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From: martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.jewish
Subject: `Almah and Parthenos
Message-ID: <581@ihuxt.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Jun-84 05:01:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxt.581
Posted: Thu Jun 14 05:01:10 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Jun-84 00:23:57 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 21


`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)