I've heard countless stories about the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, and how she did not need a man in order to give birth to him. I first find this completely unrealistic and amusing, then I am reminded of the Greek & Roman tales about how Hera could "cleanse" herself and regain her purity once a year, as well as how it is sometimes said Hera was able to give virgin birth to some of her children, impregnating herself by other means in order to spite Zeus and his uncontrollable lust.

Is the story of Mary really that different? How is it possible for a virgin to give birth, especially back then? We know today that meiosis and mitosis are the processes of cell division, however meiosis, the process by which humans reproduce, requires the genetic information of another human in order to make a child, so that there are variances in the child and that the child is not simply a clone of one of the parents -- namely the mother.

How is Mary any different? Was she really a virgin? What evidence is there, real evidence, that would lead anyone to believe she was beyond a few certain passages? Has there ever been any recorded case of virgin or similar, uncanny birth? I challenge all that believe this tale to prove to me that Mary was a virgin, or at least give me some cold, hard evidence.

Was Mary blessed or bedded?

Actually she was pagan, before she was adopted as the mother of the new god of the christians. Hence her icon in catholic churches, where she stands upon the world with the crown of the universe about her head. That is symbolic of the "queen of heaven" title, she wore in ancient Sumeria and Egypt, as examples. That she has the snake beneath her feet, is the christian intent to suppress the goddess religion, as the snake was representative not of that "evil" deceiver in the garden of Eden, but rather of reincarnation, earth wisdom, and female sexuality. (think Kundalini).

Mary may be christianized now, and is so because the early church patriarchs, the invaders, adopted the pagan's goddess into their pantheon of new faith, so as to communicate to the earlier (and now forbidden) faiths that even their goddess found a home in the new christ/god, of the land. What's bitter sweet about the male god invader tribes is that, while they destroyed the ancient tree groves and temple sites of pagan worship, and built churches on the sites so as to banish the old faith, they retained indigenous labor to erect the structures! That's why to this day, if one visits the old churches in Europe they will see various signs or sigils , representative of the earlier pagan faith, secreted into the construction. Hence the church may stand superior, after it's campaign of invasion and genocide, however the old ways are what give that earthly domain of the new god's faithful, the foundation at their feet , the walls about their worship and the roof over their head. The goddess stretches her body across the plains of the earth and throughout the vault of heaven, even in constructs of man made myth and architecture!

Thus that neo-pagan liturgy was made manifest by the ancients, as the ultimate revolution against invading sadists; "....For behold, I have been with you from the beginning , and I am that which is attained at the end of desire."

actually the old word for virgin in hebrew (i forget the exact word)
actually meant a woman who had no previous children not a woman that had not had sex. basically, meaning she was not a mother yet until jesus's birth.

Seriously what kind of evidence do you require, a note from her gynecologist! There is no evidence that she was not either in the same way could you prove that Cleopatra was not a virgin.
There was a legal necessity for the virgin birth that required the messiah to not be of the seed of Adam in order to challenge Satan.
It is part of faith and not of science so you will not find any proof either way.

Martin

Although proof of the "Is Mary A Virgin" matter is zero in any case. I will just state my opinion- i believe she was a virgin at one time and she lost her virginity after the birth of Jesus . . . (if you believe that Christ was conceived by holy spirit). I do.
Jesus had biological siblings . . . those were not conceived by the holy spirit- those were done the "old fashion way" ... so if she didn't lose it before she'd had lost it then.

Matthew, Chapter 1

"...Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together , she was found with child of the Holy Ghost..."

Sure, according to science her having a baby would require her to have sex and be impregnated basically. Yet i believe in miracles. I've experienced and seen them so who am i to deny this story...Stupid? If you say so.

You should really consider writing for conspiracy theory websites, I think you have the talent

Mary was a virgin when the angel appeared unto her. (i.e. can be translated as either "unmarried" or "chaste") However she is told the Holy Ghost will "come unto her", which would mean she was "de-virginized" when she was mounted by the holy ghost.
And certainly during the birthing process, the hyman was destroyed so if she wasn't de-virginized at conception, she certainly was at the birth.

I find it interesting, the phraseology of that passage in verse 35; "...that holy thing, which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."

Considering that every human Hebrew male is considered a "son of God" in the Hebrew faith. And then there are those passages in the OT, that refer to the heavenly hosts or, "Sons of God", which were the fallen angels that were enamoured with human females and so descended to Earth to breed with them and thus created the Nephilim.


The root of Nephilim is nephel which means: "untimely birth, abortion, miscarriage".


Genesis 6:4 (King Jame's version)
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they; bare children unto them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

Taken from the Akathist to the Mother of God:


"Rejoice, container of the Uncontainable God:

Rejoice, door of solemn mystery!

Rejoice, report doubtful to unbelievers:

Rejoice, undoubted boast of the faithful!

