Did Jesus Christ actually die?

[Skywalker]

If the gift was free, there was no cost involved. Your theology is confused.

Salvation is free but not cheap.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Isaiah doesn’t mention Jesus.

That verse does not even say "virgin". That is a mistranslation. It only says "maiden" when properly translated.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Jesus is the suffering servant in Isaiah 53.

Nope. Israel is the suffering servant.

You need to work on your Bible studies.

 

[Skywalker]

That verse does not even say "virgin". That is a mistranslation. It only says "maiden" when properly translated.

Neither almah or betulah are literal words for virgins. AndrewGilmore.net: Did Isaiah Really Predict a Virgin Birth? Some Interesting Backstory to the Bible's Most Famous Prophecy (Part II)

Similar to 'almah, betulah is not a literal term for virgin but instead denotes age and marital status. As Dr. Michael Brown, a Ph.D in Near Eastern Languages, said, "Betulah can refer to a virgin, but more often than not it simply means a young woman or maiden. In fact, more than three out of every five times the word occurs in the Old Testament, the most widely used Jewish translation renders it 'maiden.'"[6]

 

[Skywalker]

Nope. Israel is the suffering servant.

You need to work on your Bible studies.

Why did the rabbis change their beliefs after Jesus came? Who Is The Suffering Servant? Israel Or Jesus?

As the Babylonian Talmud reads (Sanhedrin 98), “The Messiah, what is his name? The Rabbis say, The Leper Scholar, as it is said, ‘surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him a leper, smitten of God and afflicted.” The Babylonian Talmud is authoritative Jewish tradition. Who is the suffering servant? Israel or Jesus? According to orthodox Jewish tradition prior to the coming of Christ, it was the Christ.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Neither almah or betulah are literal words for virgins. AndrewGilmore.net: Did Isaiah Really Predict a Virgin Birth? Some Interesting Backstory to the Bible's Most Famous Prophecy (Part II)

Actually bethulah is literally a virgin. You keep using poor sources only because they agree with you. You never use works of actual scholars. Source after source will tell you that Bethulah does mean virgin:

Betulah (Virgin) vs Almah (Young Woman) | We Are Israel
Bethulah vs Almah - Time of Reckoning Ministry

And of course if you had read the entire "prophecy" you would have seen that it does not refer to Jesus. In fact that appears to be about an event that already occurred. You should be aware that some of the so called "prophecy" in the Bible is merely history written as if it were prophecy. We went over this before.

 

[Skywalker]

Likely but not assuredly. Why do you think Joseph wanted to divorce her?

Almah had a different meaning back then than did it now.

AndrewGilmore.net: Did Isaiah Really Predict a Virgin Birth? Some Interesting Backstory to the Bible's Most Famous Prophecy (Part II)

Nevertheless, as we saw above, although 'almah literally means young woman, virginity is implied by the word. In fact, Old Testament writers used 'almah six other times, and in three of those instances translators render the word virgin in English (in the King James Version).

 

[Skywalker]

Actually bethulah is literally a virgin. You keep using poor sources only because they agree with you. You never use works of actual scholars. Source after source will tell you that Bethulah does mean virgin:

Betulah (Virgin) vs Almah (Young Woman) | We Are Israel
Bethulah vs Almah - Time of Reckoning Ministry

And of course if you had read the entire "prophecy" you would have seen that it does not refer to Jesus. In fact that appears to be about an event that already occurred. You should be aware that some of the so called "prophecy" in the Bible is merely history written as if it were prophecy. We went over this before.

Almah in the time of the Old and New Testament meant a virgin. AndrewGilmore.net: Did Isaiah Really Predict a Virgin Birth? Some Interesting Backstory to the Bible's Most Famous Prophecy (Part II)

In addition, I would argue that there is no 'almah-equivalent word in English. In the 21st century West, one cannot assume virginity in the same way one could assume virginity in the ancient near east. The cultural context of 'almah simply cannot be captured neatly in English.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Almah in the time of the Old and New Testament meant a virgin. AndrewGilmore.net: Did Isaiah Really Predict a Virgin Birth? Some Interesting Backstory to the Bible's Most Famous Prophecy (Part II)

Nope, try again.

 

[Skywalker]

Nope, try again.

Both almah and betulah mean virgin.

AndrewGilmore.net: Did Isaiah Really Predict a Virgin Birth? Some Interesting Backstory to the Bible's Most Famous Prophecy (Part II)

So while betulah more closely means virgin than does 'almah, its use in Isaiah 7:14 would not be enough to satisfy critics in all likelihood. But even so I think there’s one more reason to use 'almah, and we’ll answer it in the next question.


