Examining the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth and Other Doctrines

[StTruth]

A large number of people claim to have a personal relationship with God. Others gave testimonies about being saved from all manner of vice and sin through the works of the Holy Spirit. Believing in Santa Clause is not a requirement of Christianity. You may not need to believe the flood of Noah covered the earth above Mt. Ararat or that eating an apple caused the fall of mankind in order to find God. If apples were that bad, they would not have them in your grocery store. You may need to find parts of the Bible that might bring about positive change in your life. Greater than being negative about Christianity is the realization that there is an omnipotent being in the universe.

Some do not believe God can do miracles. This is a mistake. As Jesus taught, "Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven." Many have rejected laws and sayings against murder, adultery, perversion, theft and false witness merely because they were in the Bible. These people wandered in sin. Some overdosed on drugs. Some were killed while trying to kill others. The wages of sin is death.

Precisely my point. I don't think the deception of Eve by the serpent was an event in reality but I think it has an important lesson for mankind - the need to obey God without question. I agree it's wrong to think God can't do miracles. God is Almighty and we mustn't forget that.

 

[Stillicidia]

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[Radrook]

I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior whether Mary had or had not been a virgin because her virginal or non-virginal condition is totally irrelevant to his being the Christ.

 

[Greg J.]

He comes from the line of David, why call them sinners.

Well, David committed some horrible sins. One so severe that 70,000 people died. But I called them that because that is what they were. Neither Jesus' holiness, goodness, or sinless condition depended upon his genetic parents or ancestors.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23, 1984 NIV)

 

[Stillicidia]

Jesus had his birth based on the glory of David's line, and the relative purity of Mary's few previous ancestors, and then Mary herself. Your quote is of a certain context which differs from the speaking of generations. Those of old who died and didn't go to Hell are in Heaven now. David is there. They accepted Jesus the same as we do. He will sooner know the hearts and minds, don't put him in any box with even Scripture.

 

[hedrick]

I don’t think it’s fair to say that the story of the Virgin Birth started just because of a mistranslation. My understanding of how Matthew and Jews used Scripture is that they looked at it as a way of understanding current events. Thus John the Baptist was through of as another Elijah. That probably didn’t mean a literal incarnation. Rather, the pattern of OT events was seen again and again. I’ve mentioned in the past how people sometimes see events in Star Trek or Harry Potter in their own lives. It’s the same kind of thing.

So Matthew probably saw the Virgin Birth as being prefigured by Is 7:14, but that doesn’t mean that Is 7:14 created the story. After all, Luke talks about it (probably) without citing that passage.

The usual critical theory on the Virgin Birth is that it arose from a general ancient tendency to see miraculous beginnings for extraordinary people. But more than that, it’s one way of speaking of Jesus as God’s son, and his birth as being entirely from God. I don’t think it’s common to believe that it is based simply on Is 7:14. Hermeneia, e.g., believes it came from a tradition that was before Matthew, but that the use of 7:14 is Matthew’s. There are, of course, theological implication. Pannenberg, e.g., quotes lots of major theologians as saying that the Virgin Birth is inconsistent with the theology of the Incarnation as espoused by John and Paul, and by current theology.

I think, however, that this can't be discussed in CF, since denying the Virgin Birth is considered inconsistent with being a Christian. Even Controversial Theology is limited to Christian theology.

 

[Deadworm]

St. Truth, for a teenager, you are keeping your cool and acquitting yourself astoundingly well on this thread. You need to declare war on the negative aspects of your self-image as a potential scholar or seminarian and bring your reading skills and motivations sufficiently up to speed to reflect your excellent cognitive skills, even if that means taking a remedial training course! On the virgin birth question, I'd recommend suspending judgment and exploring both sides of the question more thoroughly. Here I will simply lay out key points on both sides of the question.

A. The Case Against Christ's Virgin Birth:
(1) Christian virgin birth traditions first surface in Matthew and Luke (c. 80-100 AD).

(2) No such traditions appear in earlier sources (Paul and Mark); and despite its high
Christology, John lacks a virgin birth tradition. This deafening silence refutes
claims on this thread that belief in Christ's virgin birth is essential to belief in His atoning death.

(3) The infancy narrative in Luke 1-2 makes no reference to Isaiah 7:14. Matthew's application of Isaiah 7:14 is most likely a later interpretation of an already existing virgin birth tradition and not vice versa. The legendary character of Gospel infancy narratives, if they were in fact legendary, would most likely be the result of influence from the many Greco-Roman virgin birth accounts for gods and heroes.

