It is time, or so I think, to go back in time. Metaphorically speaking, back to the stone age! And what I mean by that will become clear…or so I hope. But speaking of the stone age, what kind of guitarist was Pebbles?
A Rock guitarist! Not bad..huh?
Ok, ok…not my best joke. Still, children are a true blessing. And I have that on good authority! Allow me to prove it…Sweetheart, will you come downstairs for a moment?
Oh, dear! Someone needs a time-out! Well, I’ll just have to proceed on my own.
It’s my intention to discuss the issue of the Virgin Birth, which I touched on in a previous essay, a bit further. There is so much more to consider! It seems only considerate to consider all these intriguing things. Still, I endeavor to consider other things worth considering in addition to the discussion of the historical context of Isaiah’s Great Pronouncement, and the role of Emanuel and Maher-Shalal-Hash Baz within it. On the appearance of the story of the Virgin Birth that appeared, eventually, in Matthew…I think it’s fair to ask a simple question about this. What is that? Well, what purpose does the Virgin Birth story in Matthew serve? If Mark knew it, it is a very strange thing that he omitted it. In fact, Mark knows nothing about the life of Jesus prior to his appearance at the Jordan. He is, simply put, the Man from Nazareth…and…the Son of God. Mark provides the dramatic story…one that would change humanity forever…the story that, following Jesus’s baptism, God declared that the Man from Nazareth was indeed His son. I’ve taken the position…one that has the stamp of undoubtable authority…that Mark derives directly from Peter, something that I will discuss below. Did Judas betray Christ? That is certainly the position found in the gospels, and the Judas Group, those who possessed the Gospel of Judas, which was suppressed very early on by the other Jesus Groups, takes a similar position. However! It is a strange thing that Jesus would speak of two disappointing men; one who would betray him (Judas), and one who would deny him three times…Peter. The funny thing about this is that, based on gospels that have undergone significant redaction, Jesus would tell Peter that he would, in fact, deny him three times. Betrayal! Worse than that. And then, having been told directly that this would happen, Peter, when the disciples scattered, denied Christ three times. So, what happened? Mark 14: 17-19...
When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. While they were reclining at the table eating, he said…Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me…one who is eating with me. They were saddened, and one by one they said to him…surely you don’t mean me?
So, each of the disciples asks Jesus who this betrayer was. It is odd that apparently, Judas, who was one of the twelve, asked Jesus about the identity of the betrayer. If Judas was conniving with the agents of the Sanhedrin, surely he knew the answer to the question. The basic storyline would seem to be that Christ’s claim about a betrayer was news to them. Mark 14: 20-21…
He is one of the Twelve, he replied, one who dips bread in the bowl with me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born. While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying…take it! This is my body.
Ok. So, we are given a specific means of knowing who the betrayer is! He is the guy who dips his bread in the sauce bowl with him. That means that I just have to keep reading the story of the Last Supper and note which guy dipped his bread in the sauce bowl at the same time as Jesus. And so the…the…let me look again. Wait! There is no statement about who the co-bread-dipper was. Why provide a clue, and then drop that clue after providing no clue as to who the previous clue would seem to indicate. Hence the redaction at this point. I can see no other answer to this than that…
The identity of the man who dipped his bread in the bowl at the same time as Christ has been deleted from the story.
If that is true, then one is face-to-face with the ultimate means by which the gospels have come down to us; in this case, one might be tempted to conclude that someone or someones are protecting one of the Twelve. Just say…Judas dipped his bread in the bowl at the same time as Christ! Then we know that Judas was the betrayer of whom Christ spoke.
The identity of the man who dipped his bread in the bowl at the same time as Christ has been deleted from the story to protect the identity of the betrayer.
But we all know that Judas is identified in the gospels as the betrayer. Mark 14:43 states…
Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.
This passage is editorial and has over-loaded the group of men necessary to arrest Jesus. The elders? Jesus clashed with just every type of religious authority. That does not mean that they all sought to kill Jesus. Of course, if Paul were present, he certainly would have driven in the nails himself. But the result of the passage suggests a small army, armed to the teeth. Mark 14:44…
Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them…the one I kiss is the man…”
So the result is a conflated story, with two overlapping clues. The betrayer dips his bread in the bowl at the same time as Christ, but we are also told that the sign, the action, of the betrayer is a kiss. So!
The betrayer- dips his bread in the bowl
The betrayer- kisses Christ
And! We do not know the identity of the bread dipper, but we are specifically told that the kisser is Judas. Hence the complicated conflation.
The betrayer- ???
The betrayer- Judas
Mark 14: 29-31…
Peter declared…even if all fall away, I will not. Really Peter? Is that so? Believe me when I say that on this evening, before the rooster crows twice, you will indeed deny me three times.
So, Peter is specifically told that he will do the one thing that none of the others will do…deny Christ three times. Jesus is arrested, and then brought before the religious authorities. The Twelve flee, but all of a sudden, Peter appears in the courtyard when Jesus is being physically assaulted. Step back to Mark 14: 27-29…
You will all fall away, Jesus told them…for it is written that…I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you to Galilee. Peter declared…even if all fall away, I will not.”
Then we get the statement that Peter would be the Denier. So, what happened? Jesus specifically stated that all would fall away…in other words, Jesus was wrong? Mark 14:50…
Then everyone deserted him and fled.
Yet Peter suddenly appears in the courtyard warming himself by a fire. So, he fled like the others, then decided that he would return? Why did he flee? He told Christ he wouldn’t! The Twelve fled because they did not want to be arrested. The Twelve were no doubt known to the religious authorities, and I would think especially Peter, who had been with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry. But having fled, he suddenly returns, risking almost certain arrest and trial, and ultimately…execution. They would have known Peter? As he warmed himself by the fire, a slave girl approached him and declared…
You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus!
I would think that if a slave girl could identify Peter, then he must have been well-known in the extreme, and to all involved…even the servants of the high priest. So, if Peter split with the others to avoid arrest, he suddenly shows up standing by a fire where very near the place where Jesus is being interrogated, where all involved would recognize him. And the declaration of the slave girl elicited Peter’s first denial of Christ. The slave girl is adamant…
When the servant girl saw him, she said again to those standing around…this guy is one of them.
Peter re-affirms that he doesn’t know this apparent religious criminal whose fate is being decided in a very violent interrogation.
After a little while, those standing near said to Peter…Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.
Hey, pal! This little slave-girl is right! You are his follower…perhaps you would like to join your master right now! Then we get Peter’s final denial, one that involved begging God that, if he were lying, curses be poured out on him as if…
by angels dumping wrath on him from apocalyptic bowls. It is stated that Peter is identified because he is a Galilean. This would suggest that he had a recognizable accent. This reason for identifying Peter as one of Twelve men is not compelling. Lots of people were Galilean, and that’s lots of people speaking with a Galilean accent. I am inclined to see this reference to Peter’s accent as an editorial gloss intended to explain how it was that some slave-girl walked up to him and identified him as a follower of Jesus. Peter was recognized because he was known as one of Christ’s closest friends and trusted followers.
