MATTHEW’S
VIRGIN WAS NOT GODLY INSPIRED
Hugh
Fogelman
Virgin birth is a central tenet of Christianity. For almost two thousand years
Christians have blindly accepted Jesus’ virgin birth without realizing that
this comes from Roman and Greek mythology of “demigods.”
DEMIGOD -
Mythology. A male
being, often the offspring of a god and a mortal, who has some but not all of
the powers of a god. An inferior deity; a minor god. A deified man.
In
mythology – 900 or more years before anyone ever heard one word about Jesus –
the pagan gods would come down to earth to mate with “virgin women;” producing
a half man–half god. Does this sound familiar? It should, Christianity imitated
it! Let us look at some verses from Christian Bibles:
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. (Matthew 1:22-23; Kings James Version (KJV))
Therefore the Lord himself shall give
you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall call his name Immanuel.
(Isaiah 7:14 KJV)
This happened as the Lord said it would
happen through the early preacher. He said, ‘The young woman, who has never had a man, will give birth to a Son. They will give Him
the name Immanuel. This means God with us.’ (Matthew
1:22-23; New Life Version)
All of this had been told long before by
the Lord through his prophet. It came true. The prophet said, `A young woman who has not slept with a man is going to have a baby son. His name will
be *Emmanuel. That means "God is with us." (Matthew 1:22-23; Worldwide English New Testament)
However, recent Christian bibles such as the Revised Standard Version 1 and the New English Bible 2 do not
give credence to the virgin birth story. Unfortunately, to give the appearance
that Jesus fulfilled a biblical prophecy; other Christian bibles deliberately
mistranslate the Hebrew word “almah” in
Isaiah 7:14 as virgin.
However, regarding the virgin birth, the Christian Abingdon Bible Commentary (page 643)
explains that it:
“must be said the Hebrew word almah may mean
“virgin,” but does not necessarily mean anything more than a young woman of
marriageable age. Had the prophet intended specially and precisely to say
“virgin,” he must have used the world bethulah, though even then there
would be a faint shade of uncertainty.”
Hebrew is referred to as Leshon HaKodesh, meaning THE HOLY TONGUE,
since it was the language that God chose for mankind to record the Torah.
So, let us see what God
told Isaiah (Hebrew transliteration):
la.khen yi.ten a.do.nai hu la.khem ot hi.ne ha.al.ma ha.ra ve.yo.le.det ben ve.ka.rat she.mo i.ma.nu el:
In
English this translates from Hebrew as:
Therefore,
the Lord, of His own, shall give you a sign; behold, the young woman is with child, and she shall
bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel.
As Shmuel Golding, of the Jerusalem Biblical
Polemics, wrote: “There
are five points worth noting as we compare the original Hebrew with the English
translation of the KJV:
1. In Hebrew, the verse reads in the present tense, "is with child" and not as according to the KJV, which says, "will conceive and bear a child." In Hebrew, it states that she is pregnant, not will be pregnant. In fact, in the Catholic Bible, Isaiah 7.14 reads as follows: "The maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son." Jesus was not born until 700 years after this sign was given, which could not be described as "soon". The text reads "is with child;" no woman could be kept pregnant for 700 years until Jesus arrived.
2. This is not a prophecy for some future date; it is an "ot" (sign). Whenever "ot" is used in Hebrew, it means something which will come to pass immediately. "Ot" is used elsewhere in the Bible: "This shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord" (Isaiah. 38.7-8) and "If they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign." (Ex. 4.8-9) In each case, the sign came to pass immediately, not 700 years later.
3. The name of the child was to be Emmanuel. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find that Jesus is called Emmanuel. The angel informs Joseph in a dream that Mary will give birth to a son and that he could call his name "Jesus" (Matthew 1.20-21). "His name was called "Jesus" (Luke 2.21). All the evidence indicates that Emmanuel was a different individual from Jesus.
