RyanS2

Virgin birth status? Let's ask Justin Martyr:

"When we say that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound NOTHING DIFFERENT from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter." [First Apology, 21]

He further writes again about virgin births:

""As to the objection of our Jesus’s being crucified, I say, that suffering was common to all the aforementioned sons of Jove [Jupiter] . . . As to his being born of a virgin, you have your Perseus to balance that. As to his curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were cripples from birth, this is little more than what you say of your Aesculapius."

In "Dialogue with Trypho the Jew", he admits again:

"And when I hear, Trypho, that Perseus was begotten of a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent counterfeited also this."

(Justin Martyr's best line of defense was that Satan beat God to the stories.)

Of course, Christian writers like Minucius Felix in "Octavius" deny that Christians worshipped a man who was crucified, because that's what the pagans did:

"Chapter XXIX: "Nor is It More True that a Man Fastened to a Cross on Account of His Crimes is Worshipped by Christians, for They Believe Not Only that He Was Innocent, But with Reason that He Was God....

For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses gilded and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it..."

Now, let's talk about some other ones.

Mithra: (Excerpted from Acharya S Christ-myther page)

"Unlike various other rock- or cave-born gods, Mithra is not depicted as having been given birth by a mortal woman or a goddess; hence, it is claimed that he was not "born of a virgin." However, a number of writers over the centuries have asserted otherwise, including Roberston and Evans. In Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth Jackson states:

Mithra, a Persian sun-god, was virgin-born, in a cave, on December 25. His earliest worshippers were shepherds, and he was accompanied by twelve companions.

In Pagan and Christian Creeds, Carpenter relates:

The saviour Mithra, too, was born of a Virgin, as we have had occasion to notice before; and on Mithraist monuments the mother suckling her child is not an uncommon figure.

Carpenter's assertion is backed up by John Remsburg in The Christ Myth (ch. 7), in which he relates that an image found in the Roman catacombs depicts the babe Mithra "seat in the lap of his virgin mother," with the gift-bearing Magi genuflecting in front of them. Such iconography was common in Rome as representative of Isis and Horus, so it would not be unexpected to find it within Mithraism.

One recent writer portrays the Mithra myth thus:

According to Persian mythology, Mithras was born of a virgin given the title "Mother of God"….

…The Parthian princes of Armenia were all priests of Mithras, and an entire district of this land was dedicated to the Virgin Mother Anahita. Many Mithraeums, or Mithraic temples, were built in Armenia, which remained one of the last strongholds of Mithraism. The largest near-eastern Mithraeum was built in western Persia at Kangavar, dedicated to "Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithras."

If this last, quoted part is truly from an inscription, it would seem to lay the matter to rest. Anahita is certainly an Indo-Iranian goddess of some antiquity, dating back at least four or five centuries prior to the common era.

As noted, Robertson maintained that Mithra was a virgin-born god:

…It seems highly probable that the birth-legend of the Persian Cyrus was akin to or connected with the myth of Mithra, Cyrus (Koresh) being a name of the sun, and the legend being obviously solar….

It was further practically a matter of course that his mother should be styled a virgin, the precedents being uniform. In Phrygia the God Acdestis or Agdistis, a variant of Attis, associated with Attis and Mithra in the worship of the Great Mother, is rock-born. Like Mithra, he is two-sexed, figuring in some versions as female… Further, the Goddess Anahita or Anaitis, with whom Mithra was anciently paired, was pre-eminently a Goddess of fruitfulness, and as such would necessarily figure in her cultus as a Mother.

Moreover, Mithra's prototype, the Indian Mitra, was born of a female, Aditi, the "mother of the gods," the inviolable or virgin dawn.

Buddah: (Or Buddha)

Joseph McCabe says: " . . . Mr. Robertson shows from St. Jerome that the Buddhists themselves did call Maya 'a virgin' - they believed in a 'virgin birth' - and he rightly rejects the statement of Professor Rhys Davids that these Buddhists understood the birth of Buddha quite differently from the Christians because 'before his descent into his mother's womb he was a deva.' That is exactly what Christians say of Jesus."

