Virgin birth

[bodhitharta]

God has also made barren women fertile and that is probably more difficult than a virgin becoming pregnant

[Catholic Apologist]

Quote (gollamudi @ Oct. 18 2009,23:23)

Hi brother Kerwin, You are right in saying that what Luke quoted in his last chapter(24) again proves that the Gospel writers wanted prove Jesus as Jewish Messiah by quoting Jewish scriptures irrespective of their context. Luke avoided quoting Isa 7:14 because he knows that it was disproved by Jews of his time. But he quoted scriptures for Jesus' public ministry. Your way of depending Luke was not honest as I see from your post above as if gentiles didn't need scriptures. But Luke wanted prove Jesus as Jewish Messiah for both Jews and gentiles if you notice correctly. I recommend you to read few books if you like; 1. The Birth of Messiah by Fr Raymond E. Brown 2. Born Divine: The Births of Jesus & Other Sons of God by Robert J Miller 3. Born of woman by John Shelby Spong

What are you doing reading Spong? You are actually recommending a Spong book?

Why not recommend a Bahai book too?

[kerwin]

John Shelby Spong does believe in liberally interpreting scripture.

[gollamudi]

I thank the moderator of Heavennet especially T8 for transferring this thread to 'Truth or Tradition' since it belongs to this category.
Adam

[gollamudi]

Quote (kerwin @ Oct. 19 2009,06:42)

The well known Jewish Teacher Maimonides taught just what Jesus does as regards Moses prophesying about the Messiah. Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides, the Rambam) wrote: Quote The anointed King (“HaMelekh HaMoshiach”) is destined to stand up and restore the Davidic Kingdom to its antiquity, to the first sovereignty. He will build the Temple in Jerusalem and gather the strayed ones of Israel together. All laws will return in his days as they were before: Sacrificial offerings are offered and the Sabbatical years and Jubilees are kept, according to all its precepts that are mentioned in the Torah. Whoever does not believe in him, or whoever does not wait for his coming, not only does he defy the other prophets, but also the Torah and our Rabbi Moses. For the Torah testifies about him, thus: “And the Lord Your God will return your returned ones and will show you mercy and will return and gather you… If your strayed one shall be at the edge of Heaven… And He shall bring you” etc. (Deuteronomy 30:3-5). Now I challenge you to read that passage in context and explain to me how you can get that interpretation unless you are looking back at it from a time when the teaching of the Messiah is made more clear in scripture. Here is my source.

Judaism and Christianity
Christianity as we have come to know it emerged from Judaism in the first century of the Common Era. The first Christians were Jews, and likely subscribed to Jewish beliefs and practices common at the time. Among these was a belief that a messiah—a descendant of King David—would restore the monarchy and Jewish independence. Christians identified this person as Jesus of Nazareth.

According to mainstream Jewish beliefs, the failure of Jesus to restore the Kingdom, and his crucifixion by Romans, negated claims that he was the messiah (since most Jews do not accept that Jesus was the messiah, they reject the use of the full (Christian) name. See the Jewish eschatology for further discussion).

Judaism teaches that it is heretical for any man to claim to be a part of God; Jews view Jesus as just one in a long list of Jewish claimants to be the messiah. The article on the concept of the messiah contains a list of many people who claimed to be the messiah, son of God, or both.

Source: http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Jewish_Messiah/

Hi brother Kerwin,
Yes I have gone through the link you have given and the above passage was also taken from the same link which denies Jesus being the Jewish Messiah. At the same time there is no Virgin Birth as you imagine every where. Jesus did not fulfill any of the major messianic rquirements which we christrians claim that he will fulfill them when comes again which jews disagree. What is the point you want to challenge me here?

