i just love it when things get explained to us from the jewish perspective. We definitely need more teachings from the Jewish perspective. Keep up the good work. May Yehovah give His people eyes that see, ears that hear and hearts that hunger to understand and obey.
Ida Blom says
How can virginity be a sign to the world? How does the world know a girl is a virgin or not?
What an absurd sign. Absolutely nobody out there would be able to verify such a sign. A parting sea in the wilderness? Now there is a sign!
Pedro says
As i underatnd Nehemia point Jewish interpreters reject this interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 with several points, they see Isaiah 7:14 referring to a sign during the time of Ahaz, demonstrating before the child has the knowledge, to refuse “Wrong and right” the two kings of Israel and Syria will be destroyed. They say this is a near term sign, and does not refer to the Messiah..the same Jewish interpreters make the charge that the proper name for virgin is betulah not Al’mah the word used in Isaiah 7:14. What I find really funny is how nehemia who qoutes Dr brown leaves out what he said Dr. Michael Brown responds to the charge that Betulah alone can exclusively mean Virgin in the Hebrew Bible…I qoute him.
Actually, there is no single word in biblical Hebrew that always and only means “virgin” As for the Hebrew word betulah, while it often refers to a virgin in the Hebrew Scriptures, more often than not it has no reference to virginity but simply means “young woman, maiden.” In fact, out of the fifty times the word betulah occurs in the Tanakh, the NJPSV translates it as “maiden”—rather than “virgin”—thirty-one times! This means that more then three out of very five times that betulah occurs in the Hebrew Bible, it is translated as “maiden” rather then “virgin” by the most widely used Jewish translation of our day. Not only so, but the Stone edition of the Tanakh, reflecting traditional Orthodox scholarship, frequently translates betulah as “maiden” as well. Even in verses where the translation of “virgin” is appropriate for betulah, a qualifying phrase is sometimes added, as in Genesis 24:16: “The maiden (na’arah) was beautiful, a virgin (betulah) whom no man had known” Obviously, if betulah clearly and unequivocally meant “virgin” here, there would be no need to explain that this betulah never had intercourse with a man…. How redundant! What other kind of virgin is there?…
Even more clear is Isaiah 47:1, rendered in the NIV as, “Go down, sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, Daughter of the Babylonians. No more will you be called tender or delicate.” Yet a few verses later we read that this “Virgin” will lose her husband and her children on the very same day…end of qoute. What Nehemia also failed to explain is Matthew quotes from the Greek translation of the Tanakh (Old Testment), (LXX) the Septuagint, which was translated before Jesus was even born..These translators also translated Isaiah 7:14, before Jesus was born and before there was any reason to “mistranslate” the Hebrew word `almah from virgin to young maiden. The word though, not exclusively meaning “Virgin” was understood by the context to mean “Virgin”. The Septuagint translates almah to Parthenos which in almost all cases means a women who has not had sexual intercourse. The Hebrew translators who translated the book of Isaiah into Greek understood this is what Isaiah meant when he used the term. also something that I found out to be of interest is I propose a different etymology, namely, to derive the noun ‘almah from the root ‘-alam “to be concealed, hidden,” well attested in Hebrew. If this etymology proves to be correct, ‘alem (masculine) and ‘al’mah (feminine) would designate an engaged couple, which would accordingly be rendered as “the concealed ones.” During the period of betrothal, fiancés used to live in their parents’ homes, separated, secluded, forbidden from seeing one another. The feminine form, ‘almah, may also be rendered “the concealed one” or even “the veiled one.” This last rendition would reflect the custom of engaged women wearing veils over their faces as a sign of seclusion, or concealment, during the time of betrothal. may mention that, given the ethical standards of the ancient Israelite society, the idea of virginity, though not distinctly stated, is nevertheless implied in the term ‘almah. As is the case concerning the providential woman from Genesis 3:15 (ha-‘ishshah “the woman”), the noun ha-‘almah “the concealed one” from Isaiah 7:14 has the definite article attached, which points to a special female character, chosen by God from the very beginning to become the mother of Messiah
Antonino Vetrano says
Hello:
It better be THE SCRIPTURAL PERSPECTIVE. THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD CAN AND DOES DO WHATEVER HE WANTS. You forget WITHOUT FAITH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE HIM. Do you deny that the POWER OF THE MOST HIGH BY THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD OVERSHADOWED THIS WOMAN, STATED AS A VIRGIN, ACCEPTED BY HER HUSBAND YOZEF IN APREGNANT STATE, to BRING FORTH THAT HOLY THING IN THE FLESH KNOWN AS THE SON OF GOD?? THat’s Yeshua HaMoshiach, to WHOM ALL POWER AND HEAVEN AND EARTH IS GIVEN. DO YOU DENY THIS? If you do, I tremble for you are anti-christ and the man of sin revealed!
