Virgin birth prophecy debunked

Thanks chcr, that led me to this:

Hebrew teachings do not specify that the Messiah would be born of a virgin; the very idea is alien to Jewish expectations of who the Messiah would be. Quite contrary to the Hellenized Jesus "there is nothing in the Jewish sacred books to suggest that the Messiah or anyone else was, or was to be, born of a virgin."[10] Jesus had been thoroughly rejected by the Jews who had decided that he was not the messiah that would usher in the new Kingdom. Early Christians had no choice but to turn away from Palestine and introduce Jesus to the Gentiles.

The Gospel of Mark begins with the Baptist in the River Jordan and the baptism of Jesus there. Early versions of Matthew and Luke, which were circulated among Greek Christians, began with the Baptist as well. At some point, these Christians felt the need to tailor their savior after the Greek savior-gods that they were familiar with and felt that it would be necessary to write a biography of Jesus to fill that need and make him as powerful and honorable as the pagan gods. The Gospel of Mark (70 CE) was already too well known and circulated, but the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were perfect for inserting the childhood biography of Jesus:

The first two chapters of Matthew and the first three chapters of Luke were added in the second century by Hellenizers who would accept only a divinely born savior-god like those of the pagan mystery-cults. . . ."[11]

By the close of the first century it became necessary to codify the origins of Jesus so as to defend him from the pagan critics who hesitated at following a new god when their current ones, like Herakles and Perseus, were well known to have been born by the union of a god and a virgin mother. Writing independently of each other, the authors or interpolators of Matthew and Luke proceeded to elevate Jesus to the status of the Greek savior-gods by inserting at the front of their gospels, the birth narrative of Jesus. The end result however created another problem:
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http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/virgin_birth.html
 
Dude...don't egg him on. That's so....passive aggressive. Let's drop it and drink more egg nog.
 
Early Christians had no choice but to turn away from Palestine and introduce Jesus to the Gentiles.
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Does that say there were Jews in the land of the Philistines before 1948?
 
I'd just like to muddy the waters a little, by adding my personal outlook on something. It'll make both sides mad, but fuck 'em.

It's stated in the Bible that "God created Adam in his own image". Now, unless someone wants to suggest that there's a naked, man-shaped entity hanging out in (or out of) space somewhere, I take that to mean spirit. A spirit which was infused into the existing physical beings already created with the animals ..... homo sapiens. Neatly covers where Cain and Able got their wives from, doesn't it? And since the offspring of those beings, who now have spirits, share the Holy Spirit, they also grow (if you'll pardon the term) souls. Fast forward a bit ... and you run into a young lady with a child who's soul didn't 'grow' but was placed 'by the Hand of God'. But this soul isn't an 'image' or reflection, or shadow of God, but is an actual grain, a part of God. Not limited like other souls, but limitless.

Run through that a few hundred times. You find that it's a helluva lot harder to debunk than a book that's been translated from dead languages a few hundred times .... without reference to the original document.
 
As I've often said (Cato says it too), if you have faith, you don't need proof, do you? The converse of that, of course, is that you probably don't have much chance of proving said faith to those who have none.
 
Professur said:
A spirit which was infused into the existing physical beings already created with the animals ..... homo sapiens. Neatly covers where Cain and Able got their wives from, doesn't it?
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Finally, someone with a coherent answer. Of course, it opens more holes than it closes. Firstly, In the beginning...that sounds like there were no other before it. Also, 1:26 says In His likeness. At least it's something to ponder.
 
Gonz said:
Finally, someone with a coherent answer. Of course, it opens more holes than it closes. Firstly, In the beginning...that sounds like there were no other before it. Also, 1:26 says In His likeness. At least it's something to ponder.
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No other 'souls' on Earth, yeah. As for 6 days to create the universe ..... exactly how long is one of God's days? I'd wager he wasn't using earth days ... considering that it hadn't been created yet.
 
Revisiting...

R. Sungenis: The word ALMAH appears only seven times in the Hebrew Bible (Gn 24:43; Ex 2:8; Ps 68:25; Pr 30:19; Sg 1:3; 6:8; Is 7:14), thus the evidence upon which to base such conclusions is rather limited. None of the above passages suggest that ALMAH refers to a woman who is married or has had sexual relations. Conversely, there are explicit indications that ALMAH refers to an unmarried woman who had had no sexual relations. First, in Gn 24:43, ALMAH is used to refer to Rebecca before she is married to Isaac. Yet in the same context (Gn 24:16), Rebecca is referred to as BETHULAH (“The maiden was very fair to look upon, a virgin, whom no man had known”). This interchange of terms means that ALMAH could certainly be interchanged with BETHULAH, and was understood to designate a virgin. In addition, Rebecca is called a “maiden” in the same passage, from the Hebrew NAARAH, which, similar to ALMAH, refers in Hebrew to a young woman, but also a virgin, as noted in Dt 22:15-29 in which the husband suspects his wife was not a virgin when they married. Identical to the interchange of ALMAH and BETHULAH contained in Gn 24:16 and 43, again in Dt 22:23 and 28; Judges 21:12; 1 Kings 1:2 and Esther 2:3, NAARAH and BETHULAH are interchanged. Added to these is the use of BETHULAH in Ex 22:16, which, in a similar context to that of Dt 22, also refers to virginity before marriage.

The usage of ALMAH in Pro. 30:19 also refers to a virgin. In this passage, “the way of a man with a maid (ALMAH)” who is assumed to be a virgin since she is unmarried, is contrasted in the next verse, Pro 30:20, with an “adulterous woman” who is understood as married but having sexual relations with other men.

The usage of ALMAH in Song 1:3 leads to the same conclusion, since in the context the maidens are attracted to the loving man of Solomon’s Song, implying they are refraining from sexual relations with him sot that the loving man can be intimate with his one and only lover.

The above passages also show that ALMAH refers to more than identifying a girl or young woman. ALMAH has procreative overtones, referring in the main to a young woman who has the potential of engaging in sexual relations but who has refrained for one reason or another. This connotation, of course, would also fit the Blessed Virgin Mary who, tradition holds, took a vow of celibacy.

The above analysis is confirmed by the fact that the LXX translates the Hebrew ALMAH with the Greek PARTHENOS (“virgin”) in both Gn 24:43 and Isaiah 7:14, showing that the Alexandrian Jews understood the latter term to be identical with the former. Moreover, the LXX rendering includes the Greek article HE in the phrase HE PARTHENOS, as does Matthew following the article HE in the Hebrew of Isaiah 7:14, HA ALMAH. Hence, the “sign” is not merely “a virgin,” that is, she is not any young woman who shall conceive by normal means, but “THE virgin.” The stature engendered by the article coincides with the testimony of the greatness of her offspring (cf. Micah 5:3; Isaiah 8:8; 9:5-6; 11:1-10)
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Source
 
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