who will rectify the sin of the First and bring hope of salvation to all mankind.
EVE
The name Eve is similar to Adam - both are reserved exclusively for the first parents in the Bible and Jewish tradition. No one except the first couple is so named in the Scriptures, which emphasizes their special character. Eve, the first and oldest female name according to the Bible, was borne by the great mother of all people, the wife of Adam and the mother of Cain and Abel.
In Genesis 3:20 we read: “The man gave his wife the name “Eve,” because she was the mother of all the living”. The biblical author derives the name Eve (Hebrew Chavah - חוה) from the verb meaning life (Hebrew chaja חיה). Hence the name Eve is sometimes translated as "living" or more often "giver of life", "giving life": according to the biblical story, all people descend from Eve. In the Septuagint - the Greek translation of the Bible - Eve is directly called "Life" (Greek Ζωή, read: zoe), so the ancient translator retained the play on the original words: "Adam named his wife Life because she became the mother of all living."
Among the many scientific attempts to investigate the etymology of this name is also the one that links Chavah with the Arabic chajja "snake" and the Galilean Aramaic chiwija "snake". They actually look and sound suspiciously similar in the original. In such a case, the name Eve would refer us to the story of the temptation that Adam and Eve succumbed to through the "serpent".
Eve is not the only term for the first woman in Paradise. The biblical author earlier puts into the man's mouth another beautiful play on words describing a woman. Immediately after seeing her, Adam exclaimed: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called woman” (Hebrew ishah),because she was taken of the men (Hebrew ish) (cf. Genesis 2:23). This interesting play of sounds between the selected terms cannot be fully translated into Modern Languages. Because how to translate them so that one term follows from another? In Hebrew, ish (איש) and ishah (אשה) are related words, the second actually derives from the first. In the Languages such as English this two Hebrew words ish and ishah express by words: man - woman or German: Herr - Herrin, as is explained by Luther.
Reflection on Today’s Gospel
The disciples began to worry that they did not have enough bread. The concern that there is not enough bread - of course – is completely understandable. But it is not good if this concern drowns out concern to serve God well. Man's first concern should be the desire to entrust himself completely to God. It turns out that the disciples do not understand something so elementary yet. So, they deserved the reproach of the Lord Jesus, because they saw with their own eyes how He fed five thousand people in the desert, and then - once more - how He miraculously multiplied the bread for four thousand people. The Lord Jesus' reproach: "You don't understand yet?" is like a repetition of the reproach from the Book of Jeremiah: why you " Who have eyes and do not see, who have ears and do not hear.?" (cf. Jr 5:21).
Jesus tells me how I can help Him work in my life. For he says to his Disciples: "Do you not remember ...?". So, we need to remember those moments in our life when God acted miracles. When he saved us from oppression. When he sent his angels to us in the form of people who were kind to us. When he gave us consolation - an increase in faith, hope and love in the midst of the greatest night and confusion. Do we remember those wonderful moments of God's action in our life? Why do we want to doubt now and stop believing that God is, that He is working, that He loves us as much as He did then?
The way to meet God is gratitude. St. Ignatius of Loyola, in a letter to Simon Rodriguez, one of his first companions, writes that “ingratitude is the most terrible of all sins (...) It is the forgetting of favors, benefits and blessings received. As such, it is the cause, origin and source of all sins and misfortunes. "
May Lent which we begin tomorrow be a time for us to remember how much good God has already done in our lives. And how much good God has prepared for us for the future! Let us be confident in God's goodness. Let us remember his goodness. Let us trust Him with all our hearts!
Until Tomorrow
fr. george