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The Virgin Birth and the Messiah 29

cause what they are ac tu ally dis miss ing is THE pri mary test used for de ter min ing if one is -- or is
not -- the Mes siah!

An other rel e vant is sue of im por tance is the "tim ing" of Yeshua's birth, which re lates to the
clear 70 weeks proph ecy of Dan iel 9:24-27 and the ab so lute ne ces sity of the Mes siah ar riv ing at
that pre cise time in his tory. Mark al ludes to this "tim ing" in Mark 1:15:

15 And say ing, The time is ful filled, and the king dom of God is at hand: re pent ye, and be -
lieve the gos pel (Mark 1:15). The King James Ver sion, (Cam bridge: Cam bridge) 1769.

In terms of Yeshua be ing the Mes siah, Mary's vir gin ity -- in deed the en tire birth ep i sode --
should not be an is sue judged as re demp tive. How ever, it DOES im pact whether or not Yeshua is
the Mes siah. The ONLY cru cial is sue re gard ing his birth is whether or not he was a lit eral de scen -
dant of King Da vid, which the ge ne al o gies from Mat thew and Luke in di cate as be ing the case IF --
and ONLY if -- Jo seph was his fa ther. The fact is, there is NOTHING in Scrip ture that REQUIRES
a mi rac u lous birth of Mes siah -- but there is a LOT of ev i dence that re quires he be LITERALLY of
the seed of Da vid through his fa ther.

As a final argument, ask yourself the following question:

IF the Mes siah was born of a "vir gin" with no earthly fa ther, why is it so rarely men -
tioned in the New Tes ta ment?

IF such an event oc curred, it would have been an un prec e dented mir a cle! Yet, the New Tes -
ta ment au thors vir tu ally never even men tion it! This fact alone makes its ac tual oc cur rence ex -
tremely un likely.

We can not ac cept some thing that is hardly even men tioned, ex cept for a few ques tion able
verses, in the early chap ters of Mat thew and Luke. It would have been a VERY big deal and would
have been of ten men tioned within the pages of the New Tes ta ment. The fact that it was NOT dis -
cussed in ANY of the ex am ples in Acts, for ex am ple, where we read of the preach ing and/or ac cep -
tance of the Gos pel, proves to us that it did not hap pen. Of course, there is also no men tion of it in
any of the epis tles.

Imag ine if this hap pened to day. Would n't such an event be on the front page of ev ery news -
pa per in the world -- and the ma jor topic of most news broad casts? Such was also the case then.

The si lence re gard ing the vir gin birth of Yeshua within the pages of the New Tes ta ment
strongly sug gest it never oc curred and that Yeshua was born just as all other hu man be ings are born
-- AND THIS IN NO WAY DIMINISHES HIS BEING THE MESSIAH! Since his be ing the Mes -
siah is not de pend ant upon a "vir gin birth", he is still very clearly the Mes siah.

The Influence of the Mystery Religions

The un usual im por tance Chris tian lead ers place on Yeshua's birth may be due to the im por -
tance that was placed on the birth of Tammuz, Mithra, and other "god in the flesh" sav iors in the pa -

The Berean Voice