What is the result? Christ is wrong…not all would fall away…seeing how Peter split and then suddenly appeared at the interrogation, only to be recognized by Little Servant Girl? Her identification of Peter, which others standing around would echo, leads him to his third denial so very loudly declared, under oath mind you. Then:
Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said about him. And Peter wept.
So, Peter is getting mixed reviews. He is…
1. One who fled- faithlessness
2. One who undid his faithlessness by materializing in the courtyard
3. One whose identity is known by a slave girl
4. One who denies Christ three times
And I’m struck by the use of the words…
Remembered what Jesus had said to him…before the rooster crows twice, you will disown me three times.
Now the guys who put this material together have done something very clever…and quite subtle, as well. Remembered? In other words…Peter did not deny Christ three times as an act of conscious betrayal…sorry…denial. No…he denied Christ three times because he forgot that Jesus told him, shortly before, that he would do exactly that. So, the redactors admit that Peter did indeed deny Christ three times, but only because he forgot that Jesus said that he would do so. Then he remembered! I see no other conclusion than that Peter’s sin is getting white-washed by the redactors.
Then? Peter cries, and then…disappears. Where did he go? Obviously…he was identified, something that would have certainly happened if he had appeared in the courtyard, and so he fled to avoid arrest. The basic narrative of this story is not compelling. And…for all Evangelicals who will not accept a Priscilla or Maximilla having a leadership role in their own Certainly-Not-the-New-Prophecy-Movement-Led-By-One-Former-Gallus-And-Two-Women Evangelical religion…the only individuals who were ultimately faithful to Christ were the women involved. And their involvement, along with their actions, not to mention their faithfulness…all of these components are compelling. So, who should exercise authority…The Three Times Faithless Denier, or Mary Magdalene?
Let’s take another step back and read something that is puzzling in the extreme. Jesus is being arrested by the Religious Army sent to arrest, at most, 13 men who were never said to have carried weapons around with them or to have advocated the use of violence in any way. Pick up the action…
Mark 14: 50-52 – Then everyone deserted him and fled. A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, that man fled naked, leaving his garment behind.
So, who is this naked man? And this well-armed paramilitary force was not able to do anything more than grab the guy by his garment, tearing it off, and then allowing him to flee? They were in the process of arresting this follower of Jesus, but gave up once they accidentally ripped his clothes off? Think about this passage for a moment. It is remarkable and subtle. The previous passage states that, as Christ said, all fled. Except, apparently, this unnamed mystery man. Well, he did flee, but not because he was as faithless as the others. He was being faithful and taking considerable risk by not fleeing, but then did flee, because he was naked. It looks like the redactors are letting Peter have his cake and eat too. I believe that the young man is, in fact, Peter. So:
Peter does not flee
Peter flees because he is naked
Peter obtains new clothing
Peter suddenly appears in the courtyard
Peter denies Christ three times because he simply forgot what Christ said
Peter is identified and flees, apparently with his clothes intact.
There is no way that Peter could have forgotten what Christ said about Peter’s Thrice Made Denials not long before. He could not have sub-consciously denied Christ three times, only to remember that Christ told him that he would do so, and Peter strenuously denied that Jesus was, in fact, to prove to be wrong about this. This is all happening within a 24-hour period. These elements appear to be aimed at admitting that Peter had done wrong, but mitigating this by clever redaction.
One, purely speculative reading of the material is as follows. Christ declared that he would be betrayed by his co-dipper. That man was Peter. There was no pronouncement made to Peter about him making any denials. Peter fled with the others, and it had nothing to do with his clothes. He was later identified as a follower of the Man from Nazareth. To save his own skin, he made firm declarations that he knew nothing about Jesus.
It follows that the events in Mark presented redactors with a serious problem…Peter was the Denier, the Betrayer, and this may have been known by early Christians. So the story was redacted…instead of just a Betrayer, a Denier was added. It was the Betrayer who was cursed…not the Denier. Judas is the Betrayer, and Peter is Denier. And this removes the stain of betrayal from Peter and puts it on Judas. Peter is now the Not-Betrayer. It was well known that all the disciples fled. This meant Peter too, but he only fled because his clothes were torn off, and therefore not because he was, like the others, keeping themselves from being arrested. So now Peter, the Denier-But-Not-Betrayer, having obtained clothes, suddenly appears at Christ’s interrogation, hanging around the fire. So he is not really a Faithfulness One! Not like the other fraidy-cats…oh, no! Not Peter! At some point, he is identified as a follower of the Nazarene, then, the redactors freely admit that he made repeated denials of being a follower of Christ. That is certainly bad! But not too bad…they added the statement about Peter denying Christ, then they completed the picture by claiming that these denials were said by Christ as imminent, but Peter simply forgot about it.
If one were a free-thinker, one might be tempted to believe that among early Christians, there was competition between groups, and that this worked its way into the gospels. Peter had a bad reputation, but the treatment of the events in Mark was shaped to mitigate this, allowing him to claim, or more likely…the Peter Group to claim, authority in the Jesus Movement.
Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, a staunch supporter of Constantine, which included producing a falsified account of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, relayed information about the authorship of the Gospel of Mark. Eusebius lived 260-340 AD, so he was quite removed chronologically from the time when Peter was alive. That’s just fine, he cites the information provided by...
Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, and a rather grumpy-looking old guy, who lived 60-130 AD. Peter is believed to have died between the years 64 and 68, leaving Papias as 4 years old or, at most, 8 years old, when Peter died. That is quite close to the relevant time-period. But Eusebius adds that Papias received information from...
Aristion. And why is that important? Because Aristion was a disciple of Christ. He is not mentioned in the New Testament. However, one source credits him with being one of the 72 disciples sent out by Jesus. The narrative only appears in Luke, but no names are provided. Other lists of the 72 (or 70) do not include Aristion. The Acts of Barnabas refers to a man named Ariston, who was associated with Timon of Cyprus. There appears to be no connection between the two. And he is not the same as Ariston of Pella. Still, I see no reason to question Papias, which leads to the conclusion that Aristion was a very reliable source. A quote from Papias…
I shall not hesitate also to put into ordered form for you, along with the interpretations, everything I learned carefully in the past from the elders and noted down carefully, for the truth of which I vouch. For unlike most people I took no pleasure in those who told many different stories, but only in those who taught the truth. Nor did I take pleasure in those who reported their memory of someone else’s commandments, but only in those who reported their memory of the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the Truth itself. And if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders arrived, I made enquiries about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and John the Elder, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.
