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

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  • From: Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Genesis 3:15 and order of ideas
  • Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 22:10:51 -0500

At 06:46 PM 12/21/2004 -0800, you wrote:
In response to some other stuff, mshulman wrote:
>> Unfortunately that is a very non-Biblical view. Women are considered to
>> have seed. See Leviticus 12:2.
Revdpickrel replied:
> Lev. 12:2 does not support that a woman has a seed, it supports that she has
> conceived seed from a male and has become preg. That means the little
> swimmer has found an egg and she has become with child. There was still a man
> present here.
To be precise, Lev 12:2 does not use the noun zera(, "seed." It uses the
verb zara(, "to sow [seed]," in the rare hiphil form of that verb,
specifically tazriya(, the 3rd person feminine singular form. My Accordance
software finds only three instances of the hiphil of zr( in the Tanakh.
In Gen 1:11, 12, it is the masculine singular participle in the phrase
(esheb mazriya( zera(, something akin to "herbs sowing seed." It's clear
enough here that the (esheb is itself the source of its own "seed." In Gen
1:11, 12, unlike Lev 12:2, the noun zera( does actually appear as the object
of the verb zara(. Nevertheless, it at least hints that the agent who does
the zara(-ing provides the zera(. It would be plausible, though not entirely
decisive, to read the tazriya( in Lev 12:2 in a sense parallel to mazriya(
in Gen 1:11, 12.
Even if one does not take the use of mazriya( in Gen 1:11, 12 to imply that,
always, the one who does the hiphil zara(-ing supplies the zera(, Lev 12:2
still has the woman as the active agent of the zara(-ing, the "sowing," not
as a passive recipient of zera(.

It is definitely a strange usage here, which is what the Rabbis seem to have picked up on. I recall seeing an article (I think in BR) about women having seed.


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