Tue Mar 12 14:07:06 1996

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Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 14:06:56 -0500 (EST)
From: "James R. Adair" 
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Subject: Re: Is 7:14
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I will be presenting a paper this weekend at the Southeast regional SBL
meetings in South Carolina in which I argue that Isa 7:14 can be viewed as
an "orthodox corruption" from two different points of view!  First, Isaiah
LXX is a fairly free translation, so PARQENOS (parthenos) is almost surely
original to the translator (the Hebrew word that most closely corresponds
would be B:TULFH [betulah]).  However, the translation didn't run into any
major opposition until Matthew picked it up and used it as a proof-text
for the virgin birth (Mt 1:23).  After this, many Jews rejected the LXX
reading and opted for NEANIS (used by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion),
which is closer in meaning to the MT of Isa 7:14, (FLMFH (almah).  For
Christian scribes, then, PARQENOS suddenly became a doctrinally important
reading, and they accused the Jews of altering texts in order to refute
the doctrine of the virgin birth.  Jews, on the other hand, felt that
their reading NEANIS was a justified correction of the errant LXX reading. 
Thus, both PARQENOS and NEANIS could be viewed as orthodox
corruptions/corrections from different points of view.

Jimmy Adair
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <-----------------

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