Robert Sungenis,
himself a traditional Roman Catholic apologist and the rare Catholic apologist
who will engage in public debates on the Marian Dogmas (e.g., the Bodily Assumption of Mary vs. James White in 2010), wrote the following in favour of “he” instead
of “she” in Gen 3:15:
"He": Controversy concerning this word
is ongoing. Haydock notes: "Ipsa,
the woman, so divers of the fathers read this place, conformably to the Latin;
others read it ipsum, viz., the seed. The sense is the same,
for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent's
head." [NB: the Latin ipse = he;
ipsa = her; and ipsum = it]. Quoting Sigonius: "The Hebrew text, as Bellarmine
observes, is ambiguous. He mentions one copy which had the ipsa instead of ipsum;
and so it is even printed in the Hebrew interlineary edition, 1572 . . . The
fathers who have cited the old Italic version, taken from the Septuagint, agree
with the Vulgate, which is followed by almost all the Latins; and thus we may
argue with the probability with the Septuagint and the Hebrew formerly
acknowledged ipsa, which now moves
the indignation of Protestants . . . H. Kemnitzius certainly advanced a step
too far when he said that all the
ancient fathers read ipsum. Victor,
Avitus, St. Augustine, St. Gregory, etc., mentioned in the Douay Bible, will
convict him of falsehood" (op. cit.,
p. 17). The problem centers on the Hebrew words for “he” (הוּא, pronounced “hu” or “hua”) and “she” (הִיא, pronounced “hiy” or “hia”). Although these
words are distinguished by the middle letter (וּ as opposed to י), the problem is that the
feminine הִיא is written as הִוא, which is very similar to the masculine
form, throughout the Pentateuch in all but eight cases (Gn 14:2; 26:7; Ex 1:16;
Lv 5:11; 11:39; 13:6; 16:31; 21:9), and the reason is uncertain.
Even in Gn 3:12: “The woman whom you gave to me she (הִוא) has given me . . .” uses the modified form הִוא instead of הִיא. Some verses even use both forms, as noted in Gn 26:7 which
addresses Rebecca as both הִוא and הִיא (BHS, p. 39, although BHS footnotes a variant in the Samarian
Pentateuch that inserts היא for both cases). The problem is
compounded because the ancient Hebrew did not use vowel pointing (the both
beneath the ה in הִוא or dot inside the ו of הוּא), thus making the modified female pronoun הוא identical in consonant form to the male
pronoun הוא. Because of this ambiguity,
neither form can be discounted but preference should go to the masculine
pronoun because the following verb and nouns, “you shall bruise his” (תשׁופנוּ) and “the heel” (עקב) are masculine. The NABC
holds: “since the antecedent for he and his is the collective noun offspring .
. .a more exact rendering . . . would be ‘They will strike . . . at their heels’”
(op cit., p. 10), but the pronoun and
noun are Hebrew singulars, not plurals. The LXX also contains masculine
singular pronouns (σου and αυτου). NABC correctly
concludes, however, “ . . . the passage can be understood as the first promised
of a Redeemer for fallen mankind. The woman’s offspring then is primarily Jesus
Christ” (ibid). (Robert A. Sungenis, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-11
[Catholic Apologetics Study Bible Volume IV; State Line, Pa.: Catholic
Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2009], 34-35 n. 89)
