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The Virgin Birth and the Messiah 21

Only the most ob sti nate and in sin cere in di vid ual would dare deny the clear fact of manu -
script dif fer ences. Of course, the tex tual vari ants just men tioned ap ply only to the Greek manu -
scripts and ig nore the added er ror in tro duced by in cor rect trans la tion from those manu scripts. If
trans la tor mis takes (or bias) are con sid ered, the po ten tial for er ror is dra mat i cally mul ti plied since
even a per fectly au then tic Greek text, as sum ing one even ex ists, can be cor rupted by bi ased trans la -
tion into a dif fer ent lan guage -- Eng lish for in stance. Nev er the less, few Chris tians or coun ter feit
Messianics wish to ac cept the facts, which prove the New Tes ta ment to be im per fect. Most
Constantinian Chris tians and Messianics ab so lutely re fuse to ac cept this un de ni able fact and in so
do ing PROVE them selves to be in sin cere!

Un for tu nately, be cause of an un re al is tic tra di tional in sis tence on the in fal li bil ity of the New
Tes ta ment -- de spite moun tains of schol ar ship that proves oth er wise -- in sin cer ity rules su preme in
tra di tional Chris tian ity re gard ing Isa iah 7:14 and the prob a bly fab ri cated "vir gin birth" ac counts in
the early chap ters of Mat thew and Luke. In those ac counts Isa iah 7:14 is stripped from the con text
in which it re sides and wrongly ap plied, prob a bly by bi ased scribes reach ing for non ex is tent
"proof" of proph ecy for a "vir gin birth" that is more closely aligned with their mys tery Bab y -
lon-based religious be liefs. So, one must be in sin cere and bi ased to ap ply Isa iah 7:14 to the Mes -
siah when read ing Isa iah free from the bias of Mat thew's and Luke's birth ac counts -- par tic u larly
since Mat thew's and Luke's ac counts can NOT be proven to be free of scri bal cor rup tion.

Those that dog gedly main tain "per fec tion" for the New Tes ta ment will uti lize all man ner of
ar gu ments from it to "prove" the vir gin birth. Of course, ALL such ar gu ments are nec es sar ily lim -
ited to ONLY a few pas sages from Mat thew and Luke -- pas sages that would tell a com pletely dif -
fer ent story if only a hand ful of words were dif fer ent. Scri bal cor rup tion would not have had to be
ex ten sive to to tally change the birth ac counts of Mes siah so as to align them with the vir gin birth,
Ro man doc trines of the Bab y lo nian mys tery re li gion sun-god wor ship that was com mon dur ing the
times the gos pels were can on ized. Vir gin birth pro po nents are forced to rely upon the small frag -
ments of verses they cling to from Mat thew and Luke since the Tanakh (Old Tes ta ment) is void of
any proof of the vir gin birth. There are NO Mes si anic proph e cies that even hint at a "vir gin birth"!
In fact, with the ex cep tion of Mat thew's and Luke's al leged ac counts, vir gin birth pro mot ers can not
even find proof any where else in the New Tes ta ment for their be lief! It is no where else men tioned
or even hinted at!

One "proof" ar gu ment uses the al leged fact that Jo seph was go ing to put away (can cel plans
to marry) Mary when he found out she was preg nant. Those us ing this ar gu ment will say this
proves it was not his child and was there fore a "vir gin birth".

The com mon char ac ter is tic of ALL such ar gu ments is the ASSUMPTION that what is re -
corded in a few spe cific verses is ac tu ally the truth and/or was in the orig i nal au to graphed copy of
the text. Ul ti mately, those pre sent ing such "proofs" sim ply re fuse to con sider that the gos pel ac -
counts of the birth of Mes siah may have been cor rupted by chang ing just a few cru cial words. They
ut terly re fuse to con sider that their be lief in the in fal li bil ity of the New Tes ta ment writ ings may be
un wise. They el e vate the New Tes ta ment above the Old Tes ta ment -- de spite the fact that the New
Tes ta ment it self warns them to ALWAYS base truth on the Old! Later we will pres ent one case of
SURE cor rup tion, that be ing the dis crep ancy be tween the re corded ge ne al o gies of Mes siah shown
in Mat thew and Luke.

The Berean Voice