I believe those things are mythology. As for them being nonsense, I don't believe they literally happened but if someone else has faith in that, that's their right.
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Parthenogenesis
- Thread starter Earthling
- Start date
Bear Wild
Well-Known Member
Did not mean to make offence only that there are many Christians that truly believe Mary was a virgin thus Jesus was actually god. Yes it is all myth and has meaning as myth yet we still have those arguing that genesis is absolute and that Noah built the ark for the great flood. I will say for this religious belief there is a clear male dominance and there is far to many followers that I have known that see god as a male. When all seen as myth to teach values it all has so much more meaning.
Earthling
David Henson
Oh, I see. Well, that makes sense. Just because they aren't, in your opinion, literal events doesn't mean that they are nonsense. But you seemed to propose a separation from the alleged historicity of Jesus as a teacher and some of the supernatural events that he allegedly was involved in. The first as literal and the second as myth.
Of course, all history contains myths, legends, lies, half truths . . . then there is the usual connection or myth as fables, from the Greek mythos and the Latin fabulas. 2 Timothy 4:4
The opposite of the ancient Koine, or common Greek mythous, or myth, was aletheia, truth.
gnostic
The Lost One
What do you mean without going into Ahaz and Pekah???
This is problem with crappy Christian teaching and scholarship, they quote a single verse, ignoring the rest, and do all sort of mental contortions and twisting to fit Jesus in the supposed sign or prophecy of the messiah.
What you are doing, is called “propaganda”. What I called it, is “cherrypicking”.
Man, you (Christians) whine and ***** about Muslims and Baha’i cherry-picking passages from your bible and say this passage or that is about Muhammad or about Báb or Bahá'u'llá, and you are doing exactly the same thing with the Hebrew texts for the Jews.
Read Isaiah 7 and 8, for goodness’ sake, the whole chapters, and not just a single verse.
The child to be born, relates to the war in Judah, and he (Immanuel) is only signpost to event that will happen shortly after the attack on Jerusalem:
“Isaiah 7:14-17 NJPS” said:
The important part of the sign isn’t the pregnancy, nor his birth; the important part come from verses 15,16 & 17, so when the “he” or “the lad” reached a certain age (eg “before he know to reject the bad and choose the good”), the Assyrians (Tiglath-Pileser III) will take the lands away from the two kings (Pekah and Rezin).
The sign is all about the war, so it had nothing to do with messiah, Jesus or Mary’s pregnancy.
The hebrew word “harah” appeared several times in the Old Testament, which mean be “with a child” or “is pregnant”. But 7:14 bears striking resemblance to Hagar’s condition:
“Genesis 16:11 NJPS” said:
The sign needs to be read “whole”, in their “entirety”, not in one tiny piece.
I said that you need to read both chapters 7 & 8, because Isaiah 8 give a similar sign about the child and the war with Israel and Aram, but here, the child’s name is Maher-shalal-hash-baz:
“Isaiah 8:1-4 NJPS” said:
To me, the woman in 7:14 is the same woman in 8:3, which mean Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hash-baz is the same child.
As you would know, Immanuel means either "God with us" or "with us is God", and this can be found in verses 8:8 and 8:10, when it speak of the Assyria and Judah.
The translation I used above, come from Tanakh, NJPS (New Jewish Publication Society, 1985). In KJV, in verse 8:8, the name Immanuel reappeared:
“Isaiah 8:6-8 KJV” said:
If Jesus really is Immanuel, then why does Immanuel appeared in verse 8:8, in connection with Ahaz and Assyria, just like that in Isaiah 7:14-17?
If you let your belief get in the way of actually reading and understanding Isaiah 7 & 8, then I would say no more, and let you stick your head in the sand.
Earthling
David Henson
Oh, ****! I don't have time to go into this, now. Maybe, and I mean maybe, later, but my point you missed. The Greek speaking Jews assigned the Greek term for virgin before Christ so don't blame it on the Christians. Christ read from the Septuagint before there were any Christians.
All the rest of that stuff may be interesting to you and me, but it's an Occam's razor as far as your point goes, which kind of makes your ranting propaganda. But, all art is propaganda, isn't it? Just not so potentially toxic or problematic.
Jumi
Well-Known Member
It would be miraculous if it was a human as there are no documented instances outside of religion and mythology of it happening.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Or female. Parthenogenesis at least in vertebrates, only produces females.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
As a non-Christian (non-anything, actually) I'm amazed at how many believers still don't get that...
Because it is a "Catholic thing" and many Protestants shun anything that even touches that religion. What I don't get is how anyone that has debated Christianity either for or against, for any length of time does not get it.
Earthling
David Henson
The second article I linked to in the OP addresses this. (Link) It makes the point that 50 years ago it wasn't thought to take place in any vertebrates. Not that that means much of anything. And, as @Subduction Zone points out, only then producing females which, of course, leaves out Jesus.
