JD,
Jacob is, of course, referring to the Isaiah 7:14 passage from which the reference in Matthew's gospel is taken. The natural reading of the term in the Hebrew is "maiden." In English, this term is seldom if ever used to describe a married (i.e. sexual woman). I know I've never heard it used to describe a non-virgin. A "maiden" is a young woman of marriagable age, character, and station. It is almost a perfect translation of "almah". A promiscuous woman has lost the right to truly be called a maiden. The term implies virginity.

But there's even more to it than that.

The the evidence is quite clear that the Hebrews were expecting a "virgin" birth. The quote from Matthew is directly out of the Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek around 250 BC. The translators evidently felt that the Greek term for "virgin" most accurately captured in the target language the force of the original. The earliest Christians apparently had no confusion whatever about this expectation. And Jesus' enemies, attempting to use the charge of bastardy agsinst him (John 8:41), are unable to besmirch him at all, because if they could have produced an earthly father, they could have easily discredited him, the Messiah being expected from a virgin. And of course they could not.

The mother of the Messiah was evidently expected to be unique. This much is indisputable. Isaiah's prophecy was well known and pondered. We find in Micah, his younger contemporary, in the passage on Bethlehem (5:1ff), alluding to it. With Isaiah's prophecy still fresh in the people's ears, Micah says to them, verse 3, "Therefore He will give them up until the time she who is in labor has born a child." For people familiar with Isaiah's recent deliverance, those words would have had immediate redoubling impact. Further we find Jeremiah 31:21-22 another reference to an astonishing woman. It would be more difficult to let this passage stand alone as a Messianic prophecy because it is somewhat cryptic, but standing as it does with the others, it provides additional evidence that a special woman/birth was expected. Add to these references the first evangel, Gen 3:15, and there is abundant testimony in the OT which points to a virgin birth.

Mary's own astonishment (Lk. 1:34) cannot be used effectively against said expectation. She accepts the angel's announcement and his explanation as confirmation. A few verses later, pious Elizabeth seems not to be phased in the least by this pregnancy, nor questioning at all of Mary's explanation, but rather rejoices. It is clear that the earliest believers accepted the miraculous birth as fully being within their Messianic expectations. Not a single other explanation of Jesus birth arose within the Christian community, no "alternate traditions" by those who found this "viring birth thing" an embarassing exageration.


As for the author of the excerpt above, I wish he was not so convinced early on that his most reliable exegetes of the OT were to found within the Pharisaic-rabinnic Judaism tradition. Would not the natural, Christian belief be that the Jewish disciples, in their writings (aka the NT) would be the most faithful expositers of the OT text?

As for "pesher" exegesis, all one can say is that to whatever degree different NT authors may have used both typical and a-typical methods of their day, the preserved conclusions of those methods are to be accepted by the faithful as accurate--no less the Word of God than anything that came beforehand.

__________________
Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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