The Orthodox Church sees this as being *also* a very literal reference to the original Elijah, who did not die, ... The woman in that passage of Genesis refers simultaneously to Eve and to a future woman, in the opinion of the Church, in verse 15, for Christ is both the offspring of Eve and of the second Eve, Mary. Whereas in 16, it refers only to Eve, and secondarily in a broader sense to all of fallen womankind.
Thank you for the explanation. One question I would have is that since you point out that there is other scripture describing the Elijah-John the Baptist "connection", is there other scripture that supports a like connection between Eve and Mary? It just "seems" to me that the former connection may be unique. I'd be interested in the other views. My little take on this section in Genesis is found at the end of my very long 3062 to Jo and Harley, so, *PING* :)
I really don't see how one could view the Elijah prophecy as somehow unique in referring to two separate events simultaneously (and who know, perhaps more.)
There is certainly no explicit reference anywhere else in the Bible to the woman in Genesis 3 being the Virgin Mary. But surely you do not mean to imply that a prophecy is only real prophecy if another Scriptural reference confirms it as such -- or that prophecies can only be interpreted if other Scriptures explain it? That would seem to gut the very concept of Biblical prophecy.
It seems to me that Scripture is so full of these double and triple meanings and references that they are commonplace. But then, that is how we Orthodox read the Scripture.
We don't believe that a passage has to be either historical or prophetic or spiritual or allegorical -- more often than not, we view Scriptural passages as being all of the above simultaneously. And often with multiple prophetic and spiritual meanings at once.
It is this quality of Scripture that, to me, so obviously places the Scriptures on an entirely different plane from all other written sources of Holy Tradition. The four-fold Gospel in particular is a verbal icon of Christ, and the Psalter is an "Old Testament Gospel", and have power and effects on our souls beyond comprehension.
Experienced monastics and even some devout laymen read through the Gospel and Psalter so many times that the feat of having the entire Gospel and Psalter memorized, or nearly so, is historically hardly rare in the Orthodox world. There was a time not so long ago when in order to become a bishop, one of the qualifications in the Orthodox Church was precisely to be able to recite the entire Gospel and Psalter from memory. It is felt by many monastics that until the Scriptures are memorized in this way, one only scratches the surface of the meanings of the Scripture, and more importantly of the process of living it.