Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

It's still a non-issue, as others have pointed out, since in that culture "a 
young woman of marriageable age" was expected to be a virgin.  Hence, to say 
"it is not all unusual [sic?] for a young woman to give birth to a baby" is 
incorrect, unless she married first.  If this statement is based on the fact 
that it's not all that unusual today, then it's anachronistic.  Either way, 
the (LMH in this clause was expected to be unmarried and therefore a virgin.  
If there's an implied marriage in there somewhere, the text knows nothing 
about it and neither do we.

On Friday 01 April 2005 23:01, tladatsi AT charter.net wrote:
> It is the case that both the Hebrew word *almah* and the
> Greek word *parthenos* have two meanings, either a woman of
> any age who has never had sexual relations or simply a
> young woman of marriageable age.  It is not that different
> from other languages, e.g. German (Jungfrau vs. Junge
> Frau).  The word by itself can have either meaning or both
> at the same time. The only way to determine the intended
> meaning is by the context.
>
> For me, the key contextual element is it is not all unusual
> for a young woman to give birth to a baby but it is
> completely unheard of in the OT for a virgin to give birth.
> Nowhere else in the OT does such an event occur.  If the
> author of Isaiah had meant that the mother of l)wnmm( was a
> virgin, an unexpected, unprecedented, and miraculous event,
> it would be reasonable for the author to call attention to
> this fact.   However, the author draws no particular
> attention to this amazing fact.  It is stated as a flat
> fact and not mentioned again.  This would suggest that the
> author was not attempting to describe something unusual.
>
> The second contextual element is how the rest of the text
> handles the same issue.  Isaiah uses the word *bethulah*
> (hlwtb) in other settings where the author clearly means
> virgin (Isa 23:12, Isa 37.22, Isa 62.5).  Both of these
> contextual elements would suggest that the author of Isaiah
> had meant in 7:18 a routine birth by a young women rather
> than miraculous birth by a virgin.
>
>
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-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"No good.  Hit on head."   -Gronk