More on the virgin birth

[atheist buddy]

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

20But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.�

22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23�The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel�-- which means, “God with us.�

24When Joseph awoke, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

That is what it says in the Book of Matthew about Jesus's virgin birth.

In short: Mary gets pregnant, Joseph knows that he had no part in that. So then Joseph has a dream that it was the Holy Spirit that got Mary pregnant.... and he believes it.

You believe that Mary was a virgin, because some guy you never met wrote down that Joseph - who he never met - had a dream that Mary's got pregnant without having sex.

Question for debate: ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

I mean, could there be a less justifiable belief than that?

Would you believe in pink flying elephants wearing top hats, if I told you that my cousin once dreamed of one?

When you had a nightmare as a child, what did mommy tell you? Did she ever explain to you that DREAMS ARE NOT REAL?

If, as an adult, you're capable of understanding that just because you dreamed that an ogre was going to hit you with a stone club, it doesn't mean that ogres are real, then why is it that you're not capable of understanding that just because some guy dreams that his wife got pregnant without having sex, it doesn't mean that virgin births are real?

[atheist buddy]

The important thing in the Matthew verses would be that Joseph received this info from "an angel of the Lord" -- not that he simply dreamed it up.

How is this possible? Citizens of DC&R I ask you: HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

How can myth-one say this! HOW?


Ok myth1, I'll try to explain it really slowly to you.

If you dream that you met Alexander the Great, you didn't ACTUALLY meet Alexander the Great. Because you dreamed it, and dreams are not reality.

If you dreamed that Bill Gates gave you $1,000,000, you are not actually rich in reality. Because you dreamed it, and dreams are not reality.

If you dream that Jack the Ripper kills your boss, your boss didn't actually die. Because it happened in a dream, and dreams are not reality.

If you dream that Indiana Jones gives you the secret location of some Mayan treasure, you don't actually have that secret location. Because it happened in a dream, and dreams are not reality.

Now please pay close attention because this part is going to be very difficult for you to understand:

If you dream that you meet an angel, you didn't actually meet an angel. Because it happened in a dream, and dreams are not reality.


Did mommy never tell you that, when you were small and had a nightmare?

If you dream of meeting Gandalf, you didn't actually meet Gandalf. If you dream of seeing a dragon, you didn't actually see a dragon. If you dream of talking to an angel, you didn't actually talk to an angel.

BECAUSE DREAMS ARE NOT REALITY!!!!

How is it possible that you don't get it? How in the world is it possible that you don't get it?

I'm truly in shock. How can anybody not know the difference between a dream and reality.

From Matthew: "An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,"

In a DREAM. D R E A M. A DREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAM! Do you get it? All of this happened while Joseph was asleep and dreaming.

Do you know the difference between being awake and sleeping? Do you understand that dreams happen when you're sleeping?


Let me put it this way: Assume that you have $10,000 in your bank account. Yesterday I was broke. I only had $5 total in my bank account. Then last night I had a dream that Bill Gates transferred $1,000,000,000 to my bank account. So, today would you be willing to trade all the money you actually have in your bank account in reality, for all the money I actually have in my bank account in reality?

No, right? Because in reality I sitll only have $5. The $1billion I received from Bill Gates in a dream, don't matter because, say it with me, DREAMS ARE NOT REALITY.

I am so sad, so dissappointed with humanity, that I had to explain this to you.

Then your question for debate was:

Question for debate: ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

I mean, could there be a less justifiable belief than that?

This event that you believe to be so extremely foolish, permeates out daily lives over 2000 years later -- in our date calculations, our money, our politicians cannot get elected with saying "God bless America", etc, etc, etc.

While that does not prove its truth, it makes one wonder if most of the people can be fooled all of the time.

It's not most of the people, and it's not all the time. Out of 7 billion people today, only 1.2 billion are Christians. That's 17% of us, and it's diminishing drastically with every generation.

Anyway, your argument is called "argument ad populum". Argument from popularity. It's a logical fallacy. "Lots of people believe X, therefore there must be some truth to it".

Let me demonstrate to you why that is a fallacious argument, and why you should be embarassed for having brought it up:

Lots of people believed that Jesus is the son of God, so there must be some truth to Christianity.

Lots of people believed that Mohammed is the prophet of Allah, so there must be some truth to Islam.

Lots of people believed in the Gods of Hinduism, so there must be some truth to Hinduism.

Lots of people believed that the Jews were trying to take over the european economy, so there must be some truth to the Nazi Movement.

Lots of people believed in the communist creed of Russia, so there must be some truth to Stalinism.

Lots of people believed the earth is flat, so there must be some truth to that.


Just because lots of people believe something, it doesn't mean it has any value whatsoever.

