Why I Am Catholic by G.K. Chesterton

[AMDG]

Wrong:
NEW ADVENT Catholic Encyclopedia:
(2) The second point of difference between the Hebrew text and our version concerns the agent who is to inflict the mortal wound on the serpent: our version agrees with the present Vulgate text in reading "she" (ipsa) which refers to the woman, while the Hebrew text reads hu' (autos, ipse) which refers to the seed (Jesus)....

The Catholic Church acknowledges Gen 3:15b is reference to the seed which is Jesus.

Are you knowingly lying or not reading that text in full?
while the Hebrew text reads hu' (autos, ipse) which refers to the seed (Jesus)
The Catholic Church acknowledges Gen 3:15b is reference to the seed which is Jesus in the modern Hebrew translation, as you can see there is a difference in the Vulgate and the Masorite translations, that doesn't mean that the Masorite translation today uses the correct word. As you can read it is stated that this is a "point of difference", don't jump to conclusions because of reading that the Church acknowedges other translations, this doesn't indicate that the Church is saying that the Vulgate is wrong.

The word should properly read "he". 

Ginger

And once again back to the drawing board....


God bless you,
in Christ,
Daniel

[Ginger]

You are saying that we don't know whether "seed" refers to Mary or to Jesus, correct?

You are assuming the Hebrew used was the same as we use today, but you do not know that.

Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew text to Greek almost 300 years before Jesus' birth - I think they understood the language!

The LXX (Septuagint) reads:
καὶ ἔχθραν θήσω ἀνὰ μέσον σου καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τῆς γυναικὸς καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σπέρματός σου καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σπέρματος αὐτῆς αὐτός σου τηρήσει κεφαλήν καὶ σὺ τηρήσεις αὐτοῦ πτέρναν

And the Vulgate reads:
inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem et semen tuum et semen illius ipsa conteret caput tuum et tu insidiaberis calcaneo eius.

Semitic languages have different verb forms for masculine and feminine subjects. In Hebrew, the one "bruising" the serpent's head is masculine, as זרע ("seed") is masculine and ישוף ("he will bruise") is a masculine in verb form. The part that is obscure is the word זרע which is usually a collective term when referring to humans so, it is not clear whether the "seed" is all of the woman's descendants or one particular man.

Although σπέρμα is neuter in Greek, the LXX uses the pronoun αὐτός which is masculine.  The Jewish scholars intentionally translated the word "he". 

Jerome screwed up. The correct word is "he".

Ginger