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While
the Christian Church had for centuries begun her inquiry into
Christology “from above,” humanistic rationalism required
that
such inquiry begin “from below.” In other words, while the
Church
had always begun with the deity of Yahushua and proceeded from there
to His humanity, the theology produced in the 19th Century (and which
still undergirds a great deal of the contemporary theology relating
to Christology) began “from below.”1
It was reasoned that the earliest followers of Yahushua must have
first known Him as human and only then moved on to accept Him as
divine. Undoubtedly, from a strictly historical perspective, this
must have been the case. Moreover, one might welcome a Christology
that begins “from below” as a needed corrective to the
unbalanced
Christology of the medieval Church in which the strong emphasis upon
the deity of Messiah tended to eclipse His humanity.
Yet
when we comeYet when we come to the
Apostolic Scriptures and the Christology they teach, just the
opposite is the case. Almost unanimously do they present a
Christology that begins “from above.” Surely this is most
obvious
with Yachanan (John), whose Prologue to his Gospel describes the
pre-existent Logos (Word) becoming flesh. He does not diminish
the humanity of Yahushua in this, but rather makes clear that his
starting point is “from above,” not “from
below.” His
Prologue begins describing the Word as already existing in the
beginning, as having a relationship with Elohim while at the same
time being Elohim (1:1). And the
concluding verse of the Prologue (1:18)
makes the same assertion: “The only one, himself Elohim, who is
in
closest fellowship with the Father, has made Elohim known.”2
The
Epistle to the Hebrews follows the same pattern. There the author
affirms the complete humanity of Yahushua: “Since the children
have
flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity” (Hebrews
2:14). He “tasted death” (2:9)
and was made perfect through suffering (2:10).
Even more, He was subjected to the same temptations as we are (4:15)
and therefore sympathizes with our weakness (5:8).
But this is not where the author to the Hebrews begins his treatise.
He begins with the statement that when Yahweh spoke through the
Messiah, He did so through His Son (1:2)
who is the heir of all things and the Creator of all things (1:2).
The Son is the effulgence of the Father’s esteem and the express
image of His being (1:3). And the
author of Hebrews goes on to exclaim that as far as the highest
beings in creation are concerned, the Son is infinitely superior.
What messenger (messenger) was ever address by Yahweh as
“Son?”
And even more to the point, what messenger ever received the title
Elohim (1:8)?
Shaul
(Paul) follows the same pattern of a Christology that begins
“from
above.” In one of his earliest epistles, that written to the
Galatians, he wrote: “But when the fullness of the time came,
Eohim
sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the
Torah….” In 2
Corinthians 8:9, Shaul does not describe Yahushua as
moving from poverty to riches via the resurrection, but just the
opposite: “For you know the grace of our
Master Yahushua Messiah, that though He was rich, yet for your sake
He became poor….” And this same incarnational
history,
“from esteem to death to esteem again,” gleaned from
Yahushua’s
own words in Yachanan 17, marks
the structure of the confessional hymn that Shaul incorporates into
his epistle to the Philippians (2:5–11).
We
might expect the Synoptic Gospels, in which we have the record of
Yahushua’s birth and earthly life, to surely begin “from
below”
in their portrayal of the Messiah, but in fact they do not. Mark
begins his Gospel: “The beginning of the gospel of Yahushua
Messiah, the Son of Elohim.”3
Moreover, Mark immediately quotes from Malachi
3:1
and applies it to Yahushua. In the original context of Malachi’s
prophecy, the words apply to “the Master” (הָאָדוֹן,
haAdon)
who “will suddenly come to His own
Temple.”
Mark’s
story of the Messiah also begins “from above.”
But what
of
Mattithyahu (Matthew) and Luke? Do they follow this same motif, of
beginning “from above” in their
descriptions of the Messiah? Yes, they do, but in a special way: by
incorporating the story of the virgin conception.4
Mattithyahu speaks of Miriam (Mary), betrothed to Yoseph (Joseph),
being pregnant “before they had come together” (Mattithyahu
1:18).
When Yoseph was made aware of Miriam’s pregnancy, he reacted as
any
pious man would—he determined to severe the betrothal contract,
but
to do so in a discrete manner in order to save Miriam public
embarrassment. But then an heavenly messenger also appears to Yoseph,
alerting him to the fact that “the child who has been conceived
in
her is of the Ruakh ha Qodesh (Holy Spirit)” (1:20).
Mattithyahu goes on to relate that Yoseph took Miriam as his wife but
“kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son” (1:25),
the obvious meaning of which is that he had no sexual relations with
her until after the birth of Yahushua. The words “until
she gave birth to a son” likewise imply quite clearly that Yoseph
and Miriam did have normal marital relations afterwards. Mattithyahu
also relates an important fact regarding the naming of Yahushua:
“and
he (Yoseph) called His name Yahushua” (1:25).
Yoseph’s naming Yahushua was an act of adoption, thus conferring
upon Yahushua all the rights of legitimate sonship.5
Mattithyahu
also connects the notice of the virgin conception to the words of
Yeshayahu
(Isaiah)
7:14,
“Behold, a virgin (הָעַלְמָה,
ha‘almah)
will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name
Immanuel” (see Mattithyahu 1:23). The Hebrew word ‘almah
does
not
necessitate the meaning “virgin” but has a wider sense of
“a
young, unmarried woman.” ‘Almah
could,
of
course, include a virgin, as noted by the fact that Ribqah
(Rebecca),
Yitshaq's
(Isaac) wife, is called an ‘almah
(Genesis
24:43).
Yet in reality the norm must have been that young, unmarried women in
Yisra'el were virgins, for if they were not, severe consequences
could result (see Deuteronomy
22:13ff).