So, there were different groups associated with the traditions of various disciples of Christ. He specifically names:
1. Andrew
2. Peter
3. Philip
4. Thomas
5. James
6. John
7. Matthew
And the books? What books? Certainly…gospels…in some form and associated with different disciples of Christ. And what did Papias think of these books?
For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice
I will put words in my mouth…I take the judgement of Papias to be compelling, and therefore, question the veracity of books that were less useful than words spoken by a verifiable disciple of Christ. So, were there different groups associated with the traditions of various original sources…authority figures who personally knew Christ? And! There are works connected with various disciples in Papias’ list. These were works were suppressed…denied authority, when Dogmatists high-jacked the Jesus Movement, as Constantine would do, and created a hierarchical official, institutional religion. Canonicity…what books are authoritative…and which ones were rejected…is that compelling? The spiritual becomes religious; the unstructured becomes highly structured with layers of religious guys deciding everything. Montanus was a heretic? And The Way…a free-flowing manifestation of prophetical revelation must be put down…select the written works you like…get rid of those which compete. Excommunication becomes a favorite hobby of the Dogmatists. Papias:
For unlike most people I took no pleasure in those who told many different stories, but only in those who taught the truth. Nor did I take pleasure in those who reported their memory of someone else’s commandments.
So according to Papias, various sources were floating around that he felt were, if I may put words in my mouth…bogus, or at least…suspect as to their reliability. Papias was able to cut through these weeds. But I take his statements to indicate that, prior to canonization, there were competing groups, and that one would have to take sides. The living voices were Aristion and John the Presbyter (Elder). One manuscript of Mark, an Armenian Bible dated to 989 actually contains a gloss stating…According to Aristion the Elder, which was written in the text between Mark 16:8 and 16:19.
Papias gathered teachings from those who knew the living word of God, and gave the following account of the Gospel of Mark:
"This also the presbyter said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things done or said by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord's discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely."
So really we have the Gospel of Peter, though caution must be exercised on that point since there is a non-canonical gospel bearing that name…
Not to be confused with the Acts of Andrew…
Or the Acts of Andrew and Matthew, or the Gospel of Andrew…despite the fact that Peter and Andrew were brothers.
Mark’s work was faithful to the truth? I say…yes. So when did the redactions occur? Subsequent to the original work done by Mark. But I think it is important to note that the work of Mark appears to have been weighted towards Jesus’s teachings and pronouncements. In fact, there appears to have been concerns with the material as presented in the Gospel of Mark. Papias insists that Peter grouped discourses in a way that was not chronological. The modern expectation of a gospel is that it relates teachings and events with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Mark’s work was not that. But the gospel as it exists now gives the appearance of redactors having tried to establish a chronology. This would entail a substantial re-working of the material.
And how relevant to Mark these considerations are! Mark 16 is the final chapter of the gospel. The oldest existing manuscripts are dated to the 300s: Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. The former is usually dated to sometime during the period 330-360 AD, and is in Greek; the latter is a bit older, and is dated to the years 300-325 AD. Sinaiticus includes a complete New Testament, but lacks about half of the Old Testament, the books Genesis – 2 Chronicles. Only individual passages from these books are found in the codex. Ezekiel; Daniel; Hosea; Amos; and Micah are also absent., along with the Book of Baruch, and Epistle of Jeremiah. It also includes the apocryphal books 2 Esdras; Tobit; Judith; 1 and 4 Maccabees; Wisdom of Sirach; the Epistle of Barnabas (not be confused with the Acts of Barnabas) and some parts of The Shepherd of Hermas. The Old Testament version found in the texts of the Old Testament that survived in this codex is that of the Septuagint (ancient Greek) version, not the Hebrew version. The codex was discovered by…
Constantine von Tischendorf in 1844.
Codex Vaticanus was known to be stored in the Vatican as early as…
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), a contemporary of Martin Luther, lacks 1 and 2 Timothy..One Timothy and Two Timothy if you are using the Donald Trump Bible! Come on, that's a joke!
See! And you thought I wasn’t funny! But as I was
I’m getting sick of being mocked because I said Two Corinthians! And I can see you laughing kid! How’d you like to be fired?
Sir, she’s just a child, and I’m not questioning how, like smart you are.
Better not! See! I can do this with my pants! This way, and that way! This way, and that way!
Yikes! That’ll make you turn your head!
That’s not what I had in mind. Where was I before people interrupted me? Oh yes…Codex Vaticanus also lacks Titus, Philemon, and Revelation. It’s version of the Old Testament is almost complete, with only 1-4 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasseh being absent. The original leaves containing much of Genesis and a good portion of Psalms was lost and replaced with another version. Some of 2 Kings are currently missing due to damage to the text. Otherwise, Interesting? Yes! Both of these manuscripts end the Gospel of Mark at 16:8. Thus the oldest Biblical manuscripts do not have Mark 16: 9-20. Papyrus 45 is older than these, and has nothing at all from Mark 16, but this may be due to damage. Codex Bobiensis, a later manuscript, omits 16:8. A comparison between Sinaiticus and Vaticanus reveals a large number of differences between them. An example of Sinaiticus:
Sinaiticus showing corrections:
Sinaiticus…Mark 16:6, showing marginal correction of the text:
Sinaiticus..the end of the Gospel of John under an ultraviolet light…
This is an example of Vaticanus (Gospel of John), showing textual issues:
An example of a correction to Vaticanus, adding missing text at the bottom of the page…
Is all of this…hey! I know the over-done details are getting pretty boring, but please try to pay attention! At least someone is diligently reading this essay...
Thanks, Sweetie! I knew you would find this worth reading!
