Virgin Birth and Immaculate Conception

Anders had some interesting things to say about the births of the prophets.

anders said:

Lightkeeper,

You're right, as usual. The mothers of the Buddha and of the founder of Jainism, Mahavira, both had annunciation dreams. The Buddha was born exiting through his mother's side; Mahavia was born "painlessly". It is interesting that Christianity regards the conception as an ugly and messy thing and needs the dogma of immaculate conception, while Asiatic religions have a more natural view of the process. They, on the other side, regard births as messy and rather unclean, and many holy persons are born in a supernatural and "clean" way.

The Acts of the Buddha (Buddhacarita) says of the Buddha's mother that "without defilement she received the fruit of the womb." There is, in my opinion, no reason to interpret that passage as suggesting a non-natural process, but only a moral correctness.

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I think the Virgin Birth theme was originally a Greek theme. I was wondering if the Immaculate Conception may have been a carry over from Judaism, because of their cleanliness laws.

No. MOD EDIT

Deut. 32.8 says no. i guess that settles it.

whether you arrive by airplane or by tricycle, you still arrive.

in other words, if it was all of the sudden proven that the immaculate conception wasn't so immaculate, i don't think it would in any way detract from the message that Jesus lived. on the other hand, if it helps you to accept his message as divine, then Rock on.

completelyunbiased--

Excellent! I completely agree, Jesus' message contains good rules to live by, and nothing would change that....not even Jesus' Divinity, or the existence of the divine altogether. I see potential in you... :mrgreen:

Starting with http://www.religioustolerance.org/virgin_b.htm you will find many references to stories of virgin births that might have influenced one another.

Regarding the Buddha, some authors (without mentioning their sources) point to traditions claiming that the Buddha's mother lived in temporary celibacy from the day before her annunciation. That, imho, does not rule out a normal conception.

As to Jesus, I agree that the greatness of his message has no need for supernatural aspects of his (and his mother's) birth. Moreover, between 49 and 55 CE, St. Paul recorded the first known reference to Jesus' ‎birth. In Galatians 4:4, he writes: ‎
‎"But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, ‎born under law." ‎
If he had been aware of the virgin birth, he would probably have ‎replaced "woman" with "virgin", or made some other change to show ‎that the birth was miraculous.

The Gospel of Mark was the first to be written around 44 AD. It contained no references to the birth of Jesus and his mother being a virgin. Matthews and Luke are later Gospels that were plagiarized from Mark. The virgin birth stories were taken from earlier Myths and added to the gospels.

harold e. rice said:

The Gospel of Mark was the first to be written around 44 AD. It contained no references to the birth of Jesus and his mother being a virgin. Matthews and Luke are later Gospels that were plagiarized from Mark. The virgin birth stories were taken from earlier Myths and added to the gospels.

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I believe the Gospel of Thomas was the first.

From Rex: I believe the Gospel of Thomas was the first.

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It is true that the Gospel of Thomas unearthed alone Egypt?s Upper Nile in 1945 (Nag Hammadi) was written much earlier than the Four Gospels in the Bible. Until the discovery of Thomas nothing similar had ever been located. The find lent strong support to the Q theory, particularly when scholars realized that over one third of the sayings in Thomas are similar to those probably contained in the Gospel Q.

However, my point is that the Gospels that were excepted by the Roman Catholic Church are thought by the unlearned Christians to be the only ones ever written. Since Thomas wasn?t included in the New Testament Canon we cite Mark which is definitely older than Matthews and Luke as not having the story of the Virgin Birth.

Moeover, Thomas is a collectin of sayings of Jesus, so it it offers no help for this topic.

harold e. rice said:

The Gospel of Mark was the first to be written around 44 AD.

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According to whom?

My sources (including the Swedish Natl. Encyclopedia and Harris: Understanding the Bible) give 67–75 and 66-70 for "Mark". The Gospel of Thomas probably is earlier than 100; it might even have been available to "Mark".

Deut. 32.8 said:

harold e. rice said:

The Gospel of Mark was the first to be written around 44 AD.

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According to whom?

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Do some research on the Gospel of Mark and you'll not only find out that it was written earlier than the other three but that Mark really didn’t know anything about a man name Jesus Christ. He never saw him, talk to him, walked with him or observed any of the things he writes about.

When you find out the truth, please post it so that everyone else can see that
you have learned something about the bible you didn’t know.

I saw one of the oldest copies of Mark when I was in Greece. wink:

What you people spout is pure heresy plain and simple. Your herminutic for your interpretation of the Bible is all wrong. Instead, of looking for the Love of Christ it; you look for ways to disprove it. Your facts are wrong as well, Thomas was written well after the other Gospels (by about 50-60 years) and had no relation to them. Religious scholars have been studying these texts for centuries, and all the sudden you guys have the answer they couldn't uncover? Unlikely. This is what happens when you use the internet as you primary source of information.

harold e. rice said:

Deut. 32.8 said:

harold e. rice said:

The Gospel of Mark was the first to be written around 44 AD.

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According to whom?

