If you want text to say plainly “There shall come a redeemer of the people in 460 years and his name shall be called Jesus, born of a virgin and he will die for his people upon the cross” Then you won’t find it.
Of course not. That would be a falsifiable prediction.
But such texts ARE there, you have to find them.
How often we find exactly what we want to find!
The bible is a REVEALED book. Jesus told the Jews to “search the scriptures.”
Well the Jews did search the scriptures. Could this be why they rejected Jesus? You’re in the weird position of claiming that Christians know the Jewish scriptures better than Jews themselves do. How likely is that?
Robert said
Can’t say with absolute certainty, but Paul and Mark both show that there were Greek translations of Isaiah before Matthew wrote and Luke wrote their gospel. Every translation is an interpretation and the Greek translator would have struggled to make sense of the context since the Hebrew עַלְמָה for maiden/young girl is very rare, only appearing this one time in Isaiah, twice in the Torah, and nowhere else in the whole of the Hebrew scriptures.
Is the other usage of almah in Torah also rendered as parthenos in the Greek translation?
Hypothetically, would there be another ancient Greek word (that isn’t sexual-status-laden) that would map well onto almah (rather than parthenos)?
Robert said
Poohbear said
It’s an interesting piece of fiction, the likes of which the world has never seen before.
… And Daniel said he would die for his people by those who would destroy the Jewish nation. …You keep spreading this fictional reading of Daniel, despite being informed of what the Hebrew actually says. You may think that you are spreading Christian ‘truth’, but you are actually showing yourself to be untrustworthy. Is that really the reputation you want Christians to have?
If I recall, Daniel speaks of the “people of the Prince” destroying the temple, Jerusalem and invading Israel “like a flood.” The people would be the Romans and their auxiliaries. The “Prince” is Titus, son of the Emperor Vespasian. The anointed one shall be “cut off” but “not for himself.”
… just checked the Interlinear on this. The anointed one shall be cut off (or die) but not for himself. Meaning he dies for his people. In the Jewish 1917 Tanakh it says the anointed shall be cut off “and be no more.” RIGHT THERE the ‘scholars’ will argue. But regardless of “cut off” or “be no more” the text is plain – the enemy will destroy the temple and the nation and the anointed. As happened centuries later.
Stephen said
If you want text to say plainly “There shall come a redeemer of the people in 460 years and his name shall be called Jesus, born of a virgin and he will die for his people upon the cross” Then you won’t find it.Of course not. That would be a falsifiable prediction.
But such texts ARE there, you have to find them.
How often we find exactly what we want to find!
The bible is a REVEALED book. Jesus told the Jews to “search the scriptures.”
Well the Jews did search the scriptures. Could this be why they rejected Jesus? You’re in the weird position of claiming that Christians know the Jewish scriptures better than Jews themselves do. How likely is that?
Stephen said
If you want text to say plainly “There shall come a redeemer of the people in 460 years and his name shall be called Jesus, born of a virgin and he will die for his people upon the cross” Then you won’t find it.Of course not. That would be a falsifiable prediction.
But such texts ARE there, you have to find them.
How often we find exactly what we want to find!
The bible is a REVEALED book. Jesus told the Jews to “search the scriptures.”
Well the Jews did search the scriptures. Could this be why they rejected Jesus? You’re in the weird position of claiming that Christians know the Jewish scriptures better than Jews themselves do. How likely is that?
Stephen said
If you want text to say plainly “There shall come a redeemer of the people in 460 years and his name shall be called Jesus, born of a virgin and he will die for his people upon the cross” Then you won’t find it.Of course not. That would be a falsifiable prediction.
But such texts ARE there, you have to find them.
How often we find exactly what we want to find!
The bible is a REVEALED book. Jesus told the Jews to “search the scriptures.”
Well the Jews did search the scriptures. Could this be why they rejected Jesus? You’re in the weird position of claiming that Christians know the Jewish scriptures better than Jews themselves do. How likely is that?
Stephen said
If you want text to say plainly “There shall come a redeemer of the people in 460 years and his name shall be called Jesus, born of a virgin and he will die for his people upon the cross” Then you won’t find it.Of course not. That would be a falsifiable prediction.
But such texts ARE there, you have to find them.
How often we find exactly what we want to find!
The bible is a REVEALED book. Jesus told the Jews to “search the scriptures.”
Well the Jews did search the scriptures. Could this be why they rejected Jesus? You’re in the weird position of claiming that Christians know the Jewish scriptures better than Jews themselves do. How likely is that?
‘CHRISTIANS’ of the first Century WERE Jews! Some Jews rejected Jesus, some did not. As for finding them, you can’t help but stumble over them all the time. Right throughout Isaiah you keep finding the King and Redeemer Messiahs, liberally sprinkled. Psalm 22 for instance is a complete, explicit picture of Jesus in His suffering. Isaiah 53 is like a mini-Gospel.
I just read the Tanakh version of Daniel which appears to omit “cut off but not for himself” and replace it with “and be no more” for the Anointed one “cut off” by the Romans. I found “not for himself” in the Interlinear bible. I suspect this is another example of Jewish redaction of their own bible. Am I wrong?
Robert said
There are two uses of עַלְמָה (almah) in the Torah that I see. It is translated with παρθένος (parthenos) in Gen 24,43 and with νεᾶνις (neanis, feminine young person) in Ex 2,8, Song of Songs 1,3 & 6,8, and Psalm 68,26. In Proverbs 30,19 it is translated with an abstraction, νεότης (neotes, youth).In 1 Chronicles 15,20 and elsewhere (cf Psalm 46,1) it is understood differently in the Greek, probably owing to a technical musical meaning derived from the young women musicians.
