12 replies to this topic

[Cousin Ricky]

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. [Emphasis mine.]

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” [Emphasis mine.]

I used the New Revised Standard Version, which does not pull punches with inconvenient scriptures. Although I do not read ancient Hebrew, I've seen commentary that says that Isaiah 7:14 is indeed written in the present tense.

Whether present or future tense, the context of the verse is clearly contemporary events. The author of Matthew clearly changed a prophecy about events contemporary to Isaiah and King Ahaz to a prophecy about hundreds of years in the future; this cannot be disputed honestly.

This in itself is not an issue; "Matthew" was using the Midrash methodology, and changing the context of ancient stories is perfectly acceptable in that methodology. But there is still a problem:

"Matthew" quotes the passage as future tense. Although I do not read Greek, I know of no English translation that quotes it in the present tense. Reinterpreting an ancient story is one thing; but presenting the original story incorrectly is not kosher. I don't think.

So where did the change in tense occur?

• If the change was in the Septuagint translation, then "Matthew" was midrashing the wrong scripture (just as he did when he wrote "virgin" instead of "young woman"). I would imagine this to be a problem.
• If "Matthew" made the change, then either he misremembered the passage, or he was dishonest in his quotation. I would imagine both cases to be a problem.

N.B. I once read that ancient Hebrew did not have a straightforward construction of the future tense. But even if this is the case, they surely had some sort of construction to convey a future sense. (The same can be said of English: our verbs have no future form, but we convey the future sense by putting "will" or "shall" before the verb.) If not, then 1) how do translators decide when to use the future tense, and 2) why would their god use ambiguous language?

Edited by Cousin Ricky, 08 March 2012 - 07:13 PM.

[Ungodly]

Considerations of tense set aside for the moment, this Isaiah character, if he really was making a prediction, must have been truly a psychic to predict that a pregnant woman would give birth to a son!

[Storybook]

Interesting! Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman wrote "Misquoting Jesus" and a bunch of other books on the subject. He has said that the scribes who hand wrote out the bible and made copies often made mistakes or changed things deliberately. We will never really know what the original books of the bible said. I suppose it doesn't really matter since it is all man-made horseshit.

Considerations of tense set aside for the moment, this Isaiah character, if he really was making a prediction, must have been truly a psychic to predict that a pregnant woman would give birth to a son!

LMAO!

[Great Ape]

Could it be in the translation of young woman? In Hebrew ha-almah means young woman. While bethulah means virgin.

Ha-almah is used in the Tanakh to refer to a young women of marriageable age. Jewish customs would expect a young women of marriageable age to indeed be a virgin. Therefore, this could show that there is no difference in the meaning of the translation.

Howard W. Clarke, the Professor Emeritus of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says Isaiah seems to be explicitly referring to a son of the Judean King Ahaz, rather than to the mother of Jesus as Matthew misinterprets it.

From what I read, since King Ahaz refused a sign from the Lord, Isaiah's prophecy broadened from just King Ahaz to the entire "House Of David.

I knew nothing about this before your post. I garnered this information from thirty minutes of reading about it online. So take it with a grain of salt. It does seem Matthew misinterpreted it. Imagine that.

Considerations of tense set aside for the moment, this Isaiah character, if he really was making a prediction, must have been truly a psychic to predict that a pregnant woman would give birth to a son!

He had a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Not bad odds.

[Cousin Ricky]

Could it be in the translation of young woman? In Hebrew ha-almah means young woman. While bethulah means virgin.

Ha-almah is used in the Tanakh to refer to a young women of marriageable age. Jewish customs would expect a young women of marriageable age to indeed be a virgin. Therefore, this could show that there is no difference in the meaning of the translation.

If YHWH had meant bethulah, then why did he write almah instead of bethulah? Deuteronomy 22:14 acknowledges that, regardless of what Jewish customs expected of their brides, it was possible to be a young woman of marriageable age without being a virgin. The terms are not interchangeable, even in an ancient Jewish context.

The translators of the Septuagint (the Greek-language Tanakh used by "Matthew") were Alexandrians, who were contaminated with Hellenic notions of virgin births. It is they who introduced the Greek word parthenos into Isaiah 7:14. Like Christians, they could easily read meaning in the Tanakh that wasn't there.