I love it when I read a comment that is full of wisdom and speaks the truth! thumbs up to Ida Blom 🙂
And for Antonio Vertrano: Believe only by Faith is the magic trick that Christianity has washed our brains with so you and I would not even dare to look at the truth when it hits us in the face, and Nehemiah is not an anti-Christ or maybe he is AS I AM TOO! I AM AN ANTI-JESUS as he never was, never is and never will be! THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUE GOD AND HIS NAME IS YEHOVAH! NOT JESUS. By the way I was a Christian but I opened my eyes and saw the truth.
Tzofiya says
“Pay no attention to the man at the controls behind the curtain! christains!” Wizard of Oz
I’m thinking, The G’d of the Universe, gave us Shabbat & our festivals/appointedtimes , our forever commands, jews don’t need a hellenistic god. We never did. We /jews don’t need a god who comes in and hovers over a young woman or a young virgin woman & tricks her away from her bretrothed! It all sounds a bit greek to me.—babrump-bump-bum! Lol get it? 🙂
Aaron Wynn says
Applying today’s immoral understandings to biblical and medieval periods is silly. A maiden is a virgin. A girl who has done the deed is no longer a maiden. It’s that simple. Sexual intercourse is “physical marriage” while the contract and public pronouncement is the “psychological marriage”. The former is required to move from maiden to mistress. The former without the latter is scandalous, illegitemate, but still removes maiden status. The death of the husbsnd moves the mistress to widow. Remarriage moves her back to mistress. Nitpicking between terms and forcing modern intricacies into the ancient text gets us nowhere.
SgtKRG1975 says
Obviously for those Christians who are set in their believes and they are not willing to be open minded and to even reconsider what they have been taught or researched on their own with an already Christian mind set, it will be an everlasting argument and will never be set free from the biggest deception ever, Christianity! (No offence)
But let us all remember that the scriptures were written in HEBREW and under the culture/historical/linguistic influence of the Hebrews (Jewish People) so we cannot say that Maiden is Virgin because our English dictionary says so in 2014! even in old classical English the word maiden did not mean what it means today. Alma means a woman that is fertile not VIRGIN, it got nothing to do with virginity. My wife could be consider to be an ALMA for she is still fertile but she is not a VIRGIN.
Another thing is the inconsistency as to how the Christian bible translated this word, for example:
When Pharao’s daughter told Miriam Moses sister to go and fetch the young’s mother, Miriam is called a maid! or Alma! meaning a young (assumed to be fertile) girl! so why not call her a Virgin? and if so who was the OBY DR. who checked her out and pronounced her a VIRGIN???? come on people common sense! And even if this was wrong and indeed it says VIRGIN, if you read the whole chapter you will see that this sign was meant to happened and it did happened in the time of Isaiah’s life not 700 years later! and the sign was for King AHAZ not the world 700 years later! READ the scriptures WITHOUT a Christian mindset! and ask YEHOVAH to open your eyes that you may see the TRUTH! 🙂
Anthony, there is no evidence that the disciple Matthew authored the gospel of Matthew. That myth is a Catholic tradition. Am I to understand that you have based your interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 on that assumption?
Owen Murphy says
Folks, I can see that the Isa. 7:14 scenario had a point and purpose for Ahaz and co. at the time and ‘virginity’, as is commonly thought had no bearing on the situation. If a medical Dr. fertilizes a ‘virgin’ with her husband’s sperm, the Dr. is not her husband but the ‘birth’ would be virginal, just as, if God miraculously implanted Joseph’s seed in Mary’s womb the ‘child’ is not Gods’ child,.Jesus is Josephs’ child and then became a ‘son of God spiritually, just as we all do at baptism. God is not a man who begets physically by co-habiting with women. He is a Spirit and begets children of and by his spirit.. The term Sons of God applies to king Saul – David and other men whom God said, as in Solomons’ case, he shall be to me a son relationaly not physically. Who were the ‘sons of god’ who shouted for joy at the creation?
