Who is the woman in genesis 3 15
GENESIS 3:15 - WHO IS THE SEED OF THE WOMAN?
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so let's first read this passage
together Genesis chapter 3 bere sheet
chapter 3 this is after the entire
incident where God told Adam and Eve not
to eat from the tree of knowledge of
good and evil
we know that the serpent managed to
trick Eve into eating from that tree and
then she offered some of the fruit to
her husband and so here in verse 14 God
now addresses the serpent God speaks of
the serpent and says because you did
this curse it are you more than all of
the livestock and all of the wild beasts
on your belly you shall crawl and dust
you shall eat all the days of your life
I will plant hatred between you and the
woman and between your offspring and her
offspring he will strike you in the head
and you will strike him in the heel
now it seems like a fairly innocuous
passage at first blush but what gets
many Christians very excited is that the
Hebrew here I don't have it in front of
you but the Hebrew here speaks of the
Zahra
the seed of the woman and it's
translated in this verse 15 here as her
offspring it refers to Eve's descendants
as her offspring but again the Hebrew is
her Zahra her seed and so this English
translation prefers to render the word
her seed as her descendants which
actually is the real meaning of the word
in the Christian Bible in the book of
Galatians they make the strange
assertion that the word seed
Saed really refers to only one human
being somehow whenever the Bible uses
the word Zahra seed it makes the strange
assertion that it refers to one person
now the problem with that is quite
serious for anyone that knows any Hebrew
because in Hebrew the word zero seed
always means descendants in the plural
God promises Abraham if you just look up
for example in the 17th chapter of
Genesis so God is always promising to
Abraham he will have many descendants
and it says that it refers to them as
his seed so even though the word in
English seed is in the singular and
Zahra although they're a seed in Hebrew
is Ana singular but in context it always
refers to a person's progeny their
descendants in
plural for some reason the writers of
the Christian scriptures want to insist
that it really refers to not a group of
people not progeny descendants but one
and so what happens is in general
Christian apologists will claim that in
the Hebrew Bible we call the Tanakh
Christians insists that in the Tanakh in
the Hebrew Scriptures they insist that
there are actually hundreds of
prophecies that prove Jesus was the
Messiah this is an assertion that
Christians make they assert that the
Jewish Bible the Tanakh contains they
say hundreds of prophecies proving that
Jesus was the Messiah and they refer to
this passage in Genesis chapter 3 as the
proto Evangelion it's a fancy big word
they refer to this as the
protoevangelium don't try putting it on
your bread which means that it's the
first glimmer it's the first glimmer of
the Christian gospel found in the Hebrew
Scriptures so they will say that this is
the first place in the entire Jewish
Bible where you have a glimmer of the
Christian message of the gospel message
and what is their claim here their claim
based upon this passages that the
Messiah would be born through the seed
of a woman because again the Hebrew in
this passage God says to the snake in
verse 15 I will plant hatred between you
mister snake and the woman and between
your offspring and her seed
and so the Christian assertion is that
we see in this passage that the Messiah
would be born through the seed of a
woman without a human father now this
seems a little bit hard for you to
digest that's good because it is a very
strange assertion but that's their claim
that they say you see from this passage
that the Messiah would be born through
the seed of a woman without the agency
the participation of a human father and
this of course is the alleged miraculous
virgin birth of Jesus that is written
about in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke
in addition Christian apologists will
use this passage to establish again
their claim that as the Messiah Jesus
came to crush the head of the snake who
is seen as Satan we'll get back to that
second claim in a little while now the
first thing that I will say about these
assertions by both the New Testament and
Christian apologists is that if you just
read this passage and we just read it
there is absolutely nothing here nothing
not one word that says anything about a
messiah this is again something that
they are asserting they're claiming but
there's nothing in the text itself to
substantiate such an assertion it's just
a claim that they make and that the
plain sense of this passage the plain
sense is very simple it's speaking about
the ongoing hostility between humanity
and that's what the snake is being told
here the snake is being told that God is
telling the snake it's going to be an
ongoing hostility between
you and your descendants mr. snake and
Eve and her descendants and we all know
that all over the world no matter where
you go throughout history human beings
have had not the best of relationships
with snakes people are afraid of snakes
people don't like snakes we use the term
snake as an insult for human beings
you're a snake in the grass but we don't
