And the whole point of the argument about whether they were full siblings or half-siblings is that it became Very Important that Mary was a perpetual virgin.
This part of why I don't buy the half-siblings theory. It is easy to see how views about physicality (and especially sex) led to a requirement that the Mother of Christ must have remained "pure" and so to the half-sibling theory. But once you remove the "sex is nasty" stuff, there is no reason to suppose the siblings were anything other than full siblings. There is no suggestion anywhere in the Gospels that they weren't full siblings. The only reason to start doubting this is if you have already decided that Mary could never have had sexual relations with Joseph.
And, to be blunt, Matthew 1:25 contradicts that view: "he had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son." The clear implication of this statement is that there WERE marital relations after Jesus had been born.
This sentence is one that the perpetualists (to coin a phrase) have to explain or explain away. There are arguments that can be made, but their respective levels of convincingness are (of course) subjective.
As I noted earlier, my understanding from NT scholars I’ve heard or read is that the Greek preposition there is more ambiguous than the English “until.” Prepositions are weird things, and translating them isn’t always straightforward.
And yet the weird thing is that every English translation of Matthew I have come across uses " until" (or similar words). If there was ambiguity there, I would expect some translations to indicate this.
Yes, because “until” is the best English translation we have. But my understanding—again, happy to be corrected by people who actually know the Greek—is that the original Greek hēos does not imply, as the English “until” arguably does, that whatever is being described as not happening “until” Event X did happen after Event X. It simply means from the time of the announcement until Jesus was born they didn’t have sex. Hēos doesn’t imply anything about what happened after Jesus was born.
The phrase that comes to mind at the moment is "clutching at straws".
I would have to have a stake in a question like the perpetual virginity of Mary to need to clutch at straws. As I’ve already said, I’m agnostic on the issue, and it matters not a whit to my faith, nor does it matter to my faith whether James, Joseph, Judas and Simon were Jesus’s full brothers, half-brothers, step-brothers or cousins.
What I’m trying to do here, in the context of this thread, is deal with what the text actually says and doesn’t say, and separate that from assumptions we bring to the text or inferences we draw from the text. And that includes assumptions and inferences we make based on contemporary English translations when the text wasn’t written in contemporary English.
But you a) don't speak the language and b) don't live in the culture. So how are you going to separate your own "assumptions and inferences" from the text?
How does one do that when one studies any text, particularly a text from a different culture in a different language? Study and more study.
How are you able to study it if you don't know Greek? I'm not trying to be clever but you've made some claims here without pointing to where you got them from and then said some thing about reading the text. Which by definition you cannot do if you don't read Greek.
As I noted earlier, my understanding from NT scholars I’ve heard or read is that the Greek preposition there is more ambiguous than the English “until.” Prepositions are weird things, and translating them isn’t always straightforward.
And yet the weird thing is that every English translation of Matthew I have come across uses " until" (or similar words). If there was ambiguity there, I would expect some translations to indicate this.
Yes, because “until” is the best English translation we have. But my understanding—again, happy to be corrected by people who actually know the Greek—is that the original Greek hēos does not imply, as the English “until” arguably does, that whatever is being described as not happening “until” Event X did happen after Event X. It simply means from the time of the announcement until Jesus was born they didn’t have sex. Hēos doesn’t imply anything about what happened after Jesus was born.
The phrase that comes to mind at the moment is "clutching at straws".
I would have to have a stake in a question like the perpetual virginity of Mary to need to clutch at straws. As I’ve already said, I’m agnostic on the issue, and it matters not a whit to my faith, nor does it matter to my faith whether James, Joseph, Judas and Simon were Jesus’s full brothers, half-brothers, step-brothers or cousins.
What I’m trying to do here, in the context of this thread, is deal with what the text actually says and doesn’t say, and separate that from assumptions we bring to the text or inferences we draw from the text. And that includes assumptions and inferences we make based on contemporary English translations when the text wasn’t written in contemporary English.
But you a) don't speak the language and b) don't live in the culture. So how are you going to separate your own "assumptions and inferences" from the text?
How does one do that when one studies any text, particularly a text from a different culture in a different language? Study and more study.
How are you able to study it if you don't know Greek?
By reading works—books, articles, lectures, etc.—written by scholars who do know the Greek, and the culture, and who, to the best of your ability to determine, are trustworthy and reliable.
As I noted earlier, my understanding from NT scholars I’ve heard or read is that the Greek preposition there is more ambiguous than the English “until.” Prepositions are weird things, and translating them isn’t always straightforward.
And yet the weird thing is that every English translation of Matthew I have come across uses " until" (or similar words). If there was ambiguity there, I would expect some translations to indicate this.
Yes, because “until” is the best English translation we have. But my understanding—again, happy to be corrected by people who actually know the Greek—is that the original Greek hēos does not imply, as the English “until” arguably does, that whatever is being described as not happening “until” Event X did happen after Event X. It simply means from the time of the announcement until Jesus was born they didn’t have sex. Hēos doesn’t imply anything about what happened after Jesus was born.
The phrase that comes to mind at the moment is "clutching at straws".
I would have to have a stake in a question like the perpetual virginity of Mary to need to clutch at straws. As I’ve already said, I’m agnostic on the issue, and it matters not a whit to my faith, nor does it matter to my faith whether James, Joseph, Judas and Simon were Jesus’s full brothers, half-brothers, step-brothers or cousins.
What I’m trying to do here, in the context of this thread, is deal with what the text actually says and doesn’t say, and separate that from assumptions we bring to the text or inferences we draw from the text. And that includes assumptions and inferences we make based on contemporary English translations when the text wasn’t written in contemporary English.
But you a) don't speak the language and b) don't live in the culture. So how are you going to separate your own "assumptions and inferences" from the text?
How does one do that when one studies any text, particularly a text from a different culture in a different language? Study and more study.
How are you able to study it if you don't know Greek?
By reading works—books, articles, lectures, etc.—written by scholars who do know the Greek, and the culture, and who, to the best of your ability to determine, are trustworthy and reliable.
The Orthodox belief is that Jesus or the Christ is both divine and human. He got all of his divinity from his Father, and all of his humanity from his mother. So if you want to go the tale-of-the-chromosomes route, his mother donated an X, and God supplied the Y.
If that's the Orthodox belief I don't think it's compatible with the assertion that Jesus is fully human nor is it compatible with our understanding of God. Jesus is not a human-divine hybrid.
God does not have divine chromosomes to supply - God can create chromosomes, but they would be human chromosomes. To be fully human Jesus needs a full set of human chromosomes (or at least within the range of viable chromosomal configurations).
