judge

I think you may be falling into the fundamentalist trap of assuming pauls letters are some sort of doctrinal statement from god.

They aren't they are just letters.

He is not trying to "bolster a case". He is just writing a letter. The obsession with correct doctrine comes much later.

judge

Neither Paul see jesus vidicated as the Son of God, at the resurrection.

Compare with 1 Corinthians 15. If christ be not raised we are dead in our sins.
Paul sees the resurrection as verification of something.

Compare with the book of Hebrews. Christ only becomes immortal on His resurrection, not before. Then he is granted "the power of an indestructible life".

Paul sees a man becoming Immortal, and being crowned with the Highest name, on his resurrection.

Why do you think Luke and Matthew see god becoming man?

Aspirin99

Okay, I can sort of agree with that. However, Paul was concerned about doctrine (or at least what people believed about Jesus) to some extent. For example, Gal. 1:6-9 (another gospel). Nonetheless, had Paul mentioned the Virgin Birth, it would have established an earlier date. To say that the belief existed earlier - would not be me who was doing the assuming.

NOGO

In his letters Paul preaches and does little else.
If he knew of a virgin birth he would have preached it.

For Paul Jesus became son of God at his resurrection as stated in Romans' first few verses. This removes the virgin birth from the radar scope because the purpose of the virgin birth was to establish Jesus as the son of God.

If Jesus was the son of God at birth, the incarnated member of the trinity, then why does he need to receive the spirit of God at his baptism to guide him into the desert?

Doesn't the second member of the trinity know enough to guide himself into the dessert?

Here we see how mixed up Chrisrtians were. Whoever created the virgin birth should have taken out the baptism scene but didn't.

judge

I would have to disagree. Paul does littel to explain much stuff.
What counts to him is the "new creation". Is Christ formed in people. Are people changed for the better?

It does not say he became the son of god at his resurrection. He was declared the son at his resurrection.

As I mention, if we connect it up with various other writings of Paul. we find that Paul indicates something was shown to be true at the resurrection.
Compare with 1 Corinthians 15



Really? Says who?
There are no members of the trinity. These ideas cam much later as a reaction against supposed heretics.

Yes when men invent doctrines to exclude others it no doubt leads to confusion.

ichabod crane

Good argument, the point about the virgin birth is well made. But I have one or two comments on the subsequent discussion.

The problem I have with this is that, in the broader context of the gospels, it is extremely obvious what has happened here. Whoever wrote Matthew and Luke only had access to the LXX and couldn't read Aramaic or Hebrew. They both, but especially Matthew, repeatedly make points to prove that Jesus is the Messiah based on the LXX, where if they could read the Hebrew they would know the LXX was a mistranslation. Now, for some reason (suggestions below), the LXX reads parthenos here. So Matthew and Luke read parthenos, thought the Messiah had to be born of a virgin, and the rest is history.

The point is, there is no need to appeal to pagan myths to explain the story. Perhaps they assisted the Christians to embellish the story once it was already established, but the origin of the story seems clear: a mistranslation in the LXX. Now unless the Christians first came up with the virgin birth thing, then altered the LXX to read parthenos, the pagan myth stuff is largely irrelevant. And of the two hypotheses, I think that an unintentional misreading of a mistranslation is *much* more likely than a pagan origin. Why? Because we have quite a few other examples of precisely this. Whereas a deliberate altering of the LXX to support a pagan introduction seems, well, far-fetched.

As to why the LXX read parthenos in the first place, there are two possibilities. One is just incompetence of the translator, and that is by no means unlikely. The second is that this was an instance where Hellenistic Jews adopted a mystical/allegorical interpretation of the text, trying to find deeper meanings in the text, and read it as Messianic. They might have speculated that this deeper meaning implied a virgin. If you want to look for pagan influences, it might be better to look at this point in the chain of causation. But I think, frankly, it was just a stuff-up.

In summary, I don't think you should use Isaiah 7:14 to try to show pagan influence on the NT. How much such influence there is, is a matter of debate; obviously some people on this board feel such influence is greater than I do. But the whole virgin thing is much easier to explain as an interpretation based on a mistranslation.

If you want some other examples where the gospel writers have stuffed up by relying on the LXX where it is wrong, here are my favourites:

The application of Isaiah 40:3 "a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord" to John the Baptist. All four gospels do this, and the Gospel of John even puts the words in the mouth of John himself, which really seals the case, since John the Baptist, if he existed, would have spoken Aramaic and Hebrew, and would hardly likely have been quoting from the LXX. In the Hebrew, it is crystal clear because of the parallelism that this should read, "a voice crying, in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord ...". However, the LXX translators, for some reason, omitted the crucial second phrase ba`aravah (in the desert), which destroys the parallelism and hence leads to the misreading that you see in the gospels.

Matthew 21:16: "'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise". Follows the LXX. The Hebrew reads "strength" rather than "praise"; they're two completely different words in Hebrew. In this case, the only possible explanation is that the story is fictitious, because why would Jesus, a native Aramaic/Hebrew speaker if he existed, be quoting from the LXX?

There are plenty of other examples and I'm sure the kind people of IIDB will help you find them!

Aspirin99

In my opinion, you are probably partially correct, Mr.Crane. However, if the spiritual-superstitious environment encouraged ideas of virgin goddesses and virgin births, it would make the idea easier to incorporate into one’s method of interpretation. Therefore, when the early Christians came across a verse that made a prediction of a child being born as a sign, the popular idea of a virgin birth allowed the Christians to be less critical of what they read. Pagan virgin births may not have been the source of the doctrine, but Pagan ideas were the alcohol that removed their inhibitions. I think it affected the initial interpretation not just the later embellishments.

Agemegos

There is a typo here. "Galations" ought to be "Galatians".

Hallandale

There is some unusual dialogue between Mary and Gabriel in Luke's Virgin Birth story.
Starting at Luke 1:26, Gabriel comes to the virgin, Mary, engaged to Joseph.
And the angel Gabriel, says to her.........
31"And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.

32"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David;

33and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end."

Now this is a pretty amazing message.
But notice that nowhere did the angel say that she would have a virgin birth.
If a woman is ENGAGED, as was Mary, and someone says "I predict you will give birth to a great kid" the obvious assumption is that the engaged woman will marry, have sex, and have a great kid.
But look at Mary's response to Gabriel.
34Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?"

GABRIEL NEVER MENTIONED A VIRGIN BIRTH BUT MARY ASSUMES A VIRGIN BIRTH.

Doesn't this whole conversation seem a contrived fabrication?
Hallandale

Aspirin99

I suppose that if Luke and Matthew were, indeed, unaware of each other’s work, you could make a case that Luke could have meant that. Matthew, on the other hand, is more specific. His version would not allow this interpretation. Interesting observation.