The determination of whether something is true must be made on the merits, based on an evaluation of whether the evidence for that claim is more solid and more reliable than evidence against that claim.

If, based on the evidence, it's established that a claim it's not true, then it becomes wrong to believe it.

If lots of people believe a claim that is not true, it just proves that lots of people are wrong, not that the claim is true.



Wow, your post must be one of the worse ones I've seen so far. Failure to identify dreams as different from reality, coupled with an argument from popularity.

Why not just admit that your belief is undefensible and call it a night, instead of doing this to yourself?

[myth-one.com]

From Matthew: "An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,"

In a DREAM. D R E A M. A DREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAM! Do you get it? All of this happened while Joseph was asleep and dreaming.

So you would be OK if the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a burning bush while Joseph was awake?

[atheist buddy]

From Matthew: "An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,"

In a DREAM. D R E A M. A DREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAM! Do you get it? All of this happened while Joseph was asleep and dreaming.

So you would be OK if the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a burning bush while Joseph was awake?

Well, of course not!

Obviously a guy writing that a guy told him that another guy told him that some guy heard a voice coming from a burning bush is NOT sufficient evidence to start believing in angels, but the situation is not as clearcut as the virgin birth story. It could be that the guy who wrote it made it up, it could be that the guy who told him about it made it up, it could be that the guy who told the guy who told the writer made it up, it could be the guy who said he talked with the burning bush made it up, it could be that he was hallucinating.

But with the dream thing, it's so simple: The guy dreamed it. Who cares. It was a dream. Not reality. End of story. It doesn't matter how much subsequent fabrication, distortion or forgery there was after. Even if the centuries of editing and translating somehow DIDN'T modify the original story, the original story cna immediately be discarded.


Let me put it this way: To get into the Navy seals you have to be the best of the best. Psychologically exceptional, physically exceptional, etc.

Similarly for evidence to be considered sufficient to verify a virgin birth, the evidence has to be the best of the best. Empirically exceptional, extraordinary verifiability, extremely compelling.

To ask "which is better evidence for a virgin birth, a guy saying he heard a voice in a burning bush, or a guy saying he had a dream that he talked to an angel", is like asking "who would be more likely to get into the Navy Seals, an 85 year old with Alzheimer's Disease, or a Quadruplegic with 45 IQ".

The answer is NEITHER.

The evidence against the virgin birth is too overwhelming, and fairy tales of angels in dreams and burning bushes in the desert are way to flimsy, vague, unreliable and absurd to counter the rock-solid evidence that the virgin birth of Jesus just did not happen.

Just give up on all this fairy tale nonesense and come live in the 21st century. Aren't you tired of having to defend desert myths about talking donkeys, burning bushes, rains of frogs, zombie invasions and virgin births? There's better ways to spend your life.

[historia]

You can invent structures of communities, and traditions and ascension to doctrines, and all that, but the bottom line remains that all of that structure of subsequent creeds, cultural zeitgeist, literature, culture, etc, is based on the foundational belief that Mary was literally and factually a virgin.

Everything else, as you yourself admit, is just a secondary structure of traditions built over the centuries by people who already believed in the fairy tale.

It doesn't matter one iota that the modern Christian's belief in the Virgin Birth is not based directly on Matthew, but on subsequent traditions developed by others BASED ON MATTHEW. That makes it worse, actually.

I think perhaps you misunderstood my argument. Rather than offer a lengthy reply, let me see if we can first agree to a few simple points that may help clarify the discussion.

First of all, community and tradition are not "secondary structures" to scripture.

Before any Christian wrote any text that is now part of the New Testament, there was a Christian community. Before Mark wrote the first gospel, there were already developed (oral) traditions about Jesus in the Christian community. For our purposes, in particular, traditions about Jesus' birth did not begin with Matthew and Luke, rather Matthew and Luke simply wrote down already existing traditions about Jesus' birth in their gospels.

Second, religious beliefs are not based on evidence.

Christians do not arrive at a belief in the virgin birth by way of any 'objective' or 'historical' analysis of the gospel birth narratives. Matthew and Luke are not, at any rate, trying to present us 'evidence' to 'prove' Mary's virginity. To put it another way: Christians don't believe in the virgin birth because Matthew said so. Matthew said so because Christians already believed in the virgin birth (or at least his community did).

Third, the gospels are not simple, straight-forward historical accounts.

They almost certainly contain some historical information, to be sure. But they are first and foremost theological and literary creations. They were also written in a time and culture very different from our own; one that did not share our post-Enlightenment concern for 'objective' historical accounts based on evidence.

Can we agree to those three points?

[atheist buddy]

Religious beliefs are not based on evidence.

Ok, but that's crazy, right?