Surely the Lxx translators took ‘almah
to
mean
“virgin,” for they translated it with parthenos
which
strongly implies virginity. It is interesting to note that every
Greek version of the Tanakh translates ‘almah
in
Yeshayahu
7:14
with parthenos
until
the
translation of Aquila (c. 130 CE) who changed parthenos
to
neanis,
“young
woman.” It is clear that Aquila’s translation was driven by
a
concern to deprive Beievers of a “proof text” in regard to
the
virgin conception of Yahushua, and this in itself proves that
parthenos
was
widely understood to mean “virgin”.6
But regardless of the difficulties that the interpretation of
Yeshayahu
7:14
presents,7
there is no question about Mattithyahu’s use of this
text in his re-telling of the birth of Yahushua. Mattithyahu clearly
understood the ‘almah
of
Yeshayahu
to
be a virgin,
and that the prophecy looked forward to the conception and birth of
Yahushua.
Luke’s
account is essentially parallel to Mattithyahu’s except that more
attention is given to the interchange between Miriam and the
messenger, and the esteem of her Son is made more explicit: “He
will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and Yahweh
Elohim will give Him the throne of His father Dawid” (Luke
1:32). Yet a question arises as to Miriam’s response
when told that she would conceive and bear a son. She responds:
“How
can this be, since I am a virgin?” The issue revolves around why
Miriam would have thought that the conception would occur before she
was finally married to Yoseph. As a betrothed woman, why did she not
presume that the messenger’s promise would have been fulfilled
after her legitimate marriage to her betrothed? To postulate that she
had taken some kind of vow of perpetual virginity makes no sense -
why then would she have entered into a betrothal with Yoseph? Nor
does the text give any indication that the messenger’s notice
affected the conception immediately. He simply says, “you will
conceive….” Is it possible that Miriam’s
response betrays
her sudden state of bewilderment at the messenger’s appearance
and
the bombshell character of his message? We know that in other cases,
people who were confronted by an messenger had difficulty
comprehending the event. Zekaryah is said to have been
“troubled” and gripped with fear (Luke
1:12). Yachanan
(Revelation
22:9) mistakenly
offers worship to his heavenly visitor. Kepha (Peter), on the Mount
of Transfiguration, blurts out that three shelters should be built,
when if he had thought more clearly, he probably would not have made
that suggestion (Luke
9:33). So it is
reasonable to think that Miriam, startled by the appearance of the
messenger, must have thought it strange to be talking about children
when she was not yet married.
Despite
the questions that the birth narratives of Mattithyahu and Luke
raise, one thing is unequivocal: they
both
present the conception of Yahushua as a miracle of creation performed
by the Ruakh haQodesh upon Miriam. As such, the Gospel accounts of
Yahushua’s life conform to the descriptions found in the
Epistles,
which present a Christology that begins “from above.” We
actually
should expect this to be the case since the Apostolic Scriptures were
written after the resurrection of Yahushua. None of His disciples
would have questioned His true humanity. They had walked with Him,
eaten meals with Him, and shared the common aspects of life with Him.
The questioning of His humanity awaited the rise of Gnosticism and
its effect upon various segments of the emerging Church. Rather, what
became amply clear to the Apostles following the resurrection of the
Messiah was the full reality of His divine nature. As such, the
descriptions found of Yahushua in the Apostolic Scriptures naturally
begin “from above” and move to a Christology “from
below.”
ARE
MATTITHYAHU AND LUKE RELIABE WITNESSES
Confronted with the clear message of
Mattithyahu and Luke regarding the virgin conception of Yahushua,
some are discontent to receive their witness as bona
fide. Some very notable scholars have
suggested that there might be reasons to suspect the authenticity of
these birth narratives. Not, mind you, on the basis of actual
readings in the extant manuscripts of the Apostolic Scriptures, but
by postulating a theory and finding supposed textual
“hints” to
bolster it. The leading champion of this approach is Bart Ehrman and
his book The Orthodox Corruption of
Scripture.8
In short, Ehrman’s theory is that in
the
emerging Christian Church, there were numbers of factions or sects
vying for pre-eminence in the establishment of Christian doctrine.
Through the theological debates of the 2nd and 3rd Centuries, the
“winners” established themselves as the voice of
“orthodoxy.”
They therefore had the power to banish the doctrines
of the “losers” and to expunge from the biblical texts any
readings that supported their “unorthodox” beliefs.
Ehrman seeks proof for his theory by examining some textual variants
and interpreting their existence as motivated by theological concerns
of the scribes. Still, even he admits that the texts of Mattithyahu
and Luke, which affirm the virgin conception, are rock solid in terms
of the extant textual witnesses.9
So what should we make of Ehrman’s suggestion? Is the universal
textual witness to the virgin conception of Yahushua the result of
the “winners” destroying manuscripts that would have
challenged
the viability of this teaching? The
answer is simple: arguments from silence tell us nothing. Surely one
could conceive of such a scenario,
but is
there actually any evidence that manuscripts were changed or
destroyed in order to affirm the theology of the winners? Every one
of the examples Ehrman offers to support his theory can be explained
on other grounds.10 In
other
words, there is no real, concrete evidence that the manuscripts we
have of the Gospels are actually the corrupted product of the
theological “winners” of the later Christian Church. But
even if,
for the sake of argument, we were to concede the possibility that the
“orthodox” Church of the 4th and 5th Centuries engaged in a
wide-spread conspiracy to destroy all the manuscripts that gave
witness to other than “orthodox” doctrines, can anyone
actually
believe that such a conspiracy would be 100% effective? Surely
some manuscripts or scraps of manuscripts would
have
survived to bear witness to the “original” text. Further,
the
argument that the Gospels (particularly Mattithyahu) were originally
written in a Semitic language (Aramaic, Syriac, or Hebrew) and that
their subsequent translation into Greek brought wholesale corruption,
does not obtain. In regard to the subject at hand, that is, the
virgin conception of Yahushua, all but one 5th Century manuscript of
the Syriac Peshitta have the virgin conception plainly asserted by
Mattithyahu and Luke.11
And if the late copies of Mattithyahu in Hebrew12
offer any evidence of a supposed Hebrew original, they likewise all
affirm the virgin conception, using almost identical language with
the Greek texts of Mattithyahu
1.