(4) The theology of the first century Jerusalem church seems to have been very diverse, especially with 400 synagogues with various perspectives and ethnic groups. An examination of the NT and later evidence suggests these examples of this diversity: Hebrew speaking Jews (including Jesus' disciples); the Hellenists (Greek-speaking Jews (e. g. Stephen's persecuted group); Jewish Christians who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, but not God incarnate, Jewish Christians who reject the virgin birth, Jewish Christians who use bread and water rather than bread and wine for Holy Communion, and, of course, Jewish Christians who believe in the divinity of Christ and His virgin birth.

B. The Case in Favor of Christ's Virgin Birth:
(1) The tradition in Julius Africanus that Jesus' brothers traveled around, using Jesus' Davidic genealogy to defend His Messianic descent from David. It can be surmised that they and Jesus' mother are the original disseminators of virgin birth stories.

(2) Luke was one of Paul's missionary companions. The fact that Luke embraces the virgin birth might suggest that Paul also accepted this doctrine, but failed to mention it (a) because it would be offensive to a traditional Jewish mindset (associated, as it is, with divine sexual misconduct in a polytheistic context) and (b) because what was decisive for Jewish messianism was descent from David, not divinity.

(3) It seems most unlikely that the Jewish Christian community that gave rise to Matthew would adapt polytheistic Greco-Roman virgin birth traditions to Jesus' birth, a tradition that they would associate with the sexual immorality of the gods and idolatry.

(4) Jews and Christians alike seem to concede that Joseph was not Jesus' birth father. The hostile residents of Nazareth refer to Jesus as "the son of Mary" (Mark 6:3--implying illegitimacy) and around 70 AD, Rabbi Eliezer bears witness to a longstanding tradition that Jesus is the son of a Roman soldier named Panthera. It is hard to believe that a very pious Mary was sexually promiscuous, though it is theoretically possible that her pregnancy was the result of rape.

(5) John Chrysostom's Commentary on John attests a Jewish tradition that after Joseph dies childless, Mary lives as the wife of Joseph's brother Clopas in a levirate marriage. Levirate marriage is mandatory by Jewish law, if a husband dies childless, but is considered incestuous, if the husband had natural offspring (Deuteronomy 25:5-6). So if Mary married Clopas, this would demonstrate that Jesus is not the natural son of Joseph and may also imply that Jesus' family at any rate believed in His virgin birth. Such a marriage would also explain the puzzling Jewish Christian tradition that Jesus' brothers were also His cousins. Clopas' other sons (by Mary or his prior wife?) would become Jesus' brothers by law, once Clopas married Mary.

(6) This levirate marriage theory might also explain the origin of the Jewish tradition that Jesus is the son of Panthera. The Greek word for brother-in -law (Clopas's initial relationship with Mary) is "pentherides." As a Greek loan word in Hebrew, the 'ides" suffix ending ("ides") would be dropped and vowels are deleted in much Hebrew script. So that leaves us with "Jesus the son of pnthr," and the noun might then have been confused with the Roman name Panthera.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

In other threads, I have mentioned the vexed question of the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. I have mentioned also something which most of us know - that the Virgin Birth is one doctrine that cropped up only because of a mistranslation of the Hebrew Bible. All scholars from the most evangelical / conservative to the most liberal are aware of this. Even many archbishops in my church have ruled that a belief in the Virgin birth should not be a requirement in the faith. The former Archbishop of Canterbury certainly has made his views heard on this even though he did tone down to avoid dissension within the body of Christ. The archbishop of Sweden is more forthright about this. The former Archbishop of York was probably among the first and most vocal in his denial of the Virgin birth.

I first heard of this problem in about 2004 or 2005 when I didn't know what 'virgin' meant. I was in the York Minster for a very important Eucharist in which all the priests of the church gathered for some Synod. I was one of the altar boys. I was attending to the stole of a prominent Archbishop (a huge privilege) when another high-ranking church official (I think he was an important bishop) laughingly told the Archbishop, "None of your slur on the Virgin Birth, please. Not in front of these cherubs." The Archbishop laughed and then became serious because it was time to be robed. What they didn't realise was this cherub heard everything and I kept the words in my heart. It was an important occasion for the church and the importance and the pomp were not lost on children. We all knew this was a special occasion and of course we listened to every word.

I knew the Virgin Mary because she's mentioned in the Creed. But I didn't at that early age connect the "Virgin" part with the birth. I asked my parents that day what the priests were talking about but they told me to forget everything.

It was much later when I started looking up the subject of the Virgin birth. I believe what I will say here is what everyone already knows. Basically, the St Matthew evangelist who I'll just call St Matthew used the Septuagint throughout. That's the Hebrew Bible translated into Greek. WHy he doesn't use the Hebrew Bible has led to speculation that St Matthew was not Matthew the disciple but a Hellenistic Christian who didn't know Hebrew and had to be content with the Septuagint which everyone knows is a badly translated Bible.

