Probing Our Judeo-Christian Inheritance (For Freethinkers)

By Max Burnett

We are living in the end age of Christianity as we have known it. Our culture needs to be revamped, and we need to question our routine yearly celebrations of Jewish recordings that are unrelated to the mythos we espouse. In other words, we need to change our way of thinking.

Author Max Burnetts Probing Our Judeo-Christian Inheritance (for Freethinkers) is a fresh look at the core building block of Western civilization. Burnett goes well beyond modern-day writers who want to change and save Christianity as we have known it. He clarifies what Christianity could have been and challenges recent books on zealotry. Burnett calls for a revival of the effort to discover the esoteric significance of our Jewish inheritance and to appreciate the allegorical method of Bible interpretation. Youll discover a completely new interpretation of the Testaments from alpha to omega.

Probing Our Judeo-Christian Inheritance (for Freethinkers) is a controversial work that challenges all traditional and orthodox interpretations. It will be appreciated by the genuine freethinker and any person craving a greater understanding of the ancients original message.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Apr 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781480826342

Max Burnett

Max Burnett currently lives in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

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Copyright © 2016 Max Burnett.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-2635-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2633-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2634-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016902539

Archway Publishing rev. date: 4/12/2016

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Old Testament

Type 1: Virgin

Type 2: Immanuel

Type 3: Saul, David, And Solomon; Israel And Judah — First Insight Into Revelation

Type 4: Daniel Chapters 7–9

Type 5: Seventy Weeks Of Daniel 9:24–27

Type 6: Daniel 2 — Why It Is Not Rome

Type 7: Sacred–Civil Half Years

Type 8: The Ten Commandments To Make

Type 9: The Prophetic Books

Apocrypha

Type 10: Antiochus Epiphanes To Judas Maccabees

Linking Types

Type Fruition: Leavening Seeds

New Testament

Antitype: Pharisees And Sadducees — Second Insight Into Revelation

Revelation

Archetype: Revelation — Disclosure Of A Different Jesus Christ

Strengthening Of Our Culture

Pearly Gates: Crossing Traditional Christianity

Supplementary Index (SI) Of Revelation

Books Of Inspiration Or Influence

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In memory of Jean Agnes Wailes, 1925–2011

PREFACE

From my early childhood, I recall home Bible study classes, tent camp meetings, film nights, and gatherings of the flock to discuss what the Testaments were all about. Any challenging questions were always frowned upon. As kids, we just noted in silence that disputations were occurring. Major differences became apparent, but decorum and order were pleasantly observed. Sharp, cutting words were exchanged. Then there was a parting of ways, and my family was outside any fellowship. It was not excommunication but a voluntary exclusion. By high school, I attended the non-scriptural class by way of a letter to the headmaster requesting that I be excused, but that sparked an intense interest in this current scholarly work. It is through many lifetime experiences I have learnt that ethics and morality have nothing to do with preaching a religious truth.

Study intensified and became a lifelong journey for my family. But the boat drifted far away from any orthodoxy and even twenty-first-century reformers who wanted to change and save Christianity. The road definitely never veered toward atheism or agnosticism but went more to a kind of humanism — but even humanism never satisfied. Instead, we found an inconceivable golden thread running through the Testaments. This path led to further insights, light-years distant from any sanctioned tradition and any selectively literal interpretation. It overwhelmed every moment, sparking new meaning in a highly skillful craft. After every reading, the ancients’ mindfulness gained higher appreciation. The task was clear, How could this insight be written? There was no possibility of dialogue until the work was completed. I guarantee that this work is original, a genuine product that will appear heretical and seditious to many. It cuts across traditional Christianity. It opens the book as no other person has done. It roars as a lion.

I have read amazing works such as A Rebirth for Christianity, written by the late Alvin Boyd Kuhn after years of research. And hope arose when John Shelby Spong came out with Why Christianity Must Change or Die and many other books. Then Alain de Botton wrote and lectured on Religion for Atheists, and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins graced my bookshelf. But other Christian-mystical books such as The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis and Jewish works like Moses Maimonides’s The Guide for the Perplexed also filled those shelves.