4. The text in Isaiah. 7.14 specifically says, "the young woman" – "alma;" whereas the King James Version changes the translation to "a virgin." The definite article is changed to the indefinite article; whereas the original text is evidently referring to the young woman known to both Isaiah and Ahaz and not to some unknown person in the future.
5. There are a number of verses found in the Hebrew Bible where "alma" is used in describing a woman who is in fact a virgin and such verses are used by fundamentalists to substantiate their beliefs. See Genesis 24.43 and Exodus 2.8.
I do not want to over-emphasize "alma" as not meaning a virgin but to point out that alma only applies to a woman for a fixed period of time, irregardless of whether or not she is a virgin, for when she is no longer young, she loses the right to be called "alma."
An
“
If the prophet believed that the young woman in Isaiah 7.14 was also a virgin who conceived a child without the aid of a man and without losing her virginity – and if this incredible event was to be a sign – then surely he would have been more implicit and would have used the word "betulah," which is the Hebrew word for virgin, so that no one would have misunderstood his words. All the prophet Isaiah says is that “a young woman is having a child.”
A fundamentalist may claim that "betulah" does not mean a virgin, but a married woman. This is because of a faulty understanding of two verses in the Hebrew Bible upon which they base their claims.
"Lament
like a betulah girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth." (Joel
1.8)
And the damsel was very fair to look
upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well,
and filled her pitcher, and came up.
(Genesis 24:16)
In Genesis 24.16, the word "betulah" is used to describe Rebecca, but it is qualified with the statement following "neither had any man known her." So the fundamentalists attempt to use this verse, saying that if the common understanding of "betulah" was virgin, the passage would not have needed the explanation "neither had any man known her."
Both of
these passages can be easily understood. The passage in Joel is simply saying
that the virgin is weeping for
a husband, not that she
has a husband. She is weeping because she does not have one; in
other words, she is weeping for a husband whom she will never have. It could
refer to a young woman who is bereaved of the man to whom she had been
betrothed and has not yet consummated the marriage before his death. Such would
be a tragedy for lamentation as seen in Judges 11.37.
In the other passage, the latter part of Genesis 24:16 is there simply to amplify the fact that Rivka was indeed a virgin. This kind of amplification can be seen by comparing it with II Sam. 14.5, which reads, "I am indeed a widow woman and mine husband is dead." Here, we see that the latter part of these verses is there to amplify the first part.
Looking
through a concordance under the heading "betulah," shows at least 50
entries and, without exception, they refer to a virgin. More importantly they
are translated in all Christian bibles as meaning "virgin." For
example, see Leviticus 21.3;
Deuteronomy. 22.19; II Samuel 13.2; and Isaiah. 62.5, all of which employ the
Hebrew word "betulah" and translated "virgin" in the KJV.
Then why is betulah not used to describe the woman mentioned in Isa. 7.14, if we are to believe her to be a virgin?
Fundamentalist
Christians try to prove their point that "
Again, the prophet Isaiah (in Isaiah 7:14) is simply relating to the fact that the young woman is having a child and that this child will be a sign to King Ahaz. Finally, it should be understood that the sign was given to King Ahaz and not to the people of Jesus’ day. It concerned the military situation of that time. The meaning is clear if the passage is read in context within its own historical setting (see 2 Kings 16.1-10) for the literal fulfillment of this prophecy.
The
Christian bible is only a version of the SOURCE Bible, as the King James
clearly says – “Version.” The KJV was taken from the Greek Septuagint that was
altered in the Fourth Century by the Church Fathers who wanted to put a Jesus
“spin” on everything they saw.
There
are two kinds of bibles; the Source (Hebrew) Bible and all others. One thing is for sure; one must come before
the next. If you really want to understand what is written in the BIBLE, one
should one go to the SOURCE ― the Tanakh, written in Hebrew ―
instead of reading an altered “version.”
As a friend once said; “Not
knowing Hebrew does not make you stupid. The stupid people are the ones who do
not know Hebrew, but think they know the Hebrew Scriptures better than people
who do know Hebrew.
Footnotes:
1. The RSV was completed in 1952 as,
in part, a revision of the King James Bible.
2. The