אֲדָמָה

The word אֲדָמָה is concentrated in JE far more than in P. It appears approximately 5 times in P, approximately 53 times in JE, and approximately 37 times in D and twice in other sources.

The 5 in P are

Gen 1:25 6:20 9:2
Lev 20:24, 20:25

The 53 times in JE are

Gen 2:5, 2:6, 2:7, 2:9, 2:19, 3:17, 3:19, 3:23, 4:2, 4:3, 4:10, 4:11, 4:12, 4:14, 5:29, 6:1, 6:7, 7:4, 7:8, 7:23, 8:8, 8:13, 8:21, 9:20, 12:3, 19:25, 28:14, 28:15, 47:18, 47:19 (4 times), 47:20, 47:22 (twice), 47:23 (twice), 47:26 (twice)

Ex 3:5, 8:17, 10:6, 20:20, 23:19, 32:12, 33:16, 34:26,

Nu. 11:12, 12:3, 16:30, 18:15, 32:11,

Is there a traditional response to this? One possible response would be that the word אֲדָמָה is more common in narrative and JE is weighted towards narrative. There are several problems with this point of view. Most notably, the synonym for אֲדָמָה, Eretz, is not weighted towards JE as intensely is אֲדָמָה is. Eretz comes up approximately 842 in Chumash, with approximately 306 times in P, 185 times in D, 349 times in JE and 2 times in other sources. If the word “land” was indeed expected to be more weighted towards JE, we would have expected this to be for both אֲדָמָה and Eretz.

Another possible answer is to distinguish between the meaning of Eretz and אֲדָמָה. What comes to mind first is that אֲדָמָה means soil and Eretz means land, as in country. However, when I do a quick perusal through the p’sukim, I am not sure that that distinction holds. I’ll have to think about it more I guess.