Longer response to Isaiah 7 prophecy claim, regarding nwaonline discussion
here.
Virgin birth, assorted scholars (Krueger)
Subject: Biblical Scholarship
Here are a few facts regarding modern biblical scholarship from
STANDARD sources and/or reflecting standard views on biblical scholarship.
Regarding the virgin birth:
Contemporary scholars recognize that the virgin birth is a late
addition to the Jesus legend, especially because the purported event is
supposed to be the fulfillment of a prophecy-- but there is no such
prophecy.
As I mention in my book, Isaiah 7:14 is often taken to prophecy
the virgin birth of Jesus: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a
sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his
name Immanuel." However, scholars are well aware that the term translated
here as "virgin," the Hebrew word almah, is best translated as "young
woman," who may or may not be a virgin. The Hebrew word bethulah means
"virgin," but that is not the word used in the Isaiah verse. The gospel
writers usually used the notoriously error-filled Greek Septuagint
translation of the Hebrew when citing the Old Testament. Some modern
bibles, such as the Revised Standard version, use the correct translation
of this passage and do not use the word "virgin." Furthermore, the Hebrew
text is in the present tense; the verse states that a young woman is
pregnant, not that she will become so. Further, anyone who takes the
trouble to read the verse in context will see that the event in question
was not a prophecy about some event in the distant future. It was
intended to be a sign to King Ahaz of Judah, the king who asked Isaiah for
help. The birth of the son was supposed to be a sign to the king that an
attack by a hostile alliance, which included Israel, would be unsuccessful
against Judah. Isaiah also admits, in 8:3-4, that he "went unto the
prophetess" just to make sure that she was pregnant. The verses in
7:15-16 make it clear that the sign was supposed to be of events in
Isaiahs day, since these state that the alliance would fail before the
child was old enough to know good from evil. Clearly, none of this has
any relation to Jesus or xianity. As a prophecy about Jesus, it isnt one.
The prophecy also failed in Isaiahs time, since the attack on Judah was
successful after all (2 Chronicles 28:1-5).
The above analysis is, in its main content, identical to that
given in The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford University Press,
1993). This is a standard reference work. We find on page 790: "Isaiah's
intent in discussing this child [in Isaiah 7] is clearly to set a time
frame for the destruction of Israel. There is nothing miraculous about
the mother or the conception process."
In The Unauthorized Version (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992),
Oxford historian and Bible scholar Robin Lane Fox says this about the
Isaiah 7 virgin birth "prophecy": "it did not concern Jesus nor did it
concern a virgin" (pg. 339). Fox also states that "among all these
proof-texts and old prophecies, the clamour of fundamentalists and the
talk of new keys to the Old Testament, it is hard to hear the Hebrew
prophets on their own terms. What, in fact, had they predicted about
Jesus Christ or Christianity? The answer is extremely simple: they had
predicted nothing" (pg. 340).
Gunther Bornkamm, Emeritus Professor of New Testament Studies at
the Rupert Charles University of Heidelberg wrote the following in the
article about Jesus for the Encyclopedia Britannica (another standard
reference work): "The widely differing genealogies in Matthew 1 and Luke
3 also belong in the context of the doctrine of Davidic descent of the
Messiah (Christ). They are the only New Testament evidences for
genealogical reflection about Jesus messiahship. The two texts, however,
cannot be harmonized. They show that originally a unified tradition about
Jesus ancestors did not exist and that attempts to portray his messiahship
genealogically were first undertaken in Jewish Christian circles with the
use of the Septuagint (Greek translation) text of the Old Testament. BOTH
TEXTS HAVE TO BE ELIMINATED AS HISTORICAL SOURCES. [Emphasis added.] They
are nevertheless important for the devolopment of Christology (doctrines
on the nature of Christ), because they reveal the difficulty of
reconciling the genealogical proof of Jesus Davidic descent WITH THE
RELATIVELY LATE IDEA OF HIS VIRGIN BIRTH. [Emphasis added.]" (Britannica
vol. 22, pg. 364.)
The Oxford Companion to the Bible states: "The birth stories in
Matthew and Luke are relatively late" (pg. 356).
Paula Fredriksens book states, "Jesus was born
in Nazareth in one of the most turbulent periods of Jewish History" (From
Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1988, page 127). Regarding the virgin
birth, she, too, gives the analysis of the Hebrew words which I used above
and states, "Matthew chooses innumerable passages and verses that in
their original context had nothing to do with a messiah, and by applying
them to Jesus makes them seem to" (Ibid., pp. 37-38).
Spong also notes that in relating the virgin birth prophecy
Matthew deviated from the Septuagint, and perhaps the Septuagint, with its
erroneous translation of Isaiah 7:14, was not Matthews source. Spong
says, "He [the author of Matthew] deviated from the Septuagint in two
interesting places: Matthew said the virgin "will be with child" (hexei)
when the Septuagint said the virgin "will conceive" (lepsetai). Matthew
said "they" (third person plural) will call his name Immanuel, while the
Septuagint said "you" (second person singular) will call his name
Immanuel. Both Matthew and the Septuagint differ from the Hebrew text,
which said "a young woman is with child and she [third person singular]
will call his name Immanuel" (pp. 74-75). And: "It would be nonsensical
to think that the birth of a child seven hundred years later could somehow
given hope to King Ahaz in that particular moment of crisis. Whatever
else the Isaiah text meant, it had literally nothing to do with Jesus"
(pg. 79).
Spong also writes: "Is there any possibility that the narratives
of our Lords birth are historical? Of course not. Even to raise that
question is to betray an ignorance about birth narratives. Origin tales
are commentaries on adult meaning...What this means is that the birth
narratives of Matthew and Luke finally said nothing factual about the
birth of Jesus..." (pg. 59).
With no prophecy to fulfill, it is unlikely that Jesus would have
been born of a virgin simply to accommodate some later xians error,
perhaps intentional, in translation and interpretation. It is also the
case that the earliest xian writings, the letters of Paul and the gospel
of Mark, do not mention the virgin birth. It was added later in the
course of the development of xianity. This is the overwhelming consensus
of biblical scholars today, as Spong noted."
--Doug Krueger