Seed of the woman

In Genesis 3, Eve is tempted by a serpent to disobey God's orders and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Latin Vulgate, which is generally used as a source text for Catholic bibles, has feminine rather than masculine pronouns in the latter half of the verse.

Authors such as H. C. Leupold have argued that a zeugma is employed to give the word a different meaning when applied to the injury inflicted on the heel.

Old Testament scholar Derek Kidner describes the Protoevangelium as "the first glimmer of the gospel",[9] and Victor P. Hamilton emphasises the importance of the redemptive promise included in the curse.

However, this exception in the case of Hagar is very possibly due to her unique status as the “true” progenitor of her descendants through Ishmael, since Abraham was not her legal husband.

In the case of Genesis 3:15, on the other hand, it is the seed of woman in general, for which virgin birth would apply especially in light of Isaiah’s specific prophecy of Immanuel.

[11] Identification of the "seed of the woman" with Jesus goes back at least as far as Irenaeus (180 AD),[12][13] who (along with several other Church Fathers) regarded this verse as "the first messianic prophecy in the Old Testament".

Louis Berkhof, for example, wrote: "The death of Christ, who is in a preeminent sense the seed of the woman, will mean the defeat of Satan.

"[16] A tradition found in some old eastern Christian sources (including the Kitab al-Magall and the Cave of Treasures) holds that the serpent's head was crushed at Golgotha, described as a skull-shaped hill at the centre of the Earth, where Shem and Melchizedek had placed the body of Adam.

[17][verification needed] In Romans 16:20, there is perhaps the clearest reference to the Protoevangelium in the New Testament, "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.

This reading was supported in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus of December 1854 and is defended by Anthony Maas in the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia.

"[20]The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission explains the controversy: The Hebrew text of Genesis 3:15 speaks about enmity between the serpent and the woman, and between the offspring of both.

Mary was often seen as the "New Eve," who crushed the serpent's head at the Annunciation by obeying the Angel Gabriel when he said she would bear the Messiah (Luke 1:38).