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b-hebrew - Re: Fwd: [b-hebrew] Genesis 3:15 and order of ideas

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Revdpickrel AT wmconnect.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: Fwd: [b-hebrew] Genesis 3:15 and order of ideas
  • Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 23:30:07 +0000

On 21/12/2004 22:00, Revdpickrel AT wmconnect.com wrote:

...

"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Since when does the woman have the seed? The male provides the seed and the woman provides the egg. ...


This depends what you mean by "seed". The Hebrew word is zera`, and it has several senses in English, the following according to BDB: 1. sowing 2. seed (of a plant) 3. "semen virile" 4. offspring 5. moral quality. Sense 3 is of course produced by males only - but sense 2 only by female plants. But here surely the word is used not in sense 3, for semen, although a life-giving fluid, is not itself a moral agent and so unable to show enmity or hurt another. So the sense of zera` here must be sense 4, offspring or descendant. And there is no reason why sense 4 should be restricted to the descendants of a male. There is in fact at least one other place where zera` in this sense is used of a woman, and in a case where virgin birth is certainly not intended: Genesis 19:32,34.

Anyway, the idea that the male provides the "seed" and the female provides the egg, in humans and other mammals, is utterly anachronistic to the Hebrew Bible. It is a 19th century discovery.

... This, Genesis 3:15, is the first promise of a virgin birth....a pregnancy where the woman provides both the egg and the seed???? ...


So, if Mary provided the seed and only males provide seed, does that make Mary hermaphrodite, both male and female?


... Nothing is impossible with God.


Amen!


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/






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