virgin birth(concerning LXX use of parthenos)

Ronie Mooney ronie@InfoAVE.net
Mon, 08 Feb 1999 23:05:12 -0500 (00918554712, 00d601be53e1$6624fe40$bb5c74cc@ronies) 

Hi Group!
   Even if one concedes that Isaiah 7:14 is referring to a virgin conceiving
there is no proof that the writer intended to mean she was a virgin *when* the
act of conception was complete. In other words she was a virgin that would, in
the near future, become pregnant, and bear a son. Of course once she became
pregnant she would no longer (obviously) be a virgin. Similar language is found
elsewhere in Isaiah where it is apparent the status of the person changes once
an event takes place. For example:

Isaiah 35:6  Then shall the *lame* man leap as the hart, and the tongue of the
dumb sing...
  Note: Obviously, once he begins to leap as the hart he is no longer lame.

Isaiah 65:20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man
that hath not filled his days: for the *child* shall die an hundred years old;
but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
   Note: Here too, once a child has lived an hundred years he is no longer a
child.

Isaiah 29:18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the
eyes of the blind shall see...
  Note: Once the deaf man hears, he is no longer deaf. This is obviously poetic
usage. In the same sense, once a virgin becomes pregnant, she is no longer a
virgin...

Isaiah 26:19  The dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they
arise...
  Once they are alive, they are no longer dead....

Psalms 113:9  He makes the *barren* woman to keep house, and to be a joyful
mother of children...
   Obviously, she is no longer barren once she becomes pregnant

1 Sam 2:5  They that were full have hired themselves for bread; and they that
were hungry ceased: so that the *barren* hath born seven;...
    Here again, once a barren woman bears her first child, she is no longer
"barren" in the truest sense of the word. Likewise, once a virgin "beomes
pregnant" she is no longer a virgin, obviously. Yet it is the way of OT writers
to write in an anticpation of an event while calling the person what they are
before the event takes place.

Luke 7:22  Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what
things ye have seen and heard; how that the *blind* see, the *lame* walk, the
lepers are cleansed, the *deaf* hear, the *dead* are raised, to the poor the
gospel is preached.

  I think this shows that even if the LXX writers understood the translation in
Isaiah 7:14 to refer to a virgin, it is not neccessarily true that they felt she
would still be a virgin when she actually conceived, only that she was a chosen
virgin that was picked at some future date to bear *Immanuel*...bible writers
write like this in anticipation.  Any comments?
Dave