Wrong again.
I responded with facts. The fact is that the word used in the Hebrew bible -- almah -- has the meaning of young woman or maiden and not specifically virgin. Not only that but there were instances in the Hebrew bible that a different word, bethulah, was used that DOES mean virgin but that word was not used by Isaiah. The fact that the writer of Matthew mistranslated it for his own ends does not need any elaboration or have anything to do with translations into English. Matthew not only translated the word incorrectly, he ripped it out of context which leads to the 'duel prophecy' line of bullshit apologists have invented.
Regarding your assertion that Matthew was quoting from the
Septuagint, nowhere in the Book of Matthew does the word
Septuagint appear, or, for that matter, is there any reference to a Greek translation of the Bible ever mentioned in all of the New Testament; and there is good reason for this. The first century church was well aware that a Jewish audience would be thoroughly unimpressed by a claim that Jesus' virgin birth could only be supported by a Greek translation of the Bible. They understood that if Jews were to find their Christian message convincing, they would need to assert that it was the actual words of the prophet Isaiah that clearly foretold Mary's virgin conception, not from the words of a Greek translation. Therefore, in Matthew 1:22-23, the author of the first Gospel insists that it was "spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 'Behold, a virgin shall be with child . . . .' " Matthew loudly makes the point that it was specifically the prophet's own words that proclaimed the virgin birth, not the words of any translator.
Isaiah, of course, did not preach or write in Greek, and therefore the word
parthenos never left the lips of the prophet throughout his life. All 66 chapters of the Book of Isaiah were spoken and then recorded in the Hebrew language alone. Matthew, however, was attempting to place in the mind of his intended Jewish reader that it was the words of prophet Isaiah himself which declared that the messiah would be born of a virgin. Nothing of course could be further from the truth.
Furthermore, this contention becomes even more preposterous when we consider that the same missionaries who attempt to explain away Matthew's mistranslation of the Hebrew word
alma by claiming that Matthew used a
Septuagint when he quoted Isaiah 7:14 also steadfastly maintain that the entire first Gospel was divinely inspired. That is to say, these same Christian missionaries insist that every word of the New Testament, Matthew included, was authored through the Holy Spirit and is therefore the living word of God. Are these evangelical apologists therefore claiming that God needed a Greek translation of the Bible and therefore quoted from the
Septuagint? Did the passing of 500 years since His last book cause God to forget how to read Hebrew that He would need to rely on a translation? Why would God need to quote from the
Septuagint?
Matthew's mistranslation of the Hebrew word
alma was deliberate, not the result of his unwitting decision to quote from a defective Greek translation of the Bible. This is evidenced by the fact that the context of Isaiah 7:14 is not speaking of the birth of a messiah at all.
5 This fact remains obvious even to the most casual reader of the seventh chapter of Isaiah.
