Quote:
Originally Posted by Timothylogan3
Areq...whatever - now here is the thing, so your thread is really not question if mary was a virgin or not, but if the bible is true or not. Let me make this easy for you, I believe what the bible says is true, you dont. I am not a jew, my faith is totally different from that, I am a christian. Jews do not believe Jesus to be the christ, we do, and this is one of the many reasons We are two different faiths. This has nothing to do with their faith. OUR INTERPRETATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IS VERY VERY DIFFERENT, HENCE WE HAVE OUR OWN FAITH. What you are pointing out here is that you do not believe in the christian scriptures, and that is okay you know, its your right. You not questioning if mary was virgin or not according to our scriptures. You are saying some parts of the bible are a lie! Hence you are just questioning the authenticity of the bible. YOU ARE NOT QUESTIONING IF OUR INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE IS TRUE OR NOT, BUT IF SOME PARTS ARE A LIE, AND FOR THAT THERE IS NO POINT FOR A WORD STUDY, AND EVEN MORE THERE ARE NO WINNERS IN SUCH A DEBATE, AND THAT APPLIES TO ALL RELIGIONS IN THIS WORLD MY FRIEND. ALL WE HAVE IS WHAT IS WRITTEN, YOU CAN EITHER TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT.
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No, I'm not going to let you get away with that. It isn't a question of 'believe it or not' as that is giving you people a a draw and, to the theist, a draw is a win, as it means they can claim their beliefs are just as valid.
If you just want to believe, do so. I don't mind. But if you want to convince us, you need some good evidence. And if you just dismiss the strong evidence of Bible fabrication, your faith is not just blind faith, you were given the chance to see and you refused to look. Faith is then dishonest.
Now, I was thinking about this and it occurred to me that, if the Jews translated the Septuagint, doesn't that mean they chose 'parthenos' as a conscious translation of 'almah'? I looked that up and, sorry folks, but again, Wiki summarised it best
Jewish scholars argue that the word betulah is used instead of almah in verses where a reference to a virgin is clearly intended (see Genesis 24:16, Exodus 22:16-17, Leviticus 21:14, and Deuteronomy 22:13-21) and that almah is more correctly translated as "young woman."
20 כ כֵּן, דֶּרֶךְ אִשָּׁה-- מְנָאָפֶת
אָכְלָה, וּמָחֲתָה פִיהָ; וְאָמְרָה, לֹא-פָעַלְתִּי אָוֶן
So is the way of an adulterous woman;
she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith: 'I have done no wickedness.' (Wiki)
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Excerpt from previous link: The actual meaning of Almah In the Talmud, when speaking of marriage contracts, the term betulah is always used when speaking of a virgin where virginity is at issue. This is a woman the man has met and has offered her an item of value to be his wife. He knows her and has established a contractual agreement in front of witnesses with her.
The term haAlmah comes from the cognate to indicate a specific person of unknown or unclear status whom they typically see for the first time. (As a side note, the word haAlim means to conceal, to hide). HaAlmah as well as the masculine HaAlaym, is only used a few times in the Tanach and is not used to refer to his or her virginal status, but does speak of someone who is youthful and is most likely unmarried. (On such example of the masculine use is in 1 Samuel 17:56 when the king spied a young man he had never seen before, a young man of uncertain status, and wanted to know more about him).
Isaiah 7:14,The True Meaning of Almah and Bethulah
Some scholars contend that debates over the precise meaning of bethulah and almah are misguided because no Hebrew word encapsulates the idea of certain virginity.[18] Martin Luther also argued that the debate was irrelevant, not because the words do not clearly mean virgin, but because almah and bethulah were functional synonyms.[19] One of the common arguments Christians use is to say the Septuagint was a translation of Jewish scholars of the Old Testament and it translated the Hebrew word bethulah as virgin. This argument has several problems firstly the Letter of Aristeas, which predates the time of Jesus states that the Septuagint was only a translation of the Five Books of Moses, as does Josephus Flavius, Philo, and the Talmud.[20] Even Jerome, a church father and Bible translator who could hardly be construed as friendly to Judaism, affirms Josephus' statement regarding the authorship of the Septuagint in his preface to The Book of Hebrew Questions[20] Likewise, the Anchor Bible Dictionary reports precisely this point in the opening sentence of its article on the Septuagint which states, "The word 'Septuagint,' (from Lat septuaginta = 70; hence the abbreviation LXX) derives from a story that 72 elders translated the Pentateuch into Greek; the term therefore applied originally only to those five books."[20] Furthermore, the Septuagint in our hands is not a Jewish document, but rather a Christian one.[20] The Septuagint as we have it today, which includes the Prophets and Writings as well, is a product of the church, not the Jewish people.[20] In fact, the Septuagint remains the official Old Testament of the Greek Orthodox Church, and the manuscripts that consist of our Septuagint today date to the third century C.E.[20] The fact that additional books known as the Apocrypha, which are uniquely sacred to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church, are found in the Septuagint should raise a red flag to those inquiring into the Jewishness of the Septuagint.[20] F. F. Bruce, an Evangelical Biblical scholar himself notes that "With but few exceptions, every manuscript of the Septuagint which has come down to our day was copied and preserved in Christian, not Jewish, circles."[20] Another problem in this argument is that the word parthenos doesn't necessarily mean virgin in the modern Septuagint, in Genesis 34:2–4 the Greek word parthenos refers to Dinah after she was raped.[20] (Wiki)
Arq comment. Luther's point is unclear as it raises the question 'so what?' Wasn't Mary's virgin conception supposed to be 'functional?'
