First let me assure you I am not questioning your or anyone else's expertise. First,
Two firsts and a broken post. Are you trying?
He was Jewish and knew the language before He was converted.
Being Jewish does not grant one automatic knowledge of Hebrew. This is irrelevant. Outside of Orthodox day schools, most Jewish kids don't even learn Hebrew.
He has as long and distinguished career as a theologian, especially on the O.T and in knowing Hebrew. He has written several(6 as I remember) commentaries on O.T. books.
Writing books doesn't mean that what one has written is correct. Otherwise there are many, many more Jewish theologians who wrote commentaries on Tanach that disagree with this guy and according to this logic they should also ne correct.
For them to be of any value, he must understand Hebrew better than the average Jew.
No, for them to be of any value they need to appeal to his market audience.
We both know there are many levels of expertise in any discipline. IMO, his resume better than most and equal to any other experts. Resumes are the only way we have to judge one's qualifications. Kline's expertise is probably equal, but even experts will disagree at times.
And they can't both be right. You've chosen your stance based on religious bias rather than objective reasoning.
The servant is not substituting words. The words are God's words. That makes the question, "why would God substitute words?" IMO, it is to show both words have or can have the same meaning. If God did not intend that, He would have never used alma,
I have no idea what you are saying. In the narrative, we are told two identical stories: one recounting the servants prayer and one of the servant recounting his prayer. Aside for the irrelevant part skipped out for brevity in the retell, the only major difference between the two accounts is that in the first account Eliezer uses the word na'arah (
young woman) - which has no implication towards virginal status - and in the second account, the word almah is substituted. The only time the word virgin (bethulah) is used is by the Narrator. And that makes sense because I don't think the servant brought her to the gynecologist in between the time she finished feeding his camels and the time she brought him home, so there's no reason for him to use a word that states something he doesn't know.
He didn't need to know her status. He was not going to make the choice, God was---The servant prays and says, "may she be the one YOU have appointed for your servant Isaac(Gen 24:14)."
Yes and G-d only appoints virgins for the righteous that he could assume she would be???
Also, I lean on the N.T. where the verse is quoted, and in Greek, there is no question the word for virgin can only mean a virgin.
That is true. The question is if the Greek was altered to reflect the NT or if "parthenos" doesn't strictly mean "virgin". I see that all three different words in the chapter (bethulah, na'arah and 'almah) are all translated as parthenos in the LXX. Verse 16 even says "and the virgin ... was a virgin". Really.[/quote]
