A Virgin-Birth Prophecy? A VIRGIN-BIRTH PROPHECY? Kenneth E. Nahigian Prophecy is a muddy

A Virgin-Birth Prophecy?

VIRGIN-BIRTH PROPHECY?

Kenneth E. Nahigian


Prophecy is a muddy science, and Bible prophecy more muddy than
most. Take those Old Testament prophecies. Evangelists never tire
of telling us that hundreds were fulfilled in the life of Jesus,
far too many to be called coincidence. But how many of these are
real, and how many are _prophetia_ex_eventu_--prophecies
constructed after the fact, products of careful selection and
interpretation?

To get an idea, let's look at the most famous, the prophecy of
the child Immanuel as presented in the Gospel of Matthew:

Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be
with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his
name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us (1:22-23  ,
KJV).

Most good Christians take this at face value, assured that the
prophet Isaiah did indeed describe Jesus' miraculous conception
and birth seven hundred years before. But did he? Authorities
are nearly unanimous. The answer is no.

What did Isaiah really say? Turning to [ref001]Isaiah 7:14
(Masoretic text), we find his precise words:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, ha'almah
shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Matthew's interpretation of this passage has several problems,
the largest hanging on the Hebrew word _'almah_. Writing
in Greek, the gospel author turned _almah_ into _parthenos
_, a word usually (but not always) meaning "virgin."
In fact, he had a precedent for this; the Septuagint, a translation
of the Old Testament used by Greek-speaking Jews of his day, did
indeed use _parthenos_ in the Isaiah passage. But the Septuagint
was for the most part a notoriously sloppy translation, and its
version of Isaiah was generally more error-ridden than the rest.
By the Middle Ages, the Jews had abandoned the Septuagint, and
later Greek translations, by Aquila, Theodotion, Lucien and others,
did not use the word _parthenos_. (The Septuagint, commonly
known as the LXX, is still favored by Eastern Orthodox churches.)

Assuredly, the Hebrew Old Testament predating the Septuagint used
_'almah_, so what did the word mean? While rare in the Hebrew
Bible, _almah_ does occur here and there, notably in [ref002]Genesis 24:43
and [ref003]Exodus 2:8
, but an examination of the contexts of these passages will
show nothing to suggest that the noun imputed virginity.

On the other hand, a male youth in the Old Testament was called
na'ar or elem, the feminine forms of which were _na'arah_
and _'almah_ respectively. The limited usage of _elem_
(lad or stripling) in the Old Testament nowhere implied sexual
purity; thus an _'almah_ was an adolescent female, virgin
or not, just as an elem was an adolescent male. In fact, one verse
does seem to use _'almah_ in reference to a nonvirgin. This
is [ref004]Proverbs 30:19
, which listed four things too marvelous to understand: the
way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent on a rock, the
way of a ship in the sea, and the way of a man with a maiden (
_'almah_). To say the least, "the way of a man with
an _'almah_" would certainly jeopardize a state of sexual
purity, but more damaging than this rather obvious fact is the
comparison that the writer went on to state: "Such is the
way of an adulterous woman: she eats, wipes her mouth, and says,
'I have done no wrong'" ([ref005]v:20
, NAB). It seems odd writer that the author would use _'almah
_ to denote sexual purity and then compare it to the ongoing
affairs of an adulterous woman. More likely the author's point
was that all these things have one element in common: they do
not leave much of a trace.

Aside from this, the Torah does, in fact, have an explicit word
for virgin (_betulah_ or _bethulah_), which is always
used where the context requires virginity. (For confirmation,
see [ref006]Genesis 24:16
, [ref007]Leviticus 21:14
, and [ref008]Deuteronomy 22:15-19
). Even Isaiah used it in [ref009]62:5
. Its nonuse in the "Immanuel" passage is a rather
loud hint that Isaiah spoke only of a young woman, not specifically
of a virgin.

More to the point, nearly all modern commentaries agree with Talmudic
scholars that Isaiah's "sign" had nothing to do with
a messiah. Reviewing half a dozen for this article, I found only
one dissenter. Significantly, it was one that spouted the fundamentalist
party line on every other issue. Interested readers can jaunt
to the library and peruse the massive _Interpreter's_Bible
_(Vol. 5, pp. 217-22), one of the most authoritative works
in the field. Or more succinctly, try the popular _Harper's
Bible_Dictionary_ (Paul J, Achtemeier, gen. ed., 1985),
page 419, where this statement is found:

It is clear, however, that... Isaiah 7:14 did not speak of the
miraculous birth of Jesus centuries later.... The sign of Immanuel
offered by the prophet to Ahaz had to do with the imminent birth
of a child, of a mother known to Ahaz and Isaiah, and signified
God's presence with his people....

