The original Scene: Ahaz, Isaiah, and a sign

The verse emerges from a political crisis. Around 735 BCE, King Ahaz of Judah faced a military coalition between Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel. It seemed that the kingdom and the family line of King David might be destroyed. God sent the prophet Isaiah to comfort Ahaz and gave him a sign: "The ʿalmāh will have a child and give birth to a son, and he will be called Immanuel." [Is 7:13-14] The sign was intended to be reassuring to Ahaz. Isaiah predicted that the enemy kings would be killed before the infant was old enough to understand right from wrong. This implies that an event that would occur during Isaiah's lifetime was mentioned in the prophecy. Then, the question arises: What did Isaiah intend by the term ʿalmāh, and who was it? (Rico and Gentry 2020, 1–2).

The word itself: a lexical puzzle

The term ʿalmāh (עַלְמָה) appears only nine times in the Hebrew Bible. Linguists have traced the family of words to an ancient root found in several Semitic languages. It usually refers to a young person who is old enough to be considered an adult (has reached sexual maturity) (Rico and Gentry 2020, 6).

The issue, however, is that while most agree that ʿalmāh does not necessarily mean "virgin," they disagree on what it actually means. The distinction between it and the more relevant Hebrew term for a young woman, naʿărāh, is not clear. Some academics feel it just refers to a young lady who is old enough to get married, while others say it refers to a woman of higher social rank or a childless woman.

Jerome's unusual attempt to explain the word's meaning through its origin

Jerome (c. 347–420 CE) provided the most significant early philological justification of the "virgin" reading. He worked directly from the Hebrew rather than reasoning from Greek usage.

Jerome connected ʿalmāh to the Hebrew root עלם, meaning "to hide" or "to conceal." From this, he derived the Latin equivalent abscondita, which means a "girl hidden away, kept from the eyes of men." Such a girl would most probably be a virgin, since she would have no opportunity to know a man. Jerome rejects the idea that ʿalmāh does not mean "virgin." He argues that the word means more than just a virgin.

Jerome argues that almah means neither "virgin" nor "young girl" simply. It means something more than both: a young woman so closely guarded that her virginity is guaranteed by circumstance rather than by definition. — Kamesar 1990, 62–63

Was Jerome right?

Kamesar (1990, 63–65) says that Jerome was skilled in studying Hebrew words and points out that Jerome's connection between ʿalmāh and a Hebrew root meaning "to conceal" can also be found in Jewish rabbinic writings. This means Jerome's method was based on real Hebrew language traditions. However, Jerome's argument has a problem: the word ʿalmāh does not appear in Deuteronomy 22. Instead, those passages use the Hebrew words naʿărāh ("young woman") and bethûlāh ("virgin"), not ʿalmāh (Kamesar 1990, 73).

A bigger challenge came later from Jewish translators such as Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. When they translated Isaiah 7:14, they used the Greek word neanis ("young woman") instead of parthenos ("virgin"). This showed that these translators disagreed with the Christian understanding of the verse. The debate over the meaning of the verse continues in Entry 2 of this blog series.

In Entry 1 we asked what the Hebrew word. In this entry we will look at a Greek translation of Isaiah that was composed approximately 200 years prior to the birth of Jesus in this entry. We will examine the reasonings behind the translators' selection of the Greek term parthenos ("virgin") and how that decision impacted the discussion surrounding the verse's meaning.

The Septuagint: scripture in a new language

Between 250 and 150 BCE, Jewish scholars in Alexandria translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. The result, known as the Septuagint (LXX) became the Bible of Greek-speaking Jews and, later, of the majority of early Christians. Timothy Michael Law (2013) argues that the Septuagint had a major influence on early Christians. The writers of the New Testament often used its language and ideas when writing about Christianity.

When the translators reached Isaiah 7:14, they chose the word parthenos for ʿalmāh. This word usually meant "virgin," but it could also sometimes mean a young unmarried woman. In rare cases, it was used for women who were not virgins as with Dinah in Genesis 34. (Rico 2020, 8–9).

