JoyJuice

I was speaking specifically of the Septuagint. Was that just a translation of the Torah? Or when you say Hebrew Canon, what do you mean by that with regard to the Sepuagint? If you're speaking about a Isaiah passage and the Septuagint being written two centuries before Jesus, then you are infering Isaiah was translated then as well.

....but how do we know that?

One of the reasons why I ask is this:ECLA

Clouseau

So was I.

No, the whole Tanakh, and more besides.

That is what has been universally understood for two millennia or more. The LXX Isaiah is quoted several times in the NT.

Read what I wrote.

That's quite interesting, but three points should be realised. First, the Septuagint is quoted many times in the New Testament- Paul alone quoted from the LXX 51 times, including from Isaiah. Later deliberate alterations would have been 'suicidally' obvious at the time of making them.

Second, because there were too many contemporary witnesses, it is very unlikely that the stories of appearances of an angel, to Zechariah, to Joseph and Mary were retrospectively devised in later years; so it is likely that virgin birth was part of the Christian revelation from the beginning, even during Jesus' ministry. If Jesus was called 'Son of David' by a blind beggar, surely the educated and powerful knew of that claim, and more besides. Yet the antagonistic Jewish Sanhedrin evidently failed to make their point about the imagined prophecy of parthenogenesis in Isaiah with other Jews who took the view that Jesus was the Messiah, including Pharisees and 'many priests'.

But if the visitation of Gabriel actually is a later addition, it is very hard to imagine why it would convince anyone unless Is. 7:14 was well established as prophecy of parthenogenesis. It is the claim that prophecy was fulfilled that is crucially significant.

Third, even if the LXX is a dubious source, it makes no difference to anything. As I showed in the other thread on this issue, the Hebrew source is perfectly sufficient evidence for prophecy of parthenogenesis. Nothing hangs on a translation. However, the evidence is that a Jewish translator considered parthenos a sufficient translation in, probably, c. 200 BC, long before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. And Matthew apparently copied his rendition verbatim. That Greek word is really no more indicative of technical virginity than any Hebrew one, because the ancients had no word for that concept. However, technical virginity is implied by both Greek and Hebrew words used.

But none of this really matters. The case is largely based on the word 'sign', meaning a sign of a cure for disobedient people, a sign of cosmic significance; and a woman giving birth is no sign to anyone, men or angels. The only command in the Bible that mankind has never had any difficulty with is that to go forth and multiply.

Ray Moscow

OMG! You have set yourself at odds with just about every NT scholar I've ever read.

Can you tell us which "contemporary witnesses" there were to these supposed events?

Regarding virgin birth: it was a common pagan myth, and there is nothing surprising that the Hellenised Alexandrian translators of the Septunagint might have picked up the myth and run with it. Lots of ancient heros were born of a virgin.

It hardly makes it compatible with the older Hebrew version, though, which in any case was "fulfilled" in Isaiah 8:3.

Ray

Clouseau

Who?

No doubt you're a very picky reader.

How do you know that the translator was Hellenised?

All the more reason to be born of a virgin!

It would not make it incompatible.

Ray Moscow

Hmmm .. living in Alexandria ... working for the Ptolemy court .... writing in Greek ... you're right, totally nonHellenised.

And all the less likely for the story to actually be historical rather than a literary or mythical allusion.

How about them contemporary witnesses to the Jesus and John the Baptist birth stories?

Ray

Clouseau

That proves nothing.

Which wanted a Jewish perspective.

Ludicrous.

Tossing a coin five times to get 'tails' is no guarantee that the sixth result will be like the others.

I class that question with the above answers. Not worth reading.

andrewcriddle

The original Septuagint (somewhat before 200 BCE) was a translation of the five books of the Law.

Other portions of the Hebrew Bible were translated later. The exact dates are not known.

However the quotations of Isaiah by Philo of Alexandria (who wrote in Greek and whose Hebrew appears to have been limited) seem to require that Isaiah had been translated into Greek by, at the latest, the beginning of the 1st century CE.

Andrew Criddle

Voice of reason

Yes it is. Read the context it has no dual meaning, except for those that must now make an excuse that the prophecy is failed.

Bible scholars always speak of context and Isaiah 7 and 8 is plenty of context and is very self explanatory. Nothing to do with the future at all but a sign for King Ahaz.


I would like you to provide evidence that there is dual meaning not just because it is convenient for you to say so.