Examining Taylor Marshall's Claims Concerning Genesis 3:15

Taylor Marshall, in an effort to defend the Marian interpretation of Gen 3:15, wrote:

 

Our three best Jewish witnesses to Gen 3:15 interpret the passage as “she shall crush.” These are Philo Judaeus, Josephus the roman historian, and Moses Maimonides, the great medieval Jewish philosopher. Philo argues that the Hebrew parallel poetry of Gen 3:15 demands the reading of “she shall crush.” Josephus, also writing in Greek, describes the passage for us as reading “she shall crush.” Then last of all, Maimonides also states that Gen 3:15 teaches that the woman shall crush the head of the serpent. (Taylor Marshall, “Who Crushes Satan’s Head in Genesis 3:15? (Mary of Jesus?)”)

 

Marshall provides zero references. And for two of these authors, he is simply wrong. Let us consider the evidence below.

 

Philo of Alexandria

 

In his Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis, III, Philo of Alexandria interprets Gen 3:15 to concern a male figure, not a female:

 

XXI. (65) “And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed above all cattle and every beats of the field; upon thy breast and upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity in the midst between thee and between the woman, and in the midst between thy seed and between her seed, He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” What is the reason why he curses the serpent without allowing him to make any defence, when in another place he commands that “both the parties between whom there is any dispute shall be heard,” and that one shall not be believed till the other has been heard? (66) And indeed in this case you see that he did not give a prejudged belief to Adam’s statement against his wife; but he gave her also an opportunity of defending herself, when he asked her, “Why hast thou done this?” But she confessed that she had erred through the deceitfulness of serpent-like and diversified pleasure. Why, therefore, when the woman had said, “The serpent deceived me,” did he forbid the putting of the question to the serpent whether it was he who had thus deceived her; and why did he thus appoint him to be condemned without trial and without defence? (Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged [trans. Charles Duke Yonge; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995], 57)

 

LXVII. (188) And the expression, “He shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his heel,” is, as to its language, a barbarism, but, as to the meaning which is conveyed by it, a correct expression. Why so? It ought to be expressed with respect to the woman: but the woman is not he, but she. What, then, are we to say? From his discourse about the woman he has digressed to her seed and her beginning. Now the beginning of the outward sense is the mind. But the mind is masculine, in respect of which one may say, he, his, and so on. Very correctly, therefore, does God here say to pleasure, that the mind shall watch your principal and predominant doctrine, and you shall watch the traces of the mind itself, and the foundations of the things which are pleasing to it, to which the heel has very naturally been likened.  (Philo of Alexandria, The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged [trans. Charles Duke Yonge; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995], 71-72)

 

 

Flavius Josephus

 

Again, Marshall is in error. In chapter 1 of The Antiquities of the Jews, we read:

 

(48) However, Adam excused his sin, and entreated God not to be angry at him, and laid the blame of what was done upon his wife; and said that he was deceived by her, and thence became an offender; while she again accused the serpent. (49) But God allotted him punishment, because he weakly submitted to the counsel of his wife; and said, the ground should not henceforth yield its fruits of its own accord, but that when it should be harassed by their labor, it should bring forth some of its fruits, and refuse to bring forth others. He also made Eve liable to the inconveniency of breeding, and the sharp pains of bringing forth children, and this because she persuaded Adam with the same arguments wherewith the serpent had persuaded her, and had thereby brought him into a calamitous condition. (50) He also deprived the serpent of speech, out of indignation at his malicious disposition towards Adam. Besides this, he inserted poison under his tongue, and made him an enemy to man; and suggested to them that they should direct their strokes against his head, that being the place wherein lay his mischievous designs towards men, and it being easiest to take vengeance on him that way: and when he had deprived him of the use of his feet, and made him go rolling all along, and dragging himself upon the ground. (51) And when God had appointed these penalties for them, he removed Adam and Eve out of the garden into another place.  (Flavius Josephus, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged [trans. William Shiston; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1987], 30)

 

Here is the relevant Greek text:

 

