I do worry though, if Jesus wasn’t born in Bethlehem, how could he have been the Messiah?
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Hey Randy! I’ve been very busy with school that ive forgotten about it a bit. I’m going to get back on track.
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It is true that not all the details in the nativity stories are on the same historical footing as the rest of the NT. HOWEVER they are still inspired theological truth. You can’t read Scripture as a series of AP newswires. (And the charge that the virgin birth story was made up by Mary is just ridiculous.) There’s was a really good article by historian Jon Meacham on the nativity narratives that was appeared in Newsweek.
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I know its ridiculous but thats what my former religion teacher believed.
I thought you’d find this quote by Jon Meacham helpful:
A man with no human father, a king who died a criminal’s death, a God who assures us of everlasting life in a world to come while the world he made is consumed by war and strife: Christianity is a religion of perplexing contradictions. To live an examined faith believers have to acknowledge those complexities and engage them, however frustrating it may be. “We are in a world of mystery, with one bright Light before us, sufficient for our proceeding forward through all difficulties,” wrote John Henry Newman, the great Victorian cleric whose intellectual journey led him from the Anglican priesthood to the Roman Curia. “Take away this Light and we are utterly wretched–we know not where we are, how we are sustained, what will become of us, and of all that is dear to us, what we are to believe, and why we are in being.”
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The issue for me is the definition of the word miracles:
- Something which violates the laws of nature.
- An unexpected or unlikely but happy event that causes people to feel the presence of the divine.
I certainly believe in miracles because I use the second definition. But if you insist on the first definition then I don’t believe in such miracles, because I don’t believe in an inconsistent irrational God who makes laws and then breaks them. The God I believe in is not like the whimsical members of the Roman pantheon. If He makes things like the laws of nature then He does so for a good reason. I think the very existence of life depends on the laws of nature and God’s faithful adherence to these limitations.
I certainly don’t believe God breaks the laws of nature for the lame reason of impressing a few people and supporting their ideas of magic and the hope of manipulating God. Furthermore, I think it is absurd to think that God would even need to do such a thing. Humans have shown over and over and over that they can impress and amaze people without superpowers and without breaking the laws of nature – including all of the miracles in the Bible. Walking on water – it has been done. Virgin birth – we know how to do that one. Bringing people back to life – we do that one all the time, though it has caused us to change our definition of death to exclude those we can resuscitate by restarting their heart and getting them to breathe again. Of course this doesn’t mean we can explain everything for we see medical miracles all the time where we just don’t know for sure how the person has recovered – but this doesn’t mean the laws of nature were broken.
Nor does this mean that God doesn’t interact with the world – I am no Deist. This is no longer required because the physical determinism of the 1800s and before is dead due to quantum physics. We can now prove that events occur where there are no hidden physical variables to determine what happens. In fact this is one reason in the list of reasons I often give for believing in God. While the majority of scientists experience considerable cognitive dissonance over this result of quantum physics which seems to contradict the very premises of scientific inquiry itself, for me it makes sense if God needed a back door through which He could interact with the universe without breaking the laws of nature.
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An interesting claim.
Yep, I do think Jesus did the miracles. The answer your teacher gave really is a form of kookery, and is not new at all. Scholars around the turn of the 20th century tried to rationalize the NT by making up some context where natural events lead to the development of every miracle claim, but that was rejected by real historians once the explanations just became so contrived.
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I believe that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit when God became flesh, not by parthenogenesis in a lab. That’s my opinion.
As for being brought back to life, that gets complicated. The brain can live but a short time without oxygen. After Jesus died, his body was laid in a tomb. People understood what being dead meant. The Romans were good at killing people. Jesus wasn’t magically transported thousands of years in the future to receive treatment by trauma physicians at New York Presbyterian Hospital, patched up, then dropped off at home (looking glorious). There’s a reason why attempts to revive people don’t go on for long periods of time.
