virgin births

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
21

Just FYI…

Whoever wrote that book you are siting displays serious lack of education in his attempt to promote sex and drugs. I didn’t read further to see if he also promoted rock-n-roll, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Such people are wittingly or not used to inspire willful corruption and rebellion thinking that they are just in undermining an establishment. Such people are usually the puppets of some socialist corruption campaign against another group. “Almha” means “nurturing vessel of the spirit” or in more technical terms, “incubator” and thus an obvious association with the female womb (ie “young virgin woman”).

22

Some of the information can come from such sources but not all of them. Sex and drugs are part of our history. Don’t get it twisted. I have in my own home two persian artifacts that are mushroom symbolism. One being the cup of jamshid. I know for myself, but there are many sketchy references about this subject. I was only posting out of nothing else. I have noticed defending this stance on religion is not an easy task and it’s late. I’m not up for it, but try to do some research for yourself.

23

No. It documents that someone wrote a book propounding a doubtful theory that is quoted in another book making spurious claims. But the passage you sighted doesn’t make the claim you did.

24

You probably also believe John Allegro is a schmuck. Too bad. He never realized the importance of cubes but he was on the right track.

25

Though I am fond of yiddish, I try to refrain from summary judgments like that on people as well as name calling. Besides, your link to the book was my introduction to Allegro so I really know little about him.

26

Right …

Here’s a funny story about Mary’s virginity. It comes from “The Protoevangelium of James,” or “Gospel of James” written mid-second century.

In a nutshell, Joseph and Mary with an entourage are riding out of Bethlehem when Mary says her child is ready to be born. So they stop at a cave, where Mary gives birth, which lights up the cave.

The mid-wife tells Salome that, after the birth of Jesus that Mary retained her virginity.

Salome goes into the cave to prove to herself that Mary still retained her hymen.

But when she slipped her finger into Mary, fire came out and burned her hand.

So Mary had a fire breathing vagina.

That explains why, perchance, Mary remained a virgin all her life. If I were Joseph I wouldn’t go near that fire breathing thing either …

27

Not that I doubted you :wink: but in view of the bizarre character of the story, I checked it out here ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf08.vii.iv.html I found, lo and behold you did not make this up. It says: “And the midwife went forth out of the cave, and Salome met her. And she said to her: Salome, Salome, I have a strange sight to relate to thee: a virgin has brought forth—a thing which her nature admits not of. Then said Salome: As the Lord my God liveth, unless I thrust in my finger, and search the parts, I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth.
20. And the midwife went in, and said to Mary: Show thyself; for no small controversy has arisen about thee. And Salome put in her finger, and cried out, and said: Woe is me for mine iniquity and mine unbelief, because I have tempted the living God; and, behold, my hand is dropping off as if burned with fire.”

Now V, I must ask, can you think of any reason this story might not have made it into the New Testament canon?

28

Well now, I’m flattered as a flitter that you might even think for a second that I had such a flamboyant imagination as to invent a story of Jesus being born of a fire breathing vagina.

But alas, my imagination is flatter than a flitter compared to the author that forged the Gospel of Peter.

As to way it wasn’t included in the New Testament canon, maybe because they didn’t want to imply that Mary could give Joseph a weenie roast. Or maybe other reasons.

But it couldn’t have been because the Gospel of Peter is far fetched. The canonical gospels are far fetched. Probably because this story of the birth of Jesus didn’t align with the manger story.

And talk about far fetched, not only is a virgin birth far fetched, but what about the story of the Magi being lead by a star that stopped over Jesus. If it happen then, we know that star must have actually been an UFO. Because stars don’t travel to lead people, nor do they stop over something.

How come Bible believers are forced to believe the unbelievable?

And talk about the unbelievable : that would be the rich imagination they had back even a thousand years ago. There wasn’t any real widespread entertain back then, so they let their imaginations go wild in their story telling.

In Jesus’ day they were soused to the gills with Greek/Roman religion and myths. By the time Jesus was born many before him had been born of a virgin. This set up a predilection for the introduction of the Jesus movement, known as The Way. And also required that if Jesus was going to be an up to snuff kind of god, that he would also have to be born of a virgin.

In hindsight it’s plain to see the the Greek/Roman pantheon and myths were unmitigated figments from within the imagination of men. True also of the Hebrew myths.

Many wrote books back them with fancy-free cartoon caricatures of fantastical events, of pure imagination.

Again, any god that was born thru a vagina is not worth His salt to be a god. Coming out of a human vagina makes one human.

29

That’s plausible.

Maybe it was part of a legend that grew up during the oral history period of the early church.

A very good question. Fundamentalists argue that questioning Bible miracles is a slippery slope that undermines the Christian faith. They can cite the tepid faith and declining enthusiasm and membership of liberal Christianity to support their position. Questioning anything opens up an infinite range of uncertainty possible belief positions from mildly liberal evangelicalism to radical atheism. Fundamentalists and orthodox conservatives prefer the KISS approach [keep it simple stupid].

30

Actually Fundamentalists argue that questioning the Bible at all undermines the Christian faith. As they believe the Bible is inerrant.

That’s why even today extreme fundamentalists still believe in a flat earth. Because, the Bible says so, so, it has to be true. K.I.S.S. leaves them stupid. And that’s why fundamentalism is in decline.

So let’s move on with the virgin birth, or immaculate conception. Mary was immaculate. She was spotless, she was sinless. Mary couldn’t have been afflicted with original sin or Jesus wouldn’t have been pure.

This was a problem that had to be answered logically. So in the mid 2nd century in stepped The Protoevangelium of James/The Gospel of James, that answered this problem.

In this pseudepigrapha Mary was born to Joachim and Anne miraculously, with visitations from angels. So it is more than implied in this forgery that Mary too was born immaculately. Note : Back then it was a real trend for Christians to make up lies to support their faith, just like today.

But this just created more problems. If for Mary to be immaculate her mother Anne also had to be immaculate, then in order for Anne to be immaculate her mother had to be immaculate and her grandmother, so forth and so on ad infinitum. But the record stops at Anne.

And that’s why virgin births only happen in mythology.

31

According to Wikipedia, church father Origen, cited the Protoevangelium of James as evidence that the ‘brethren of the Lord’ were sons of Joseph by a former wife. The Protoevangelium was later banned probably due to this half-brother hypothesis to this reading of the adelphoi, which was adopted by the Eastern Orthodox Church but rejected by Roman Catholics who treated the brothers as cousins. The virgin birth stories of Jesus leave Joseph as the odd man out. In his book "The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman notes that in virtually every instance in which Joseph is called Jesus’ father or parent, various scribes changed the text in such a way as to make it clear that Joseph was NOT Jesus’ natural father.

32

Clearly early scribes wanted the record to posit a magical Jesus. So they made stuff up … as mythmakers … believing because of all the Greek gods born of a virgin that Jesus too had to be born of a virgin …

That’s why virgin births belong only in mythology, from whence they all spring … everybody knows virgins don’t really give birth … makes for good science fiction type stories tho … or maybe Alice in Wonderland stories …