Exposing A Missionary Deception
The resources available on the World-Wide-Web are almost boundless, which can be both a good thing as well as bad thing. It is good because of the potential educational value that may be derived from these resources. It is bad because of the potential adverse impact that false as well as insidious information taken from the Internet may have on its users and/or those at whom it is being directed.
Pertinent to ongoing work in counter-missionary education is the presence of a plethora of evangelical Christian missionary websites filled with Christian apologetics. One popular source of Christian apologetics is the Jews for Jesus website[1], which other missionary websites use as a resource and proliferate the misinformation that is so anathematic to the teachings of the Hebrew Bible.
In this essay, one such missionary apologetic tract, Does almah mean young woman or virgin?[2], is analyzed and exposed as a collection of deceptive misinformation created by its author. The fact that this tract appears on the Jews for Jesus website implicates this evangelical Christian missionary organization as a perpetrator and promoter of deception.
Each part of this missionary apologetic tract is now examined for its accuracy.
In the introductory paragraph, the
author points out that one of the commonly used arguments against the Christian
doctrine of the Virgin Birth and the use of Isaiah 7:14 as a supporting
"proof text", is that the Hebrew word 
(almah)
does not mean a virgin, and that Jews do not believe in a Virgin
Birth. The author then makes the
following statement:
Archaeological findings show that the Hebrew word "almah" refers to a virgin. The possibility of a virgin
birth is upheld by open-minded Jewish sages and scholars, even those who are
not believers in Jesus.
This statement, although followed by what the author claims to be "evidence" to support it, is untrue, as the following analysis demonstrates.
The heading for each of the following sub-sections identifies an Exhibit # and the respective element from the author's "evidentiary supporting material".
U The Christian Apologetic Missionary Claim: The "archaeological findings" cited in the tract are drawn from a technical note[3] published by the late Cyrus H. Gordon, who is described by the author as "a leading Jewish scholar". The author quotes the following two portions from Professor Gordon's note[4]:
"The commonly held view that
"virgin" is Christian, whereas "young woman" is Jewish is
not quite true. The fact is that the
Septuagint, which is the Jewish translation made in pre-Christian
"...From
Y
Refuting the Missionary Claim: Is this claim true? One striking item right at the beginning of
the apologetic tract is the characterizationtion of
Cyrus H. Gordon as "a leading Jewish scholar" (boldface
added for emphasis). Professor Gordon
was an archaeologist, historian, and linguist of world renown, who also
happened to be of Jewish heritage, albeit, he was a secular Jew. Using the author's terminology, one can say
that both Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan were
"leading Jewish scholars", though certainly not "leading Judaic
scholars". Both were physicists who
happened to be of Jewish heritage. Is it
plausible to conjecture that the author refers to Professor Gordon as "a
leading Jewish scholar" in order to give readers the (false)
impression that he is a "Judaic scholar"? Is it then also plausible that, under this
guise, the author lifts certain "suitable" segments out of Professor
Gordon's technical note in order to support his claims? This technical note indicates that, in fact,
the contrary may be true, with the information contained in it actually having
no validity regarding the theological aspects of this subject. A superficial reading of the material being
quoted from the technical note in the apologetic tract could lead the reader to
believe that Professor Gordon supports the Christian claim that the Hebrew word
(almah)
means a virgin.
A thorough investigation of the "evidence" shows this claim is weak, if not false. Reproduced below is the entire note by Professor Gordon, where the portions quoted in the tract are shown in highlighted bold font for emphasis:
‘Almah
in Isaiah 7:14
cyrus
h. gordon*
Ever since the
publication of the Revised Standard Version there has been a storm of debate
over the translation of ‘almah in Isaiah
Little purpose would be served
in repeating the learned explanation that Hebraists have already contributed in
their attempt to clarify the point at issue.
It all boils down to this: the distinctive Hebrew word for “virgin” is betulah, whereas ‘almah means a
“young woman” who may be a virgin, but is not necessarily so.
* Professor of Assyriology and Egyptology,
The aim of
this note is rather to call attention to a source that has not yet been brought
into the discussion. From
The first thing to note is that
the portions quoted by the author of the tract help promote the standard
missionary agenda. Not quoted are the
remarks in the second paragraph concerning the "learned
explanations", by Hebraists, of the Hebrew terms 
(betulah)
and (almah).
Secondly, certain technical
elements in Professor Gordon’s note require further elaboration and
explanation. One item concerns Professor
Gordon's rather surprising reference to the Septuagint, considering his
credentials as linguist and archaeologist.
A common misperception prevails about the Septuagint. Today's Septuagint (LXX, a
Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible!) used by Christians is a Church-translated
document that is not the Original Septuagint. One of several pieces of evidence in support
of this statement is the fact that the LXX contains errors that learned Jewish
scholars would not make, particularly when one considers the size of the team that
produced the translation. The Original
Septuagint was a translation of the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) into (Koiné) Greek by 72 learned bi-lingual Jewish scholars
(Rabbis). The work took place in
Another technical issue in Professor Gordon’s note concerns the statement that the inscribed Ugaritic clay tablet, said to be from around 1400 B.C.E., is pre-Mosaic. It is, as he states, pre-Isaianic. The consensus among scholars (Jewish and Gentile) is that the Mosaic era dates to around 1400-1300 B.C.E. Given that standard tools for absolute dating available at the time of the discovery of these tablets (late 1940’s and early 1950’s) were not even accurate to ±100 years, it is rather surprising to see such a definitive statement about the date of this tablet.
