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Goodbye Jesus

Isaiah 7 and messianic prphecy


TheLyniezian

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This was not only one of the Biblical "contradictions" which I focussed on particularly when I first made the decision to deconvert, but also something I brought up when arguing with a Christian friend on Facebook. Obviously this is a pretty well-known one, namely the virgin birth as described in Matthew 1, which states:

 

'Now all this has happened, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying,

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child,
    and shall give birth to a son.
They shall call his name Immanuel”;
    which is, being interpreted, “God with us.”' (Matt. 1: 22-23, World English Bible)

 

This is quoting Isaiah 7:14:

 

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (World English Bible)

 

Obviously the most well addressed part of the controversy will be found if I switch translations:

 

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel." (New Revised Standard Version)

 

That is, that the Matthew quote uses the Greek word "Parthenos" from the Septuagint, whereas the Hebrew word is "almah" meaning young woman, as opposed to the word supposedly more used for describing one as a virgin, "bethulah". Of course apologists try to refute this by pointing to different usages of the words. And, not being an expert on the Biblical languages, I can't really see whether or not that is a concrete argument. Nonetheless, if it is, it seems to not bode well for the claim it was prophesying a virgin birth.

 

It is, however, interesting that the apologists I've read give so much attention to this and not the more obvious problem I've seen with this. That is, whether the context of the book of Isaiah allows for it. Quite clearly this seems to be more of a sign given to Ahaz in the near future concerning his immediate predicament- that of the alliance of kings from Damascus and the northern kingdom of Israel making war with him, that they would eventually be wiped out: 

 

"He shall eat butter and honey when he knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings you abhor shall be forsaken. " (Isa. 7:15-16, WEB).

 

The fact is that whilst it is possible to state that the events to follow would occur before Jesus was born and grown up sufficiently to discern right from wrong, it seems pretty obvious that that isn't very useful to King Ahaz or anyone else hearing the prophecy at the time. Moreover, there seems to be a pattern of children being given prophetic names as a sign of prohpecy about to be fulfilled, as Isaiah does the same with his own son Maher-shalal-hash-baz in the next chapter (v. 3-4), which also addresses "Immanuel" in v. 8 (could it be that they are one and the same person?) and mentions that the prophet and his sons are there "for signs and wonders" from God/Yahweh (v. 18). So there seems to be little in the book of Isaiah to suggest this is a far-future Messianic prophecy.

 

Of course the apologists have two more tricks up their sleeve. One is to suggest based on the fact that Isaiah is by this point addressing the "House of David" in general and it is in the context of the northern kings wanting to dethrone Ahaz and put a puppet king in his place (thus threatening the House of David), this prophecy is about reassuring that the House of David will endure (and lead to Jesus, naturally). Another is to introduce the "dual/multiple fulfilment" concept, suggesting the prophecy had an immediate fulfilment and was later fulfilled in Jesus. For obvious reasons this isn't too satisfactory.

 

So, questions are:

 

1. Is there any rational or at least halfway convincing argument that could be used to demonstrate that this could be a messianic prophecy, let alone pointing to Jesus?

 

2. Assuming as no doubt most of us do that this is not the case, is there any watertight argument which rationally proves this is *not* a messianic prophecy?

 

3. Can anyone with any knowledge of the original languages clear up the controversy surrounding the meaning of these words?

 

4. Assuming he is not Jesus, who might Immanuel be? The prophet's own son? The future King Hezekiah? Someone else? Can we even be sure?

 

5. What might be the author of the "Gospel of Matthew" be trying to achieve by linking the alleged virgin birth to Isaiah 7? Is he trying to make some sort of theological point? Or just pulling quotations from anywhere to make Jesus appear someone special, i.e. making stuff up? (Noting that later in the passage there is a mention of a prophecy found nowhere in Scripture, "that he should be called a Nazarene" or similar, and that it looks like even then the verse is misquoted, "they" shall call him Immanuel, not the child's mother as in the original text). It also seems obvious, that in the days before mass printed Bibles, computer software and the Internet, when there were only hand-written scrolls few people had their own copies of (or even access to) and most people were illiterate, there was no easy way any one person could cross-check to understand the original context, and there is all the reason to suppose the author could have pulled out some half-remembered quote to justify his position.)

