Did They Write About Jesus in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms?

For the same reason it was used in all the other examples you gave that I answered. It doesn't always mean virgin as I've said many times. But when literal virgin is meant it is the word that is used.

Again you are arguing with Jewish translators from 200 years before Christ who knew what they were doing. And you are trusting post-Christian Jewish sources who have a vested interest in denying that "virgin" applies in Isaiah 7:14, and modern translations of the Bible are untrustworthy.

I have acknowledged that over and over and over. Once again, I have said myself in previous posts that it doesn't ALWAYS mean sexually pure. You are having trouble reading.Same with the other authors you mentioned where I again acknowledged that it doesn't always mean sexually pure, which I shouldn't have needed to say at all since I said it at the beginning before you brought up any of that.But when a word is wanted to mean sexually pure, parthenos is the word that is used.And that is how it was used in Isaiah 7:14 and in Genesis 24:43.Parthenos was not used for any of the other uses of "almah" but it was used for those two verses in order to get across the meaning of literal virginity as no other Greek word would have worked.I've said this clearly many many times now. If you still don't get it you have a very serious problem.

"PARTHENOS" IS AS CLOSE AS YOU ARE GOING TO GET IN GREEK TO A WORD THAT IS UNEQUIVOCAL FOR "VIRGIN."THAT'S THE POINT.THAT IT ALSO IS USED TO REFER TO YOUNG WOMEN IN GENERAL DOES NOT AFFECT THE FACT THAT IT IS THE ONLY WORD THAT DOES REFER TO LITERAL VIRGINITY WHEN THE CONTEXT REQUIRES IT.YES, WHERE IS THE REFEREE?

Lotta insinuation there, no fact.You appear to be implying that that would result in different meanings over the years, but I'm sorry to inform you that that notion has already been soundly put to rest with the Dead Sea Scrolls, discussed at length on another recent thread, which see, which have proved beyond a doubt that our current Old Testament texts are identical in meaning to those in the DSS, proving that for over 2000 years there has been no slippage in meaning whatever since then. This is not only true for the Hebrew texts we have today but for the English translations, which may have gone through Latin and German to get to English, but they nevertheless still say what a recent English translation direct from the DSS Isaiah scroll says, as a post by Monk on that thread demonstrates.QED.

There are online English-Greek dictionaries. Here's one: http://www.kypros.org/cgi-bin/lexicon/Put in "virgin." It comes up "parthenos" for ancient Greek, and "parthena" for modern Greek.

Possible schmossible. Since when is such conjecture acceptable on this forum? Only when I'm not the one doing it, right?On second thought, however, that's a very interesting conjecture. Are you saying that a less ambiguous word for "virgin" might have been originally present? Or is "betulah" less ambiguous to you? It's hard to know with all these words since all of them appear to have shades of meaning depending on context.Anyway the idea of such a big change is preposterous given the actual record of the ancient manuscripts in existence. There were also fragments of the Septuagint found with the DSS and no error anywhere near as significant as the change of betulah to almah has been found in ANY manuscript. Almah is in all the extant Hebrew manuscripts in Isaiah 7:14 and parthenos is in all the extant Septuagint manuscripts for Isaiah 7:14. And in EVERY language those have been translated into, from Latin to Syrian to German to English etc. etc. etc. the word has been translated to mean a girl without sexual experience.Yes, for the umpteenth time, parthenos can sometimes be translated in other ways besides virgin. But if you look up virgin in a Greek dictionary you will get ONLY parthenos / parthena, and that's the meaning it has been given when translated into all the languages from the Greek.In other words, translators consistently read parthenos as virgin for 2000 years, until recent unspiritual translators decided they can't hack the idea of a virgin birth and chose one of the other meanings for both almah and parthenos, and yes you also have that option. You can all congratulate yourselves on finding a loophole that allows you to contradict 2000 years of Church scholarship. Nevertheless our reading is just as reasonable and it has those 2000 years of authority yours doesn't.Since the Christian church has understood it for 2000 years to mean never-having-known-a-man, and the texts have remained consistent lo these many millennia, I think it's really time you nitpickers gave it a rest. But I know you won't. A virgin birth just doesn't sit right with you guys.I just had to answer a few posts here before I retire for good.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-01-2005 05:25 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-01-2005 05:28 AM

