I would put experience, and the presence of God in each person, as God's primary revelation of self in each person's life. Everything else, including scripture, reason and tradition, are then witnesses in the task of discovering God that we each have, but each do ourselves, collaborating with others in different ways and to different extents as experience and personality dictate.
For example, to me, the primary fact about the Incarnation is that it did not end with Christ, but continues in each of us - hence the above. Therefore, the question of how it relates to the virgin birth is important, but not central to my faith. Not least because, to me, the virgin birth is an unnecessary embellishment based on prurient obsession.
@Gamma Gamaliel I didn't think you were having a go, I just didn't quite get the point you were making.
I think it's worth distinguishing between not recognising Tradition at all, and not having such a prominent place for Tradition. Sometimes non-Protestants can seem like Tradition is primary above everything else. I think that can be a problem. I say this as someone who would openly put Reason above Tradition and Scripture.
Sure, I understand that.
The point I'm struggling to make is that whether it's a Big T or a small t tradition we can't elude or elide the 't' word in any shape or form.
If we put 'experience' first as @ThunderBunk suggests in his post then we subsequently rely or draw on a 'tradition' or 'Tradition' to help us make sense of that experience.
I once met someone who had some kind of 'near death experience' in a road accident which convinced them of the reality of God.
They had been an atheist or at least strongly agnostic until that point.
She didn't know what to 'do' with that experience but knew she had to get involved with organised religion of some kind. The question was, which one?
Her father suggested she investigate the Religious Society of Friends as, strongly atheist as he was, he'd nevertheless heard that they did good stuff.
So she's working out the implications of that experience - whatever it consisted of - in the context of the Quaker tradition.
She may have chosen - or been led - to the RCs, Anglicans, Methodists or any other Christian group - or to the Ba'hai's or something if she wanted to venture beyond the prevailing religious culture she'd grown up in.
Big T Tradition people often try to neaten everything up. 'The Seamless Robe' and so on. 'It all fits ...'
Well yes, but I think we can leave room for loose edges.
I think we have to avoid dualistic or binary thinking however we look at these things. Leetle Masha of blessed memory who was an adornment to these Boards once told me that her priest used to quip, 'We don't need no steengkin' High Church ...' if anyone suggested that because he was Orthodox he was 'High Church'.
On one level that doesn’t make any sense within an Orthodox context. Church is Church. There's no 'high', 'low', 'middle' or 'three-quarters' about it. Those distinctions only make sense in an Anglican context - or maybe also a Lutheran one, I don’t know.
We could debate whether there are 'High Church' Methodists or Baptists (yes to the former) and what that means in that context.
I'm not saying this applies to anyone here but some Protestant Christians I meet act as if they are unaware that they operate in the context of any 'tradition' at all.
As if by disavowing or not acknowledging the role of tradition they will somehow escape becoming 'hide-bound' by it - instead of embracing their tradition and using it as a vehicle to express and live out their beliefs and particular 'take' on the Gospel in that context.
I s'pose from a Big T perspective, Tradition is the lake in which all the other aspects swim in - but even that analogy doesn't take us that far.
I think it's best to see it as the sum of all of the parts as it were and a 'living' and organic thing which only derives any life or vitality it may have from God in Christ, Truth personified.
I don't know whether that helps or only begs further questions.
Nothing in the narrative signals that these are cousins, step‑siblings, or extended kin. The simplest reading is that they are Mary's other children.
To the argument that it is more complicated than the simplest reading, I would say that the best interpretation is always the simplest reading.
I find it hilarious that if your son said he was going to hang out with his "bros", you would insist that the people he was spending time with were his biological or legally-recognized siblings... not his friends.
Bruce Willis, in a long-ago interview, was asked about his affinity for a traditionally Black music genre. He replied, "Yes, I have spent some time with the brothers..." and then you would insist that he meant his biological or legally-recognized siblings... not Black men.
Your posts do not demonstrate an understanding of the expansive meanings of the word "brother" in your own time and culture, let alone that of Jesus. The simplest reading of your posts is the decision to cling to an assumption, rather than understand the highly encultured meaning of a word like "brother."
From what I know of early church history, it seems extremely likely that belief in the virgin birth pre-dated the worked out theology of the Incarnation we find in the Creeds. In other words, virgin birth belief was one of the clues to the belief that God became Man. The infancy gospel (however legendary) dates at latest to the middle of the second century and is itself evidence of the prior belief in the virgin birth. It was obviously special and seen as rightly so because Jesus was special.
I don't see the relevance of the infancy gospel when Matthew and Luke are significantly older.
While there's no well-worked theology of the incarnation in the New Testament the places where Jesus' divinity are intimated are places like the appearance to Thomas and some of the epistles, not the infancy narratives.
I haven't read any primary sources but none of the histories that I've read mention that the virgin birth played any particular part in the development of the doctrine of the incarnation. Can you give examples?
In the mainstream of the debates about the Incarnation and the two natures of Jesus, I don’t recall seeing any evidence that the debaters at that time believed in some way in the Incarnation but disbelieved in the virgin birth. (I’m willing to be corrected on that if someone can point me to a source).
I don't see the relevance. The virgin birth was unambiguously asserted in the gospels. All parties believed it. If there were people who rejected the orthodox version of the incarnation, and for that reason tried to explain away the virgin birth you might have a point. But I'm not aware of any such. Indeed, I believe Islam asserts the virgin birth of Jesus.
I would put experience, and the presence of God in each person, as God's primary revelation of self in each person's life. Everything else, including scripture, reason and tradition, are then witnesses in the task of discovering God that we each have, but each do ourselves, collaborating with others in different ways and to different extents as experience and personality dictate.
For example, to me, the primary fact about the Incarnation is that it did not end with Christ, but continues in each of us - hence the above. Therefore, the question of how it relates to the virgin birth is important, but not central to my faith. Not least because, to me, the virgin birth is an unnecessary embellishment based on prurient obsession.
What prurient obsession? The idea that the Son of God might have to be not the son of a human man seems to be pretty logical.
At any rate, saying that certain NT texts don't contain the Virgin Birth narrative doesn't deal with the issue of them containing other things we might struggle with - Lazarus being raised from the dead, apparently miraculous healings and various 'hard sayings' etc.
I think there's a bit of a difference. Plausible explanations exist for most of the reported miracles. For example someone seemingly dead could have been in a deep coma, someone could have had a psychosomatic issue, could have been suffering a mental health episode and so on.
Saying someone had a child with only one human gamete is a whole other thing. The others are explainable, that is impossible.
Except by miracle. Which is what it has always been considered to be.
Of course alternative explanations are available. They didn't happen. They are made-up stories. This sort of thing happens in hagiographies and ancient literature. It was an illusion. There was a collective delusion. They didn't actually see what they thought they saw. Something happened but was exaggerated in the telling ...
And many more alternatives and objections besides.
I'm abruptly thinking of that Ancient Aliens guy who's become a meme now. I read Chariots of the Gods by Erich Von Daniken when I was a kid...
So, no the bible frequently isn't asserting its contents as a statement of objective fact.
Some passages are quite firm on the matter. St. Paul goes so far to say to the Corinthians that if Christ is not raised, then, as St. Paul said to the Corinthians,
14And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
1 Cor. 15:14-19, KJV
I don't at all think he's speaking in some "non-objective fact" way here. I think he really means that if Jesus was not literally, bodily, dead and raised again, then the Apostles' preaching and the Christians' faith was in vain, and even worse, saying false things about God, with no one forgiven of their sins, the dead staying dead, and so on. This does not sound like he's arguing for some merely symbolic (again, merely--of course it's symbolic as well) thing, but with Jesus' body just rotting away somewhere.
I’ll look up some specific references. It might be best to start with Irenaeus whose second century references to the virgin birth were a significant part of his opposition to the Gnostic understanding that Jesus was not really human. You can’t have an Incarnation without a fully human Jesus. God became Man.
