Before I continue on with my study of hell, I thought I would do my "Christmas" post. We will look at Isaiah 7-9 because parts of it are often brought out at Christmas, as a supposed prophesies of the birth of Jesus.
Verse 7:14 says, "Therefore the lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel." Matthew 1:23 says that Mary concieved Jesus by the holy spirit to fulfill this passage in Isaiah. So, is this passage really prophesying the birth of Jesus?
First of all, If we go to the beginning of chapter 7 and read through the chapter , we see Ahaz, the king of Judah, is in a war with the kings of Aram and Israel. Isaiah is told by God that the kings of Aram and Israel will not conquer Judah. If they do not stand firm in their faith, they will not stand at all. God offerred Ahaz a sign that this would happen. Ahaz didn't want a sign from god, so god got irritated and gave him a sign anyway.The sign is the birth of the previously mentioned child. Notably, before this child "knows enough to to reject the wrong and choose the right" the armies of Assyria would invade the land and destroy Aram and Israel. (In fancy poetic language)
Does this sound like it has anything to do with a baby to be born at least 700 years later? Of course not. What about the virgin who was supposed to have this child? Who would be the child's father if this child was to be born before the Assyrian army came? Surely not god. So then, his mother wasn't actually a virgin when the child was born, if it had a human father. It turns out that this passage in Hebrew uses the hebrew word "almah", which has been translated here as virgin. However, this word can also denote a young, newly married woman. She obviously didn't remain a virgin. It is unclear who the father was supposed to be. My study bible suggests it might have been Isaiah, but it makes more sense to me if it was Ahaz. At any rate, the child was supposed to be born in that time period.
Notice that this young child will not yet know right from wrong when the Assyrian army comes. Was there a time when Jesus did not know right from wrong? Was he divine or not? Was he the son of god or not? Was he god in the flesh or not? Is this whole prophecy about Jesus, or was just the virgin part about Jesus? How does that work? How would anyone know which parts were supposed to be about a coming child of god/christ/messiah and which parts were not? What invasion was Jesus's birth supposed to be a sign of? What nations would be invaded before he was old enough to reject the wrong and choose the right?
Plus, when was Jesus ever called Immanuel? Well if you search the New Testament, you will come up empty. Matthew 1:23 is the only place that name occurs and there he is quoting Isaiah. Could it be that Matthew just cherry picked a verse about a young woman having a child and said "See, this proves Jesus was prophesied about?" But was he?
What do Jews have to say about this passage found in their scriptures? (Link) The link shows a similar line of thought to what I just covered. If Isiah 7:14 is not a prophecy, and Jesus was not born of a virgin or called Immanuel, then the author of the book of Matthew made that part up on purpose to try to convince his audience of the divinity of Jesus. Could he have made up the whole book, most of it, or other parts? Was Jesus even born at all? The author of Matthew was not an eyewitness to the birth, and we don't even know who he was or where he got his information. Why should we believe him?
More to come.
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