So is all of this about the ending of Mark really important? Yes. Why? Because we know conclusively that the last chapter of Mark exists in two different versions. This is what it looks like in Vaticanus:
Of course, there are different possible explanations for this, but it nonetheless is an important point to remember when dealing with Biblical texts as a whole, and Mark in particular. It is also important because Evangelicals and Fundamentalists present the image of the Bible almost as if a human writer sat at his desk writing out the Scriptures as if they were secretaries taking dictation. And so they stress the Inerrancy Doctrine. That is only feasible for people reading the Bible without any real knowledge about the Sea of Important Things upon which a neat, clean English translation floats. If you look beneath the surface, you will see that this approach is simply correct. The Bible is not some simple relic that fell out of Heaven. So, which ending of Mark do you prefer? Sure, you can prefer the long ending. But if you work off the basis of the oldest manuscripts, then someone has added text derived from somewhere else to later manuscripts, and you end your study with 16:8. And what basis would you cite for your choice? If the answer is…whatever is in my English Bible, that’s fine…but that basis cannot be valid. Although I’ll admit, there is a lot to remember, and I too have found myself…
Banging my head. At the risk of giving Regan an even bigger headache, I would also point out that one thing about ancient texts is that they tend become longer over time, not shorter. Papias’s claims about the Gospel of Mark are compelling, the doctrine of Marcan Primacy is as well. Therein lies a very important point. Based on the current form of the first gospel, it must be concluded that Peter did not know anything about Jesus’s life before his appearance at the Jordan. The back-fill found in Matthew and Luke does not derive from him, and was unknown to him. If true, then Peter knew nothing about a Virgin Birth. Sure, Matthew, and then, Luke back-filled the story…the narrative…of Jesus’s life by providing details and claims about Jesus’s pre-Jordan life, conveniently completing the picture that so many would have wanted. Christianity was originally a movement within Judaism. Paul took it to the gentiles, and one feature of ancient pagan religions is the emphasis on the narrative of the life of the gods. They have parents, spouses, children, and there numerous stories and tales about their doings. These pagans related to a deity by knowing his or her story. Directing the Jesus Movement to the gentiles essentially saved it by allowing it to become a fixed religion, complete with priests. Pagan religions often allow for the addition of more deities as they encounter them. Taking Jesus, as divine, and as the Son of God, to pagans increased the reception of the religion. Claims to monotheism and monalitry would certainly cause problems in the Roman world.
If Jesus was divine, wouldn’t his birth be divine? Gods and goddesses have gods and goddesses as parent. Demi-gods can have a human progintor, but must also have a divine parent. The need to have miraculous birth stories in later Christianity can be seen in the following story:
Suddenly, an angel of the Lord stood in front of her, saying…Anna! Anna! The Lord God has heard your prayer! You will conceive and give birth and your child be spoken of everywhere people live. And Anna said…As the Lord God lives, whether I bear a boy or a girl, I will bring the child as an offering to the Lord my God and the child will be a servant to Him all the days of the child’s life.
Anna was barren, having no children by her husband Joachim. The Lord changed that, ensuring that Anna became pregnant, and gave birth to a girl. Yes! That girl was the Virgin Mary. This derives the Infancy Gospel According to James. And James was included in the quote deriving from Papias given above.
What has happened? That’s obvious. Jesus was divine, he had to have a divine parent…God. But that left the problem of John the Baptist. Luke fixes it with a miraculous birth story as well. But if we revere Mary the Virgin, we should have a miraculous birth for her as well. This creates a problem, to be sure. If we follow the logic, then Anna’s mother should have a miraculous birth…then her grandmother, etc. Where does one draw the line? And what of James’s gospel? We know that the Gospel of Mark is so called because the text itself makes the claim. The Gospel of James makes the claim:
“I, James, wrote this history in Jerusalem.”
Since James the brother of Jesus was the central figure among the Christians in Jerusalem, the Gospel purports to derive from Christ’s brother. And he had a falling out with the late comer…Paul. The oldest manuscripts of this gospel are dated to 150-200 AD. And that is older than the two Biblical manuscripts cited above.
It should be stressed that Peter knew nothing of the Virgin birth found in Matthew. What does Matthew do with this Virgin birth? Not much. Does the Virgin Birth make Jesus the Son of God? Following a literal, pagan-type approach, the answer is…yes! God is Jesus’s actual father, and his mother is a mortal woman. Of course, at best, it’s a parlor trick. God could make 10,000 virgins pregnant and produce 10,000 sons by them. Only one can be the Messiah. So that’s one Messiah who has 9,999 brothers. It is vital to remember that in the Old Testament, which I have noted before in discussing the literary character known as The Satan, the expression…the Sons of God appear frequently in the Old Testament. It was members of this group who chose to live on earth, marry human women, and the sexual union between a Son of God and a human woman was a group of giants…probably along the lines of Greek demi-gods. It was within the context of a gathering of the Sons of God that The Satan and God made a bet concerning the faithfulness of Job. So it is well established that God of the Bible had a very large number of sons. Perhaps…10,000? I don’t know, He’s never said anything to me about it. But the existence of all these Sons of God is something that some people might find
Somewhat shocking. But if one truly believes in the Omnipotence of the Living God, then He is above and beyond any requirements to be found in the natural world. There is nothing that God must do to accomplish any one thing. And as a result, as impressive as the things God does truly are to us, they are simply an act of God’s will to Him. Creation of the Universe is a staggering thing…to us. God could do it all day long if he chose to. I’ve heard claims prefixed with…that had to happen if…that would have to occur if…and so…the Messiah would have to be born of a virgin if He were to be the Son of God. Those statements are not made by someone who truly believes in God’s omnipotence. In the Book of Mark, Jesus became the son of God at his baptism. It’s strange that if Matthew is right, and subsequently Luke as well, Jesus is never called Immanuel. Jesus himself never refers to his miraculous birth, and there is no indication that anyone was aware of it. An interesting passage:
Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son? Isn’t he brother to James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Don’t we know his sisters too? And they were offended.
That’s Mark 6:3. Jesus had been expounding Scripture, showed unparalleled wisdom, and performed miracles. Where had he been doing this? In his hometown…Nazareth. So those who made these disparaging remarks were local folks in Nazareth. And it is clear from what they’ve said, these people knew Jesus’s family. They specifically refer to Jesus’s mother. They know his brothers and sisters. Why were they offended? Because he had, in their minds, no legitimate claim to sufficient authority that would justify behaving in a manner completely consistent with the Messiah. Does it sound like these people knew about a virgin birth? Certainly, that would have given Jesus the authority to behave as the Messiah. Yet, despite knowing the family, Jesus is some little guy acting like a big-shot. A virgin birth would be something fantastic indeed. Nazareth was a small town. Lots of gossip! Yet these locals who know the family know nothing about a virgin birth. The reaction implies that there was no virgin birth. If there was one, it’s strange that Jesus never refers to it when he makes his claims about being the Son of God. God is his father…but he is also our father…Our Father, Who art in Heaven…hallowed be thy name!
The Apostle Paul was big on the subject of ontology, i.e. reaching conclusions about the essence of existence…in other words, and relevant here, is the understanding of just who Jesus was. Ontology fits with the broader concept of…Christology. This was something that early Christianity struggled to come to conclusions about, and different views emerged. One of these became known to modern scholars as… Adoptionism. This view is important because it shows how acceptance of the belief in the Virgin Birth does not, per se, mean that the child so born is actually…Christ. It also shows how toxic established Christianity had become almost at its beginning, as far as its pervasive intolerance toward Non-Dogmatists is concerned; just ask Donatus, Priscilla, and Maximilia.