But it strikes me that the Church fathers aren't coming at this from a modern conceptual scheme. For us, the salient thing about the virgin birth is the fact that Jesus doesn't have a human donor of paternal genes. But in the quote from Gregory earlier the salient point seems to be that Mary hadn't had sex - from Gregory's argument the Angel Gabriel could have turned up with a pot and a turkey baster and it would still have been a virgin birth.
It seems to me that the point the early theologians were getting at in saying Jesus gets his humanity from his mother is that he wasn't created from the clay like a second Adam.
I think you're splitting hairs, but I suppose you could say he got two X chromosomes from Mary but identified as a male.
Is it not more likely that after Aristotle they maybe believed that semen was the thing that caused conception?
If you believe that the "genetics" of a baby human comes only from the father's semen then replacing the human father with the deity would appear to solve the problem.
I mean to modern biology is it obviously wrong, but it might make more sense if that was the prevailing thought.
As I noted earlier, my understanding from NT scholars I’ve heard or read is that the Greek preposition there is more ambiguous than the English “until.” Prepositions are weird things, and translating them isn’t always straightforward.
And yet the weird thing is that every English translation of Matthew I have come across uses " until" (or similar words). If there was ambiguity there, I would expect some translations to indicate this.
Yes, because “until” is the best English translation we have. But my understanding—again, happy to be corrected by people who actually know the Greek—is that the original Greek hēos does not imply, as the English “until” arguably does, that whatever is being described as not happening “until” Event X did happen after Event X. It simply means from the time of the announcement until Jesus was born they didn’t have sex. Hēos doesn’t imply anything about what happened after Jesus was born.
The phrase that comes to mind at the moment is "clutching at straws".
I would have to have a stake in a question like the perpetual virginity of Mary to need to clutch at straws. As I’ve already said, I’m agnostic on the issue, and it matters not a whit to my faith, nor does it matter to my faith whether James, Joseph, Judas and Simon were Jesus’s full brothers, half-brothers, step-brothers or cousins.
What I’m trying to do here, in the context of this thread, is deal with what the text actually says and doesn’t say, and separate that from assumptions we bring to the text or inferences we draw from the text. And that includes assumptions and inferences we make based on contemporary English translations when the text wasn’t written in contemporary English.
But you a) don't speak the language and b) don't live in the culture. So how are you going to separate your own "assumptions and inferences" from the text?
How does one do that when one studies any text, particularly a text from a different culture in a different language? Study and more study.
How are you able to study it if you don't know Greek?
By reading works—books, articles, lectures, etc.—written by scholars who do know the Greek, and the culture, and who, to the best of your ability to determine, are trustworthy and reliable.
Ok so who are they?
I’m afraid that off the top of my head, I can’t give you a list of all the scholars on NT and NT Greek I’ve read or heard over the last 50+ years, nor do I have time to look right now.
Which is why I’ve tried to be careful to say in this thread that I’m working from memory and that I welcome correction from those who do know the Greek—we have such people on the Ship.
If you believe that the "genetics" of a baby human comes only from the father's semen then replacing the human father with the deity would appear to solve the problem.
The claim of the Church Fathers that Jesus gets his human nature from his mother is in flat contradiction to a belief that all the genetic material comes from the father.
Yes, because “until” is the best English translation we have. But my understanding—again, happy to be corrected by people who actually know the Greek—is that the original Greek hēos does not imply, as the English “until” arguably does, that whatever is being described as not happening “until” Event X did happen after Event X. It simply means from the time of the announcement until Jesus was born they didn’t have sex. Hēos doesn’t imply anything about what happened after Jesus was born.
I think though that runs counter to the rules of conversational implicature. There are certain rules -such as be truthful - that your audience assume that you abide by unless you make it obvious to them that you're not doing so. One of those rules is that you don't add superfluous information. If you say nothing happened before Jesus was born' then regardless of the dictionary meanings of the words the information 'before Jesus was born' is superfluous unless it implies that something happened after Jesus was born.
To me this illustrates something about, in a very general sense, science verses religion.
The same could be said of science vs almost any subject in the humanities.
A competent Roman consul, once they were up to speed on the technological changes, could probably do a better job of directing military strategy than the current US or Russian governments.
So you mean here that humanities have not progressed since ancient times? If so then no.
A STEM supremacist who wanted to argue the point could just as easily do so from a discussion of Aristotle or Plato.
There has been two thousand years of theology more or less. It just hasn't explicitly come up in this particular discussion.
Which point? I don't understand what you are saying.
If a STEM supremacist wanted to argue that science progresses and the humanities do not he could no doubt find "illustrations" in the exact same way that you've asserted that this thread "illustrates" your point about religion.
I don't believe your assertion is any more persuasive or well-grounded that the STEM supremacists' assertion would be.
If you believe that the "genetics" of a baby human comes only from the father's semen then replacing the human father with the deity would appear to solve the problem.
The claim of the Church Fathers that Jesus gets his human nature from his mother is in flat contradiction to a belief that all the genetic material comes from the father.
Is it?
The "seed" is the semen, the womb is where it gestates, sustained by the blood from the mother.
As the human develops, it is enriched first by the blood and then by the milk, any impurities in the mother are passed to the baby.
I am not seeing that there is a contradiction.
Modern genetics would appear to be more of a problem given that gametes come from both mother and father to the "fully God, fully human" formula.
Yes, because “until” is the best English translation we have. But my understanding—again, happy to be corrected by people who actually know the Greek—is that the original Greek hēos does not imply, as the English “until” arguably does, that whatever is being described as not happening “until” Event X did happen after Event X. It simply means from the time of the announcement until Jesus was born they didn’t have sex. Hēos doesn’t imply anything about what happened after Jesus was born.
I think though that runs counter to the rules of conversational implicature. There are certain rules -such as be truthful - that your audience assume that you abide by unless you make it obvious to them that you're not doing so. One of those rules is that you don't add superfluous information. If you say nothing happened before Jesus was born' then regardless of the dictionary meanings of the words the information 'before Jesus was born' is superfluous unless it implies that something happened after Jesus was born.
I don’t necessarily disagree. But if it is implicature, it is by definition something the text doesn’t explicitly say, and that’s what I’ve been trying to focus on.
You’re quite right, Basketactortale. I just don’t think it’s as big a challenge as accepting that the Supreme Creator of the Universe decided to become human. There are inescapable miraculous elements in Christianity. Like the birth and the resurrection.
What @Nick Tamen is saying about the 'until' is how the Orthodox and RCs as 'perpetualists' to borrow a phrase Mousethief has coined, understand the use of the Greek term in this context.
The argument runs that there are other examples of it being used that way in scripture and elsewhere.
Whether this is right or wrong it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that the early Christians understood it as we would as English-speakers but chose to ignore it.
I'm reminded of the Monty Python sketch where a bloke claims to have written all of Shakespeare's plays.
