Jesus born of a virgin?

[AgogTheorist]

I started a thread related to this: Mathew takes Isaiah Chapter 7 way out of context
There's been some good discussion on the topic if you'd like to check it out.

Wow, 54 pages? That's amazing! Apparently this is a very controversial topic!

 

[CG Didymus]

Did Paul invent the virgin birth?

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-d-tabor/did-paul-invent-the-virgin-birth_b_2355278.html

The article by James D. Tabor is worth looking over. This part especially:

Paul never explicitly refers to Jesus' virgin birth nor does he ever name either Mary or Joseph. What he does affirm is that Jesus pre-existed before his human birth and subsequently gave up his divine glory through his birth as a human being. He writes that Jesus "though existing in the form of God" emptied himself and took on human form, "being made in the likeness of humankind" (Philippians 2:6-7). He says further "though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9). He has to be referring here, metaphorically, to the "riches" of Jesus' pre-existence with God, since all our sources have Jesus born of a poor peasant family. Paul also writes "In the fullness of time God sent forth his Son, made of a woman . . ." (Galatians 4:4). The implication of these texts is that Jesus' mother was merely the human receptacle for bringing Jesus into the world. It is not a far step from these ideas about Jesus' pre-existence to the notion of Jesus as the first-begotten Son of God--eliminating any necessity for a human father. Paul's entire message centers on a divine not a human Jesus--both before his birth and after his death. For Paul he is the pre-existent Son of God, crucified, but now raised to sit at the right hand of God. Like the Christian creeds that jump from Jesus' birth to his death and resurrection in single phrase, entirely skipping over his life, Paul paves the way for a confessional understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

How would Paul and other early evangelists compete with religions that all had god/men? To make Jesus God and born of a virgin worked. Paul got all the "Jewish" requirements out of the way, like kosher laws, circumcision etc. That, and by at least implying Jesus was God and divine made it easy for pagans to convert. Look at how new religious movements today try and convince people to convert. They all have to come up with some story that sets them apart or at least equal to, but new and improved to the old ways.

 

[Shiranui117]

Ok, will do!

As I said in my first post on this thread, there are all kinds of concerns with the translation and usage of the "born of a virgin" prophecy. I'll elaborate a bit on them here.

First off, yes indeed, the LXX (Greek translation) does use "parthenos" or "virgin" in the Isaiah passage. However, this is an incorrect translation from the Hebrew. The Hebrew reads "almah" or "young woman". By contrast, the word for "virgin" in Hebrew is "bethulah". If the author of Isaiah had meant "virgin", he'd have used "bethulah", and not "almah".

Since the author of Matthew only had access to the LXX, it makes sense that he'd think it said "virgin". However, the fault there lies with the translators of the LXX.

I do fault the author of Matthew with the usage of that Isaiah passage altogether, though. If you read the whole Isaiah passage in context, it's clear it has nothing to do with Jesus:

Isaiah 7:1-17 (New Jerusalem Bible)


Jerusalem, of which Ahaz was king centuries before Christ, was besieged by the tribes of Ephraim and Judah. God is giving Ahaz a promise: that he would rescue Jerusalem. God is giving Ahaz a timeline: before the young woman who is already pregnant gives birth to a son, and that son learns to tell right from wrong. It simply doesn't make sense that Jesus would be the fulfillment of this promise -- the siege would be long over! Many scholars think the "young woman" referred to may have been Ahaz's own wife.

As I said above, it was a common and acceptable practice in NT-times to take OT passages out of context and use them to give divine credence to what the current author is trying to say. In fact, you can take almost any OT quote in the NT, read it in its context, and be quite surprised and/or confused. But if the author of Matthew had written the book today, his wrist would be slapped pretty solidly.

Take that, Gospel of Matthew! *snap!*

CONGRATULATIONS!

Here's your reward

 

[CG Didymus]

Speaking of the virgin birth and Matthew misquoting Isaiah:

Apparently this is a very controversial topic!

It is. This is a very weak link in the Christian New Testament story. If it falls, so does Christianity, at least the literal, fundamental types. Other religions and liberal forms of Christianity probably don't care that much. They might, in fact, believe the virgin birth to be a made-up myth. The article by James D. Tabor makes some very good points about how and why it might be made-up. He makes it Paul, not Matthew or Luke, that got the ball, or myth rolling.Wouldn't that be something if the virgin birth was a fabricated story.

It would lead to pure chaos--no reason to fear God and his Son Jesus. Or, would we be able to be smart enough and wise enough to do good without our "myths"? What's scary. We already have chaos, because too many people don't fear God or believe in him because of these myths. The good news--a lot of good, spiritual seeking people find valid alternatives to the Christian myths. Unfortunately, some of those alternatives are religions that have their own crazy myths.

 

[heksesang]

Esaias (Isaiah) 7:14: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel.