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Do you even know what parthenogenesis means? This is a terrible strawman. Parthenogenesis can only produce a female. This has absolutely NOTHING do do with with the discussion, for I don’t think we know how to do that with humans, if it is even possible at all. I said we know how to do a virgin birth and parthenogenesis is not it. It is called artificial insemination which basically means fertilization without sexual intercourse. So, what does your “conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit” actually mean? Well you can go with parthenogenesis again for a “female” (probably needs to be a diploid ovum for it to even work), artificial insemination can get you a male born to a virgin, or sex with the Holy Spirit which can get you the male fetus but then Mary wouldn’t be a virgin anymore, would she?
Perhaps the more interesting question is, where did the set of male chromosomes come from?
And neither did Jesus go on with his life as if nothing had happened for that is pretty much what people do when the are treated at a hospital. Instead it is pretty clear that His particpation in the world as a human being is over. People have trouble recognizing HIm, He appears in a room without opening the door, then He disappears from the world without a trace. This tells us that the laws of nature don’t mean anything to Him anymore. He is of another world then… a life giving spirit and a man of heaven according to Paul.
It is certainly not my intention to claim that a resurrection to a spiritual body is something that we can and have done – not at all! No I was speaking more of the Lazarus variety of returning someone to life.
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In animals, parthenogenesis means development of an embryo from an unfertilized egg cell.
For Christians, the virgin birth means the virginal conception of Jesus. It puzzled and frightened Mary when she heard the angel Gabriel’s message. It has puzzled Christians down through the ages. But we don’t laugh in scorn and blow it off.
I believe he is still 100% man and 100% God. He still participates in the world, especially in the Eucharist.
But often he is recognizable. He can be touched. He teaches. He eats fish. He invites his disciples to touch him and see his wounds.
On the walk to Emmaus he was not recognized by his disciples. But when they arrived and sat down to eat, he broke bread and they recognized him. That is why we say during the Eucharist, “Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.”
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And since the egg cell has only female chromosomes it cannot produce a male. In the case of humans, I doubt that a haploid egg cell can produce a fetus at all.
Yes fertilization without sexual intercourse, exactly. We call it artificial insemination now. Can’t blame Mary for being frightened. She knows what everyone is likely to think and the punishment in Jewish law was death by stoning. Yes it has puzzled Christians, and atheists like to point the finger and say this is impossible and unscientific. But now we know there is nothing opposed to science in this at all. A baby only requires fertilization, NOT sexual intercourse. This doesn’t mean it isn’t a miracle. They certainly didn’t have any fertilization clinics back then.
But like I said, possibly in an edit after your first reading, the more interesting question is, where did the set of male chromosomes come from?
Do people cease to be 100% human after they die? I don’t think so.
You are ignoring the phrase “as a human being.” That is not how human beings participate in the world.
Indeed! Spirit is more capable and powerful not less. God is spirit! So Jesus can do all of these things, but He doesn’t have to. The limitations of the laws of nature do not apply anymore.
But of course it is only capable and powerful if it is a living spirit or even life giving spirit, not the dead things and shadows we call ghosts.
The first question should be, is the virginal conception of Jesus is a miracle? Exactly what does that mean? Were natural laws broken or not? The answer to that question will lead to the answers you are looking for.
I believe an embryo was implanted and Mary was simply a surrogate mother. She was chosen for the care she would provide to Jesus as he grew. Jesus was said to grow in wisdom and his mother and father would have been a part of that.
And I addressed all these questions already.
This doesn’t alter the question you quoted in the slightest. But I do not believe this. I see no support for this in the Bible – quite the opposite. The Bible gives not only one genealogy for Jesus but two – making sure that we understand that as Jesus is 100% human and genetically descended from the Israelite people. But more importantly I see no theological merit in the idea. Human beings are already a creation of God. There is no need for a substitute. And I find the whole idea of redemption by genetic alteration to be horrific and distasteful in the extreme catering to racism. Our problem is spiritual, not genetic. Thus I go in the complete opposite direction to completely refute the idea that our humanity is found in either genetics or biology.
I think we need to take into consideration that the concept of miracle = superseding natural law is not a biblical concept. Doesn’t it come from Hume?