One of Irenaeus’s arguments was a comparison between Eve and Mary. I’ll try and find the reference but this is a famous quote.
what the virgin Eve bound by her unbelief, the virgin Mary loosened by her faith".
.
It was essential to Irenaeus that the Incarnation was of a man, not a superhuman messenger. And essential that the human agent of that Incarnation should be an obedient virgin, starting the reversal of the Fall.
As a Protestant, it wasn’t until I studied early church history that I began to understand why Mary was venerated. Irenaeus was a profound influence on those who came after. The virgin birth was a given, not just as an attested miracle but because of its wider significance to the meaning and nature of the Incarnation.
I guess I’m not alone as a Protestant in living for years without appreciating the significance of these early understandings.
I’ll look up some other early sources, such as St Basil and see what I can find.
Though I know that a Virgin this day gave birth, and I believe that God was begotten before all time, yet the manner of this generation I have learned to venerate in silence and I accept that this is not to be probed too curiously with wordy speech.
For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of Him who works.
This 4th Century believer freely concedes the difficulties of human comprehension yet fully acknowledges the combined significance of the Virgin birth and the Incarnation.
We aren’t the only ones who have had difficulty grasping these things.
You could also say that the Gospels assert that heaven is up in the sky, where Jesus went and from where he will return.
Exactly.
Mainly Acts 1 but also:
John 3 'no-one has ascended into heaven except..'
Mark 16 'He was taken up into heaven..'
Luke 24 'He was taken up into heaven..'
John 6 'what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before'
This connection between the Virgin Mary and the Incarnation is actually all over the place in the early writings, Here is a striking quote from Gregory of Nyssa one of the three Cappadocean Fathers who played a key part in the establishment of the understanding of the Incarnation and the fully divine fully human nature of Christ. (Incidentally he was also the first Father to write specifically against the wrongness of slavery).
From his book “On Virginity”.
This, I think, was the reason why our Master, Jesus Christ Himself, the Fountain of all innocence, did not come into the world by wedlock. It was, to divulge by the manner of His Incarnation this great secret; that purity is the only complete indication of the presence of God and of His coming, and that no one can in reality secure this for himself, unless he has altogether estranged himself from the passions of the flesh. What happened in the stainless Mary when the fullness of the Godhead which was in Christ shone out through her, that happens in every soul that leads by rule the virgin life.
I think he really means that if Jesus was not literally, bodily...
Literally and bodily are words you've brought to the text. One might argue that if, in Paul's logic the dead are raised as Christ was raised, then a literal bodily resurrection is only required if the dead have a literal bodily resurrection. If they have a spiritual resurrection, with new spiritual bodies (as I think Paul suggests elsewhere) then Jesus does not need a resurrection of his physical body, in Paul's logic.
Similarly, but in reverse, a straightforward reading of the Ascension story absolutely puts heaven up in the sky. We bring out understanding that it is metaphorical to the text.
You could also say that the Gospels assert that heaven is up in the sky, where Jesus went and from where he will return.
Exactly.
Mainly Acts 1 but also:
John 3 'no-one has ascended into heaven except..'
Mark 16 'He was taken up into heaven..'
Luke 24 'He was taken up into heaven..'
John 6 'what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before'
This connection between the Virgin Mary and the Incarnation is actually all over the place in the early writings, Here is a striking quote from Gregory of Nyssa one of the three Cappadocean Fathers who played a key part in the establishment of the understanding of the Incarnation and the fully divine fully human nature of Christ.
I don't think that passage is saying what you think it's saying. It's not saying that the incarnation was possible because Jesus didn't have a human father. It's saying that the virgin birth was fitting because not having sex makes people more holy.
You could also say that the Gospels assert that heaven is up in the sky, where Jesus went and from where he will return.
Exactly.
Mainly Acts 1 but also:
John 3 'no-one has ascended into heaven except..'
Mark 16 'He was taken up into heaven..'
Luke 24 'He was taken up into heaven..'
John 6 'what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before'
"Up into Heaven" does not equal "in the sky".
I stand to be corrected by those who know Greek better, but my understanding is the Greek word there that we translate as “heaven” or “heavens” means sky, firmament, the space “above” the earth.
My issue with the claim is to question whether the Gospels “assert” that heaven is up in the sky, or rather whether the Gospels are simply reflecting and using the cosmology and language of the culture in which they were written?
Today, when we talk about what we feel in our hearts or giving our hearts to the loves of our lives, we aren’t actually asserting anything about human hearts. We’re using figurative language in the way commonly used in our cultures.
I don't think that passage is saying what you think it's saying.
This thread makes clear that not only can we be quite confident that the Bible doesn't say what the Bible says, someone else's reading isn't the reading we understand, or in a more emphatic tone, isn't correct (not that you've done that here re: Gregory of Nyssa, @Dafyd). Bible interpretation is The Wild West. Maybe it's better that way?
I just chuckled to myself after thinking about where one's reading of the Bible might fall among the Knowns/Unknowns categories:
Known Knowns -- things we know that we know
Known Unknowns -- things we know that we don't know
Unknown Knowns -- things we don't know that we know
Unknown Unknowns -- things we don't know that we don't know
The book is about the virtue of virginity. What he said about the Incarnation and Virgin birth was incidental to that. Which makes what he said more powerful as evidence of what he believed. His prior understanding informed his view of both the Incarnation and virginity. In his mind they were inextricably linked. I can’t see it any other way.
Same for St John Chrysostom.
Same for Irenaeus.
These quotes don’t come from a vacuum. I thought they were illustrative.
I’m not sure how much you’ve read them or other early Christian Fathers. I suppose my view of the quotes is influenced because I’ve read a lot. One picks up their world views from more than a few quotes.
Earlier I advised that it’s helpful for Protestants to spend some time looking at early church history. My
experience is that it’s very helpful in understanding what informs Tradition. There is a lot of serious thought and reflection behind Tradition. It’s worth finding out what that thought is.
As an offshoot, I’ll remind myself of Calvin’s view. From memory he was very respectful but wished to strip idolatry away. I’m pretty sure that the Incarnation and the Virgin birth were inextricably linked in his mind as well.
I don't think that passage is saying what you think it's saying.
This thread makes clear that not only can we be quite confident that the Bible doesn't say what the Bible says, someone else's reading isn't the reading we understand, or in a more emphatic tone, isn't correct (not that you've done that here re: Gregory of Nyssa, @Dafyd). Bible interpretation is The Wild West. Maybe it's better that way?
I would say that up to a point, it’s a feature rather than a bug. It ties in with what I, @Enoch and perhaps others have said about the patriarch Jacob being given the name Israel—with its meaning of struggling or wrestling with God—which then becomes the name of the people of God.
As a general rule, I think we all should always hold open the possibility that we haven’t gotten it right.
I'm with @Barnabas62 as one might expect from a convert to Orthodoxy from a Protestant background.
When I first started reading the sub-apostolic writings and early Fathers I was struck by how 'Catholic' they sounded - and also, truth be told, how selective some Protestant references to them were.
It is possible of course to read Patristic sources and 'remain' Protestant. I'm sure Barnabas62 may well have read more than I have. I don't know about Luther but Calvin and the Wesleys were literally steeped in Patristics, for all the variances we might find in their respective theology.
That isn't to say that early Christian writings were all wholesome and positive about sex. It's certainly the case that no sex was seen as holier than having sex. Asceticism and self-denial were very much seen as an ideal, but that's only part of the story.
The reference to the nativity story in the Proto-Evangelium of James is relevant insofar as it's part of the milieu in which the early Christians operated. Yes, it was written later than both Matthew and Luke and arguably it wouldn't have contained a virgin birth narrative at all if Matthew and Luke hadn't included one in theirs.
It doesn't 'prove' the virgin birth of course, but it indicates that this belief was circulating at an early date.
