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  • From: Peter_Kirk AT sil.org
  • To: ronning AT ilink.nis.za, b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Seed in Genesis 3-4
  • Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 23:16 -0500 (EST)


Thank you for your contribution, and especially for pointing out the
use of ZERA` ("seed") for Eve's child in 4:25 as well as 3:15. A
reviewer of our draft translation recently complained that we had
translated ZERA` by "child, offspring" in 3:15. She commented that we
had lost the miraculous element in the woman producing seed or semen;
obviously she was thinking of 3:15 as a prophecy of a Virgin Birth.
But in 4:25 the conception is clearly normal and the ZERA` is not
semen but the child. So now I know how to answer this lady.

Are there any other cases in which a woman has ZERA`?

Is there any significance that Abel is the only one of Eve's sons
whose conception was not specifically stated to be natural? I doubt if
I would be the first to think of Abel as a prototype of Christ, but I
wonder if anyone has speculated that he had no natural father
(although his mother was not a virgin, of course). Abel may have been
struck down from behind (if not on the heel) by the serpent's seed
Cain, but it was left to Seth's descendants to crush the head of the
serpent itself.

Peter Kirk





  • Seed in Genesis 3-4, Peter_Kirk, 11/15/1998

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