Dear friends, do you believe that Almighty God spoke of His Mother as crushing the Serpent in Gen 3:15? St. Jerome, who had access both to original Hebrew texts beside the Masoretic that sometimes have not come down to us, as well as to versions of the Septuagint in Greek, renders it rightly, "She will crush your head". When the Mother of God crushed serpent worship in Guadalupe and introduced Herself as "I am the Virgin Mother of the true God for Whom we must live", and caused so many conversions that there was not time in the day to baptize them all(!), She manifested once more, that God has given to Her in a special way the task of crushing the Serpent's head, as He foretold in Genesis 1000s of years ago.
Taylor Marshall has a nice article on the Hebrew: "Our three best Jewish witnesses to Gen 3:15 interpret the passage as "she shall crush." These are Philo Judaeus, Josephus the roman historian, and Moses Maimonides, the great medieval Jewish philosopher. Philo argues that the Hebrew parallel poetry of Gen 3:15 demands the reading of "she shall crush." Josephus, also writing in Greek, describes the passage for us as reading "she shall crush." Then last of all, Maimonides also states that Gen 3:15 teaches that the woman shall crush the head of the serpent." http://taylormarshall.com/2010/12/who-crushes-satans-head-in-genesis-315.html
http://www.newadvent.org/bible/gen003.htm
Latin can be read here beside the Greek: "Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et semen tuum et semen illius: ipsa conteret caput tuum,", "??? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ??? ??? ??? ????? ??? ???????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????????? ??? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????????? ????? ????? ??? ??????? ??????? ??? ?? ???????? ????? ???????" Greek seems to translate he, although by interpretation of the Hebrew, and possibly not in the original. The below site makes the case that the Hebrew should be translated she, as the best Hebraic witnesses tell us it was translated in their day, including Philo and Josephus, and as Maimonides confirms from the Grammar, because the seed is not in the singular case. Although as Fr. Haydock says, in either case, the Woman crushes the Serpent through Her Seed, the Virgin Born Son of God, and also us Her spiritual children, nevertheless the textual dispute is not irrelevant, and it would be good if we can prove critically that the text says Her.
"Saint Jerome, in writing the Latin and Greek Vulgates, took the old Testament from the Septuagint but checked the wording against the Hebrew ...
Saint Jerome is Right
The reason St. Jerome is right, and all modern translations are WRONG is because he clearly understood the meaning of CONTEXT of the passage. The context is that there is an enmity between the WOMAN and the SERPENT - and only ONE can rightfully be permitted to CRUSH HIS HEAD. The choices are 1) the woman, or 2) all of her combined offspring designated by the term "it". If there is anything CERTAIN, it is that the OFFSPRING is not a SINGULAR case. Only the WOMAN can be used in the singular case. Therefore, "the former" that the scripture is referring to is, as Jerome accurately translated it, is the woman. "
http://www.unitypublishing.com/SheWillCrush.htm
Thoughts? Anyone has done analysis here on the original Hebrew? Rev 12 gives us a final mention of the Woman and Her seed in the New Testament.
I don't know if I think the Vulgate reading is "wrong," but it is alone in that reading among ancient versions. Marshall's arguments would be a lot more helpful if he gave references – plowing through Maimonides and Philo and Josephus without reference doesn't sound like fun.
The LXX indeed says "he," but it is interesting. "He" is a bit of an interpretation, because if it is referring to the "seed," it is shifting grammatical gender since ????????? is neuter. The Syriac Peshitta translates unambiguously in the masculine, like the Masoretic text, and in both languages the "seed" is grammatically masculine as well. The Peshitta witness is significant because the Peshitta OT is 200 years older than the Vulgate (the NT is roughly contemporaneous).
Weirdest of all is the pre-Vulgate Vetus Latina: BOTH ipsa and ipse are found in various places, and the verb for what's going on is some form of servare or observare: "he/she will observe your head, and you will observe his/her heel."
I have looked at the Hebrew many times. The issue with Hebrew is twofold: (1) the vowels are later than the consonantal text, so subject to occasional error, and (2) the pronoun rendered "he." If the Masoretic reading is correct, it is absolutely unambiguously "he." The possible issue (not probable, just possible) is that IF the vowel point is incorrect AND IF a very uncommon form of the feminine pronoun was meant,* then it is possible. But I doubt that very much, personally. Semitic scribes were much more careful than Greco-Latin scribes, especially with sacred texts for which a single misshapen letter was enough to require junking a whole scroll.
*And by "very uncommon," I mean I'm not sure the form actually existed, and that the Masoretes may have given a masculine pronoun a feminine vocalization in a few odd spots to make sense of a passage. That's not what's going on here – the consonants are the masculine form, and it is given the masculine vocalization, as is reasonable.
Unity Publishing's argument about "only one being permitted to crush his head" is ridiculous. They ignore that if the woman is Mary, then the seed is obviously Christ, not every descendant of Eve.
The one who crushes the serpent's head is Christ, no-one else.
It couldn't be any simpler.
It's interesting that Judith and Jael from the Old Testament are considered a prefigurement of Mary. Judith drove a spike through a tyrant's head and saved the Jews. And Jael cut off a tyrant's head and saved the Jews. I guess the Prots don't have the Book of Judith in their bible and I think they excluded the book which talked about Jael. ::)
Quote from: aquinas138 on August 01, 2018, 04:33:46 AMI don't know if I think the Vulgate reading is "wrong," but it is alone in that reading among ancient versions. Marshall's arguments would be a lot more helpful if he gave references – plowing through Maimonides and Philo and Josephus without reference doesn't sound like fun.
A lot of Taylor Marshall's stuff usually comes from Cornelius a Lapide, so I tried looking there for a reference ( http://cdigital.dgb.uanl.mx/la/1080014741_C/1080014741_T1/1080014741_T1.html ), and I'm not good enough with Latin to read much of the commentary, but I do see these two references:
Josephus -
Antiquities, book I, chapter 3, section 4
Maimonides -
More nebochim, P. II, chapter 30
I don't see anything about Philo, though.
The numbering of the Josephus reference seems wrong, but the passage being referring to is this:
QuoteAbstulit autem et serpenti uoce, iratus eius [deus] malignitati quam gesserat in Adam et uenenum ei sub lingua ponens, quo[d] esset hominibus inimicum, praecepitque: ut mulier eius capiti plagas inferret, ille uero iacens, hominib<us> esset aduersus, et interitum facilem eis pro uindicta portaret, quem pedibus priuabit ut uolutatusin puluere traheretur.