I don’t have an issue with there being all manner of writings in circulation that didn't make it into the NT canon. That's an historical fact. Heck, the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware often used to cite a particular quote attributed to Christ in a non-canonical gospel as the sort of thing Christ might have said.
He didn't go so far as to say we ought to cut it out and insert it into the pages of our New Testaments at home.
Going to Matthew's incarnation of the Virgin Mary. There is no indication in any of the earlier New Testament writings of a holy incarnation of the virgin. Mark doesn't indicate one. Paul in his writings does not indicate one. However Jewish tradition does have instances of miraculous births. Isaac, Sampson, and Samuel come to mind. Then there is the instance of God's creative power without male agency in the formation of the first man in the Genesis story. I am of the thought Matthew drew on these stories to make the statement that the child of Mary is the beginning of a new age. Jesus is the new man/divine.
To the issue of what the creeds say. The creeds are not historical reconstructions. They are theological syntheses. They do not claim to describe the process behind Matthew's writing. They do not depend on Matthew having inherited a virgin birth tradition. They do not require Matthew's infancy narrative to be a journalistic report.
The creeds are the Church's interpretive conclusion at the time they were written about who Jesus is, not a commentary on how Matthew composed his Gospel. The creeds were dealing with what must be said about Christ for the church to proclaim salvation faithfully. They are concerned with Christ's identity and the Church's worship. They ask who is Jesus for us and for the world.
I think for the most part we agree Genesis 1 is a liturgical, poetic, priestly composition, not a scientific report. Yet in the creed Christians confess "I believe in God the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth." In saying these words, we do not depend on Genesis being a scientific report. Likewise, the creeds' affirmation of Christ's conception does not depend on Matthews reporting a historical memory.
Here is how I can hold them together without contradiction. I affirm Matthews narrative is a theological vehicle. The story is a vehicle of revelation, not a stenographic transcript.
Likewise, the creed affirms the theological meaning, not the narrative mechanics. The creeds claim (Jesus) was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, It is a confession that Jesus's origin is of divine initiative, not human achievement. Jesus is fully human born of Mary and fully divine, conceived by the Holy Spirit. In other words, salvation is God's work, not ours. For me, the creed does not depend on Matthew's narrative being historically sourced, but on the truth it conveys. That Jesus' origin is from God and his humanity is real.
Sure. I get that and no, I don’t take Genesis as a stenographic journalistic account of a literal six-day creation.
No, Mark doesn't mention the virgin birth in the earliest Gospel nor is there any explicit reference to it in the Pauline corpus.
But we still have intriguing inferences - 'How can this be since I know not a man?' - and as @Barnabas62 has shown it was certainly believed at an early date.
What’s intriguing is that he also confirms his belief that Mary was ever-virgin.
He is of course very critical of what he sees as idolisation, but nevertheless has a high view of Mary’s character and example.
I’m not sure too much of this is remembered by Protestants who regard themselves as Calvinists. I’ve known quite a lot of Calvinists and never heard any of them talk about it.
What’s intriguing is that he also confirms his belief that Mary was ever-virgin.
He is of course very critical of what he sees as idolisation, but nevertheless has a high view of Mary’s character and example.
I’m not sure too much of this is remembered by Protestants who regard themselves as Calvinists. I’ve known quite a lot of Calvinists and never heard any of them talk about it.
From personal experience they get a bit antsy if you encourage them to join with all nations in calling her "Blessed".
One aspect of this that needs to be born in mind is that the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary arose from the heavy influence of Gnostic teachings in parts of early Christianity.
What is the evidence for this? I don't mean similarity, I mean external evidence.
There is a non-canonical gospel where there is a midwife at the birth of Jesus who checked that Mary was still a virgin after the birth. For doing this she was punished with a withered hand, but then Mary healed her hand.
That's just an example of the style of thinking in creating the numerous gospels.
You will note it's non-canonical. Probabaly a reason for that.
The earliest documents we have, the letters and Mark do not mention a virgin birth. Neither do John and Revelation. Probably a reason for that.
Now we know that a man does plant a seed in a womb, where did the male and female gametes come from? Both from God, or did one come from Mary?
That consideration could not have been in the minds of the writers of the canonical and extra- canonical gospels.
I asked about gnosticism. What's the evidence of that link?
Sure are a hell of a lot of people saying things like "You missed my point" and "I don't see your point." Far more than on most discussion threads here.
Seriously of course, Monsieur Calvin was far more nuanced than he's often given credit for.
Yes, he had a very juridical and legal mind but then, he was a lawyer and, from an Orthodox perspective as much of a Scholastic as the late-medieval Schoolmen.
Which may be a tad unfair.
He 'rings true' on many things, less so on others. As I'm sure Aquinas and the medieval Scholastics do too. Not that I've read him, I'm ashamed to say.
This is becoming even more tangential but for reasons I've yet fully to fathom the Orthodox tend to have a downer on anything post-Franciscan. Duns Scotus and so on.
Some are very sniffy about Aquinas, others feel he's got a lot to offer and has been misunderstood or misrepresented in the Christian East.
Orthodox tend not to be very comfortable with Calvin and prefer the Wesleys.
I've read the Institutes and found it rather dry. But then Patristic writings are heavy going too and I'd imagine plenty of Shipmates of various persuasion have read more of the Fathers than I have.
Coming back to the scriptures, they aren't always an easy read either.
Nothing in the narrative signals that these are cousins, step‑siblings, or extended kin. The simplest reading is that they are Mary's other children.
To the argument that it is more complicated than the simplest reading, I would say that the best interpretation is always the simplest reading.
I find it hilarious that if your son said he was going to hang out with his "bros", you would insist that the people he was spending time with were his biological or legally-recognized siblings... not his friends.
Bruce Willis, in a long-ago interview, was asked about his affinity for a traditionally Black music genre. He replied, "Yes, I have spent some time with the brothers..." and then you would insist that he meant his biological or legally-recognized siblings... not Black men.
Your posts do not demonstrate an understanding of the expansive meanings of the word "brother" in your own time and culture, let alone that of Jesus. The simplest reading of your posts is the decision to cling to an assumption, rather than understand the highly encultured meaning of a word like "brother."
You are using a 20/21st century idiom to try to explain the brothers of Jesus are more than just from the same mother. My citation of the towns people of Nazareth in Mark 6 clearly states they knew of his brothers, which they named. If you had popped the "bro" routine on them, they would have thought you are crazy.
I think he really means that if Jesus was not literally, bodily...
Literally and bodily are words you've brought to the text. One might argue that if, in Paul's logic the dead are raised as Christ was raised, then a literal bodily resurrection is only required if the dead have a literal bodily resurrection. If they have a spiritual resurrection, with new spiritual bodies (as I think Paul suggests elsewhere) then Jesus does not need a resurrection of his physical body, in Paul's logic.
Similarly, but in reverse, a straightforward reading of the Ascension story absolutely puts heaven up in the sky. We bring out understanding that it is metaphorical to the text.
Wait, do you really think Saint Paul believed that Jesus was not physically raised from the dead and that his body was still rotting somewhere?
Nothing in the narrative signals that these are cousins, step‑siblings, or extended kin. The simplest reading is that they are Mary's other children.
To the argument that it is more complicated than the simplest reading, I would say that the best interpretation is always the simplest reading.
I find it hilarious that if your son said he was going to hang out with his "bros", you would insist that the people he was spending time with were his biological or legally-recognized siblings... not his friends.
Bruce Willis, in a long-ago interview, was asked about his affinity for a traditionally Black music genre. He replied, "Yes, I have spent some time with the brothers..." and then you would insist that he meant his biological or legally-recognized siblings... not Black men.
Your posts do not demonstrate an understanding of the expansive meanings of the word "brother" in your own time and culture, let alone that of Jesus. The simplest reading of your posts is the decision to cling to an assumption, rather than understand the highly encultured meaning of a word like "brother."
