In a day and age in which newspapers fail so miserably at answering the question “What does Christmas mean?” (apart from generic platitudes of goodwill and commercialism), I have to commend Tim Townsend and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a story that gives a completely theological response.
I know that this was an editorial, but the New York Times ran something about how the real meaning of Christmas is — sleep.
So an actual news story offering a religious angle to a religious holiday is important. Townsend takes the novel approach of dissecting the religious significance of this Christian holy day:
At some point during the holiday season, most Christians take a break from the cookie baking, card sending and gift wrapping to reflect on what Christmas really means.
One Hebrew word — Emmanuel — captures that meaning for many.
As the writer of the Gospel of Matthew explains in the Christmas story, Emmanuel means “God is with us.”
For nearly 2,000 years, Christians have found comfort in their belief in God’s omnipresence.
I find it intriguing that Townsend uses Christmas as an opportunity to discuss the Christian belief in God’s omnipresence. It seems to me that the Christian doctrine of the incarnation might be a better discussion point for the Christmas season — the belief that God’s Son took on flesh and was born of a virgin.
Of course, Townsend then uses his “meaning of Christmas” story to present a one-sided discussion that questions whether or not Jesus’ birth fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy.
When the Hebrew scriptures were translated from Hebrew into Greek, and later into Latin, the Hebrew word “almah,” or “young girl,” was translated as “virgin.”
A New Testament scholar, the Rev. Raymond Brown, has written that from as early as the second century, “… the variation between ‘young girl’ and ‘virgin’ has given rise to some of the most famous debates in the history of exegesis. …”
In 1952, when a new Bible translation, the Revised Standard Version, was published, some conservative Christians burned it because the translators used “young woman” instead of “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14.
Some rabbis note that if the author of Isaiah had wanted to use the word virgin, he could have. The more precise word for “virgin,” “bitulah,” is used in other books of the Hebrew Bible such as Exodus and Leviticus.
The charge — that the prophecy was merely of a young woman rather than a virgin — is left without a response.
It is true that with the dramatic rise of modern rationalism in the early 20th century, some scholars sought to explain Jesus Christ as the child of a completely normal pregnancy. (And indeed, with promiscuity the norm these days, the notion of virginity even apart from Christ’s birth is somewhat miraculous.) Anyway, some scholars — particularly those associated with mainline Christian denominations — began teaching that Christ’s birth was not miraculous, per se, and they began refuting not just this story but other accounts of Jesus fulfilling ancient prophecies or performing miracles.
This is not new. But I think it’s somewhat offensive to not let traditional Christians respond to this. This simple Catholic Q&A refutes several of the points in Townsend’s account:
The Hebrew word translated as virgin, almah, can also be translated as “young woman” but as Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon notes “there is no instance where it can be proved that almah designates a young woman who is not a virgin.”
Additional evidence that the correct translation is “virgin” is supplied by the Septuagint version of the Bible, a Greek translation of the Old Testament made several centuries before Christ. It was translated by Jewish scholars for use by Greek-speaking Jews, mainly in Alexandria.
The Septuagint translates the Hebrew almah into Greek as parthenos. This Greek term has the precise meaning of “virgin.” So several centuries before the birth of Christ, before there was any reason to attack his Church, the meaning of Isaiah 7:14 was clear: almah = parthenos = virgin.
The Townsend article has some good quotes from Archbishop Raymond Burke and Lutheran theologian Jeffrey Gibbs — but they aren’t responding to the diversion in Townsend’s Christmas story. I, for one, get tired of mainstream media rehashes that cast doubt — from 2,000 years away — on the story of Christ. But if you’re going to go with that angle, the least you can do is let those who believe in the divinity of Christ and his miraculous birth respond to those who don’t.
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Comments (14) |
December 26, 2007, at 2:51 pm
I think the article lacks a sense of direction; it’s as if Townsend isn’t exactly sure what he wants to talk about. He goes back and forth between the the general presence of God in people’s lives and the specific presence of God in the flesh as Emmanuel, but he doesn’t make the connection that the latter is the fruit of the former and and that Christmas is a feast celebrating the Incarnation not just God’s general presence in our lives. And in the middle of the article Townsend wanders off to talk about whether or not Isaiah meant virgin or girl without really tying it in to anything else in the article.
