I agree with your policy.  No problem with that. 

But it's like you're not listening to what I'm saying.  Did you read what I wrote about the context?  About Ahaz and his not asking God for a sign so Isaiah gave him one? 

A young woman giving birth does make sense.  Agree.  Happens all the time.  But this is clearly something that goes beyond that. Isaiah is saying watch for the extraordinary here.    Isaiah is saying there is going to be a miracle that will happen here to prove to Ahaz that God is in control and that the Davidic kingdom is not in danger.  This will be the "sign."    So the "sign" isn't that a young girl is going to give birth but a virgin who would.  

Again, repeatedly you zoom in for the word and in this case the word can mean "young girl" or "virgin" which is just about the same thing.  A virgin more than likely is a young girl.  But while you look intently at the word (which is good) you ignore the context the word is nestled in (which is not good).  You need to look at both Leauki.  Broaden your horizon. 

see you don't even know the story here.  You read the verse I supplied but not the context.  The context was this was Moses sister, who was a young girl.  She followed the basket in the water until it reached Pharoah's daughter.  This "virgin" was Miriam.  She ran and got her mother (Moses' own mother as well) to be the nursemaid for the baby Moses. 

Today we don't refer to little girls as virgins but they are.   Virginity was much more important back then.  Today not so much.   When you look back at the works of antiquity whether it be biblically based or secular the use of the word virgin was much more common back then.  It was very very important that a girl be a virgin before she married and she was worthy much more than one who was not. 

So it doesn't matter how I or you refer to young girls today. What matters is how they did back then and it's clear that a young girl was expected to be a virgin until they married. 

Exodus 2 uses a lot of words that are translated as "maiden".

2.5 uses "na3ara" for "maid" as in the Pharaoh's daughters maidens who walk along the Nile.

It then uses "ama" for the "maid" sent to fetch the child.

And 2.8 then uses "3alma" to refer to Moses' sister, the girl.

"Na3ara" is the female version of "na3ar" which means "boy". It derives from a root that implies "sapling" or "rumspringa" if you are into Amish slang.

"Ama" is apparently a handmaid. (I don't deduce this from the translation "handmaid" but because the word appears as a possessed form and whatever an "ama" is, it is owned by Pharaoh's daughter. That implies handmaid.)

"3alma", like "na3ara" is not a word by itself. It's the feminine version of "3elem". (There are femine words that have a different meaning from their masculine counterparts, like "adama" = "ground" and "adam" = "man", "adama" does not mean "female man".) "3elem" means "lad", making "3alma" a "lass". There is no virginity in the meaning.

On the other hand, the real word for "virgin", "betula" actually means "virgin" in both its masculine and feminine forms and as an adjective ("batul", "batula", batuli"). The "u" vowel betwen the "t" and "l" implies that the word specifies a status but I cannot find a corresponding verb that might cause the status, not to the subject itself nor an object. "Batul" is an uncaused status. The word means "virginity" in two ways.

"3elem" on the other hand is not a status word. The related status word I find is "3alum", which means "concealed" or "hidden", which to me implies that kids have that status in a family but to you will obviously mean "virgin".

Why ancient Hebrew would have several words for "virgin", I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me. Especially since noone, not today or back then, would really use the word "virgin" quite as often as "3alma" is used.

Anyway, I looked up the lemma (root) in an Aramaic lexicon and found the following meanings for Ayin Lamed Mem, the root the word "3alma" is based on:

to disappear
to call eternal
to be made eternal
to be young and courageous
to restore someone's youth
to mature
to be made mature
to behave as a boy
to be educated
eternity
world
nation

And for the root Beth Taw Lamed, the root of the word "betula" that means "virgin" in Hebrew, I found this:

to ravish
to be ravished

(This implies that in ancient Aramaic, a "betula" was actually a recent non-virgin, i.e. somebody just ravished.)

So yes, while certain appearances of the word "3alma" can be read as describing girls who are obviously virgins, it simply doesn't mean "virgin" and there is no specific need to read it as if it implies such.

All we really know is that the prophecy speaks of a young woman (as opposed to an old woman) and not of a virgin (as opposed to a non-virgin). That's what I have to work with.

Otherwise I would have to start translating every instance where the Tanakh says "man" as "bearded man" because most men were expected to be bearded at the time.