You are using a 20/21st century idiom to try to explain the brothers of Jesus are more than just from the same mother. My citation of the towns people of Nazareth in Mark 6 clearly states they knew of his brothers, which they named. If you had popped the "bro" routine on them, they would have thought you are crazy.
@Leaf is using a 20th/21st Century idiom to illustrate the varied meanings that adelphoi had in NT Greek. Just as we now understand the various meanings “bro” or “brother” can have, people in Jesus’s time understood that adelphoi didn’t just mean “males with the same mother and/or father.”
You seem intent on reading the text as though Mark clearly says something that he doesn’t actually say at all.
Sure, but for whatever reason early Christians came to believe that Christ's brothers weren't the offspring of his mother and Joseph but either kinsmen more generally or Joseph's sons from a previous marriage?
Why was that?
Because they were influenced by Gnostic views on the body and sex?
Because Matthew used a miraculous birth trope which they mistakenly took literally?
Because oral tradition preserved the idea that they weren't Christ's physical brothers?
Some other reason?
If we say that Christ was 'conceived by the Holy Spirit' and not by 'human achievement' - as @Gramps49 puts it, what do we mean by that?
That Jesus was conceived in the normal way? That sounds very much a human achievement to me.
I certainly believe that 'God is everywhere present and filleth all things,' but wouldn't claim that the conception of my own children was any more the work of the Holy Spirit than anyone else's - although I might perhaps say it was a 'common grace' thing to borrow a Calvinist term.
What does it mean to say that Christ is fully God and fully man?
Some form of adoptionism?
The Holy Spirit came upon him at his baptism?
That view was declared heretical of course and it's interesting to see how many views declared heretical in the early centuries came back into circulation after the Reformation.
Most Protestant churches struggled with all the old isms to some extent or other - Arianism, Appolinarianism, Socianism, Sabellianism ...
But now I'm citing Tradition again ...
We can't elide that nor it's small t equivalents.
This thread has developed into an almost exclusively 'virgin birth / perpetual virginity or otherwise' thread rather than a 'what the Bible actually says' thread.
That wasn't inevitable but the issue of scripture and tradition/Tradition was always going to come up because however we understand scripture we understand it through the context of some tradition or other.
I don't see any way around that.
@Gramps49's interpretation is shaped by post-Reformation and post-19th century liberal Protestant traditions.
Mine has undoubtedly been influenced by all that too - as well as conservative and charismatic evangelicalism, post-evangelicalism and now a non-Protestant form of sacramental Christianity in a western European context.
In determining what we believe the scriptures to teach we inevitably work through some kind of tradition as part of that process.
I think he really means that if Jesus was not literally, bodily...
Literally and bodily are words you've brought to the text. One might argue that if, in Paul's logic the dead are raised as Christ was raised, then a literal bodily resurrection is only required if the dead have a literal bodily resurrection. If they have a spiritual resurrection, with new spiritual bodies (as I think Paul suggests elsewhere) then Jesus does not need a resurrection of his physical body, in Paul's logic.
Similarly, but in reverse, a straightforward reading of the Ascension story absolutely puts heaven up in the sky. We bring out understanding that it is metaphorical to the text.
Wait, do you really think Saint Paul believed that Jesus was not physically raised from the dead and that his body was still rotting somewhere?
I don't say anything about what Paul believed. What I'm saying is that his argument doesn’t require a physical resurrection of Christ unless he's arguing for a physical general resurrection. He doesn't explicitly say he is. You're bringing your assumption that he is to the text, which might be a perfectly reasonable assumption, but isn't in the text.
I think he really means that if Jesus was not literally, bodily...
Literally and bodily are words you've brought to the text. One might argue that if, in Paul's logic the dead are raised as Christ was raised, then a literal bodily resurrection is only required if the dead have a literal bodily resurrection. If they have a spiritual resurrection, with new spiritual bodies (as I think Paul suggests elsewhere) then Jesus does not need a resurrection of his physical body, in Paul's logic.
Similarly, but in reverse, a straightforward reading of the Ascension story absolutely puts heaven up in the sky. We bring out understanding that it is metaphorical to the text.
Wait, do you really think Saint Paul believed that Jesus was not physically raised from the dead and that his body was still rotting somewhere?
I don't say anything about what Paul believed. What I'm saying is that his argument doesn’t require a physical resurrection of Christ unless he's arguing for a physical general resurrection. He doesn't explicitly say he is. You're bringing your assumption that he is to the text, which might be a perfectly reasonable assumption, but isn't in the text.
Was there in his time and in his context a notion of "the resurrection of the dead" that wasn't or did not include the physical? They already knew about the afterlife and about ghosts in that time and place and culture.
One aspect of this that needs to be born in mind is that the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary arose from the heavy influence of Gnostic teachings in parts of early Christianity.
What is the evidence for this? I don't mean similarity, I mean external evidence.
There is a non-canonical gospel where there is a midwife at the birth of Jesus who checked that Mary was still a virgin after the birth. For doing this she was punished with a withered hand, but then Mary healed her hand.
That's just an example of the style of thinking in creating the numerous gospels.
You will note it's non-canonical. Probabaly a reason for that.
The earliest documents we have, the letters and Mark do not mention a virgin birth. Neither do John and Revelation. Probably a reason for that.
Now we know that a man does plant a seed in a womb, where did the male and female gametes come from? Both from God, or did one come from Mary?
That consideration could not have been in the minds of the writers of the canonical and extra- canonical gospels.
I asked about gnosticism. What's the evidence of that link?
I haven't referred to Gnosticism.
Just the dating of the NT texts.
One aspect of this that needs to be born in mind is that the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary arose from the heavy influence of Gnostic teachings in parts of early Christianity.
What is the evidence for this? I don't mean similarity, I mean external evidence.
There is a non-canonical gospel where there is a midwife at the birth of Jesus who checked that Mary was still a virgin after the birth. For doing this she was punished with a withered hand, but then Mary healed her hand.
That's just an example of the style of thinking in creating the numerous gospels.
You will note it's non-canonical. Probabaly a reason for that.
The earliest documents we have, the letters and Mark do not mention a virgin birth. Neither do John and Revelation. Probably a reason for that.
Now we know that a man does plant a seed in a womb, where did the male and female gametes come from? Both from God, or did one come from Mary?
That consideration could not have been in the minds of the writers of the canonical and extra- canonical gospels.
I asked about gnosticism. What's the evidence of that link?
I haven't referred to Gnosticism.
Just the dating of the NT texts.
But @Rufus T Firefly did, and the post by @mousethief that your post quoted and appeared to be responding to specifically asked for evidence of the claim of Gnostic influence.
I think he really means that if Jesus was not literally, bodily...
Literally and bodily are words you've brought to the text. One might argue that if, in Paul's logic the dead are raised as Christ was raised, then a literal bodily resurrection is only required if the dead have a literal bodily resurrection. If they have a spiritual resurrection, with new spiritual bodies (as I think Paul suggests elsewhere) then Jesus does not need a resurrection of his physical body, in Paul's logic.
The word "spiritual" in Paul doesn't mean -- well, ghostly, non-physical. It's always set in opposition to "fleshly" (sarx), which is the term he uses for stuff that belongs to our current mortal, sin-infected nature. "Spiritual" is then what belongs to God's kingdom--what belongs to the Holy Spirit and "runs" on his power. Calling something a "spiritual body" doesn't have anything to do with whether you can touch it or not. Rather it answers "no" to the questions "Is this body mortal? Is it infected by sin and therefore subject to death?"
If Paul had wanted to refer to a ghost, he wouldn't have used the term "spiritual" at all. He would have chosen a term like "bodiless."
You seem intent on reading the text as though Mark clearly says something that he doesn’t actually say at all.
What does Mark say?
