reniaa

yeah i'm a bit lost on this too, the closest correlation we could find now is if a women went into hospital for an adominal operation and got implanted with an embryo instead, is that rape?

Toto

This topic was dealt with here in 2005.

Please read that thread. I have nothing much to add.

PhilosopherJay

Hi ~M~,

Yes, there could not have been sexual intercourse. It is absurd to think of a holy ghost being able to have intercouse and producing sperm in a penis to fertilize a female egg. Therefore, we have to assume that all the DNA came from Mary. This means that Jesus was a clone of Mary and therefore had a female body like Mary's.

On the other hand, we have to consider why the God wanted a virgin if he did not want to have sexual intercourse with her? The only thing that distinguishes a virgin from a non-virgin is sexual intercourse. Only if I intend to have sexual intercourse would I care if a woman is a virgin or not. Mary had not yet married, so she would have been twelve years old at the time, the normal age for engagement for Jewish girls.

So it seems that the God did want to have sexual intercourse with her, if he took pains to make sure that she was a virgin, engaged but unmarried to Joseph. But again it is absurd to think of him impregnating her with his semen when he does not have any.

Oh well, its all a mystery anyway. Perhaps we should just leave it at this:
1) The God attempted to rape the bewildered twelve year old.
2) The God was impotent or at least did not have the proper equipment to do the deed.
3) Mary gave birth to a cloned female child.
4) The God lied to Mary and told her he would have a son when she actually had a daughter.
5) The Hebrew prophesy went unfulfilled because Mary had a daughter and not a son.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Doug Shaver

I assume that your question presupposes the factuality of the gospel stories about Jesus' birth.

In that case, there was no rape, because there was no sexual intercourse.

reniaa

I think her virginity is purely to testify to jesus being God's child if she was married then others would not have believed he was god's son, remember in those days marriage or singleness where only choices not like now.

and if you are talking strictly biblical point of view of God it shouldn't be hard for a god who created man from dust to make an egg become embryo then give it the male aspect.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Reniaa,

Okay, let us say that God chose a virgin to testify that it was God's son and not somebody else's son. Well, how would anyone know she was actually a virgin. I mean did someone go around inserting some fingers into Mary's vagina to test if the hymen was still intact? The NT texts does not tell us that anybody did, so it would have been impossible for anyone to actually know if Mary was still a virgin and impregnated by a God. Even Joseph apparently did not do an intact hymen test. It was only the word of the angel that convinced him. But if an angel was needed to convince people that a woman was having a baby by a God, then there was no special need for her to be a virgin.

So if the God's purpose was to prove that the son was actually his, then the choice of a virgin was irrelevant, since nobody knew that she was a virgin, and everybody assumed she simply had out-of-wedlock sex as was quite common in those days. But God could have picked any temple prostitute, one who had sex with hundreds of men and then have an angel come down and say that she was having God's child. Either people would believe the angel or they wouldn't. The woman have an intact hymen is simply not an issue to convince anybody.

Thus, since no virginity test was done on Mary, her virginity was irrelevant to proving that her baby was from a God. We may dismiss this hypothesis which has no basis in the story text or in historical reality. It seems we are left with the God-had-a-virgin-fetish hypothesis which is the only one that satisfies all the facts.

As far as God being able to change a female egg into a male, we may grant that God can do anything, that is a given. He could have created a fifty foot high Jesus in the form of a chicken if s/he wanted. However, if we wish to take the text seriously, we must assume that no natural scientific laws are broken unless the text specifically tells us that they were. In this case, we cannot assume that any alien matter was introduced into Mary's womb. Thus, we have to conclude that a cloning process of some sort took place, which leads us to the idea of a female child.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

reniaa

Hi jay

Your right there could be no test to prove she was a virgin but you forget it was angels that testified to joseph her purity and her carrying God's child, the angels couldn't have done this otherwise, they also probably don't need to do the hymen test to know if someone is untouched or not. It certainly would have muddied waters if they said "Well shes your wife and we know you've had hanky panky with her but God inplanted this current child"

he probably didn't choose a prostitute because of other reasons, Mary was chosen for her goodness and that she lived in Bethlehem, joseph would have been part of it too he would have to bring up jesus so he too would have to be a good man, by God's standards.

hmmm God created everything inc the current "natural" laws can he change them to his own ends? I'm guessing the answer to that is yes, if we take jesus miracles of healing as true then aren't they too going against natural laws?

WVIncagold

First was Mary from Bethlehem? I thought they traveled there for the census that there is no record of happening? Two if god could create man from dust why go throught the whole problem of virgin birth? why not just *poof* another man out of dust? Personally Joesph had to be a very understanding man. "Okay Mary i will accept this baby as the son of god but this better be the last damn son of god you wind up with!" Imagine what a day at the carpentry shop was like for him. " hey Joe hows the son of Gawd""Joe Gawds was seen at your house again""Hey Joe heard your little woman had a little visitor last night". It would of been awful!

Jayco

What girl wouldn't want Yahweh to fuck her?

=/

MadPhatCat

I'll remember that when I have sex with a sleeping person who doesn't wake up during the sex. (Methinks that first definition you found is terribly inadequate).