How early Christians defended the translation

Once Jewish scholars objected that the Greek equivalent of ʿalmāh was neanis (young woman) rather than parthenos, Christian apologists had to respond.

The early Fathers:

The first Christian writers defended the idea that Isaiah 7:14 referred to a virgin birth. Justin Martyr (around 150 CE) claimed that Jewish translators intentionally changed the verse by using the word neanis ("young woman") instead of parthenos ("virgin"). Irenaeus argued that an ordinary young woman having a baby would not be much of a sign. Since Isaiah called it a "sign," he believed it had to be something miraculous, such as a virgin birth (Kamesar 1990, 51–52). Tertullian (1868, 144–46) also argued that Jewish translators had to reject the Septuagint's translation in order to support their interpretation.

A different Christian argument

Later Christian writers used a more language-based argument. Rather than just saying the text was corrupted, Christians writers argued that the two Greek words were synonymous within biblical Greek usage. This was shown through Deuteronomy 22:23–29, which uses both words interchangeably to describe the same betrothed virgin (Kamesar 1990, 58).

One of the most cautious of the Fathers, Eusebius of Caesarea, did not claim that neanis must signify virgin. Instead, he argued that the word could mean a virgin. He pointed to Deuteronomy 22, where neanis is used to describe a woman who is a virgin, as evidence that the Christian interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 is possible (Kamesar 1990, 53–54).

The deeper stakes: whose translation is authoritative?

The debate was not just the meaning of one word, It was also about whether Christians could trust the Septuagint as an authoritative scripture. When Jewish scholars created new Greek translations and used neanis ("young woman") instead of parthenos ("virgin"), they challenged the credibility of the Septuagint's translation. Christians responded by arguing that the Septuagint was inspired by God and that the new translations were made because of opposition to Christian beliefs.

Timeline of the controversy

We have seen in Entries 1 and 2 how a single word was translated and how that translation was quoted in Matthew's Gospel, and how it became the a crucial argument in Jewish-Christian debate. In this final entry, we ask the bigger question: what does all of this tell us about how Christian belief was constructed?

Matthew's use of the Septuagint

The author of Matthew's Gospel (Matthew 1:22–23) closely relates Isaiah 7:14 and Jesus' birth. Matthew cites the Greek Septuagint translation, which used the word "parthenos" (meaning "virgin") instead of the Hebrew word "ʿalmāh." This is significant since "parthenos" more obviously implies a virgin, whereas "ʿalmāh" is more ambiguous. Matthew interprets the birth of Jesus as the realization of Isaiah's prophesy using the Septuagint (Kamesar 1990, 51–52; Law 2013, 3–4). According to Grams (2004, 238–39), Matthew's use of the Septuagint is a component of a bigger motif throughout his Gospel. Isaiah's subject of "Immanuel" is used often by him to demonstrate that Jesus is "God with us." The Greek term "parthenos" was particularly helpful for this message because it had a stronger association with virginity. In this sense, the Septuagint influenced Matthew's understanding and presentation of Jesus in addition to preserving a prophecy.

The modern consensus, and its potential limits

Rico (2020, 9–10) challenges what is seen as an overly simple scholarly consensus. Although the article agrees that there is no clear evidence that ʿalmāh must mean "virgin," they argue that scholars have not fully explained why the word is regularly used in contexts involving virgins or why the Septuagint translators chose parthenos rather than neanis.

"Strange as it may seem, the scholarly consensus touches only a limited aspect of the question. True, with regard to the noun ʿalmâ, a large negative consensus has emerged (exegetes agree on what the word does not mean). However, the scientific community has not reached any positive consensus on this word." — Rico 2020, 9–10

Translation and the construction of belief

The main point is not just that translators made a choice that later had cosequences. The choice was influenced by the beliefs, traditions, and identities of the communities doing the translating. When Jewish scholars in the second century CE created new translations using neanis, they were also arguing that their community had the correct understanding of the Hebrew scriptures. Roskoski (2025, 3–4) argues that understanding Matthew's use of the Septuagint helps us understand how early Christian theology developed. Rather than being a fixed set of beliefs, early Christian theology grew through the way people interpreted scripture across different texts, languages, and communities.