I actually agree with you, but the problem is that too many Christians, especially those who are very religious in a fundamental way, see two of these aspects as completely linked together.
It’s clear that the Idea of Jesus being conceived the normal way is distasteful for them, to put it mildly. I even had religion teacher claiming that Mary remained virgin for her entire life.
Again agree, but we’re talking 1st century Israel here. Did that knowledge exist back then?
We either accept it was the usual way or that God or an archangel put it there. Did they somehow magic it out of thin air or…(best not to spell it out). Would impregnation by holy spirit break laws of nature?
How would that happen? Are you suggesting artificial insemination?
I don’t think so. I think we are talking about an extremely unlikely (i.e. miraculous) exception to the so called “toilet seat” rule. All it takes is a sperm making its way in there alive, and although very very unlikely, it is actually conceivable… of which artificial insemination is a demonstration.
Only as an act of God. …by what Dale would call providential timing. At least, I think that is one of the possibilities, which are many. The main point is that this really isn’t in conflict with science.
Let’s consult the Muslims, okay? Why?
Because–as some around here have assured me–“they worship the same God.” One thing’s for certain, they’ll know the difference between “the Incarnation” and “the Conception” of Jesus. There’s no way they’ll accept the Incarnation; but, given the divine status of the Qur’an, there’s also no way the devout ones will question what the Qur’an says about Jesus’ conception. So what does the Qur’an tell us about Jesus’ conception?
[3:45-47] When the angels said, “O Mary, truly God gives thee glad tidings of a Word from Him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, high honored in this world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought nigh. He will speak to people in the cradle and in maturity, and will be among the righteous.” She said, “My Lord, how shall I have a child while no human being has touched me?” He said, “Thus does God create whatsoever He will.” When He decrees a thing, He only says to it, “Be!” and it is."
That’s pretty much what Christians that Mohammad came into contact with believed about Jesus’ conception:
that it took place in Mary’s womb,
that there was no sex or male semen involved, and
that God simply said “Be”! and the conception was done.
You can’t get any simpler than that. Trying to explain Jesus’ conception in the womb without sex or semen requires “fancy dancing”. To avoid the dancing, one either accepts the simple story, or one doesn’t. I can’t dance that well, and–given what the “science of genetics” tells me about what a gamete requires in order to become a zygote–my back’s against the wall as long as I stick to the story that the Qur’an tells. Consulting Jews on the matter is “a no-go”, so that’s not an option either.
Just had a look to see what Wikipedia has to say about SRY. Apparently it’s not that straightforward. The operative word is “normally”: SRY can end up on the X chromosome instead.
Ultimately, however Jesus’s conception came about, whether He had SRY and on which chromosome and how, the Virgin Birth has always been regarded as a miracle, something that did not occur naturally. In fact if His conception had come about through purely natural factors, how would we be able to call Him the Son of God?
But I don’t have a problem with that. We don’t have a sample of Jesus’s blood to run laboratory analyses on. We don’t have to fudge or cherry-pick measurements, and we don’t have to misrepresent or straw man scientific procedures. All we have is speculation about what the measurements might have been. That is the big difference between the Virgin Birth and radiometric dating.
What I’m incredulous about is that you think the God who created all and decided to drastically intervene with his own presence in the form of his Son, demonstrate a multiplicity of suspension of ordinary laws of nature (with higher laws) including the resurrection of the dead… You’re ok with that.
I’m incredulous that you think that suddenly God is stuck. God is unwilling. God needs to fit inside your mind and follow the set of limitations that you think exist and says, ‘Well,’ says God. ‘I can’t possibly do that. He’s right.’
