Isaiah Chapter 7

[CG Didymus]

Doesn't it bother literalistic Christians that Isaiah chapter 7 is taken grossly out of context?

Regardless if the girl was a virgin or not. Regardless of the dual prophecy problem, that if the "sign" is to be a virgin, then we have Mary, but who was the other "virgin" in Isaiah's time? Regardless of all of that, the way I read chapter 7 is that it was the age of the boy that is the main point. By the time he reaches a certain age, the two enemies will be gone.

I know it bothers Christians when other people take Bible verses out of context, but what happens when it is a gospel writer, Mathew, that does it?

 

[Harmonious]

Doesn't it bother literalistic Christians that Isaiah chapter 7 is taken grossly out of context?

Regardless if the girl was a virgin or not. Regardless of the dual prophecy problem, that if the "sign" is to be a virgin, then we have Mary, but who was the other "virgin" in Isaiah's time? Regardless of all of that, the way I read chapter 7 is that it was the age of the boy that is the main point. By the time he reaches a certain age, the two enemies will be gone.

I know it bothers Christians when other people take Bible verses out of context, but what happens when it is a gospel writer, Mathew, that does it?

And it doesn't translate to "virgin," in any event, but "young woman."

You have asked a good question. Welcome to the forums.

 

[Levite]

And it doesn't translate to "virgin," in any event, but "young woman."

You took the words right out of my mouth! Thank you. :yes:

 

[Shermana]

Doesn't it bother literalistic Christians that Isaiah chapter 7 is taken grossly out of context?

Regardless if the girl was a virgin or not. Regardless of the dual prophecy problem, that if the "sign" is to be a virgin, then we have Mary, but who was the other "virgin" in Isaiah's time? Regardless of all of that, the way I read chapter 7 is that it was the age of the boy that is the main point. By the time he reaches a certain age, the two enemies will be gone.

I know it bothers Christians when other people take Bible verses out of context, but what happens when it is a gospel writer, Mathew, that does it?

Things like this make me wonder if the Jewish Christians who denied the Virgin Birth had it right and this Virgin Birth was added later, and if Christians even read beyond that where it clearly says the boy is born as prophecied, it's clearly not about Jesus. It's also possible that the Lineages themselves were added or edited, as Iraneus for example has a shorter list than other church fathers and some like mentions of alleged mothers are very unusual for lineages, even insisting that the Noble Salman married the Canaanite whore Rahab. I guess Christians wanted to believe their Messiah descended from a Canaanite whore? I used to be of the understanding that it referred to him until I actually read Isaiah 7 and chapter 8.

[URL="http://bible.cc/isaiah/8-3.htm"]3

Then I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me, “Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. 4Before the boy knows how to say ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

[/URL]

Don't let this happen to you, read first before you take a position!

 

[CG Didymus]

Apparently, it doesn't bother Christians. Where are you guys? I glanced over pages 290-294 in Josh McDowell's The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict. It doesn't address my question at all, that it's the age of the boy that is what is important. The book focuses on proving Mary is the only virgin in history, therefore Isaiah was talking about her. They argue that a "natural" conception isn't much of a miracle, therefore it must be a "virgin" conception.

Along with more creative twisting, it sounds like they've explained away all problems. But no! Read it in context. Read Jewish explanations. Chapter seven is a sign for King Ahaz. It doesn't matter if the kid's mother was a man, a virgin, or a kangaroo. When the boy reaches a certain age the enemies will be forsaken. What does that have to do with the messiah hundreds of years later?

My point is that if a cult took a verse out of context, or a Mormon, or a Jehovah Witness, or a Muslim, or a Baha'i, or anybody else, you'd cry "foul." But that is exactly what Christian writers have done to the Hebrew Bible. I was taught Christianity first and assumed I was being told the real truth. But, if it don't add up, don't follow it blindly, investigate.

 

[Infinitum]

Looking from a historical perspective I think it's important to remember Christianity picked up a lot of traits from other religions. The cults of Isis, Dionysos and especially Mithras have left their marks on the beliefs, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was important for the early Christians to develop similar stories around Jesus. The virgin birth fits this very well.

