Is Genesis 3:15 Really the “Protevangelium”?

Hoping this school assignment will edify someone...........

Genesis 3:15 – And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and

her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Is this verse really the “Protevangelium”? Yes or No.

Martin Luther, in his lectures, declared that God did not put the same punishment upon Adam and Eve as He did the serpent, but rather He created a conflict between them, and he stated that Adam and Eve viewed this verse as “a Messianic promise pointing to a Man by whom the devil’s head would be crushed, and his tyranny broken. Luther believed that “God wanted His people to expect this seed from all who gave birth until the real one came.” He understood the seed to be specifically Christ, and he was misunderstood when he said that seed could refer to all individuals, in general, explaining that God wanted to make all women suspect to Satan.
Calvin regarded the Protevangelium in Genesis 3:15 as hostile strife between the human race and serpents, that they should be troublesome to each other, but the humans would have the upper hand. Calvin maintained that Satan was the enemy to all men, and that the seed of the woman merely meant that there would be hatred between the serpent and mankind, so long as the human race was procreated. Calvin also said:
There is, indeed, no ambiguity in the words used here by Moses; but I do with others respecting their meaning; for other interpreters take the seed for Christ, without controversy; as if it were said that some one would arise from the seed of the woman who should wound the serpent’s head. Gladly would I give my suffrage in support of their opinion, but that I regard the word seed as too violently distorted by them; for who will concede that a collective noun is to be understood of one man only?
He also stated, “Since experience teaches that not all the sons of Adam by far arise as conquerors of the devil, we must necessarily come to one head, that we may find to whom the victory belongs, Christ.” And so he concluded that the church would share in the power of its Head to defeat the devil.
Aegidius Hunnius wrote Calvinus Judaizans, in which he said:
If the Gospel promise concerning the Messiah is not set forth by the dominical discourse, it further follows that neither the first people nor the fathers of the primaeval world had any clear Gospel; that would be inharmonious with everything a Christian… understands.
David Pareus wrote Commentary on Genesis and decided that the passage of Genesis 3:15 “undoubtedly contains the first Gospel concerning the overthrow of the Satanic kingdom… through Christ the Mediator.” However, later Pareus came to agree with Calvin, stating that Genesis 3:15 merely prophesied a clash between people and snakes. Hunnius later wrote Antipareus Alter, in which he attacked both Calvin and Pareus for their literal interpretations, as Pareus only differed with Calvin in that Calvin spoke of the seed as being the entire human race, but Pareus spoke of the seed as being only the elect. Hunnius continued to write in Antipareus Alter “if the Protevangelium were not about the throw of Satan’s kingdom, the great seducer would have gone unpunished.
The argument continued on and on, and Hunnius finally referred to Galatians 3:16, which reads, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” to make his point, and he said this verse proved that God would subdue Satan; not the church. Considering the argument between Lutheran and Calvin and Pareus and Hunnius, it seems that Galatians 3:16 does certainly put the subject to rest.
Martin Woudstra writes, “The church has always rightly regarded God’s words spoken to the serpent in paradise as constituting the first glimmer of salvation, the Protevangelium,” but notes that this correct view has not gone unchallenged, as Gerhard von Rad wrote, “The exegesis of the early church which found a messianic prophecy, here a reference to the final victory of the woman’s seed (Protevangelium), does not agree with the sense of the passage, apart from the fact that the word ‘seed’ may not be construed personally but only quite generally with the meaning ‘posterity.’”
Woudstra quotes eight different recent translations of Genesis 3:15 (ASV, RSV, JB, NEB, NAB, Zurcher Bible, Dutch New Version, Swedish of 1917) and says that there are problems with all the translations. He notes that the difficulties stem from three translation problems:
(1) Most translations have abandoned the literal translation “seed,” probably for reasons of clarity. Substitutes are: “posterity,” “offspring,” “brood.” The Dutch and Swedish retain “seed.”
(2) At this point the range or translations includes “he,” “they,” and “it.” (Knox, following the Vulgate has “she.”
(3) Some translations keep “bruise” in both instances (RSV and DNV). Some substitute an identical word in both instances: “lie in wait, “ASV margin; “attack,” American; “strike at,” NEB and NAB. A third group uses two different words for the two activities respectively: “crush” and “strike” (JB); “treten nach” and “schnappen nach” (ZB); “sondertrampa” and “stinga” (Swedish).