Or you could ask Theodotus of Byzantium, who was also a tanner…a person who works with animal hides, or a leather-worker. He fled the destruction of his home-town by the Emperor Septimius Severus…
a hardline Roman military commander who seized Rome after the assassination of Pertinax by the Praetorian Guard, ending the very brief reign of a senator named Didius Julianus, who became emperor when the Guards decided to auction off the office of emperor in order to make a quick buck. The destruction of Byzantium prompted Theodotus to flee to Rome. His view is also called Dynamic Monarchiansim…say that 10 times in a row! He taught that Jesus was a mere man, but one who was born of a virgin. But this did NOT make him The Christ…Messiah, or Anointed One. It was at Jesus’s baptism that he became The Christ, at which time the divine dunamis…power, came down from heaven and was received by the Nazarene. And so Jesus was adopted by God the Father. It was upon receiving the dunamis that Jesus became The Christ; or so I understand the theory. And while I like the idea that Jesus did not become, in my words, not those of Theodotus, the Son of God…
Pope Victor I did not, and he resorted to Institutional Christianity’s favorite form of Religious Violence at the time…excommunication. And given the early Christians’ obsession with collecting dead body parts…
A piece of a bone of the Excommunicator of Theodotus. Still, Dynamic Adoptionism accepts that Mary was a virgin, and that she did indeed give birth to Jesus, this miraculous thing did not make Jesus…The Christ. That did not happen until Jesus’s baptism at the Jordan.
And what of Paul? His writings were the driving force behind the Christology of the Christian church, yet referred to Jesus’s birth in only a couple of passages. I would quote Galatians 4: 4-5…
Even so! We, when we were children, we were captive to the forces of this world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His son, born of a woman, and born under the law…
It is strange that Paul did not, in the passage cited above, refer to Jesus being born of a virgin. And it was the absolutely the best time to do so. Yet when directly referring to the birth of Jesus, he says nothing about the Virgin Birth. What is even more telling is the view held by many scholars that Paul’s writings pre-date the appearance of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. If, however, we reject parthenos in Isaiah 7:14, and stick with almah, then Galatians 4: 4-5 makes perfect sense. But it is clear from Victor I that you can actually believe in the Virgin Birth, yet be a heretic who deserves excommunication. My how complicated things can be! And exercise caution when making judgements about so-called heresies, since knowledge of the early ones derives from…
…Hippolytus of Rome, who wrote The Refutation of All Heresies, a polemical work that may well have inaccurately described that which was being denounced. Oh, the irony of it! Evangelicals harbor a hatred of Muslims. And! I’m sure they harbor a hatred of Adoptionists…in particular, that breed of Adoptionist that would assert that the Adoptionists of Theodotus were right except for their belief in the Virgin Birth. So what strange bed-fellows excommunication make!
This is Mary at the sacred tree, where she gave birth. And this is…
Mary with her son…Jesus. According to Surah 19:20…
Yes, the Quran teaches the concept of the Virgin Birth of Jesus. So, any Evangelical Attacks against what I might call…Modified Adoptionists, and all non-Virgin Birth people of any stripe, can call upon the Quran as a useful ally. But don’t tell the Trumpists and the Moorites! Actually, I really shouldn’t speak negatively about Roy Moore. He hates Muslims, not to mention the Marxists he accused of undermining the election, something that was perhaps arranged by a certain ghost from the past…
But irrational and completely unfounded hatred of Islam aside, he and his weird wife have no beef with…
A Jew! Hahahahahaha-Hahahahahaha! I wonder if Mrs. Moore has any Rock albums with the symbols of Judaism on them. Of course, if she did, she could simply give them to her lawyer. After listening to them backwards, of course. Still, the King of Christology, the Apostle Paul, knows only that Jesus came into the world in the ordinary way, and it’s too bad that he didn’t know about this Virgin Birth thing, since it would certainly have made his work much easier.
So, knowledge of this virgin birth is never indicated on the part of Jesus, in the statement of other residents of Nazareth, is never mentioned by anyone in the Gospels, and is unknown to the Apostle Paul. And! It appears to be unknown to Mary as well. Mark 3:21…
Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
Wow! His family thinks he’s crazy! In fact, receiving reports of his doings, they decide that would be best to go and get him, bring him home, and thereby protect the looney member of the family. The clincher:
Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.
Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
That is Mark 3: 31-35. The clincher indeed! How is that Mary, giving birth to Jesus while she was a virgin, apparently forgot that little fact? The Gospel of Luke adds all kinds of details that show clearly, according to Luke, that Mary not only knew that she, a virgin, would give birth…much more than just that! She fully understood the significance of it all.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.
Hey, Gabriel! You haven’t been studying your Bible! Shouldn’t his name be Immanuel? Maybe you should re-read Isaiah 7:14. Sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted…
He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his Kingdom will never end!
Ah, yes! Gabriel the Clarifier…the Interpreter! The one who will leave nothing to chance! No! He will make sure that Mary walks away with no doubts about what is happening.
Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For the word of God will never fail.”
Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.
Clear, indeed. Does Mary understand?
Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!
For he took notice of his lowly servant girl,
and from now on all generations will call me blessed.
For the Mighty One is holy,
and he has done great things for me.
He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him.
His mighty arm has done tremendous things!
He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.
He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands.
He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful.
For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.
That is called the Magnificat, also called the Song of Mary. She seems to have a good grasp of the whole situation. And a bunch of shepherds also received an explanation from an angel:
Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!
They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child.
News spreads fast, doesn’t it! Maybe even the sheep knew. Still, they weren’t the only ones who knew…
At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. The Holy Spirit was upon him, and had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required, Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying… “Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised. I have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all people. He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!”
Jesus’ parents were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them, and he said to Mary, the baby’s mother, “This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, and many others to rise. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.
How about Anna?
Anna, a prophet, was also there in the Temple. She was the daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. Her husband died when they had been married only seven years. Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer. She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem.
Following the material in Luke, the news about the divine child went, in more modern terms…viral. It seemed as though everyone knew about this. Except, no one ever mentions it. The locals in Nazareth who knew the family knew nothing about it. Jesus never refers to it in his clashes with religious authorities. He could have cited the passage in Isaiah, but these authority figures were Jewish, as was he himself. They would have no access to, or any desire for access to, the Septuagint, i.e. the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament that includes, of course, the Septuagint version of Isaiah 7:14, where the word parthenos is used. They would have referred to the Hebrew version, where the word almah is used. As a Jew, Jesus’s knowledge of the book of Isaiah would have been knowledge of the Hebrew version, where we don’t have a Virgin Birth. Jesus was keen on linking events in his life to what he regarded as Messianic Biblical Passages, but the man who strangely did not bear the name Emmanuel, which he should have seeing how it was central to the material in Isaiah, never remarks upon it.
