Virgin birth prophecy debunked

[spike]

Not sure exactly how accurate this is, but it's interesting.

Probably the most famous of all prophecies is the prophecy of the virgin birth of Jesus. As we shall soon see, this is not a prophecy of a virgin birth, not a prophecy about Jesus and probably not a prophecy at all. Most troubling is the first Gospel of Mark makes no mention of any virgin birth. Paul's Epistles and Romans were written a decade or more before Mark also makes no mention of this. When examined in the context of the surrounding chapters of this book, this verse looks more like a discussion of an upcoming event in the author's life.

The verse thought to be a prophecy appears at Isaiah 7:14 - "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman'u-el."

Before you accuse me of fudging the verse by replacing virgin with "young woman" I assure you that I pulled this out of the most accurate translation of the Bible that there is, the Revised Standard Version. That this is the correct word used here can be seen from comparing how the word translated as "young woman" is translated in other places.

The Hebrew word is ALMAH (al-mah) and it is used 7 times in the Bible. Strictly speaking, it means young woman but depending on the Bible that you are using, it is translated as virgin, maiden and damsel, as well. There is another Hebrew word which is specifically translated as virgin. It is BETHULAH (be-too-lah) and it appears in the Bible 50 times. 38 times it is translated as virgin while the other 12 are spread out over the words maid and maiden. As you can see, there is some question if this word is properly translated.

Beyond the issue of translation is the problem of how the alleged prophecy sits within the verses and chapters around it. Here is some background behind the verse at Isaiah 7:14:

In the first verse of the chapter, we are given the historical context. It is the time of King Ahaz of Judah. It is not a good time for the kingdom as the two nations of Israel and Assyria are marching towards Judah to do battle. At verse three, we are told that the Lord says to Isaiah that he should go to meet King Ahaz and tell him to go and meet the other two kings. Isaiah is told to tell Ahaz that there is nothing to fear from the two kings as they will be defeated and destroyed.

In verse 11, the Lord tells Ahaz to ask him for a sign that these things would come to pass. Ahaz refuses, stating that he will not put the Lord to the test. In response to this, the Lord says that the sign would be given anyway, and that a young woman would bear a child and it would be named Immanuel.

If this were the end of the prophecy and a new subject was started, we might suppose that this is a prophecy of the coming of Jesus, even though Jesus' name is not used. Immanuel does mean "god is with us" but that does not constitute that this would be Jesus. There is more to the prophecy, however, as we see in the two verses directly following 7:14:

15 He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.
16 For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.

We can see from these two subsequent verses that the whole purpose of the prophecy is that a child would be born in Ahaz's time that would be a sign that the two attacking countries would be deserted. Would a birth some 700 years later (when Jesus was born) have been any kind of sign to King Ahaz? No, of course not. He was long dead before Jesus was born.

Finally, we see that in the very next chapter of Isaiah there is a birth. We know that this is the prophesied child to be born simply based on the following two verses from Isaiah 8:

3 And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. Then the LORD said to me, "Call his name Ma'her-shal'al-hash-baz
4 for before the child knows how to cry 'My father' or 'My mother,' the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Sama'ria will be carried away before the king of Assyria."

While we do not know the significance of the name Ma'her-shal'al-hash-baz, we do know that it can not be linked up with Jesus' name or Immanuel. We do see, however, know that this is the child prophesied in Isaiah 7:14 as verse 4 here makes the same claim as the verses following 7:14.

Conclusion

We see above that there are numerous problems with this being a prophecy of Jesus. The first and foremost is the translation problem. We see that Isaiah was familiar with the term BETHULAH and used it when he wanted to convey a woman's virginity. That he did not employ it at 7:14 seems to indicate that this is not what he meant for this prophecy. In addition to this is the problem that the prophecy was framed in such a way that for it to be true, it would need to occur in the time of King Ahaz. Lastly, we see that the child is indeed born during Ahaz's time as chapter 8 shows us.

Far from being a prophecy of a virgin birth, we find a regular pregnancy some 700 years prior to the birth of Jesus.

Information extracted from cygnus-study.com

http://www.sullivan-county.com/identity/prophecy.htm

 

[chcr]

Old (pun fully intended) news. Personal beliefs aside, I've known this for decades.

 

[SouthernN'Proud]

Those who choose not to believe will not believe regardless. That's fine by me. Apparantly, many who choose not to believe take it upon themselves to try and disprove something so they can sit back and crow. Again, fine by me. Better, more intelligent, more learned, more credible, and more interesting people have tried before. Now others try.

Fine by me.

What, were you expecting folks to start trembling with fear, overpowered by the ramblings of some "scientist" who thinks he/she has something to say? To suddenly abandon their beliefs because this dullard in a white lab coat said something?

