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Almah - Problem Passages and
Messianic Prophecy
Presented at the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod’s Missouri District,
Washington Circuit Pastoral Conference
Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Hermann, Missouri
November 15, 2011
By Herman Otten

Part I

The doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ is a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. The LCMS’ Lutheran Witness was correct when it said in 1957 “The doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ is a fundamental article of our faith the denial of which makes saving faith in Christ impossible.” This statement is quoted in the chapter on the Virgin Birth of Christ in Baal or God published by Lutheran News in 1965. Most of the translators of the NCC’s RSV were modernists and higher critics of the Bible who denied the virgin birth of Christ. Baal or God shows that some prominent Lutherans denied the virgin birth of Christ. Today, even within our Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, churchmen like Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who denied such doctrines as the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, are hailed as great committed Christians. Our St. Louis seminary has said Bonhoeffer was the greatest Lutheran since Martin Luther. Bonhoeffer and King - Their Life and Theology Documented in Christian News 1963 - 2011 - A Fifty Year Battle vs. Intellectual Laziness, published this year by Christian News documents the theology of King and Bonhoeffer.

It’s unfortunate that even the LCMS’ Lutheran Service Book includes hymns by Harry Emerson Fosdick and Georgia Harkness, who denied the virgin birth of Christ and other fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

Of course not everyone who denies that almah should be translated virgin or rejects direct messianic prophecy denies the Christian faith. There always is what orthodox theologians call “Glücklichess Inconsequenz,” fortunate inconsistency. Now let’s look at the Hebrew word almah.

“God’s Word Will Stand” from p. 340 of the Third Edition of William F. Beck’s An American Translation:

Many in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, including the LCMS’ Worship Commission and Paul McCain of Concordia Publishing House, have said that the Revised Standard Version of the National Council of Churches is a reliable and accurate version.

How some Bibles and Commentaries Translate almah in Isaiah 7:14

1. Good News Bible - The Bible in Today’s English Version - American Bible Society Distributed at an LCMS convention in 1976, “a young woman”.

2. Holman Study Bible - Revised Standard Version, 1952, “a young woman”.

3. The Living Bible Paraphrased - Tyndale, 1973. (11,375,000 Living Bibles in print by 1973). “The Controversial Hebrew word used here sometimes means “virgin” and sometimes “young woman.’ Its immediate use here refers to Isaiah’s young wife and her newborn son (Isaiah 8:1-4).

4. The James Moffet Translation - Harper & Row, 1954, “young woman”.

5. The New English Bible - Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1970, “a young woman”.

6. The Jerusalem Bible - Doubleday. Imprimatur - John Cardinal Heenan, 1966, “the maiden”. Immediate appellation does not refer to the virgin birth of Christ - footnote on p. 1153.

7. The Jerome Biblical Commentary, Edited by Raymond E. Brown, S.J., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, St. and Roland E. Murphy, O, Carr. Foreword by Augustine Cardinal Bea, S.J. Imprimatur Lawrence Cardinal Shehan, 1968.

“Isaiah does not use the technical term for ‘virgin’ (bethulah) but a word (‘almah‘) that signifies a young woman of marriageable age, whether a virgin or not”, p. 270.

8. The Jerome Bible Commentary, Second Edition, 1990 “the young woman: Here almah is not the technical term for a virgin (bethulah). This is best understood as the wife of Ahaz, the child promised will guarantee the dynasty is future (note again ‘the house of David’ in v. 13; cf. v. 2) and for this reason can be called Immanuel (‘with us is God‘) p. 235.

9. The New Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 volume, 15,350 pages, 17,000 articles. McGraw-Hill, Catholic University of America. Imprimatur Patrick A. O’Boyle, Archbishop of Washington. Sponsored by the Bishops of the U.S. Dedicated to Pope Paul VI. (ed. A homosexual pope. See Randy Engel’s 1300 page The Rite of Sodomy). It is not necessary to believe that almah, in Isaiah 7:14 referred to Christ and Mary when it was first written (1-326).

