lpetrich

My own theory is that it was a bit of excessive literalism and pagan influence.

In the Old Testament, "child", "son", and "daughter" were metaphorically extended in various ways; thus, kings would be called "sons of God". This was not meant literally, but more in an adoptive or metaphorical sense; there is no incident of divine impregnation anywhere in the OT.

But the writers of Matthew and Luke were a bit literal-minded about "son of God", and we can ask ourselves why that might be. There is a lot of pagan influence in the New Testament, like mystery-religion influence and Cynic influence and the Gospel of John starting with "In the beginning was the Word" (Logos). And Judeo-pagan syncretism was common in the first century CE, meaning that mixing Jewish and pagan themes was completely possible for the NT's writers. That they wrote in Greek further supports this, because Greek was the shared language of the eastern Mediterranean basin at the time.

In constrast with the OT, however, pagans had believed in numerous divine impregnations; even such gentlemen as Pythagoras, Plato, Alexander the Great, and Augustus Caesar were considered by some to have gods as their biological fathers. And that may have inspired the authors of Matthew and Luke to be literal-minded about "son of God", thus their believing that Jesus Chrust's biological father had been the Xian God.

As to the Isaiah virgin prophecy, the authors of the Gospels, wanted to make Jesus Christ seem like the fulfillment of OT prophecies, even if that meant quoting them out of context or misunderstanding them or using mistranslations -- they used the Greek Septuagint rather than any Hebrew version of the OT. And lo and behold, in the Septuagint, Isaiah tells us that "a virgin will conceive...", even though the original Hebrew was more like "a young woman will conceive...", without any implication of virginity. So the authors of Matthew and Luke seized upon that as a virgin-birth prophecy.

BrianJ

And effectively negated the required Davidic bloodline by the messiah. Having God as His father, or being His own father , there is no bloodline to David, thus we have another example that proves Jesus could not have been the Messiah.

Also, Isaiah 7:14 is not even a messianic prophecy.

Malachi151

Whatever Chris. Would you like to claim that these are symbolic stories that aren't supposed to be taken at face value? Would you like to claim that they have some deeper meaning? The birth stories I mean.

It seems that my take on them it in line with Christian tradition. I'm not sure what your take is, since you haven't done anything but say that me saying that these were straight forward stories to be taken at face value is wrong.

Chris Weimer

The mere fact that Matthew can alter Mark negates the idea that Matthew thought of it as a normal history. Beyond that, Matthew doesn't share the characteristics of an historical text, and that Matthew uses creative midrash upon the life of Moses, not to show that Jesus is Moses, or that Jesus life parallels Moses, but that Jesus has the authority of Moses, for one as a lawgiver, allows room for theological understanding of the text that doesn't require one to read it literally at all times.

Part of the text is what Matthew thinks happened, and part of the text is what Matthew is trying to convey to the reader.

Malachi151

So are you agreeing with the OP interpretation or not? What metaphorical meanings to you glean from the birth story in Matthew? What about Luke? What scholars talk about symbolic meaning in the birth story of Matthew? Aside from drawing parallels to Moses, what other symbolism is to be found in the Matthew birth story?

That GMatthew is not a deep philosophical work is consensus opinion as far as I know, at least everything I have seen is of this opinion.

Chris Weimer

I don't even understand the OP, how can I agree with it?

I already gave you one example of Moses.

You're right - it's not a philosophical treatise. That doesn't mean it's not sophisticated. Ever read any of Allison's work on the Sermon on the Mount?

mountainman

The birth of JC has been considered to be a vaneer over the
birth of Apollonius of Tyana (c.4 BCE) with effect from the
fourth century, by the mechanism of two actions:

1) A DELETION of the writings of "the tribe of (neo)pythagoreans"
from Apollonius of Tyana (1st CE) to Porphyry (4th CE).

2) An ADDITION of the writings of "the tribe of christians"
cited to be fabrication of the Galilaeans, and a fiction of
men composed by wickedness.

However this is to be considered in a literal and historical
sense, not in terms of any philosophical idealism.