Gen 3:15 - SHE will crush?

[BerhaneSelassie]

Your friend is partially correct but mostly incorrect. The verb could possibly be read “they” (“they will bruise”) simply because we have so few examples in Biblical Hebrew of verbs ending with vowels with added second person object suffixes. I would have expected an “u” vowel between the verb and the suffix (there’s no vowel in the Massoretic Text–or what some people call a “silent shewa”)–but we can’t necessarily know what really “should be there” because it’s just not well attested. But remember that this is a possibility and not something that’s definitive.

But the major problem with “they” is that preceding the verb is the masculine pronoun “he” which would need to be accounted for in some way in the translation. Simply ignoring the pronoun “he” does not demonstrate good principles of translation–everything needs to be accounted for in some way.

Also keep in mind that there are many differences between Biblical Hebrew and Modern Hebrew, so expertise in one doesn’t guarantee expertise in the other–and it works both ways.

Hebrew is his first language, he is a retired Professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he taught the bible (the Hebrew bible that is). His translation of the verse is as follows:

: “I will place enmity between you [the snake] and the woman and between your [the snake’s] offsprings and her offsprings; they [the humans] will stomp on your [the snake’s] head and you [the snake] will only be able to injure their [the humans’] feet”.

His explanation for why the text says “he” is the plural form of a noun is only used when an EXPLICIT NUMBER is present, and even then only when that number is LESS THAN TWENTY. In Genesis 3:15 there is no explicit number present, therefore the plural is not used. The “seed” spoken of is actually plural, and you can see that in the other verses where a woman has a “seed.”

I’ll have to ask him about the sh’va comment.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Hebrew is his first language, he is a retired Professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he taught the bible (the Hebrew bible that is). His translation of the verse is as follows:

His explanation for why the text says “he” is the plural form of a noun is only used when an EXPLICIT NUMBER is present, and even then only when that number is LESS THAN TWENTY. In Genesis 3:15 there is no explicit number present, therefore the plural is not used. The “seed” spoken of is actually plural, and you can see that in the other verses where a woman has a “seed.”

I’ll have to ask him about the sh’va comment.

That’s very interesting. “His explanation for why the text says “he” is the plural form of a noun is only used when an EXPLICIT NUMBER is present…” Do you mean noun or pronoun? And the word for seed is actually singular in form, so maybe he is thinking of it as a collective (singular in form but plural in meaning)? Off the top of my head I can’t think of any other place in the Hebrew Bible where seeds act on something else, just to see whether the language considers it a collective by using a plural verb. I would also be interested in some examples of where the Hebrew pronoun “he” unambiguously refers to plural antecedents (i.e., an example other than this one) or if he could reference a grammar, that would be helpful as well.

I’m also not aware of any other verse in the Bible where a woman has “seed,” which is usually what people point to as the uniqueness of this verse.

So, if that’s (all) the case, then translating “they” would certainly have good warrant. I still wouldn’t say it’s definitive without some more examples–but very, very interesting.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

“I will place enmity between you [the snake] and the woman and between your [the snake’s] offsprings and her offsprings; they [the humans] will stomp on your [the snake’s] head and you [the snake] will only be able to injure their [the humans’] feet”

I would also wonder why he uses “stomp” in one place and “injure” in another, since the same verb is employed in Hebrew in both instances, but that’s sort of off-topic.

 

[BerhaneSelassie]

That’s very interesting. “His explanation for why the text says “he” is the plural form of a noun is only used when an EXPLICIT NUMBER is present…” Do you mean noun or pronoun? And the word for seed is actually singular in form, so maybe he is thinking of it as a collective (singular in form but plural in meaning)? Off the top of my head I can’t think of any other place in the Hebrew Bible where seeds act on something else, just to see whether the language considers it a collective by using a plural verb. I would also be interested in some examples of where the Hebrew pronoun “he” unambiguously refers to plural antecedents (i.e., an example other than this one) or if he could reference a grammar, that would be helpful as well.

I’m also not aware of any other verse in the Bible where a woman has “seed,” which is usually what people point to as the uniqueness of this verse.