It seems like the simplest of things. Especially since the NT writers considered his birth, death and resurrection the beginning of a new creation. Universe from nothing he can do - but not virgin birth to begin a new creation? “It is therefore inaccurate to define a miracle as something that breaks the laws of Nature. It doesn’t. … If God creates a miraculous spermatozoon in the body of a virgin, it does not proceed to break any laws. The laws at once take it over. Nature is ready. Pregnancy follows, according to all the normal laws, and nine months later a child is born. … The divine art of miracle is not an art of suspending the pattern. … And they are sure that all reality must be interrelated and consistent. I agree with them. But I think they have mistaken a partial system within reality, namely Nature, for the whole. That being so, the miracle and the previous history of Nature may be interlocked after all but not in the way the Naturalists expected: rather in a much more roundabout fashion. The great complex event called Nature, and the new particular event introduced into it by the miracle, are related by their common origin in God, and doubtless, if we knew enough, most intricately related in his purpose and design, so that a Nature which had had a different history, and therefore been a different Nature, would have been invaded by different miracles or by none at all. In that way the miracles and the previous course of Nature are as well interlocked as any other two realities, but you must go back as far as their common Creator to find the interlocking. You will not find it within Nature. … The rightful demand that all reality should be consistent and systematic does not therefore exclude miracles: but it has a very valuable contribution to make to our conception of them. It reminds us that miracles, if they occur, must, like all events, be revelations of that total harmony of all that exists. Nothing arbitrary, nothing simply “stuck on” and left unreconciled with the texture of total reality, can be admitted. By definition, miracles must of course interrupt the usual course of Nature; but if they are real they must, in the very act of so doing, assert all the more the unity and self-consistency of total reality at some deeper level. … In calling them miracles we do not mean that they are contradictions or outrages; we mean that, left to her [Nature] own resources, she could never produce them.” CS Lewis
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
37
Your incredulity tells me that there’s 0% chance of reconciling our differences.
A. Good for you that you think “it” seems like the simplest of things. But really? the “NT writers”?
Neither Mark nor Paul–describing the Gospel that he received in 1 Corinthians 15–mention Jesus’ miraculous conception.
B. As for your “Universe from nothing he can do”… sorry, I don’t buy that creatio ex nihilo stuff, so that’s just another irreconcilable difference between us.
It’s time, I think, for a clear, thorough, and unbiased view of the process of fertilization: If the operative word is–as you say"normally"–where was the SRY before it “ended up on the X chromosome”: floating around in Mary’s body somewhere?
On that, I’d like to believe, we agree. Small comfort to any Christian, except perhaps those who still believe that devout Muslims and Christians worship “the same God”, but the Qur’an–which Muslims insist was Allah’s revelation via the Arcangel Gabriel to Mohammed–also affirms Jesus’ miraculous conception in the exchange between Maryam and Gabriel, where she asked "My Lord, how shall I have a child while no human being has touched me?” and Gabriel answered: “Thus does God create whatsoever He will. When He decrees a thing, He only says to it, ‘Be!’ and it is.”
You may (or may not) want to reconsider the necessity of “a miraculous conception” after reading Wisdom 2:12-18
Wis 2:12 Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education.
Wis 2:13 He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord.
Wis 2:14 He was made to reprove our thoughts.
Wis 2:15 He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men’s, his ways are of another fashion.
Wis 2:16 We are esteemed of him as counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father.
Wis 2:17 Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.
Wis 2:18 For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.
If you believe that Wisdom 2:18 only applies to a male who has been conceived in a female womb miraculously, we’re done … here and anywhere else in Biologos.
Apparently, my English–which is my second language–is fading now that I’m in my 70s. I left the impression that my “prediction”, in the third sentence of my OP, is the only outrageous thing I’ve said in this thread. Now that we can all agree there’s no cherry-picking of measurements or misrepresentation or straw man scientific procedures, my prediction will forever be false. Neat! Biologos, the Young Earth Creationists, and–for that matter–devout Muslims are that much closer to Ecumenical unity.
Terry…I do like the comments you have gotten from Christy and Dale. For my money, the whole enterprise (that is, the “miraculous conception”) was something un-repeatable – which science, I think, requires from the perspective of a lab tech. And it is “un-repeatable” because God (yeah, that Guy!) decided to do something a certain way.
For once, we just have to go with what is…and (to quote the title of an old song) “let it be.”
Great! I’m sure they’ll be glad someone did, even though I didn’t. Be sure and “like” the comments, or even tell 'em so.
I think I have–to paraphrase Ed Sullivan–a “really big” newsflash for ya: I’m the one who–so far–is fairly certain that my Lord and my God’s fully human nature was non-miraculous. And non-miraculous conceptions are repeatable and have been since God decided it would be neat if we humans could reproduce and save Him the effort of creating each and every human one of us “ex nihilo”.
So all you’re telling me is that you don’t know how God managed to turn a human gamete into a zygote in Mary’s womb and that that deed is “un-repeatable”. Thanks for the public confession, but just between you and me: telling me that you liked other folks’ comments kinda makes your confession a bit “redundant”.
