Subj : Re: "Alma"=Virgin?
To   : All
From : fhopper1572@gmail.com
Date : Fri May 29 2020 04:16:13

From: fhopper1572@gmail.com

On Tuesday, December 17, 1996 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-8, David Coomler wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Dec 1996, Dennis Alexander wrote:
> 
> > This connotation is equally true in Hebrew, as is evident when you examine
> > the use of the word "alma" throughout the OT.  Apart from Isaiah 7:14, the
> > word is used in only six other passages:
> >
> > 1) Genesis 24:43 -- Rebekah, who previously in the chapter (v.16) is
> > described as "very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever lain with her," is
> > in v.43 called a "maiden" ("alma").
> 
> Stop and think about it; if in verse sixteen she is called a "virgin"
> (betulah) and in 43 she is called a young woman, then obviously the term
> used to indicate a virgin is betulah and not 'almah.  To make it simple
> for you, it is like saying "That girl ('almah) is a virgin (bethulah).  If
> this is kept in mind, all becomes clear.
> 
> And, interestingly, in the Greek translation used by by the first
> Christians, the same one that translates almah in Isaiah 7:14 as
> "parthenos," you will find that the same "all purpose" word is used to
> translate "virgin" in verse 16; in other words, the Septuagint is not a
> very accurate translation.  It uses the same term to translate both 'almah
> and betulah here.  And that is not all.  In another verse you quote,
> Exodus 2:8, which speaks of the sister of Moses, in Hebrew she is called
> and 'almah; but the Septuagint translates this term, the same used in
> Isaiah 7:14, as "neanis," which means simply a girl or young woman.  From
> this you can see that the Septuagint not only translates two different
> terms as parthenos, but it also gives the same term translated as
> parthenos in one place as neanis in another.  In the Song of Songs example
> you gave (1:3), the hebrew plural of 'alma is translated not by Greek
> parthenoi, but by "neanides."  So you can see the Septuagint, the Greek
> version Matthew and the early church used, is really quite inconsistent,
> and Trypho the Jew (whether a literary character or not) was right to
> argue that the Christians mistranslated "young woman" as "virgin."
> 
> This all gets a little complex for those who may not know Greek or Hebrew,
> but the short version of the matter is that the Greek translation was not
> very precise or accurate in some instances, which takes us back to where
> we started.  The term 'almah, in Isaiah 7:14, is not the term used when
> one wants to specify that someone is a virgin.  That is demonstrated by
> the Genesis 24:16 example you gave, in which the term betulah is used to
> show that Rebekah was a virgin, and added to that is the emphatic "no man
> had known her."
> 
> And, as I have already pointed out, this is actually a secondary issue
> that just confirms the primary matter.  Many girls are virgins before they
> conceive.  They are not so after.  It happens every day.  And in Hebrew,
> it does not specify that the event is to be future.  In Jewish
> translations into English it is given the present tense.  So even if one
> does mistranslate 'almah as virgin instead of girl or young woman, Isaiah
> 7:14 still says nothing about a virgin birth.
> 
> David

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