The Virgin

 Gozzoli, 1450.

Mary was a virgin. This is what the gospel author Matthew wants to communicate. Matthew anchors the Jesus story in the Hebrew Scriptures, and in Mt 1.23, as he describes Mary's miraculous conception, he quotes a passage from Isaiah 7.14: 

"Look, the virgin (Gk. parthenos) shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Immanuel."

Some argue that the Isaiah passage does not refer to a virgin, because it uses the word almah, "young woman," instead of the more common Hebrew term for "virgin," bethulah. 

They would note that Matthew uses the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, which translates almah with parthenos - a technical term for virgin, instead of translating directly from the Hebrew.

The Septuagint

The argument is heated, but there is not as much at stake as one might originally think. Matthew was recording a historical event and wanted to anchor it within the context of his community's authoritative scriptures. 

Whether or not Isaiah was referring to a virgin, or a young woman, or a young woman who was a virgin, is irrelevant. Matthew, while not discounting the original context of Isaiah 7.14, is telling his community what the text means for them NOW. 

The struggle for the modern day reader is to live in the tension of a passage that referred to a specific historical situation (the events of Isaiah's day) but was malleable enough to be applied to another historical event, the birth of Jesus, that occurred over 700 years later. 

On this eve, that commemorates the ultimate Imma-nu-el, lit. "with us is God," we reflect on God's saving activity both past and present, and thank God for the historical reality of the birth that brought restoration and life, to a broken and dying world.