[b-greek] Re: PARQENOS and Is 7:14

From: Dave Washburn (dwashbur@nyx.net)
Date: Wed Apr 18 2001 - 09:39:22 EDT


It's clear that I owe Roger an apology. For reasons that are really
lame excuses, I skimmed his earlier message rather quickly and
missed his main point. As a result, I wound up not only wasting
bandwidth but misrepresenting what he wrote. I hope he and the
list are in a forgiving mood :-)

>
> In a message dated 4/13/01 12:47:43 PM, dwashbur@nyx.net writes:
>
> << > Roger wrote--
> > I agree. There is the assumption of virginity. However, does the term
> convey the certainty of virginity? On this point, the articles I have read
> all seem to waffle. Almah may imply virginity but it does not guarantee it.
>
> DWashburn
> I think this is a non-issue. If there is the cultural assumption of
> virginity built into the word's usage, why is it necessary for us to try
> and demand linguistic certainty as well? Linguistic meaning
> doesn't happen in a vacuum; cultural factors affect semantics
> thoroughly, in fact it could be argued that words mean what they
> mean because a society chooses to use them that way and there's
> no such thing as an "inherent meaning." .....If, in
> that culture, a "young woman of marriageable age" was assumed
> to be a virgin if she ever hoped to gain a husband, then it would
> seem that virginity is at least implicitly guaranteed in the word's
> usage.
>
> RH
> I agree, but it seems that there are cases where almah is used when a girl is
> not a virgin, thus the inability to outright conclude that almah explicitly
> means that the girl is a virgin.
> +++
>
> > RH
> So, let's charge Mr. Washburn with the task of translating Is 7:14 into
> Greek. Further, let's require that he do so in a way that conveys the idea
> that the virginity of the almah is a certainty and not just to be assumed.
> How would he translate Is 7:14? Would he consider the text in Matthew
> sufficient to accomplish this purpose or would he think that a different
> translation is required ?
>
> DWashburn
> Why reinvent the wheel? The LXX and Matthew's renderings are
> good enough for me. The question, if there is one (see above)
> seems more one of emphasis; was Isaiah out to emphasize the
> woman's youth, her singleness, her virginity, what?.....Matthew was obviously
> emphasizing virginity, but even if Isaiah was emphasizing the fact
>
> that the woman was unmarried, the implication of virginity is still
> there because that's how the culture understood the word. No
> problem, no need for another translation. As I said, if one looks at
> the word in its cultural context, this is a non-issue.
>
> RH
> I agree that Matthew was emphasizing virginity and that led him to use
> PARQENOS. While we agree on the cultural context, I am not sure that the
> translator always has words available to convey that context. Some people
> allege that the use of PARQENOS amounts to a mistranslation. My thinking is
> that it was not intended to be a direct translation of almah, but that it was
> selected to emphasize a specific aspect of almah (i.e., the virginity of the
> almah). I agree with you. I just want to be sure that the technical
> details of Greek translation also agree.
>
> Roger Hutchinson
> RHutchin@AOL.com
> >>
>
>
> ---
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>


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"You just keep thinking, Butch. That's what you're good at."


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