So the
issue comes down to this: should we accept the Scriptures we have,
based as they are upon the preponderance of clear, objective
evidence, or dismiss the Scriptures on the basis of a conjectured
scenario of history? The answer, it seems to me, is clear. The
Scriptures we possess affirm the virgin conception without question,
and thus, so should we.
DID
THE EARLY MESSIANIC SECTS DENY THE VIRGIN CONCEPTION
Several
early Messianic sects are known to have existed during the period of
the emerging Christian
Church, that is, in the 2nd Century and
later. We know of these sects only through the writings of the
“Church Fathers”, and they are most often referenced under
the
names Ebionites and Nazarenes, though Origen may refer to the two
groups as sects of the Ebionites.13
They are distinguished, according to
Origen, by the fact that one group denies the virgin conception while
the other affirms it. Eusebius give us a
similar notice,14 though
Pritz suggests that Eusebius has misunderstood and mixed his
sources15 and that this
confusion continued to be followed by other Church Fathers who used
the term “Ebionite” to refer to all "Jewish Christians."
Pritz's concusion is that:
The
Nazarenes
were distinct from the Ebionites and prior to them. In fact, we have
found that it is possible that there was a split in Nazarene ranks
around the turn of the first century. This split was either over a
matter of christological doctrine or over leadership of the
community. Out of this split came the Ebionites, who can scarcely be
separated from the Nazarenes on the basis of geography, but who can
be easily distinguished from the standpoint of Christology.16
Thus, while
one
sect, the Ebionites, denied the deity of Yahushua and thus His virgin
conception, the Natsarenes, who (according
to Pritz) were the “direct descendants of the first Yahudi
(Jewish)
believers in Jesus,” 17
affirmed both the virgin conception as well as the deity of Yahushua.
They likewise “seem to have had an embryonic, developing doctrine
of the Ruakh haQodesh” in harmony with that of the greater Church
in that era. They also accepted the apostleship of Paul and his
epistles as authoritative. In the works of the 4th Century Church
Fathers, the Nazarenes are never condemned for their beliefs, only
for their continued adherence to the Torah of Moses.Thus,
the idea that the messianic believers in the post-Apostolic era
denied the virgin conception is not
accurate. In fact, the earliest such sect, the Nazarenes, were known
to have affirmed the virgin conception and the deity of Yahushua.
Only later, a group (or groups) who divided away from the Nazarenes,
referred to by some of the Church Fathers as Ebionites, was known for
denying the virgin conception of Yahushua, His deity, and rejection
of Paul and his epistles.
But in the end, we do not
base
our belief in the virgin conception of Yahushua upon the doctrinal
position of various groups in the post-Apostolic
eras. The clear teaching of the Gospels on the matter forms the
primary basis for our affirmation of this important truth.
That is to say, the Scriptures themselves are the sole foundation
upon which we rest our beliefs.
DID
THE VIRGIN CONCEPTION ORIGINATE IN PAGAN RELIGIONS?
It is not uncommon for those who deny the virgin conception of
our Messiah, Yahushua, to argue that the very notion of a virgin
conception itself is derived from pagan religions. But before we look
further into this argument, we should address its general viability.
Such a theory rests on a premise that is entirely untenable, namely,
that the Apostles who wrote the birth narratives of the Gospels, had,
for some unexplainable reason, accepted the pagan myths as true, and
utilized them to describe the conception of Yahushua. Now it is clear
that hundreds of years later, when the Christian Church had obtained
possession of the throne of the Caesars, pagan influences came in
like a flood. But to speculate that suchupon
one of several possibilities: either (1) that the early influx of
Gentiles into the believing community brought
with them pagan ideas which the Yahudi believers accepted, or (2)
that the the Judaisms of the 1st Century, of which the early
followers of Yahushua were a part, had taken certain pagan ideas into
their own beliefs to such an extent that they formed an integral part
of their basic theology. Either of these premises, necessary to
sustain the argument that the pagan myths were the source for
expressing the virgin conception of Yahushua, is clearly unfounded.
First, the Apostolic Scriptures consistently teach that pagan beliefs
and practices are entirely incompatible with faith in Yahushua. Paul,
in one of his earliest epistles, writes concerning the well-known
reputation of the Thessalonian believers that they had “turned to
Yahweh from idols to serve a living and true Elohim” (1
Thessalonians 1:9). Indeed, the stance
of the Jerusalem Council as recorded in Acts 15 makes it clear that
any association with idols or idolatrous practices stood outside of
the norm for the followers of Yahushua. Paul writes to the
Corinthians that idolators have no place in the kingdom of Elohim,
then immediately affirms, “and such were
some of you” (1
Corinthians 6:9–10, emphasis
added). Having become true believers in
Yahushua, the Corinthians were no longer led astray by the deceptions
of idolatry (1
Corinthians 12:2). Thus, detachment
from paganism was at the bedrock of what constituted the faith and
theology of the Apostolic assembly.18
It is entirely out of the question, then, that the Apostles
themselves, who penned the Gospel stories of Yahushua’s birth,
would have, without second thought, incorporated into their story
what they knew to be pagan myths.19
Secondly,
it is well known and received that the Gospel stories relating the
birth of Yahushua are found in those sections of the Apostolic
Scriptures that evidence a strong Yahudi milieu, and that the
earliest followers of Yahushua were themselves Yahudim with a strong
connection to their Yahudi history and theology. Happily, in our day,
the almost unanimous voice of Scriptural scholarship admits this
without reservation. To postulate, then, that the birth narratives
incorporate a piece from the most degrading aspects of polytheistic
mythologies is likewise to presume that the Yahudaism out of which
the Gospels were written had not only accepted such pagan notions but
had done so in such a way as to make them normative. But this
suggestion is preposterous since it runs contrary to everything we
know of the early Yahudaisms.