To some, beliefs are different than fads. They aren't shaken by the slightest change in public opinion. To some, they are not. Guess which line I stand in?

 

[spike]

The ignore all facts and reason line?

 

[chcr]

Those who choose not to believe will not believe regardless. That's fine by me. Apparantly, many who choose not to believe take it upon themselves to try and disprove something so they can sit back and crow. Again, fine by me. Better, more intelligent, more learned, more credible, and more interesting people have tried before. Now others try.

Fine by me.

What, were you expecting folks to start trembling with fear, overpowered by the ramblings of some "scientist" who thinks he/she has something to say? To suddenly abandon their beliefs because this dullard in a white lab coat said something?

To some, beliefs are different than fads. They aren't shaken by the slightest change in public opinion. To some, they are not. Guess which line I stand in?

Not the point, SnP. Regardless of whether you believe or not, even whether Jesus existed or not, this says the whole "virgin birth" story is a misinterpretation of the prophecy which supposedly foretold his coming. I think this makes his possible existence more rather than less believable. Privately I still don't buy it of course, but at least it puts some of the mysticism aside. As I say, it's been understood by various theologians and scholars for a long time. Used to be supressed of course.

 

[SouthernN'Proud]

Maybe. What I see is a bunch of nitpicking semantics.

But hey, whadda I know, right?

 

[MrBishop]

I guess that it depends on the viewpoint. If the Bible is thought to be verbatim historical fact, then this sounds like an attack. If the Bible is a series of parables, then this is just another interpretation.

I listened to a guest speaker who did a far better job at analysing how different tellers of the story could have come up with different versions. Made a hell of a lot more sense than this web-site AND wasn't attacking the religion. Bishop Spong was the guy's name. Excellent speaker.

 

[Luis G]

The Bible is just a book written and translated by men. Your faith (whatever it is) should not depend on that.

 

[highwayman]

The Bible is just a book written and translated by men. Your faith (whatever it is) should not depend on that.

Amen..

In fact the story I have heard several times had been Mary had been raped by a centurien and somebody even came up with a name of the guy....Something like that I take as a grain of salt because they would neeed to come up with DNA evidence to prove anything...

 

[chcr]

Maybe. What I see is a bunch of nitpicking semantics.

But hey, whadda I know, right?

Immaculate conception vs good old makin' babies seems like more than a question of semantics to me, but okay.

*sigh* Seems like I get into one of these every year around this time. Probably a character flaw of some kind.

 

[rrfield]

Jesus wasn't immaculately conceived Mary was.

 

[MrBishop]

Immaculate conception vs good old makin' babies seems like more than a question of semantics to me, but okay.

*sigh* Seems like I get into one of these every year around this time. Probably a character flaw of some kind.

Actually (insert Pedanticman logo here) Jesus was not the immaculate conception. He's associated with the Virgin birth.

Mary herself is the Immaculate conception (created without being born)... so that she could be the perfect vessel to bring jesus into the world.

 

[Gato_Solo]

Immaculate conception vs good old makin' babies seems like more than a question of semantics to me, but okay.

*sigh* Seems like I get into one of these every year around this time. Probably a character flaw of some kind.

That's what you get for following spike around.

 

[rrfield]

Mary was conceived without original sin, thats what made it immaculate.

 

[nalani]

I'm completely with SoP on this one and have this to add:

the virgin birth prophecy hasn't been dubunked - all that entire article is is a theory and there are a hundred more where that one came from. Great agurments - great reference to biblical quotes ... but two things get me here:

1 - why is it so important for some people to attempt to rip faith and love from others? Granted, I'm not a Christian and I don't believe in many of the things most Christians do - nor do I have the kind of faith they have - but that doesn't mean I'm going to do my best to attempt to prove their entire existence wrong and rip it away ... so why is it important for some people to continually try, of course, in the name of 'science' ... *rolls my eyes*

2 - It isn't debunked because it is faith-based, not science-based. Kierkegaard's definition of 'faith' is that faith is a belief in the absurd in the presence of doubt. If your belief in the absurd was without doubt, you have fanaticism. So even though we don't *know* how Jesus was conceived or if He is the Son of God, those of us that have faith in that can still *know* .. you know? That leap of faith is taken "in trembling and fear" and, as far as Kierkegaard was concerned, is necessary for accepting Christianity because of the paradoxes that exist. Faith is ineffable and can, therefore, not be debunked.

Now, before you ask for it, spike, I'll just tell you that no, I will not post proof or articles or anything of that nature. Go ahead and google "Kierkegaard" or "faith" or anything you want. I'm not saying, just that you have a penchant for asking for *proof* on everything so I'm just letting you know now that you don't need to ask for it from me. You posted your "theory" and this is my opinion. But, if you want, I'd love to hear your answer to my #1.

