Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihuxt.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!ihuxt!martillo 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)