48  ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ συνειδότι πονηρῷ Ἄδαμος δὲ παρῃτεῖτο τῆς ἁμαρτίας αὑτὸν καὶ παρεκάλει τὸν θεὸν μὴ χαλεπαίνειν αὐτῷ τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ γεγονότος αἰτιώμενος καὶ λέγων ὑπ᾽ αὐτῆς ἐξαπατηθεὶς ἁμαρτεῖν ἡ δ᾽ αὖ κατηγόρει τοῦ ὄφεως 49  ὁ δὲ θεὸς ἥττονα γυναικείας συμβουλίας αὐτὸν γενόμενον ὑπετίθει τιμωρίᾳ τὴν γῆν οὐκέτι μὲν οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς ἀναδώσειν αὐτομάτως εἰπών πονοῦσι δὲ καὶ τοῖς ἔργοις τριβομένοις τὰ μὲν παρέξειν τῶν δ᾽ οὐκ ἀξιώσειν Εὔαν δὲ τοκετοῖς καὶ ταῖς ἐξ ὠδίνων ἀλγηδόσιν ἐκόλαζεν ὅτι τὸν Ἄδαμον οἷς αὐτὴν ὁ ὄφις ἐξηπάτησε τούτοις παρακρουσαμένη συμφοραῖς περιέβαλεν 50  ἀφείλετο δὲ καὶ τὸν ὄφιν τὴν φωνὴν ὀργισθεὶς ἐπὶ τῇ κακοηθείᾳ τῇ πρὸς τὸν Ἄδαμον καὶ ἰὸν ἐντίθησιν ὑπὸ τὴν γλῶτταν αὐτῷ πολέμιον ἀποδείξας ἀνθρώποις καὶ ὑποθέμενος κατὰ τῆς κεφαλῆς φέρειν τὰς πληγάς ὡς ἐν ἐκείνῃ τοῦ τε κακοῦ τοῦ πρὸς ἀνθρώπους κειμένου καὶ τῆς τελευτῆς ῥᾴστης τοῖς ἀμυνομένοις ἐσομένης ποδῶν τε αὐτὸν ἀποστερήσας σύρεσθαι κατὰ τῆς γῆς ἰλυσπώμενον ἐποίησε

 

Commenting on Josephus’s interpretation of the narrative in Genesis 3, Thomas W. Franxman noted that:

 

Deprivation of speech is a completely new element in this narrative. It replaces the formal curse given in the MT and is of its very nature related directly to the faculty by which the serpent caused his mischief. Jos. again highlights Adam, however, as the victimized party in altering the “this” (i.e., the beguiling of Eve) to a malignant act against the man. The poison beneath the tongue rationalizes the enmity between man and serpent, and the rationalization process is carried into the interpretation of the bruising of head and heel. That the serpent had feet of which to be deprived is, in its turn, the conclusion logically and easily drawn from the nature of the punishment. This third punishment is somewhat emphasized by being put last in the order instead of in the earlier position where the MT has it, and the original’s stress by repetition (“upon your belly you shall go and dust shall you eat”) is well retained in the version of our author. (Thomas W. Franxman, Genesis and the Jewish Antiquities of Flavius Josephus [Biblica et Orientalia 35; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1979], 62)

 

 

Moses Maimonides

 

Proving a broken clock can be right twice a day, Marshall is correct in his claim concerning Maimonides (1138-1204). Maimonides believes that it is Eve who is in view in Gen 3:15:

 

It is especially of importance to notice that the serpent did not approach or address Adam, but all his attempts were directed against Eve, and it was through her that the serpent caused injury and death to Adam. The greatest hatred exists between the serpent and Eve, and between his seed and her seed; her seed being undoubtedly also the seed of man. More remarkable still is the way in which the serpent is joined to Eve, or rather his seed to her seed; the head of the one touches the heel of the other. Eve defeats the serpent by crushing its head, whilst the serpent defeats her by wounding her heel. This is likewise clear. (Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed [2d ed.; trans. M. Friedländer; London: Routledge & Sons Ltd., 1919], 217)

 

However, Maimonides was a minority voice among Jewish Medieval commentators. Rashi (1040-1105) interpreted the Hebrew of Gen 3:15 to read he, not she:

 

הוא ישופך HE WILL BRUISE (or, POUND) THEE— Like (Deuteronomy 9:21), “And I beat in pieces” which Onkelos translates by ושפית “I pounded it.” (source)

 

Moses ben Nachman (Ramban) (1194-1270) offered the following commentary:

 

AND THOU SHALT BRUISE THEIR HEEL. This means man will have an advantage over you [the serpent] in the enmity between him and you for he will bruise your head but you will bruise him only in his heel, with which he will crush your brain. (source)

 

Ibn Ezra (1089-1167) understood Gen 3:15 to be they, not she:

 