Since the facts militate
against any suggestion that early Yahudaisms had so easily
incorporated pagan ideas of a virgin conception into their
theologies, some have suggested that the idea of a virgin conception
was actually latent in early Yahudi beliefs, based upon the birth
stories of important figures (such as Yitshaq, Shemuel, and
Shimshon), or the Father/Son language of texts such as
2 Shemuel 7 and Psalm 2.
Support for this view is often sought from the writings of Philo, a
hellenistic Yahudi philosopher roughly contemporary with Yahushua.
With regard to the stories in the Tanakh in which barren women are
given the ability to conceive, surely these demonstrate Yahweh’s
ability to give children through miraculous means. But, for instance,
in the case of Yitshaq, the paternity of Abraham is clearly stated
(Genesis 25:19). And in the birth
narratives of Shemuel and Shimshon, there is no indication whatsoever
that the conception of either was apart from the means of normal
procreation. Regarding the Father/Son texts of
2 Shemuel 7 and Psalm 2,
these pertain not directly to a physical birth but to the coronation
of a sovereign, utilizing well-known
Ancient Near Eastern motifs describing the relationship of a Great
Sovereign to his Vassal. And the same may be said of those
texts which describe Yahweh as the Father of Yisra'el (for example,
Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1).
This
metaphoric language describes the covenant relationship between
Yahweh and His chosen people, for in this covenant Yahweh is viewed
as the Great Sovereign and
Yisra'el as His Vassal.
Some
have suggested that the writings of Philo offer a possible indication
that the concept of a virgin conception was
feasible within the Judaisms of his day. This is because in some of
Philo’s writings, he appears to teach that Yitshaq, Ya'acob, and
others were conceived by divine fiat apart from an earthly father.20
However, to read Philo’s words in this manner is entirely to miss
his point and the allegorical and mystical hermeneutic that he
employs. His purpose in De Cherubim,
for instance, is to show how wisdom and transcendent knowledge is
something implanted into the soul of man by Yahweh Himself. Nowhere
does he teach that the actual material body of anyone was the result
of a virginal conception. After surveying the relevant section from
De Cherubim,
Machen
gives this summary:
Did
Philo really believe that Isaac and the other Old Testament
characters in question were actually born without human father
by the direct agency of God? … To maintain such a view would
be
to misunderstand the whole nature of Philo’s allegorical
exegesis.
As soon as one attains the slightest insight into the allegorical
method of using the Old Testament, one sees clearly that when Philo
speaks of a virgin birth or a divine begetting in the passages which
are now in view, he is thinking of a divine begetting of the soul of
man, or a divine begetting of certain virtues in the soul of man, and
not at all of a divine begetting of human beings of flesh and blood
who actually lived upon the earth. 21
What
then of the pagan myths themselves? The myths most often brought
forward are those of Perseus, whose
mother Danae conceived him by Zeus who rained gold upon her, or of
Hercules (Herakles), who was the child of the mortal woman Alcmene
and Zeus. These demigods, however, are not taken to be as close a
parallel as are the stories of historical personages such as Plato23
and Alexander the Great22
who were said to have been conceived by a god consorting with their
respective mothers. Josephus also reports a scandalous story
involving a woman, Paulina, who was deceived by Decius Mundas through
the help of the priests of Isis, into thinking that she was
consorting with the god Anubis.24
Some have pointed to this notice by
Yosephus as
indicating the credence given, even among the upper classes of Roman
and Greek society, to the stories of the union of mortal women with
pagan gods.
To those who claim that the
idea of the virgin conception of our Messiah derived from such pagan
myths, a number of responses are in order. First,
in
none of these mythologies are the mortal women stated to be
virgins.25 The
conception of the hero is simply said to be the product of the gods.
More important, however, is the obvious fact that in all of these
mythologies, the driving force for the union is the shear, unabated
sexual lust of the god for a mortal woman. It is unthinkable that
such myths, full as they are of immorality of the basest sort, could
have provided in the mind of any true Apostle a fitting explanation
for the birth of the Messiah. Yet those who suggest that the pagan
myths were the fountain from which the idea of a virgin conception
sprang require this very thing.
Secondly,
we should not be surprised to find in our world the counterfeit of
the real. Did not the magicians of
Egypt, through their demonic arts, counterfeit the first signs given
by Mosheh and Aharon to Pharaoh (Exodus 7–8)? Is not the
deception of astrology based upon the very luminaries Yahweh created
to reveal His own esteem? Are not all false religions manufactured in
such a way so as to deceive by mimicking what only Yahweh Himself can
do and provide? It should not surprise us, then, that the enemy would
do all in his power to confound mankind by inducing the writers of
pagan myths to lampoon the miracle of the incarnation in the most
degrading fashion. But when the Gospel accounts are compared to those
counterfeit fabrications, it is clear to any one of faith what is
real and what is not; what is holy and what is profane.
THE
VIRGIN CONCEPTION AND YAHUSHUA AS THE DAWIDIC MESSIAH
One
of the arguments often raised against the Gospels’ record of the
virgin conception is the question of Yahushua’s legitimate claim
to
Dawidic lineage. Since the Messiah is clearly prophesied to be from
the house of Dawid,26
anyone making a claim to be the Messiah would therefore need to be
from that line. The virgin conception, some have maintained, makes it
impossible for Yahushua to claim Dawidic lineage since such lineage
came through one’s father. There are, however, a number of
important answers to this line of reasoning.
