Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>]

At 04:06 PM 10/29/99 -0400, you wrote:
>> This is an interesting idea in view of the modern opinions that the
>> idea of the virgin birth (clearly attested in Luke as well as Matthew)
>> came from the early Christians' reading of LXX. If this idea was not
>> in the LXX which they read, this would strengthen the argument that
>> Matthew and Luke were reporting actual events. Now I don't want to get
>> into Christian theology on this list, but here it does interact with a
>> Hebrew textual issue. Where did the idea of the virgin birth come from
>> if not from LXX?
>If my memory serves me right, isn't  it so that [in the intertestamental
>period] there is also some evidence of  Jewish writers expecting the Mesiah
>to be born by virgin birth? If so, then the concept of  virigin birth is not
>so alien to Judaism as many in this discussion are assuming. Furthermore,
>there was a tradition in diaspora Judaism of the virginal conception of  the
>patriarchs. (See Philo; De Cherubim 13).

You misunderstand this pasage. Philo is stating a principle similar to one
that appears in the Talmud when it says that three come together in the
creation of man, the father, the mother and G-d. Teh father and mother
bring the physical part and G-d the spiritual. 
moshe shulman mshulman AT NOSPAMix.netcom.com    718-436-7705
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