Must we believe in the virgin birth?

[John of Japan]

John, you may be right. I said that I believed that Mary probably was a virgin. My statement was that I have heard people who know much more than I say it could be translated otherwise.

I have found the following:

Well, your first source is Wikipedia, which is notoriously unscholarly. In fact, a good seminary or Bible college will not allow quotes from Wiki in papers and dissertations. But the author does a fair job nonetheless. And if you'll examine the Biblical examples given, several are very clearly virgins (Rebekah, Moses' sister Miriam, etc.; this is considering the culture concerning premarital sex in Bible times). And IMO it is ridiculous to say any of the passages, including the Proverbs one, indicates a married woman as some have said.

Your second source is very poor. The author uses the etymological fallacy, which is the idea that the etymology (origin) of a word determines its meaning.

Your third source is pretty fair, noting that the Septuagint translates almah on occasion with the Greek parthenos, which always, ALWAYS, means "virgin." And as I have said, Matthew also translates almah with parthenos. So the obvious conclusion is that to 1st century Jews, almah meant "virgin."

Now here is another thing. Lexicons do not determine meaning, and all three of your sources depend on lexicons. Lexicons only record the meaning the lexicographer prefers, so they are only as good as the lexicographer. In this case the lexicons quoted fail according to the liberal presuppositions of the lexicographers.

Actually, contemporary usage determines meaning (i.e., how the word is used by people during the time in question). None of your sources gave any non-Biblical usage of the word. So we are limited to the usage in the Bible, where sometimes the word obviously means virgin and sometimes it is ambiguous. With no further evidence, and depending on the Greek word for virgin being used over and over for almah, a linguist like myself must conclude that the core meaning of the word is virgin.

Now considering that as I have said, the inspired book of Matthew uses a Greek word clearly meaning virgin to translate the word in Isaiah, I find it very sad that you would say, "Mary probably was a virgin." Looking at the linguistic evidence in Matthew, there is no possible conclusion other than that Mary was definitely a virgin, not "probably."

 

[John of Japan]

that is why i have stayed with my ole BAGD greek lexicon 2nd edition, as read and heard that the the 3rd edition revised, BDGD greek lexicon, went off into too much accomodating to modern views on ways words should be seen as meaning!

Wished I had picked up a Bauer first edition lexicon, saw it used for 10.00!

Aw, man, you let that first edition Bauer go by? That hurts!

I've stuck with BAGD 2nd also.