THE WORD “ALMAH.”-ISAIAH 7, 14.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 705, 4 September 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE WORD “ALMAH.” - ISAIAH 7, 14.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND MAIL. Sir, —My knowledge of Hebrew is slight’ my pursuit of that language having been checked by the strangeness of its letters, as has been the case with many other students. Wlien such a controversy arises as that between Mr H. Van Staveren and Archdeacon Stock, one sees how great the need is of an edition of the Old Testament in Hebrew _ in the transliterated form —that is, with the sound of the words given in the form of the English Alphabet, with a word for word interlinear translation, the parsing of each word at the foot of the page, a simplified grammar of Biblical Hebrew, with examples from the sacred text at the beginning of the volume, and a complete concordance also in the transliterated form at the end. It would then be as easy to learn Hebrew as it is to learn Maori. But, Sir, though my knowledge of Hebrew is slight, I know enough English know that the Anglo-Saxon maiden is strictly a synonym of the word “virgin,” which is of Latin origin—a point which seems doubtful to some of the reviewers of the revised version of last May, and I know that such Hebraists as the famous seventy who translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek in the third century before Christ, much as the English Revision Company have been, doing into English during the last 15 years, translated the word in

question by the unambiguous parthenos ; that those Jews who in the first Christian century put the fouc gospels in writing clearly believed that Christ had no human father, as did St. Paul of the Epistles ; and that S. Jerome, who in the fourth century of the incarnation translated the Bible into Latin at the request of Pope' Damasus, used the word virgo in this passage, as did all the early Christian “ fathers” whose writings have reached our times. What point would there have been in saying “ born of a female ” of any ordinary or extraordinary person, when the same might be said of every one who has ever lived, except ad opting the Book of Genesis, the first man and woman. The meaning plainly is that someone more than mere man was to come into the world, and was to come in a miraculous way. It is odd that it is generally those who hold that there once were men and women whose parents were not human should be those to deny the possibility of a man, who was also, however, something more, having no human father. Are there not some insects who come into being without fathers 1 Does not Mr Cheyne, in his edition of Isaiah, say that almah means virgin % See what Cruden says in his concordance, sub voc. : virgin.—l am, &c., Monogenist. (to THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES.) Sir, —“Hot Coffee” has made a strange blunder. The word in the passage he refers to, is pilegesh. Almah is only used seven times in the old Testament. In Exodus ii., 8, even Rev Van Staveren would grant that the word is rightly translated “ maid.” I still assert that almah is translated by the Septuagint Rabbis, who were not prejudiced one way or another, by the word parthenos ; and that, as any lexicon will bear me out, the proper meaning of parthenos is “ a chaste unmarried woman.” —I am, &c., A. Stock. August 31, 1885. " TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sißj—l notice that the Ven Archdeacon Stock, in a letter in this morning’s issue of your valuable paper, takes it for granted that I concur with the translation of “ almah ” as being maid or maiden in Exodus, c. 2 v. 8. I must again, differ from the Archdeacon on this point, and assure him that the e ‘ almah referred to in the above chapter was, .at' that time, a married woman, viz., the wife of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. The word “almah,” literally translated, is female, and can be applied to virgin, married woman, or even concubine. —I am, &c. H. Van Staveren. September 3. TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —The matter is so important that I must ask leave to trouble you again. Josephus says that Miriam was married to Hur, but Mr Van Staveren must prove that she was a married woman when set to watch M.oses before that he can set aside my argument that “ almah ” here is correctly translated “maid.”—lam, &c., A. Stock. September 2.