Both of these Hebrew and Greek word roots have masculine and feminine forms. עָֽלֶם (alem), the masculine form of עַלְמָה (almah), is used in 1 Sam 17,56 (not trans) & 20,22, translated with νεανίσκος (neaniskos, a young male).
Whether or not almah could carry an implied or even a technical meaning of virgin in a biological sense is really only determined by the context. A young woman, sometimes of marriageable age but not yet married would typically be presumed to be a virgin. The root might be related to ‘maturing’, thus of marriageable age, but etymologies should not be over-stressed.
Note that in Gen 24,14 (parallel with 24,43 above) it is נַּעֲרָ֗ (na’ar, young thing, vocalized as young female) that is translated with παρθένος (parthenos). This same word is translated again as παρθένος in 24,16, but then בְּתוּלָ֕ה (betulah, virgin) is used to clarify in Hebrew that no man had known her and betulah is also translated with παρθένος. Betulah is also translated with parthenos in Ex 22,15-16 Lev 21,14 Dt 22,23.28 32,25 Jdg 19,24 21,12 1 Sam 13,2 2 Sam 13,18 1 Kgs 1,2 2 Kgs 19,21 Isa 23,4 (not translated in Isa 23,12) 37,12 47,1 62,5 Jer 2,32 (not translated 14,17) and elsewhere so betulah definitely seems to have the more technical sense of virgin.
First of all, Robert, thank you. This is fantastic!
Second, the statistical argument seems pretty clear.
Poohbear, kinda hard for you and me as biblical monoglots when we’re attempting to parse terms in Hebrew and Greek…
Hngerhman said
First of all, Robert, thank you. This is fantastic!
Second, the statistical argument seems pretty clear.
Poohbear, kinda hard for you and me as biblical monoglots when we’re attempting to parse terms in Hebrew and Greek…
I Googled that too. There’s multiple meanings to words. Like the one I gave yesterday of the German weather translation “Strong chance of ice cream today.” A young woman having a child would never be a sign to Israel because most young women had children, and usually to an older husband. I am fine with the Matthew story – both Matthew and Isaiah were millennium ago, so-called “biblical” figures. We can’t argue what Isaiah meant and then say Matthew is fiction – that’s just cherry picking. As this note says – it’s all down to context.
Poohbear said
I Googled that too. There’s multiple meanings to words.
Yes, there are. Which is precisely why virginal conception is not what Isaiah meant with almah, unless one refuses to wear anything but a set of high powered Matthew-tinted reading glasses.
Virginal conception is not what Isaiah himself is saying. It’s what Matthew has Isaiah saying, shorn of Isaiah’s own context. [Note: it is perhaps even more that it is what Matthew thinks Isaiah can be seen as saying through applied pesher, but I’m trying to keep the thought simple.]
Why? Because as Robert just said (and Stephen also alluded to in his full quote of the passage), and is abundantly clear if one would just take off those Matthean lenses:
“…the birth of the child [my emphasis] is not the sign, but rather [NG: the sign is] that “before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.”
Poohbear said
Like the one I gave yesterday of the German weather translation “Strong chance of ice cream today.”
May we all have such a forecast today!
Steefen
[The biblical Jesus is a composite character of historical fiction.]
Poohbear
It’s an interesting piece of fiction, the likes of which the world has never seen before.
How did people put all this together over 1500 years?
Steefen
Anyone can aspire to fulfill a prophecy of 1500 years. Any fiction writer can create a character to fulfill a prophecy of 1500 years.
In light of both Dr Ehrman’s and especially Dr Mendez’s recent posts on John, something struck me as puzzling. Robert, given your particular school, I think you are probably well placed to touch on this topic.
Robert said
Poohbear said
It’s an interesting piece of fiction, the likes of which the world has never seen before.
… And Daniel said he would die for his people by those who would destroy the Jewish nation. …You keep spreading this fictional reading of Daniel, despite being informed of what the Hebrew actually says. You may think that you are spreading Christian ‘truth’, but you are actually showing yourself to be untrustworthy. Is that really the reputation you want Christians to have?
So what have you been told about Daniel’s account of the “anointed one” who would be “cut off.” ???
Steefen said
Poohbear
Egypt did rule Israel in BC 1000.Steefen
Then, how do you explain the Bible narrative not mentioning that?
Steefen said
Poohbear
Egypt did rule Israel in BC 1000.Steefen
Then, how do you explain the Bible narrative not mentioning that?
On one hand people argue there was no Moses. On the other they argue he couldn’t have been in Palestine ca 1200-1000 BC.
We don’t have dates. And going by genealogies is fraught because, as seen in the NT, writers took out whole generations for symbolic reasons. As is shown by the arrival of the Philistines (the dreaded ‘sea people’ who nearly destroyed Egypt) there wasn’t much Egyptian control over Palestine.
Robert said
Not sure there’s any hard and fast rules. Other than if something sounds too good to be true, maybe it isn’t.
Fair enough, and agree
Robert said
In the case of the gospel of John, it actually helps to see how the character is added to stories that did not include him in an earlier version, eg, Peter running to the tomb, stooping and looking in, seeing the linen cloths, then going home went home in Lk 24,12. Then all of a sudden in Jn 20,3-13 the beloved disciple is also there, runs faster, gets there first and believes. Sort of a Zelig effect.
Nice Zelig reference.
Yeah, if I were to try to pinpoint where my confusion occurs, my puzzlement stems less from the invention part and more the literary part. It’s a question of: at which level(s)/point(s) in the transmission of the stories did the back-insertion of the beloved disciple take place?
To my ear, ‘literary invention’ connotes intentional fabrication at the level of the author (or redactor). But, if we were to have a venerated figure who either over time misremembered himself into places he was not (and if he lived to be old, he’d have outlived anyone better placed to correct him), or his followers did similar psychological work on stories which then got written down.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert