Isaiah 7:14 and the Virginity of Mary, the Mother of Jesus

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Isaiah had no idea the Christians were going to come up with the virgin birth doctrine, so no.



Matthew was a deceiver. Plain and simple.

Prophecy is not necessarily foreknowledge, though they can overlap.

Only if you're cherry-picking, and taking passages way out of context.



Hezekiah smashed to pieces the bronze snake that Moses had made (see 2 Kings 18:4). Moses putting the bronze serpent on a pole (so that people could look at it and be healed of snake bites) had nothing to do with Jesus on the cross.

Jonah was inside the fish (not a whale) for 3 days and 3 nights. Jesus was in the tomb for only 2 nights.

Hezekiah's birth had nothing to do with Jesus' birth, nor was there any anticipation that Jesus' mother would be a Virgin.

I don't perceive the Old Testament as looking forward to the New at all. All that you have are a few passages being taken out of context and interpreted bizarrely to establish the foundation of a new religion. I could also cherrypick a few passages here and there, make up some bizarre interpretations, and PRESTO! my own religion! A virgin birth, based upon Isaiah 7, you have to admit is quite far-fetched.

Prophecy isn't necessarily divine foreknowledge, true. But I don't get your point here. Are you implying that Matthew twisted the meaning of Isaiah 7:14 in a "beneficial" way?

@MC - I am saying that Isaiah did not know how the prophecy would be fulfilled. Not even so far as Hezekiah.

@Panda - In which event, it's time to agree to disagree. On the entire matter of prophecy. You're right that you've broached a foundational question; since neither party is yielding, is there a point in continuing the series?

It is as clear to me that Isaiah 7 has nothing to do with Jesus' virginal birth, as it is to you that Isaiah 7 has everything to do with Jesus' virginal birth.

This is the first time that I have examined Christianity's claims this closely. I would like to continue the series, and learn some more. Maybe eventually we'll come across a prophesy that fits. Maybe other WP members would like to enter the fray.

There is still the point of view (expressed by Philologos) that one can still label one's self a Christian (and go to church) even if one rejects the virgin birth. So, we're not entirely black and white here. I suspect that relatively few Christians have taken the time to examine foundational questions for themselves.

To your last point, some don't (and others have no idea what to do when they start to.) On the subject of Isaiah 7, is it bizarre that in a culture that set such great store by a unmarried woman's virginity, 'maiden' and 'virgin' would be considered synonymous? I'm wondering if that might not have had to do with the shift - a difference that made no difference was no difference. But I'm no language scholar, just a dabbler.

My translation, the Good News Translation, simply says "a young woman who is pregnant will have a son." It doesn't say or imply that she is unmarried. "Maiden" would mean "unmarried", which might imply that she had better be a virgin. I don't think that Hezekiah was a bastard nor that his mother was a virgin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_News_Bible



Some Christians just don't like accurate translations when they undermine important Christian doctrines.

The Hebrew word transliterated as "almah" means a young women who may or may not be a virgin.

ruveyn

Does "almah" mean or imply an "unmarried" woman, as in a "maiden?"

No it does not. An "almah" could be betrothed or married. She is a young women of child-bearing age.

ruveyn

I think that I have won, but I highly doubt that Natty will concede.

the the author of Mathew's confusion points to the idea that he used the Septuagint not the Tanakh. suggesting that he was fairly Hellenized.

the greek word used

parthenos = virgin in the modern sense.

-Jake

Last edited by JakobVirgil on 28 Feb 2011, 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That is because there was not a word in Greek that corresponded precisely to the Hebrew "almah".

The moral of the story is to take all translation con grano salus.

ruveyn

And, the Greeks had plenty of stories of heroes of whom one parent was an immortal (like Hercules, for example, whose dad was Zeus), and possibly a mother who had been a virgin prior to her encounter with the immortal.

Natty is considering. She wishes Isaiah were in her Jewish Hebrew/English Pentateuch & Haftorahs (with commentary) but it is not. Mainly, she is aware that she has been at this for far too much of the day and needs to come back to it tomorrow.

Until then, she offers this Jewish site and commentary on the whole issue, which shows that some Jewish English translations do render 'almah' as 'maiden'.