 

[spike]

First it's not my theory it's the person's theory that wrote it and I posted at the top "not sure how accurate this is".

#1. My guess it that the person who created the article was looking for truth. There's plenty of christians that are all too happy to try to spread these beliefs so I don't see a problem with someone taking a closer look at what the bible says.

#2. This person wasn't attempting use "science" to debunk anything but actually was using the bible, the book the faith is based on to get clarity on the situation.

 

[nalani]

First it's not my theory it's the person's theory that wrote it and I posted at the top "not sure how accurate this is".

Ah .. what I *meant* to say was you posted the theory and I assumed, since you posted it and since you basically told SnP that he 'ignores facts and reason', that you believed this theory and took it as your own.... my bad. I withdraw that portion of the comment and apologize for the assumption and implication made.

As for the rest of your post, semantics ... you have a point about Christians spreading their beliefs. To that I say touche. I never thought of that and I'm not even Christian LOL ... But a couple of things I want to clear up... You'll forgive me if it seems that I'm arguing for nothing - just feeling like it's necessary after reading so many of your posts in other threads:

I never said I thought there was a "problem" with anyone looking closer at the bible though. If you knew me, you'd know that one of my degrees is in Relgious Studies, with emphasis on Literature of the Bible. My question was why do people have to be jerks when it comes to other peoples' faiths - and if I remember correctly, and I'll double check before posting this, I wasn't speaking exclusively about Christians being "victims" - used it as a fitting example based on the thread. At first I thought it was an interesting article posted for information and discourse until your response to SnP of ignoring all facts (of which I saw none, just theory based on interpretation) .. then I thought it was just posted to create more opportunities to be jerklike. *shrug* .. which was why I asked you to answer #1 so I could decide if that was the case.

Also used as an example was my statement of "in the name of science" .. I did not say the writer of the theory was using 'science' to debunk anything, especially since, if you were able to read clearly, my point was that nothing was debunked. To "debunk" is to "expose falsness", "to disprove" .. and nothing was disproven .. AHHHAAAA!!! I've debunked the debunking

I did enjoy reading the article though. That's the first time I recall reading a theory that used many of those passages.

 

[RDX]

It's all good and well, and the legitamacy of Jesus can be argued all day, but getting back to the intent of the verse...
Wether or not it does pertain to Jesus' birth or another birth around the time the verse was written, I don't know for sure. But I do know this, if the message is given as a sign from God, wouldn't a sign that a child was conceived under normal circumstances be a rather stupid sign?

 

[spike]

Ah .. what I *meant* to say was you posted the theory and I assumed, since you posted it and since you basically told SnP that he 'ignores facts and reason', that you believed this theory and took it as your own.... my bad. I withdraw that portion of the comment and apologize for the assumption and implication made.

I posted it because I thought it might be interesting to discuss. My annoyance with SnP was that instead of actually addressing any of the points made in the article he dismisses the whole thing as a "scientist" in a "lab coat".

The article uses facts and reason (which could be faulty, I don't know) to establish a hypothesis which SnP completely ignored.

I never said I thought there was a "problem" with anyone looking closer at the bible though. If you knew me, you'd know that one of my degrees is in Relgious Studies, with emphasis on Literature of the Bible.

Cool. I've actually done a good deal of religious study and find it interesting.

At first I thought it was an interesting article posted for information and discourse until your response to SnP of ignoring all facts (of which I saw none, just theory based on interpretation) ..

Actually the article is chock full of facts.

The Hebrew word is ALMAH (al-mah) and it is used 7 times in the Bible.

In verse 11, the Lord tells Ahaz to ask him for a sign that these things would come to pass.

Finally, we see that in the very next chapter of Isaiah there is a birth.

Those are all facts. They could be incorrect facts, but probably easy enough to verify.

Maybe you meant that the conclusion the writer came to is not an indisputable fact.

my point was that nothing was debunked. To "debunk" is to "expose falsness", "to disprove" .. and nothing was disproven .. AHHHAAAA!!! I've debunked the debunking

Actually if the facts are true and the conclusion is the only one that can be made then the virgin birth would be shown to be false. To debunk the article we need to find another possible conclusion based on the facts or show that the facts used to come to the conclusion are incorrect.

 

[Gotholic]

Let us assume that the article proves that Isaiah was not talking about a virgin birth. Where does that lead us? Does it prove that Mary was not a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus? Absolutely not. All that it would prove was that Isaiah did not predict a virgin birth.

The Witness of Isaiah 7:14 - a better insight of that verse.