Born of a virgin — Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15, Micah 5:2–3

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TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin — Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15, Micah 5:2–3

Matthew 1:22–23 quotes Isaiah 7:14 as grounds that the Messiah is born of a virgin. Unlike Micah 5:2 (see BornInBethlehem), the predictive reading here is heavily disputed, and the dispute is lexical: both sides grant that the Hebrew עַלְמָה (almah) denotes a young woman of marriageable age, and they dispute whether it denotes a virgin; the Septuagint's παρθένος is read as "virgin" — though whether it meant that in the translator's own day is disputed too (Dispute.Septuagint). Isaiah's immediate context — a sign to Ahaz, apparently fulfilled within the prophet's own generation (cf. Isa 8:3–4) — is read by most critical and much Jewish scholarship as having nothing to do with a future Messiah.

The argument now runs on four scriptural strands, and that changes its shape. Each is encoded as a Line — its own grounds, its own inference step, what it delivers — and the packages are assembled from those rather than from flat premise lists. Lines.lean is where the shape of the argument is legible in one screen.

The Isaianic strand is the one above, hinging on almah.

The protoevangelium strand reads Genesis 3:15 — enmity between the serpent's seed and "her seed", זֶרַע הָאִשָּׁה — as the first promise of a redeemer, and takes the matrilineal wording to mark a birth with no human father, since Hebrew ordinarily reckons זֶרַע through the man. That last step is genuinely contestable and is marked disputed. Some readers who grant the messianic reading deny it, the Lutheran commentators Leupold and Keil among them. Leupold allows that the wording refers to the virgin birth "Not primarily, but at least incidentally", and holds that "the expression used does not specifically prophesy the virgin birth, but it coincides and agrees with it under divine providence". Others affirm it: Luther and Henry. And Genesis itself speaks of a woman's seed in ordinary births, of Hagar's (16:10) and of Rebekah's (24:60). Results.Genesis and Dispute.Genesis weigh it (below).

The Michean strand reads Micah 5:2–3 — "until the time when she who is in labour has given birth" — as naming a mother and no father for the coming ruler. The objection is immediate and is encoded as the rival: this is an argument from silence, and an oracle about a woman in labour has no occasion to mention a father.

The referential strand answers the lexical dispute without entering it. almah need not mean "virgin" for Mary to be an almah. Genesis settles the compatibility outright: Rebekah is an עַלְמָה at 24:43 and a בְּתוּלָה "whom no man had known" at 24:16, the same woman under both terms. Mary was a betrothed young woman of marriageable age and conceived as a virgin, so she answers Isaiah's description on anyone's lexicon — and semantic_establishes shows that Matthew's claim therefore never required the sense the objection demands.

That reply has a price, and compatibility_does_not_establish_criterion names it: the argument is purely defensive. It defeats the objection without delivering the criterion, which still has to come from one of the four scriptural strands. What it buys is that losing the lexical dispute no longer costs the fulfilment claim.

The versional evidence is encoded in full, including the half that tells against the reading. Targum Jonathan renders עוּלֵימְתָא, "young woman", and does not read 7:14 messianically though it reads 9:5–6 and 11:1 so; Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion render νεᾶνις. Against them, the pre-Christian Septuagint renders παρθένος — "virgin", on Rico and Gentry's reading of its Greek, though not on Wegner's (below) — and the Syriac Peshitta ܒܬܘܠܬܐ, "virgin", its only ܒܬܘܠܬܐ for עַלְמָה. So the Aramaic evidence is itself split: the Targum against the Peshitta, whose translator may have been a Jewish Christian who knew the Greek (van der Kooij), and whose 7:14 may follow the Septuagint (Chen). 1QIsaᵃ, copied before Christ, reads עַלְמָה as the Masoretic Text does. The verse has other variants, but none at the word, so no textual variant rescues either side: the dispute is about the word's sense, not its text. The usual Christian reply, that the Three revised against Christian use, is now one party's ground: Rico and Gentry's case from usage leans on it, and Davidson and Meade read the revision the other way (Dispute.Septuagint). Whether Theodotion's version is itself pre-Christian, which would give the revision a reason with no polemic in it, the library has not yet found a source to cite, and it is left out of the reckoning.

compatibility_defeats_lexical_objection is where the tension pays off. Granting every versional datum and adding the referential premises, the objection no longer reaches its conclusion — because once virginity is compatible with the word, four translators making four different choices about how much of the referent to make explicit is not evidence about the sense.

The Septuagint's own witness is weighed in full, and it does less than it is usually asked to. The argument is Irenaeus's: Jews translated Isaiah into Greek "much before the period of our Lord's advent", so their παρθένος cannot be a Christian reading put on the text (Against Heresies III.21.1). septuagintWitness_establishes grants it everything it needs and checks that it goes through. Three results then say what it rests on and what it reaches.

• It rests on one word (parthenos_is_load_bearing). Without the claim that παρθένος, in the translator's Greek, means a virgin, the Septuagint shows nothing about the woman. Rico and Gentry hold that it does, "whenever it appears in Semitic Koine Greek", and Bratcher agrees. Wegner, Rhodea and Meade deny it, and point to Genesis 34:3, where the Greek calls Dinah a παρθένος after Shechem has lain with her; Walton doubts it, from classical usage. The Greek Pentateuch, the corpus that verse comes from, uses the word in its laws where virginity is the point (Leviticus 21:13–14, Deuteronomy 22:13–21), and its law of the seduced παρθένος reads Wegner's verse otherwise: the woman a man has lain with is still the law's παρθένος, owed "the bride-price of virgins" (Exodus 22:15–16), and Genesis 34 tells Shechem's act in that law's words. Dispute.Septuagint weighs the five, and the Septuagint's side prevails (septuagint_prevails_over_wegner): the status reading of Genesis 34:3 defeats Wegner, and he, resting on a step rated disputed, is too weak to answer it. The claims about the word exclude each other by what they mean — Wegner's says the word meant a young woman and not yet a virgin — and the dispute is computed with that. The verdict turns on one rating, the status reading's step, plausible because no reader found grants its grounds and denies it, and no higher because no reader found makes it. Were it disputed, nothing would prevail; Dispute.Septuagint says so, with where the evidence on each side lies.
• A dissent counts only on evidence the texts leave standing (Dispute.Miller). The laws' step is disputed on Robert J. Miller, who gives two uses of παρθένος of women who are not virgins. His "young widow" at Joel 1:8 is a bride, νύμφην, in the Greek, so that claim is struck; his Genesis 34:3 stands as the Greek reads it, and carries his dissent (miller_survives_on_genesis). Resting on Joel 1:8 alone, the dissent would not count under any standard (miller_on_joel_alone_does_not_count).
• Scripture's own reading of the word turns on the standard (matthew_step_turns_on_the_standard). Matthew quotes the Septuagint's ἡ παρθένος of Mary, who conceived before she and Joseph came together, so in the text he quotes the word means "virgin". Wegner grants what Matthew says and holds that the word had changed in meaning since the translator wrote it. Under the evidence standard that is a credible critique, and Matthew and Wegner stand off. Under the Scripture standard — Scripture interprets Scripture, so a dissent from a step grounded in Scripture alone must rest on Scripture too — Wegner's argument from early Greek usage is not heard, and Matthew's reading prevails. Dispute.Matthew reports both.
• It shows how one early reader read Isaiah, not what Isaiah's word means (septuagint_word_rests_on_its_inference). Granted its sense, the Septuagint shows that a Jewish translator before Christ read the woman of 7:14 as a virgin — so that reading is no Christian invention. The step from his Greek to Isaiah's Hebrew is a further one, and rated disputed: Irenaeus takes it, holding the Greek inspired; Bratcher, Brown and Walton deny it. On Bratcher's and Brown's reading a rendering can follow the woman described rather than the word: the translator of Genesis wrote παρθένος for the עַלְמָה Rebekah (24:43), whom the story has already called a virgin, and elsewhere the Septuagint's translators render עַלְמָה with νεᾶνις four times. That is also the referential strand's reading of the versions.
• It leaves the conception open (septuagint_leaves_the_conception_open). The Greek says the virgin shall be with child. A woman who is a virgin when the sign is given and later conceives in the ordinary way fits it; so does a virgin who conceives as a virgin, as Justin reads it. The first is not only a rival's reading: Bratcher, who holds that παρθένος "definitely means 'virgin' in the LXX", calls it "the most reasonable explanation" of the Greek of 7:14. So even granted the word, the Septuagint does not decide, and the virginal conception comes, if it comes, from the promise of a sign (signLine) or from Matthew and Luke.

"Her seed" is weighed as the Septuagint's word is, and it too does less than it is often asked to. Genesis 3:15 names the seed as the woman's, and the strand's hinge reads that as marking a birth with no human father. Results.Genesis reads "marks" both ways (whatHerSeedMarks).

• As what the wording itself signifies, it is Luther's argument: the seed of other women "might rather be said to have been the seed of the man", but Mary's was "the true Seed of Mary". He finds the sense in the words of Genesis, and holds that Isaiah later "threw some additional light" on it. It rests on his step (her_seed_rests_on_its_inference). The Lutheran commentators Leupold and Keil, who hold the virgin birth, grant every ground and deny it; so does Jack P. Lewis (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 1991), who doubts the promise reading itself but argues without needing that doubt. Weighed against Leupold and Lewis, nothing prevails (nothing_prevails_over_her_seed): Luther's reading can be defended, and so can theirs. But the tie is nearer to breaking against Luther than for him. One rating would break it against him: Lewis's step, disputed only on the Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin, who grants Lewis's point about the idiom and still calls the wording "odd", agreeing with the "many" who have "rightly seen" it as "a hint of the Virgin Birth". Two would be needed to break it for him: his own step, and the claim that Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium at all, which critical readers deny.
• As what the wording fits, once fulfilled, it is granted by Leupold and Keil. Leupold: "it coincides and agrees with it under divine providence". But they reach the fit from the conception, so read this way the verse confirms the virgin birth to one who already believes it, and gives no reason to believe it to one who does not.
• The promise is fulfilled in Jesus, and the fulfilment confirms it (Dispute.Protoevangelium). Every term of the verse is met as the New Testament names it: the woman's seed in the Son "made of a woman" (Galatians 4:4); the serpent in "that old serpent, called the Devil" (Revelation 12:9); its head crushed when the Son destroys the devil "through death" (Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8); his heel struck in his death, and the wound not the end of him (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). Irenaeus, Calvin, Keil, Leupold and Hamilton read it so. The fulfilment confirms that the verse was a promise, by a rated step and not by deduction, and it does so without the virgin birth (the_confirmation_does_not_need_the_virgin_birth). With the virginal conception it says one thing more: the seed in whom the promise is fulfilled was of the woman alone (seed_of_the_woman_alone). That does not show the wording foretold it (the_fulfilment_does_not_reach_the_wording). Weighed against Westermann, who denies that the verse is any promise, from the collective "seed" and the form of a punishment oracle, nothing prevails (nothing_prevails_over_the_promise): the fulfilment's step is disputed on him, and his on Calvin and Keil. His "a line of descendants and not an individual" is answered from the Hebrew itself: elsewhere זֶרַע with singular forms names one descendant, at 3:15b it is "he" who strikes the serpent's own head, and the Greek translator read one person (Collins, Alexander, Leupold). That answer is disputed too, on Keil, and Collins claims for it only that the syntax is "quite consistent with" one person. The scene read whole answers him too: the serpent speaks and twists God's command, as no animal does of itself; the blow falls on the serpent itself; and God sets the enmity; so the sentence is a promise of victory over the power behind the serpent (Collins, Woudstra, Keil). Its step is plausible, and the ground it turns on, that an evil power stands behind the serpent, is disputed on Westermann. The readers before Christ do not read the verse so: Jubilees, Philo and Josephus read the serpent as an animal or an emblem. The fulfilment, with the syntax and the scene, can be defended, and so can Westermann. Under the Scripture standard the fulfilment prevails (promise_turns_on_the_standard): its grounds are all Scripture, and Westermann's dissent rests on his philology of "seed", so it is not heard. Under the evidence standard it is, and nothing prevails. Dispute.PromiseHearing reports both.
• The Septuagint's "he", αὐτός for the neuter σπέρμα, may show that a Jewish translator before Christ read the promise of one person (greekHeCase_establishes), so that reading would be no Christian invention. Collins holds it; Philo, the earliest known reader of the Greek, took the masculine as a "barbarism" meaning the mind, and Lewis leaves it open, so it is disputed. It leaves the father open (the_greek_he_leaves_the_father_open): the same Greek calls the seed Hannah asks for "him", and that son has a father.

Wegner's objection is encoded in its sharpest form, and the module shows the circle in it rather than alleging one. Wegner does not merely say that עַלְמָה means "young woman". He says that הָרָה at Isaiah 7:14 is a predicate adjective, so the clause reads "the עַלְמָה is pregnant" — already, when the sign is given — and a pregnant woman is not a virgin; the one clear Isaianic case then settles the word. wegner_establishes grants him every premise and checks that the argument goes through, because a rival worth answering has to be stated at full strength first.

The parse is not the weak point, and the encoding says so by granting it throughout: Rydelnik — cited here through Postell, who reports him at 474 — reads the same predicate adjective and draws the opposite conclusion, that the virgin is pregnant and the sign is therefore as deep as Sheol. What the grammar does not supply is that the pregnancy is an ordinary one, and that is the premise that excludes virginity. wegner_needs_ordinary_pregnancy removes it and the objection stops. readingSuppliesOrdinaryPregnancy then supplies it the way Wegner's own case does — from the near-term reading of the sign — and with the lexical conclusion turned back against that reading, the two legs close. circle_leaves_the_lexical_conclusion_open and circle_leaves_the_denial_open are the result: keep every uncontested datum, and neither end is settled — not established, and not refuted either. A cycle of implications is satisfied outright by a valuation on which all of its nodes are false, and equally by one granting Wegner's own conclusion. Nothing enters the loop, so nothing comes out of it, in either direction. That is a demonstration rather than a complaint, and it is conditional in the usual way: a defender of Wegner should deny readingSuppliesOrdinaryPregnancy and argue that the near-term reading stands on the historical evidence alone.

Postell's second reply is independent of the first and survives that defence. The other clear עַלְמָה passages Wegner himself lists are cases of virgins, so a single referent cannot be what settles the denotation — the same principle would settle it the other way. usage_parity_blocks_wegner checks it, and the atom is marked plausible rather than wellSupported because Postell's "in fact virgins" is stronger than Wegner's own discussion of Song 6:8.

The oldest reply goes to the ordinary pregnancy itself. Justin, Irenaeus and Origen answer the near-term reading with one argument. The oracle promised a sign, offered "in the depth or in the height" (7:11), and an ordinary conception happens to every woman who is not barren, so it would be no sign. Rydelnik makes the same move today. signLine encodes it, and it denies the one ground of Wegner's objection that the grammar does not supply. sign_leaves_the_lexical_conclusion_open measures what that buys: with the fathers' grounds in place of the ordinary pregnancy, Wegner's lexical conclusion is independent of what remains. The objection is blocked, and nothing is shown about the word.

The rival is written first, and Wegner holds it himself: a sign need not be a miracle. Isaiah's own children are "signs and portents" (8:18), and this sign is dated by a child's infancy (7:16), so its point may be its timing. Rhodea argues the same. reply_leaves_the_pregnancy_open shows that the reply blocks the fathers in turn, without supplying Wegner's ordinary pregnancy.

Dispute.Wegner puts the three positions together. Every one of them has a disputed weakest link, so the dispute ties (nothing_prevails_over_wegner). Both the fathers alone and Wegner with the reply are defensible resolutions of it. What would decide it is one of two ratings: whether the sign of 7:14 must be the kind offered at 7:11, and whether the reply's inference survives Rydelnik, who grants its grounds and denies its conclusion.

The critical case against the Isaianic strand is now derived rather than assumed. critical used to carry ¬isaiahPredictsVirginBirth as a bare premise; it now carries the step that produces it — that a sign given for Ahaz's generation is not also a prediction of a virgin conception — and criticalDenial_establishes checks that the step works. Berry supplies the objection: how Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled in Ahaz's own day is itself an open question, and berry_blocks_critical_denial shows that granting him that much takes the exclusion out. It does no more than that. It does not establish the predictive reading and it does not touch the lexical dispute.

Berry also supplies a defensive lexical premise — that the semantic range of עַלְמָה does not exclude "virgin" — and admissibility_is_not_enough measures what it is worth: nothing, on its own. May mean is not does mean, and the whole Isaianic strand lives in that gap.

The compositional strand (Postell) declines the lexical fight altogether. Isaiah 7 sits inside Isaiah 2–12, a unit framed by eschatological vision at 2:1–4 and 11:1–12:6; on the principle that an oracle's meaning in a finished book is set by its literary placement rather than by the events it describes — argued from the making of canonical Jeremiah — 7:14 anticipates a future, miraculous birth. The hinge is compositionGovernsMeaning, and a reader who holds that an oracle's historical setting fixes its sense rejects it outright.

Postell also supplies the module's sharpest rival-defeater. parityDefeats NearTermExclusion observes that Isaiah 9:5–6 and 11:1–10 are read as messianic without reservation and stand on the same near-term Assyrian timeline as 7:14 — the invasion of 8:7–8, the oppressor's rod of 10:5. So a near-term setting cannot be what rules out messianic reference, or it would rule out 9 and 11 too. parity_blocks_critical_denial checks it. Notably the Targum is cited for this premise: it reads 9:5–6 and 11:1 messianically while declining to read 7:14 so, which makes it a hostile witness and therefore a strong one.

That gives the critical exclusion step two independent defeaters. Berry's is evidential — we do not know how the sign was fulfilled in Ahaz's day. Postell's is structural — the near-term setting was never the right kind of reason.

Taken together, the positions make a dispute, and the dispute has an outcome the entailment results cannot state. Dispute.lean treats the scriptural reading, the critical denial, Berry, Postell's two counterexamples and Motyer as the nodes of an argumentation framework and proves who defeats whom — a defeat being an attack derived from entailment that the cited confidences do not block. Against the scriptural reading alone, nothing_prevails_unanswered: the critical denial and the scriptural reading defeat each other, because the weakest premise on each side is disputed (christian_defeats_critical). Hear Berry and Postell, and scriptural_reading_prevails_once_replies_are_heard: nothing defeats Postell's counterexamples, they defeat the critic, and so they defend the scriptural reading — and Berry, and Motyer with Compton — against the only party that defeats them. The critic is left with no defence at all (critical_denial_indefensible). Inference steps are rated like premises, and Berry's and Motyer's are disputed, so alone they tie with the critic: nothing_prevails_on_motyer_alone, and motyer_rests_on_his_inference shows the weight of his reply is on that step. The outcome turns on Postell's inference being plausible — no cited source grants his grounds and keeps the exclusion. He gives two counterexamples, from Isaiah 9 and 11 and from Micah 5; either suffices (scriptural_reading_prevails_without_postell), and without both nothing prevails (nothing_prevails_without_the_counterexamples). It turns too on the critic's premises being disputed, as the replies, Motyer and Compton contest them.

Luke is a second witness to the conception, not to the prophecy. His account is parallel to Matthew's and independent of it, but it never quotes Isaiah 7:14. Luke 1:31 is close to the Septuagint's wording, and whether that is an allusion is disputed: lukeAllusionEdge records it as one, attributed, and annunciationFormEdge records the rival reading, on which the wording is the stock birth-announcement form that Isaiah 7:14 itself uses. Luke adds to independentAttestation; he adds nothing to the rating of the predictive reading.

hinges_jointly_load_bearing is the result worth having. No single interpretive hinge carries the argument any more — strip almah and the other three strands still deliver the criterion, which almah_not_load_bearing records. Strip all four and the argument collapses. Genesis's strand delivers it only on Luther's reading of its hinge, which nothing here forces (nothing_prevails_over_her_seed). almah_is_load_bearing_alone keeps the pre-Miravalle finding on the books: within the Isaianic strand taken by itself, the lexical premise still carries everything.

The magisterial strand is encoded separately and is not part of christian. Papal teaching on Mary's virginity in conceiving, as collated by Miravalle, is a Roman Catholic premise; this library's author does not grant that magisterial teaching settles doctrinal questions, and the encoding says so rather than quietly folding it in. catholic is the package for a reader who does grant it. magisterial_authority_is_load_bearing shows what follows for a reader who does not: that route yields nothing on its own, and the four scriptural strands have to carry the argument by themselves. The rival is cited to Westminster I.x.

Matthew's and Luke's birth narratives agree on the virgin conception while differing in nearly every other detail, and that convergence is encoded as a multiple-attestation premise — though the independence of the two traditions is itself debated, and is marked plausible rather than wellSupported.

Where things are

This argument is a directory, because at fourteen hundred lines it was one file that no one could hold in view. The dependencies run one way. Where a file outgrew three hundred lines of code, the material for the disputes over Wegner's objection, over the Septuagint's word and over the woman's seed, and the citations for the dispute over the critical denial, went into modules of their own beside it.

Shared material lives further out: passages and citation bundles in Testimony.Scripture, the Line and caseOf vocabulary in Testimony.Logic.Line, and the establish and refute_with tactics in Testimony.Logic.Tactic.

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Atoms — the atomic claims, and what cites them

The atoms this argument is built from, the Source shapes that recur across them, the typed intertextual edges between the passages, and the criterion the argument is about. Everything here is what the argument is about; nothing here asserts anything.

See TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin for the dispute this encodes.

Recurring sources

Five works carry this argument, and each carries several atoms at the same pinpoint with the same confidence. Written out at every atom, the citation was repeated rather than the claim — and a Source differing from its neighbour by one field is hard to read as deliberate.

These are values, so an atom that cites one of them with something further says so with { ... with supporting := ... }, and the difference is the part a reader sees.

The claims, numbered

※ grounded in scripture alone: the reading is assumed, not argued for.

motyerOnIsaiah

Motyer on Isaiah 7:14: the predictive reading and the lexical premise it needs, disputed and marked so.

def motyerOnIsaiah : Source :=
  {
    primary :=
      Reference.work Bib.motyerIsaiah (Bib.Locus.adLoc Scripture.isaiah7_14),
    tradition := Tradition.christianTypological,
    confidence := Confidence.disputed }

miravalleOnGenesis

Miravalle on Genesis 3:15, in Meet Your Mother: the verse is the "Protoevangelium", "the first reference to Jesus as the future Redeemer of the world", and to speak of "the 'seed' of a woman rather than the seed of a man" is "already a hint of Mary's virginal conception of Jesus". His word is "hint": a remark in passing, not an argument from the Hebrew.

The protoevangelium strand rests on him and on Luther, the reader who argues from the wording (herSeedLine); the Michean strand rests on Miravalle alone (miravalleOnMicah). Every atom citing this is disputed.

def miravalleOnGenesis : Source :=
  { primary := Reference.work miravalleMeetYourMother,
    tradition := Tradition.romanCatholic, confidence := Confidence.disputed }

miravalleOnMicah

Miravalle on Micah 5:2–3, in Introduction to Mary: the mother "so specifically designated without a husband" conveys "the same virginal sense as we see in Isaiah 7:14". The passage is on page 18 of the 1993 printing; the library's entry is the 2020 printing, whose page could not be checked, so the book is cited whole.

def miravalleOnMicah : Source :=
  { primary := Reference.work miravalleIntroductionToMary,
    tradition := Tradition.romanCatholic, confidence := Confidence.disputed }

brownOnBirth

Brown's Birth of the Messiah, taken whole: the critical case.

confidence defaults to wellSupported, which is what the critical readings are. It is passed explicitly where a critical premise is contested: the one Brown's case presupposes rather than argues, and both premises of the critical denial, each denied by scholars this argument cites.

def brownOnBirth : optParam Confidence Confidence.wellSupported → Source :=
  fun confidence =>
    { primary := Reference.work brownBirthMessiah,
      tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship, confidence := confidence }

postellOnIsaiah

Postell on the compositional reading, at a given pinpoint. The pinpoint matters here in a way it does not for the others: the textual observations and the interpretive principle come from different pages and carry different confidence.

def postellOnIsaiah : Bib.Locus → Confidence → Source :=
  fun l confidence =>
    { primary := Reference.work postellIsaiahMessianic l,
      tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
      confidence := confidence }

wegnerOnAlmah

Wegner on the sense of עַלְמָה, at a given pinpoint.

Like postellOnIsaiah, the pinpoint carries weight: the grammatical claim is at 471 and the near-term reconstruction that makes its conclusion bite is at 476–478, and they are not equally secure. Wegner is an evangelical arguing against a virgin-birth prediction here, which is what makes him the module's strongest lexical rival rather than one more critical voice.

def wegnerOnAlmah : Bib.Locus → Confidence → Source :=
  fun l confidence =>
    { primary := Reference.work wegnerVirginBirths l,
      tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
      confidence := confidence }

franceOnMatthew

France on Matthew 1:23, for what Matthew's quotation intends and what follows from it.

def franceOnMatthew : optParam Confidence Confidence.wellSupported → Source :=
  fun confidence =>
    {
      primary :=
        Reference.work Bib.franceMatthew
          (Bib.Locus.adLoc Scripture.matthew1_23),
      tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
      confidence := confidence }

Intertextual edges and readings

quotationEdge

Matthew explicitly quotes Isaiah, via the Septuagint's παρθένος.

def quotationEdge : IntertextEdge :=
  { fromPassage := Scripture.matthew1_23, toPassage := Scripture.isaiah7_14,
    relation := RelationType.quotation,
    source := Scripture.na28Apparatus Scripture.matthew1_23 }

protoevangeliumEdge

Genesis 3:15 read as promise rather than quotation. Typed as .promise, not .prediction: what Miravalle argues is that the protoevangelium commits to a redeemer born of a woman, and collapsing that into a prediction would beg the question the Michean and Isaianic strands are also asking.

def protoevangeliumEdge : IntertextEdge :=
  { fromPassage := Scripture.matthew1_23, toPassage := Scripture.genesis3_15,
    relation := RelationType.promise,
    source := miravalleOnGenesis }

micahMaternalEdge

Micah 5:3's maternal reference, read as a messianic theme rather than a verbal link — there is no quotation of Micah 5:3 in the birth narratives.

def micahMaternalEdge : IntertextEdge :=
  { fromPassage := Scripture.matthew1_23, toPassage := Scripture.micah5_3,
    relation := RelationType.messianicTheme,
    source := miravalleOnMicah }

lukeAllusionEdge

Luke's annunciation, read as an allusion to Isaiah 7:14. Luke never quotes the verse, but Luke 1:31 is close to its Septuagint wording, and Luke 1:27 and 1:32 bring in the house and the throne of David, as Isaiah 7:13 and 9:6–7 do. Whether that is an allusion is disputed, and both sides are recorded here: Davies and Allison find an influence from Isaiah 7:14, Fitzmyer rejects it, as Rhodea reports (71 n. 66). Typed .allusion, never .quotation: that is the difference between Luke and Matthew. See annunciationFormEdge for the rival reading of the same wording.

def lukeAllusionEdge : IntertextEdge :=
  { fromPassage := Scripture.luke1_31, toPassage := Scripture.isaiah7_14,
    relation := RelationType.allusion,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work rhodeaDidMatthewConceive (Bib.Locus.page 71),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.scripture
              [Scripture.verseIn TextualTradition.nestleAland28
                  Scripture.luke1_31,
                Scripture.verseIn TextualTradition.septuagint
                  Scripture.isaiah7_14]],
        tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

annunciationFormEdge

The rival reading: the wording is the birth-announcement form. Luke 1:31 is as close to the announcement to Hagar (Gen 16:11) as to Isaiah 7:14, and Isaiah 7:14 is itself an instance of the form, which Brown and others trace through Ishmael, Isaac, Samson, John and Jesus (Johnson 270 n. 6; Young 113–14). On this reading the shared wording is shared form, not dependence — typed .thematic.

def annunciationFormEdge : IntertextEdge :=
  { fromPassage := Scripture.luke1_31, toPassage := Scripture.genesis16_11,
    relation := RelationType.thematic,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work johnsonSamsonTypeScene (Bib.Locus.page 270),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work youngImmanuelProphecy (Bib.Locus.pages 113 114),
            Reference.work brownProblemVirginalConception (Bib.Locus.page 31)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.wellSupported } }

predictiveReading

The Christian predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14. Far more contested than Micah 5:2 — see the module doc.

def predictiveReading : Interpretation :=
  { passage := Scripture.isaiah7_14,
    reading :=
      "Isaiah 7:14 predicts a virgin conceiving and bearing 'Immanuel', " ++
        "fulfilled in the virgin birth of the Messiah",
    asRelation := some RelationType.prediction,
    source := motyerOnIsaiah }

protoevangeliumReading

Miravalle's reading of Genesis 3:15: the seed is named as the woman's, and that is "already a hint" that no man is involved in the conception it promises.

def protoevangeliumReading : Interpretation :=
  { passage := Scripture.genesis3_15,
    reading :=
      "Genesis 3:15 promises a redeemer born of the woman's seed, the wording " ++
        "hinting at a conception with no human father",
    asRelation := some RelationType.promise,
    source := miravalleOnGenesis }

maternalReading

Miravalle's reading of Micah 5:2–3: the oracle names a mother and no father for the ruler who comes forth from Bethlehem.

def maternalReading : Interpretation :=
  { passage := Scripture.micah5_3,
    reading :=
      "Micah 5:2–3 names only the woman in labour as bearing the coming " ++
        "ruler, mentioning no father",
    asRelation := some RelationType.messianicTheme,
    source := miravalleOnMicah }

bornOfAVirgin

The criterion this argument establishes a candidate must meet.

def bornOfAVirgin : FulfillmentCriterion :=
  { name := "born of a virgin", basis := predictiveReading }

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Sources.Genesis — the citations of the dispute over "her seed"

The atoms of the dispute over what the wording of Genesis 3:15 says about a father: whether "her seed" signifies a birth without one, or fits such a birth once it has happened, what else might explain the wording, and what the Greek's "he" adds. Cited here and dispatched from cite by name, for the reason Sources.Wegner gives.

Luther, Leupold, Keil and Calvin are cited from their commentaries, Lewis and Collins from their articles, Henry by passage, and Akin from the publisher's site. Martin is cited whole: the library has not read his article, and quotes him only as Collins does.

wordingSignifiesAFatherlessBirthCited

wordingSignifiesAFatherlessBirth. Luther makes the argument from the wording: "Thus women continued to bring forth until the Flood; and afterwards also, until the time of Mary. But the seed of none of those women could truly be said to be the Seed of the woman, but might rather be said to have been the seed of the man. But that which was born from Mary was conceived of the Holy Ghost and was the true Seed of Mary" (Luther on the Creation 298–99). Henry: "He was likewise to be the seed of a woman only, of a virgin" (on 3:15). Akin finds in the wording "a hint of the Virgin Birth".

Luther finds the sense in the words of Genesis, and holds that Isaiah later "threw some additional light upon this glorious promise ... For it was then made certain that this Seed would not be born from the union of a man and a woman" (298). Irenaeus reads the verse of the Virgin's son, "He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin" (Against Heresies V.21.1), though he does not argue from the wording.

disputed: Leupold and Keil, who read the verse as the promise of Christ, deny that the wording says this (posterityLine); Calvin gives both of their grounds (170) without discussing the point; and Lewis denies it from what Genesis says of Hagar and Rebekah (idiomLine).

def wordingSignifiesAFatherlessBirthCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "The wording 'her seed' itself signifies a birth with no human father",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work lutherOnTheCreation (Bib.Locus.pages 298 299),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work henryCommentary
              (Bib.Locus.adLoc Scripture.genesis3_15),
            Reference.work akinWomanSeedSerpent],
        tradition := Tradition.christianTypological,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

wordingFitsAFatherlessBirthCited

wordingFitsAFatherlessBirth. Leupold, asked whether the expression is "so phrased in reference to Mary and the virgin birth": "Not primarily, but at least incidentally"; "an expression is chosen that meets with literal fulfilment in Him who is virgin born and not of the seed of man. Yet we prefer to state the case thus: the expression used does not specifically prophesy the virgin birth, but it coincides and agrees with it under divine providence" (169). Keil: "in the fact that the destroyer of the serpent was born of a woman (without a human father) they were fulfilled in a way which showed that the promise must have proceeded from that Being, who secured its fulfilment not only in its essential force, but even in its apparently casual form" (102).

disputed, because it presupposes the virginal conception, which this argument rates disputed (maryConceivedAsVirgin). Among readers who grant that conception, none found denies the fit: Leupold and Keil, who deny that the wording signifies it, grant this.

def wordingFitsAFatherlessBirthCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "The wording 'her seed' fits a birth with no human father, as fulfilled in Christ",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work leupoldGenesis (Bib.Locus.page 169),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work keilDelitzschPentateuch (Bib.Locus.page 102)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

seedIsHerPosterityFirstCited

seedIsHerPosterityFirst. Leupold: "the expression 'her seed' in its first meaning is a collective noun and includes all who are enrolled in the struggle against Satan, without being themselves virgin born" (169) — not every descendant, for "within the circle of the broadest possible meaning of zéra' must be drawn a circle quite a bit smaller" (167). Calvin: "for who will concede that a collective noun is to be understood of one man only? ... I explain, therefore, the seed to mean the posterity of the woman generally" (170). Keil: "It does not follow from this, however, apart from other considerations, that by the seed of the woman we are to understand one solitary person, one individual only" (101).

disputed. Collins argues that the Hebrew's syntax is "quite consistent with the pattern where a single individual is in view" (145), and that on a "bottom-up" reading of the final form "it would be fair to read this as God's threat to the snake, of an individual who will engage the snake in combat and win" (146).

def seedIsHerPosterityFirstCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "'Her seed' at Genesis 3:15 is first collective: her posterity, not one person",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work leupoldGenesis (Bib.Locus.pages 167 169),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work calvinGenesis (Bib.Locus.page 170),
            Reference.work keilDelitzschPentateuch (Bib.Locus.page 101),
            Reference.work collinsSyntacticalNote (Bib.Locus.pages 145 146)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

womanNamedForTheDeceptionCited

womanNamedForTheDeception. Leupold: "The woman, as one factor in the enmity, is stressed to the exclusion of man because the woman was beguiled" (165); "the one tempted and brought to fall is chosen by God to produce the one that is to bring Satan to fall" (169). Calvin: "He mentions the woman on this account, because, as she had yielded to the subtlety of the devil, and being first deceived, had drawn her husband into the participation of her ruin, so she had peculiar need of consolation" (170). Henry: "God does the woman the honour to call him rather her seed, because she it was whom the devil had beguiled". Keil allows it — "even if the words had reference first of all to the fact that the woman had been led astray by the serpent" — and gives his own reason in the same key: "as it was through the woman that the craft of the devil brought sin and death into the world, so it is also through the woman that the grace of God will give to the fallen human race the conqueror" (102).

wellSupported: Lutheran, Reformed and Puritan readers give it, Henry among them, who also holds that the wording signifies a birth from a virgin. No reader found denies it.

def womanNamedForTheDeceptionCited : AtomMeta

womansSeedSaidOfOrdinaryBirthsCited

womansSeedSaidOfOrdinaryBirths. What the Hebrew reads: the angel promises Hagar that her seed, זַרְעֵךְ, will be multiplied (Genesis 16:10), and Rebekah's family blesses her seed, זַרְעֵךְ, to possess the gate of its enemies (24:60). Each seed has a father named, Abraham and Isaac. Lewis: "While it is normal in Hebrew to describe descendants by the noun zeraʿ, it is unusual (though not unique) to use the term with a feminine possessive pronoun" (299). Scripture alone, and legitimately so: the claim is about what the text reads.

def womansSeedSaidOfOrdinaryBirthsCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Genesis speaks of a woman's seed in ordinary births: Hagar's and Rebekah's",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.womensSeedInGenesis,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work lewisWomansSeed (Bib.Locus.pages 299 300)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

lxxCallsTheSeedHeCited

lxxCallsTheSeedHe. What the Greek reads, from Rahlfs's text: καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σπέρματος αὐτῆς· αὐτός σου τηρήσει κεφαλήν, "and between her seed: he will watch for your head". The pronoun αὐτός is masculine, and σπέρμα is neuter. Collins: "The mismatch in gender between pronoun and antecedent is held to be evidence that the LXX translator saw this as a prophecy of a specific individual" (141). consensus: no one denies the reading.

def lxxCallsTheSeedHeCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "The Greek of Genesis 3:15 calls the woman's seed 'he', though σπέρμα is neuter",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.scripture
            [Scripture.verseIn TextualTradition.septuagint
                Scripture.genesis3_15],
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work collinsSyntacticalNote (Bib.Locus.page 141)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

lxxReadsOneDescendantCited

lxxReadsOneDescendant. Collins: "The evidence of the Greek translators makes it beyond question that the translator of Genesis 3:15 meant to convey that an individual was promised" (145). The reading "is generally acknowledged" (141), and Martin's article is its usual citation: as Collins quotes him, Martin calls the Greek "the earliest evidence of an individual messianic interpretation" (Collins 141 n. 4). Elsewhere the Greek translators use a masculine pronoun after the neuter σπέρμα when one person is meant: αὐτόν at 1 Samuel 1:11, and ὅς, αὐτός and αὐτόν at 2 Samuel 7:12–14 (Collins 144).

disputed, on Philo, the earliest known reader of this Greek. He grants that it says "he", and reads it as a "barbarism" that is correct in meaning, of the mind and not of a person: "the woman is not he, but she", and "the mind is masculine" (Allegorical Interpretation III.188). Lewis leaves the question open: "Sperma is a neuter noun in Greek and would have taken a neuter pronoun had the translators not thought of an individual", but the masculine "could be an oversight … it is possible that the translator reveals a messianic understanding—which, if true, would then be the earliest known" (300). John Day is reported to call it "simply an over-literal translation of the Hebrew"; his words could not be read, and he is not counted. The doubt Collins reports is about the Hebrew, not the Greek (141).

def lxxReadsOneDescendantCited : AtomMeta

The fulfilment, and the critical reading

What the New Testament says, cited to its text: each is a claim about what a passage reads, and none about what it means for Genesis.

serpentNamedTheDevilCited

serpentNamedTheDevil. "That old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan" (Revelation 12:9; again at 20:2): ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος, the serpent of old. Collins gives these, with John 8:44, as the New Testament's identification of the serpent (147 n. 21). consensus: it is what the text reads.

def serpentNamedTheDevilCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "Revelation calls the devil 'that old serpent' (12:9, 20:2)",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.serpentNamedTheDevil,
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

devilDestroyedThroughDeathCited

devilDestroyedThroughDeath. The Son shared flesh and blood "that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14), and "was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). consensus: it is what the texts read.

def devilDestroyedThroughDeathCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "The Son came to destroy the devil and his works, through death",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.devilDestroyedThroughDeath,
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

christDiedAndRoseCited

christDiedAndRose. Christ "died for our sins", "was buried", and "rose again the third day" (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). consensus: it is what the text reads; whether it happened is not the claim.

def christDiedAndRoseCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "Paul says Christ died, was buried, and rose the third day",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.christDiedAndRose,
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

sonMadeOfAWomanCited

sonMadeOfAWoman. God sent forth his Son, "made of a woman", γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός (Galatians 4:4). Whether Paul alludes to Genesis 3:15 here is disputed: Hamilton reads Jesus as "born of (i.e., the seed of) the woman", after Wifall (43, 53 n. 89); Lewis holds that it says only "that the Christ became human" (303). The atom claims only what Paul says. consensus.

def sonMadeOfAWomanCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "Paul says God sent his Son 'made of a woman' (Galatians 4:4)",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.sonMadeOfAWoman,
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

jesusFulfilsThePromiseCited

jesusFulfilsThePromise. The fulfilment, as fulfilmentLine argues it. Worded so that it says what Calvin, Keil and Leupold all hold: none of them takes "her seed" for Christ alone, and each holds that in Christ, as the head of the woman's seed, the serpent is crushed. disputed, as its step is, on Westermann.

def jesusFulfilsThePromiseCited : AtomMeta

seedWasOfTheWomanAloneCited

seedWasOfTheWomanAlone. The seed in whom the promise is fulfilled had no human father: Irenaeus reads the verse of "He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin" (V.21.1). disputed, as the virginal conception it rests on is (maryConceivedAsVirgin).

def seedWasOfTheWomanAloneCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "The seed in whom Genesis 3:15 is fulfilled was of the woman alone",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.work irenaeusAgainstHeresies
            (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "V.21.1"),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work keilDelitzschPentateuch (Bib.Locus.page 102)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianTypological,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

verseIsACurseOnTheSerpentCited

verseIsACurseOnTheSerpent. "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed" (3:14): the words of 3:15 are spoken to the serpent, as part of its sentence. Westermann classes them as a punishment oracle (260), the form-critical ground of his denial (westermannLine). wellSupported: the address and the curse are the text's; the classification is his, and is not contested by the readers cited here, who read a promise within the curse.

def verseIsACurseOnTheSerpentCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Genesis 3:14–15 is a curse on the serpent, in the form of a punishment oracle",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work westermannGenesis (Bib.Locus.page 260),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.scripture
              [Scripture.verseIn TextualTradition.masoretic
                  { book := Book.genesis, chapter := 3, verse := 14 }]],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.wellSupported } }

seedIsLineNotIndividualCited

seedIsLineNotIndividual. Westermann: "The parallelism makes it clear that 'seed' refers to a line of descendants and not to an individual" (259); "it is beyond doubt that [zeraʿ] is to be understood collectively" (260). Martin holds the same of the Hebrew, as Collins quotes him: "he" is "indefensible as a translation", and the right English is "it" or "they", "the descendants of Eve" (Collins 140 n. 2). The Targums read the verse collectively, of "the sons of the woman".