The Isaiah prophecy mentions that an "almah" (young maiden) will be with child and the Septuagint translates that as "parthenos" (virgin). Some scholars say that this has prompted St Matthew to spin a story about Mary's conversation with the angel in order to stress the virginity of the birth because St Matthew, by relying on the Septuagint, had wrongly thought that Mary's virginity was an essential ingredient in the prophecy. Many scholars have also showed (and a previous Archbishop agrees with this) why the early part of St Matthew was probably added on to the Gospel.

When Bruce Metzger translated the RSV Bible, he decidedly to be honest and he translated "almah" in Isaiah as "young woman". However this caused an uproar, principally among fundamentalists in the US who burnt the RSV on the lawns of their fundamentalist churches. I read about this in a tribute to Bruce Metzger in Christianity Today on the death of Metzger. Apparently, Metzger simply said that we had come a long way since Tyndale. We now burn the translation and not the translator. What a great man and what a great sense of humour.

I'm glad my church is rational enough to see the Virgin birth in the context of history. But Holy Tradition is important to the church and it should be important to all of us Christians. Even though we know that the Virgin birth came about because of a mistranslation, I believe we should treat it with a great deal of reverence. After all, we are talking about the mother of our Lord and even if we decide that our Lord's birth wasn't a virgin birth, that should not detract from the supreme holiness of the birth of the King of kings and Lord of Lords.

The non-virginity also does not affect any of our rituals. The Blessing of the Crib makes no implication on the virginity. In fact, nothing requires virginity in our Lord's birth. It doesn't make very God any less very God. The only thing that makes me reluctant to believe wholeheartedly that it wasn't a Virgin birth is our Creed which specifically mentions that our Lord was born of the Virgin Mary. I've spoken to my Archdeacon on this and I've listened to the previous Bishop of Oxford who addressed this issue and basically, what I understand is we can submit to Church Tradition even if our heads tell us that the facts are different. As the Bishop of Oxford puts it so eloquently, we can accept the Tradition of the church on the Virgin Birth and we can appropriate its significance (which is basically the pureness and sacredness of that momentous event when God Himself was born) and we give full assent to the majesty and splendour of God the Son. We should not be proud and arrogant and it would be dreadfully wrong if just because there is a translational error, we now insist that we change the words of the Creed or any other such violent reactions that can only cause division and schism in the body of Christ's holy church.

I entirely agree with the learned bishops on this. What do you think?


NOTE: I have edited this to remove direct identification of particular persons in church.

Hi StLuke,

I have some questions, although these aren't necessarily directed at you specifically, but to all on this thread. And these questions are ones that cause me to pause and ponder the various contexts upon which the veracity of the factors pointing to a possible Virgin Birth rest (or not).

1) If we go the "Skeptic's" route in addressing the issue of the supposition of the Virgin Birth, thus inferring that the writer of Matthew's Gospel is basically a religious con-artist, then wouldn't we need to impute this same judgement to the writer of Luke's Gospel as well, and perhaps more so, because not only does "Luke" follow suite with "Matthew," but "Luke" states that John the Baptist came from a kind of miraculous birth as well?

2) Should we down Matthew simply because he referred to the Septuagint and used the term "virgin" when the Masoretic text states "young girl" instead? Does this mean that the only verse--and thus the 'only' reason--we have for inferring that Mary might have been a virgin when pregnant with Jesus is Isaiah 7:14, and that this issue stand or falls with this single textual connection? Or are there other verses and/or motifs in the OT that could come to bear upon the total considerations to be made as to why someone in the early church might have thought Mary really was a virgin when she conceived and gave birth to Jesus?

3) To what extent is the Virgin Birth out of joint with the OT? Are there any precedents in the OT for miraculous births that might infer that Jesus' entry into the world via some kind of miraculous birth could be expected or accepted?

4) What do we do with Paul's earlier allusion in the Letter to the Galatians that Jesus was "born of a woman," yet had God as His Father? What does Paul's inference mean for the issue of the Virgin Birth?

5) In 1st century Judea, what else would a 15-year(?) old Jewish maiden have been, if not a virgin? A rape victim, a fornicator, an adulterous, or a secretive prostitute?

I'm just trying to catalyze our over-all thought process on this, just in case the whole thing doesn't really fully depend upon the verse of Isaiah 7:14, even as it is translated in the Septuagint.