 

6. Did this ever perplex anyone else when they were still believers? I recall it doing so for me.

 

7. Any other observations?

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Good points.  My biggest problem with Isaiah 7 is that it doesn't say "he shall be called Jesus" nor do the gospels tell of "Immanuel from Nazareth".  I think this problem kills the apologetics.  Isaiah never mentions Jesus and the New Testament never mentions anybody named Immanuel.

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9 hours ago, TheLyniezian said:
1. Is there any rational or at least halfway convincing argument that could be used to demonstrate that this could be a messianic prophecy, let alone pointing to Jesus?

     Yes.  It sounds stupid but the best thing going for it is the stories say it is a prophecy and then tells you the story of that prophecy being fulfilled.

 

     The fact that it seems misappropriated is not an issue.  People didn't have the same literal mindset about these sorts of things back then as we do today.  Someone could say that this was a prophecy about jesus even though it was clearly written about someone else in some other time.  It would just be explained in a more analogous way.  Like a template.  So those events supposedly happened and were a "model" for the events that were going to happen with jesus.  That way you can pour over all your ancient texts looking for these sort of matches to try to explain current events as fulfillment of prophecy or whatnot.

 

9 hours ago, TheLyniezian said:

2. Assuming as no doubt most of us do that this is not the case, is there any watertight argument which rationally proves this is *not* a messianic prophecy?

     No.  The text says it is.

 

     Clearly, it is not, but that isn't going to change anything.

 

9 hours ago, TheLyniezian said:

 

3. Can anyone with any knowledge of the original languages clear up the controversy surrounding the meaning of these words?

     There's plenty of websites that go over this ground.  You can search for them.  None of that changes anything for anyone who believes the story.

 

9 hours ago, TheLyniezian said:

4. Assuming he is not Jesus, who might Immanuel be? The prophet's own son? The future King Hezekiah? Someone else? Can we even be sure?

     I'll say it's a metaphor.  The young woman gives birth.  Then a lot of metaphorical type language is used.  The next chapter then has some other kid born but named something else (which has different symbolism).  Then you have verse 8 (the Assyrians come): "it will sweep on into Judah as a flood, and, pouring over, it will reach up to the neck; and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel."  It happens again a couple verses down: "Take counsel together, but it shall be brought to naught;  speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us."  (except "God is with us" is actually Immanuel...so "for Immanuel").  These don't seem like references to a single, literal, person to me.  Especially with the time line being offered (unless it has large gaps since a baby or child would be fairly useless to appeal to here).

 

9 hours ago, TheLyniezian said:

5. What might be the author of the "Gospel of Matthew" be trying to achieve by linking the alleged virgin birth to Isaiah 7? Is he trying to make some sort of theological point? Or just pulling quotations from anywhere to make Jesus appear someone special, i.e. making stuff up? (Noting that later in the passage there is a mention of a prophecy found nowhere in Scripture, "that he should be called a Nazarene" or similar, and that it looks like even then the verse is misquoted, "they" shall call him Immanuel, not the child's mother as in the original text). It also seems obvious, that in the days before mass printed Bibles, computer software and the Internet, when there were only hand-written scrolls few people had their own copies of (or even access to) and most people were illiterate, there was no easy way any one person could cross-check to understand the original context, and there is all the reason to suppose the author could have pulled out some half-remembered quote to justify his position.)

     I think that there was a lot of parallels between destruction of the second temple and the destruction of the first temple.  I think the author(s) could see this and wrote accordingly.  I don't think either text was written prior to either event that it claims to be about.  Isaiah was written after the destruction of the first temple and Matthew after the second.  I think, knowing that history, they could see the prophecies from those ancient times could be applied to their own times and by extension this would mean a time of suffering but ultimately a time of return and even rebuilding.  It's all there in the texts just waiting to happen again if a person is able to spot it.

 

9 hours ago, TheLyniezian said:

6. Did this ever perplex anyone else when they were still believers? I recall it doing so for me.

     Not really.  I didn't question much.  I just believed it.

 

9 hours ago, TheLyniezian said:

7. Any other observations?

     Nope. ;)

 

          mwc

 

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On 5/1/2018 at 5:49 PM, TheLyniezian said:

5. What might be the author of the "Gospel of Matthew" be trying to achieve by linking the alleged virgin birth to Isaiah 7? Is he trying to make some sort of theological point? Or just pulling quotations from anywhere to make Jesus appear someone special, i.e. making stuff up? (Noting that later in the passage there is a mention of a prophecy found nowhere in Scripture, "that he should be called a Nazarene" or similar, and that it looks like even then the verse is misquoted, "they" shall call him Immanuel, not the child's mother as in the original text). It also seems obvious, that in the days before mass printed Bibles, computer software and the Internet, when there were only hand-written scrolls few people had their own copies of (or even access to) and most people were illiterate, there was no easy way any one person could cross-check to understand the original context, and there is all the reason to suppose the author could have pulled out some half-remembered quote to justify his position.)

