Tag: virgin birth

Apostles Creed: Born of the Virgin Mary,

Was the Bible truly talking about a virgin birth? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

“The virgin shall be with child.” So reads the passage in Isaiah 7:14 and immediately many Christians see this as talking about Jesus. Is this the case? Well, no.

So Matthew got it wrong?

Also, no.

Then how can both of those be accurate?

In Isaiah, Isaiah was telling King Ahaz that the king should not join a group of other nations in uniting against the enemy of Assyria. He was so insistent that the king should not do this that he even told the king to ask God for a sign, something that would not normally be encouraged. Ahaz seeks an excuse then and says “I will not put God to the test.” Isaiah then tells Ahaz that he’s going to get a sign anyway. What is that sign? The virgin will be with child!

What does he mean by virgin?

The Hebrew word is Almah and yes, it does mean a young woman. It does not necessitate that the woman is a virgin, but in many cases the woman actually is a virgin. Isaiah at this time is referring to a woman who was known and is saying that that woman will give birth to a child. It is quite likely someone who Isaiah himself would be marrying. The sign would be that by the time this child was old enough to choose right from wrong, in other words, an age of moral accountability, the team of nations together would have already fallen.

Indeed, this is what happened. Therefore, we have a fulfillment of prophecy.

So no, this is not talking about Jesus.

Yet when the Scriptures are translated into Greek, when the translators got to this verse, they chose to translate Almah as Parthenos, which is the word for a virgin. Therefore, when Matthew uses the word, it does indeed a woman who has not had sexual intercourse and when he writes out his Gospel, he sees the virgin birth of Jesus as a fulfillment of this prophecy.

But how can this be?

Remember, for other objections to the virgin birth, one is encouraged to go here. What Matthew is doing is taking an event in the past and saying that he sees a reenactment as it were of what happened in the past. This is actually a way of giving honor to the account. It was important to find past precedent for current events.

An example in Matthew’s Gospel is when Jesus tells the Pharisees that Isaiah was right when he prophesied about them saying “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

What was going on? Jesus was looking at an event in the prophet’s time and seeing a reenactment of that same event in his time. For the Jews, Scripture was always speaking and it was honorable to find parallels to past events being going on in the lives of the people of the time.

So was Isaiah prophesying about Jesus? No.

Was Matthew wrong in using this passage? No.

What was right is how a fulfillment was going on.

Those interested in seeing more are recommended to check Richard Longenecker’s “Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period” and Sandy and Walton’s “The Lost World of Scripture.”

In conclusion, Matthew saw the event in his time and thought of the passage in the past. Even if it was not what Isaiah had in mind, it would have been perfectly acceptable to exegetes of his day to interpret Scripture in this way.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Apostles Creed: who was conceived by the Holy Spirit

What does it mean to say Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Was Jesus the natural son of Joseph? This would change a lot if he was. The Christian claim has been that Jesus is the unique Son of God and even His incarnation is unique. His birth was brought about not by sexual action on the part of a man, but a divine action on the part of the Holy Spirit.

Now there are many today who will claim that virgin births were common in the ancient world. Unfortunately, many of these times, the birth really isn’t a virgin birth. Sometimes, unique births happen to women who have already had children, such as the mother of Krishna.

Many times, it is actually some kind of sexual intercourse on the part of the gods, such as in the case of Zeus and his many lovers. Other claims to having a virgin birth are stretching it. Mithras, for instance, was born out of a rock in a cave carrying a knife and wearing a cap. I suppose we could say technically that the rock was a virgin.

Christ is a unique case in that Jesus would have been seen as illegitimate in his birth somehow, a shameful occurrence. Now how would be the best way to explain your Messiah was illegitimate? In a Jewish culture, it would hardly be best to do something that would implicate YHWH in the process! “Why yes. Our Messiah is illegitimate. It’s YHWH’s fault too!”

I wager in fact that this is why only two Gospels mention the circumstances of Jesus’s birth. It really would not have been something they’d want to draw attention to. First, people would be skeptical of it. Second, it would lead to the charges of illegitimacy. David Instone-Brewer takes the same stance in his work “The Jesus Scandals“. That this was explained somehow would show that there was something that needed to be explained.

Someone could also ask how it is that if Jesus is the Son of God that the Holy Spirit is the one who did this. Does this mean the Holy Spirit is the Father? Not at all. What it means is that the Holy Spirit is often the manifest way God acts in the world. It is the same as God acting by His Wisdom. (I take His Wisdom to be Jesus by the way.) There is still one God who is the source of all and yes, this one God still exists in three persons.

Of course, there is more that can be said about the virgin birth. Those who are wondering why I have not said anything about a passage such as Isaiah 7:14 need only wait until next time when we discuss the status of the Virgin Mary.

Until then, there are sufficient reasons for realizing that the birth of Jesus was different from births that he was supposedly copied from and also that there are reasons why it would be the case that the other Gospel writers would not want to mention the virgin birth.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 12/7/2013: Christmas Beginnings

What’s coming up this Saturday on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Christmas is coming and so it’s time to have a series of shows where we’re going to talk about just Christmas! As has often been said about stories, the most important part of them is to begin at the beginning. Thus, we’ll start with looking at the birth narratives!

But aren’t those confusing? Look at what’s in them? We have the slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem that is recorded by no other historian at the time! We have these genealogies that can’t even seem to get themselves straightened out! What on Earth is going on with this census here? Can that be historically verified in any way? And of course, all of this centers around a virgin birth! What’s going on with that?!

