Jesus’ birth stories are by far the most popular segments of his life. In our country, the whole of December is, in a way, a preparation for Christmas – an annual festival commemorating his birth. Despite the fact that Christmas isn’t the biggest Christian festival, most people find it especially important. As I’ve written before, Matthew and Luke are the only Gospels mentioning Jesus’ birth. Their infancy narratives are the ground for countless theological and historical studies. In this post, I would like to draw attention to Matthew’s account: the virgin birth! It is still a widely held belief among Christians. A Pew Research Center poll from 2014 found that nearly three in four Americans think the Virgin Birth is historically accurate. Among evangelicals, the figure is even higher: 96 percent.

According to Matthew who wrote his narrative c. 50 years after Jesus’ death, the following events preceded the birth of Jesus:

While his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before she moved into his house, she was found to be pregnant by a holy spirit. Her husband Joseph was a righteous man, but did not want to expose her publicly; so, he planned to break off their betrothal quietly. While he was thinking about these things, a messenger of the Lord surprised him in a dream with these words: ‘Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to take Mary as your wife, since a holy spirit is responsible for her pregnancy.

She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. All this happened in order to fulfill the prediction of the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, a ‘virgin’ (ἡ παρθένος) will conceive a child and she will give birth to a son, and they will name him Emmanuel. (Mt 1, 1-23)

As he does in the rest of his Gospel, Matthew understands Jesus’ life in a framework of the Old Testament prophecies. On various different occasions, he will emphasize that something happened in Jesus’ life because it was predicted as such in the Old Testament. Particularly strong is his parallelism between Jesus and Moses (see: here). Regarding Jesus’ birth, Matthew explains it through the quotation of Isaiah 7, 14. According to his own perspective, Isaiah anticipated the virgin birth of the future Messiah that would establish God’s rule on Earth. However, if we examine the meaning of Isaiah 7 in its historical context, we will see that his prophecy is about the events within its own immediate future. The prophecy has nothing to do with a virginal conception or the coming of the Messiah. Centuries later, Matthew reinterprets this prophecy in accordance with his own time and his own beliefs about Jesus’ identity. In other words, Matthew rips out Isaiah 7 from its context and places it within the framework of 1st-century Christianity.

Isaiah 7: The Importance of the Historical Context

As an old saying goes: Any Text Without A Context is a Pretext for a Prooftext. But as a historian, I have to let Isaiah speak for himself. And the context is relatively clear. The year is 735 BCE. Danger loomed over the territory of Palestine. The powerful Assyrian empire is looking to conquer three smaller nations: Syria, Israel, and Judah. King Rezin of Syria and King Pekah of the northern kingdom of Israel entered into a military agreement to fight against the Assyrians. However, they need help. To be more precise, they need the southern kingdom of Judah (ruled by the house of David) on their side. To their disappointment, Ahaz (the king of Judah) concluded that it would be better not to get involved. After Pekah and Rezin sent their armies to depose Ahaz, he decided that it would be a good thing to make a covenant with the powerful Assyrians. But the prophet Isaiah who resided in the kingdom of Judah was opposed to any covenant with Assyria because it would obligate Israel to worship the Assyrian gods which would be a terrible transgression since Israel already has a covenant with Yahweh. So, Isaiah reassures Ahaz that Yahweh will be on his side. When Ahaz refuses to change his mind, Isaiah tells him that God will give him a sign that he is on his side:

Look, the young woman is (or will be soon) pregnant and will give birth to a son, and will name him Immanuel…For 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 (Isaiah 7, 14-16)

The Hebrew text of Isa 7,14 refers simply to “the young woman” (almah). There is a Hebrew word for “virgin”. It’s betulah. But, Isaiah only speaks here about the young women. A famous Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called Septuagint translated the Hebrew almah with the Greek word parthenos (παρθένος) which also means “young woman”, but can also mean “virgin”. Interestingly enough, other Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible uses to common word for girl: νεᾶνις. Matthew used the Septuagint version and therefore conveniently concluded that Isaiah speaks about the virgin. Even if we take παρθένος, Isa 7,14 – understood in its original context without the Christian theological frameworks that were read into this passage centuries after it was written – means only that a woman who is now a virgin will become pregnant. There is no miracle implied in it. After all, every woman who gets pregnant was once a virgin.

Conclusion: Burning Books?

I believe that Matthew (and consequently later Christian authors) misunderstood Isa 7,14 because he interpreted this passage from the perspective of the post-Eastern Church within the strong framework of Jesus’ Messianic identity and resurrection. In 1952. the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible translated a disputed passage with “young woman” many Christians in the USA were surprised and even dissatisfied. Some fundamentalists were so upset that they sponsored public burnings of the RSV. Luther Hux was a pastor in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. He was among those who were not quite satisfied with RSV. To be precise, Hux delivered a two-hour sermon The National Council Bible, the Master Stroke of Satan – One of the Devil’s Greatest Hoaxes on November 30, 1952. After ending the sermon, he led the congregation out of the church, gave each worshiper a small American flag, and proceeded to burn the pages containing Isaiah 7, 14. Later, he justified his actions by noting that he didn’t burn the Bible per se, but only the Satanicly – motivated passage from Isaiah 7,14. History is indeed full of irony. A religion that started off as a persecuted minority in danger of losing its “Bible” because of the Roman persecutors who would burn it, many centuries later became a religion of intra-conflicts where different Christians would even burn certain portions of their own Bible because of dissatisfaction with the translations. The New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (NRSV-CE) is a Bible translation approved for use by the Catholic Church, receiving the imprimatur of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1991. It still uses “virgin” in Isa 7,14 because bishops disregarded the voices of Catholic scholars who understood the importance of the historical context and careful analysis of the text.

P.S. Did Matthew believe in the virgin birth

There are modern tendencies among certain theologians to argue that Matthew never imagined a virgin birth as a historical fact. In their opinion, the original intent was more of a metaphorical (symbolic) nature. In other words, they assert that Matthew imagined the virgin birth as a metaphor for conveying a deeper theological message. However, I don’t think that could work. A careful analysis of Matthew’s text as well as the reception of Matthew’s account among the early Christians implies the literal understanding of the “virgin birth” story. But, that’s a topic for another time…