Chris Weimer

Yes, the primary meaning of parthenos does mean virgin. I'll have to check a Greek etymological dictionary, but I think that meaning is applied because of its use with Athena Parthenos - Athena being one of the virgin goddesses in Ancient Greek (the other being Artemis), although I do not know offhand which came first. My guess is on the appellation of Athena and thus acquiring its primary meaning that way.

But even if Matthew did grab the verse for Immanuel, he still connected it with the virgin birth story. That the Messiah came from a virgin is found no where else in the Old Testament, unless I'm overlooking something?

Apikorus

Mat 1:25 implies that Mary was a virgin at the time of Jesus' birth, and it is entirely reasonable to associate this information with the use of parthenos in Mat 1:23. Indeed, it is more than reasonable -- it is highly likely. But it seems possible that it is a coincidence, and that Matthew invokes Isaiah in connection with the salvific aspects of Jesus' birth: immanuel = "God is with us" brings salvation for the sins of his people (Mat 1:21).

It might seem like nitpicking, but Matthew does not explicitly say that Mary was a virgin. He says, rather, that she and Joseph had not done the nasty, but this does not quite remove all doubt, as Luke does very explicitly in Luk 1:34. Luke very much wants us to know that Mary was a virgin (see also Luk 1:27). Perhaps Matthew's understating the virgin thang is just a matter of style. But perhaps he didn't quite read Isa 7:14 in the way we generally think he did.

If you like this argument, I will be happy to take credit for it. If you think it completely stupid, I will admit that it is due to someone else but I can't remember where I read it.

Chris Weimer

It is possible that it is a coincidence, but it is not probable. One possibility, though, is that Matthew, or others before Matthew, may have used that verse for Immanuel first, and then afterwards, where the Hebrew is lost on Greek speakers, the virgin notion is applied.

It removes enough doubt. Before they came together, she was pregnant by a holy spirit? There should not be any doubt that Matthew thought that Mary was a virgin. There's no other reason why we would expect Mary to have been pregnant by someone else, since clearly Joseph could not have done it.

Likely story. >;-]

Apikorus

No other reason if you are young and naive and unspoiled by the wickedness and cruelty of this rotten world, dear Master Chris (at least you look young in your picture). But I'm old enough to be your...elder brother, and I can regale you with tales of woe and woo. Ah perfidy, thy name is woman!

Someone reading Mat 1:18 might derisively sneer, "the 'Holy Ghost' -- a likely story." Matthew could have removed all doubt by writing "she had known no man" rather than "before they came together."

Indeed, I do not doubt it. The question is whether or not Matthew saw a prophecy of Mary's virginity in Isa 7:14.

Yeah, judging from your responses I had better start poring through my old issues of Bible Review so I can foist this off on the original culprit.

Chris Weimer

But we are assuming that sleazy women were the norm for that society, and also it would leave us theologically unsatisfied as why God would pick a woman who should have been condemned to death for his spirit to enter. Matthew doesn't emphasize that much on sinners for us to make that assumption. The cleanest and best route is to assume that Mary was a virgin.

(And no, I am not a stranger to the wickedness and cruelty of this world - I think I may have even offered my fair share of it... But that is another story, with terrible memories, and not appropriate for BC&H. Perhaps one day I'll tell you the saga while we sit around the campfire. But for now, assume not!)

Ah, yes, the person who came up with this theory needs a good shredding, although from the looks of it, it is probably not a modern interpretation, is it? Are the dead safe from the wrath of critical thinking? I dare say not!

Apikorus

Matthew's genealogy includes four women: Tamar, Ruth, Rahab, and Batsheva. It is often pointed out that one thing all four have in common is sexual depravity. Tamar and Batsheva were adulteresses, Rahab a prostitute, and as for Ruth, well let's just say that the title of the Book of Ruth might as well be "Obed has Two Mommies." (I say that largely tongue-in-cheek.)

Why, to throw your own argument back in your face in the spirit of this highly contentious thread, would Matthew choose to emphasize these highly flawed women in Jesus' genealogy?

Chris, you've gone and ruined a perfectly good bit of humor with this lachrymose paragraph. Let's have no more of this talk. This is the internet, Chris. Women respond to you as if you were a Greek god (Hephaestus in my case). Do you understand?

Gamera

Nothing irrational about infering that this Christian idea came from Jewish roots, since so many in fact did. It is clearly wrong to trace the idea of the virgin birth to classical pagan myths. And it is incredible to think the idea just popped out of nowhere. Further the notion is support by the Septuagint's translation of Isaiah and the idea in contemporary messianic Jewish writings, that the messiah would be the "son of God," and hence born in an unusual way.

Now your reduced to saying that the evidence doesn't "require" a certain meaning. Of course it doesn't, but it allows for it. So now you're reduced to dismissing the virgin birth narrative in the Septuagint translation of Isaiah and the pervasive "Son of God" narrative in contemporary Jewish writings relating to the messiah and Paul's unusual way of discussing Jesus' birth. I suspose if we found a Jewish messianic text that said the messiah would come from a virgin birth, you'd dismiss that too. So, you can dismiss it all you like, but it's evidence.

