idiom

It always seemed obvious to me. The virgin birth is a requirement of being the Messiah.

The bloodline of the Kings had a blood curse put on it about ten kings in. The messiah had to be of the Bloodline of David (He was through Mary - Luke) to be the son of David. He had to be of the legal line of the kings to be messiah (which he was through His legal father Joseph - Matthew).

John's gospel portrays Jesus as the son of God so his geneolgy portrays Jesus as the Word of God, eternal. Therefore the act of His human incarnation is of no relevance to John.

Mark on the other hand portays Jesus as the Servant of all and nodoby gives a stuff about the parents of a servant so Mark does not provide a geneology.

For it to make sense you have to think of the gosepels as four volume of the same book. All have totally different reasons for existing.

Butters

I am opening a new thread here. I have seen this claim that one of the geneologies of Jesus is traced through Mary. I would like to see the basis of this claim.

MortalWombat

Luke 1:
34 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

What exactly is the difference between this and a divine impregnation, anyway?

Kosh

Well, this one seems more like a threesome....

NOGO

Having premises and conclusions does not logic make.

Amos

Call it what you want but the fact is that Mary did not have an egg to be fertilized. The Annunciation is what cause the birth of the Christ-child.

idiom

The messiah had to be born of a virgin to get around the curse God put on the line of the kings.

If he was not born of a virgin then it is impossible for Jesus to have been the messiah. It really has little to do with being a deity it has to do with technicality of blood-based curses.

Stephen T-B

Yonks ago I saw a TV programme featuring Biblical scholars who maintained that the Virgin-birth story has its origins in a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for "maiden" or "young woman" which carries no overt implications of virginity.

[ December 18, 2002: Message edited by: Stephen T-B ]</p>

Amos

A virgin birth is needed for the successful completion of salvation and must be juxtaposed with a non-virgin birth to make any sense.

This makes for two possible kinds of rebirth, one is from God and the other is from carnal desire as per John 1:13 "those who are begotten not by blood, nor by carnal desire, nor by man's willing it but by God.

If rebirth is incipient from God we are reborn from an immaculate conception and will enjoy the Easter promise. If rebirth is from carnal desire (such as bible reading) we are be reborn from a malevolent female and will never enjoy the Easter promise but will remain torn between the paradox sinful yet saved.

So a virgin birth means that salvation must come as as a thief in the nigth and we must not anticipate such an event. In other words, instead of Bible reading we must just blindly follow the leader who is in charge of our spiritual destiny until such time as we get called by name when lost as a sheep in the flood of sin.

Sojourner553

You can find the source here. I included some leadin background too.


Matthew's Usage of Prophecies from the Septuagint.

In his letter to the Romans (see Romans 15:3-4,16:25-6), Paul wrote how
the prophetic writings of the Old Testament were written down to clarify
facts for Christians about Jesus. Thus, even around 50 C.E. (ie when
many scholars believe Paul wrote this letter, Christians believed that
Old Testament stories could be ALLEGORICALLY interpreted as a prediction
of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

As the Christian communities used the Greek translation of the Old
Testament (ie the Septuagint) for their religious services, it is this
version that was typically read and analyzed for prophecies regarding
the coming Messiah. Translation differences and outright interpolations
at times created discrepancies between the Septuagint version and the
original hebrew version.

For example, in one case, a Christian editor of the Septuagint altered
Psalm 96 (which states "The Lord reigns" ) to read "The lord reigns from
the tree"--ie referencing the cross of Jesus. The early Christian father
Justin wrote how it was generally believed that this did NOT result from
a mistake/addition in the CHRISTIAN version of the Septuagint--but that
it was instead the Jews who had altered the text by OMMITTING these words
in their version of the Bible. (Justin, DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO 73:1; quoted
from Jaroslav Pelikan's JESUS THROUGH THE CENTURIES--His Place in the
History of Culture Yale University Press , 1985, p 27). The discovery of
older texts has shown that Justin was not correct in this assessment.

The author of the gospel of Matthew appears to have studied the
Old Testament extensively for "predictions" of Jesus. Matthew wrote his
entire gospel around "proofs" that Jesus' life had been foretold by the
prophets of the Old Testament--Hence, Matthew uses the phrase, "that it may
be fulfilled" repeatedly throughout his gospel.