[gollamudi]

The Jewish Perspective on Isaiah 7:14

Please go through the link given below for detailed discussion on Isa 7:14 ;

http://www.messiahtruth.com/is714a.html

http://www.messiahtruth.com/isa714b.html

[kerwin]

gollamudi wrote:

Quote

Yes I have gone through the link you have given and the above passage was also taken from the same link which denies Jesus being the Jewish Messiah. At the same time there is no Virgin Birth as you imagine every where. Jesus did not fulfill any of the major messianic requirements which we Christians claim that he will fulfill them when comes again which Jews disagree. What is the point you want to challenge me here?

I was pointing out that like Jesus the Maimonides believes Moses prophesied the coming of the Messiah.  This was considered hidden knowledge that was not revealed to the Hebrew people until the promise was made to King David and even then it was only partially revealed until Jesus ascended to heaven.  I will even make the argument that everything will not be revealed until the heaven and earth are destroyed and a new one of each is made.

Another point I will make is that Jews often contradict themselves when it comes to the Messiah.   This may be because they have different sects with different beliefs or because they are blinded by their attempt to disprove the claim Jesus is the Messiah.  One of these claims has to do with the idea the Messiah will not die before restoring his kingdom.

Here is what a Messianic Jew states about Messiah ben Joseph.  I agree with his general ideals expressed in this paragraph.

Glen Penton writes:

Quote

The messianic imagery in the history of Joseph is so clear that the rabbis have taught that the Torah speaks of two Messiahs. Messiah Son of Joseph is to be a Warrior-Messiah, suffering for the sins of His People, betrayed by a dear friend, rejected and handed over to the gentiles and killed. He is to be brought back to life by Messiah Son of David, the King to rule the world in shalom from Jerusalem. The rabbis have recognized the two aspects of the One Messiah and mistaken Him for two Messiahs.

From what I have learned it appears the tenet of the suffering Messiah was an early Jewish belief that mainstream Judaism has rejected since then.  As you can see the early, second and third century, Jews regarded Messiah, Son of Joseph as a warrior and Jesus did not come off as a warrior.  That is the result of speculation about the Messiah and is just as correct as some Christians speculation about the anti-Messiah in the last days.

[gollamudi]

Hi brother Kerwin,
I think we should discuss these issues concerning the Jewish Messiah on the proper thread.

[kerwin]

Quote (gollamudi @ Oct. 21 2009,12:37)

Hi brother Kerwin, I think we should discuss these issues concerning the Jewish Messiah on the proper thread.

Sounds good. Could you please answer my point about the tenet of the Messiah, Son of Joseph on the Messiah thread? Thank you.

I am not sure where it is appropriate to speak about the Jewish belief in knowledge hidden in scripture as it related to both this thread and the Messiah thread.

[gollamudi]

Was Jesus a Bastard? (& did the Church hide the Fact with a Virgin Birth Myth based on Isaiah 7:14?

Now remember�keep a civil keyboard under your fingertips…

Obviously it is hard for any critical thinker to take everything in the 4 Gospels literally at face value since, besides the many internal contradictions between them, it is generally conceded by scholars that the Gospels are not to be meant to be read as �pure history� anyway but were meant to be �read in the Churches� as haggadic (i.e. legendary) midrashic stories (based on �Messianic� OT verses) set out to prove �that Iesous is the Christos� to increase faith in the minds of �believers�.

See for example the blatant “give away” in the Gospel of John 20:31

�These things were written so that you might believe that Iesous is the Christos and by believing you might have life in his name�� not exactly the stuff of historical impartiality�!

Still, there are a number of intriguing historical echoes of (distorted) facts buried within all this Midrashic tapestry about R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean (�Jeeezuzz�) which sometimes oddly float up to the surface often where you least expect to find them.

One of these occurs in the Gospel of John (again!) with �Iesous� having a confrontation with some group (Saduccees or Pharisees?, it is not specified but they seem to be making shall we say hints about �Iesous� parentage somewhere in here: see John 8:39-42

The conversation is clearly not a literal event, but a combination of theological discussion heavily edited and made into a literary poem of sorts, but buried deep within the gist of the conversation is the odd phrase:

�We were not born of Fornication: [at least] we KNOW who OUR father is…�
(lit. “WE (emphatic in the Greek: HUMEIS) are not bastards: we only have one father”) !!!!!!