So, if that’s (all) the case, then translating “they” would certainly have good warrant. I still wouldn’t say it’s definitive without some more examples–but very, very interesting.

I still have to get a hold of him, but here are a few relevant verses:

I will make your **descendants **so numerous," added the LORD’S messenger, "that **they **will be too many to count–Genesis 16:10 NAB

הַרְבָּה אַרְבֶּה אֶת-זַרְעֵךְ, וְלֹא יִסָּפֵר, מֵרֹב (not sure how this will show up on here)

The Hebrew has the angel using the singular for seed רְעֵךְ (zar’ek) (descendants in NAB) and the singular for יִסָּפֵר ( yisafer ). This is a similar context, the Angel speaks of her descendants as her “seed.” So we can say they are also the seed of a woman. Genesis 24:60 is pretty much identical with using the singular zar’ek and referring to many descendants, and a woman’s “seed” again.

 

[BerhaneSelassie]

I would also wonder why he uses “stomp” in one place and “injure” in another, since the same verb is employed in Hebrew in both instances, but that’s sort of off-topic.

Probably because serpents cannot stomp, but a human can. He said the word used in both instances if it were to be translated the same in both would be “smash [to pieces]” at least according to Rashi

 

[Dave_Noonan]

I still have to get a hold of him, but here are a few relevant verses:

I will make your **descendants **so numerous," added the LORD’S messenger, "that **they **will be too many to count–Genesis 16:10 NAB

הַרְבָּה אַרְבֶּה אֶת-זַרְעֵךְ, וְלֹא יִסָּפֵר, מֵרֹב (not sure how this will show up on here)

The Hebrew has the angel using the singular for seed רְעֵךְ (zar’ek) (descendants in NAB) and the singular for יִסָּפֵר ( yisafer ). This is a similar context, the Angel speaks of her descendants as her “seed.” So we can say they are also the seed of a woman. Genesis 24:60 is pretty much identical with using the singular zar’ek and referring to many descendants, and a woman’s “seed” again.

Yes, those are good examples of a woman’s “seed”. I have heard people argue that Gen 3:15 is unique in this regard and that the verse is justification for/prediction of the virgin birth (that “seed” doesn’t go with a woman"), but I now see it’s clearly not unique to Eve.

 

[jwinch2]

OK, thanks. It will be interesting to see whether he replies.

Interestingly, he has not approved my comments for posting on youtube. I find this odd, since when I have posted comments in the past (once or twice) they have been approved very rapidly. In this case, many other comments of support, and one or two contrary, have been approved for posting though Real Catholic TV has not responded to them from what I can tell.

I’m not sure what to take away from this and I don’t want to accuse someone of cherry picking comments without cause but I would be lying if I said that I am not getting that impression. The staff seem to travel a great deal so that might explain both their non-approval of my comment along with why they have not engaged other posters as they usually do.

Thoughts?

Peace,

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Interestingly, he has not approved my comments for posting on youtube. I find this odd, since when I have posted comments in the past (once or twice) they have been approved very rapidly. In this case, many other comments of support, and one or two contrary, have been approved for posting though Real Catholic TV has not responded to them from what I can tell.

I’m not sure what to take away from this and I don’t want to accuse someone of cherry picking comments without cause but I would be lying if I said that I am not getting that impression. The staff seem to travel a great deal so that might explain both their non-approval of my comment along with why they have not engaged other posters as they usually do.

Thoughts?

Peace,

I certainly don’t know. I suspect that he (or someone he heard at the conference he attended) borrowed the information about the manuscripts from elsewhere and it wasn’t sourced so they probably don’t have any of the details to support their claim. This is, imo, a common problem among apologists–they don’t source their information (not so many footnotes) and end up spreading information that’s inaccurate or not completely accurate.