First,
it is clear that in some cases, one’s tribal connection could be
through the mother. The daughters of Zelophechad are an example.
Having no son, the inheritance of the father is given to his
daughters and the tribal inheritance passed through them to their
sons.27 But
was Miriam from the tribe of Yahudah (Judah)?
Even
from the early centuries of the Christian Church, some have
maintained that Luke
1:27 assigns Miriam
to the “descendants of Dawid,”28
understanding the phrase to describe Miriam rather than Yoseph:
“Now
in the
sixth month the messenger Gabriel was sent from Elohim to a city in
Galil called Natsareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was
Yoseph, of the descendants of Dawid; and the virgin’s name was
Miriam.” (Luke 1:26–27)
It
is possible that all of the descriptions apply to Miriam in this
text: (1) virgin, (2) engaged to Yoseph, (3) of the
descendants of Dawid, (4) named Miriam. But the fact that the term
“virgin” is repeated in the final clause would strongly
suggest
that “of the descendants of Dawid” describes Yoseph, not
Miriam.
For if the phrase were descriptive of Miriam, then it would be more
nature for the final clause to read “and her name was
Miriam.”
The addition of “virgin” is necessary since the former
clause
related to Yoseph. Thus, the argument that tribal lineage could be
traced through the woman, true as it may be, most likely does not
apply in the case of Yahushua.
Indeed,
it is clearly the purpose of Mattithyahu to trace the lineage of
Yahushua through Yoseph, for he begins with Yahushua as the “son
of
Dawid” and ends with Yoseph the husband of Miriam. The fact that
Mattithyahu emphasizes three periods of 14 generations (1:17)
may also signal his intent to show that Yahushua was in the line of
Dawid, since 14 is the numerical equivalent of Dawid’s name.29
But could Yahushua claim
Yoseph’s lineage if he were not, in fact, his natural father? The
answer is
“yes,” and this through
adoption. The fact that Yoseph rather than Miriam names Yahushua
(Mattithyahu 1:25)
signals
his
legal position as father to Yahushua. Adoption in the Ancient Near
East was well known and gave the adopted
person clear legal rights, including inheritance.30
Further, that adoption of orphans was known in ancient times is clear
from historical as well as archaeological records. Leon lists four
inscriptions from Yahudi tombs in ancient Rome to this effect.31
R. Shimon ben Pazi (3rd Century
Amora), in
his midrash on 1
Chronicles 1:14 is recorded as
stating: “… anyone who raises an orphan boy or girl in his
house,
Scripture considers it as if he bore him.”32
Likewise, in the midrash,33
the statement is made (pertaining to Yisra'el viewed as a orphan),
“he that brings up a child is called a father, and not he that
gives birth.”
This
accords with the words of Luke 3:23,
“When He began His ministry, Yahushua Himself was about thirty
years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Yoseph….”
The
English word “supposed” gives the sense of something
perceived
but not true, and the Greek word nomizo which it translates
can have this meaning. But the word can also describe what is
generally held to be true or customary. We could just as well
translate the phrase “he was, as commonly held, the son of
Yoseph,”34 meaning that Yoseph was recognized by his community as
the legal father of Yahushua. Thus, from a legal status, Yahushua was
the rightful heir of Yoseph. And it is therefore in no way contrary
to the message of the virgin conception that Miriam and Yoseph are
called His parents.35
Such
a legal arrangement is by no means foreign to the Torah. In the laws
of the Lewite, the children fathered by a deceased
husband’s brother are reckoned as bona fide heirs of the
deceased even though they did come from him through procreation.
Likewise, the adoption of Ephrayim and Menashsheh by Ya'acob, through
which they were granted the status of sons rather than grandsons and
given their share in Ya'acob’s inheritance, illustrates the point
that through legal declaration, a person may be granted all the
rights and privileges of sonship even without direct physical
generation from the father.
But
there is an additional aspect of Yahushua’s relationship to
Yoseph
that we must mention. For though Yahushua was legally the
adoptive son of Yoseph, He was so in a unique way. In normal
adoptions, the child is actually the offspring of a human father and
thus the “birth father” is distinguished from the
“adoptive
father.” Not so in the case of Yahushua. The only human father
that
could lay legal claim to Him as a father was Yoseph. And it would
therefore be equally true that from an historical viewpoint, it could
have only been through Yoseph that Yahushua could be reckoned as in
the line of Dawid. Like Sovereign Dawid himself, who was granted the
promise of an eternal dynasty not through lineage but by Yahweh’s
sovereign choosing and appointment, so Yahushua was chosen and sent
to be the fulfillment of that promise.
In
fact, though the Gospels record that Yahushua was often called the
“son of Dawid,”36 they
offer not
one instance in which His detractors contest His Dawidic lineage.
Surely those who wanted to disprove the claims of His Messiahship
could have easily done so if His Dawidic lineage was openly suspect.
That they did not, even at His final trial, fits the general tenor of
the Gospels, namely, that Yahushua’s Dawidic connection was
accepted within the Yahudi community of His day, even by those who
were opposed to Him.37
WHY
IS SHAUL SILENT ABOUT THE VIRGIN CONCEPTION OF YAHUSHUA?
A valid question that arises in the study of
the virgin conception is why its mention is missing from the Shauline
epistles. If this teaching were so foundational for the early
Christology of the Apostles, would we not expect Shaul to include it
in his epistles? At first hearing, this question may seem to offer
strong support to those who claim the virgin conception was the
brainchild of the later Christian Church. But on further reflection,
this argument this argument loses its force.
