Is there Evidence in the Gospels that the Virgin Birth was a Cover-Up for... Something Else?

originally posted by: imjack
That's just pure wrong, from a facts standpoint. Again, not that your conclusion is wrong, but to suggest there is no potential evidence is mind blowing.

Whats even MORE mind blowing is that there are still people who take Zeitgeist seriously.

Again, those claims are rarely backed up with evidence simply because the evidence is laughable.

All you've done is confirmed this by citing Zeitgeist.

The film is theosophy based religious propaganda, which is also the basis for the NWO's religion.

There are many good people buying into the Zeitgeist movement. I was one of them. I now realize that the NWO does not oppose it's enemies, but infiltrates them & corrupts them. This is what is happening here, either with the cooperation of Fresco & Joseph or with them being used as 'useful idiots' of the NWO. I don't believe either Joseph or Fresco are idiots. Liberty is the answer to tyranny. Not a better system of tyranny. Love to all people.

I am against governments & statism but by advocating Global Resource Management & a technocracy to oversee it, you are describing world fascism. What if me & my people don't need or want Global resource Management? Will you say that you know better than we do? Will we be? 'allowed' to exist outside of this framework? As long as we are, I wish the Zeitgeist movement well & if it so good, we will ask to join at a later stage as will all peoples. But if you wish to enforce it upon humanity, you are the same as the NWO.

The true face of Zeitgeist

The philosophy behind the Zeitgeist movement comes directly from the writings of H. P. Blavatsky

Blavatsky worshiped Satan, which exposes the REAL agenda behind the movement...


Zeitgeist was created to distort reality and lead people AWAY from the Truth.

"The philosophy behind the Zeitgeist movement comes from the writings of H. P. Blavatsky who declared that Lucifer / Satan is the God of this world & the one whom she worshiped."

"...the TARGET of the film is Christianity. This is what they are after. To usher in the NWO they have to discredit and get rid of Christianity in order for them to succeed. They are very subtle in the way they work now. They are very slick in mixing truth with fact, as the Father of Lies always has done.

Joe Schimmel's article is one of the best written about Zeitgeist:

"Zeitgeist presents a long debunked theory that claims early Christians created a “Christ myth” that is loosely based on an alleged amalgamation of ideas that were borrowed from various pagan religions. However, serious scholars, long ago, refuted the ideas promulgated in Zeitgeist. To its own detriment, Zeitgeist quotes plenty of biased occult sources and very few, if any, primary sources.

"the worst thing about the movie is that it mixes some truth with much “that is plainly and simply Bogus.” "In watching Zeitgeist, I personally had a hard time believing so many lies could be crammed into one film."

"The most disturbing thing about this film is that Zeitgeist falsely claims that Jesus is mere ‘myth’ and not the Savior of the world. However, these claims clearly go against historical evidence to the contrary. Serious scholars and historians no longer question Jesus’ existence. "

"Overall, Zeitgeist repeatedly relies on the views of Satanists and famous occultists like Madame Helena Blavatsky and Manly P. Hall. Many historians document that Blavatsky’s occult teachings inspired the occult worldview of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi movement. One of the astonishing ironies about the Zeitgeist movement is that it came under the guise of exposing pagan beliefs and globalism only to end up leading people away from the truth of God’s word and into the occult and The New World Order!" Source

Richard Evans also wrote a good story on it here as well.

originally posted by: Murgatroid

originally posted by: imjack
That's just pure wrong, from a facts standpoint. Again, not that your conclusion is wrong, but to suggest there is no potential evidence is mind blowing.

Whats even MORE mind blowing is that there are still people who take Zeitgeist seriously.

Again, those claims are rarely backed up with evidence simply because the evidence is laughable.

All you've done is confirmed this by citing Zeitgeist.

The film is theosophy based religious propaganda, which is also the basis for the NWO's religion.

