Isaiah & Jesus – Ask the Rabbi
Q. Does Isaiah predict the birth of Jesus, as some Christians suggest?
Some Christians argue for the translation, “the virgin shall conceive”. But the Hebrew for virgin is b’tulah. By using almah the verse is not making any claim other than that the young woman concerned (who may have been the prophet’s wife, the king’s wife or indeed any other woman of the kingdom of Judah) will conceive in the normal way.
True, the Greek translation, the Septuagint, seems to understand the word as “virgin” (parthenos), but Professor Harry M Orlinsky has pointed out that at that time parthenos meant simply a young woman without any necessary connotation of virginity.
These arguments have led the New English Bible, for instance, to join the Jewish translators in saying, “a young woman is with child”.