From a Christian perspective, I think it does matter whether Mary was a virgin or not. According to the text (KJV) she became pregnant via the Holy Ghost. If this wasn't the case it changes the relationship between God and Jesus and affects the way Jesus' divinity should be interpreted. The story works with or without the miraculous birth, but it does change the spirit of the narrative quite a lot.

 

[fallingblood]

Doesn't it bother literalistic Christians that Isaiah chapter 7 is taken grossly out of context?

Regardless if the girl was a virgin or not. Regardless of the dual prophecy problem, that if the "sign" is to be a virgin, then we have Mary, but who was the other "virgin" in Isaiah's time? Regardless of all of that, the way I read chapter 7 is that it was the age of the boy that is the main point. By the time he reaches a certain age, the two enemies will be gone.

I know it bothers Christians when other people take Bible verses out of context, but what happens when it is a gospel writer, Mathew, that does it?

Without Isaiah, the story would still be there. So it really isn't a big deal (now, I reject the idea of a virgin birth, but I understand the mythology).

I would argue that the virgin birth was present from very early on. Jesus needed a remarkable birth, as he was a remarkable fellow. If we look at the OT, we also see the most important figures also being said to have had some miraculous birth or pregnancy (never virgin, but still not normal). The same is true with dozens of other historical figures throughout time. It was a common tool in order to signify that someone was important. If they were important later on in life, they must have had some important birth.

So I would say that the story was there before hand (and the fact that both stories are different, and only one cites the text, suggests this as well). Matthew most likely had the story, and as he was so apt to do, found something in the OT that could support it. The idea was that everything in the OT (or Hebrew Scriptures) led up to one thing, the Messiah. So for Matthew found what he was looking for.

As pointed out though, we are not dealing with a virgin in Isaiah. We are dealing with a young woman. In fact, the Greek also suggests that it was a young woman. However, the context in which Matthew places this makes it clear that he is specifically talking about a virgin. So he does change it, but he doesn't actually change the meaning of the word.

 

[CG Didymus]

Things like this make me wonder if the Jewish Christians who denied the Virgin Birth had it right and this Virgin Birth was added later,

That's what I'm thinking. When I read the birth narratives that didn't make it into the Bible, it seems pretty clear to me that people were coming up with lots of amazing stories. It's also clear that if you wanted to impress the Greeks and Romans, you better have a lot of miracles and interactions with gods and other divine beings.

So I just realized what I'm really saying, I believe in the importance of religious thought to guide us to a better way, but unless it is wrapped up in a pretty package, we're probably going to ignore it. So how do you get people to leave a life of following laws believed to be given by their God, and get other people who have a whole bunch of gods to follow your new religion? Miracles, and a whole lot of them.

Healings, raising people from the dead, walking on water, all these embellishments to essentially say, do unto others as you would have them to unto you. If believing Jesus was born of a virgin gets a person to be the good neighbor then fine. The problem I have is that the Jew that does the same thing isn't acceptable. The same with any good person in any other religion. If you don't believe right, that is, in a Fundamentalist Christian view of who Jesus is, then you're going to hell.

All I'm trying to accomplish is that maybe, just maybe, the story about Jesus isn't exactly perfect. There might be reason to question it. In a book that is supposed to be the literal, infallible word of God can't have one of its writers taking things out of context can they?

 

[allright]

When the Jewish scribes translated the Tanach into Greek 200 years before Jesus was born
they used the Greek word for virgin in Isaiah 7:14

 

[Levite]

When the Jewish scribes translated the Tanach into Greek 200 years before Jesus was born
they used the Greek word for virgin in Isaiah 7:14

The Septuagint is riddled with mistranslations. That is only one example of them.

 

[Harmonious]

When the Jewish scribes translated the Tanach into Greek 200 years before Jesus was born they used the Greek word for virgin in Isaiah 7:14

Anything that calls itself "Septuagint" outside of the Five Books of Moses wasn't actually written by the 70 elders. It was a Greek "translation" written by someone with an agenda... that was not accurate, but with something else in mind.

 

[CG Didymus]

When the Jewish scribes translated the Tanach into Greek 200 years before Jesus was born
they used the Greek word for virgin in Isaiah 7:14

Anything that calls itself "Septuagint" outside of the Five Books of Moses wasn't actually written by the 70 elders.