First,
while it is evident that Shaul nowhere mentions the virgin conception
directly, he clearly proffers a Messialogy that accords with the
Gospel accounts, one in which the pre-existence of Yahushua is well
affirmed. He writes in Galatians 4:4
that “Elohim sent forth His Son,”
and in Philippians 2:6–11 he
incorporates a confessional hymn that explicitly sets forth the
eternal pre-existence of the Messiah before His appearance as a babe
in Beth Lehem. In 2 Corinthians 8:9
Paul portrays Messiah as “rich” yet becoming poor for the
sake of
those He would save. Surely the pre-existence of the Messiah and the
virgin conception are two realities cut from the same theological
cloth.
Secondly,
Shaul’s epistles generally contain very little historical
information about the life of Yahushua. He admits to having
seen the Messiah (1 Corinthians 9:1) and receiving his apostolic
office directly from Him (Galatians 1:12).
The closest he comes to recounting an historical event of
Yahushua’s
life, however, is when he very briefly retells the story of His final
Pesach. Yet even this, he says, was a truth handed on to him by
others (1 Corinthians 11:23–24).
He regularly speaks of Yahushua’s death and resurrection,
sometimes
adding His ascension and intercession (Romans 8:34), but he always
focuses on the salvation accomplished by these momentous events
rather than giving narrative descriptions. He never describes even
one of Yahushua’s miracles, nor does he mention the wilderness
temptation or the transfiguration, nor any of the other significant
events we recorded about Yahushua in the Gospels. But then why would
we expect him to? The very disciples of the Master, themselves
eyewitnesses to these events, were still alive in Shaul’s day and
were themselves engaged in recording Yahushua’s life and
teachings.
It would have been presumptuous for Shaul to think that he needed to
supplement the writings of Mattithyahu or Yachanan when he had no
first-hand knowledge of the events himself. Moreover, capable writers
such as Mark and Luke, Shaul’s own associates, were busy
collecting
the testimony of the disciples and compiling them into the inspired
texts we know as their Gospels. Rather than seeming odd, Shaul’s
silence regarding the birth of Yahushua and the virgin conception is
perfectly in line with the general character of his epistles.
Demanding that Shaul speak of the virgin conception is to require of
him something he never intended to do. He doubtlessly left this to
others he deemed more qualified for the task.38
Thirdly,
the very question why Shaul never explicitly mentions the virgin
conception may itself be based
upon a faulty assumption, namely, that the virgin conception was
widely known in the lifetime of Yahushua and the years immediately
following. Once the Gospels were finished and widely circulated,
surely this was known and received. Historically, however, only
Miriam and Yoseph were recipients of this most private reality. And
even if we should presume that Miriam confided in her cousin Elisheba
(and the text does not explicitly state that she did), it seems
probable that she would have done so because Elisheba was a close and
trusted relative and friend. We know from Luke
1:19, 51
that Miriam was more private than public in her demeanor,
“treasuring” these things in her heart. The birth of
Yahushua
took place in
Yahudah, far from the eventual home of Miriam and Yoseph in
Natsareth, so there is no reason to think that the
events surrounding the birth were widely known. Even when returning
to Natsareth, the threats of Herod may have offered good reason for
Miriam and Yoseph to remain silent about Yahushua’s birth. And it
seems probable that Yoseph died before Yahushua entered into His
public ministry since he is never mentioned in connection with it.
Likewise, Elisheba was old when she bore Yachanan the Immerser, so
Miriam may have been left as the sole keeper of the secret of
Yahushua’s miraculous conception. We might rightly ask, then,
what
would have prompted her to divulge that secret?
Would it
have been
in accord with the character of Miriam…that after she had
undergone
experiences of the most mysterious kind and submitted to a command
which ran counter to every instinct of her soul, she would proceed to
engage in idle gossip about the matter, thereby subjecting herself
and her qodesh child to the
basest slander? Some women might have
acted so, but hardly the one who “kept all
these sayings, pondering them
in her heart.”39
We
may well speculate that it was not until after the final events of
Yahushua’s life; after Miriam’s soul was pierced by
standing at
the execution stake of her son; after the unspeakable joy in the
victory of His resurrection and outpouring of the Ruakh haQodesh at
Shavuot of that year, that Miriam realized it was time to speak. Now
that the claims of Yahushua had been vindicated, rather than being
fodder for wagging tongues the truth of the virgin conception of
Yahushua would be understood in light of the corroborating events.
Perhaps Miriam first confided in her closest friends, requiring some
time for the story to find its way to the ears of the Apostles and
other leaders of The Way. But when the story was finally told, there
is no indication that it aroused any opposition from those who were
already disciples of the Master.
Finally,
an argument based upon the silence of Shaul really tells us nothing.
While arguments from silence may at times help to solidify more
substantive arguments, taken by itself it is very weak indeed. There
is no reason to think that Shaul’s silence on the matter in
anyway
contradicts or controverts the clear message of the Gospels regarding
the virgin conception.
DOES
THE VIRGIN CONCEPTION MATTER?
Some might wonder why the virgin conception
of our Messiah even matters in the long run. Isn’t it enough
just to accept Yahushua as the promised Messiah of Yisra'el and
Savior of sinners? Does it really matter whether His conception
within the womb of Miriam was the result of the Ruakh haQodesh or of
Yoseph? Yes, it matters. First and foremost because the Scriptures
state this to be the case, and do so unequivocally.
Our
belief rests upon the bedrock of divine revelation and so we must
take such revelation seriously. If Yahweh by His Spirit inspired the
words of Mattithyahu and Luke (and He did), then these words are
eternally true and relevant, and to disregard them or excise them
from the text as unworthy interpolations is to begin an unravelling
of the Scriptures that will not end until they are entirely
irrelevant.