Ouch.

That�s hitting a little below the belt, even for Pharisees and Sadduccees.

Some pious Chrisitan scribe back in the 3rd century AD seems to have taken it into his head to add in the margin the additional words [�even God�] kind of out of place, right next to their accusation, probably to take the sharper edge of the obvious insult out of the discussion. They are talking about Abraham and his seed, not “Ho Theos” (“God”), so the addition is OUT OF CONTEXT.

In other words to make it look like the original conversation was not about �Jeezuz� being a Mamzer,( i.e.born of illicit union, or a �bastard�.

Apparently �Iesous” in the narrative is portrated as having not liking this diatribe very much, according to the author of John�s Gospel (whoever he was), for in it he retorts,

�Yes� you are the spawn of your own Father the Devil�.�

Not exactly the sweet parable of a harmless little rebbe telling harmless little stories.

Whereas his �accusers� were clearly hurling a more personal insult at �Jesus�, he hurls back a more or less class-oriented �collective insult� at the priesthood in general, claiming that the lot of them were sons of vipers.

It could be that they were making general racist comments about Galileans in general (of mixed blood e.g. Assyrians and Greeks who were re-located into the area and mixed with the local Phoencian-Israelites: in fact, The Galilee derives from the Hebrew phrase HA GILGAL HA GOYIM (“circle of Gentiles…”) so perhaps theses Sadduccees/Pharisees were actually meant to be saying something like “We in JUDAEA know we are descended from Abraham, but god-knows where YOU PEOPLE come from!!” etc.) but the text is curiously ambiguous about the “fornication” issue and seems, rather, shall we say, personal.

But what are we to make of these slanderous accusations?

Was the man “Iesous” truly illegitimate (Heb. MAMZER: “born of an illicit union”) as the Talmud would later suggest, the offspring of a Roman Soldier named Joseph ben Pantera whose grave in Syria (he died around AD 25 and had been posted in the Galilee between BC 12 to AD 6) was found recently?

(Or does the Talmud speak of another �Yeshu�, since there were so many Messiah�s running around at the time organizing armed revolts against Rome�including JUDAH THE GALILEAN)

Is the fact that �Iesous� may have been illegitimate the reason why he seemed to �fixated� on a �Father Figure� image, as Freud was so fond of pointing out , since according to Freud�s logic, �Jesus may have had no biological father� to call his own and so used the word ABBA to pray (lit. �Daddy!�) as a father-substitute�.?

It gets WORSE.

In Matthew's version of the lineage of the Messiah (Christ) �Iesous� was descended from a list of male ancestors, oddly, with 5 females mentioned along with the men�very odd in a Jewish geneaology.

The issue is highly curious to some who have studied this text closely, because ALL FIVE OF THE WOMEN MENTIONED IN MATTHEW�S GOSPEL HAVE ISSUES OF SEXUAL PROMISCUITY CONNECTED WITH EACH ONE OF THEM !!

The five women included were: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.

l. Tamar: Genesis 38:6-30

Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah. A childless widow, she was given to her brother-in-law after her husband's death. Such a union was later called a Leverite marriage (Deut 25:5-6).

Tamar's brother-in-law refused to have proper intercourse with her and for this �Elohim killed him�.

Yehudah/Judah would not give Tamar to any of his other sons soTamar disguised herself as a harlot and seduced Judah, became pregnant with his son Perez.

Rahab: Joshua 2:1-24 (which Matthew spells RACHAB for some reason)

Rahab was a prostitute who lived in Jericho. She hid the spies of Joshua. Because of this, the Israelites spared her life when they conquered Jericho. She later became the wife of Salmon, and the mother of Boaz.