Pedro’s comment based on the Rabbis who translated the XXL is convincing! But maybe a better question to ponder is, if G-d did choose that Messiah be born of a virgin, then what is the reason, need, or purpose of the virgin birth? On its face, it doesn’t seem to be necessary. I confess that I do believe it, but it seems out of character. I do wonder about this.
Israel says
Virgin birth is a pagan myth!
of messengers who were divinely conceived and two of them bore the name “Chrishna” or “Chrishna the Saviour” (note the similarity with Christ). Now Chrishna was born of a chaste virgin called Devaki, Who on account of her purity was selected to become the mother of God.
Buddha was considered and believed by his followers to have been begotten of God and born of a virgin whose name was Maya. Long before the Christian era, we read of how the divine power called the” Holy Ghost” descended upon virgin Maya. In ancient Chinese version of the story, the holy ghost is called Shing-Shin.
The Siamese (Taiwan), had a God and saviour who was Virgin Born whom they called Codom. In this very ancient story, the beautiful Virgin had been informed in advance that she was to become the mother of a great messenger of God, and one day while in her usual period of meditation and prayer, she was impregnated by divine sun beams. When the boy was born, he grew up in a remarkable manner, became a protégé of wisdom and performed miracles.
When the first Jesuit priest visited china, they wrote in their reports at finding a heathen religion of that country, of a story of a redeeming saviour who was born of a Virgin and divinely conceived. The God was said to have been born 3468 B.C (before Christ), his name was Lao-Tsze and was said to have been born of a virgin black in complexion and as beautiful as a Jasper.
In Egypt, long before the Christian era, and before any of its doctrine was conceived, the Egyptian people had several messengers of God, who were conceived through Immaculate Conception. Horus was known to all of ancient Egypt as having been born of the virgin Isis and his conception and birth was considered one of the three great mysteries or mystical doctrines of the Egyptian religion. To then every incident in connection with the conception and birth of Horus was pictured, sculptured, adored and worshiped as the incidents of the conception and birth of Jesus is among the Christians today. Another Egyptian God called Ra was also conceived by a Virgin.
i just love it when things get explained to us from the jewish perspective. We definitely need more teachings from the Jewish perspective. Keep up the good work. May Yehovah give His people eyes that see, ears that hear and hearts that hunger to understand and obey.
How can virginity be a sign to the world? How does the world know a girl is a virgin or not?
What an absurd sign. Absolutely nobody out there would be able to verify such a sign. A parting sea in the wilderness? Now there is a sign!
As i underatnd Nehemia point Jewish interpreters reject this interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 with several points, they see Isaiah 7:14 referring to a sign during the time of Ahaz, demonstrating before the child has the knowledge, to refuse “Wrong and right” the two kings of Israel and Syria will be destroyed. They say this is a near term sign, and does not refer to the Messiah..the same Jewish interpreters make the charge that the proper name for virgin is betulah not Al’mah the word used in Isaiah 7:14. What I find really funny is how nehemia who qoutes Dr brown leaves out what he said Dr. Michael Brown responds to the charge that Betulah alone can exclusively mean Virgin in the Hebrew Bible…I qoute him.