In the Bible, miracles are just signs. The virgin giving birth was a sign people were looking for in identifying their Messiah. The blind seeing and the lame walking were signs that validated Jesus’ Messianic authority and mission. The feeding of the five thousand was a sign that triggered all sorts of frames about Moses and the Israelites getting manna in the desert. The casting out of demons was a sign the Jesus held all spiritual authority. I don’t think anyone back then was focused on whether or not these things violated natural law. There was no binary natural/supernatural divide in their worldview.They were looking for certain signals and those signals had powerful meaning. I think we understand the Bible better when he ask ourselves “what kind of sign was this miracle” instead of “did this miracle involve something supernatural or was there a natural explanation.” Just like with Genesis, you have to ask the questions the text is answering, not the ones you are most curious about if you want to get to the truth. The text is answering questions about who Jesus is and how we know he is the Messiah, and why he deserves worship and obedience.
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At the time those genealogies were written woman made no contribution to the children they carried. They were only a fertile place where the seed planted by a male could grow. In fact the genealogies make clear Jesus did not have a Israelite father.
As Christy said the questions you are asking, such as where did the male DNA come from, are not answered in Holy Writ. They might be interesting or practical questions but we are not going to get a definitive answer.
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Your argument is logically incoherent. If a woman made no contribution then the genealogies mean Jesus must have an Israelite father.
The Bible does not address the question directly, but those two genealogies strongly suggest an Israelite father and mother. This is a case where the only evidence points in a single direction.
You can believe in magic, golems and other things from fairy tales if you really want to. Or you can believe in genetics, evolution and other things from science if you want to. I certainly choose the latter.
But to get back to the main issue here… there is no reason why you have to choose between science and miracles. You can believe in a God who is rational and consistent, sticking with the laws of nature which He created while impressing people with miracles nevertheless because they are not a violation of those laws He created. Just because there is a scientific explanation doesn’t mean that it isn’t a miracle or that God is not involved, because science has demonstrated that the laws of nature are not causally closed.
You know… the only difference here I can see is that my explanation requires a God who is knowledgeable and clever in getting things done. I don’t know… these days it seems that people don’t like people in authority who are too clever… so maybe they also prefer a God who is more like them – a God they can understand. …Let me clarify that no implication on the intelligence of people is intended. I actually do not believe in the usual IQ measures which make such distinctions between people. Frankly I think everybody is intelligent in the areas they choose to apply themselves. I may be smart in math and science but I am rather a dunce in other areas. So what I am really talking about here is anti-intellectualism, which is not about measuring the value of people, but frankly about making your own personal choices in life the measure of everybody and everything.
I never said anyone ceased to be 100% human after death. Don’t know where that came from.
We don’t know where Christ’s Y chromosome came from. The even more interesting question is why you think he would have a "set of male chromosomes, " unless he had a genetic disease.
It’s one of the ways Jesus participates in the world. In accordance with his command I joined millions of Christians today and received the body and blood of Christ.
Oh, the irony.
I also believe Jesus is still 100% man and 100% God, and that He still participates in the world, especially in the Eucharist. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Jesus does not still participate in the world as living human beings do confined to the laws of nature, because we do not cease to be 100% human after we die.
But the only evidence we have are the genealogies given in the Bible which point only in one direction, that the His Y chromosome came from an Israelite. People who are 100% human have one set of chromosomes from a human mother and one set of chromosomes from a human father… EVEN those with a genetic disease. And do you think Jesus having a genetic disease would be a problem?
Being inside the bread and wine of the Eucharist is not a way in which human beings participate in the world. Or are you altering Jesus words to say… “I am the bread of life and you are bread of life and everyone is the bread of life.” Perhaps some people would go for that kind of thing but I never heard such a thing was a traditional Christian teaching.
Nonsense. We don’t have to choose between miracles and science, between Christianity and science, between spiritual and science, or between the Bible and science, precisely because miracles, Christianity, spiritual and the Bible do not have to be about magic, golems, and contradictions with natural law.
This is a question of whether your Christianity is all about excluding and demonizing science and scientists for which there is no rational reason whatsoever.