Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

I'm sorry, but this evidence doesn't count for much. There are very often
subtle shifts in meaning of cognate words between even very closely related
languages, and over time (consider how "gay" has changed its meaning over 30
years!). So your evidence that b:tolta was used for "virgin" in 3rd-4th
century CE Syriac of the Peshitta has very little bearing on the meaning of
b:tula and alma in Isaiah's Hebrew of the 8th or even the 2nd century BCE.

Peter Kirk


-----Original Message-----
From: Will Pratt [mailto:prattw AT nevada.edu]
Sent: 28 January 2001 16:06
To: Biblical Hebrew
Subject: RE: b-hebrew digest: January 27, 2001




> From: "sdavis" <sdavis AT inter.net.il>
> Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2001 9:00 PM
>
> Subject: Isaiah 7.14
> X-Message-Number: 2
>
[snip]
> I would like to make a number of rebuttals regarding Dan's
> arguments to
> Isaiah 7:14:
[snip]

I'd like to add to this.  There exists a Christian semitic-language
translation of the Bible, the Peshitto, which is in Aramaic.  In such
critical texts as Matt. 1:23, the Peshitto translates the Greek
parqenov as b:toltah (= Heb. b:tw.lah) rather than `almatah (= Heb.
`almah).  That is, in a passage where parqenov is unquestionably meant
to read "a virgin", Christians who were native speakers of a semitic
language used b:toltah/b:tw.lah to translate it.  They oviously did
_not_ consider `almatah/`almah to mean "virgin".  The postion that it
was `almah that meant virgin would seem to be untenable, since
Christians of the early Common Era did not use it that way.

Will

Will Pratt
prattw AT nevada.edu


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