The interviewer says, 'But these plays are known to have been written and performed some 400 years before you were born ...'
To which he replies, 'This is where my claim falls to the ground. I was rather hoping you wouldn't ask me that but I can see you're more than a match for me!'
Are we seriously suggesting that the early Christians who compiled and canonised the NT and those who thrashed out and formulated the Creeds hadn't noticed the 'until' or chose to ignore it because they thought sex was icky?
Why didn't Luther or Calvin pick up on that in the 16th century?
Or the Wesleys in the 18th?
Now, I'm not saying that this is proof positive that the 'perpetualists' were correct but if it were as simple as "Oh look, there's an 'until' there, that rather undermines the whole thing ..." then why didn't anyone point that out centuries before?
On thing we do know is the understanding of the human reproductive system of a male sperm uniting with a female egg did not develop until 1875. Up to 1600 we can say it was a total mystery to people. Mary, though, did know it had something to do with lying with a man, though she likely thought she was only a vessel. And, I think most people who argued for the perpetual virginity of Mary also thought that.
Just a cursory overview of the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary. It did not clearly appear until the late 2nd century. It was expanded on by major theologians in the 3rd through 5th century. It did not become full dogma until the seventh century.
The Protoevangelium of James which appeared around 150 CE is the first written source of the teaching In the 3rd through 4rth century we have Origen, Athanasius, Ambrose, John Chrysotrom indicating they believed in it. Jerome in the late 4rth century defended it in his Against Hevidius. By the late 300s the title Aeiparthenos (Ever Virgin) became common in Christian Liturgy. By the time of Augustine the doctrine was widely assumed in both the Eastern and Western Church. However, it is the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (553) that gives Mary the official title of Aeiparthenos
Yes, it has a strong argument within Tradition. Scriptures, not so much. Matthew says Mary was a virgin at conception and Joseph did not lay with her until Jesus was born. Luke 2:7 says Mary gave birth to her first born son. The Greek word prototokos literally means the one who opens the womb.
But, like I said, previously, if you believe in the Perpetual Virginity of the mother of Jesus/God, go right ahead. Just know its history.
I did a check and Jerome claimed that Ignatius (late 1st century), Justin Martyr and Polycarp (early 2nd century) and Irenaeus ( late 2nd century all affirmed perpetual virginity. Those specific writings have not survived. But the legendary infancy gospel of James is hardly likely to have been the first written source. Its very nature speaks of earlier beliefs. So I’m inclined to think Jerome was right. And certainly from the surviving writings of Irenaeus I wouldn’t have been in the least surprised because of his emphasis on Mary’s obedience.
So I’m definitely inclined to believe that the perpetual virginity belief goes back earlier than you say.
Re Jerome, here from New Advent is the text of Against Helvedius in which you can find the reference to Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Amazing what you can find online.
I did a check and Jerome claimed that Ignatius (late 1st century), Justin Martyr and Polycarp (early 2nd century) and Irenaeus ( late 2nd century all affirmed perpetual virginity. Those specific writings have not survived. But the legendary infancy gospel of James is hardly likely to have been the first written source. Its very nature speaks of earlier beliefs. So I’m inclined to think Jerome was right. And certainly from the surviving writings of Irenaeus I wouldn’t have been in the least surprised because of his emphasis on Mary’s obedience.
So I’m definitely inclined to believe that the perpetual virginity belief goes back earlier than you say.
You are right, I should say the earliest written source we have at this time. Can't say it goes back any further in written form, but I would agree the oral tradition of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary does go back further.
I tend to think it's not really my business. I mean, we could leave Mary and Joseph some privacy, don't you think? They're real human beings. We could do them the courtesy of not constantly focusing on their private relationship. And if anybody thinks it's all right because it impacts God in some way, let God cope with it.
There are times I'm really glad my life isn't written up in the Bible, for all and sundry to speculate on everything. Bleargh!
I can make no sense of this question. When I think of something as true, I mean really true, not merely perceived as true whether or not it really is.
As for Mary’s perpetual virginity, and therefore whether Jesus’ brothers are her biological offspring or not, I don’t know. My own understanding does not require me to go one way or the other on it. But I believe that the RC and EO (and other) understandings should be given their due weight rather than dismissed out of hand from a sola scriptura position or something in that direction, or from a “modern” approach to the Scriptures.
What @Nick Tamen is saying about the 'until' is how the Orthodox and RCs as 'perpetualists' to borrow a phrase Mousethief has coined, understand the use of the Greek term in this context.
The argument runs that there are other examples of it being used that way in scripture and elsewhere.
Whether this is right or wrong it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that the early Christians understood it as we would as English-speakers but chose to ignore it.
I'm reminded of the Monty Python sketch where a bloke claims to have written all of Shakespeare's plays.
The interviewer says, 'But these plays are known to have been written and performed some 400 years before you were born ...'
To which he replies, 'This is where my claim falls to the ground. I was rather hoping you wouldn't ask me that but I can see you're more than a match for me!'
Are we seriously suggesting that the early Christians who compiled and canonised the NT and those who thrashed out and formulated the Creeds hadn't noticed the 'until' or chose to ignore it because they thought sex was icky?
Why didn't Luther or Calvin pick up on that in the 16th century?
Or the Wesleys in the 18th?
Now, I'm not saying that this is proof positive that the 'perpetualists' were correct but if it were as simple as "Oh look, there's an 'until' there, that rather undermines the whole thing ..." then why didn't anyone point that out centuries before?
The point I'm making of course is that it's not as if RCs and Orthodox are unaware of their history and how various beliefs were formalised over time. Although of course there are plenty of populist and unnuanced accounts and representations of that - often from people who really should know better.
Heck, I'm no expert but doesn't it occur to you that as a convert to a Big T Tradition from a Protestant evangelical sola scriptura type background I wouldn't have wrestled long and hard with all of this?
Sure, as you have very helpfully pointed out upthread, there are voices within Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy which take a similar line to the one you've articulated here.
But it's a bit if a stretch from that to imply that everyone else within those traditions are unaware of the history of their beliefs or arecaware but going, 'La la la la ... we're not listening.'
Heck, what became the Orthodox/orthodox position on the Trinity and what we would consider the traditional Creedal 'dogmatic core' of what became mainstream Christian belief wasn't fully thrashed out until the 4th century and even then rumbled on into subsequent centuries.
The canonisation of the NT didn't happen overnight either.
But you know all that.
It isn't as though the rest of us don't.
Of course, just because I've struggled and continue to struggle with Big T emphases that differ to some extent from the small t tradition emphases I imbibed in my Protestant days, doesn't in and of itself validate positions I now hold - or struggle to hold.