Stronger than seedIsHerPosterityFirst, which Calvin, Keil and Leupold hold: they read "her seed" as her posterity first, and Keil and Leupold deny that no individual is in view. disputed: Collins answers Westermann that the woman's seed "is not unquestionably collective" (147 n. 22); Leupold, that the word "is also used in reference to an individual and not only in the collective sense" (168); Alexander, that the seed "must be understood as referring to a single individual" (363); Hamilton, that "the text switches from a collective referent to a singular one" (32). syntaxLine gives their argument.

def seedIsLineNotIndividualCited : AtomMeta

seedUsedOfOneDescendantCited

seedUsedOfOneDescendant. What the texts read, as Collins sets them out: "when zeraʿ denotes a specific descendant, it appears with singular verb inflections, adjectives, and pronouns" (144) — 2 Samuel 7:12–15, the clearest parallel (145), Genesis 21:13, 38:9 and 1 Samuel 1:11. Keil grants it: "the posterity of a man may consist of a whole tribe or of one son only" (101); so does Leupold (168). consensus: no reader found denies the readings.

def seedUsedOfOneDescendantCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Elsewhere זֶרַע with singular verbs and pronouns denotes one descendant",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.work collinsSyntacticalNote (Bib.Locus.pages 144 145),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work keilDelitzschPentateuch (Bib.Locus.page 101),
            Reference.work leupoldGenesis (Bib.Locus.page 168)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

strikerIsSingularCited

strikerIsSingular. What the Hebrew reads at 3:15b: הוּא, "he", masculine singular, with a singular verb, and the object is the serpent's own head, "your head", not its seed's. Collins: "it is 'he' … who will bruise 'you' (singular, i.e., the snake)" (146 n. 21). Keil grants it: "it is not over the seed of the serpent but over the serpent itself that the victory is said to be gained" (101). consensus for the form. Whether הוּא means "he" or "it" is the question the readings answer, not the form.

def strikerIsSingularCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "At Genesis 3:15b the striker is singular 'he', against the serpent's own head",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.scripture
            [Scripture.verseIn TextualTradition.masoretic
                Scripture.genesis3_15],
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work collinsSyntacticalNote (Bib.Locus.page 146),
            Reference.work keilDelitzschPentateuch (Bib.Locus.page 101)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

serpentTwistsTheCommandCited

serpentTwistsTheCommand. What the text reads: the serpent speaks, and gives back God's command of 2:17 twisted — "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" (3:1), "Ye shall not surely die" (3:4). Collins: "the snake's wording of v. 4 reflects knowledge of 2:17", and "animals do not have faculty of speech in Bible, hence there is some intervention here (cf Nu. 22:28)" (146 n. 21). consensus: it is what the text reads.

def serpentTwistsTheCommandCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "In Genesis 3 the serpent speaks, and knows and twists God's command",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.serpentTwistsTheCommand,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work collinsSyntacticalNote (Bib.Locus.page 146)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

godSetsTheEnmityCited

godSetsTheEnmity. What the text reads: "I will put enmity" (3:15), with God as the subject. Woudstra: "The mere fact of God's 'setting' of the enmity is a tremendous initiative for good, unexpected and unmerited" (203). consensus for the wording.

def godSetsTheEnmityCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "God sets the enmity himself: 'I will put enmity' (3:15)",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.scripture
            [Scripture.verseIn TextualTradition.masoretic
                Scripture.genesis3_15],
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work woudstraRecentTranslations (Bib.Locus.page 203)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

serpentIsTheInstrumentOfAPowerCited

serpentIsTheInstrumentOfAPower. Delitzsch, as Collins quotes him: "an animal is intended, but an animal not speaking of its own accord, but as made the instrument of itself by the evil principle"; and Collins: "in view of the place of the story in the structure of Genesis it is hard to believe that only a snake is intended here … the referent of the second person pronoun would actually be the dark power behind the snake" (146–47). Woudstra: "as one reads Genesis 3 one does indeed become conscious of such a force. There is a diabolical subtlety in the serpent's suggestions … Later Scripture abundantly confirms this opinion" (197). Keil: "This foe is Satan" (101–2).

disputed: Westermann sides with Holzinger, "the animal is being punished and not some demonic power behind it" (261). Of the readers before Christ, none found puts the devil behind the serpent beyond doubt: Wisdom 2:24's "envy of the devil" does not name it, and is read by some of Cain.

def serpentIsTheInstrumentOfAPowerCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "The serpent of Genesis 3 is the instrument of an evil power",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.work collinsSyntacticalNote (Bib.Locus.pages 146 147),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work woudstraRecentTranslations (Bib.Locus.page 197),
            Reference.work keilDelitzschPentateuch (Bib.Locus.pages 101 102),
            Reference.work westermannGenesis (Bib.Locus.page 261)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Sources.NearTerm — the citations of the near-term dispute

The atoms of the dispute over the critical denial, cited here and dispatched from cite by name: the critic's two premises, that 7:14 was a near-term sign to Ahaz and that such a sign excludes a messianic sense, and the grounds of the replies to them — Berry's, Postell's Micah counterexample, and Motyer's with Compton's. (Postell's Isaiah counterexample rests on atoms the compositional strand also uses, and is cited with them in Sources.lean.)

They sit apart for the reason Sources.Wegner does: cite stays one total function, and each value below is reached from exactly one of its cases.

isaiahIsNearTermSignToAhazCited

isaiahIsNearTermSignToAhaz. The reading Justin already answers, in Trypho's form: fulfilled in Hezekiah (Dial. 67, 77). Origen's reply is a question — which child of Ahaz's day was called Immanuel? — and his conclusion that the sign was given to the house of David (Cels. I.35). Motyer denies it most directly (1970, 120, 124): the sign confirms events after the fact, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, not Immanuel, carries the timetable. So does Compton (2007, 12): 7:14 is addressed to the house of David, in plural pronouns, and only 7:15–16, with a singular "you", to Ahaz. disputed for that reason, on the definition that re-rated the exclusion premise.

def isaiahIsNearTermSignToAhazCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source := brownOnBirth Confidence.disputed }

nearTermExcludesMessianicSenseCited

nearTermExcludesMessianicSense. The premise Berry and Postell deny, and Motyer with them: disputed by the library's own definition, since the contest is recorded in berryLine and postellLine. It was once cited wellSupported on Brown's authority, which let the critic outrank both replies. Compton (2007, 12–14) denies it on a third ground: the near-term part of the oracle, 7:15–16, uses the child's infancy only as a measure of time, and so does not need the child born in Ahaz's day.

def nearTermExcludesMessianicSenseCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "A sign given for Ahaz's generation is not also a prediction of a virgin birth",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source := brownOnBirth Confidence.disputed }

nearTermFulfilmentIsUnclearCited

nearTermFulfilmentIsUnclear. Descriptively uncontroversial: the near-term referent has been taken for Isaiah's son, for Hezekiah, and for a son of Ahaz, with no settled answer. What is contestable is the use Berry puts it to. Compton surveys the candidates (5) and finds that none fits (9).

def nearTermFulfilmentIsUnclearCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "How Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled in Ahaz's own day is itself an open question",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.work Bib.berryVirginBirth (Bib.Locus.pages 1653 1654),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work comptonImmanuelProphecy (Bib.Locus.pages 5 9)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
        confidence := Confidence.wellSupported } }

signGivenToHouseOfDavidCited

signGivenToHouseOfDavid. What the Hebrew says: שִׁמְעוּ־נָא בֵּית דָּוִד and לָכֶם in 7:13–14 are plural, אַתָּה in 7:16 is singular. Compton builds on it (12), Motyer notes the address to the dynasty (122). The grammar is not in dispute; what it implies is, and that is left to the step that uses it.

def signGivenToHouseOfDavidCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Isaiah 7:13–14 gives the sign to David's house, in the plural; 7:16's 'you' is Ahaz",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.immanuelAddressees,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work comptonImmanuelProphecy (Bib.Locus.page 12),
            Reference.work youngImmanuelProphecy (Bib.Locus.page 112),
            Reference.work motyerContextContent (Bib.Locus.page 122)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

maherShalalHashBazRepeatsTheTimetableCited

maherShalalHashBazRepeatsTheTimetable. Common ground: the parallel is what leads the critics who identify the two children to identify them (Compton 5, citing Clements). Motyer (124) and Compton (13) read it the other way. The observation is shared; the reading of it is the step.

def maherShalalHashBazRepeatsTheTimetableCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Isaiah 8:4 gives Maher-shalal-hash-baz the timetable 7:16 gives the child of 7:14",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work motyerContextContent (Bib.Locus.page 124),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work comptonImmanuelProphecy (Bib.Locus.page 13),
            Reference.scripture Scripture.sharedTimetable],
        tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
        confidence := Confidence.wellSupported } }

micahRulerFacesAssyriaCited

micahRulerFacesAssyria. What the text says. Postell cites it by the Hebrew numbering, as Micah 5:1 and 5:4–5 (481 n. 72).

def micahRulerFacesAssyriaCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Micah 5:5–6 sets the ruler from Bethlehem against the Assyrian invasion",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.micahAssyrianSetting,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work postellIsaiahMessianic (Bib.Locus.page 481)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

micahRulerReadMessianicallyCited

micahRulerReadMessianically. Granted by the critic's own authority: "there was an expectation of the Messiah's birth at Bethlehem (Mt 2:4-6; Jn 7:42)" (Brown 1972, 26 n. 64). Postell: recognised as messianic by ancient Jewish interpreters (481 n. 72).

def micahRulerReadMessianicallyCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "Micah 5:2 was read messianically in first-century Judaism",
    kind := PremiseKind.historical,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work postellIsaiahMessianic (Bib.Locus.page 481),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work brownProblemVirginalConception (Bib.Locus.page 26),
            Reference.scripture Scripture.bethlehemExpectation],
        tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
        confidence := Confidence.wellSupported } }

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Sources.Septuagint — the citations of the Septuagint dispute

The atoms of the dispute over what the Septuagint's παρθένος shows, cited here and dispatched from cite by name: when and by whom the Greek Isaiah was made, what its word for the woman of 7:14 meant, the evidence each side reads, and what the translator can be taken to have meant.

They sit apart for the reason Sources.Wegner does: cite stays one total function, and each value below is reached from exactly one of its cases.

Rico and Gentry are cited from their book; Bratcher, Walton, Wegner, Rhodea and Postell from their articles; Davidson from his dictionary article; Meade from his comment on his own blog post. Three readings are known to the library only through the scholar who reports them, and each comment says so: Delling's and Tsevat's, through Rhodea, and Gray's, through Bratcher.

lxxIsPreChristianCited

lxxIsPreChristian. Irenaeus makes the argument from it: Isaiah 7:14 "was interpreted into Greek by the Jews themselves, much before the period of our Lord's advent, that there might remain no suspicion that perchance the Jews, complying with our humour, did put this interpretation upon these words" (Against Heresies III.21.1). Justin presses Trypho with the version made by "the seventy elders who were with Ptolemy" (Dialogue 71). Chrysostom makes the same point: the Seventy, "as having entered upon this work an hundred years or more before the coming of Christ, stand clear from all such suspicion" (Homilies on Matthew 5); Eusebius adds that they were "men of Hebrew race, experts in the accuracy of their knowledge of their national language" (Dem. Ev. VII.1). The rival grants the date: Wegner puts the translator "about 250–150 BC" (483). consensus.

def lxxIsPreChristianCited : AtomMeta

parthenosMeansVirginCited

parthenosMeansVirgin. Rico and Gentry: "There is no doubt that we should take the term parthenos to mean 'virgin' whenever it appears in Semitic Koine Greek: the example of Gn 34:1–3 is the exception that proves the rule" (21). Postell reports that they "insist" on it (472 n. 45). Bratcher reaches the same conclusion from the Septuagint's usage, without their argument: "parthenos definitely means 'virgin' in the LXX; only very exceptionally (and, inexplicably, in Gen. 34:3) is it used otherwise" (113).

disputed, because scholars this argument cites deny it. Wegner holds that in the translator's day the word meant "a young woman of marriageable age", and came to mean "virgin" only by the time of the New Testament (482–83). Walton: "Therefore the LXX is not necessarily betraying an interpretation as virgin by choosing this term" (293). Rhodea: "in the LXX, παρθένος need not refer to a virgo intacta" (67). Meade: "παρθενος simply means young woman in this verse and in other places in the LXX" (comment of 9 January 2013).

def parthenosMeansVirginCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "In the Greek of the Septuagint, παρθένος means a virgin",
    kind := PremiseKind.linguistic,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work ricoGentryInfantKing (Bib.Locus.page 21),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work bratcherStudyOfIsaiah (Bib.Locus.page 113),
            Reference.work postellIsaiahMessianic (Bib.Locus.page 472)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

parthenosMeantYoungWomanCited

parthenosMeantYoungWoman. A claim about the word, not about any woman: in the translator's Greek, παρθένος meant "young woman", and did not yet mean "virgin". Wegner and Walton grant that by the New Testament it meant "virgin"; Meade and Davidson put that sense down to Christian use. The dispute is over the translator's day, two or three centuries before Matthew.

Wegner: "In early Greek literature it appears to have had the meaning of 'a young woman of marriageable age' (with or without the focus on virginity), but by NT times this word developed the more technical meaning of 'virgin'" (482). So the translator of Isaiah chose a word for a young woman, "an excellent word choice to convey what the LXX's author meant", and "in the intervening time between the LXX and the NT book of Matthew, the word παρθένος changed in meaning" (483). Rhodea follows him, with an "apparently" (67). Meade holds it too: παρθένος "simply means young woman in this verse and in other places in the LXX", and by the time of Justin it had been "hijacked or used to mean 'chaste woman' only" (comment of 9 January 2013). disputed: Rico and Gentry deny it, and so does Bratcher.

def parthenosMeantYoungWomanCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "In the Septuagint's day, παρθένος meant 'young woman'; not yet 'virgin'",
    kind := PremiseKind.linguistic,
    source :=
      have __src :=
        wegnerOnAlmah (Bib.Locus.pages 482 483)
          Confidence.disputed;
      { primary := __src.primary,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work rhodeaDidMatthewConceive (Bib.Locus.page 67),
            Reference.work meadeAncientVersionsComment],
        tradition := __src.tradition, confidence := __src.confidence } }

earlyGreekParthenosIsYoungWomanCited

earlyGreekParthenosIsYoungWoman. Wegner (482) and Rhodea (67) both state it from BDAG 777: "a young woman of marriageable age, with or without focus on virginity". BDAG itself gives that as the word's general use "Hom.+", from Homer on, and sets against it the sense "in our lit.", the New Testament and the early Christian writings: "one who has never engaged in sexual intercourse, virgin". So the contrast in BDAG is between bodies of writing, not between periods; "early Greek" is Wegner's and Rhodea's narrowing of it, and the claim here is no more than the narrowing. BDAG gives no sense for the Septuagint. LSJ, for classical Greek: "maiden, girl", "virgin, opp. γυνή", and "of unmarried women who are not virgins" (1339). Walton: the word "does not always mean 'virgin' in classical Greek" (293). Bratcher, who holds the opposite of Wegner about the Septuagint, grants it: "at first the word was used in a general sense of 'girl', 'young woman', without any specific connotation of virginity" (112). wellSupported: Rico and Gentry grant the older usage too, and explain Genesis 34:3 by it, as an "almost anachronistic use of the word parthenos" that "corresponds to the general tendency of language in the Septuagint version of the Pentateuch", whose language is "more elevated and classical than the language of the later texts" (18). What they deny is that the older usage is the Septuagint's at large.

def earlyGreekParthenosIsYoungWomanCited : AtomMeta

greekCallsDinahParthenosCited

greekCallsDinahParthenos. What the Greek reads: Shechem "lay with her and humbled her" (34:2), and "he loved the παρθένος, and spoke to her according to the mind of the παρθένος" (34:3), where the Hebrew has נַעֲרָה, "girl", both times. Read from Rahlfs's text and the Masoretic. Wegner calls it "a good example of the meaning of παρθένος in the LXX" (483), and Rhodea draws from it that "παρθένος need not refer to a virgo intacta" (67). No one denies the reading. Rico and Gentry call it "the exception that proves the rule" (21); Bratcher, an exception made "inexplicably" (113).

The claim is what the text reads: the word, and the verse it stands in, after 34:2. Whether the noun describes Dinah as she was after 34:2 is a further claim, and a reader's (parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas).

def greekCallsDinahParthenosCited : AtomMeta

isaiahUsesParthenosForBetulahCited

isaiahUsesParthenosForBetulah. What the two texts read, and nothing more: read from Rahlfs's text of the Greek and from the Masoretic Text, the Greek Isaiah has παρθένος at 23:4, 37:22, 47:1 and 62:5 besides 7:14, and in each the Hebrew has בְּתוּלָה. The converse does not hold — at 23:12 the Greek has no παρθένος for בְּתוּלַת — and the atom does not claim it. Scripture alone, and legitimately so: the claim is about what a version reads.

def isaiahUsesParthenosForBetulahCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "Elsewhere in the Greek Isaiah, παρθένος renders בְּתוּלָה",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.isaianicParthenoi,
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

priestMarriesAParthenosCited

priestMarriesAParthenos. What the Greek reads, from Rahlfs's text: the high priest "shall take a wife, a παρθένος, from his own kin" (γυναῖκα παρθένον ἐκ τοῦ γένους αὐτοῦ, 21:13), where the Hebrew has אִשָּׁה בִבְתוּלֶיהָ, "a woman in her virginity"; and "a widow, a woman put away, a defiled woman and a harlot, these he shall not take, but a παρθένος from his own kin" (21:14). Read from Rahlfs's text and the Masoretic. Scripture alone, and legitimately so: the claim is about what a version reads. consensus.

def priestMarriesAParthenosCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "The high priest of the Greek Leviticus marries a παρθένος, not a widow or a harlot",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.priestsBride,
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

partheniaProveTheBrideCited

partheniaProveTheBride. What the Greek reads, from Rahlfs's text: a husband says of his bride "I did not find τὰ παρθένια in her" (22:14), and her parents bring out "τὰ παρθένια of the girl" (22:15); if the charge is true and "παρθένια are not found for the girl", she is stoned, "for she has done folly among the sons of Israel, to play the harlot in her father's house" (22:20–21). A man who brings the charge falsely has brought "an evil name upon a παρθένος of Israel" (22:19). The Hebrew has בְּתוּלִים for the tokens.

The lexica gloss the Greek word alike: "signs of virginity, LxxDe.22.15" (LSJ 1339); "tokens of virginity" (Muraoka 535); "signs pertaining to virginity, virginity" (LEH s.v.). consensus: no reader found denies the reading.

def partheniaProveTheBrideCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "In the Greek Deuteronomy, a bride without τὰ παρθένια dies for playing the harlot",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.tokensOfVirginity,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work liddellScottJones (Bib.Locus.page 1339),
            Reference.work muraokaLexiconSeptuagint (Bib.Locus.page 535),
            Reference.work lustLexiconSeptuagint (Bib.Locus.sv "παρθένια")],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

lawsUseParthenosAsVirginCited

lawsUseParthenosAsVirgin. Bratcher makes the argument from the Greek of the laws: in Deuteronomy 22 the Hebrew's בְּתוּלִים "stands concretely for 'tokens of virginity' (LXX partheneia)", and in Leviticus 21 "the young woman so characterized is clearly a virgin (LXX parthenos)" (102, where "Lev. 21:3" is a misprint for 21:13); "The use of the cognates of parthenos in the LXX bears out the conclusion that parthenos is 'virgin'", and "All this indicates that parthenos is 'virgin' in the exact sense of the word" (113).

These are not uses of the word of a virgin, which would show nothing about its sense: Walton observes that a thousand uses of "fiancée" of virgins would not make it mean "virgin" (292). In these laws virginity is what the law turns on. The priest's παρθένος is set against the widow, the woman put away, the defiled woman and the harlot, and stands for "a woman in her virginity". The bride's τὰ παρθένια are the tokens whose absence proves her a harlot, and Walton's own test is that a word meaning "virgin" should have an abstract meaning "virginity" (292).

disputed, as its step is, on Miller (lawsLine gives his dissent, and where it breaks).

def lawsUseParthenosAsVirginCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "In the Greek Pentateuch's laws, παρθένος is used in the sense 'virgin'",
    kind := PremiseKind.linguistic,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work bratcherStudyOfIsaiah (Bib.Locus.page 113),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work bratcherStudyOfIsaiah (Bib.Locus.page 102),
            Reference.work waltonWhatsInAName (Bib.Locus.page 292),
            Reference.work millerBornDivine],
        tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

seductionLawPricesAParthenosCited

seductionLawPricesAParthenos. What the Greek reads, from Rahlfs's text: "if anyone deceives a παρθένος not betrothed and lies with her, he shall endow her with a bride-price as his wife" (22:15), and if her father will not give her, "he shall pay the father silver, as much as is the bride-price of virgins", ἡ φερνὴ τῶν παρθένων (22:16), where the Hebrew has בְּתוּלָה and מֹהַר הַבְּתוּלֹת. The law calls her a παρθένος, and names what the man owes "the bride-price of virgins", after he has lain with her. What that price says of her is the step's to read (dinahLine). consensus: it is what the text reads.

def seductionLawPricesAParthenosCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "In the Greek Exodus, the seduced παρθένος is owed 'the bride-price of virgins'",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.seductionLaw,
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

shechemActsUnderTheLawCited

shechemActsUnderTheLaw. What the texts read, from Rahlfs's text and the Masoretic. Three words of Genesis 34 are words of the laws of the violated virgin:

• Shechem "humbled her", ἐταπείνωσεν αὐτήν, וַיְעַנֶּהָ (34:2), the verb of the man who seizes a virgin not betrothed: he shall marry her "because he humbled her" (Deuteronomy 22:29, in both texts).
• Jacob's sons say he "did folly in Israel", נְבָלָה עָשָׂה בְיִשְׂרָאֵל (34:7), the words of the bride found without the tokens of virginity, who "did folly in Israel" (Deuteronomy 22:21). The link is the Hebrew's: the Greek has ἄσχημον at 34:7 and ἀφροσύνην at Deuteronomy 22:21.
• Shechem offers the bride-price, φερνή, מֹהַר (34:12), the payment Exodus 22:15–16 requires of the man who has lain with a παρθένος.

consensus: the words are the texts', whatever is made of them.

def shechemActsUnderTheLawCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Genesis 34 tells Shechem's act in the words of the laws of the violated virgin",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.shechemUnderTheLaw,
        supporting := [Reference.scripture Scripture.seductionLaw],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

dinahIsTheLawsParthenosCited

dinahIsTheLawsParthenos. The status reading of Genesis 34:3: the Greek calls Dinah "the παρθένος" as the law of Exodus 22:15–16 calls the woman a man has lain with, naming her by the standing he took from her, and the word keeps its sense "virgin". dinahLine gives the argument and its rating. plausible, as its step is.

def dinahIsTheLawsParthenosCited : AtomMeta

matthewQuotesTheGreekVirginCited

matthewQuotesTheGreekVirgin. What Matthew reads: "ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει καὶ τέξεται υἱόν" (1:23), the Septuagint's words for Isaiah 7:14. Scripture alone, and legitimately so: the claim is about what the texts read. consensus.

def matthewQuotesTheGreekVirginCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Matthew 1:23 quotes Isaiah 7:14 in the Greek's own words: ἡ παρθένος",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.matthewQuotesTheSeptuagint,
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

matthewSaysMaryKnewNoManCited

matthewSaysMaryKnewNoMan. What Matthew says: Mary was found with child "before they came together" (1:18), and Joseph "knew her not until she had borne a son" (1:25). This is what Matthew says, not whether it happened, which the argument rates apart (maryConceivedAsVirgin). consensus.

def matthewSaysMaryKnewNoManCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "Matthew says Mary conceived before she and Joseph came together",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.matthewMaryKnewNoMan,
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

lxxIsaiahUsesParthenosAsVirginCited

lxxIsaiahUsesParthenosAsVirgin. Scripture's own reading of the Greek word: Matthew quotes the Septuagint's ἡ παρθένος of a woman who conceived before she and Joseph came together, so in the text he quotes, the word has the sense "virgin". The principle is Westminster's: "The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself" (I.ix). Irenaeus: the apostles "agree with this aforesaid translation", and Matthew among them set forth the prophecies "just as the interpretation of the elders contains them" (Against Heresies III.21.3).

disputed, as its step is: Wegner grants that Matthew uses the word of Mary, a virgin, and holds that it had changed in meaning since the translator wrote it, "from 'young woman' to 'virgin,' thus also making it a suitable term to describe Mary in the first century AD" (483).

def lxxIsaiahUsesParthenosAsVirginCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "In the Greek of Isaiah 7:14, which Matthew quotes, παρθένος means 'virgin'",
    kind := PremiseKind.linguistic,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.work westminsterConfession (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "I.ix"),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work irenaeusAgainstHeresies
              (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "III.21.3"),
            Reference.work wegnerVirginBirths (Bib.Locus.page 483)],
        tradition := Tradition.reformedProtestant,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

joelGreekCallsTheWidowParthenosCited

joelGreekCallsTheWidowParthenos. Miller's claim about the Greek: "Lament like a parthenos dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth (Joel 1:8)", given as a use of the word of a woman who is not a virgin (Born Divine). The Greek of Joel 1:8 does not read so: it calls the woman νύμφην, a bride, and its παρθεν- word, τὸν παρθενικόν, is of the husband (Rahlfs). Cited for what Miller holds; the text refutes it (Dispute.Miller).

def joelGreekCallsTheWidowParthenosCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "The Greek of Joel 1:8 calls a young widow a παρθένος (Miller)",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work millerBornDivine,
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginityCited

parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginity. Miller's thesis: "As in other Greek literature, parthenos in the Septuagint did not by itself connote what we mean by virginity", so that where virginity matters it "has to be inferred from the context" (Born Divine). disputed: Bratcher (113), and Rico and Gentry, hold the opposite.

def parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginityCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "In the Septuagint, παρθένος did not by itself connote virginity (Miller)",
    kind := PremiseKind.linguistic,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work millerBornDivine,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work bratcherStudyOfIsaiah (Bib.Locus.page 113)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWasCited

parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas. Miller's premise: "In one passage, this term refers to a rape victim after she has been attacked (Gen 34:3)" (Born Divine). Wegner says the same, that Dinah "is called a παρθένος even after she was raped by Shechem" (483), and Muraoka's lexicon glosses the verse "so called just after having been raped" (535). It is more than the reading of the text (greekCallsDinahParthenos): that the noun says what Dinah was at the time of the verse, and so, since she was then no longer a virgin, that the word is not used there in the sense "virgin".

A noun need not say what the one it names is at the time of its verb. Enç argues that a noun phrase is read at a time of its own, which the context gives (1986); Scripture names Rahab "the harlot" long after Jericho (Hebrews 11:31, James 2:25), and Matthew "the tax collector" after his call (Matthew 10:3). So the noun at 34:3 can name Dinah by what she had been, or, as the status reading holds, by the law's name for the woman a man has lain with (dinahIsTheLawsParthenos).

wellSupported, not higher: every reader on record who takes up the verse holds it, and Rico and Gentry and Bratcher, who read the word as "virgin", grant it. The status reading and the argument from the noun contest it, but both are the library's own, and no reader has been found who makes either.

def parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWasCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "At 34:3 παρθένος describes Dinah as she then was, no longer a virgin (Miller)",
    kind := PremiseKind.linguistic,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work millerBornDivine,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work wegnerVirginBirths (Bib.Locus.page 483),
            Reference.work muraokaLexiconSeptuagint (Bib.Locus.page 535)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.wellSupported } }

tryphoRejectsParthenosCited

tryphoRejectsParthenos. Trypho: "The Scripture has not, 'Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,' but, 'Behold, the young woman shall conceive'" (Dialogue 67). Justin answers that Trypho's teachers "refuse to admit that the interpretation made by the seventy elders who were with Ptolemy ... is a correct one" (71). consensus: the record is Justin's, and no one doubts that the objection was made.

def tryphoRejectsParthenosCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Trypho rejects the Septuagint's 'the virgin' and reads 'the young woman'",
    kind := PremiseKind.historical,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work justinDialogue (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "67"),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work justinDialogue (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "71")],
        tradition := Tradition.christianTypological,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

lxxReadsAVirginCited

lxxReadsAVirgin. What Irenaeus takes the Greek to say: "the token of the Virgin" (Against Heresies III.21.1). Readers who doubt more grant this much. Bratcher: "all the LXX means by parthenos is that a young woman, at that time virgin, would in the normal way marry and bear a child" (115), which he calls "the most reasonable explanation" (116). Delling, as Rhodea quotes him: the Septuagint's usage "demands no more than the sense of a 'woman untouched by a man up to the moment of the conception (of Immanuel)'" (Rhodea 67, citing TDNT 5.833 in n. 42).

disputed, because it stands or falls with the claim about παρθένος: on Wegner's reading the translator wrote a word for a young woman, and said nothing of her virginity.

def lxxReadsAVirginCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Before Christ, a Jewish translator read the woman of Isaiah 7:14 as a virgin",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.work irenaeusAgainstHeresies
            (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "III.21.1"),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work bratcherStudyOfIsaiah (Bib.Locus.pages 115 116),
            Reference.work rhodeaDidMatthewConceive (Bib.Locus.page 67)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianTypological,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

lxxPutsTheConceptionInTheFutureCited

lxxPutsTheConceptionInTheFuture. What the Greek reads: ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει, "look, the virgin shall be with child", a future, where Wegner reads the Hebrew הָרָה as a present pregnancy. Rhodea notes it (67). consensus.

def lxxPutsTheConceptionInTheFutureCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "The Septuagint puts the conception in the future: 'she shall be with child'",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.scripture
            [Scripture.verseIn TextualTradition.septuagint
                Scripture.isaiah7_14],
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work rhodeaDidMatthewConceive (Bib.Locus.page 67)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

lxxEnvisagesAVirginalConceptionCited

lxxEnvisagesAVirginalConception. Justin reads the elders' Greek so: "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?" (Dialogue 84). Delling, as Rhodea quotes him, allows that "on the basis of LXX usage it is also possible that the translator of Is. 7:14 envisaged a non-sexual origin of the virgin's son" (67 n. 42).

disputed. Rhodea, quoting Tsevat: "The pregnancy lies in the future ...; nothing indicates that the woman is also a virgin after the conception" (67); "the evidence, then, does not demand a miraculous conception in either the Hebrew or LXX" (68). Bratcher, quoting Gray: "all, then, that the Greek translators need mean is that a woman now virgin will hereafter, in the ordinary course of nature of losing her virginity, conceive" (115–16).

def lxxEnvisagesAVirginalConceptionCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "The Septuagint's translator meant that the woman conceives as a virgin",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work justinDialogue (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "84"),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work rhodeaDidMatthewConceive (Bib.Locus.page 67)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianTypological,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Sources.Versions — the Hebrew, the Syriac, and a reply

Three citations that say more than a label can: what the oldest Hebrew copy of Isaiah reads at 7:14, what the Syriac Peshitta reads and what can be said of who wrote it, and the reply to the lexical objection that leaves the word's sense aside, with the fathers who made it. Cited here and dispatched from cite by name, for the reason Sources.Wegner gives.

qumranConfirmsAlmahCited

qumranConfirmsAlmah. What the oldest Hebrew copy of Isaiah reads. 1QIsaᵃ, column VI, line 29, has הנה העלמה הרה, as the Masoretic Text has it: read in Abegg's transcription, from Ulrich and Flint's text. The verse has other variants — יהוה for אדני, and וקרא, "and one shall call", for וקראת, "and she shall call" — but none at the word. 4QIsaˡ, the one other Qumran copy of the verse, preserves too little of it to witness either way. The scroll is dated by radiocarbon to 335–122 BC at one standard deviation, and by its hand to 150–125 BC (Jull et al. 14, 19).

So the Hebrew that both sides read is the Hebrew read before Christ, and neither Christians nor their opponents changed the word. That settles the text, not the sense: the scroll has the same word, and what it means is the dispute. consensus.

def qumranConfirmsAlmahCited : AtomMeta

peshittaRendersBtultaCited

peshittaRendersBtulta. What the Syriac reads, and nothing about who wrote it or why. Van der Kooij prints the reading (271). It is the Peshitta's only ܒܬܘܠܬܐ for עַלְמָה: at Genesis 24:43, Exodus 2:8, Psalm 68:26 and Song 1:3 and 6:8 it writes the cognate ܥܠܝܡܬܐ. Who made the version is disputed: Jews, for Bloch ("a work of Jewish hands outside of Palestine", 218 n.), or a Jewish Christian who knew the Greek Isaiah, for van der Kooij (276–77, 287). Whether its 7:14 is the translator's own reading, follows the Septuagint, or was changed later, Chen finds impossible to settle: its agreement with the Greek "prevents us from drawing any certain conclusion" (104–5). So it is cited for what it reads, and not as a Jewish witness to "virgin". consensus, for the reading.

def peshittaRendersBtultaCited : AtomMeta

maryFitsIsaianicDescriptionCited

maryFitsIsaianicDescription. The referential reply: Mary was a young woman of marriageable age and a virgin, so she answers Isaiah's description whatever עַלְמָה denotes. France on Matthew 1:23, with Rico and Gentry.

The fathers gave the same answer to the Jewish "young woman", where they granted it. Cyril of Alexandria: "κἂν εἰ λέγοιτο νεᾶνις ἡ παρθένος, οὐκ ἔξω κείσεται τοῦ εἶναι παρθένος", even if the virgin were called a young woman, she will not cease to be a virgin (PG 70, 204B). Cyril of Jerusalem: "though I assent to what they say, even so I find the truth" (Catechetical Lectures 12.21). Eusebius: Christ's entry by birth "as I and the Septuagint interpret it, of a virgin, or even according to the current Jewish rendering, of a young woman" (Dem. Ev. VII.1). Each, with Chrysostom (Homilies on Matthew 5), points to Deuteronomy 22, where the betrothed νεᾶνις of 22:24–27 is the παῖς παρθένος of 22:23.

def maryFitsIsaianicDescriptionCited : AtomMeta

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Sources.Wegner — the citations of the sign dispute

The atoms of the dispute over Wegner's objection, cited here and dispatched from cite by name. They are the parse of הָרָה, the pregnancy it reports, what that pregnancy is taken to show, and the fathers' sign argument against it with the near-term reply to that.