“Where did this man get these things?” they (the towns people) asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? 3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph,[a] Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
Looks to me the towns people are describing what we understand as a nuclear family. They recognize he is a carpenter (now that word can mean several things in the Greek). They say he is Mary's son. They name his brothers. They also say he has sisters (which are unnamed).
Show me, from the text, that it can mean anything else. You simply can't. Why do you want to say but of course, Mark is talking about his half brothers? There is no place in all of Scripture that says he has half-brothers. Stick with the text as Mark wrote it. Why does this seem so scandalous?
Even Paul, who is writing as early as 20 years after Jesus writes Jesus had full brothers. From 1 Cor 9:5 Paul writes, "Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas."
When Paul talks about his conversion, he wrote. "I saw none of the other apostles except James, the brother of the Lord (Gal 1:19). This is the strongest historical evidence that James was Jesus' biological brother.
Here is what I do know: Jesus came from a large, ordinary Galilean family. His ministry created real tension with his kin. His family initially misunderstood him even opposed him. After his death his siblings--especially James--became major leaders of the new community.
Show me, from the text, that it can mean anything else. You simply can't. Why do you want to say but of course, Mark is talking about his half brothers? There is no place in all of Scripture that says he has half-brothers. Stick with the text as Mark wrote it. Why does this seem so scandalous?
I am sticking with the text as Mark wrote it. He says “Isn’t this Mary’s son and the adelphos of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon?” In the Greek Mark used, adelphos could mean full brother or half-brother or step-brother or cousin. (Or, as I understand it, uncle or nephew.)
I never said “but of course, Mark is talking about his half brothers.” Whether I’ve said is that Mark doesn’t say which meaning of adelphos he had in mind, and so if we’re considering solely what Mark wrote, we can’t say whether James, Joseph, Judas and Simon were Jesus’s full brothers, half-brothers or step-brothers. Mark doesn’t specify it any further, so neither can we if we’re looking only at what Mark wrote.
The same thing applies to Paul’s reference to James as the adelphon of the Lord. Biological, full-blooded brother isn’t the only thing that word means. To say it has to mean biological brother is imposing a meaning on what Paul wrote that goes beyond what he wrote.
FWIW, saying Mark or Paul meant half-brother or step-brother is similarly adding to what the text says. All we can say from the text is that the relationship between James, Joseph, Judah, Simon and Jesus made them brothers according to the understanding of their culture and according to their own understandings. Whether full brothers, half-brothers or step-brothers, they were brothers, a family.
I don’t feel any particular need for it to be nailed down any more than that.
As for the Ascension showing that heaven is identical to the sky--
no.
Jesus is leaving to go to where God is, yes. We usually refer to that place as "heaven," okay, fine. But I don't see anybody making a statement like "Heaven is up there" (points) or any such thing. You're taking his statement about returning to the Father and putting it together with the observed physical direction of his departure (skyward) and from that deducing that heaven is in the sky.
The deduction is faulty. It's the same kind of flaw that you get if I tell my family I'm going to California (which is to the west of where we live) and then they see my plane taking off in an eastward direction and get confused. That plane is going to circle round as part of the airport's traffic control, but not till it's out of my family's field of vision. Jesus, too, may be doing something different as soon as the cloud hides him from our sight. It's childish to assume otherwise, and the disciples were not children. They were familiar with journeys that took a roundabout path and involved different modes of transportation. Surely they could extrapolate if they were even interested!
When Jesus ascends, he's facing a particular problem: "How can I depart in a way that communicates "I'm leaving for a good long period of time now, don't expect me to pop up in the living room like I have been doing recently" and ALSO doesn't symbolically undercut the reality of "risen from the dead for REAL, folks" and "returning to my Father in heaven"?
Here are his alternatives.
1. Simply disappear. That won't work, they've seen him disappearing and reappearing throughout the 40 days after the resurrection, and no doubt the more clueless among them will keep expecting him to pop up again, if he chooses this option. They won't get on with the work, they'll sit around waiting. Can't have that.
2. Walk away and forbid them to follow him till he's out of sight, and THEN get on with returning to the Father in whatever way he wished. This too will leave the more clueless expecting another visit, no matter what he says, and/or searching the countryside to see if he might be locate-able (See 2 Kings 2 where just this scenario happens, with Elijah rather than Jesus). And again, they won't get on with the work he's given them of taking the Gospel to all nations.
3. Fade out (start solid, and then gradually get ghostlier and ghostlier, till you aren't there at all). Jesus can't do this either, it totally undercuts everything he's been teaching them about how he's not a ghost, here, come and touch me, watch me eat...
4. disappear into the earth (via a cave or something). This could be done, but given the already-existing symbolism in that culture where one goes "down to Sheol," the visible sight of Jesus leaving in a downward direction would be bound to leave some disciples thinking he's going to either a) go to Sheol, or b) rejoin the dead. Neither of those is good. And if he makes use of a cave, the more practically minded will doubtless camp out at the entrance, waiting for him to come back.
5. Make his exit sideways--that is, suddenly stop following the rotation of the earth! I imagine this would be possible, but it might hurt somebody who happened to be in Jesus' "flight path," and (if it wasn't too fast to observe!) it would probably leave them completely confused about what had just happened. I myself would be looking for him in the nearest village in that direction.
6. Make his exit upwards, just as described in Acts. This has the advantage of looking permanent, the miraculous nature of the movement underlines his deity, and it conforms to the usual human symbolic system where up is good and down is bad. (By that I mean we all notice that children and crops grow up, but people fall down (and die or get hurt), bodies are buried down in the ground, and so forth. It's not surprising that human cultures normally consider up to be better than down.)
One aspect of this that needs to be born in mind is that the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary arose from the heavy influence of Gnostic teachings in parts of early Christianity.
What is the evidence for this? I don't mean similarity, I mean external evidence.
There is a non-canonical gospel where there is a midwife at the birth of Jesus who checked that Mary was still a virgin after the birth. For doing this she was punished with a withered hand, but then Mary healed her hand.
That's just an example of the style of thinking in creating the numerous gospels.
You will note it's non-canonical. Probabaly a reason for that.
The earliest documents we have, the letters and Mark do not mention a virgin birth. Neither do John and Revelation. Probably a reason for that.
Now we know that a man does plant a seed in a womb, where did the male and female gametes come from? Both from God, or did one come from Mary?
That consideration could not have been in the minds of the writers of the canonical and extra- canonical gospels.
I asked about gnosticism. What's the evidence of that link?
I haven't referred to Gnosticism.
Just the dating of the NT texts.
But @Rufus T Firefly did, and the post by @mousethief that your post quoted and appeared to be responding to specifically asked for evidence of the claim of Gnostic influence.
Well, they will have to find it elsewhere. I don't have it and wasn't referring to it.
@Nick Tamen In Mark, the literal sibling meaning is the one that fits best. But the reason isn’t “first definition wins.” It’s because of how ancient languages work, how Mark uses the term, and how interpretation is normally done. Mark consistently uses adelphos in the literal sense. He says Andrew is the adephos, the biological brother of Simon. He also says James and John are adelphoi--again, literal brothers. Mark shows a pattern: when he uses adelphos he means actual siblings unless he signals otherwise. There is no such signal in Mark 6:3 that he means "cousins," "step-brothers," or even kinsmen. Simply put: Mark 6:3 presents a household unit, not a kinship network.
Comparing how Mark writes with other ancient Meditieranean writing you will often find them listing the mother, the eldest son, named brothers and unnamed sisters.
While it is true adelphos can sometimes mean step siblings, cousins, clan members or other kinsmen, but more often than not Greek writers would use anepsios for cousin or syngenes for another kinsman. Mark simply does not use them.
Therefore, when Mark says James, Joseph, Judas and Simon are Jesus' brothers, he literally means what he says.