???????? ?? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????? ????????? ??? ?? ????????? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ??? ??? ????????? ??? ??? ??????? ???? ???????? ????????? ????????? ??? ?????????? ???? ??? ??????? ?????? ??? ??????, ?? ?? ?????? ??? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????????? ???????? ??? ??? ???????? ?????? ???? ??????????? ????????, ????? ?? ????? ??????????? ???????? ???? ??? ??? ??????????? ???????.
He also deprived the serpent of speech, out of indignation at his malicious disposition towards Adam. Besides this, he inserted poison under his tongue, and made him an enemy to men; and suggested to them, that they should direct their strokes against his head, that being the place wherein lay his mischievous designs towards men, and it being easiest to take vengeance on him, that way.
(text from https://sites.google.com/site/latinjosephus/antiquities/book-1 )
I don't know Greek, but the English is certainly not the same as the Latin. I translate the latin thus: 'he commanded that the woman should confer a strike to his head'.
Cornelius a Lapide makes mention that the Greek word '????' is the equivalent to '
ipsa' and is important here, though I don't see '????' anywhere in the Greek text. My guess is, either the Greek text here is corrupted, or else the copy that Cornelius a Lapide was working from was corrupted.
As for Maimonides, I can't find an English copy of his
More nebochim so I'm not sure what's in that. Cornelius a Lapide says that Maimonides wrote, 'Sed mirandum magis est, quod serpens cum Eva conjugatur, hoc [---], semen illius cum hujus semine, caput et calcaneus, quod
illa (Eva) vincat ipsum (serpentem) in capite, et ille vincat
ipsam in calcaneo'.
The English is a translation of the Greek, so the Greek and English basically agree; this is the classic and well-regarded Whiston translation. Thackeray's translation in the Loeb Library can be found on Archive.org. He translates it basically the same way; the Greek is on the facing page.
Honestly, the Latin looks like an interpolation. That manuscript is a ninth-century manuscript from northern Italy; it may have been harmonized with the Vulgate reading of Gen. 3:15. Whether that was intentionally done or subconsciously done because of familiarity with the biblical text, I don't know.
Vetus, not at all, even your Protestant KJV renders it "It".
Yes, Lynne, the Biblical types Judith and Jael confirm and make certain St. Jerome's translation and the Latin Vulgate's rendering of the verse, which is the correct one. And don't forget Queen Esther! The Protestants do have both Esther and Jael, though they lack Judith. Here is Deborah singing the praises of Jael in Judges 5, KJV, "26 She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. 27 At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead."
This is what Mary is going to do to Satan very soon, in time for the Age of Mary, in fulfilment of the commission She received from Her Son. Rev 12 confirms this, as does the passage where it says God will crush Satan under the feet of His Church. It is God who crushes, but through a Woman.
There they sang, God defeated Sisera by the hand of a woman. Here, the Lord God will crush Satan by the Feet of His Mother.
Quote from: AquinasUnity Publishing's argument about "only one being permitted to crush his head" is ridiculous.
Not at all. Till this part, you were making linguistic arguments. But you haven't answered the main argument from the UP site.
QuoteThey ignore that if the woman is Mary, then the seed is obviously Christ, not every descendant of Eve.
This response is not a linguistic argument, first of all, but an exegetical one. As exegesis, it contradicts Rev 12:17 explicitly. The Seed of the Woman is only used in two places, it can only be used of the Virgin Mother, who gave birth without a human father (the reference is to men in all other cases) The Vulgate has Rev 12:17 "Et iratus est draco in mulierem: et abiit facere prælium cum reliquis de semine ejus, qui custodiunt mandata Dei, et habent testimonium Jesu Christi." The KJV renders it as 12:17 "And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with
the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Of course, the Seed is first and foremost the Virgin Born Son of God, for God made this prophesy because He willed to become the Seed of the Woman without a human father. But it is clearly referring also to all of us, the Virgin Mother's spiritual children, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. So it is in the plural, according to the internal evidence of the Scriptures, and the revelation of St. John the Apostle, and Unity Publishing's argument stands.
Finally, Philo, Josephus etc have great weight even as Jewish scholars. They also were very open to Christ and His Apostles. Philo records the ancient Christian monastic communities, and Josephus plainly testifies to the Resurrection. St. Jerome says this in Illustrious Men, where he speaks primarily of the Apostles, but enlists these two as well. So, their testimony that in their day it was read and understood as She will crush is compelling.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2708.htm
"Philo the Jew, an Alexandrian of the priestly class, is placed by us among the ecclesiastical writers on the ground that, writing a book concerning the first church of Mark the evangelist at Alexandria, he writes to our praise, declaring not only that they were there, but also that they were in many provinces and calling their habitations monasteries."
"Josephus, the son of Matthias, priest of Jerusalem ... In the eighth book of his Antiquities he most openly acknowledges that Christ was slain by the Pharisees on account of the greatness of his miracles, that John the Baptist was truly a prophet, and that Jerusalem was destroyed because of the murder of James the apostle."
I think one can comment on Taylor Marshall's site or mail him for the reference. I'll try to get it for you.
Daniel, the Latin passage you mentioned in Josephus could be translated God "made him an enemy to men, commanding; that the Woman should deliver a blow to his head".
Edit: Your intuition was right, Daniel: "Cornelius à Lapide says that another early Jewish witness to the "she" reading is the historian Josephus, who died around 101 A.D.."Whence also Josephus (Book 1, Chap. 3) reads it this way as our translator writes. For he says: 'He ordained that the woman should inflict wounds on his head' from which it is evident that Josephus in his day read aute , that is to say, "she. "Josephus and Philo wrote in Greek, but knew Hebrew, so their testimony witnesses to the fact that both the Septuagint and the Hebrew of their day read "she." http://www.marycoredemptrix.com/coredemptrix.html
Xavier, I understand that Philo and Josephus are illustrious men. I am saying that the Greek text of Josephus does not say what you, Marshall, and Lapide say it says. The Latin version says that, and it does not agree with the Greek.
As to the rest, I'll respond another time.
This is the text in Hebrew:
(https://s22.postimg.cc/uchkc96u9/genesis315.png)
Jerome's translation of "she" instead of "he" is merely interpretative.
The serpent's head was crushed at Golgotha: this is the very center of the Christian faith. The Blessed Virgin only crushes the serpent's head in a secondary sense, as the vehicle through which the Logos became flesh. The one actually crushing the serpent is Christ.
I thought that in the Hebrew, there were no articles, therefore there is no "He" or "She" in the text, only "it"?
Quote from: Michael Wilson on August 02, 2018, 02:43:02 PM
I thought that in the Hebrew, there were no articles, therefore there is no "He" or "She" in the text, only "it"?
"He", "she" and "it" aren't articles. They are pronouns which Semitic languages, including Hebrew, share with our own.