And how can all that be true, when the family thinks that Jesus is crazy? How do you simply forget that you are a virgin who gave birth to the Son of God? How do you simply forget all of the long-winded explanations of an angel intent on making you fully aware of who your virgin-birth child is? How do you forget all the incredible events and details in Luke? You forget all of that. Perhaps we should summon Gabriel, Simeon, Anna, the shepherds…maybe even…the sheep! Mary is a Jewish woman…no doubt a pious Jewish woman at the very least. How many virgin births are there in the Old Testament? None. Unless you pick up the highly flawed Septuagint Greek version. That is not a Jewish version. You will find no virgin births in it. So, Mary’s experience is unique in the entire history of the world as known to a Jewish Lady like Mary. As Luke makes clear, that makes her unique in human history. Yet she forgets…maybe…I remember all that stuff, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe I imagined it! Maybe it was a dream, from which I am now fully awake. Jesus is really just like my other boys, with an important difference…he’s nuts. And so it is that when Mary and the others arrive at the house where Jesus is teaching, and he is told that his mother and brothers are outside and want to see him…Christ knows exactly why they are there. And so he is not inclined to see them. In fact, he insults them…So you think Mary is my mother? No! Those who believe…they are my mother. My brothers? All you who believe me are my brothers. Jesus contrasts his family, who do not believe him and attribute his claims to mental instability, with those gathered around in the house who do believe him. Perhaps Jesus never saw Mary again until the very end. She isn’t my mother…those faithful to me and the words I received from my Father…they’re my mother. Mary thinks I’m crazy…those who believe in me know that that is by no means the case. Based on what we read in the Prologue of Matthew, and in Luke, it is simply impossible to believe that Mary could have changed her mind and concluded that her son was crazy.
There is no doubt that she has an intriguing heart! And far more than that. Those present as Christ was dying on the cross were the Three Mary Ladies. And yes, Mr. Trump that is Three, and not…Third! So, hey! You're right!
I thought you'd like that. Still, any rift between Jesus and his mother was healed long ago. But Luke 2:19, in the midst of the long quotes provided above, says…
But Mary kept all these things in her heart and pondered them.
And Luke 2:51 says something similar…
But His mother kept all these things in her heart.
So what happened? She, at some point, stopped keeping all those things in her heart? She stopped pondering them? I would think that it would be impossible to forget everything that she had experienced, if she really had experienced those things. Impossible…impossible…impossible. Of course, if the virgin birth story is a fiction, then I too, if I were Mary, would believe my son to be mentally unstable, and thus he makes his crazy and outrageous claims. I would shield him, protect him…knowing what these claims will lead to…yes, his eventual execution. Alright my sons! I’ve received word that your brother is talking crazy again! Come! We must go get him and bring home, lest he be killed.
Excuse me!
Yes?
We’re still waiting.
I can see that.
Does he know we’re here?
Yes, I told him.
So why don’t…
He’s busy.
But this is important! Very important!
So is what he’s doing right now.
Can’t we go in?
No.
Why not?
Because he said…no.
But I’m his mother! And these are his brothers.
Really?
Yes.
That’s funny.
What is?
You said you’re his mother…and that these guys are his brothers.
Yes, that’s right.
Well, ma’am…that’s not what he says.
Still…what purpose does the Virgin Birth serve in Matthew? An important one…but not too important. The prologue to the book, that I suspect circulated separately at one point, but was then added to the front of Matthew later, focuses on providing little stories about Jesus’s life prior to his baptism. Mark does not, and so Peter did not, know these stories. But the point of these stories is rather simple…each story fulfills a prophecy, prophecies that the writer/redactor believed were messianic prophecies.
1. The virgin birth: takes the narrative about Jesus to where most biographies begin…with his birth. But it was the fulfilment of Isaiah 7:14. As I’ve noted elsewhere, we need to refer to the Greek Septuagint version of this material, and not the Massoretic Hebrew version of this material, to get there.
2. Jesus’ birth took place in Bethlehem: this fulfills Micah 5:2.
3. The story of Herod’s search for the recently born messiah in order to kill him. This leads to Jesus’s family suddenly departing from Egypt, only to suddenly return to Palestine: this fulfills Hosea 11:1.
4. In order to kill the Messiah, Herod orders that all male children in Bethlehem and its environs be killed: this fulfills Jer. 31:15.
5. Following the death of Herod, the family dwells in Nazareth. This fulfill: actually, nothing. There is no such prophecy known in Scripture, apocrypha, or pseudepigraphical texts. This represents a very notable break. All the other references to fulfillment of specific prophesies are references to actual texts…actual source material. There is no extant source prophesying that the Messiah would live in Nazareth. Many attempts have been made to explain this away.
The Old Testament describes the Nazarites, a name based on the Hebrew word Nazir, which means…one who is consecrated. A Nazarite essentially took a vow governed by the rules found in Numbers 6: 1-21. In some instances, this vow was in force for a specific period of time, and ended with a particular ritual. A Nazir was banned from drinking wine, consuming vinegar, or anything made with grapes; he was prohibited from cutting his hair, and could not come into contact with corpses or graves. When the vow was over, the Nazir took a ritual bath, offer three sacrifices, and shave his head. In the case of a life-long Nazir, the vow remained in effect throughout his life. The best example of this is…
Samson (Shimshon). It is important to note that, in Samson’s case, the Nazarite vow was actually demanded by the Angel of the Lord (Malak of Yahweh). We are all fully aware of the basic storyline of the miraculous birth of a key figure in the Bible. In fact, this theme became almost standard, and was, in my opinion, done to death. In most instances, the miraculous birth involved a barren couple…Abraham and Sarah:
Isaac and Rebecca:
Jacob and Rachel:
Manoah and his unnamed wife…
Hannah and Elkanah:
Zechariah and Elizabeth:
It was then recycled and used in the Infancy Gospel of James, which describes the miraculous birth of Anna, mother of the Virgin Mary:
In all instances, the issue appears to be infertility. In the case of the Virgin Birth story, this was not the case, obviously. Although the moniker “Virgin Birth” met with some confusion as to its exact meaning, as found in the Exaltation of Melchizedek, found in 2 Enoch:
Here a married woman, Sopanim, the wife of Nir, brother of Noah, gave birth under very disturbing circumstances. Sopanim actually died, and it was only then that Melchizedek came forth from her…as an adult. So the meaning of “virgin” here would seem to indicate that a Virgin Birth can actually involve a woman who is not technically a virgin.
As far as the Nazarites are concerned, Lamentations 4:7 could possibly suggest a sort of Religious Order:
Her Nazirites were brighter than snow, and whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than rubies…almost like sapphires in their appearance.