I have not had time to study the commentaries as I said I needed to, but here they are in undigested form for whatever it's worth to you. If nothing, then nothing. This message has been edited by Faith, 05-01-2005 05:08 AM

You don't read well. Identical in MEANING, jar. That was said over and over. The differences are trivial, mostly small errors, and do not affect the meaning. And there were fragments of EVERY Old Testament book in the DSS except Esther, and ALL of them have the same text as ours. Monk said his copy of the DSS in English is boring because it is simply the same Bible he has. All this was reported on that thread. The evidence is overwhelming that the process of transmission including translation from language to language has been remarkably reliable.

Yes, I am presenting to you what evangelical/Bible-believing Christianity claims and I am not backing up that claim except with the recognized worth of certain commentators. It would be a long discussion I'm simply not up to getting into as it would involve my studying the passages in more depth myself, something I intend to do some time but not for the purpose of a forum. If you don't accept the authority of great Christian exegetes then there's nothing I can do about that. Enjoy your triumph.

Well, again, I direct you to the Septuagint translators whose knowledge of Hebrew and Greek I would think would be a tad more authoritative than yours, yes? Yes, an unmarried daughter who is a virgin, or she'd be called not "parthenos" but "porni" for "whore", as THE implication of "parthenos" IS a sexually inexperienced young woman. When you are called upon to do a Bible translation I'll give your comments some weight. Yes, poor me, I left out the qualifiers so you can nitpick at me with impunity about a triviality. For Isaiah 7:14 and Genesis 24:43 "parthenos" has been EXCLUSIVELY translated "virgin" and so has EVERY instance of "parthenos" in the New Testament. "Modern?" That's what YOU are doing. Again, the Septuagint translators, JEWS REMEMBER, who were expert in their HEBREW scriptures in a GREEK culture 200 years before Christ, should know better what the terms designate than you do for sure, or any self-appointed modern interpreter, whose decisions are opposed by many others as well. The entire history of Bible translation is against your view UNTIL very recently and even now the majority are against you. EVERY language has the meaning of sexually inexperienced young girl for these particular passages based on "parthenos" which is based on "almah." EVERY ONE. It most certainly is Christian, and in fact just as Reformation Protestant as Catholic, and it is a very weighty authority, which you are opposing only by recent upstarts. But they did understand "almah" in Isaiah 7:14 to refer to a woman who was sexually inexperienced, as they chose the Greek word for that condition to translate it in the Septuagint. Of course NOW they reject all Jesus' claims so they even reject THAT understanding of their own predecessors just because the Church rests so much on it. This is another subject. You are now floundering around since I've shown that "virgin" is a perfectly valid reading of the scripture in question.As for the above remarks, as an aside, you misread scripture. Paul is referring to the fact that Jesus was born a human being through His mother, and if he had not been human he could not be our mediator and Savior. You wrest scripture to your own destruction. The entire history of Biblical translation disagrees with you. The Jewish translators of the Septuagint disagree with you. Your last line applies to yourself: You don't want to believe and so you go to extremes to prove there is no basis for belief. You destroy the truth in order to justify yourself.

