Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

----- Original Message -----

> I dare say my point was missed completely by everyone who
> commented.
>
> I was trying to make some points about how to translate the
> word almah from Hebrew into English in the context of
> Isaiah.  I was not trying to make any theological points
> about prophecy, short or long term.

Not about prophecy, but yes about miracles, as you do below.

>
> My point was that almah, by itself, out of context, can be
> translated as either virgin or young woman.  The only way
> to determine the authors point is to look at the context.

The word "almah" means "young woman". The assumption that a particular young
woman, if unmarried, would be a virgin, depends on the social context.
Whether or not this particular young woman was unmarried depends on who she
was, which, of course, is the crux of the prophecy.

>
> 1) If Isaiah were using the word almah to mean the mother
> of Immanuel was a virgin at the time of either conception
> and/or birth, Isaiah would be describing an unexpected,
> unprecedented, and miraculous event, an event the which
> would be result of devine intervention. Isaiah however
> treats the birth of Immanual in an off-handed fashion.  The
> conception and birth are only mentioned once.  No effort
> was made to draw any signicanse from the birth of Immanuel
> from an almah.  If Isaiah had meant that Immanuels birth
> was a miracle, it does not seem clear.
>
> 2) In contrast, Matthew (and Luke) say that Jesus was born
> to a parthanos.  They view this fact as a miracle.  They
> draw great attention to this fact and draw great
> significanse from.  It seems quite clear that Matthew means
> parthanos to mean virgin and that that was a miracle.
>

As several respondents have already written, there is no indication in the
text of Isaiah that ISAIAH meant any young woman, other than one who was
present, alive, young and preganant at the time, be she Isaiah's wife,
Ahaz's wife or a local prostitute. The sign was that by the time the child
was grown, the Assyrians would be gone.
It was Matthew (or his source-traditions) who chose to understand the young
woman as referring to Mary. Whether the pre-Christian LXX did or did not use
"parthenos" to translate "almah" is moot. since we have no pre-Christian
manuscripts of the LXX.

Yigal