Historical grammatical inerrant view of Hebrews 7:9-10

[Kokab]

@Bill_II

When a farmer plants seed in a field you can say the seed produced a crop and also that the field produced a crop. So a woman who only provided a fertile place for the man’s seed to grow can also be considered to produce a son. So the sense of zera in Genesis 3:15 is offspring which makes sense as the verse also references the zera of the snake. Doesn’t matter what you think nachash actually means.

You didn’t answer why the woman’s seed matter if they’re just vessels (or fields to be sown on). Clearly The chosen heir could only have come through Sarah since the Abraham’s offspring from other wives were rejected.

And it does matter what “nachash” means. Adam Clarke, who was brought in first to decipher the Rosetta Stone, thought that the word referred to an ape, and several older Arabic translations have the word “baboon” or “ape” inserted insted of “snake” there. It could well have been some kind of hominid, who knows. Apes have 48 chromosomes and are our closest relatives so why not?

@Bill_II

And getting back to what started this diversion from the OP, @knor knor was correct in his description of where babies come from as understood by the Hebrew Bible authors. For example I found this:

Several scholars maintain that the use of the term “seed” to refer to both semen and progeny results in an understanding in which the female role is denigrated to that of nurturer only. Delaney, for example, argues that the Hebrew Bible’s monogenetic understanding of reproduction implies that the mother contributes nothing to the substance of the child: she is “the one in whom the seed is planted; she nurtures and brings it forth, but is not herself the source of the seed” (2001: 454; see also Levine 2002: 341; Chapman 2016: 122).

And if you would like to read the entire paper you can find it here.

It’s just conjecture and has nothing to do with the Bible. There’s a reference in Leviticus 19:9 not to “mingle seed” since it becomes corrupted. You have Genesis 3:15 and Revelation 12:17, but i can provide many more examples. And btw, in the Septuagint and New Testament the word is “sperma” which is even more revealing.

[Kokab]

@St.Roymond

There’s some imagery going on that we modern folks miss because we’re not so closely tied to the earth. Specifically it’s the difference between the seed as it is taken from a bag and scattered on a field and the seed which has sprouted and thus “belongs” to the field. Man’s “seed” is the first sort, woman’s “seed” is the second; one is the seed that is sown, one is the seed that grows.

Thus the Hebrew זֶרַע (zerah) can be rendered as “offspring” for either a man or a woman.

The septuagint renders it as “sperma” which is even more explicit. You have Genesis 3:15 and Revelation 12:17 which explicitly mentions women having “seed” (sperma).

@St.Roymond

To be really picky in terms of the Hebrew, this is not correct: Christ was the seed of the woman, but He came from Adam’s seed.

= - = - =
It should be kept in mind that ancient Hebrew had a much smaller vocabulary set than we do, with roughly only 8,000 different words (a quarter of which only appear once), and in fact word roots only number a bit over 2,000, so words commonly did double or triple duty – a fun example is that the word for “nose” is also the word for “anger”.

He’s only counted as coming from Adam since the Bible is patriarchal, but the seed of the woman clearly matters since Mary was also of the correct tribe. You also have Revelation 12:17.

And you seem to not know much about a Strong’s concordance or Gesenius either.

@St.Roymond

Functionally women were “just wombs”. The difference comes from rank. Generally the first wife was head of the household; other wives stood above concubines, and concubines stood above servants. In terms outside the household, only the first wife had any standing. Unless otherwise stated, the first son of the first wife was the heir, so even without the special status Isaac would have been heir; as it was, he was both the legal heir and the heir of promise.

This is contradicted by Jacob and his family where the midwives children had the same status and were counted as being among the later tribes of Israel. Later we see the Shelahites (from Judah’s wife Shuah) do not get the same status as Tamar’s children by him either.

[Bill_II]

@Kokab

And btw, in the Septuagint

And you are just talking about translations, which aren’t considered inspired.

@Kokab

and New Testament the word is “sperma” which is even more revealing.

And the NT isn’t the OT which is what we are talking about.

@Kokab

And you (in reference to @St.Roymond) seem to not know much about a Strong’s concordance or Gesenius either.

LOL. Pretty sure St. Roymond doesn’t use Strong’s as he can read Hebrew

[St.Roymond]

@Kokab

And it does matter what “nachash” means.

Very much so, since it can be rendered as “shining one”, a term used for heavenly beings.
It’s worth noting that Hebrew had at least three words to mean “serpent”.

@Kokab

thought that the word referred to an ape, and several older Arabic translations have the word “baboon” or “ape” inserted insted of “snake” there.

There’s no actual foundation for such a rendition. I suspect it was a case of not knowing and grasping at something that seemed to fit.

@Kokab

And btw, in the Septuagint and New Testament the word is “sperma” which is even more revealing.

Only if you’re projecting modern biological understanding into a word that meant no such thing. “σπέρμα” boils down to something cast about, used specifically mostly for grain; it is used of semen only by analogy.

[St.Roymond]

@Kokab

The septuagint renders it as “sperma” which is even more explicit

No it isn’t – it just means something that gets sown. To say it’s more specific is to cast modern biological understanding back into the text.

@Kokab

Strong’s concordance

I agree with one of my grad school professors: Strong’s is a weak tool treasured by amateurs.

@Kokab

He’s only counted as coming from Adam since the Bible is patriarchal

You have that relationship backwards: the Bible is patriarchal because of the ‘model’ of reproduction which viewed the male as providing a seed in the very same way that a stalk of grain provides seed.

@Kokab

This is contradicted by Jacob and his family where the midwives children had the same status and were counted as being among the later tribes of Israel.

Um, no it isn’t; it fits the pattern: other than the sons of the first wife, all the others had equal status, then Judah was recognized as first among them due to Jacob’s blessing (though Judah is already seen as a leader among them). The status of the wives, except for the first wife, had no bearing on the status of the sons.

[St.Roymond]

@Bill_II

And you are just talking about translations, which aren’t considered inspired.

Depends who you ask – Paul treated the Septuagint as inspired; for that matter there are passages where it seems he did his own translation and presented that as inspired.

@Bill_II

Pretty sure St. Roymond doesn’t use Strong’s as he can read Hebrew

Strong’s is a clumsy and limited resource. Gesenius isn’t bad but is dated. I prefer BDB (Brown, Driver, Briggs) though it is also not up to date. K&B is mostly better than any of those (Koehler & Baumgartner’s Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament), and of course the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament is best – and I now have access to all of these via Logos Bible software, which I got myself for Christmas (just the prices of current editions of the above lexicons/dictionaries adds up to more than the cost of the software version I chose) and am clumsily learning to use that.

Hebrew and ancient near eastern studies have come an immense way since I was in grad school; the information now available awes me but thanks to BioLogos I’ve been diving in to see what I can learn – everyone here manages to stretch me from time to time, for which I am grateful. One thing I’ve learned is to be cautious because apparently some things I learned in grad school are no longer considered correct!

[I also learned that my eyes no longer serve me to read my *Biblia Hebraica* even with my reading glasses <sigh>.]