show_no_mercy

Man, what a terribly convoluted list.

Isaiah 7:14 is telling Ahaz that before the child in verse 7 reaches puberty (Isa. 7:15), the Northern Kingdom of Israel, that is about to invade in this chapter, will be defeated (Isa. 7:16, one of the two kingdoms about to invade). Why would Ahaz, who lived sometime before the Babylonian exile wait some 500 - 600 years for Jesus to reach puberty? I'm pretty sure Ahaz was dead in 15 CE. How would the birth of Jesus 500 years later give any consolation to Ahaz who needed to make an immediate desicion before the Northern Kingdom invaded?

What does Galatians 4:4 say about any sort of virgin birth? It just says "born of a woman". I'm pretty sure that "prophecy" applies to every human being ever conceived.

Genesis 3:15? What? Are you serious?


Jesus wasn't called Immanuel.

Y'shua doesn't mean "salvation". Hoshea means "salvation". Y'shua means YHWH delivers (or YHWH is salvation, if you will). Since this is the name Moses gives to his successor (since YHWH did deliver according to the book of Joshua), it was probably the most popular name in 1st century Judaism. Probably the equivalent of a modern "Bob".

jakejonesiv

Hi Johnny,

The gospel of Mark has no reference to the virgin birth, neither does the gospel of John. Galatians 4:4 says nothing about a virgin, merely "born of a woman," and even this is an interpolation.
That leaves us with the two contradictory nativity stories of Matthew and Luke.

The Virgin birth, as a prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 has been refuted as far back as the second century by Trypho.

"The Scripture has not, 'Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,' but, 'Behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son,' and so on, as you quoted. But the whole prophecy refers to Hezekiah, and it is proved that it was fulfilled in him, according to the terms of this prophecy." Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 67.


The argument attributed to Trypho is absolutely correct.
The Hebrew term is ha'almah, the young woman, not betulah, virgin. Almah certainly does not mean virgin, as the reference to the adulterous almah in Proverbs 30:18-20 proves.

So where does the virgin translation come from? The Septuagint (Greek translation, not Hebrew) has "parthenos."

There are other problems surrounding the appilcation of this prophecy to Jesus. Why wasn't he named Immanuel anywhere in the NT besides the alleged prophecy in Matthew. Where is it recorded that Jesus learned to to refuse the evil and choose the good, and then eat curds and honey? (Isa. 7:15). Which two kingdoms were abandoned during Jesus' alleged childhood? (Isa. 7:16). The Christian prophecy is a crock, a proof text snatched totally out of context based on a bad translation.

In addition, Jewish varities of Christianity denied the virgin birth. For example, Cerinthus taught that Jesus was a man due to normal generation.

"Cerinthus, ... represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation, while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men. Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being." Ireneaus, AH 1.26.1.

So where did the Christians get the idea of a Virgin birth? From analogy with the Greek myths.
"In saying that the Word, who is the first offspring of God, was born for us without sexual union, as Jesus Christ our Teacher, and that He was crucified and died and, after rising again, ascended into heaven, we introduce nothing new beyond those whom you call sons of Zeus." Justin Martyr, Apology 1.21.

Best,
Jake

bacht

The story in II Kings obscures the actual situation, that Ahaz and Manasseh were pragmatic vassals of Assyria while Hezekiah and Josiah pursued pipe-dreams of independence (buttressed by a new theology of centralized Judahite monotheism). Hezekiah was only spared by luck (or a miracle if you prefer) while Josiah wasted his life in a foolish confrontation with Egypt.

Isaiah was undoubtedly addressing the contemporary situation of the later 8th C, which was dire for Judah.

semiopen

Same donkey as Abraham used in the Akeida, and Moses...

Exodus 4:20
Jesus wasn't riding the same donkey. Actually it's kind of a virtual donkey

http://www.betemunah.org/chamor.html

Here's a good one from the same site.

There is also a discussion here of Shechem.

Genesis 34:24-25

I've only learned this recently and it's amazing. The commandment, Do not Steal, is not referring to stealing because all the offenses listed are capital crimes and stealing isn't one. It refers to kidnapping a Jewish person, so all the people of Shechem were guilty of this.

ph2ter

The first inventors of the Jesus cult didn't find all the prophecies about Jewish Messiah already at the beginning. Searching the Scripture was a process which took time. This is the reason why some discrepancies occurred. After the cult was already dispersed under the name of Jesus, there was no simple way to change his name into Immanuel.

semiopen

I've made several posts here on this topic.

The translation of "Almah" as young woman is not exact either. There are no biblical verses which suggest that this word would be used for a slut, which would be essentially how a girl bearing a child out of wedlock would be regarded. The translation should be damsel or maiden, although maiden seems to imply a virgin.

Note my post above on Dinah, she is also referred to as an almah.

show_no_mercy

Even this slender reed that some Christians hold on to can't support the weight of their abuse of Jewish scripture. The word parthenos is used to describe Dinah who was raped by Shechem in Gen 34:3 LXX. Granted, the use of the word might have changed in the 300+ years from the Greek translation of Genesis to the writer of Matthew's lifetime.

semiopen

I don't know Greek but my understanding is that parthenos is an accurate translation of almah. I don't believe that this word has a hard translation of virgin either, and lands somewhere in the contiuum young woman -> virgin.

It's not such a terrible abuse. Isaiah probably didn't mean virgin, but what's the difference if he did.

Sandie5

Those prophesies are all very nice but the Messiah's first job is to bring about world peace which Jesus failed to do. Being spit upon and nailed to a tree won't make him a messiah. So his followers say he will return to do job one - world wide peace.

There were many people in his day and since that claim to be the messiah. Still no peace, though.

Peace all over the world is just a fairytale. Mind you, Jesus gives hope to the hopeless, which is a nice side effect.

show_no_mercy

Yeah, there really is no difference whether Isaiah meant virgin or not. 7:14 simply has nothing to do with any sort of prophecized messiah.