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July 16, 2017 |
| Virgin Birth | ||
When the book of Matthew quotes from Isaiah about the virgin birth he uses a word that is only ever used to mean "virgin." Isaiah, however, uses a word that is less clear. Enemies of the gospel have used this to attack Matthew's credibility, saying he twisted the words of Isaiah to make a false messiah look better. By doing this they try to discredit Matthew's account and the entire New Testament
In this lesson we'll look carefully at what Isaiah said and we'll learn more about prophecy, the Hebrew language, modern Judaism, and other areas
Now all this happened, that the thing which was spoken from the lord Yahweh by the Prophet would be fulfilled: 23 "Behold the virgin shall conceive, and she shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated, 'Our God is with us'".
Numerology
The numerology here is inescapable. Mathew's verse (1:23) is 1 - 2 - 3, ending in 3, the number of God. Isaiah's verse has one 7 and two 7s, making three 7s, where 7 is the number of perfection / completion. These and other similar verses seem to serve as watermarks, signs of authenticity, for the Bible.
Even though chapter and verse numbers were not in the original documents, it seems certain that God's hand was in control to determine that his message was delivered.
When Matthew says "the prophet" he is referring to Isaiah, and the verse that he quotes is Isaiah 7:14, which says:
[…] Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.
They appear to be practically identical, but there is a problem, the verse from Isaiah has been "Christianized." The most obvious evidence of this is the capitalization of "His" in this NASB verse, which they do for pronouns referring to Jesus or God. We'll see later how that isn't appropriate here.
Less obvious is that the word "virgin" is not a direct translation. The Hebrew language uses a different word for virgin. The Hebrew word in Isaiah 7:14 is almah, which would be better translated as "young woman, girl, or unmarried maiden." The focus of almah is on youth, not virginity
Some English language translations use "young woman" instead of "virgin", but that loses a connotation, an implicit meaning, of the word. "The spiritual and moral ethos in Hebrew culture assumed that young unmarried girls had no sexual experience. It was assumed that an almah was a virgin."1
There was a reason this assumption existed. In Israel at that time, if a young unmarried girl was to be found pregnant, she would be punished and that could include death.
Some Jews adamantly insist that almah does not mean virgin. One source says this:
As mentioned earlier, the word "virgin" does not appear in the seventh chapter of Isaiah. The author of the first Gospel deliberately mistranslated the Hebrew word (ha'almah) as "a virgin." This Hebrew word, however, does not mean "a virgin." It simply means "the young woman," with no implication of sexual purity. Most modern Christian Bibles have corrected this erroneous translation, and their Bibles now correctly translate this Hebrew word as "the young woman."
Matthew, however, not only changed the meaning of the word to apply this verse from the Jewish Scriptures to the virgin birth, he also completely ripped Isaiah 7:14 out of context and utilized it to support his infancy narrative of Jesus.2
In fact it is this author who has ignored the context, both that of the culture and the surrounding verses. The culture was mentioned above; the verses are covered further below.
This author also argues that the use of "virgin" is a novel idea created in Jesus time. But 200 years before Jesus the Greek Septuagint (LXX) was translated from the Hebrew Old Testament. It translated the verse using the Greek word for female virgin.
The virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanu-El. (Isaiah 7:14 LXX)
This was the understanding of the verse before Jesus' time. This is not the only case where Jews have changed beliefs or translations to reject Jesus as the Messiah.
The Hebrew language also argues against this author. Hebrew words are built on root words in a way that English does not. "The verbal root of the noun almah [alam] often means to be concealed, hidden, or covered."3 This also leads to understanding almah to be virgin.
This author also says:
This is where the Christian response of a dual prophecy comes in. Missionaries attempt to explain away this stunning problem of Matthew's complete indifference to the biblical context of Isaiah 7:14 by claiming that Isaiah's words to Ahaz had two different applications. They concede that the first application of Isaiah's prophecy must have been addressed to Ahaz and his immediate crisis. That child that was born contemporaneously, and the first leg of this dual prophesy was fulfilled at the time of Ahaz, 2,700 years ago. Missionaries insist, remarkably, that the second leg of this dual prophecy applied to Jesus' virgin birth 2,000 years ago.