Wherever we are at on these things it's all work in progress.
@Lamb Chopped - yes, Mary and Joseph were real people and yes, it can be as prurient and disrespectful to speculate about their private lives just as it would be to speculate about what our neighbours get up to.
I always like the bit in the lists of Saints and archangels and so on that the priest recites at the end of the Liturgy where the 'ancestors of God Joachim and Anna' are name-checked.
I find it a delightful thought that our Lord had grandparents.
Oh ooo-ooh oh, where are they mentioned in the Bible?!
But whether they were called Joachim and Anna or not the Blessed Virgin Mary and Mother Of Our God had parents and they had parents and their parents has parents ...
Which, tangentially, is one of the issues I have with the RC view of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
How far back would we have to go if sin were some kind of sexually transmitted disease?
But I digress and may have done our RC brothers and sisters a disservice by caricaturing their position on that.
I would also fully accept that some of the details in the non-canonical Nativity stories are pretty 'out there' - such as the midwife's hand withering when she attempted to perform a virginity test.
Yikes!
At any rate this is meant to be a thread about what scriptural texts actually say and whether they say what we think they say, rather than an exposition on the Nativity stories at the expense of everything or anything else we might choose to focus on.
I would say this, of course, but if nothing else it demonstrates how we each approach these texts through the lens of our respective traditions and debate and discuss them in that context.
Yes. I’m a bit bothered about what we’ve done collectively to this thread. But from my POV one of the most engaging tangents of recent years. And as you say, very revealing of where we all come from. Quite ecumenical actually, despite the relatively limited scope of participants.
Sure. I'm not saying it's been a waste of time. I've learned a lot from this thread and appreciate the eirenic tone.
I'd like to see it continue and to broaden out to other areas beyond the Nativity stories, important as they undoubtedly are, whatever our 'take', to our understanding of the Creeds, the Incarnation and other monumental matters.
Would anyone like to suggest another topic or example of where we believe the Bible might be saying something different to what we might think it says.
There must be numerous examples.
Which is why we need Holy Tradition to help us interpret it properly so that everyone can agree with me ...
The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary has meaning only if one accepts the doctrine of 'original sin. As far as I know most Western churches accept this doctrine though they may understand different ideas with the words.
One would have to define also exactly what is meant by 'sin'.
If there is no original sin than we might be able to say that not only the Virgin Mary but indeed all of us had an 'immaculate conception' (whether or not our parents were possibly 'sinning' at the moment of our conception).
For what it is worth the Councils of Nicaea-Constantinople teach us that Jesus Christ is God from God,Light from Light,True God from True God,
begotten not made and born before the beginning of time.
This led the Council of Ephesus to declare a few decades later that Mary was indeed the Mother of God.
Greek Orthodox Christians often use the term 'Panaghia' to refer to the All Holy Mother of God. One might then ask how 'all holy' is the Mother of God ? Does that 'all holiness' go back to the moment of her conception
or does it come into being only later when the Archangel salutes her as 'full of grace' ?
Many Greeks will have the name Panagiota (fem.) or Panagiotis )masc) indicating that their name days will be those of Mary,the All Holy Mother of God.
Sure, my point was that the Orthodox have a different view of original - or ancestral - sin to the RCs and most 'Western' Christians.
I was using it as an example of differences between Churches which would each claim to have the right 'take' on Holy Tradition and the complications that creates quite apart from sola scriptura approaches. And there are a range of views within those too, of course.
I don't think we're ever going to get everything neatly battened down on every single issue but we can work towards convergence. I notice some RC catechetical material has a more 'Eastern' flavour in some respects.
The Orthodox are very Awkwardox and tend not to budge or give concessions. Sadly there's a pronounced anti-ecumenical tone emerging, particularly online, some of markedly toxic and unpleasant.
Anyhow ...
My aim wasn't to shift from a discussion about the Perpetual Virginity of Mary to one about her conception.
The question about her holiness tends to be addressed by references to the stories about her being a dedicated virgin in the Temple.
More extra-biblical to argue over!
I can't speak for all the Orthodox but my answer would be that it's not really the right question to ask as we don't tend to pin everything down to particular moments but to look at the whole, as it were.
In my evangelical days I'd quip that Mary's response of, 'Behold the hand-maid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word,' was effectively her 'conversion' or her faith-response in the way evangelicals might articulate it.
I was teasing of course but I think there's more than a modicum of truth in that - we all have to respond personally to the Gospel.
I'm not not so concerned about 'when' but that she 'was'.
The Orthodox belief is that Jesus or the Christ is both divine and human. He got all of his divinity from his Father, and all of his humanity from his mother. So if you want to go the tale-of-the-chromosomes route, his mother donated an X, and God supplied the Y.
If that's the Orthodox belief I don't think it's compatible with the assertion that Jesus is fully human nor is it compatible with our understanding of God. Jesus is not a human-divine hybrid.
God does not have divine chromosomes to supply - God can create chromosomes, but they would be human chromosomes. To be fully human Jesus needs a full set of human chromosomes (or at least within the range of viable chromosomal configurations).
But it strikes me that the Church fathers aren't coming at this from a modern conceptual scheme. For us, the salient thing about the virgin birth is the fact that Jesus doesn't have a human donor of paternal genes. But in the quote from Gregory earlier the salient point seems to be that Mary hadn't had sex - from Gregory's argument the Angel Gabriel could have turned up with a pot and a turkey baster and it would still have been a virgin birth.
It seems to me that the point the early theologians were getting at in saying Jesus gets his humanity from his mother is that he wasn't created from the clay like a second Adam.
I think you're splitting hairs, but I suppose you could say he got two X chromosomes from Mary but identified as a male.
Is it not more likely that after Aristotle they maybe believed that semen was the thing that caused conception?
If you believe that the "genetics" of a baby human comes only from the father's semen then replacing the human father with the deity would appear to solve the problem.
I mean to modern biology is it obviously wrong, but it might make more sense if that was the prevailing thought.
To them "goddidit" is all they needed. I thought we were trying to make it make actual, scientific sense, given our current level of knowledge.
I tend to think it's not really my business. I mean, we could leave Mary and Joseph some privacy, don't you think? They're real human beings. We could do them the courtesy of not constantly focusing on their private relationship. And if anybody thinks it's all right because it impacts God in some way, let God cope with it.
There are times I'm really glad my life isn't written up in the Bible, for all and sundry to speculate on everything. Bleargh!
That is one way to think of the "until". "She was a Virgo up until Jesus was born, and after that we will draw the veil and speak no more of her sexual activities. It's between her and Joseph."
The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary has meaning only if one accepts the doctrine of 'original sin. As far as I know most Western churches accept this doctrine though they may understand different ideas with the words.