For example, when the prophet Hosea wrote of God that "When Israel was
a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1),
this was interpreted by Matthew's Christian community as a prediction
of the flight of Jesus' and his family to Egypt--to escape King Herod's
decree of killing Jewish babies. Likewise, Jeremiah 31:15 (Rachel weeping
for her children) was interpreted by Matthew to prophecise Herod's
slaughter of the innocents. The Old Testament prophecies, which
pointed to a future king of Jerusalem who would reunite the kingdoms of
Judah and Israel, were also interpreted to be a prophecy of Christ.

Was Mary's Virgin Birth Foretold in the Old Testament Prophecies?

One of the most controversial passages that Matthew uses in this way,
is the Old Testament prediction that Jesus would be "born of a virgin."
For, when Joseph is told by the angel that Mary will conceive Jesus through
the Holy Ghost, Matthew writes:

"All this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold the virgin shall be with child,
and shall bring forth a son. And they shall call his name Immanuel; which is,
being interpreted, God is with us" (Matthew 1:22-23)

The reference is to Isaiah 7:14, where the prophet Isaiah is addressing
Ahaz, the king of Judah, who is being attacked by the two kings of Israel
and Syria. Isaiah assures King Ahaz that he has nothing to worry about, and
that:

"A young woman (translated 'virgin' ?) is with child, and she has borne
a son, and will call him Immanuel. By the time that he has learnt to reject
evil and choose good, he will be eating curds and honey; before that child
has learnt to reject evil and choose good, desolation will come upon the
land before whose two kings you cower now (Isaiah 7:14-16 NEB)

In the original Hebrew text, the term used is 'ahmah' which means "young
woman". The term has a connotation of meaning a young woman eligible for
marriage, but does not necessarily imply a virgin. The Septuagint version
of the New Testament translated the Hebrew term 'ahmah' into the Greek word
'parthenos' which DOES imply a "virgin". (The concept of a "virgin"
impregnated by Greek gods was a common theme in many of the ancient Greek
myths.--See Section II Chapter 1 on Birth Stories of Jesus Christ)

Other technical difficulties with the passage have arisen: The hebrew verb
"conceive" is vague regarding whether it applies to the future ("will
conceive") or the present ("has conceived"). The Hebrew Scripture translation
prepared by the Jewish Publication Society reads that "a young woman has
conceived". (James L. Mays, general editor, HARPER'S BIBLE COMMENTARY, Harper
& Row, 1988, p 556)

Some texts (such as the standard Hebrew (Massoretic) text and the
Septuagint) refer to "THE" woman as opposed to "A" woman. This has led some
scholars to believe that Isaiah had some specific woman in mind-- whose
identity was known to him. Even in the Septuagint version, there is no
reference to any supernatural occurrence when reading this passage. Instead,
the passage, when taken in its own context, appears merely to refer to some
woman-- who is NOW a virgin, but will get married, conceive, and have a
child. (GA Wells, WHO WAS JESUS, Open Court, 1989, p 68 citing RE Brown,
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN (Anchor Bible Series), 1966; quoted from the
reprint of 1971, London: G. Chapman, vol. 1, pp. xxxiv-xxxvi, xciii, c;
vol.2, pp. 969-72.)

Isaiah 7:14 was NOT one of the verses used by apocalyptic Jews in
predicting the messiah. (Friedman, WHO WROTE THE BIBLE, p 69) Instead,
ancient Jews interpreted this verse in Isaiah as a short-term prophecy
that had historically already been fulfilled--For the northern kingdom of
Israel had indeed been conquered by the Assyrians, some thirteen years after
the referenced attack on Judah under its King Ahaz.

Some recent scholarly versions of the Bible (mainly the RSV and the NEB)
have thus retranslated the Isaiah 7:14 verse to use the term "young woman"
instead of "virgin". (Some American fundamentalists have burned copies of
the RSV Bible because of their anger over this translation.)

We shall be reviewing some of Matthew's other prophecies in the sections
that examine events in Jesus' live. In general, it can be said that Matthew
always carefully documents the source of his prophecies.

However there is ONE important exception: That is, after Matthew described
how Jesus left Egypt to go to Nazareth, he states this was done:

"to fulfill the words spoken through the prophets: 'He shall be called a
Nazarene'".

Scholars have vainly searched to find any such reference in the
Old Testament. Possibly Matthew was explaining how Jesus was a man from
Galillee and not from the expected region of Judah.

<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/GOSPEL.TXT" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/GOSPEL.TXT</a>

<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html</a>

[ December 19, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>