In Defense of the Faith | thebereancall.org

In Defense of the Faith

July 1, 2021
Dave Hunt

Was a Virgin Birth Essential?

Question: The virgin birth of Jesus is presented as one of the cornerstones of Christianity for both Catholics and Christians. I don’t see why this is essential. My pastor says the Bible doesn’t even teach it. The Hebrew world alma, translated virgin in most Christian Bibles, really means “young woman.” Is he right?

Response: Yes, it is true that alma means “young woman.” It is never used in the Old Testament, however, except to signify a young woman who is a virgin. In Israel a young unmarried woman had to be a virgin. If not, she was stoned. Alma never refers to a married woman.

Only the rankest critic would argue that alma in Isaiah:7:14 (“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son”) could mean anything but virgin. It would hardly be a sign for a nonvirgin to conceive and bear a son. Furthermore, the quotation of this verse in the New Testament (Matthew:1:23) uses a Greek word that without question means “virgin.”

If Jesus Christ was not born of a virgin, then He was an ordinary man who would have had to die for his own sins and could not have died for the sins of the world. To be our Savior and pay the infinite penalty demanded by God’s justice, Jesus had to be God come to earth as a man. Being God, the body He took (“a body hast thou prepared me”—Hebrews:10:5) when He became a man could not have been created through normal sexual intercourse but only by the creative power of God within the womb of a virgin. If Jesus was not virgin born, there is no salvation and Christianity is a hoax.

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