Peace
2PhiloVoid

 

[chilehed]

I entirely agree with the learned bishops on this. What do you think?

The Septuagent was translated by rabbis who were fluent in both Greek and Hebrew, and they knew what the words meant. The Isaiah prophecy is that there would be a miracle: an almah would have a child, and that’s no miracle if she’s not a virgin. Matthew and Luke both say Mary was a virgin. The Jewish leaders in the early days of Christianity fabricated a story that Mary was impregnated by a Roman soldier, which fabrication would have been unnecessary if it hadn’t been known that she was consecrated to a life of virginity. If Matthew and Luke had made it up there would have been a controversy about it, and there was none. Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna (both students of the Apostle John) believed in the Virgin Birth, as did Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Eusebius, St. Jerome, and many others.

The position of these allegedly "learned" bishops is a load of nonsense.

 

[hedrick]

Hi StLuke,

I have some questions, although these aren't necessarily directed at you specifically, but to all on this thread. And these questions are one's that cause me to pause and ponder the various contexts upon which the veracity of the factors pointing to a possible Virgin Birth rest (or not).

1) If we go the "Skeptic's" route in addressing the issue of the supposition of the Virgin Birth, thus inferring that the writer of Matthew's Gospel is basically a religious con-artist, then wouldn't we need to impute this same judgement to the writer of Luke's Gospel as well, and perhaps more so, because not only does "Luke" follow suite with "Matthew," but "Luke" states that John the Baptist came from a kind of miraculous birth as well?

There’s no reason to call Matthew a con artist. I would assume that Matthew believed what he said. It’s likely that he was passing on a common tradition, since Luke also has the Virgin Birth.

4) What do we do with Paul's earlier allusion in the Letter to the Galatians that Jesus was "born of a woman," yet had God as His Father? What does Paul's inference mean for the issue of the Virgin Birth?

Paul’s statements are usually taken as evidence against the Virgin Birth. In context that verse refers to a normal Jewish birth. While his statements aren’t completely inconsistent with the Virgin Birth, they would seem odd for someone who accepted it.

The idea of God as Father does not imply anything about the Virgin Birth. After all, Jesus encouraged us all to call God Father.

5) In the 1st century Judea, what else would a 15 year old Jewish maiden have been, if not a virgin? A rape victim, a fornicator, an adulterous, or a secretive prostitute?

If this was a legend, then that whole part of the birth story was a legend. Most people who reject the Virgin Birth assume a normal, licit, sexual relationship with Joseph. Some have, however, considered the possibility of rape.

Please note that this discussion is difficult, because CF rules do not permit one to reject the Virgin Birth. That means that people may be “pulling their punches,” and you may not be seeing a full presentation of the arguments.

 

[Deadworm]

I have addressed your virgin birth question. Now let me address your second issue about John 3:3:

StTruth: "Jesus was playing with words but it was a word play that is only possible if you are speaking in Koine Greek. The word that Jesus used which we translate as 'again' is "ανωθεν" which has two meanings. The first is 'again' which is what Nicodemus understood it to mean which is why he asked whether he could enter into his mother's womb again. The second meaning is 'from above' which is the meaning our Lord intended. This is what our Lord did when he saw Nicodemus' confusion. He explained that he meant 'born of the spirit' or literally, 'born from above'."

Jesus often uses wordplays, but in Aramaic, not Greek. Your subtle point here would elude most ordained ministers. Let me put in the larger context of Johannine scholarship for you. John's major source is symbolically named "the disciple whom Jesus loved," who is traditionally identrified as John the son of Zebedee, an identification now widely rejected for many reasons. Consider the superficial implication that Jesus loved only one disciple! The nickname is clearly a circumlocution for one of Jesus' disciples. But who?

Here is my theory: The anonymous disciple appears 7 times in the 4th Gospel. In each context, there are several hints that parallel what is known about Jesus' brother James ("Jacob" in Aramaic). Let me give you just 1 of hundreds of confirmatory details that I have disclosed in academic papers read before other professors. In John 19:25-27, the Beloved disciple stands at Jesus cross, where Jesus identifies him as the son of His mother Mary. Taken literally, that would make the Beloved Disciple Jesus' brother! But Catholic tradition is freaked out by the obvious, and therefore, resorts to the desperate expedient of taking this Disciple as a symbol of the Church, with Mary as his spiritual mother. So where does "the disciple whom Jesus loved" come from? "Jacob whom the Lord loved" in Psalm 47:4, an area of the Psalms that is the source of much material in the context of John 13, the first chapter to use this circumlocution.