Actually, there is no single word in biblical Hebrew that always and only means “virgin” As for the Hebrew word betulah, while it often refers to a virgin in the Hebrew Scriptures, more often than not it has no reference to virginity but simply means “young woman, maiden.” In fact, out of the fifty times the word betulah occurs in the Tanakh, the NJPSV translates it as “maiden”—rather than “virgin”—thirty-one times! This means that more then three out of very five times that betulah occurs in the Hebrew Bible, it is translated as “maiden” rather then “virgin” by the most widely used Jewish translation of our day. Not only so, but the Stone edition of the Tanakh, reflecting traditional Orthodox scholarship, frequently translates betulah as “maiden” as well. Even in verses where the translation of “virgin” is appropriate for betulah, a qualifying phrase is sometimes added, as in Genesis 24:16: “The maiden (na’arah) was beautiful, a virgin (betulah) whom no man had known” Obviously, if betulah clearly and unequivocally meant “virgin” here, there would be no need to explain that this betulah never had intercourse with a man…. How redundant! What other kind of virgin is there?…
Even more clear is Isaiah 47:1, rendered in the NIV as, “Go down, sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, Daughter of the Babylonians. No more will you be called tender or delicate.” Yet a few verses later we read that this “Virgin” will lose her husband and her children on the very same day…end of qoute. What Nehemia also failed to explain is Matthew quotes from the Greek translation of the Tanakh (Old Testment), (LXX) the Septuagint, which was translated before Jesus was even born..These translators also translated Isaiah 7:14, before Jesus was born and before there was any reason to “mistranslate” the Hebrew word `almah from virgin to young maiden. The word though, not exclusively meaning “Virgin” was understood by the context to mean “Virgin”. The Septuagint translates almah to Parthenos which in almost all cases means a women who has not had sexual intercourse. The Hebrew translators who translated the book of Isaiah into Greek understood this is what Isaiah meant when he used the term. also something that I found out to be of interest is I propose a different etymology, namely, to derive the noun ‘almah from the root ‘-alam “to be concealed, hidden,” well attested in Hebrew. If this etymology proves to be correct, ‘alem (masculine) and ‘al’mah (feminine) would designate an engaged couple, which would accordingly be rendered as “the concealed ones.” During the period of betrothal, fiancés used to live in their parents’ homes, separated, secluded, forbidden from seeing one another. The feminine form, ‘almah, may also be rendered “the concealed one” or even “the veiled one.” This last rendition would reflect the custom of engaged women wearing veils over their faces as a sign of seclusion, or concealment, during the time of betrothal. may mention that, given the ethical standards of the ancient Israelite society, the idea of virginity, though not distinctly stated, is nevertheless implied in the term ‘almah. As is the case concerning the providential woman from Genesis 3:15 (ha-‘ishshah “the woman”), the noun ha-‘almah “the concealed one” from Isaiah 7:14 has the definite article attached, which points to a special female character, chosen by God from the very beginning to become the mother of Messiah
Hello:
It better be THE SCRIPTURAL PERSPECTIVE. THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD CAN AND DOES DO WHATEVER HE WANTS. You forget WITHOUT FAITH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE HIM. Do you deny that the POWER OF THE MOST HIGH BY THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD OVERSHADOWED THIS WOMAN, STATED AS A VIRGIN, ACCEPTED BY HER HUSBAND YOZEF IN APREGNANT STATE, to BRING FORTH THAT HOLY THING IN THE FLESH KNOWN AS THE SON OF GOD?? THat’s Yeshua HaMoshiach, to WHOM ALL POWER AND HEAVEN AND EARTH IS GIVEN. DO YOU DENY THIS? If you do, I tremble for you are anti-christ and the man of sin revealed!
Excellent! Thankyou Nechemia, Jono, and jason
oKiE DoKiE
I love it when I read a comment that is full of wisdom and speaks the truth! thumbs up to Ida Blom 🙂
And for Antonio Vertrano: Believe only by Faith is the magic trick that Christianity has washed our brains with so you and I would not even dare to look at the truth when it hits us in the face, and Nehemiah is not an anti-Christ or maybe he is AS I AM TOO! I AM AN ANTI-JESUS as he never was, never is and never will be! THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUE GOD AND HIS NAME IS YEHOVAH! NOT JESUS. By the way I was a Christian but I opened my eyes and saw the truth.
“Pay no attention to the man at the controls behind the curtain! christains!” Wizard of Oz
I’m thinking, The G’d of the Universe, gave us Shabbat & our festivals/appointedtimes , our forever commands, jews don’t need a hellenistic god. We never did. We /jews don’t need a god who comes in and hovers over a young woman or a young virgin woman & tricks her away from her bretrothed! It all sounds a bit greek to me.—babrump-bump-bum! Lol get it? 🙂
Applying today’s immoral understandings to biblical and medieval periods is silly. A maiden is a virgin. A girl who has done the deed is no longer a maiden. It’s that simple. Sexual intercourse is “physical marriage” while the contract and public pronouncement is the “psychological marriage”. The former is required to move from maiden to mistress. The former without the latter is scandalous, illegitemate, but still removes maiden status. The death of the husbsnd moves the mistress to widow. Remarriage moves her back to mistress. Nitpicking between terms and forcing modern intricacies into the ancient text gets us nowhere.
Obviously for those Christians who are set in their believes and they are not willing to be open minded and to even reconsider what they have been taught or researched on their own with an already Christian mind set, it will be an everlasting argument and will never be set free from the biggest deception ever, Christianity! (No offence)
But let us all remember that the scriptures were written in HEBREW and under the culture/historical/linguistic influence of the Hebrews (Jewish People) so we cannot say that Maiden is Virgin because our English dictionary says so in 2014! even in old classical English the word maiden did not mean what it means today. Alma means a woman that is fertile not VIRGIN, it got nothing to do with virginity. My wife could be consider to be an ALMA for she is still fertile but she is not a VIRGIN.