@Nick Tamen In Mark, the literal sibling meaning is the one that fits best. But the reason isn’t “first definition wins.” It’s because of how ancient languages work, how Mark uses the term, and how interpretation is normally done. Mark consistently uses adelphos in the literal sense. He says Andrew is the adephos, the biological brother of Simon. He also says James and John are adelphoi--again, literal brothers. Mark shows a pattern: when he uses adelphos he means actual siblings unless he signals otherwise. There is no such signal in Mark 6:3 that he means "cousins," "step-brothers," or even kinsmen. Simply put: Mark 6:3 presents a household unit, not a kinship network.
Comparing how Mark writes with other ancient Meditieranean writing you will often find them listing the mother, the eldest son, named brothers and unnamed sisters.
While it is true adelphos can sometimes mean step siblings, cousins, clan members or other kinsmen, but more often than not Greek writers would use anepsios for cousin or syngenes for another kinsman. Mark simply does not use them.
Therefore, when Mark says James, Joseph, Judas and Simon are Jesus' brothers, he literally means what he says.
Except an awful lot of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox scholars, who have spent just as many years studying this stuff as Protestants, don’t interpret it that way.
Comments
For example, to me, the primary fact about the Incarnation is that it did not end with Christ, but continues in each of us - hence the above. Therefore, the question of how it relates to the virgin birth is important, but not central to my faith. Not least because, to me, the virgin birth is an unnecessary embellishment based on prurient obsession.
Sure, I understand that.
The point I'm struggling to make is that whether it's a Big T or a small t tradition we can't elude or elide the 't' word in any shape or form.
If we put 'experience' first as @ThunderBunk suggests in his post then we subsequently rely or draw on a 'tradition' or 'Tradition' to help us make sense of that experience.
I once met someone who had some kind of 'near death experience' in a road accident which convinced them of the reality of God.
They had been an atheist or at least strongly agnostic until that point.
She didn't know what to 'do' with that experience but knew she had to get involved with organised religion of some kind. The question was, which one?
Her father suggested she investigate the Religious Society of Friends as, strongly atheist as he was, he'd nevertheless heard that they did good stuff.
So she's working out the implications of that experience - whatever it consisted of - in the context of the Quaker tradition.
She may have chosen - or been led - to the RCs, Anglicans, Methodists or any other Christian group - or to the Ba'hai's or something if she wanted to venture beyond the prevailing religious culture she'd grown up in.
Big T Tradition people often try to neaten everything up. 'The Seamless Robe' and so on. 'It all fits ...'
Well yes, but I think we can leave room for loose edges.
I think we have to avoid dualistic or binary thinking however we look at these things. Leetle Masha of blessed memory who was an adornment to these Boards once told me that her priest used to quip, 'We don't need no steengkin' High Church ...' if anyone suggested that because he was Orthodox he was 'High Church'.
On one level that doesn’t make any sense within an Orthodox context. Church is Church. There's no 'high', 'low', 'middle' or 'three-quarters' about it. Those distinctions only make sense in an Anglican context - or maybe also a Lutheran one, I don’t know.
We could debate whether there are 'High Church' Methodists or Baptists (yes to the former) and what that means in that context.
I'm not saying this applies to anyone here but some Protestant Christians I meet act as if they are unaware that they operate in the context of any 'tradition' at all.
As if by disavowing or not acknowledging the role of tradition they will somehow escape becoming 'hide-bound' by it - instead of embracing their tradition and using it as a vehicle to express and live out their beliefs and particular 'take' on the Gospel in that context.
I s'pose from a Big T perspective, Tradition is the lake in which all the other aspects swim in - but even that analogy doesn't take us that far.
I think it's best to see it as the sum of all of the parts as it were and a 'living' and organic thing which only derives any life or vitality it may have from God in Christ, Truth personified.
I don't know whether that helps or only begs further questions.
I find it hilarious that if your son said he was going to hang out with his "bros", you would insist that the people he was spending time with were his biological or legally-recognized siblings... not his friends.
Bruce Willis, in a long-ago interview, was asked about his affinity for a traditionally Black music genre. He replied, "Yes, I have spent some time with the brothers..." and then you would insist that he meant his biological or legally-recognized siblings... not Black men.
Your posts do not demonstrate an understanding of the expansive meanings of the word "brother" in your own time and culture, let alone that of Jesus. The simplest reading of your posts is the decision to cling to an assumption, rather than understand the highly encultured meaning of a word like "brother."
While there's no well-worked theology of the incarnation in the New Testament the places where Jesus' divinity are intimated are places like the appearance to Thomas and some of the epistles, not the infancy narratives.
I haven't read any primary sources but none of the histories that I've read mention that the virgin birth played any particular part in the development of the doctrine of the incarnation. Can you give examples?
I don't see the relevance. The virgin birth was unambiguously asserted in the gospels. All parties believed it. If there were people who rejected the orthodox version of the incarnation, and for that reason tried to explain away the virgin birth you might have a point. But I'm not aware of any such. Indeed, I believe Islam asserts the virgin birth of Jesus.
What prurient obsession? The idea that the Son of God might have to be not the son of a human man seems to be pretty logical.
I don't think it asserts anything of the sort.
Except by miracle. Which is what it has always been considered to be.
I'm abruptly thinking of that Ancient Aliens guy who's become a meme now. I read Chariots of the Gods by Erich Von Daniken when I was a kid...
Some passages are quite firm on the matter. St. Paul goes so far to say to the Corinthians that if Christ is not raised, then, as St. Paul said to the Corinthians,
1 Cor. 15:14-19, KJV
I don't at all think he's speaking in some "non-objective fact" way here. I think he really means that if Jesus was not literally, bodily, dead and raised again, then the Apostles' preaching and the Christians' faith was in vain, and even worse, saying false things about God, with no one forgiven of their sins, the dead staying dead, and so on. This does not sound like he's arguing for some merely symbolic (again, merely--of course it's symbolic as well) thing, but with Jesus' body just rotting away somewhere.
I’ll look up some specific references. It might be best to start with Irenaeus whose second century references to the virgin birth were a significant part of his opposition to the Gnostic understanding that Jesus was not really human. You can’t have an Incarnation without a fully human Jesus. God became Man.
One of Irenaeus’s arguments was a comparison between Eve and Mary. I’ll try and find the reference but this is a famous quote.
.
It was essential to Irenaeus that the Incarnation was of a man, not a superhuman messenger. And essential that the human agent of that Incarnation should be an obedient virgin, starting the reversal of the Fall.
As a Protestant, it wasn’t until I studied early church history that I began to understand why Mary was venerated. Irenaeus was a profound influence on those who came after. The virgin birth was a given, not just as an attested miracle but because of its wider significance to the meaning and nature of the Incarnation.
I guess I’m not alone as a Protestant in living for years without appreciating the significance of these early understandings.
I’ll look up some other early sources, such as St Basil and see what I can find.
The Nativity Sermon of St John Chrysostom.
Containing the following quotes.
This 4th Century believer freely concedes the difficulties of human comprehension yet fully acknowledges the combined significance of the Virgin birth and the Incarnation.
We aren’t the only ones who have had difficulty grasping these things.
Exactly.
Mainly Acts 1 but also:
John 3 'no-one has ascended into heaven except..'
Mark 16 'He was taken up into heaven..'
Luke 24 'He was taken up into heaven..'
John 6 'what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before'
This connection between the Virgin Mary and the Incarnation is actually all over the place in the early writings, Here is a striking quote from Gregory of Nyssa one of the three Cappadocean Fathers who played a key part in the establishment of the understanding of the Incarnation and the fully divine fully human nature of Christ. (Incidentally he was also the first Father to write specifically against the wrongness of slavery).
From his book “On Virginity”.
@ChastMastr
Literally and bodily are words you've brought to the text. One might argue that if, in Paul's logic the dead are raised as Christ was raised, then a literal bodily resurrection is only required if the dead have a literal bodily resurrection. If they have a spiritual resurrection, with new spiritual bodies (as I think Paul suggests elsewhere) then Jesus does not need a resurrection of his physical body, in Paul's logic.
