Why did Matthew & later translators use the Greek parthenos rather than the Hebrew 'almah in quoting Isaiah?

Question

'almah is distinctly young girl -- no hint of virgin
parthenos-young girl--implications of virginity.

Could it be God told them to slip in a word with false implications to make things work out the way the disciples wanted them to work out.

All I'm getting is rationalization, here.
Virgin birth is a requisite of a messiah or not, people.

Answer 1

Matthew was quoting the Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek done by Egyptian Jews during Egypt's Hellenistic Period after Alexander the Great.

The word Parthenos is used for 'young girl' even ones who are obviously not virgins, in the Septuagint. It was consistently used to translate the Hebrew word almah - young girl. An example would be Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, after she was raped. In later Greek it would come to meen Virgin, in the sense of the Hebrew word Betulah.

Why the word changed to mean specifically a virgin girl is not known, or whether it changed at all. It could be the Septuagint translators were not as good in Greek as one might hope.

Whatever the case, the writers of the New Testament were not aware of its alternative meaning, and used it in the sense of virgin. SOme could point out that this would strongly imply they themselves were either not Palestinian Jews, as they present themselves; or were originally from the highly secularized, Hellenized upper classes of Palestinian Jewry, not the more pious working class they present themselves as.

In defense of the gospel accounts however - it is only in the books of Matthew, and Luke that the verses are used. Incidentally Matthew is presented as a former Roman Tax collector - just the sort of highly secularized, assimilated Greek speaker we would expect not to be able to read in the original Hebrew; and Luke was a gentile follower of Paul.

Answer 2

Hebrew is a non specific langauge. And more than likely they were quoting from the Septuagint (greek translation of the OT) and Greek is a very specific langauge that is at times more specific than English.

Answer 3

I have not seen the actual text from which such a transcription was made, so I don't know that what you are saying is true (i.e. an intentional 'device') or even relevant. :)

Answer 4

Why did Christ? This is a semantics argument.
You are incorrect, that's why.