One thing I also noticed is that Archbishop Burke was quoted as saying, “…Emmanuel and Jesus are connected by Matthew.” But when Townsend paraphrased Burke he said, “…the author [of Matthew] quotes the Emmanuel passage from Isaiah.” I noticed that throughout the article Townsend and those who seemed to be skeptical of the Virgin Birth tended to refer to the author of Matthew or the author of Isaiah instead of simply referring to Matthew and Isaiah. It’s almost as if you can tell a person’s theological leanings by their lingo.
December 26, 2007, at 3:29 pm
Since many, many more people could read Greek than could read Hebrew in the Roman Empire, the septuagint became the standard Old Testament for Christians. Jerome’s Vulgate was a translation of the Septuagint into the other predominant language of the time - so this problem of “almah” was probably not forefront in anybody’s mind back then. I can’t remember if Matthew was directed to the Jews or to gentiles, but it’s possible that the guy who wrote Matthew never read the original Hebrew Isaiah.
There was a time in this country that “maiden” and “miss” presumed virginity. In fact, it was always assumed that “Miss” America was virginal. I think somebody lost their crown once when it was discovered that she had had a baby or lost it - proof she was no longer virginal enough for a Miss America crown. I don’t know if it is still true, but divorced young ldies could not be Miss America.
Then there’s always the notion found in the song “Girl, You’re a Woman Now” - a female is considered a “girl/young woman” until she has sex for the first time and then she is a “woman”. No need to mention the technical word “virginity” because that was considered rude. what an amazing concept - rudeness is just being “real” these days.
It’s interesting that people use the term Virgin Birth all the time as the miraculous event; if you believe there was an Incarnation then naturally there will be a birth 9 months later if the pregnancy goes OK. The birth itself is not miraculous. Maybe most people don’t know what “incarnation” means, just like they don’t understand the “immaculate conception”, either.
December 26, 2007, at 3:30 pm
Well said, Mollie.
While I don’t mind skepticism, as it is an extraction tool for the mining of truth, I do wish people would accept Mary at her word. She tells us plainly that she was a virgin in the strictest sense: “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” -Luke 1:34
Of course, we must allow for those who wish to observe that it is the ‘author’ rather than Mary herself who conveys those words. But why quibble? Scholars of myth are quick to point out that myth is often truer than nonfiction, which is a good rejoinder to those who would attribute Mary’s words to the gospel’s author. Without ‘miracle’ the Jesus story would make him out to be merely a good teacher of ethics. But rather, he is ‘without beginning of days nor end of years.”
That’s ever-presence. And I thought the reporter’s hook was quite good on that point. ‘God with us’ is the entire point of the visit. If we cut to the chase, we wouldn’t need the manager, or the fat man in the red suit, either. But then, we need to work through these lessons.
~eric.
December 26, 2007, at 3:41 pm
I simply wanted to second Julia in her explanation of the virginity of Mary.
Virgo in classical Latin clearly has the sense of virgin (in our narrow sense) and girl or young woman. It does because the two senses were culturally bound, of course.
December 26, 2007, at 3:52 pm
I can clearly remember when our daughter acknowledged that she was pregnant (outside of marriage) while still a highschooler. She assured us that she was still a virgin; and professed to be mystified as to how this could have happened. She didn’t report any angel appearing to her in a dream with tidings of great joy. In fact, she was greatly troubled by this development.
While we were genuinely skeptical about her story, we did respond in a caring way to her sense of desperate need.
Of course, less skeptical parents would have accepted her story as gospel truth!
December 26, 2007, at 4:15 pm
Julia, as you pointed out on another thread, there is a pious tradition that the Virgin Birth was indeed miraculous and that Mary is physically a virgin even after giving birth. While using the term Immaculate Conception to describe the Incarnation is incorrect (although I suppose using it without the capital letters would be technically correct yet confusing), I don’t think it’s wrong to say that Christmas celebrates the Incarnation. Yes the Incarnation took place 9 months earlier at the Annunciation, but the first time we were actually able to see and touch our Lord was at his birth. In celebrating the birth of Jesus we celebrate God pouring himself out into flesh. If Christmas wasn’t largely about the Incarnation, the Feast of the Annunciation would be the second biggest holy day of the liturgical year, not the Feast of the Nativity.