Krishna:

Joseph McCabe again says: "The orthodox legend of Krishna is that he was born of a married woman, Devaki; but like Maya, Buddha's mother, she was considered to have had a miraculous conception. . . . Thus one of the familiar religious emblems of India was the statue of the virgin mother (as the Hindus repute her) Devaki and her divine son Krishna, an incarnation of the great god Vishnu. Christian writers have held that this model was borrowed from Christianity, but, as Mr. Robertson observes, the Hindus had far earlier been in communication with Egypt and were more likely to borrow the model of Isis and Horus."

As I suspect MetaCrock, or anyone who studies mythology knows, there are dozens of conflicting stories within the lives of these super-saviour people. "Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions":

The accounts of the deaths of most of all virgin-born Saviours of whom we shall speak, are conflicting. It is stated in one place that such an one died in such a manner, and in another place we may find it stated altogether differently. Even the accounts of the death of Jesus…are conflicting…""

Virgin born sons were part of a tradition going back to Babylon. Winnet, in his writings for the "Moslem World", notes that the God "Allah" was described (going back to Northern Arabian inscriptions far prior to Islam), as "abtar" or "childless". (This was the logic used by Muhammad to say that Jesus couldn't have been the Son of God.) Though Allah didn't have a Son, his consort of the time, Allat did, because in Babylonian mythology, a male God was not necessary to reproduce a child.

Reactor

Virgin born saviours... looks like there's a lot of them. You say that virgin born sons were part of tradition. How many of them had a reason for being born by one? A theological reason? Just Jesus, or...?

Anunnaki

MetaCrock tried to say that none of these other saviours had true virgin births,but I guess he overlooked Dionysus in his rant.

Dionysus was born of a mortal virgin Semele,who wishes to see Zeus in all his glory and is mysteriously impregnated by one of his bolts of lightening.
Dionysus` virgin mother had a short seven month pregnancy which just so happens to be what early Christians had said about Mary`s pregnacy.

And regarding Mithra,perhaps Metacrock would like to explain all
<a href="http://www.innvista.com/scriptures/compare/mithra.htm" target="_blank">this</a>?

Reactor

Still no reason for actually being born by a virgin? And no, being accedentally shot by lighting is not a reason Who are these early Christians you're talking about?

RyanS2

The "Theological reason" was because they were based upon what we call "astrotheology" or that the basis of a religion upon things in the sky. Ancients were kind of funny in how they thought the World worked. Almost universally, the moon was considered a female diety. Why? Well, something interesting about the moon is that it has a 28 day cycle, much the same as a female menstrual cycle. A woman actually having her period was fairly rare, as women were generally wed young and that birth control wasn't around, meaning women were pregnant quite often. The ancients also had a fixation on blood as being really important as well. We would now consider that a somewhat strange view of how the World works, but that's just how it is.

The ancients figured that a woman have children, but that a man never could. (Easy logic.) They then got around to reckoning that the mother had a son, which was generally the Sun. (Thus, like other Sun Gods, Attis is the lover and son of his mother.) The reason why they are usually born in caves is because the "cave" was universally identified with the womb of Mother Earth, the logical place for symbolic birth and regeneration.

Likewise, you find that the Goddess Har was both the virgin and the whore. Why? Ancients noticed that the moon had phases, usually why Goddesses are have three sides to them, (triple-crone Goddesses, respectively matching the Maiden, which corresponds to the new moon; the Mother, which corresponds to the full moon; and the Crone, which is the waning moon.) Anat (Canaanite deity) had a yearly ritual where she would renew her virginity. This again, was fairly standard for Goddesses.

Part of this was due to the fact that in some areas, the calendar originally began in the constellation of Virgo, and the sun would therefore be "born of a Virgin."

(You can play with a somewhat strange etymological connection here with the Goddess Har and the Hebraic roots relating her to be the Goddess of War and Life: ‘har’ means mountain and is at the root of ‘harah,’ which means to conceive, be with child (and the pregnant belly becomes a mountain); ‘harag,’ in contrast, means to kill, destroy, ruin, and ‘ha’rel’ means altar. Another one is "hor" which means a cave, pit, or dark hole.)

Jesus actually fails a theological criteria, in that he was supposed to be of a King David descent through the father, (Joseph), however, we find that if he was of a virgin birth, (thus keeping his deity status in Rome), he loses his ability to be the descendant of King David. (Sorry, being the adopted child of someone does not make you a descendant of them.)

The reason none of these fabulous deities had real fathers is because none of them actually existed. Be it Dionysus, Mithra, Orpheus, Attis, Osiris, Buddha, Krishna, etc. none of them are considered real people, or have thought to have lived. (Except in their time.)

