Gen. 3.15 He shall crush

ואיבה אשית
בינך ובין האישה
ובין זרעך ובין זרעה
הוא ישופך ראש
ואתה תשופנו עקב

God speaking to the serpent:

I will put emnity
between you and the woman
and between your seed and her seed
he shall strike your head
and you shall strike his heal

Gen 3.15. I post this verse because it demonstrates the absolute value of knowing the languages to sort out theology and history.
In the 4th line the pronoun is masculine (he הוא αυτος) not feminine. It is in Hebrew and the Greek translation. Somewhere in the Latin texts of the Vulgate the pronoun was translated as feminine (ipsa) in complete opposition to the Hebrew original pronoun and the verb with it and the ancient Greek translation, thus being translated as ‘she shall strike’. This led to some very seriously bad theology concerning Mary; making her the one who defeats the serpent/satan and not Jesus, raising her to a point of prominence that is not in the original and the first translation at all. This carried over in English in the Douay-Rheims translation. Fortunately, more contemporary Catholic translations have corrected this but the effects remain.

 

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