They sit apart because cite is one total function over every atom. It keeps that guarantee: each value below is reached from exactly one of its cases, so an atom still cannot go uncited. What moves is only where the citation is written, which keeps Sources.lean short enough to read.

harahIsPredicateAdjectiveCited

harahIsPredicateAdjective. Deliberately not the contested step, and granted throughout. Wegner puts it at "most likely" and cites Williams' grammar §75; Rydelnik parses the clause exactly the same way and draws the opposite conclusion from it, that the virgin is pregnant and the sign is therefore as deep as Sheol (Isa 7:11).

def harahIsPredicateAdjectiveCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "הָרָה at Isaiah 7:14 is a predicate adjective: the עַלְמָה is pregnant",
    kind := PremiseKind.linguistic,
    source :=
      have __src :=
        wegnerOnAlmah (Bib.Locus.page 471)
          Confidence.wellSupported;
      { primary := __src.primary,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work postellIsaiahMessianic (Bib.Locus.page 474),
            Reference.work youngImmanuelProphecy (Bib.Locus.pages 115 116)],
        tradition := __src.tradition, confidence := __src.confidence } }

isaianicAlmahIsAlreadyPregnantCited

isaianicAlmahIsAlreadyPregnant. Granted on both sides of the dispute over this verse: Wegner reads a present pregnancy and so does Rydelnik. What they disagree about is what kind of pregnancy it is.

def isaianicAlmahIsAlreadyPregnantCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "The עַלְמָה of Isaiah 7:14 is already pregnant when the sign is given",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      have __src :=
        wegnerOnAlmah (Bib.Locus.pages 471 472)
          Confidence.wellSupported;
      { primary := __src.primary,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work postellIsaiahMessianic (Bib.Locus.page 468),
            Reference.work youngImmanuelProphecy (Bib.Locus.pages 116 117)],
        tradition := __src.tradition, confidence := __src.confidence } }

pregnancyAtTheSignIsOrdinaryCited

pregnancyAtTheSignIsOrdinary. The hinge of Wegner's objection, and not a lexical claim at all. He gets it from the near-term reading of the sign: the child born within nine months, everything in the oracle discharged by 701 BC. Rydelnik, parsing הָרָה as Wegner does, denies it outright. So do the fathers, on the ground that an ordinary conception would be no sign, and signLine is that argument.

def pregnancyAtTheSignIsOrdinaryCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "The pregnancy Isaiah 7:14 announces is an ordinary conception",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      have __src :=
        wegnerOnAlmah (Bib.Locus.pages 476 478)
          Confidence.disputed;
      { primary := __src.primary,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work postellIsaiahMessianic (Bib.Locus.page 474)],
        tradition := __src.tradition, confidence := __src.confidence } }

isaianicAlmahIsNotAVirginCited

isaianicAlmahIsNotAVirgin. Wegner's conclusion about the referent. Postell states the step it rests on baldly: "since the עַלְמָה in Isaiah 7:14 is already pregnant, she obviously cannot be a virgin" (468).

def isaianicAlmahIsNotAVirginCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "The עַלְמָה of Isaiah 7:14 is not a virgin",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      have __src :=
        wegnerOnAlmah (Bib.Locus.pages 471 472)
          Confidence.disputed;
      { primary := __src.primary,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work postellIsaiahMessianic (Bib.Locus.page 468)],
        tradition := __src.tradition, confidence := __src.confidence } }

oneReferentSettlesDenotationCited

oneReferentSettlesDenotation. Wegner's method: Isaiah 7:14 is used as proof that the word cannot mean "virgin". Rico and Gentry deny the principle — "the analysis of the Immanuel oracle does not by itself allow one to draw a conclusion concerning the meaning of the word" — and hold that the other occurrences settle it the other way (quoted at Postell 468 n. 22).

def oneReferentSettlesDenotationCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "What the עַלְמָה of Isaiah 7:14 turns out to be settles what the word denotes",
    kind := PremiseKind.linguistic,
    source :=
      have __src :=
        wegnerOnAlmah (Bib.Locus.pages 471 472)
          Confidence.disputed;
      { primary := __src.primary,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work postellIsaiahMessianic (Bib.Locus.page 468),
            Reference.work ricoGentryInfantKing (Bib.Locus.page 152)],
        tradition := __src.tradition, confidence := __src.confidence } }

otherClearAlmahCasesAreVirginsCited

otherClearAlmahCasesAreVirgins. Postell at 468 n. 22, of the three passages Wegner calls clearest. Marked plausible rather than wellSupported because it is stronger than Wegner's own text: Genesis 24:43 is uncontested, but Wegner's discussion of Song 6:8 allows that some of the עֲלָמוֹת in the harem would not be virgins.

def otherClearAlmahCasesAreVirginsCited : AtomMeta

signMustBeExtraordinaryCited

signMustBeExtraordinary. Origen's form of it: "What kind of sign, then, would that have been — a young woman who was not a virgin giving birth to a child?", tied to the sign offered "in the depth or in the height" (Cels. I.35). Justin (Dial. 84) and Irenaeus (Haer. III.21.6) argue the same, and so does every other father the library has read on the verse:

• Tertullian: a young woman's pregnancy, "a daily occurrence", "cannot possibly seem anything of a sign" (Answer to the Jews 9);
• Eusebius (Dem. Ev. VII.1);
• Cyril of Jerusalem: "the sign certainly must be something astonishing" (Cat. 12.22);
• Chrysostom: "that which is a sign must of course be beyond the course of common events" (Hom. Matt. 5);
• Jerome: the sign "novum debet esse atque mirabile", must be new and wonderful (on 7:14, PL 24, 107D);
• Cyril of Alexandria (PG 70, 204C);
• Theodoret: "Οὐδεὶς δὲ σημεῖον καλεῖ τὸ καθ' ἑκάστην γινόμενον ἡμέραν", no one calls a sign what happens every day (PG 81, 276D).

Rydelnik makes the move today, as Postell reports (474).

disputed, though the fathers are unanimous: a rating says whether competent readers contest a claim now, and two do. Wegner grants that the sign offered at 7:11 would have been miraculous, but holds that a sign may be an everyday occurrence and reads the one given at 7:14, after Ahaz refused the first, as one (469–470, 477–478); Rhodea holds that a sign does not require a miracle, and that 7:11 does not make this one (64 and n. 10).

def signMustBeExtraordinaryCited : AtomMeta

ordinaryConceptionIsNoMarvelCited

ordinaryConceptionIsNoMarvel. Irenaeus: "what great thing or what sign should have been in this, that a young woman conceiving by a man should bring forth — a thing which happens to all women that produce offspring?" Justin asks why God would give "a sign which is not common to all the first-born sons" (Dial. 84). consensus, because the rival grants it: its point is that the sign need not be a marvel, not that an ordinary conception is one (Rhodea 64).

def ordinaryConceptionIsNoMarvelCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "An ordinary conception is nothing extraordinary: it happens to all women",
    kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.work irenaeusAgainstHeresies
            (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "III.21.6"),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work justinDialogue (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "84"),
            Reference.work rhodeaDidMatthewConceive (Bib.Locus.page 64)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianTypological,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

isaianicSignsAreOrdinaryEventsCited

isaianicSignsAreOrdinaryEvents. What the text says: Rhodea lists non-supernatural signs "including elsewhere in Isaiah" (64), and Wegner a sign as "a common, everyday occurrence that has significance because of what it means, foretells, or predicts" (470). Rydelnik, as Postell reports him (474), grants the first of them: Isaiah's children are the "signs and wonders" of 8:18.

def isaianicSignsAreOrdinaryEventsCited : AtomMeta :=
  {
    label :=
      "Signs elsewhere in Isaiah are ordinary events: his children, 8:18",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.scripture Scripture.ordinaryIsaianicSigns,
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work rhodeaDidMatthewConceive (Bib.Locus.page 64),
            Reference.work wegnerVirginBirths (Bib.Locus.page 470)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

signDatedByAChildsInfancyCited

signDatedByAChildsInfancy. What 7:16 says, and common ground about which child is left open: Wegner reads it of the child of 7:14 (477), Rydelnik of Shear-jashub (Postell 474), and Compton of a child whose infancy only measures the time (14).

def signDatedByAChildsInfancyCited : AtomMeta :=
  { label := "Isaiah 7:16 dates the deliverance by a child's infancy",
    kind := PremiseKind.textual,
    source :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.scripture
            [Scripture.verseIn TextualTradition.masoretic
                { book := Book.isaiah, chapter := 7, verse := 16 }],
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work wegnerVirginBirths (Bib.Locus.page 477),
            Reference.work comptonImmanuelProphecy (Bib.Locus.page 14)],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Sources — a citation for every atom

cite is total, so an atom without a citation does not compile. This is the file that makes that obligation concrete: every atom, each with a prose statement of what it asserts, a classification, and who says so at what pinpoint with what confidence.

It was once the largest file in the argument, and the atoms of its four disputes are now cited in modules of their own: Sources.NearTerm for the dispute over the critical denial, Sources.Wegner for the dispute over Wegner's objection, Sources.Septuagint for the dispute over the Septuagint's word, Sources.Versions for the Hebrew text, the Syriac, and the referential reply, and Sources.Genesis for the dispute over the woman's seed. cite reaches each of those citations by name from one of its cases, so it is still one total function, and a new atom still cannot be left out of it.

Several Source values recur across it and are defined in Atoms. Where an atom cites one of them with something further, it says { ... with supporting := }, so what a reader sees is the part that differs.

Inline comments carry the qualifications that do not fit a confidence field — why a premise is marked disputed when the tradition holding it is confident, which scholar is not being cited for a claim and why.

cite

Citation and classification for every atom. Total, so nothing is uncited.

def cite : Claim → AtomMeta

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Lines — the steps, and the lines of reason

Every inference this argument makes, and the four strands they compose into.

Inference steps carry no confidence field of their own — a step is a claim that these premises license that conclusion, which is a different kind of claim from an atom, and the library does not pretend to grade it. Where a step is contestable even though the atoms it joins are well supported, the docstring says so; berryBlocksExclusion is the clearest case.

Inference steps

One per strand, each delivering the same criterion, plus the steps that close the argument and the steps the rivals need. Keeping them separate is what makes the load-bearing results possible: a strand can be removed without touching the others.

toCriterion

Isaianic strand: from the predictive reading, the lexical premise and Matthew's intent, the criterion follows.

genesisToCriterion

Protoevangelium strand: Genesis 3:15 promises a redeemer as "her seed"; a man's line is ordinarily counted through the father; and naming the seed as the woman's marks a birth with no human father. So the Messiah must be born of a virgin.

compositionalToCriterion

Compositional strand: from Isaiah 7's placement in an eschatologically framed unit, the principle that placement governs meaning, and the future birth that follows, the criterion follows.

The weak joint is the last step. Postell's argument delivers a miraculous birth; it is matthewIntendsFulfilment that says which miracle. A reader who grants the composition and stops short of Matthew is entitled to.

parityDefeatsNearTermExclusion

Postell's parity argument. Isaiah 9:5–6 and 11:1–10 are read as messianic without reservation, and they stand on the same near-term Assyrian timeline as 7:14 — the Assyrian invasion of 8:7–8, the oppressor's rod of 10:5. So a near-term geopolitical setting cannot be what rules out messianic reference, because if it were it would rule out 9 and 11 as well.

This is a second, independent defeater of the same critical step that Berry's objection attacks, and it is the stronger of the two: Berry says the near-term fulfilment is unclear, while parity says the near-term setting was never the right kind of reason.

micahToCriterion

Michean strand: from the maternal-only wording and the inference drawn from it, the criterion follows.

magisterialToCriterion

Magisterial strand: from papal teaching and the authority granted it, the criterion follows. Encoded, but deliberately kept out of christian.

criticalExclusion

The critical inference, made explicit: granted that Isaiah 7:14 was a sign to Ahaz, and that such a sign is not also a prediction of a virgin conception, the predictive reading is denied.

The earlier encoding of this module simply asserted the denial as a premise of critical. That was a weaker rival than the critical case actually is, and it left nothing for an objection to engage.

berryBlocksExclusion

Berry's objection: if how the sign was fulfilled in Ahaz's own day is itself unsettled, the near-term reading is not secure enough to exclude a further referent.

The step is contestable even though both atoms it joins are wellSupported — an unclear fulfilment is still a fulfilment, and Brown would answer that Isaiah 8:3–4 settles the referent well enough. The step is rated in berryLine, where it is cited disputed.

micahParityDefeatsNearTermExclusion

Postell's second counterexample: an oracle set against the Assyrian invasion, read messianically, so a near-term Assyrian setting does not exclude a messianic sense. The same inference as parityDefeatsNearTermExclusion, from a different oracle in a different book (Postell 481 n. 72).

timetablePassesToMaherShalalHashBaz

Motyer's inference: the sign of 7:14 is given to the dynasty, and the timetable that answers Ahaz's crisis passes to Maher-shalal-hash-baz, so the child of 7:14 is not a near-term sign to Ahaz. "Either we must identify Maher-shalal-hash-baz with Immanuel, or we must project Immanuel into the undated future" (Motyer 1970, 124).

This is the contested part of his reply, and it is a step rather than an atom on purpose, as Berry's and Postell's are: the two atoms it joins are what the text says, and the inference is what a reader who identifies the two children denies, and motyerLine rates it disputed for that reason.

The referential strand

Sense against reference. The steps below never claim that עַלְמָה means virgin; they claim that a virgin is an עַלְמָה, which is a different and far cheaper claim, and then ask what the lexical objection is left with.

toDescriptionFit

If virginity is compatible with the denotation of עַלְמָה, and Mary was both an עַלְמָה and a virgin, then Mary answers Isaiah's description — without the word having to carry the sense.

descriptionFitDefeatsLexicalDemand

... and if she answers it, the fulfilment claim never needed the lexical sense in the first place.

lexicalObjection

The lexical objection in full: עַלְמָה does not denote virginity, Matthew's claim requires that it does, so the fulfilment claim fails. Stated as the objector would state it, so that the reply has something real to answer.

versionalObjection

The versional route to the lexical premise: the Targum and the Three read the broad term, so the narrow sense is not the word's.

compatibilityDissolvesDivergence

The tension, dissolved. If virginity is compatible with עַלְמָה, the versions are not contradicting one another about the referent at all: the Septuagint, if its παρθένος already meant "virgin" (Dispute.Septuagint), and the Peshitta render with the narrower term, the Targum and the Three with the broader one, and both are faithful renderings of a word whose denotation admits both. The divergence stops being evidence about the sense.

Why the Peshitta has the narrower term is not settled. It is its only ܒܬܘܠܬܐ for עַלְמָה, and whether that is its translator's reading of the woman, the Septuagint's influence, or a later Christian hand, Chen finds impossible to decide (104–5). The step needs only that the rendering is a faithful one, not why it was chosen.

toFulfilment

From the criterion and the historical claim, the fulfilment follows.

Wegner's grammatical objection, and the circle Postell finds in it

The sharpest form of the lexical case. Each link is a step of its own, because the result worth having is not whether the objection is valid — it is — but which link carries its weight, and where that link comes from.

harahYieldsPresentPregnancy

Wegner's grammatical step: if הָרָה is a predicate adjective, the עַלְמָה of the sign is pregnant already, at the moment the sign is given.

ordinaryPregnancyExcludesVirginity

... and if that pregnancy is an ordinary conception, the woman it describes is not a virgin.

The second conjunct does all the work, and it is not a grammatical claim. Rydelnik parses הָרָה exactly as Wegner does and reads the same clause as the miracle itself — the virgin is pregnant — which is available to him precisely because the parse leaves this open.

referentYieldsLexicalConclusion

... and if what the one clear Isaianic referent turns out to be settles what the word denotes, the lexical conclusion follows.

readingSuppliesOrdinaryPregnancy

Where the ordinary pregnancy comes from. Not from the grammar: from the near-term reading of the sign, which has the child born within nine months and the whole oracle discharged by 701 BC.

This is Postell's charge, written as a formula rather than repeated as a complaint: "because Wegner rejects the messianic interpretation on grammatical-historical grounds, he assumes that עַלְמָה cannot mean 'virgin' in Isaiah 7:14" (468 n. 22).

lexicalConclusionTellsAgainstPrediction

The return leg. The lexical conclusion is then turned against the predictive reading, which is what the critical case does with it and what critical already assumes.

Wegner's own version of this step is weaker — Postell reports it as decreasing the likelihood of a virgin-birth prediction without ruling it out (469) — and the encoding states the strong form on purpose. The strong form is the one on which the two legs make a closed circle, and stating it is what lets circle_leaves_the_lexical_conclusion_open be checked rather than asserted. On the weaker form the loop is evidential rather than deductive, which is the difference between a vicious circle and mutual support.

usageParityBlocksReferentInference

Postell's usage parity. If a single clear referent settled the denotation, the other clear עַלְמָה passages would settle it in the opposite direction, since the women there are virgins. So that principle is not available to the objection: it proves too much, and the wrong way.

The fathers' sign argument, and the near-term reply

Wegner's objection needs the pregnancy to be an ordinary one. The oldest Christian answer to the near-term reading denies exactly that, and it does so without touching the word: the oracle promised a sign, and an ordinary conception would have been none.

extraordinarySignExcludesOrdinaryPregnancy

The sign argument. If the sign of 7:14 must be extraordinary, and an ordinary conception is nothing extraordinary, the pregnancy the sign announces is not an ordinary one.

The step assumes that the conception is the sign rather than one part of it. Wegner counts three parts in 7:14 and more in 7:15–16 (469, 477), but he does not grant the first ground and deny the conclusion: he denies the first ground.

ordinarySignsAnswerTheDemand

The near-term reply. Signs elsewhere in Isaiah are ordinary events, and this one is dated by a child's infancy, so its point is its timing and it need not be extraordinary.

The Septuagint, and what its word meant

Jews translated Isaiah into Greek before Christ and wrote παρθένος. What that shows depends on what παρθένος meant to them, and the steps below keep the two questions apart: what the translator wrote, and what the word he wrote meant.

septuagintReadsAVirgin

The Septuagint as a witness. A Jewish translator, before Christ, chose for the woman of 7:14 a word that means a virgin; so he read her as one.

dinahShowsTheOlderSense

Wegner's case that the word's sense shifted. In early Greek παρθένος meant a young woman, with or without virginity; the Septuagint calls Dinah one at 34:3, and the noun there describes her as she then was, no longer a virgin; so in the Septuagint's day the word meant "young woman", and the sense "virgin" came later.

usageShowsTheVirginSense

The case from usage. Rico and Gentry's: the Jews who rejected the Christian reading of 7:14 rejected the word itself, Trypho reading "the young woman" and the Three writing νεᾶνις. With it the library's own addition: the Greek Isaiah's παρθένος renders בְּתוּלָה wherever else it occurs. So the word meant a virgin.

translatorsReadingFixesTheWord

From the translator's reading to Isaiah's word. If the first translator read the woman of 7:14 as a virgin, the word Isaiah used of her denotes one.

The step the Septuagint is usually asked to take, and the one its grounds do not supply: it has to be granted separately, and it is rated disputed.

Irenaeus takes it because he holds the Greek inspired: the seventy elders, translating apart, agreed "in the very same words", so that "the Scriptures had been interpreted by the inspiration of God" (Against Heresies III.21.2).

Bratcher and Brown grant the ground and deny the step. Bratcher holds that the translator meant "a young woman, at that time virgin" (115), and that עַלְמָה "is neutral, so far as virginity is concerned" (105): "even if in all occurrences of the word in the Old Testament it were proven that the 'almah in each case was, in fact, a virgin, that would not prove that 'almah in Isaiah 7:14 means 'virgin'" (106). Brown holds that the translator's choice "represented a deliberate preference for understanding the young woman of Isa 7:14 as a virgin" (Birth of the Messiah 148), and that עַלְמָה puts "no stress on her virginity" (147). Walton, who doubts the ground itself, denies the step even if it is granted: "it is illegitimate to use the LXX translation to override clear lexical material in the Hebrew text", and "at best the LXX would indicate an interpretational preference rather than a linguistic necessity" (293).

Bratcher's and Brown's reason is that a rendering can follow the woman described rather than the word. The translator of Genesis wrote παρθένος for the עַלְמָה Rebekah (24:43), whom the story has already called a virgin (24:16): "historically correct — since Rebekah was a virgin", Bratcher says, but it "does not precisely translate the Hebrew" (113). Jerome reads Rebekah the other way, as showing that עַלְמָה denotes a virgin (Against Jovinianus I.32). Elsewhere the Septuagint's translators render עַלְמָה with νεᾶνις four times (Exodus 2:8; Psalm 67:26, 68:25 in English Bibles; Song 1:3; 6:8) and with νεότης, "youth", once (Proverbs 30:19), as Rahlfs's text shows; Rhodea counts the νεᾶνις cases (67 n. 34). These are other translators than Isaiah's, as the translator of Genesis 34:3 is. That is also how this argument's referential strand reads the versions (compatibilityDissolvesDivergence).

Genesis 3:15, and what "her seed" says of a father

The protoevangelium strand holds that the seed being named as the woman's marks a birth with no human father. The steps below take apart what "marks" can mean: that the wording itself signifies such a birth, which Luther argues and Leupold, Keil and Lewis deny, or that it fits one once fulfilled, which Leupold and Keil grant.

herSeedSignifiesNoFather

Luther's step. Genesis 3:15 names the seed as the woman's, it is the first promise of a redeemer, and a man's seed is ordinarily reckoned through him; so the wording itself signifies a birth with no human father.

posterityExplainsTheWording

Leupold's step. "Her seed" is first collective, the woman's posterity, and the seed is named hers because the serpent deceived her; so the wording does not itself signify a birth with no human father.

ordinaryBirthsAnswerTheWording

Lewis's step. Genesis speaks of a woman's seed in ordinary births too; so the woman's seed at 3:15 does not by itself signify a birth with no human father.

heReadsOneDescendant

The Greek's "he". The Greek refers to the neuter seed with a masculine pronoun; so its translator read the seed as one person.

The lines of reason

Four strands converge on the criterion, and each is a Line: its own grounds, its own licensing step, and what it delivers. The packages are assembled from these rather than from flat premise lists, so a variant package is a named difference — one line on different grounds — instead of twenty premises retyped with one missing.

grounds are the premises a line contributes of its own. What the strands hold in common (Mary's conception, the agreement of the two narratives) is passed to caseOf as shared, because it belongs to no single strand.

isaianicLine — Isaianic strand (Isaiah 7:14)

The Isaianic line. The predictive reading, the lexical premise, the Septuagint's rendering, and Matthew's quotation and intent. Its hinge is almahMeansVirgin, and the whole lexical dispute is about that one ground.

protoevangeliumLine — Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15)

The protoevangelium line. Genesis 3:15 read as the promise of a redeemer, a man's line counted through the father, and the claim that naming the seed as the woman's marks a birth with no human father. That claim is its hinge (seedOfTheWomanImpliesNoHumanFather), and Results.Genesis says what it can bear, read either way.

micheanLine — Michean strand (Micah 5:2–3)

The Michean line. The maternal-only wording of Micah 5:3 and the inference drawn from it. Its hinge is an argument from silence, and the rival says so.

compositionalLine — Compositional strand (Isaiah 2–12)

The compositional line. Isaiah 7's placement in an eschatologically framed unit, the principle that placement governs meaning, and the future birth that follows. Its hinge is compositionGovernsMeaning.

magisterialLine — Magisterial strand (papal teaching)

The magisterial line. Papal teaching and the authority granted it.

Encoded as a line like the others and deliberately kept out of christian: its second ground is one this library's author does not grant. Keeping it a line rather than folding it into a package is what lets magisterial_authority_is_load_bearing ask what the route is worth on its own.

referentialLine — Referential reading: a virgin is an עַלְמָה

The referential line. The shared lexical ground, the Rebekah datum, and two claims about Mary — that she was a young woman of marriageable age, and that she conceived as a virgin, which is cited disputed — delivering that she answers Isaiah's description without the word having to carry the sense. The fathers answer the Jewish "young woman" the same way: Cyril of Alexandria, "even if the virgin were called a young woman, she will not cease to be a virgin".

The scroll's reading is a ground because the reply is about what the word means, not which word Isaiah wrote: 1QIsaᵃ, copied before Christ, has the Masoretic Text's עַלְמָה. If the Hebrew were in doubt the dispute would not be about the sense alone, and the reply would have more to answer.

versionalLine — Lexical objection from the ancient versions

The versional line, stated as the objector would state it: the Targum and the Three read the broad term, Qumran settles the Hebrew, and Matthew's claim is taken to need the narrow sense — so the word does not denote virginity.

wegnerLine — Wegner's grammatical objection (Isaiah 7:14)

The Wegner line. The predicate-adjective parse, the near-term setting of the sign, the ordinary pregnancy that setting supplies, and the principle that the Isaianic referent settles the word's denotation — delivering that the עַלְמָה of the sign is pregnant when it is given.

The line stops at the pregnancy and the two further moves are closing steps, because that is where the argument actually divides: the parse is common ground, and everything contestable happens after it.

lexicalSenseRequiredForFulfilment is not among its grounds and is not Wegner's view. He holds a prophetic pattern, on which Matthew's use of the verse survives the lexical finding, so the objection stops at the lexical conclusion rather than running on to the fulfilment claim.

wegnerClosingSteps

The two steps that carry Wegner's line to its lexical conclusion: the pregnancy excludes virginity, and the referent settles the word. Passed to caseOf as closing steps, so that a variant can change the grounds without retyping them.

signLine — The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14)

The fathers' sign argument. Justin, Irenaeus and Origen, and every other father the library has read on the verse, and Rydelnik today: the sign of 7:14 must be extraordinary, an ordinary conception is not, so the pregnancy is no ordinary one. It denies the ground of Wegner's line that the parse does not supply, and nothing else.

Its step is rated plausible: no source cited here grants both grounds and holds the pregnancy ordinary. The rival denies the first ground instead, and the grounds are rated separately. It is not rated higher, because the step reads the conception as the whole of the sign.

ordinarySignLine — The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle

The near-term reply, as an argument: signs in Isaiah are ordinary events, and this one is dated by a child's infancy, so it need not be extraordinary. Wegner (469–470) and Rhodea (64–65).

septuagintLine — The Septuagint as a witness (Isaiah 7:14 in Greek)

The Septuagint as a witness. Irenaeus's argument: the Greek was made by Jews long before Christ, so its "virgin" cannot be a Christian reading put on the text. Its hinge is parthenosMeansVirgin, and the dispute over the Septuagint is about that one ground.

The step draws out its grounds: a translator who chose for the woman a word that means a virgin described her as one. It is rated plausible: no reader cited here grants that the word means a virgin and denies that the translator called her one. Bratcher and Brown, who deny the next step, grant this one: the translator meant "a young woman, at that time virgin" (Bratcher 115), "a deliberate preference for understanding the young woman of Isa 7:14 as a virgin" (Brown 148).

Walton doubts the word itself, and that dissent is counted where it belongs, in the rating of the third ground. Against the step he offers one thing more, Archer's suggestion that the translator of Isaiah "consistently showed a tendency to be imprecise in his choice of Greek terms", which "could well be the explanation of the use of parthenos here" (293). That is a guess at why the translator wrote the word, not a reading of what he wrote, and it is not counted as a dissent. The translator's own text tells against it: everywhere else in his Isaiah, παρθένος stands for בְּתוּלָה (23:4, 37:22, 47:1, 62:5; isaiahUsesParthenosForBetulah). The step is not rated higher, because none of its readers argues for it beyond the word's sense.

The main contest is over the third ground, rated disputed; the witness is no stronger than that ground, so the step's rating changes no verdict.

driftLine — Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin'

Wegner on παρθένος: in the Septuagint's day the word meant "young woman", and came to mean "virgin" only by the time of the New Testament (482–83). Held by Wegner, Rhodea and Meade; disputed by Rico and Gentry, and by Bratcher. Rhodea follows Wegner, with an "apparently", and draws from Genesis 34:3 that the word "need not refer to a virgo intacta" (67). Meade holds the same, "cf. Dina in Gen 34:3", and that by Justin's day the word had been "hijacked or used to mean 'chaste woman' only" (comment of 9 January 2013).

Three grounds: the older usage; what the Greek of 34:3 reads; and that the noun there describes Dinah as she then was. The third is Wegner's own — Dinah "is called a παρθένος even after she was raped by Shechem" (483) — and Miller's, and it is not the text's: the order of the verses puts Shechem's love after his act, not the noun's description (parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas). It is written out, not left inside the step, so that a reader sees it.

The step is rated disputed, because two readers grant all its grounds and deny its conclusion. Rico and Gentry grant the older usage, that the Greek calls Dinah a παρθένος, and that she was then no longer a virgin; but Genesis 34:1–3 is "the exception that proves the rule" (21), an archaism of the Greek Pentateuch, whose language is "more elevated and classical than the language of the later texts" (18). Bratcher grants all three — "at first the word was used in a general sense of 'girl', 'young woman'" (112), and Dinah "was no longer, therefore, a 'virgin'" — and still finds that "parthenos definitely means 'virgin' in the LXX; only very exceptionally (and, inexplicably, in Gen. 34:3) is it used otherwise" (113). The Greek Isaiah, a later book by another translator, uses the word elsewhere only for בְּתוּלָה (isaiahUsesParthenosForBetulah).

Delling, in the standard theological dictionary, reads the Septuagint's usage at Isaiah 7:14 as demanding "no more than the sense of a 'woman untouched by a man up to the moment of the conception'" (TDNT 5.833, as Rhodea quotes him, 67 n. 42): a virgin until then, whatever followed. And the Greek Pentateuch, the corpus Genesis 34:3 comes from, uses the word in its laws where virginity is the point (lawsLine). One passage in the broader sense does not show that the narrower sense was missing.

usageLine — Rico and Gentry: παρθένος means 'virgin' in the Greek of the Scriptures

The case from usage. Held by Rico and Gentry; disputed by Davidson and Meade. Rico and Gentry argue from the Jewish objection itself: "Otherwise the discussion of Justin and Trypho and the change from parthenos to neanis by AQUILA, SYMMACHUS, and THEODOTION in Is 7:14 would have no raison d'être" (21).

The first ground, the Greek Isaiah's other uses of the word, is the library's own addition, read from the two texts: it is the usage of the translator whose word is in question, as Genesis 34:3 is not. What the texts read is not in dispute; what it shows can be. It shows the sense "virgin" only if בְּתוּלָה means a virgin where he renders it, and two of the four are figures for a city, the "virgin daughter" of Zion (37:22) and of Babylon (47:1). Bratcher, who argues from the same correspondence across the whole Septuagint — 45 of the 52 times בְּתוּלָה occurs — warns that where it means only a young girl, or is used figuratively, "in such cases parthenos in the LXX will have the same meaning" (113).

The step is rated disputed, on two readers who grant the Jewish objection and read it the other way: the revisers were answering a sense Christians had put on the word, not the sense its translator gave it. A. B. Davidson: the Three wrote νεᾶνις "possibly to evade the technical sense put on the word by the Christians", παρθένος having been "used generally for 'girl' or 'young woman'" (A Dictionary of the Bible II, 1899, 456). John Meade, a Septuagint scholar whose doctoral supervisor was Gentry, so that the dissent comes from within Gentry's own school, finds the revisers' change sensible "only in a context where παρθενος has been hijacked or used to mean 'chaste woman' only (which by the time of Justin Martyr, it clearly had been, since Trypho never disputes this point but only relies on his different version which had νεανις)"; for "παρθενος simply means young woman in this verse and in other places in the LXX" (comment of 9 January 2013).

The dissents on both rival steps are brief. Davidson hedges his account of the Three with a "possibly", though not his account of the word; Meade's is a blog comment, revising his own earlier view toward "young woman". Against Wegner's step, Rico and Gentry give a reason, the archaism of the Greek Pentateuch, and Bratcher calls Genesis 34:3 inexplicable without explaining it. The ratings weigh none of this: each step has a cited reader who grants its grounds and denies its conclusion, and so each is disputed. Wegner's reading can be held with all three grounds here too — it is the countermodel in usage_rests_on_its_inference — though he does not discuss the Three or Trypho. The rating matters: rated higher, this step would decide the dispute over the Septuagint in the witness's favour (Dispute.Septuagint says why).

matthewReadsTheGreek

Scripture's reading of the Greek word. Matthew quotes the Septuagint's ἡ παρθένος of a woman who conceived before she and Joseph came together; so in the text he quotes, the word has the sense "virgin".

matthewReadingSource

The citation for Scripture's reading of the Greek word, at a confidence: Westminster's rule that Scripture interprets Scripture (I.ix), Irenaeus on the apostles' agreement with the Seventy (III.21.3), and Wegner, who grants Matthew's use and denies the step (483).

def matthewReadingSource : Confidence → Source :=
  fun c =>
    {
      primary :=
        Reference.work westminsterConfession (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "I.ix"),
      supporting :=
        [Reference.work irenaeusAgainstHeresies
            (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "III.21.3"),
          Reference.work wegnerVirginBirths (Bib.Locus.page 483)],
      tradition := Tradition.reformedProtestant, confidence := c }

matthewLine — Scripture interprets Scripture: Matthew quotes ἡ παρθένος of Mary

Scripture interprets Scripture: Matthew's quotation. The Gospel quotes the Greek of Isaiah 7:14, ἡ παρθένος, of Mary, who conceived "before they came together" (1:18) and whom Joseph "knew not until she had borne a son" (1:25). If Scripture is its own interpreter — "The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself" (Westminster I.ix) — the word in the text Matthew quotes has the sense he gives it. Its grounds are Scripture alone.

Like the case from the laws, it concludes that a passage of the Septuagint uses the word in the sense "virgin", and so, by what a usage is, that the sense was the Septuagint's, which Wegner denies. It says nothing of the Hebrew עַלְמָה.

Cited, the step is disputed. Wegner grants both grounds — the word was "a suitable term to describe Mary in the first century AD" — and denies the conclusion: it "changed in meaning from 'young woman' to 'virgin'" between the translator and Matthew (483). Whether that dissent counts is the question the standards answer differently: under the evidence and tradition standards it is a critique; under the scriptural standard, a dissent from a step whose grounds are all Scripture counts only if it rests on Scripture alone, and Wegner's rests on early Greek usage. Dispute.Matthew computes the hearing under each.

herSeedLine — Luther on 'her seed': the wording itself signifies no human father

Luther on "her seed": the wording itself signifies a birth with no human father. Held by Luther and Henry, and, as "a hint", by Akin and Miravalle; disputed by Leupold, Keil and Lewis. Irenaeus reads the verse of the Virgin's son, though he does not argue from the wording.

Luther: the seed of other women "might rather be said to have been the seed of the man. But that which was born from Mary was conceived of the Holy Ghost and was the true Seed of Mary" (Luther on the Creation 298–99). He finds the sense in the words of Genesis, and holds that Isaiah later "threw some additional light" on it: "For it was then made certain that this Seed would not be born from the union of a man and a woman" (298).

The step is rated disputed, because readers who grant all three grounds deny the conclusion. Leupold reads the verse as the promise of the victor — "Both the ultimate victory and its achievement by the seed of the woman are taught with unequivocal plainness by this word" (167). Asked whether the expression is "so phrased in reference to Mary and the virgin birth", he answers "Not primarily, but at least incidentally", and holds that "the expression used does not specifically prophesy the virgin birth" (169). Keil grants that the promise "culminates in Christ", and finds the virgin birth in its fulfilment, "even if the words had reference first of all to the fact that the woman had been led astray by the serpent", "even in its apparently casual form" (102). Lewis grants that "it is normal in Hebrew to describe descendants by the noun zeraʿ" (299); he doubts the promise reading itself, suggesting it came from "Making the woman to be the addressee", but argues on grounds that do not need that doubt: "To say that the passage is messianic does not necessarily imply that it is virgin-birth messianic" (319).

posterityLine — Leupold on 'her seed': her posterity, named for the deception

Leupold on "her seed": the wording names the woman's posterity, and names the woman because she was deceived; it does not itself signify a birth with no human father. Held by Leupold and Keil, whose two grounds Calvin gives too; disputed by Irenaeus and Henry.

Leupold: "the expression used does not specifically prophesy the virgin birth, but it coincides and agrees with it under divine providence. For it is not to be forgotten that the expression 'her seed' in its first meaning is a collective noun and includes all who are enrolled in the struggle against Satan, without being themselves virgin born" (169).

The step is rated disputed. Irenaeus grants both grounds. The enmity is kept up between the serpent and the woman's seed "until the seed did come appointed to tread down his head" (Against Heresies III.23.7), and "it was by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first" (V.21.1); yet he reads the verse as preaching "He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin" (V.21.1), though without arguing from its wording. Henry gives the woman's name the same reason — "because she it was whom the devil had beguiled" — and still reads the seed as "of a woman only, of a virgin".

idiomLine — Lewis on 'her seed': Genesis says it of Hagar and Rebekah too

Lewis on "her seed": Genesis speaks of a woman's seed in ordinary births too, so the wording at 3:15 does not by itself signify a birth with no human father. Held by Lewis; disputed by Akin.

Lewis: "Had it been observed across history that Hagar's descendants whose ancestral father is Abraham are also projected with a feminine possessive suffix attached to zeraʿ (Gen 16:10), as also are Rebekah's descendants whose ancestral father is Isaac (24:60), the treatment of Gen 3:15 would likely have been different" (299–300). "A look at texts about Hagar and Rebekah in Genesis could have safeguarded interpreters from the whole misguided exegetical effort" (319).

The step is rated disputed, on one reader. Jimmy Akin, a Catholic apologist, does not discuss Hagar or Rebekah, but grants the point Lewis draws from them, that a woman's seed "is not outside the bounds of Hebrew expression", and still calls the wording "odd", and agrees with the "many" who have "rightly seen" it as "a hint of the Virgin Birth". A hint is less than a sign, and whether it denies Lewis's conclusion is arguable; it is the only dissent found.

greekHeLine — The Greek's 'he': the woman's seed read as one person

The Greek's "he": the translator of Genesis read the woman's seed as one person. Held by Collins, and by Martin as Collins quotes him; Collins calls the reading "generally acknowledged" (141). Rated disputed, on Philo, the earliest known reader of this Greek, who grants that it says "he" and reads it of the mind, a "barbarism" correct in meaning (Allegorical Interpretation III.188). Lewis leaves it open: the masculine "could be an oversight", and "it is possible that the translator reveals a messianic understanding" (300). What it does not reach in any case is whether that person has a human father (Results.Genesis).

