"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" Luke 1:34
Why is the virgin birth not a lie?David Hume wrote:Which is more likely: That the whole natural order is suspended or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?
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"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" Luke 1:34
Why is the virgin birth not a lie?David Hume wrote:Which is more likely: That the whole natural order is suspended or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?
Why not look it up?PhiloKGB wrote: Where in the Bible does it say that Mary became pregnant without her husband? Note that I am talking about details, not controversial translations of a single word.
Matthew 1:18,25 wrote: Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.
And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."
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And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.
Jewish family tradition being as it was in the 1st century CE, it's more likely that Mary was a virgin rather than a promiscuous teenage or pre-teen girl. The issue of her virginity is moot. More important, IMU, is the knowledge that although parthenogenesis (virgin birth) is known in the insect world and in some invertebrates, there has (TBOMK) never been such a birth among humans except for the one reported in Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38.Furrowed Brow wrote:"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" Luke 1:34Why is the virgin birth not a lie?David Hume wrote:Which is more likely: That the whole natural order is suspended or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?
It's not a questionable translation, it's an absolutely bad one. In Hebrew, "almah" means "young woman", as opposed to other words that are absolutely used in the Bible to refer to virginity. When it was translated into Greek, it was translated to "parthenos" which does mean virgin, a bad translation by anyone's gauge. Matthew, of course, was desperately scouring the OT looking for anything he could use as a prophecy, whether it existed or not. The passage in Isaiah 7:14 absolutely does not refer to Jesus, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that is fulfilled just a few verses later by Isaiah himself.PhiloKGB wrote:Man, I really did word my question poorly. The Gospel mentions of the virgin birth are all, AFAIK, contingent upon the Greek Bible and its questionable translation of the Hebrew "almah." It was presumably the Greek Bible to which Matthew had access, and upon which he based his further commentary about Mary's description.