The Old Testament Didn't Predict the Virgin Birth of Jesus

 
Isaiah 7:14.  The Virgin shall conceive and bear a son called Emmanuel which means God is with us.
 
Alleged Fulfilment:  Jesus being born of Mary who was a virgin.
 
New Testament Interpretation:  The Matthew gospel says the prophecy predicts the birth of Jesus from the Virgin Mary.
 
The Truth:  The Gospel of Matthew alone seems to tell us that Jesus was conceived of a virgin. He read parthenos in the Septuagint the translation of the old Testament Book of Isaiah and quoted the verse with parthenos in it. But the original Hebrew – and it is only the original that counts, the word translated virgin was almah which meant a young woman. The term virgin usually meant a sexually inexperienced female but not always (page 29, The Womb and the Tomb). In the NABs Biblical Dictionary and Concordance under VIRGIN it is admitted that every unmarried girl was called a virgin for brevity and out of habit (page 239). In Jewish Rabbinic tradition, a virgin could mean a girl who had had sex but was not fertile. Perverted marriages with minors were allowed in those days. The Rabbis actually held that if a child was born before a girl started to menstruate that the birth could be called a virgin birth and, obviously, the conception would be a virginal conception (page 27). It is nonsense to deny that Matthew could have meant that Mary was this kind of virgin. Some say there is no evidence that he did but then there is no evidence that he meant a literal virgin either. Those who believe that it would not be as likely for Joseph to have married a minor who was therefore unlikely to be a literal virgin if he was a widower are also talking rubbish. A virgin who is raped is psychologically a virgin though not one physically. Was Mary raped? Some argue that God would not let the mother of his son be raped by her husband or anybody else when she was only a child herself. That is also an absurd argument. Look what God let the people do to Jesus.

Isaiah 8:1-4 says the sign is not so much that that the woman will have the baby but that the baby will live long enough to witness an event. Why would something as mundane as that be a sign? Plainly because the prophet is claiming God tells him the future.  It is that simple and brazen.  Thus any fancy interpretations to get it to fit Jesus are out. Isaiah would not be the first to think that something so unremarkable would be a sign.  And of course nobody asks this baby when he grows up to see if Isaiah got it right.  There is no evidence.

The Isaiah prophecy was meant to be a sign for King Ahaz for God told Ahaz when giving it that it was a sign for him. He told Ahaz what would happen to the two kingdoms Ahaz opposed before the child would learn to choose the good and refuse the evil. Some say that a woman giving birth was not much of a sign so God had Jesus more in mind that anything else. They say that Isaiah used a word for young woman that might mean virgin. They say that as a normal birth was no sign, Isaiah was predicting a virgin birth.
 
But the prophecy reads that the birth and the maturing of the child are just mentioned to set a time scale for the fulfilment of the prophecy. Moreover, God could have considered his ability to predict a son coming to be a sufficient sign. The name of the child is Emmanuel and later we are told his name is Mahershalalhashbaz. But the child could have had two names or Emmanuel could have been a title for it means God with us. It could have been a nickname used by God. God is with us refers to God destroying the two kingdoms for Israel. To say that the prophecy refers to the woman’s son and then that it means Jesus in a secondary or symbolical sense is crazy. To say it refers to Jesus as well as Emmanuel would be to say it is a symbolic prophecy of Jesus who had similarities to Emmanuel and was the real Emmanuel. Any prophet whose prophecies fail could say the failed ones were symbolic so that he can dodge the attacks of reason. Emmanuel, according to the prophecy, needs to learn how to refuse evil but the Jesus of the Christians does not because he already knows and cannot sin. It is odd that the Lord told Ahaz that he could ask for any sign from God that he wanted and Ahaz was not chastised for refusing. Ahaz stated that he would not put God to the test by looking for a sign. The Church says Ahaz was being tested here. But how could it be wrong to ask for a sign when God offers to do one? The refusal was churlish.
 
God gave Ahaz a small sign indicating that Ahaz didn’t need a big one. But he obviously did when he had the faithlessness to object when God made him a kind offer. But that doesn't matter to the writer of the prophecy or seem to have occurred to him. So anyway, God approved of Ahaz being anti-miracle despite his great faith. God is saying it is immoral to tempt the Lord by going to see miracles. Therefore the God of Isaiah did not foretell Jesus who allegedly attracted people who wanted to see miracles. He did not even approve of him. The only miracle or sign God cared about was speaking his own message and predicting the future, therefore Isaiah would have been horrified that the Greek Septuagint dared to say he predicted the virgin birth. But even if it did it could mean that a girl that was a virgin now would conceive meaning cease to be a virgin and bear a son.

Matthew perverted the words of Isaiah in a most profane way to misuse him as evidence for Jesus. That Matthew had to resort to such desperate measures shows that he was making up the story about the birth and infancy of Jesus. He could have used affidavits but he couldn’t.

JP Holding says that Matthew never says the almah text is about Mary being about a virgin but about her being suitable for wedlock and having a child.  But the way Matthew uses the prophecy tells you different.  You don't argue that a promise that a girlready for having babies having a baby is a sign.  It is so mundane is not to be considered a prophecy unless there was something odd predicted - perhaps that she would be a virgin mother.

It is dishonest to argue that material that mightn’t even be prophetic is evidence that God has gazed into the future.