Rahab's faith, despite her occupation as a professional whore, was later commended by the writer of Heb 11:30-31.

Ruth: Ruth 1:1-4:22

Ruth was a Moabitess, an enemy of Israel (�no Moabite shall ever enter into the Congregation of Israel, not even beyond the 10th generation! . but had married a Judaean named Mahlon. . Her mother-in-law, Naomi, lived in Moab.
Ruth, the Moabitess, was later married to Boaz, one of Naomi's relatives.

The (Gentile) Moabetess Ruth later became the mother of Obed, the grandfather of David.

Bathsheba: 2 Samuel 11:1-27
Bathsheba was the Jebusite Princess Bath-Shebiti (�Daughter of the 7 gods of Jebus�) and wife of Uriah the Hittite (the Jebusites and Hititites were blood related and inter-married) , a soldier in the professional standing Hittite (i.e. foreign) army of David, who allegedly seduced her on a rooftop.

When David discovered Bathsheba (Bath-Shebiti) was pregnant, sent Uriah back into battle, with orders that Uriah should be slain, so that David could marry Bathsheba who later became the mother of Jedidiah nicknamed “Solomon” (peaceful).

The fifth and last in the long line of promiscuous Females in the Genealogy is Miryam/Mary, the very pregnant bride to be of Joseph, and mother of said �Iesous”.

One could make a case that even though there was sexual misconduct going on in all of these cases, eventually this women gave birth to heroes or famous men in some form, so it seems to be the point of the writer to suggest that even if Mary was pregnant, there is ample history to show that �God�s Plan of Salvation� can still be work
ed out�in other words, �he works in mysterious ways, and not to judge by appearances…�

As Professor Barrett used to ask us: �What exactly is the writer of Matthew trying to tell us?�

This also begs the Question: If Jesus has no earthly father why do BOTH his genealogies trace their bloodlines through Joseph?

Arguments in favour of �legal� genealogy fall on their face when the prophecies about the Messiah BEING OF THE SEED OF DAVID do not make any mention of legalisms.

The Question is: Did the Church make up the VIRGIN BIRTH story out of Isaiah 7:14 in order to cover up some of these inconsistencies and make a “physical negative” into a “spiritual positive” for the man they proclaimed as Messiah, such as they did with the way he died?

At any rate, the Hebrew word ALMAH in Isaiah 7:14 does NOT mean VIRGIN anyway:

ALMAH merely means �a young woman of marriageable age.�

It was the Greek translation (the LXX Septuaginta) which chose the word PARTHENOS (�virgin� or �young girl�) which could be construed either way. But the phrase in Isaiah was NOT messianic originally. It only grew that way over time (read the Dead Sea Scrolls for a taste of what they did with certain passages in the Hebrew Bible!)

Why did both Matthew and Luke go to such obscene lengths to twist the meaning of Isaiah 7:14 into something more like the birth of a pagan god like Hercules or even Alexander the Great who was also thought to have been descended from the gods, and �partheno-theodikos� i.e. �a god born of a virgin�?

Wait�there�s more�!

Here's something more to think about ref: those pesky Matthean and Lukan Genealogies that “Don�t Quite Match Each Other�”

As most thinking �Christians� must know by now, the two �genealogies� of �Iesous� in the gospels of Matthew and Luke SIMPLY DO NOT MATCH each other very closely.

See Matthew 1:1-18 and Luke chapter 3:1-22

The author of Luke (whoever he was) wants to trace the ancestry of �Iesous� back to �Adam� (apparently to make him more Universal for his Gentile Audience) and names his paternal grandfather as Heli (or Eli).

Matthew�s version is only interested in tracing his �ancestry� in convoluted groups of 14 (the gemmatrial numerological code for the Messiah derived from the name in Hebrew for DVD or David = Daled = 4, Vav = 6, Daled = 4).

