English or Hebrew?

More than half of the occurrences [of "form"] are shown by context to be unrelated to material. Many of the occurrences listed above communicate how God ordains or decrees phenomena, events, destinies and roles. Most of the occurrences not listed here could easily be translated by alternatives like “prepare,” “ordain” or “decree.” This understanding corresponds precisely with the perspective of functional origins proposed in Genesis 1. We therefore discover that our predisposition to understand “form” as a material act has more to do with the English translation than with the Hebrew original. Even those committed to literal interpretation must recognize that any literal reading must be based on Hebrew, not English.—The Lost World of Adam and Eve, p. 71