But back to your point about "born again" (= "from above") in John 3. Unlike Matthew and Luke, "John" does not seem to use a major sayings source like Q. Instead, "John" uses a signs source, a passion narrative, and revelation discourses, of which John 3 is an example. Sayings sources like Q are collections of individual sayings of Jesus from oral tradition. But revelation discourses are compositions of the Johannine evangelist, John the Elder (not John the son of Zebedee), who was also Jesus' disciple, though not 1 of the 12. John the Elder combined his source material from James with his own literary composition of revelation discourses.

Now here is the important point: as a whole, these speeches do not stem from oral tradition, but they incorporate authentic sayings of Jesus as bases for the speeches. In the case of John 3:3, the born from above theme, may be authentic Jesus material, though the Greek wordplay is not. John 3:3 expresses a variant saying about how "becoming a child" spiritually is essential to entering the kingdom of God.

 

[StTruth]

Thanks for all the replies. It's always a joy to read the postings of Hedrick and Deadworm, the two CF scholars, but I need time to digest the very meaty postings. Thanks to others too who contribute. I need time to respond.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

There’s no reason to call Matthew a con artist. I would assume that Matthew believed what he said. It’s likely that he was passing on a common tradition, since Luke also has the Virgin Birth.

Yes, of course, hedrick. I agree. And perhaps I should have laid out the question with more of a C.S. Lewis style insinuation in mind, that the writers who articulated their respective Virgin Birth narratives were in one of a few possible categories, depending on what the facts of reality (and history) really are: Liars, Lunatics, or the Lord's penmen.

If it helps, I'll just specify here to everyone that I do believe in the Virgin Birth of Christ, and that I believe that, however imperfectly executed, the writer's of Matthew's and Luke's Gospels reflect the divine inspiration by which they were motivated to write. I believe they were the Lord's penmen, even if my formulation of the exact nature of their writing isn't shared by my more fundamentalist brothers and sisters.

Paul’s statements are usually taken as evidence against the Virgin Birth. In context that verse refers to a normal Jewish birth. While his statements aren’t completely inconsistent with the Virgin Birth, they would seem odd for someone who accepted it.

I find it odd when certain scholars take Paul's statement as being "against" the virgin birth. At worst, his thoughts were probably more along the line that it's specificity wasn't a decisive theme (or necessarily a verifiable fact). And yes, I think everyone should be mindful that Paul's statements are not at all inconsistent with the Virgin Birth; he just doesn't explicate it as do the later Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

The idea of God as Father does not imply anything about the Virgin Birth. After all, Jesus encouraged us all to call God Father.

While I agree that Paul's motif of God being the "Father" of Jesus doesn't succinctly imply a Virgin Birth, I think the overall context of what Paul states in Galatians 4:4 does, at the least, imply a special and perhaps miraculous birth for Jesus.

For instance, Paul states that Jesus' birth was contingent upon it's taking place at a particular time within the scheme of God's eschaton; it couldn't just happen at anytime, neither could it just happen for anyone. So, Jesus couldn't just be ANY son of a god. No, we need to be clear that Paul states that Jesus came in the "fullness of the time," for a specific purpose at the behest of Jesus' Father, via a mortal woman (with no accompanying mention of any kind of man), born into a specific culture (i.e. a Jewish one under the Mosaic Law), to redeem those under the Law so they could become "adopted" sons and daughters, i.e. sons and daughters who are not begotten of God, but rather born-again through the adoptive process of the Holy Spirit. All of which accords, of course, with the Nicene Creed and so on.

So, for us to underestimate how Paul's statement in Galatians 4:4 supports the more specific statements made by the writers of Matthew's and Luke's Gospel is not really an open option for Christians.

If this was a legend, then that whole part of the birth story was a legend. Most people who reject the Virgin Birth assume a normal, licit, sexual relationship with Joseph. Some have, however, considered the possibility of rape.

Yes, but if we slam the Virgin Birth, to be consistent, we should also slam the birth of John the Baptist as told by Luke. They hang together. The problem for skeptics is that Luke's representation of these kinds of births already have numerous precedents in the OT and are consistent with the kind of work, even surprising work, we'd expect from the God of the Hebrews/Jews.