Woudstra says that the Hebrew word for “seed”, zera`, is the key to interpretation, as he asks if it means, referring to demons, whether they can have offspring or posterity, and he concludes that there is no where in the Bible, which suggests that demons can have offspring, and that for this reason, seed, in this case, must have a non-literal meaning. However, he says that there is another use of zera`, which may play a part in interpreting the verse, and this verse is contained in Isaiah 65:23. It reads, “They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.” Woudstra adds that if this use of zera` plays a role in Genesis 3:15 then this would make the two “seeds” “communities” each marked by separate moral qualities. He then states:
These communities are headed up by two distinct principles, the one principal being the woman, the other the serpent, each of which had just been set at enmity with the other by God himself. Upon this view both of these “seeds” could be found among the children of men. This would them alleviate the difficulty of having to take the word literally in the one instance and figuratively in the other.
Woudstra then says that there is a problem translating the Hebrew word shuph, asking does it mean merely to strike at or does it mean to crush. He says that if enmity points to divine deliverance at some point, then shuph could “be linked with Christ’s victory over the devil at the cross.”
He concludes by saying:
The mere fact of God’s “setting” of the enmity is a tremendous initiative for good, unexpected and unmerited. Man’s alignment with the forces of evil is broken though. And, though upon this approach this passage does not explicitly predict ultimate victory of the woman’s seed, nevertheless the One who set the enmity might also be regarded as implicitly guaranteeing the ultimate success of those who are on His side. Although much remains yet to be said in later revelations, what is being said is of such significance that the term “protevangelium” may be rightly used to describe it.
James Hamilton then says, “If… we were to argue that the Messianism of the Old Testament is introduced in Genesis 3:15, such an assertion would be more plausible if the influence of this text could be shown through the rest of the Old Testament and into the New.” He also asserts that to be able to identify the victory of the woman’s seed over the serpent’s seed, first, it must be discussed the tension between one and many in the Bible. Hamilton notes that the Hebrew word for seed, zera`, never occurs as plural in the Old Testament, but that the term can also be used in a collective manner, and can refer to many descendents. Hamilton quotes the apostle Paul from the Book of Romans, chapter 16, verse 20, to prove his point, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” to show this collective sense. And he also quotes Numbers 24:17 to show the same, “He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls,” and he goes on to give plenty more examples, as well. In fact, he quotes so many Scriptures that the bulk of his article is largely quotes, but he concludes:
If the books of the Bible were written by and for a remnant of people hoping for the coming of this person, we would expect to find in these texts various resonations of this promise of God. I have argued that we do, in fact, find imagery from Genesis 3:15 in many texts across both testaments. We have seen the seed of the woman crushing the head(s) of the seed of the serpent, we have seen shattered enemies, trampled enemies, dust eating defeated enemies, and smashed serpents. I find this evidence compelling. Hopefully others will as well, even if they do not entirely agree with the thesis that the OT is, through and through, a messianic document.
It is this author’s opinion that, indeed, Genesis 3:15 is a messianic prophesy, regarding Christ crushing the head of Satan at the cross, and that it is the “Protevangelium, ” and she agrees with Martin Luther. Martin Luther, if the reader recalls, believed that Christ was the seed prophesied, and that it was kept secret from Satan whom the mother of the seed was until time came to reveal the seed. This seems the most acceptable answer, because in Matthew 4, when Christ was being tempted of Satan, Satan always spoke to him in the manner, “If you are the Son of God.” This insinuates that he did not know for sure. Whether Genesis 3:15 is the “Protevangelium” or not, one thing is for sure, and that is that Christ did crush the head of Satan at the cross, when He defeated him and death.

Schurb, Ken. “Sixteenth-Century Lutheran-Calvinist Conflict on the Protevangelium.” Concordia Theological Quarterly Volume 54, Number 1 (25-43), 27.
Ibid.
Ibid 27-28.
Ibid 29.
Ibid.
Ibid 30.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid 33.
Ibid 31.
Ibid 35.
Ibid 38.
Ibid 42.
Woudstra, Marten H. “Recent Translations of Genesis 3:15.” Calvin Theological Journal 6 (1971) 194-203, 194.
Ibid 195-196.
Ibid 196.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid 198.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid 200.
Ibid 201.
Ibid 203.
Hamilton James. “The Skull Crushing the Head of the Woman: Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Genesis 3:15.” (30-54). The Skull Crushing the Head of the Woman: Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Genesis 3:15; accessed 7 Nov 2009.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.

©Kimberly Padilla, A.A. Religion