The fulfilment of Genesis 3:15, and the critical reading

The strands above ask what the wording of Genesis 3:15 says. The reader's next question runs the other way: the Gospel tells of one who was born of a woman, was struck, and destroyed the devil. Does that fulfil the promise, and does the fulfilment confirm that it was a promise?

termsMetInJesus

The fulfilment. Each term of Genesis 3:15 met, as the New Testament names it: the woman's seed in the Son "made of a woman"; the serpent in "that old serpent, called the Devil"; its head crushed when the Son destroys the devil "through death"; his heel struck in his death, and the wound not the end of him in his rising. So in Jesus the promise is fulfilled.

fulfilmentConfirmsThePromise

The fulfilment confirms the promise. If in Jesus each term of Genesis 3:15 is met, the verse is a promise of him: the protoevangelium.

fulfilledInOneVirginBorn

Of the woman alone. If the promise is fulfilled in Jesus, and Jesus was conceived of a virgin, the seed in whom it is fulfilled had no human father.

formExcludesAPromise

Westermann's denial. "Her seed" is a line of descendants, and the verse is a punishment oracle on the serpent; such a form has no promise or prophecy, "even as its secondary meaning", so the verse is not the protoevangelium.

sceneMakesItAPromise

The scene read whole. The serpent speaks and twists God's command, as no animal does of itself; it is the instrument of an evil power; the blow falls on the serpent itself, "your head"; and God himself sets the enmity. So the sentence on the serpent is God's promise of victory over that power: the protoevangelium.

singularSyntaxNamesOne

The syntax of the striker. זֶרַע with singular verbs and pronouns denotes one descendant elsewhere; at 3:15b the striker is singular "he", against the serpent's own head; and the Greek translator read one person. So "her seed" at 3:15 is not only a line of descendants: the one who strikes is one of them.

fulfilmentSource

The citation for the fulfilment's step, at a confidence: the readers who argue it, and Westermann, who denies it.

def fulfilmentSource : Confidence → Source

fulfilmentLine — The fulfilment of Genesis 3:15: struck at the heel, he crushes the serpent's head

The fulfilment of Genesis 3:15, read from Scripture: every term of the promise is met in Jesus, as the New Testament itself names it.

• The woman's seed: God sent his Son, "made of a woman" (Galatians 4:4).
• The serpent: "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan" (Revelation 12:9; 20:2).
• Its head crushed: the Son shared flesh and blood "that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14); he "was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8).
• His heel struck: he died, and rose the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3–4), a wound and not the end of him.

Irenaeus reads it so: the seed "appointed to tread down his head — which was born of Mary", against "that old serpent" (Against Heresies III.23.7), and the Lord "summed up in Himself this enmity, when He was made man from a woman, and trod upon his head" (IV.40.3). Hamilton: the one "born of woman (i.e., her seed, Gal 4:4) who 'nullified the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil' (Heb 2:14)—one might say he crushed the serpent's head" (53 n. 89). Keil: "In this sense Christ is the seed of the woman, who tramples Satan under His feet, not as an individual, but as the head" (102), with Romans 16:20 and 1 John 3:8. Leupold, of Christ's temptation and the cross: "the first crushing defeat that the seed of the woman administered … On the cross this victory was sealed" (170).

What the conclusion says, and what it does not. That in Jesus the promise is fulfilled: struck at the heel, he crushes the serpent's head. Calvin, Keil and Leupold each deny that "her seed" means Christ alone — Calvin finds the word "too violently distorted" by those who take it so, "for who will concede that a collective noun is to be understood of one man only?" — and each holds the conclusion as worded: "we must necessarily come to one head" (Calvin 170–71).

The texts it rests on, and how they are linked. Revelation's "that old serpent" names the serpent of the garden. Romans 16:20, "the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly", is not counted: it is an allusion, and a disputed one, with Calvin (171), Keil (102) and Hamilton (42) for it, and Lewis ("one possible allusion", 303) and Collins (147 n. 24, "if Paul was alluding to this text at all") doubting it. Galatians 4:4 is cited for what it says, that the Son was made of a woman; whether Paul alludes to Genesis there is disputed too (sonMadeOfAWoman).

Its rating. disputed, on Westermann. He grants what every ground reads — none of them says the New Testament quotes Genesis 3:15 — and denies that the verse promises anyone, "even as its secondary meaning" (260), adding that "suggestions of a messianic interpretation are found in late Judaism, but not in the New Testament" (261). His reasons are the collective "seed" and the form of the verse (259–60): philology and form criticism, not a reading of Hebrews, 1 John or Revelation. Lewis, who holds that "The NT never speaks of Christ as the one who tramples the serpent" (303), denies that Scripture makes the link but not the conclusion, and is not counted.

confirmationSource

The citation for the step from the fulfilment to the promise, at a confidence: the readers who grant that Genesis 3:15 is fulfilled in Christ and call it, for that, the first promise of the gospel.

def confirmationSource : Confidence → Source :=
  fun c =>
    { primary := Reference.work leupoldGenesis (Bib.Locus.page 167),
      supporting :=
        [Reference.work keilDelitzschPentateuch (Bib.Locus.page 102),
          Reference.work calvinGenesis (Bib.Locus.pages 170 171),
          Reference.work collinsSyntacticalNote (Bib.Locus.page 146),
          Reference.work hamiltonSkullCrushingSeed (Bib.Locus.page 31),
          Reference.work irenaeusAgainstHeresies
            (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "IV.40.3")],
      tradition := Tradition.christianTypological, confidence := c }

confirmationLine — The fulfilment confirms the promise: Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium

The fulfilment confirms the promise. If in Jesus each term of the verse is met, the verse was a promise of him: the protoevangelium. This is not a deduction from Genesis alone. Reasoning "if the verse promised the Messiah, he would crush the serpent and be struck; Jesus did; so it promised him" would affirm the consequent. It is a step of its own: a promise whose every term is met in one person, as Scripture names them, is a promise of that person.

Rated plausible. No reader found grants that Jesus fulfils the verse and denies that it is a promise: everyone found who denies the promise, Westermann among them, denies the fulfilment too, and that dissent belongs to the fulfilment's step and to the claim that the verse is the protoevangelium. Everyone who grants the fulfilment calls the verse a promise: Leupold, who finds "the ultimate victory and its achievement by the seed of the woman … taught with unequivocal plainness" (167); Keil (102); Calvin (170–71); Collins, for whom the verse, read from the end, is God's threat "of an individual who will engage the snake in combat and win" (146); Hamilton, for whom "God's first act of judgment in the Bible is accompanied by his first promise of salvation" (31). Rated no higher, because the step adds little to what its ground already says: to fulfil a promise there must have been one.

aloneLine — The seed of the woman alone: the promise fulfilled in one born of a virgin

Of the woman alone. Granted that the promise is fulfilled in Jesus, and that Mary conceived him as a virgin, the seed in whom it is fulfilled had no human father. Irenaeus joins the two: "He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin … was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent" (V.21.1).

The step only joins its grounds, and anyone who grants both grants it, so it is rated consensus. What it rests on is its grounds, and both are contested: the fulfilment on Westermann, the virginal conception on the historian this argument cites. It reads the fact of the birth back into the promise; it does not find the birth in the wording, which is Luther's claim and is weighed apart (Results.Genesis).

westermannLine — Westermann: a punishment oracle on a line of descendants, and no promise

Westermann's denial: Genesis 3:15 is no promise. "The parallelism makes it clear that 'seed' refers to a line of descendants and not to an individual" (259), and the verse is a punishment oracle on the serpent: "It is not possible that such a form has either promise or prophecy as its primary or even as its secondary meaning" (260). Encoded first, as the rival to the fulfilment.

Its grounds are philology and form criticism, and so is its step: none is a reading of another text of Scripture. Its first ground is contested in its own right (seedIsLineNotIndividual, and syntaxLine against it).

Rated disputed. Calvin grants both grounds — the seed is "the posterity of the woman generally", for "who will concede that a collective noun is to be understood of one man only?" (170), and the verse is the serpent's sentence — and denies the conclusion: the promise is in the curse, and "we must necessarily come to one head" (171). Keil, who reads the seed as "the human race" and Christ "not as an individual, but as the head" (101–2), denies it too.

sceneLine — The scene read whole: God's sentence on the serpent's power

The scene read whole, from the section and not the word alone: what Genesis 3 says of the serpent, of whom the blow falls on, and of who sets the enmity.

• The serpent speaks, and knows the command. It gives back God's word of 2:17 twisted, "Ye shall not surely die" (3:4). Collins: "the snake's wording of v. 4 reflects knowledge of 2:17", and "animals do not have faculty of speech in Bible, hence there is some intervention here" (146 n. 21).
• It is the instrument of an evil power. Delitzsch, as Collins quotes him: "an animal not speaking of its own accord, but as made the instrument of itself by the evil principle". Woudstra: "There is a diabolical subtlety in the serpent's suggestions which points to a sinister background to his words" (197). This ground is disputed (serpentIsTheInstrumentOfAPower).
• The blow falls on the serpent itself: "it is the head of the serpent, not that of his zeraʿ, which is in view here" (Woudstra 199).
• God sets the enmity: "a tremendous initiative for good, unexpected and unmerited" (Woudstra 203).

So the sentence on the serpent is a promise of victory over the power behind it. Collins: "the referent of the second person pronoun would actually be the dark power behind the snake" (146–47 n. 21), and "the 'promise' for the humans is an implicature of the punishment on the snake" (147 n. 22). Keil: "This foe is Satan, who incessantly opposes the seed of the woman and bruises its heel, but is eventually to be trodden under its feet" (101–2).

Its rating. plausible. Woudstra grants every ground and does not deny the conclusion: though "this passage does not explicitly predict ultimate victory of the woman's seed", "the One who set the enmity might also be regarded as implicitly guaranteeing the ultimate success of those who are on his side", and "the term 'protevangelium' may be rightly used to describe it" (203). Westermann, who denies the conclusion, denies that the serpent is more than an animal (261), and that dissent belongs to the ground. Von Rad, as Woudstra quotes him, denies a protevangelium from "the sense of the passage" and the collective "seed" (194); he is not shown to grant the grounds. Rated no higher, because the step reads a promise out of a curse, which Collins calls "an implicature" and Woudstra "implicit".

None of this is the reading of the readers before Christ: Jubilees, Philo and Josephus read the serpent as an animal or an emblem, and none of them reads the verse as a promise. It is an exegesis of the section, from its own words.

syntaxLine — The syntax of the striker: 'he' who strikes is one descendant

The syntax of the striker, against Westermann's "a line of descendants and not an individual". Collins: when זֶרַע "denotes a specific descendant, it appears with singular verb inflections, adjectives, and pronouns" (144), and "the singular pronoun hûʾ in Genesis 3:15 is quite consistent with the pattern where a single individual is in view"; "we might wonder if the singular hûʾ in Genesis 3:15 is used precisely in order to make it plain that an individual is being promised" (145). It is "he" who strikes "you", the serpent itself, not its seed (146 n. 21). The Greek translator read one person (lxxReadsOneDescendant). Alexander: the seed "must be understood as referring to a single individual and not numerous descendants" (363); Leupold (166–68) and Hamilton (32) agree.

What it concludes is worded as they hold it: "her seed" at 3:15 is not only a line of descendants, for the one who strikes is one of them, whether or not 15a also names her posterity. Collins allows the collective too, the Messiah "as the (primary) seed, and his followers as 'seed' by virtue of their relation to him" (148 n. 24).

Paul reads the singular "seed" of the promise to Abraham as one person: "He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ" (Galatians 3:16). That is a precedent for reading the word of one, not a reading of Genesis 3:15, and no reader found takes it as one; Calvin uses it so ("So Paul, from the seed of Abraham, leads us to Christ", 171). It is not counted as a ground.

Rated disputed. Keil grants the first two grounds — "the posterity of a man may consist of a whole tribe or of one son only", and the victory is "over the serpent itself" — and denies that "by the seed of the woman we are to understand one solitary person, one individual only" (101). Collins himself claims no more than consistency, from "a fairly low level of integration" (145–46), and Alexander notes that the same singular syntax is usually read collectively at Genesis 22:17–18a and 24:60 (364).

lawsFixTheSense

The laws' sense. The high priest's παρθένος is set against the widow, the woman put away, the defiled woman and the harlot, and the bride without τὰ παρθένια dies for playing the harlot; so in these laws παρθένος is used in the sense "virgin".

lawsSource

The citation for the laws' step, at a confidence: Bratcher, the lexica on τὰ παρθένια, and Miller, who denies the step.

def lawsSource : Confidence → Source :=
  fun c =>
    { primary := Reference.work bratcherStudyOfIsaiah (Bib.Locus.page 113),
      supporting :=
        [Reference.work bratcherStudyOfIsaiah (Bib.Locus.page 102),
          Reference.work liddellScottJones (Bib.Locus.page 1339),
          Reference.work muraokaLexiconSeptuagint (Bib.Locus.page 535),
          Reference.work lustLexiconSeptuagint (Bib.Locus.sv "παρθένια"),
          Reference.work millerBornDivine,
          Reference.work rhodeaDidMatthewConceive (Bib.Locus.page 67)],
      tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical, confidence := c }

lawsLine — The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin'

The case from the laws. Bratcher's, from the Greek of Leviticus 21 and Deuteronomy 22 (102, 113): two laws of the Greek Pentateuch, the corpus Wegner takes Genesis 34:3 from, in which virginity is what the law turns on. The laws are in the translators' own Greek, and they are not uses of the word of a virgin, which would show nothing of its sense; the passages it rests on are where the sense is the point (lawsUseParthenosAsVirgin).

It concludes nothing about Isaiah 7:14. What it shows is that "virgin" was already a sense of παρθένος in the Septuagint's Greek, which is what Wegner denies. The step from the two passages to the Septuagint's usage is not a step of the argument: it is what a usage "as a whole" means (Testimony.Ontology.Usage), and the meanings join the laws' sense to Rico and Gentry's claim and against Wegner's (Meanings.BornOfAVirgin.joins).

The step is rated disputed, on one reader. Robert J. Miller grants what the laws require: virginity matters "in the law that priests can marry only women who are virgins (Lev 21:13-14)", and the bride of Deuteronomy 22:13–21 is charged "with not being a virgin at the time of their marriage". But "that has to be inferred from the context": "Neither word means virgin", and "As in other Greek literature, parthenos in the Septuagint did not by itself connote what we mean by virginity", for where virginity matters the Greek adds "a parthenos who has not known a man" (Genesis 24:16) (Born Divine).

Miller is kept, as every cited reader is, and the page shows where his reading breaks. He says four things of the Greek. One is answered by a reading he does not take up, one is not answered here, and two do not hold of it.

• Genesis 34:3: "this term refers to a rape victim after she has been attacked". The Greek calls Dinah a παρθένος in the verse after Shechem lies with her; that the noun describes her as she then was is Miller's premise, not the text's. Rico and Gentry explain the verse as an archaism of the Greek Pentateuch; the status reading reads it under the law of the seduced παρθένος, as the name of the standing Shechem took (dinahLine).
• Genesis 24:16: where virginity matters, the Greek adds "a parthenos who has not known a man". The clause is the Hebrew's own, וְאִישׁ לֹא יְדָעָהּ, and the Greek renders it. What it shows about either word, the page does not settle.
• A young widow: "Lament like a parthenos dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth (Joel 1:8)". The Greek of Joel 1:8 calls the woman νύμφην, a bride; its παρθεν- word, τὸν παρθενικόν, is of the husband (read from Rahlfs's text).
• The translators "consistently used it to translate the Hebrew almah". They used it for עַלְמָה twice, at Genesis 24:43 and Isaiah 7:14, and elsewhere wrote νεᾶνις, as Rhodea, who holds Wegner's view, notes (67 and n. 34); the word they used consistently for was בְּתוּלָה (Bratcher 112–13).

And he does not take up τὰ παρθένια, the abstract noun by which Walton's own test would fix the sense. The step is cited disputed here, on him: it is the step's floor, and the dispute over the Septuagint weighs it there. What its register computes is another matter (Dispute.Miller). Evidence a text refutes is struck before his dissent is checked, and the Greek of Joel 1:8 refutes his young widow; struck of it, his dissent still denies the step through Genesis 34:3, and is a credible critique under the evidence and tradition standards. But his case from Genesis 34:3 cannot be defended in the dispute over the Septuagint: the status reading defeats it. So his dissent is overruled, and the step stands at the wellSupported its support is cited at.

seductionLawNamesDinah

The law's name for Dinah. The law of the seduced woman calls her a παρθένος after the man has lain with her, and sets what he owes by "the bride-price of virgins"; Genesis 34 tells Shechem's act in the words of that law and its neighbours. So when the Greek calls Dinah "the παρθένος" at 34:3, it names her by the standing he took, in the sense "virgin".

dinahLine — The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16

The status reading of Genesis 34:3. Wegner's case rests on one verse: after Shechem "lay with her and humbled her" (34:2), the Greek says he "loved the παρθένος, and spoke to her according to the mind of the παρθένος" (34:3). He reads the word as said of her as she then was, a woman no longer a virgin, so that it cannot mean "virgin". This line reads it the other way: as the name of the standing Shechem took from her. A noun that names a woman says who she is in the story, not what she is at the moment of the clause: a noun phrase is read at a time of its own, which the context gives, not at its verb's (Enç 1986), as Scripture names Rahab "the harlot" long after Jericho (Hebrews 11:31, James 2:25) and Matthew "the tax collector" after his call (Matthew 10:3). The order of 34:2 and 34:3 puts Shechem's love after his act; it does not put the noun's description there.

The law does exactly this. In the Greek Exodus a man who "deceives a παρθένος not betrothed and lies with her" shall endow her as his wife, or, if her father refuses, pay "the bride-price of virgins" (22:15–16). The woman he has lain with is still the law's παρθένος, and what he owes is a virgin's price. Genesis 34 tells Shechem's act in that law's words and its neighbours': he "humbled" her (34:2), as the man who seizes a virgin has "humbled" her (Deuteronomy 22:29); his deed was "folly in Israel" (34:7, in the Hebrew), as the harlotry of a bride without the tokens of virginity is (Deuteronomy 22:21); and he offers the bride-price (34:12) that Exodus requires. So the narrative treats Dinah as the law's violated virgin. That is the use of the word the verse shows, and on that reading it is no evidence that παρθένος could mean a woman who is not a virgin.

Frymer-Kensky reads the law and the story the same way, from the Hebrew. The lover "pays the mohar habbetulot even if the father refuses to allow him to marry her", a price a seduced girl "would no longer command" (80); and she follows the Dinah story with the law of "Intercourse with an Unmarried Girl (Exodus 22.15-16 and Deuteronomy 22.28-29)", under which the father "can take the 'virgin's brideprice' from the lover" (91). She hedges the price in a note: it "might simply mean the appropriate brideprice for young girls" (80 n. 3). She does not discuss the Greek of 34:3.

What it does not settle. The Hebrew of 34:3 has נַעֲרָה, "girl", and the translator of Genesis renders that word with παρθένος elsewhere, of Rebekah (24:14, 16, 55), and with παῖς (24:28, 57). At 34:4 and 34:12, where marriage and the bride-price are in view, he writes παῖς for Dinah, not παρθένος. Rico and Gentry read 34:3 as the older, broader usage, an archaism of the Greek Pentateuch, while the Septuagint's Greek at large means "virgin" by the word (18, 21). Bratcher finds 34:3 "surprising", since Dinah "was no longer, therefore, a 'virgin' in the technical sense of the word" (113). The Greek Deuteronomy does not tell either way: its translator writes νεᾶνις for נַעֲרָה through chapter 22, of the virgin wrongly accused (22:19) as of the woman seized (22:29), so his change of word follows the Hebrew, not the woman's state.

Its rating. plausible. A step is disputed when a cited reader grants its grounds and denies its conclusion, and none has been found who does. Wegner, Rhodea, Meade, Rico and Gentry and Bratcher read 34:3 as said of a woman who is not a virgin, but none of them takes up Exodus 22:15–16 or the law's words in Genesis 34, the second ground. Frymer-Kensky grants that ground, and does not deny the conclusion; her note doubts what the first ground's law prices, and so bears on how firmly that law is read, not on this step. No reader has been found who makes the status reading of the Greek: it is built here from the texts, with Frymer-Kensky's reading of the Hebrew, and is rated no higher than plausible for that reason. The commentaries on the Greek Genesis that might settle it, Wevers's Notes and Harl's La Genèse, have not been read. A reader of them who has the law before him and still reads 34:3 of a woman no longer a virgin would make the step disputed; and the verdict of Dispute.Septuagint turns on this rating.

Miller on the laws

millerSource

The citation for Miller's steps, from a use of the word to its sense in the Septuagint's Greek. disputed: Rico and Gentry (18, 21) and Bratcher (113) grant that Genesis 34:3 calls a woman no longer a virgin a παρθένος, and still hold that the word means "virgin" in the Septuagint.

def millerSource : Source :=
  { primary := Reference.work millerBornDivine,
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work ricoGentryInfantKing (Bib.Locus.pages 18 21),
        Reference.work bratcherStudyOfIsaiah (Bib.Locus.page 113)],
    tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
    confidence := Confidence.disputed }

joelShowsNoConnotation

Joel 1:8 shows that the word does not connote virginity, Miller's way: the young widow is called a παρθένος.

dinahShowsNoConnotation

Genesis 34:3 shows the same: the Greek calls Dinah a παρθένος, and the word describes her as she then was, no longer a virgin.

contextNotWordInTheLaws

So in the laws the virginity "has to be inferred from the context", and the word is not used in the sense "virgin".

millerJoelLine — Miller: Joel 1:8 calls a young widow a παρθένος

Miller from Joel 1:8: "Lament like a parthenos dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth", a young widow (Born Divine). The Greek does not read so (Dispute.Miller).

millerDinahLine — Miller: Genesis 34:3 calls a woman no longer a virgin a παρθένος

Miller from Genesis 34:3: "In one passage, this term refers to a rape victim after she has been attacked (Gen 34:3)" (Born Divine). Two grounds: what the Greek reads, and Miller's premise that its noun describes Dinah as she then was. The second is his, not the text's: the order of the verses puts Shechem's love after his act, not the noun's description (dinahLine).

criticalExclusionLine — Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14

The critical line: the sign was given to Ahaz, and such a sign is not also a prediction of a virgin conception, so the predictive reading is denied.

Its grounds are what the two defeaters attack. Berry replaces the second with nearTermFulfilmentIsUnclear plus berryBlocksExclusion; parity replaces it with Isaiah 9 and 11 plus parityDefeatsNearTermExclusion.

The two defeaters, as arguments in their own right

criticalDenialUnderBerry and criticalDenialUnderParity ask what the critical line is left with once a reply is in play. The lines below ask something else: what each reply concludes, taken on its own. Written this way a reply is a position with premises of its own, and so a node that can defeat, and be defeated by, the line it answers — see Dispute.lean.

berryLine — Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion

Berry's objection, as an argument: the near-term fulfilment is unclear, so the near-term reading does not exclude the messianic sense.

postellLine — Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion

Postell's parity argument, as an argument: Isaiah 9 and 11 are messianic on the same near-term timeline, so a near-term setting does not exclude the messianic sense.

motyerLine — Motyer's reply to the near-term reading

Motyer's reply, as an argument, with Compton: the sign is given to the house of David and the near-term timetable passes to Isaiah's son, so Isaiah 7:14 is not a near-term sign to Ahaz. The first reply to deny the critic's near-term premise rather than its exclusion premise.

micahLine — Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion

Postell's Micah counterexample, as an argument: the ruler of Micah 5 is set against the Assyrian invasion and was read messianically, so a near-term setting does not exclude a messianic sense.

What the strands share

sharedGrounds

The premises no single strand owns: Mary's conception, and the agreement of the two birth narratives about it. Every scriptural package needs them and none of the four strands delivers them.

scripturalLines

The four scriptural strands, in the order the module doc introduces them. christian is exactly these four on shared ground.

def scripturalLines : List (Line Claim) :=
  [isaianicLine, protoevangeliumLine,
    micheanLine, compositionalLine]

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Packages — the positions, and the variants

A handful of these packages are positions someone holds; the rest exist to be refuted, because "this premise is load-bearing" is proved by removing it and exhibiting a countermodel, and the package with it removed has to be written down to be refuted. So the file grows with every result, and counting it here would only be one more thing to keep current.

Each variant is a named difference from christian: one line on different grounds, or one fewer line. Before Line existed each restated the whole twenty-one element premise list, where a reader could not see which premise had gone and a slip in the other twenty was invisible.

Two packages are not built from the lines, and deliberately. critical grants the texts and denies every inference drawn from them, so its premises group by kind rather than by strand. lexicalCriticalUnderCompatibility mixes the objector's grounds with the replies to them. Forcing either into caseOf would describe them as something they are not.

christian — Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3

The scriptural argument: four strands, no appeal to magisterial authority.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

catholic — Roman Catholic reading (Scripture and magisterial teaching)

The Roman Catholic package: the four scriptural strands and the magisterial one. This is the position as actually held — Scripture and Tradition together — and it is kept distinct from christian because its extra premise is one this library's author does not grant.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

magisterialOnly — Magisterial teaching alone

The magisterial route on its own, with no exegetical premise at all.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

magisterialDenied — Magisterial teaching, with its authority denied

The magisterial route as it stands for a reader who denies that magisterial teaching settles doctrinal questions, holding with Westminster I.x that Scripture is the supreme judge.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

isaianicWithoutAlmah — Isaianic strand (Isaiah 7:14)

The Isaianic line with the lexical premise removed, everything else it rests on retained. The one difference that most of the results below turn on.

christianWithoutAlmah — Scriptural reading, minus the lexical premise

The scriptural package with the lexical premise removed, everything else retained.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

isaianicStrandWithoutAlmah — Isaianic strand alone, minus the lexical premise

The Isaianic strand by itself, with the lexical premise removed: the argument exactly as this module encoded it before the other three strands were added. Kept so that the earlier finding stays checkable.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

christianWithoutAnyHinge — Scriptural reading, minus all four interpretive hinges

The scriptural package with all four interpretive hinges removed, every textual and historical premise retained.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

isaianicStrandOnAdmissibility — Isaianic strand, with the lexical premise weakened to admissibility

The Isaianic strand with Berry's defensive lexical premise in place of the assertive one: עַלְמָה admits the sense "virgin" rather than bearing it.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

critical — Critical reading: near-term sign, etiology, and silence

The critical reading: the quotation, the Septuagint rendering and the wording of Genesis and Micah are all granted, and every inference drawn from them is denied.

Written flat rather than from the lines above, because that is its shape: the texts first, then the critical readings of them, then the denials. It is not four strands on shared ground; it is the refusal of four strands.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

criticalDenial — Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14

The critical case for denying the predictive reading, stated as an argument in its own right rather than assumed inside critical. Its conclusion is the denial, not anything about Jesus.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

criticalDenialUnderBerry — Critical denial, with Berry's objection in play

The same case with Berry's observation in play, and the exclusion premise no longer simply granted.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

berryObjection — Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion

Berry's objection as a position of its own: its conclusion is that the near-term reading does not exclude the messianic sense.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

postellParity — Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion

Postell's parity argument as a position of its own, with the same conclusion as Berry's reached from different grounds.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

micahParity — Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion

Postell's Micah counterexample as a position of its own, with the same conclusion as Berry's and Postell's Isaiah argument.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

motyerReply — Motyer's reply to the near-term reading

Motyer's reply as a position of its own: Isaiah 7:14 is not a near-term sign to Ahaz.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

criticalDenialUnderParity — Critical denial, with the parity argument in play

The critical denial with Postell's parity argument in play, and the exclusion premise no longer simply granted.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

semantic — Referential reading: a virgin is an עַלְמָה

The referential argument: Mary answers Isaiah's description, so Matthew's claim never required עַלְמָה to denote virginity. Its conclusion is the denial of the objection's premise, not the criterion — see compatibility_does_not_establish_criterion.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

semanticReachingForCriterion — Referential reading, asked for the criterion

The same premises, asked to deliver the criterion instead. They do not.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

Wegner's objection, and the circle in it

Four variants of one line, each a named difference. wegnerLine grants everything Wegner needs; the rest take one ground away and put in its place the step that is supposed to supply it.

wegnerLexical — Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant

Wegner's objection at full strength, granted every premise it needs: the predicate-adjective parse, the near-term setting of the sign, the ordinary pregnancy that setting supplies, and the principle that the Isaianic referent settles the word's denotation.

Stated first and in full, because the results that follow are about where its weight rests and are worth nothing against a weakened rival.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

wegnerWithoutTheOrdinaryPregnancy — Wegner's grammatical objection (Isaiah 7:14)

Wegner's line with the ordinary pregnancy no longer granted. It is the one ground that goes; the parse, the near-term setting and the referent principle all stay.

wegnerWithoutOrdinaryPregnancy — Wegner's objection, with the ordinary pregnancy no longer assumed

The same objection with the ordinary pregnancy derived instead of assumed — derived as Wegner derives it, from the reading of the sign, which is not granted either.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

wegnerInTheCircle — Wegner's grammatical objection (Isaiah 7:14)

Wegner's line as it stands inside the circle: the ordinary pregnancy gone from its grounds, and the demand that עַלְמָה carry the sense — which is what the return leg needs — put in.

wegnerCircle — Wegner's objection with both legs of the circle in place

Both legs of the circle at once, with every uncontested datum retained: the parse, the near-term setting, the referent principle, and the demand that עַלְמָה carry the sense. Asked for the lexical conclusion.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

wegnerUnderParity — Wegner's grammatical objection (Isaiah 7:14)

Wegner's line with Postell's usage datum in place of the referent principle. The parse and the ordinary pregnancy both stay: this reply concedes the referent and contests only what may be inferred from it.

wegnerUnderUsageParity — Wegner's objection, with the usage parity reply in play

Wegner's objection with Postell's usage parity in play.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

The fathers' sign argument, and the reply to it

signArgument — The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14)

The fathers' sign argument as a position of its own: its conclusion is that the pregnancy of Isaiah 7:14 is not an ordinary one, and nothing about the word.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

ordinarySignReply — The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle

The near-term reply as a position of its own: the sign of Isaiah 7:14 need not be extraordinary.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

wegnerUnderSign — Wegner's grammatical objection (Isaiah 7:14)

Wegner's line with the sign argument in play: the ordinary pregnancy no longer granted, and the fathers' two grounds in its place. The parse, the near-term setting and the referent principle all stay.

wegnerUnderTheSign — Wegner's objection, with the fathers' sign argument in play

Wegner's objection with the fathers' sign argument in play.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

signUnderReply — The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14)

The sign argument with the near-term reply in play: its first ground no longer granted, and the reply's grounds in its place.

signArgumentUnderReply — The fathers' sign argument, with the near-term reply in play

The fathers' sign argument with the near-term reply in play.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

The Septuagint, and what its word meant

septuagintWitness — The Septuagint as a witness (Isaiah 7:14 in Greek)

The Septuagint as a witness, as a position of its own: its conclusion is what its translator read, and nothing yet about Isaiah's word.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

driftObjection — Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin'

Wegner on παρθένος, as a position of its own: in the Septuagint's day the word meant "young woman", and not yet "virgin".

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

usageCase — Rico and Gentry: παρθένος means 'virgin' in the Greek of the Scriptures

Rico and Gentry's case from usage as a position of its own: "virgin" is a sense of παρθένος in the Septuagint's Greek.

Grounded in scripture alone: Elsewhere in the Greek Isaiah, παρθένος renders בְּתוּלָה.

lawsCase — The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin'

The case from the laws as a position of its own: in the Greek Pentateuch's laws, παρθένος is used in the sense "virgin".

Grounded in scripture alone: The high priest of the Greek Leviticus marries a παρθένος, not a widow or a harlot.

dinahCase — The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16

The status reading of Genesis 34:3 as a position of its own: the Greek names Dinah a παρθένος as the law names the seduced virgin, in the sense "virgin".

Grounded in scripture alone: In the Greek Exodus, the seduced παρθένος is owed 'the bride-price of virgins', Genesis 34 tells Shechem's act in the words of the laws of the violated virgin.

millerOnTheLaws — Miller: in the laws, the virginity is the context's, not the word's

Miller on the laws, as he argues it: two uses of the word of women who are not virgins, so the word does not by itself connote virginity, so the laws' virginity is the context's.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

millerCase — Miller, from Genesis 34:3

Miller from Genesis 34:3, his case on the evidence the texts leave standing: Joel 1:8, which the Greek refutes, taken out (Dispute.Miller). The position he holds in the dispute over the Septuagint's word.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

millerOnJoelAlone — Miller, from Joel 1:8 alone

Miller's dissent, had Joel 1:8 been all his evidence. Not his argument as he makes it, written down to show what striking a refuted claim does.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

matthewCase — Scripture interprets Scripture: Matthew quotes ἡ παρθένος of Mary

Matthew's quotation as a position of its own: in the Greek of Isaiah 7:14, which Matthew quotes, παρθένος has the sense "virgin".

Grounded in scripture alone: Matthew 1:23 quotes Isaiah 7:14 in the Greek's own words: ἡ παρθένος, Matthew says Mary conceived before she and Joseph came together.

fulfilmentCase — The fulfilment of Genesis 3:15 confirms the promise

The fulfilment, confirming the promise, as a position: every term of Genesis 3:15 met in Jesus as the New Testament names it, and so the verse a promise of him. Two steps, each rated: the fulfilment (fulfilmentLine) and the confirmation (confirmationLine). The confirmation's ground is the fulfilment's conclusion, so it enters as a step, not as a premise.

Grounded in scripture alone: Paul says God sent his Son 'made of a woman' (Galatians 4:4), Revelation calls the devil 'that old serpent' (12:9, 20:2), The Son came to destroy the devil and his works, through death, Paul says Christ died, was buried, and rose the third day.

westermannCase — Westermann: a punishment oracle on a line of descendants, and no promise

Westermann's denial, as a position: the verse is no promise, and so no one fulfils it. He holds the confirmation's step with the fulfilment's side — what is fulfilled was promised — and runs it the other way: suggestions of a messianic reading "are found in late Judaism, but not in the New Testament" (261). So his denial that the verse is a promise is a denial that it is fulfilled in Jesus, and the package says so.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

syntaxCase — The syntax of the striker: 'he' who strikes is one descendant

The syntax of the striker, as a position: "her seed" at 3:15 is not only a line of descendants.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

sceneCase — The scene read whole: God's sentence on the serpent's power

The scene read whole, as a position: the verse is the protoevangelium, from the section's own words.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

aloneCase — The seed of the woman alone

The seed of the woman alone, as a position: the fulfilment, with the virginal conception.

Grounded in scripture alone: Paul says God sent his Son 'made of a woman' (Galatians 4:4), Revelation calls the devil 'that old serpent' (12:9, 20:2), The Son came to destroy the devil and his works, through death, Paul says Christ died, was buried, and rose the third day.

septuagintWithoutTheSense — The Septuagint as a witness, with nothing granted about παρθένος

The Septuagint as a witness, with the claim about its word taken away: the rendering and its date stay, and nothing is granted about what παρθένος meant. Its conclusion no longer follows (parthenos_is_load_bearing).

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

septuagintToTheWordSource

How the step from the translator's reading to Isaiah's word is rated: Irenaeus takes it, against Theodotion and Aquila (Against Heresies III.21.1), because he holds the Greek "interpreted by the inspiration of God" (III.21.2). disputed: Bratcher grants that the translator read a virgin (115) and denies that עַלְמָה says so (105–106); Brown grants the translator's "deliberate preference" (Birth of the Messiah 148) and denies that the Hebrew stresses virginity (147); and Walton holds that the Greek shows at best "an interpretational preference rather than a linguistic necessity" (293). See translatorsReadingFixesTheWord.

def septuagintToTheWordSource : Source :=
  {
    primary :=
      Reference.work irenaeusAgainstHeresies (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "III.21.1"),
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work irenaeusAgainstHeresies (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "III.21.2"),
        Reference.work bratcherStudyOfIsaiah (Bib.Locus.pages 105 106),
        Reference.work bratcherStudyOfIsaiah (Bib.Locus.page 115),
        Reference.work brownBirthMessiah (Bib.Locus.pages 147 148),
        Reference.work waltonWhatsInAName (Bib.Locus.page 293)],
    tradition := Tradition.christianTypological,
    confidence := Confidence.disputed }

septuagintOnTheWord — The Septuagint as a witness to what עַלְמָה means

The Septuagint asked for Isaiah's word: its witness, with the step from the translator's reading to what עַלְמָה denotes added. That step is rated disputed, and the case is only as good as it is.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

septuagintWithTheFuture — The Septuagint as a witness (Isaiah 7:14 in Greek)

The Septuagint's line with the tense of its verb among the grounds: the virgin shall be with child.

Genesis 3:15, and what "her seed" says of a father

protoevangeliumCase — Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15)

The protoevangelium strand as a position of its own: Genesis 3:15 read as promise, the seed named as the woman's, and the hinge that this marks a birth with no human father, delivering the criterion. The rival whose hinge Results.Genesis reads two ways.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

herSeedCase — Luther on 'her seed': the wording itself signifies no human father

Luther's case from the wording, as a position of its own.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

posterityCase — Leupold on 'her seed': her posterity, named for the deception

Leupold's case from the woman's posterity, as a position of its own.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

idiomCase — Lewis on 'her seed': Genesis says it of Hagar and Rebekah too

Lewis's case from the idiom, as a position of its own.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

greekHeCase — The Greek's 'he': the woman's seed read as one person

The Greek's "he", as a position of its own.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

greekHeWithThePromise — The Greek's 'he': the woman's seed read as one person

The Greek's line with the promise's grounds beside it: the seed named as the woman's, Genesis 3:15 as the first promise of a redeemer, and a man's seed reckoned through him. Luther's step is not among them.

lexicalCritical — Lexical objection from the ancient versions

The lexical objection with its versional support, stated as its holder would state it.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

lexicalCriticalUnderCompatibility — Lexical objection, with the referential reply in play

The same objection, with the referential premises in play and its own key premise no longer simply granted.

Written flat: it is the objector's grounds and the replies to them side by side, which is neither one line nor several converging ones.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Results — what does and does not follow

Every result about the strands, each tagged @[headline] and each followed by #print axioms so its trust base is visible in the source. The results about Wegner's objection — its validity, its circle, and the replies to it, the fathers' sign argument among them — are in Results.Wegner.

Entailments are established with establish; refutations name a countermodel and use refute_with. A countermodel here is the rival's reading written down as a valuation, which is why each one is a named definition with a docstring saying what position it encodes rather than an anonymous function.

Read hinges_jointly_load_bearing first. It is the result the four-strand encoding exists to make possible.