Not only this, but I'd find it very surprising if Paul was unaware of Isaiah 53:2, which I take as a cryptic allusion to the possibility of a virgin style birth of "the Branch" who Isaiah foretold was to come. The confluence of all of these seemingly disparate pieces in not only Isaiah, but strewn throughout the OT, should have led to Paul's writing of Galatians 4:4. How else would it have happened? What's more likely, that Paul (or even Matthew and Luke) took most of his ideas about Christ from the OT, or instead from previous pagan pseudo-virgin birth stories. [Oh...let's do a Bayesian analysis--that will solve it for us. ]

Lastly, I think we need to consider one historical fact that seems to play into the possibility of a virgin birth for Jesus: i.e. the known accusation that He was born out of wedlock, with the insinuation by Jesus' detractors that He was of illegitimate birth. And of this fact, I like what John Stott (1985) has to say:

These rumors of Jesus' illegitimacy persisted long after his death. In the Jewish Talmud they became explicit. And in the third century the Christian scholar Origen had to answer the jibe of the critic Celsus that Joseph turned Mary out of his home because she had committed adultery with a soldier named Panthera. How on earth could these hints and slanders have arisen unless it were known that Mary was already pregnant when Joseph married her? Distasteful as this gossip is, it is corroborative evidence of the virgin birth. (p. 66)​

Please note that this discussion is difficult, because CF rules do not permit one to reject the Virgin Birth. That means that people may be “pulling their punches,” and you may not be seeing a full presentation of the arguments.

Well, that's too bad, isn't it?

Peace
2PhiloVoid

Reference
Stott, J. R. (1985). Authentic Jesus. Intervarsity Press.

 

[StTruth]

Whenever I say the Creed in church, whatever scholars say about the Virgin Birth doesn't affect me. After all, the concept of virginity is relatively new to me. Unlike many other boys my age who are au fait with the ways of the world and have a different idea of "virginity", I have conservative and protective parents and my understanding of virginity has always been different. For me, Mary is a virgin because she bore God Almighty. For me, the "virgin birth" is no different from the "divine birth" and that's precisely what it is. The Virgin Mary is called Virgin because she had in her womb God Himself.

The actual question of whether Mary's pregnancy was scientifically virgin is unimportant to me because the most momentous thing in all Creation has taken place - God becoming Incarnate. All the suggestion that Jesus can't be God if he had a human father is wrong because the Creed tells us that he is very God and very man. Denying him the Y-chromosome would take away his humanity while giving him full human DNA does not take away his divinity because God is always God.

 

[StTruth]

I have addressed your virgin birth question. Now let me address your second issue about John 3:3:

StTruth: "Jesus was playing with words but it was a word play that is only possible if you are speaking in Koine Greek. The word that Jesus used which we translate as 'again' is "ανωθεν" which has two meanings. The first is 'again' which is what Nicodemus understood it to mean which is why he asked whether he could enter into his mother's womb again. The second meaning is 'from above' which is the meaning our Lord intended. This is what our Lord did when he saw Nicodemus' confusion. He explained that he meant 'born of the spirit' or literally, 'born from above'."

Jesus often uses wordplays, but in Aramaic, not Greek. Your subtle point here would elude most ordained ministers. Let me put in the larger context of Johannine scholarship for you. John's major source is symbolically named "the disciple whom Jesus loved," who is traditionally identrified as John the son of Zebedee, an identification now widely rejected for many reasons. Consider the superficial implication that Jesus loved only one disciple! The nickname is clearly a circumlocution for one of Jesus' disciples. But who?

Here is my theory: The anonymous disciple appears 7 times in the 4th Gospel. In each context, there are several hints that parallel what is known about Jesus' brother James ("Jacob" in Aramaic). Let me give you just 1 of hundreds of confirmatory details that I have disclosed in academic papers read before other professors. In John 19:25-27, the Beloved disciple stands at Jesus cross, where Jesus identifies him as the son of His mother Mary. Taken literally, that would make the Beloved Disciple Jesus' brother! But Catholic tradition is freaked out by the obvious, and therefore, resorts to the desperate expedient of taking this Disciple as a symbol of the Church, with Mary as his spiritual mother. So where does "the disciple whom Jesus loved" come from? "Jacob whom the Lord loved" in Psalm 47:4, an area of the Psalms that is the source of much material in the context of John 13, the first chapter to use this circumlocution.

But back to your point about "born again" (= "from above") in John 3. Unlike Matthew and Luke, "John" does not seem to use a major sayings source like Q. Instead, "John" uses a signs source, a passion narrative, and revelation discourses, of which John 3 is an example. Sayings sources like Q are collections of individual sayings of Jesus from oral tradition. But revelation discourses are compositions of the Johannine evangelist, John the Elder (not John the son of Zebedee), who was also Jesus' disciple, though not 1 of the 12. John the Elder combined his source material from James with his own literary composition of revelation discourses.

Now here is the important point: as a whole, these speeches do not stem from oral tradition, but they incorporate authentic sayings of Jesus as bases for the speeches. In the case of John 3:3, the born from above theme, may be authentic Jesus material, though the Greek wordplay is not. John 3:3 expresses a variant saying about how "becoming a child" spiritually is essential to entering the kingdom of God.