One would have to define also exactly what is meant by 'sin'.
If there is no original sin than we might be able to say that not only the Virgin Mary but indeed all of us had an 'immaculate conception' (whether or not our parents were possibly 'sinning' at the moment of our conception).
For what it is worth the Councils of Nicaea-Constantinople teach us that Jesus Christ is God from God,Light from Light,True God from True God,
begotten not made and born before the beginning of time.
This led the Council of Ephesus to declare a few decades later that Mary was indeed the Mother of God.
Greek Orthodox Christians often use the term 'Panaghia' to refer to the All Holy Mother of God. One might then ask how 'all holy' is the Mother of God ? Does that 'all holiness' go back to the moment of her conception
or does it come into being only later when the Archangel salutes her as 'full of grace' ?
Many Greeks will have the name Panagiota (fem.) or Panagiotis )masc) indicating that their name days will be those of Mary,the All Holy Mother of God.
Were we talking about the immaculate conception? If so I missed it somehow.
As I noted earlier, my understanding from NT scholars I’ve heard or read is that the Greek preposition there is more ambiguous than the English “until.” Prepositions are weird things, and translating them isn’t always straightforward.
And yet the weird thing is that every English translation of Matthew I have come across uses " until" (or similar words). If there was ambiguity there, I would expect some translations to indicate this.
Yes, because “until” is the best English translation we have. But my understanding—again, happy to be corrected by people who actually know the Greek—is that the original Greek hēos does not imply, as the English “until” arguably does, that whatever is being described as not happening “until” Event X did happen after Event X. It simply means from the time of the announcement until Jesus was born they didn’t have sex. Hēos doesn’t imply anything about what happened after Jesus was born.
The phrase that comes to mind at the moment is "clutching at straws".
I would have to have a stake in a question like the perpetual virginity of Mary to need to clutch at straws. As I’ve already said, I’m agnostic on the issue, and it matters not a whit to my faith, nor does it matter to my faith whether James, Joseph, Judas and Simon were Jesus’s full brothers, half-brothers, step-brothers or cousins.
What I’m trying to do here, in the context of this thread, is deal with what the text actually says and doesn’t say, and separate that from assumptions we bring to the text or inferences we draw from the text. And that includes assumptions and inferences we make based on contemporary English translations when the text wasn’t written in contemporary English.
But you a) don't speak the language and b) don't live in the culture. So how are you going to separate your own "assumptions and inferences" from the text?
How does one do that when one studies any text, particularly a text from a different culture in a different language? Study and more study.
How are you able to study it if you don't know Greek?
By reading works—books, articles, lectures, etc.—written by scholars who do know the Greek, and the culture, and who, to the best of your ability to determine, are trustworthy and reliable.
So the whole point of starting this thread is to explore the fact that even if you are a legendary, expert scholar of ancient Greek, Aramaic, and/or Hebrew who knows the history, culture, etc. intimately, the words actually say and mean something specific. That's Ground Zero. One has to deal with that, and let it be exactly what it is, and go from there. But the there doesn't disappear.
If the claim that words actually say and mean something specific in the sense you're using were all there was to it, if it were that simple, then academic libraries wouldn't have shelves of books on hermeneutics, and literature courses would be a lot shorter.
To clarify. St John Chrystostom knew then what we know now. It was a miracle or Mary was lying. .
I have to insert myself again. I would not say Mary was lying. But I do not think the story came from her. She likely was gone by the time the writer of Matthew relayed the conception of the Virgin. I have already pointed out he probably drew from the Old Testament miraculous births in developing his Gospel. He draws very heavily from the OT throughout his Gospel.
One other point. The writer of Matthew did not write as if he were testifying in a modern court. "Nothing but the truth, the whole truth." The Gospel of Matthew is not courtroom testimony because it has no identifiable witness (it was not until the 2nd century Matthew's name was even attached to the Gospel), no cross‑examinable source, no firsthand reporting, and no legal accountability. It is a theological narrative shaped by Scripture, tradition, and community proclamation—not a deposition of observed events.
It's not a claim. It's language. Mary's perpetual virginity is a claim.
I just think it's interesting to operate under the ideas that the authors of the books of the Bible didn't really know what they were writing, and that the meaning of some words/phrases has been renegotiated to the point that different generations of Christians have ended up believing different things.
The writer of Matthew did not write as if he were testifying in a modern court. "Nothing but the truth, the whole truth."
I think that this is a very important point to remember - especially with Matthew's Gospel. It's not a biography. Nor does it try to be "historically accurate" in the sense that we know. It is clear that it is a theological/spiritual writing, trying to show Jewish readers how Jesus was/is the long-awaited Messiah. Time and time again we have the formula of "this was to fulfil the words of the prophet..." .
To be quite blunt, the writer wasn't claiming to tell us what actually happened - they were creating a narrative that proclaimed Jesus as Messiah. Those are two very different things.
The writer of Matthew did not write as if he were testifying in a modern court. "Nothing but the truth, the whole truth."
I think that this is a very important point to remember - especially with Matthew's Gospel. It's not a biography. Nor does it try to be "historically accurate" in the sense that we know. It is clear that it is a theological/spiritual writing, trying to show Jewish readers how Jesus was/is the long-awaited Messiah. Time and time again we have the formula of "this was to fulfil the words of the prophet..." .
To be quite blunt, the writer wasn't claiming to tell us what actually happened - they were creating a narrative that proclaimed Jesus as Messiah. Those are two very different things.
Is there a way to frame this that doesn't leave the Evangelist, whoever he was, sounding like a con artist?
Of course you’re right. The legendary addition is another option. I personally don’t think it’s plausible. The Incarnation is evidenced as early as Philippians 2 ( about AD 60), the Gospels with the birth narratives were written not long after and included early oral traditions, and Ignatious who believed in the virgin birth (Jerome’s evidence), lived in the first century. You’ve got the legends in complete form when there were folks alive who knew Jesus and Mary.
I’ve read the arguments of course but never found them all that plausible for dating reasons. And I don’t think Mary was a liar
Philippians 2 (should always provide a link when referring to another passage) quotes what is likely one of the first hymns testifying to the divinity of Christ, but it says noting about the incarnation. Simply that he became man. The how is not explained. Paul often quotes hymns.
Philippians 2 (should always provide a link when referring to another passage) quotes what is likely one of the first hymns testifying to the divinity of Christ, but it says noting about the incarnation. Simply that he became man. The how is not explained. Paul often quotes hymns.
Quite so. If all we had was Mark's Gospel, then Philippians 2 could easily be understood as referring not to the Incarnation but rather the baptism of Jesus.
Is there a way to frame this that doesn't leave the Evangelist, whoever he was, sounding like a con artist?