Then I was perturbed by the appearance of Zealot by Reza Aslan, which blames Rome for all the woes around the messianic disturbance. I see this book as a complete distortion of the Testaments. The blaming of Rome is rampant throughout Western ideology. It has obliterated what Christianity might have been. This popular Western interpretation is given in the Great Course’s work Apocalypse: Controversies and Meaning in Western History by Professor Craig R. Koester, although that may not be his personal view. Numerous other books and doctrines play the same blame game.

These claims have to be answered, but it wouldn’t help to do so emotionally. So out came the inkhorn, and a family work long in the embryonic stage has matured. It is startlingly different from all the above right- or left-leaning recitations and ends in an apocalypse when the book of Revelation is opened. It does not skirmish on the borders but fights the battle right on the front line of theological insight. The King James Bible is used, and Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Holy Bible (8th Edition), Lutterworth Press, London and Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Abingdon Press, Nashville have been lifelong companions.

It seeks to call out, to come out and to spring forth, with the long awaited resurrection. The book of Revelation exposes the false Christ of ecclesiastical powers’ woeful abomination, indoctrinating us for two thousand painful years with a single climactic event. It ends with the book open and transparent. The final apocalypse is initiated and the age of theological deception ends suddenly. A great renewal of the ancients’ epic is initiated.

This book walks down a unique path, giving insight into a very different, personified philosophy. It is one that will appeal to all genuine seekers and freethinkers alike. It opens the door to a new era of interpretation with high regard for a lost art. It is best to take one chapter at a time.

The ideas are attributed to Jean Agnes Wailes in Sydney, Australia. Without her lifetime investigation, this book could not have been written.

INTRODUCTION

The roots of our society are deeply embedded in what is called a Judeo-Christianity inheritance. It is held sacrosanct to much Western ideology, an unshakable pillar of faith. Our government has said that our kids are to be taught of this glorious inheritance, strengthening our bastion of ethics and morality. The veracity of this claim needs wide debate. We need to weigh in the balance the dual sides called mythos and logos. Institutions have molded a tight moat, securing their prized Jacobean epic as foundation to everything. Translators, by consensus, have scrutinized each word to justify their fundamentalist logos. The result fails to see the forest for the trees. The paradigms are unbelievable, and we have been drowned in a single, susceptible highlight from two thousand years back. Dare to question — dare to be struck down.

There are many inadequacies in the Gospels. Despite acknowledging differences, scholars have raised the flag, a battle flag, against any attempt to question their way of interpreting that haunting death. They have libeled Rome as the culprit with help from the Jews. Yet many commentators have said that we justify, or selectively literalize, accommodating a peace-loving New Testament (NT) Messiah, a majestic patristic translation. Others portray an extreme messianic figure enmeshed in revolutionary, jihadist, and blood-curdling warfare. Indecipherable cults of every hue and blend bond others for life. This tract will give a completely different interpretation based on the King James Version (KJV). It starts with the Old Testament (OT) type and then shows the NT antitype and eventually archetype. The material is unique, from a solitary dove — never said before. I make the accusation that theologians and humanists have missed the ancients’ culture of cosmological unity of corporeal and incorporeal. Beware — this tract challenges your ingrained ideology, and if you are conservative, a traditionalist, or one who believes in orthodoxy, stop right here. It is vitally important to bring these works to life, making metaphors of antiquity come alive. It is time to celebrate a skillful ethos. It is time to move on from the forlorn Jesus saves cliché, which says, Only believe, only believe; all things are possible, only believe.

This tract looks first at great, heroic, figurative metaphors of both Testaments and the Apocrypha, divining a grace that excels for novelty. It lashes out at progressive Christianity, at liberal, secular, democratic modernity. The accusation is that the Testaments have been misjudged, distorted, denuded, and wrecked by high and low ecclesiastical powers baking fraudulent trust, perennial lies, and meek and mild populist themes into very unleavened bread. Critics see Christianity dying. However, in restoring the mythos as non-literal, a rejuvenation of a coat of perfection is facilitated, enhancing enlightenment without faith, a rock for all ages. It is for liberated freethinkers of all persuasions who believe in salvation from the sin of dogmatism, a devised cleverness beyond belief.

