Birth of Jesus - Christmas

Cypress said:
Mary never wrote anything, so no one can say she lied. The scholar I am citing about Mary's birth narrative - Jean Pierre Isbouts - is a practicing Roman Catholic.
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Your anti-virgin birth first post couldn't make it clearer that she must have lied about the virgin birth,as logically, that isn't possible!
 
Cypress said:
Mary never wrote anything, so no one can say she lied. The scholar I am citing about Mary's birth narrative - Jean Pierre Isbouts - is a practicing Roman Catholic.
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You wrote it! Not "Jean Pierre Isbouts"! So you quoted him,but don't agree? Or you quoted him but do agree?
 
Cypress said:
A premarital pregnancy would have been a scandal in first century Jewish Galilee, bringing dishonor to the family of the woman.

Most scholars are predisposed to accept a historical reality of Mary becoming pregnant outside of wedlock. When such a damaging story appears in the gospels the underlying oral or written tradition was too persistent to ignore by first century authors. The Babylonian Torah seems to claim Mary was impregnated by a Roman soldier.

Luke and Matthew get around this problem by using the Hebrew Bible to frame the birth of Jesus in a theological context. The question is whether the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew are only based on prophecy, or based on an authentic and long standing oral tradition.

The miraculous virgin birth narrative is only briefly mentioned in Luke and Matthew, composed around 80 to 85 AD.

Authors writing much earlier, Paul and Mark, make no mention of a virgin birth. Paul seems to allude that Jesus did not become divine until after he was crucified.

John and the author of Peter I and II make no mention of a virgin birth.

The gnostic gospel of Thomas and the other recognized Gnostic writings do not mention a virgin birth.

It is remarkable that an event so momentous and unprecedented as a virgin birth fulfilling Hebrew prophecy is not mentioned by these other authors.

Conclusion: the miraculous Virgin birth narrative is a later legendary account composed and framed by Luke and Matthew for theological reasons.
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Mary always seemed a little slutty to me.
 
Cypress said:
Mary never wrote anything, so no one can say she lied. The scholar I am citing about Mary's birth narrative - Jean Pierre Isbouts - is a practicing Roman Catholic.
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I am just doing some poking around on Google Scholar and other resources. I'm finding a lot of stuff from Isbouts (one seemingly credulous article in National Geographic --THIS ONE--) but I'm not finding his research about the more mundane factual story of the birth (virgin vs out of wedlock).

I think the thing that still causes me to stumble on this point is that the narrative would only have developed decades after Jesus birth, at the absolute earliest when his ministry really started taking off and someone bothered to commit such a story to memory to become part of the oral tradition leading to the written gospels even later on.

But even then that's totally a "what if" story and carries no evidentiary weight. I would love to see his scholarship on why he even feels the birth narrative has much if anything real about it apart from Mary and Joseph's names.

When I look at the Gospels I see the same thing I see in all of the bible: a nice mix of stuff that is clearly TRUE (sometimes the dates or places may be off a bit, but essentially true) mixed with stuff that is wholly MADE UP (often for specific religious reasons. The virgin birth being KEY. Any good observant Jew who even THOUGHT about the Messiah at that time would no doubt be intimately familiar with the Prophecies.

This could DEFINITELY explain why Matthew and Luke are the two Gospels which contain this. Matthew was speaking to the Jewish Christian community (Jews) and Luke was talking to a community struggling to accept the teachings of the new faith.

Tying Jesus DIRECTLY back to Isaiah, despite the FACT that Jesus as Messiah did not comport with anyone's vision of what the Messiah was supposed to be, would be CRITICAL. And hence the birth narrative.
 
ZenMode said:
It's humor. Dark humor if you're a Christian.
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In any of these type of discussions I always fear I'm going to insult someone's deeply held religious faith. I love discussing religion and the guy I used to do most of my religious discussions with back in tha day (later he became a philosophy prof and a religious man) were free form enough and we both had a pretty dark sense of humor so making mild jokes at each other's points was not only accepted but EXPECTED.

That's the kind of philosophical discussion I miss so much. I've never been able to find it online, that's for sure. Too fraught.
 
Margot said:
Your anti-virgin birth first post couldn't make it clearer that she must have lied about the virgin birth,as logically, that isn't possible!
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It's plausible, and I am willing to entertain it as a plausible hypothesis.

If we take Luke and Matthew at their word, Mary was pregnant out of wedlock.

Matthew had a vested interest in a miraculous conception narrative. Matthew was primarily writing for a Hebrew audience, and he was probably interested in connecting Jesus to Hebrew prophecy in the Septuagint.