But it's only a "con artist" if you assume that he made up a lie and presented it as a fact. As soon as you see that this is not about "facts" but "truth" the whole question of "conning" people disappears. The writer is honestly trying to get the reader to understand the real truth of Jesus.
As I noted earlier, my understanding from NT scholars I’ve heard or read is that the Greek preposition there is more ambiguous than the English “until.” Prepositions are weird things, and translating them isn’t always straightforward.
And yet the weird thing is that every English translation of Matthew I have come across uses " until" (or similar words). If there was ambiguity there, I would expect some translations to indicate this.
Yes, because “until” is the best English translation we have. But my understanding—again, happy to be corrected by people who actually know the Greek—is that the original Greek hēos does not imply, as the English “until” arguably does, that whatever is being described as not happening “until” Event X did happen after Event X. It simply means from the time of the announcement until Jesus was born they didn’t have sex. Hēos doesn’t imply anything about what happened after Jesus was born.
The phrase that comes to mind at the moment is "clutching at straws".
I would have to have a stake in a question like the perpetual virginity of Mary to need to clutch at straws. As I’ve already said, I’m agnostic on the issue, and it matters not a whit to my faith, nor does it matter to my faith whether James, Joseph, Judas and Simon were Jesus’s full brothers, half-brothers, step-brothers or cousins.
What I’m trying to do here, in the context of this thread, is deal with what the text actually says and doesn’t say, and separate that from assumptions we bring to the text or inferences we draw from the text. And that includes assumptions and inferences we make based on contemporary English translations when the text wasn’t written in contemporary English.
But you a) don't speak the language and b) don't live in the culture. So how are you going to separate your own "assumptions and inferences" from the text?
How does one do that when one studies any text, particularly a text from a different culture in a different language? Study and more study.
How are you able to study it if you don't know Greek?
By reading works—books, articles, lectures, etc.—written by scholars who do know the Greek, and the culture, and who, to the best of your ability to determine, are trustworthy and reliable.
So the whole point of starting this thread is to explore the fact that even if you are a legendary, expert scholar of ancient Greek, Aramaic, and/or Hebrew who knows the history, culture, etc. intimately, the words actually say and mean something specific. That's Ground Zero. One has to deal with that, and let it be exactly what it is, and go from there. But the there doesn't disappear.
But the viewpoint or the lens through which the texts are read do change.
“Who being in very nature God …. formed in human likeness”.
I think we probably agree that Paul asserts that God somehow became Man. I call that the Incarnation. What the Councils and the Creeds demonstrate was the authorised theology of the Incarnation.
So we may be using Incarnation in different ways.
If indeed it was an early and well known hymn, that dates the belief that God became Man to the 50s AD at the latest. I agree the hymn doesn’t say how.
So we have evidence of a belief in the Divine and human nature of Jesus been sung about less than a quarter of a century after Jesus’ death. Now that’s a belief in a great miracle. At a time when there were followers of Jesus who had met Jesus and possibly his mother. Probably not living in Philippi but I don’t think anyone argues that the hymn originated in Philippi.
I think we’ll be very largely in agreement about that as well.
Which brings us to belief in the virgin birth.
I’m asserting that we have evidence of that belief around the same time as belief in the early understanding of the Incarnation.
I think you are asserting that the virgin birth stories arose to answer the “yes but how” of God becoming Man.
And what I find difficult about that is that those legendary additions to the good news narratives must therefore have emerged while there were folk alive who knew Jesus, very possibly Mary, and knew at least something of what happened.
Yes I appreciate there is more going on here. But do you see my difficulty?
As I noted earlier, my understanding from NT scholars I’ve heard or read is that the Greek preposition there is more ambiguous than the English “until.” Prepositions are weird things, and translating them isn’t always straightforward.
And yet the weird thing is that every English translation of Matthew I have come across uses " until" (or similar words). If there was ambiguity there, I would expect some translations to indicate this.
Yes, because “until” is the best English translation we have. But my understanding—again, happy to be corrected by people who actually know the Greek—is that the original Greek hēos does not imply, as the English “until” arguably does, that whatever is being described as not happening “until” Event X did happen after Event X. It simply means from the time of the announcement until Jesus was born they didn’t have sex. Hēos doesn’t imply anything about what happened after Jesus was born.
The phrase that comes to mind at the moment is "clutching at straws".
I would have to have a stake in a question like the perpetual virginity of Mary to need to clutch at straws. As I’ve already said, I’m agnostic on the issue, and it matters not a whit to my faith, nor does it matter to my faith whether James, Joseph, Judas and Simon were Jesus’s full brothers, half-brothers, step-brothers or cousins.
What I’m trying to do here, in the context of this thread, is deal with what the text actually says and doesn’t say, and separate that from assumptions we bring to the text or inferences we draw from the text. And that includes assumptions and inferences we make based on contemporary English translations when the text wasn’t written in contemporary English.
But you a) don't speak the language and b) don't live in the culture. So how are you going to separate your own "assumptions and inferences" from the text?
How does one do that when one studies any text, particularly a text from a different culture in a different language? Study and more study.
How are you able to study it if you don't know Greek?
By reading works—books, articles, lectures, etc.—written by scholars who do know the Greek, and the culture, and who, to the best of your ability to determine, are trustworthy and reliable.
So the whole point of starting this thread is to explore the fact that even if you are a legendary, expert scholar of ancient Greek, Aramaic, and/or Hebrew who knows the history, culture, etc. intimately, the words actually say and mean something specific. That's Ground Zero. One has to deal with that, and let it be exactly what it is, and go from there. But the there doesn't disappear.
But the viewpoint or the lens through which the texts are read do change.
Which is why I said "...different generations of Christians have ended up believing different things." So is it important what people believe, or to what degree?
Comments
This sentence is one that the perpetualists (to coin a phrase) have to explain or explain away. There are arguments that can be made, but their respective levels of convincingness are (of course) subjective.
How are you able to study it if you don't know Greek? I'm not trying to be clever but you've made some claims here without pointing to where you got them from and then said some thing about reading the text. Which by definition you cannot do if you don't read Greek.
Ok so who are they?
Is it not more likely that after Aristotle they maybe believed that semen was the thing that caused conception?
If you believe that the "genetics" of a baby human comes only from the father's semen then replacing the human father with the deity would appear to solve the problem.
I mean to modern biology is it obviously wrong, but it might make more sense if that was the prevailing thought.
Which is why I’ve tried to be careful to say in this thread that I’m working from memory and that I welcome correction from those who do know the Greek—we have such people on the Ship.
I don't believe your assertion is any more persuasive or well-grounded that the STEM supremacists' assertion would be.
Is it?
The "seed" is the semen, the womb is where it gestates, sustained by the blood from the mother.