There are many good people buying into the Zeitgeist movement. I was one of them. I now realize that the NWO does not oppose it's enemies, but infiltrates them & corrupts them. This is what is happening here, either with the cooperation of Fresco & Joseph or with them being used as 'useful idiots' of the NWO. I don't believe either Joseph or Fresco are idiots. Liberty is the answer to tyranny. Not a better system of tyranny. Love to all people.

I am against governments & statism but by advocating Global Resource Management & a technocracy to oversee it, you are describing world fascism. What if me & my people don't need or want Global resource Management? Will you say that you know better than we do? Will we be? 'allowed' to exist outside of this framework? As long as we are, I wish the Zeitgeist movement well & if it so good, we will ask to join at a later stage as will all peoples. But if you wish to enforce it upon humanity, you are the same as the NWO.

The true face of Zeitgeist

The philosophy behind the Zeitgeist movement comes directly from the writings of H. P. Blavatsky

Blavatsky worshiped Satan, which exposes the REAL agenda behind the movement...

Zeitgeist was created to distort reality and lead people AWAY from the Truth.

"The philosophy behind the Zeitgeist movement comes from the writings of H. P. Blavatsky who declared that Lucifer / Satan is the God of this world & the one whom she worshiped."

"...the TARGET of the film is Christianity. This is what they are after. To usher in the NWO they have to discredit and get rid of Christianity in order for them to succeed. They are very subtle in the way they work now. They are very slick in mixing truth with fact, as the Father of Lies always has done.

Joe Schimmel's article is one of the best written about Zeitgeist:

"Zeitgeist presents a long debunked theory that claims early Christians created a “Christ myth” that is loosely based on an alleged amalgamation of ideas that were borrowed from various pagan religions. However, serious scholars, long ago, refuted the ideas promulgated in Zeitgeist. To its own detriment, Zeitgeist quotes plenty of biased occult sources and very few, if any, primary sources.

"the worst thing about the movie is that it mixes some truth with much “that is plainly and simply Bogus.” "In watching Zeitgeist, I personally had a hard time believing so many lies could be crammed into one film."

"The most disturbing thing about this film is that Zeitgeist falsely claims that Jesus is mere ‘myth’ and not the Savior of the world. However, these claims clearly go against historical evidence to the contrary. Serious scholars and historians no longer question Jesus’ existence. "

"Overall, Zeitgeist repeatedly relies on the views of Satanists and famous occultists like Madame Helena Blavatsky and Manly P. Hall. Many historians document that Blavatsky’s occult teachings inspired the occult worldview of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi movement. One of the astonishing ironies about the Zeitgeist movement is that it came under the guise of exposing pagan beliefs and globalism only to end up leading people away from the truth of God’s word and into the occult and The New World Order!" Source

Richard Evans also wrote a good story on it here as well.

Your reply is just too directed at something I'm not representing. I was speaking more out against ignorance, and less 'for' Zeitgeist.

I believe in Nontrinitarianism, but I'm not Gnostic. And that generally, maybe one day, the Human race can work together.

I have plenty of issues with Zeitgeist, my point however is not considering if they are right, it's that you shouldn't blatantly act like they don't exist, when they do. You can go back and fourth all day over if it was literal, providing Jesus bones, verses if it was non-literal and you had a first-hand account from the author.

But if you can't see proof in pudding, there's no saving your soul. Connecting with humanity is a pretty critical part of being human. You don't have to believe suggestions provide, but acknowledging them as decent ideas, because they are, is what would make you more than a heathen, rather than blindly following indoctrination.

It WAS the most popular video on the internet for 4 years, how does this not qualify as belief and evidence that it's possibly true? You have to honor the fact people that respect Jesus, but don't believe in him, give you the EXACT same benefit of the doubt when discussing spirituality.

Ex: "That WOULD be something Jesus would/wouldn't do!"

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: Sigismundus

Mary is Isis. She got Horus(Jesus) after Osiris dead. So it is indeed an invitro story. Poor Joseph only got invented because a woman shouldn't have a child without a father, in the christian world. But her sperm giver lived in the Osiris belt... Even the cross is from egyptian mythology.

