Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dhosek@mimir.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Genesis 3:14,15 Message-ID: Date: 12 Aug 90 06:29:40 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Harvey Mudd College Lines: 35 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , zds-ux!bjstaff@uunet.uu.net writes... >I am reading the book _Catholicism_, George Brantl, Editor. On page 74, he >discusses Catholic teaching on Mary. He proceeds to quote Genesis 3:14,15, >applying it to Mary: > And the Lord God said to the serpent: ... I will put en- > mities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her > seed: she shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for > her heel. >Note that it is a feminine person that crushes the serpent's head; that the >serpent lies in wait for the heel of a feminine person. A few more translations: KJV (Gideon Bible) It will crush thy head, New Jerusalem, "It", New American "He" (footnote indicates that they would be better). So I check the Hebrew. It does say HU' which translates as "he" or "it", sort of. Hebrew, like Spanish has only two genders and when it uses a pronoun, the pronoun is the same gender as the noun to which it refers. In this case, "seed" or "offspring" (I didn't write down the Hebrew word although it was a compound of BeN [son]). Because the word is masculine, the pronoun to be used was HU'. I personally think that "it" is the best translation for this passage; if I had the Septuagint and Vulgate handy, I'd check those, but unfortunately, I don't. -dh --- Don Hosek TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont support, consulting dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu installation and production work. dhosek@ymir.bitnet Free Estimates. uunet!jarthur!ymir Phone: 714-625-0147 finger dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu for more info