"It's not God's sperm..."

Jew · Post by **Jew** » 2005-11-02 11:27am

McC wrote:I think the mistranslation explanation is much simpler. There never was any mention of Mary being a virgin. It was mistranslated, and then adopted as doctrine 'cause it made the story better.

Mistranslation can explain the passage in Isaiah but not the New Testament passages. Matthew says that "what is conceived in [Mary] is from the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 1:20). Additionally, Luke states:

Luke 1:26-35 wrote:26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

34 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

As you can see, the concept of the virgin birth is present in the earliest Church documents. The doctrine of the virgin birth is not a result of the mistranslation of Isaiah. More likely, the passage in Isaiah was mistranslated in later centuries because the doctrine of the virgin birth was already an part of Christianity, and the translators mistakenly assumed that Isaiah refered to a virgin.

Whether you agree with the doctrine of the virgin birth is another question, but the textual evidence does not suggest that the doctrine arose entirely out of a mistranslation.

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-11-02 11:37am

Hm. Didn't know about that.

Would it be too far-fetched to suggest that the NT writings simply decided to take Mary and inflate her story by making it relate to the prior writings, claiming she was a virgin?

Redleader34 · Post by **Redleader34** » 2005-11-02 03:54pm

No beacuse in order to apeal to any Jew at the time the claim of a virgin birth had to be made. Alcording to Matthew's gospel (Jerusalem bible) it says the yirgin will concive and give birth. This adds light to the genetlicaly enginered therory of christ's orign (I tke it as a manner of faith, but that is my busness).

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2005-11-02 06:44pm

It's been suggested to me that Jesus wasn't even born in Bethlehem (if he even existed, but we'll assume he did for now), but those that wrote his story changed that fact so that he would fall in with the prophecies.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-11-03 08:22am

All of this makes me wonder why bastard ever survived as an insult in the west. Their frickin' messiah was a bastard.

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2005-11-03 12:32pm

Jew wrote:
FTeik wrote:As already said, where does this Mary was a virgin originate?

And where did Joseph claim he wasn't the father?
From the book of Matthew.
Matthew 1:18-25 wrote:18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us."

24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
In the interest of full disclosure: verse 23 is a quote from Isaiah, and the word translated as "virgin" can also be translated as "young woman."

So we have NO evidence from the people concerned themself (Maria and Joseph), that Maria was a virgin or that Joseph denied to be the father. Not even evidence from the same time-period.

Just the claim of somebody, who lived hundred years later (and how does his claim fit with Joseph being "discret"?).

Jew · Post by **Jew** » 2005-11-03 01:01pm

FTeik wrote:So we have NO evidence from the people concerned themself (Maria and Joseph), that Maria was a virgin or that Joseph denied to be the father. Not even evidence from the same time-period.

Just the claim of somebody, who lived hundred years later (and how does his claim fit with Joseph being "discret"?).

It is true that neither Mary nor Joseph left writings about their experiences. However, your statement that the only records are from authors who "lived hundred years later" is false. Historians generally agree that the gospel of Matthew was written between 60 AD and 65 AD, although possibly as late as 80 AD. If it was written by the apostle Matthew (as is the historical assumption) then the author was a contemporary of Jesus and assuredly spoke to Mary to get the whole story from her.

The gospel of Luke (which contains the other explicit reference to the virgin birth) was written anywhere between 40 AD and 130 AD. In either case, we do have a reference to the virgin birth that dates to within less than a century of Christ's birth.

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2005-11-03 02:27pm

Pity no one's read the supposed Gospel of Thomas. Maybe it would say more?

Jew · Post by **Jew** » 2005-11-03 03:55pm

LadyTevar wrote:Pity no one's read the supposed Gospel of Thomas. Maybe it would say more?

The Gospel of Thomas (which was discovered in 1945 and is not canon) offers two interesting statements.

Gospel of Thomas, verses 15 and 79 wrote:15. Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father."

79. A woman in the crowd said to him, "Lucky are the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you."

He said to [her], "Lucky are those who have heard the word of the Father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, 'Lucky are the womb that has not conceived and the breasts that have not given milk.'"

The implication in the Gospel of Thomas is that Jesus is not the son of Mary at all. Not only was Joseph not his father, but Mary was not his mother; Jesus wasn't born from a woman at all.

This fits quite well with some of the Gnostic beliefs of the early church, because the Gnostics believed that the material world was inherently evil. Thus no true Messiah could be born from a woman. This (and numerous other problems) explain why the Gospel of Thomas is not accepted as biblical canon. Gnosticism, by the way, is a heretical belief system that peaked in the 2nd and 3rd centuries and was largely stamped out before the end of the 5th century. A few gnostic ideas are being revived today, most notably by the Mormons (but Mormons are not accepted as Christians by most other Christian denominations.)

Anyway, you're probably refering to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas which dates from the 2nd century and is also not considered canon. It contains some strange stories about Jesus as a child, but does not (so far as I know) mention anything about his birth, virgin or otherwise.

Lusankya · Post by **Lusankya** » 2005-11-03 11:22pm

So according to Thomas, we should all worship MacDuff?