Reviewed in the May 29, 1967 Lutheran News (now Christian News) and the April 6, 2009 Christian News). CN’s review of the New Catholic Encyclopedia may have been the most extensive critical review with many quotations published in any newspaper or theological journal. CN has found through the years that many scholars, including Roman Catholics, have never read it. CN showed that it presented “A New Faith” which is not historic Christianity. It should have been reviewed in every theological journal.

10. “What Does Almah Mean?” by William F. Beck, An American Translation of the Bible. Lutheran News, April 3, 1969. Concordia Seminary, St. Louis refused to publish this article. It is in the Christian Handbook on Vital Issues, pp. 537-548.

Beck begins by explaining the historical setting and what the sign is and then examines the meaning of almah.

“The etymological meaning of ALMAH is a sexually active girl.”

“1. Sound exegesis does not base the meaning of a word on the etymology. When a member of our class in Messianic Prophecy argued for the etymological meaning of almah, our Korean, Mr. Oh, asked him, ‘You say “teaspoon”, do you drink “tea” with it?’” (Dr. Oh and I were good friends in graduate school at Concordia Seminary. He visited us in New Haven, introduced me to professors at Covenant Seminary, and later became the president of what may have been the largest Presbyterian seminary in Korea. He earned his Th.D at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.)

“ALMAH occurs nine times in the Old Testament. In two places (Ps. 46:1; 1 Chron. 15:10), we have the plural alamoth”. Beck then examines each passage where almah is used and shows that this context indicates it must be translated “virgin.”

“But just as all the evidence dating almah as being a virgin, so there isn’t the least suggestion in Is. 7:14 that she is anything but that.”

“I have searched exhaustively for instances in which almah might mean a non-virgin or a married woman. There is no passage where almah is not a virgin. Nowhere in the Bible or elsewhere does almah mean anything but a virgin.”
Prior to the LCMS’ 1962 convention in Cleveland, an open hearing on doctrinal issues was held. Some 1400 attended. Many of the professors of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis who disagreed with Beck’s translation of almah were present at the hearing. I argued that every time almah is used in the Old Testament the context indicated it must be translated virgin. One of the professors said there was a passage in the Bible using almah where it does not mean virgin. I asked from the floor of the open hearing for the faculty to give the verse. He then told the open hearing that at the moment he could not supply the verse, but would do so later. The professor never did because there is no such verse where almah should not be translated “virgin.” This public confrontation did not improve my popularity with the seminary faculty.

Debate With Beck Declined
I tried to arrange a debate at the seminary between Beck and his critics on the faculty on such matters as the translation of almah, the J-E-D-P source hypothesis, Deutero-Isaiah, Beck’s translation, etc. Beck agreed to debate his critics on the faculty but they refused. Such a debate would have shown that Beck was by far the better combined Greek and Hebrew scholar and more familiar with the latest textual findings in Lutheranism than any of his critics.
Many have argued that if Isaiah had meant a “virgin” he would have used the Hebrew bethulah. Beck writes; “If Isaiah had used bethulah, those who want to have a young married woman could cite Joel 1:8 where bethulah is used of a woman who has had a “husband.”

“If almah means any married woman, there is no miracle and no prophecy of the virgin birth of God-with-us. Then Is. 7:14 has been watered down to fit any one of countless women giving birth to a child.”

Beck then examines other Semitic languages and the Septuagint. He wrote in this essay which every LCMS pastor should read:

Orlinsky calls the Septuagint “an authorized translation of the Bible into Greek, the work of Jewish scholars.”40 Their translation of Is. 7:14 is an excellent one. In this translation, two hundred years before Christ, long before the Jewish bias against Christ, “seventy” Jewish scholars translating for Jews, living twenty-two hundred years closer to ALMAH that we do, translated it with “virgin”, PARTHENOS. Whatever difficulties they may have experienced with the text and its historical setting, they were convinced that ALMAH means “virgin.” This PARTHENOS was kept in their Bible and read there by the Jews for three centuries. Not until 130 A.D., a hundred years after Christ, did they change it.