What about Isaiah’s prophecy in the context of history?

One thing to keep in mind about prophecy is that it often serves a dual purpose; it has meaning in its immediate context but also applies to a time in the future. I believe such is the case with Isaiah's virgin birth prophecy.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Both almah and betulah mean virgin.

AndrewGilmore.net: Did Isaiah Really Predict a Virgin Birth? Some Interesting Backstory to the Bible's Most Famous Prophecy (Part II)

Already refuted.

 

[Skywalker]

Already refuted.

You have to understand the context of Isaiah 7:14 to understand why the term Almah is used and not betulah.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You have to understand the context of Isaiah 7:14 to understand why the term Almah is used and not betulah.

I understand the context. How do you deal with the failed claim "he will be called Immanuel"? He was only called that after his death by some in a weak attempt to try to make the prophecy fulfilled. That is not the way that it works.

 

[Skywalker]

I understand the context. How do you deal with the failed claim "he will be called Immanuel"? He was only called that after his death by some in a weak attempt to try to make the prophecy fulfilled. That is not the way that it works.

The very name of Jesus means salvation

 

[Subduction Zone]

The very name of Jesus means salvation

Not Immanuel. Fail.

 

[sojourner]

No matter what anyone believes about the Bible, it is God's Word, and the godly should approach it as such

What empirical facts point to this conclusion? Should we always approach these texts from the level of the mythic, as you’re doing in this post? Is there ever an occasion in which we should approach the texts from the literal?

 

[sojourner]

Jesus's real name was Yeshua.

Or was it Iesous? What difference does it make?

 

[sojourner]

Salvation is free but not cheap.

It’s not free if someone had to die for it.

 

[sojourner]

Almah had a different meaning back then than did it now.

AndrewGilmore.net: Did Isaiah Really Predict a Virgin Birth? Some Interesting Backstory to the Bible's Most Famous Prophecy (Part II)

I know. That’s why “virgin” isn’t really a good translation.

 

[Skywalker]

Not Immanuel. Fail.

Immanuel is a reference to the name Jesus. Wasn’t the Messiah supposed to be named Emmanuel?

The very first book of the New Testament, in its very first claim that a prophecy was fulfilled, rules out the understanding of “fulfillment” as a foreseen future coming to pass. Matthew writes that when Mary had borne a son, and Joseph had called his name “Jesus,” the prophetic word was fulfilled that said, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.” We would expect that if the passage quoted from Isaiah here really were a future foreseen and described, Mary would have actually named her son “Emmanuel,” not “Jesus.” So something different is going on.

The necessary conclusion is that when Matthew speaks of “fulfillment,” he does not mean that a foreseen future has come to pass. Instead, he means that words spoken at an earlier time in redemptive history have taken on a fuller and deeper meaning in light of later, more developed redemptive-historical circumstances. This, to me, is actually a much more powerful concept: not that humans were given an advance glimpse of what was going to happen in the future, but that the God who superintends and overrules human affairs has demonstrated His unchanging character consistently through time and has revealed more and more of his purposes while reaffirming the earlier-revealed ones.

We may appeal to American history for an illustration of this sense of “fulfillment.” When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” he said this to dispute the premise that kings ruled by divine right and that their subjects therefore owed them the kind of unquestioning loyalty they would offer to God. (That is, he said this to justify a revolutionary independence movement.)

But when Abraham Lincoln observed in his Gettysburg Address of 1863 that our nation was “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” he meant instead that slavery was incompatible with the fundamental premises of American society.

And when Martin Luther King said, in his “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963 (appropriately delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial), that he longed for the day when our nation would “rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal,’” he explained that in such a nation, people would “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” This is how the “true” or “fulfilled” (fullest and deepest) meaning of Jefferson’s words would be realized, according to King.

By this same analogy, when Matthew says that Isaiah’s words were “fulfilled” when Mary bore her son and named him Jesus, he means that those words have taken on a fuller and deeper meaning. The Greek translation that Matthew quotes has helped this happen: Isaiah uses a Hebrew term that arguably can best be translated “maiden,” while the Greek reads, more intensively, “virgin.” Moreover, “Emmanuel” is no longer the boy’s name, but rather an explanation of his identity—“God with us.” These two intensified aspects of meaning are brought out when the original statement is heard in the light of later developments as the plan of God unfolds.