Dustandashes

As far as politics go I'm an conservative independent. As far as I know I don't lean left on too many issues, if any. I support a free market economy and am pretty conservative on social issues

Very good question.

I always like to tell people I'm a Christian because God wanted me to be one.  ;)

However, to give you a more in depth answer,  I was raised by a Christian parent but didn't really understand it besides just a surface level familiarity. I truly turned to Christ in my late teen years when I started seeing things in the world line up with Bible prophecy, particularly eschatology which at the time I was obsessed with.

My understand of Christianity has without a doubt grown and changed since then, but I'll always be that obsessed kid combing through the book of Revelation like a mad man.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. ;)

The LXX was used for centuries by the Jews, it may not be perfect, but I from what I understand, it was good enough for Philo and Josephus.

In regards to the verse on Proverbs you cited, I don't see anything precluding this verse from speaking about the courtship process between a man and his betroth, before their consummation. I think it's just a matter of presuppositions here.

In regards to the future tense of Isaiah 7:14, the same syntax is shared by Judges 13:5 yet it is a future pregnancy.

So, as we've discussed before, I don't speak Hebrew. However, there are three major reasons (beside the New testament) that I believe almah is best translated virgin.

1. The LXX has Parthenos, which means virgin.

The translation of the Septuagint was done by 70 Jewish scholars before the time of Christ. They had no Christian influence and were not biased to anything but Judaism, they translated the Hebrew word to mean virgin still. I think if we're being honest, I think it reflects the fact, in my option, that pre Christ Judaism had no problem doing this because they weren't trying to avoid a conclusion they didn't like.

2 . Even young woman could still mean virgin.

Since Judaism has strict sexual purity codes, it is completely reasonable to believe a young woman during the time of Isaiah could be a virgin.

3. The context determines it.

The whole passage is about a miracle occurring. There's nothing miraculous about a young woman giving birth. They do that all the time... Unless they're virgins.

So that's basically it. Those are my reasons, hopefully that answers your question. Good question

I see a lot of rap battles going on, about serious topics too. How would one even win those?