The point remains that from the beginning the Church (as reflected in St. Matthew’s Gospel) has interpreted the passage as the prophecy of the virginal conception of Christ in the womb of Mary. The argument originally made by St. Justin Martyr in the second century is still instructive: “If a virginal conception were not the clear, literal sense of the passage, there simply would be no question of a ‘sign.’”
The act of calling into question the certainty of biblical truths that have been dogmatically defined by the Church betrays a convergence of several Modernist attitudes identified by the Church last century. Such attitudes unfortunately have resulted in a questioning of the virginal conception in contemporary Catholic circles. This modern doubt, which obviously does not affect the status of the teaching, stems from an attempt to conduct biblical study without considering—and at times systematically rejecting—the inspired, ecclesial nature of Scripture.
DeSanto,
If you’re going to quote a book, you should probably cite it. Your text above is a quotation from Hahn’s “Catholic For a Reason II: Scripture and the Mystery of the Mother of God.”
Hahn’s assertion about St Justin Martyr bears some scrutiny. Hahn’s not quoting Justin here – rather, he’s quoting Garrigou-Legrange, who is discussing Justin’s
Dialogue with Trypho. Here’s a translation of the actual quote from the
Dialogue, as found on the New Advent site:
Moreover, the prophecy, ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,’ was uttered respecting Him. For if He to whom Isaiah referred was not to be begotten of a virgin, of whom did the Holy Spirit declare, ‘Behold, the Lord Himself shall give us a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son?’ For if He also were to be begotten of sexual intercourse, like all other first-born sons, why did God say that He would give a sign which is not common to all the first-born sons? But that which is truly a sign, and which was to be made trustworthy to mankind—namely, that the first-begotten of all creation should become incarnate by the Virgin’s womb, and be a child—this he anticipated by the Spirit of prophecy, and predicted it, as I have repeated to you, in various ways; in order that, when the event should take place, it might be known as the operation of the power and will of the Maker of all things;
Notice that Justin does not address the “clear, literal sense of the passage.” Rather, he’s simply making the case that the prophecy applies to Jesus. He’s debating with a Jewish man, who claims that Isaiah 7:14 does not refer to Jesus at all. It’s not a discussion of “clear, literal senses” of Scripture; it’s a discussion of prophecy fulfillment.
A couple of points might ensue from this discussion: Justin’s take on on the text is ‘virgin’. This is not unreasonable, but it’s an
interpretation of the Hebrew ‘almah’ into the Greek ‘parthenos’ – and this interpretation presumes that a ‘young, unmarried girl’ is a virgin. Second, it only addresses the use of Isaiah 7:14 in the context of messianic prophecy fulfillment (that is, in the same way that Matthew uses it). God is using it, as a prophecy to Ahaz, to convince him that God is the one in charge and He’s on Ahaz’s side, so Ahaz doesn’t need to fear other armies or turn to other nations for protection. Third, Hahn’s argument is one that rebuts denials of the virgin birth. We’re not denying the virgin birth here.
Isaiah 7:14 specifically states:
THE young woman will conceive
Let’s be more precise, then:
In the NAB, Isaiah 7:14 is rendered, “the young woman will conceive”. In the RSV-CE, Isaiah 7:14 is rendered, “a young woman shall conceive.”
If you want to claim that there’s a “presuppos[ition of] something peculiar and specific,” you’ll have to address the fact that the definite article ‘the’ isn’t part of all Catholic English language translations of the Bible. (Then, as Mystophilius has pointed out, you’ll need to address the implications of what the
source languages – not the
target language! – of this passage says.)
Why do you (or anyone one else here) think Isaiah 7:14 distinctly refers to this young woman as THE young woman will conceive, instead of speaking in more general terms by saying "A young woman will conceive.
Because Isaiah doesn’t say ‘the’. Not in all translations into English, let alone in earlier languages.