Matthew 1
If the virgin birth were a peripheral and insignificant element in Matthew 1, we might have to give some serious attention to those who claim that v. 23 is an inexact rendering of Is. 7:14. But the virgin birth is central and even pivotal in Matt. 1:16, 18-25. Matthew wants to tell his fellow Jews that Jesus was born of a virgin. That is the critical point of this event. Joseph was deeply troubled about Mary because he was convinced that she was guilty of adultery. What other explanation was there! Only one— a holy creation. To tell Joseph that, the angel had come down from heaven. “That which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit,” he says. There is nothing wrong with Mary. And more than that, the Lord has planned this. He predicted it in Is. 7:14: The ALMAH will conceive and bear a child. What the Lord said is now a concrete fact: Jesus is born of a virgin. Many a person may have puzzled about the ALMAH in Is. 7:14 (cp. 1 Pet. 1:10-12), but when Joseph, Luke, Matthew, and the other Apostles saw the historic fact, they understood Isaiah 7:14: Jesus was born of an ALMAH. The miracle of the ALMAH is given in Isaiah and made absolutely necessary by Isaiah; it is not added by Matthew.

Luther says,
If they make the claim that the Hebrew text does not state a VIRGIN is with child, but rather: an ALMAH is with child but ALMAH is not to supposed to mean Virgin but BETHULAH means a virgin, where ALMAH means a young maiden, . . . St. Matthew (1:22-23) and Luke (1:13), both of whom apply the passage in Isaiah to Mary and translate the world ALMAH “virgin,” whom we believe rather than the whole world. For God the Holy Spirit speaks through St. Matthew and St. Luke, of whom we firmly believe that He understands the Hebrew language and words.52

New Evidence
“The new evidence from Ras Shamra. . . Lends no support to those who claim that ALMAH may be used of a married woman.”

God-with-us
And so this God in God-with-us, on whom rests the Spirit of knowledge (11:2), will know by human experience. God-with-us eats curds and honey in order to learn how to reject the veil and choose the good. These words may have little meaning for those who switch off the light of the New Testament. But we should notice that the Messianic meaning is not imported from the New Testament and injected into a meaningless text; this is the simple meaning of the Hebrew text. Yet it matches the New Testament absolutely. In His training period when He ate curds and honey, God-with-us grew in wisdom (Luke 2:40, 52), by which He distinguished between good and bad, righteousness and sin, truth and falsehood. He did this for thirty years. His learning to reject the evil and choose the good is called a testing in Heb. 4:14, by which He is enabled to sympathize or “experience” (Cp. Gal. 3:4) with us. By His experience He learned obedience (Heb. 5:8, that is, the rejection of evil and the choice of the good. The goal of such training according to Hebrews (2:10; 5:8) was to be a perfect High Priest. The heart of His experience is given in Is. 53. According to verse 3 (where the Dead Sea scroll gives us the active participle of YADHA) He experiences pain for our sins. By His experience of our sin and its punishment, of righteousness and its attainment, He finished His work.

For entire article see Christian News, Vol. 49, No. 45, November 21, 2011

LCMS Deceives Supreme Court About Its Doctrine

LCMS Deceives Supreme Court About Its Doctrine
By Jack Cascione

Christian News, November 14, 2011

The Apostle Paul exercised his right to appeal to Caesar, but that didn’t give him the right to deceive Caesar about his religion.

“The case, titled Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Et Al.”, centers on Cheryl Perich, formerly a commissioned-minister teacher at the now-closed Redford, Mich., Hosanna-Tabor school. Hosanna-Tabor is an LCMS congregation.”
http://reporter.lcms.org/pages/rpage.asp?NavID=19326

There is no question that under the US Constitution the government has no authority to regulate the hiring and firing practices of a church’s workers. The government can’t control who can and who can’t teach or preach in churches and church schools. Under the First Amendment the government has no authority to establish religion.

However, through a labyrinth of self-imposed by-laws, convention resolutions, CCM Opinions, and contractual agreements, the LCMS has caught itself in its own bureaucratic web and in violation of American labor laws.

The article by David Strand in the LCMS Reporter, and obviously approved by his wife Sherri Strand, who is legal counsel to the LCMS Board of Directors, exposes the misinformation and confusion being argued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the intentional deception about LCMS doctrine and practice being argued by attorneys representing the LCMS.

