probably not and as you might note from my comment I am a bit of an odball. Don’t take notice of my spelling as it’s atrocious at the best of times. Lutheran is the denomination I was baptised into but that does not stop me from going to any church.
i have to admit that I always struggled with the concept of the trinity as God being triune as it does not make God any more coherent. I can experience God in both Jesus and in the holy spirit and the action of the latter helps me to come to terms with the other two and help me to go beyond comprehension.
That Jesus was not conceived from Joseph is undeniable from the story. But why would he have to be conceived by unnatural means? Would it make Jesus more special? Unless we think of those "primitive goat herders as completely naive, how would you react if your doughter came along today and would tell you that she was pregnant following a dream in which she had seen an angel appearing to her telling her she would be pregnant with a very special child? How much would her boyfriend need to love her in order to decide to still marry her and raise that child as if it was their own? Particularly if it would have happened in the midst of a military conflict like in former Yougoslavia? If you read the story about that child later on saying that the mother and the father were visited by an angel telling them that the child she carried was created by the will of God that by loving this neighbour of yours like thyself, e.g. following his commandment it would save the world, would you think it had come to exist by someone waving a magic wand over the girl or would you say that they took the cup and drank from it?
The acceptance of Jesus into the line of David through Joseph accepting him as his son is the symbolism of me being accepted into the kingdom of God by the love of the father for me. And that can be to anyone - even those who are conceived in the most adverse circumstances if they are truly loved. If you experience that selfless love on your own your life has been opened to a dimension beyond what is visible to the eye.
I would have thought it would be very clear that I believe that Jesus turned wine into water. To me the divinity of Jesus does not depend on the performance of material miracles as they don’t impress me much, quite the opposite. To apply the water for ritual cleansing orally is to me far more impressive than any make believe miracle as making people accept God’s reality is a miracle that is worthy of following. If you came out of this wedding having drunk the cleanest water having heard the master of ceremony to compliment the groom for his honesty not to cut the wine and to pretend to have a material wealth he did not have but to serve the most valuable wine in the end and you had a glass of water in front of you you will remember this wedding for the rest of your life and realize that the marriage of this couple was blessed by something different than material riches and that you should have felt ashamed to think that having enough wine was important. He was clearly annoyed about being called upon to fulfill the material expectations of the guests - including his mum. His time not yet having come,e.g. not being able to address the crowd with authority he very cunningly used the authority of the master of ceremony to teach everyone a lesson. Clearly jesus could do more than changing matter, he could change minds
You have expressed concern about the Virgin Birth and I think there should be a concern as to how some theologians have read too much into this event.
As you may know there is a problem with the original prophesy which became the Messianic Prophecy of the Virgin Birth.
The prophecy comes from Isaiah, who was counseling Ahaz the king of Judah. Ahaz was afraid that the kings of Israel and Syria would attack Judah. To prevent this he was seeking support from the Assyria. However in this case the sure (Assyria) was worse then the problem (Israel and Syria.)
YHWH told Ahaz through Isaiah not to be afraid of the kings of Israel and Syria because their days are numbered and to tr5ust in YHWH not Assyria. Ahaz refused to trust in YHWH and to receive the sign YHWH offered as a sign of good faith…
Isaiah 7:10-17 (NIV2011)
10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz,
11 “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”
12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.”
13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also?
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: A young woman (or a virgin) will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
15 He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right,
16 for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.
17 The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.”
The word in the original Hebrew for young woman is usually translated that way. However this world in the Greek Septuagint is translated by a word that can only mean virgin. The Messianic Prophecy found in the NT is taken from the Greek Septuagint OT. However please note that the prophecy of Isaiah has nothing to do about a virgin bearing a child or the Messiah, but about the timeframe in which YHWH will act to bring Assyria against Judah because of refusal of Ahaz to trust in YHWH.
Thus this seems to be an accide3ntal prophecy. Still since the Jews believed it was true, it found its way into the NT. Was Jesus the Messiah because He was born of a Virgin? Isaiah does not indicate this is true. Was Jesus born of a Virgin because He is the Messiah? Again that is questionable.