love I mean some people they have pet
snakes but when they're out in the wild
snakes can be dangerous sometimes and so
generally speaking we have this
adversarial hostile relationship between
humans and snakes and that's what God is
telling the snake here God and his
passage is speaking to the snake and is
saying to the snake look I'm going to
put enmity hostility between you and
your descendants and the woman and her
descendants and what's going to happen
God says you will sorry he meaning the
descendants of humanity the human beings
in the future they will strike you in
the head because again snakes are
crawling on the ground and a human being
that wants to hurt the snake you're not
normally going to step on its tail
you're going to go for the head so the
human being is able to just to crush and
smash the head of the snake but you will
strike the human being in the heel
meaning you can't bite you even being in
its neck you being stands up high you're
crawling on the ground so God is very
simply here painting a picture of what
is going to be the relationship between
humanity in the future who will be the
descendants of Eve and the snakes that
will come in the future and this passage
requires a tremendous leap to assume
that it is a messianic prophecy
and it would only happen if you approach
the Bible wearing Jesus glasses think
that if you have red glasses on you're
wearing red glasses everything looks red
so if you're wearing Jesus glasses and
you believe in Jesus and you believe
that Jesus is the Messiah and you
believe that Jesus came to destroy the
works of the devil and to smash Satan
and crush the snake so you will see
Jesus here like Mark Twain used to say
so the person with a hammer everything
looks like a nail so to a Christian who
is trying to find Jesus on every page of
the Bible they will see Jesus in this
story even though that's clearly not
what it's talking about now when it says
that I will put enmity or hatred between
you and her seed so it is a strange
expression we don't normally speak about
the seed of women usually the Bible when
it speaks about Sarah it's speaking
about the man's issue but this reference
here in chapter 3 of Genesis is not the
only place in scripture where this
occurs this is not the only place in the
Bible that speaks about the seed of a
woman the passage here again is
addressing the serpent in the presence
of the woman that's what's going on here
God is addressing the serpent in the
presence of Eve and so when God
addresses the serpent in the presence of
Eve it refers to mankind who will come
in the future as her seed as her
descendants
it would not have made any sense in this
passage to say I will put enmity or
hatred between you and the woman and
between you and his seed Adams seed Adam
is not being addressed here so because
God is speaking to the serpent in the
presence of Eve he refers to humanity
that will come as a seed we see this
same construction a few chapters later
in Genesis chapter 16 verse 10 when God
speaks to hug our agar is the handmaiden
of Abraham and God says to Hagar I will
greatly multiply your seed
so again Genesis 3 is not the only place
in the Bible that speaks about the seed
of a woman when God speaks to her guard
he says I will greatly multiply your
seed meaning her descendants and God
doesn't say to her that I'll greatly
multiply his seed leading Abraham's seed
that would be ridiculous he's speaking
to Hagar he's not going to refer to
Abraham's seed so we see that this
construction of a woman's seed or issue
is not that unusual and the truth is
there are many many places in the Bible
where it speaks about a woman's seed for
example in the 24th chapter of Genesis
of Bray sheet verse 60 when it speaks
about LaVon and Basu L who are blessing
Rebekah their daughter and sister
respectively so the verse says a very
famous verse that they blessed Rebekah
and they said to her you become
the mother of thousands and ten
thousands and may your seed possess the
gates of their phones so again God
speaks here through loved one and thus
well to Rebecca and speaks about her
progeny her descendants as her seed and
one more point about this passage in
Genesis 3 the Christian assertion is
that it's predicting that the seed of
the woman is actually speaking about
only one person that's Jesus and what
will this descendent of the woman do he
will crush the head of the snake and so
the Christian interpretation is that
Jesus would crush the head of the
serpent which refers to destroying the
works of the devil now is that true did
Jesus destroy the works of the devil we
know that in Christian theology Satan is
the cause of all sin did Jesus with his
death destroy all sin has since stopped
in the world is Satan now powerless is
Satan out of business now is a devil no
longer running around doing anything in
this world so everybody on the planet
would agree that Satan the Satan is
still alive and well causing many people
to send both non-christians and
Christians and Paul himself refers to
himself as one of the greatest sinners
so everybody sins including Jews
including Muslims including Buddhists
and including Christians and so there's
no evidence whatsoever that Jesus
through his death was able to destroy
the works of the devil
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