Rejoice, all-holy chariot of Him Who sitteth upon the Cherubim:

Rejoice, all-glorious temple of Him Who is above the Seraphim!

Rejoice, Thou Who hast united opposites:

Rejoice, Thou Who hast joined virginity and motherhood!

Rejoice, Thou through whom transgression hath been absolved:

Rejoice, Thou through whom Paradise is opened!

Rejoice, key to the kingdom of Christ:

Rejoice, hope of eternal good things!

Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!"

Yawn, which brings us back to the betulah v.s. almah theme, again. The word in Isaiah was almah, which categories a woman according to age. the Hebrew root is aleph lamed mem and refers to youth. There is even a male counterpart elem, which means simply a young man. The term betulah, rottt: Beth Tau Lamed, referrs to the hymen and specifically meant virgin. Isaiah had three sons, which were named after prophecies. His third son, Immanuel, which means YHVH is with is, was a prediction for the king that god was with him and would help him conquer his two enemies. Not a virgin, just his much younger wife, "the Prophetess", who was not Mary mother of Jesus.

Yawn?
Nothing like a dismissive attitude to accompany alleged scholarship. If it's bothersome to "again" have to address the theme of this thread, may I suggest you keep your mouth shut (not yawn) and ignore that which you find bothersome.

Otherwise you insult the author (and others) of the thread that may have never read what you choose to add to the discussion, and for which your attitude provides an irrevocable first impression and affects one's consideration of the credibility in what you have to say.
See, attitude aside, sources assist the furtherance of education on a subject, rather than dismissive yawns and utterances.

It's just that, if you know the hebrew, the note in Matthew is ridculous at best. Here the mysterious authors of the n.t. are at their worst, just making up stuff based on the Septuagint, since they apparently didn't know any hebrew at the church councils of the fourth century.This almost, but not quite, as nonsensical as when they misquote the Psalmist about "like a lion" meaning "pierced". Then again, they were xians writing for a pagan audience 300 years later.

It's just that, if you know the hebrew, the note in Matthew is ridculous at best. Here the mysterious authors of the n.t. are at their worst, just making up stuff based on the Septuagint, since they apparently didn't know any hebrew at the church councils of the fourth century.This almost, but not quite, as nonsensical as when they misquote the Psalmist about "like a lion" meaning "pierced". Then again, they were xians writing for a pagan audience 300 years later. I have no attitude problem. There is no virgin birth implied in Isaiah, and it has been brought up on many, many threads.



I liked this. I have scared away many missionaries by asking them if Mary was permitted an orgasm as the h.s. fertilized her, since the h.s. apparently got his rocks off. It would only be fair if Mary got to climax while she was being fertilized with theh "son of God". Usually they run away actually screaming.

I dunno what to think now....cuz when the person was writting the bible story about the birth of Jesus...they thought that a woman getting pregnant from an unmarried man was sinful...sooo to make it sound good..they wrote that jesus came from a virgin mother...at least that way it dont look as bad LOL

Haha! You're a riot, Gideon, I can only imagine their terror as the blood drains from their faces. I bet they never thought about it like that before, but who knows -- maybe that's where the answers are. Thank you all for the responses so far, keep them coming. I'm still not convinced.

Actually she is a cheap rip-off on earlier "Virgin Mothers of God" ranging from Isis to whatever Mithra's mothers name was (I forget and am too tired to look it up, but I think it started with an "A", maybe Seanp will read this and help me out). My personal opinion is that Christianity was wholly a creation of Ole "Solly" by combining Judaism with one of the Mystery Cults to make Judaism more platable to Gentiles.

At the same time i wouldnt be suprised if Mary wasnt a virgin...Theres been some findings that show different sides to the same story (Judas/Jesus) which infact change an entire scene around. So maybe there was mistranslation - plain lies.

Yet the concept of there being a virgin birth to me isnt impossible...Miracles happen and if God is all powerful then i see a Virgin Birth as being easily done from a "Godly" perspective.

Everyone has a valid point but its all just assumptions now- we might find another chapter of the Bible that may read Virgin actually had sex to have Jesus- who knows...Otherwise its all just speculation and that in itself is no evidence.

Mithra's mom was gaea, the goddess of the earth itself. He emerged from a cave full-grown. This was of course observed by shepherds and predicted by magi, etc. yadadada

A connection between Christianity and Mithraism is specious at best. The similarities are either no more unusual than similarities that exist between all religions, are exagerrated, or are not based on recent scholarship. Similarity also does not prove dependence or common origin.

mary was miriam, daughter to anna, chosen to bear the priest messiah , on account of her vision.

I started a thread a while back asking a similar question. In it, I looked at the genealogy of Jesus as given in Matthew 1. Four women are mentioned in this genealogy (a strange occurence, since it's through the males that the genealogy was usually traced). THere was Tamar, who in the Old Testament pretended to be a prostitute. There was Rahab who WAS a prostitute. There was Ruth, who's story in the Old Testament reads like a good ol' romance novel, where the tall dark stranger Boaz woos Ruth and they live happily ever after. And there was Mary herself, a virgin (according to the Bible).