 

[BerhaneSelassie]

I looked up the stuff you two were talking about with the Hebrew manuscripts here is what i found:

" À Lapide adds that even in his day there were two Hebrew codices in the Vatican library that read “she” (according to Kennicott numbers 227 and 239), and another in the Bernard de Rossi library. Also in the same library was an Onkelosi Codex [translation from the Hebrew into Aramaic] which read “she.”–www.marycoredemptrix.com/coredemptrix.html 8

 

[ClamDigger]

Our Lady seemed to indicate at Rue du Bac that she was the crusher of the serpent’s head.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Good enough for me!

 

[Dave_Noonan]

I looked up the stuff you two were talking about with the Hebrew manuscripts here is what i found:

OK. Obviously that was around four hundred years ago. Do these still exist? Has anyone seen them since?

 

[Dave_Noonan]

I looked up the stuff you two were talking about with the Hebrew manuscripts here is what i found:

But thanks–this website is probably the source of Michael Voris’s information.

 

[jwinch2]

Interesting. Thanks!

 

[MarcoPolo]

I understand the argument about poetry, I’m just not understanding what features of this particular verse qualify it to be referred to as Biblical Hebrew poetry.

There is a snake in the passage after all. Here’s a Jewish site that considers Gen. 3 poetry.

In summary, in Biblical Hebrew, masculine pronouns cannot be used to refer strictly to females or feminine objects in Biblical Hebrew. But you have any examples whatsoever of this occurring elsewhere (masculine pronouns used to refer to strictly feminine-gendered antecedents), I’d love to see them.

As I said earlier, and even as the article I wrote states, the Marian interpretation can be valid even if the pronoun there is “he.” The argument that Mary in some way stomps the serpent’s head is not dependent on the gender of the one pronoun. Hopefully I am clear on that point, I don’t want to reiterate it again.

I think it’s is inappropriate to remove from context the woman who is clearly included in the verse as a collaborator, the bearer of the seed who deals the blow. One example of how this can be in English since you mentioned it: If I refer to Adolf Hitler and say to you, “He conquered Poland,” would you insist that based on English grammar, “he” is a masculine pronoun in the singular, therefore I could not have meant an army took Poland.

With that in mind, we agree, do we not that the text references the “woman” and that the “seed” is “hers.” The question is can an understanding of Mary participating in that blow be understood from Genesis 3:15? I think the examples of Judith and Jael remain a strong theological parallel of a woman delivering a blow to the enemy’s head. Should both these parallels be discounted when understanding the Genesis description of a blow to the enemies head? Should we not interpret Scripture in light of the whole canon?

 

[MarcoPolo]

Anyway if you are really curious and want to follow up on the pronoun… Ben Douglass, an apologist now in a religious order I understand writes on his blog:*The pronoun in question is the Hebrew hu, a singular pronoun which is quite ambiguous and can mean either he, she, or it (or in rare instances they, cf. Ex 1:10). So, in order to determine the correct rendering we must examine the preceding sentence or clause to find the antecedent noun to which the pronoun refers. In this particular context, there are only two nouns that might be the antecedent to hu, namely the woman (ha-isha) and the offspring/seed (zar’ah).

The NAB translators overstate their case when they claim that zar’ah bears a plural sense in this passage and refers to all the descendants of the woman. While zar’ah usually refers to plural descendants (cf. Gen 16:10; 22:17; 24:60), it can also refer to an individual (cf. Gen 4:25; 21:13). Moreover, if it bore a plural sense in this passage we would expect it to be accompanied by plural pronouns and verbs, as in Gen 15:13-14. Unless hu refers to the woman, however, the seed is accompanied by singular pronouns and verbs. In which case, the singular sense is more likely.

The primary weakness of the position that hu refers to the woman is that the verb “shall crush” (yeshufcha) is masculine, and verbs normally agree with their subject in gender. Yet, it is possible for a feminine subject to take a masculine verb.

So, the three contenders for the antecedent to hu, namely the woman, the seed understood in a singular sense, and the seed understood in the plural sense, each bear some linguistic difficulty. In my limited judgment, the difficulty seems least if we take hu to refer to seed in the singular sense, in which case we would render the passage, “he shall crush your head.” On the other hand, the testimony of tradition, which cannot be neglected, favors the rendering “she.”*Again, numerous Bible translations use he or it.

