Apologetics 315: Apologist Interview: MaryJo Sharp of Confident Christianity
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Apologetics 315: Apologist Interview: MaryJo Sharp of Confident Christianity
Apologetics 315: Apologist Interview: MaryJo Sharp of Confident Christianity
Biblical Exegesis: Isaiah 7:14
This time let's consider Isaiah 7:14 which says:
I was driven to write this post because I was challenged by TheGodless on Twitter who said:
I'm sure he heard the rhetoric that the word "almah" translated from Hebrew here does not mean "The Virgin" but should be "young woman". Some people who have this view have attempted to suggest that Christians changed the texts in translation to say that the young woman is a virgin. The thing is the Greek Translation (the Septuagint) made a couple of hundred years before Christ renders that word "Virgin". The translators of the Septuagint were not Christians. They were Jewish Rabbis who I would argue knew Hebrew better than the people trying to say "almah" does not mean virgin in this verse. Also don't forget that the word translated "sign" in the same verse is used never to refer to ordinary events or circumstances - it's understood to refer to the miraculous! A young woman given birth would never be referred to as a "sign". But if the woman was a virgin then of course that would be a sign.
Therefore the only logical conclusion is that the text is saying that a child would be born of a virgin - a miraculous birth. There are a lot of pagan myths and legends where important men/gods are "born of virgins" but even if you grant them not one of them was a true virgin birth as describes in Matthew and Luke. I've written on several of these legends and I find they were not true virgin births because the women may had been virgin before the conceiving but after the act of conceiving I would not call them virgins anymore. Something penetrated them. In Alexander the Great's case it was a Snake. In many of other cases women were tricked or raped by a god. In Jesus's case there was no sex before the conception or before Jesus' birth! That is what I would define as a virgin birth.
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"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."
I was driven to write this post because I was challenged by TheGodless on Twitter who said:
If you believe in the virgin birth, you are saying things the Bible doesn't say. Practice what you preach.I was very amused. Of course the Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. I'm sure that TheGodless assumes that I just blindly believe everything without doing any research to see if I can stand on it or not.
I'm sure he heard the rhetoric that the word "almah" translated from Hebrew here does not mean "The Virgin" but should be "young woman". Some people who have this view have attempted to suggest that Christians changed the texts in translation to say that the young woman is a virgin. The thing is the Greek Translation (the Septuagint) made a couple of hundred years before Christ renders that word "Virgin". The translators of the Septuagint were not Christians. They were Jewish Rabbis who I would argue knew Hebrew better than the people trying to say "almah" does not mean virgin in this verse. Also don't forget that the word translated "sign" in the same verse is used never to refer to ordinary events or circumstances - it's understood to refer to the miraculous! A young woman given birth would never be referred to as a "sign". But if the woman was a virgin then of course that would be a sign.
Therefore the only logical conclusion is that the text is saying that a child would be born of a virgin - a miraculous birth. There are a lot of pagan myths and legends where important men/gods are "born of virgins" but even if you grant them not one of them was a true virgin birth as describes in Matthew and Luke. I've written on several of these legends and I find they were not true virgin births because the women may had been virgin before the conceiving but after the act of conceiving I would not call them virgins anymore. Something penetrated them. In Alexander the Great's case it was a Snake. In many of other cases women were tricked or raped by a god. In Jesus's case there was no sex before the conception or before Jesus' birth! That is what I would define as a virgin birth.
Announcement: Biblical Exegesis Series
The Bible is an awesome book. It's so deep you can spend the rest of your life studying it and still won't get out of it everything there is to get from it. I thought it might be interesting and useful for anyone who might be reading my blog to start a series where I take difficult and often misunderstood scriptures and attempt to apply a consistent hermeneutic to exegete the text. Hermeneutics is the art and science of Biblical interpretation and "exegesis" is drawing the meaning of the text from the text and not reading in presuppositions and biases. It would be most useful if readers would participate with me.
a. You can post your own interpetation of texts covered here and link me to them through the comments. We can all have some great dialogues back and forth about what we disagree about and why.
b. You can suggests scriptures that should be covered
c. Please offer your own insights, questions, and concerns in the comment section.
I think starting out, I would like to do one of these once a week and I hope you will go on this journey with me. I plan to choose scriptures based on feedback from readers as well as scriptures that just plain interests me.
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a. You can post your own interpetation of texts covered here and link me to them through the comments. We can all have some great dialogues back and forth about what we disagree about and why.
b. You can suggests scriptures that should be covered
c. Please offer your own insights, questions, and concerns in the comment section.
I think starting out, I would like to do one of these once a week and I hope you will go on this journey with me. I plan to choose scriptures based on feedback from readers as well as scriptures that just plain interests me.
Fox News shows murder and blames it on the godless
I found the following video on YouTube. The maker of the video plays a portion of Glenn Beck's show where Beck blames the ills and murders on society on the "godless". The video maker is quite upset and being apparently an atheist, doesn't like Beck saying that atheists are the problems and reason why there is violence in this country. I felt compared to write this because the video maker and Beck are wrong.
While, yes, America is experiencing judgement, it is not just because of atheists. We are all responsible. Just because one is not an atheist does not make one "godless" just a hypocrite if you are not living your life to God's standard. No one is hitting it perfectly so of course because of God's justice there is going to be problems. Beck is being irresponsible and not giving the full measure of what the Bible really teaches.
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While, yes, America is experiencing judgement, it is not just because of atheists. We are all responsible. Just because one is not an atheist does not make one "godless" just a hypocrite if you are not living your life to God's standard. No one is hitting it perfectly so of course because of God's justice there is going to be problems. Beck is being irresponsible and not giving the full measure of what the Bible really teaches.
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