Jesus was not a Nazirite. He is described often as drinking wine, and even to the extent that some accused him of being a wine-bibber. The story of Lazarus involves a corpse, and it can be said that there is no reference to Mary dedicating Jesus to God in accordance with the Rules of the Nazir found in the Book of Numbers. Luke 1: 13-15 records that the angel told Elizabeth that her son, i.e. John the Baptist, would not drink wine or any other type of alcoholic beverage. This is highly suggestive of a Nazir. This does not, however, apply to Mary’s son. Paul made a vow that involved eventually cutting his hair:
So Paul still remained for a little while. Then he took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria, and Priscilla and Aquila were with him. He had his hair cut off at Cenchrea, for he had taken a vow.
This suggests the ritual followed at the specified end of the vow period. What this would indicate is that the in some form, early Christians incorporated a sort of Nazarite Order among them. This appears in Acts 21: 23-24. There was also an early Christian tradition that specifically claimed that Jesus’s brother James, leader of the Christians in Jerusalem, was a Nazir. Acts 24:5 indicates that the Jews referred to the Christians as Nazarenes. This is the term that Judaism continued to use when referring to Christians. There was later a group of Jewish Christians called the Nazarenes. These Christians used the Gospel of the Hebrews, yet did believe in the Virgin Birth. They were accused of being strict adherents to the Mosaic law, and they came under condemnation by other Christian groups. Although it might be true that the Old Testament Nazir became the basis of an early Christian Holy Order, Jesus was not a Nazir. It is interesting that Judges 13:5 states the following about Samson:
For behold! You shall conceive and bear a son!
That is strangely similar to Isaiah 7:14, the verse, in the Greek version, that created the problem to begin with:
Behold! The young woman shall conceive and bear a son!
Since the prophetic material is older than the work of the Deuteronomists, the passage in Judges may have been written in light of Isaiah 7:14. Recourse has also been taken to Isa 11:1, a messianic passage that speaks of the Rod of Jesse, Jesse being the father of King David. The word for rod, or branch, is netzer. The words Nazir and netzer are irrelevant. The purpose of the passage in Matthew is not to explain who or what Jesus was. The passage is intended to explain why Jesus lived in Nazareth…it serves to explain the location. The author or authors of the prologue had imposed upon themselves the requirement that each major development in Jesus’ pre-Jordan life fulfill a prophecy. Since everyone knew that Jesus came from Nazareth, then that must have fulfilled a prophecy. It is not certain that whoever put the prologue together had an entire Bible sitting on a desk in front of him. He, or they, may have been going by memory to a certain extent, and therefore assumed that there must be a prophecy somewhere that touches on the Messiah’s relationship to Nazareth. These issues must certainly be taken into account when assessing the reliability of what is related in the prologue.
One might think that the Virgin Birth was a big enough big-ticket item that nothing more needed to be said. But the purpose of the prologue is to provide narrative back-fill, which a gentile audience would naturally expect if you offer them another god. All the little stories are fulfillment of prophecy, except Jesus’s undeniable life in Nazareth. Then, there are no more references to the Virgin Birth after the prologue. Thus it is really no different than any of the other stories…they are all simply indicative of Jesus meeting the demands of Messianic prophecies. Having done this, the Virgin Birth story simply fades into the background with the rest of the events in the prologue. They are all on the same level as one another. When seen this way, then accepting that Jesus’s family suddenly made the journey to Egypt, then returned, to fulfill a Biblical passage, is just as important as believing in the Virgin Birth vignette.
How many virgin births do you want? Well, if you reject the Hebrew reading, and then, by necessity, follow the Greek reading, you are doing something that is somewhat disingenuous. All those using the English Bible may not be aware that the Old Testament in their Bible is a translation of the Hebrew version…not the Greek Version. The Latin Christian church used a version of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina. This was a collection of Old Testament texts and New Testament texts, that had been translated into Latin. The point here is of supreme importance. Pope Damasus I desired a revision of the Latin Bible, and in 382, he assigned this task to the foremost Christian scholar of his time…Jerome. The Vetus Latina used the Greek Septuagint as the basis of its Old Testament texts. Jerome, learned in Hebrew, began comparing the Septuagint readings to those in the Hebrew version and discovered what any first year Exegetical Theology student will also come face-to-face with…the Septuagint is simply not a feasible text. While it is strong in some areas, it is problematic to the extreme when it comes to parts of the Old Testament that are not simply straightforward narrative…i.e. the prophetic material. Jerome then made the controversial decision to reject the Septuagint and opted to use the Hebrew version of the Old Testament when crafting the Vulgate…the modern Latin version of the Bible, and one that is excellent in many ways. That said, he did use the Septuagint as a comparative tool, which all students of Old Testament Exegetical Theology are expected to be able to do. Augustine himself said that Jerome, a master of all three required languages…Hebrew, Greek, and Latin…made his Old Testament translation from a Hebrew original. Jerome had no choice but to render Hebrew almah as virgin in his Latin translation. To do otherwise would have undermined the accepted Virgin Birth story as held by the Institutional Religion. That is dubious, although understandable. The reader of the English Bible, when reading the Old Testament, follows the exceptionally high-quality Hebrew text…except in Isaiah 7:14, since, clinging desperately to the Virgin Birth story, one can only do so by suddenly, in one verse, grasping at the Greek Septuagint text in order to retrieve the word parthenos (virgin), and then promptly drop the Greek version and dive back into the Hebrew version of the Old Testament. The translation and interpretation flows from the dogma, rather than dogma flowing from the translation and interpretation of the text.
I ask again…how many virgin births do you want? If you choose to double-down on Matthew, you are actually stuck with two virgin births. How? A parthenos gave birth not long after Isaiah urged King Ahaz to remain firm in his desperate fight against Rezin and Pekah. That child was Immanuel…and he was the result of a virgin birth. Only that way can you have the Virgin Birth Matthew gives you. So:
Virgin Birth Number 1: the birth of Immanuel
Virgin Birth Number 2: the birth of Joshua (Jesus)
So why wasn’t Immanuel the Messiah? Well, obviously he couldn’t be. But he shared the distinction of being the Old Testament mirror image of Jesus. And I might ask…isn’t it the case that when something amazing, something truly incredible, takes place, and it happens more than once…isn’t it the first occurrence of the event that is the most impressive? If I lived in Nazareth, although the people there didn’t know anything about the Virgin Birth story, but I did know about it, I might say…that’s pretty cool! But it has been done before! At any rate…to keep one virgin birth, i.e. the one you really want, you must be saddled with a second virgin birth. And that’s one that most people would rather not have on their hands. What is one thing that happened to Jesus that is truly unique? His death is the atonement for any who, unlike Mary and her other boys, believe in him. It doesn’t matter who you are, or when in history you lived. For two thousand years all people have direct and unfettered access to God; not through religion, but through a carpenter from a hick-town whom God adopted as his own son. And that is very, very cool.