I personally believe the story to be accurate, but the question begs asking - why were these three women included with Mary in Jesus' genealogy? DId the author of Matthew know something that we don't?

You're lucky I'm not a missionary knocking on your door, gid

Was Mary a virgin impregnated by a divine being ...? No. First, Paul says Jesus was born in a natural way. Second, Mark, the earliest Gospel, mentions no such miraculous event--and would have if it had occurred. Third, scholars and theologians know that the virgin birth story began with a simple translation error when the Hebrew OT was translated into Koine Greek, or the Septuagint ("LXX"). Fourth, virgin birth stories were the norm in the Hellenized world. Fifth, the virgin birth story grew in response to Doceticism.

Divine Men, Heros & Gods (Professor James Tabor, UNC Charlotte)
http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/JDTABOR/divine.html

From the Oxford Companion to the Bible:

... Non-Christian sources are instructive in tracing parallels to the cult of Mary. Virgin Birth stories (e.g., Hera, Rhea Silvia, Brigid) were circulated in other cultures, as were tales of mothers mourning lost and deceased children (e.g., Demeter and Persephone; Isis and Horus). Iconographically, just as Mary was often portrayed holding or nursing the infant Jesus, so too was the Egyptian goddess Isis depicted suckling her infant son, Horus. Even as Mary was called Queen of Heaven and sometimes depicted surrounded by the zodiac and other symbols, so too were the deities Isis, Magna Mater, and Artemis.

Such parallels show that Mary’s cult had roots in the cults of the female deities of the Greco-Roman pantheon, cults ultimately eradicated by Christianity. While Mary in some ways represents qualities impossible for human beings, especially women, to emulate—ever-virgin yet motherly; always gentle and obedient to God’s will—her attributes nevertheless represent for many devotees important female properties not provided by the traditional all-male Trinity. For many, the adoration of a female figure is a vital psychological supplement to their faith.--VALERIE ABRAHAMSEN

Kindly,

Sean

Seanp...help Irish out here will you...I think this so far is one of the best replies to this thread...but a lil team work is required

[quote name='seanph' date='Jun 8 2006, 08:59 AM' post='1223306']
Was Mary a virgin impregnated by a divine being ...? No. First, Paul says Jesus was born in a natural way. Second, Mark, the earliest Gospel, mentions no such miraculous event--and would have if it had occurred. Third, scholars and theologians know that the virgin birth story began with a simple translation error when the Hebrew OT was translated into Koine Greek, or the Septuagint ("LXX"). Fourth, virgin birth stories were the norm in the Hellenized world. Fifth, the virgin birth story grew in response to Doceticism.

Divine Men, Heros & Gods (Professor James Tabor, UNC Charlotte)
http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/JDTABOR/divine.html

1. Source? I can't respond to the accusation unless I know what the verse says.

2. The theory that the Gospel of Mark is the earliest of the four caninical gospels is a theory of critical scholars who assume that the shortest and simplest gospel must also be the earliest. It is not the historic opinion of the theologians and historians of the early church, who consider Matthew to be the earliest gospel.

3. The translation of "almah" as "parthenos" is not a mistranslation persay. "almah" is a young woman who is unmarried, and thus assumed to be a virgin. The gospel writers also would have been familiar with Hebrew since it was read in the synagogues, even if they did not use it in everyday conversation. The New Testament, while quoting the LXX the majority of the time, also occasionally uses a "free" translation that differs from the LXX, which indicates that they were familiar with the areas where the LXX may have mistranslated, or that they were using a different textual tradition.

4. That virgin births stories existed in other religions does not prove that the concept was taken from them by the gospel writers.

5. I fail to see how Docetism, a heretical belief that Jesus was God but not man, would be supported by the virgin birth. If anything it would have given the Christian doctrine support. Considering that most scholars date the gospels of Matthew and Luke at about AD 50-60, that would be implying that there was a significant number of people who believed Jesus was so divine that his humanity was challenged this early in church history (about 20 years after the crucifixion), which certainly gives support to the belief that Jesus was divine (something often challenged on these forums).

5. Docetism saw Jesus as human. The purpose of the VB was to make Jesus divine. And Matthew and Luke do not date from 50-60 CE. Consensus is 80-90 CE.

Author, Date, Place. It is commonly held that Matthew was written about 85 or 90 CE by an unknown Christian who was at home in a church located in Antioch of Syria.--Oxford Companion to the Bible, JACK DEAN KINGSBUR

In any case, it is widely held that the Lucan gospel was composed ca. 80–85 CE, even though one cannot maintain this dating with certainty.--Oxford Companion to the Bible, OSEPH A. FITZMYER, S.J.

