Andrew and Julian wrote...
>-- Well, in Samuel I 17:42, ... the Hebrew Word
>-- "Admoni" is used. "Adom" is red in Hebrew and could mean he was ruddy
>-- in complexion or red haired.
> (Julian:) There's an ancient motif in ancient literature about heroes being ruddy in complexion
Personally I'm not too keen on the notion of "ancient motifs" because this kind of broad brush classification usually taints the interpretation of the source texts by those who translate them. Obviously one can't accuse the rabbis of this, but for what it's worth the Hebrew word ADM usually means "man" in the sense of "humankind"--thus "Adam" is the first of humankind. The association of this and the related word, ADMNY ('admoni') with "red" is pretty dubious, in my view, and comes from ADM as a (probably correctly) assumed root for the word DM, "blood". Perhaps more light is cast on the subject by a another noun that stems from the root ADM, and this is ADMH (*adamah*), "earth" (in the sense of the gritty, material stuff of earth).
I discovered yesterday that the passage in Samuel that Andrew and Michy cited is from the encounter between Goliath (the Philistine warrior) and David (the sheperd). Thus I reckon a good case could thus be made for the interpretation of 'admoni' here (as well as generally) in terms of "earthy" (forgive me, but here I mean in a sense of "rural-looking" or maybe even "bumpkin-y") rather than "ruddy". In this the case phrase becomes a powerful narrative device, very much in tune with the overall story, because it serves to contrast the gleaming-armoured warrior path of Goliath with the humble origins of David living as a sheperd in the boonies.
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