Moreover in order to make all those tidy little near groups of 14, the writer of �Matthew� has to eliminate at least four kings from his list (Matthew�s king lists lacks a King sitting on the Throne of Israel between BC 680 and BC 630), namely Kings Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah, Jehoiakim, the last was cursed never to have any physical descendants to sit upon the throne of David: (see Jeremiah 36:30) !!

In the Matthean version, the paternal grandfather of �Iesous who is called Christos� is Yakkov (Jacob).

So which is it, is Joseph�s father Heli or Yakkov? And who cares anyway since �Iesous� was not even supposed to be related to him by blood anyway?

And no, these two contradictory genealogies are not one for Mary and one for Joseph either because any tracing back to David by bloodline would have to go through the male lineages.

Moreover to make all those tidy little near groups of 14, the writer of �Matthew� has to eliminate at least four kings from his list (Matthew�s king lists lacks a King sitting on the Throne of Israel between BC 680 and BC 630), namely Kings Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah, Jehoiakim, the last was cursed never to have any physical descendants to sit upon the throne of David: (see Jeremiah 36:30)

Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread67163/pg1

[kerwin]

gollamudi,

The original conversation in John 8 was about certain Jews being the children of Satan and not Abraham.  That is the ouch in that conversation and it is why the many of those Jews left.

You certainly find some weird sources.

They simply refused to believe that Jesus would set them free from their slavery to sin.

[Constitutionalist]

I was a virgin birth, in fact I was a virgin for quite a few years.

[gollamudi]

Quote (kerwin @ Oct. 27 2009,23:23)

gollamudi, The original conversation in John 8 was about certain Jews being the children of Satan and not Abraham.  That is the ouch in that conversation and it is why the many of those Jews left. You certainly find some weird sources. The simply refused to believe that Jesus would set them free from their slavery to sin.

Yes, my sources certainly seem weired as they are from the perspectives of Christian skeptics. Christianity had already faced such attacks in the history and being faced even now because of its inconsistencies in its proclamation.

[kerwin]

Quote (gollamudi @ Oct. 27 2009,21:26)

Quote (kerwin @ Oct. 27 2009,23:23) gollamudi, The original conversation in John 8 was about certain Jews being the children of Satan and not Abraham.  That is the ouch in that conversation and it is why the many of those Jews left. You certainly find some weird sources. The simply refused to believe that Jesus would set them free from their slavery to sin. Yes, my sources certainly seem weired as they are from the perspectives of Christian skeptics. Christianity had already faced such attacks in the history and being faced even now because of its inconsistencies in its proclamation.

There is more than skepticism going on there.  I would say an extreme form of fault finding.  

This is their so called called logic.

Jesus was born illegitimately.
A illegitimate birth was mentioned.
Therefore is must be Jesus' birth.

That is both unsound and invalid reasoning though at least the second premise is sound.

[kerwin]

gollamudi,

I realize that you are questioning if Jesus is the Messiah. That is something that you will have to resolve with God. I ask you though to beware of false teachers of law as they are many and seek God's righteousness and his kingdom instead.

[gollamudi]

Thank you very much brother Kerwin for your kind advice. Yes I am praying to God to lead me to the ultimate truth of Jesus and the Jewish Messiah. All these questions I bring from my honest quest of Jewish Messiah.

Peace and love
Adam

[kerwin]

Quote (gollamudi @ Oct. 29 2009,12:08)

Thank you very much brother Kerwin for your kind advice. Yes I am praying to God to lead me to the ultimate truth of Jesus and the Jewish Messiah. All these questions I bring from my honest quest of Jewish Messiah. Peace and love Adam

You should perhaps enter the various debates we are having about the Law, the Sabbath Day, and God's Kingdom as they all deal with Jewish customs.

[gollamudi]

THE MYTH OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH

    THERE are few doctrines of the Christian faith so vulnerable,
so slight in their foundations, as this of the virgin birth of
Jesus. It is the feeblest statement about Jesus in the whole of the
Gospels. It is unknown to Paul. It grows under our eyes in the New
Testament. And from end to end of the Greco-Roman world, in which
the books of the New Testament were gradually evolved, we find the
mythical material which is suggestively wrought into the familiar
story.

