The Temporal Horizon of the Immanuel Oracle

[kwrandolph]

Look at the people who wrote the dictionaries to which you refer—not one of them is a Christian...

Brilliant. If they aren’t Christians, they aren’t reputable. I’m very impressed with this line of thinking. Do you really know the personal beliefs of the people who wrote these dictionaries?

Actually, yes for at least some of them. Gesenius was not a Christian. BDB were not Christians. They all held to a philosophy that prophesizing is not possible, and that the Bible is just a conglomeration of folk tales, legends, dimly remembered national memories, and so forth compiled in the last centuries BC. They may have been members of the apostate state churches, but that doesn’t make them Christians. I can make educated guesses on the others. They have only philosophic arguments to back up their case.

For me, the arguments that count are the linguistic arguments. Those are the arguments that back up the case that עלמה, when referring to a young woman, means “virgin”.

Karl W. Randolph.

[kwrandolph]

Karl,
I don't understand why you think Isaiah 62:5 can't say that a young man will marry a virgin? Can't a person marry a virgin?

The use of the term בעל indicates an ongoing relationship, not something that had not yet come to pass.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Jason Hare]

Actually, yes for at least some of them. Gesenius was not a Christian. BDB were not Christians. They all held to a philosophy that prophesizing is not possible, and that the Bible is just a conglomeration of folk tales, legends, dimly remembered national memories, and so forth compiled in the last centuries BC. They may have been members of the apostate state churches, but that doesn’t make them Christians. I can make educated guesses on the others. They have only philosophic arguments to back up their case.

For me, the arguments that count are the linguistic arguments. Those are the arguments that back up the case that עלמה, when referring to a young woman, means “virgin”.

Karl W. Randolph.

Do I ever quote from Gesenius’s lexicon or from BDB? Yes, I refer to Gesenius’s grammar, but not his lexicon. The dictionaries that I quote from are Ludwig Koehler et alii’s The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1994–2000) and David J. A. Clines’s (ed.) The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993–2011).

You’re saying that people have a bias against Christianity that makes them take a position other than the one that you take on the meaning of the word עַלְמָה. That is really odd.

[Kenneth Greifer]

Karl,
I don't understand why you think Isaiah 62:5 can't say that a young man will marry a virgin? Can't a person marry a virgin?

The use of the term בעל indicates an ongoing relationship, not something that had not yet come to pass.

Karl W. Randolph.

Karl,
I have never studied linguistics, but just using common sense, which I assume is part of linguistics, you are guessing the meanings of a verb used thousands of years ago from just a few verses. Even with those few verses, you can see that some of them are about new marriages and some could be about an ongoing marriage. The verb "to marry" is probably used like in English. You can be married to someone for ten years or you can go out and marry someone. Even Isaiah 62:5 could mean a man will marry a virgin or a woman, if that is how you translate it. I guess you see it as "a young man will marry a married woman" if you think betula means "a married woman."

[Kenneth Greifer]

Karl,
Just for interest, the Septuagint translates Isaiah 62:5 as a young man will marry a virgin.

[Kenneth Greifer]

Karl,
Could you give your translation of Isaiah 62:5, so I could understand what you are saying better?

[Kenneth Greifer]

Karl,
I think I understand now what you mean about Isaiah 62:5 being ongoing. You think it says "a young man will husband (will rule) a wife (a married woman)" and not "a young man will marry a virgin."

[Kenneth Greifer]

Karl,
I just realized there are only a few verses with this verb baal, and it could be that Isaiah 62:5 is an example of the verb not being used to say an ongoing meaning like "a young man will husband (will rule) a wife (a married woman)", but he will marry a virgin. You can't just look at a few examples and make a rule for a word. You are deciding this verse's meaning based on two guesses, the verb can't mean "to marry", but means "to husband" and the noun can't mean "virgin", but "married woman."

[Jason Hare]

Karl,
Just for interest, the Septuagint translates Isaiah 62:5 as a young man will marry a virgin.

Is this under the assumption that παρθένος necessarily meant “virgin.” I ask because of Genesis 34.

Genesis 34:2
Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, chief of the country, saw her [Dinah], and took her and lay with her by force. (njps)

He lay with her by force—he raped her. Yet, after this happened, she was still called a παρθένος (parthenos) in the very next verse in the Septuagint (after her rape).

Genesis 34:3
Being strongly drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and in love with the maiden (ἠγάπησεν τὴν παρθένον [lxx]), he spoke to the maiden tenderly (ἐλάλησεν κατὰ τὴν διάνοιαν τῆς παρθένου αὐτῇ [lxx]). (njps)

In earlier Greek, παρθένος was simply a synonym of κόρη, meaning “girl.” It seems to me that there were times in the Septuagint, which was written some 200 years or more before the New Testament, in which it held that meaning and hadn’t yet come to mean “virgin” in the way that it was in Matthew’s gospel.

[Jason Hare]

Karl,
I don't understand why you think Isaiah 62:5 can't say that a young man will marry a virgin? Can't a person marry a virgin?

Yeah, I don’t get it either. It seems to me that a young man does generally marry a virgin bride and rejoices over her. I don’t see what would make Karl see this as an already married woman in that verse. Doesn’t look like it to me.