Larry Ozarow wrote:
d.


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."
^^^^^^^^^^
Oops. I meant they chose "parthenos" for "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.