You see, here’s your problem, not mine. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you believe in a non-repeatable event, so it seems to me that it would be kind of silly … wait! …“R-E-A-L-L-Y Silly” to expect me to make your case for you, but contrary to claims otherwise, I’m a R-E-A-L-L-Y nice guy and I think there’s a way to sneak around the “untestableness” and “unrepeatableness” of your position. What say? Are ya’ game for it? [@SkovandOfMitaze ; Sorry, just had to get Skov’s attention and see what he has to say about my idea. So, @SkovandOfMitaze here’s an idea for you. Whaddya think about it?]
I’d like to think that we’re all willing to play nice in this thread’s sandbox, and nobody’s going to throw sand in another player’s face as long as nobody breaks the rules and cheats or fouls another player.
Goal of the Game: To do the next best thing to an above-board, public, scientific lab test of-sorts to make a case for Jesus’ abiogenetic conception in his mother’s womb. How? Stay tuned …
P.S.
Uhhh, … your “we” don’t include me, so obviously: you’re not singing to me.
Well, thanks, I think…“Really big shoeeeee” is how I think Ed Sullivan said it…
And yes, I did “like” those other comments. It is something I do.
As for the "above-board, scientific lab test-of-sorts to make a case for Jesus’ abiogenetic conception in his mother’s womb. "…*huh???
I actually don’t think we could exactly replicate that sort of an event…
For one thing, it was likely meant to be un-repeatable …It was apparently performed by the Creator of the Universe who is, by definition, in a class by Himself.
I tried looking for one of the articles you cited at the top of all this, but got this:
published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal rese…
…Well, that gives me confidence! so I did not read further…
You and I probably have seen the biblical references often enough. What sort of garage or basement experiment are you thinking of performing in order to prove or replicate this?
Brown said the description in Matthew 1 was “creative rather than sexual” and the Holy Spirit was not some sort of “male element” so I am not sure where this gets you with your own thoughts.
And yes, I know that Ignatius of Antioch in 107 C.E./A.D. was the first to use cite the virgin birth —but the LXX (which was done two and a half centuries before Ignatius wrote – used the word “parthenos” in the Isaiah quote which supposedly means specifically “virgin” – so Brown said. All of which means that the idea was around in some form.
.
Bear with me while I give my proposed “lab test” a creative twist.
Above, I posted these two links to two short Youtube videos; each less than 10 minutes long. [Links re-posted here.]
Give the second video, i.e. “Fertilzation”, six minutes of your time and give me a plausible version that differs from what the video shows, although the “test” is actually unrepeatable in real life using real gametes; but your version is kosher enough to get by a couple of bonafide, reputable bio-geneticists’ review, and you may make a believer out of me yet…
How remarkably odd. Took me a moment figure out which article you were referring to, but when I did, the link to it that I posted took me to it straightaway without any unnerving link to the stuff you got. So. I’m going to re-post here the link to the article that I originally directed readers’ attention to, which is on my screen. Then I’m going to post this message, go back to it, and see if I can get to the article again, without problems.
In my not-so-humble opinion, the whole “was Mary a parthenos or an alma” conflict grew out of a desire to make Jesus as “God-given” as the Jews believed the Torah was. And make no mistake about it, many-if-not all 1st century Jews believed the Torah was given straight from Yahweh to Moses, somewhat in the same manner that devout Muslims believe the Qur’an was given by Allah to Mohammed.
In my research, carried out in another forum, on The Proto-Evangelium of James [cf. Infancy Gospel of James, I was led by my curiosity to the Talmudic discussion of The Fall in the Garden of Eden, which concluded with this:
Shabbat 145b-146a:
Rabbi Yoḥanan then explained to them: Why are gentiles ethically contaminated? It is because they did not stand on Mount Sinai. As when the snake came upon Eve, i.e., when it seduced her to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, it infected her with moral contamination, and this contamination remained in all human beings. When the Jewish people stood at Mount Sinai, their contamination ceased, whereas gentiles did not stand at Mount Sinai, and their contamination never ceased. Rav Aḥa, the son of Rava, said to Rav Ashi: What about converts? How do you explain the cessation of their moral contamination? Rav Ashi said to him: Even though they themselves were not at Mount Sinai, their guardian angels were present, as it is written: “It is not with you alone that I make this covenant and this oath, but with he that stands here with us today before the Lord our God, and with he that is not here with us today” (Deuteronomy 29:13–14), and this includes converts.