Hebrew doesn't have an
indefinite article (Eng. "a", "an") but it does have a definite article (Eng. "the").
Quote from: Michael Wilson on August 02, 2018, 02:43:02 PM
I thought that in the Hebrew, there were no articles, therefore there is no "He" or "She" in the text, only "it"?
In Vetus Ordo's image, the word third from the left on the second line is the word in question:
???? (
hû). This is the masculine pronoun. The normal form of the feminine pronoun is
???? (
hî). Note that the middle consonant is different. The dot in each word indicates the vowel sound – the raised dot in the masculine indicates the "u" and the sublinear dot in the feminine indicates the "i." The dots are a later development in the written language than the letters themselves; the text would have been originally written without them. However, anyone who is familiar with Semitic languages would read the word in Gen. 3:15 as
hû, that is, as masculine, even without the vowel dot, absent a
clear reason to do otherwise.
Now, there are a few places where the text has the rarer, archaic form
???? - that is, spelled like the masculine, vocalized like the feminine. It is found only in the Pentateuch, alongside the more common form, except for one occurrence in Isaiah. There are two instances of this archaic form in Genesis 3, actually, adding to the confusion.
[Before continuing, I freely admit I may well be wrong in my conclusion. Though I am familiar with Hebrew, my specialty is not in that language. And this is admittedly a convoluted issue.]
In 3:12, the "she" in "[she] gave me of the tree" is this rarer form, as it is in 3:20 in "she was the mother of all the living." Now, you could go one of two ways in understanding 3:15:
(1) You could posit that the original unpointed text had the rarer form and that it was commonly misunderstood as the masculine, even though it was supposed to be the rarer feminine form, referring to the woman; the Old Latin (in some manuscripts) and the Vulgate recognized this while other ancient translations did not. The presence of the rarer form in this very chapter indicates that this is at least possible (but maybe not probable). Or,
(2) The Masoretic text is correct. Typological interpretation, the pronoun being taken as feminine in at least some manuscripts in the pre-Vulgate Old Latin, perhaps a Hebrew manuscript pointed feminine, etc., could have led St. Jerome to read it as feminine, given the rare form being present in nearby verses, even though this is a mistake.
Personally, I think (2) is more likely. The fact that
no version of the OT outside the Latin tradition preserves this rendering, even in variants, is compelling to me. It doesn't affect my faith either way, as I don't believe the two readings intrinsically incompatible.
It sounds like from what you said, aquinas138, that Genesis 3 then expresses in the rare Hebrew feminine pronoun form the significance of God's promise of the New Eve undoing what the First Eve did. Also, the fact that the Latin church preserves this ancient rendering, as then even done so by St. Jerome, is a testimony to its uniqueness of teaching the true doctrine of Christ and upholding the One True Religion of Catholicism. The unique pronoun rendering seems to also meet halfway in vowel usage between the commonly used masculine and feminine forms you showed, aquinas 138. It expresses the work of Our Lord and Our Lady either both or each crushing the head of the serpent.
St. Jerome had manuscripts at his disposal older than the Masoretic text though. I had learned he used a manuscript recommended by a Hebrew scholar even though not quite the original manuscipts. St. Alphonsus Liguori, whose feast is today, had pointed out in his writing about the Psalms that the later Hebrew manuscripts had deficiencies. The Jews would have claimed there was kind of inspired mystical change in the copying of the texts through the centuries. It seems we also cannot completely rely on the Masoretic text then. What about the Dead Sea scrolls too?
The Dead Sea Scrolls contain many fragments of Genesis, but none specifically have 3:15. The closest ends at verse 14.
"Articles", "pronouns"; what's the difference? As you can tell, Grammar isn't my strong suit. :laugh:
QuoteNote that the middle consonant is different.
I notice that graphically, vav and jod look kind of similar (at least in the square script). Is it possible that the word ??? in Genesis 3:15 might just be a misspelling of ??? (through scribal error)? Maybe the word was originally ??? but somewhere along the lines somebody had bad handwriting and later copyists mistook the jod for a vav? Or vice versâ: maybe ??? is the correct/original spelling and ??? is the corrupted reading (which perhaps was in circulation in St. Jerome's day)? Just speculating...
Hebrew verbs are also inflected for gender. So, even if the pronoun is unclear, the verb should convey the gender of the subject. It seems unlikely that a scribe could have mistaken both.
Quote from: Fleur-de-Lys on August 04, 2018, 07:58:39 PM
Hebrew verbs are also inflected for gender. So, even if the pronoun is unclear, the verb should convey the gender of the subject. It seems unlikely that a scribe could have mistaken both.
A very excellent point. The feminine form of the verb would begin with a different consonant, which is not nearly as similar in appearance.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 02, 2018, 09:28:55 AM
The serpent's head was crushed at Golgotha: this is the very center of the Christian faith. The Blessed Virgin only crushes the serpent's head in a secondary sense, as the vehicle through which the Logos became flesh. The one actually crushing the serpent is Christ.
No, Christ merited the power to crush the serpent's head at Golgotha, but He did not crush it Himself once and for all. The proof of this is that the devil is active today, still misleading countless souls and causing innumerable sins and untold suffering. The prophetic Woman of Genesis should be compared with the prophetic Woman of the Apocalypse (chapter 12). It is the Woman that wars against the serpent, and the Woman should be understood as Our Lady or the Church, or both. It is ultimately the Church (empowered by Christ) that does battle and triumphs over the serpent in the end times, and we can also see this as being Our Lady who represents the Church archetypically (Mother of the Church, Mother of all believers).
Have you read the testimony of exorcists, Vetus? Every exorcist when fighting against one or many demons invokes the Most Holy Trinity, the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Precious Blood, the Holy Wounds, and then the power and prayers of the Blessed Mother. Christ defeated Lucifer on the Cross and that victory becomes a reality in our lives to the extent He lives in us and repeats it. But He dwells more perfectly in Mary than in all other creatures. Hence, after God, Lucifer fears Her the most, and She is destined to crush him. Exorcists say the devil's pride is humiliated to the utmost in being defeated by a Creature and a Woman, and God has willed it so. What of the Biblical types of Jael, who struck Sisera dead? And of Judith, where the symbolism is so deep and plainly typifies the Virgin Mother, who strikes of Holofernes' head and is praised by her people as blessed among women, because she did not spare her life when her people were in distress. Then there is finally Queen Esther, by whose intercession with the king, Aman's plans were foiled, and Israel saved.