4. Consensus says otherwise, as referenced. This is well-known even amongst conservatives--Robinson, Brown, Collins, Kannengiesser, Krieg et al. And you'll notice that the NT does not venerate Mary in any way.

3. As it happens, the Greek translators had made a mistake. When they were translating the Hebrew writings into the Greek Septuagint and similar translations, they converted the Hebrew word "almah" as the Greek equivalent of our English word for virgin. "Almah" appears 9 other times in the Hebrew Scriptures; in each case it means "young woman". When the scriptures referred to a virgin (and they do over 50 times) they always used the Hebrew word "betulah". 7 So, Isaiah appears to have referred to a young woman becoming pregnant -- a rather ordinary event.--J.S. Spong, "Born of a Woman," P. 74-79

2. Markan priority is consensus.

Mark is the shortest of the four canonical Gospels and was almost certainly the first to be written. Although the use of narrative to record God’s salvation of Israel is common in the Hebrew Bible and although there is an obvious correspondence between the story told by Mark and the very brief summaries of the gospel found elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g., Acts 2.22–24), there are no parallels to this precise literary form before early Christianity. In all probability, therefore, the author of this book was responsible for creating the literary genre we know as “gospel.”--Oxford Companion to the Bible, MORNA D. HOOKER

1. Paul never mentions Jesus born in a miraculous manner:

Galatians 4:4: "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law."

AND:

Romans 1:1-3:"I Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle and separated onto the gospel of God...concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh."

Respectfully,

Sean

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." Thomas Jefferson, 1823.

I forgot ... Let me add 6) the authors of the Sayings Gospel Q mention nothing of a virgin birth 7) this was not only a defensive move against Docetism, but Midrash, and 8) GJohn does not refer to a supernatural birth either:

John 1:45 refers to Jesus specifically as "the son of Joseph."

AND:

John 6:42 the people ask: "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?".

Respectfully,

Sean

... Many of the stories about Jesus contained in these ancient documents [Gospels, canonical and not] Kannengiesser says, were tales commonly applied to mythical figures and heroes of the time. “It was almost obligatory to have such stories available,” the theologian says; “they were stock stories told to convert people to Jesus.” Tales of virgin births, divine heroes, and miracles workers were relatively common 2,000 years ago and simply did not mean what they do to us today.--Notre Dame Magazine, Father Kannengiesser

And thus the only logical explanation is for Jesus to be the Son of God.

but his question was -- was she really a virgin...we know jesus was the son of God

Their's no evidence of their being a god, so how can you say that?

Per Christian belief he is the son of God.

From what the Bible says though God had many other sons and the way the Bible tends to ignore females..........perhaps daughters as well.

Another interesting aspect of Jesus's divinity is 1 Timothy 3:16 and the Codex Axexandrinus. This particular passage has been used by orthodoxy to prove that Jesus is God. However, when the C.A. was closely examined by textual critics, they noticed that the abbreviated name for God--normally four letters, now two (theta and sigma), with a line drawn over the top--had been written at a later date and from a different scribe. The line drawn over theta, wasn't apart of that letter, but ... was a line that had bled through from the other side of the old vellum. In other words, rather than being the abbreviation (theta-sigma) for "God", the word was actually an omicron and a sigma, a different word altogether, which simply means "who." The original reading of the manuscript thus did not speak of Christ as "God made manifest in the flesh" but of Christ "who" was made manifest in the flesh." According to the ancient testimony of the C.A., Christ is no longer explicitly called God in this passage . . . . other passages typically used to affirm the doctrine of the divinity of Christ that in fact represented textual problems; when these problems are resolved on text-critical grounds, in most instances references to Jesus's divinity are taken away..." (Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman, Bart, p. 113)

As for the term "Son of God" ... it implied something much different in the Roman world. It was a common phrase used by rulers, emperors and divine heroes such as Herrcules et al. But Jesus seems to have used it in a much less pompus manner, for he referred to his followers as such, exhorting them to say:

Love your enemies and pray for those persecuting you, so that you may become sons of your Father, for He raises his sun on bad and good and rains on the just and unnjust.

Of course, any ruler hearing this term used--Pontius Pilate--would have set off alarm bells. For Pilate, there could be but one ruler ... and we all know what happened next ...

... It was jesus' simple disciples in Galilee who were sons--and of course, daughters--of God. Whenever Jesus called upon them to think of God as their Father, he was by implication calling upon them to think of themselves as his sons and daughters. (The Gospel of Jesus, Robinson, James, A., p. 184)

Kindly,

Sean

No, Gideon Mage; you are wrong. According to our holy scriptures, Lord Mithra was born of immaculate conception (as Christians call it) to the Blessed virgin Anahita. He was born in a cave as a babe, adored by shepherds, proclaimed by Angels, visited by Magi'i, whose birthing gifts were Frankensense, Mhyrr and gold. He had to be taken to another nation because the evil King wanted to kill him! Does this sound remotely familar, could this be what the Christians stole and gave to Jesus? - Mithra

5. The church has historically favored a much earlier dating than 80-85. For the Gospel of Matthew, Eusebius, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus are of the opinion that it was written about 38, Nicephorus Callistus 45, and Irenaeus about 64-67. Catholic historians date it as early as 36 and late as 67, and Protestant historians vary greatly depending if they're more conservative or liberal (generally 60-100). Similarly, the Gospel of Luke is believed to have been written between about 50 and 64; it formed book with Acts, which was written before Paul's death (which it makes no mention of), which is usually dated at about 65-70.