Awesome, I had heard that the real Septuagint was only the Torah. But, I didn't hear it from Christians. Maybe they had an agenda?

And Allright, trust in God, trust in Jesus, I was never 100% believing the Christian story. I'm more of a life-long seeker of truth. I'm a truth whore. I'll listen to anybody. Unfortunately, I let myself be swayed by these Jews back 20 years ago. I can't believe it. They acted as if they understood their Scriptures better than Christians? I gave in.

What they said makes much more sense, because even if the word was "virgin," then we have the dual prophecy problem--Who was the first virgin in Isaiah's time? Or, maybe it was a young girl then and a virgin later, a dual-word-meaning prophecy?

Don't lose your Jesus over this. All I want is for all religions to quit fighting and arguing over the little things. And guess what? It's all little stuff. Accept, of course, the big stuff. Like my next questions: Where did the Christian concepts of original sin, hell, and the devil come from? Were they from Judaism and the Hebrew Bible?

 

[Shermana]

Hell is most definitely a Jewish concept, the idea that Gehenna was a purely metaphohrical concept is a later Sadducee-style redaction, but we can see in the DSS that the Jews most definitely had a concept of a real place of fire where Souls went, and we can see hints of this if we look at Psalms and Isaiah and other books without the Rationalist/Neo-Sadducee lens. It most certainly exists as a concept in early Midrash and even Kaballic literature.

Not "original Sin" though.

The argument that Christians invented hell is plain bologna.

As for the Devil, Jewish Apocrypha and Midrash most clearly refers to a hierarchy of demons, the concept of "Satan" as the "King of the devils" may transcribe to Belial and others.

 

[allright]

Anything that calls itself "Septuagint" outside of the Five Books of Moses wasn't actually written by the 70 elders.

Awesome, I had heard that the real Septuagint was only the Torah. But, I didn't hear it from Christians. Maybe they had an agenda?

And Allright, trust in God, trust in Jesus, I was never 100% believing the Christian story. I'm more of a life-long seeker of truth. I'm a truth whore. I'll listen to anybody. Unfortunately, I let myself be swayed by these Jews back 20 years ago. I can't believe it. They acted as if they understood their Scriptures better than Christians? I gave in.


The word for young maiden was used in Isaiah 7 because it was a dual prophecy . The same word is used to describe Rebecca
The birth in Isaiah times was a normal birth. The second meanng concerning the Messiah was to declare a "virgin birth". God calls it a great sign?

Also in Genesis 3:15 speaking of the Messiah God says he will defeat Satan not thru Adams line but thru the the seed of a woman

What agenda, its just a smoke screen to avoid the fact that the Jewish scholars or whoever translated it as "virgin" hundreds of years before Jesus was born

They understand the scriptures better than Christians? The Jews have been blinded to the meaning of the scriptures by God for rejecting the Messiah and have been changing the meaning of the scriptures ever sense to avoid Jesus.

Jesus said "you search the scriptures seeking eternal life, but you will not come to me so you may have life"

 

[javajo]

The word for young maiden was used in Isaiah 7 because it was a dual prophecy . The same word is used to describe Rebecca
The birth in Isaiah times was a normal birth. The second meanng concerning the Messiah was to declare a "virgin birth". God calls it a great sign?

Also in Genesis 3:15 speaking of the Messiah God says he will defeat Satan not thru Adams line but thru the the seed of a woman

What agenda, its just a smoke screen to avoid the fact that the Jewish scholars or whoever translated it as "virgin" hundreds of years before Jesus was born

They understand the scriptures better than Christians? The Jews have been blinded to the meaning of the scriptures by God for rejecting the Messiah and have been changing the meaning of the scriptures ever sense to avoid Jesus.

Jesus said "you search the scriptures seeking eternal life, but you will not come to me so you may have life"

Right, it was definitely a Messianic prophecy.

 

[Levite]

Anything that calls itself "Septuagint" outside of the Five Books of Moses wasn't actually written by the 70 elders.

Awesome, I had heard that the real Septuagint was only the Torah. But, I didn't hear it from Christians. Maybe they had an agenda?

