You're probably WAY past arguing this point you made on Wednesday (sorry that I'm just seeing the thread), but I feel it should be answered. The prophecy given to the prophet Isaiah - who had been a reliable and authentic prophet for many other things that happened to the nation of Israel - was that it would be a SIGN that a virgin would conceive and bear a child and his name would be called "God with us" (the translation of Immanuel). What kind of "sign" would a young woman getting pregnant and having a baby be? That happened every day. Isn't it logical that it was talking about some kind of miraculous event - seeing as babies don't come from virgins who never had sex with a man. Then, consider that Hezekiah wasn't born of a virgin (his father was Ahaz) and his name isn't anywhere close to "Immanuel". So, I disagree that there was some "mistranslation" somewhere and scribes haphazardly wrote the Hebrew word for young woman as "virgin". Give them SOME credit, will ya?
As to the 300+ other Messianic prophecies God saw fit to include throughout Holy Scripture, that was His M.O. - He said it would be one of the major ways His people could know His word from the many false prophets and religions around at that time. He said He would tell them things BEFORE they happened so that when they DID happen, they would learn to trust in Him and believe.
I think it is ludicrous to think that a ragtag group of poor fisherman and lower class people would have had the skill or knowledge to pull off such a scam - it would be an impossible thing to do to time everything right and get everything down to the last detail. And what good did it do them? Most of them were persecuted and died as martyrs for their faith and because they would not reject what they KNEW was the truth about Jesus Christ. Consider this...many people die for a lie, but NO ONE dies for what they know is a lie. Think about this.
Almah was young woman. The greek translated it to what we now report as virgin.
That means the old testament sign wasn’t a virgin. Rather that was the mistranslation.
Yes, the original prophecy was underwhelming. So was the reign of king Hezekiah.