Evolving in an age of continual gang vengeance, daily male-inflicted horrific violence, slaughter, and suppression of femininity was truly challenging. But the acute scribes devised a God of creation, infusing evolution into the wonder of life. They pondered the brutality of the aberrant Achilles’ environment, the furiously male orientation of humankind (male and female). Their only hope was to synchronize a maturity of execution and take steps forward. The big bang theory was not on their radar, but the book of Revelation provides an explosive denouement to our Christian ethics and morality. The question posed was how to create the likeness of God now that we have been passed the baton of responsibility. Our race is to run to and fro (Gen. 8:7), hither (to cause to come nigh, to call for) and dither, here (to be finished, done) and there (in that place). The race (path, way, custom, course, contest) is arrayed, ordered, forever, set before us.

Now let’s go straight to the methodology. This book reviews the NT’s antitypes, tracing systematically the roots of the ideas from OT types. Consequently, it poses questions of construction of our Judeo-Christian inheritance and asks for considered answers, whether they’re from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, atheism, agnosticism, or Gnosticism. It finds all wanting. It challenges freethinkers to open their minds. The world has transgressed great eras, including the medieval Dark Ages, Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the age of the Romantics. But the Bible points to a greater, non-religious Apocalypse in which Jesus the Christ’s apparition becomes apparent. What is the Apocalypse? It is certainly not a literal Second Coming. It is not based on selective literalism. Do we have to wait forever? Do we have to pound the pavement year by year with annual rituals like Just a closer walk with thee? Like on the road to Damascus, we have to uphold the quest for bright light? We are hearing the death knells of Christianity as we know it. Such upheaval surpasses the pending clash of religious cultures. But there is a chance to strengthen our culture and revere the book. The question is, what did the ancients of antiquity bequeath to us if it is not the Christianity we have? After the seventh seal was opened, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. A short time is given. That time has elapsed for two thousand years!

When embarking on such a stupendous course, one has to choose specific topics that beckon the heart and soul. Chapter topics will explore the meanings of virgin and Immanuel and examine why Saul, David, Solomon, Israel, and Judah are pivotal in the book of Revelation. Also, the unknown Sacred and Secular years of ancient Jewish culture are given their due prominence. The Ten Commandments to make and to build are identified. These commands are a direct challenge to the ten Western laws of ethics as taught. The debased rule of the Pharisees and Sadducees is front and center. We will also look at why Rome was not such a villain of the synoptic books. Roman imperialism has been made the scapegoat and placed at center stage to forge a religious Christianity that arose much later than the canonical gospels. Startlingly, I explain why AD 70 is not mentioned in the NT. Academics have pored over every phase ten times over, upside down and inside out, to find any mention to AD 70 in the synoptics, and they have failed. What a waste of resources. All construction is interconnected. The form of the NT is reliant on the old, well-braced staunches of the ancients. The Apocalypse as seen by John of Patmos was to be the most heraldic explosion of all times, when the book was finally opened. It was never the logos burning of Jerusalem just forty years after the messianic eclipse. That later age, what is now termed the Judeo-Christian age, is when the Apocalypse, the ending of the age of deception and lies, was to be unlocked.

Unlike expostulators, this paper walks through the open doors in detail verse by verse. It does not personally interpret the Testaments. The aim is to recalibrate, strengthening our culture by checking the gradient of building form. This is a fatherly skill that the ancient master writers left us in perpetuity. It is mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for our dry bones. The early scribes faced a nihilistic, vacuous, universe without form (Gen. 1:2) — darkness upon the face of the deep. We face the same stark emptiness, a barbaric goliath of false Christianity that David will slay, a non-majestic language. Fabricated religious fortifications are on swampy marshes. Foundations are cracked. Religion, as we know it, provides no answers to cosmic turmoil. Secularism also has ashamedly abandoned ship, skipping over the ancients as irrelevant. They are caught out also.

With nearly everyone skeptical about the lessons that have been pummeled into us, it is indeed difficult to ask for a review. We know that, as told, these literal stories are a parody. Most feel that these stories will not shed further beneficial light. But they are rarely read, researched, or thought about in detail. Our current dilemma is faith unfulfilled. It is right to stumble over metaphoric symbolism lacking coherence. Our sight, blinded by an overdose of the selective, has demented us. We are bereft by useless, misinformed commentary. But life’s energy craves answers. Allegorical, social, pious stories are incongruous with our treasured scientific technology. The mythos cupboard appears bare and empty. Is demolition required? Few believe, especially theologians, that the Pandora’s box should be opened. Practically no reasonable person accepts that Jesus the Christ is really, literally, ever coming again in the flesh. We tremble at the final call, All are of the dust, and all turn to dust (Eccles. 3:20). But remember, additions to the debate are life giving — just don’t throw the first stone. Find any reasoning error and point it out. The time is up. The seventh trumpet is sounding. Joy to the world as the Apocalypse begins.