Results

christian_establishes

Given the scriptural premises, the conclusion follows.

theorem christian_establishes : Establishes christian
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

catholic_establishes

The Roman Catholic package establishes it too, unsurprisingly: it is the scriptural package with a further strand bolted on.

theorem catholic_establishes : Establishes catholic
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

magisterialOnly_establishes

The magisterial route carries the conclusion on its own, for a reader who grants the authority it claims.

theorem magisterialOnly_establishes : Establishes magisterialOnly
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

criticalReading

The critical reading, written down: עַלְמָה means "young woman", Isaiah's sign was given to Ahaz, Genesis 3:15 is an etiology, and Micah's silence about a father is only silence. No virgin-birth criterion arises.

def criticalReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.almahMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.isaiahPredictsVirginBirth => False
    | Claim.genesis3_15IsProtoevangelium => False
    | Claim.seedOfTheWomanImpliesNoHumanFather => False
    | Claim.maternalSilenceImpliesNoHumanFather => False
    | Claim.messiahBornOfVirgin => False
    | Claim.jesusSatisfiesCriterion => False
    | x => True

critical_not_establishes

The critical reading does not establish the conclusion.

theorem critical_not_establishes : ¬Establishes critical
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

criticalDenial_establishes

The critical case for the denial does go through on its own terms. Stating it as an argument rather than a bare assumption is what makes the next result possible.

theorem criticalDenial_establishes : Establishes criticalDenial
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

berryReading

Berry's reading, written down: the sign was given to Ahaz, how it was fulfilled in his day is unclear, and so the near-term reading does not exclude a further referent — leaving the predictive reading standing.

def berryReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.nearTermExcludesMessianicSense => False
    | x => True

berry_blocks_critical_denial

Berry's objection blocks the critical denial. Grant that Isaiah 7:14 was a sign to Ahaz, and grant with Berry that how it was fulfilled in Ahaz's own day is an open question, and the denial no longer follows.

This is the narrow thing the objection does, and it is worth being clear about what it does not do. It does not establish the predictive reading, and it does not touch the lexical dispute. It removes one route to the denial — the route that runs through the near-term fulfilment — and leaves the argument where hinges_jointly_load_bearing puts it.

theorem berry_blocks_critical_denial : ¬Establishes criticalDenialUnderBerry
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

parityReading

The parity reading, written down: a near-term Assyrian setting is simply not the kind of reason that rules out messianic reference, since Isaiah 9 and 11 sit on that same timeline and are read messianically anyway.

def parityReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.nearTermExcludesMessianicSense => False
    | x => True

parity_blocks_critical_denial

Postell's parity argument blocks the critical denial too, and by a different route from Berry's.

Berry's objection is evidential — we do not know how the sign was fulfilled in Ahaz's day. Parity is structural — the near-term setting was never the right kind of reason, because Isaiah 9:5–6 and 11:1–10 stand on the same Assyrian timeline and are read messianically without embarrassment. An opponent who answers Berry by settling the near-term referent has not touched this.

theorem parity_blocks_critical_denial : ¬Establishes criticalDenialUnderParity
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

reformedReading

The Reformed objection, written down: papal teaching says what it says, and saying it settles nothing, because Scripture is the supreme judge.

def reformedReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | Claim.messiahBornOfVirgin => False
    | Claim.jesusSatisfiesCriterion => False
    | x => True

magisterial_authority_is_load_bearing

What the magisterial strand is worth to a reader who does not grant the magisterium's authority: nothing. Deny that premise and the route collapses outright, however firmly the teaching itself is attested.

This is why christian excludes it. A reader who holds with Westminster I.x that Scripture is the supreme judge of controversies loses the whole of magisterialOnly and must get the criterion from the four scriptural strands or not at all.

theorem magisterial_authority_is_load_bearing : ¬Establishes magisterialDenied
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

almah_not_load_bearing

The lexical premise no longer carries the argument. Strip almah and the protoevangelium and Michean strands still deliver the criterion.

Before Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3 were encoded, this module proved the opposite — and almah_is_load_bearing_alone below shows that the earlier finding was right about the Isaianic strand taken by itself. What changed is not the Isaianic evidence but the number of strands.

theorem almah_not_load_bearing : Establishes christianWithoutAlmah
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

withoutAlmahReading

A reading that grants everything in the Isaianic strand except the lexical premise.

def withoutAlmahReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.almahMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.messiahBornOfVirgin => False
    | Claim.jesusSatisfiesCriterion => False
    | x => True

almah_is_load_bearing_alone

Within the Isaianic strand taken alone, the lexical premise is still load-bearing: remove it and that strand yields nothing. The earlier single-stranded encoding of this module is preserved here rather than deleted, because it is what makes almah_not_load_bearing informative — the Isaianic evidence did not get stronger, it got company.

theorem almah_is_load_bearing_alone : ¬Establishes isaianicStrandWithoutAlmah
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

admissibility_is_not_enough

Admissibility is not enough. Berry's lexical point is defensive — the semantic range of עַלְמָה does not exclude the sense "virgin" — and defensive is all it is. Substitute it for almahMeansVirgin and the Isaianic strand yields nothing, on the same reading that refutes the strand without any lexical premise at all.

The gap between may mean and does mean is where this argument lives, and Berry is useful against the critical denial without narrowing it.

theorem admissibility_is_not_enough : ¬Establishes
    isaianicStrandOnAdmissibility
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

The referential strand

semantic_establishes

The referential argument goes through. Granted only what both sides grant about the word — that עַלְמָה denotes a young woman of marriageable age, and that being a virgin does not exclude a woman from that denotation — and granted that Mary was such a woman and conceived as a virgin, Matthew's claim turns out not to have required the lexical sense at all.

Nothing here asserts that עַלְמָה means virgin. The argument is about reference, not sense, and it is cheaper for exactly that reason.

theorem semantic_establishes : Establishes semantic
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

lexicalCritical_establishes

The lexical objection, written down and granted its own premises.

theorem lexicalCritical_establishes : Establishes lexicalCritical
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

compatibilityReading

The referential reading, written down: the versions differ about which term to use and not about who is described, so the divergence settles nothing about the sense, and Matthew's claim never needed the sense.

def compatibilityReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.versionalDivergenceRefutesVirginSense => False
    | Claim.lexicalSenseRequiredForFulfilment => False
    | x => True

compatibility_defeats_lexical_objection

The referential reply defeats the lexical objection. Keep every versional datum — the Targum's עוּלֵימְתָא, the Three's νεᾶνις, the Septuagint's παρθένος, the Peshitta's ܒܬܘܠܬܐ, Qumran's confirmation of the Hebrew — add the referential premises, and the objection no longer reaches its conclusion.

The tension in the versions is not evidence against the reading once virginity is compatible with the word. It is evidence that four translators made four defensible choices about how much of the referent's description to make explicit.

theorem compatibility_defeats_lexical_objection : ¬Establishes
    lexicalCriticalUnderCompatibility
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

compatibilityOnlyReading

A reading on which Mary fits Isaiah's description and no criterion arises from it.

def compatibilityOnlyReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.lexicalSenseRequiredForFulfilment => False
    | Claim.messiahBornOfVirgin => False
    | Claim.jesusSatisfiesCriterion => False
    | x => True

compatibility_does_not_establish_criterion

What the referential argument costs. It is purely defensive. It defeats the objection without establishing the criterion: ask the same premises for jesusSatisfiesCriterion and they do not deliver it, because nothing in them says the Messiah must be born of a virgin — only that Mary may be described as Isaiah describes.

This is the honest price of the move, and it is worth paying. The criterion has to come from the Isaianic, protoevangelium or Michean strands; what the referential argument buys is that losing the lexical dispute no longer costs the fulfilment claim. Winning almahMeansVirgin outright was never necessary, and this says so in a form either side can check.

theorem compatibility_does_not_establish_criterion : ¬Establishes
    semanticReachingForCriterion
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

noHingeReading

A reading on which none of the four interpretive hinges holds: almah means "young woman", the matrilineal wording of Genesis 3:15 implies nothing about a father, Micah's silence is only silence, and Isaiah's composition does not govern the sense of 7:14. Every textual observation is granted.

def noHingeReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.almahMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.seedOfTheWomanImpliesNoHumanFather => False
    | Claim.maternalSilenceImpliesNoHumanFather => False
    | Claim.compositionGovernsMeaning => False
    | Claim.messiahBornOfVirgin => False
    | Claim.jesusSatisfiesCriterion => False
    | x => True

hinges_jointly_load_bearing

The result worth having. No single hinge carries the argument, but the four of them jointly do: remove all four and the criterion no longer follows, with every textual and historical premise retained.

So the argument no longer hangs on the sense of עַלְמָה alone. It hangs on that or on the matrilineal wording of Genesis 3:15 or on Micah's maternal silence or on Postell's compositional reading — and an opponent must defeat all four. That is a materially stronger position than the single-stranded version, and a materially weaker one than four independent arguments would be: three of the four hinges are disputed for good reason, and the module doc says why.

theorem hinges_jointly_load_bearing : ¬Establishes christianWithoutAnyHinge
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

jesus_satisfies_virgin_birth

End to end: under the scriptural package, Jesus satisfies the virgin-birth criterion.

theorem jesus_satisfies_virgin_birth : Satisfies jesus bornOfAVirgin
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

Satisfiability

Entails is vacuously true over a premise set with no model, so a package built from contradictory premises would establish its conclusion with every gate passing. Only packages carrying a positive Establishes result need checking: one with a ¬ Establishes result is satisfiable already, its countermodel being a valuation on which every premise holds.

Several packages here deny a premise, so the all-holds reading will not serve them — a model has to be the position's own world, which is the same discipline the countermodels follow.

Not tagged @[headline]: these are claims about the health of the encoding.

everythingHoldsReading

The reading on which every claim holds at once.

def everythingHoldsReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun x => True

christian_is_satisfiable

The scriptural package has a model.

theorem christian_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable christian.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

catholic_is_satisfiable

The Roman Catholic package has a model.

theorem catholic_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable catholic.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

magisterialOnly_is_satisfiable

The magisterial route has a model.

theorem magisterialOnly_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable magisterialOnly.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

christianWithoutAlmah_is_satisfiable

The scriptural package minus the lexical premise has a model, so almah_not_load_bearing is not vacuous.

theorem christianWithoutAlmah_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable
    christianWithoutAlmah.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

criticalDenialOwnReading

The critical denial's own world: the sign was Ahaz's, so Isaiah 7:14 is not a prediction of a virgin birth.

def criticalDenialOwnReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.isaiahPredictsVirginBirth => False
    | x => True

criticalDenial_is_satisfiable

The critical denial has a model.

theorem criticalDenial_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable criticalDenial.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

referentialOwnReading

The referential argument's own world: Mary answers Isaiah's description, so the fulfilment claim never required the lexical sense.

def referentialOwnReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.lexicalSenseRequiredForFulfilment => False
    | x => True

semantic_is_satisfiable

The referential argument has a model.

theorem semantic_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable semantic.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

lexicalObjectionOwnReading

The lexical objection's own world: the versions read the broad term, so עַלְמָה does not denote virginity and the criterion is not met.

def lexicalObjectionOwnReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.almahMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.jesusSatisfiesCriterion => False
    | x => True

lexicalCritical_is_satisfiable

The lexical objection has a model.

theorem lexicalCritical_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable lexicalCritical.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Results.Wegner — Wegner's objection, and the sign

What follows from Wegner's grammatical objection and from the replies to it: that it is valid, where its weight rests, the circle in it, Postell's usage parity, and the fathers' sign argument together with the near-term reply to that. Dispute.Wegner then asks who prevails when these meet.

Every result is tagged @[headline] and followed by #print axioms, as in Results.lean, and every countermodel is a named reading.

Wegner's objection, and the circle in it

wegner_establishes

Wegner's objection is valid on its own terms. Grant the predicate-adjective parse, grant that the pregnancy it reports is an ordinary one, and grant that the one clear Isaianic referent settles what the word denotes, and the lexical conclusion follows.

Stated first, and at full strength, because the results below are about where its weight rests and are worth nothing if the argument was weak to begin with.

theorem wegner_establishes : Establishes wegnerLexical
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

rydelnikReading

Rydelnik's reading, written down: הָרָה is the predicate adjective Wegner says it is, and what it announces is the miracle rather than an ordinary conception — the virgin is pregnant, a sign as deep as Sheol.

def rydelnikReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.pregnancyAtTheSignIsOrdinary => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsNotAVirgin => False
    | x => True

wegner_needs_ordinary_pregnancy

The grammar is not what carries the objection. Derive the ordinary pregnancy the way Wegner derives it — from the near-term reading of the sign — rather than granting it, and the argument no longer reaches its conclusion, with the parse itself untouched.

So the load-bearing premise is not harahIsPredicateAdjective, which both sides grant, but the reading of the sign that makes the pregnancy an ordinary one. The next result follows that premise back to where it comes from.

theorem wegner_needs_ordinary_pregnancy : ¬Establishes
    wegnerWithoutOrdinaryPregnancy
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

wegnerConclusionGrantedReading

Wegner's own conclusion granted: עַלְמָה does not denote a virgin, and Isaiah 7:14 is not a prediction of a virgin birth. The same two legs of the circle are satisfied on this reading as on the one below — the first because its antecedent fails, the second because its consequent holds — which is what makes the circle silent in both directions rather than merely unhelpful in one.

Not a convenience: it is the position Wegner argues for, and the reading had to be found rather than assumed. The all-true valuation that serves the same purpose in SolaScriptura does not work here, because wegnerCircle carries negated grounds.

def wegnerConclusionGrantedReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.almahMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.isaiahPredictsVirginBirth => False
    | x => True

circleUngroundedReading

The reading that exhibits the circle: the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 stands, עַלְמָה may denote a virgin, and the pregnancy the sign announces is not an ordinary one. Every uncontested datum in Wegner's case is granted — the parse, the near-term setting, the referent principle — and the two legs of the circle are satisfied because each is an implication whose antecedent fails.

def circleUngroundedReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.pregnancyAtTheSignIsOrdinary => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsNotAVirgin => False
    | x => True

circle_leaves_the_lexical_conclusion_open

The circle, shown rather than alleged. Put both legs in place — the reading supplying the ordinary pregnancy, and the lexical conclusion turned back against the reading — keep every uncontested datum, and the lexical conclusion does not follow.

circleUngroundedReading is why: a cycle of implications is satisfied outright by a valuation on which every node in it is false, because each leg then has a false antecedent. Nothing enters such a loop from outside, so nothing comes out of it. That is what it means for an argument to be circular rather than sound, and it is checkable rather than merely assertable.

What this does not show is that Wegner is wrong. wegner_establishes records that his argument is valid; what the circle costs is the claim that it is an independent route to the lexical conclusion. And the result is conditional on readingSuppliesOrdinaryPregnancy, which is Postell's reading of Wegner's procedure, not Wegner's own account of it. He would say the near-term reading rests on the historical setting and stands without the lexical finding — in which case the premise is false and the circle is not there. That premise is where a defender of Wegner should press.

theorem circle_leaves_the_lexical_conclusion_open : Independent
    wegnerCircle.premises (notP Claim.almahMeansVirgin)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

circle_leaves_the_denial_open

And the other end of it is no better off. The same premises, asked for the denial of the predictive reading instead of the lexical conclusion, fail in the same way and on the same reading.

Both results are needed to make the point. A circle is not an argument that fails to establish one of its nodes; it is one that establishes neither, having no premise outside itself.

theorem circle_leaves_the_denial_open : Independent wegnerCircle.premises
    (notP Claim.isaiahPredictsVirginBirth)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

usageParityReading

Postell's usage reading, written down: the עַלְמָה of Isaiah 7:14 is granted to be no virgin, and a single referent still does not settle what the word denotes — because the other clear cases would settle it the other way.

def usageParityReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.oneReferentSettlesDenotation => False
    | x => True

usage_parity_blocks_wegner

Postell's second reply, and it is independent of the first. Concede the parse, concede the ordinary pregnancy, concede that the woman of Isaiah 7:14 is no virgin — and the lexical conclusion still does not follow, because the principle that carries it there would carry the other clear cases the opposite way.

This one survives the defence suggested above. An opponent who shows that the near-term reading stands on its own, and so that there is no circle, has not touched the usage parity: the method is still selective. Between them the two replies leave the objection needing both a non-circular route to the ordinary pregnancy and a reason to privilege this occurrence over Genesis 24:43.

theorem usage_parity_blocks_wegner : ¬Establishes wegnerUnderUsageParity
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

The fathers' sign argument

Justin, Irenaeus and Origen answer the near-term reading with one argument. The oracle promised a sign, one offered "in the depth or in the height" (7:11), and an ordinary conception happens to every woman who is not barren. So the pregnancy of 7:14 is not an ordinary one, and that is the ground of Wegner's objection that the grammar does not supply.

The near-term reply is that a sign need not be a miracle. Isaiah's own children are "signs and portents" (8:18), and this sign is dated by a child's infancy (7:16), so its point may be its timing.

referentialSignReading

The fathers' sign, with the word left to the lexicon: the pregnancy of 7:14 is no ordinary one, and עַלְמָה still does not denote a virgin. It is the referential reading's world, in which Mary is an עַלְמָה without the word carrying the sense. Every premise of Wegner's objection under the sign argument holds in it, and so does his lexical conclusion.

def referentialSignReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.almahMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.pregnancyAtTheSignIsOrdinary => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsNotAVirgin => False
    | x => True

sign_leaves_the_lexical_conclusion_open

The sign argument blocks Wegner's objection, and settles nothing about the word. Keep the parse, the near-term setting and the referent principle, put the fathers' two grounds where the ordinary pregnancy was, and the lexical conclusion is independent of what is left. On Rydelnik's reading it fails: the virgin is pregnant, a sign as deep as Sheol. On referentialSignReading it holds.

So the argument answers the objection where wegner_needs_ordinary_pregnancy says its weight rests, and does no more. It does not show that עַלְמָה denotes a virgin, because it is not about the word at all.

theorem sign_leaves_the_lexical_conclusion_open : Independent
    wegnerUnderTheSign.premises (notP Claim.almahMeansVirgin)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

nearTermSignReading

The near-term reading of the sign, in Wegner's world: a sign need not be a miracle, the pregnancy is an ordinary one, עַלְמָה does not denote a virgin, and nor, in the Septuagint's day, did παρθένος.

def nearTermSignReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.maternalSilenceImpliesNoHumanFather => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | Claim.signMustBeExtraordinary => False
    | Claim.almahMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.parthenosMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.lawsUseParthenosAsVirgin => False
    | Claim.dinahIsTheLawsParthenos => False
    | Claim.lxxIsaiahUsesParthenosAsVirgin => False
    | x => True

marvelAnywayReading

A sign that need not be a marvel, and is one all the same: the reader who grants the near-term reply and still holds that the pregnancy of 7:14 is no ordinary one, on other grounds than the sign.

def marvelAnywayReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.signMustBeExtraordinary => False
    | Claim.pregnancyAtTheSignIsOrdinary => False
    | x => True

reply_leaves_the_pregnancy_open

The near-term reply blocks the sign argument back, and settles nothing about the pregnancy. Put the reply's grounds and step where the fathers' first ground was, keep the second, and whether the pregnancy is an ordinary one is independent of what is left: it is on nearTermSignReading and it is not on marvelAnywayReading.

This is the reply's whole reach. It takes away the fathers' reason for denying the ordinary pregnancy; it does not supply Wegner's reason for asserting it, which still comes from the near-term reading of the sign.

theorem reply_leaves_the_pregnancy_open : Independent
    signArgumentUnderReply.premises (notP Claim.pregnancyAtTheSignIsOrdinary)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

Satisfiability

As in Results.lean: only a package with a positive Establishes result needs a model named, and the sign argument and the reply are given theirs in Dispute.Wegner, where they are established.

wegnerOwnReading

Wegner's own world: the one clear Isaianic referent is not a virgin, so the word does not denote virginity.

def wegnerOwnReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.almahMeansVirgin => False
    | x => True

wegnerLexical_is_satisfiable

Wegner's objection has a model.

theorem wegnerLexical_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable wegnerLexical.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Results.Septuagint — what the Septuagint shows

A reader's question, in a reader's words: the Jews who translated Isaiah into Greek, before Christ, wrote παρθένος — "virgin". Doesn't that settle it?

The argument is old. Irenaeus makes it against Theodotion and Aquila: the verse "was interpreted into Greek by the Jews themselves, much before the period of our Lord's advent, that there might remain no suspicion that perchance the Jews, complying with our humour, did put this interpretation upon these words" (Against Heresies III.21.1). This module encodes it at full strength and asks three things of it, one result each.

What it rests on. Take away the claim that παρθένος, in the translator's Greek, means a virgin, and the Septuagint no longer shows that its translator read the woman as one (parthenos_is_load_bearing). Everything turns on that word, and whether it means "virgin" there is exactly what the sources dispute. Rico and Gentry hold that it does "whenever it appears in Semitic Koine Greek", and Bratcher agrees. Wegner, Rhodea and Meade hold that in the translator's day it still meant a young woman, as it does of Dinah after Shechem has lain with her (Genesis 34:3), and Walton that the translator's choice of it "is not necessarily betraying an interpretation as virgin". Wegner and Walton grant that by the New Testament the word meant "virgin"; Meade and Davidson put that sense down to Christian use. The dispute is over the translator's day, two or three centuries before Matthew. The Greek Pentateuch's laws use the word where virginity is the point, and its law of the seduced παρθένος reads Genesis 34:3 itself otherwise: the woman a man has lain with is still the law's παρθένος, and owed "the bride-price of virgins" (Exodus 22:15–16). Dispute.Septuagint weighs all five, and the Septuagint's witness prevails, with Rico and Gentry, the laws and that reading of Genesis 34:3; Wegner cannot be defended (septuagint_prevails_over_wegner). The verdict turns on one rating, the status reading's step, plausible on the readers found.

What it would show, if the word means "virgin". How one early reader read Isaiah: a Jewish translator, before Christ, read the woman of 7:14 as a virgin, so reading her so is no Christian invention. It would not show what Isaiah's own word means without a further step, rated disputed (septuagint_word_rests_on_its_inference). A translator can render the woman described rather than the word. The translator of Genesis wrote παρθένος for the עַלְמָה Rebekah (24:43), whom the story has already called a virgin (24:16): a rendering "historically correct — since Rebekah was a virgin", Bratcher says, that "does not precisely translate the Hebrew" (113). Elsewhere the Septuagint's translators, of other books than Isaiah, render עַלְמָה with νεᾶνις, "young woman", four times. That is how this argument's referential strand already reads the versions.

What it leaves open, even then. The Greek says the virgin shall be with child. A woman who is a virgin when the sign is given and conceives later by a man fits those words as well as a virgin who conceives as a virgin does (septuagint_leaves_the_conception_open). That is not only a rival's reading. Bratcher, who holds that παρθένος "definitely means 'virgin' in the LXX" (113), reads the Greek of 7:14 so: "a young woman, at that time virgin, would in the normal way marry and bear a child" (115), "the most reasonable explanation" (116). So the Septuagint, granted every word, does not by itself say that the conception was without a man. Justin and Irenaeus read it so, from the promise of a sign (signLine, weighed in Dispute.Wegner); the word alone does not.

The Septuagint as a witness

Each reading below is a model: a way every claim of the argument could stand at once, named for what it says of the Septuagint and of the woman of 7:14. It settles those as its namesake does. Where the argument's joins require a side on questions this module does not touch, it takes the scriptural reading's: that Micah's mention of a mother and no father does mean something, and that Scripture, not the magisterium, is the judge. Every other claim it leaves true, and none of them bears on the results it is used for.

virginConceivesReading

Justin's reading of the elders' Greek, with Rico and Gentry's sense of the word: παρθένος means a virgin, the translator read the woman of 7:14 as one, and she conceives as one — "a sign which is not common to all the first-born sons" (Dialogue 84). So she is not already pregnant when the sign is given, and her pregnancy is no ordinary one. Wegner's claim is false in it: the word already had the sense "virgin". So are Miller's thesis and his premise that the noun of Genesis 34:3 describes Dinah as she then was: the noun names her.

def virginConceivesReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.parthenosMeantYoungWoman => False
    | Claim.parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginity => False
    | Claim.parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas => False
    | Claim.harahIsPredicateAdjective => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsAlreadyPregnant => False
    | Claim.pregnancyAtTheSignIsOrdinary => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsNotAVirgin => False
    | Claim.maternalSilenceProvesNothing => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | x => True

archaismReading

Rico and Gentry's reading of Genesis 34:3: the word there is said of Dinah as she then was, no longer a virgin, an archaism of the Greek Pentateuch, "the exception that proves the rule" (21); and in the Septuagint at large it means a virgin. So the verse uses the word otherwise, and the status reading is false in it; Wegner's claim is false too. Otherwise as Justin reads the elders' Greek (virginConceivesReading).

def archaismReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.parthenosMeantYoungWoman => False
    | Claim.parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginity => False
    | Claim.dinahIsTheLawsParthenos => False
    | Claim.harahIsPredicateAdjective => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsAlreadyPregnant => False
    | Claim.pregnancyAtTheSignIsOrdinary => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsNotAVirgin => False
    | Claim.maternalSilenceProvesNothing => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | x => True

septuagintWitness_establishes

The Septuagint, read with Rico and Gentry, is a witness from before Christ. Grant that the Greek Isaiah renders עַלְמָה with παρθένος, that it was made by Jews before Christ, and that παρθένος in its Greek means a virgin, and it follows that a Jewish translator, before Christ, read the woman of 7:14 as a virgin.

That is the whole of what it delivers: a claim about how the first translator read the verse. It does not show that παρθένος meant "virgin" in the translator's day: that is granted here, and rated disputed (parthenos_is_load_bearing). Nor does it show what עַלְמָה means (septuagint_word_rests_on_its_inference), or how the woman conceived (septuagint_leaves_the_conception_open).

theorem septuagintWitness_establishes : Establishes septuagintWitness
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

septuagintWitness_is_satisfiable

The Septuagint as a witness has a model.

theorem septuagintWitness_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable
    septuagintWitness.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

wegnerDriftReading

Wegner's reading: in the translator's day παρθένος meant "young woman", with or without virginity, and did not yet mean "virgin"; so the Greek does not show that its translator read the woman of 7:14 as a virgin, nor anything about how she conceived, and עַלְמָה does not denote a virgin either. The woman of 7:14 is already pregnant when the sign is given, and the sign need not be a miracle. Wegner does not take up the laws of the Greek Pentateuch. This reading extends his view to them as Miller reads them: the laws say what they say, and the word in them still means "young woman". Nor does he take up Exodus 22:15–16; in this reading Genesis 34 is told in that law's words, and Dinah is still called a παρθένος in the older sense.

def wegnerDriftReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.parthenosMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.lawsUseParthenosAsVirgin => False
    | Claim.dinahIsTheLawsParthenos => False
    | Claim.lxxIsaiahUsesParthenosAsVirgin => False
    | Claim.lxxReadsAVirgin => False
    | Claim.lxxEnvisagesAVirginalConception => False
    | Claim.almahMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.signMustBeExtraordinary => False
    | Claim.maternalSilenceProvesNothing => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | x => True

parthenos_is_load_bearing

The word carries the whole witness. Keep the rendering and its date — the Greek has παρθένος, and Jews made it before Christ — and grant nothing about what παρθένος meant to them, and the Septuagint no longer shows that its translator read the woman as a virgin. On Wegner's reading the word was the ordinary one for a young woman of marriageable age.

So whoever argues from the Septuagint has to win the claim about the word. Its date, which the rival grants, does not help without it.

theorem parthenos_is_load_bearing : ¬Establishes septuagintWithoutTheSense
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

From the translator's reading to Isaiah's word

septuagintOnTheWord_establishes

Add the step from the translator's reading to Isaiah's word, rated disputed, and the case concludes that עַלְמָה denotes a virgin. It is only as good as that step.

theorem septuagintOnTheWord_establishes : Establishes septuagintOnTheWord
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

septuagintOnTheWord_is_satisfiable

The Septuagint asked for Isaiah's word has a model.

theorem septuagintOnTheWord_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable
    septuagintOnTheWord.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

translatorDescribesTheWomanReading

The referential reading of the Septuagint: its translator read the woman of 7:14 as a virgin, with a word that means one, and עַלְמָה still denotes only a young woman of marriageable age. He described the woman, not the word, and the woman is a virgin.

def translatorDescribesTheWomanReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.parthenosMeantYoungWoman => False
    | Claim.parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginity => False
    | Claim.parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas => False
    | Claim.almahMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.harahIsPredicateAdjective => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsAlreadyPregnant => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsNotAVirgin => False
    | Claim.maternalSilenceProvesNothing => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | x => True

septuagint_word_rests_on_its_inference

The Septuagint shows how its translator read the woman, not what Isaiah's word means. Grant everything the witness rests on, παρθένος as "virgin" included, and grant that the translator read the woman of 7:14 as a virgin: עַלְמָה can still denote only a young woman, as the referential strand reads it. The step from the one to the other is the weight, and it is rated disputed: Bratcher and Brown grant that the translator read the woman as a virgin and deny that עַלְמָה says so, and Walton holds that the Greek shows "at best ... an interpretational preference rather than a linguistic necessity" (293). On Bratcher's reading (113), the Septuagint's translators render the woman, not the word: παρθένος for Rebekah, whom the story calls a virgin (Genesis 24:43), and νεᾶνις at Exodus 2:8, Psalm 67:26 (68:25 in English Bibles), Song 1:3 and 6:8. Jerome reads Rebekah the other way, as showing that עַלְמָה denotes a virgin (Against Jovinianus I.32).

So the Septuagint cannot by itself settle the claim that עַלְמָה itself denotes a virgin, however its word is read. If its word means "virgin", what it can do is what the referential strand already needs: show that a virgin answers the description.

theorem septuagint_word_rests_on_its_inference : ¬Entails
    septuagintLine.premises (p Claim.almahMeansVirgin)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

What the Greek leaves open

nowAVirginReading

Bratcher's reading of the Greek, who holds that its word means a virgin: "a young woman, at that time virgin, would in the normal way marry and bear a child" (115). Rhodea gives the Greek the same reading, granting its sense for argument's sake and quoting Tsevat: "The pregnancy lies in the future ...; nothing indicates that the woman is also a virgin after the conception" (67). The word means a virgin, the translator read her as one, and she is one when the sign is given; she conceives later, by a man.

def nowAVirginReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.parthenosMeantYoungWoman => False
    | Claim.parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginity => False
    | Claim.parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas => False
    | Claim.lxxEnvisagesAVirginalConception => False
    | Claim.harahIsPredicateAdjective => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsAlreadyPregnant => False
    | Claim.isaianicAlmahIsNotAVirgin => False
    | Claim.maternalSilenceProvesNothing => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | x => True

septuagint_leaves_the_conception_open

Granted every word, the Septuagint leaves the conception open. Keep the rendering, its date, παρθένος as "virgin", the reading it delivers, and the tense of the verb — the virgin shall be with child — and whether its translator meant a conception without a man is independent of all of it. On Bratcher's reading, who holds that the word means a virgin, she is a virgin when the sign is given and later conceives in the ordinary way; Rhodea reads it so too, granting the sense for argument's sake. On Justin's she conceives as a virgin. Both readings keep every premise.

No premise here speaks to how she conceives, so the result says only that the Greek's own words leave it open. Justin's argument that an ordinary conception would be no sign is the sign argument's, and is weighed in Dispute.Wegner.

The result has two halves: the Greek does not show that the translator meant a conception without a man, and does not show that he did not. If its sense is granted, the Septuagint's word answers the objection that the virgin reading was a Christian invention; it does not supply the virginal conception. That comes, if it comes, from the promise of a sign (signLine), or from Matthew and Luke.

theorem septuagint_leaves_the_conception_open : Independent
    septuagintWithTheFuture.premises (p Claim.lxxEnvisagesAVirginalConception)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Results.Genesis — what "her seed" says of a father

A reader's question, in a reader's words: Genesis 3:15 promises that "her seed" will strike the serpent's head — the woman's seed, not the man's. Doesn't that already point to a virgin conception? And doesn't the Greek, which calls the seed "he", make it plainer?

The short answer: it may, but the text does not settle it. Whether naming the seed as the woman's says there will be no human father is a live dispute among readers most of whom hold the virgin birth, and the library finds it a tie (nothing_prevails_over_her_seed, in Dispute.Genesis). That the wording fits the virgin birth, once it has happened, Luther's side and Leupold and Keil all grant. The Greek may show that its translator expected one person; it does not show how that person would be born.

The protoevangelium strand of this argument holds, as a premise, that the seed being named as the woman's marks a birth with no human father (seedOfTheWomanImpliesNoHumanFather). "Marks" is vague on purpose, as its holders leave it: Miravalle's own word is "hint". This module asks what it can mean, and what each meaning can bear.

Read as what the wording itself signifies, it is Luther's argument: the seed of other women "might rather be said to have been the seed of the man", but Mary's was "the true Seed of Mary" (Luther on the Creation 298–99). He finds the sense in the words of Genesis, and holds that Isaiah later "threw some additional light" on it, so that "it was then made certain" (298). herSeedCase_establishes grants him every ground and checks that the argument goes through. It rests on his step (her_seed_rests_on_its_inference). The Lutheran commentators Leupold and Keil, who hold the virgin birth, grant every ground and deny the step. Leupold, asked whether the expression is "so phrased in reference to Mary and the virgin birth", answers "Not primarily, but at least incidentally": it "does not specifically prophesy the virgin birth" (169). Keil finds the virgin birth in the promise's fulfilment, "even if the words had reference first of all to the fact that the woman had been led astray" (102). Jack P. Lewis denies the step too, pointing to Hagar and Rebekah, whose seed Genesis also calls theirs (299–300); he doubts the promise reading itself, but his argument does not need that doubt.

Read as what the wording fits, once fulfilled, it is granted by Leupold and Keil, who deny the first reading. Leupold: "it coincides and agrees with it under divine providence" (169). Keil: the promise was fulfilled "even in its apparently casual form" (102). But they reach the fit from the conception: the wording is seen to fit once the birth is known. Read this way, the verse confirms the virgin birth to one who already believes it, and gives no reason to believe it to one who does not. That is what the reading's own grounds say; it is not a separate theorem. whatHerSeedMarks sets out both readings and what answers each.

The promise, and its fulfilment. Whether the wording foretold a virgin birth is one question. Whether the promise is fulfilled in Jesus is another, and it does not need the first. Every term of the verse is met as the New Testament names it: the woman's seed, the Son "made of a woman" (Galatians 4:4); the serpent, "that old serpent, called the Devil" (Revelation 12:9); its head crushed, when the Son destroys the devil "through death" (Hebrews 2:14); his heel struck, in his death and rising. That fulfilment confirms that the verse was a promise, and it does so for a reader who denies the virginal conception too. With the virginal conception, it says one thing more: the seed in whom the promise is fulfilled was of the woman alone. Dispute.Protoevangelium weighs the fulfilment against Westermann's denial that the verse is a promise at all.

The Greek's "he". The Septuagint calls the woman's seed "he", αὐτός, though σπέρμα is neuter, and Collins finds it "beyond question that the translator of Genesis 3:15 meant to convey that an individual was promised" (145) (greekHeCase_establishes). If so, it shows how one Jewish translator before Christ read the promise, and reading it of one person is no Christian invention. But the earliest known reader of that Greek did not read it so: Philo calls the masculine "as to its language, a barbarism, but, as to the meaning … a correct expression", and takes "he" of the mind (Allegorical Interpretation III.188). The claim is disputed on him. No other text before Christ reads the verse of one victor; the Targums, later, read it of "the sons of the woman", with a remedy "in the days of the King Messiah" (Lewis 301). Whether the Hebrew says so is a further question: Collins argues that its syntax is "quite consistent with the pattern where a single individual is in view" (145), and reports that many think it does not (141); Lewis, who grants the Greek's reading, allows that the masculine "could be an oversight" (300). Either way, the Greek says nothing of a father (the_greek_he_leaves_the_father_open): the same Greek calls the seed Hannah asks for "him" (1 Samuel 1:11), and the seed promised to David "he" (2 Samuel 7:12–14), and each has a father. Irenaeus, quoting the verse as the Greek gives it, "He shall be on the watch for thy head", reads it of "He who should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin" (Against Heresies V.21.1); but he does not argue from the pronoun to the conception, and no reader found does.

Dispute.Genesis weighs Luther's case against Leupold's and Lewis's.

Two readings of the woman's seed

Each reading below is a model: one way every claim of the argument could be true at once, named for what it says of the wording of Genesis 3:15. Some pairs of claims in this argument cannot both be true, so each model has to take a side on them; on questions this module does not touch it takes the scriptural reading's side: that the Septuagint's παρθένος means a virgin, that Micah's mention of a mother and no father does mean something, and that Scripture, not the magisterium, is the judge. Every other claim it leaves true, and none of them bears on the results it is used for.

lutherReading

Luther's reading: the seed named as the woman's, and not a man's, signifies a birth with no human father, and the promise is fulfilled in one so born.

def lutherReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.parthenosMeantYoungWoman => False
    | Claim.parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginity => False
    | Claim.parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas => False
    | Claim.maternalSilenceProvesNothing => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | x => True

leupoldReading

Leupold's reading: the promise is of the victor, "her seed" is first collective, the woman's posterity, the woman is named because she was deceived, and the wording does not itself signify a birth without a human father — though it fits one, as fulfilled. Lewis's claims hold in it too: Genesis speaks of a woman's seed in ordinary births. And "her seed", though collective first, is not only a line of descendants: "the word is also used in reference to an individual" (168).

def leupoldReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.wordingSignifiesAFatherlessBirth => False
    | Claim.seedIsLineNotIndividual => False
    | Claim.parthenosMeantYoungWoman => False
    | Claim.parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginity => False
    | Claim.parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas => False
    | Claim.maternalSilenceProvesNothing => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | x => True

The wording read as signifying

herSeedCase_establishes

Luther's case from the wording goes through. Grant that Genesis 3:15 names the seed as the woman's, that it is the first promise of a redeemer, that a man's seed is ordinarily reckoned through him, and Luther's step from these to the wording's sense: the wording signifies a birth with no human father.

It does not show that the step is sound — Leupold, Keil and Lewis deny it (her_seed_rests_on_its_inference) — nor that the promise was fulfilled.

theorem herSeedCase_establishes : Establishes herSeedCase
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

herSeedCase_is_satisfiable

Luther's case has a model: his own reading.

theorem herSeedCase_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable herSeedCase.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

her_seed_rests_on_its_inference

The wording's sense rests on Luther's step. Grant every ground — the seed named as the woman's, Genesis 3:15 as the first promise of a redeemer, a man's seed reckoned through him — and it still does not follow that the wording signifies a birth with no human father. Leupold and Keil grant those grounds and deny it, and Lewis, granting the messianic reading for argument's sake, denies it too. On Leupold's reading the seed is named the woman's because she was deceived, and "her seed" is first collective, her posterity.

