The word
if this is a ideological statement versus a statement of fact. (to a majority of scholars?
It should be a descriptive grammatical statement. Is there something that makes you think otherwise?
Could you rephrase your question? I am not sure exactly what you are asking...
I am not sure exactly what you are asking...
When one says that a word is a collective, it means that when you look at the texts using it, they use it as a collective. So I didn't know what you meant by "ideological" - I wondered what made you ask the question.
I'd assume William's tracking down Gal 3.16. It's interesting tha the Targums move the hebrew singular into the aramaic plural 'children' in Genesis. Ronning in 'Jewish Targums and John's Logos Theology' picked it up and suggested the targumists would view the question as 'laughable'
Sorry, I was asking what he meant by the original question, not you MJ.
Ok, DMB has it here......
I am reviewing some hebrew.....my grammar says that seed is a collective noun.............thus it should always be read as plural.
Genesis 3.....refers to a seed of Eve as crushing the head of the serpent. Jewish ideology says (plural) Christianity and seems Gal 3.16 says (sing)
So would more scholars say (Gen 3 15) its singular or a collective *plural"?
First, no competent scholar would make a judgment based on a single verse (Gen. 3:15). Second, a collective can usually be used for 1 or more - generally more. But I can say that my sow's most recent litter was only one piglet - an unusual event biologically but grammatical correct.[;)] More interesting would be the general translation from Biblical Hebrew (to spoken Aramaic, optionally) to Greek. Where else does this translation occur - Biblical or non-biblical - and how is it handled?
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And between your [the snake’s] seed and her seed: seed refers to descendants, offspring. This hostility is not just between the snake and the woman in the garden, but applies to all snakes and all human beings not yet born. Accordingly TEV makes this clear with “will always be enemies.” Seed in both occurrences is singular grammatically in Hebrew. However, in both cases the sense is collective. In those languages that have a collective term for descendants, translators are advised to use the collective term. If there is no collective, a plural form must be used; for example, one translation has “All her descendants and all your descendants will always be bad friends.”William David Reyburn and Euan McG. Fry, A Handbook on Genesis, UBS Handbook Series, 91-92 (New York: United Bible Societies, 1998).
Does anyone have the Exegetical Summary?
If in fact as you say a collective must always be translated as plural, then in no case can seed refer to Christ, unless of course there is more than one Christ. Personally I find the translation 'descendants' a terrible one. It totally obscures any possibility of a singular meaning in every passage where it's used. If the word 'seed' is so unacceptable to modern translators, why at least not use an English collective like 'offspring'. Of course, that would leave the interpretation to the reader which of course seems to be totally unacceptable to modern commentators. Most of the modern 'translations' are not translations at all, but rather interpretations. One more good reason for learning to read the Greek and Hebrew scriptures for yourself.
Most of the modern 'translations' are not translations at all, but rather interpretations.
Most of the modern all 'translations' are not translations at all, but rather interpretations.
The saying goes that "translation is treason."
The semantic range of any word is normally different from language to language there is virtually never a one to one correlation outside of simple descriptives like "red" (German: rot / Hebrew: אדם ,ששר / Greek: ἐρυθρός, πυρρός, ʼυρράζω )
As you can see, even in colors there is a massive semantic range as any trip to the paint department in a hardware store will attest.
Without context, comprehension is impossible.
One more good reason for learning to read the Greek and Hebrew scriptures for yourself.
Not an easy task, but a worthy one.
If in fact as you say a collective must always be translated as plural, then in no case can seed refer to Christ, unless of course there is more than one Christ.
Aren't you allowing a later Christian interpretation to determine the meaning of an older Jewish text? This may be appropriate but it should be done with awareness. This is one reason I like the image of Christians reading the OT through the prism of the cross - sort of like 20/20 hindsight.[:)]
I think when it comes to Galatians, Paul, in good second-Temple style, is riffing off two different kinds of plurality. Zera' is grammatically singular, but may be semantically plural. For a well-known counter-example, 'elohim is a grammatical plural that is (usually) singular. I believe Paul uses the verse in a different way elsewhere in his letters, but don't have access to my material at the moment.
