Xman

David Conklin? That name sounds very familiar. Ever lived anywhere besides MN?

Butters

I love this even more! Now the prophecy dosen't have to really be fufilled to be true, just "typological repetition". Now this is good! You no longer have to even have a good match to a prophecy, just something in common, which you can match up AFTER the fact.

This is NOT prophecy!

Prophecy is the prediction of an event that will happen in a future time.

Isaiah 7 has nothing in commom with the story of Jesus' birth. Even if we skip the debate over the word "almah", and say for a moment that it doe's mean virgin, the child in Isaiah was not "born unto a virgin" If the prorhetess was a virgin when Isaiah made the prediction, she surely wasn't after he "went unto her and she concived"
There WAS NO virgin birth!
Nothing in the passage relates to a far future time, no one before the gospel writers claimed it was a prophecy, this is the point that all believers in prophecy ignore. For something to be a prophecy, it must be understood as such BEFORE the actual event happens. If you write enough vague crap, eventually you will be able to shoehorn it to fit some event.

This is why I believe Is:7 is not a prophecy of Jesus.

The stories have NOTHING in common.
Isaiah is the story of a priest having sex with a virgin and producing a child.

Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

How doe's this apply to Jesus? He was God, so he knew to choose the good.

For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.
How does this apply to Jesus?

What leads you to believe that Is:7 is a prophecy?

He is called "god is with us" by his followers now, but his mother did not call him this, nor anyone else in the Bible. I mean come on! If his contemporaries thought that Is7 was a prophecy, why didn't they call him Immanual? Why was it much later that his followers start calling him that? O.K. he saved us from sin instead of just Pekah and rezin. Then who are the assiryaians that are going to defeat us?

Christians are just flat out making this crap up!
They say it's an amazing prophecy, and when we see it's not, then they have to make up this "typology".
Where did you get this concept X-Man?
Why can't I apply it to any story I hear? Anything could be made into a "prophecy", if you just want to find a few similarities in two past events and claim one was a prophecy of the other, as long as they have one thing in common.

Please show me WHY and How this is a prophecy.

As far as I can see, there is nothing there.

Xman

No, that's what a "prediction" is. Prophecies come in many forms, only one of which is "prediction." The Bible is not so simple as to conflate the two concepts as you have done here.

First, as I already stated, Matthew did not claim that the thing about the "virgin" was a prophecy. It was a sign that the actual prophecy (about Pekah and Rezin) was true.

Second, the passage in Isaiah was not about Jesus. But, it did create expectations about the kinds of things God would do in the future, such as restore the covenant community and bring judgment against God's enemies.

Third, the New Testament regularly and sometimes explicitly uses typology to interpret the Old Testament (cf. Rom 5:14; Heb 11:19).

Forth, your point about "Immanuel" is just silly. That wasn't a name, it was a symbolic title. Even today Christians don't call Jesus "God is with us." You are taking issue with ancient Near Eastern practices and colloquialisms, not with doctrine.

As a matter of fact, many things in the Old Testament foreshadow Christ, some far more vaguely than the text in Isaiah. This is a standard Christian perspective based on such texts as Luke 24:27, and it is consistent with the way other types of literature work as well. Read some academic works on Shakespeare and you will find interpretations that rely on far vaguer connections than those in Scripture. So yes, anything can be a "prophecy." In fact, since prophecy includes all God's revelations to his covenant community, all Scripture is actually prophecy, whether it contain history, poetry, epistles, or what not. As confirmation of this idea, in the Hebrew canon many historical books fall under the classification of "former prophets."

As I already stated, I disagree with most Christians on the point of the nature of prophecy. Where I got the idea is irrelevant, though perhaps it would interest you to know that I actually got it from the Bible (see the verses I quoted earlier, e.g. Jer 18). It may also interest you to know that many famous theologians have said similar things, including John Calvin in an earlier time. Many modern Old Testament scholars also say much the same thing that I am saying here, though not always as consistently. You might examine, for instance, works on prophecy by men such as Blenkinsopp and Van Gemeren.

That Matthew regularly uses typology should be immediately clear to anyone who knows the Old Testament contexts on which Matthew is drawing. The notion of typology does not have to be "invented." consider, for example, his use of "out of Egypt I called my son" in 2:15. The text he quotes wasn't a prediction of anything -- it was a historical comment on the Exodus. Nevertheless, it was a type that Jesus fulfilled. Simply recognizing the way literature works reveals the device when it is used.