Now let’s get to work. The hypothesis is that the NT uses a collage of artistically constructed images that were initiated in the OT and that overshadow all. The forms change from era to era, but it is a winnowing of old forms that reveals. Modern translations have moved far away from the KJV. In this book, only the KJV is used. The ancient scribes never constructed monolithic cities, theatres, gymnasiums, city halls, temples, agoras, chariots, and weapons of war. They set their minds to creating an allegorical written puzzle as a perennial monument. They aptly described their creation as the Word of God, the written word of a classical estate. Such a mammoth achievement well surpassed literature, history, and prophecy, becoming what I think is best described as a monumental personification of humanity. It glorifies humankind as a sacred-secular composition. Humanity’s ability is placed on the highest pedestal within the power of nature.

The loud clarion cry is for a rebirth of rectitude, high veracity, and honesty so that our community is not jarred. The scribes used their emblematic history, often oral, to build inscriptive form, for subjectivity, and to express abstract ideas. They were not presenting a chronological, linear history but a transcribed philosophy of political governance. Typology was used as the building blocks of systematization whereby persons, events, or objects were taken for moral and ethical pointers, enabling community cohesion. Perceived patterns are seen to replicate in different formats. To grasp the NT antitype, I’ve learned that the initial types must be forensically dissected. Midrash has always been invaluable to transparency.

The book of Revelation is projected forward from old (Type) and new (Antitype) into future (Archetype). Imagine three circles radiating from local, national, to global. Mastering the core Judeo circle alignment is paramount to classifying the outer circles, one in part being Christianity. In Revelation, the spring forth (Rev. 1:1; to sprout, to grow) of the great Apocalypse bands and binds together to reveal, to disclose, the nature and perception of the personified Jesus Christ, Jesus the Christ. Luther taught that in Revelation, Christ is neither taught nor known in it. Bertrand Russell thought it unfathomable. Such negative philosophies and vain deceit have partitioned a middle wall, a divide, between sacred and secular after the tradition of humankind. Revelation has never been opened. Luther, misunderstanding the Jewish roots, failed to perceive how Revelation reflects, sparks light, alights, and exemplifies the beacon in a beautified form.

Concentrating on the form found in the archetype’s apocalypse, new and old, faith and law, are secondary for a perfect Jerusalem, a prototype, a precious stone narrating the bride’s and Lamb’s marriage. The new two-faceted Jerusalem, male and female, does not name emperors of Rome but reveres eternal lessons of perennial endurance. Conserving tradition and perfecting resurrection lets us overcome. And we shall overcome as we travel this solitary road to find the people of the book and the meaning in the book.

OLD TESTAMENT

TYPE 1: VIRGIN

THE word virgin is one of the most misunderstood words in the Bible. It also provides a great example of how confusion can arise — it is mentioned numerous times in the OT. Without understanding the formative type, the NT is easily misrepresented. The word virgin builds upon the ancient writers’ prose when used in the NT. One has to be very careful as the essence of types does repeat. The original is the best guide to consistency in later recurrences.

A good point to start is the early part of Isaiah. The word virgin changes its nature in latter Isaiah, and that change must be fully clarified. The only way to interpret the word virgin independently is by consulting lexicons to gain a preliminary insight into the writers’ intent:

• The word virgin in this first instance is derived from the Hebrew word almah, which means concealment, unmarried female.

• A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son. (Isa. 7:14)

Church fathers and theologians over the centuries insistently taught this statement of Isaiah pointed to one event only, that being the birth of Jesus. That made me start questioning. Once it became doctrine, it did not have to be questioned. However, a red alert should immediately be raised. Any thinking being would ask how this commentary in Isaiah, written in a book dealing with events well over half a millennium before, could possible stretch out to the first century AD. Why did the NT sing of the OT verses? In the OT, virgin never literally denoted a virginal woman. How it was transmogrified to refer to a literal virgin, when it was always highly symbolic, has never been answered but has instead been hushed and effectively sidelined. Silence is no answer.