Docetism is "a heretical sect dating back to Apotolic times. Their name is derived from dokesis, "appearance" or "semblance", because they taught that Christ only "appeared" or "seemed to be a man, to have been born, to have lived and suffered. Some denied the reality of Christ's human nature altogether, some only the reality of His human body or of His birth or death." http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05070c.htm See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docetism
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=docetism
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/D/Docetism.asp

4. My contention was that the existence of virgin birth motifs in other religions does not necessarily prove that Christianity borrowed its teaching from them. In your response you seem to be addressing the veneration of Mary in the Bible.

3. You are quoting John S. Spong, the notorious Episcopalian bishop who denies basic Christian teachings such as the atonement and resurrection. He is a *highly* controversial author who cannot be considered an unbiased scholar.

"Almah" means a young woman of marriageable age, and never refers to a woman who is married (and presumed to not be a virgin). It is therefore compatible with "parthenos", and cannot be considered a mistranslation.

"The commonly held view that "virgin" is Christian, whereas "young woman" is Jewish is not quite true. The fact is that the Septuagint, which is the Jewish translation made in pre-Christian Alexandria, takes almah to mean "virgin" here. Accordingly, the New Testament follows Jewish interpretation in Isaiah 7:14. Therefore, the New Testament rendering of almah as "virgin" for Isaiah 7:14 rests on the older Jewish interpretation, which in turn is now borne out for precisely this annunciation formula by a text that is not only pre-Isaianic but is pre-Mosaic in the form that we now have it on a clay tablet.6." Dr. Cyrus Gordon

2. The church has historically considered Mark an early gospel, but since there are different opinions on the exact date of its composition, it could have been written before or after Matthew. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Tertullian and St. Jerome believed that it was written before Paul's death (65-70), but Irenaeus after. A date between 50 and 67 seems reasonably accurate. The supposed "consensus" that Mark is the earliest gospel is based upon the *assumption* that since it is the simplest and shortest gospel, it must also be the earliest. This is used by critical scholars to theorize the dependence of Matthew and Luke upon Mark. Any argument that the virgin birth is unreliable on that basis is therefore sheer conjecture.

1. I see nothing in those passages to contradict the virgin birth.


The "Gospel Q" is a theory, and no direct evidence has ever been found to support it. I fail to see how you could argue that it is missing from this supposed gospel unless you possessed a manuscript.

Its absence in John is not unusual, since John seems to have been written with a specific theological purpose that may not have required its reiteration. John fails to mention, for instance, the last supper, but it is scarcely questioned by scholars on that basis. John is also universally considered the latest gospel. One could not argue that the virgin birth is false since it does not appear in the "earliest" gospel of Mark but does in Matthew and Luke, and simultaneously argue the same on the basis of its absence in John, which was written after them.

Jesus was the "son of Joseph" because Joseph was his legal father. The crowds were vocalizing the popular understanding of Jesus, which was not always accurate (for instance, the Pharisees believed him to have been born in Galilee since he lived the majority of his life in Nazareth).

They don't ignore females, what the hell are you talking about? There are female roles in the bible *sigh* seems like people just want to pick at it just to pick at it I guess......

Or not.

http://tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.html

Why didn't I read through that entire article before????!!!!!! Looks like you lose this round, Satan........

I KNOW there is no evidence..thats why its called a FAITH

The Oxford Companion to the Bible is a work of consensus, found and used in both collegiate and seminary classrooms. That is why I used it.

The four gospels that we find in the New Testament, are of course, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The first three of these are usually referred to as the "synoptic gospels," because they look at things in a similar way, or they are similar in the way that they tell the story. Of these then, Mark is the earliest, probably written between 70 and 75. Matthew is next - written somewhere between 75 and about 85, maybe even a little later than that. Luke is a little later still, being written between 80 and maybe 90 or 95. And, John's gospel is the latest, usually dated around 95, although it may have been completed slightly later than that, as well.--L. Michael White, Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program University of Texas at Austin

The dates you are using are those of ultraconsservative scholars.



Thank you. And as I stated, the evangelists were responding to docetic attack. The VB was an attempt to elevate Jesus to divine status, beyond a mere man. Ehrman covers this thoroughly in Misquoitinng Jesus. You can also see in 1/2 John an attempt by the author against docetism. Here he refers to anybody who denies Jesus's humanity as an "antichrist."