There are at least 7 other examples of the exact same thing (birth of) in other cultures; God incarnates on earth. This would never happen as the Absolute is perfect and does not need to experience or describe itself as a human.

Please see my response in Yahew = Satan earlier. I don't wish to scare anybody only just to let them see there is a way home if you want it.

a reply to: JohnthePhilistineWowthat was quick-witted-went over my head at first-impressed.

originally posted by: imjack
It WAS the most popular video on the internet for 4 years, how does this not qualify as belief and evidence that it's possibly true?

That answer lies in my previous post...

If anything, it only confirms what I've already said.

originally posted by: imjack
I believe in Nontrinitarianism...

Most attacks against the Trinity are by cults and false religions, that says a lot to me.

I prefer to believe the opposite of what the propaganda says...

The anti-Trinity heresy was also officially condemned by the church in the fourth century.

Below links go into more detail:

www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

We are looking at names and clues and him coming like a thief in the night. I'm seriously not crazy and all the don't listen will feel very cheated.

a reply to: Sigismundus

The idea that Miryam ('Mary') of Galilee not being a virgin (Heb. Bethulah) at the time of the conception of 'Jesus' may account for the fact that in the genealogy of the 1st council approved Greek Gospel ('according to Matthew' whoever he was) is mainly composed of males but mysteriously also names four women -- all of whom were either 'whores' or who had some sexual immorality attached to them (Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, Bathsheba) with Mary the fifth in the list - which is stated (once you examine the text's preponderance for 'fives' in 'Matthew') almost emphatically...

I am having trouble parsing this paragraph, I am not sure what you are saying here. Your phrase "in the genealogy of the 1st council" doesn't scan somehow. A council doesn't have a geneology, families and individuals have geneologies. I will guess that you mean 'the membership of the 1st council' and go from there. And by 1st Council, I assume you refer to the Apostolic Council described in Acts.

Now I am not familiar with the membership of that Apostolic Council myself, other than the obvious major players, (Paul, Barnabus, Jesus brother James, etc) but I think you are asserting that there were four women attending, which would not be surprising since women had much larger roles in the early church than the modern church gives credit for. Notice also that this 'de-emphasis' the Church laid on the women of the early church was specifically an attempt to lessen the threat of Mary (Mother of God) worship.

Furthermore, you assert that the the women listed were all 'whores' or who at least had some sexual scandal or other associated with them. Note again that the modern church, in its efforts to suppress the role of women falsely placed scandal on the women of the early church in order to render their stories powerless. Never-the-less, there is also the possibility that the 'sexual scandal' that the church has charged these women with was that they may have served as 'Temple Prostitutes' in a Caananite temple before their conversion to Judaism. The Jewish law goes to a lot of trouble to besmirch its pagan religion competitors and spends a lot of time demonizing Temple Prostitutes both male and female (and ordinary prostitutes too, of course) - but it is worth noting that Temple Prostitutes were not disliked because they had sex for money, or were 'loose women' (they were in fact holy Priestesses and Priests), but because they were Pagans and the sexual rituals they performed were part of the sacred Pagan rituals and were therefore unclean.

It is curious that Temple Prostitutes (male and female, remember) and tax collectors were almost equally hated by the Hebrews of the day, yet Jesus choice of a Tax Collector as a disciple goes relatively unremarked compared to the attacks on Mary Magdalene.

Now as to the reference to Mary - Maryam - an extremely common name in Judah and Israel at the time - how many Marys were there at Jesus Tomb when it was discovered to be empty? Does the document you are studying specifically say 'Mary, Mother of Christ'? And is the document saying that the attending Mary had some sexual scandal associated with her? The reason I ask is that some authors allege that Mary Magdalene was indeed a Temple Prostitute in the major center for the Caananite religion before Jesus chose her as a disciple.

Finally, there is the question of what was meant by the word 'virgin' at the turn of the era? Did it really mean a person who had never engaged in sexual relations as it does today? Some authors dispute this - as do you - and indeed anyone who can read Hebrew would deny it altogether as ludicrous. The Hebrew word translated as 'virgin' (almah עַלְמָה ) actually means 'young woman' and has nothing to do with sexual purity at all.