A legion of demons confessed when the Rosary was first given to St. Dominic from Heaven, " She is the Sun which destroys the darkness of our wiles and subtlety. It is she who uncovers our hidden plots, breaks our snares and makes our temptations useless and ineffectual ... Oh if only that Mary (it is thus in their fury that they called her) had not pitted her strength against ours and had not upset our plans, we should have conquered the Church and should have destroyed it long before this; and we would have seen to it that all the Orders in the Church fell into error and disorder." http://www.how-to-pray-the-rosary-everyday.com/demontfort.html After devotion to Mary fell, Orders falling into disorder is precisely what happened. And yet, it is within the plan of God. Recall how victorious Holofernes initially was, before God raised up Judith at the right time to crush him. "13:17 "Judith said: Praise ye the Lord our God, who hath not forsaken them that hope in him. 13:18 And by me his handmaid he hath fulfilled his mercy, which he promised to the house of Israel: and he hath killed the enemy of his people by my hand this night." The name Judith means Jewess. The city of Bethulia which figures so prominently means, a consecrated Virgin. Jewish Encyclopedia: "The name "Bethulia" may, therefore, be assumed to be an allegorical one, meaning perhaps "Beth-el" (house of God), or it may be a word compounded of "betulah" and "Jah" ("Yhwh's virgin")." A variant of that is used in the Aramaic Tanakh for Isa 7:14, which the Masoretic text also gets wrong. The Masoretic text cannot be considered completely reliable, because our Evangelists do not use it, as is evident from the Gospel citation of this passage, and St. Jerome had access to older, better Hebrew texts.
QuoteNow, there are a few places where the text has the rarer, archaic form ???? - that is, spelled like the masculine, vocalized like the feminine. It is found only in the Pentateuch, alongside the more common form, except for one occurrence in Isaiah. There are two instances of this archaic form in Genesis 3, actually, adding to the confusion.
[Before continuing, I freely admit I may well be wrong in my conclusion. Though I am familiar with Hebrew, my specialty is not in that language. And this is admittedly a convoluted issue.]
In 3:12, the "she" in "[she] gave me of the tree" is this rarer form, as it is in 3:20 in "she was the mother of all the living." Now, you could go one of two ways in understanding 3:15:
(1) You could posit that the original unpointed text had the rarer form and that it was commonly misunderstood as the masculine, even though it was supposed to be the rarer feminine form, referring to the woman; the Old Latin (in some manuscripts) and the Vulgate recognized this while other ancient translations did not. The presence of the rarer form in this very chapter indicates that this is at least possible (but maybe not probable). Or,
Thank you, Aquinas, for this clear explanation. So the Vetus Latina also has some manuscripts with the translation, She. St. Jerome certainly cross-referenced the old Hebrew texts he had with the old Latin translations. It all seems to come down to whether the Hebrew word in question was intended by God and the Prophet Moses to be read as Hu or Hi.
Has anyone been able to find the text of Philo mentioned by Fr. Cornelius Lapide? It seems the text of Josephus says Woman in the Latin but not in the Greek. To me, the internal evidence from other Scriptural types mentioned above make 1 more probable.
Quote(2) The Masoretic text is correct. Typological interpretation, the pronoun being taken as feminine in at least some manuscripts in the pre-Vulgate Old Latin, perhaps a Hebrew manuscript pointed feminine, etc., could have led St. Jerome to read it as feminine, given the rare form being present in nearby verses, even though this is a mistake.
Hmm. What is your opinion, Aquinas, on the other areas where the Masoretic text appears plainly wrong? Certainly, St. Matthew does not cite the Masoretic in Isaiah 7:14. The Septuagint had been translated centuries before Christ and it correctly renders it parthenos or virgin. The Aramaic versions are also better than the Hebrew. Do you think the Hebrew here is correct? If not, does that not make the Masoretic itself doubtful? My opinion is the Septuagint is better, and the Septuagint originally had she in the times of Philo and Josephus. Philo very likely preserves for us the Apostolic interpretation and understanding of the passage, because he spoke to St. Peter and knew St. Mark. The Vetus Latina picked this up, and St. Jerome after comparing with Hebrew texts older than the Masoretic, retained it. St. Jerome wrote after studying some of the old texts to Marcella, "to speak frankly to a friend, I have found several variations which confirm our faith."
One final question to our friends who can read Hebrew here: is it the case, linguistically speaking, that the word for seed, transliterated Zera by Blue Letter Bible, in Gen 3:15 (not considering the parallel passage in Rev 12:17 for now) is in the plural?
According to Blue Letter Bible, the same word is used in Gen 17:10 "This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed ????? (zera`) after thee" where it seems to be plural, referring to all of Abraham's children in subsequent generations. Therefore, does UP's argument stand?
It goes like this (1) The Pronoun used is a singular Pronoun - it is either He or She, but not They. (2) However, the seed is in the plural, not the singular. (3) Therefore, the Pronoun is not referring to the seed (else it would be the plural they) but linguistically refers to the Woman, and is She. Thoughts?
I've asked Jayne to comment.
Quote from: Xavier on August 06, 2018, 12:22:34 PMHmm. What is your opinion, Aquinas, on the other areas where the Masoretic text appears plainly wrong? Certainly, St. Matthew does not cite the Masoretic in Isaiah 7:14. The Septuagint had been translated centuries before Christ and it correctly renders it parthenos or virgin. The Aramaic versions are also better than the Hebrew. Do you think the Hebrew here is correct? If not, does that not make the Masoretic itself doubtful? My opinion is the Septuagint is better, and the Septuagint originally had she in the times of Philo and Josephus. Philo very likely preserves for us the Apostolic interpretation and understanding of the passage, because he spoke to St. Peter and knew St. Mark. The Vetus Latina picked this up, and St. Jerome after comparing with Hebrew texts older than the Masoretic, retained it. St. Jerome wrote after studying some of the old texts to Marcella, "to speak frankly to a friend, I have found several variations which confirm our faith."
I guess it depends on what we're asking, exactly. From a text-critical standpoint, establishing the original reading kind of approach, the MT is critically important but not infallible. The Hebrew manuscript tradition, even with the variants found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, is much more uniform than either the Septuagint or the Vulgate. That is something that gets lost a lot – there is not really ONE Septuagint or ONE Vulgate, speaking in terms of transmission. The text of the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate was established on doctrinal lines, not text-critical lines. That's not a fault, necessarily, but it just needs to be kept in mind that it's a different kind of project than modern editions.
I, personally, take the Septuagint as the starting point for OT readings. It is the Bible of the ancient Church, even if virtually all modern Western Christians reach for Bible translations based on the MT. I have some perhaps idiosyncratic views on the biblical text and revelation, which I'll leave aside here, but I think it best if each tradition kept its traditional Bible – the Latin Church the Vulgate, the Greeks the LXX, the Syriac Churches the Peshitta, etc. Their respective liturgies and theologies are based on those versions – it does a certain amount of violence to use another version.