I also put an email into my Franciscan University contacts to confirm if what I recall about some ambiguity in the pronoun is correct.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

There is a snake in the passage after all. Here’s a Jewish site that considers Gen. 3 poetry.

Unfortunately, the site doesn’t explain or substantiate why it’s poetry, which was my question. There are some generally agreed upon features of Biblical Hebrew Poetry and a good book on the topic is The Art of Biblical Poetry by Robert Alter, if you are interested in more info.

As I said earlier, and even as the article I wrote states, the Marian interpretation can be valid even if the pronoun there is “he.” The argument that Mary in some way stomps the serpent’s head is not dependent on the gender of the one pronoun. Hopefully I am clear on that point, I don’t want to reiterate it again.

I think it’s is inappropriate to remove from context the woman who is clearly included in the verse as a collaborator, the bearer of the seed who deals the blow. One example of how this can be in English since you mentioned it: If I refer to Adolf Hitler and say to you, “He conquered Poland,” would you insist that based on English grammar, “he” is a masculine pronoun in the singular, therefore I could not have meant an army took Poland.

With that in mind, we agree, do we not that the text references the “woman” and that the “seed” is “hers.” The question is can an understanding of Mary participating in that blow be understood from Genesis 3:15? I think the examples of Judith and Jael remain a strong theological parallel of a woman delivering a blow to the enemy’s head. Should both these parallels be discounted when understanding the Genesis description of a blow to the enemies head? Should we not interpret Scripture in light of the whole canon?

I think you’re certainly free to interpret the text however you like. But I think the general stream of what we were discussing here is whether there is any valid way the Hebrew text can be translated as “she.”

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Anyway if you are really curious and want to follow up on the pronoun… Ben Douglass, an apologist now in a religious order I understand writes on his blog:The pronoun in question is the Hebrew hu, a singular pronoun which is quite ambiguous and can mean either he, she, or it (or in rare instances they, cf. Ex 1:10).

The gender ambiguity of hu is really overplayed here. I don’t know of any examples in the Hebrew Bible where hu is used to refer to a woman. If you know of any, I’d honestly love to see them.
MarcoPolo;7917117:

So, in order to determine the correct rendering we must examine the preceding sentence or clause to find the antecedent noun to which the pronoun refers. In this particular context, there are only two nouns that might be the antecedent to hu, namely the woman (ha-isha) and the offspring/seed (zar’ah).

Agree.

The NAB translators overstate their case when they claim that zar’ah bears a plural sense in this passage and refers to all the descendants of the woman. While zar’ah usually refers to plural descendants (cf. Gen 16:10; 22:17; 24:60), it can also refer to an individual (cf. Gen 4:25; 21:13). Moreover, if it bore a plural sense in this passage we would expect it to be accompanied by plural pronouns and verbs, as in Gen 15:13-14.

The “they” of the NAB is discussed at length above posts and the verb could be plural. I can see why the author thinks the NAB translators overstated their case and I would have agreed with him a couple of days ago. However, the arguments discussed above are fairly convincing to me. The NAB has a reasonable approach, but I’m still not convinced it’s the best one. Hu can refer to singular-in-form-plural-in-meaning collectives, which I think is the case here.

Unless hu refers to the woman,

I don’t think this is possible. The meat of any scholarly linguistic argument is examples from the Biblical text. If you want to make statements like this one (very controversial) you have to back them up with evidence.

however, the seed is accompanied by singular pronouns and verbs. In which case, the singular sense is more likely.

Agree.

The primary weakness of the position that hu refers to the woman is that the verb “shall crush” (yeshufcha) is masculine, and verbs normally agree with their subject in gender.

Yes, undoubtedly masculine–I don’t think the verb means “crush,” but that’s another subject. The only ambiguity is whether it’s masculine singular or masculine plural.

Yet, it is possible for a feminine subject to take a masculine verb.

