4 - A prophecy about a virgin who will give birth to a son

It is not easy to accept that Saint Matthew indicates that Jesus was born from an incestuous relationship between Mary and her father-in-law, incest being a sexual relationhip between people who are not allowed to marry each other. Those Christians who cannot imagine Christianity without the dogma of the virgin birth might assume that this evangelist was a heretic who managed to get his gospel accepted as one of the four official ones. Therefore, they might suggest getting rid of the Gospel of Saint Matthew. But the problem is that without this gospel there is no longer any reason to assume that Jesus was born of a virgin, since none of the other evangelists mentions anything about this.

Immediately after offering Jesus’ genealogy, the Gospel of Saint Matthew says:

This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being an upright man and wanting to spare her disgrace, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.’ Now all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: Look! the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means ‘God-is-with-us’. When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home; he had not had intercourse with her when she gave birth to a son; and he named him Jesus. (Mt1:18-24)

Since the other books do not refer to Jesus’ virgin birth, it is clear that this text, many centuries ago, led the religious authorities to assume that Jesus was born of a virgin: it not only says that Mary was with child through the Holy Spirit, but also refers to a prophecy that mentions a virgin. One way to demonstrate that Jesus was the Messiah was by offering proof that several prophecies of the Old Testament came true in him. Saint Matthew refers to a text in the book of Isaiah:

He then said: “Listen now, House of David: are you not satisfied with trying human patience that you should try my God’s patience too? The Lord will give you a sign in any case: It is this: the young woman is with child and will give birth to a son whom she will call Immanuel. On curds and honey will he feed until he knows how to refuse the bad and choose the good” (Is7:14-15).

                                                             

We thus discover that Isaiah does not refer to a virgin but to a young woman. We must, however, immediately point out that in many Bibles we do find that Isaiah refers to a virgin. But this is due to a falsification. When the Christian authorities found in the book of Isaiah that this prophet did not refer to a virgin but to a young woman they were most displeased. They had convinced themselves that Jesus was born of a virgin and that this miracle proved he was the Messiah. Therefore, instead of reflecting upon what this discovery really meant, they immediately assumed that it must have been a mistake made by a copyist or a falsification made by Jews who did not want to accept Jesus as the Messiah. Because of this, when they later made new copies of the Book of Isaiah, they changed ‘young woman’ to ‘virgin’ to make it coincide with Saint Matthew.

How can we be sure that Isaiah originally said ‘young woman’ and not ‘virgin’ if we do not have access to the original books? When there are different versions, the one that explains the others better usually tends to represent the original idea. Futhermore, in the Jewish Bible we find ‘young woman’ and not ‘virgin’.

Christianity associates the idea of Jesus’ virgin birth with that of being without sin and, therefore, with an exemplary life. This, however, does not square at all with what Isaiah later says about Immanuel: “On curds and honey will he feed until he knows how to refuse the bad and choose the good.” And neither does it square with what the parable about the adulterous woman teaches us. The fact that Jesus says: “Let the one among you who is guiltless be the first to throw a stone at her”, and that Jesus does not throw a stone, shows that he also considered himself a sinner (Jn 8:1-8). Furthermore, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, who baptized people after they had confessed their sins (Mk1:4-9).