As the human develops, it is enriched first by the blood and then by the milk, any impurities in the mother are passed to the baby.
I am not seeing that there is a contradiction.
Modern genetics would appear to be more of a problem given that gametes come from both mother and father to the "fully God, fully human" formula.
The argument runs that there are other examples of it being used that way in scripture and elsewhere.
Whether this is right or wrong it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that the early Christians understood it as we would as English-speakers but chose to ignore it.
I'm reminded of the Monty Python sketch where a bloke claims to have written all of Shakespeare's plays.
The interviewer says, 'But these plays are known to have been written and performed some 400 years before you were born ...'
To which he replies, 'This is where my claim falls to the ground. I was rather hoping you wouldn't ask me that but I can see you're more than a match for me!'
Are we seriously suggesting that the early Christians who compiled and canonised the NT and those who thrashed out and formulated the Creeds hadn't noticed the 'until' or chose to ignore it because they thought sex was icky?
Why didn't Luther or Calvin pick up on that in the 16th century?
Or the Wesleys in the 18th?
Now, I'm not saying that this is proof positive that the 'perpetualists' were correct but if it were as simple as "Oh look, there's an 'until' there, that rather undermines the whole thing ..." then why didn't anyone point that out centuries before?
The Fathers weren't stupid.
Just a cursory overview of the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary. It did not clearly appear until the late 2nd century. It was expanded on by major theologians in the 3rd through 5th century. It did not become full dogma until the seventh century.
The Protoevangelium of James which appeared around 150 CE is the first written source of the teaching In the 3rd through 4rth century we have Origen, Athanasius, Ambrose, John Chrysotrom indicating they believed in it. Jerome in the late 4rth century defended it in his Against Hevidius. By the late 300s the title Aeiparthenos (Ever Virgin) became common in Christian Liturgy. By the time of Augustine the doctrine was widely assumed in both the Eastern and Western Church. However, it is the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (553) that gives Mary the official title of Aeiparthenos
Yes, it has a strong argument within Tradition. Scriptures, not so much. Matthew says Mary was a virgin at conception and Joseph did not lay with her until Jesus was born. Luke 2:7 says Mary gave birth to her first born son. The Greek word prototokos literally means the one who opens the womb.
But, like I said, previously, if you believe in the Perpetual Virginity of the mother of Jesus/God, go right ahead. Just know its history.
Patronise us, why don't you?
So I’m definitely inclined to believe that the perpetual virginity belief goes back earlier than you say.
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3007.htm
You are right, I should say the earliest written source we have at this time. Can't say it goes back any further in written form, but I would agree the oral tradition of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary does go back further.
There are times I'm really glad my life isn't written up in the Bible, for all and sundry to speculate on everything. Bleargh!
Rocky Horror mixed with Godspell?
I can make no sense of this question. When I think of something as true, I mean really true, not merely perceived as true whether or not it really is.
As for Mary’s perpetual virginity, and therefore whether Jesus’ brothers are her biological offspring or not, I don’t know. My own understanding does not require me to go one way or the other on it. But I believe that the RC and EO (and other) understandings should be given their due weight rather than dismissed out of hand from a sola scriptura position or something in that direction, or from a “modern” approach to the Scriptures.
Amen.
The point I'm making of course is that it's not as if RCs and Orthodox are unaware of their history and how various beliefs were formalised over time. Although of course there are plenty of populist and unnuanced accounts and representations of that - often from people who really should know better.
Heck, I'm no expert but doesn't it occur to you that as a convert to a Big T Tradition from a Protestant evangelical sola scriptura type background I wouldn't have wrestled long and hard with all of this?
Sure, as you have very helpfully pointed out upthread, there are voices within Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy which take a similar line to the one you've articulated here.
But it's a bit if a stretch from that to imply that everyone else within those traditions are unaware of the history of their beliefs or arecaware but going, 'La la la la ... we're not listening.'
Heck, what became the Orthodox/orthodox position on the Trinity and what we would consider the traditional Creedal 'dogmatic core' of what became mainstream Christian belief wasn't fully thrashed out until the 4th century and even then rumbled on into subsequent centuries.
The canonisation of the NT didn't happen overnight either.
But you know all that.
It isn't as though the rest of us don't.
Of course, just because I've struggled and continue to struggle with Big T emphases that differ to some extent from the small t tradition emphases I imbibed in my Protestant days, doesn't in and of itself validate positions I now hold - or struggle to hold.
Wherever we are at on these things it's all work in progress.
@Lamb Chopped - yes, Mary and Joseph were real people and yes, it can be as prurient and disrespectful to speculate about their private lives just as it would be to speculate about what our neighbours get up to.
I always like the bit in the lists of Saints and archangels and so on that the priest recites at the end of the Liturgy where the 'ancestors of God Joachim and Anna' are name-checked.
I find it a delightful thought that our Lord had grandparents.
Oh ooo-ooh oh, where are they mentioned in the Bible?!
But whether they were called Joachim and Anna or not the Blessed Virgin Mary and Mother Of Our God had parents and they had parents and their parents has parents ...
Which, tangentially, is one of the issues I have with the RC view of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
How far back would we have to go if sin were some kind of sexually transmitted disease?
But I digress and may have done our RC brothers and sisters a disservice by caricaturing their position on that.
I would also fully accept that some of the details in the non-canonical Nativity stories are pretty 'out there' - such as the midwife's hand withering when she attempted to perform a virginity test.
Yikes!
At any rate this is meant to be a thread about what scriptural texts actually say and whether they say what we think they say, rather than an exposition on the Nativity stories at the expense of everything or anything else we might choose to focus on.
I would say this, of course, but if nothing else it demonstrates how we each approach these texts through the lens of our respective traditions and debate and discuss them in that context.
I'd like to see it continue and to broaden out to other areas beyond the Nativity stories, important as they undoubtedly are, whatever our 'take', to our understanding of the Creeds, the Incarnation and other monumental matters.
Would anyone like to suggest another topic or example of where we believe the Bible might be saying something different to what we might think it says.
There must be numerous examples.
Which is why we need Holy Tradition to help us interpret it properly so that everyone can agree with me ...
On your serious point I’ll give that some thought.
(That letter from Jerome was fascinating in its combination of both reason and personal confrontation. Shows how much this mattered at the time.)
Perhaps how the bible has changing perspectives on a subject.
E.g. Eunuchs in Torah, Isaiah, Acts.
'You have heard what it was said ... but I say to you ...'
It's not as if that's news to any of us.
We have the Living Word as well as 'God's word written' - and dare I say it, a living Tradition.
Not that God is the Bible nor that God is Tradition or Tradition is God.
One would have to define also exactly what is meant by 'sin'.