Secondly,
the virgin conception, as noted in the opening of this article,
emphasizes a Christology that begins “from above.” Far from
explaining the mystery of the incarnation, however, the virgin
conception introduces and confirms its inexplicable nature. It does
so by signaling that the “Man Messiah Yahushua” (1 Timothy
5:2)
did not have His beginning in the womb of Miriam. That which was
formed in her by the creative power of the Ruakh was none other than
the eternal Son of Elohim. Yeshayahu’s promise of a
“sign” is
therefore powerfully fulfilled in the historical fact of the virgin
conception, and regardless of the difficulties that Yeshayahu 7:14
presents to the modern exegete,40 in
Mattithyahu’s mind it foretold the stupendous miracle that would
mark Yahushua as uniquely different than anyone else born within
earth’s history.
This
is precisely Mark’s point when he records the words of the
messenger to Miriam (Lk 1:35):
“The
messenger
answered and said to her, “The Ruakh haQodesh will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that
reason the Qodesh Child shall be called the Son of Elohim.”
Thus,
the miraculous conception was to signal that the Child would be at
once human and the “Son of Elohim,”
that He is El with us (Immanuel, Yeshayahu
7:14), Miraculous One who Counsels (pele’
yo’eitz),
El who is Victor (El gibor), Owner of Eternity (avi-yad),
Prince of Peace (sar shalom) (Yeshayahu 9:6[5]).
Thirdly,
while the virgin birth speaks to the messiahship of Yahushua (tying
Him back to the prophecies of Yeshayahu and thus
to His divine nature), it likewise is essential for understanding His
humanity. For though He was born of a virgin, He still was, in every
way, “born of a
woman”
(Galatians 4:4),
a phrase used by Shaul to emphasize the true humanity of Yahushua.
Yet in Shauline theology, the solidarity of the human race with Adam
as the head of the race resulted in two realities: the imputation of
sin to all of Adam’s offspring (Romans
5:18) and the imparting of the sinful
nature to all who proceeded from him (Romans
5:12;
Ephesians 2:3). This raises a question
which is counterpart to the issue of Yahushua’s divine nature.
For
on the one hand we wonder how One who is fully human could, at the
same time, be divine. But the question may also be stated this way:
could a person be fully human without at the same time possessing a
sinful nature? The answer, of course, is that the sinful nature is
not integral to the human nature, for Adam was created as completely
human without at first possessing a sinful nature. Granted, he had
the ability to sin, but before the fall into sin he was still a human
being in every sense. So a sinful nature is not a necessary component
of being human.
More to the point is the fact
that Adam stood as the representative of the human race, his
disobedience, and the death that resulted thereby,
being
imputed to all of his progeny: “…through
one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men…”
(Romans 5:18).
From a strictly theological standpoint, Yahushua could not be the
progeny of Adam in the sense of having participated in the penalty of
death that resulted from his transgression. In this sense, the virgin
conception isolated Yahushua not only from the sin imputed to those
related to Adam as the appointed representative of the race, but also
from inheriting from Adam a sinful nature. In a mysterious and
unexplainable fashion, Yahushua was born in a way similar to
Adam’s
being created: both were the result of divine fiat apart from the
procreative act of man. As such, Yahushua was born without a sinful
nature and stands as the “last Adam,” being the righteous
representative for all who would be saved by Him.
So
also it is written, “The first man, Adam,
became a living soul.”
The last Adam became a life-giving
spirit.
(1Corinthians 15:45)
1
“Our
starting
point must lie in the question about the Man Yahushua; only in this
way can we ask about his divinity.” Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus
– God and Man (SCM
Press, 1968), p. 35.
2
For a
discussion of
the textual variants of this verse and the strength of the reading
monogenes
theos
(“the
only One
who is God”) over the textus receptus monogenes
huios (“the
only One who is Son”), see my The
Messiah: An Introduction to Christology (TorahResource,
2007), pp. 114–117.
3
This verse
(Mark
1:1) contains a textual issue. In some manuscripts, the phrase
“Son
of Elohim” is not found. But the strong weight of the manuscript
evidence supports its inclusion. C. E. B. Cranfield gives his view:
“There are very strong reasons for regarding it as
original.” (C.
E. B. Cranfield, The
Gospel According to Mark (Cambridge
Univ Press, 1959), p. 38.
4
It is common
to
speak of the “virgin birth,” but obviously, the real
miracle was
the fact that Miriam became pregnant without sexual intercourse.
Thus, the “virgin conception” speaks more directly to the
reality
of this miracle.
5
“Yoseph,
by
exercising the father’s right to name the child, acknowledges
Yahushua and thus becomes the legal father of the child.” R. E.
Brown, The Birth
of the Messiah (Doubleday,
1979), p. 139.
6
See A.
Kamesar, “The
Virgin of Is 7:14: the Philological Argument from the Second to the
Fifth Century,” JTS
41,
(1990),
51–75.
7
Donald
MacLeod, The
Person of Christ (IVP,
1998), p. 26 writes: “…while Yeshayahu 7:14f contains
enough
problems to drive any exegete to distraction, the reference to a
miraculous birth is probably the one certainty in the passage.”
8
Published by
Oxford
Univ Press, 1993.
9
The
Orthodox
Corruption of Scripture,
pp. 54-55. In one early witness, a 5th Century Syriac manuscript,
found at St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai (sys),
Mattithyahu 1:16 reads “…Yoseph, who was betrothed to a
virgin
Miriam, begat Yahushua who is called Messiah.” Ehrman, along with
the vast majority of textual scholars, agrees that this must have
simply been a scribal error, for if a scribe had intended to excise
the miraculous conception of Yahushua from this text, he hardly would
have included the adjective “virgin” to describe Miriam.
See
Ehrman, Ibid. Virtually all other manuscripts that contain the birth
narrative explicitly state the virgin conception without variants.