In the case of the Isaiah prophecy, from a Christian standpoint, the LXX reading is to be preferred as it is the version quoted in the Holy Gospels.
As for Philo and Josephus, I have yet to see an example in their writings that says "she." I have read Taylor Marshall assert such exists, but I have not actually seen it. As for Josephus, the Greek editions I've looked at in fact do not say "she." I also do not like appealing to imagined versions of a text to support a reading we like. No surviving edition of the LXX in any Christian Church says "she"; I think it is a mistake to argue for or from versions that have not been demonstrated to exist. "She" seems to be largely peculiar to the Old Latin and the Vulgate. I believe it is erroneous from a textual standpoint, but can certainly be read in an orthodox manner. In any event, I do not think "the textual standpoint" is the most important.
QuoteOne final question to our friends who can read Hebrew here: is it the case, linguistically speaking, that the word for seed, transliterated Zera by Blue Letter Bible, in Gen 3:15 (not considering the parallel passage in Rev 12:17 for now) is in the plural?
According to Blue Letter Bible, the same word is used in Gen 17:10 "This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed ????? (zera`) after thee" where it seems to be plural, referring to all of Abraham's children in subsequent generations. Therefore, does UP's argument stand?
It goes like this (1) The Pronoun used is a singular Pronoun - it is either He or She, but not They. (2) However, the seed is in the plural, not the singular. (3) Therefore, the Pronoun is not referring to the seed (else it would be the plural they) but linguistically refers to the Woman, and is She. Thoughts?
The pronoun is definitely grammatically masculine singular, so "he" is appropriate. Also, however, Hebrew and Aramaic/Syriac make many plays on the ambivalence of collective nouns. You see this a lot with "Adam"; both in the Hebrew OT and in Syriac hymnography, references to Adam are frequently to be understood in multiple senses. In Syriac, "Adam" often simultaneously refers to (1) the first father himself, (2) all human beings as descendants of Adam, and (3) Christ the Second Adam. I think "seed" in this context clearly has multiple meanings, especially in a prayerful Christian reading. For that matter, whether we think the Woman or the Seed is crushing the serpent's head, we all agree that "the woman" simultaneously refers to two people, Eve and the Second Eve, Mary.
If we read "seed" as a collective noun then wouldn't we expect it to be singular, grammatically-speaking? That's how it is in English anyway. We say "look at all those people"... the word "people" is singular, even though the people are many. (To say "look at all those peoples" is to change the entire meaning of the sentence.) And we say "I'm going to drink some water"... the word "water" is singular, but what we are drinking is many. (Many water molecules. But to say, "I'm going to drink some waters" doesn't make a whole lot of sense.)
I assume that it's the same in Hebrew, at least when it comes to the word "seed". St. Paul (in Galations 3:16) says, "To Abraham were the promises made and to his seed. He saith not, And to his seeds, as of many: but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." St. Paul is here talking about the seed of Abraham (not the seed of the woman), but both signify the same "seed". So Christ is that seed.
But I believe that the word "seed" is otherwise collective. Christ is the seed, but all Christians "participate" in Christ. And so all Christians, insofar as they participate in Christ, are also the "seed". I believe that that is why St. John (in the Apocalypse 12:17) says, "And the dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." The word "seed" is still singular here, (he does not say, "with the rest of her seeds",) but it's a collective singular, referring to many individuals, (though those many be one in Christ).
I've located an English translation of the Philo quote, though Philo quotes the scriptural verse as saying "he". Here's what he says:
Quote from: Philo of Alexandria, Treatise on The Allegories of the Sacred Laws (????? ????? ?????????? / Legum Allegoriæ), book III -- translated by Yonge 1854/55LXVII. (188) And the expression, "He shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his Heel,"{93}{#ge 3:15.} is, as to its language, a barbarism, but, as to the meaning which is conveyed by it, a correct expression. Why so? It ought to be expressed with respect to the woman: but the woman is not he, but she. What, then, are we to say? From his discourse about the woman he has digressed to her seed and her beginning. Now the beginning of the outward sense is the mind. But the mind is masculine, in respect of which one may say, he, his, and so on. Very correctly, therefore, does God here say to pleasure, that the mind shall watch your principal and predominant doctrine, and you shall watch the traces of the mind itself, and the foundations of the things which are pleasing to it, to which the heel has very naturally been likened.
( http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book4.html )
I really can't make much sense of what Philo is saying exactly. Something about the "he" referring to the woman, and something about the "he" referring to the mind which is grammatically masculine...
As for the Maimonides quote, Dr. Taylor Marshall (in a footnote in his book
The Crucified Rabbi) translates it as,
Quote from: Moses MaimonidesBut what must be admired most of all, is that the serpent is joined with Eve, that is, its seed with her seed, its head with her heel; that she (Eve) should conquer it (the serpent) in the head, and that it should conquer her in the heel.
(Dr. Marshall provides the citation of
More Nebochim, Part II, chap. 30.)
edit - It appears that Taylor Marshall did not translate Maimonides directly but only translated that one sentence from the Latin as it is quoted in Cornelius a Lapide...
But Taylor Marshall does point out that Cornelius a Lapide reported that in his day there were some extant Hebrew manuscripts (and one Aramaic translation from the Hebrew) which had "she".
There's also mention in the Haydock commentary that the Hebrew text in some copies reads "she", and the Haydock commentary cites an interlinear Hebrew-Latin translation from 1572... but I have located the aforementioned translation, and am not seeing the textual variant. Should be on this page: https://books.google.com/books?id=Vt9TAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP976 (unless it's hidden in a footnote somewhere).
So I don't know. Maybe "she" was in some copies of the Hebrew at some point, but maybe not.
(On a side note, does anyone know why Hebrew text in Renaissance typesetting often has some of its letters stretched horizontally like that? Is that just for looks? I notice the stretched letters always seem to come at the end of words...)
I looked up ????? in the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon. It had one entry for the words for he, she, it, them (m) and them(f), treating all of these as variations on the same root. It says:
QuoteIn the Pent. ??? is of the common gender, the fem. form ??? occuring only 11 times, viz. Gn14:2, 20:5 .... The punctuators, however, sought to assimilate the usage of the Pent to that of the rest of the OT, and accordingly wherever ??? was construed as fem. pointed it ???. ... The origin of the peculiarity in the Pent. is uncertain.
As I understand this, the Hebrew does not prove anything either way. It could have used ??? even if it meant "she". The punctuators apparently thought it meant "he" but this is not authoritative.