Read here the analysis by Rabbi Tovia Singer.

In the same way that in the English language the words “young woman” does not indicate sexual purity, in the Hebrew language there is no relationship between the words almah and virgin. On the contrary, it is usually a young woman who bears children. The word alma only conveys age/gender. Had Isaiah wished to speak about a virgin, he would have used the word betulah (בְּתוּלָה) not almah. The word betulah appears frequently in the Jewish Scriptures, and is the only word – in both biblical and modern Hebrew – that conveys sexual purity. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the masculine form of the noun עַלְמָה (alma) is עֶלֶם (elem), which means a “young man,” not a male virgin. This word appears twice in the Jewish Scriptures (I Samuel 17:56, 20:22). As expected, without exception, all Christian Bibles correctly translate עֶלֶם as a “young man,” “lad,” or “stripling,” never “virgin.” Why does theKing James Version of the Bible translate the masculine Hebrew noun לָעֶלֶם (la’elem) as “to the young man” in I Samuel 20:22, and yet the feminine form of the same Hebrew noun הָעַלְמָה as “a virgin” in Isaiah 7:14? The answer is Christian Bibles had no need to mistranslate I Samuel 20:22 because this verse was not misquoted in the New Testament.

So your question about whether or not Mary was raped is another question, was the virgin birth invented to cover up a rape? I would argue that that is just not necessary either. I think your central question is this:

At any rate, there is an air of sexual immorality surrounding the birth of 'the Messiah' in the gospels... the net result being that... what we have is a person who was considered by some in his own day as a 'mamzer' in Hebrew ('one who is born of illicit union') in other words a 'bastard.'

I would argue that perhaps there is a bit more nuance than that. Some authors describe the Jewish betrothal customs at the time were 'interesting' to say the least.

(I've lost my reference here, I'm winging it from recollection now). Barbara Thiering (not necessarily an academically accepted author) describes Hebrew Aristocratic marriages as involving a rather long betrothal period during which the spouses live together, even sleep together, but are expected to not engage in sexual relations until after the actual marriage ritual. They are considered 'husband and wife' during this period, but are supposed to remain chaste. Imagine the temptations for healthy hormonal almahs and elims! Thiering's theory is that that is exactly what happened - Mary and Joseph gave in to normal human temptation.

So Jesus, if we can accept Thiering's description of this marriage custom, wouldn't exactly be a bastard, but there would have been a communal stigma attached to him. Never-the-less, the description in the New Testament is not inaccurate, nor is it stigmatized - it is merely journalistic: Jesus was born to a young woman (not a virgin!), her husband was Joseph.

a reply to: Murgatroid

A majority belief based on physical proof, is and functions, substantially different than a belief based on logic.

In the case of Jesus, Christians pick the more difficult method as their main basis for defending his (physical)existence.

It would just be a joy, if they did both, is all I'm saying. Logically most people assume(as the majority) the Earth is Round, please don't tell me you disagree with that, because of merely the majority believing it means it's wrong. The majority of the world believes in Jesus for example too. If you're still following me; essentially not believing in Jesus at that point, is a substantially more profound thought than considering that world flat, something that can instantly be disproved.


Surely there would be a logical reason for his existence and not just substantiated facts he was here.

If Religion ends without a Messiah returning, it would be the biggest let down in all of history, and it's literally meant to be a sign of the End of Times. I still feel people REALLY want to see it happen. Just a LOL thought there.

The issue is the raw amount of irony. Unopen minded Christians only make it worse; and it's extremely difficult to call someone who believes in the traits of Jesus as not being open minded, when they basically believe in a Super Hero who only commits acts of passion and dedicate their lives to imitating it.

It's kind of like knowing a girl, that you like, but she's already in an abusive relationship, and she has no intentions in being with you or ever breaking up. At some point, you just feel the shame wash over, and let her go, and admit, it's her fault and there's nothing you can do. In Reality? She could have probably had a little more of the best of both worlds.

