VIRGIN — a young woman who has not known a man. In Luke 1:27 Mary is twice called PARTHENOS; in 1:34 she says plainly, 'since I do not know a man.' The Greek Old Testament used this same word to render Isaiah 7:14 ('a PARTHENOS shall conceive'), the verse Matthew 1:23 applies to this birth — where the Hebrew ALMAH means a young woman of marriageable age without BETULAH's technical focus on virginity. Luke's Greek settles what Isaiah's Hebrew left open. → first discussed at Luke 1:27