Personally, I would just go with the Vulgate on this. (The verb is a masculine form, but I would still go with the Vulgate for theological rather than linguistic reasons.)
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 02, 2018, 04:53:58 PM
"He", "she" and "it" aren't articles. They are pronouns which Semitic languages, including Hebrew, share with our own.
Hebrew is a gendered language in which all nouns are either masculine or feminine. There is no neuter like there is in Latin. So the pronouns are words for "he" and "she". There isn't a separate pronoun for "it".
Quote from: Daniel on August 07, 2018, 05:19:09 AM
If we read "seed" as a collective noun then wouldn't we expect it to be singular, grammatically-speaking? That's how it is in English anyway.
The word ????????? "seed" may be a collective noun referring to many offspring. It may also refer to a single offspring.
Quote from: Jayne on August 07, 2018, 05:51:08 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on August 02, 2018, 04:53:58 PM
"He", "she" and "it" aren't articles. They are pronouns which Semitic languages, including Hebrew, share with our own.
Hebrew is a gendered language in which all nouns are either masculine or feminine. There is no neuter like there is in Latin. So the pronouns are words for "he" and "she". There isn't a separate pronoun for "it".
I know.
In context, I was pointing out to Michael Wilson what are pronouns
vis-à-vis articles.
Hi,
I am new to the forum. Thanks for having me. I want to contribute to this topic by posting a reference to Eve being the serpent crusher in a translation of Flavius Josephus I own. It is the Ebenezar Thompson translation and according to the title page was translated from the original Greek in 1777. I have attached images.
Thanks,
Patron
Made this post in response to aquinas138 :
Quote from: aquinas138 on August 01, 2018, 10:07:01 PM
The English is a translation of the Greek, so the Greek and English basically agree; this is the classic and well-regarded Whiston translation. Thackeray's translation in the Loeb Library can be found on Archive.org. He translates it basically the same way; the Greek is on the facing page.
Honestly, the Latin looks like an interpolation. That manuscript is a ninth-century manuscript from northern Italy; it may have been harmonized with the Vulgate reading of Gen. 3:15. Whether that was intentionally done or subconsciously done because of familiarity with the biblical text, I don't know.
Quote from: PatronOfHeaven on January 24, 2019, 06:28:22 PM
Hi,
I am new to the forum. Thanks for having me. I want to contribute to this topic by posting a reference to Eve being the serpent crusher in a translation of Flavius Josephus I own. It is the Ebenezar Thompson translation and according to the title page was translated from the original Greek. I have attached images.
Thanks,
Patron
Great start for a first post.
Thanks, PatronofHeaven. Good post.
Yes, Josephus, Maimonides and others, interpret she will crush as referring to Eve. Catholic Faith, of course, assures us it refers to the New Eve, namely our Blessed Mother Mary. The text cannot refer to old Eve because she was not the One Who crushed the enemy but was deceived by him. The Protestant KJV translated as "it" because they were uncertain.
Just imagine if Protestants had the translation right, "She will crush your head ...". That may just help crush their Protestantism! And bring them back to the Church. Anyway, one reason God willed to crush the Serpent by His Mother's Heel is to humble his pride to the utmost.
"As St. Louis de Montfort9 wrote: "Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the divine power." https://missiomagazine.com/shall-crush-head-genesis-315/
Satan and his devils cause and exacerbate all the sins and evils in the world. God's promise is an assurance Our Lady will defeat them.
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aoxvhOU2Auk/TP71iEi5CZI/AAAAAAAAAos/ar_FliYHJuY/s320/MaryonSerpent3.JPG)
I find it interesting though that
even in Josephus' works there is a war over the interpretation of Genesis 3:15.
Thomas Lodge translated the first english version from the Latin and French in London in 1602 and wrote.
Quote"... declaring him an enemy both to man and woman; whom he commanded to bruise the head of the serpent,..."
Ebenezar Thompson, from the "Original Greek" in 1777
Quote"...branded him as the avowed enemy of mankind; further predicting, that Eve should tread upon his head,..."
What if Thomas Lodge mis-punctuated his translation and the right rendering is
Quote"... declaring him an enemy both to man(kind); and THE woman whom he commanded to bruise the head of the serpent,..."
Either way, both of these translations make reference to a feminine subject (woman/Eve), which the Whiston translation, the Thackeray translation and the Feldman translation all omit.
Quote from: PatronOfHeaven on January 24, 2019, 11:41:29 PM
I find it interesting though that even in Josephus' works there is a war over the interpretation of Genesis 3:15.
Thomas Lodge translated the first english version from the Latin and French in London in 1602 and wrote. Quote"... declaring him an enemy both to man and woman; whom he commanded to bruise the head of the serpent,..."
Ebenezar Thompson, from the "Original Greek" in 1777 Quote"...branded him as the avowed enemy of mankind; further predicting, that Eve should tread upon his head,..."
What if Thomas Lodge mis-punctuated his translation and the right rendering is Quote"... declaring him an enemy both to man(kind); and THE woman whom he commanded to bruise the head of the serpent,..."
Either way, both of these translations make reference to a feminine subject (woman/Eve), which the Whiston translation, the Thackeray translation and the Feldman translation all omit.
The Thompson is more interesting, but I'm still at a loss as to where he gets it. I already mentioned that the Latin editions of Josephus support the Vulgate reading (I am inclined to think this is due to a harmonization with the Western scriptures), so Lodge's reading is unsurprising. If Thompson is actually from the original Greek, that is interesting, but Whiston and Thackeray aren't omitting this — their Greek text does not say it, and so their translation is accurate.
As to your speculation about punctuation in Lodge, it's not just a matter of fiddling with punctuation (which Josephus and ancient translations would not have used anyway); the endings of the words would have to be completely different to support your speculation. I don't have the Latin edition handy, so I can't make a comment about how much would have to be changed.
Here is a fascinating video:
https://youtu.be/VI1yRTC6kGE
It has lots of interesting information on a range of Biblical subjects. I learned a lot.
But most of all it points out that there were good motives for the Jews to corrupt the Masoretic text. St. Paul refers to Jews in his own day who were falsifying genealogies in order to discredit Jesus as the new High Priest.
Do we know that the Jews were falsifying genealogies for that particular reason (Jesus as new High Priest), or if they were referencing the given genealogies in regards to Joseph or Mary and contending with them as such? When did maternal lineage become a determination for Jewish identity, and what, if any, effect would that have on Levitical/Melchizedech claims?
The argument in the video stems from a theory it seems, and he is using Paul to justify the theory. But what proof is there that such a theory was what Paul was referencing?
There are all sorts of shenanigans in the Old Testament, and not just in the Masoretic like with Psalm 110 (109) verse 3.