This starting type in the Old Testament was drawn from the experiences of a pre-Babylonian society. Such community was all knit as one, together, under a divine cosmos. Governance had transitioned from judges to kings, and the writers were looking carefully at the result. Especially concerning to them was the division between Israel and Judah. Jewish society was deeply concerned that their new dual regal governance might not be able to save them from warring barbaric forces, especially ones from Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Disquiet is evident throughout all books of the Old Testament.

To have a reasonable insight into this word virgin, the following is proposed. In the days of Ahaz (740–724 BC), king of Judah, the nation had slid back into old ways. It was said to have degraded from the time of David’s command to build the temple, practicing the worship of idols, smelting molten images for Baalim, burning incense, incinerating children, and committing unmentionably terrifying brutalities. All such activity was said not to be, right in the sight of the Lord (2 Chron. 28:1). It was due to this degraded condition that Judah was promised a deliverer — "Behold a virgin (almah, meaning unmarried or concealed) shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Why do we avoid this recording in our concentrated repertoire?

After the escape from bondage, typified as Egyptian, the new nation had entered an everlasting covenant, heralded by David’s decree to build the temple. But the nation apostatized under the three kings, Uzziah, Jotham, and Ahaz. Early chapters of Isaiah descriptively explained that this concealment came from God. This alienation was said to be unmarried (almah) from God. To save readers from needing to refer to Isaiah, here are the disturbing signs of the times:

• Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity (Isa. 1:4)

• a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters … forsaken the Lord (Isa. 1:4)

• gone away backward (Isa. 1:4)

• bruises, putrifying sores (Isa. 1:6)

• Your country is desolate (Isa. 1:7)

• as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers (Isa. 1:8)

• a besieged city (Isa. 1:8)

• vain obligation; incense is an abomination unto me (Isa. 1:13)

• Your new moons, your appointed feasts … I am weary to bear them (Isa. 1:14)

• Land shall be utterly desolate (Isa. 6:11)

• Hear ye indeed but understand not; and see ye indeed but perceive not (Isa. 6:9)

• Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant (Isa. 6:11)

In this context, the use of the word virgin from almah means young, unmarried woman. However, and less appreciated, it means concealment, as the young nation had degenerated. The nation had reverted to hideous abominations and thus was unmarried, concealed from God. This decadent condition, based on vanity, was hypocritically said by the nation’s leadership to portray truth. The nation was unmarried, concealed, gone away backward.

A full appreciation of this first type is a prerequisite for the later borrowing by the writers of the New Testament. There is a degree of consistency in types. They are verifiable, although circumstantial events change. Why would a young woman conceive and bear a son under the kings of Judah? Why call him Immanuel?

After scrutinizing the text, one can see that at this juncture, under Ahaz, Jerusalem, the daughter of Zion, was not married to God, Jehovah. They were not joined. Jerusalem was concealed, or unmarried. Jerusalem had a youthful zeal and was distracted, had regressed, and was lodged in a bed of cucumbers — an aberrant state with nature, so to speak. The daughter of Zion had apostatized, mishandling the beacon and dropping the baton. The governance of Judah had been dimmed; darkness was upon the face of the deep. And so a virgin, one who was concealed, would give birth, bear a son, and call his name Immanuel, meaning God with us. Regeneration or resurrection would come; the nation would bloom. The nation again would be in harmony and be protected.

If this hypothesis is correct, our interpretation of the New Testament’s replication will need thorough investigation and explanation. This testament’s antitype surely cannot stand solitary with a strict, literalizing usage of the word virgin. But if virgin in the New Testament is consistent with virgin in the Old Testament, then the New Testament will need to be reinterpreted for one to be able to grasp its intended meaning.

Conveniently, New Testament theological exegeses have highlighted Mary to exonerate the feminine giving birth to the masculine. All commentators have problems saying whether Jesus was God or human. Their quandary arises as they have bypassed the Old Testament’s portrayal. We will cover the New Testament’s messianic birth and bring that story back to its roots with the Old Testament’s transition from almah when commenting later in detail on the New Testament. Briefly stated, one would think likewise that it must relate to the cultural hegemony of the Pharisees and Sadducees (akin to that of Ahaz’s idolatry). We will return to this transgression in the synoptic Gospels.

