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Is Jesus Immanu-el?
From Sheikh Ahmed Deedat's work; may Allah Almighty always be pleased with him:
Let us look at Isaiah 7:14 "Therefore,
the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold a will conceive and bear a child and shall
call his name Immanu-el." It is claimed that this verse was a prophecy
about the birth of Jesus to the virgin Mary. It is further claimed that since the word
Immanuel means "God with us," the person being talked about, i.e Jesus was God.
The word translated as "virgin" is the wrong translation of the Hebrew
word ALMAH. The word ALMAH in Hebrew means "young woman." The correct Hebrew
word for virgin is BETHULAH. Since many young women begot children since those words were
penned, it is not at all necessary that those words should apply to Jesus.
Another fact that is often ignored is that Jesus was never named Immanuel, nor did anyone
ever address him as Immanuel when he lived. On the contrary, the Messiah was named Jesus (Luke 2:21) by the angel according to the gospels. Also, even if a
person is named Immanuel, it doesn't mean that the person so named is God. Consider
for example all the people named ELI in the Old Testament. ELI means God in the Hebrew. It
is also narrated that Jesus while talking to God referred to Him as ELI (Mark 15:34 & Matthew 27:46). We cannot however on this basis
of just name accept all the people named ELI in the Old Testament as Gods. Similarly, we
cannot accept a person named Immanuel (God with us) as God. Jesus was never named Immanuel
anyway, so both ways the argument and claim are false.