Reactor

The apostles would have disagreed with you on this. So, who's right? You or them? And, are you sure you can slap the term 'adopted' on the birth? And if you are sure, where did this theological criteria come from that says once you're born (God breathed) from a virgin, you're no longer a decendant? Doesn't decendant simply mean that you decended (however you did) from someone? In my mind, this stil fits the OT prophecies that the messiah would in fact decend (not stated how) from King David.

Follow my line of thinking?

Asha'man

Actually, no, I don’t quite follow this line. If both your father and your mother aren’t descendants of someone, then you aren’t either. Additionally, the Jewish tradition of descent only followed the father, since they were not aware of the female egg, but were aware of the male “seed.” This is another reason why the genealogies of Joseph are questioned, since they fail to prove anything about Jesus being Davidic. If “adoption” were an allowable alternative, then surely someone would have recorded Joseph adopting Jesus. Instead, Joseph is essentially never mentioned again after questioning Mary about her infidelity.

The Jewish idea of descent was quite literal, and doesn’t need any theological backing. Since property rights are tied to paternity, the laws were very clear. Phrases such as “of the flesh” also make it clear that a physical descent is required, not a theological one.

As to the theological requirement for a virgin birth, I don’t think there is one. Jesus could have been just as effective if God had created him by fiat, at the age of 2, or 25. He could still be “flesh and blood,” because God would make him that way. For that matter, Mary could be a non-virgin for the simple and mundane reason that Jesus had an older brother, it wouldn’t really break the story, would it?

Asha'man

I’m not sure I get that same reading. Celsus seems to be ridiculing the beliefs of the Christians. Clearly Celsus knows the Christian claim: that Jesus was nailed to the Cross. I don’t think this sentence is referring to what Celsus personally believes, just what the Christian belief is. The last sentence obviously starts off by mentioning what is in the Christian writings. I wish it were clearer, since either interpretation seems possible.

However, this doesn’t invalidate the Toldoth Jesu. Even if Celsus believed in a crucifixion, he may also have known about alternate stories, including the one told by the Toldoth. And if he knew about those stories, then they clearly were being circulated before the year 500, the supposed date of the Toldoth. The stoning & tree death told by the Toldoth could still be an old story.

The problem, of course, is trust. When two stories conflict, which story do we believe more? Given other inconsistencies with the legal proceedings described by the Gospels, a Jewish trial according to Jewish law should certainly be considered as a possible alternative, one that should be examined more closely at least.

One of the other issues I know of has to do with the removal of Jesus from the cross. According to Jewish law, the body had to be removed before sundown. (Deuteronomy 21:22-23). However, the Romans were more than happy to let the body rot on the cross, as a warning to others. Again, this provides a suggestion that Jewish law was being followed in preference to Roman. Alternately, you could suppose that some mixture of laws was being followed. Do you know of any precedent for such a mixture?

Another point to consider is how long Jesus survived on the cross: he died too soon. Normally, crucifixion is a slow painful death, taking days. But John 19:34 states that Jesus was already dead when he was speared. In Mark 15:44-45, Pilate is surprised that Jesus is already dead. On the other hand, if Jewish law is being followed, then Jesus was dead before he was strung up.

Very true, all we have is circumstantial evidence and hearsay. Time has obliterated everything else. (Damn, what I wouldn’t give for a truly impartial observer writing at the right time! ) There will probably never be a unanimous opinion on what happened historically, just as there will probably never be a unanimous opinion on what the theology should be. But that doesn’t stop me from asking questions and thinking about the evidence.

Jayhawker Soule

Thanks for the interesting URL. It includes the section quoted below, and I was wondering if anyone knows where the assertion might be verified.

Anunnaki

I`ll let someone else more knowledgable on the subject address the issue of why a virgin birth.

Dionysus and the lightening from Zeus was not meant to answer your question about why it had to be a virgin birth. It was for Metacrock who claims none of these other miracle moms were actually virgins.

The early Christians I`m talking about were those who recorded the 7 month pregnancy tradition in The Gospel of the Hebrews,one of the MANY texts that did not make it into the bible you cherish. And no. I don`t have specific names of those early Christians,but I`ll be happy to make some names up for you just like the unknown writers of the New Testament did.