Nontrinitarianism also has no specific definition, and can actually be a couple options. Mine specifically is the idea that an all-powerful creator does exist, and Jesus, real or not, is an insignificant detail compared to the fact, that the first part, is a fact. I still literally believe in the 'elements' of the trinity. After all, every rumor has some truth.

Lastly, I attacked you bro? My comment was give the most logical theories that don't involve Jesus(As God) a chance. AND I would say the opposite to the other side- can a 2,000 year old story really exist if it's only lies? My stance seems obvious to me, while you don't seem to mirror that in your responses. FORGIVE me for being a skeptic on the conspiracy website.

a reply to: Sigismundus

The virgin part involving Mary, «Mother of God», I interpret (with support in the apocrypha) as Mary being brought up as a Temple Virgin. An «occupation» not unlike the tradition with «Altair Boys» of the Catholic Church. According to an apocryphon, and Christian tradition, «Mother Mary» was such a Temple Virgin in her early years, until around the time she would have her first period when she was given away to mariage with an old guy named Joseph (whom I believe was really the ageing Caesarion, only son of Julius Caesar and Cleopathra Ptolomy, but that's an entirely different story altogether).

Once a Temple Virgin, always a Temple Virgin, it has nothing to do with her (lack of—) sexual maturity, it was her occupation as part of her upbringing. Her parents came from England, where they owned tin and lead mines and were extremely wealthy and noble people belonging to the House of David, but at some point they moved to Judea (today's «Israel» or just about). I don't have my library within reach these days, but in a week or so I'm back home and I promise to try and remember to dig up and share the resources involved. As far as I remember, this is written in a rare apocryphon named after Mary, possibly a nativity gospel of some sort. Carry on.

S/F for great thread btw. You always seem to produce great research and good stuff, Sigismundus

a reply to: Sigismundus

Text At any rate, there is an air of sexual immorality surrounding the birth of 'the Messiah' in the gospels - especially when you perform what is known as a 'close reading' of the text...something that persons that style themselves as 'Christians' rarely do, it seems..

An immaculate conception is not necessarily a virgin birth.
Suppose your inferences are correct and Miryam was in doubt as being a virgin as Jesus was conceived. Would that negate Jesus' deity? To this day no one has the original autographs to state that she was an Almah or the questioned Bethulah and even if we did have the autographs where is the testimony of examination to prove such a theological fact? Is this all conjecture? Other events of females in your thread has nothing to do with the deity of Miryam nor of her Son Jesus.

If Miryam was indeed wayward in any sense, or raped as many believe, would that negate her ancestral rights? No it would not. She would still be counted as in the Davidic covenant would she not? If Miryam was not a virgin could she still have have had an immaculate conception? In theology the answer would be yes she could.

So..what is the author of 'John' trying to tell us?

John is telling us that --------------------

John 1:1-4
(1) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
(2) The same was in the beginning with God.
(3) All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
(4) In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

John 1:14
(14) And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

According to the Apostle John, Jesus preexisted and did have an immaculate conception regardless of his Mother's physicality.

a reply to: Sigismundus

I can tell you have done your research on this topic. If I were more inclined to think of the Bible as a collection of stories and myths (with some poetry thrown in there for good measure) maybe I would be in agreement with your conclusion.

The problem with what you are proposing is that it completely ignores all prophecies that foretold the virgin birth of Jesus (especially his being savior of all mankind) and all of the fulfillment of said prophecies that came as a direct result of his birth. The evidence that Jesus is truly the son of God, and wasn't born as any normal man would be, is all in his life's story.