Thanks, Hedrick, for explaining to us CF rules and keeping us away from topics that are not appropriate in the forum. I will turn away from the Virgin birth question and look at John 3:3 instead.

Thanks, Deadworm for this excellent response. What you say makes a lot of sense. I didn't think of it before.

 

[Hawk Flint]

In other threads, I have mentioned the vexed question of the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. I have mentioned also something which most of us know - that the Virgin Birth is one doctrine that cropped up only because of a mistranslation of the Hebrew Bible. All scholars from the most evangelical / conservative to the most liberal are aware of this. Even many archbishops in my church have ruled that a belief in the Virgin birth should not be a requirement in the faith. The former Archbishop of Canterbury certainly has made his views heard on this even though he did tone down to avoid dissension within the body of Christ. The archbishop of Sweden is more forthright about this. The former Archbishop of York was probably among the first and most vocal in his denial of the Virgin birth.

I first heard of this problem in about 2004 or 2005 when I didn't know what 'virgin' meant. I was in the York Minster for a very important Eucharist in which all the priests of the church gathered for some Synod. I was one of the altar boys. I was attending to the stole of a prominent Archbishop (a huge privilege) when another high-ranking church official (I think he was an important bishop) laughingly told the Archbishop, "None of your slur on the Virgin Birth, please. Not in front of these cherubs." The Archbishop laughed and then became serious because it was time to be robed. What they didn't realise was this cherub heard everything and I kept the words in my heart. It was an important occasion for the church and the importance and the pomp were not lost on children. We all knew this was a special occasion and of course we listened to every word.

I knew the Virgin Mary because she's mentioned in the Creed. But I didn't at that early age connect the "Virgin" part with the birth. I asked my parents that day what the priests were talking about but they told me to forget everything.

It was much later when I started looking up the subject of the Virgin birth. I believe what I will say here is what everyone already knows. Basically, the St Matthew evangelist who I'll just call St Matthew used the Septuagint throughout. That's the Hebrew Bible translated into Greek. WHy he doesn't use the Hebrew Bible has led to speculation that St Matthew was not Matthew the disciple but a Hellenistic Christian who didn't know Hebrew and had to be content with the Septuagint which everyone knows is a badly translated Bible.

The Isaiah prophecy mentions that an "almah" (young maiden) will be with child and the Septuagint translates that as "parthenos" (virgin). Some scholars say that this has prompted St Matthew to spin a story about Mary's conversation with the angel in order to stress the virginity of the birth because St Matthew, by relying on the Septuagint, had wrongly thought that Mary's virginity was an essential ingredient in the prophecy. Many scholars have also showed (and a previous Archbishop agrees with this) why the early part of St Matthew was probably added on to the Gospel.

When Bruce Metzger translated the RSV Bible, he decidedly to be honest and he translated "almah" in Isaiah as "young woman". However this caused an uproar, principally among fundamentalists in the US who burnt the RSV on the lawns of their fundamentalist churches. I read about this in a tribute to Bruce Metzger in Christianity Today on the death of Metzger. Apparently, Metzger simply said that we had come a long way since Tyndale. We now burn the translation and not the translator. What a great man and what a great sense of humour.

I'm glad my church is rational enough to see the Virgin birth in the context of history. But Holy Tradition is important to the church and it should be important to all of us Christians. Even though we know that the Virgin birth came about because of a mistranslation, I believe we should treat it with a great deal of reverence. After all, we are talking about the mother of our Lord and even if we decide that our Lord's birth wasn't a virgin birth, that should not detract from the supreme holiness of the birth of the King of kings and Lord of Lords.

The non-virginity also does not affect any of our rituals. The Blessing of the Crib makes no implication on the virginity. In fact, nothing requires virginity in our Lord's birth. It doesn't make very God any less very God. The only thing that makes me reluctant to believe wholeheartedly that it wasn't a Virgin birth is our Creed which specifically mentions that our Lord was born of the Virgin Mary. I've spoken to my Archdeacon on this and I've listened to the previous Bishop of Oxford who addressed this issue and basically, what I understand is we can submit to Church Tradition even if our heads tell us that the facts are different. As the Bishop of Oxford puts it so eloquently, we can accept the Tradition of the church on the Virgin Birth and we can appropriate its significance (which is basically the pureness and sacredness of that momentous event when God Himself was born) and we give full assent to the majesty and splendour of God the Son. We should not be proud and arrogant and it would be dreadfully wrong if just because there is a translational error, we now insist that we change the words of the Creed or any other such violent reactions that can only cause division and schism in the body of Christ's holy church.

