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Were there two virgin births?

A Second Fulfillment of the Same Prophesy is an Unbiblical Impossibility

Within Isaiah 7, verse 14 lies a miraculous story filled with drama, pathos, humor, intelligence, or lack of it, fantasy, fact and plain stupidity. It is not less than the sign of the entire Christian delusion, ignorance and speculative thought about that what they have never experienced. Christians have an unsatisfied wish to meet “God” and they have no reason to conceal their wish. But every single interpretation they make of the Bible’s text is the fulfillment of a fantasy, a product of imaginative activity, which they bring to the Bible from the unsatisfying reality of not being the “Chosen People” so that they may find a place in God’s Kingdom.

It is evident that the child born in Isaiah 7:14 is not referring to Jesus or to any future virgin birth. Rather, it is referring to the divine protection that Ahaz and his people would enjoy from their impending destruction at the hands of these two enemies, the northern Kingdom of Israel and Syria.

“Behold the young woman is with child, and she shall bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel. Cream and honey he shall eat when he knows to reject bad and choose good; for, when the lad does not yet know to reject bad and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread shall be abandoned."

These verses (15-16) state that by the time this child reaches the age of maturity ("he knows to reject bad and choose good"), the two warring kings, Pekah and Rezin, will have been removed. This prophecy was fulfilled in 2 Kings 15 – 16, when these two kings were suddenly assassinated.

When Christian fundamentalists are confronted with the problem of seeing Isaiah 7:14 outside context, they often argue that Isaiah's words to Ahaz had two different applications. There really is a dual prophesy and the first application must have been addressed to Ahaz and his immediate crisis. A child was born contemporaneously and the first leg of Isaiah’s vision was fulfilled at the time of Ahaz, 2,700 years ago.

The second leg applied to Jesus' virgin birth. In short, Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled twice: once in 732 B.C.E., and a second time in the year 1 C.E. The troubles created by this explanation are manifold. To begin with, the proposal of dual prophecy, as Rabbi Tovia Singer said, is “entirely contrived and has no basis in the Bible.” Indeed, nowhere in the seventh chapter of Isaiah does the text even hint of a second fulfillment. The notion of a dual prophecy is thoroughly unbiblical and was fashioned in order to explain away a stunning theological problem.”

Ponder These for a While

If the word ha'almah means a "virgin," and Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled twice, who was the first virgin to conceive in Ahaz's time?

If the virgin birth of Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled twice, who then was the first virgin having a baby boy in 732 B.C.E.?

Was Mary not the first and only virgin to conceive and give birth to a child?

If the seventh chapter of Isaiah is a dual prophecy, how does Isaiah 7:15-16 apply to Jesus when these verses continue to speak of this lad?

Remember, Isaiah 7:14-16 reads, “Therefore the Lord, of His own, shall give you a sign, "Behold the young woman is with child, and she shall bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel. Cream and honey he shall eat when he knows to reject bad and choose good; for, when the lad does not yet know to reject bad and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread, shall be abandoned."

If Isaiah's words are the substance of a dual prophecy, at what age did the baby Jesus mature?

Which were the two kingdoms during Jesus' lifetime that were abandoned?

Who dreaded the Kingdom of Israel during the first century when there had not been a Kingdom of Israel in existence since the seventh century B.C.E.?

When did Jesus eat cream and honey?

Does any of this make any sense?

When specific literary contexts are abandoned as a control, then almost any interpretation can be legitimated. The funny thing is that Isaiah really prophesized the coming of the Messiah, who Matthew is personifying in Jesus. But not in Chapter 7, v. 14.

Tags: Bible, Christianity, Isaiah, Jesus, Kingdom, Virgin

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Comment by Kernel John on October 16, 2010 at 11:31pm: Geez Claudia, you've definitely been hanging out with the likes of Roman and Jeff H for far too long. I've personally found your last two blog entries most interesting and provocative. Thank you. Keep 'em coming.

I liked your earlier linkages to Iron Age, beginning of the historical period and references to Greek mythology. I know little of your frame of reference but from mine, these things are intriguing. Where did Greek mythology originate? I know. It's been lost.

In your next installment you again fix on the miraculous story of virgin birth.

Why do Muslims hold Mary in such high esteem? Might they comprehend things that us & others don't understand? If the soul we call Jesus was as divine as we think he was . . . then think for a second how divine the vehicle of his birth must have been. Could Mary have been less divine and have produced such a pure soul. The historical period (ATF - After the Flood) does not seem to be known for its purity and peace. This was not paradise that was being documented. Yet there emerged twin souls - one to bare and one to postulate - in purity and divine wisdom. To call this as anything less than a well documented miracle would be a mistake. Of course there are others who claimed to have had divine birth but few so late into the historical period as this one.

We are all channels to the Divine One. Over time however our ability to detect the signal gets obscured by our attraction with matter. We become embedded and then we can hardly think . . . unless your name is ... never mind.

Weaker and weaker the divine signal becomes. We think it is the signal and not us who is loosing strength. Then, during what is known as the Axial Age (about half way through the cycle of time), a series of avatars emerge (or are they sent) to redirect our attention to back Divinity. This knowledge is contained in the image of the previously described Kalpa Tree. What needs to be known is that when we return to (our) the point of origin, souls a re organized or grouped according to a discernible pattern. We are all number-wise. No thing is left to chance.

Each soul is unique, indivisible and eternal. . . and also - number-wise.

Claudia, your entries are quite stimulating. I wish to only share - not disrupt your contributions to this place.
I look forward to your next entry. Thanks.

- john

Comment by Roman Kozlowski on October 17, 2010 at 9:39am: Claudia. A most eloquently forwarded argument. I tend to side with the rabbinical notion of NT writers later filling in the gaps to bolster the appearance of prophetic fulfillment. I'm no tokhis-leker as far as bobbemyseh goes, but you must admit, the gonif NT writers certainly did a good job of filling in the gaps to their own ends to establish Christianity which for two thousand years has gone on to successfully dominate most of the political world structures and in keeping the sheeple masses in place.

Comment by doug on October 18, 2010 at 5:46pm: a few comments...Jesus ate butter & honey (rather than milk & honey), symbolically, since milk must be churned to become butter (see Ps 30.33)...Jesus "worked" God's word in his life...milk is for the immature, though we do not know at what age Jesus matured. Many things spoken of in the OT were a shadow of things to come which Jesus would fulfill (some he already has, and some are yet future).

As for Mary needing to be divine...not so, since Jesus's blood was not at all from Mary. Medically/scientifically it has been shown that a mother's blood never touches her child...and the life is in the blood. Jesus's blood came purely through his father, as it is for any child. The child is a foreign "body" in the mother's womb, and it has been biochemically set up that antibodies do not kill the child as it develops in the womb. God created the birth and development process rather spectacularly.

Where are we told that a virgin gave birth in 732 BCE? and where are we told that is the child during Ahaz' time? It does make sense that Rabbi's, at any time, would be certain to deny the possibility of Jesus fulfilling any OT prophesy, though they have a difficult time with Is 53, and assiduously avoid it.

Comment by Jeff H on November 5, 2010 at 4:15pm: "Many things spoken of in the OT were a shadow of things to come which Jesus would fulfill (some he already has, and some are yet future)."

Yep...