But I'm not sure of the implication of the current Septuagint being "copied and preserved in Christian, not Jewish, circles" It sounds like an accusation of Christian alteration, thus it ought to have been translated 'young woman' but was changed to 'virgin' to fit in with Christian theology.
It is a strong accusation to make, and yet there is strong internal evidence that the flavian testament in Josephus is a Christian amendation, if not a total fake, so I wouldn't put it past them.
I looked at the 'other side' of the argument, too
The Miraculous Birth
"Metsidas Zion and Metsidas David are commentaries on the Prophets and Writings by Rabbi ben David Altschuller in two parts.
Rashi, in his comment quoted below, also stresses the youth of the almah. He mentions what other commentators say about the almah who is to bear a child, implying a miraculous birth:
This is the sign: she is a naarah [young girl] and would not be prophesying at her age, but the Holy Spirit will rest on her…Some say the son is Hezekiah, but this is impossible because Hezekiah was born nine years before his father [Ahaz] became king. Some say she was…too young to have a baby. The ot [sign or miracle] is that the young girl shall bear a child.
In addition, Isaiah’s wife, who is named as the prophetess in Chapter 8, verse, 3, had already borne a son, Shearjashub [7:3], and would not qualify as the young girl, naarah, that Rashi calls the almah mentioned in Isaiah 7:14."
(and later)
"Although the rabbis teach that bethulah is the only word for virgin, Rashi used another word to describe the almah in Isaiah 7:14 — naarah, which means child or young girl, by implication a virgin.
For example, the Bible, in Genesis 24:16, uses both words, naarah and bethulah to describe Rebekah.
And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her…" Arq. Bethulah...no man had known her; virgo intacta)
In the Song of Solomon 6:8, the Bible reads as follows:
There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and alamoth without number.
Metsidas Zion gives the logical comment that the alamoth are young girls, naarot. The alamoth do not fall into the category of either the queens or the concubines, since they are virgins."
Arq comment - That seems a hell of an assumption. Young girls they may be but in the context
virgo intacta is not something to bet on.
It's clear that it is not a clear cut issue and 'bethulah' does tend towards viginity and 'Almah' is more generally applied to a young (or relatively young) woman. virgin or not.
That page, pretty typically, ends up as I'm rather inclined to do, by dismissing the Alma/betulah debate and:
"It is clear that these Jewish sages did not take into consideration messianic prophecy that God was to fulfill at a later time. They only read into the words what applied to the times. If they had broadened their view, they would have realized that the son promised, Immanuel, 1) would come at a much later time, 2) would actually be God with us as prophesied in Isaiah 9:6 "
I agree, but I ask, why should they? It only becomes a prophecy of Jesus because the Jesus story fits it, sorta. But, since I find the Gospels full of examples of the gospel story tweaked, or fabricated, to fit prophecy nativity, Judas' death, John re. the crucifixion) it devalues the whole prophecy thing, Including Isaiah.
Now, Timothylogan, I doubt if you will bother with all this, but I'm doing it mainly for my own information and for those who may play the mistransation card in a debate and get knocked back by a Christian pointing out the ambiguity. They should know:
(1) the term is not clear cut but almah cannot be correctly interpreted as neccessarily
virgo intacta.
(2)The septuagint makes it
parthenos. but it is noted that it comes in present form from the church.
(3)The real question is whether the Isaiah prophecy even raltes to Jesus.
(4) It does if Jesus really fulfilled the prophecy, but consideration of the gospels shows clear evidence of fabricating the story to fit the gospels.
When I keep banging on about this, it isn't because it's My Own Theory, but because it's what the whole debate really comes down to. Redaction criticism really does debunk the nativity, the transfiguration, many of the parables, much of the Lucan material, most of the quarrels with the Pharisees..in fact most of the Galilean material, and it seriously questions the recognition of John (but not the baptism) the accounts of the resurrection...well. This is quite long enough. Forgive a loquatious old geezer.
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The Christian ploy of, if you can't make a good case against an atheist, shut them up somehow. Tell them to go away. 