Take this one from Isaiah 6:13
"Yet ???????
(ve·'o·vd)
there will be a tenth portion ?????????????
(a·si·ri·yah,)
in it, And it will again ?????????
(ve·sha·vah)
be [subject] to burning, ????????
(le·va·'er;)
Like a terebinth ?????????
(ka·'e·lah)
or an oak ????????????
(ve·cha·'al·lo·vn)
Whose ???????
(a·sher)
stump
remains when
it is felled. ??????????????
(be·shal·le·chet)
The holy ???????
(ko·desh)
seed ??????
(ze·ra)
is its stump.
Yup. That tenth portion remaining bit and it being burned again doesn't make sense. But when you compare Asherah ????????? which would more likely have been Ashratah with "a·si·ri·yah" and "a·sher", and consider the "Asherah" in the temple was the image of a tree which was indeed burned, you're presented with a text that begins to make perfect sense, and when you start thinking about the Tree of Life imagery surrounding Mary and Jesus as the holy seed and fruit of her womb, and that le·va·'er can also refer to consuming by eating, you'd better get ready to take a trip down the rabbit hole. But I don't want to speculate, and thanks to the New Testament of the body and blood of Jesus Christ resotred ot the temple, I don't need to.
If they falsified things AFTER Jesus, and before him they "corrected" things like Genesis 18:22 on record, what else did they do to the texts? A jot here. A little there. Vowels and single letters were absolutely fair game as per the Temple Scribes' own rules. But who even knows, and who knows the full story of what went on with Hezekiah, the reforms of Josiah, and the disappearance of the kings and political ascendancy of the Levitical priest caste.
Quote from: Maximilian on January 26, 2019, 09:40:43 PM
Here is a fascinating video:
https://youtu.be/VI1yRTC6kGE
It has lots of interesting information on a range of Biblical subjects. I learned a lot.
But most of all it points out that there were good motives for the Jews to corrupt the Masoretic text. St. Paul refers to Jews in his own day who were falsifying genealogies in order to discredit Jesus as the new High Priest.
That was one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. It's always incredible when something that never would have crossed your radar completely changes your view on a subject.
Beautiful Video from Sensus Fidelium: "She shall Crush your Head"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDKOVCo1cZo
Well, if this adds to the discussion:
Und Feindschaft setze ich zwischen dir und der Frau, / zwischen deinem Nachkommen und ihrem Nachkommen. / Er trifft dich am Kopf / und du triffst ihn an der Ferse.
I don't know if this is a modern German translation or a safe, i.e. Traditional (online) Bible. But the pronoun article in bold is masculine.
Quote from: Heinrich on December 01, 2019, 01:47:44 PM
Well, if this adds to the discussion:
Und Feindschaft setze ich zwischen dir und der Frau, / zwischen deinem Nachkommen und ihrem Nachkommen. / Er trifft dich am Kopf / und du triffst ihn an der Ferse.
I don't know if this is a modern German translation or a safe, i.e. Traditional (online) Bible. But the pronoun article in bold is masculine.
This appears to be from the modern Einheitsübersetzung, which is authorized for liturgical usage in the German-speaking Church; I assume it must be translating from Hebrew. If you're interested, it's interesting to see an older German version; Martin Luther translated this way:
Und ich will Feindschaft setzen zwischen dir und dem Weibe und zwischen deinem Samen und ihrem Samen. Derselbe soll dir den Kopf zertreten, und du wirst ihn in die Ferse stechen.Still masculine, which is not surprising, given that he consulted Hebrew and would have been inclined to distrust a peculiarity of the Vulgate, though he was not entirely hostile to Marian devotion.
Aquinas138, is there a Vulgate to German Bible(traditionally used by German speaking Catholics)?
Quote from: Heinrich on December 02, 2019, 02:45:05 PM
Aquinas138, is there a Vulgate to German Bible(traditionally used by German speaking Catholics)?
I am not really sure; I mean, surely there must be such a thing, I just don't know what it's called! The famous 14th-century Wenzelsbibel was translated from the Vulgate. This Wikipedia page has a bit of interesting info. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_into_German)
Biblical Hebrew is polysemic. People on both sides need to get over it. But these texts not only have "multiple meanings" in the normal sense of polysemy, but here those "multiple meanings" are only projections of the full meaning. Translating this sublime language into our inferior Greek, Latin, English or whatever is like projecting a 3-dimensional object onto a 2-dimensional surface. No translation which forces it into "she" or "he" or "it" will ever suffice.
Happy impending feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe to all Catholic Christians. Guadalupe literally means, She (feminine!) Who Crushes the Serpent! How marvelous is the wonderful Providence of Almighty God, in thus explicitly and visibly fulfilling a prophesy made some 6700 years before it!
"Pope Pius XII gave Our Lady of Guadalupe the title of "Empress of the Americas" in 1945. Since December 12 is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, it seems like a propitious moment to recall how she reigns over our nation from Heaven, protecting and guiding us with motherly solicitude and tenderness. The constant miracle memorialized on Saint Juan Diego's tilma and the context of the apparitions remind us that Our Lady is victorious over the serpent, she intervenes in history and is eager to intercede for those who seek her intersession in this vale of tears." https://americaneedsfatima.org/Our-Blessed-Mother/our-lady-of-guadalupe-she-who-smashes-the-serpent.html
"The ancient temples of the Aztecs, interesting archeological sites of the past, have been replaced by the new temples of materialism, secularism and consumerism. On their altars the poor, the unborn and the elderly are forgotten, neglected and sacrificed by knives driven by greed, power and narcissism. Mary will lead humanity back to her Son. Mary will free us from the sins of our modern times. Mary, Our Lady of Quatlasupe - She who crushes the head of the serpent, is leading the new evangelization." https://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=44004
"In this little paper I would like to deal primarily with Holy Scripture. The theological arguments for Our Lady Co-Redemptrix from Tradition and the Magisterium have been more than adequately handled by Dr. Mark Miravalle in his excellent Mary Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocate, 1 and the marvelous The Mother of Our Saviour and Our Interior Life by Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. 2 The reason that liberals such as René Laurentin, et alia have been so successful in blocking attempts to define the doctrine of Mary Co-Redemptrix is that they have first suppressed the correct reading of Genesis 3:15. Here is the correct reading from the Douay-Rheims, which is a faithful translation of St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate:
I will put enmities 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 [3:15].
...
First Things First
So a first step, I think, in promoting the doctrine of Mary Co-Redemptrix is to show that the Douay-Rheims is the correct reading. I have done two studies of this text, one which I called The Woman of Genesis, in which I used the Hebrew and Greek script, and another in an unpublished book entitled Adam and Eve (a sequel to my The Six Days of Creation ), in which I give the Hebrew and Greek in italicized Roman script ...