So the claim does not follow from the grounds alone: it needs Luther's step, rated disputed. That does not show the step is wrong, only that the wording, which both sides read, does not decide between them.

theorem her_seed_rests_on_its_inference : ¬Entails herSeedLine.grounds (p
    Claim.wordingSignifiesAFatherlessBirth)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

posterityCase_establishes

Leupold's case goes through on its own grounds.

theorem posterityCase_establishes : Establishes posterityCase
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

posterityCase_is_satisfiable

Leupold's case has a model: his own reading.

theorem posterityCase_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable posterityCase.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

idiomCase_establishes

Lewis's case goes through on its own grounds.

theorem idiomCase_establishes : Establishes idiomCase
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

idiomCase_is_satisfiable

Lewis's case has a model: Leupold's reading, in which Lewis's claims hold too.

theorem idiomCase_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable idiomCase.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

The Greek's "he"

greekHeCase_establishes

The Greek reads one person. Grant that the Septuagint refers to the woman's seed with the masculine αὐτός, though σπέρμα is neuter, and the step Collins and Martin take from it, and its translator read the seed as one person.

That is all it delivers: who that person is, and how he is born, it does not say.

theorem greekHeCase_establishes : Establishes greekHeCase
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

greekHeCase_is_satisfiable

The Greek's line has a model.

theorem greekHeCase_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable greekHeCase.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

the_greek_he_leaves_the_father_open

The Greek's "he" leaves the father open. Keep the Greek's masculine "he" and the reading of one person drawn from it, and every ground of Luther's case — the seed named as the woman's, the first promise of a redeemer, a man's seed reckoned through him — and whether the wording signifies a birth with no human father is independent of all of it. On Luther's reading it does; on Leupold's, granted the Greek, it does not.

The result has two halves: the Greek does not show that the one person promised has no human father, and does not show that he has one. The plain reason is in the Greek itself: it calls the seed Hannah asks for "him" (1 Samuel 1:11), and the seed promised to David "he" (2 Samuel 7:12–14), as Collins shows (144), and each has a father. One person, called "he", can have a father. What the Greek shows is how its translator read the promise: of one person. Collins argues that the Hebrew's syntax is "quite consistent with the pattern where a single individual is in view" (145); Leupold reaches one person at the promise's end, and Keil reaches Christ "not as an individual, but as the head" of the woman's posterity (102). No reader found argues that the Greek's "he" answers Lewis's point from Hagar and Rebekah.

theorem the_greek_he_leaves_the_father_open : Independent
    greekHeWithThePromise.premises (p Claim.wordingSignifiesAFatherlessBirth)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

What "marks" means: the dilemma

asWhatTheWordingSignifies

The hinge read as what the wording itself signifies: Luther's reading, and the one Miravalle and Henry give.

def asWhatTheWordingSignifies : Reading Claim :=
  { name := "as what the wording itself signifies",
    commits := p Claim.wordingSignifiesAFatherlessBirth,
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work lutherOnTheCreation (Bib.Locus.pages 298 299),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work miravalleMeetYourMother,
            Reference.work henryCommentary
              (Bib.Locus.adLoc Scripture.genesis3_15)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianTypological,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

asWhatTheWordingFits

The hinge read as what the wording fits, once fulfilled: Leupold's and Keil's reading, which rests the fit on the virginal conception itself.

def asWhatTheWordingFits : Reading Claim :=
  { name := "as what the wording fits, once fulfilled",
    commits := p Claim.wordingFitsAFatherlessBirth,
    grounds :=
      [p Claim.maryConceivedAsVirgin,
        p Claim.maryConceivedAsVirgin 🡒
          p Claim.wordingFitsAFatherlessBirth],
    source :=
      { primary := Reference.work leupoldGenesis (Bib.Locus.page 169),
        supporting :=
          [Reference.work keilDelitzschPentateuch (Bib.Locus.page 102)],
        tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
        confidence := Confidence.disputed } }

protoevangeliumAsSignifying — Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15), read as what the wording itself signifies

The protoevangelium strand with its hinge read as Luther reads it.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

protoevangeliumAsFitting — Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15), read as what the wording fits, once fulfilled

The protoevangelium strand with its hinge read as Leupold reads it.

No premise here rests on scripture alone.

protoevangeliumAsSignifying_is_satisfiable

The strand, read as Luther reads its hinge, is consistent: its premises can all be true together, so any answer to it must come from outside it.

theorem protoevangeliumAsSignifying_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable
    protoevangeliumAsSignifying.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

protoevangeliumAsFitting_is_satisfiable

The strand, read as Leupold reads its hinge, is consistent too.

theorem protoevangeliumAsFitting_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable
    protoevangeliumAsFitting.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

posterity_does_not_reach_the_fit

Leupold has no quarrel with the second reading; he holds it. Read as what the wording fits once fulfilled, the strand's hinge can be held with every premise of Leupold's case.

theorem posterity_does_not_reach_the_fit : Satisfiable (posterityCase.premises
    ++ protoevangeliumAsFitting.premises)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

idiom_does_not_reach_the_fit

Nor does Lewis. The idiom of Hagar and Rebekah bears on what the wording signifies, not on what it fits once fulfilled.

theorem idiom_does_not_reach_the_fit : Satisfiable (idiomCase.premises ++
    protoevangeliumAsFitting.premises)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

whereTheSignifyingReadingMeetsLeupold

Why Leupold stands against the hinge, read as Luther reads it. The crux is Leupold's step: "her seed" is first collective, the woman's posterity, and the woman is named because she was deceived, so the wording does not itself signify a birth without a human father. No one can hold both Leupold's case and the hinge read Luther's way; which gives way is the dispute's question, and Dispute.Genesis finds a tie. What cannot be held with Leupold is the hinge together with the reading, nothing else in the strand, and the step is rated disputed: Irenaeus grants both its grounds, and Henry the second, and both read the verse of the Virgin's son.

Why Leupold on 'her seed': her posterity, named for the deception stands against Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15), read as what the wording itself signifies.

• The crux: \((P_{50} \land P_{56} \land P_{57}) \rightarrow \lnot P_{54}\), a premise of Leupold on 'her seed': her posterity, named for the deception.
• What it does: its conclusion does not follow without it.
• Granted: \(P_{50}\), \(P_{56}\), \(P_{57}\), which the break also needs.
• Where the rival breaks: \(P_{53}\), \(P_{53} \rightarrow P_{54}\) cannot be held together with \((P_{50} \land P_{56} \land P_{57}) \rightarrow \lnot P_{54}\) and \(P_{50}\), \(P_{56}\), \(P_{57}\); each is needed for the break, and without the crux they stand.
• What this rests on:
  • \(P_{50}\) Genesis 3:15 says that 'her seed' will strike the serpent's head — consensus: Gen 3:15; bhs-1997, app. Gen 3:15
  • \(P_{56}\) 'Her seed' at Genesis 3:15 is first collective: her posterity, not one person — disputed: leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, pp. 167–169; calvin-commentary-genesis-1847, p. 170; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 101; collins-syntactical-note-1997, pp. 145–146
  • \(P_{57}\) The seed is called the woman's because the serpent deceived the woman — well supported: leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 165; leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 169; calvin-commentary-genesis-1847, p. 170; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 102
  • the step itself — disputed: leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 169; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, pp. 101–102; calvin-commentary-genesis-1847, p. 170; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.23.7; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §V.21.1; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15

whereTheSignifyingReadingMeetsLewis

Why Lewis stands against the hinge, read as Luther reads it. The crux is Lewis's step: Genesis speaks of Hagar's and Rebekah's seed too, so the woman's seed at 3:15 does not by itself signify a birth without a human father. Rated disputed, on Jimmy Akin, who grants that a woman's seed "is not outside the bounds of Hebrew expression" and agrees with the "many" who have "rightly seen" the wording as "a hint of the Virgin Birth".

Why Lewis on 'her seed': Genesis says it of Hagar and Rebekah too stands against Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15), read as what the wording itself signifies.

• The crux: \((P_{50} \land P_{58}) \rightarrow \lnot P_{54}\), a premise of Lewis on 'her seed': Genesis says it of Hagar and Rebekah too.
• What it does: its conclusion does not follow without it.
• Granted: \(P_{50}\), \(P_{58}\), which the break also needs.
• Where the rival breaks: \(P_{53}\), \(P_{53} \rightarrow P_{54}\) cannot be held together with \((P_{50} \land P_{58}) \rightarrow \lnot P_{54}\) and \(P_{50}\), \(P_{58}\); each is needed for the break, and without the crux they stand.
• What this rests on:
  • \(P_{50}\) Genesis 3:15 says that 'her seed' will strike the serpent's head — consensus: Gen 3:15; bhs-1997, app. Gen 3:15
  • \(P_{58}\) Genesis speaks of a woman's seed in ordinary births: Hagar's and Rebekah's — consensus: Gen 16:10; Gen 24:60; lewis-womans-seed-1991, pp. 299–300
  • the step itself — disputed: lewis-womans-seed-1991, pp. 299–300; lewis-womans-seed-1991, p. 319; akin-woman-seed-serpent-1999

whatHerSeedMarks

What the woman's seed marks, read both ways. The claim is the protoevangelium strand's hinge: the seed being named as the woman's marks a birth with no human father. These are the two readings found in the sources; a reader with a third would add a third horn.

Read as what the wording itself signifies (Luther's reading), it cannot be held together with Leupold's case or with Lewis's. Each breaks it at a step rated disputed, not at a ground. Leupold's grounds, that the seed is named the woman's because she was deceived and that "her seed" is first collective, her posterity, are rated wellSupported and disputed; Lewis's, that Genesis says "her seed" of Hagar and of Rebekah, each with a father, is common ground. What is contested is the step from them to "so the wording does not signify a birth without a father". A reader who takes those steps rejects Luther's reading. One who grants the grounds and refuses the steps need not, as Irenaeus does with Leupold's and Akin with Lewis's. "Cannot be held together" says that no one can hold both, not which gives way: Dispute.Genesis weighs that, and finds a tie.

Read as what the wording fits, once fulfilled (Leupold's and Keil's reading), neither case touches it: Leupold and Keil hold it. But the reading rests on the virginal conception itself (maryConceivedAsVirgin). That is rated disputed because Brown, the historian this argument cites, leaves the question unresolved; the rating records that it is contested, not that the library doubts it. On this reading the strand can show that the promise suits a birth already believed, not that the promise foretold it.

Neither reading is a straw man: read either way, the strand's premises can all be true together.

Every reading of \(P_{53}\), answered. Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15) holds \(P_{53}\). It is read 2 ways here, and each reading is checked; none can be left out.

1. Read as what the wording itself signifies. The claim commits Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15) to \(P_{54}\) — so read by luther-on-the-creation-1904, pp. 298–299; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15 (disputed).

Against Leupold on 'her seed': her posterity, named for the deception, it cannot be held. Where it breaks:

Why Leupold on 'her seed': her posterity, named for the deception stands against Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15), read as what the wording itself signifies.

• The crux: \((P_{50} \land P_{56} \land P_{57}) \rightarrow \lnot P_{54}\), a premise of Leupold on 'her seed': her posterity, named for the deception.
• What it does: its conclusion does not follow without it.
• Granted: \(P_{50}\), \(P_{56}\), \(P_{57}\), which the break also needs.
• Where the rival breaks: \(P_{53}\), \(P_{53} \rightarrow P_{54}\) cannot be held together with \((P_{50} \land P_{56} \land P_{57}) \rightarrow \lnot P_{54}\) and \(P_{50}\), \(P_{56}\), \(P_{57}\); each is needed for the break, and without the crux they stand.
• What this rests on:
  • \(P_{50}\) Genesis 3:15 says that 'her seed' will strike the serpent's head — consensus: Gen 3:15; bhs-1997, app. Gen 3:15
  • \(P_{56}\) 'Her seed' at Genesis 3:15 is first collective: her posterity, not one person — disputed: leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, pp. 167–169; calvin-commentary-genesis-1847, p. 170; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 101; collins-syntactical-note-1997, pp. 145–146
  • \(P_{57}\) The seed is called the woman's because the serpent deceived the woman — well supported: leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 165; leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 169; calvin-commentary-genesis-1847, p. 170; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 102
  • the step itself — disputed: leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 169; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, pp. 101–102; calvin-commentary-genesis-1847, p. 170; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.23.7; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §V.21.1; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15

Against Lewis on 'her seed': Genesis says it of Hagar and Rebekah too, it cannot be held. Where it breaks:

Why Lewis on 'her seed': Genesis says it of Hagar and Rebekah too stands against Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15), read as what the wording itself signifies.

• The crux: \((P_{50} \land P_{58}) \rightarrow \lnot P_{54}\), a premise of Lewis on 'her seed': Genesis says it of Hagar and Rebekah too.
• What it does: its conclusion does not follow without it.
• Granted: \(P_{50}\), \(P_{58}\), which the break also needs.
• Where the rival breaks: \(P_{53}\), \(P_{53} \rightarrow P_{54}\) cannot be held together with \((P_{50} \land P_{58}) \rightarrow \lnot P_{54}\) and \(P_{50}\), \(P_{58}\); each is needed for the break, and without the crux they stand.
• What this rests on:
  • \(P_{50}\) Genesis 3:15 says that 'her seed' will strike the serpent's head — consensus: Gen 3:15; bhs-1997, app. Gen 3:15
  • \(P_{58}\) Genesis speaks of a woman's seed in ordinary births: Hagar's and Rebekah's — consensus: Gen 16:10; Gen 24:60; lewis-womans-seed-1991, pp. 299–300
  • the step itself — disputed: lewis-womans-seed-1991, pp. 299–300; lewis-womans-seed-1991, p. 319; akin-woman-seed-serpent-1999

2. Read as what the wording fits, once fulfilled. The claim commits Protoevangelium strand (Genesis 3:15) to \(P_{55}\) — so read by leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 169; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 102 (disputed). It rests the reading on \(P_{79}\), \(P_{79} \rightarrow P_{55}\).

Against Leupold on 'her seed': her posterity, named for the deception, it is not reached: Leupold on 'her seed': her posterity, named for the deception holds, and can be held together with it.

Against Lewis on 'her seed': Genesis says it of Hagar and Rebekah too, it is not reached: Lewis on 'her seed': Genesis says it of Hagar and Rebekah too holds, and can be held together with it.

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Dispute — who prevails over Isaiah 7:14

The results in Results.lean ask what each package entails. This module asks what happens when the packages meet: the scriptural reading, the critical denial of the predictive reading, and four replies to that denial — Berry's objection, Postell's two counterexamples (Isaiah 9 and 11, and Micah 5), and Motyer's reply, with Compton's — taken together as one dispute.

Who defeats whom is not stipulated. Each defeat below is a theorem about the packages' premises, and so is each absence of one (see Testimony.Logic.Dispute for how an attack is derived from entailment and filtered by cited confidence). The defeats are these:

• The critical denial defeats the scriptural reading. It entails the negation of the scriptural premise that Isaiah 7:14 predicts a virgin birth, a premise cited as disputed.
• The scriptural reading defeats the critical denial back. It undermines none of the critic's premises, but it concludes the opposite, so it rebuts; and the weakest link on each side is disputed, so neither outranks the other.
• Berry and both of Postell's counterexamples defeat the critical denial, by contradicting its premise that a near-term sign excludes a messianic sense, cited disputed.
• Motyer defeats it too, by contradicting its other premise: that 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz at all, also cited disputed.
• The critical denial defeats Berry and Motyer back, but neither counterexample. It rebuts all four. Berry's and Motyer's inferences are contested — a cited source grants each one's grounds and denies its conclusion — so they are no stronger than the critic. Postell's inference is not, and both counterexamples outrank it.

What follows

Faced with the scriptural reading alone, nothing prevails: the two defeat each other, and the grounded extension is empty. Add the replies and the scriptural reading prevails. Nothing defeats Postell's counterexamples; they defeat the critic, which is the only party that defeats the scriptural reading, Berry or Motyer; and so all five stand. The critical denial belongs to no admissible set at all, because nothing answers Postell. Take away either counterexample and the scriptural reading still prevails; take away both and nothing does.

This is the result entailment could not state. Adding premises never removes a conclusion; adding arguments can change what a dispute forces, and here it turns an open question into a settled one. The replies do not show that the predictive reading is true. They show that, on these premises and these ratings, the case against it does not survive them.

What the ratings decide

These outcomes rest on the cited confidences as much as on the premises, and the inferences are rated as the premises are: disputed when a cited source grants a step's grounds and denies its conclusion. Before they were rated, a reply that put its contested move in a step was weighed by its observations alone, and every reply outranked the critic. Rated, only one does.

The critic's two premises are disputed: Berry, Postell and Motyer contest the exclusion, Motyer and Compton the near-term sign. Its inference is consensus, because it only applies the exclusion to 7:14.

Berry's inference is disputed. Watts grants that the chronology is uncertain and still reads 7:14 of Hezekiah, as Compton reports. Motyer's is disputed for the same reason: those who identify the two children grant both his observations and keep the near-term sign, and motyer_rests_on_his_inference proves that the whole weight of his reply falls on that step. So each ties with the critic, and heard alone Motyer settles nothing (nothing_prevails_on_motyer_alone).

Postell's inference is plausible. It is a counterexample to the exclusion — an oracle on the Assyrian timeline, read messianically — and he gives two: Isaiah 9 and 11, and Micah 5, whose messianic reading Brown himself grants. No source cited here grants either set of grounds and keeps the exclusion.

The verdict rests on that inference. Without Postell's Isaiah argument the scriptural reading still prevails, on the Micah counterexample (scriptural_reading_prevails_without_postell), so an attack on the grounds of either — dating Isaiah 11 later, say — leaves it standing. Without both, every party is defeated by someone and nothing prevails (nothing_prevails_without_the_counterexamples). The two share one inference, so they share one weakness: rated disputed, it would tie both with the critic as Berry's and Motyer's do. A critic who granted that such an oracle is read messianically and still held the exclusion — most likely by denying that Micah 5 or Isaiah 9 is a sign to Ahaz — would be the source to find.

What the church fathers add, and what they cannot

The predictive reading is not a modern apologetic. Justin, Irenaeus, Origen and Jerome all argue it, and Sources.lean cites them for it: for the prediction itself, and for עַלְמָה as a virgin. Every father the library has read on the verse — Tertullian, Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret besides — argues that an ordinary conception would have been no sign at all. Several grant the Jewish "young woman" and answer as the referential reading does: a young woman can be a virgin, as the betrothed νεᾶνις of Deuteronomy 22:23–27 is, whom 22:23 calls a παῖς παρθένος. None asks whether παρθένος could itself mean a girl who is not a virgin; the question Wegner raises was not theirs. That strengthens the attestation of the scriptural premises, and none of it changes a rating.

The fathers' witness cannot change a rating, because of what disputed means here: actively contested by competent scholars. The fathers are the earliest witnesses to the contest as well as to the reading. Justin records Trypho's answer — "young woman", and fulfilled in Hezekiah — and Irenaeus names Theodotion and Aquila. An older witness does not make a contested claim uncontested. What decides the result here is the same definition applied to the other side: both of the critic's premises are contested too, and the library records who contests them.

The sign argument is encoded as an argument in its own right, signLine. It answers Wegner's objection rather than the critical denial, so it is weighed in Dispute.Wegner, where it ties with Wegner (nothing_prevails_over_wegner).

The replies as positions

Each reply is an argument in its own right, so it must hold together and deliver its conclusion before it can take part in a dispute.

repliesStandReading

The world Berry and Postell describe: everything holds except that a near-term sign excludes a messianic sense. The scriptural reading holds in it too. A reading cannot hold both claims about the Septuagint's παρθένος, and this one takes Rico and Gentry's; the scriptural reading needs neither, and Dispute.Septuagint weighs the two.

def repliesStandReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.maternalSilenceProvesNothing => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | Claim.parthenosMeantYoungWoman => False
    | Claim.parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginity => False
    | Claim.parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas => False
    | Claim.nearTermExcludesMessianicSense => False
    | x => True

berryObjection_establishes

Berry's objection delivers its conclusion.

theorem berryObjection_establishes : Establishes berryObjection
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

berryObjection_is_satisfiable

Berry's objection has a model.

theorem berryObjection_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable berryObjection.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

postellParity_establishes

Postell's parity argument delivers its conclusion.

theorem postellParity_establishes : Establishes postellParity
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

postellParity_is_satisfiable

Postell's parity argument has a model.

theorem postellParity_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable postellParity.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

Postell's Micah counterexample

Postell's second counterexample is Micah 5, the Bethlehem oracle: a ruler set against the Assyrian invasion, and read messianically in first-century Judaism — which Brown, the critic's own authority, grants. It is the same inference as the Isaiah counterexample from a different oracle, so it guards against an attack on Postell's grounds and not against one on his inference.

laterMessianicReading

The rival reading, written first: Micah's ruler is a near-term Davidic king, and the messianic reading of him came later. Both grounds hold — the Assyrian setting and the first-century expectation — and so does the exclusion.

def laterMessianicReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.isaiahPredictsVirginBirth => False
    | x => True

micah_parity_rests_on_its_inference

The Micah counterexample rests on its inference: on the later-reading account both grounds hold and the exclusion stands.

theorem micah_parity_rests_on_its_inference : ¬Entails micahLine.grounds (notP
    Claim.nearTermExcludesMessianicSense)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

micahParity_establishes

The Micah counterexample delivers its conclusion.

theorem micahParity_establishes : Establishes micahParity
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

micahParity_is_satisfiable

The Micah counterexample has a model.

theorem micahParity_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable micahParity.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

Motyer's reply

Motyer's reply, with Compton's, denies the critic's other premise: that 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz at all. It is built as Berry's and Postell's are. Its grounds are what the text says — the sign given to the house of David in the plural, and 8:4 repeating for Maher-shalal-hash-baz the timetable 7:16 gives the child — and the contested move is the step that joins them, rated disputed because a cited reading grants the grounds and denies what the step concludes.

sameChildReading

The rival reading, written first: the one that identifies the two children. Isaiah 8:1–4 retells the sign of 7:14–16 for Isaiah's own son, so the sign was a near-term one after all. Both of Motyer's observations hold in it — it is the reading his inference has to rule out.

def sameChildReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.isaiahPredictsVirginBirth => False
    | x => True

motyer_rests_on_his_inference

Motyer's reply rests on his inference, not on his observations. On the reading that identifies the two children, the sign is given to the house of David, 8:4 repeats the timetable of 7:16, and 7:14 is still a near-term sign to Ahaz. The two grounds do not decide the question; the step does, and a reader who contests the reply contests the step.

theorem motyer_rests_on_his_inference : ¬Entails motyerLine.grounds (notP
    Claim.isaiahIsNearTermSignToAhaz)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

motyerReading

The world Motyer describes, with Berry and Postell: the sign is not a near-term one, and a near-term sign would not exclude a messianic sense anyway. Everything else holds — the scriptural reading and all four replies with it — and, as in repliesStandReading, Rico and Gentry's side is taken on παρθένος.

def motyerReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.maternalSilenceProvesNothing => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | Claim.parthenosMeantYoungWoman => False
    | Claim.parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginity => False
    | Claim.parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas => False
    | Claim.isaiahIsNearTermSignToAhaz => False
    | Claim.nearTermExcludesMessianicSense => False
    | x => True

motyerReply_establishes

Motyer's reply delivers its conclusion.

theorem motyerReply_establishes : Establishes motyerReply
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

motyerReply_is_satisfiable

Motyer's reply has a model.

theorem motyerReply_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable motyerReply.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

Strength: the weakest link of each position

Premises and inferences alike: a position is no stronger than the least supported thing it assumes, and an inference is something it assumes.

christian_strength

The scriptural reading is no stronger than its least supported premise, which is cited disputed.

theorem christian_strength : christian.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

criticalDenial_strength

Both of the critical denial's premises are contested, and cited disputed.

theorem criticalDenial_strength : criticalDenial.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

berryObjection_strength

Berry's premise is cited wellSupported, but his inference is disputed, and he is no stronger than it.

theorem berryObjection_strength : berryObjection.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

postellParity_strength

Postell's premises are cited wellSupported and his inference plausible.

theorem postellParity_strength : postellParity.strength = 1
-- axioms: propext

micahParity_strength

The Micah counterexample's grounds are cited consensus and wellSupported, and its inference plausible.

theorem micahParity_strength : micahParity.strength = 1
-- axioms: propext

motyerReply_strength

Motyer's observations are cited consensus and wellSupported, but his inference is disputed, and he is no stronger than it.

theorem motyerReply_strength : motyerReply.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

The defeats

Each is an attack the ratings do not block, decided from the two packages' premises by Horn.defeats? and checked by the kernel.

critical_defeats_christian

The critical denial defeats the scriptural reading. It entails the negation of the premise that Isaiah 7:14 predicts a virgin birth, and that premise, cited disputed, does not outrank it.

theorem critical_defeats_christian : Defeats criticalDenial christian
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

christian_rebuts_critical

The scriptural reading does attack the critical denial: it concludes the opposite.

theorem christian_rebuts_critical : Rebuts christian criticalDenial
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

scripturalWorldReading

The scriptural reader's world, with everything else holding that can: Micah's silence indicates a fatherless birth, so it is not nothing; Scripture, not the magisterium, is the judge that settles; and, as in repliesStandReading, Rico and Gentry's side is taken on παρθένος, which the scriptural reading does not need.

def scripturalWorldReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.maternalSilenceProvesNothing => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | Claim.parthenosMeantYoungWoman => False
    | Claim.parthenosDoesNotItselfConnoteVirginity => False
    | Claim.parthenosDescribesDinahAsSheThenWas => False
    | x => True

christian_does_not_undermine_critical

But it undermines none of the critical denial's premises. For each of them there is a world in which the scriptural reading holds and that premise does too: the near-term setting and the exclusion hold in the scriptural reader's world, and the exclusion step holds where Berry and Postell are right.

theorem christian_does_not_undermine_critical : ∀ (φ : Formula Claim),
    ¬UnderminesOn christian criticalDenial φ
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

christian_defeats_critical

The scriptural reading answers the critic. Its rebuttal is a defeat: the weakest link on each side is disputed, so neither outranks the other, and each defeats the other.

theorem christian_defeats_critical : Defeats christian criticalDenial
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

berry_defeats_critical

Berry defeats the critical denial. He entails the negation of its premise that a near-term sign excludes a messianic sense, and that premise, cited disputed, does not outrank him.

theorem berry_defeats_critical : Defeats berryObjection criticalDenial
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

postell_defeats_critical

Postell defeats the critical denial, on the same premise from different grounds.

theorem postell_defeats_critical : Defeats postellParity criticalDenial
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

micah_defeats_critical

The Micah counterexample defeats the critical denial, on the same premise as Berry and Postell.

theorem micah_defeats_critical : Defeats micahParity criticalDenial
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

motyer_defeats_critical

Motyer defeats the critical denial, by entailing the negation of its other premise: that 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, cited disputed.

theorem motyer_defeats_critical : Defeats motyerReply criticalDenial
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

critical_defeats_berry

The critical denial defeats Berry back. It holds the premise Berry denies, so it rebuts him, and Berry is no stronger than it: his inference is contested as the critic's premises are.

theorem critical_defeats_berry : Defeats criticalDenial berryObjection
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

critical_defeats_motyer

The critical denial defeats Motyer back, for the same reason: it holds the near-term premise he denies, and his inference is contested by the readers who identify the two children.

theorem critical_defeats_motyer : Defeats criticalDenial motyerReply
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

What does not defeat

critical_does_not_defeat_postell

The critical denial does not defeat Postell. It rebuts him, but it is the weaker of the two: its premises are disputed, and his inference is plausible. And it contradicts none of his premises: the critic can grant both his observations, and can grant his step too, by dating Isaiah 9 and 11 later than 7:14 — off its Assyrian timeline — so that one of the step's grounds fails (critic_grants_postells_step_by_dating_the_oracles_later).

theorem critical_does_not_defeat_postell : ¬Defeats criticalDenial
    postellParity
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

critical_does_not_defeat_micah

The critical denial does not defeat the Micah counterexample, for the reason it does not defeat Postell: it is weaker, and it contradicts none of the counterexample's premises. The critic can grant its step by reading Micah 5:2 of a near-term Davidic king rather than messianically (critic_grants_the_micah_step_by_a_royal_reading).

theorem critical_does_not_defeat_micah : ¬Defeats criticalDenial micahParity
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

Why these are not counters

The two absences above are computed; the readings below say why.

laterOraclesReading

The critic's world, with Isaiah 9 and 11 taken off the Assyrian timeline of 7:14 — the way out of the parity argument open to a reader who dates them later. Postell's step holds in it, because one of its grounds fails. On the Septuagint's παρθένος the critic sides with Wegner, as Walton cites Brown for the word's broader sense (Walton 293 n. 15).

def laterOraclesReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.maternalSilenceImpliesNoHumanFather => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | Claim.parthenosMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.isaiahPredictsVirginBirth => False
    | Claim.isaiah9And11ShareTheAssyrianTimeline => False
    | Claim.lawsUseParthenosAsVirgin => False
    | Claim.dinahIsTheLawsParthenos => False
    | Claim.lxxIsaiahUsesParthenosAsVirgin => False
    | x => True

critic_grants_postells_step_by_dating_the_oracles_later

The critic can grant Postell's step, by dating Isaiah 9 and 11 later than 7:14: then the parity step has a ground that fails, and the critic holds it without giving up the exclusion.

theorem critic_grants_postells_step_by_dating_the_oracles_later : Grants
    criticalDenial parityDefeatsNearTermExclusion
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

royalMicahReading

The critic's world, with Micah 5:2 read of a near-term Davidic king and not messianically. The Micah step holds in it, because one of its grounds fails. As in laterOraclesReading, the critic sides with Wegner on παρθένος.

def royalMicahReading : Valuation Claim :=
  fun a =>
    match a with
    | Claim.maternalSilenceImpliesNoHumanFather => False
    | Claim.magisteriumIsDoctrinallyAuthoritative => False
    | Claim.parthenosMeansVirgin => False
    | Claim.isaiahPredictsVirginBirth => False
    | Claim.micahRulerReadMessianically => False
    | Claim.lawsUseParthenosAsVirgin => False
    | Claim.dinahIsTheLawsParthenos => False
    | Claim.lxxIsaiahUsesParthenosAsVirgin => False
    | x => True

critic_grants_the_micah_step_by_a_royal_reading

The critic can grant the Micah step, by reading Micah 5:2 of a near-term Davidic king rather than messianically.

theorem critic_grants_the_micah_step_by_a_royal_reading : Grants
    criticalDenial micahParityDefeatsNearTermExclusion
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

The dispute

partyNode

The package each party argues from.

def partyNode : Party → ArgumentPackage Claim :=
  fun x =>
    match x with
    | Party.scriptural => christian
    | Party.critical => criticalDenial
    | Party.berry => berryObjection
    | Party.postell => postellParity
    | Party.motyer => motyerReply
    | Party.micah => micahParity

isaiahDispute

The dispute over Isaiah 7:14: every party's premises have a model, every party establishes its conclusion, and every party's inferences are rated.

def isaiahDispute : Dispute Claim Party :=
  { node := partyNode,
    consistent := isaiahDispute._proof_1,
    sound := isaiahDispute._proof_2,
    rated := isaiahDispute._proof_9 }

replies_stand_with_the_scriptural_reading

The scriptural reading and all four replies stand together, in the world Motyer describes: none of the five defeats another. One fact, settling twenty ordered pairs.

theorem replies_stand_with_the_scriptural_reading :
    isaiahDispute.StandTogether [Party.scriptural, Party.berry, Party.postell,
    Party.motyer, Party.micah]
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

partyDefeats

The defeats of the dispute, as a table.

def partyDefeats : Party → Party → Prop :=
  fun x x_1 =>
    match x, x_1 with
    | Party.critical, Party.scriptural => True
    | Party.scriptural, Party.critical => True
    | Party.berry, Party.critical => True
    | Party.postell, Party.critical => True
    | Party.motyer, Party.critical => True
    | Party.micah, Party.critical => True
    | Party.critical, Party.berry => True
    | Party.critical, Party.motyer => True
    | x, x_2 => False

instDecidableRelPartyPartyDefeats

The table is finite, so membership in it is decidable.

def instDecidableRelPartyPartyDefeats : DecidableRel partyDefeats

partyStrength

Each party's weakest link.

def partyStrength : Party → ℕ :=
  fun x =>
    match x with
    | Party.postell => 1
    | Party.micah => 1
    | x => 0

partyNode_strength

Each party's strength is what partyStrength says.

theorem partyNode_strength : ∀ (i : Party), (partyNode i).strength =
    partyStrength i
-- axioms: propext

isaiahDispute_defeats

Who defeats whom, all thirty-six pairs: the critic and the scriptural reading defeat each other; each reply defeats the critic; the critic defeats Berry and Motyer back, but neither of Postell's counterexamples; nothing else.

Every cell is computed from the parties' premises by Horn.defeats? and checked by the kernel; the table is what the computation is checked against.

theorem isaiahDispute_defeats : ∀ (i j : Party), isaiahDispute.defeats i j ↔
    partyDefeats i j
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

isaiahFinite

The dispute in the form the verdict solver computes with.

def isaiahFinite : Solver.Finite isaiahDispute.defeats :=
  {
    parties :=
      [Party.scriptural, Party.critical,
        Party.berry, Party.postell,
        Party.motyer, Party.micah],
    complete := isaiahFinite._proof_1,
    defeats := fun i j => decide (partyDefeats i j),
    spec := isaiahFinite._proof_2 }

isaiahDispute_supports

Nothing supports anything in the Isaiah dispute, in all thirty-six pairs: no party's conclusion entails a claim another rests on. Several conclusions do entail other parties' inference steps — Berry's and Postell's entail each other's, by entailing the step's own conclusion, and the replies entail the critic's, vacuously — but a step is not a claim, and neither kind of entailment lends a premise (see Testimony.Logic.Support). Every cell is computed by supports? and checked by the kernel.

theorem isaiahDispute_supports : ∀ (i j : Party), ¬isaiahDispute.supports i j
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

isaiahDispute_partOf

No case is part of another's here, in all thirty-six pairs, except each party's own. Every cell is computed by partOf? and checked by the kernel.

theorem isaiahDispute_partOf : ∀ (i j : Party), isaiahDispute.partOf i j ↔ i =
    j
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

isaiahMap

The dispute drawn: who defeats whom.

Solid red: defeats. Dashed green: supports. Dotted blue: one party's case is part of another's.

The defeats are the cells of isaiahDispute_defeats, the supports the cells of isaiahDispute_supports and the parts the cells of isaiahDispute_partOf, each computed from the parties' premises and checked by the kernel. The attacks derived through support and through parts are reported, not counted: every verdict is computed from the defeats alone. Every derived attack is already a defeat.

repliesHeardInStages

How the scriptural reading prevails, in stages: nothing attacks Postell's two counterexamples, so they come first; they answer the critic, the only party that attacks the scriptural reading, Berry and Motyer, so those three come next. And the critic does not join them: the scriptural reading attacks it, and nothing among the five answers the scriptural reading.

What the dispute forces is exactly Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion, Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion, Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion, Motyer's reply to the near-term reading.

• Stage 1: Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion, Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion.
  • Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion is defeated by nothing.
  • Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion is defeated by nothing.
• Stage 2: Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion, Motyer's reply to the near-term reading.
  • Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, and Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14.
  • Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion, and Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14.
  • Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Motyer's reply to the near-term reading, and Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14.
• Nothing else is forced:
  • Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3 defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14, and nothing forced defeats Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3.

What this rests on. The reasons state 5 defeats and 27 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, isaiahDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a Messianic prediction of a virgin birth — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 123; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 12–14; justin-dialogue-with-trypho-160, §66; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.21.6; origen-against-celsus-248, §I.35
  • עַלְמָה in Isaiah 7:14 denotes a virgin, not merely a young woman — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; bhs-1997, app. Isa 7:14; berry-virgin-birth-2003, pp. 1653–1654; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 125; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 7–8; jerome-against-jovinianus-393, §I.32
  • Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium, the first promise of a redeemer — leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 167; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 102; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; lewis-womans-seed-1991, p. 318
  • The matrilineal wording of Genesis 3:15 marks a birth with no human father — luther-on-the-creation-1904, pp. 298–299; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15
  • Micah's mention of a mother and no father indicates a birth with no human father — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • An oracle's meaning in the finished book is set by its literary placement — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 483–486
  • Read compositionally, Isaiah 7:14 anticipates a future, miraculous birth — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • Mary conceived Jesus while a virgin — Matt 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; brown-problem-virginal-conception-1972, pp. 30–33
  • an inference step — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14
  • an inference step — miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014
  • an inference step — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • an inference step — france-matthew-2007, ad loc. Matt 1:23
• Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion, weakest at plausible:
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 487–489
• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation — brown-birth-messiah-1993
  • A sign given for Ahaz's generation is not also a prediction of a virgin birth — brown-birth-messiah-1993
• Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — berry-virgin-birth-2003, pp. 1653–1654; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, p. 5
• Motyer's reply to the near-term reading, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — motyer-context-content-1970, p. 124; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, p. 5
• Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion, weakest at plausible:
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 481

scriptural_reading_prevails_once_replies_are_heard

Heard out, the scriptural reading prevails. Nothing defeats either of Postell's counterexamples, so both are in the grounded extension from the first step. They defeat the critic — the only party that defeats the scriptural reading, Berry or Motyer — so at the second step all three join them; and nothing defends the critic.

theorem scriptural_reading_prevails_once_replies_are_heard :
    Framework.grounded isaiahDispute.defeats = {Party.scriptural, Party.berry,
    Party.postell, Party.motyer, Party.micah}
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

criticAnsweredByPostell

Why the critical denial cannot be defended: Postell attacks it, and nothing answers Postell.

Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 cannot be defended: no admissible position holds it.

• Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14, and nothing defeats Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion.