 

I think that four gospels were written to express the theology of the leader of four different sects. In Matthew's case, he doesn't like the fact that "The Gospel of Mark" has no birth narrative and that the author of that tract has no interest in Jesus's birth. Perhaps he used that tract originally, but ran into problems when people started asking, "But Matthew, what about Jesus's birth and childhood?" 

 

Matthew realized that he needs to "discover" (i.e., write) his own tract, and Jesus cannot have an ordinary birth. He adopts the previous writers' method of finding out what happened in the "life" of Jesus by going to the scriptures, taking something out of context, inserting it into his story, and directly or indirectly asserting that this was a "prophecy." This may have taken some time, since of course there's nothing about a miraculous birth anywhere in the Septuagint (Matthew's base text, not the Hebrew). And there's nothing in Isaiah 7 to suggest that "the holy spirit" was the force that impregnated the young woman, but Matthew's audience were undoubtably a group of illiterate, uncritical, superstitious, gullible hayseeds who would believe anything Matthew said, so they just accepted this nonsense, and the rest is history. 

 

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Also, Matthew came from a time when most people converting were Gentiles, and so all they had to do was say "It was prophesied and this was the fulfillment" and people would be impressed without checking (like most believers today). Honestly, it was a stupid prophecy to begin with. A girl will have a baby and before he's a toddler, these kings will be "forsaken". Whoopdie doo. WHO is the girl, and how would they find her, and who is going to keep track of the timing? No one. It was stupid. It reminds me of the other prophet who was told to bury his belt and then check on it after some days and ooooh it's moldy! Eeek, power of GAWD! And this was a sign that something impressive would happen. Stupid shit. That is one reason all the prophecies one hears on modern pentecostal churches are so entirely vague and useless that they could mean just about anything.

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On ‎5‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 6:49 PM, TheLyniezian said:

 

7. Any other observations?

 

I think another challenge with needing to interpret Isaiah 7:14 as a virgin birth and a "dual/multiple fulfilment" about Jesus is that the woman in Isaiah's time who gave birth to Immanuel would have also been a virgin.  So were there two miraculous virgin births - Mary giving birth to Jesus, and the woman in Isaiah's time giving birth to Immanuel?  

 

Additionally, I do not see how "before the child knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good" could apply to Jesus.  Maybe from a human nature Jesus had to learn things, but if the Trinity concept is true, Jesus and god are the same, so why would there have been a time when Jesus did not know to refuse evil?  But at the same time, Isaiah 45:7 indicates Yahweh creates evil.   

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4 hours ago, readyforchange said:

 

I think another challenge with needing to interpret Isaiah 7:14 as a virgin birth and a "dual/multiple fulfilment" about Jesus is that the woman in Isaiah's time who gave birth to Immanuel would have also been a virgin.  So were there two miraculous virgin births - Mary giving birth to Jesus, and the woman in Isaiah's time giving birth to Immanuel?  

 

Additionally, I do not see how "before the child knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good" could apply to Jesus.  Maybe from a human nature Jesus had to learn things, but if the Trinity concept is true, Jesus and god are the same, so why would there have been a time when Jesus did not know to refuse evil?  But at the same time, Isaiah 45:7 indicates Yahweh creates evil.   

     Two good points.

 

     If the Isaiah passage is intended to be taken literally we have another virgin birth.  I know that there are other births, like Isaac's, that are considered by some Jews to be miraculous in nature (though not a virgin in her case but in every other way the same sort of thing since god was the one who made her pregnant though xians tend to interpret it as god allowed her and Abraham to conceive).  I know there are others but they're not coming to me right off.  But I digress.  It would seem that if we can have another virgin birth then that's not all that unique anymore and Mary becomes far less special.  It's only the child that holds any value.

 

     Which leads to your second point.  This one I think we've talked about before some time ago but it's still a good point.  God, or the son of god who is still god himself, just knows good from evil no matter what form it takes.  The later stories about jesus as a child indicate otherwise but they're not canon so we can ignore them nowadays.  I guess that's why the synoptic author stopped his quote when he did?  That part didn't apply to his jesus.

 

          mwc

 

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