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Fulfilled Prophecy? No, just cut and paste
All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. " – Matthew 1.22-23.
No one in the
New Testament actually calls Jesus "Emmanuel". The prophet who supposedly made this prophecy was
Isaiah, although "Isaiah" is at least three writers, composing material over a period of two hundred years. First or "proto" Isaiah, sometime in the 8th-7th century BC, wrote:
"Therefore the Lord Himself giveth to you a sign, Lo, the Virgin is conceiving, And is bringing forth a son, And hath called his name Immanuel." – Isaiah 7.14. (Young's Literal Translation)
Such a "literal" translation of Isaiah's words still retains a Christian spin. Note, however, that the
present tense is used.
The context for this supposed "messianic prophecy" is a a world away from Herodian or Roman Judea. "The Lord" (through Isaiah) is speaking to
King Ahaz, the ruler in Judah around 734-728 BC.
The young woman in question is probably a wife or concubine of Ahaz himself, present among the courtiers addressed by the prophet. She is pregnant (clearly so, hence the "
Behold!"), and, despite the insistence of Ahaz that he won't "test the Lord", Isaiah is determined to present the woman's imminent birthing as a "sign" from Yahweh. The "sign" is not the miracle of a virgin pregnancy – or even a miracle at all. The "sign" is that the
soon-to-be-born son will quickly learn righteousness, will enjoy the favour of the Lord, and that the House of David will prevail.
A
more accurate rendering of the text would be:
"Therefore Yahweh himself gives you a sign. Look! The young woman who is pregnant will give birth to a son and she should call his name Immanu'El (Yahweh is with us)."
But the "sign" that Isaiah has identified in the pregnant maiden is
incomplete without the verses that follow:
"Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings." – Isaiah 7.15-16.
In other words, before the child eats "butter and honey" and learns to choose good over evil (
surely a choice quite unnecessary for Jesus to learn?) Judah's current enemies will be rendered low. The timeframe is not centuries but very short. The political/military crisis caused by the then occurring assault on Judah from Ephraim (the northern kingdom, Israel) and Damascus (Syria) will – says Isaiah – result in their mutual defeat.
The "prophet" Isaiah is offering reassurance to King Ahaz, given in return for his fidelity to Yahweh.
Clearly, we are not dealing with any Roman province or a messiah to be born some seven hundred years into the future (and of scant consolation to a king facing imminent defeat!). In fact, the "prophecy" pointed towards Ahaz's own son Hezekiah (728-698 BC) and that is the surest guide that the "sign" was actually concocted during the reign of Hezekiah himself.
And as it happens, "Hezekiah" is theophoric name, meaning "Strengthened by Yahweh". For some later rabbis Hezekiah fulfilled the messianic hope; for others that hope would be fulfilled by Hezekiah's return.
*
In reality, Ahaz did not solely "trust in Yahweh" – he appealed to
Assyria and its ruler Tiglath-Pileser, who in 732 BC reduced Judah's enemies, Damascus and Israel. As a result of this "alliance" with a superpower, and to the chagrin of Yahweh's "prophets" like Isaiah, Assyrian gods were introduced into Jerusalem and Judah effectively became a vassal to Assyria.
When Hezekiah inherited the throne a few years later it was at the height of
Assyrian expansionism. The early years of his reign witnessed a rebellion by the northern kingdom under Hoshea, which provoked the wrath first of Shalmaneser V and then of his successor Sargon II. As a result, the northern kingdom, based on Samaria, was destroyed in 721 BC and much of its population ("the lost ten tribes") deported.
Though in vassalage to Assyria, Judah gained emigre priests from the north, whose presence at the royal court strengthened the hand of the Yahwehists and prompted religious "reform" and notions of resistance. And indeed, following Sargon's early death, and in collusion with Egypt, Hezekiah found the courage to rebel, and launched attacks against neighbouring Assyrian allies. At this juncture,
propaganda highlighting the king's "favour in the eyes of the Lord" became apposite to Judah's very survival and "Isaiah" got to work.
Like all "prophecy"
Isaiah's words were written for a contemporary purpose but were dressed in the clothes of a similar, earlier conflict, in this case one
thirty years earlier involving Hezekiah's own father. It assuredly had nothing at all to do with the birth of a godman
far into the future, in the time of Herod. Also, like all "prophecy" it was worthless. Four years into Hezekiah's rebellion, the Assyrian war machine rolled over Judah, destroying Ashkelon, Joppa, Lachish and trapping the Jewish king "like a bird in a cage". To survive at all, Hezekiah had to forfeit his entire treasury and "
strip the gold from the doors of the temple" (2 Kings 18.16). The humiliated king died within three years and both his son Manasseh and grandson Amon ruled as Assyrian vassals.
"With the acknowledgement of Assyrian overlordship, and the attendant recognition of Assyria's gods, the theological foundations of the monarchy – Yahweh's eternal choice of Zion and David – were thrown into question."
– J. Bright, Peakes Commentary, p489.
Quite simply, the "prophecy of a virgin birth fulfilled in Jesus", although repeated a million-fold in every nation that ever succumbed to the psychosis of Christianity, is pious rubbish from beginning to end.