Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Gamera · 04-29-2006, 01:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWallack

JW:
I tell you the Truth I Am curious how long this Thread could go on before anyone here does the only thing needed to be done and I know by now that either the few Christian Bible scholars here would wait until Jesus returned before they did this or are pretending to know Greek.

All we need to do to get PP straightened out is look up the meaning of the offending word, Parthenos. I'd better do it myself because PP might strain himself trying to do it, I mean it's so hard:

Perseus

"parthenos , Lacon. parsenos Ar.Lys.1263 (lyr.). hê,

A. maiden, girl, Il.22.127, etc. ; hai athliai p. emai my unhappy girls, S.OT1462, cf. Ar.Eq.1302 ; also gunê parthenos Hes. Th.514 ; p. kora, of the Sphinx, dub. in E.Ph.1730 (lyr.); thugatêr p. X.Cyr.4.6.9 ; of Persephone, E. Hel.1342 (lyr.), cf. S.Fr.804; virgin, opp. gunê, Id.Tr.148, Theoc.27.65.

2. of unmarried women who are not virgins, Il.2.514, Pi.P.3.34, S.Tr.1219, Ar.Nu.530.

3. Parthenos, hê, the Virgin Goddess, as a title of Athena at Athens, Paus.5.11.10, 10.34.8 (hence of an Att. coin bearing her head, E.Fr.675); of Artemis, E.Hipp.17 ; of the Tauric Iphigenia, Hdt.4.103 ; of an unnamed goddess, SIG46.3 (Halic., v B.C.), IG12.108.48,54 (Neapolis in Thrace); hai hierai p., of the Vestal Virgins, D.H.1.69, Plu.2.89e, etc. ; hai Hestiades p. Id.Cic.19; simply, hai p. D.H.2.66.

4. the constellation Virgo, Eudox. ap. Hipparch. 1.2.5, Arat.97, etc.

5. = korê 111, pupil, X.ap.Longin.4.4, Aret. SD1.7.

II. as Adj., maiden, chaste, parthenon psuchên echôn E.Hipp. 1006 , cf. Porph. Marc.33 ; mitrê p. Epigr.Gr.319 : metaph., p. pêgê A.Pers.613 .

III. as masc., parthenos, ho, unmarried man, Apoc.14.4.

IV. p. gê Samian earth (cf. parthenios 111 ), PMag.Berol.2.57."

JW:
Perseus is about as Neutral a Lexicon as you can get here. We see that "Parthenos" has a primary meaning of "maiden, girl" and may or may not indicate a Virgin. So "Parthenos" is equivocal as to virginity. Looking through the usages in the Literature I don't see an especially strong connotation of "virginity" by usage. If someone here wants to add up the usages, be my guest, but what you're going to run into is that "virginity" will be unclear in most uses. Brown confesses in "Birth" that at this time "Parthenos" was equivocal and it was because of "Matthew's" usage that it developed a stronger connotation of virginity.

So using "parthenos" to translate 7:14 isn't very good evidence that the Original author meant "virgin". The meaning of "Parthenos" at the time could easily include the Hebrew "almah" or "young woman". The problem with using "neanis" instead is it has a primary meaning of "youth" (as opposed to "young woman).

No one should be surprised that with "Matthew's" nebulous/dishonest proof-texting he would take a word with equivocal meaning and spin it to the specific meaning he wanted.

If you are a Christian like PP, desparate for something, anything unusual about 7:14, "almah" is otherwise only used to refer to unmarried women in the Jewish bible, so 7:14 has raised a Rabbi's eyebrow or two. In an irony than that I think the original author of "Mark" would really appreciate, Christians are claiming a prophecy fulfillment that isn't there, a virgin birth, and not claiming a prophecy fulfillment that is, an unmarried woman that is pregnant.

Joseph

MAGDALENE, n.
An inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found out. This definition of the word has the authority of ignorance, Mary of Magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by St. Luke. It has also the official sanction of the governments of Great Britain and the United States. In England the word is pronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly sentimental. With their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for Bethlehem, the English may justly boast themselves the greatest of revisers.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

The fact remains parthenos' semantic range includes "virgin," and there were other Greek words, equivalent to our "young woman" available that do not include that meaning.

So a choice was made that arguably suggests the translator understood the original Hebrew to mean "virgin."

Gamera · 04-29-2006, 01:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus

I'd be more convinced of this if the masculine cognate elem connoted virginity, which it does not. It simply means "young man." At any rate, virginity is not ruled out. An almah can be a bethulah, just as a mother can be an astronaut.

A better analogy would be "maiden" and "girl." Both have a semantic range that includes virginity, though the former insists on it, the latter merely allows for it.

