The very important and meaningful distinction between אִישׁ (as a category of human nature, I will break it down in what follows to explain what I mean by “category”) and the totality denoted by אָדָם, is critical to understand. Once understood, it offers a cure to all the extremely foolish arguments fueling the fashionable exaltation of gender-driven and regressive classificatory impulses by female heretics (and, often enough, by their male cheerleaders) seeking priestly ordination. I will not develop this implication here, but what follows lays the groundwork for it, relying on the revealed information given us through the testimony of Sacred Scripture’s own anthropological model (the ritual exemplar of which is exhibited by the structure of the Temple/בֵּית of Jerusalem) and its intrinsic symbolism. It also provides a logical cure to the most abhorrent unnatural decay that consists in the isolation of a sexually idealized gender category in the widespread sin of sodomy (and lesbianism). I will not develop this implication here either, but the tools to be provided are enough to map the way toward a clear demolition of this prevalent disorder and especially insalubrious idol.
The central revelation expressed in Sacred Scripture relative to A-D-a-M (referring both to human nature and the individual first man, inseparably, as there is no floating “humankind” without specific rational individuals, men and women, embodying it) is that he is made “in the image and likeness of God” (Gen 1:26). The revealed account goes on to zero in on what the nature of man so created actually consists of. The precise complexity and language of the original Hebraic text tends to easily be overlooked, especially owing to a very wide array of deficient translations.
First, we must realize that Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2 present but only one account of the creation of human nature (akin to אֲדָמָה/Adamah), as personified in the first man (אָדָם/Adam), as opposed to two different accounts (more on this at the end of this post). In order to see how אִ֖ישׁ relates to אָדָם, we must grasp that Adam’s nature consists of both invisible and visible categories (four in total, as divine revelation clearly shows), relating as signs (symbols) to signified (symbolized) terms.
In Gen 1:27, Adam is created invisibly as זָכָר (ZāCḤāR), which literally means “memory of,” namely of YHWH, Adam’s Triune divine Source (Gen 1:26: “Let us…”). This is a critical piece of information easily lost in translations, since one must recall that the first man, Adam, does not have a biological father, being directly created by YHWH. This, noteworthily, is the exact meaning of the name Zechariah (זְכַרְיָה/ZeCḤāR-YâH): literally “memory of Yâh” (Yâh/יָה being a contraction of YHWH/יהוה). Further on the underlying triliteral/triconsonantal root: זכר/Z-CḤ-R -> זָכָר/ZāCḤāR = “remembrance,” “memory” (זִכָּרֹ֖ן/ZiCHāRon = “memorial”); זָכַר = be summoned to worship or to court; זָכוּר/ZāCḤuR = being mindful of.
He is simultaneously and still invisibly created נְקֵבָה/NeQěVâh. Considering the underlying triliteral/triconsonantal root: נקב/N-Q-V = “distinguish,” “perforate” [NB: the נ may also function as a prefix to indicate the passive voice, קב + נ = נקב = “distinguished,” “perforated”], from the older biconsonantal root קב/QaV = a measure of capacity; נקבה/N-Q-V-h -> נְקֵבָה/NeQěVâh = “passage,” “tunnel,” “opening,” “sudden concavity.”
Narrowing the semantic field to the preponderant connotation seems to aim towards bringing the notion of “capacity” (capax Dei) to the fore of what נקבה truly means here in relation to human nature, created and considered in Gen 1:27 from the standpoint of its metaphysical hiddenness (invisibility).
Thus, being created in the image and likeness of the Most Blessed Trinity (Gen 1:26-27), Adam’s nature is primarily fashioned as an innermost (invisible) synthesis of archetypical “memory” (זָכָר) and “capacity” (נְקֵבָה), “memory” of YHWH” and “capacity” for/towards knowledge of God (Who is the same YHWH). These do not pertain to the sexual features of individual men and women. They belong to what in every man and woman sharing in human nature consists, innermostly, of both “memory” (זָכָר) and “capacity” (נְקֵבָה), per Gen 1:26:
.זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, בָּרָא אֹתָם
Thus, in this instance (Gen 1:27), the sacred text accounts for two aspects of human nature that are neither determined nor reducible to the properties specifically pertaining to the sexual differentiation of Adam as “male” and “female.”
Assimilating the sense of the verse with an implied sexual differentiation that will later be reiterated in specifically sexual terms (Gen 2:22-23) betrays misunderstanding as to the particular nature of the differentiation that firstly occurs in the creation of Adam.
By contrast, what does pertain to the “nature or sex” of a man and a woman, as recognized by Cornelius à Lapide, S.J. in the passage from his Commentarii in Sacram Scripturam vol. 1: in Pentateuchum p. 81 on Gen 2:23 (quoted by Geremia), is the distinction expressed in terms of the visible categories of אִ֖ישׁ/îsh and אִשָּׁ֔ה/îshâ.
In order for divine revelation to educate us about that which, in our own nature made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26), is irreducibly invisible, the sacred text goes on to “zoom in” on that which is visibly established as signs (by definition visible) of זָכָר (memory of) and נְקֵבָה (capacity for), namely (אִ֖ישׁ/îsh) and (אִשָּׁ֔ה/îshâ), denoting the sexual masculinity of a man and the sexual femininity of a woman, per Gen 2:23:
.לְזֹאת יִקָּרֵא אִשָּׁה, כִּי מֵאִישׁ לֻקְחָה-זֹּאת
It must therefore be made clear that Gen 2:7 zooms in further, as it were, and directs its focus on a different divine operation than that described in Gen 1:27, namely the formation of Adam out of the dust of the “ground”—lit. ădâmâh, אֲדָמָ֔ה, which is formed as the feminine of Adam (אָדָם), which is therefore an actual figure of his own moldable nature. The act of forming (יצר/Y-TS-R) is not one of creating (ברא/BâRâ, as is emphasized by a double occurrence in Gen 1:27). It follows that the widely held belief that Genesis 1 and 2 contain “two different accounts of creation” proves visibly erroneous from paying some elemental attention to the actual text. The “two accounts of creation” theory was initially promoted on the specious basis of the so-called Documentary Hypothesis—of Protestant origin. The community of modern biblical scholarship has not stopped rehearsing it as a matter of near academic “dogma” since the late 19th century, appealing to some version or another of the tenets and multi-flavors of the variously modified Documentary Hypothesis.