And yes, types and antetypes can be vague, but that doesn't make them any less valid. I wouldn't use them as proofs that you should believe the Bible -- they aren't that compelling. But that isn't why they are mentioned in the Bible. They are there to give confirmation to those who already believe, and to demonstrate God's consistent character and intentions throughout history.

Isaiah 7 is a prophecy because the language is delivered by God's prophet to the king of God's people in order to motivate the king to a particular action. The offer of blessing first comes in verses 7-9 where Isaiah tells Ahaz that Pekah and Rezin will fail in their military campaign against Judah. Verse 9 states an explicit condition: "If you will not believe, you surely shall not last." In verses 10-11 God offers to confirm his intention to follow through with this offer by giving a sign. Ahaz, however, refuses to receive a sign, thereby demonstrating that he lacks faith in God -- a sign would only make him more culpable for his unbelief, so he prefers to avoid receiving one. In response, Isaiah becomes angry (v. 13), recognizing Ahaz's true motivation (Ahaz claimed that to ask for a sign would question God, but his real motivation as perceived by Isaiah was lack of faith).

Isaiah then sets forth a sign to demonstrate God's intention to destroy Pekah and Rezin: the young woman will be with child (v. 14). The birth of the Emmanuel child (probably Maher-shalal-hash-baz in ch. 8) confirms God's intention to carry through with a new prophecy, stated in vv. 15-25. In this new prophecy, Pekah and Rezin will still be destroyed (a blessing on Judah), but because of Ahaz's unbelief Judah will also suffer.

Matthew refers to this prophecy with regard to the birth of Christ, emphasizing that Jesus' birth demonstrates God's readiness to destroy the enemy of his people (specifically sin, the antetype of Pekah and Rezin). Implicit is also the idea that Jesus' birth indicates that God is about to bring judgment against those in his covenant community who do not have faith.

[ December 02, 2002: Message edited by: Xman ]</p>

Butters

posted by Xman,
Prophecies are predictions,period. If a statement is not a foretelling of a future event, it is no longer a prophecy. If you would like to put forward any other meaning, please do so.

Matthew never claimed anything about Isaiah, he only said "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet"
It is only the vast magority of Christians that claim Is7 is a prophecy of the comming of Jesus.
Matthew never claimed that the prophecy concerning Pekah and Rezin was true, which is a point in his favor, since it didn't.

You would have more of an argument with christians than me on this point. Every one I know claoms that it was a foretelling of the birth of Jesus. Any christians out there care to comment?
(This highlights the problem of talking to "Christians". Although they all claim knowledge of God, and a belief in Christ, and point to the Bible as the source of this knowledge, no two can agree on what exactly it says or means.)

O.K., what do you mean by typology, and how do you know it is used to interpret the OT?

I have been told repeatably by Christians that the child in Is7 was named Immanuel, God is with us, and that because Jesus is called that now, it proves the prophecy is true. Silly? Yes it is. The only thing I am takeing issue with is the mainstream argument of Christians.

Your interpretation of this is interesting, but unconvincing. I see Ahaz as a good God fearing man, who knows better than to tempt God by asking for a sign. Isaiah, the swindler and false prophet, forces one on him, which dosen't come true anyway.

TrueThinker

I'd really like to know if you're being serious. I don't have time for games. If you're serious, which part are you serious about?

Xman

I thought I had already put forth my defintion. But for confirmation let me offer the first definition listed in my desktop dictionary (Webster): "An inspired utterance of a prophet." For "prophesy," the first definition is "to speak or utter by divine inspiration." For "prophet," the first definition is "one who utters divinely inspired revelations." These are the primary definitions in the Bible as well. Sometimes those revelations are predective, sometimes they are not. Further, as I have pointed out by quoting the Bible itself (e.g. Jer. 18), biblical predictions are conditional threats and offers, not insights into the necessary future. For other examples in the Bible that demonstrate that prophecies are not always predictions, see passages such as Exod. 7:1-2; Deut. 34:9-12; 2 Kings 17:13; Neh. 9:26; Zech 7:12.

The prophecy concerning Pekah and Rezin was true, even though the threat against them was not carried out as stated. God chose to do something different because of Ahaz's unfaithfulness, just as he stated in Isaiah 7:9. As Jeremiah 18 points out, all offers and threats assume conditions, even if conditions are not stated. 2 Chronicles 28 emphasizes several times the reason that Ahaz fell under Pekah: Ahaz was terribly unfaithful to the Lord. If Isaiah had believed the prophecy to have been false, it is unlikely he would have recorded it in his book, especially since by the time he wrote it everyone knew the history of what had ultimately transpired with Ahaz, Pekah and Rezin.