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Earthling
David Henson
Well, speaking for myself, I have this aversion for religious terminology, Catholic or Protestant. This sometimes results in the intended effect of a bull**** detector and sometimes it misleads me out of ignorance, as in the case with immaculate conception.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
A good attitude to have. But hard to always perform. We are the products of our upbringing to quite an extent. Even though not overt I am sure there were some anti-Catholic feelings instilled in me from an early age. Just as there were other prejudicial feelings. Ideally as we grow we can spot these errors that we grew up with and correct them.
Earthling
David Henson
I must always keep in mind this possibility of it going either way, of, in effect, likelihood of error, but I just have such a loathing for religiosity, for lack of a better term. Just today I read rapture applied in a way that was supported by scripture, which I never thought it could have been, seeing that Darby's Rapture of a physical ascension isn't supported by scripture but the spiritual ascension is. Never would have occurred to me, which makes me think about all of the times I've harped on Darby's Rapture without stipulating that difference.
Another term that used to make me cringe, though totally acceptable, is "transfiguration." It took me a while to catch on to that one. I don't actually know where this comes from, though, I would imagine it was from being an atheist and hearing those sorts of terms as if I were meant to subscribe to the merit of them. In other words, it's a product of the atheist of my former self.
Or, maybe it's just ignorance. A stubborn willful ignorance to educate myself on such, sigh, religious terms.
Ask a rabbi. He will tell you the difference between a virgin and a young girl.
Ciao
- viole
By the way. Technical question. What evidence do we have that she was really a virgin?
I can imagine the discussion
Mary: Joe, I am pregnant
Joe: what? Impossible we never had sex
Mary: I know
Joe: that will mean stoning you to death
Mary: no, an angel told me i got a kid from god
Joe: of course. so, you are still virgin?
Mary: sure
So, who examined her?
Ciao
- viole
Earthling
David Henson
I doubt that.
gnostic
The Lost One
But you don’t get it.
I do know that the Greek translation was compiled before Jesus was born, including the book of Isaiah. Most likely Jesus and the 1st century CE disciples and apostles would have read the Greek translation than the originals in Hebrew.
And I am not blaming Jesus at all.
But for your information, Jesus didn’t write the gospel.
Someone from the late 1st century wrote the gospel of Matthew (and of Luke). And it wasn’t Jesus who told the author to include Isaiah’s passage in Matthew 1:23.
You are making a mistake of thinking that Jesus told the 4 gospel authors to include things in the gospels. There are so substances to that belief.
What we do have is that the authors were 2 generations, and it is highly unlikely the authors were really the ones that 2nd century church assigned to.
Earthling
David Henson
Then why do you go on to agree with me in your next paragraph?
Okay, but in the heat of the argument in the last couple of posts in this thread it sure did sound like you were blaming the Christians.
Of course, everyone knows this.
You know, Jesus died in 33 of that century, so when it was written isn't really problematic from your perspective so why should I argue it. Regarding who wrote it, I mean, from Papias of Hierapolis from the early second century C.E. attributed it's writing to Matthew. Justin Martyr quoted the book, Hegesippus, Irenaeus, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement, Tertullian and Origen did as well.
He probably finished the book first in Hebrew, as early as 41 C.E. Jerome wrote in De viris inlustribus chapter III: "Matthew, who is also Levi, and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language and characters for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed." Eusebius, quoting Origen agreed, writing about the book of Matthew, that it "first was written . . . according to Matthew, . . . who published it for those who from Judaism came to believe, composed as it was in the Hebrew language."
All of these quasi scholars that came out of the woodwork in the just the last 200 years to question all of this are nonsensical.
But even if it wasn't Matthew, who cares. It's not like you would know Matthew from anyone else who would have wrote it.
I never said that Jesus told them what to write. Where does that even come from?
None of that is even remotely true. Just speculation based upon nothing, surely nothing you are presenting to support it. Nothing.
gnostic
The Lost One
From here, particularly the last sentence:
You seemed to be implying that since Jesus read from the Septuagint, that Jesus might have directed the authors to include this passage from Isaiah 7:14, with emphasis on the Greek parthenos “virgin”, hence the Christian doctrine on the virgin birth.
If that’s not what you are implying and asserting, then I’ll take it back with my apologies.
Earthling
David Henson
The point of Jesus having read from the Septuagint is that it existed long before Christianity. Nothing more. That statement isn't a commentary on Isaiah or the gospels. You were reading into it.
Earthling
David Henson
If you want the cherries ya' gotta pick 'em.
Well I don't. I rarely have any discussions with Muslims and I don't even know what a Baha'i is. So. Relax.
Okay. I've read Isaiah chapters 7 and 8 in their entirety.
First, some Jewish commentators think Immanuel was Hezekiah, but since the prophecy was presented during Ahaz' reign (Isaiah 7:1) Hezekiah would have been at least 9 years old. (2 Kings 16:2 2 Kings 18:1-2)
Others think, like you, that Maher-shalal-hash-baz is Immanuel, but the problem here is that Isiah's wife is referred to as a prophetess, not as a maiden, and she was already the mother of Isaiah's firstborn, Shear-jashub. (Isaiah 7:3 / Isaiah 8:3)