Look for yourself: ESAIAS / ΗΣΑΪΑΣ / 7 - Septuagint Old Testament Bilingual (Greek / English)

Also note the word translated as "virgin," parthenos:

1. a virgin
   1. a marriageable maiden
   2. a woman who has never had sexual intercourse with a man
   3. one's marriageable daughter
2. a man who has abstained from all uncleanness and whoredom attendant on idolatry, and so has kept his chastity
   1. one who has never had intercourse with women

Which times are you thinking of in particular for Mary?

AgogTheorist pretty much sums up my concerns about using that verse from the LXX as a prophecy about Jesus.

And one example that springs to mind is when Jesus stays in the temple and his parents look for him. When he says that he has to be in his father's house, his parents do not understand what he means. Despite the fact that angels told them how he was chosen and exalted by God. Did that have so little impact that they forgot a few years later?

 

[AgogTheorist]

This is a very weak link in the Christian New Testament story. If it falls, so does Christianity, at least the literal, fundamental types. ...

It would lead to pure chaos--no reason to fear God and his Son Jesus. Or, would we be able to be smart enough and wise enough to do good without our "myths"? What's scary. We already have chaos, because too many people don't fear God or believe in him because of these myths. The good news--a lot of good, spiritual seeking people find valid alternatives to the Christian myths. Unfortunately, some of those alternatives are religions that have their own crazy myths.

Thanks for your response, CG Didymus. I understand most of what you're saying, and hope you can clarify some of the parts I don't.

Re: "It would lead to pure chaos"
I'm assuming here that your trail of logic is as follows, at least for literalists:

• Assume: The virgin birth is a fabrication
• Then: the Bible is not literally true
• Then: the Bible is not "God's word"
• Then: we don't need to pay attention to it
• Then: we don't need to "fear" God
• Then: we fall into anarchy

Is that about correct? Would it not be fairly easy for literalists to find alternatives to almost every one of those "Then" statements? For example, could not the Bible still be "God's word" even if it's not literally true? Or, could we not still pay attention to as a very important guidebook even if it's not "God's literal word"? Or could we not find alternatives to anarchy even if we don't fear God?

Or is there an underlying assumption that people (or at least fundamentalist Christians) will naturally gravitate towards chaos unless they are held back by a fear of God based in a literal understanding of the Bible?

Re: "We already have chaos, because too many people don't fear God or believe in him because of these myths."
Is that really true? I'd suggest that Fundamentalist Christianity is no less chaotic than the rest of the world, on average. Did not the Crusades or the Westboro Baptist Church happen despite literalist interpretations of the Bible? Do not a lot of atheists live in admirable harmony with others and the planet?

Re: "Unfortunately, some of those alternatives are religions that have their own crazy myths."
Why are myths necessarily crazy, or at least not worth paying attention to? I personally think there is a tremendous value in myth in terms of telling stories, creating identity, and showing truths. Myths, even if they aren't literally true, help us see truths in ways that are otherwise shrouded. I find them analogous to poetry, which can wrap layers of meaning and emotions in words which a simple statement of facts is incapable of. Myths only become crazy when you judge them based on their historicity instead of the underlying meanings they attempt to convey.

 

[Big_TJ]

CONGRATULATIONS!

Here's your reward

This is one of the problem with this world: there is apparently no place for truth or logics.

 

[AgogTheorist]

This is one of the problem with this world: there is apparently no place for truth or logics.

At least there's always room for cookies!

 

[AgogTheorist]

The mystery of Marys birth explained in this video, through the knowledge of Ahmed Al Hassan.

It's an interesting video, though I'm not sure it's entirely appropriate for the Christian DIR.

I'll add a bit of a description for the benefit of others deciding whether or not to click the link:

Ahmad Al-Hassan is an Islamist Imam, who apparently encourages people to ask questions about things, and then answers those questions. The two women in the video apparently do a regular feature called "Pearls of the Yamani", of which this video is one episode, where they receive questions from people and then answer them from the point of view of this Imam. I didn't quite grasp what their relationship to him is, exactly.

In this episode they discuss the story of Jesus's birth of Mary, according to the text of the Quran. They acknowledge up front that the birth was a miracle, but then proceed to answer how exactly that miracle occurred, using terms like "non-physical self-sperm", etc.

Yahya310, please correct me if anything I've said is misrepresented.

Personally, I'm not too sure what the point of this thought exercise is. If you acknowledge that the birth is a miracle, what do you gain by explaining how exactly it happened? You just push the unexplainable parts a few steps back -- in this case, how is it that non physical sperm becomes physical sperm, for example? I guess the answer is that sperm metaphysics is at least partly a miracle itself. Which means we're back to square one.

Also, the video doesn't consider the possibility that the virgin birth might be an invention, which was the original question of this thread.

 

[Shiranui117]

of course!
There is no doubt about that!

No doubt about what? ._.