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Re: parthenos



> In a message dated 07-26-94  scott wrote to Steve Schaper:
>  s>   I am aware that the word translated "virgin" in the passage in
>  s> Isaiah does not actually mean chaste.
> 
>  In college, my professor of Hebrew, Richard Whitaker, who has published part
> of an Eerdman's commentary, as well as working on the computerized Ugaritic
> concordance, etc., said that the reason that betullah was not used was
> because it was the name of a Canaanite goddess, and if Isaiah had used that
> term for virgin, instead of the term for young, unmarried woman (who as a
> holy woman, would indeed be a virgin, as the rabbis who translated the
> Septuagint knew), he would have been stoned to death for appearing to predict
> that YHWH would have a child by a Canaanite goddess.
> --
> |toadnet:  STEVE SCHAPER 1:100/435
> |internet: STEVE.SCHAPER@1-100-435-0.cheswicks.toadnet.org

Are you quite sure that you're accurately remembering what Dick said?  I
can't see him getting that out of the text -- what's this stuff about a
"holy woman"??  Check out the standard commentaries: this seems like
exegesis by wishful thinking.

--
Sterling G. Bjorndahl, bjorndahl@Augustana.AB.CA 
Augustana University College, Camrose, Alberta, Canada (403) 679-1516
  When dealing with computers, a little paranoia is usually appropriate.