Continued from Chapter 18c
How did the respective authors of Matthew and Luke substantiate their claim?
They claim that Jesus’ mother was a virgin, and God, not Joseph was his father, so that he was really God’s son from his very conception. Based, in part, on the Septuagint’s rendering of Isaiah 7:14 (or some related recession) Matthew’s text reads: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel” (Matthew 1:23).
It should be noted that the virginity of Mary in the Gospel of Matthew does not depend on the Hebrew of Isaiah 7:14. Matthew’s citation is taken from a Greek rendering and is used to give spiritual support to a previously conceived notion. Matthew cites this Greek version of Isaiah 7:14, not the Hebrew original, as an intrinsic prooftext to substantiate his claim that the Messiah is to be conceived by a virgin in accordance with God’s prophetic plan. His belief in the virgin conception leads on to the prophecy rather than vice versa. It is useful to him that the Septuagint’s translator of Isaiah renders ‘almah, “young woman,” as parthenos “virgin.” Luke also thinks in terms of a virgin conception, but no scriptural basis is given for it as in Matthew’s citing Isaiah 7:14. The Jewish Scriptures, even in their Greek rendition, do not support the claim of a virgin conception.
Parthenos (virgin)
The etymology of the Greek word parthenos is uncertain. A complicating factor is that there are several instances of the word being used in Greek literature of women who were not virgins. From the general meaning of “girl,” “young woman,” with no reference to sexual experience, the evidence shows that the word evolved in Greek literary use to where it specifically indicated a “virgin” in the technical sense of the word, that is, a woman with no sexual experience. None of the authors of the Gospels was writing history. Matthew, in particular, wrote by remodeling stories from the Jewish Scriptures. He seems to think the Bible is a source of information about Jesus. Since he had no actual details of Jesus’ birth to work with, he created his birth narrative by utilizing his imagination, pagan birth myths, and the Jewish Scriptures. As a result, Matthew claims that the virgin conception of Jesus was to fulfill the sign of Isaiah. But, actually, Isaiah does not say this. The Hebrew word Isaiah uses, ‘almah, means a “young woman,” with no reference to her sexual experience. It is evident that ‘almah may be used of a young woman who is a virgin.
The evidence shows that ‘almah simply means “young woman.” There is a Hebrew word for “virgin,” betulah, but Isaiah did not use it. It is the Septuagint which renders the Hebrew ‘almah, “young woman,” with the Greek word parthenos, “virgin.”
A Hebrew/Aramaic Gospel of Matthew
If we presume an original Hebrew/Aramaic Gospel of Matthew, certain questions arise. Was it the same as the later Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew? Did the author of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, in addressing his born-Jewish Christian audience, depend on the Septuagint’s use of parthenos to biblically justify the virgin conception doctrine that developed among some Christians? If the author of Matthew addressed a Hebrew/Aramaic speaking audience without a dependency on the Septuagint what would the word ‘almah originally have meant? There was no tradition of biblical interpretation which rendered ‘almah as “virgin.” Despite the claim that Matthew wrote in Hebrew/Aramaic8 appears that his use of Isaiah 7:14 to support a virgin conception derives from the Septuagint’s mistranslation of the Hebrew text. It is doubtful that an original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, if it ever existed, would contain Isaiah 7:14 as a prooftext in support of a virgin conception.
If verse 14 was used in an original Hebrew/Aramaic text, it may have appeared simply as a birth of a child prooftext without the intention of promoting a virgin conception. In the Hebrew text of Isaiah there is nothing mentioned concerning a virgin conception of the Messiah. In fact, nowhere do the Jewish Scriptures predict a virgin conception of the Messiah. It suggests that parthenos was used initially by Matthew, not because a virgin conception had occurred but simply to have his text conform to the wording found in Septuagint Isaiah 7:14. As we have observed, Matthew’s supposed prooftext of a virgin conception is not scripturally based on a Hebrew manuscript, but on the Septuagint’s version of Isaiah 7:14 whose translator used the Greek word parthenos “virgin,” to translate the Hebrew ‘almah, “young woman.”
8 Eusebius (260?-340?) quoted Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis (c. 140 C.E.) as writing, “So then Matthew, indeed, in the Hebrew language put together the Logia in writing” (Ecclesiastical History 3. 39. 16). Eusebius also quoted Origen (185?-254?) as writing concerning the Gospels, “The first is written according to Matthew, the same that was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, who having published it for Jewish converts, wrote it in Hebrew” (Ecclesiastical History 6. 25. 4). Jerome (fourth- fifth centuries C.E.) wrote that Matthew “composed a Gospel of Christ in Judea in the Hebrew language and characters, for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed” (Epistulae 20.5). Some scholars have argued that when the church fathers said “Hebrew” they really meant “Aramaic.” We should also note the use of the Greek word hebraisti, “in Hebrew,” (John 19:13) to indicate the linguistic origin of Gabbatha (“the Pavement”); Gabbatha is Aramaic. If the author of Matthew originally wrote in “Hebrew” (Aramaic), then what the church has is a Greek rendering of his “inspired” text.
Continued