The virgin birth story. Should we believe it?

[notachance]

Claim 1: Jesus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 2: Krishna was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 3: Buddha was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 4: Mitra was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 5: Marduk was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 6: Horus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 7: Notachance NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 8: Perseus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 9: Theseus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 10: Dionyus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 11: Hercules was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 12: Pan was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 13: Ion was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 14: Romulus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 15: Asclepius was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 16: Helen was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 17: Alexander the Great was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 18: Augustus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 19: Zarathustra was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 20: Huitzilopochtli was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 21: Pharaoh Amenkept III was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 22: The sun God Ra was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 23: Genghis Khan was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 24: Melanippe was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 25: Auge was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 26: Attis was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 27: Antiope was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 28: Auge was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Questions for debate:
Is there any good reason to take all of these claims seriously?

Is there are any good reasons to take half of them seriously, but not the other half?

Is there any good reason to take one of them seriously, but take all the other ones not seriously?

If you had a personal religious experience in which a voice in your head told you that Genghis Khan was born of a virgin, would you believe it? If not, why not?

[dacheesdog]

The proven historicity of the Bible. 2000+ manuscripts for the Gospels alone. The others don't hold up to that standard. No book or collection of books from that time compairs.

[ChristShepherd]

My mother says I was born of a virgin.
If you need proof she'll send you an email.

ChristShepherd

[notachance]

The proven historicity of the Bible. 2000+ manuscripts for the Gospels alone. The others don't hold up to that standard. No book or collection of books from that time compares.

Is this a joke?

Not a single word was EVER written down about Jesus while he was still alive or for 50 years after he had died.

Not a single word was EVER written down about Jesus by anybody who had ever met him, or by anybody who had ever met anybody who had ever met anybody who had ever met him.

We have NO IDEA who it is that brought up the notion of the virgin birth. We have NO IDEA when this idea was first introduced. We have no idea where.

All we know is that the earliest document mentioning the virgin birth is the Codex Vaticanus, written in 325 AD in either Rome or Alexandria by an anonymous scribe.

That's 325 AD. That's 325 years after Jesus died. That's 23 generations.

That means that the unknown person who wrote about the virgin birth was the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grandson of somebody who would have been alive when Jesus was born.

"Proven historicity of the Bible"? What?

[notachance]

The proven historicity of the Bible. 2000+ manuscripts for the Gospels alone. The others don't hold up to that standard. No book or collection of books from that time compairs.

I hate to make points so obvious that it looks like I'm insulting you by implying that you don't know them already, but have you ever heard of historical fiction?

Do you understand that a tale can be fictional but set in a historically and geographically accurate location? The historically setting being accurate, doesn't mean that the story is true. You get that, right?

The fact that the Spiderman comics accurately describe New York City as a hectic metropolis with lots of skyscrapers, doesn't mean that it is also accurate in the existence of a radioactive spider that gave a teenager superpowers.

Similarly, the fact that the Bible accurately tells of how the Roman Empire was occupying Israel does NOT mean that it is also accurate in saying Mary was a virgin.

It is ABSOLUTELY FALSE that the Bible is historically accurate. I could cite dozens of fatal examples of the Bible's counter-historicity. But even if it were historically accurate, so what?

If I said "The US Constitution was signed in Philadelphia and I have an invisible dragon in my basement", would the fact that my first statement is historically true prove that therefore my second supernatural statement is true as well?

[Goat]

The proven historicity of the Bible. 2000+ manuscripts for the Gospels alone. The others don't hold up to that standard. No book or collection of books from that time compares.

Is this a joke?

Not a single word was EVER written down about Jesus while he was still alive or for 50 years after he had died.

Not a single word was EVER written down about Jesus by anybody who had ever met him, or by anybody who had ever met anybody who had ever met anybody who had ever met him.

We have NO IDEA who it is that brought up the notion of the virgin birth. We have NO IDEA when this idea was first introduced. We have no idea where.

All we know is that the earliest document mentioning the virgin birth is the Codex Vaticanus, written in 325 AD in either Rome or Alexandria by an anonymous scribe.

That's 325 AD. That's 325 years after Jesus died. That's 23 generations.

That means that the unknown person who wrote about the virgin birth was the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grandson of somebody who would have been alive when Jesus was born.

"Proven historicity of the Bible"? What?

The internal evidence of the documents mentioning the virgin birth indicate that the
two documents were probably written after the destruction of the temple but at the latest in the early 2nd century.

[Furrowed Brow]

The only one I do not doubt is 7.

[ChristShepherd]

Here is an interesting wrinkle on Jesus' birth.

Romans 1:3-4(King James Version)
3Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

According to Matthew and Lukes birth stories Jesus was God's son by birth.
According to John, Jesus was God's son from the beginning. John 1:1
But in Romans 1:3-4,Paul says Jesus was declared God's son through the resurrection.
Do you see a controversy here?

[Braveheart]

The proven historicity of the Bible. 2000+ manuscripts for the Gospels alone. The others don't hold up to that standard. No book or collection of books from that time compares.

Is this a joke?

Not a single word was EVER written down about Jesus while he was still alive or for 50 years after he had died.

Not a single word was EVER written down about Jesus by anybody who had ever met him, or by anybody who had ever met anybody who had ever met anybody who had ever met him.

Except maybe, oh I don't know, Paul/Saul of Tarsus? Why don't you prove all your unfounded claims about when the bible was written, OK, instead of just spewing hatred at a religion you don't even understand as your previous posts have demonstrated. Paul was born when Jesus was 5 years old, and wrote about the resurrection. Chew on that for a couple o' days before you come screamin' back will ya'?

[Furrowed Brow]

The proven historicity of the Bible. 2000+ manuscripts for the Gospels alone. The others don't hold up to that standard. No book or collection of books from that time compairs.

How can it ever be proved Mary claimed she was a virgin, and if she did make that claim that she was telling the truth? You will already know what David Hume had to say about that second possibility viz., a suspension of the natural order or a Jewish minx told a lie.

And even if it could be proved true that the Jesus was a miracle worker, it does not follow it is true that his was a virgin birth.

The first near complete version of the Gospels is P75 dated to around 200 BC. the vast majority of those 2000 documents you mention are dated later than P75. Standard textual criticism can only place the gospel of Mark to within at best a couple of decades or later, and the full content of the story then cannot be known with any certainty. If Christianity is true those 2000 manuscripts trace back to just 4 statements that claim to be witness statements. That is at best just 4 witness statements repeated multiple times. As there is some doubt as to who copied who who we cannot with certainty even say there were 4 independent statements.

And last: the historical method includes common sense. A point which pretty much demolishes any hope of proving historicty.