re: #485 SpaceJesus

haha, isn’t the whole virginity thing just a mistranslation that that greeks did?

You should know: it’s about your birth.

Isaiah 7 reads in part Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: An ‘almah’ will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.

‘Almah’ goes into Greek as ‘parthenos’—‘virgin’—however the Hebrew word for virgin is ‘b’tulah’. ‘Almah’ simply means ‘a young woman’ who might be married and a mother.

Christians have traditionally seen the verse as one of those prefacing Christ’s birth, and Mary’s virginity. Jews tend to read it in the context of Isaiah’s prophecy to King Ahaz—essentially, “A young woman will have a child, and before he is able to understand wright and wrong, the Assyrians will destroy your kingdom. Shape up in the eyes of the Lord.”

It’s one of those MAJOR interpretation issues.