The Gospels of Matthew and Luke both assert that Mary conceived Jesus as a virgin. But while Luke tells the story without referencing any specific passages from Jewish scripture, Matthew quotes several biblical texts and speaks of them as being “fulfilled” in the events surrounding Jesus’s birth and early childhood. One of these is Isaiah 7:14, which Matthew says is fulfilled in Jesus’s fatherless beginning. But in its immediate context, Isaiah 7:14 appears to envision a child who would be born within Isaiah’s lifetime—seven centuries prior.
Prophecy versus Prediction?
In modern English parlance, “prophecy” is, more often than not, equivalent to prediction. But when compared to its use in biblical literature, this association is reductionistic. Most prophecy in the Bible is not predictive, and all prophecy is meant to address situations contemporary to the prophets themselves.
Similarly, the idea of a prophecy’s “fulfillment” in popular understanding tends to connote proof or validation of a prediction. But this also falls short of capturing what the author of Matthew’s Gospel intends to convey with this word.
Of the five prophetic texts that Matthew cites as having a fulfillment in the nativity story, only one is clearly predictive in its original literary setting. Yet, all are said to find their fulfillment in Jesus’s story. Barring the possibility that the writer of Matthew was simply inattentive or haphazard in his use of Jewish scripture, the suspicion that something other than a prediction-validation scheme is at play is warranted.
What Was Matthew’s Use of Prophetic Literature?
The difference between fulfilled prophecy and validated prediction is illustrated by Matthew’s reference to a verse from the prophet Hosea. When Joseph and Mary are informed by an angel that they must flee the wrath of King Herod in the night, they go to Egypt. This event, Matthew says, is to “fulfill” a prophecy in Hosea in which God says, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
There are three reasons that this cannot be read as a prediction. First, in Hosea the “son” in question is clearly the Israelite nation—not a hoped-for messianic figure. Second, the passage is speaking of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, while Matthew is talking about the Holy Family’s journey to Egypt for Judea. Third, the statement is in the past tense. It is neither a prediction nor a future-oriented claim of any kind. This suggests that Matthew is not necessarily in search of predictions. He is doing something else.
What Is Jesus’s Place in the Biblical Story?
As noted, Matthew is not partial to predictive prophecy in his citations within the nativity story. In fact, the only prediction mentioned is not in the mouth of the narrator, but is referenced by Herod’s scribes, who are characters within the story. The text in this case, Micah 5:2, says that Bethlehem would be the birthplace of a great leader in Israel’s future. But even this reference would not prove Jesus’s messiahship, since many baby boys were born in Bethlehem.
Most scholars believe that Matthew is associating Jesus with the story of Israel by connecting scenes from Jesus’s life to events in the nation’s history. For example, when Hosea references Israel’s escape from an oppressive Egyptian pharaoh, the author of Matthew sees a parallel to Jesus’s flight—albeit in the opposite direction—away from a murderous monarch. The specific locations need not be the same in order for the themes of persecution and exodus to be shared.
Weaving Prophecy into the Story
The author of Matthew, therefore, is engaged in something more accurately described as an art than a science. He is not trying to prove Jesus’s identity by connecting him to ancient predictive oracles as much as he is painting what he believes to be the proper backdrop for seeing the significance of his life and work. Hebrew prophetic tradition fills the green screen behind Jesus’s life and work.
By the first century, the Jewish Bible had been preserved in both Hebrew and Greek—and Matthew was written in Greek. In both languages, the term often translated “virgin” does not strictly refer to a woman’s sexual experience, and is more properly translated “maiden” or “young woman.” Her celibacy may be assumed, but the word does not require it in and of itself. It seems that Matthew saw an opportunity, based on this term in Isaiah 7, to weave another prophetic tradition into the backdrop of Jesus’s birth narrative.
A Baby Who Lived During Isaiah’s Lifetime?
In the eighth chapter of Isaiah, Isaiah’s children are called “signs” of events that would occur within his lifetime. The child mentioned in 7:14 is described as a “sign” using the same Hebrew word. The following verses describe the political events which this baby would signify: “[B]efore the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose kings you re in dread will be deserted” (NRSVue). This is clearly referring to events contemporary to the author. Thus, a straightforward reading of Isaiah 7:14 suggests that it does not predict a virgin birth. Rather, it points to a baby, conceived in the normal way, who filled a symbolic role in Isaiah’s prophetic vision which, as is the case in most biblical prophecy, had to do with contemporary concerns.
Did Matthew Invent the Virgin Birth to Fit Isaiah’s Prophecy?
Even though Jews in the first century were waiting for a messiah or messianic age, an expectation that he would be born without a human father is absent from the historical record. On the face of it, therefore, it is unlikely that the authors of the Gospels created the story of Mary’s miraculous conception of Jesus in order to ensure his qualification for a messianic role. Rather, a more plausible explanation is that it originated with Mary herself. Alternatively, it might have been created for some other reason not having to do with demands of predictive prophecy.
Since the Gospels’ writing, the notion that a young woman once conceived a baby without the help of a man has become one of the most unifying religious beliefs of all time, being held by billions of Christians and Muslims all over the world. But the Hebrew Bible can not be credited for this belief.
