|
Isaiah's Prophecy by Kenneth E. Nahigian
Prophecy is a muddy science, and Bible prophecy muddier than most. Take those Old Testament prophecies. Evangelists never tire of telling us that hundreds were fulfilled in the life of Jesus, far too many to be called coincidence. But how many of these are real, and how many are prophetia ex eventuÑprophecies constructed after the fact, products of careful selection and interpretation? To get an idea, let's look at the most famous, the prophecy of the child Immanuel as presented in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 1:22- 23): "Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." (KJV) Most good Christians take this at face value, assured that the prophet Isaiah did indeed describe Jesus's miraculous conception and birth seven hundred years before. But did he? Authorities are nearly unanimous. The answer is no. What did Isaiah really say? Turning to Isa. 7:14 (Masoretic text), we find his precise words:
The Matthew interpretation of Isaiah has several problems, the largest hanging on the Hebrew word 'almah. Writing in Greek, the gospel author turned 'almah into parthenos, a word usually (but not always) meaning "virgin". In fact he had a precedent for this; the Septuagint, a translation of the Old Testament used by Greek- speaking Jews of the day, did indeed use parthenos in the Isaiah passage. But the Septuagint was for the most part a notoriously sloppy translation, and its version of Isaiah was more error- ridden than the rest. By the Middle Ages the Jews had abandoned the Septuagint, and other Greek translations, by Aquila, Theodotion, Lucien and others, did not use the word parthenos. (The Septuagint, affectionately known as the LXX, is still favored by Eastern Orthodox churches.) Rest assured that the Hebrew Old Testament predating the Septuagint used 'almah. But what does this mean? While rare in the Hebrew Bible, the word 'almah does occur here and there, notably in Gen. 24:43 and Ex. 2:8. None of these contexts suggest that the noun imputes virginity. On the other hand, a male youth in the Bible is called na'ar or elem, the feminine forms of which, by Hebrew grammar, are na'arah and 'almah respectively. Thus 'almah is an adolescent female, virgin or not. In fact one verse does seem to use 'almah in reference to a non- virgin. This is Proverbs 30:19, which compares "the way of a man with an 'almah" to "the way of a ship in the sea"Ñthe point being that neither event leaves much of a trace. Aside from this, the Torah does, in fact, have an explicit word for virgin, betulah or bethulah, which is always used where the context requires virginity (see Gen. 24:16, Lev. 21:14, Deut. 22:15-19, etc.). Even Isaiah used it in Isa. 62: 5. Its non-use in the "Immanuel" passage is a rather loud hint that Isaiah spoke of a young woman, not specifically a virgin. More to the point, nearly all modern commentaies agree with Talmudic scholars that Isaiah's "sign" had nothing to do with a messiah. Reviewing half a dozen for this article, I found only one dissenter; significantly it was one that spouted the fundamentalist party line on every other issue. Interested readers can jaunt to the library and peruse the massive Interpreter's Bible (vol. 5, pp. 217-222), one of the most authoritative works in the field. Or more succinctly, try the popular Harper's Bible Dictionary (Paul. J. Achtemeier, gen. ed., 1985), page 419, where we find these words: It is clear, however, that ... Isa. 7:14 did not speak of the miraculous birth of Jesus centuries later. ... The sign of Immanuel offered by the prophet to Ahaz had to do with the imminent birth of a child, of a mother known to Ahaz and Isaiah, and signified God's presence with his people ... Indeed, Isaiah's word for "sign" was 'ot, which in the Hebrew Bible invariably indicates an imminent sign or omen, not one in the far future. Keep reading, in fact, and you will see Isaiah's sign appear just a few verses later, in Isa. 8:3-4, when a certain prophetess gives birth to a sonÑa child whom God calls "Immanuel" in verse 8. By contrast, nowhere in the New Testament does any character call Jesus Immanuel. Why the confusion? Of course the author of the Gospel of Matthew had a vested interest in the nascent Church, and wanted to ground the new Christian mythos in Jewish prophecy whenever possible. Almost all scholars agree this "Matthew" was not the apostle, but a Greek-speaking Christian living in or near Antioch of Syria, and writing about A.D. 90, about two generations after the crucifixion. Very likely he was familiar with only