    Let us first examine the story in the Gospels. The earliest
Christian writings are Paul's Epistles. Paul insists that Jesus was
“born of a woman”; but who the woman was he cares not the toss of
a coin, and he knows of no miracle in the conception.

    The next writing, chronologically, is the Gospel of Mark. As
we have it, there is no proof that it existed within forty years of
the death of Christ; yet it is ignorant of the tremendous miracle
of the virgin birth. Jesus, in Mark, enters history, becomes more
than an ordinary man, at the age of thirty. Apparently the original
Mark was just a description of a singularly gifted prophet who was
called by God, or converted by John, in his early manhood.

    Matthew, the next Gospel, also seems in its original form to
have known nothing unusual about the birth of Jesus. The first two
chapters are an afterthought. The Gospel really begins, at the
third chapter, as that of Mark does. Then someone prefaced it with
one of the two genealogies of Jesus that were in circulation (i,
1-17). Next — the new beginning is quite clear — somebody added
a short account of how Jesus was born (i, 18-25). Lastly some other
hand added the legends of Chapter ii.

    Luke, a later Gospel, has a much more developed version of the
conception and the birth, How, by the way, we have come to speak,
as we always do, about the “virgin birth” or “miraculous birth,” I
do not know. It is the conception, not the birth, that is held to
have been miraculous. The practice has misled more than one
Rationalist into thinking that the “immaculate conception” of Mary
— that is to say, the conception of Mary by her mother — is the
same thing as the virgin birth of Jesus.

    However, let us look closely at this late story given in Luke.
Strange, isn't it, that Mary and Elizabeth and Zacharias had such
remarkable experiences, and kept them such a dead secret that Paul
and Mark never heard of them! One desperate and learned divine,
Professor Sanday, suggests that Mary, late in life, confided these
things (including, I suppose, the very words of the long impromptu
poem she composed) to a lady friend, and she, late in life,
confided them to the writer of Luke. But Professor Sanday forgets
to explain the long secrecy. Four times in the New Testament the
brothers of Jesus are mentioned, yet Mary is supposed to have known
that he had none. Joseph knew it still better. For some mysterious
reason the great events of Chapters i and ii, which would have
converted half of Galilee, had to remain a family secret until the
end of the century.

    Well, let us try again. We are first told that a priest named
Zacharias had a barren wife, and “an angel of the Lord” appeared
and told him that his wife would have a son. This son is to be
“great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor
strong drink”; and then the angel went and said much the same to
Mary, except that her son was to be fatherless.

    Now, divines very delicately avoid bringing to the notice of
their readers another passage of the Bible which I will here
reproduce. It is many centuries older than Luke — it is in Judges,
Chapter xiii — and is really interesting:

         2. And there was a certain man of Zorah … and his wife
    was barren and bare not.

         3. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and
    said unto her: Behold, now thou art barren, and bearest not;
    but thou shalt conceive and bear a son.

         4. Now, therefore, beware, I pray thee, and drink not
    wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing;

         5. For, lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son; and no
    razor shall come on his head; for the child shall be a
    Nazarite unto God from the womb.

Rather suggestive, isn't it?

    However, the angel tells Mary that she will conceive. As she
is engaged to be married , this should not be a very startling
announcement; but Mary is troubled and expostulates that she “knows
no man.” We might leniently suppose that the angel had a cold, and
that Mary understood him to say that she had already conceived. But
the oldest Latin manuscript of Luke has not the words: “How can
this be: I know no man.” Somebody, still later, has tampered with
Luke and put in a stupid interpolation. And the source of the
interpolation is known. An apocryphal gospel of the second century
describes Mary as vowed to virginity for life, not engaged to
Joseph; and such virgins sometimes observe their vows.

