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24 The Virgin Birth and the Messiah

ence He brew Lex i cons to ver ify and clar ify their Eng lish trans la tions of the He brew Scrip tures. So,
like your Eng lish ver sion of the Tanakh (Old Tes ta ment), the Sep tu a gint is a trans la tion from the
orig i nal He brew, and like your Eng lish ver sion, it is NOT per fect. The Sep tu a gint is NOT an orig i -
nal ver sion of Scrip ture! The orig i nal lan guage of the Old Tes ta ment is He brew; there fore, com -
mon sense and hon esty de mands that the He brew be given pre ce dence over the Greek -- just as
com mon sense and hon esty de mands the He brew be given pre ce dence over an Eng lish trans la tion.
How ever, when this is done a pri mary ar gu ment of those pro mot ing a "vir gin birth" is se verely
weak ened; thus, they se lec tively choose the Sep tu a gint for their fi nal ar gu ment.

2. The Sep tu a gint was com pleted in the Hel le nis tic hot bed of Al ex an dria Egypt. Though tra di tion -
ally said to have been trans lated by 70 or 72 Jew ish schol ars at the re quest of Ptol emy II, most
schol ars be lieve that only the Pen ta teuch (To rah, or Gen e sis -- Deu ter on omy) was com pleted in the
early part of the 3rd cen tury B.C.E., and that the re main ing books were trans lated in the next two
cen tu ries. Of course, since the Pro phetic writ ings were not part of the orig i nal and no one re ally
knows who added them (Pro phetic writ ings) to the Sep tu a gint, it is not wise to con sider them in fal -
li ble. Ob vi ously, Isa iah is part of this later ad di tion to the Sep tu a gint. I do feel the Sep tu a gint is an
ex cel lent source for study and even quot ing; how ever, when con flicts arise be tween the Greek of
the Sep tu a gint and the He brew of the more widely ac cepted He brew Scrip tures, pre ce dence should
al ways be given to the He brew.

Be cause of the ques tions sur round ing the or i gins of the Sep tu a gint, it is NOT uni ver sally ac -
cepted. There were sig nif i cant doc trinal and life style dif fer ences be tween Hel le nis tic Jews and the
more tra di tional Jews within the land of Is rael. Hel le nists were heavily in flu enced by Greek cul -
ture; thus, it makes sense that this same pa gan in flu ence may have con trib uted some what to some of
the nu ances of the Sep tu a gint trans la tion.

Chris tian ity, as is of ten the case, pro motes an as sump tion as fact by stat ing that Paul and
other writ ers of the New Tes ta ment -- as well as Yeshua -- uti lized the Sep tu a gint as their pri mary
Scrip ture. Such an as sump tion is not prov able, is un likely, and also has as a foun da tion the as sump -
tion that what we now have is EXACTLY what Paul and the other New Tes ta ment writ ers ac tu ally
wrote. As a Phar i see, it is highly un likely Paul would have used, as his pri mary Scrip ture, a trans la -
tion com posed by Hel le nis tic Jews -- with whom the Phar i sees dif fered greatly. It is like wise un -
likely that Yeshua, or the other writ ers of the New Tes ta ment, used the Sep tu a gint as the fi nal Word.

3. Even if the proper trans la tion of the He brew word is "vir gin", it still does not prove that a lit eral
vir gin was in tended. If one mar ries a vir gin and she con ceives af ter the first act of sex ual un ion, it
can le git i mately be stated that a vir gin con ceived. Of course, AFTER the un ion she would no lon -
ger be a vir gin. The term is in ter preted in the strict est pos si ble sense by Constantinian Chris tians
when, in fact, it should be in ter preted based upon how the orig i nal writer in tended -- which of
course we can not pos si bly know. It could very well have been a young maiden, which is the ren der -
ing from the He brew.

4. Finally, re gard less of whether or not it is ren dered as vir gin or maiden, it still is firmly lodged in
the same con text of Scrip ture; there fore, the con text still de mands the proph ecy be ap plied as
shown, which was as a sign to AHAZ. Ahaz was long dead (about 700 years) be fore Yeshua was
born. As stated ear lier, as sign to a dead man will not do much good.

The Berean Voice