Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You said:

Actually as I said grammatically ‘ha’adam’ can be used to refer to more than one person. Therefore this is scriptural proof for why she left. She is included in ‘ha’adam’.

Then must also have been included in ‘ha’adam’ in verse 9 too? How do you answer that?

While ‘ha’adam’ can be all humans in special cases, the context is clear that this is not the case in the account of creation. In Genesis 3:17 ‘ha’adam’ is clearly only one person since ‘his wife’ is also referenced and ‘ha’adam’ is said in verse 19 to go back to the ground that he was taken from. Only one person was taken from the ground. Then in verse 23 once again the man is said to be sent out so that he could work the ground that “he was taken from”. This removes any confusion that ‘ha’adam’ could mean Eve.

It is only a very few specific cases where ‘ha’adam’ can possibly be the who human race and the context will clearly define that for us. The context of the creation and fall makes it clear that ‘ha’adam’ is only Adam. If you are not willing to see that you have a huge problem. It seems to me that your position is that God came to the male alone showing that Adam was head, but if ‘ha’adam’ means both of them, then God didn’t go just to the male alone did He?

The fact is that throughout the creation account ‘ha’adam’ is continually referred to for the one man – the male Adam. We would expect to find this since the normal use of ‘ha’adam’ is a specific person. And when Adam was kicked out it is extremely specific unless you are going to say that the singular pronoun now refers to plural people and “the ground from which he was taken” refutes the fact that Eve was not taken from the ground. And if you can take the very specific ‘ha’adam’ with its singular pronoun and its specific ground from which he (singular) was taken and make this refer to both of them, then you had better be prepared to make every single ‘ha’adam’ refer to both of them throughout the creation account. Are you really willing to do this?