Adam

Adam appears in the Greek Septuagint Genesis.

Linear B / Mycenaean

Greek

Genesis

Adam is a character in Genesis.

• Adam (Ἀδὰμ)
  • anthropos - human - at first he's a nameless sexless human (Greek grammar is clearly sex-indeterminate / generic)
  • Adam - later is named

Greek Word Etymology

a-da-mo → dāmos → dēmos

• the land-holding community, district, collective body of people bound to territory

adamas (ἀδάμας) - unworked, untamed

Adamant (ἀδάμαντ) - unbreakable substance

ἀ-δάμας = that which cannot be tamed or worked

• ἀ- (privative: not)
• δαμάω / δαμ- (to tame, subdue, work, domesticate)

Adam (as a figure or term) maps naturally onto:

• the human as structured earth-matter,
• the land-bound communal being

Hebrew explanations only appear later and try to retrofit meaning onto an already-existing Greek semantic network.

1. Linear B (14th–13th c. BCE) already has a-da-mo
2. Greek preserves the word continuously
3. The semantic field is coherent without Hebrew
4. The Hebrew etymology depends on:
   • late texts
   • theological motivation
   • ignoring Mycenaean evidence

Philologically, that is backwards.

• a-da-mo (Linear B) → δᾶμος
• δᾶμος / δῶμα / δαμάω → structured land-people-matter
• ἀδάμας / ἀδάμαντος → untamable matter
• Adam belongs to this Greek / Indo-European material-anthropological system
• Not Hebrew
• Not theological
• Not late

It is about matter, land, structure, and the human as formed substance.

More reading

• Genesis Translation from Source
• Eve doesn't appear in Greek Genesis, but Eua (cry) and Zoe (life) does, but those are roles: the cry of animated life force.
• Adam and Eve are Greek Names - trace back to Linear B
• Cosmic Egg - did you wonder about "human as formed substance"? Did you wonder about that "cry of animated life force"? How was Adam "molded" in the Garden of Eden? This article talks about cracking that egg...

Also of interest, if you wonder why Greek

• Greek is the Original Language of Christianity - if you're Christian, Greek is your primary source.
• Old Testament Greek Origins - the evidence for earlier Hebrew Old Testament is shaky, the evidence for primary Greek is strong