This is the same obfuscation practiced by the LCMS in its lawsuit against four ladies in Oakland California for the church property of Redeemer Lutheran Church. If the court doesn’t know or understand LCMS doctrine, the LCMS sees no reason to tell the truth about what the LCMS believes.

The following are some of the issues raised in the November, 2011 LCMS Reporter:
1. “On Feb. 22, Perich [the teacher who was fired] appeared at the school and told Hoeft [the principal] she would sue Hosanna-Tabor if she was not reinstated. When the principal reminded Perich that suing the church would violate LCMS policy (all called workers in the Synod with complaints against their church employer are required to use the Synod's dispute-resolution process rather than going to court), Perich repeated her intention.”

Before we even look at the merits of the case, the LCMS has no business restricting the rights of an American citizen from using the courts as a condition of membership in the LCMS. This would mean the Apostle Paul should have been excommunicated for appealing to Caesar. Why is the LCMS acting as a legalistic cult? A man is a fool to give up his constitutional rights to work for anyone.

2. Justice Sotomayor (a judge I don’t like) asked an excellent question, What about, “. . . cases of suspected child sexual abuse or when a church uses an illegal substance -- peyote was mentioned -- as part of a religious rite. Would Perich have been free to report such things to civil authorities?”

Isn’t a church body that requires it members to surrender their rights as American citizens, as a condition of membership, raising suspicion about its requirement to administer its own internal system of justice? This is what the Catholic Church did during the Inquisition. Of course, it was all in the name of the Lord. The LCMS District Presidents and President Ralph Bohlmann trashed the old LCMS adjudication system that relied on lawyers because it was a sinful and worldly system. In other words, justice that follows the rules of evidence is bad for Lutherans and control imposed by an LCMS Council of District Presidents (COP) kangaroo court is good. Many US denominations are interpreting the First Amendment as a pretext to administer their own shadow government.

3. “Justice Alito asked Laycock [also representing the LCMS] if he knew of many cases ‘in which ministers have been fired for reporting criminal violations,’ to which Laycock said he knew of ‘only two’ that even remotely approached such circumstances.”

Laycock would have no information about many LCMS pastors have been threatened or removed from the roster for objecting to corruption and real-estate fraud in the LCMS.

4. “Justice Kennedy wondered why Perich, in a case of alleged retaliation, couldn't get a hearing. ‘She could have had a hearing,’ said Laycock. She could have had a hearing ‘in the Synod before decision-makers’ in the church's dispute-resolution process, a venue wholly independent from Hosanna-Tabor. Indeed, the Synod's Bylaws insist that ordained and commissioned ministers seek redress for complaints internally, within dispute-resolution, rather than taking matters to court. Perich ‘could have gone to the Synod,’ Laycock said. ‘She wasn't cut off from that. She decided not to.’"

Laycock didn’t reveal that the LCMS is in the habit of forcing its workers to use the new LCMS Dispute Resolution Process so that it can keep the dissident members in an endless round of appeals and/or interminable delays. This writer is still waiting for a case to be resolved that was filed against him by Dr. Waldo Werning in 2001. In December of 2005 a written statement from LCMS Secretary Hartwig said there would be a decision by January 2006. I’m still waiting.

In 2004 I complained at an LCMS Convention committee to Michigan Sixth Circuit Court Judge Gene Schnellz (inventor of the LCMS Dispute Resolution Process) that one of the Synod’s handpicked Reconcilers wrote that she didn’t deal with religion. Schnellz refused to consider the complaint and said he didn’t care what she wrote. Telling Perich to go to Dispute Resolution is the LCMS way of showing dissidents the back door. The District Presidents on the final panel reserve the right to overturn any ruling they don’t like. The LCMS is now governed by COP hierarchy.