Paul, Mark, James, John, make no mention of a miraculous conception and virgin birth. An event so unprecedented and miraculous it's hard to understand why they would ignore it.

If Matthew and Luke are correct that Mary was pregnant out of wedlock, either it was a miraculous conception, or Mary got pregnant by Joseph prior to being wedded.
 
Daylight63 said:
In any of these type of discussions I always fear I'm going to insult someone's deeply held religious faith. I love discussing religion and the guy I used to do most of my religious discussions with back in tha day (later he became a philosophy prof and a religious man) were free form enough and we both had a pretty dark sense of humor so making mild jokes at each other's points was not only accepted but EXPECTED.

That's the kind of philosophical discussion I miss so much. I've never been able to find it online, that's for sure. Too fraught.
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If it were my family or friends, I wouldn't make the jokes, but it's not. It's random strangers on an internet forum. If they don't know what they're getting into, when opening specific cans of worms, that's not my issue.

I also love discussing religion, but it's often more of a "Really? You believe that the sky wizard impregnated a teenage girl? How exactly did that happen?"
 
Cypress said:
If Matthew and Luke are correct that Mary was pregnant out of wedlock, either it was a miraculous conception, or Mary got pregnant by Joseph prior to being wedded.
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It all comes down to "How important is the supernatural stuff" to the poster.

For instance there are tons of Christians who accept evolution because there's no impact on their understanding of God or a good life or salvation. But for others they REQUIRE the supernatural stuff from Genesis to be literally true even for them to understand Jesus. I once heard a devout Evangelical say that in order to accept Jesus you have to accept literal Genesis since Jesus was presumably a believer or <insert convoluted exegesis here>.

I love it when a more "banal" explanation is reasonably available (eg pregnant out of wedlock) because it kind of does to the whole story what Jefferson supposedly did to the Gospels: cutting out the supernatural stuff in order to focus on the MEANING of the story and the TEACHINGS. Not getting caught up in the stuff that beggars the imagination of more rational people. It allows the rational to enjoy the benefits of the teachings as well as the credulous.
 
ZenMode said:
If it were my family or friends, I wouldn't make the jokes, but it's not. It's random strangers on an internet forum. If they don't know what they're getting into, when opening specific cans of worms, that's not my issue.
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Yeah, I always pull my punches with family. Families usually don't enjoy a lively debate about atheism and religion! Especially over the holidays! LOL. :)

ZenMode said:
I also love discussing religion, but it's often more of a "Really? You believe that the sky wizard impregnated a teenage girl? How exactly did that happen?"
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I am an atheist now but I come from a relatively moderate religious background. So for me there was a time in my adult life when I started to examine what it was that I believed and why I believed it.

So for me it is always a struggle to say "Really? You believe that?" even though on some more extreme beliefs that is EXACTLY what is going on in my head. But for most religious belief I can still understand their impetus and why they believe as they do.

Most of my friends IRL are believing Christians. But I'm also super-fortunate in that none of them practice the kind of faith that pushes others away. All of them are kind and decent people and usually very smart (far smarter than me in many cases). ANd I've been quite fortunate in that as I have walked away from the faith they have not shut me out.

I love them and appreciate them....AND their faith!
 
Daylight63 said:
It all comes down to "How important is the supernatural stuff" to the poster.

For instance there are tons of Christians who accept evolution because there's no impact on their understanding of God or a good life or salvation. But for others they REQUIRE the supernatural stuff from Genesis to be literally true even for them to understand Jesus. I once heard a devout Evangelical say that in order to accept Jesus you have to accept literal Genesis since Jesus was presumably a believer or <insert convoluted exegesis here>.

I love it when a more "banal" explanation is reasonably available (eg pregnant out of wedlock) because it kind of does to the whole story what Jefferson supposedly did to the Gospels: cutting out the supernatural stuff in order to focus on the MEANING of the story and the TEACHINGS. Not getting caught up in the stuff that beggars the imagination of more rational people. It allows the rational to enjoy the benefits of the teachings as well as the credulous.
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You could cut the miraculous conception and virgin birth story out of Luke and Matthew, and it literally wouldn't have any effect on basic Christian concepts of salvation, grace, and ethics.

Especially since Jesus' divine agency is established universally in other ways in the NT.
 
Cypress said:
You could take the virgin birth story out of Luke and Matthew, and it literally wouldn't have any effect on Christian concepts of salvation, grace, and ethics.

Especially since Jesus' divine agency is established universally in other ways in the NT.
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Then Jesus is just a moral teacher.
 
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