Research like this is indeed interesting, but ultimately fruitless. All of the evidence that Jesus was planned by God, that He was miraculously born by God's hand and He has fulfilled God's plan. So... why even dispute this? As you discovered there is no evidence to the contrary. Being that the event happened thousands of years ago you will most likely never find evidence to the contrary, so while I can see its use as perhaps a thought experiment (maybe?) it's ultimately, like crosswords puzzles and word searches, a time killer.

a reply to: rnaa

You wrote: QUOTE

Sigismundus: The idea that Miryam ('Mary') of Galilee not being a virgin (Heb. Bethulah) at the time of the conception of 'Jesus' may account for the fact that in the genealogy of the 1st council approved Greek Gospel ('according to Matthew' whoever he was) is mainly composed of males but mysteriously also names four women -- all of whom were either 'whores' or who had some sexual immorality attached to them (Rahab, Tamar, Ruth, Bathsheba) with Mary the fifth in the list - which is stated (once you examine the text's preponderance for 'fives' in 'Matthew') almost emphatically...

rnaa: "I am having trouble parsing this paragraph, I am not sure what you are saying here. Your phrase "in the genealogy of the 1st council" doesn't scan somehow. A council doesn't have a geneology, families and individuals have geneologies. I will guess that you mean 'the membership of the 1st council' and go from there. And by 1st Council, I assume you refer to the Apostolic Council described in Acts.

Now I am not familiar with the membership of that Apostolic Council myself, other than the obvious major players, (Paul, Barnabus, Jesus brother James, etc) but I think you are asserting that there were four women attending, which would not be surprising since women had much larger roles in the early church than the modern church gives credit for. Notice also that this 'de-emphasis' the Church laid on the women of the early church was specifically an attempt to lessen the threat of Mary (Mother of God) worship...." UNQUOTE

Sorry I type waaaay too fast for my own good and find myself using longer sentences than usual in my replies. Let me rephrase it :

The Genealogy in the 1st Gospel (i.e. the 1st Gospel in the New Testament, Matthew, a 'council-approved canonical Greek Gospel' - NB I mistakenly left out the hyphen in my post... ) contains a long list of male ancestors (naturally) but also (tellingly) 5 females, all of whom have some sort of sexual stigma attached to them.

Rahab was a harlot, Tamar was raped, Ruth was a detested Moabitess who seduced a distant relative (recall the Torah command: Deut 23:3 "no Moabite or Ammonite shall ever enter the congregation of YHWH not even beyond the 10th generation..."), and as for Bathsheba....well, 'nuff said). Mary is fifth in the list of females with sexual/cultic stigmas in the emphatic position of being last in the list.

My question was more specific : what was 'Matthew' (whoever he was) trying to tell us? My comments had nothing to do with any Council, only to say that the Greek Gospels in the Bible were 'council-approved' for 'reading in the churches' as opposed to, say, The Gospel of Phillip or The Gospel of Thomas or The Gospel of Mary etc.

Hope this helps !

a reply to: rnaa

Rnaa -

You wrote QUOTE :

"Now as to the reference to Mary - Maryam - an extremely common name in Judah and Israel at the time - how many Marys were there at Jesus Tomb when it was discovered to be empty? Does the document you are studying specifically say 'Mary, Mother of Christ'? And is the document saying that the attending Mary had some sexual scandal associated with her? The reason I ask is that some authors allege that Mary Magdalene was indeed a Temple Prostitute in the major center for the Caananite religion before Jesus chose her as a disciple." UNQUOTE

For the genealogical reference to Mary (aka Miryam) in the line of forebearers, please consult 'Matthew' 1:15b - 1:16
'And Matthan was the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of [Jesus] who is called the Messiah...."

The section in question has no reference to any other Miryam, only 'Mary the mother of Jesus who is called the Christ' [kai Ματθὰν δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ἰακώβ kai Ἰακὼβ δὲ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Ἰωσὴφ τὸν ἄνδρα Μαρίας ἐξ ἧς ἐγεννήθη Ἰησοῦς ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός]

The only possible innuendo here is that she is listed 5th in a line of females (in an otherwise male lineage) all of whom had some sexual/moral stigma attached to them.

What are we to infer from all of this? That is the question at hand, and nothing to do with Miryam haGedolah ('Mary the Great') aka 'Mary Magdalene' who may (as the non-council approved Gospel of Phillip states) have been the 'consort of the Lord...' hence her being referred to as first in the list of Mary's 'that accompanied the Lord' : interestingly the Magdalene is positioned in front of 'Mary the mother of Jesus' in other gospel citations see e.g. Mark 15:47 'And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid..."