Sorry, you are wrong about two points:1) Again you choose to ignore previous posts I guess. I'm required to duplicate everything I said in the whole thread for a given post or it will be diregarded, right? I specifically rejected the modern translations, saying that they have succumbed to the modernist revisionism of the self-appointed scholars and abandoned the knowledge of the previous two millennia, and your list is all modern translations. So they don't count. The point remains: The Bibles before this modernist insanity ALL had "virgin." The Hebrew Bibles all have "almah," the Greek Bibles all have "parthenos" and ALL the translations had "virgin" for Isaiah 7:14 until the revisionist Bibles came along.2) Even considering those on your list, you are wrong about some of them as far as Isaiah 7:14 goes, which is the main topic after all. Some of them have something other than "virgin" for Genesis 24:43, but some even there have "virgin." I didn't reproduce that list, but then you didn't indicate which verses you were referring to at all which gives a misleading impression.As for Isaiah 7:14 Darby, Living Bible and American Standard have "virgin," contrary to your assertion. Also two very popular Bibles, the NKJV and the NASB, both have "virgin."The footnote referenced for the New Living Bible is a capitulation to the modernist prejudice. All the old versions contain those falsifying footnotes. And by the way, I haven't conducted this discussion in terms of my personal beliefs, though one would think defending the case as I do would show that I do believe it rather than the opposite to a fair-minded person. In any case your comments as to my beliefs are very possibly violations of forum rules.

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Bethulah is unequivocal. Almah is not.

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TALK TO THE SEPTUAGINT TRANSLATORS!! You are not arguing with me, you are arguing with them. THEY ought to know their own language!The modern translations have nothing to do with changing meanings of words. They are done by self-appointed scholars, not men with any church authority whatever, and men with some influence by modernist prejudices as well. The King James by contrast was done by I think a hundred or more translators all working independently but also reviewing each others' work, from ALL the manuscripts available at the time, the original Greek and Hebrew as well as Syrian, German, Latin and other translations. And these were men chosen by CHURCH authorities. That is also how the Septuagint was done, by highly respected Jewish Torah scholars.

Look, I have acknowledged many times that all the words in all the languages in qusetion have shades of meaning -- shades of meaning that interestingly almost all imply sexual purity anyway. But the point is that the translators of the Septuagint chose the ONLY Greek word that DOES specifically refer to a sexually inexperienced girl --even if it also has less specific references as well. *NONE* of the other possible Greek words that could translate "almah" has that specefic reference to a "presexual" girl at ALL.And I have *also* acknowledged that that fact is not definitive, because "parthenos" does have other shades of meaning -- again, most implying sexual purity in any case -- BUT keeping in mind that it is nevertheless the ONLY Greek word that specifically refers to a sexually inexperienced girl. And even if later translations use words that have some slight ambiguity as well, there has never been a doubt that sexual purity has been meant by them all until very recently when the debunkery brigade took off in earnest trying to turn a silk purse into a sow's ear.For heaven's sake, Christians have affirmed this specific meaning for centuries. What IS your problem? No, I have only been referring to historical usage. What does anything TODAY have to do with what the Septuagint translators meant? You aren't making any sense. I don't have to prove a thing. The history of Christian translation and usage proves it.Your Message 239: I see, the Greek "parthenos" which can ONLY mean a woman who has not had sex with a man is translated into the Latin by a word that MIGHT mean something else and you make that into an excuse to believe it wasn't intended to mean a woman who has not had sex with a man.What kind of nitpicking stupidity is all this? "Unmarried woman" in those days MEANT a sexually inexperienced woman anyway. Good grief! No, 2000 years of translation and usage prove THAT. That is exactly how it was used and understood by all concerned to be used that way. Only modern debunkers question it. The New Testament writers had no doubt what it meant and the Latin translators had no doubt what it meant and the Syrian translators and all the translators down to the 19th century or so, when a bunch of revisionist know-it-alls decided to change the meaning of the centuries and now an army of dolts follow their lead.I don't care WHAT shades of meaning are POSSIBLE, there is only ONE meaning that has been understood for 2000 years. That's what you are arguing with, what the Church has taught for all that time and people have believed for all that time. It is completely consistent with all the texts, all of them. You simply want to force your own prejudice on those centuries of believers.

I did address it. First of all I doubted that you could find the vferse where it says that and you still haven't produced it and someobdy else here said it wasn't there, but in any case I acknowledgede to that and many other references that "parthenos" has shades of meaning.What do you want, blood?READ FOR A CHANGE! YOU ARE A SORRY EXCUSE FOR A DEBATER, BUT PAR FOR THE COURSE ON THIS UTTERLY BENIGHTED SHIP OF FOOLS!