Phlox Pyros

LOL That'd be GREAT! Proof positive!

On a more serious note, however, people have made more out of less with respect to supposed interpolations (with no attestation) both in the HB and NT and expect to be taken seriously.

Diogenes the Cynic

I don't think you've shown that it's internally plausible in context for the reasons I've already stated. I think you're starting with an implausible conclusion and then trying make the evidence fit that conclusion. I call that approach tendentious and I call the evidence specious.
I think that focusing on translations of bethulah is a red herring. As I've said, it's translations of almah that you should be looking at and Chris has already shown two other examples in Genesis of almah being translated as parthenos. You waved them away by saying that the Penatateuch was translated earlier and by different translators (true enough) but it still shows that there's nothing inherently implausible about almah being translated as parthenos. This fact, in addition to the internal context of the word along with the hard evidence of the DSS manuscripts means that your hypothesis is, at best, unsupported, unnecessary and less plausible than a bad translation of almah. Even if your hypothesis could be proven (something that would be impossible without some very early manuscript evidence or attestation) it would still not make the prophecy Messianic in context. It was just be a bizarre detail about a peripheral character being born of a peripheral virgin. There would be no significance to a virgin birth in the story. It wouldn't make sense.
Then you would have evidence for your hypothesis but we can spend all day imagining scenarios of manuscripts turning up.

Phlox Pyros

I think this is faulty reasoning. Just because this is true of Genesis does not mean it would necessarily have to be true for Isaiah. Again, 4 out of 5 (possibly 5 out of 5) times the translator used parthenos to translate bethulah. I have not looked yet, but it would be interesting to see how almah is normally translated in Isaiah. I bet it is normally translated neanis. If the translator of Isaiah hit this translation on the head every time but one as well, what would you think? Still nothing? I'll check on it and get back with you unless someone else wants to look it up.

Why this "bad translation" in one spot? I don't believe that the "internal context" necessarily requires "young woman" rather than "virgin", as Apikorus pointed out earlier.

As I said before, more has been made of less with respect to supposed interpolations without evidence for the HB and NT. Take a look at some of the more radical scholars ("Dutch Radicals" for instance).

Apikorus

I doubt most Christians would be happy over finding the bones of Jesus!

Chris Weimer

I just checked through a Bibleworks search - it's messed up. The listed almah under haalmah and refuses to let me do a search on it at all. Very odd. However, I should let you note that neanis isn't found in Isaiah at all.

Bad translation are surely abundant in Isaiah. Isn't it said that although the Torah was the best translated, Isaiah was the worst?

The Dutch radicals are on the fringe. I don't think appealing to them will help your case much.

Cheers.

Phlox Pyros

I'm not sure what version you have. I have BW6 and if you pop up a menu on the word and select "search on lemma", it pops up a little menu with the article and the word. You just select the word from the menu, and it will do a search on that word. I don't remember how my older version worked anymore.

You can also search on the command line by using the period, a part of the word, and the * wildcard character.

My search did not turn the word up in Isaiah either.

I never really realized it, but it doesn't look like almah is a particularly common word anyway and does not appear to be used elsewhere within Isaiah, unlike bethulah. In fact, I counted only 7 usages (if I am doing it correctly) in the entire HB!

One thing I noticed upon looking again is that there are actually 5 instances of bethulah in Isaiah. In one of these instances (23:12), the Greek actually dropped the word altogether. Bad translation, missed word, or was it there in the translator's manuscript? So, every single occurance in the HB might have originally read bethulah...

True, heh...then again, I'm just taking a position to see how far it goes. However, I believe I've seen some relatively moderate scholars do the same thing. There's no real problem with dealing in probabilites, it is just that it comes down to belief instead of evidence. Actually, many times it comes down to belief in the evidence as well.

I think there is a better case there for a possible vorlage which read bethulah in Isaiah 7:14 than I even realized.

Phlox Pyros

A Brief Summation:

Hebrew evidence:

• 7 instances of bethulah (ie. virgin) in Isaiah:

  Isaiah 23:4
  Isaiah 23:12
  Isaiah 37:22
  Isaiah 47:1
  Isaiah 62:5

• only 7 instances of almah (ie. young woman) in entire Hebrew Bible
• 1 questionable? instance of almah in Isaiah

Greek evidence:

• 4 instances where parthenos (ie. virgin) translates bethulah
• 1 instance where the underlying Hebrew word virgin was dropped (23:12)
• 1 instance where parthenos translates a questionable? almah

Possible explanation:

• Isaiah did not originally use almah in 7:14, which is rare in the Hebrew Bible
• The Greek accidentally dropped the Hebrew bethulah in Isaiah 23:12
• By comparisons with very similar passages in Isaiah, the Greek would have used parthenos to translate bethulah in 23:12
• Therefore, the Greek uses parthenos to translate every instance of bethulah in Isaiah and no other word.
• The Greek has parthenos in Isaiah 7:14 because that is the way the scribe's manuscript read, consistenly translating bethulah as parthenos in every instance.

Wow...speculative, but very interesting.

Apikorus

You can do all these searches online using http://www.blueletterbible.org/. Phlox is correct: there are seven instances of almah in the Hebrew Bible, and two instances of the masculine elem.

Other than 23:4, the instances of betulah in Isaiah are all metaphorical. As for 23:4, the expression betulot ubechorim = "virgins and young men" (and variations thereof) was evidently part of the vernacular, as it also appears in Deut 32:25, Jer 51:22, Amos 8:13, Qoh 1:18, 2:21, Ps 148:12, and 2 Chr 36:17. Isa 7:14 presents a clearly different literary context than any of these bethulah verses, as it refers to a specific (though unnamed) person. So I see no evidence in the text whatsoever which would lead me to question the appearance of almah in 7:14. 1QIsa(a) seals the deal.

Given the inaccuracy of the LXX translation of Isaiah, and given the evidence from Qumran, I see no reason to suspect that the Urtext of Isa 7:14 was different than the MT. I'm not sure what Phlox is so excited about.

A much more interesting unsolved problem in Isaiah, which also intersects strongly with Christian tradition, is the identity of the suffering servant in Isa 53.

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

Chili

That is why it has to be a virgin birth with the virgin being the woman in betrothal to Joseph since the actual birth of Joseph -- and this will be true even if Joseph was married with kids. It is a rebirth story and for that the Annunciation will be the only sign given = the sign of Jonah if you kow what to look for.