Prooftext 1a – Genesis 3:15 – Who is the “woman”?

[First posted in 2012.  Stands as is, no update; what we concluded before, we still think today.—Admin1]

 

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When we read a narrative with characters interacting with one another, it makes reading sense to keep it simple by working within the confines of the text. This is a good basic rule in reading, if we are to understand the progression of plot and the underlying message of a story.  It is expected that the communicator (author/narrator) expresses his message clearly to the recipient[s]  i.e. the characters being addressed in the narrative, as well as the reader who is following the movement of the plot.  The message must make sense first to the original audience, or else what good is it? 

 

If the writer/author/storyteller does not adhere to basic rules in communication, he cannot expect the recipient/reader to get his point.

 

A good example is a typical story told to Filipino children with illustrations: “This is Pepe.  This is Pilar.  This is Bantay [the watchdog].”  When we read the pronoun “he” we know it refers to Pepe; “she” to Pilar; “it” to Bantay.  Are there any invisible characters in this simple story? Perhaps, there is the narrator telling the story, we often forget the narrator’s  “point of view.”  If the narrator is the author himself, he really is an invisible presence unless it is his intention to be constantly noticed.  But if the narrator is a character in the story, let’s say — the friend of Pepe and Pilar who played with Bantay, who is now reminiscing his childhood days with them, then he figures in the plot. How does this example apply in the biblical text we’re dealing with surrounding Genesis 3:15?

 

Looking at the verses before and after, so far there has been introduced only one “woman” and that would be the first woman, mother of all mankind, ‘Eve’. If we will get to the basic message of this story, we cannot and should not fast forward like some time machine to infuse extraneous religious agenda into the text.

 

Who is the woman?  Basic and simple reading rules would identify her as Eve.  Why must it be Eve? Because it is important to connect this “prooftext” to the verses that follow about the seed/offspring of the woman and the serpent.   

But unfortunately, look at what happened to the simple meaning of this text when interpreters wander outside the context in keeping with the belief in “progressive revelation.”  Gen. 3:15 is interpreted in connection with Revelation 12.   These are only a few samples of so many, all taken from websites that pop up when you google the verse:

 

The Catholic Version

• Source:  http://home.earthlink.net/~mysticalrose/virgin.html

 

Mother Church identifies Mary with the Woman of Genesis 3:15 whom God said would be the perpetual enemy of the Devil: “I will put emnity between you (the serpent) and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall crush your head and you shall crush his heel”.

 

The Latin Vulgate translation used a feminine pronoun to refer to the Seed, thus the Douay Bible (the English translation of the Vulgate) renders the third line as “she shall crush your head” (“she” referring to the seed). Some Catholics interpreted that feminine pronoun as referring to the Woman, and thus perceived Mary as the one who would crush Satan, the ancient Serpent. This is why we often see artistic portrayals of Mary trampling on a serpent.

Although that interpretation of Genesis 3:15 was not entirely accurate, the passage itself still portrays Mary as the bitter enemy of the devil (“I will put emnity [sic] between you and the woman”). Nor is it entirely wrong to depict her in art crushing the ancient Serpent, for Saint Paul writes that the entire Church will one day crush Satan underfoot with God’s help (Romans 16:30). Mary, the Image and Model of the Church, already enjoys that victory by virtue of her Immaculate Conception. By the power of Jesus Christ her Son she is the triumphant foe of Satan, never his defeated slave.

 

Commentators who adhere to Reform Theology and are Amillennial in their eschatology identify the woman as the Church, and the man-child she gives birth to are the saints.^[11] According to this interpretation, Revelation 12:17 describes the remnant of the seed of the woman as those who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. The offspring of the Woman, the Woman’s seed, then refers to the saints. The man child “who shall rule the nations with a rod of iron” is a symbol of the faithful members of the Church. In Revelation 2:18-29, the Church in Thyatira is promised that the faithful shall rule the nations with a rod of iron. In Revelation 19:15 the same thing is stated of Jesus. In Galatians 4:26, Paul the Apostle refers to the “New Jerusalem” as “our mother” and in Revelation 21:2 and Ephesians 5:21-32, the New Jerusalem and the Church is portrayed as the Bride of Christ.

 

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has traditionally identified itself as the end-time “remnant church” described in Revelation 12:17.