And you are wrong about the ancient Jewish view of virginity. The almost holy status of virginity was a Greek and Roman thing. The Ancient Israelites didn't value it quite as much and sex before marriage was technically allowed if frowned upon. Virginity was seen as a positive attribute for a future wife but not something one would necessarily insist on.

Where are you getting your info from?  I read this from "Sketches of Jewish Social Life" by Alfred Edersheim:

"Before marriage, they (groomsmen) acted as a kind of intermediaries between the couple; at the wedding they offered gifts, waited upon the bride and bridegroom, and attended them to the bridal chamber, being also, as it were, the guarantors of the bride's virgin chastity."

Also he said this:

"Marriage with a maiden was commonly celebrated on a Wednesday afternoon, which allowed the first days of the week for preparation, and enabled the husband, if he had a charge to prefer against the previous chastity of his bride, to make immediate complaint before the local Sanhedrim, which sat every Thursday."

So that's sort of where I'm coming from.  I also know this has great spiritual significance as well.  John the Baptist called himself a friend of the bridegroom (groomsman).  He wasn't the bride (church) and he wasn't the groom (Messiah).  He was presenting the bride (church) to the groom (Christ).  It is the duty of the "friend of the bridegroom" to present to him his bride.  It was also custom for the groomsman to defend the good fame of the bride against all imputations. 

Paul said this in the NT using the Jewish wedding analogy:

"I am jealous over you with godly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." 

Moses is spoken of as "the friend of the bridegroom" who leads out the bride (Ex 19:17) while Jehovah, as the bridegroom meets his church at Sinai. 

I get this from Jewish marriage law.

The process you describe, with intermediaries, wasn't as much common as merely allowed. It still is.

For example the murderer of prime minister Rabin married his wife that way, since he is in prison and she is not.

Virginity became more important in Israel during the Greek period.

Remember that Jewish law allows for divorse and finds nothing morally wrong with it. Jewish law also specifices who may and who may not marry a previously divorced woman.

A kohen, for example, may not marry a divorced woman. The Kohen Gadol (high priest) must marry a virgin. Apart from him, marriage to non-virgins was perfectly allowed, perfectly normal, and there was nothing wrong with it whatsoever.

(I believe the reason for the Kohen Gadol to have to marry a virgin is to guarantee beyond doubt that her child will be his. This is not usually as important as for that particular family. Also note that marriages by a kohen that violate these laws are still valid marriages and the children are perfectly legitimate, as are, in Judaism, children who in other cultures would be considered "bastards" and illigitimate.)

But the idea that virginity is something very special and looked for in a woman came to Israel from Europe, first via the Greeks and then via Greek converts to Christianity.

It seems to me like Edersheim is writing about the Greek period and how he thinks everything must be interpreted rather than about pure Jewish customs. There is nothing in Judaism that would make a complaint to a court very useful or even possible when it comes to marriage, as a Jewish marriage has nothing to do with any authorities, neither prietsly nor legal.

A Jewish marriage is formed by a man and a woman agreeing to marry and telling two (male) witnesses about it. That's it. There is no court involved. Why the husband-to-be would then complain to strange men in a court about anything is beyond my understanding. If he is upset that his wife-to-be is not a virgin, he shouldn't marry her, not complain to a court which has nothing to do with his marriage.

Leauki, remember I'm talking about historically not now. 

Everything in the Jewish scriptures seem to indicate that chastity before marriage was honored and expected. 

Of course, I'm only going by the scriptures and writings and stories from Jewish teachers here and there.  I'm no expert on the Talmud and other Jewish writings.  Everything I've learned has been repeated to me over a period of many years and basically all say pretty much the same thing. 

Virginity was important.  The marriage bed was to be undefiled.  The bride would wait for her bridegroom.  On the day of the wedding, the best man would come to her home and take her to her groom at his place where the wedding would take place. 

Jesus even used the typical Jewish wedding ceremony as a parable when he spoke of the 10 virgins who were waiting for the wedding day to arrive.  When five, who were unprepared went to get more oil for their lamps, the bridgegroom's party came to take them away to the wedding only five were waiting there prepared.   The other five were out of luck. 