Similarly, but in reverse, a straightforward reading of the Ascension story absolutely puts heaven up in the sky. We bring out understanding that it is metaphorical to the text.
"Up into Heaven" does not equal "in the sky".
My issue with the claim is to question whether the Gospels “assert” that heaven is up in the sky, or rather whether the Gospels are simply reflecting and using the cosmology and language of the culture in which they were written?
Today, when we talk about what we feel in our hearts or giving our hearts to the loves of our lives, we aren’t actually asserting anything about human hearts. We’re using figurative language in the way commonly used in our cultures.
I just chuckled to myself after thinking about where one's reading of the Bible might fall among the Knowns/Unknowns categories:
Known Knowns -- things we know that we know
Known Unknowns -- things we know that we don't know
Unknown Knowns -- things we don't know that we know
Unknown Unknowns -- things we don't know that we don't know
Same for St John Chrysostom.
Same for Irenaeus.
These quotes don’t come from a vacuum. I thought they were illustrative.
I’m not sure how much you’ve read them or other early Christian Fathers. I suppose my view of the quotes is influenced because I’ve read a lot. One picks up their world views from more than a few quotes.
Earlier I advised that it’s helpful for Protestants to spend some time looking at early church history. My
experience is that it’s very helpful in understanding what informs Tradition. There is a lot of serious thought and reflection behind Tradition. It’s worth finding out what that thought is.
As an offshoot, I’ll remind myself of Calvin’s view. From memory he was very respectful but wished to strip idolatry away. I’m pretty sure that the Incarnation and the Virgin birth were inextricably linked in his mind as well.
As a general rule, I think we all should always hold open the possibility that we haven’t gotten it right.
When I first started reading the sub-apostolic writings and early Fathers I was struck by how 'Catholic' they sounded - and also, truth be told, how selective some Protestant references to them were.
It is possible of course to read Patristic sources and 'remain' Protestant. I'm sure Barnabas62 may well have read more than I have. I don't know about Luther but Calvin and the Wesleys were literally steeped in Patristics, for all the variances we might find in their respective theology.
That isn't to say that early Christian writings were all wholesome and positive about sex. It's certainly the case that no sex was seen as holier than having sex. Asceticism and self-denial were very much seen as an ideal, but that's only part of the story.
The reference to the nativity story in the Proto-Evangelium of James is relevant insofar as it's part of the milieu in which the early Christians operated. Yes, it was written later than both Matthew and Luke and arguably it wouldn't have contained a virgin birth narrative at all if Matthew and Luke hadn't included one in theirs.
It doesn't 'prove' the virgin birth of course, but it indicates that this belief was circulating at an early date.
I don’t have an issue with there being all manner of writings in circulation that didn't make it into the NT canon. That's an historical fact. Heck, the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware often used to cite a particular quote attributed to Christ in a non-canonical gospel as the sort of thing Christ might have said.
He didn't go so far as to say we ought to cut it out and insert it into the pages of our New Testaments at home.
To the issue of what the creeds say. The creeds are not historical reconstructions. They are theological syntheses. They do not claim to describe the process behind Matthew's writing. They do not depend on Matthew having inherited a virgin birth tradition. They do not require Matthew's infancy narrative to be a journalistic report.
The creeds are the Church's interpretive conclusion at the time they were written about who Jesus is, not a commentary on how Matthew composed his Gospel. The creeds were dealing with what must be said about Christ for the church to proclaim salvation faithfully. They are concerned with Christ's identity and the Church's worship. They ask who is Jesus for us and for the world.
I think for the most part we agree Genesis 1 is a liturgical, poetic, priestly composition, not a scientific report. Yet in the creed Christians confess "I believe in God the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth." In saying these words, we do not depend on Genesis being a scientific report. Likewise, the creeds' affirmation of Christ's conception does not depend on Matthews reporting a historical memory.
Here is how I can hold them together without contradiction. I affirm Matthews narrative is a theological vehicle. The story is a vehicle of revelation, not a stenographic transcript.
Likewise, the creed affirms the theological meaning, not the narrative mechanics. The creeds claim (Jesus) was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, It is a confession that Jesus's origin is of divine initiative, not human achievement. Jesus is fully human born of Mary and fully divine, conceived by the Holy Spirit. In other words, salvation is God's work, not ours. For me, the creed does not depend on Matthew's narrative being historically sourced, but on the truth it conveys. That Jesus' origin is from God and his humanity is real.
No, Mark doesn't mention the virgin birth in the earliest Gospel nor is there any explicit reference to it in the Pauline corpus.
But we still have intriguing inferences - 'How can this be since I know not a man?' - and as @Barnabas62 has shown it was certainly believed at an early date.
Thanks for explaining that. I was pretty sure that was your position but it was good to have it confirmed.
I suppose I’m a Traditionalist on the issue. Rather like Calvin was!
What’s intriguing is that he also confirms his belief that Mary was ever-virgin.
He is of course very critical of what he sees as idolisation, but nevertheless has a high view of Mary’s character and example.
I’m not sure too much of this is remembered by Protestants who regard themselves as Calvinists. I’ve known quite a lot of Calvinists and never heard any of them talk about it.
From personal experience they get a bit antsy if you encourage them to join with all nations in calling her "Blessed".
I’ve encouraged folks to read the Institutes. They are not always an easy read but worth the effort.
Same might be said about the early Church Fathers.
I asked about gnosticism. What's the evidence of that link?
Yeah, no. I can't ignore the pun. :notworthy:
I'll get me coat ...
Seriously of course, Monsieur Calvin was far more nuanced than he's often given credit for.
Yes, he had a very juridical and legal mind but then, he was a lawyer and, from an Orthodox perspective as much of a Scholastic as the late-medieval Schoolmen.
Which may be a tad unfair.
He 'rings true' on many things, less so on others. As I'm sure Aquinas and the medieval Scholastics do too. Not that I've read him, I'm ashamed to say.
This is becoming even more tangential but for reasons I've yet fully to fathom the Orthodox tend to have a downer on anything post-Franciscan. Duns Scotus and so on.
Some are very sniffy about Aquinas, others feel he's got a lot to offer and has been misunderstood or misrepresented in the Christian East.
Orthodox tend not to be very comfortable with Calvin and prefer the Wesleys.
I've read the Institutes and found it rather dry. But then Patristic writings are heavy going too and I'd imagine plenty of Shipmates of various persuasion have read more of the Fathers than I have.
Coming back to the scriptures, they aren't always an easy read either.
You are using a 20/21st century idiom to try to explain the brothers of Jesus are more than just from the same mother. My citation of the towns people of Nazareth in Mark 6 clearly states they knew of his brothers, which they named. If you had popped the "bro" routine on them, they would have thought you are crazy.
Wait, do you really think Saint Paul believed that Jesus was not physically raised from the dead and that his body was still rotting somewhere?
You seem intent on reading the text as though Mark clearly says something that he doesn’t actually say at all.
Why was that?
Because they were influenced by Gnostic views on the body and sex?
Because Matthew used a miraculous birth trope which they mistakenly took literally?
Because oral tradition preserved the idea that they weren't Christ's physical brothers?
Some other reason?
If we say that Christ was 'conceived by the Holy Spirit' and not by 'human achievement' - as @Gramps49 puts it, what do we mean by that?
That Jesus was conceived in the normal way? That sounds very much a human achievement to me.
I certainly believe that 'God is everywhere present and filleth all things,' but wouldn't claim that the conception of my own children was any more the work of the Holy Spirit than anyone else's - although I might perhaps say it was a 'common grace' thing to borrow a Calvinist term.
What does it mean to say that Christ is fully God and fully man?
Some form of adoptionism?