What this rests on. The reasons state 1 defeat and 6 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, isaiahDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• Postell's parity argument against the near-term exclusion, weakest at plausible:
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 487–489
• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation — brown-birth-messiah-1993
  • A sign given for Ahaz's generation is not also a prediction of a virgin birth — brown-birth-messiah-1993
• Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a Messianic prediction of a virgin birth — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 123; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 12–14; justin-dialogue-with-trypho-160, §66; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.21.6; origen-against-celsus-248, §I.35
  • עַלְמָה in Isaiah 7:14 denotes a virgin, not merely a young woman — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; bhs-1997, app. Isa 7:14; berry-virgin-birth-2003, pp. 1653–1654; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 125; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 7–8; jerome-against-jovinianus-393, §I.32
  • Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium, the first promise of a redeemer — leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 167; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 102; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; lewis-womans-seed-1991, p. 318
  • The matrilineal wording of Genesis 3:15 marks a birth with no human father — luther-on-the-creation-1904, pp. 298–299; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15
  • Micah's mention of a mother and no father indicates a birth with no human father — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • An oracle's meaning in the finished book is set by its literary placement — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 483–486
  • Read compositionally, Isaiah 7:14 anticipates a future, miraculous birth — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • Mary conceived Jesus while a virgin — Matt 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; brown-problem-virginal-conception-1972, pp. 30–33
  • an inference step — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14
  • an inference step — miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014
  • an inference step — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • an inference step — france-matthew-2007, ad loc. Matt 1:23
• Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — berry-virgin-birth-2003, pp. 1653–1654; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, p. 5
• Motyer's reply to the near-term reading, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — motyer-context-content-1970, p. 124; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, p. 5
• Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion, weakest at plausible:
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 481

critical_denial_indefensible

The critical denial cannot be defended. No admissible set contains it: Postell defeats it, and nothing defeats Postell.

theorem critical_denial_indefensible : ∀ (S : Set Party), Framework.Admissible
    isaiahDispute.defeats S → Party.critical ∉ S
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

scriptural_reading_skeptically_accepted

So every resolution of the dispute accepts the scriptural reading.

theorem scriptural_reading_skeptically_accepted :
    Framework.SkepticallyAccepted isaiahDispute.defeats Party.scriptural
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

critical_denial_not_credulously_accepted

And none accepts the critical denial.

theorem critical_denial_not_credulously_accepted :
    ¬Framework.CredulouslyAccepted isaiahDispute.defeats Party.critical
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

Hearings

The same dispute with some parties not heard. Each hearing is a restriction of isaiahDispute, so its defeats are the ones already proved. In each of these, every party has a defeater, and so nothing prevails.

unanswered

The scriptural reading and the critic alone.

def unanswered : Dispute Claim { i // i ∈ [Party.scriptural, Party.critical] } :=
  isaiahDispute.restrict fun x =>
    x ∈ [Party.scriptural, Party.critical]

eachDefeatsTheOther

Why nothing prevails unanswered: the two defeat each other.

Nothing prevails outright: every party is defeated by another.

• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3.
• Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3 defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14.

What this rests on. The reasons state 2 defeats and 0 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, isaiahDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation — brown-birth-messiah-1993
  • A sign given for Ahaz's generation is not also a prediction of a virgin birth — brown-birth-messiah-1993
• Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a Messianic prediction of a virgin birth — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 123; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 12–14; justin-dialogue-with-trypho-160, §66; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.21.6; origen-against-celsus-248, §I.35
  • עַלְמָה in Isaiah 7:14 denotes a virgin, not merely a young woman — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; bhs-1997, app. Isa 7:14; berry-virgin-birth-2003, pp. 1653–1654; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 125; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 7–8; jerome-against-jovinianus-393, §I.32
  • Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium, the first promise of a redeemer — leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 167; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 102; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; lewis-womans-seed-1991, p. 318
  • The matrilineal wording of Genesis 3:15 marks a birth with no human father — luther-on-the-creation-1904, pp. 298–299; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15
  • Micah's mention of a mother and no father indicates a birth with no human father — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • An oracle's meaning in the finished book is set by its literary placement — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 483–486
  • Read compositionally, Isaiah 7:14 anticipates a future, miraculous birth — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • Mary conceived Jesus while a virgin — Matt 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; brown-problem-virginal-conception-1972, pp. 30–33
  • an inference step — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14
  • an inference step — miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014
  • an inference step — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • an inference step — france-matthew-2007, ad loc. Matt 1:23

nothing_prevails_unanswered

Unanswered, nothing prevails. The scriptural reading and the critical denial defeat each other, so neither is forced, and the grounded extension is empty.

theorem nothing_prevails_unanswered : Framework.grounded unanswered.defeats =
    ∅
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

motyerAlone

The scriptural reading, the critic, and Motyer.

def motyerAlone : Dispute Claim { i // i ∈ [Party.scriptural, Party.critical,
    Party.motyer] } :=
  isaiahDispute.restrict fun x =>
    x ∈
      [Party.scriptural, Party.critical,
        Party.motyer]

motyerTiesWithTheCritic

Why Motyer alone does not settle it: a defeater for each of the three.

Nothing prevails outright: every party is defeated by another.

• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3.
• Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3 defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14.
• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Motyer's reply to the near-term reading.

What this rests on. The reasons state 3 defeats and 0 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, isaiahDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation — brown-birth-messiah-1993
  • A sign given for Ahaz's generation is not also a prediction of a virgin birth — brown-birth-messiah-1993
• Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a Messianic prediction of a virgin birth — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 123; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 12–14; justin-dialogue-with-trypho-160, §66; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.21.6; origen-against-celsus-248, §I.35
  • עַלְמָה in Isaiah 7:14 denotes a virgin, not merely a young woman — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; bhs-1997, app. Isa 7:14; berry-virgin-birth-2003, pp. 1653–1654; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 125; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 7–8; jerome-against-jovinianus-393, §I.32
  • Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium, the first promise of a redeemer — leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 167; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 102; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; lewis-womans-seed-1991, p. 318
  • The matrilineal wording of Genesis 3:15 marks a birth with no human father — luther-on-the-creation-1904, pp. 298–299; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15
  • Micah's mention of a mother and no father indicates a birth with no human father — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • An oracle's meaning in the finished book is set by its literary placement — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 483–486
  • Read compositionally, Isaiah 7:14 anticipates a future, miraculous birth — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • Mary conceived Jesus while a virgin — Matt 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; brown-problem-virginal-conception-1972, pp. 30–33
  • an inference step — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14
  • an inference step — miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014
  • an inference step — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • an inference step — france-matthew-2007, ad loc. Matt 1:23
• Motyer's reply to the near-term reading, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — motyer-context-content-1970, p. 124; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, p. 5

nothing_prevails_on_motyer_alone

Motyer alone does not settle it. He and the critic defeat each other, as the scriptural reading and the critic do, so nothing is forced. His inference is contested as the critic's premises are, and a contested reply cannot carry the verdict alone.

theorem nothing_prevails_on_motyer_alone : Framework.grounded
    motyerAlone.defeats = ∅
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

withoutPostell

Every party but Postell's Isaiah counterexample.

def withoutPostell : Dispute Claim { i // i ≠ Party.postell } :=
  isaiahDispute.restrict fun x => x ≠ Party.postell

micahCarriesTheVerdict

How the scriptural reading prevails without Postell's Isaiah argument, in stages: the Micah counterexample first, then the three it defends.

Grounded: Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion, Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion, Motyer's reply to the near-term reading.

• Stage 1: Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion.
  • Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion is defeated by nothing.
• Stage 2: Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion, Motyer's reply to the near-term reading.
  • Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, and Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14.
  • Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion, and Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14.
  • Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Motyer's reply to the near-term reading, and Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14.

What this rests on. The reasons state 4 defeats and 17 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, isaiahDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a Messianic prediction of a virgin birth — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 123; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 12–14; justin-dialogue-with-trypho-160, §66; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.21.6; origen-against-celsus-248, §I.35
  • עַלְמָה in Isaiah 7:14 denotes a virgin, not merely a young woman — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; bhs-1997, app. Isa 7:14; berry-virgin-birth-2003, pp. 1653–1654; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 125; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 7–8; jerome-against-jovinianus-393, §I.32
  • Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium, the first promise of a redeemer — leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 167; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 102; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; lewis-womans-seed-1991, p. 318
  • The matrilineal wording of Genesis 3:15 marks a birth with no human father — luther-on-the-creation-1904, pp. 298–299; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15
  • Micah's mention of a mother and no father indicates a birth with no human father — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • An oracle's meaning in the finished book is set by its literary placement — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 483–486
  • Read compositionally, Isaiah 7:14 anticipates a future, miraculous birth — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • Mary conceived Jesus while a virgin — Matt 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; brown-problem-virginal-conception-1972, pp. 30–33
  • an inference step — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14
  • an inference step — miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014
  • an inference step — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • an inference step — france-matthew-2007, ad loc. Matt 1:23
• Postell's Micah counterexample to the near-term exclusion, weakest at plausible:
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 481
• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation — brown-birth-messiah-1993
  • A sign given for Ahaz's generation is not also a prediction of a virgin birth — brown-birth-messiah-1993
• Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — berry-virgin-birth-2003, pp. 1653–1654; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, p. 5
• Motyer's reply to the near-term reading, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — motyer-context-content-1970, p. 124; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, p. 5

scriptural_reading_prevails_without_postell

Without Postell's Isaiah argument, the scriptural reading still prevails. His Micah counterexample is defeated by nothing, and it defends the scriptural reading against the critic, as the Isaiah argument did. An attack on the grounds of either counterexample leaves the verdict standing.

theorem scriptural_reading_prevails_without_postell : ⟨Party.scriptural, ⋯⟩ ∈
    Framework.grounded withoutPostell.defeats
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

withoutParity

Every party but the two counterexamples.

def withoutParity : Dispute Claim { i // i ∉ [Party.postell, Party.micah] } :=
  isaiahDispute.restrict fun x =>
    x ∉ [Party.postell, Party.micah]

everyReplyTiesWithTheCritic

Why nothing prevails without the counterexamples: the critic defeats every reply it faces, and the replies defeat it.

Nothing prevails outright: every party is defeated by another.

• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3.
• Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3 defeats Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14.
• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion.
• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14 defeats Motyer's reply to the near-term reading.

What this rests on. The reasons state 4 defeats and 0 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, isaiahDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• Critical denial of the predictive reading of Isaiah 7:14, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation — brown-birth-messiah-1993
  • A sign given for Ahaz's generation is not also a prediction of a virgin birth — brown-birth-messiah-1993
• Scriptural reading of Isaiah 7:14, Genesis 3:15 and Micah 5:2–3, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a Messianic prediction of a virgin birth — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 123; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 12–14; justin-dialogue-with-trypho-160, §66; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.21.6; origen-against-celsus-248, §I.35
  • עַלְמָה in Isaiah 7:14 denotes a virgin, not merely a young woman — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14; bhs-1997, app. Isa 7:14; berry-virgin-birth-2003, pp. 1653–1654; motyer-context-content-1970, p. 125; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, pp. 7–8; jerome-against-jovinianus-393, §I.32
  • Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium, the first promise of a redeemer — leupold-exposition-genesis-1942, p. 167; keil-delitzsch-pentateuch-1866, p. 102; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; lewis-womans-seed-1991, p. 318
  • The matrilineal wording of Genesis 3:15 marks a birth with no human father — luther-on-the-creation-1904, pp. 298–299; miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014; henry-commentary-whole-bible, ad loc. Gen 3:15
  • Micah's mention of a mother and no father indicates a birth with no human father — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • An oracle's meaning in the finished book is set by its literary placement — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 483–486
  • Read compositionally, Isaiah 7:14 anticipates a future, miraculous birth — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • Mary conceived Jesus while a virgin — Matt 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; brown-problem-virginal-conception-1972, pp. 30–33
  • an inference step — motyer-isaiah-1993, ad loc. Isa 7:14
  • an inference step — miravalle-meet-your-mother-2014
  • an inference step — miravalle-introduction-mary-2020
  • an inference step — postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, pp. 490–493
  • an inference step — france-matthew-2007, ad loc. Matt 1:23
• Berry's objection to the near-term exclusion, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — berry-virgin-birth-2003, pp. 1653–1654; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, p. 5
• Motyer's reply to the near-term reading, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — motyer-context-content-1970, p. 124; compton-immanuel-prophecy-2007, p. 5

nothing_prevails_without_the_counterexamples

Without the counterexamples, nothing prevails. Berry and Motyer each tie with the critic, as the scriptural reading does, so every party is defeated by someone. The verdict rests on the one kind of reply the critic cannot answer — an oracle on the Assyrian timeline, read messianically — and so on the rating of that inference.

theorem nothing_prevails_without_the_counterexamples : Framework.grounded
    withoutParity.defeats = ∅
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Dispute.Wegner — who prevails over Wegner's objection

The sign argument attacks Wegner's objection, not the critical denial of the predictive reading, so it belongs to a dispute of its own rather than to isaiahDispute. Three positions meet here: Wegner's objection at full strength, the fathers' sign argument against its ordinary pregnancy, and the near-term reply that a sign need not be a miracle.

As in Dispute.lean, who defeats whom is proved, not stipulated:

• The sign argument defeats Wegner. It entails the negation of his premise that the pregnancy is an ordinary one, cited disputed.
• Wegner defeats the sign argument back. He holds that premise, and so concludes the opposite of the fathers; and each side's weakest link is disputed.
• The reply defeats the sign argument, by entailing the negation of its premise that the sign must be extraordinary, also cited disputed.
• The sign argument defeats the reply back, for the same reason Wegner defeats it: it holds the premise the reply denies, and the reply's inference is disputed.
• Wegner and the reply do not attack each other. They stand together in Wegner's own world, and Wegner is cited for both.

What follows

Nothing prevails. Every party is defeated by someone, so the grounded extension is empty (nothing_prevails_over_wegner). It can be resolved two ways, and each is proved to be a preferred extension: the fathers alone (sign_is_one_resolution), or Wegner with the near-term reply (wegner_is_the_other_resolution). Each side is defensible and neither is forced. Hear only Wegner and the fathers and it is the same (nothing_prevails_without_the_reply): the reply is not what holds the fathers back. Wegner's rebuttal is, because the fathers' weakest link is no stronger than his.

What the ratings decide

Every party's weakest link is disputed, so every attack succeeds and the dispute ties. Two ratings would break the tie, and they break it in opposite directions.

The fathers' ground, signMustBeExtraordinary. It is disputed because Wegner and Rhodea contest it. Rated plausible, it would make the sign argument stronger than both rivals, since its other ground is consensus and its inference plausible. Wegner's rebuttal and the reply's undermining would then both fail. Nothing would defeat the fathers, and the fathers would defeat Wegner outright.

The reply's inference. It is disputed because Rydelnik grants both of its grounds and denies what it concludes (reply_rests_on_its_inference). Rated plausible, it would make the reply stronger than the fathers, whose rebuttal would then fail. The reply would stand unanswered, and it would defend Wegner against the only party that defeats him.

So the question this dispute cannot settle is the one the sources divide on: whether the sign of 7:14 must be the kind of sign offered at 7:11. Neither the age of the fathers' argument nor its modern restatement changes that rating, for the reason Dispute.lean gives: an older witness does not make a contested claim uncontested.

The sign argument and the reply as positions

signArgument_establishes

The fathers' sign argument delivers its conclusion.

theorem signArgument_establishes : Establishes signArgument
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

signArgument_is_satisfiable

The fathers' sign argument has a model: Rydelnik's reading, in which the virgin is pregnant and the sign is as deep as Sheol.

theorem signArgument_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable signArgument.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

ordinarySignReply_establishes

The near-term reply delivers its conclusion.

theorem ordinarySignReply_establishes : Establishes ordinarySignReply
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

ordinarySignReply_is_satisfiable

The near-term reply has a model: the near-term reading of the sign.

theorem ordinarySignReply_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable
    ordinarySignReply.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

reply_rests_on_its_inference

The reply rests on its inference, not on its observations. On Rydelnik's reading Isaiah's children are signs, 7:16 dates the deliverance by a child's infancy, and the sign of 7:14 is extraordinary all the same. The two grounds do not decide the question; the step does, and that is why it is rated disputed.

theorem reply_rests_on_its_inference : ¬Entails ordinarySignLine.grounds (notP
    Claim.signMustBeExtraordinary)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

Strength

wegnerLexical_strength

Wegner is no stronger than his contested grounds: the ordinary pregnancy, the near-term setting and the referent principle, each cited disputed.

theorem wegnerLexical_strength : wegnerLexical.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

signArgument_strength

The fathers' second ground is consensus and their inference plausible, but their first ground is disputed, and they are no stronger than it.

theorem signArgument_strength : signArgument.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

ordinarySignReply_strength

The reply's grounds are consensus, but its inference is disputed.

theorem ordinarySignReply_strength : ordinarySignReply.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

The defeats

sign_defeats_wegner

The sign argument defeats Wegner. It entails the negation of his premise that the pregnancy is an ordinary one, which, cited disputed, does not outrank it.

theorem sign_defeats_wegner : Defeats signArgument wegnerLexical
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

wegner_defeats_sign

Wegner defeats the sign argument back. He holds the premise it denies, so he rebuts it, and it is no stronger than he is.

theorem wegner_defeats_sign : Defeats wegnerLexical signArgument
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

reply_defeats_sign

The reply defeats the sign argument. It entails the negation of the fathers' premise that the sign must be extraordinary, cited disputed.

theorem reply_defeats_sign : Defeats ordinarySignReply signArgument
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

sign_defeats_reply

The sign argument defeats the reply back. It holds the premise the reply denies, and the reply's inference is contested as that premise is.

theorem sign_defeats_reply : Defeats signArgument ordinarySignReply
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

The dispute

wegnerPartyNode

The package each party argues from.

def wegnerPartyNode : WegnerParty → ArgumentPackage Claim :=
  fun x =>
    match x with
    | WegnerParty.wegner => wegnerLexical
    | WegnerParty.sign => signArgument
    | WegnerParty.reply => ordinarySignReply

wegnerDispute

The dispute over Wegner's objection: every party's premises have a model, every party establishes its conclusion, and every party's inferences are rated.

def wegnerDispute : Dispute Claim WegnerParty :=
  { node := wegnerPartyNode,
    consistent := wegnerDispute._proof_1,
    sound := wegnerDispute._proof_2,
    rated := wegnerDispute._proof_6 }

wegner_stands_with_the_reply

Wegner and the near-term reply stand together, in Wegner's own world: the word does not denote a virgin, and the sign need not be a miracle.

theorem wegner_stands_with_the_reply : wegnerDispute.StandTogether
    [WegnerParty.wegner, WegnerParty.reply]
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

wegnerPartyDefeats

The defeats of the dispute, as a table.

def wegnerPartyDefeats : WegnerParty → WegnerParty → Prop :=
  fun x x_1 =>
    match x, x_1 with
    | WegnerParty.sign, WegnerParty.wegner => True
    | WegnerParty.wegner, WegnerParty.sign => True
    | WegnerParty.reply, WegnerParty.sign => True
    | WegnerParty.sign, WegnerParty.reply => True
    | x, x_2 => False

instDecidableRelWegnerPartyWegnerPartyDefeats

The table is finite, so membership in it is decidable.

def instDecidableRelWegnerPartyWegnerPartyDefeats : DecidableRel
    wegnerPartyDefeats

wegnerPartyNode_strength

Every party's weakest link ranks at the bottom.

theorem wegnerPartyNode_strength : ∀ (i : WegnerParty), (wegnerPartyNode
    i).strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

wegnerDispute_defeats

Who defeats whom, all nine pairs: the fathers and Wegner defeat each other, the fathers and the reply defeat each other, and nothing else. Every cell is computed from the parties' premises by Horn.defeats? and checked by the kernel.

theorem wegnerDispute_defeats : ∀ (i j : WegnerParty), wegnerDispute.defeats i
    j ↔ wegnerPartyDefeats i j
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

wegnerFinite

The dispute in the form the verdict solver computes with.

def wegnerFinite : Solver.Finite wegnerDispute.defeats :=
  {
    parties :=
      [WegnerParty.wegner, WegnerParty.sign,
        WegnerParty.reply],
    complete := wegnerFinite._proof_1,
    defeats := fun i j => decide (wegnerPartyDefeats i j),
    spec := wegnerFinite._proof_2 }

wegnerDispute_supports

Nothing supports anything among Wegner, the fathers and the reply, in all nine pairs. Every cell is computed by supports? and checked by the kernel.

theorem wegnerDispute_supports : ∀ (i j : WegnerParty),
    ¬wegnerDispute.supports i j
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

wegnerDispute_partOf

No case is part of another's here, in all nine pairs, except each party's own. Every cell is computed by partOf? and checked by the kernel.

theorem wegnerDispute_partOf : ∀ (i j : WegnerParty), wegnerDispute.partOf i j
    ↔ i = j
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

wegnerMap

The dispute drawn: who defeats whom.

Solid red: defeats. Dashed green: supports. Dotted blue: one party's case is part of another's.

The defeats are the cells of wegnerDispute_defeats, the supports the cells of wegnerDispute_supports and the parts the cells of wegnerDispute_partOf, each computed from the parties' premises and checked by the kernel. The attacks derived through support and through parts are reported, not counted: every verdict is computed from the defeats alone. Every derived attack is already a defeat.

everyWegnerPartyDefeated

Why nothing prevails: a defeater for each party.

Nothing prevails outright: every party is defeated by another.

• The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) defeats Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant.
• Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant defeats The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14).
• The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) defeats The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle.

What this rests on. The reasons state 3 defeats and 0 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, wegnerDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14), weakest at disputed:
  • The sign of Isaiah 7:14 must be extraordinary, like the sign offered at 7:11 — origen-against-celsus-248, §I.35; justin-dialogue-with-trypho-160, §84; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.21.6; tertullian-answer-to-the-jews-200, §9; eusebius-demonstratio-evangelica-315, §VII.1; cyril-jerusalem-catechetical-lectures-350, §12.22; chrysostom-homilies-matthew-390, §5; jerome-commentary-isaiah-410, ad loc. Isa 7:14; cyril-alexandria-commentary-isaiah, ad loc. Isa 7:14; theodoret-commentary-isaiah, ad loc. Isa 7:14; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474; Isa 7:10-11
• Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation — brown-birth-messiah-1993
  • The pregnancy Isaiah 7:14 announces is an ordinary conception — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 476–478; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474
  • What the עַלְמָה of Isaiah 7:14 turns out to be settles what the word denotes — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 471–472; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 468; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, p. 152
• The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, pp. 64–65; wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 469–470; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474

nothing_prevails_over_wegner

Nothing prevails. Every party is defeated by someone — Wegner and the reply by the fathers, the fathers by both — so nothing is forced, and the grounded extension is empty.

theorem nothing_prevails_over_wegner : Framework.grounded
    wegnerDispute.defeats = ∅
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

fathersAlone

Why the fathers alone are one resolution.

A maximal defensible position: The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14).

• The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) does not defeat itself, and answers each attack on it:
  • Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant defeats The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14), and The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) defeats Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant.
  • The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle defeats The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14), and The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) defeats The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle.
• Nothing can be added to it:
  • Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant conflicts with The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14): Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant defeats The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14), and The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) defeats Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant.
  • The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle conflicts with The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14): The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle defeats The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14), and The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) defeats The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle.

What this rests on. The reasons state 4 defeats and 1 absence of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, wegnerDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14), weakest at disputed:
  • The sign of Isaiah 7:14 must be extraordinary, like the sign offered at 7:11 — origen-against-celsus-248, §I.35; justin-dialogue-with-trypho-160, §84; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.21.6; tertullian-answer-to-the-jews-200, §9; eusebius-demonstratio-evangelica-315, §VII.1; cyril-jerusalem-catechetical-lectures-350, §12.22; chrysostom-homilies-matthew-390, §5; jerome-commentary-isaiah-410, ad loc. Isa 7:14; cyril-alexandria-commentary-isaiah, ad loc. Isa 7:14; theodoret-commentary-isaiah, ad loc. Isa 7:14; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474; Isa 7:10-11
• Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation — brown-birth-messiah-1993
  • The pregnancy Isaiah 7:14 announces is an ordinary conception — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 476–478; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474
  • What the עַלְמָה of Isaiah 7:14 turns out to be settles what the word denotes — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 471–472; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 468; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, p. 152
• The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, pp. 64–65; wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 469–470; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474

sign_is_one_resolution

One resolution: the fathers. The sign argument alone is admissible — it defeats both of its defeaters — and it is in conflict with both of the other parties, so no larger set is.

theorem sign_is_one_resolution : Framework.Preferred wegnerDispute.defeats
    {WegnerParty.sign}
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

wegnerWithTheReply

Why Wegner with the reply is the other resolution.

A maximal defensible position: Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant, The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle.

• None of Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant, The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle defeats another, and each attack on them is answered from among them:
  • The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) defeats Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant, and Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant defeats The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14).
  • The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) defeats The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle, and Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant defeats The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14).
• Nothing can be added to it:
  • The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) conflicts with Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant: The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) defeats Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant, and Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant defeats The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14).

What this rests on. The reasons state 3 defeats and 4 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, wegnerDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation — brown-birth-messiah-1993
  • The pregnancy Isaiah 7:14 announces is an ordinary conception — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 476–478; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474
  • What the עַלְמָה of Isaiah 7:14 turns out to be settles what the word denotes — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 471–472; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 468; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, p. 152
• The near-term reply: a sign need not be a miracle, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, pp. 64–65; wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 469–470; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474
• The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14), weakest at disputed:
  • The sign of Isaiah 7:14 must be extraordinary, like the sign offered at 7:11 — origen-against-celsus-248, §I.35; justin-dialogue-with-trypho-160, §84; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.21.6; tertullian-answer-to-the-jews-200, §9; eusebius-demonstratio-evangelica-315, §VII.1; cyril-jerusalem-catechetical-lectures-350, §12.22; chrysostom-homilies-matthew-390, §5; jerome-commentary-isaiah-410, ad loc. Isa 7:14; cyril-alexandria-commentary-isaiah, ad loc. Isa 7:14; theodoret-commentary-isaiah, ad loc. Isa 7:14; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474; Isa 7:10-11

wegner_is_the_other_resolution

The other resolution: Wegner, with the near-term reply. Neither defeats the other, and between them they answer the fathers, who are the only party to defeat either. The fathers are in conflict with both, so no larger set is admissible.

theorem wegner_is_the_other_resolution : Framework.Preferred
    wegnerDispute.defeats {WegnerParty.wegner, WegnerParty.reply}
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

sign_not_skeptically_accepted

So the dispute does not force the fathers' reading.

theorem sign_not_skeptically_accepted : ¬Framework.SkepticallyAccepted
    wegnerDispute.defeats WegnerParty.sign
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

wegner_not_skeptically_accepted

Nor does it force Wegner's.

theorem wegner_not_skeptically_accepted : ¬Framework.SkepticallyAccepted
    wegnerDispute.defeats WegnerParty.wegner
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

A hearing without the reply

signAgainstWegner

Wegner and the fathers alone.

def signAgainstWegner : Dispute Claim { i // i ∈ [WegnerParty.wegner,
    WegnerParty.sign] } :=
  wegnerDispute.restrict fun x =>
    x ∈ [WegnerParty.wegner, WegnerParty.sign]

wegnerAndTheFathersTie

Why nothing prevails without the reply: Wegner and the fathers defeat each other.

Nothing prevails outright: every party is defeated by another.

• The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14) defeats Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant.
• Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant defeats The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14).

What this rests on. The reasons state 2 defeats and 0 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, wegnerDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• The fathers' sign argument (Isaiah 7:11, 14), weakest at disputed:
  • The sign of Isaiah 7:14 must be extraordinary, like the sign offered at 7:11 — origen-against-celsus-248, §I.35; justin-dialogue-with-trypho-160, §84; irenaeus-against-heresies-180, §III.21.6; tertullian-answer-to-the-jews-200, §9; eusebius-demonstratio-evangelica-315, §VII.1; cyril-jerusalem-catechetical-lectures-350, §12.22; chrysostom-homilies-matthew-390, §5; jerome-commentary-isaiah-410, ad loc. Isa 7:14; cyril-alexandria-commentary-isaiah, ad loc. Isa 7:14; theodoret-commentary-isaiah, ad loc. Isa 7:14; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474; Isa 7:10-11
• Wegner's grammatical objection: the עַלְמָה is already pregnant, weakest at disputed:
  • Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term sign to Ahaz, fulfilled in Isaiah's generation — brown-birth-messiah-1993
  • The pregnancy Isaiah 7:14 announces is an ordinary conception — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 476–478; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 474
  • What the עַלְמָה of Isaiah 7:14 turns out to be settles what the word denotes — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 471–472; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 468; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, p. 152

nothing_prevails_without_the_reply

Without the reply, nothing prevails either. Wegner and the fathers defeat each other, so the reply is not what keeps the fathers from prevailing: Wegner's rebuttal does, because the fathers' weakest link is no stronger than his.

theorem nothing_prevails_without_the_reply : Framework.grounded
    signAgainstWegner.defeats = ∅
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Dispute.Septuagint — what the Septuagint's word meant

Results.Septuagint shows that the Septuagint's witness rests on one claim: that παρθένος, in its translator's Greek, means a virgin. This module weighs that claim against its rival. Six positions meet:

• The Septuagint as a witness (Irenaeus): Jews translated Isaiah before Christ and wrote a word that means a virgin, so they read the woman as one.
• Wegner on παρθένος (with Rhodea and Meade): in the Septuagint's day the word meant a young woman of marriageable age, and the sense "virgin" came later. Genesis 34:3 calls Dinah a παρθένος after Shechem has lain with her.
• Rico and Gentry's case from usage: παρθένος means a virgin "whenever it appears in Semitic Koine Greek", or the Jewish objection to it — Trypho's, and the Three's νεᾶνις — would have had no point. The library adds a ground of its own, encoded with theirs: the Greek Isaiah uses the word elsewhere only for בְּתוּלָה.
• The case from the laws (Bratcher's): the Greek Pentateuch, the corpus Genesis 34:3 comes from, uses the word in two laws where virginity is the point. The high priest marries a παρθένος — "a woman in her virginity", in the Hebrew — and not a widow, a woman put away, a defiled woman or a harlot (Leviticus 21:13–14). A bride without τὰ παρθένια, the tokens of virginity, dies for playing the harlot (Deuteronomy 22:13–21).
• The status reading of Genesis 34:3: Wegner's counterexample read under the law of the seduced παρθένος. The Greek Exodus still calls the woman a man has lain with a παρθένος, and has him pay "the bride-price of virgins" (22:15–16); Genesis 34 tells Shechem's act in that law's words. So at 34:3 the word names Dinah by the standing he took from her, in the sense "virgin".
• Miller from Genesis 34:3: "In one passage, this term refers to a rape victim after she has been attacked" (Born Divine). The word is said there of a woman no longer a virgin, so it did not by itself connote virginity, and the laws' virginity is the context's. His case as the texts leave it: his other example, Joel 1:8, is struck, because the Greek reads otherwise (Dispute.Miller).

What this dispute does not decide

It is about a Greek word. It is not about the virgin birth, and not about whether Isaiah 7:14 is fulfilled in Christ. That is weighed in Dispute, where the scriptural reading prevails once the replies are heard (scriptural_reading_prevails_once_replies_are_heard) and the critical denial of the prediction belongs to no position that can be defended (critical_denial_indefensible). That shows that the case against the prediction does not survive the replies, on those premises and ratings; it does not prove the prediction. And it needs neither side's claim about παρθένος.

Nor does it weigh Matthew's own reading of the word, from his quotation of it of Mary. That is weighed in Dispute.Matthew, under each standard.

Nor is it a dispute between believers and unbelievers. Wegner and Rhodea write as evangelicals. Wegner holds that Isaiah 7:14 is used in Matthew "to refer to Mary, who was indeed a virgin", the "only virgin birth in the Bible" (483). Rhodea turns the weak sense of the word into an argument that Matthew did not invent the virginal conception to fit Isaiah: neither the Hebrew nor the Greek demands it, so Isaiah gave him no reason to (76).

What the claims say, and how they are joined

The claims about the word are claims about its senses. Rico and Gentry's, encoded, is that "virgin" is a sense of παρθένος in the Septuagint's Greek; they say more, "whenever it appears". Wegner's is that the word meant "young woman" there, and did not yet have the sense "virgin". Two senses of one word do not exclude each other, so the two claims contradict each other only through Wegner's "not yet": the library's account of what each claim means finds that they cannot both be true (TestimonyArguments.Meanings.BornOfAVirgin.joins).

The laws are joined the same way. The case from the laws concludes that the word has the sense "virgin" in two passages of the Septuagint. A sense a word has in one passage of a text is a sense it has in that text's usage as a whole (Testimony.Ontology.Usage): a definition of terms, not a reading of any text. So the laws' sense, if it holds, makes "virgin" one of the word's senses in the Septuagint's Greek. That is the claim encoded for Rico and Gentry, and the witness's ground, and it excludes Wegner's "not yet 'virgin'". It does not say which sense the translator of Isaiah used at 7:14; that move is the witness's own step. Nor does the definition count a word used of a virgin as meaning "virgin": a thousand uses of "fiancée" of virgins, Walton observes, would not make it mean "virgin" (292). The laws count only because their contexts turn on the sense.

Every party holds these joins, and each attack below is computed with them. In the names of the results, drift is Wegner's case that the word's sense shifted.

How to read the verdicts

• Defeats. One position contradicts another, and the attack survives the ratings. An attack on a premise succeeds unless that premise is rated higher than the attacker's weakest link. An attack on a conclusion, or on a claim derived on the way, succeeds unless the attacked position is the stronger of the two. A defeat that runs both ways is a standoff.
• Weakest link. A position is only as strong as its least-supported premise or step. Four parties here rest on something rated disputed, the lowest rating. The status reading rests on a step rated plausible, one above, and so it outranks Wegner.
• Prevails. Accepted however every standoff is resolved.
• A resolution. A largest set of positions, none of which defeats another, that answers every attack on its members, itself or through an ally. A position in some resolution can be defended; one left out of some resolution is not forced — which is not the same as false.

What the solver computed

Six standoffs, three with Wegner and three with Miller; one defeat of each by the status reading, which neither can return; and nothing else (septuagintDispute_defeats, all thirty-six pairs):

• Wegner and the witness. What Wegner holds denies the witness's ground that "virgin" is a sense of the word; what the witness holds denies his conclusion.
• Wegner and Rico and Gentry. Each concludes what the other's conclusion rules out.
• Wegner and the laws. The laws' sense excludes his "not yet 'virgin'", and his conclusion excludes theirs.
• The status reading defeats Wegner. Its sense "virgin" at Genesis 34:3 excludes his "not yet 'virgin'". He attacks it back, by the same exclusion, and the attack fails: he is weaker than it (drift_does_not_defeat_dinah).
• Miller and the witness, Rico and Gentry, and the laws. His thesis, that the word did not by itself connote virginity, denies each of their senses, and each of them denies it; his conclusion and the laws' contradict each other outright.
• The status reading defeats Miller. Its sense "virgin" at 34:3 excludes his premise that the noun describes Dinah as she then was, and his thesis. He attacks it back and fails, for the same reason as Wegner. Miller and Wegner do not attack each other: Wegner's claim entails Miller's thesis.

The witness, Rico and Gentry, the laws and the status reading do not attack one another. They stand together (septuagint_stands_with_the_usage). Rico and Gentry lend the witness its contested ground: their conclusion is that ground, word for word. The laws reach the same ground through the definition, so the library draws no support from them, though they lead to the same place.

The Septuagint's side prevails (septuagint_prevails_over_wegner). Nothing defeats the status reading, so it is accepted first. It defeats Wegner and Miller, the only parties that defeat the witness, Rico and Gentry or the laws, so all three are accepted with it. Neither Wegner nor Miller belongs to any position that can be defended (drift_indefensible, miller_indefensible). Miller's defeat overrules his dissent from the laws' step, so that the step stands at its cited wellSupported (Dispute.Miller); this dispute weighs the step at disputed, its floor, so the overruling does not lean on the rating it lets stand. That is a verdict on these premises and these ratings, and it turns on one of them, the status reading's step: see below.

Where the evidence lies

The tie is a tie of ratings, and the ratings count dissenters, not evidence. What each side brings is not alike, and a reader should see it.

For "virgin" as a sense of the word in the Septuagint's Greek:

• The Greek Pentateuch's own usage. Every בְּתוּלָה and בְּתוּלִים in the Hebrew Pentateuch — fifteen words in fourteen verses — has a παρθεν- word in the Greek, and its laws use the word where virginity is the point (read from Rahlfs's text and the Masoretic). Across the whole Septuagint, Bratcher counts παρθένος for בְּתוּלָה forty-five times out of fifty-two (113).
• The lexica on the laws. LSJ glosses τὰ παρθένια "signs of virginity", from Deuteronomy 22 (1339); Muraoka, "tokens of virginity" (535); LEH, "signs pertaining to virginity, virginity". LEH glosses παρθένος itself "virgin" first.
• Readers who hold the sense, whatever they make of the prophecy. Rico and Gentry; Bratcher, for whom the word "definitely means 'virgin' in the LXX" (113), though he reads 7:14 of a woman then a virgin who conceives "in the normal way" (115); and Delling, for whom the Septuagint's usage at 7:14 demands "no more than the sense of a 'woman untouched by a man up to the moment of the conception'" (as Rhodea quotes him, 67 n. 42): a virgin until then, whatever followed. Rhodea, who follows Wegner, still writes that παρθένος "more properly means 'virgin'" (67), and holds that in the Septuagint it "need not refer to a virgo intacta".

For "young woman, and not yet 'virgin'":

• Early Greek usage. Early Greek had both senses. LSJ gives "maiden, girl", "virgin, opp. γυνή", and "of unmarried women who are not virgins" (1339); BDAG gives the general use "of a young woman of marriageable age, w. or without focus on virginity" from Homer on (777), and the sense "virgin" in the New Testament and the early Christian writings. Every side grants it.
• Genesis 34:3, one verse with the word twice, which every side grants: what the Greek reads. How it is read is the status reading's question.
• Muraoka's lexicon, which glosses παρθένος "young woman", lists Genesis 34:3, "so called just after having been raped", and marks "virginity stressed (?)" in the laws of Deuteronomy 22 (535).
• Readers. Wegner, Rhodea, Meade, Davidson and Miller; Walton doubts the virgin sense, citing Brown for the word's broader sense (293 n. 15). Brown himself holds that the translator chose "a deliberate preference for understanding the young woman of Isa 7:14 as a virgin" (Birth of the Messiah 148): a claim about how the translator read the woman, not about the word.

