John Kesler

I would urge you to read the context of all of the alleged prophecies of Jesus in their Old Testament contexts. The exegetical method employed by NT authors, in which new meaning was inferred from passages, was considered acceptable, but this doesn't change original authorial intent.

Jack the Bodiless

...Indeed. Here are a couple of other incidents where Matthew used out-of-context OT verses to create "prophecies":
Here's what he's referring to:
This is a reference to the Exodus: the nation of Israel being called out of Egypt.

Another, the "Massacre of the Innocents":
Here's the original:
This section refers to the end of the "Babylonian captivity", the return of the Isrelites to Israel. It has nothing to do with the alleged Bethlehem massacre.

Doug Shaver

What I think is that there is no good reason to believe that anything in the Bible is the word of God.

exile

The whole business of the Gospel writers mining the OT for helpful quotes is really so much tosh. How intelligent thinkers such as the church fathers in the 1st millenium were taken in by it I really don't know. I have been told by apologists that they had a different mindset to us. How true. But, I ask the apologist, does this mean we can reinterpret scripture in the light of modern critical thinking? No, says the apologist, as the church fathers' interpretation is now backed by 2,000 years of tradition. Doh!

Boro Nut

Metracock is a bit of an embarrassment for apologetics. I don't think he ever told me to fukc of, but it must have been a close run thing. However, he does make a valid point on his blog about myths changing over time. The more ancient the myth, the more it changes - therefore the Jesus myth is true. There are numerous examples of this. Jason and the Astronauts, Sinbad the Soldier, Harry Potter and the Temple of Doom. The list is endless.

Boro Nut

NOGO

Even back in the fifties and sixties a young woman (maiden) was expected to be a virgin until mariage.

A maiden is an unmarried woman of mariable age. Her virginity is implied. After all you cannot tell if a woman is a virgin unless you undress her and check. So one would call a young woman "maiden" and assume her to be a virgin.

If one discovered that a maiden was pregnant one would not think that a virgin birth is about to happen. One would assume something else.

In Isaiah there absolutely not a single clue that the author intented a virgin birth. To compare, look at Matthew's treatment of a virgin birth. There is surprize and disbelief. Joseph doubts his wife to be. He is told in a dream that she did not fool around and that the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. There is no duscussion here about the meaning of a single word, the subject matter is made plain and clear.

In Isaiah we have no surprize and no explanation.
If the virgin birth was THE sign the author intended he simply does not stop long enough on the topic to make the point. So we waste time one the meaning of a single word because nothing else in the text will confirm the virgin birth.

Amaleq13

I can only hope that the person who makes the joke burns in a hotter level of hell than the person who nearly spit his scotch out laughing at it you evil, evil bastard. :notworthy:

Jagella

Hi Half-Life:

That’s an interesting user name. Why did you choose it?

I read through this thread including all the replies you received, and I thought about something to say that has not yet been said. I can say that I found it very fascinating because you seem to be going through the same experience that so many of us former Christians have: You are setting aside what you’ve been taught to believe and are thinking for yourself. I was a Christian about twenty years ago, and one day I decided to read the Bible without being led by those little pamphlets many churches use to “guide� one’s scripture reading. What resulted was my finding errors in the Bible! You found one of those errors in Matthew’s “Immanuel Prophecy.� There are many more.

I won’t tell you what to believe or not to believe. Your mind is your own to do as you wish. I will suggest that you ask yourself what good it is to believe something that isn’t true. Another good question to ask yourself is this: “Do I really need Christianity to get by, or can I live a good life without it?� You can see for yourself that we skeptics aren’t the “lost,� “deceived,� “sinful� people that you might have been told that we are. Keep that fact in mind as you think about these issues.

Anyway, thanks for reading. You may have encountered a crossroad in your life.

Jagella

Amaleq13

I predict it is a reference to the computer game.