    Next we are told that “these things were noised abroad through
all the hill country of Judea,” and created an enormous sensation.
But apparently everybody forgot all about them again, when Jesus
was a boy, and the secret was only let out a hundred years later.
The other inspired writer makes Mary herself and her sons think of
putting Jesus under restraint on the ground that his mind became
deranged by his idea of a mission! So Mary also had forgotten it,
temporarily.

    However, the birth-time arrived; and it was a very romantic
birth, in the manger of a stable. You see, the Old Testament had
predicted that the Messiah was to be of “the seed of David”; as the
Pharisees are made to remind Jesus in the Gospels. The poor Gospel
writers here were in a dilemma. Mary, being related to the priest's
wife, was presumably of the house of Aaron, not David, yet they had
to bring in David. So they made Davidic genealogies — which seems
to have been unknown to Jesus when the Pharisees wanted his
pedigree — for Joseph; and, after all, Joseph was the father of
Jesus in every sense except one — his seed.

    Then, since the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, as the
Old Testament said, Luke explains. The Emperor Augustus decreed
that “all the world should be taxed,” and each man was to go, with
his family, to the city of his fathers. This meant a journey of
eighty miles for the poor carpenter and his bearing wife; and since
every family in Judea had to do this musical-choir's performance,
and get to the city of his ancestor of a thousand years earlier,
Judea must have presented a highly interesting spectacle. The most
practical Government of ancient times, the Roman, is supposed to
have ordered this piece of lunacy, through the Governor Cyrenius.
But we learn from the historian Josephus that what Cyrenius really
did was a very much smaller matter, and that it was done in the
year 6 A.D., or ten years after the birth of Jesus. Moreover,
northern Palestine was not under Cyrenius, but under the
independent prince Herod Antipas; and the Jews had so little in the
way of tax-registers that in the year 66 A.D. they had to calculate
the population from the number of paschal lambs.

    No Gospel says that Jesus was born in winter. The snow-that-
lay-on-the-ground is an artistic addition of a much later age. But
the journey to Bethlehem and the manger have now melted away like
the snow. Jesus was presumably, as Mark intimates, born in Nazareth
in the usual prosy way. His genealogy in Matthew ends, in the
oldest Syriac version of the Gospel, with the plump statement, “And
Josep
h begat Jesus.”

    But Luke's fairy tales are not yet over. There were more
miracles, which the shepherds “made known abroad”; and everybody
forgot in a few years. Then the incarnate God submitted to the
delicate operation known politely as circumcision; and there were
more miracles. Yet, when this wonderful being, at the age of
twelve, showed signs of precocious wisdom, his father and mother
“were amazed” (ii, 48) and they nearly went so far as to “box his
ears.”

    Matthew — to turn to him for a moment — tells us of other
wonders. A miraculous star brought three wise men from the east to
Judea. How the star moved along in such a way as to guide them, and
why it ceased to guide them any longer when they got to Judea (and
so caused the murder of thousands of innocent babes), we are not
told. This story makes its first appearance about the year 119
A.D., and in Rome; and, curiously enough, three wise men had in 66
A.D. been brought to Rome from the east to worship the emperor! As
to the star, had not the inspired Balaam predicted: “There shall
come forth a star out of Jacob”? (Numbers xxiv, 17).

    Next Matthew tells us the tallest story in the whole of this
tissue of legends. These wise men, led by a star which nobody sees
but themselves, and which moves in such a way as to guide them
across country — one apologist suggests that it was a meteorite
(which moves at the rate of about a hundred miles a second!) —
arrive at Jerusalem and lose the scent. The divine guidance then
acts in a way which certainly perplexes the mere human mind. The
sages are moved to go and tell King Herod that a new “King of the
Jews” has been born somewhere; and Herod, in a fury, and believing
the statement with childish credulity, orders the murder of all the
children in Bethlehem and the entire region under the age of two
and a half years. The little Almighty is taken, presumably on
donkey-back, hundreds of miles across the desert, to get out of the
way, and let the innocent suffer. Miracles and apparitions crowd
the narrative; but the simple miracle of changing the king's heart
and sparing the children occurs to nobody.