I entirely agree with the learned bishops on this. What do you think?


NOTE: I have edited this to remove direct identification of particular persons in church.

You should read this article.

http://www.studytoanswer.net/doctrine/almah.html#lxx

 

[StTruth]

You should read this article.

http://www.studytoanswer.net/doctrine/almah.html#lxx

Hi Hawk Flint

Thanks very much for the link to that article. I've only skimmed through the article to see if it addresses some of my concerns. One of the major obstacles that stands in my way when people try to interpret "almah" as "virgin" is Prov 30:9. I'm pleased to see that the article deals with that verse but I haven't yet read it fully. I'll do so later when I'm free.

The article seems to have a good coverage of all my concerns but I haven't got the time to read it yet. I most certainly will do so later.

Thanks.

 

[Hawk Flint]

Hi Hawk Flint

Thanks very much for the link to that article. I've only skimmed through the article to see if it addresses some of my concerns. One of the major obstacles that stands in my way when people try to interpret "almah" as "virgin" is Prov 30:9. I'm pleased to see that the article deals with that verse but I haven't yet read it fully. I'll do so later when I'm free.

The article seems to have a good coverage of all my concerns but I haven't got the time to read it yet. I most certainly will do so later.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

 

[Deadworm]

This thread might benefit from 2 relevant issues that have been overlooked in this discussion:

(1) On another thread, the claim is repeatedly made that Isaiah 7:14 originally referred to Ahaz, Hezekiah or Isaiah. But Matthew employs Jewish pesher interpretative techniques found at Qumran, which find no need to be faithful to the original intent of Hebrew prophecy. Should not the virgin birth tradition be assessed on the basis of prevalent interpretive techniques from the time of Christ rather than in terms of modern literalistic impositions? On Jewish interpretation of Bible prophecy in Jesus' day, read:

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/eq/1964-1_012.pdf

(2) Most of the Jewish Christian and Gentile first century converts lived in the Diaspora, spoke Greek, and used the LXX as their Scripture. So why couldn't God decide to fulfill the LXX version of the virgin birth prophecy in Isaiah7:14? Remember that the LXX prophecy can be construed to promise a virgin birth that results in the presence of Emmanuel ("God with us"). Matthew may have realized that neither Ahaz, nor Hezekiah, nor Isaiah was adequate to fulfill such a grandiose claim.

 

[hedrick]

This thread might benefit from 2 relevant issues that have been overlooked in this discussion:

(1) On another thread, the claim is repeatedly made that Isaiah 7:14 originally referred to Ahaz, Hezekiah or Isaiah. But Matthew employs Jewish pesher interpretative techniques found at Qumran, which find no need to be faithful to the original intent of Hebrew prophecy.
(2) Most of the Jewish Christian and Gentile first century converts lived in the Diaspora, spoke Greek, and used the LXX as their Scripture. So why couldn't God decide to fulfill the LXX version of the virgin birth prophecy in Isaiah7:14?

I think the second one is reaching. But my original response was that Matthew's belief in the Virgin Birth didn't come from a mistranslation, largely because I'm not convinced that the Virgin Birth was created to fit an OT prophecy in the first place.

Even liberal commentators think Matthew and Luke both got the story from existing tradition. Whether that tradition was accurate is a separate question, which can't be discussed here. But there's a tendency for Christians to be overly influenced by apologists, who like to see NT events as being proven because they fulfill the OT prophecy. I'm not convinced that this is based on a proper understanding either of OT prophecy or the NT use of the OT. But this misunderstanding seems to underlie the OP: because Is 7:14 didn't really predict the Virgin Birth, the Virgin Birth must be wrong.

You point out that the NT often uses non-literal interpretations, which basically see current events in light of the OT. There's no problem with authors getting creative in their use of the OT, since their intent isn't to use the OT as a source of predictions that have to come out right in some literal sense. Rather, they're using the OT as a model for other events. It's more an analogy than a literal prediction, and thus techniques such as pesher can get creative about how current events correspond to the OT.

Furthermore, the main job of a prophet wasn't to produce miraculous predictions, which would then be ammunition for Christian apologists. Their job was to interpret events in light of God's will, attacking corrupt rulers and upper classes, and proclaiming that they would be held accountable by God. In that respect it wasn't critical for them to make miraculous predictions. Many of the things prophets predicted were things that anyone could see were likely to happen. The importance of the prophets wasn't being oracles, but connecting events with God's will, interpreting them as judgement.

It looks to me like the OP is operating within an understanding of prophecy and the relationship of OT and NT that's too close to the apologists', even though he's coming to opposite conclusions.