 

The Catholic Church recognizes in the ‘woman’ primarily the Church herself. However, given the similarities to Mary‘s life, The Church acknowledges what it considers an invitation in the holy verses for the reader to ponder the mysteries between The Mother of God and the Mother of the Church.^[12]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also interprets the woman to be the Church, and the man-child to be the political kingdom that will grow out of the Church prior to or during the Second Coming of Christ.

Generic Man

 

Christian Scientists understand the woman in the Apocalypse to symbolize “generic man, the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence of God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea…the spiritual idea of God’s motherhood.”^[13] The man child represents “Christ, God’s idea, [which] will eventually rule all nations and peoples – imperatively, absolutely, finally – with divine Science.” ^[14]

 

 

Dispensational Premillennialists, and Amillennialists who believe in multiple valid interpretations will often identify the woman as the nation of Israel. There are several reasons given to support this interpretation. The woman is said to be clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and twelve stars. These symbols are drawn from Genesis 37:9–11, in which Joseph has a dream of the sun and moon symbolizing his father and mother, and stars representing his brothers, which bow down to him. The Old Testament’s prophets referred to Israel as a “woman” (Isaiah 54:5-6; Jeremiah 4:31; Micah 4:9-10). The woman flees into the wilderness where she is nourished for 1260 days, the equivalent of three and a half years or forty-two months (cf. Rev. 11:1-3). According to this interpretation, these terms are used prophetically in Scripture either for the first half or the last half of the “Seventieth Week of Daniel,” in Daniel 9:24-27, a prophecy specifically addressed to Daniel and his people, Israel (Dan. 9:24). In the latter part of the seventieth week, a remnant of Israel will flee into the wilderness to escape the persecution of Antichrist, who is called “the son of destruction,” “the lawless one,” and “whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan” (2 Thess. 2:1-12; cf. Rev. 12:4,9). Jesus, in the Olivet discourse, warned the people of this time which would occur just prior to His return to set up His earthly, Millennial kingdom (Matt. 24:15-22). Further, the archangel Michael is called the guardian over the sons of Israel in Dan. 12:1. And he will arise at that time of national Israel’s tribulation (Dan. 12:1; cf. Rev. 12:7).^[11]

 

Amillennialist belief can also interpret this passage as the nation of Israel, however this belief as expressed by Amillenialists refers, not to the modern Israel, but to the Ancient religious state of Israel(Judea) as it existed in the time of Christ. The Child is Christ, born into the then existing state of Israel, and of Israel’s linage. The Anti-christ is interpreted, often(although not always the case) not as being a specific person, but as being that which is not of Christ, often considered to be the antagonistic Political states of both Rome and Judea due to the Sea political metaphor being employed.^{[citation needed]}

The remnant or sons of Israel is, in this understanding, the followers of Christ, the followers of the true religion of Israel as it exists after the coming of the messiah. The “Seventieth Week of Daniel,” and prophecy of the Olivet discourse, in this belief, are ascribed as concerning the first coming of Christ, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D(During which enforced emperor worship occurred in the temple of Jerusalem, which was later almost totally destroyed, and many Jews were made slaves in distant lands resulting presumably in their remaining families not knowing what happened to them or where they were), and the establishment of Christ’s Church, as it currently exists, both on earth and in heaven. Amilleniaist understanding of this interpretation points to the fact that the plot narrative of the segment containing the Birth of Christ, is a reason it is a description of either past or current religious events as opposed to future events, and point to this fact as making the Dispensational view rather untenable.^{[citation needed]}

 

Lutheran scholar Craig Koester, for example, says, “The woman encompasses the story of Israel, from whom the Messiah was born, as well as the story of the church, which was persecuted after Jesus’ death and resurrection… John’s visionary account of the threat against the woman and the woman’s preservation uses imagery that encompasses many moments in the story of God’s people. This allows the story to apply to people in many times and places.”^[15]

The Woman Eve

 

The Woman is also identified as Eve because she is part of the three-way conflict also involving her Seed and the Dragon, who is identified with the ancient serpent (the one from Eden) in Revelation 12:9 and Revelation 20:2. This mirrors the conflict in Genesis 3:15 between Eve, the serpent, and her unborn seed—which in turn is a symbol of the conflict between Mary, Satan, and Jesus.^[16]

 

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Ach, enough!  Leave it to the “experts” to leave us confused!  To be continued in Prooftext 1b: 

• Prooftext 1b: Genesis 3:15 – Seed of the Woman vs. Seed of the Serpent

 

    NSB@S6K