From: Chris Ho-Stuart <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Is the immaculate conception considered fact?
Date: 10 May 1999 03:18:09 GMT
Organization: Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Claude Brown <> wrote:

> Disclaimer: I'm an athiest who has a healthy interest in religion in 
> general, but Christianity in particular. I'm interested because of the 
> profound effect (mostly good) religion and Christianity has on my 
> society.
>
> I've been having having a religious argument with someone, and in the 
> course of that argument my colleague stated that the immaculate 
> conception was not originally in the Bible - that it was only added at 
> during some translation from one language to another.
>
> Whats the view here? Is it considered fact, or is it an allusion?

I think you are mixing up the "immaculate conception" and the 
"virgin birth".

There is a long tradition in the church, maintained in particular
by the Roman Catholic church, that Mary the mother of Jesus was
born without the taint of original sin. Thus the birth of *Mary*
was the "immaculate conception".

This has no biblical basis at all.

The virgin birth is a reference to the birth of Jesus by Mary,
but not by any human father. Mary was still a virgin when Jesus
was born.

This does have biblical support; but all the same it is fairly easy
to ignite a raging debate on the subject and on the meanings of
words.

Matthew's gospel, chapter 1 verse 23, has a quote from Isaiah 7:14
in the old testament, speaking of a virgin giving birth. Matthew
wrote in Greek (although you will also hear this disputed in
this forum), and in quoting the bible he uses the Septuagint;
a Greek version of the old testament widely used at that time.

The verses Matthew quotes from Isaiah are about a child to be born
as a sign to King Ahaz; and before the child was weaned the
Assyrians would cease to trouble Israel. The verses in Isaiah are
a direct reference to a child born hundreds of years before Jesus.
Christians, however, believe that this prophesy also anticipates
*another* child -- Jesus -- who also was an indicator of salvation;
not just from the Assyrians but in more general terms -- much more
vague terms, IMO.

The Hebrew word used by Isaiah of the child to be born as a sign
to King Ahaz is "almah". The Septuagint translates this verse in
Isaiah as "parthenos". It is widely asserted that "almah" means young
woman -- but many assert it really means "virgin". It is also widely
asserted that "parthenos" means virgin -- though there are some
who argue that this is not implied. In any case, it is generally
thought that Matthew intended to refer to Mary as a virgin; though
even this is disputed in some circles.

A difficulty for the orthodox Christian view is -- if the verse
in Isaiah does refer to a virgin, does this mean that the first
fulfillment, for king Ahaz, was *also* a child born of a virgin?

Also worthy of mention is a long standing Jewish tradition that the
"almah" referred to in Isaiah is in fact Isaiah's own wife, or else
Ahaz's wife. I'm sure Les can help me out if I have too grossly
misrepresented Jewish traditions.

Cheers -- Chris