And Allright, trust in God, trust in Jesus, I was never 100% believing the Christian story. I'm more of a life-long seeker of truth. I'm a truth whore. I'll listen to anybody. Unfortunately, I let myself be swayed by these Jews back 20 years ago. I can't believe it. They acted as if they understood their Scriptures better than Christians? I gave in.

The word for young maiden was used in Isaiah 7 because it was a dual prophecy . The same word is used to describe Rebecca
The birth in Isaiah times was a normal birth. The second meanng concerning the Messiah was to declare a "virgin birth". God calls it a great sign?

Also in Genesis 3:15 speaking of the Messiah God says he will defeat Satan not thru Adams line but thru the the seed of a woman

What agenda, its just a smoke screen to avoid the fact that the Jewish scholars or whoever translated it as "virgin" hundreds of years before Jesus was born

They understand the scriptures better than Christians? The Jews have been blinded to the meaning of the scriptures by God for rejecting the Messiah and have been changing the meaning of the scriptures ever sense to avoid Jesus.

Jesus said "you search the scriptures seeking eternal life, but you will not come to me so you may have life"

I assume you mean that the same word was used in the Septuagint concerning Rebecca as in the Greek translation of Isaiah concerning the young woman, because the words in Hebrew are different-- though neither is the word for "virgin." Again, one more reason to look to original texts, and not to trust translations, ancient or modern.

Also Genesis makes no mention of Satan. Interpolating Satan into the Eden narrative is a Christian retrojection, not an actual part of the text.

And finally, Jews understand the meanings of Jewish scripture just fine. Because they are Jewish scriptures, written by and for Jews, in the Jewish language, designed to be interpreted using Jewish methods for Jewish life.

The erroneous idea that Jewish scripture somehow is not inteded for Jews, or is universalistic, or not really the property of the Jewish People is nothing but low replacement theology and cultural theft. It is just as false as retrojecting Christological readings into Jewish scriptures, where they are simply absent in original intent, and can only be jammed in by eisegesis.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The Septuagint is riddled with mistranslations. That is only one example of them.

Anything that calls itself "Septuagint" outside of the Five Books of Moses wasn't actually written by the 70 elders. It was a Greek "translation" written by someone with an agenda...

Here we go again ...

• The "70 elders" is legend.
• The "written by someone with an agenda" is silly paranoia.
• The much vaunted 'mistranslation' of 7:14 is underwhelming.

See, for example, here and here.

 

[CG Didymus]

Hell is most definitely a Jewish concept, the idea that Gehenna was a purely metaphohrical concept is a later Sadducee-style redaction, but we can see in the DSS that the Jews most definitely had a concept of a real place of fire where Souls went, and we can see hints of this if we look at Psalms and Isaiah and other books without the Rationalist/Neo-Sadducee lens. It most certainly exists as a concept in early Midrash and even Kaballic literature.

Not "original Sin" though.

The argument that Christians invented hell is plain bologna.

As for the Devil, Jewish Apocrypha and Midrash most clearly refers to a hierarchy of demons, the concept of "Satan" as the "King of the devils" may transcribe to Belial and others.

Original sin is necessary in the born-again Christian scheme of things. So I'd like to talk more about that. In books I've read about Judaism, some have said that the Christian concept of the devil isn't in Judaism. So maybe that deserves more discussion also. Should I start a new thread with those specific questions? I know Christians find the devil all over the Hebrew Bible, the serpent becomes Satan, the bright and morning star becomes Lucifer and so on.

Thanks for your input. I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge on the subjects

 

[Harmonious]

Here we go again ...

• The "70 elders" is legend.
• The "written by someone with an agenda" is silly paranoia.
• The much vaunted 'mistranslation' of 7:14 is underwhelming.

See, for example, here and here.

It might not be convincing to YOU. But you know... there are those of us who believe that it isn't JUST a legend.

I would go so far as to say, I recognize that you don't agree with me or Levite. You seem annoyed by it. Would you agree simply to disagree, recognizing that we honestly believe in what we've said, even if you don't agree or believe similarly?

 

[Harmonious]

Original sin is necessary in the born-again Christian scheme of things. So I'd like to talk more about that. In books I've read about Judaism, some have said that the Christian concept of the devil isn't in Judaism. So maybe that deserves more discussion also. Should I start a new thread with those specific questions?

Yes, you should.