Why would you believe something if there is no evidence for it, and if there is overwhelming evidence against it?

[historia]

These comments are somewhat sideways to the main of our discussion, so I've put them in a separate post. But they are worth clarifying, in my opinion.

Luke, which is the only Gospel other than Matthew in which Mary's virginity is even mentioned, was written at least 20 years after Matthew was.

As I'm sure you know, scholarly dating of the gospels is, at best, an educated guess. We know that Matthew and Luke were written after Mark, as each incorporates Mark's text into their own gospel. But we can't be certain, as you seem to be here, that Luke was written after Matthew, let alone that this was "at least 20 years" after.

As unreliable as an anonymous statement from 70 years after the event is (that's what Matthew is), Luke, written 90 years after Jesus's birth, is even less reliable.

Although it's generally true that historians prefer sources closer to the events they describe, just because a text is composed later does not necessarily mean it is less reliable. A later text may well incorporate earlier and more reliable sources of information than a less reliable text that just happened to be written earlier. And in the case of Matthew and Luke we have two texts that are nearly contemporary anyway.

All we have, that is tangible, to persuade us that Mary was a virgin, is an anonymous guy 70 years later saying that Joseph had a dream about Mary being a virgin, and some other anonymous guy 20 years after that expanding on that same story.

This is simply mistaken. Luke does not "expand" on Matthew's story, rather his account represents a completely independent tradition. His birth narrative is in almost every respect different from, if not outright conflicting with, Matthew's account; that is, except on the point that Mary was a virgin.

To have two such divergent accounts nevertheless agreeing on this rather unexpected point suggests strongly to me that this core aspect of the two traditions must have itself developed much earlier in the history of Christianity, although perhaps only in some Christian communities, as it is otherwise unknown to other New Testament writers.

[historia]

To that end, a Christian (or Muslim) comes to accept the virgin birth of Jesus as a point of doctrine, not because they are persuaded by the evidence, as such. But rather because this is part of the tradition of those communities.

Agreed. Those who believe the virgin birth story do so because they want to believe the church dogma.

So here we agree that religious beliefs are not based on evidence. And yet in the same post you also asked me this:

Would you consider similar unsupported, unverifiable tales sound and convincing evidence if presented by a religion other than Christianity? If the honest answer is NO, why accept them for a favorite religion and reject them for other religions?

Again, religious beliefs are not based on evidence. Matthew and Luke are not attempting to provide "sound and convincing evidence" to "prove" the virgin birth. No one sees the texts in this way; well, no one who has given the matter serious thought anyway. So why continue asking questions like this -- both in this thread and in countless others -- as if religious beliefs are evidentiary in nature?

Correction: Part of the bible, the Old Testament, was produced by Jews for Jews.

Indeed, you'll have to excuse my shorthand reference.

Unfortunately, Christians often attempt to inflict the New Testament (by Christians for Christians) upon NON-Christians. If they kept it to themselves and their churches there would be less opposition.

The New Testament is a literary text. How can that be "inflicted" on someone?

It's not trying to "prove" anything; it simply sets out the foundational stories and historical beliefs of that community.

However, Christians here and elsewhere attempt to use the bible to prove that their religious beliefs are true (even though that is not allowed by Forum Rules and Guidelines).

I see many Christians here attempting to explain and justify their religious beliefs by pointing to one of the chief sources of authority in their religious community, the Bible. I have no doubt that some may erroneously think that that serves as some kind of "proof," but we know better, and I think if you engage them in a discussion that teases out the distinction between religious faith and scientific or historical evidence, they will agree.

A person must first ascend to being part of that community and accepting a good number of other beliefs before getting to this text and doctrine.

Are Non-Christians capable of reading and understanding the bible?

Yes. Anyone well-versed in the languages and history of ancient Judaism and Christianity can gain some level of understanding of the original intentions of the authors of the texts that now make up the Bible. The rest of us can do the same if we utilize good, historical-critical commentaries on the Bible written by those same scholars.

But that only tells us what the authors of these texts most likely intended. To understand what the text means in the lives of Christians and Jews today, you have to also understand their respective communities and traditions and how they themselves understand the place, authority, and meaning of the text within those wider religious traditions.

I'm afraid the naively literal reading of the Bible on offer in this thread, and many others on this forum, falls far short of that.

[atheist buddy]

These comments are somewhat sideways to the main of our discussion, so I've put them in a separate post. But they are worth clarifying, in my opinion.

Luke, which is the only Gospel other than Matthew in which Mary's virginity is even mentioned, was written at least 20 years after Matthew was.

As I'm sure you know, scholarly dating of the gospels is, at best, an educated guess. We know that Matthew and Luke were written after Mark, as each incorporates Mark's text into their own gospel. But we can't be certain, as you seem to be here, that Luke was written after Matthew, let alone that this was "at least 20 years" after.