the Septuagint version of Isaiah. (That Matthew wrote the first gospel was a tradition started by Bishop Papias of Hierapolis in the second century.) Also of course, the early Christians would have liked a virgin- born savior anyway, out of sheer competitiveness, since so many other rival religions had one. (There were Mithra, Zoroaster, Adonis and Dionysus, to name a few.) Moreover we know the Gospel writers were not adverse to massaging and manufacturing details in order to "flesh out" the Jesus storyÑthat is why, for example, you find such conflicting genealogies for Jesus in Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38. All things considered, it is hardly surprising that "Matthew" would pull Isaiah a bit out of context and try to wring a new meaning from it. What is surprising is that this literary sleight- of-hand grew to become such a cornerstone of Christendom, and still has modern fundamentalists so befuddled. And so let us dust off our Bibles (I like the New Revised English Bible best for clarity, the Revised Standard Version for beauty) and re-read the Immanuel prophecyÑin context. The setting is the Syro-Ephraimitic war, ca. 734 B.C. Wicked King Ahaz of Judah was frantic about Ephraim (an old name for Israel, then capital of Samaria) and Damascus (capital of Syria), which were plotting a preemptive strike. Enter Isaiah, offering a sign. Ahaz demurs. Isaiah storms at him for his lack of faith, then provides a sign anyway: A male child would be born. Before this child is old enough to know to "refuse evil and choose the good", Assyria would lay waste to Samaria and Damascus (Isa. 7:16). (In fact this sub-prophecy comes true in II Kings 16:9, 17:5-6.) Then, to punish Ahaz, Assyria itself, with Egypt, would arise as a far greater threat. Think about this. If Ahaz was concerned with an imminent attack from Samaria and Syria, why offer a sign which would not occur for seven centuries? To Ahaz this would be no sign at all. Also, if the Immanuel child was God incarnate, how could Isaiah speak of a time when Immanuel does not know enough to choose good over evil? What about divine omniscience? Note also the striking parallel between verses 7:16 and 8:4. Here is Isaiah prophesying almost identically about both children. The more closely you look, the more difficult to deny that these two are identical. You can hardly blame evangelicals for seeing a special significanceÑin the name Immanu'el, Hebrew for "God with us". But such language and imagery is right at home in the world of old Jewish nomenclature, where every other proper name seems a reminder of God's presence. Thus we have Isaiah, which means "God's help"; Michael, "Like unto God"; Israel, "Striving with God"; Elihu, "He is my God"; Adonijah, "Yahweh Lord"; and a host of others. Then again, some apologists try to rescue their favored exegesis by equating both Immanuel and Jesus with the child mentioned in Chapter 9 a bit later (Isa. 9:6-7), "Unto us a child is born ..." Tempting. This section, while obscure, is in fact one of the most powerful and poetic passages in the Old Testament. It may well be an early messianic prophecy (I like to think it is), but in fairness, note that most Jewish scholars insist it is an ode praising Hezekiah, Ahaz's righteous son (II Chron. 29), who came to the throne in 720 B.C. and centralized the worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem. The various titles ascribed to him, such as "Prince of Peace" and "Everlasting Father", were apparently honorifics used by the ancient Jews for favorite kings. (You find the same sort of bread-buttering in Egyptian hymns to the pharaoh and Babylonian royal eulogies.) Jewish scholars also remind us, gently, that the key Hebrew verbs in Isa. 9:6 are in past tense. A moot point. For reasons stated earlier, we cannot use the child of Isa. 9 as a bridge connecting Immanuel to Jesus. As Old Testament prophecies of the Christian Messiah go, this one, like so many others, has been overrated. Editor's Note: Joseph Uphoff, a moderate Christian with an interest in antiquities, was consulted to see if there might be significant error in the aritcle. He found none, though he considers it not surprising "that this literary sleight-of-hand grew to become such a cornerstone of Christendom . . ." The Isaiah "virgin birth" prophecy is also treated by Dennis McKinsey in his publication Bibical Errancy, #6, p. 2
Table of Contents | 1993 Issues | Subscribe Credit card Orders call: 800-321-9054 or fax: (619)676-0433 Truth Seeker is published by Truth Seeker Co., Inc. (ISSN 0041-3712) © 1996 |