Mary Crushing the Serpent's Head

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captainmike

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What is the scriptural support for that belief (which is depicted in statues of Mary)?
 
The Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible says in Genesis 3:15 that it is the WOMAN who will crush the head of the serpent. Most translations don’t, but the D-R being a very influential version the image has stuck.
 
From Catholic theologian Mark Miravalle, S.T.D.:
"The role of Mary was foreshadowed in the Old Testament. In Genesis, the very first book of the Old Testament, which has been called the ‘protoevangelicum,’ meaning ‘first gospel,’ the ‘woman’ and the ‘serpent’ are put in ‘enmity.’ ‘I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel’ (Gen. 3:15).
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“Enmity means a complete and entire mutual opposition. Since the seed of the woman is Christ [who will crush the serpent’s head by his redeeming work], then the woman [in this prophecy] must refer to the Blessed Virgin, who, with her Son, has complete enmity against Satan and against sin” ( Introduction to Mary, Queenship, 1993).
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'thann
 
LilyM said:
The Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible says in Genesis 3:15 that it is the WOMAN who will crush the head of the serpent. Most translations don’t, but the D-R being a very influential version the image has stuck.
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Yes, this is true, however, I have heard that there was a copyist error in the translation of the word “she”. See this article for more info.
 
This is a Hebrew grammatical issue. It is not completely clear what it should say, but the Church has held that “she crushes” the serpents head for most of its existence. Jerome chose the “she shall crush” as the best translation in his Vulgate. The modern Vulgate uses “he shall crush”. See this article for a pretty good run down of the issues.

Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
 
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