I believe I addressed both.



I used Bishop Spong because of his honesty as a clergyman and the accuracy of his information. That said, I will offer the opinion of the ultraconservative scholar Raymond E. Brown:

... while the Church officially regards the virginal conception literally, "most theologians today look at it symbolically."--The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, p. 26

Even many of the greatest Christian writers/minds have dismissed the VB as blatant nonsense:

"madness and blasphemy" by Gennadius

"madness" by Origen

"sacrilege" by St. Ambrose

"impiety and smacking of atheism" by Philostorgius

"perfidy" by St. Bede

"full of blasphemies" by the author of Prædestin

"perfidy of the Jews" by Pope Siricius

"heresy" by St. Augustine



The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew. Mark, and Luke).

(The "Synoptic Problem" is one part of the problem of multiple gospels. It is quite independent of the relationship of John to the other gospels.)

Mark's gospel has about 660 verses, all but twenty or so of which reappear in Matthew and Luke. Matthew reproduces almost 600 of Mark's verses and Luke about 300.

Where the synoptic gospels agree on the ordering of the material all three agree. When Matthew and Luke diverge from the ordering of Mark they also disagree with each other.

The koine or common New Testament Greek of Matthew and Luke is much better written and smoother than that of Mark.

These facts are taken to indicate that Mark's gospel was the earliest written.

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew. Mark, and Luke). UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE
Dr. Bryan Rennie, Religion 101, Westminster College
http://www.westminster.edu/staff/brennie/mark.htm

The gospel tradition divides into two streams. There's Mark and there's John. Mark is the earliest gospel written, probably, shortly after the war that destroyed the Temple, the war between Rome and Judea. And Mark presents one type of Jesus with a particular narrative where Jesus begins in the Galilee and he ends his life in Jerusalem. John, a gospel that we can't date at all, has Jesus really with the Jerusalem ministry. He's scarcely in Galilee at all. And he's really talking and preaching and doing in Jerusalem. It's a quite different story and a quite different personality. Matthew and Luke depend on Mark. Which is why those three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are called the synoptic gospels. Because they can be understood together. But in terms of literary dependency, Matthew and Luke construct their story around the plot provided by Mark.--Paula Fredriksen, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture, Boston University



"Born of a woman" and the "seed" of David is pretty clear in meaning.



The Gospel of Q is accepted by over 90% of Biblical exegetes according to the Vatican. That said, no one has seen the Autographs, either, but scholars don't deny its existence.

It was a source of the sayings of Jesus, and it's another picture of Jesus. For example, whoever collected the sayings of Q wasn't interested in the death of Jesus, wasn't interested in the resurrection of Jesus. They thought the importance of Jesus was what he said, what he preached. Now other people thought, "it's not enough to have the sayings of Jesus. You have to tell about his death and his crucifixion and his resurrection, that's the important thing." Now somebody put that all together and we call it Matthew, and we call it Mark, and we call it Luke. But originally these are probably rather distinct pictures.--Elaine H. Pagels, The Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion Princeton University

Q and the Gospel of Thomas by Marilyn Mellowes
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sh...ry/qthomas.html

The Gospel According to Q by Professor James Tabor
http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/JDTABOR/Q.html

Two excellent reads on the subject:

The Gospel of Jesus: In Search of the Original Good News by James M. Robinson
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006076217...glance&n=283155

The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins by Burton L. Mack
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006065375...glance&n=283155



This is under fierce debate. Claims that Jesus was of doubtful paternity were rampant from nearly the get-go. In fact, the evangelists were once again put on the defensive:

... During his ministry, Jesus returns to Nazareth, where some of the residents wonder: 'Is not this the carpenter [ho tekt∂n], the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?' Mark 6:3). To be referred to as the 'son of Mary' raises questions about Jesus' paternity. It hardly comes as a surprise then that Matthew rephrases the insulting question: 'Is not this the carpenter's son [ho tou tekt∂nos huios]? (Matt 13:55). Jesus is here identified as son of Joseph the carpenter. Not only is the stigma of his doubtful birth removed, Jesus has been distanced from his lowly occupation.--The Cambridge Guide to Jesus, p. 14

Kindly,

Sean

AH yes we know how females were treated in the Bible don't we?

My Webpage

As Seanph was so kind to point out in a different thread to you bolt in response to that very link you posted before.



Looks like you lose AGAIN!

shodau there is no historical evidence for the Nazareth in the 1st Century.

• Nazareth is not mentioned even once in the entire Old Testament. The Book of Joshua (19.10,16) – in what it claims is the process of settlement by the tribe of Zebulon in the area – records twelve towns and six villages and yet omits any 'Nazareth' from its list.

• The Talmud, although it names 63 Galilean towns, knows nothing of Nazareth, nor does early rabbinic literature.

