IN DEFENSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH
And all this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means "God is with us." Matthew 1:22-23 (NAB) In the biblical passage above, Saint Matthew is quoting from the Old Testament Book of the prophet Isaiah. It is a quote from the "sign" Isaiah gave to King Ahaz in Isaiah 7:14 . The Greek Septuagint translation used during Jesus' lifetime translates the Hebrew word ha almah as "the virgin," using the Greek word parthenos. Since the Christian era, Jewish scholars have maintained that the Hebrew word almah does not mean "virgin" but instead refers to a young woman recently married. The Septuagint translation of this Hebrew word as "virgin," however, is an important witness to an early Jewish interpretation of this word as "virgin", a translation accepted by Saint Matthew and applied to the ...