    The Christian cannot expect a non-Christian to write politely
about such things as this. What we may more profitably do, however,
is to remind him that just such a massacre and hiding of a child of
great promise from the wrath of a king is one of the oldest themes
in mythology. Turn to Exodus (i, 15-22):

         And the King of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives. …
    And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew
    women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye
    shall kill him. …

And so Moses was (like Sargon of Babylon thousands of years before)
hidden in an ark of bulrushes on the river. Herodotus, the Greek
historian, tells us that King Cyrus of Persia had similarly to be
hidden away at birth from a jealous king; and every Jew knew the
story of Cyrus. Suetonius, the Roman historian, gives a similar
legend about the birth of the Emperor Augustus. But one could fill
whole pages with legends of new-born gods and mortals of great
promise thus pursued by reigning monarchs, and we will return to
the subject later. The wholesale “massacre” alone is peculiar to
the Jesus-story; and that horrible detail is enough of itself to
damn it. No Jewish writer ever heard of the horror.

    Thus the wonderful story of the birth of Jesus, which grows
before our eyes in the New Testament, does not appear until at
least a century after the event. “What,” asks the learned divine
Bishop Rashdall, “would an historian make of a legend about the
birth of Napoleon which did not appear until a hundred years after
the event?”

In addition to watching the story of the virgin birth grow as documented in
the bible by the 2 previous posts, it is interesting to note that this
series of continuing embellishments did not end with the books incorporated
into the bible. Two additional books, “The Gospel of the Birth of Mary”,
and the “Protevangelion” which are documented in the 1926 book, _The Lost
Books of the Bible_ expand the growing myth to include the marvelous story
of Mary's birth to a barren mother and how Mary was dedicated at birth to
be an eternal virgin, living her life free from sin in the sanctuary of the
temple till she reached puberty. The two account then differ on weather it
was young marriageable or elderly widowers that were gathered together to
have one selected to take her from the temple. In both cases this group of
men including Joseph were to “bring forth their rods” to determine which
would fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah that “there shall come forth a rod out
of the stem of Jesse, and a flower shall spring out of its root”.

What a hoot! And then the book of Mary has the gall to say in 7:18-19,
“For, without lying with a man, while a Virgin, you shall conceive; while a
Virgin, you shall bring forth; and while a Virgin shall give suck. For the
Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall
overshadow you, without any of the heats of lust.”

The “Protevangelion” 9:2 gives an interesting insight into the varieties of
virgins available to the high priest when he specifies seven “undefiled
virgins” are needed to weave a new temple veil, Mary being one of them.

While I have no information on when these 2 books were written and when
they were cut from the bible, the intro says that “Mary” was considered by
many christian sects as authentic and was found in the works of Jerome in
the fourth century. Now I ask you, is it more likely that these 2 books
just appeared for no apparent reason and later just as casually
disappeared; or is it more likely that they were created in response to a
very logical and likely criticism of the evolving theology of christian
redemption. Specifically is it not likely that early critics of Jesus
supposedly being without sin so he could qualify as some kind of “perfect”
sacrifice, would quite naturally ask how he could be free from sin if he
was born to a human mother. Doesn't it make sense that the expanding nature
of the virgin birth is not just a tale that grows in the retelling, but
also expands to produce stories that attempt to preempt criticism? As to
why they were dropped, even the most outrageous of liars cuts back on his
boasts when they become too embarrassing.

Source: http://www.skepticfiles.org/misctext/virgin.htm

[NickHassan]

Hi GM,
We prefer to believe scripture.

[gollamudi]

Yes brother Nick, we can believe if they are reliable.

[Author]

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