THE PURPORTED VIRGIN BIRTH OF JESUS

Its appalling to note that most Christian don’t read to understand the Bible if not its easy to know that there was no prophecy of the virgin birth of Jesus and the scriptures from which the narrative was constructed say nothing about a virgin birth.

In Isaiah 7:14, the prophet Isaiah was addressing king Ahaz of Judah (read from verse 1), promising prophetically that God will destroy the king’s enemies “before a child born to an almah is weaned”.

The Hebrew word ‘almāh refers to a “young woman of childbearing age or simply put a young woman ripe for marriage e.g. Rebecca in the scriptures”, but it was translated in the Koine Greek Septuagint as parthenos, meaning virgin, and was subsequently picked up by the gospels of Matthew and Luke and used as a messianic prophecy of the Virgin birth of Jesus.

It is pertinent to note that all the prophets in the scriptures used symbolic imagery, idioms, parables/proverbs and poetry etc to express their messages.

The statement “before a child born to an almah “a young woman” is weaned (i.e. stopped from suckling) is simply a parable to illustrate the time frame between Ahaz and his victory over his enemies.

If you read further, it reads, …for before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.

Who were these two kings that Ahaz dreaded that it will take such a scale of time to defeat them (i.e. they will desert the land).

2Chronicles 28 talked about the war and how it went. 2Kings 16:5 mentions Rezin of Aram-Damasus and Pekah of Israel (two Kings) who failed to capture Jerusalem during the time of Ahaz as King of Judah.

Isaiah the Prophet asked Ahaz to rely on God but he sought help from Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria who defended Judah by conquering Israel, Aram-Damascus and the Philistines all together.

After the victory, Ahaz was indebted to Tiglath-Pileser III for which he started paying tribute with treasures from the Temple in Jerusalem and the royal treasury. As part of the tribute, he had to build monuments of Assyrian gods in Judah in order to secure continued favour from the Assyrians.

Isaiah 7:14 was not about the birth of a Messiah by a virgin.