The Jewish leadership was condemned time after time in the Old Testament’s books of Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. But first let’s go on to examine this next word-type, Isaiah’s Immanuel, and the change in inference of the word virgin (from the Hebrew almah to bethulah) so that we can later appreciate the convolution of the Emmanuel story in the New Testament. It will be a while before we make headway to the archetype. Step by step, precept upon precept, we have a long road to travel over rocky, steep, hilly terrain.

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Albrecht Dürer: The Virgin with the Swaddled Child

Pictures give a false, literal impression, although this picture is highly figurative with its depiction of a large bambino. The mythos, being timeless and constant in our existence, comes from the original concept that can only be traced from the Hebrew almah, meaning concealment, unmarried from the likeness of God, as early Isaiah characterizes the days under Ahaz. Later, after Hezekiah’s reconstruction, virgin was sourced from bethulah (instead of almah) from the Hebrew word meaning separated from idolatry, inferring the nation was now with the likeness of God. In Old Testament times, being in the likeness of God, the Creator, meant that people had been passed the baton of responsibility to create form, as God was now at rest. Did Dürer create an engraved plate marking a correct interpretation of the meaning of virgin?

TYPE 2: IMMANUEL

ONE of the well-known interpretations taken from the book of Isaiah tells the story of a man of sorrows, or the suffering servant. For centuries, these phrases were thought only to refer to the ministry of Jesus. With Jesus as the central plank, this introspection was largely unchallenged. Scholars always wanted to redirect minds away from the former, primary incident. Recently, in theological circles, the theory that prophecy identified Isaiah’s Immanuel with Christ has been largely abandoned.

The same can be said of all prophetic books. They also were alleged to prophecy Christ or future events. This proposition also is rarely given any credence today. The stories deriving from the first temple, pre-Babylonian era, however, are not given their due importance in the pre-exilic record. The Old Testament is now largely disregarded following the faith crusade.

We now have time to decipher who the man of sorrows in Isaiah really was, just as we have found out what the word virgin meant. But why duplicate a similar story for the New Testament’s use of Emmanuel, taken from Isaiah’s Immanuel as a precedent? Why did the New Testament not stand on its own legs?

We will show why this replication, half a millennium later, is important for understanding a completely different interpretation. So who was this Immanuel or suffering servant of pre-Babylonian days? Who was this early master designer? Why is this primary-type moniker carried over to the New Testament?

Let’s get down to business.

The book of Isaiah commences by stating that it concerns Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. That is clear, isn’t it? Immanuel is found during the ending reign of these kings. Immanuel was not concocted after the symbolic, later Emmanuel. One has to know the recall of emblematical history to pinpoint the applicable type. Ancient writers had no deterioration of mental acuity. They specialized in oral memorization, assisted by community involvement.

Here is the story. After Ahaz’s reign, which was characterized by backsliding, his son Hezekiah became king. This succession occurred just before the impending invasion by Assyria. Hezekiah, meaning the strength of Jehovah, was said to do right in the eyes of the Lord. Hezekiah was a noble person. He sought to help Judah, his people. He also assisted those of the northern kingdom, Israel. When Sennacherib of Assyria plotted to take Jerusalem, the city, the concealed and unmarried, found she had been sent a deliverer. This enlightened, translucent moment, a manifestation, was highlighted when Hezekiah became Immanuel. This man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3), this servant, is speaking in past tense of the unspeakable injustices of deprivation and suffering under Ahaz.

Jerusalem at this time was despairing, in need, pleading, for a deliverer — God with us. They were obscured, masked, and concealed (almah). The governance of Judah and Jerusalem had apostatized. Jerusalem, the virgin, was without a son, being in a state of depravity. The virgin almah was separated, unmarried or hidden, from her God. It is later when Hezekiah, then a victorious king — Jerusalem’s son, a grown man (man-child) — is addressed as O Immanuel (Isa. 8:8). Never could this have been said in Ahaz’s days, when it was asked, How this faithful city is become a harlot! … full of judgment … righteousness lodged in it: but now murderers … princes are rebellious … companions of thieves. We may well ask why our guardians have not seen this portrayal.

Church fathers, with due reverence, established Christian doctrine. Could they never encompass the ancient typology with its intertwined Jewish base? Two of the most significant characteristics of Christ, virgin and