• St Paul knows nothing of 'Nazareth'. Rabbi Solly's epistles (real and fake) mention Jesus 221 times, Nazareth not at all.

• No ancient historian or geographer mentions Nazareth. It is first noted at the beginning of the 4th century.

Why would the gospels not be considered "historical evidence"? Because their purpose is religious? They testify to many places, people, and events that have been verified other sources. Nazareth was considered a small town of little significance even in the gospels (e.g. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?), so it would not be surprising that it is not mentioned in other sources. Further, why would Christians in the 1st century preach Jesus as being from Nazareth when the people would have known that there was no such town?

No that is not true. Here is a little knowledge to put with your dogma:

In his histories, Josephus has a lot to say about Galilee (an area of barely 900 square miles). During the first Jewish war, in the 60s AD, Josephus led a military campaign back and forth across the tiny province. Josephus mentions 45 cities and villages of Galilee – yet Nazareth not at all.
Josephus does, however, have something to say about Japha (Yafa, Japhia), a village just one mile to the southwest of Nazareth where he himself lived for a time (Life 52).
A glance at a topographical map of the region shows that Nazareth is located at one end of a valley, bounded on three sides by hills. Natural access to this valley is from the southwest.
Before the first Jewish war, Japha was of a reasonable size. We know it had an early synagogue, destroyed by the Romans in 67 AD (Revue Biblique 1921, 434f). In that war, it's inhabitants were massacred (Wars 3, 7.31). Josephus reports that 15,000 were killed by Trajan's troops. The survivors – 2,130 woman and children – were carried away into captivity. A one-time active city was completely and decisively wiped out.
Now where on earth did the 1st century inhabitants of Japha bury their dead? In the tombs further up the valley!
With Japha's complete destruction, tomb use at the Nazareth site would have ended. The unnamed necropolis today lies under the modern city of Nazareth.
At a later time – as pottery and other finds indicate(see below) – the Nazareth site was occupied. This was after the Bar Kochba revolt of 135 AD and the general Jewish exodus from Judea to Galilee. The new hamlet was based on subsistence farming and was quite unrelated to the previous tomb usage by the people of Japha.

As you can see, the site of Nazareth was the "graveyard" of Japha. Jews do not live in graveyards, they do not touch the dead. Nazareth did not come into being until long after Jesus supposedly lived.


Maybe because the gospels were written long after the fact, after the myth had been established. There is no contemporary evidence that Jesus ever lived.

The whole concept of Jesus wouldn't make sense (to me, at least) without the virgin birth (or at the very least without divine intervention). If Jesus were the product of a natural relationship, he could not be God. He'd just be another guy, and his death and resurrection would be utterly meaningless.

Whats it got to do with satan???? Are you trying to say that mythra is telling lies about his faith with happens to be much much older than the christian faith???

PA, you up at the wee hours of the morning again?! Do you ever sleep my friend?



The Jewish Messiah was to be a man and not some divine superman as Christians have made him out to be. Paul never mentions a virgin birtth and many early Church fathers and authors spoke out against it. And as Father Kannengiesser stated in Notre Dame Magazine:

... Many of the stories about Jesus contained in these ancient documents [Gospels, canonical and not] Kannengiesser says, were tales commonly applied to mythical figures and heroes of the time. “It was almost obligatory to have such stories available,” the theologian says; “they were stock stories told to convert people to Jesus.” Tales of virgin births, divine heroes, and miracles workers were relatively common 2,000 years ago and simply did not mean what they do to us today.



Sorry for repeating myself ... There is nothing in Jesus' self-understanding that made him think he was divine. He believed that he was somehow apart of ushering in the end of the age and coming kingdom of God.

As for Jesus being God ... There is a very serious problem here: 1 Timothy 3:16 and the Codex Alexandrinus. This particular passage has been used by orthodoxy to prove that Jesus is God. However, when the C.A. was closely examined by textual critics, they noticed that the abbreviated name for God--normally four letters, now two (theta and sigma), with a line drawn over the top--had been written at a later date and from a different scribe. The line drawn over theta, wasn't apart of that letter, but:

... was a line that had bled through from the other side of the old vellum. In other words, rather than being the abbreviation (theta-sigma) for "God", the word was actually an omicron and a sigma, a different word altogether, which simply means "who." The original reading of the manuscript thus did not speak of Christ as "God made manifest in the flesh" but of Christ "who" was made manifest in the flesh." According to the ancient testimony of the C.A., Christ is no longer explicitly called God in this passage . . . . other passages typically used to affirm the doctrine of the divinity of Christ that in fact represented textual problems; when these problems are resolved on text-critical grounds, in most instances references to Jesus's divinity are taken away..." (Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman, Bart, p. 113)



We had a great discussion on this before ... until the thread was closed.