None of this moves a rating. The solver weighs who contests a claim, not how much evidence each side brings. But it does show what the tie is: between the broader sense of early Greek, with one passage of the Septuagint, read by one side as the rule; and the Septuagint's usage at large, read by the other as the rule, with that passage the exception.

What the ratings decide

The verdict turns on the status reading's step, from the law of the seduced παρθένος and the law's words in Genesis 34 to the sense of the word at 34:3. It is rated plausible (dinahLine gives the reasons in full). No cited reader grants its grounds and denies its conclusion. Wegner, Rhodea, Meade, Rico and Gentry and Bratcher read 34:3 as said of a woman no longer a virgin, but none takes up Exodus 22:15–16 or the law's words in Genesis 34. Frymer-Kensky reads the law and the story together, as the step does, from the Hebrew (80, 91). No reader has been found who makes the status reading of the Greek. It is built here from the texts, and that is why it is rated no higher.

Rated disputed, as it was first encoded, the status reading would stand off with Wegner like the other three, nothing would prevail, and the dispute would have two resolutions: the Septuagint's side, and Wegner alone. That was computed, before the step's rating was audited. A reader of the Greek Genesis who has the law before him and still reads 34:3 of a woman no longer a virgin would bring it back. Wevers's Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis and Harl's La Genèse have not been read.

Wegner's step, from the older usage and Genesis 34:3 to the Septuagint's sense, is rated disputed, the lowest rating. Rico and Gentry, and Bratcher, grant all its grounds and deny its conclusion: to Rico and Gentry, Genesis 34:3 is "the exception that proves the rule", an archaism of the Greek Pentateuch (18, 21); to Bratcher, it is "surprising" (113). The higher ratings belong to the grounds, not the step: that early Greek used παρθένος of a young woman (well supported), that the Greek of Genesis 34:3 calls Dinah one (consensus), and that the noun there describes her as she then was (well supported). That last ground is Wegner's reading of the verse, not the text; every reader on record who takes up the verse holds it, and only the status reading denies it. Neither side's grounds say what the word meant at Isaiah 7:14.

The other three steps, Rico and Gentry's from the Jewish objection, the laws' from what the two laws read, and the witness's own ground, are each disputed, and the verdict does not need any of them raised.

• Rico and Gentry's step. It is disputed because Davidson (1899) and Meade (2013) grant the objection and read it the other way: the revisers wrote νεᾶνις against a sense Christians had put on the word, not one its translator gave it.
• The laws' step (laws_rest_on_their_inference). It is disputed on one reader. Miller grants that the laws require virgins, and holds that the virginity "has to be inferred from the context": "parthenos in the Septuagint did not by itself connote what we mean by virginity". Of what he says of the Greek, the young widow he finds at Joel 1:8 is not there in the Greek, which calls her a bride; the translators did not "consistently" use the word for עַלְמָה; and Genesis 34:3 is what the status reading reads otherwise. His point that the Greek adds "who has not known a man" where virginity matters (Genesis 24:16) translates a clause the Hebrew already has. The rating rests on him all the same. The Joel 1:8 example is struck, because the text refutes it, and his dissent still stands on Genesis 34:3, which the Greek reads as he says (Dispute.Miller).
• The witness's own ground, that "virgin" is a sense of the word, cited disputed because Wegner, Walton, Rhodea and Meade contest it.

The dissents on these steps are brief on both sides. Davidson hedges his account of the Three with a "possibly", though not his account of the word; Meade's is a blog comment revising his own earlier view. The ratings weigh none of this.

Wegner and Rico and Gentry as positions

driftObjection_establishes

Wegner on παρθένος delivers its conclusion.

theorem driftObjection_establishes : Establishes driftObjection
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

driftObjection_is_satisfiable

Wegner on παρθένος has a model: his own reading, in which the word had not yet come to mean "virgin".

theorem driftObjection_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable driftObjection.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

drift_rests_on_its_inference

Wegner on παρθένος rests on its inference. On Rico and Gentry's reading all three grounds are granted: the older Greek usage, the Greek's παρθένος at Genesis 34:3, and that the noun there describes Dinah as she then was, no longer a virgin. And the word still means a virgin in the Septuagint at large: the verse is an archaism of the Greek Pentateuch. The grounds do not decide the question; the step does, and that is why it is rated disputed.

theorem drift_rests_on_its_inference : ¬Entails driftLine.grounds (p
    Claim.parthenosMeantYoungWoman)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

usageCase_establishes

Rico and Gentry's case delivers its conclusion.

theorem usageCase_establishes : Establishes usageCase
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

usageCase_is_satisfiable

Rico and Gentry's case has a model: Justin's reading of the elders' Greek.

theorem usageCase_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable usageCase.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

usage_rests_on_its_inference

Rico and Gentry's case rests on its inference. On the reading Davidson (1899, 456) and Meade (2013) give, Trypho objects to παρθένος and the Three write νεᾶνις because by then Christians had put the sense "virgin" on the word, while in the translator's day it still meant a young woman; and the Greek Isaiah's other παρθένοι still render בְּתוּלָה. The countermodel is Wegner's reading, which allows all of this. The grounds do not decide the question; the step does, and that is why it is rated disputed.

theorem usage_rests_on_its_inference : ¬Entails usageLine.grounds (p
    Claim.parthenosMeansVirgin)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

lawsCase_establishes

The case from the laws delivers its conclusion.

theorem lawsCase_establishes : Establishes lawsCase
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

lawsCase_is_satisfiable

The case from the laws has a model: the reading Justin gives the elders' Greek, extended to the laws. "Virgin" is a sense of the word, and the laws use it so.

theorem lawsCase_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable lawsCase.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

laws_rest_on_their_inference

The case from the laws rests on its inference. The high priest's παρθένος is set against the widow and the harlot, and the bride without τὰ παρθένια dies as a harlot; and still, on Miller's reading, which Wegner's thesis requires, the word itself means a young woman there, as at Genesis 34:3. What the laws read does not decide the word's sense; the step does, and its rating is one of the four that would decide the dispute.

theorem laws_rest_on_their_inference : ¬Entails lawsLine.grounds (p
    Claim.lawsUseParthenosAsVirgin)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

dinahCase_establishes

The status reading delivers its conclusion.

theorem dinahCase_establishes : Establishes dinahCase
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

dinahCase_is_satisfiable

The status reading has a model: the reading Justin gives the elders' Greek, extended to Genesis 34. "Virgin" is a sense of the word, and Dinah is called by it.

theorem dinahCase_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable dinahCase.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

dinah_rests_on_its_inference

The status reading rests on its inference. Grant what Exodus 22:15–16 reads, and that Genesis 34 tells Shechem's act in the words of the laws: on Wegner's reading, which Rico and Gentry share for this verse, the Greek still calls Dinah a παρθένος in the older sense, "young woman", and not as the law's virgin. The texts do not decide which; the step does, and that is why it is rated disputed.

theorem dinah_rests_on_its_inference : ¬Entails dinahLine.grounds (p
    Claim.dinahIsTheLawsParthenos)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

millerCase_establishes

Miller from Genesis 34:3 delivers his conclusion.

theorem millerCase_establishes : Establishes millerCase
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

millerCase_is_satisfiable

Miller from Genesis 34:3 has a model: Wegner's reading, which takes the laws as Miller reads them, and the noun at 34:3 as said of Dinah as she then was.

theorem millerCase_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable millerCase.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

Strength

septuagintWitness_strength

The witness is no stronger than its claim about the word, cited disputed. Its step is rated plausible, and does not lower it further.

theorem septuagintWitness_strength : septuagintWitness.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

driftObjection_strength

Wegner's grounds are well supported and consensus, but his inference is disputed, on Rico and Gentry and on Bratcher.

theorem driftObjection_strength : driftObjection.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

usageCase_strength

Rico and Gentry's grounds are consensus, but their inference is disputed, on Davidson and Meade.

theorem usageCase_strength : usageCase.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

millerCase_strength

Miller's grounds are consensus, what the Greek reads, and wellSupported, his premise about the noun; but his inference is disputed, on Rico and Gentry and on Bratcher, who grant both and hold the word means "virgin".

theorem millerCase_strength : millerCase.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

lawsCase_strength

The laws' grounds are consensus, what the Greek reads, but their inference is disputed, on Miller.

theorem lawsCase_strength : lawsCase.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

dinahCase_strength

The status reading's grounds are consensus, what the texts read, and its inference is plausible: no cited reader grants the law's words in Genesis 34 and denies it, and none has been found who argues it.

theorem dinahCase_strength : dinahCase.strength = 1
-- axioms: propext

The defeats

drift_defeats_septuagint

Wegner defeats the Septuagint's witness. What he holds — his conclusion, with what it means — denies the witness's ground that παρθένος means a virgin, which, cited disputed, does not outrank him.

theorem drift_defeats_septuagint : Defeats driftObjection septuagintWitness
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

septuagint_defeats_drift

The witness defeats Wegner back, so the two stand off. It holds that the word means a virgin, which denies what Wegner concludes, and he is no stronger than it.

theorem septuagint_defeats_drift : Defeats septuagintWitness driftObjection
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

drift_defeats_usage

Wegner defeats Rico and Gentry. His conclusion denies theirs.

theorem drift_defeats_usage : Defeats driftObjection usageCase
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

usage_defeats_drift

Rico and Gentry defeat Wegner. Their conclusion denies his.

theorem usage_defeats_drift : Defeats usageCase driftObjection
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

drift_defeats_laws

Wegner defeats the case from the laws. That the word had not yet come to mean "virgin" excludes that the laws used it in that sense, because a sense the word has in one passage of the Septuagint is a sense of the Septuagint's Greek. The laws, at disputed, are no stronger than he.

theorem drift_defeats_laws : Defeats driftObjection lawsCase
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

laws_defeats_drift

The case from the laws defeats Wegner. Their sense "virgin" excludes his "not yet 'virgin'", and he is no stronger than they.

theorem laws_defeats_drift : Defeats lawsCase driftObjection
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

drift_does_not_defeat_dinah

Wegner does not defeat the status reading. That the word had not yet come to mean "virgin" excludes that Genesis 34:3 uses it in that sense, by the same definition, so he attacks it. But a rebuttal succeeds only if the attacker is no weaker than the attacked, and Wegner, whose step is disputed, is weaker than the status reading, whose step is plausible.

theorem drift_does_not_defeat_dinah : ¬Defeats driftObjection dinahCase
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

dinah_defeats_drift

The status reading defeats Wegner. Its sense "virgin" at Genesis 34:3 excludes his "not yet 'virgin'", and he is no stronger than it.

theorem dinah_defeats_drift : Defeats dinahCase driftObjection
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

The dispute

septuagintPartyNode

The package each party argues from.

def septuagintPartyNode : SeptuagintParty → ArgumentPackage Claim :=
  fun x =>
    match x with
    | SeptuagintParty.witness => septuagintWitness
    | SeptuagintParty.drift => driftObjection
    | SeptuagintParty.usage => usageCase
    | SeptuagintParty.laws => lawsCase
    | SeptuagintParty.dinah => dinahCase
    | SeptuagintParty.miller => millerCase

septuagintDispute

The dispute over the Septuagint's word: every party's premises have a model, every party establishes its conclusion, and every party's inferences are rated.

def septuagintDispute : Dispute Claim SeptuagintParty :=
  { node := septuagintPartyNode,
    consistent := septuagintDispute._proof_1,
    sound := septuagintDispute._proof_2,
    rated := septuagintDispute._proof_9 }

septuagint_stands_with_the_usage

The witness, Rico and Gentry, the laws and the status reading stand together, on the reading Justin gives the elders' Greek, extended to the Pentateuch: "virgin" is a sense of the word, the laws use it so, Genesis 34:3 names Dinah by it, and the translator read the woman of 7:14 as a virgin.

theorem septuagint_stands_with_the_usage : septuagintDispute.StandTogether
    [SeptuagintParty.witness, SeptuagintParty.usage, SeptuagintParty.laws,
    SeptuagintParty.dinah]
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

septuagintPartyDefeats

The defeats of the dispute, as a table.

def septuagintPartyDefeats : SeptuagintParty → SeptuagintParty → Prop

instDecidableRelSeptuagintPartySeptuagintPartyDefeats

The table is finite, so membership in it is decidable.

def instDecidableRelSeptuagintPartySeptuagintPartyDefeats : DecidableRel
    septuagintPartyDefeats

septuagintPartyStrength

Each party's strength, its weakest link: the bottom for every party but the status reading, one step up.

def septuagintPartyStrength : SeptuagintParty → ℕ :=
  fun x =>
    match x with
    | SeptuagintParty.dinah => 1
    | x => 0

septuagintPartyNode_strength

Each party's weakest link, as computed.

theorem septuagintPartyNode_strength : ∀ (i : SeptuagintParty),
    (septuagintPartyNode i).strength = septuagintPartyStrength i
-- axioms: propext

septuagintDispute_defeats

Who defeats whom, all thirty-six pairs: Wegner defeats the witness, Rico and Gentry and the laws, and each defeats him back; so does Miller, and each defeats him back; the status reading defeats Wegner and Miller, and neither defeats it; and nothing else. Every cell is computed from what the parties hold by Horn.defeats? and checked by the kernel.

theorem septuagintDispute_defeats : ∀ (i j : SeptuagintParty),
    septuagintDispute.defeats i j ↔ septuagintPartyDefeats i j
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

septuagintFinite

The dispute in the form the verdict solver computes with.

def septuagintFinite : Solver.Finite septuagintDispute.defeats :=
  {
    parties :=
      [SeptuagintParty.witness,
        SeptuagintParty.drift,
        SeptuagintParty.usage, SeptuagintParty.laws,
        SeptuagintParty.dinah,
        SeptuagintParty.miller],
    complete := septuagintFinite._proof_1,
    defeats := fun i j => decide (septuagintPartyDefeats i j),
    spec := septuagintFinite._proof_2 }

septuagintPartySupports

Who supports whom, as a table: Rico and Gentry lend the witness its ground.

def septuagintPartySupports : SeptuagintParty → SeptuagintParty → Prop :=
  fun x x_1 =>
    match x, x_1 with
    | SeptuagintParty.usage,
      SeptuagintParty.witness => True
    | x, x_2 => False

instDecidableRelSeptuagintPartySeptuagintPartySupports

The support table is finite, so membership in it is decidable.

def instDecidableRelSeptuagintPartySeptuagintPartySupports : DecidableRel
    septuagintPartySupports

septuagintDispute_supports

One support, in all thirty-six pairs: Rico and Gentry's conclusion is the witness's contested ground, that "virgin" is a sense of παρθένος. The library draws a support only where one party's conclusion is, word for word, another's premise. The laws and the status reading reach the witness's ground through a definition, so no support is drawn from them, though they lead to the same ground. Every cell is computed by supports? and checked by the kernel.

theorem septuagintDispute_supports : ∀ (i j : SeptuagintParty),
    septuagintDispute.supports i j ↔ septuagintPartySupports i j
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

septuagintDispute_partOf

No case is part of another's here, in all thirty-six pairs, except each party's own. Every cell is computed by partOf? and checked by the kernel.

theorem septuagintDispute_partOf : ∀ (i j : SeptuagintParty),
    septuagintDispute.partOf i j ↔ i = j
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

septuagintMap

The dispute drawn: who defeats whom, and the one support.

Solid red: defeats. Dashed green: supports. Dotted blue: one party's case is part of another's.

The defeats are the cells of septuagintDispute_defeats, the supports the cells of septuagintDispute_supports and the parts the cells of septuagintDispute_partOf, each computed from the parties' premises and checked by the kernel. The attacks derived through support and through parts are reported, not counted: every verdict is computed from the defeats alone. Every derived attack is already a defeat.

septuagintHeardInStages

Why the Septuagint's side prevails, in stages: the status reading first, which nothing defeats; then the witness, Rico and Gentry and the laws, whom it defends by defeating Wegner and Miller; and Wegner and Miller out, each defeated by the status reading.

What the dispute forces is exactly The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16, The Septuagint as a witness (Isaiah 7:14 in Greek), Rico and Gentry: παρθένος means 'virgin' in the Greek of the Scriptures, The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin'.

• Stage 1: The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16.
  • The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 is defeated by nothing.
• Stage 2: The Septuagint as a witness (Isaiah 7:14 in Greek), Rico and Gentry: παρθένος means 'virgin' in the Greek of the Scriptures, The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin'.
  • Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin' defeats The Septuagint as a witness (Isaiah 7:14 in Greek), and The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 defeats Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin'.
  • Miller, from Genesis 34:3 defeats The Septuagint as a witness (Isaiah 7:14 in Greek), and The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 defeats Miller, from Genesis 34:3.
  • Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin' defeats Rico and Gentry: παρθένος means 'virgin' in the Greek of the Scriptures, and The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 defeats Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin'.
  • Miller, from Genesis 34:3 defeats Rico and Gentry: παρθένος means 'virgin' in the Greek of the Scriptures, and The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 defeats Miller, from Genesis 34:3.
  • Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin' defeats The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin', and The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 defeats Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin'.
  • Miller, from Genesis 34:3 defeats The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin', and The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 defeats Miller, from Genesis 34:3.
• Nothing else is forced:
  • The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 defeats Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin', and nothing forced defeats The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16.
  • The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 defeats Miller, from Genesis 34:3, and nothing forced defeats The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16.

What this rests on. The reasons state 8 defeats and 18 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, septuagintDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• The Septuagint as a witness (Isaiah 7:14 in Greek), weakest at disputed:
  • In the Greek of the Septuagint, παρθένος means a virgin — rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, p. 21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 472
• The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16, weakest at plausible:
  • an inference step — Exod 22:15-16; Exod 22:15-16; Gen 34:2; Gen 34:2; Gen 34:7; Gen 34:12; Gen 34:12; Deut 22:29; Deut 22:29; Deut 22:21; frymer-kensky-virginity-1998, pp. 80, 91; enc-referential-analysis-1986, pp. 405–426; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, pp. 18–21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113; wegner-virgin-births-2011, p. 483; rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, p. 67
• Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin', weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 482–483; rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, p. 67; meade-ancient-versions-comment-2013; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, pp. 18–21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, pp. 112–113
• Rico and Gentry: παρθένος means 'virgin' in the Greek of the Scriptures, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, p. 21; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 472; davidson-immanuel-1899, p. 456; meade-ancient-versions-comment-2013
• The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin', weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 102; liddell-scott-jones-lexicon-1940, p. 1339; muraoka-lexicon-septuagint-2009, p. 535; lust-lexicon-septuagint-2003, s.v. παρθένια; miller-born-divine-2003; rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, p. 67
• Miller, from Genesis 34:3, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — miller-born-divine-2003; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, pp. 18–21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113

septuagint_prevails_over_wegner

The Septuagint's side prevails, and neither Wegner nor Miller does. Nothing defeats the status reading of Genesis 34:3, because Wegner and Miller are each weaker than it, so it is accepted first. It defeats them both, the only parties that defeat the witness, Rico and Gentry or the laws, so all three are accepted with it; and nothing defends either. The verdict turns on one rating, the status reading's step (dinahLine).

theorem septuagint_prevails_over_wegner : Framework.grounded
    septuagintDispute.defeats = {SeptuagintParty.witness,
    SeptuagintParty.usage, SeptuagintParty.laws, SeptuagintParty.dinah}
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

millerAnsweredByDinah

Why Miller from Genesis 34:3 cannot be defended: the status reading defeats him, and nothing answers it.

Miller, from Genesis 34:3 cannot be defended: no admissible position holds it.

• The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 defeats Miller, from Genesis 34:3, and nothing defeats The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16.

What this rests on. The reasons state 1 defeat and 6 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, septuagintDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16, weakest at plausible:
  • an inference step — Exod 22:15-16; Exod 22:15-16; Gen 34:2; Gen 34:2; Gen 34:7; Gen 34:12; Gen 34:12; Deut 22:29; Deut 22:29; Deut 22:21; frymer-kensky-virginity-1998, pp. 80, 91; enc-referential-analysis-1986, pp. 405–426; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, pp. 18–21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113; wegner-virgin-births-2011, p. 483; rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, p. 67
• Miller, from Genesis 34:3, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — miller-born-divine-2003; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, pp. 18–21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113
• The Septuagint as a witness (Isaiah 7:14 in Greek), weakest at disputed:
  • In the Greek of the Septuagint, παρθένος means a virgin — rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, p. 21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 472
• Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin', weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 482–483; rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, p. 67; meade-ancient-versions-comment-2013; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, pp. 18–21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, pp. 112–113
• Rico and Gentry: παρθένος means 'virgin' in the Greek of the Scriptures, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, p. 21; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 472; davidson-immanuel-1899, p. 456; meade-ancient-versions-comment-2013
• The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin', weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 102; liddell-scott-jones-lexicon-1940, p. 1339; muraoka-lexicon-septuagint-2009, p. 535; lust-lexicon-septuagint-2003, s.v. παρθένια; miller-born-divine-2003; rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, p. 67

miller_indefensible

Miller from Genesis 34:3 cannot be defended. No admissible set contains him: the status reading defeats him, and nothing defeats the status reading. His case denies what it concludes, that the word names Dinah in the sense "virgin"; he attacks it back, and fails, being the weaker.

theorem miller_indefensible : ∀ (S : Set SeptuagintParty),
    Framework.Admissible septuagintDispute.defeats S → SeptuagintParty.miller
    ∉ S
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

driftAnsweredByDinah

Why Wegner on παρθένος cannot be defended: the status reading defeats him, and nothing answers it.

Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin' cannot be defended: no admissible position holds it.

• The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16 defeats Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin', and nothing defeats The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16.

What this rests on. The reasons state 1 defeat and 6 absences of defeat, each a cell of the defeat table, septuagintDispute_defeats, computed from the two parties' premises and checked by the kernel. Whether an attack survives turns on the attacker's weakest link and on the rating of what it attacks, so a changed rating can change the verdict. The weakest links:

• The law's name for Dinah: Genesis 34:3 read under Exodus 22:15–16, weakest at plausible:
  • an inference step — Exod 22:15-16; Exod 22:15-16; Gen 34:2; Gen 34:2; Gen 34:7; Gen 34:12; Gen 34:12; Deut 22:29; Deut 22:29; Deut 22:21; frymer-kensky-virginity-1998, pp. 80, 91; enc-referential-analysis-1986, pp. 405–426; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, pp. 18–21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113; wegner-virgin-births-2011, p. 483; rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, p. 67
• Wegner on παρθένος: the word had not yet come to mean 'virgin', weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — wegner-virgin-births-2011, pp. 482–483; rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, p. 67; meade-ancient-versions-comment-2013; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, pp. 18–21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, pp. 112–113
• The Septuagint as a witness (Isaiah 7:14 in Greek), weakest at disputed:
  • In the Greek of the Septuagint, παρθένος means a virgin — rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, p. 21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 472
• Rico and Gentry: παρθένος means 'virgin' in the Greek of the Scriptures, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, p. 21; postell-isaiah-messianic-2025, p. 472; davidson-immanuel-1899, p. 456; meade-ancient-versions-comment-2013
• The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin', weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 102; liddell-scott-jones-lexicon-1940, p. 1339; muraoka-lexicon-septuagint-2009, p. 535; lust-lexicon-septuagint-2003, s.v. παρθένια; miller-born-divine-2003; rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, p. 67
• Miller, from Genesis 34:3, weakest at disputed:
  • an inference step — miller-born-divine-2003; rico-gentry-infant-king-2020, pp. 18–21; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113

drift_indefensible

Wegner on παρθένος cannot be defended. No admissible set contains it: the status reading defeats it, and nothing defeats the status reading.

theorem drift_indefensible : ∀ (S : Set SeptuagintParty), Framework.Admissible
    septuagintDispute.defeats S → SeptuagintParty.drift ∉ S
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

septuagint_skeptically_accepted

So every resolution of the dispute accepts the Septuagint's witness.

theorem septuagint_skeptically_accepted : Framework.SkepticallyAccepted
    septuagintDispute.defeats SeptuagintParty.witness
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

drift_not_credulously_accepted

And none accepts Wegner on παρθένος.

theorem drift_not_credulously_accepted : ¬Framework.CredulouslyAccepted
    septuagintDispute.defeats SeptuagintParty.drift
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Dispute.Miller — a dissent, with what the texts refute struck

The laws' step (lawsLine) is rated disputed on one reader, Robert J. Miller. He grants what the laws of Leviticus 21 and Deuteronomy 22 require, and denies that the word in them means "virgin": "As in other Greek literature, parthenos in the Septuagint did not by itself connote what we mean by virginity", so that the virginity "has to be inferred from the context" (Born Divine). This module asks the question a reader asks of any such dissent: does it still stand once the texts it cites are read?

His evidence, read

Miller gives two uses of the word of a woman who is not a virgin.

• Joel 1:8, "Lament like a parthenos dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth", a young widow. The Greek does not read so: it calls the woman νύμφην, a bride, and its παρθεν- word, τὸν παρθενικόν, is of the husband (Rahlfs). The text refutes the claim.
• Genesis 34:3: "In one passage, this term refers to a rape victim after she has been attacked." The Greek calls Dinah a παρθένος in the verse after Shechem lies with her, and that much the text reads. But Miller's claim is more: that the noun describes her as she then was, no longer a virgin, so that it is not used there in the sense "virgin". That is his premise, not the text's. The order of the verses puts Shechem's love after his act; it does not put the noun's description there. A noun is read at a time of its own, which the context gives (Enç 1986): Scripture names Rahab "the harlot" long after Jericho (Hebrews 11:31). The status reading takes the noun as the law's name for the woman a man has lain with (dinahLine).

What the checks find

The library strikes a claim only when a reading of a text refutes it — Scripture, rated consensus — and then runs every check on what is left (Testimony.Logic.Credibility). Struck of Joel 1:8, Miller's dissent is his case from Genesis 34:3 (miller_struck_is_his_case_from_genesis), and it still denies the laws' step, granting the laws' grounds. His premise about the noun is not struck: no text reads otherwise, and an argument strikes nothing. It is weighed instead.

• Under the evidence and tradition standards his dissent is a credible critique. His premise rests on argued scholarship, which both standards admit.
• Under the Scripture standard it is not (miller_survives_on_genesis). The laws' grounds are all Scripture, and a dissent from such a step must rest on Scripture alone. What the Greek of 34:3 reads is Scripture; that its noun describes Dinah as she then was is Miller's reading of it.
• His denial needs that premise (miller_rests_on_the_noun). Grant what the Greek reads and every step of his, and the laws' sense can still stand.

Had Joel 1:8 been all his evidence, the dissent would not count under any standard: struck of it, nothing in it would deny the step (miller_on_joel_alone_does_not_count). That is the rule at work: evidence the texts refute stops counting, and a dissent that needed it stops counting with it.

Weighed in the dispute, and overruled

A credible dissent can still lose when it is weighed. In Dispute.Septuagint Miller's case from Genesis 34:3 is a party, beside Wegner's, and the solver computes that nothing can defend it (miller_indefensible). The status reading concludes that the word names Dinah in the sense "virgin", which Miller's premise and his thesis deny; he attacks it back, and fails, because his step, rated disputed, is weaker than the status reading's, rated plausible. Nothing answers the status reading, so nothing defends Miller.

A dissent overruled so stops counting against the step (Testimony.Logic.Credibility, Overruled), on one condition, which keeps the rule from arguing in a circle: the dispute must weigh the step at its floor. It does. The case from the laws cites its step disputed there, so Miller is overruled with the laws at their weakest, and the overruling owes nothing to the rating it lets stand.

So the laws' step stands at its cited wellSupported under every standard (laws_step_ratings): under the evidence and tradition standards because the one credible dissent is overruled, and under the Scripture standard because it is not heard. The verdict turns, as the dispute's does, on the status reading's step, rated plausible. Rated disputed, it would not outrank Miller, he would stand off with it, and his dissent would count again.

Miller's dissent

joelReadsABride

What the Greek of Joel 1:8 reads: the woman is νύμφην, a bride, and τὸν παρθενικόν is said of her husband. A reading of the text, from Rahlfs.

def joelReadsABride : Refutation Claim :=
  { claim := Claim.joelGreekCallsTheWidowParthenos,
    reads :=
      "the Greek of Joel 1:8 calls the woman νύμφην, a bride; its παρθεν- word, " ++
        "τὸν παρθενικόν, is of the husband",
    reading :=
      {
        primary :=
          Reference.scripture
            [Scripture.verseIn TextualTradition.septuagint
                { book := Book.joel, chapter := 1, verse := 8 }],
        tradition := Tradition.criticalScholarship,
        confidence := Confidence.consensus } }

Assessed, with what the texts refute struck

millerOnLawsAssessment

Miller against the laws' step, with Joel 1:8 struck. Consistent, granting the laws' grounds, and argued: struck of Joel 1:8, his dissent still denies the step through Genesis 34:3. What it still asserts outright is the Greek's reading of the verse, and his premise that its noun describes Dinah as she then was. The first is Scripture; the second is his reading of it, argued scholarship. So the dissent is a credible critique under the evidence and tradition standards. Under the Scripture standard it is not: the laws' grounds are all Scripture, and his premise is not.

Dissent: Miller, Born Divine, against The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin'. ✔ A critique: it can be held with the step's grounds, and it argues its denial by a step of its own.

• Struck, because the text reads otherwise: The Greek of Joel 1:8 calls a young widow a παρθένος (Miller). the Greek of Joel 1:8 calls the woman νύμφην, a bride; its παρθεν- word, τὸν παρθενικόν, is of the husband.

miller_struck_is_his_case_from_genesis

Struck of Joel 1:8, Miller's dissent is his case from Genesis 34:3: with the claim the Greek refutes taken out, and his step from it, the premises the checks weigh are, formula for formula, the premises of the position he holds in the dispute over the Septuagint's word (millerCase).

theorem miller_struck_is_his_case_from_genesis :
    millerOnLawsAssessment.dissent.premises = millerCase.premises
-- axioms: propext

miller_survives_on_genesis

Miller survives on Genesis 34:3, and turns on the standard. Struck of Joel 1:8, which the Greek refutes, his dissent from the laws' step is still a credible critique under the evidence and tradition standards: Genesis 34:3 carries his denial. Under the Scripture standard it is not, because it carries it only with his premise that the noun describes Dinah as she then was, and that is not Scripture.

theorem miller_survives_on_genesis : millerOnLawsAssessment.findings.struck =
    [Claim.joelGreekCallsTheWidowParthenos] ∧ Dissent.Credible
    Standard.evidence millerOnLawsAssessment.dissent ∧ Dissent.Credible
    Standard.tradition millerOnLawsAssessment.dissent ∧ ¬Dissent.Credible
    Standard.scriptural millerOnLawsAssessment.dissent
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

miller_rests_on_the_noun

Miller's denial rests on his premise about the noun. Grant what the Greek of Genesis 34:3 reads, and every step of his, and the laws' sense still stands: on the reading Justin gives the elders' Greek, the noun names Dinah, and the word is used of her in the sense "virgin". Miller's conclusion needs his further premise, that the noun describes her as she then was. A noun need not: it is read at a time of its own (Enç 1986), as Scripture names Rahab "the harlot" long after Jericho (Hebrews 11:31).

theorem miller_rests_on_the_noun : ¬Entails (caseOf [millerDinahLine.onGrounds
    [p Claim.greekCallsDinahParthenos]] [] [contextNotWordInTheLaws]) (notP
    Claim.lawsUseParthenosAsVirgin)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

millerOnJoelAloneAssessment

Miller from Joel 1:8 alone, with Joel 1:8 struck: nothing left denies the step.

Dissent: Miller, from Joel 1:8 alone, against The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin'. ✘ Not a critique of this step: with the claims the texts refute struck, what remains does not deny what the step concludes.

• Struck, because the text reads otherwise: The Greek of Joel 1:8 calls a young widow a παρθένος (Miller). the Greek of Joel 1:8 calls the woman νύμφην, a bride; its παρθεν- word, τὸν παρθενικόν, is of the husband.

miller_on_joel_alone_does_not_count

Evidence the texts refute stops counting. Had Miller rested his dissent on Joel 1:8 alone, then, with the claim the Greek refutes struck, nothing in it would deny the laws' step, and it would not be a credible critique under any standard.

theorem miller_on_joel_alone_does_not_count : ∀ (s : Standard),
    ¬Dissent.Credible s millerOnJoelAloneAssessment.dissent
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

The laws' step, rated

lawsStep

The laws' step, rated by its register: Miller's dissent, the strongest known, with what the texts refute struck. Its support is cited wellSupported: Bratcher, and the lexica on τὰ παρθένια.

Miller's dissent is overruled in the dispute over the Septuagint's word, where his case from Genesis 34:3 is a party and nothing defends it (miller_indefensible). That dispute weighs the laws' step at its floor: the case from the laws cites it disputed there. So the overruling owes nothing to the rating it lets stand.

The rating, computed. The laws of the Greek Pentateuch: παρθένος in the sense 'virgin' is cited at well supported (bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 113; bratcher-study-of-isaiah-1958, p. 102; liddell-scott-jones-lexicon-1940, p. 1339; muraoka-lexicon-septuagint-2009, p. 535; lust-lexicon-septuagint-2003, s.v. παρθένια; miller-born-divine-2003; rhodea-did-matthew-conceive-2013, p. 67). Dissents encoded: Miller, Born Divine. The strongest known: Miller, Born Divine.

laws_step_ratings

The laws' step stands at wellSupported under every standard, and for two reasons. Under the evidence and tradition standards Miller's dissent is a credible critique, and it is overruled: his case from Genesis 34:3 cannot be defended in the dispute over the Septuagint's word, which weighs the step at its floor. Under the Scripture standard his dissent is not heard at all, because his premise about the noun is not Scripture.

theorem laws_step_ratings : lawsStep.ratings = [(Standard.evidence,
    Computed.overruled ["Miller, Born Divine"] Confidence.wellSupported),
    (Standard.tradition, Computed.overruled ["Miller, Born Divine"]
    Confidence.wellSupported), (Standard.scriptural, Computed.stands
    Confidence.wellSupported)]
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

TestimonyArguments.BornOfAVirgin.Dispute.Matthew — Scripture's own reading of the Greek word

Dispute.Septuagint weighs what the Septuagint's παρθένος meant by what scholars say of the Greek. This module asks the question a reader of the Bible asks first: what does Scripture itself make of the word? Matthew quotes the Septuagint's Isaiah 7:14 word for word, ἡ παρθένος, of Mary, who conceived "before they came together" (1:18) and whom Joseph "knew not until she had borne a son" (1:25). If Scripture is its own interpreter, the word in the text Matthew quotes has the sense he gives it: "virgin".

Two positions meet:

• Matthew's reading (matthewLine): from what Matthew quotes and what he says of Mary, both Scripture, to the sense of the Greek word at Isaiah 7:14. Its principle is Westminster's: "The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself" (I.ix). Irenaeus, on the apostles' agreement with the Seventy (Against Heresies III.21.3).
• Wegner on παρθένος, as in Dispute.Septuagint. He grants both of Matthew's grounds — by the New Testament the word was "a suitable term to describe Mary" — and holds that it had changed in meaning since the translator wrote it (483).

What the claims say

Matthew's reading concludes that the word has the sense "virgin" at one passage of the Septuagint's text, Isaiah 7:14 as Matthew quotes it. A sense a word has in a passage of a text is a sense of that text's usage (Testimony.Ontology.Usage), so the claim excludes Wegner's "not yet 'virgin'" by what it means. It says nothing of the Hebrew עַלְמָה.

As the evidence weighs it

Matthew's step is cited disputed, on Wegner, who grants its grounds and denies its conclusion. Wegner's step is disputed too, on Rico and Gentry and on Bratcher. So each defeats the other, and nothing prevails (nothing_prevails_between_matthew_and_wegner).

Under each standard

Whether Wegner's dissent counts is not a fact about Wegner. It is a question of standard, and the library computes under each (Testimony.Logic.Credibility).

• Under the evidence and tradition standards his dissent is a credible critique: consistent, granting the grounds, argued by a step of his own, and resting on evidence anyone can check. Matthew's step is disputed, and the hearing is the standoff above (matthew_step_turns_on_the_standard).
• Under the Scripture standard a dissent from a step whose grounds are all Scripture must rest on Scripture alone, and Wegner's rests also on early Greek usage, from the lexica, and on his reading of the noun at Genesis 34:3. So his dissent is not heard; Matthew's step stands at the confidence its support is cited at, plausible; and Matthew's reading prevails (matthew_prevails_under_scripture).

So the verdict turns on the standard, and the page says which. A reader who holds that Scripture interprets Scripture has here a checked result: on that standard, a scholar's reading of other Greek does not overturn the sense the New Testament gives the Septuagint's word. A reader who does not hold it has the standoff, and Dispute.Septuagint for the evidence.

What this does not show

It does not show what Isaiah's Hebrew word means, nor that the translator meant "virgin" in his own day: it shows what the word means in the text Matthew quotes, read by Matthew. Nor does the Scripture standard silence a dissent that argues from Scripture: another text, read the other way, would be heard.

Matthew's reading as a position

matthewCase_establishes

Matthew's reading delivers its conclusion.

theorem matthewCase_establishes : Establishes matthewCase
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

matthewCase_is_satisfiable

Matthew's reading has a model: the reading Justin gives the elders' Greek, in which the word Matthew quotes means "virgin".

theorem matthewCase_is_satisfiable : Satisfiable matthewCase.premises
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

matthew_rests_on_its_inference

Matthew's reading rests on its inference. Grant that Matthew quotes ἡ παρθένος, and that he says Mary conceived before she and Joseph came together: on Wegner's reading the word was by then a suitable term for Mary, and still did not mean "virgin" in the text the translator wrote. The texts do not decide which; the step does, and the standards weigh it differently.

theorem matthew_rests_on_its_inference : ¬Entails matthewLine.grounds (p
    Claim.lxxIsaiahUsesParthenosAsVirgin)
-- axioms: propext, Quot.sound

matthewCase_strength

Matthew's grounds are consensus, what the texts read, but his step is cited disputed, on Wegner.

theorem matthewCase_strength : matthewCase.strength = 0
-- axioms: propext

drift_defeats_matthew

Wegner defeats Matthew's reading. That the word had not yet come to mean "virgin" excludes that the text Matthew quotes uses it in that sense, and Matthew's reading, cited disputed, is no stronger than he.

theorem drift_defeats_matthew : Defeats driftObjection matthewCase
-- axioms: propext, Classical.choice, Quot.sound

matthew_defeats_drift

Matthew's reading defeats Wegner. Its sense "virgin" excludes his "not yet 'virgin'", and he is no stronger than it.