Indeed, Isaiah's word for "sign" was 'ot, which in the
Hebrew Bible invariably indicated an imminent sign or omen, not
one in the far future. Keep reading, in fact, and you will see
Isaiah's sign appear just a few verses later ([ref010]Is. 8:3-4
), when a certain prophetess gives birth to a son--a child
whom God called "Immanuel" in verse 8. By contrast,
nowhere in the New Testament did any character ever call Jesus
Immanuel. Why the confusion? Of course, the author of the Gospel
of Matthew had a vested interest in the nascent church and wanted
to ground the new Christian mythos in Jewish prophecy whenever
possible. Almost all scholars agree this "Matthew" was
not the apostle but rather a Greek-speaking Christian living in
or near Antioch of Syria, who wrote about A.D. 90, about two generations
after the crucifixion. Very likely, he was familiar with only
the Septuagint version of Isaiah. (That Matthew wrote the first
gospel was a tradition started by Bishop Papias of Hieropolos
in the second century.)

Also, of course, the early Christians would have liked a virgin-born
savior anyway, out of sheer competitiveness, because so many other
rival religions had one. (Mithra, Zoroaster, Adonis, and Dionysus
were just a few.) More- over, we know the gospel writers were
not adverse to massaging and even manufacturing details in order
to "flesh out" the Jesus story. That is why, for example,
you find such conflicting genealogies for Jesus in [ref011]Matthew 1:1-16
and [ref012]Luke 3:23-38.

All things considered, it is hardly surprising that "Matthew"
would pull Isaiah a bit out of context and try to wring a new
meaning from it. What is surprising is that this literary sleight
of hand grew to become such a cornerstone of Christendom and still
has modern fundamentalists so befuddled. So let's dust off our
Bibles (I like the New Revised English Bible best for clarity
and the Revised Standard Version for beauty) and reread the Immanuel
prophecy--in context.

The setting is the Syro-Ephraimite war (ca. 734 B.C.). Wicked
King Ahaz of Judah was frantic about Ephraim (another name for
the northern kingdom, Israel) and Damascus (capital of Syria),
which were plotting a preemptive strike. Isaiah enters, offering
a sign. Ahaz demurs. Isaiah storms at him for his lack of faith
and then provides a sign anyway: A male child would be born. Before
this child is old enough to know to "refuse evil and choose
the good," Assyria would lay waste both Samaria and Damascus
([ref013]7:16
). [This sub-prophecy, in fact, came true in [ref014]2 Kings 16:9
; [ref015]17:5-6
.] Then, to punish Ahaz, Assyria itself, with Egypt, would
arise as a far greater threat.

Think about this. If Ahaz was concerned with an _imminent_
attack from Samaria and Syria, why offer a sign that would not
occur for seven centuries? To Ahaz this would be no sign at all.
Also, if the Immanuel child was God incarnate, how could Isaiah
speak of a time when Immanuel would not know enough to choose
good over evil? What about divine omniscience? Note also the striking
parallel between verses [ref016]7:16
and [ref017]8:4
. Here is Isaiah prophesying almost identically about both
children. The more closely you look, the more difficult to deny
that these two are identical. You can hardly blame evangelicals
for seeing a special significance in the name _Immanu'el_,
Hebrew for "God with us," but such language and imagery
was right at home in the world of old Jewish nomenclature, where
every other proper name seemed a reminder of God's presence. Thus
we have _Isaiah_, which means "God's help"; _Michael
_, "Like unto God"; _Israel_," "Striving
with God"; _Elihu_, "He is my God"; _Adonijah
_, "Yahweh Lord"; and a host of others.

Then again, some apologists try to rescue their favored exegesis
by equating both Immanuel and Jesus with the child mentioned a
bit later in chapter 9, "Unto us a child is born...."
It is tempting. This section, while obscure, is in fact one of
the most powerful and poetic passages in the Old Testament. It
may well be an early messianic prophecy (I like to think it is),
but in fairness, note that most Jewish scholars (who should know
better than evangelicals) insist it is an ode praising Hezekiah,
Ahaz's righteous son ([ref018]2 Chron. 29
), who came to the throne in 720 B.C. and centralized the
worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem. The various titles ascribed to
him, such as "Prince of Peace" and "Everlasting
Father," were apparently honorifics used by the ancient Jews
for favorite kings. (You find the same sort of bread-buttering
in Egyptian hymns to the pharaoh and in Babylonian royal eulogies.)
Hebrew scholars also remind us, gently, that the key Hebrew verbs
in [ref019]Isaiah 9:6
are in the past tense.

A moot point. For reasons stated earlier, we cannot use the child
in [ref020]Isaiah 9:6
as a bridge connecting Immanuel to Jesus. As Old Testament
prophecies of the Christian Messiah go, this one, like so many
others, has been overrated.

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[ref001] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Isaiah+7:14
[ref002] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Genesis+24:43
[ref003] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Exodus+2:8
[ref004] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Proverbs+30:19
[ref005] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Proverbs+30:20
[ref006] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Genesis+24:16
[ref007] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Leviticus+21:14
[ref008] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Deuteronomy+22:15-19
[ref009] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Isaiah+62:5
[ref010] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Isaiah+8:3-4
[ref011] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Matthew+1:1-16
[ref012] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Luke+3:23-38
[ref013] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Isaiah+7:16
[ref014] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?II+Kings+16:9
[ref015] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?II+Kings+17:5-6
[ref016] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Isaiah+7:16
[ref017] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Isaiah+8:4
[ref018] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?II+Chronicles+29
[ref019] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Isaiah+9:6
[ref020] http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?Isaiah+9:6