Again let’s see some really solid examples here. There’s a good chance that part of his claimed ambiguity is due to the fact that sometimes Hebrew nouns switch genders–this this not a signal of the ambiguity of the pronoun (or some gender flexibility in the verb), but rather of the ambiguity of the gender of the antecedent. But a female personage would always be feminine.

So, the three contenders for the antecedent to hu, namely the woman,

Disagree. He doesn’t make his case.

the seed understood in a singular sense, and the seed understood in the plural sense, each bear some linguistic difficulty.

Actually, seed in the singular doesn’t have a difficulty. He hasn’t shown that, imo.

In my limited judgment, the difficulty seems least if we take hu to refer to seed in the singular sense, in which case we would render the passage, “he shall crush your head.” On the other hand, the testimony of tradition, which cannot be neglected, favors the rendering “she.”

Yes, I understand he would very much like for the passage to read “she” but the question is really whether the language itself truly allows for this possibility. I say no, but again, I’m very willing to be convinced otherwise.
Again, numerous Bible translations use he or it.

Yes, we already talked about the “he” versus “it” business, which is primarily a limitation in English

OK. Maybe forward our discussion.*

 

[MarcoPolo]

Ok, my prof. emailed me and this is what he said:

The masculine and
feminine personal and possessive pronouns in Hebrew are very distinct, vocalized by quite
different vowels. So there is little chance of getting the sounds wrong.

However, they are written with either a yod or a waw alphabet letter, which a scribe
could confuse in writing because the difference is only a slight downstroke of the stylus
in the case of the waw.

In Gen 3:15, we seem to have neither a distinctly masculine nor feminine pronoun.
Instead we have what was in all likelihood an early proto-Semitic term, that is
pre-Hebrew from which Hebrew later developed, that has been carried over and preserved in
this ancient tradition, referred to as a Yahwist tradition by scholars and one of the
earliest of OT traditions.

The proto-Semitic pronoun is a combination of the two vowel sounds that are used to
compose the distinctly different masculine and feminine pronouns in biblical Hebrew. So
there is no way to tell whether the reference and antecedent of the pronoun is the
masculine “seed” or to the feminine “woman” from which the
“seed” shall come which does the striking of the serpent’s head. Apparently,
the early version of the story left the reference vague. This is what gives rise to the
different translations.

He also sent me an article by Gary Rendsburg—the reference is hand-written from a copy that looks like it’s from Biblica 63 (1982). Anyway, it’s too long to transcribe, but his summary has this bullet point:*It was the earliest Hebrew which employed epicene HW. When the Israelites spread out during the centuries after the initial conquest, especiall during the time of David and Solomon, normal Canaanite usage was adopted: HW (hu) was restricted to the masc. and HY (hi) was adopted for the fem.*Earlier in the article, he goes through some Scriptural examples. He concludes that once the Israelites spread and were influenced by the Canaanites dialects, it was then that the pronoun took on masculine and feminine forms. At this time, he says “epicene HW” (which seems to be the ambiguous pronoun) “fell by the wayside.” He says in known older glosses of Gen. 14:7-8 you still see the epicene HW used instead of HY. He argues that the whole Pentateuch may have used this ambiguous epicene HW in early edits. In this particular article, he does not mention Gen. 3:15, for he seems to rather be arguing for an older date for the Pentateuch as compared to later books like Joshua, Judges, etc… because of the presence of the early ambiguous epicene HW extant in the Pentateuch.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Ok, my prof. emailed me and this is what he said:He also sent me an article by Gary Rendsburg—the reference is hand-written from a copy that looks like it’s from Biblica 63 (1982). Anyway, it’s too long to transcribe, but his summary has this bullet point:*It was the earliest Hebrew which employed epicene HW. When the Israelites spread out during the centuries after the initial conquest, especiall during the time of David and Solomon, normal Canaanite usage was adopted: HW (hu) was restricted to the masc. and HY (hi) was adopted for the fem.*Earlier in the article, he goes through some Scriptural examples. He concludes that once the Israelites spread and were influenced by the Canaanites dialects, it was then that the pronoun took on masculine and feminine forms. At this time, he says “epicene HW” (which seems to be the ambiguous pronoun) “fell by the wayside.” He says in known older glosses of Gen. 14:7-8 you still see the epicene HW used instead of HY. He argues that the whole Pentateuch may have used this ambiguous epicene HW in early edits. In this particular article, he does not mention Gen. 3:15, for he seems to rather be arguing for an older date for the Pentateuch as compared to later books like Joshua, Judges, etc… because of the presence of the early ambiguous epicene HW extant in the Pentateuch.

