spin

Tell you what. You made the original claim, you back it up. OK? Otherwise we forget it.


spin

Jeffrey Gibson

Who are the women in the genealogy and why are they there?

Jeffrey

Toto

This can be search on Amazon. Miller discusses the issue in chapter 12, "Is There A Virgin Birth in Matthew?" But the first thing he says is that Luke clearly says that Mary will conceive while still a virgin. He then goes on to say that Matthew never read Luke.

It is apparent that Miller is tiptoeing around an audience that thinks that scripture is divine and must be believed on some level, so he has a motivation to extract a naturalistic birth for Jesus. I am not convinced that it would be worth my time to try to follow the logic.

spin

What... the discovery method? I've done my share of fishing in the classroom as well. I await substance to your claim.


spin

Jeffrey Gibson

How is this apparent?

So, like Charles Gadda, you are a mind reader now? And even if he does have a motivation, how do you know for certain that his work on the question is spurred on by it?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey

bopot

Indeed not. He is a shrill, hysterical, frothing point dodger and straw man builder.

rhutchin

I think we need to resolve Matthew 1 by itself before going to other verses that might suggest a different way of understanding Matthew.

The verses that lead to the conclusion that Joseph had no sexual relations with Mary are the following--

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.

Here the phrase, "...before they came together...," seems to state that they had not had sexual relations. If not, then what else might the language mean?

19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.

To what was Joseph responding to for which he did not want to make Mary a public example? What had Mary done other than get pregnant and why would Joseph act as he did except if he knew that he was not the father?

20 But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

To what could this language refer other than that Mary is pregnant and Joseph is not the father?

24 Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife,
25 and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son.

Can this language be read to say something other than that Joseph had no sexual relations with Mary until after the birth of Jesus?

The language of Matthew seems very explicit in telling us that Joseph did not have sexual relations with Mary and therefore, could not have been the father of the child she carried. Is it possible to understand Matthew in any other way given the repeated references to Mary's pregnancy and the Joseph's reaction to that pregnancy?

Toto

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." Thomas Jefferson, 1823.

That day has not yet come. Miller is careful to be respectful of people who believe in the virgin birth, just as he is careful to show respect for those who do not believe in the virgin birth. What would you deduce from this?

It is an elementary deduction. The natural reading of the text is that Jesus was born of a virgin. Christians from the earliest time read the text as saying that Jesus was born of a virgin, as did the opponents that we know about. Now a member of the Jesus Seminar tries to explain that is not what the text actually says. And we know that there is a long tradition of Protestant Rationalism that tries to explain the apparently supernatural events of the Bible as the product of natural forces.

spin

Still waiting for you to support your claim.


spin

Solo

Jeffrey, just out of curiousity: does not the 'bloods' in ouk ex haimaton in Jn 1:13 signify 'outside of human procreative chain' ?

Jiri