Another thing is the inconsistency as to how the Christian bible translated this word, for example:
When Pharao’s daughter told Miriam Moses sister to go and fetch the young’s mother, Miriam is called a maid! or Alma! meaning a young (assumed to be fertile) girl! so why not call her a Virgin? and if so who was the OBY DR. who checked her out and pronounced her a VIRGIN???? come on people common sense! And even if this was wrong and indeed it says VIRGIN, if you read the whole chapter you will see that this sign was meant to happened and it did happened in the time of Isaiah’s life not 700 years later! and the sign was for King AHAZ not the world 700 years later! READ the scriptures WITHOUT a Christian mindset! and ask YEHOVAH to open your eyes that you may see the TRUTH! 🙂
Matthew was a Jew and he understood Isa. to predict a virgin begetting. For Christians this is Scripture.
Anthony, there is no evidence that the disciple Matthew authored the gospel of Matthew. That myth is a Catholic tradition. Am I to understand that you have based your interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 on that assumption?
Folks, I can see that the Isa. 7:14 scenario had a point and purpose for Ahaz and co. at the time and ‘virginity’, as is commonly thought had no bearing on the situation. If a medical Dr. fertilizes a ‘virgin’ with her husband’s sperm, the Dr. is not her husband but the ‘birth’ would be virginal, just as, if God miraculously implanted Joseph’s seed in Mary’s womb the ‘child’ is not Gods’ child,.Jesus is Josephs’ child and then became a ‘son of God spiritually, just as we all do at baptism. God is not a man who begets physically by co-habiting with women. He is a Spirit and begets children of and by his spirit.. The term Sons of God applies to king Saul – David and other men whom God said, as in Solomons’ case, he shall be to me a son relationaly not physically. Who were the ‘sons of god’ who shouted for joy at the creation?
Owen, the text says that “which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” – Matthew 1:20. There is no doubt what the writer of Matthew intended here. It was already a well established myth. http://www.examiner.com/article/immaculate-conception-was-not-unusual-the-ancient-world
Pedro’s comment based on the Rabbis who translated the XXL is convincing! But maybe a better question to ponder is, if G-d did choose that Messiah be born of a virgin, then what is the reason, need, or purpose of the virgin birth? On its face, it doesn’t seem to be necessary. I confess that I do believe it, but it seems out of character. I do wonder about this.
Virgin birth is a pagan myth!
of messengers who were divinely conceived and two of them bore the name “Chrishna” or “Chrishna the Saviour” (note the similarity with Christ). Now Chrishna was born of a chaste virgin called Devaki, Who on account of her purity was selected to become the mother of God.
Buddha was considered and believed by his followers to have been begotten of God and born of a virgin whose name was Maya. Long before the Christian era, we read of how the divine power called the” Holy Ghost” descended upon virgin Maya. In ancient Chinese version of the story, the holy ghost is called Shing-Shin.
The Siamese (Taiwan), had a God and saviour who was Virgin Born whom they called Codom. In this very ancient story, the beautiful Virgin had been informed in advance that she was to become the mother of a great messenger of God, and one day while in her usual period of meditation and prayer, she was impregnated by divine sun beams. When the boy was born, he grew up in a remarkable manner, became a protégé of wisdom and performed miracles.
When the first Jesuit priest visited china, they wrote in their reports at finding a heathen religion of that country, of a story of a redeeming saviour who was born of a Virgin and divinely conceived. The God was said to have been born 3468 B.C (before Christ), his name was Lao-Tsze and was said to have been born of a virgin black in complexion and as beautiful as a Jasper.
In Egypt, long before the Christian era, and before any of its doctrine was conceived, the Egyptian people had several messengers of God, who were conceived through Immaculate Conception. Horus was known to all of ancient Egypt as having been born of the virgin Isis and his conception and birth was considered one of the three great mysteries or mystical doctrines of the Egyptian religion. To then every incident in connection with the conception and birth of Horus was pictured, sculptured, adored and worshiped as the incidents of the conception and birth of Jesus is among the Christians today. Another Egyptian God called Ra was also conceived by a Virgin.