AND I WILL PUT ENMITY…THEY SHALL BRUISE THY HEAD. Her children shall smite thee upon thy head. Yeshufeni (bruise) in He that would break me (yeshufeni) with a tempest (Job 9:17) is similar to yeshufekha (shall bruise thee). Look at what follows and you will see that it is so. A bet has been omitted from the word rosh (head) in they shall bruise thy head. We find the same in into the house (bet) of the Lord (II Kings 12:17). (source)

 

When one examines the Targums, we see that there is no hint at this interpretation, too:

  

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan:

 

15. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, between the offspring of your children and the offspring of her children. And when the children of the woman keep the commandments of the Law, they will take aim and strike you on your head. But when they forsake the commandments of the Law you will take aim and wound them on their heels. For them, however, there will be a remedy; but for you there will be no remedy; and they are to make peace in the end, in the days of the King Messiah.”

 

 

Targum Neofiti:

 

15. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your sons and her sons. And it will come about that when her sons observe the Law and do the commandments they will aim at you and smite you on your head and kill you. But when they forsake the commandments of the Law you will aim and bite him on his heel and make him ill. For her sons, however, there will be a remedy, but for you, O serpent, there will not be a remedy, since they are to make appeasement in the end, in the day of King Messiah.”

 

 

Targum Onqelos:

 

15. And I will place enmity between you and (between) the woman, and between your children and (between) her children, it will remember what you did to it in ancient time and you will sustain (your hatred) for it to the end {of time}.”

 

Roman Catholic Apologists and Scholars on Genesis 3:15

 

Many conservative Roman Catholics who are defenders of the Immaculate Conception disagree with Marshall and argue that the evidence favors the reading of “he,” not “she.” Consider the following representative examples:

The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible on Genesis 3:15 and Romans 16:20

Gen 3:15:

 

he shall: The Hebrew would be read individually (“he shall” or collectively (“they shall”). The earliest known Jewish interpretation of this (Gk. autos, “he” in the Greek LXX). (The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, ed. Scott Hahn and Curtis J. Mitch [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2024], 63)

  

Rom 16:20:

 

crush Satan under your feet: Paul desires the Roman Christians to understand the true difference between “good” and “evil” (16:19) and so share in Christ’s victory over the devil (! Jn 1:8). Paul is alluding to the first biblical prophecy, Gen 3:15, which promises that a Redeemer will trample the satanic serpent underfoot. Paul extends the prophecy about the Messiah to the entire messianic people. (The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, ed. Scott Hahn and Curtis J. Mitch [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2024], 2018)

 

Fr. Mitchell Pacwa, S. J. on Gen 3:15:

  

CONFLICTING TRANSLATIONS?

 

Why does the Vulgate say, “She will crush the head” while modern translations say, “He will crush his head”?

 

The Hebrew (hu’) and the Greek Septuagint (autos) clearly read the masculine pronoun here. However, the thirteenth-century Paris manuscript of the Latin Vulgate reads ipsa (she), and that was the manuscript used for the Clementine edition and the Douay-Rheims Catholic English translation of the Bible. However, earlier manuscripts read ipse (he). We will follow the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin manuscripts by reading “he,” which makes this line of Genesis focused on Christ. (Mitch Pacwa, Mary, Margin, Mother, and Queen: A Bible Study for Catholics [Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 2014], 25)

René Laurentin on Genesis 3:15

Genesis 3:15—The Posterity of the Woman, Enemy of the Serpent

 

After the original fall, God cursed the serpent in these terms: “I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will attack your head and you will attack its heel.” This text is full of meaning. It signifies on the whole, without referring to the outcome, the struggle which will go on until the end of time between mankind and the devil. The Vulgate interprets the text in the light of further revelation, and in a twofold way goes beyond the inspired text in translating. “She (the woman) will crush your head.” In the Hebrew, it is the offspring of the woman that will be struggling with the offspring of the serpent. René Laurentin, A Short Treatise on the Virgin Mary [6^th ed.; trans. Charles Neumann; Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022], 272

Robert Sungenis on Favouring "He" instead of "She" in Genesis 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)

 

Conclusion

 

Marshall did not provide any source(s) to support his controversial claims. As we have seen, he was wrong on two of his three claims. This is typical of pop-level Roman Catholic apologists who play fast-and-loose with the Bible and historical sources to desperately defend their dogmatic theology (for another example, see Answering Joe Heschmeyer's Deceptive Abuse of Mary Being the New Eve to Support Roman Catholic Mariology).