 Re: Know
To clarify: the use of "know" to mean "sexual intercourse" is not common in modern English, and used only in old-fashioned religious contexts. Modern translations of the Bible use other verbs, for example "lie with".
Because it's a direct translation from Hebrew, though, other languages do use "know" in this context. Martin Luther, for example, in his German translation of 1545, uses "erkennen", which means "to recognise"; the French translation by Louis Segond (19th century) uses "connaître", "to know".
But in these languages the same rule applies: it's old-fashioned usage and only used in very traditional religious contexts.
Incidentally, in the original Hebrew texts, the idea was that "knowing" somebody sexually came from "knowing" the difference between male and female, and that knowledge came about because Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. |