In this chapter I would just like to concentrate on the pronoun of our passage: "...shall crush."
In Hebrew HU is "he," and HE "she," which is a little confusing to say the least. There is no "it" in Hebrew, both HU and HE can be translated "it" depending on the context.
In Greek "he" is autos , "she" aute , and "it" auto .
In Latin "he" is ipse , "she" ipsa, and "it" ipsum ...Cornelius C0 Lapide in his great Commentaria in Scripturam Sacrum says that the underlying mystery is even reflected in the Hebrew grammar.
Also HU is often used instead of HE especially when there is some emphasis on action and something manly is predicated of the woman, as is the case here with the crushing of the serpent's head.... It makes no difference that the verb is masculine yasuph , that is "(he) shall crush," for it often happens in Hebrew that the masculine is used instead of the feminine and vice versa, especially when there is an underlying reason or mystery, as I have just said. 3
The "underlying mystery" is, of course, that Our Lady crushes the head of the serpent by the power of Our Lord.
... The Council of Trent, therefore, did not wish to do for the Hebrew text what it did for the Latin text of the Vulgate: for the latter it declared authentic by presenting it as exempt from all error, at least in what concerns the faith and moral precepts. Hence, in his dissertation on the transmission of the Holy Scriptures, Xavier Matthei concludes that, there being given no-matter-what Hebrew passage or text, and the Vulgate not agreeing with it, one should keep the Vulgate. 'Not,' he adds, 'that this version is more authentic than the Hebrew text, but because it may be believed, on the one hand, that the passage in question is no longer to be found in the Hebrew as it was there primitively; on the other hand, that this primitive text is found exactly reproduced in the Vulgate — the only version that has merited to be approved by the Church. 5" From St. Benedict's Centre: https://catholicism.org/mary-co-redemptrix.html
Quote from: Xavier on December 10, 2019, 12:40:31 PMGuadalupe literally means, She (feminine!) Who Crushes the Serpent!
Guadalupe is the name of a river in Spain, a tributary of the Guadiana. Its name comes from the Arabic ???? ???????,
Wâdî al-Lubb, meaning either "hidden river" or "river of the wolf" in the local Andalusian Arabic dialect.
This river lent its name to the nearby town and to the renowned Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the second most important pilgrimage site in Spain after Santiago. It was in this river that a statue of the Blessed Virgin was found by a shepherd in the late 13th century, giving rise to the devotion of Our Lady of Guadalupe that would soon become the patroness of Spain and Queen of all Spanish-speaking peoples. As the crown of Castile pressed forward into the Americas, Guadalupe also lent its name to the Guadeloupe island in the Caribbean, as well as to many other places in Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Costa Rica,
etc.The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Spain is a medieval black Madonna, unlike that of Mexico which is
mestiza. This devotion was surely imported to the New World by the colonizers.
Quote from: Francisco Montes González (2015). Sevilla Guadalupana. Arte, historia y devociónLa llegada a América de los primeros soldados y habitantes españoles produjo que se consagraran al cristianismo lugares que antes habían sido paganos como la región del Tepeyac donde antes se veneraba a la diosa madre Tonantzin. Este territorio fue entregado al conquistador Gonzalo de Sandoval, que provenía de Medellín, cerca de la comarca de las Villuercas, donde se encuentra Guadalupe. Las primeras noticias del culto a la Virgen de Guadalupe en esta región, situada a las afueras de Ciudad de México, provienen de Bernal Díaz del Castillo en su obra Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España.
The arrival in America of the first Spanish soldiers and inhabitants led to the consecration to Christianity of places that had previously been pagan such as the Tepeyac region where the mother goddess Tonantzin was once venerated. This territory was assigned to the Conquistador Gonzalo de Sandoval, who came from Medellín, near the region of Las Villuercas where Guadalupe is located. The first news of the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe in this region, located on the outskirts of Mexico City, comes from Bernal Díaz del Castillo in his work 'True History of the Conquest of New Spain'.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on December 10, 2019, 04:36:52 PM
Quote from: Xavier on December 10, 2019, 12:40:31 PMGuadalupe literally means, She (feminine!) Who Crushes the Serpent!
Guadalupe is the name of a river in Spain, a tributary of the Guadiana. Its name comes from the Arabic ???? ???????, Wâdî al-Lubb, meaning either "hidden river" or "river of the wolf" in the local Andalusian Arabic dialect.
This river lent its name to the nearby town and to the renowned Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the second most important pilgrimage site in Spain after Santiago. It was in this river that a statue of the Blessed Virgin was found by a shepherd in the late 13th century, giving rise to the devotion of Our Lady of Guadalupe that would soon become the patroness of Spain and Queen of all Spanish-speaking peoples. As the crown of Castile pressed forward into the Americas, Guadalupe also lent its name to the Guadeloupe island in the Caribbean, as well as to many other places in Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Costa Rica, etc.
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Spain is a medieval black Madonna, unlike that of Mexico which is mestiza. This devotion was surely imported to the New World by the colonizers.
This is all correct, but it might be only half the story. Nobody's denying the Arabic/Spanish etymology for the name of the original apparition in Spain, but the Arabic/Spanish etymology doesn't necessarily exclude the Nahuatl etymology/pseudoetymology for the name of the other apparition in Mexico. Many believe there's a dual or convergent etymology going on here. In Arabic/Spanish it means 'wolf river' or 'hidden river', but there are various hypothetical homophonous names in Nahuatl which each mean something else (perhaps the name given by the apparition was
Coatlaxopeuh 'one who crushes the serpent', from
coatla 'the serpent' +
xopeuh 'to crush'; though there are other hypotheses as well).
I'll point out that this sort of etymological convergence isn't unheard of. Some other examples which come to mind are:
- 'Zaphnath-Paaneah' was originally from ancient Egyptian (it might mean 'God speaks and he lives' though there's some debate)... but in Hebrew it means something else ('revealer of secrets')... and in Coptic means something else ('the saviour of the world'... the Vulgate uses this Coptic derivation)
- 'Moses' was (probably) originally from ancient Egyptian (related to the word 'water' and/or 'born'), but in Hebrew means something else (related to the word 'to draw'; the Bible itself endorses this Hebrew derivation)... and, apparently, in Greek means something else ('to hide')
- 'Mary' might have originally been from ancient Egyptian (there's a somewhat similar Egyptian given name,
Meret, which means 'beloved')... yet in Hebrew means something else ('bitter')... and in Aramaic supposedly means something else ('lady')... and in Latin means something else ('seas')