Again, sorry for repeating myself ... There's nothing in Jesus' self-understanding to believe he had any intention to die for anybody's sins nor start a new religion. It was Paul who made these claims--claims that brought him into direct conflict with the original disciples and eventually caused a nasty split. It's also evident by the actions of the original disciples that after Jesus' shocking death, they did not see Jesus as divine or the ultimate sdin-sacrafice for all of humankind. They remained devout jews, attended synagogue, observed the Law, and celebrated Jewish holy days--chief among them, the Day of Atonemenht. Now, if Jesus had told them that he had come to shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins ... the disciples would not have continued to celebrate the Day of Atonement. Again, this was a Pauline invention.

One question ... Why is the resurrectioon relevant? According to the NT, it was his death--the shedding of his blood--that was supposed to save mankind, yes? So what's the purpose of the resurrection in salvation? Where in any OT prophecies is the Jewish Messiah supposed to die and be resurrected? The Jews don't believe this. In fact, Jesus didn't meat Messiahianic criteria at all.

Messiah: The Criteria
http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/jews-jesus/j...esus-index.html

The Real Messiah
http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/pdf/Real...kPages_v4ab.pdf

Most respectfully,

Sean

Here's where I differ with my good friends Mako and Z. Archaeological evidence does show that Nazareth did in fact exist in the 1st century. It was simply so tiny--maybe a couple hundred people or so--that it was simply overlooked or not considered relevant.

Archaeology in Nazareth confirms human habitation since the Stone Age and twenty three tombs from New Testament times have been found in what was then a small village. Jerome in the 5th century says it was a viculus or mere village, and modern estimates of its size in the first century are in the low hundreds. It was a satellite village of Sepphoris, a Hellenistic Roman city 6.5 km (4 miles) away...

... Thus there is some evidence that Nazareth was a Jewish settlement both before and after the First Jewish Revolt in AD 70.

SOURCE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth#Naza...and_archaeology

Respectfully,

Sean

Thanks for the reply, seanph. Perhaps the Jews were/are waiting for a flesh-and-blood King/messiah to lead them. I beg to differ on the last two points in your post though. Maybe Paul doesn't mention a virgin birth, but he does mention the divinity of Jesus. And Jesus, imo, acknowledges on many occassions his divine and special relationship to God.

In the end, this really just comes to our points of view in reading the text. Good luck with yours

regards, PA

btw, late? It was only 11pm at that stage. I do sleep, just a little later than most if I don't have work or go to uni early next day.

Evening Pa. Very true. But remember that Paul never knew the historical Jesus and received his Gospel, not from men [disciples], but from the resurrected Jesus and through revelation and visions. So his word on anything is, to say the least, highly suspect. No wonder he clashed with the original disciples and eventually split with them.



As for Jesus's divinity ... Most came from the resurrected Jesus, the post-Easter community.

I think Fuller provides a very good explanation:

... But he does call God “abba” in an unusual way, which points to God’s call to which he has responded in full obedience, and therefore we may speak of his unique sense of sonship. But we must bear in mind that in this Palestinian milieu sonship denoted not a metaphysical quality but rather a historical call and obedience. Jesus did challenge his disciples to say who they thought he was, which elicited from Peter the response that he was the Christ or Messiah (Mark 8.27–30; cf. John 6.66–69). According to Mark, he neither accepted nor rejected Peter’s assertion. What did Peter mean, and in what sense did Jesus take it? It is commonly thought that it was meant in a political-nationalist sense and that Jesus rejected this. It seems more likely, however, that Peter meant it in the sense of the anointed prophet of Isaiah 61.1. Such a response to Jesus would have been wholly appropriate as far as it went. What Peter and the other disciples did not realize, of course, was that this mission extended beyond the terms of Isaiah 61 and that it also involved rejection, suffering, and death. It is possible, though much disputed, that Jesus modeled this further insight upon the figure of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. We could be sure of this if Mark 10.45b belongs to stage I.

A very early tradition (Romans 1.3) asserted that the earthly Jesus was of a family descended from the royal line of David. We cannot be sure that this played any role in his self-understanding. For the post-Easter community this title was important as qualifying him for the messianic role he assumed after his exaltation.

The use of “Rabbi” and “my Lord” in addressing Jesus during his earthly ministry did not denote majesty: these were titles of respect accorded a charismatic person. However, as the conviction grew among his followers that he was the final emissary of God, these terms would acquire a heightened meaning.

In sum, we find in the Synoptics only limited evidence for an explicit Christology in Jesus’ self-understanding, and such evidence as there is is critically suspect. He was more concerned with what God was doing in him than who he was, especially in any metaphysical sense. But what God was doing through him in his earthly ministry provided the raw materials for the christological evaluation of Jesus after the Easter event.--REGINALD H. FULLER, Molly Laird Downs Professor of New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary

Most respectfully,

Sean

Anything is possible with God! He made it possibe for Mary to give birth as a virgin. Sure it's unrealistic and impossible to do on your own but if God helps, it's entirely possible.