Laycock deceived the US Supreme Court when he told them that the LCMS Dispute Resolution Process is LCMS doctrine. It is not Lutheran Doctrine. It is not in the Bible. It is not in the Lutheran Confessions. It is not a matter of faith or salvation, but the Justices don’t know that any more than they know if the LCMS believes in Santa Claus. The Justices also don’t know that the official position of the LCMS in the Augsburg Confession is that only called Pastors are Ministers of Religion. Article XIV: Of Ecclesiastical Order. “Of Ecclesiastical Order they teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called.”

Identifying LCMS school teachers as ministers of religion is a recent LCMS invention that is not supported by the Synod’s own official doctrine. In other words, Perich is not, nor has she ever been a minister of religion.

5. “‘It's sobering that a relatively quiet and local dispute should not only find its way to the Supreme Court but also carry such potential for adverse effect upon the work of the church,’ said Synod Secretary Rev. Dr. Raymond Hartwig. ‘To me it lends serious weight to our Synod's bylaw declaring our dispute-resolution process to be the exclusive and final remedy when disputes arise among us. Our reconciliation process keeps our disputes within the brotherhood where they belong, according to 1 Corinthians 6.’"

According to the LCMS Handbook, the LCMS is not a church, it is a corporation. Only the congregations are churches. At no time does the Bible make 1Corinthians 6 a mandated process, any more than the Bible requires that we wash feet like Jesus did. Paul’s request that church members resolve their own differences rather than go to court is a request based on faith, not a contractual requirement as a basis for membership in the church. The LCMS used to teach that it was sin to buy life insurance. People who bought life insurance in the 19th century were excommunicated.

According to Hartwig’s interpretation of the Bible, if you are born Amish you can’t use electricity, if you are born Baptist you can’t drink wine, if you are Apostolic you can’t dance, if you are born Muslim you must follow Shariah Law, and if you are born in the LCMS you can’t use the courts and the Supreme Court is supposed to recognize these religious curiosities as exceptions to rights of American citizens who belong to these churches. With this interpretation, who would be so foolish to desire a loss of constitutional rights by joining a religious denomination? Why not be a free American?

6. “No, we're not saying that, said Kruger. We're saying the ‘government's interest in preventing retaliation against those who would go to civil authorities with civil wrongs is foundational to the rule of law.’"

Kruger represents an administration that should be voted out of office, but Kruger’s statement is outstanding. How many governments do we have in this country? God save us from despotic theocracy and the re-imposition of pre-Reformation papacy. Will the Justices agree that church discipline can include putting people on the rack, because they agreed to it, as definition of the separation of Church and State?

The Supreme Court is not aware of the LCMS suit filed by Sherri Strand against four women in Oakland California for their church property. The LCMS denies it is suing anyone, but the name LCMS is listed more than 30 times in the suit.

The California-Nevada-Hawaii District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod filed suit against Sharon Bowles, Mary-Ann Hill, Portia Ridgeway, and Celia Moyer for the church property of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church of Oakland CA (case number RG07363452). Synodical Sectary Hartwig and CCM designate Dr. Wil Sohns refused to answer questions during depositions by pleading the First Amendment. Synodical President Kieschnick was instructed by Strand not to answer if an LCMS District is part of the LCMS.

Attorney Paul Nelson’s brilliant defense won the suit for the four women but the Synod still refuses to settle the case. The LCMS spent more than a million dollars in tax exempt funds suing these four women whose personal legal bills are now over $750,000. Judge Whitley’s written opinion in favor of the women is outstanding.

What if the Supreme Court Justices knew that LCMS doctrine/legalism teaches that it is a sin to sue the Synod according to a 2007 LCMS Convention Resolution, promoted by Kieschnick and the District Presidents? However, the same Resolution states that it is acceptable practice for the Synod to sue its own members? In other words, in the LCMS God says you can’t sue them but God also says they can sue you.

What if the Supreme Court Justices knew that LCMS doctrine is whatever the LCMS officials decided to tell the court what is convenient at the time? There is nothing in the U. S. Constitution forbidding a church from changing its doctrine every day.

Historically, the Supreme Court has had no difficulty in banning bigamy in Utah no matter how many church members agreed to it. How far will the Supreme Court go in granting religious denominations exemptions from the U. S. Constitution in name of the separation of Church and State?

