How Many of Those Who Wrote the Bible Believed the "Virgin Birth"
In national polls, far more people use the word, "Christian", to identify their religion than show up on the rolls or denominations or attend church. Of those who never darken the door of church but self identify with the word "Christian" what do they believe that is Christian? No one knows.
Of those who might be more open identifying as Christian, attend a church for example, what do they need to believe in order to qualify as legitimate Christians? That is, what are they required to believe? Today I'm interested in the "Virgin Birth." To be a Christian is there a requirement the person believe Jesus was born to a virgin?
My impression is there are parts of the faith where this is perhaps a required belief. I see Catholic churches and Catholic writing often refers to "the Virgin Mary." What did the Bible have to say about the virgin birth?
As it turns out, not much. It is only discussed in Luke and Matthew. They told different stories about it. Mark, the earliest Gospel does not mention it. John makes no mention. Paul seems not to have ever heard of it. Were those who wrote sections of the Bible but did not mention the Virgin Birth really good Christians?
A common observation critical Bible analysts point out the virgin birth is part of other religious myths. It could be Matthew and Luke thought they could not really sell Jesus as a super natural hero unless they made up a story about a virgin birth like other super heroes.
This leads to another question, can one be a "real" Christian and not believe any of the Bible's magical stories? Neither the Apostle's Creed for the Nicene Creed say it is necessary to believe the Bible. It seems like believing the Bible is optional.
Coming right up is Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Most churches like to read from certain passages in the Bible and ignore passages that do not fit what they want to tell people. Preachers select the parts of the Bible people enjoy hearing. Christmas Eve is show time, you can't go wrong giving people a good show.
Jon, you will have to watch a Christmas program. Let the little ones teach you. All you have to do is listen.
ReplyDeleteHenry "Let the little ones teach you. All you have to do is listen"
ReplyDeleteWatched many of them in my long life. You can go without me.
forty yeas ago seven of us went way up north to Canada to fish. Ten years ago, we all got together and re-hashed that trip. Every one there contributed to the conversation. To the outsider, one would have thought each one of us were on different trips entirely. same trip, different parts. Of course each one of us caught the biggest and most fish.
ReplyDeleteLuke, Chapter 1, verses 26-38 state matters clearly. The same truth need not be repeated elsewhere to be "more" truthful, just like 1+1 =2 needing to be repeated twice or more times in an elementary mathematics textbook.
ReplyDeleteIn the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
The angel said, 'Hail, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus'.
Mary said to the angel, 'But how can this come about, since I am a virgin.'
The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God.'
This is the easy part. All Christianity believes in the virgin birth. The hard part for some of Christianity is the Immaculate Conception; of Mary. Mary was the only human being born without Original Sin since the creation of Adam and Eve. Since then, only Jesus was born without Original Sin. However, Jesus is both man and God; two natures, the mortal and the divine.
Jesus touched and was touched by many sinful and unholy people. In fact, rather than using really good people with high reputations in His early ministry, He chose ten common men, sinners. He did all the work. They lived in very close quarters during His ministry. He remained immaculate during all this.
DeleteMatt-- "All Christianity believes in the virgin birth."
ReplyDeleteWikipedia qualifies that a bit. "Nevertheless, there are contemporary churches in which it is considered orthodox to accept the virgin birth, but not heretical to deny it." This is foot noted in a book I'm not familiar with.
A few years back I blogged about the OT language that spoke of a "Jesus" prophesy. There is a lot of agreement the word used to describe the coming mother was that of a "young woman," not a virgin.
I notice whenever we have Christians like you posting and the discussion about these miracles gets into fake history the explanation is "the spiritual" thing. Dreams, visions, invisible beings, heaven, hell, spirits, resurrections and all the other stuff of the imagination is "real" but anyone who doesn't believe it has mental problems. Sigh.