[net.religion.jewish] `Almah and Parthenos

martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo) (06/14/84)

`Almah in Isaiah 7.14 is translated into the Septuagint as parthenos which
is said to mean virgin, and this translation has caused Jews immense
problems for a long time.

Anyway, I looked up the word parthenos in A Greek-English Lexicon compiled
by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott revised and supplemented in 1968
(Oxford at the Clarendon Press).  Definition 2 is a follows:

	2. of unmarried women who are not virgins, Il.2.514, Pi.P.3.34,
	S.Tr.1219, Ar.Nu.530.
	
The Septuagint was translated by Jews for Jews.  The concept of virgin
birth would have been irrelevant to a Jewish reader, but a non-Jew reading
the Septuagint might automatically use the meaning virgin because
non-Jewish mythology had lots of cases of virgin births.
-- 

                    Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo

         	 (An Equal Opportunity Offender)