Consider next the Ugaritic poem[9] inscribed on the clay tablet, to which Professor Gordon refers in his technical note. Professor Gordon's introductory comments and his translations of the relevant ten lines (the poem contains 50 lines) are shown below. The [brackets] indicate missing, blank, or illegible spaces on the original clay tablet, some of which was redacted by Professor Gordon as indicated:
Chapter IV
THE WEDDING OF NIKKAL AND
THE MOON
The bard opens
with the declaration that he sings of the dramatis personae: the bride
Nikkal[10], the
groom Yarih = the Moon, and Hrhb the King of Summer who
acts as intermediary to arrange the match. The time is a fitting one: when the Sun goes
down and the Moon rises. The wedding is
indicated because the bride-to-be is destined to bear a son. The Ktrt are informed of the situation for
they are to celebrate joyous occasions like marriages in song. The intermediary is instructed to procure the
bride for whom Yarih is ready to pay a price of a thousand shekels of
silver, even a myriad of gold, plus gems of lapis – lazuli. The prospective groom also promises to be a
good husband, and cultivate his beloved, even as a farmer transforms a field
into a fertile vineyard. The
intermediary suggests a couple of other goddesses who could be obtained as
brides without difficulties, but Yarih is steadfast in his desire to wed
Nikkal. The wedding is performed by the
weighing of the marriage price by the bride's family. The bard sings to the bride, who is to be
illuminated by the light of her groom.
After a scribal
line across the tablet, the text concludes with the poet's singing of the Ktrt
descending among the flowers to Ltpn, the head of the pantheon. Then the bard mentions the counting of the
dowry and trousseaux.
77:1 I sing
of Nikkal-and-Ib [ ]
Hrhb,
King of Summer
Hrhb,
Estival King
When the
Sun sets
The Moon rises
- - [ ]
77:5 A virg[in] will give birth [ ]
[To the
K]trt
Daughters
of shouting
[Swallows].
Lo a maid
will bear a s[on[11] ]
answers/sees
lo for his love she is [ ]
[ ]for her flesh, my blood [ ]
77:10 And wine
like/and one wed [ ]
This is an interesting poem, which speaks of the marriage of two pagan gods. Though lines 77:5 and 77:7 say what Professor Gordon described in his note, significant grammatical, contextual, and theological problems arise in a comparison with the common renderings of Isaiah 7:14 in Christian Bibles:
X The
problem of tenses: In Isaiah
7:14, 
(ha'almah),
the young woman, is already with child, i.e., it is rendered in the
present tense. The Hebrew term 
(harah)
refers to a woman who is already pregnant, and it is used in this manner
consistently in the Hebrew Bible. In the
poem, the future tense is used.
X The problem
of identification: In Isaiah 7:14, the term
(ha'almah)
is used, i.e., (almah)
with the definite article 
(ha-), the, which
identifies a specific female who was known to both Isaiah and King Ahaz. In the poem,
the definite article is absent in both instances, and the general article, a,
is used instead of the definite article, the, thereby removing the
specific identification, something that bears similarity to the Christian renditions
of Isaiah
X The
problem of interchangeability of terms: The statement by Prof. Gordon, "… in
77:7 she [the bride] is called by the exact etymological counterpart of Hebrew
‘almah “young woman”; in 77:5 she is called by the
exact etymological counterpart of Hebrew betulah
“virgin.”", does not necessarily imply the interchangeability of the
two terms. Similar situations are found
in Genesis. Rebecca is referred to as 
(ha'na'ara),
the young girl and (betulah),
a virgin, in Genesis 24:16; and later on in the same chapter, she is
referred to as (ha'almah),
the young woman, in Genesis 24:43, and 
(ha'ishah),
the woman, in Genesis 24:39,44.
Does this mean that the respective pairs or all these terms are
interchangeable? The answer is NO!
X The
problem of usage of terms by Isaiah: This is a dual problem -
Ö Why would
Isaiah use the ambiguous Ugaritic style only at
Isaiah 7:14? He had other, more
accurate, vocabulary at his disposal had he desired to specifically refer to a
virgin; after all, he used the word (betulah),
a virgin, five times throughout his Book (see Is 23:4; 23:12; 37:22;
47:1; 62:5).
Ö Why would
Isaiah, the Prophet who spoke out so vehemently against idolatry (see, e.g., Is
19:7-8; 41:18-26; 44:9-20; 46:1-7; 57:3-14; 65:1-7), use ambiguous language
from an old pagan source (if it was even known to him) in a prophecy that had
to be very precise? Like the other
prophets of his era, Isaiah railed against idolatry and, according to
tradition, as soon as Manasseh, the notorious idolater, succeeded to the
throne, he had Isaiah murdered.
Considering the above information, it appears that the author of the tract misused the material in Professor Gordon’s technical note by quoting from it out of context. This makes the relevance of the technical note to the actual prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 questionable at best.
Though Professor Gordon was widely recognized and well respected as a secular linguist and archaeologist, his credentials and skills as a Judaic theological scholar are non-existent as indicated by the absence of any relevant published research. This is also confirmed in the short biographical sketch of him in the Encyclopedia Judaica, where he is described as a Semitic scholar, as well as from the fact that this particular technical note is not cited in any other known publication (Jewish or Christian) on Isaiah 7:14, except in the tract under discussion. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that the claim concerning Professor Gordon's note on Isaiah 7:14 lacks both integrity and validity.
Conclusion on Exhibit #1: