Newton's Cat

I will put enmity between you and the woman
Between her seed and your seed
It shall bruise your head
And you shall bruise his heel

This is the King James Version, all later variant translations lose the sense.

The question is:

Who is "his" referring to?

The way to get through to the sense is to realise that this verse is not actually part of the Adam and Eve story - it is an interpolation.

So:

I will put enmity between you and your wife
Between your son and your daughter
It shall bruise your head (give you a "headache")
And you shall bruise his heel.

"His" is now clearly seen as referring to the son. "Bruise his heel" is a metaphor for "driving away".

Muddy Puddle

See? That is what is so frustrating about the new testament/koran/torah.
You say it means one thing, one will say it means another and someone else will say the only way to achieve full understanding of the "holy text" in question is to study them under a blue moon in the August of a leap year with your underpants pulled over your head and looking through the left leg hole.
The point of the matter is, it will say whatever the person reading it wants it to say! We try and ascribe high motives to the Bronze/Iron or Medieval control freaks whose only desire was to keep the drones under control and couldn`t give a st.ff about the trouble they spawned.
I mean Matthew 5:29 is pretty straight forward, however, I do not doubt that someone would say what he ACTUALLY meant was that if one feels sin coming on you should run out into the field and play with lambs, kittens and puppies until the feeling passes. No, the bronze age savage meant exactly what he wrote I reckon!

Gavriel

Nice ignorant pointless rant.

No one is claiming to read under the conditions you prescribe, perhaps if you want to not get reinterpretations of mistranslations you start learning biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. Then you read the original text in it's original tongue, and not just the written Torah but the oral too.

Toto

I have not studied Biblical Hebrew (yet). Could someone who has comment on whether the translation by Newton's Cat is correct - and more importantly, is that any indication that the passage is interpolated?

Spaz

God damn Gavriel, lighten up a little.

I have no idea what Newton's Cat is talking about. But anyway, I always thought the passage was just that people don't like snakes, step on their heads, and snakes bite people (on the heel, since they're fucking snakes) blahdy blah.

I don't see the need to reinterpret nor do I see what your interpretation means if it's any different from the above.

It seems to make sense in context to me.

Muddy Puddle

Goodo, being ignorant, I should be able to fit right in with a lot of the religious believers around the world. Please tell me Oh enlightened one, what it means in Aramaic or Hebrew? I guarantee clever one, that there will be another Fairy Tale scholar somewhere, who would place a different interpretatation on it. Not very far thinking of the inspired genii who wrote these things to leave the sacred texts in such a way that only the "educated" could interpret them? I mean, look at what people like sprenger and kramer have done in the name of their religion? They didn`t ascribe to the kind, loving god scenario. They thought he was the other kind.
Or the way that osama bin liner interprets his holy book of hooey.
Anyway, you have bounced me and put me in my place and I`m sure that with you and the chosen enlightened ones to give your schorlarly imprimatur to "sacred text(s)" interpretations, no one will will get it wrong in the future,eh?
It`s just a crying shame that most of the people who read these things don`t know Arabic, Aramaic or Hebrew. Still, with you and genii like you to interpret, I`m sure all will well and no one will use them as an excuse to commit mindless atrocities or oppress millions of people.

Amaleq13

Please avoid comments about members and, instead, stick to arguments about the texts or other evidence.


Thanks in advance,

Amaleq13, BC&H moderator

MiddleMan

I dont get this sense at all. The verse reads:

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.

From the NRSV:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

I get the same sense as another poster here. In common parlance: "I will put bad blood between you, Mr. Snake, and the woman, and that bad blood will extend to your children and all of humankind. Humans will try to step on snake's heads and snakes will try to bite humans on the heel (because snakes are low to the ground and can't quite go for the neck).

Is there some evidence that this is not what it means?

Muddy Puddle

Sorry, I shouldn`t have reacted. Still learning the ropes.
Anyway, my point about the interpretation of this or any other text, is that it is open to whichever interpretation, the person doing the interpreting, places on it.
"Mary had a little Lamb" by that we mean that she owned or had possession of a little lamb, we don`t mean that she gave birth to that little lamb. How do you know though, that in the dim, distant future, say 2000 years hence, someone may say, "and lo, Mary gave birth to a lamb and it was of a minor size" Everyone will go HOORAY! A miracle.