December 26, 2007, at 5:09 pm
Mollie, I agree with your central thesis that given the longevity of this theological debate, that space should be given for all points-of-view when it’s brought up.
He could and should have referred to sites such as Wikipedia entry. It includes a table of how various translators have rendered the word almah and the comment from Martin Luther that
And there are others who would say that Mary was an absolutely pure soul (another meaning of the adjective virgin) but not virgin in the usual sense of the word.
So I guess it would be hard to reflect all of that in a story, but Townsend should have at least tried.
December 27, 2007, at 12:54 am
First, Immaculate Conception—my memory may be failing, but I think that theological construct is used to describe *Mary’s* conception, NOT Christ’s. Rome believes Mary was Immaculately Conceived and thus was able to bear the Christ.
Immaculate Conception/Catholic Encyclopedia
The article that touched on the term “almah” would have done well to read Luther’s words on that subject. You can find this in a tract entitled “That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew.” Relax, this is NOT that infamous tract that Hitler used to demonic ends (that one is entitled “Against the Jews and Their Lies”).
December 27, 2007, at 1:31 am
Actually, this controversy is very old. In his commentary on the fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 (see quote from the Catena Aurea below) St. Jerome takes the time to specifically refute the idea that “almah” referred only to a young woman and not to a virgin:
Mary was, indeed, physically a virgin before, during and after the birth of Christ. She is Ever-Virgin. The early Christians taught that Christ entered the world through her as a ray of light enters a room through clear glass. Since He is the Divine Physician, He would not have caused her bodily harm. This is a consequence of the doctrine (now dogma) of the Immaculate Conception.
Similarly, Christmas is to the Annunciation as Pentecost is to the covenant with Adam - in both cases, what began very early but was not promulgated to the world until much later.
December 27, 2007, at 7:56 am
Well, it’s a controversy in the sense that there are seemingly always those who can’t parse the word—cognate in meaning and usage with the Latin virgo and the Hebrew almah—maiden, and in the sense that there are always those inclined to controvert no matter what, anti-Stratfordians, for instance.
December 27, 2007, at 10:17 am
John L. Hoh, Jr.,
You are correct that the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception (and not Jesus’) but with one critical distinction.
The Catholic Church teaches that Mary was conceived WITHOUT SIN (that’s what *immaculate* refers to), so she was therefore uniquely prepared to say yes to God and bear Jesus.
When she herself was conceived, it came about in the ordinary way with her own parents.
This is a very common misperception, even among Catholics.
December 27, 2007, at 5:34 pm
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think it’s doctrine that Mary’s Immaculate Conception was necessary to bear Christ. Catholic teaching is that God found it fitting to preserve Mary from sin, but as far as I know the Church is silent on whether or not it was necessary for Jesus to enter her womb.
December 28, 2007, at 2:54 pm
For anybody still interested in Virgin Birth and whether Mary experienced birth pains, there is a great discussion at the blog Canterbury Tales in the combox with citations to Scripture and early church Fathers. (as well as two mystics who are questionable)
http://cantuar.blogspot.com/2007/12/did-blessed-mother-experience-pains-of.html
No specific official proclamation has ever been made about this matter to my knowledge, athough many have opined and preached about it.
December 28, 2007, at 7:20 pm
I find it interesting that in both the Thompson article and in the comments here about the article, discussion moved away from “God with us” to “was she or wasn’t she?” in relation to Mary’s virginity. Even more, comments have been made about Mary’s state of sinfulness - was she or was she not born without the taint of original sin?
These questions distract us from the incarnation itself - and into the mechanics of how it came to be. So the real story in the story is how we no longer attempt to grasp the fullness of “God with us”! Those quoted in the article are no better at describing this than the comments on this blog.
So my critique of Thompson’s article is that he missed this angle. I think a better article would have been written from interviews asking the question: “What does ‘God with us’ mean - particularly when connected to Jesus?” And then answering it from the perspectives of history, culture, personal belief.
Thompson started to go there, but he didn’t quite make it. Too bad.