The notion of a dual prophecy was fashioned without any Biblical foundation. Nowhere in the seventh chapter of Isaiah does the text indicate or even hint of a second fulfillment.
This notion of a dual prophecy was contrived in order to conceal a stunning theological problem - the seventh chapter of Isaiah does not support Matthew's virgin birth story. Matthew's claim that Mary was untouched by a man when she conceived Jesus in unsupported by the Book of Isaiah.
[…] Moreover, if, as missionaries argue, the Hebrew word almah can only mean a "virgin," and, as they insist, Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled twice, who was the first virgin to conceive during Ahaz's lifetime? Were there two virgin births? 4
The author refers to dual prophetic fulfillment as though no such thing ever existed. Even in the Old Testament there are examples of it and Isaiah has a lot of it, though in many cases the second fulfillment occurred in Jesus' time or hasn't been fulfilled at all, but other prophecies indicate it will be.
Dual prophetic fulfillment is a passage that is written, by God, so it applies to two (or more) periods in time. The author above seems to think that verses like that should come with a warning that they are to be fulfilled twice. God never works that way.
When verses are written for dual fulfillment, they often have an odd look to them and this verse is typical. Because the first reference will not be a virgin birth but the second one will, the verse must be written so it can be true of both. That's why the Hebrew word for virgin is not used here. Instead it refers to a young woman (who should be a virgin) who gives birth.
Other Jewish authors have noticed this about the passage and believe it is a reference to the Messiah, but the kind of Messiah they are expecting, a conquering king.
Context is everything in understanding the Bible or, in fact, any written work that comes from a different time, culture, or language. Now we'll look at the textual context, the surrounding verses that are related to this verse from Isaiah
3 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz […] 4 and say to him, ‘Take care and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands […] 7 thus says the Lord God: "It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass."'" […]
10 Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, 11 "Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven." 12 But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!" 13 Then he said, "Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well? 14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. 15 He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. 16 For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken. (Isaiah 7:3-16)
Ahaz, the King of Judah, has gotten word that enemy nations have banded together to attack Jerusalem, and everyone is afraid. God sends Isaiah to comfort Ahaz with a prophecy. God instructs Ahaz to name a sign that God can show him so Ahaz will know the prophecy is true.
Ahaz remembers the Israelites in the wilderness and their sin of frequently testing God by demanding he prove himself, because they had no faith. So, he refuses to ask God for a sign, thus relying on his own understanding and forgetting to obey God.
Therefore God decides what the sign will be. The first verse of it, the verse Matthew quotes, is dual fulfillment, as discussed above. For the fulfillment in Ahaz time, no one knows who the young woman or child were. To be a sign to Ahaz he would have to know them, perhaps the young woman was a daughter of his.
There are also ways for a young unmarried woman to give birth other than virgin birth. Rape, incest, and immorality are on the list. We don't know what happened in the case of Ahaz.
For Ahaz the message is less about the young woman. He is to recognize the pregnancy as the sign. With the birth, he can begin to count the years until "the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good." The prophecy says: before that time the land of the enemy kings will be barren. The prophecy also says: at that time the boy will "eat curds and honey", meaning they will not be confined to the city and food will be plentiful.
Both Matthew and Isaiah say the boy will be called "Immanuel" yet no one ever called him that. In fact the angel that appeared to Mary said he was to be named "Yeshua." Is this an indication that Isaiah’s prophecy was not talking about the Messiah? No. His name (label) was Yeshua. His name (character) was "God with us."
Being born of a virgin was not just a sign of the Messiah, it was a necessity. We are born with the consequences of the sin of Adam and Eve, a sinful nature that leads to death.
For just as by the agency of one-man, sin entered the universe, and by means of sin, death, in this way death passed by this sin unto all the children of men, because all of them have sinned. (Romans 5:12)
Because of his birth, he was like Adam and Eve, before they sinned. The Bible calls him the second Adam. Like Eve he was tempted directly by Satan. Like Adam he was tempted by others. Unlike them he did not sin.
1 http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/yeshayah714.html
2 https://outreachjudaism.org/dual-prophecy-virgin-birth/
3 http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/yeshayah714.html
4 https://outreachjudaism.org/dual-prophecy-virgin-birth/