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Do some research on the Gospel of Mark and you'll not only find out that it was written earlier than the other three but that Mark really didn’t know anything about a man name Jesus Christ. He never saw him, talk to him, walked with him or observed any of the things he writes about.

When you find out the truth, please post it so that everyone else can see that you have learned something about the bible you didn’t know.

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Thanks for the advice, but I am fairly well versed on both gMark and the Synoptic Problem. I do not, however, understand why you would quote my question and then avoid it.

In fact, your dating of Mark is far from the 65-80 CE consensus, and even the Catholic Encyclopedia suggests a 50-67 CE date range. It is often best to first learn something about a topic before presuming to instruct others.

My quoted dates (NOT from the Internet), 67–75 and 66-70, coincide quite well with those of Deut.

I don't understand the protest from h.e.rice. We all seem to agree that no ear-witnesses to what Jesus said have recorded their own experiences.

LCMS Sprecher said:

Your facts are wrong as well, Thomas was written well after the other Gospels (by about 50-60 years) and had no relation to them.

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Good morning, LCMS Sprecher. I have a great deal of respect for facts and, if and when I am wrong I appreciate being corrected.

Determining a plausible date of composition is speculative and depends on a delicate weighing of critical judgments about the history of the transmission of the sayings-of-Jesus tradition and the process of the formation of the written gospel texts. The earliest possible date would be in the middle of the 1st century, when sayings collections such as the Synoptic Sayings Gospel Q first began to be compiled. The latest possible date would be toward the end of the 2d century, prior to the copying of P. Oxy. 1 and the first reference to the text by Hippolytus. If Gos. Thom. is a sayings collection based on an autonomous tradition, and not a gospel harmony conflated from the NT, then a date of composition in, say, the last decades of the 1st century would be more likely than a mid-to-late-2d-century date.

- from The Other Gospels: Non-Canonical Gospel Texts

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While the cumulative nature of the sayings collection understandably makes the Gospel of Thomas difficult to date with precision, several factors weigh in favor of a date well before the end of the first century: the way in which Thomas appeals to the authority of particular prominent figures (Thomas, James) against the competing claims of others (Peter, Matthew); in genre, the sayings collection, which seems to have declined in importance after the emergence of the more biographical and dialogical forms near the end of the first century; and its primitive christology, which seems to presuppose a theological climate even more primitive than the later stages of the synoptic sayings gospel, Q. Together these factors suggest a date for Thomas in the vicinity of 70-80 C.E. As for its provenance, while it is possible, even likely, that an early version of this collection associated with James circulated in the environs of Jerusalem, the Gospel of Thomas in more or less its present state comes from eastern Syria, where the popularity of the apostle Thomas (Judas Didymos Thomas) is well attested.

- from The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus

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- see Early Christian Writings

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Please cite the scholarship underlying your claims and the arguments put forward countering the analysis above. Thanks.

anders said:

My quoted dates (NOT from the Internet), 67–75 and 66-70, coincide quite well with those of Deut.

I don't understand the protest from h.e.rice. We all seem to agree that no ear-witnesses to what Jesus said have recorded their own experiences.

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The original topic was concerning the Virgin Birth of Jesus. My point had nothing to do with the Gospel of Thomas or any other Gospel outside of the Four included in the New Testament. Lets assume that Mark was the first Gospel written at least 44 years after Jesus died. If he wrote the 1st Gospel of the four, why did he not mention the Virgin Birth? Over half of Paul's letters were written before the Gospels and neither does he mention a virgin birth.

The question is whether or not the Virgin Birth story was borrowed from previous cultures. To that, I say YES.

We seem to agree on the main question. But I see no fault in trying to have all facts correct; as we have seen, errors distract.

Lightkeeper said:

Anders had some interesting things to say about the births of the prophets.

I think the Virgin Birth theme was originally a Greek theme. I was wondering if the Immaculate Conception may have been a carry over from Judaism, because of their cleanliness laws.

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Here are just some of the ancient figures who were considered gods, who all predate Christ:

Gautama Buddha: born of the virgin Maya around 600 BC.

Dionysus: Greek god, born of a virgin in a stable, turned water into wine.

Quirrnus: An early Roman saviour, born of a virgin.

Attis: born of the virgin Nama in Phrygia around 200 BC.

Indra: born of a virgin in Tibet around 700 BC.

Adonis: Babylonian god - born of the virgin Ishtar.

Krishna: Hindu deity - born of the virgin Devaki in around 1200 BC.

Zoroaster: born of a virgin 1500-1200 BC.

Mithra: born of a virgin in a stable on 25 December around 600 BC. His resurrection was celebrated at Easter.

It seems that over the centuries quite a lot of innocent young ladies were giving birth to the children of gods!

The cult of Mithra is particularly awkward for Christians who do not subscribe to the satanic time-traveller theory. Mithraism is a Syrian offshoot of the more ancient Persian cult of Zoroaster, which was introduced into the Roman Empire about 67 BC. Its doctrines included baptism, a sacramental meal, belief in immortality, a saviour god who died and rose again to act as a mediator
between man and god, a resurrection, a last judgement and heaven and hell. Interestingly candles, incense and bells are used in its ceremonies.