The Holy Spirit came upon him at his baptism?
That view was declared heretical of course and it's interesting to see how many views declared heretical in the early centuries came back into circulation after the Reformation.
Most Protestant churches struggled with all the old isms to some extent or other - Arianism, Appolinarianism, Socianism, Sabellianism ...
But now I'm citing Tradition again ...
We can't elide that nor it's small t equivalents.
This thread has developed into an almost exclusively 'virgin birth / perpetual virginity or otherwise' thread rather than a 'what the Bible actually says' thread.
That wasn't inevitable but the issue of scripture and tradition/Tradition was always going to come up because however we understand scripture we understand it through the context of some tradition or other.
I don't see any way around that.
@Gramps49's interpretation is shaped by post-Reformation and post-19th century liberal Protestant traditions.
Mine has undoubtedly been influenced by all that too - as well as conservative and charismatic evangelicalism, post-evangelicalism and now a non-Protestant form of sacramental Christianity in a western European context.
In determining what we believe the scriptures to teach we inevitably work through some kind of tradition as part of that process.
That seems axiomatic to me.
But we're getting off topic.
I don't say anything about what Paul believed. What I'm saying is that his argument doesn’t require a physical resurrection of Christ unless he's arguing for a physical general resurrection. He doesn't explicitly say he is. You're bringing your assumption that he is to the text, which might be a perfectly reasonable assumption, but isn't in the text.
Was there in his time and in his context a notion of "the resurrection of the dead" that wasn't or did not include the physical? They already knew about the afterlife and about ghosts in that time and place and culture.
I haven't referred to Gnosticism.
Just the dating of the NT texts.
The word "spiritual" in Paul doesn't mean -- well, ghostly, non-physical. It's always set in opposition to "fleshly" (sarx), which is the term he uses for stuff that belongs to our current mortal, sin-infected nature. "Spiritual" is then what belongs to God's kingdom--what belongs to the Holy Spirit and "runs" on his power. Calling something a "spiritual body" doesn't have anything to do with whether you can touch it or not. Rather it answers "no" to the questions "Is this body mortal? Is it infected by sin and therefore subject to death?"
If Paul had wanted to refer to a ghost, he wouldn't have used the term "spiritual" at all. He would have chosen a term like "bodiless."
You say:
What does Mark say?
Looks to me the towns people are describing what we understand as a nuclear family. They recognize he is a carpenter (now that word can mean several things in the Greek). They say he is Mary's son. They name his brothers. They also say he has sisters (which are unnamed).
Show me, from the text, that it can mean anything else. You simply can't. Why do you want to say but of course, Mark is talking about his half brothers? There is no place in all of Scripture that says he has half-brothers. Stick with the text as Mark wrote it. Why does this seem so scandalous?
Even Paul, who is writing as early as 20 years after Jesus writes Jesus had full brothers. From 1 Cor 9:5 Paul writes, "Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas."
When Paul talks about his conversion, he wrote. "I saw none of the other apostles except James, the brother of the Lord (Gal 1:19). This is the strongest historical evidence that James was Jesus' biological brother.
Here is what I do know: Jesus came from a large, ordinary Galilean family. His ministry created real tension with his kin. His family initially misunderstood him even opposed him. After his death his siblings--especially James--became major leaders of the new community.
I never said “but of course, Mark is talking about his half brothers.” Whether I’ve said is that Mark doesn’t say which meaning of adelphos he had in mind, and so if we’re considering solely what Mark wrote, we can’t say whether James, Joseph, Judas and Simon were Jesus’s full brothers, half-brothers or step-brothers. Mark doesn’t specify it any further, so neither can we if we’re looking only at what Mark wrote.
The same thing applies to Paul’s reference to James as the adelphon of the Lord. Biological, full-blooded brother isn’t the only thing that word means. To say it has to mean biological brother is imposing a meaning on what Paul wrote that goes beyond what he wrote.
FWIW, saying Mark or Paul meant half-brother or step-brother is similarly adding to what the text says. All we can say from the text is that the relationship between James, Joseph, Judah, Simon and Jesus made them brothers according to the understanding of their culture and according to their own understandings. Whether full brothers, half-brothers or step-brothers, they were brothers, a family.
I don’t feel any particular need for it to be nailed down any more than that.
no.
Jesus is leaving to go to where God is, yes. We usually refer to that place as "heaven," okay, fine. But I don't see anybody making a statement like "Heaven is up there" (points) or any such thing. You're taking his statement about returning to the Father and putting it together with the observed physical direction of his departure (skyward) and from that deducing that heaven is in the sky.
The deduction is faulty. It's the same kind of flaw that you get if I tell my family I'm going to California (which is to the west of where we live) and then they see my plane taking off in an eastward direction and get confused. That plane is going to circle round as part of the airport's traffic control, but not till it's out of my family's field of vision. Jesus, too, may be doing something different as soon as the cloud hides him from our sight. It's childish to assume otherwise, and the disciples were not children. They were familiar with journeys that took a roundabout path and involved different modes of transportation. Surely they could extrapolate if they were even interested!
When Jesus ascends, he's facing a particular problem: "How can I depart in a way that communicates "I'm leaving for a good long period of time now, don't expect me to pop up in the living room like I have been doing recently" and ALSO doesn't symbolically undercut the reality of "risen from the dead for REAL, folks" and "returning to my Father in heaven"?
Here are his alternatives.
1. Simply disappear. That won't work, they've seen him disappearing and reappearing throughout the 40 days after the resurrection, and no doubt the more clueless among them will keep expecting him to pop up again, if he chooses this option. They won't get on with the work, they'll sit around waiting. Can't have that.
2. Walk away and forbid them to follow him till he's out of sight, and THEN get on with returning to the Father in whatever way he wished. This too will leave the more clueless expecting another visit, no matter what he says, and/or searching the countryside to see if he might be locate-able (See 2 Kings 2 where just this scenario happens, with Elijah rather than Jesus). And again, they won't get on with the work he's given them of taking the Gospel to all nations.
3. Fade out (start solid, and then gradually get ghostlier and ghostlier, till you aren't there at all). Jesus can't do this either, it totally undercuts everything he's been teaching them about how he's not a ghost, here, come and touch me, watch me eat...
4. disappear into the earth (via a cave or something). This could be done, but given the already-existing symbolism in that culture where one goes "down to Sheol," the visible sight of Jesus leaving in a downward direction would be bound to leave some disciples thinking he's going to either a) go to Sheol, or b) rejoin the dead. Neither of those is good. And if he makes use of a cave, the more practically minded will doubtless camp out at the entrance, waiting for him to come back.
5. Make his exit sideways--that is, suddenly stop following the rotation of the earth! I imagine this would be possible, but it might hurt somebody who happened to be in Jesus' "flight path," and (if it wasn't too fast to observe!) it would probably leave them completely confused about what had just happened. I myself would be looking for him in the nearest village in that direction.
6. Make his exit upwards, just as described in Acts. This has the advantage of looking permanent, the miraculous nature of the movement underlines his deity, and it conforms to the usual human symbolic system where up is good and down is bad. (By that I mean we all notice that children and crops grow up, but people fall down (and die or get hurt), bodies are buried down in the ground, and so forth. It's not surprising that human cultures normally consider up to be better than down.)
Well, they will have to find it elsewhere. I don't have it and wasn't referring to it.
Comparing how Mark writes with other ancient Meditieranean writing you will often find them listing the mother, the eldest son, named brothers and unnamed sisters.
While it is true adelphos can sometimes mean step siblings, cousins, clan members or other kinsmen, but more often than not Greek writers would use anepsios for cousin or syngenes for another kinsman. Mark simply does not use them.
Therefore, when Mark says James, Joseph, Judas and Simon are Jesus' brothers, he literally means what he says.
Except an awful lot of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox scholars, who have spent just as many years studying this stuff as Protestants, don’t interpret it that way.