Nothing speculative about it: messianic Jewish thought in the 1st century included the notion that the messiah would be the "Son of God," which certainly implies his birth would be, well, unusual. And voila, that's what Matthew has. See a pattern forming?

Translated: it's evidence, you just don't like it.

I can see you don't have a psychology degree. Mary, like all people, was quite capable of doubts, even after having a message from a angel. As Jesus said in the parable of Lararus: He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.'"

Chris Weimer

As I said earlier, he doesn't emphasize it that much. The emphasis, rather, is on a totally different theme altogether - redemption/inclusion into the Kingdom. While sexual deviancy is a theme, it is of minor importance - in fact, one could make a case that most deviant women in the Torah were sexually deviant. Matthew didn't have a very wide range of sins to choose from.

Concerning Thamar, was it really adultery? I mean, she didn't have a husband - she was promised Shelah's hand, but Judah did not do this. But it's irrelevant, really.

As I was saying, for Matthew, it wasn't really about sexual deviancy, but redemption, righteousness, etc... If it were about sexual deviancy, then one would have to explain why he listed the names of Thamar, Ruth, and Rahab, but not Bathsheba. Out of the four, only Bathsheba did not to redeem herself nor did anything righteous. Instead, Uriah is emphasized, a gentile - Hittite - who was righteous in all his actions, but was killed by David for his wife.

And as I said earlier, a sexually deviant Mary would not fit well with Matthew's theology. Although Mark can be called Adoptionist, Matthew hardly fits in that category. Jesus was marked from the beginning, and was definitely the son of God in a literal sense.

Gamera

Could be. But more likely he was drawing on the vast 1st century Jewish literature that conceptualized the messiah as the "Son of God," and hence the result of a miraculous birth, which arguable is announced in the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 7:14.

Jewish Apocrypha [NWNTI:18]


2 Esdr 7.26-30: "For indeed the time will come, when the signs that I have foretold to you will come to pass, that the city that now is not seen shall appear, and the land that now is hidden shall be disclosed. Everyone who has been delivered from the evils that I have foretold shall see my wonders. For my son the Messiah shall be revealed with those who are with him, and those who remain shall rejoice four hundred years. After those years my son the Messiah shall die, and all who draw human breath. Then the world shall be turned back to primeval silence for seven days, as it was at the first beginnings, so that no one shall be left."


2 Esdr 13.3: the vision--"As I kept looking the wind made something like the figure of a man come up out of the heart of the sea. And I saw that this man flew with the clouds of heaven" with the explanation in 13.25--"This is the interpretation of the vision: As for your seeing a man come up from the heart of the sea, this is he whom the Most High has been keeping for many ages, who will himself deliver his creation;" and in 13.32: "When these things take place and the signs occur that I showed you before, then my Son will be revealed, whom you saw as a man coming up from the sea."


2 Esdr 13.36-37: "But he shall stand on the top of Mount Zion. And Zion shall come and be made manifest to all people, prepared and built, as you saw the mountain carved out without hands. Then he, my Son, will reprove the assembled nations for their ungodliness..."


2 Esdr 13.52: "He said to me, 'Just as no one can explore or know what is in the depths of the sea, so no one on earth can see my Son or those who are with him, except in the time of his day."


2 Esdr 14.9: "for you shall be taken up from among humankind, and henceforth you shall live with my Son and with those who are like you, until the times are ended."


[Note: 2 Esdr 3-14, from which the above passages are taken, is also known in the literature as 4 Ezra, and strictly speaking, is part of the Pseudepigrapha (NWNTI:22). It dates 1st century AD.]

Testament of Judah 24: "And after this there shall arise for you a Star from Jacob in peace: And a man shall arise from my posterity like the Sun of Righteousness, walking with the sons of men in gentleness and righteousness, and in him will be found no sin. And the heavens will be opened upon him to pour out the spirit as a blessing of the Holy Father. And he will pour the spirit of grace on you. And you shall be sons in truth, and you will walk in his first and final decrees. This is the Shoot of God Most High; this is fountain for the life of all humanity. Then he will illumine the scepter of my kingdom, and from your root shall arise the Shoot, and through it will arise the rod of righteousness for the nations, to judge and to save all that call on the Lord."(!)

4QAramaic Apocalypse (4Q246), col. II: "He will be called the Son of God, and they will call him the son of the Most High...His kingdom will be an eternal kingdom...The earth will be in truth and all will make peace. The sword will cease in the earth, and all the cities will pay him homage. He is a great god among the gods... His kingdom will be an eternal kingdom..."

Amaleq13

It is unsubstantiated rather than irrational.

You need to read more carefully. I wrote that each example of alleged evidence "neither requires nor implies a virgin birth".

I've already explained why this is obviously inadequate to be considered support for your assertion.

I've dismissed nothing but the plainly false notion that any of them constitute evidence supporting your assertion.

On the contrary, that is precisely what I would expect from someone making your assertion. I have since been disabused of that expectation by your efforts.

:rolling:

I have two and 17 years of professional experience.

And I already indicated who was willing to engage in the sort of mental gymnastics necessary to reconcile the accounts.