If the gift of the Torah at Sinai removed all Jews’ “Original Sin”,
Then, logically, Jesus’ was conceived and born free of it; i.e. he was conceived and born sinless.
But to transfer his sinlessness to non-Jews, he had to be more than born sinless, he had to have “merit”, i.e. “an abundance and storage of righteousness” from which his righteousness, dispensed to his followers, cleansed Jews and non-Jews alike from their inherited sin AND sins accumulated after birth.
To be abundantly clear,
I affirm that Jesus was conceived and born free of Original Sin;
I affirm that Jesus’ so lived during his brief life as a human on earth that he was “blameless” before his Father;
I affirm that Jesus’ merit, i.e. his righteousness, was sufficient to cleanse all that believe in and on him,
And I affirm with Peter, that: "there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” [Acts 4:12]
In other words, there was no need for Jesus to be conceived miraculously in his mother’s womb.
Except, of course, that He was…
Nice that you are interested in so many aspects of things.
When I was a school bus driver, I listened to many intriguing debates/arguments from 5 and 6 year olds…all of which made sense from the minds and hearts of people who had not yet been on the other side of town, crossed the street by themselves, or quite gotten their multiplication tables straight…
…but were sure they knew.
We must look to God like that sometimes…and if so, He must also at times find us amusing.
I have the feeling that Someone Who could come up with the Big Bang – was also capable of a virgin birth… I’m not going to get into the “deets” of something like this…As for the Proto-Evangelium of James, which is very late-dated,…
see below from brill.com…
Indeed, there continues to be a strong scholarly consensus that the story originated in Greek in the second century. Based on manuscript witnesses, consisting of Greek papyri as well as manuscript fragments of Coptic (Sahidic) and Syriac versions, the first phase of textual development of the Protoevangelium of James is to be located between the third century and the middle of the fifth century.11
The second phase of the textual development extends from the fifth century to about 900. This phase, as de Strycker has shown, is supported by the evidence of the Georgian, the Armenian, and the Latin versions, alongside further Greek papyri and the reworking of the text in Latin, for instance in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew .12 The bulk of the Greek evidence is available in manuscripts dating from 900 onwards; at least 117 witnesses testify to the wide diffusion of the Protoevangelium of James in the liturgy and in the ascetic milieu of the
So say you and the multitudes, throughout Christendom and orthodox Islam. But I’m not impressed or swayed by the numbers.
Cute story, … and a clever way to insult someone, even if you weren’t intending to.
Of one thing I am absolutely certain: that the woman sitting near me and watching TV, and the dog near her, while I type this message, are my wife and my dog in this world and not somebody else’s. Of anything else and how long in the coming days, I am not as certain.
I suppose if I “believed” (a) in the Big Bang and (b) that Someone “came up” with it, I’d be inclined to believe in (c) the possibility of a virgin birth, too. But I don’t.
Far be it from me to try to persuade you otherwise.
As for the Proto-Evangelium of James, forget it. I mentioned it only because things written in it evoked my curiosity which led me to other things. Beyond a small portion of the version that I encountered, I’m not motivated to think about it any more.
Moreover, I’ve posted in this thread what I was moved to post; and now that I have, there’s really nothing to say.
The IGF2 gene provides instructions for making a protein called insulin-like growth factor 2. This protein plays an essential role in growth and development before birth. Studies suggest that insulin-like growth factor 2 promotes the growth and division (proliferation) of cells in many different tissues. Although the IGF2 gene is highly active during fetal development, it is much less active after birth.
People inherit one copy of most genes from their mother and one copy from their father. Both copies are typically active, or “turned on,” in cells. However, the activity of the IGF2 gene depends on which parent it was inherited from. Only the copy inherited from a person’s father (the paternally inherited copy) is active; the copy inherited from the mother (the maternally inherited copy) is not active. This parent-specific difference in gene activation is caused by a phenomenon called genomic imprinting.
One thing’s for certain, they’ll know the difference between “the Incarnation” and “the Conception” of Jesus. There’s no way they’ll accept the Incarnation; but, given the divine status of the Qur’an, there’s also no way the devout ones will question what the Qur’an says about Jesus’ conception. So what does the Qur’an tell us about Jesus’ conception?