As far as the whole Greek thing.  Not sure but doesn't make sense to me right off.  I'm thinking the Jews were to be set apart, as holy men and women of God where the Greeks and other pagans were well...pagan.  Sex and drunkenness flowed freely with the Greeks where it didn't with the Jews.  Sex was part of the Greek worship but was not with the Jewish worship.  The Greeks were known for their Greek Goddess worship, the Jews did no such thing. 

It was all about sex and enlightenment with the Greeks, it was all about purity and tradition with the Jews.  At least that's what I read when I read the scriptures. 

I know. And I was talking about historically, as in before the Greek influences.

Honoured? Yes.

But expected? That's impossible in a society that specifically allowed divorce.

You are still thinking "wedding" as per ceremony. That's not how it was necessarily done in ancient Israel. The idea of a marriage ceremony was Greek and Roman thing, not demanded by ancient Israelite law.

I don't know if he spoke of virgins or not, but the the typical wedding ceremonies at Jesus' time were already a feature of Jewish culture after the arrival of the Greeks.

The Jews shouldn't have taken over Greek customs and there are specific laws against doing so (the prohibition of drinking foreign wine for example). But if something Greek didn't contradict Jewish customs, it was adopted. That is why you had so many Greek-speaking Jews at Jesus' time.

Greeks used sex (and homosexual sex) in religious rituals. That obviously didn't plan well with the Jews. But the Greeks also worshipped virginity and seeing virginity as a virtue was OK and readily adopted by Jews, as were obligatory marriage ceremonies.

Jewish law is very open towards sex and seeing it as joy. "Purity" is not a Jewish concept outside the priest caste.

Leauki posts # 191

the people's party posts 193

Yes, I was going to point out the use of the Septuagint translation to prove the point of Is. 7:14 as well. It is reasonable to assume that the 72 translators would not have agreed, unanimously, to transcribe the word "almah" into "parthenos for the Greek reading public unless they believed, as do Christians, that the virgin was foretold by Isaias to conceive of Emmanuel, God with us.

And it is also reasonable to assume that the High Priest Eleazar, who appointed the 72, and gave them his most valuable manuscript, said to have been written in gold, whould have allowed the word, "parthenos" (virgin) to remain in the translated Is. 7:14 if it were not warranted by the Isianian thought in the original text.

Leauki posts:

Then try to understand it this way.

Yes, the term "almah" may or may not signify virgin, but a young marriagable woman in general.

That's why the term must be judged within and not in disregard to the text. Isaias 7:14 says The Lord Himself shall give a sign, behold almah, (woman, virgin) shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (God with us)"; who is called the Wonderful, Counselor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace," in Is. 9:6. 

What was that sign, Leauki? Have you ever thought of the unusual, significant event to be?

Surely, it was never an unusual thing for a woman to conceive. A "sign" from God is a miracle. For example, the miracles that God enabled Aaron, the High Priest, to perform with his 'rod' are called "signs" in Exodus 4:17. The fact that a God-given sign is a miracle is parralleled in the case of Hezekiah, in which a "sign" to thee in the Lord" is promised Is. 38:7.

Moses used the term "almah" to signify a virgin when telling about the servant of Abraham expected at the well, who was to become the wife of his son, Isaac, "a most beautiful virgin". Gen. 24: 16.

As well, the fact that a virgin was to conceive and bring forth the Messias was first proclaimed by God through Moses. It's implied in the declaration that the "seed" of a woman in Gen. 3:15. This is the only Bible recorded instance of conception through the 'seed" of a woman instead of a man. There is only one descendant of Adam who had no earthly father, and that is the Man, Jesus.He is the "seed of a woman" that was promised to come and did come, to make amends for the sin of Adam and that of the whole world.

Ok. That makes sense.

Fine.

A boy named Emmanuel named Jeshua? I find that significant.

The birth of a child to a woman not yet married is also of some fignificance. I figure the prophecy tells us that the highest kind can be lowest-born. I don't see where the virginity comes in. Seems like a useless miracle not necessary for the prophecy to work.

Actually, that's another case where "young woman" is more appropriate.

Actually, it's a Zoroastrian legend about the Messiah. Judaism only took on the Messiah thing after the Babylonian exile. Incidentally, I think the Zoroastrian Messiah was predicted to have been born to a virgin. Maybe that is where Christianity got it from?