Fundamentalism has always existed. Critical scholarship has existed for hundreds of years, and modernist theology has existed, as a result of the critical approach to the study of the Bible, for just as long. Fundamentalism is an easy approach…just read your English Bible. A 12-volume work called The Fundamentals, which served as the source of the name Fundamentalism as we know it, was published in 1910-1915. It was part of a reactionary movement…it declared that the fundamentals of the faith are opposed to theological modernism, in any and all it’s forms. It declared that there are core beliefs that, if you don’t accept them, you aren’t a Christian. One of this the inerrancy of the Bible. Which Bible? Which Old Testament? Do you want the Septuagint…or do you want the Hebrew? Which version of Mark do you want…the one with the extended ending, or the one with the short ending? I can only state my view that the only way to believe in the inerrancy of the Bible is to…
1. Know nothing about it’s history, or the various different bibles that actually exist
2. And believe that the inerrancy exists in the English Bible
The Biblical texts were changed…often. One particularly troublesome type of textual emendation is called…conjectural emendation. This can take place for different reasons, but it enabled ancient textual experts to change the text to reflect different readings. One fears that texts were emended for theological reasons, such as by redactors making textual adjustments and adding material by way of explication, essentially altering the meaning of the transmitted text. The addition of explanatory glosses certainly can change the text substantially, something which I believe has happened in the treatment of Peter in the Gospel of Mark. Explanatory notes made in the margin of manuscripts had a way of making their way into the original text through the process of copying. Such notes could potentially affect the text in a significant way.
Neither of these are viable positions in any way. And, of course, the Virgin Birth is one of the litmus-test beliefs of the Fundamentalist movement. I have tried to show that, when considering all that one must consider when examining subject, the Virgin Birth simply does not hold up. The Fundamentalist position revels in a denial of things that can’t be denied by people who can only deny them because they don’t understand anything about the matter. And they don’t want to know. They want a book that God dropped to them from Heaven. The Fundamentalists, like their close allies the Evangelicals, want to return to a time long ago when everything was simple. To get there, they simply deny everything that is real in order to live in a fantasy. I suspect that if they studied all the aspects truly necessary to have a belief that is actually rooted in something other than pious, simplistic slogans that justify not having to engage in meaningful study of Scripture, they might find strange cracks opening up in the Metaphorical Biblical Temple. Some would find it impossible to go back. Others might simply point at the cracks and wait for the Smoke of Satan to start pouring in. The Fundamentalists and Evangelicals will not let go of the Up There God.
It is fair to ask the question as to why a Septuagint translator used the word parthenos to translate the Hebrew word almah. I admit that I am very puzzled by this. But certainly, there are many things that are not known that would be informative. In the basic sense, the Greek word refers to a virgin. In Hebrew, the technical word for a virgin is betulah. The usual translation of Hebrew almah, which denotes a young woman, in Greek is neanis, which means young woman. So, did the translator of the Hebrew text believe in a Virgin Birth? Of course, we don’t know who he was. We don’t know just how good his Greek was, or how good his Hebrew was, or whether he was proficient, or deficient, in both. It is certain that he was no Jerome! He had to know that the use of the word parthenos would cause serious confusion. Why? Well everyone has heard of the…
Parthenon. It is, in effect, the ruins of the temple of Athena in…Athens. How amazing it must have been back in its heyday!
One immediately recognizes the word parthenos in the name Parthenon. Athena was an amazing character…goddess of wisdom, yet also a fierce war goddess. She eventually became the goddess of just about everything. And her genesis was different that that of most deities. She had no mother. Her father was Zeus, who recovered from a terrible headache after Athena sprang out of his head…fully grown…and equipped for war! And wisdom! And one defining characteristic of Athena was that she was the Virgin Goddess. She is not unique in that, but only two other Greek goddesses remained virgins..Artemis and Hestia. She was immensely popular in antiquity, and alas! Athena opted to have no children, thus she remained the Virgin. The Perpetual Virgin. And yes, that should sound familiar…Mary, the mother of Christ, in Catholic Theology, is also…
…the Perpetual Virgin, despite the fact that Jesus had a large number of siblings...who didn’t believe him any more than Mary did. So Modern Mary is Ancient Athena? I don’t know. Still, they are two great Perpetual Virgins.
Mary as Queen of Heaven, a title that was not born by Athena, but was born by her step-mother, Zeus’s wife Hera. How could the translator who chose parthenos not realize that by doing so, he was creating in the woman of whom Isaiah spoke, a strange reflection of Athena the Perpetual Virgin? Indeed, look at the overwhelming problem he created that lasts until this very day! Why did the Greek translator make his perplexing word choice? Perhaps he simply understood parthenos to be an equivalent of neanis. But! Even if he created a Virgin Birth, and this is important, he created a virgin birth involving Immanuel, son of Ahaz. He did not conceive of a second virgin birth, one that would happen more than 700 years later.
One of the compelling things about the first part of the Gospel of Matthew is not what the prologue says about events in Jesus’s life. The compelling thing is what it relates about the teachings of John the Baptist. There are clear parallels with those of Jesus, and I suspect that Jesus knew John before his baptism. It is not impossible that there may have been a familial connection, and Jesus may have often gone out into the wilderness and listened to John’s teachings. So it was that Jesus learned about John, and John came to know Jesus. And he came to know that Jesus should baptize him, rather than the other way around. Matthew provides, couched in the language of John the Baptist, one of the most sublime statements in the entire Bible. How important family lineage was! If you believe in the Virgin Birth…that lineage begins, and ends, with God Himself. But does that really mean anything? It’s too bad we can’t ask Immanuel. And if we could, we could just as easily ask Isaiah about 7:14. The thing that separated Jewish people from gentile people was that of lineage…Jews are descended from Jacob, and ultimately, Abraham. This made them special among all people, and indeed, made them the Chosen People. But all kinds of other folks have decided that they are the chosen people. Americans particularly suffer from the incorrect belief that America represents the crowning achievement of God’s role in human history. That is clearly wrong. But this view essentially lies at the basis of the claim to power of great empires of history, America simply being the latest, and hopefully, last of these. But John the Baptist believed that lineage meant nothing. It was irrelevant. I said that a virgin birth is a parlor trick for God. He could spend all day long performing this trick, he could create 10,000 virgin births right now if he saw fit. John the Baptist, although not speaking about the Virgin Birth, nonetheless flatly denied that lineage qualified anyone for anything…privilege carried no privilege.. and he said it in a highly imaginative and beautiful way:
Do not even think to say to yourselves…Abraham is our father! For I say to you that if God chose to, He could raise up children to Abraham from the very stones at your feet.
So I suppose we could have 10,000 Sons of God, or 10,000 Sons among whatever culture, at whatever time of human history, who claimed that they were God’s elect. Still, I’m not totally sure. But it would be strange if you looked down and saw 10,000 stones at your feet.