Whether or not Miryam haGedolah (some posit Aram. Miryam haGedellah, 'Mary the Hairdresser') was part of some secret sacred prostitution cult is not known, although the Mysteries of Isis practiced widley in the Near East may have had a sacred prostitution component in the 1st century CE. I'm not so sure there is anything to the Magdalene's prostitution , but (at any rate) we are speaking about the 'other Mary'...at least for now !

a reply to: rnaa

Hi again rnaa

You wrote:

QUOTE : "So Jesus, if we can accept Thiering's description of this marriage custom, wouldn't exactly be a bastard, but there would have been a communal stigma attached to him. Never-the-less, the description in the New Testament is not inaccurate, nor is it stigmatized - it is merely journalistic: Jesus was born to a young woman (not a virgin!), her husband was Joseph." UNQUOTE

I prefer to leave Barbara Thiering's sometimes wacky interpretations of biblical texts out of this discussion if possible. I'm also not sure we are talking about 'factual' journalistic language when dealing with Gospel material in the New Testament (especially the Birth Narratives of 'Matthew' and 'Luke' which are both full of Midrashic expansions of the Hebrew Scriptures) - they are not expressed in anything like 'positivistic facts' stated to be taken literally, but are essentially products of Jewish 1st century Midrash.

The quotations of Isaiah 7:14 in 'Matthew' 1:23 come from the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures known as the Septuaginta LXX (c. 250 BCE) which chose (for whatever reason) to use the term παρθένos ('virgin') to translate the Hebrew term used in Isaiah 7:14 (עלמה) 'almah' (a young woman of marriagable age) as opposed to the Greek νέα γυναίκα ('young woman).

It is possible that 'parthenos' which normally means 'intact virgin' could also simply mean 'young woman' without any reference to virginity, (although it is certainly suggestive of virginity, as e.g. the Parthenon in Greece which was dedicated to the Virgin Mother goddess Athena)

In Hebrew an 'un-touched virgin woman' is bethulah (בְּתוּלָה) but no Hebrew version of Isaiah 7:14 that I know of uses Bethulah in this place - the term seems to be 'almah' at Isaiah 7:14

Why this verse from Isaiah 7:14 was dragged into the Matthean Gospel story (as in the Lucan Infancy Narrative) was to build up the image of a god-man who is the literal 'son of God' with supernatural powers, at the same time glossing over the salacious innuendo about 'Jesus' possible illegitimacy and seizing upon the ambiguity of the Greek translation from the Hebrew in Isaiah 7:14 that suited the writer's intentions; but no where in the Gospels does it say that 'Jesus' was ever called Immanuel during his lifetime ('EL is on our side'; 'EL is with us', which is at any rate a war chant from the 8th century BCE).

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: Sigismundus

in the Dead Sea Scrolls there is a long passage in the Genesis Apocryphon (1QGenApoc) c. 100 BCE which speaks of the son of Lamech (Noah) as being pure white and red with white hair whose eyes lit up the whole room to the point that Lamech doubted his own paternity, thinking the child was the son of one of the Watchers (i.e. angels) who had seduced his wife Bath-Enosh.

Noah's eyes lighting up the whole room is interesting. This story has an allegorical meaning behind it as well. It's very simple, Noah's eyes lighting up the entire room represents what we do every time we open our eyes. When we open our eyes, our eyes light up the entire room from our own perspective.

If you look at the story from an outer perspective, it seems as though Noah's eyes shine light like a flashlight out onto the room, but looking at it from an inner perspective you realize it is talking about what you see right now, light.

Fine. From an allegorical view, these people were convinced a more advanced race were gods, conceivably because they said so. The trust was broken when Mary was victimized, however, because of the effective propaganda the useless eaters were convinced it was for their own good. Nothing like being victimized twice. It reminds me of when I had my quad stolen then I had to pay $600 to get it out of impound.

Huh. Sounds like my current government. Don't figure. *shrugs*