Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Søren Holst <sh AT teol.ku.dk>]

Karl,

I see. We differ on a much more fundamental and vastly more important issue 
than the correct translation of 'almah. I see the meaning of a word as 
defined by its use in context. You emphasize its etymology.

I'm no expert in this, but I'd love to learn more about it. Perhaps others on 
the list with a more thorough grounding in theoretical semantics have 
something to contribute.

all the best,
Soren

> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> Fra:  b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org 
> [SMTP:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] på vegne af Karl Randolph
> Sendt:        2. april 2005 00:56
> Til:  Hebrew
> Emne: Re: SV: [b-hebrew] "virgin" vs. "young woman"in Isaiah 7:14
> 
> Søren:
> 
> (LM as a verb is used over 20 times in Tanakh, sometimes as niphal 
> (Passive), hiphil (causative) and hitpael (reflexive), as well as 
> hundreds of times as (WLM > "> unknown span of time> ">  sometimes not 
> always as a synonym for eternity, a few times as T(LMWT for unknown 
> (hidden) things, once as > "> the unknown> "> , and so forth. The concept 
> that pulls all of the different uses together is that all uses 
> share the idea of being or making unknown, where the unknown thing 
> is sometimes unknown because it is hidden. In other words, it is 
> used often enough in enough different contexts that we are able to 
> get a fairly good idea as to its meaning.
> 
> Therefore when we look at (LMH referring to a woman, unless it 
> refers to a stranger (of which I know of no examples), the 
> unknownness would have to refer to something unknown about the 
> woman. Seeing as the opposite, to know a woman indicated sexual 
> intercourse, then for a woman to be unknown means that she has 
> never experienced sexual intercourse, i.e. (LMH is the technical 
> term for > "> virgin> "> .
> 
> Its use in Psalm 46:1 seems to support that meaning. My 
> understanding from surrounding cultures is that women were 
> sometimes allowed to practice certain cultic activities (such as 
> public singing) only as long as they remained virgins (sexual 
> activity, not marriage per se, rendered a woman unfit). So it does 
> not surprise me to find a reference in Psalms that appears to 
> follow the same practice.
> 
> As to the claim that words have the same trilateral roots without 
> being semantically related, I find that it is far less common than 
> claimed by BDB. In fact, if one limits oneself to roots attested to 
> in Tanakh, such occurances are rare. But then I take the attitude 
> to assume unless there is good evidence to the contrary that all 
> words from an expressed root are semantically related, where the 
> relation is similarity of action: thus I often see relationship 
> based on action where BDB see differences based on form.
> 
> Karl W. Randolph