Modern Jewish scholars insist that Christian apologists are full of horseshit when they say that almah means "virgin." I would expect, to a first approximation, that Jews would be more reliable interpreters of Jewish horseshit than Christians would be.

But even if the Christians are correct, and the almah was a virgin, that is not what the Hebrew text reads. Argue this or that, that she was a virgin shall always be an interpretation. And Isaiah 8:3-4 suggests that the Christian interpretation is wrong.

[Great Ape]

You obviously know more about Biblical scripture than I do. I bow to your superior Bible knowledge. At any rate, if Matthew misinterpreted what Isaiah said, then this is just another example of the Bible being flawed. I have never doubted that the Bible was written by men for men. And thus is not the word of God.

Edited by Great Ape, 09 March 2012 - 03:11 PM.

[Joe Bloe]

I put the gospel writers on the same level as the modern televangelists and have no respect for them at all. They'd tell you shit was clay if they thought you'd pay for it.



It probably went something like this:

Matthew thinks:
Now what sort of woman would Mary have been?

Turns to an assistant:
"Hey Trevor, have a look through the scriptures and see if you can find anything about women giving birth to gods."

An hour later Trevor returns:
"I can't find anything about women and gods, but there was this one tart who gave birth to a son who saved the whole country."

Matthew replies:
"Yeah, that'll do. I can work with that."

Trevor warns:
"Trouble is, his name is Immanuel."

Matthew:
"Don't worry about it it, we'll call our guy Emmanuel - and tell the mugs in the pews it's not his name at all; it just means 'God is with us'."

Trevor:
"You are a fucking genius!"

Matthew:
"It's what I do..."

Trevor:
"It's a pity we can't jazz up the mother a bit - she's looking quite dowdy at the moment."

Matthew:
"What if we changed her from a 'young woman' into a 'virgin'?"

Trevor:
"The mugs would never fall for that."

Matthew:
"Don't you be so sure young Trevor. There's no under-estimating the stupidity of the ratbags in my flock."



And that's how the mother of Jesus became a virgin.

[Great Ape]

It probably went something like this:

And that's how the mother of Jesus became a virgin.

That is funny Joe. I think you pegged it. Well done.

[Ungodly]

And that's how the mother of Jesus became a virgin.

Brilliant Joe Bloe! I had always suspected there was a retroactive element to her purity. It feels like an added option somehow, maybe marketing insisted because previous virgin mothers of deity saviors had done very well.

[Cousin Ricky]

I put the gospel writers on the same level as the modern televangelists and have no respect for them at all.

Come to think of it, it's not at all clear that the gospel writers intended to write history and biography. For example, modern Catholic thinking is that they did not, although the average Catholic probably does not know this. (It's one of those things the theologians won't volunteer, but fess up to when those few people who actually pick up a Buybull start to notice the contradictions.) Others have gone even further, and suggested that the gospel writers intended the gospels to be read as didactic fiction from the very beginning. Like the authors of Jonah, Revelation, and The Da Vinci Code, they would be amused, or perhaps horrified, that 21st century humans take their writings literally.

They'd tell you shit was clay if they thought you'd pay for it.

Can't argue with that.

Matthew:
"What if we changed her from a 'young woman' into a 'virgin'?"

Trevor:
"The mugs would never fall for that."

The mugs were probably looking for that. "Matthew" gave them what they wanted.

[Joe Bloe]

Come to think of it, it's not at all clear that the gospel writers intended to write history and biography.

I'm sure you are correct. Whenever there was a question about Jesus' intentions or actions, the authors just turned to the Old Testament; found a text that seemed to fit, and plonked it into their gospel. Most modern bibles with marginal notes will even list the Old Testament source so you don't have to waste too much time looking for it.

[Ungodly]

The mugs were probably looking for that. "Matthew" gave them what they wanted.

I still think it was somebody in marketing who said, "Hey, look, all of these other religions have a demigod being born of a virgin mother, we need to work that angle in too."

[Storybook]

And that's how the mother of Jesus became a virgin.

Fucking HILARIOUS!!