As unreliable as an anonymous statement from 70 years after the event is (that's what Matthew is), Luke, written 90 years after Jesus's birth, is even less reliable.

Although it's generally true that historians prefer sources closer to the events they describe, just because a text is composed later does not necessarily mean it is less reliable. A later text may well incorporate earlier and more reliable sources of information than a less reliable text that just happened to be written earlier. And in the case of Matthew and Luke we have two texts that are nearly contemporary anyway.

All we have, that is tangible, to persuade us that Mary was a virgin, is an anonymous guy 70 years later saying that Joseph had a dream about Mary being a virgin, and some other anonymous guy 20 years after that expanding on that same story.

This is simply mistaken. Luke does not "expand" on Matthew's story, rather his account represents a completely independent tradition. His birth narrative is in almost every respect different from, if not outright conflicting with, Matthew's account; that is, except on the point that Mary was a virgin.

To have two such divergent accounts nevertheless agreeing on this rather unexpected point suggests strongly to me that this core aspect of the two traditions must have itself developed much earlier in the history of Christianity, although perhaps only in some Christian communities, as it is otherwise unknown to other New Testament writers.

Ok. But who cares.

9 months before Jesus was born, Mary was either doing it with Joseph, or with somebody other than Joseph, or she was taking a bath in water in which some guy (hopefully not her brother) had just masturbated. And that's how she got pregnant.

No amount of erudite scholarly analysis on the timing of the writing of the various gospels by anonymous authors has any bearing whatsoever on this simple fact. Therefore all your commentary on the convergence or divergence of various texts, Markan Priority, Q, etc is completely irrelevant.

Either you care about what is true or you do not.

If you do care, then the only way to establish whether an empirical claim about the manifest physical world is true, is by applying reason to the evidence. And if you follow that path, it leads inexorably towards the conclusion that Mary was not a virgin.

If you do NOT care about what is true, if as you said, your beliefs are not based on evidence, then you can arbitrarily believe absolutely anything you want. In that case, why even bother making empirical claims about the dating of Matthew and Luke? If evidence, reason, truth don't matter and don't affect your beliefs anyway, then your measured and accurate claims about the timing of the gospels, are no more true than some guy's beliefs that the actual apostle Matthew wrote the Book of Matthew, or some other guy's belief that an alien from Mars wrote Luke.

You clearly said that religious beliefs are not based on evidence.

Well, what are they based on, then? How do you distinguish a true belief from a not-true belief, if not on the basis of the evidence?

Is it ok for me to hold a religious belief that the earth is a flat pizza shaped disk at the center of the universe? The only thing standing in the way of that belief being considered true is the fact that THERE IS EVIDENCE THAT IT'S NOT TRUE. If evidence doesn't matter, because it's ok for beliefs to not be based on evidence, then how is my belief in a flat earth in any way less valid than your non-evidence-based belief in the virgin birth?

Please name one belief that it's not ok to hold, if we start from the assumption that having beliefs not based on evidence is ok.

[atheist buddy]

I'm afraid the naively literal reading of the Bible on offer in this thread, and many others on this forum, falls far short of that.

Simple yes or no question: In your opinion, 9 months before Jesus was born, did some human male ejaculate enter Mary's vagina?

Again, this is a simple yes or no question, requiring a simple yes or no answer.

If you answer "no", then you believe in a fairy tale. You're a person living in the 21st century, believing an iron age myth.

In that case, you don't get to patronize literalists, and accuse them of naivete'.

They protect their wacky beliefs from scrutiny and demolition, by erecting a wall of obstinate caunterfactual claims that defy logic and rationality, and are completely impervious to arguments.

But I suspect (and correct me if I'm wrong) that you belong to a different group, and that you protect your wacky beliefs from scrutiny and demolition, by obfuscating and hiding your beliefs behind a curtain of professorial religious sophistication.

The bottom line is that either you believe in virgin births or you don't.

Come on Historia. Gun to your head, if you get it wrong they pull the trigger: 9 months before Jesus was born, what was Mary up to?

[RaiderGonzo]

what came first, the chicken or the egg?

the creation of Adam from the dust of the earth and the begetting of the Christ from the womb of Mary

man from dust, man from the spirit

each one a miraculous event in physical history, by our standards

so which came first, the chicken or the egg?

if your answer it is the chicken, then you must by default accept creation.,

and if you say the egg, then you still have to answer for the ingenuity of the DNA

so why is it so hard to believe in the miracle for the perfect man becoming created in the womb of a woman by the spirit of creation?

is it because of the sexual content that this world has filled a man's heart with that you don't believe?