I would say that one should be very reluctant to make any theological conclusions based on the Virgin Birth, which should be called the Virgin Conception, because there no evidence that I can see for the Perpetual Virginity of Mary that the Roman Church teaches.
A quick interjection on what seems one of your central tenets - that God is fundamentally a God of logic.
In pre-enlightenment times (and that includes the time when the New Testament was written), the concept of reason (logos) as the foundation of the universe - and a fundamental aspect of God’s essence, therefore - was firmly established. But “reason” (intellectus in philosophical Latin) was carefully distinguished from, and elevated above, “logic” (ratio ).
The former was the insight that perceives truth globally and simply - total understanding of all aspects of a thing. The latter, inferior, reasoning was the connecting together of such insights by logical steps to deduce some conclusion. See C S Lewis’s The Discarded Image (which you can find free online). God and angels knows by “intellectus”, but mankind, in his inferiority, only sometimes knows that way, and usually has to plod along joining the dots by logic, only being able to aspire, some day, to know as God knows - in Pauline terms, “to know as I am known”.
My point is that to insist that God is logical, and to judge the Bible or Creation entirely on that basis, is to insist that God be in the image of a concept that is restricted to our small corner of the world and a mere three centuries or so. Why should God conform to such a concept, any more than he’d stand as a Republican candidate?
Thanks for your comment. To me the virgin is an innocent young woman and it is clear that she is innocent. The conception to be against what commonly happens cannot be excluded, e.g. I can’t prove that it happened by chance as neo-darwinists claim life came into being in the first place thus devaluing a virgin birth or explaining it based on gender duality observed in some fish - and quite possible to happen more often in human future with our concept of gender fluidity turning humans into hermaphrodites.
To understand what it means that he was conceived without sin one needs to understand the concept of sin first and in that respect the understanding of Jesus is quite essential.
What we should ask ourselves is what would happen if the conception of Jesus would have taken place as I conclude? Should it make me throw Jesus out of my heart because he loses his “supernatural” appeal? Does he live there because of what he did or because of some kind of magic I attribute to his existence. Why would I need him to perform miracles to have faith in him, e.g. the truth he proclaimed. Do I need him to be materially special or spiritually to be special. If my interpretation of the story is true to others the consequences are far more fundamental than we can begin to imagine on our way to free ourself from materialistic/naturlistic/physical thinking - however you would say that and understand that love thy neighbour is the essential duty, not to believe in material miracles.
It can well be that Mary remained a virgin with regards to Joseph because of his fear of becoming unclean by having sex with her and when the bible talks about his brother they would not have to be born of Mary.
Interpretation of the bible is a tricky thing as we all struggle with the “logos” e.g. the coherent uttering
I have lengthy rows over prayers with people on youtube explaining that prayers don’t work. I try to explain that it is not for us to pray to God as if he was Santa’s big brother and to fulfill our wishes for reality - if they would fit in with his plans - let alone to preposterously put “and this I ask in the name of Jesus” or even “for Jesus sake” on the end of the prayer to send it first class for faster processing instead of praying like Jesus has done if we want to pray in his name. He never asked God to spare him but told us to pray “thy will be done”. When reminded that he did, as he asked God to take this cup away from him I looked at the bible translations in more detail. Low and behold found an explanation of the meaning of this phrase that is coherent with the context that makes up Jesus for me, never waivering. Translating the meaning of passing the cup gives an explanation based on language used and the passover rites. Still I do not agree with the author thinking of Jesus of a sacpegoat for our sin, but that’s a subject for another thread altogether.
thanks for your comment. I look as God as the ultimate reason who subjected creation to be logic. If he did not pur reality under the law of logic, who-else did?
Now for God to make a law, e.g. logic, that would not be good enough to bind himself would make him automatically not omnipotent as he cannot control himself. There are plenty of that type around on earth but they tend not to be omnipotent, let alone very God like