And to discuss such issues, we need a scholar who really knows his stuff. Fortunately, I have just such a guest. Now he’s only able to give an hour of his time and that will be the second hour of our program, but what a guest we have for you!

My friends, Ben Witherington will be our guest for the Deeper Waters Podcast!

Ben Witherington is one who has contributed much to biblical scholarship and is a force to be reckoned with. Mike Licona has in fact told me that Ben Witherington has an excellent memory for the many materials that he has read. Of the books that I have read by Dr. Witherington, they are lively and engaging. He has well surveyed the field and has a serious devotion to Christian truth.

As something that makes it especially important with me, Witherington is very well familiar with the social context that the NT was written in and many of his writings have been centered around looking at the NT from a socio-rhetorical perspective. It is my understanding that this is in fact what he talked about at the recent ETS conference that was built around the topic of Inerrancy.

For those who are not familiar with the work of Witherington, I hope this will surely open your eyes to a scholar who is someone that you must read in the field. The birth narratives are an excellent way to demonstrate this as these are some of the accounts that are the most challenged in the life of Christ. Our look at these chapters will be brief and cannot be exhaustive, but I hope it will give people a little taste of how the Christian can answer the challenges that are given.

The show will be at our usual time from 3-5 PM EST on Saturday, December 7th. Our call-in number is 714-242-5180. As I’ve said, Dr. Witherington will only be joining us for the second hour of the program so I ask that if you do decide to call in tomorrow, that you try to be as brief as you can as we have much to discuss and little time to do it in.

I hope you will join us!

The link can be found here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Virginity of Mary

How many objections can be raised about this story? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

We’re looking at the Christmas story in Matthew and right now I’m going to be jumping ahead a little bit to look at the idea of Mary being a virgin before dealing with the response of Joseph. To begin with, the word for virgin in Matthew is “parthenos.” In the NT, this does refer to a virgin, but those who know the language better than I do tell me that this isn’t necessarily the case outside of the NT. Not being an expert on the area, I will not comment beyond that, though I do recommend that those interested check various commentaries. Some say that in Hebrew, “Betulah” unequivocally refers to a virgin, but this is not so as even a widow can be called a Betulah, such as Job 1:8. However, it could be the case that this refers to a woman pledged to be married and before the marriage can be consummated, something happens to the man in a plague. Almah, another word meanwhile in Hebrew, often refers to a maiden, and that is the word used in Isaiah 7:14.

In Isaiah, Ahaz is told to ask for a sign, and he does not. Interestingly, Isaiah does not give a prophecy then to Ahaz, but rather to the whole house of David. This indicates a far greater reach. There is something astounding about what is going to happen. Further, there is no present fulfillment that really matches. Yes. There was a child that was born shortly afterwards, but how is this child shown to be a fulfillment? The text never says so. The child’s name is a name of disaster rather than encouragement. The child’s mother is known whereas in the case of Isaiah the child’s mother is not known. The child is never called Immanuel. We can go on and on.

It could be that the child born in Isaiah, Maher, for short, does show a partial fulfillment, but there is another fulfillment. There will come a child who will be born and in his time, kings will be made desolate. This does happen in Jesus who by His coming and being made the King of the Jews and sitting on the throne of David renders any other claim of kingship by anyone else to be ineffective.

Did Matthew misquote this then? No. He saw Jesus as a fulfillment of what had been promised to the house of David and is entirely in line with the text.

Something else that can speak about this is that a virgin birth would not be made up. Now some say that there were virgin births in pagan mythology, but in many cases the women involved were not virgins but those that a god like Zeus seduced. Furthermore, what happens was a physical interaction between the god and the woman that would hardly be like what is described in the biblical text, which is Luke in this case.

It also would not benefit the church. Jesus would have been seen as illegitimate in the culture he lived in. It would not be seen as a good counter to that to say “He was virgin born!” Picture if you’re a skeptic of the NT. If you are and you are told that Jesus is virgin born, what’s your response?

“Yeah, right.”

Why think it was really different back then?

“Because everyone was gullible and didn’t know better.”

A thought like this always amazes me. We can say that we live in an age of science and know better. Little fact here. Even back then, everyone knew that it takes sex to make a baby and that is sex between a man and a woman. If someone thinks that this is not the case, then could they tell when it was in the history of science that it was established that it takes a man and a woman to make a baby? If it was not known before science, I’d really like to know about the scientist that established this mystery of pregnancy that no one else understood beforehand. Now I don’t doubt we know more about pregnancy than they did, but they certainly knew the basics!

So why did they say it?

Because they had to.

They had to?

Yes. They had to. They had to say what really happened even if it would bring disrepute.

What disrepute?

It would mean that Jesus not being the son of Joseph and Mary biologically would be stated upfront. It would mean that some would still see a relation to pagan stories and discount Jesus for the same reasons. It would mean that some would think that Mary was likely cozy with a Roman soldier beforehand and was making up a story and that if this is the kind of woman who is the mother of Jesus, then who needs Him? Either way, it would not win friends and influence people.

The main objection is still the objection of miracles. Of course, if one does not believe in miracles, one will not accept the virgin birth or more importantly, the resurrection. For the one skeptical of that, I recommend this.

I conclude that I have no reason to not accept the virgin birth due to believing in miracles and because of the criterion of embarrassment.

In Christ,
Nick Peters