Brian Oakley wrote:
ve made

the

whole is the Earth round or flat debate moot. I won't even go near the
"almah" means young lady vs. virgin debate. And as for understanding and
obeying its teachings, yeah...right. that's why they're more subsets of
Christianity than you can name.


I have to disagree. The Koran cant work wonders as it teaches its followers
to kill all infidels. As for language, simple means simple, doesn't mean it
translates exactly the way you want it to in whatever language you choose.
As for the "almah" "debate", the writers of the Septuagint clearly
understood the meaning of the Hebrew and translated it with the Greek word
for "virgin". That argument is pretty much closed.

Hardly. The word is used in both contexts in the Hebrew bible. Hebrew
had a couple of terms for young women, "na'arah" and "almah," not to
mention "bethulah" which is also ambiguous as to virginity and they
may or may not have had different meanings. It's possible
that the Greek of the period did not have a word to precisely connote
whatever it was that the the compilers of the Septuagint had in mind,
so they chose "ha'almah." The reference in Isaiah seems to be clearly
describing an event which is to happen in the immediate future, in
an attempt to dissuade king Ahaz from handing over Judah to the
Assyrians to protect it from alliance of the Syrians and Northern
kingdom. This
is supported by the use of the definite article - it is "the almah"
in Hebrew, not "an almah" as KJV incorrectly has it.