Standing Up I picked this off of a document written by Michael Voris S. T. M. also watch a short yet very informative explanation on Gen. 3:15 here at RealCatholicTV.Com on program called "The Vortex"
Scriptural revisionism---- sorry that it's so long , but it is very good on Gen.3:15
Today, the devil is wagging his ugly tail more than ever, and with some whiteout and some whitewash, is seeking to blot out Mary from Scripture and tradition. And, no doubt about it, modern bibles have altered many passages concerning Mary, de-emphasizing her role in God's plan of salvation. Take, for instance, those famed words of God through the Angel Gabriel, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee...," meaning Mary was full of God's grace and that the devil never had any part of her, as was used by Pope Pius XI in his definition on the Immaculate Conception. But what has become of these words in many a modern bible? "Rejoice, highly favored daughter." The question is: what does it mean to be a highly favored daughter? Were not Judith, Deborras and Esther highly favored daughters? No matter how special these were, Mary is much more. She, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, is "the new Eve, 'full of grace' of the Holy Spirit, is preserved from sin and the corruption of death...." (#2853) Other passages referring to Our Lady from what was formerly called Ecclesiasticus (now called Sirach), are completely missing from modern versions. Passages that the Church has applied to Our Lady such as, "I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits. For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb. My memory is unto everlasting generations", etc., are gone.[4] Also, amazingly the passage "blessed art thou among women" of St. Luke's Gospel (Luke 1:28) is completely missing in action from many of the new bibles. Surely, the devil's tail has wiped out and whited-out these praises of Our Lady.
Other passages of holy Scripture concerning Our Lady have been obscured as well, but we must go on now to focus on that most important of passages, the Protoevangelium, which the Catechism of the Catholic Church says is the first gospel.
In most modern bibles, you will find the second part of this first gospel Genesis 3:15 changed to "... he will bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." Most definitely this wording works to downplay Our Lady's role in our plan of redemption. The great biblical scholar St. Jerome, numerous Popes, saints and, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, "Many Fathers and Doctors of the Church," have said that the woman in this passage refers to Mary.
During an English persecution, a group of Catholic biblical scholars fled to Douay in what is now Belgium, and produced the famous Douay-Rheims version in 1609. This is a faithful English translation of the bible, the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome. The fact that the Church has canonized St. Jerome, only adds weight to the authority and authenticity of his work. The translation reads, "I will place enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she will crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for his heel."[5] This text reads the same as the Latin Vulgate: "Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et sperm tuum et sperm illius: ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo ejus...." In this Vulgate translation, it is clear that the Latin word ipsa can only mean she. But let us see what our Protestant counterparts did two years later in 1611 with this passage. Do you suppose, with their ideas concerning Our Lady, that they kept the same translation? The King James version produced by men, not by the Church of God inspired by the Holy Spirit, had this to say of Genesis 3:15: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: It shall bruise thy head and thou shall bruise his heel."[6] It is not quite the same.
As we have seen there are different schools of thought concerning this extremely important passage which the Church has declared the first gospel. Modern scholars and Protestant bible experts often say he or it while numerous Doctors and Fathers of the Church--including the great trio of Mariologists St. Alphonsus de Liguori, St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. Louis De Montfort--say she. Whom shall we place our stock in? This definitely deserves a closer look.
First, we shall examine the thoughts of three Jewish scholarly giants: Josephus (d. 101 A.D.), Philo (d. 40 A.D.) and Maimonides (d. 1204 A.D.). To begin with, Josephus states, "He ordained that the woman should inflict wounds on his head." This becomes evident that Josephus in his day read the word aute, that is to say, "she."[7] It is important to note, Josephus and Philo both wrote in Greek but also knew Hebrew, so their testimony is a common witness that the Greek of the Septuagint of their day was aute, and that the Hebrew pronoun was pronounced HI or HEE, all meaning "she."[8] Later witness of this fact is given by another Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, who did not believe in the Messianic or Mariological content of the prophecy but nevertheless had this to say:
"But what must be admired most of all, is that the serpent is joined with Eve, that is, its seed with her seed, its head with her heel; that she (Eve) should conquer it (the serpent) in the head, and that it should conquer her in the heel."[9]
In our own Catholic tradition, the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome stands alone among Catholic bibles, reading ipsa, or "she." It must be noted that the Latin Vulgate was the official translation during the time of Vatican II, and into the 20th century and our generation. Since the Greek and Hebrew versions do not enjoy this distinction, the Vulgate possesses the greatest authority. The Council of Trent declared "that this same old and Vulgate edition, which has been approved by being used in the same Church for so many ages, should be accounted authentic in public lectures, disputations, sermons, and expositions, and that no one should dare or presume to reject it under any pretext whatsoever."[10] Can we not hear the words of St. Augustine telling us, "I would not believe the Gospel were I not moved thereto by the authority of the Catholic Church."[11] Furthermore, "St. Alphonsus contends that when it comes down to a choice between the Hebrew and the Vulgate, as we have here, we should hold with the Vulgate."[12] We--Catholics especially--should hold dear to the word "she," for she is our Mother.
Now, having put this issue to rest, let us resume our study of Genesis 3:15, in its obvious and literal sense. One of the most remarkable minds the Church has ever produced, the convert John Cardinal Henry Newman, had this to say:
"'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.' The Seed of the woman is the Word Incarnate, and the Woman, whose seed or Son He is, is His Mother Mary. This interpretation, and the parallelism it involves, seem to me undeniable; but at all events (and this is my point) the parallelism is the doctrine of the Fathers, from the earliest times; and, this being established, we are able, by the position and office of Eve in our fall, to determine the position and office of Mary in our restoration."[13]
However, there is good reason to doubt the majority Hebrew reading of “he shall crush.”
