Testallthings recently put a couple of things into one place for our consideration.
First, from Jane's book:
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Problem 1 in Genesis 3:16: Turning or Lust?...She discovered that the Hebrew word, “teshuqah,” was translated “turning” in the earliest translations. It remained “turning” for sixteen centuries until Pagnino’s Latin version changed it to “lust.” It then read, “Your lust shall be to your husband and he shall rule over you.” In the seventeenth century, the King James Version softened the translation by using the word “desire,” which is a more genteel rendering with a similar meaning as Pagnino’s word “lust”. Now, in the twenty-first century, the word, “desire,” is used in the vast majority of English Bibles.
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Then something that attributed to Katharine Bushnell's book:
Quote:
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After Wycliffe's version, and before any other English Bible appeared, an Italian Dominican monk, named Pagnino, translated the Hebrew Bible. The Biographie Universelle, quotes the following criticism of his work, in the language of Richard Simon: "Pagnino has too much neglected the ancient versions of Scripture to attach himself to the teachings of the rabbis." What would we naturally expect, therefore? That he would render this word "lust,"—and that is precisely what he does in the first and the third place; in the second, he translates, "appetite."
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What I find missing in all of this, and in the whole of the section from Jane's book from which the above quote is taken, is a discussion of the meaning of the Hebrew word that is the root of this whole thing. As with most words, I suspect that it could have more than one singular definition. Even where the definition appears to be somewhat singular, it often has nuances based on the context in which it is found.
For example, somewhere there was a reference to Genesis 3:16 in which it seemed to be suggested that the term (in English) "childbearing" should have been "sighing." Yet an online interlinear Hebrew text provides a rather convoluted phrase that has as its primary component the word "pregnant" or "pregnancy." It is difficult to try to take these words to Hebrew-English dictionaries because the Hebrew provided is typically a set of special characters that do not copy-paste well into a translator. But that means that there needs to be more than some bare statement that the word means "sighing" to change it. There is too much available that says otherwise.
What is needed is a real analysis of the definition(s) for the particular Hebrew word. Not the Greek or Latin term used in those updated texts. Or the various English words used. Without the study of the Hebrew word, there is no basis to accept or reject anything else said about it.
Jane's book (it is getting difficult to tell within what is in front of me at the moment whether it is a quote from Bushnell or Jane's words, though I think it is Bushnell's) makes a reference to the word "turning" being used for 16 centuries before the Italian Monk changed it to "lust." First, the Italian Monk did not change it to "lust." Neither had the word "turning" been used for any material length of time. I realize that it should be patently obvious that we are talking about either the Greek or Latin word used in non-Hebrew manuscripts/sources. But that only muddies the discussion because that means that the English word we are using in place of the Greek/Latin word is itself a translation, so we are two languages removed from what was recorded.
But what I find most annoying about the whole discussion is that I cannot see that my understanding of the verse as found right now in almost any version is being altered. I see a statement of a sort of curse put upon the woman that is different, but not necessarily less onerous than what is put on the man. And I also see a prophetic statement that things would tend to go in a certain direction.
It is going to take more than a passionately written book to change that. It needs a real analysis of the words. And without that, I only have what is available to see. And a simple statement that the word means "sighing" without any reference to or analysis of what is provided in other sources is not a study in reality. Whether it ultimately is true or false, it is nothing in the form in which it has been presented at this point. There is no basis for me to accept it or give it serous consideration. And a lot more than the notion that Genesis 3:16 does not make a proscriptive statement that woman should be ruled over by man is based on this unsupported statement. I can get to "not proscriptive" quite easily without any change in words. And that is actually what I believe about it. But the rest needs the changed word (and a fair bit more to be realistic) to even make it worth considering.