Reformation Day: Past and Present

Reformation Day: Past and Present
By Chaplain Brandt Klawitter
Christian News, November 7, 2011

When reflecting on Reformation Day and the events surrounding Luther posting his 95 Thesis on the door of the castle church in 1517, many thoughts come to mind. We think of that day as Luther first stood up in opposition to the false teachings of the church. We think of the months and years that followed as Luther, out-manned and out-gunned, so to speak, stood up against church and empire to boldly confess the truth of God’s Word.

Yes, we like to look back at that day as one might look with great nostalgia towards some great victory in a battle that never needs to be fought again. It’s enough to simply celebrate the victory; fighting is no longer necessary, we tell ourselves. In fact, whether visiting Wittenberg, Germany, or reading about its history in books, that’s the overwhelming view that we often have of Luther’s Reformation.

Yet, is the Reformation best described using the verb “was,” as if it were a one-time event for which the last page has been written and the final chapter closed, or is the Reformation actually something more, perhaps better described using the word “is” and viewed as an ongoing event that will continue on until the return of our Lord?

In truth, the Reformation was not and is not an isolated event. If anything, it was only one more outbreak in the war between truth and deception, light and darkness, God and those that would oppose Him. The pages of the Old and New Testaments are filled with the violence and evil inflicted on truth and upon God’s people by His enemies. Whether it was violence to those faithful messengers of God, the prophets and apostles, or violence to God’s name and glory in the form of false-teaching, this war raged throughout the distant past. In the early centuries of the church, heresy of all forms afflicted the faithful followers of Christ, constantly vying to replace God’s saving truth with a lie. Luther’s faithful stand in defense of Scripture’s clear teaching that salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone, was another outbreak of this age-old war.

In light of this historic reality, it would be fool-hardy to celebrate the Reformation as a one-time battle that must never be revisited. We would only be fooling ourselves if we were to believe today that the Enemy has not armed himself with even more death-dealing deception than at Luther’s time (or any other time in church history, for that matter) while we light-heartedly celebrate the winning of a one-time battle. C.F.W. Walther once rightly remarked that Christian Doctrine is such that if it is attacked at any one point, everything is threatened. Attack Christ’s two natures, and salvation is threatened. Attack the Trinity and one ends up with an idol. Attack the proper teaching of God’s Law and you will lose Christ and the Gospel. Confuse and pervert God’s teachings on marriage and children and you’ll lose the family and the future of the church. Attack Scripture’s teaching on the nature of truth, and you’ll lose the foundation upon which all things are built. In short, there are countless points of attack for the Enemy and all of them are potentially lethal. There is no point in the lines of defense that can be a matter of indifference—not when it comes to the truth of God’s Word and its purpose of sharing God’s way of salvation for sinful man.

Yet, as we focus on the on-going battle waged by the church militant on Reformation Day, we also bring into focus the true champion of the battle. Luther’s hymn, A Mighty Fortress, illustrates this point most magnificently. While this world’s prince may scowl and devils should fill all the world, Christ and His word will never be conquered. You see, most importantly, we are reminded on this day of the Valiant One who fights for us through His Word. This battle is not one of human arms or might, but is one that is waged by the power of God and whose victory is ultimately assured through Christ’s triumph over sin, death, and the devil through His glorious resurrection.

Thus, as another Reformation Day comes and goes, certainly, we do celebrate God and thank Him for faithful warriors who labored and fought in that line of prophets, apostles, and martyrs known as the church militant. Most of all, we thank Him for His glorious Word, Jesus Christ, who fights for us. Yet, until the last trumpet calls out, the battle does rage on. And thus, Reformation Day remains a rallying day for the church militant in the fight that must continue.

In that way, it is not merely a day of celebration or the commemoration of a one-time event, but it is a call to repentance and to rejoin the battle. It is a call to each of us to soberly and humbly return to God’s Word. It is a call for us to turn once again with repentant hearts and look to God’s Son for that mercy which we did not deserve yet have so freely received. It is a time to pray that God would richly fill us with His Spirit to take up the weapons of our warfare, His Word and prayer, and strengthen us to labor on in the battle into which we have each been called.