The term used here is H121 which is 9/10 Adam and 1/10 is the name of a town. I think the confusion comes because H120 is similar and more wide in it's meaning. In addition liberals would probably ascribe a late date for Genesis (i.e. after Job)
Hi there,
I presume you are referring to Strong's numbering? Both H120 and 121 refer to the same Hebrew word, so the semantic range would cover both. You can see this from the Blueletterbible.org page which includes below the Strong's the text of Gesenius' Hebrew lexicon; H120 covers meanings 1-3 for
'adam in Gesenius, while H121 is meaning 4. Translators have to decide from the entire range which is the best English translation in each context. In addition liberals would be all over the map as to the relative dating of Genesis 2 (commonly assigned to J, for fairly obvious reasons) and Job. There's no presuppositional reason from their perspective why one needs to predate the other. Both could easily be late, and parts of each could be building on older traditions.
By the way, I came upon another possible allusion to Genesis 2 in Job not long after the one you mention.
In Job 33:4, where Elihu is declaring himself a man of like constitution to Job he says "The breath of the Almighty (
nishmat Shaddai) gives me life (
techayyeni)", which seems likely to allude to Genesis 2:7, where the Lord breathed into the nostrils of Adam "the breath of life" (
nishmat chayyim). "Pinched off a piece of clay" in 33:6 could also allude to Adam being formed from dust, though the verbal parallels are far looser.
On the other hand, in terms of the dating of the Book of Job, here's a different perspective (from the teacher's guide for my Adult Sunday School material through the whole Bible,
The Quarterly):
"The reference to iron mining and smelting [in Job 28] is interesting, since that technology only developed in the second half of the Second Millennium BC. The “Iron Age” is generally reckoned to begin in 1200 B.C., though the technology begins to be seen in some places slightly earlier – Pharaoh Merneptah had an iron sword and battle-axe in the thirteenth century B.C., while the Hittites in central Anatolia had iron weaponry at least a hundred years earlier. But the references to iron in this chapter suggest that Job lived no earlier than Moses, at the very earliest." [This assumes that Job 28 is a speech by Job, rather than an authorial insertion].