It is probably true that the vast majority of Christians in the world think it was about Jesus, but not all do. In my circles, a very large percentage agree with me, especially those who know the Old Testament well. I am sympathetic toward those who reject the common Christian witness on this point, but I would hope we might evaluate the Bible's coherence on the basis of what it actually says, and not on the basis of common but misguided interpretations of it.

A type is something that foreshadows or symbolizes something else. When the Bible speaks of something being a shadow or type of another thing, it is speaking in terms of typology. When it recalls an event or person and relates it to another event on the basis of some similarity between the events, it often uses typology. In a culture deeply steeped in symbolic forms and actions, typology is a very common form of comparison to use.

As in interpreting any literature, identifying a type is not an exact science. Language by its very nature tends toward some imprecision and ambiguity. We determine something is a type the same way we determine whether or not it is a metaphor or a title or what not. For example, when we encounter the phrase "The Lord, the rock of Israel," we might take that to mean that the Israelites worshiped an actual rock, or that they simply referred to their God as a rock. The latter interpretation is the better for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the fact that elsewhere the Bible teaches them not to worship literal rocks, and elsewhere the Bible attributes many things to God that are incompatible with the belief that he is an actual rock. When we encounter Matthew's use of Isaiah, we can believe that Matthew simply didn't know what he was talking about, or that he knew very well what he was doing but was simply using a literary device to bring out the significance of the situation. We can compare known uses of types to suspected uses of types to see if they help us figure out what an author is doing, and we can follow the general patterns we find throughout an author's work to see how frequently he tends to use figures of speech. The genre of the literature is also a factor in helping to spotting literary devices. In short, many factors go into trying to figure out what a given author is trying to say at any particular point.

Fair enough. Though for Matthew's sake it is worth pointing out that after he mentions calling Jesus' name "Immanuel," he turns right around and says that Joseph named the child "Jesus."

One problem with your spin on this passage is that it is written from Isaiah's perspective for the purpose of demonstrating that Isaiah was a true prophet. As I mentioned above, this was history by the time Isaiah wrote it, so everyone already knew how it had played out. It would have been self-destructive to Isaiah's purpose to expose himself as a false prophet, and counter-productive even to a counterfeiter to show Isaiah to be false. After all, in that case the prophecies that had not yet been "fulfilled" would likely be disregarded rather than heeded. No one writes a book in the hopes that it won't be read.

Another problem is that the Bible consistently portrays Ahaz as wicked and faithless, and the original audience would have assumed this as well, already knowing his history (he's dead by Isa. 14:28). It wasn't like they were reading a story about Isaiah and George Washington, but more like they were reading a story about Isaiah and David Koresh. None of them would have taken Ahaz to be the good guy.

Yet another problem with your take on it is that asking for a sign is often a good thing, as in the case of Abram in Genesis 15 -- he asked for confirmation because he believed God, not because he didn't believe him or wanted to tempt him.

In reading the story from an anti-Isaiah perspective, you can certainly pull a different meaning from it. But the story was written from a pro-Isaiah/anti-Ahaz perspective, and it was certainly interpreted from this perspective by the New Testament authors. It's intended meaning is as per the interpretation I offered. Whether or not you believe the author was on the up and up is another matter altogether.

[ December 02, 2002: Message edited by: Xman ]</p>

Butters

Well, Xman, there's not much left to say.
If you mean that the gospel writers read the OT, and formed there story of Jesus around several "types", I wouldn't argue with you.
If you mean to say that Is7 was a foretelling of the birth of Jesus, I would disagree, but I would point you to the "enough contredictions already" thread where Apikorus gives a thread to this page;


<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000053" target="_blank">web page</a>

He answers this much better than I, and I can't find anywhere that I disagree with him.

So my point would be that the claims of Christians that Isaiah "foretold" the birth of Jesus, are not valid, on any level.

Xman

Sounds like we are in agreement on that point. He did not foretell Jesus' birth.

David Conklin

While it is certainly possible that Isaiah may not have seen it at that time as a prophecy of the birth of Christ it does appear that by the time the LXX was made they did see it as a foretelling of the birth of the Messiah--which would explain why they used the word "parthenos".

David Conklin

I beg your pardon but I don't make anything up at all ever. I use solely the facts that are at hand as you could have readily seen if you had looked at my study on this: <a href="http://members.tcq.net/dconklin/Isa714/open.html" target="_blank">http://members.tcq.net/dconklin/Isa714/open.html</a>

Please try again.