If there is no original sin than we might be able to say that not only the Virgin Mary but indeed all of us had an 'immaculate conception' (whether or not our parents were possibly 'sinning' at the moment of our conception).
For what it is worth the Councils of Nicaea-Constantinople teach us that Jesus Christ is God from God,Light from Light,True God from True God,
begotten not made and born before the beginning of time.
This led the Council of Ephesus to declare a few decades later that Mary was indeed the Mother of God.
Greek Orthodox Christians often use the term 'Panaghia' to refer to the All Holy Mother of God. One might then ask how 'all holy' is the Mother of God ? Does that 'all holiness' go back to the moment of her conception
or does it come into being only later when the Archangel salutes her as 'full of grace' ?
Many Greeks will have the name Panagiota (fem.) or Panagiotis )masc) indicating that their name days will be those of Mary,the All Holy Mother of God.
I was using it as an example of differences between Churches which would each claim to have the right 'take' on Holy Tradition and the complications that creates quite apart from sola scriptura approaches. And there are a range of views within those too, of course.
I don't think we're ever going to get everything neatly battened down on every single issue but we can work towards convergence. I notice some RC catechetical material has a more 'Eastern' flavour in some respects.
The Orthodox are very Awkwardox and tend not to budge or give concessions. Sadly there's a pronounced anti-ecumenical tone emerging, particularly online, some of markedly toxic and unpleasant.
Anyhow ...
My aim wasn't to shift from a discussion about the Perpetual Virginity of Mary to one about her conception.
The question about her holiness tends to be addressed by references to the stories about her being a dedicated virgin in the Temple.
More extra-biblical to argue over!
I can't speak for all the Orthodox but my answer would be that it's not really the right question to ask as we don't tend to pin everything down to particular moments but to look at the whole, as it were.
In my evangelical days I'd quip that Mary's response of, 'Behold the hand-maid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word,' was effectively her 'conversion' or her faith-response in the way evangelicals might articulate it.
I was teasing of course but I think there's more than a modicum of truth in that - we all have to respond personally to the Gospel.
I'm not not so concerned about 'when' but that she 'was'.
To them "goddidit" is all they needed. I thought we were trying to make it make actual, scientific sense, given our current level of knowledge.
That is one way to think of the "until". "She was a Virgo up until Jesus was born, and after that we will draw the veil and speak no more of her sexual activities. It's between her and Joseph."
Were we talking about the immaculate conception? If so I missed it somehow.
Pay attention! 😉
I won't say, 'Wisdom! Let us attend!' because I'm not a deacon nor can my musings here be compared with Holy Writ.
TBTG for that.
I don’t think we can do any better on that one than St John Chrysostom - see earlier quote.
I’m not sure our much greater scientific understanding than his does anything to change those alternatives.
So the whole point of starting this thread is to explore the fact that even if you are a legendary, expert scholar of ancient Greek, Aramaic, and/or Hebrew who knows the history, culture, etc. intimately, the words actually say and mean something specific. That's Ground Zero. One has to deal with that, and let it be exactly what it is, and go from there. But the there doesn't disappear.
I have to insert myself again. I would not say Mary was lying. But I do not think the story came from her. She likely was gone by the time the writer of Matthew relayed the conception of the Virgin. I have already pointed out he probably drew from the Old Testament miraculous births in developing his Gospel. He draws very heavily from the OT throughout his Gospel.
One other point. The writer of Matthew did not write as if he were testifying in a modern court. "Nothing but the truth, the whole truth." The Gospel of Matthew is not courtroom testimony because it has no identifiable witness (it was not until the 2nd century Matthew's name was even attached to the Gospel), no cross‑examinable source, no firsthand reporting, and no legal accountability. It is a theological narrative shaped by Scripture, tradition, and community proclamation—not a deposition of observed events.
I just think it's interesting to operate under the ideas that the authors of the books of the Bible didn't really know what they were writing, and that the meaning of some words/phrases has been renegotiated to the point that different generations of Christians have ended up believing different things.
I think that this is a very important point to remember - especially with Matthew's Gospel. It's not a biography. Nor does it try to be "historically accurate" in the sense that we know. It is clear that it is a theological/spiritual writing, trying to show Jewish readers how Jesus was/is the long-awaited Messiah. Time and time again we have the formula of "this was to fulfil the words of the prophet..." .
To be quite blunt, the writer wasn't claiming to tell us what actually happened - they were creating a narrative that proclaimed Jesus as Messiah. Those are two very different things.
Is there a way to frame this that doesn't leave the Evangelist, whoever he was, sounding like a con artist?
Of course you’re right. The legendary addition is another option. I personally don’t think it’s plausible. The Incarnation is evidenced as early as Philippians 2 ( about AD 60), the Gospels with the birth narratives were written not long after and included early oral traditions, and Ignatious who believed in the virgin birth (Jerome’s evidence), lived in the first century. You’ve got the legends in complete form when there were folks alive who knew Jesus and Mary.
I’ve read the arguments of course but never found them all that plausible for dating reasons. And I don’t think Mary was a liar
Quite so. If all we had was Mark's Gospel, then Philippians 2 could easily be understood as referring not to the Incarnation but rather the baptism of Jesus.
But it's only a "con artist" if you assume that he made up a lie and presented it as a fact. As soon as you see that this is not about "facts" but "truth" the whole question of "conning" people disappears. The writer is honestly trying to get the reader to understand the real truth of Jesus.
But the viewpoint or the lens through which the texts are read do change.
I think we probably agree that Paul asserts that God somehow became Man. I call that the Incarnation. What the Councils and the Creeds demonstrate was the authorised theology of the Incarnation.
So we may be using Incarnation in different ways.
If indeed it was an early and well known hymn, that dates the belief that God became Man to the 50s AD at the latest. I agree the hymn doesn’t say how.
So we have evidence of a belief in the Divine and human nature of Jesus been sung about less than a quarter of a century after Jesus’ death. Now that’s a belief in a great miracle. At a time when there were followers of Jesus who had met Jesus and possibly his mother. Probably not living in Philippi but I don’t think anyone argues that the hymn originated in Philippi.
I think we’ll be very largely in agreement about that as well.
Which brings us to belief in the virgin birth.
I’m asserting that we have evidence of that belief around the same time as belief in the early understanding of the Incarnation.
I think you are asserting that the virgin birth stories arose to answer the “yes but how” of God becoming Man.
And what I find difficult about that is that those legendary additions to the good news narratives must therefore have emerged while there were folk alive who knew Jesus, very possibly Mary, and knew at least something of what happened.
Yes I appreciate there is more going on here. But do you see my difficulty?
Which is why I said "...different generations of Christians have ended up believing different things." So is it important what people believe, or to what degree?