That's a far cry from mother and astronaut.

Gamera · 04-29-2006, 02:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Bishop

I'm not certain that "the sign" is the girl getting pregnant. The sign is that the problems will be gone by the time the child is 2 (or 7, say). Diogenes disclaims its a "prophecy" of any kind, but clearly it's some kind of prophecy. The thing is, since Isaiah promotes the youth of the child and how soon it will be before Ahaz's problems are over, how can he presage this with an impossible feat? The point is that the "sign" is something that is going to happen. But if he was saying, "Before Pekah and Ramah are defeated, you'll have to wait for a virgin to be conceived", that would clearly have the opposite intent. It is for this reason that it doesn't make sense to me that almah should ever read "virgin" or the girl be understood as a pregnant virgin, or that some pre-MT manuscripts may have had bethulah.

I have no particular theological stake in this being a messianic prophesy, since my Christianity is based on the gospel, not on prophesy. However, this doesn't seem to add up. Isaiah plainly says that God will give a sign and that sign relates to the birth of this child. He eats curds and before he's 7 or so, dark says descend, which seem to relate to Assyria, but may also presage the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus or the great day of the Lord (and of course Isaiah can mean all at once). It still seems to me the sign relates to the child's birth, not to subsequent events. Those events seem to be what the sign signifies. I.e.: miraculous birth = sign of bad times.

But if you think the bad times are the sign, tell us what you think Isaiah thinks they signify. I just don't see it.

Quote:

Nevertheless, Christians believe that Immanuel = Jesus, but clearly the concept that there was ever a point that Jesus had no moral discernment is theologically completely unsound. Arguing that the Bible doesn't "mean what it says" is always the weakest of apologetic arguments.

Actually the opposite is true. Jesus was a real human. As a boy, he was just that, a boy. He wouldn't know any more than any other boy and came to understanding of his mission with time. This violates no theological doctrine I'm aware of, since by definition children are not responsible for moral discernment, so Jesus' lack of such as a child would not mean he sinned. Indeed, since Christianity requires that Jesus be both man and God, it requires his childhood be real, and not just a simulacra, with a God in a boy's body. The theological requirement that Jesus not sin (such as it is, a doctrine I'm not particularly interested in) isn't violated by him not having moral discernment at a time when the Law recognized that people didn't have moral discernment.

Apikorus · 04-29-2006, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Actually the opposite is true. Jesus was a real human. As a boy, he was just that, a boy...

This strikes me as incoherent. One could equally well say, "as a man, he was just that, a man" and since all men are frail and imperfect, so was Jesus. If you then say, "oh no, Jesus was exceptional in that he was perfect," then why not insist that he had an exceptional childhood, in which he was imbued with perfect moral clarity from the earliest possible age?

But in fact many if not most Christian theologians would say that children do sin. (See e.g. this tract.) Indeed, all "real humans" are hereditarily born into sin, according to Christian dogma.

Amaleq13 · 04-29-2006, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus

Given the inaccuracy of the LXX translation of Isaiah...

Any clues with regard to why the translation is so poor? Poor knowledge of Greek? Poor knowledge of Hebrew?

Dina Noun · 04-29-2006, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

Actually the opposite is true. Jesus was a real human. As a boy, he was just that, a boy.

A boy who blinded and killed people, according to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

Diogenes the Cynic · 04-29-2006, 08:33 AM

Infancy Gospel Jesus is like Damian.

Chris Weimer · 04-29-2006, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

Any clues with regard to why the translation is so poor? Poor knowledge of Greek? Poor knowledge of Hebrew?

Strong liberties. For the same reason the Targum are "poor translations".

skeptic dave · 04-29-2006, 01:53 PM

It's historical tradition that all dying resurrecting god-men are born of virgins. Given that and nothing else I would assume today's concept of a virgin was implied back then. Perpetual virginity is nothing new either.

JoeWallack · 04-29-2006, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

The fact remains parthenos' semantic range includes "virgin," and there were other Greek words, equivalent to our "young woman" available that do not include that meaning.
So a choice was made that arguably suggests the translator understood the original Hebrew to mean "virgin."

JW:
Let's keep this simple. What Greek word would have been a better choice for "young woman"? Someone, anyone, Beuthellar?

Joseph

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04-29-2006, 08:33 AM	#57
Diogenes the Cynic Moderator - Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota Posts: 4,639	Infancy Gospel Jesus is like Damian.

04-29-2006, 01:53 PM	#59
skeptic dave Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Tulsa, Ok Posts: 11	It's historical tradition that all dying resurrecting god-men are born of virgins. Given that and nothing else I would assume today's concept of a virgin was implied back then. Perpetual virginity is nothing new either.

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