Thanks. I will take a look at the Biblica article you’re referencing.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Ok, my prof. emailed me and this is what he said:He also sent me an article by Gary Rendsburg—the reference is hand-written from a copy that looks like it’s from Biblica 63 (1982). Anyway, it’s too long to transcribe, but his summary has this bullet point:*It was the earliest Hebrew which employed epicene HW. When the Israelites spread out during the centuries after the initial conquest, especiall during the time of David and Solomon, normal Canaanite usage was adopted: HW (hu) was restricted to the masc. and HY (hi) was adopted for the fem.*Earlier in the article, he goes through some Scriptural examples. He concludes that once the Israelites spread and were influenced by the Canaanites dialects, it was then that the pronoun took on masculine and feminine forms. At this time, he says “epicene HW” (which seems to be the ambiguous pronoun) “fell by the wayside.” He says in known older glosses of Gen. 14:7-8 you still see the epicene HW used instead of HY. He argues that the whole Pentateuch may have used this ambiguous epicene HW in early edits. In this particular article, he does not mention Gen. 3:15, for he seems to rather be arguing for an older date for the Pentateuch as compared to later books like Joshua, Judges, etc… because of the presence of the early ambiguous epicene HW extant in the Pentateuch.

I was finally able to stop by the library at take a look at the Rendsburg article. In short, Rendsburg argues for an early stage epicene third person singular pronoun in Biblical Hebrew, not based on Canaanite dialects (which would also be Northwest Semitic) but by influence from Hittitle and Hurrian, which he says contain this feature. (Not knowing anything about these non-Semitic languages, I wouldn’t know whether this is true one way or the other, but we will assume this is the case.) This is his explanation for the so-called qere perpetuum, which is basically a morphological label applied to certain cases where the form for “he” and “she” is identical in Biblical Hebrew, when the vowel pointing is completely ignored–the vowel pointing being added later to the text, but reflecting a much older reading tradition. As you correctly observe, Rendsburg doesn’t address the Genesis 3 passage specifically, nor does his theory line up with any known theories of Penteteuchal development, which he recognizes as a difficulty–and this part doesn’t seem to mesh with what your professor is saying in his his e-mail about the Yahwistic source? Not sure.

Off the top of my head, I do see some problems with Rendsburg’s theory. First of all, I think his case for a strong Hittite/Hurrian influence is fairly weak and his examples Hittite/Hurrian influence don’t directly relate to cases where the qere perpetuum is used, at least that I could tell–maybe I just missed that. But moreover, he doesn’t provide a clear theory line of linguistic development in the language. So, Hebrew and/or Proto-semitic began with differentiated pronouns, was then influenced by Hittites and then later switched back? I don’t see any way whatsoever that Proto-Semitic would have an epicene 3rd person pronoun, since, as Rendsburg notes, it’s not a feature of any Semitic language. (In fairness, this is not what Rendsburg argues, but is what your professor seems to be arguing in his e-mail.)

Also, vav’s and yod’s are somewhat interchangeable at certain stages of development (and at certain places in the morphology) which is NOT simply a scribal slip, but here the confusion in the forms–for us–could simply be one of lack of uniform spelling at some stage.

But the more obvious solution, at least off the top of my head here, is that the forms are probably heteronyms, like “read” (present tense) and “read” (past tense) in English. Because context makes the pronunciation clear it doesn’t represent a problem in writing–and of course in speech (the real locus of language) not at all.

But as to our specific question regarding Gn. 3:15, all of this still leaves the problem of subject-verb disagreement.