10
For an example
of a
scholarly critique of some of Ehrman’s favorite
“proofs,” see
Daniel B. Wallace, “The Gospel
According to
Bart,”
available at http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=4000 (accessed
2/20/07) and also available in pdf format at
http://www.torahresource.com.
11
See note 9
above.
12
I.e.,
the Even Bohan (also called the Shem Tov), the DuTillet, and the
Münster texts.
13
See Origen, Contra
Celsus, 5.61 who
writes of the “two-fold sect of Ebionites, who either acknowledge
with us that Jesus was born of a virgin, or deny this, and maintain
that he was begotten like other human beings….” See the
discussion of Ray A. Pritz, Nazarene
Jewish Christianity (Magnas,
1992), pp. 20–23. Other references to the Ebionites and Nazarenes
in thewritings of the Church Fathers and Historians are: Justin,
Dialogue
with
Trypho 47;
Irenaeus, Against
Heresies 1.26.2;
Hippolytus, Refutation
of All Heresies, 7.22;
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical
History, 3.27;
6.17; Ephiphanius, Panarion
30.1.1;
2.1–
8; 30:3, 7; 30:16.1; 30.26.1–2; 30.34.6.
14
Ecclesiastical
History 3.27.2–6;
cf. Pritz, Ibid., pp. 23–24; Arland J. Hultgren and Seven A.
Haggmark eds., The
Earliest Christian Heretics (Fortress,
1996), pp. 119–20.
15
Ray Pritz, Op.
cit.,
p. 27.
16
Pritz, Op.
cit., p.
108.
17
Ibid.18
Cf. 1
Corinthians
10:7, 14; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 5:5; 1 Kepha 4:1–6; 1
Yachanan 5:21.
19
Furthermore,
if for
the sake of argument, one were to admit the possibility that the
polytheistic mythologies of the pagan religions formed the basis for
the virgin conception in the Gospels, one would be at a loss to
explain why such paganism remained confined to this doctrine alone.
Would it not be reasonable to presume that if such pagan beliefs
formed the basis for the virgin conception that they also influenced
many other teachings of the Apostles? If paganism is allowed to be
the basis for the virgin conception, then one wonders why it is not
also seen as the basis for the substitutionary death of Yahushua for
His people; for the inspiration of Scripture; for the miracles
recorded in the Gospels; for the resurrection and ascension of
Yahushua; and for His return and the consummation of the kingdom, set
as it is in apocalyptic language. For aspects of each of these
essential teachings can find some parallel in the pagan myths. My
point is simply that if paganism is sought as the source for the
virgin conception in the Gospels, there is little reason to accept
any of the Gospel accounts as theologically credible.
20
For example,
see De
Cherubim 40–51.
21
J. Greshem
Machen,
The Virgin
Birth
(Harper
&
Row, 1930), p. 303.
22
Diogenes
Laertius, iii.2,
see Origen, Contra
Celsum i.37
23
Reported by
Plutarch, Vit.
Alex. ii.2–4.
See Perrin, “Plutarch’s Lives” in The
Loeb Classical Library, vol.
vii.
24
History of
the
Jews, 18.3.4.
25
The fact that
Justin
Martyr uses the term “virgin” when referencing these
stories
should be understood within his use of them for apologetic reasons
(even if such use was doubtlessly shortsighted). See J. Gresham
Machen, The
Virgin Birth,
pp. 335–36.
26
2 Shemuel 7;
23:5,
cp. Psalm 89; Yeshayahu 9:1–7; 11:1–9; Yirmeyahu 23:5;
33:15;
Yehezqel 34:23–24; 37:24; Hoshea 3:5; Psalm 110:1–4;
132:11;
Mattithyahu 22:42; Mark 12:35; Yachanan 7:42.
27
Numbers
27:1–7;
36:1–12; 1 Chronicles 7:14–19.
28
Ignatius,
Ephesians,
xviii;
Origen, Dialogues,
xliii,
xlv, c, cxx; Chyrsostom, Hom.
Mattithyahu, ii.
29
4=d,
6=f,
4=d,
giving
a total of 14. Of the 1080 the name Dawid is found in the Tanakh, the
majority of times (794) it is spelled
dfd
rather
than
difd
30
See Frederick
W.
Knobloch, “Adoption” in The
Anchor Bible Dictionary,
6 vols. (Doubleday, 1.76–79.
31
Harry J. Leon,
The
Jews of Ancient Rome (Hendrickson,
1995), pp. 232–33.
32
b.Megilah
13a.
33
Mid. Rab. Exodus
46.5.
34
See BDAG,
“nomizo,”
p. 675.
35
Luke 2:27, 41,
43.
36
Matt 1:20;
9:27;
15:22; 20:30-31; 21:9, 15; Mark 10:47-48; Luke 3:31; 18:38-39.
37
The statements
of
some Pharisees in Yachanan 8:41, that “we are not born of
fornication,” may not be an underhanded slur on Yahushua’s
paternity (as is often thought) but a continuation of their degrading
use of “Samaritan” to describe Him (cf. v. 48). A common
line of
argumentation against the Samaritans was to call their genealogy into
question as well as to charge them with dabbling in magical/demonic
arts.
38
I am not
suggesting
by this line of argumentation that the Gospels were in their final,
canonical form in Paul’s time, nor that they were circulating in
this form that early. What I am saying is that the process of
gathering and preserving the history and teachings of Yahushua was
certainly underway in Paul’s lifetime, and it seems most
reasonable
to presume that he was aware of this on-going enterprise. See David
Wenham, Paul:
Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity (Eerdmans,
1995).
39
J. Gresham
Machen,
The Virgin
Birth,
Op. cit., p. 264.
40
For much help
in
understanding Yeshayahu 7:14, see Michael L. Brown, Answering
Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol.
3 (Baker, 2003), pp. 17–32.
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