Sorry for the multiple posts. I foolishly tried to click the stop button on my browser so I could add one last sentence.:smack:
I am not a Biblical Scholar (IANABS), but I have read a lot of ancient history and theology. My take:
1: What age was Mary when pregnant? What about Joseph?
Traditionally, Mary was an adolescent. Jewish girls were usually betrothed shortly after their first menses and married a year or so later, so this would make her 12-15. In some accounts, Joseph had grown sons by a previous spouse at the time of the Nativity, so by this he probably would have been in his 30s-40s.
2: Who was the actual physical father of Jesus? Joseph? Product of Roman rape? God?
The Roman rape (“bar Pantera”) story (which I’m mentioning for the second time in a dispatch today- odd) was almost certainly started by Jews wishing to discredit nascent Christianity. It is more interesting that Jesus was referred to in some of the gospels as “the son of Mary”, though, instead of “the son of Joseph”, his true Hebrew patronymic. He was also referred to as “the son of Man” of course, but I suppose this was symbolic.
I’ve always wondered about the origins of “bar Abbas”, which means “son of a father”. Did this imply illegitimacy, or was it a 1st century Hebrew version of ‘John Doe’, or what exactly? (In one thesis I once read ‘bar Abbas’ and Jesus are the same person, but I won’t get into that.)
There is a joke in biology that the H. in Jesus H. Christ stands for “haploid”, incidentally (the scientific name for an organism with only one set of chromosomes).
2: Where did the birth of Jesus take place?
In which city - Nazareth, or actually in Bethlehem? Was Bethlehem chosen only to provide a link to David?
There are many scholars who believe Nazareth didn’t even exist in the first century and that placing Jesus there was a mistranslation of Nazarite/Nezer. (For brevity’s sake I won’t expound, but if you’re interested “google” the following words: Nazareth, nezer, Nazarite.)
Bethlehem is believed by most secular scholars to have been doctored to fit where the Messiah was supposed to have been born. (In the book I CLAUDIUS, Herod Agrippa’s belief he is the messiah is based on his own birth in Bethlehem.) The notion of having to return to the city of your distant ancestors for a census would have been as odd to first century Jews as it is to 21st century Americans.
3: Did the family really run to Egypt to avoid the death of Jesus at Herods hand? Or did Matthew use this to link the child to the story of Moses?
Egypt certainly would have been the logical place to go for anybody running from Herod (and he was, for all his efficiency, a terrifying man who sent many fleeing from his borders- while the Massacre of the Innocents isn’t recorded he did wipe out the entire Hasmonean dynasty including his own favorite wife and their sons, and one of his last acts was to order the death of another of his sons). Egypt was close (a freeway constructed by the Romans cut migration time from forty-years of wandering to a few days boat and donkey travel) and had a huge Jewish community (possibly larger than the Jewish community in Israel, just as today there are more Jews in the U.S. than in Israel).
4: Is Mary considered a ‘perpetual’ virgin, irregardless of her having had a reported 6 other children? Or is she considered only a virgin prior to the initial conception of Jesus?
To Catholics it is perpetual. One Pope in the first Millennium (I can’t remember who but will find a cite if asked) actually decreed that her hymen remained intact during childbirth.
5: Was Jesus neglecting his family duties (especially to his Mother) whilst leading his radical campaign against the orthodoxy?
Well, if you believe the divine inspiration theory his first duty was to his father, plus he had brothers and sisters to care for her. Then, on the cross, one of his last acts was to arrange for her care by his most trusted Apostle.
6: Is Mary considered sinless? Is she thus just as important a part of the story as Jesus is? Is she easier to relate to, from a human perspective?
No idea. I can only attest that she never did me any harm.
7: Did Mary watch the crucifixion, as recorded, or not? Could a mother really endure this sight?
“Son, behold thy mother” would imply so. Also, somebody took a snap-sculpture of her holding the body.
8: When dead, did Marys remains fail to decompose and then rise to heaven by God’s will? What was the basis for this story?
Well, they were sort of married in a way, and you really wouldn’t want your wife to smell like “dead woman”, would you?
I would assume that Mary was no older than my age (almsot 16) because people married younger then due to the short lifespan.
One thing that bothers me is how Jesus’s body was determined. Genetically, it takes a set of DNA from both parents. However, I wouldn’t think that God would have human DNA. He might be able to determine what the baby would be like non-physically, but where would the other half of the physical genes come from? What seems to make the most sense to me (and all you major Christians out there, please don’t get mad about this- it’s simply a thought) is that Mary wasn’t actually a virgin and that that was just an exaggeration in the story. Perhaps Jesus did have a worldly father. Maybe God just gave this baby extra powers and a special soul.
There are no truly verifiable answers to these questions but here are some of the best historical guesses.
1.) Most women were married at about twelve or thirteen years of age. That doesn’t mean Mary was necessarily, but it is likely she was a teen-ager.
2.) Probably Joseph, since Jesus’ alleged Davidic lineage was traced through Joseph, and the whole virgin birth thing was a fairly late tradition.
3.) It is extremely unlikely that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. This is another late tradition and was almost certainly invented by Matthew as an attempt to associate Jesus with David. There is no evidence of any worldwide census being conducted under Augustus, and Rome would not have required people to return to the towns of their birth in any case. Cecil has addressed this subject quite thoroughly.
The master speaks.
There is no evidence whatever to support the story of Herod and the slaughter of the innocents. There is certainly no Jewish record of this, and there would have been only two or three babies in Bethlehem anyway, not the thousands suggested by Matthew. Accordingly, there would have been no reason for Jesus’ family to flee to Egypt. This entire episode was invented by Matthew to show Jesus as an analog to Moses.
4.) The perpetual virginity of Mary is a purely Catholic tradition, not a biblical one. There are several references to various brothers and sisters of Jesus in the New Testament and no indication that they are anything but natural siblings.
5.) Mark 3:21 seems to indicate that Jesus’ family thought he was crazy. There are also a couple of other verses in which Jesus refuses to speak to his family:
Matthew 12:36-39, Luke 8:19-21
If Jesus was indeed the oldest son in his family, and his father was dead, then he would have been violating cultural expectations by abandoning his family.
6.) The Bible doesn’t explicitly say that Mary was sinless. Jesus makes no exception for his mother when he says “No one is good except for God.” The immaculate conception is not Biblical. Having said all that, however, she was probably no worse than any other Jewish mother. 
7.) The gospels say she was at the crucifixion, but the passion narratives are some of the most historically unreliable aspects of the gospels. They were written long after the fact by people who did not witness the crucifixion. John Crossan says that Jesus’ followers probably all fled Jerusalem after Jesus’ arrest, and as a result, much of the passion story in the NT was fabricated or extropolated from OT “prophesies” by later Christian writers who really knew little or nothing about the historical details. Still, I don’t think it’s impossible that a mother would have stayed with her son in such a circumstance, and the Romans probably would have had no objection to her being there. she would not have been perceived as a threat.
8.) The Bible says nothing about Mary’s death, but Catholic tradition says that she ascended to heaven after she died. The belief in the assumption of Mary is derived from the writings of Epiphinius.
About the DNA from God issue, I think an appropriate answer would be the same as when I, the atheist, asked a nun who was in my college Latin class whether I, as an identical twin, had a soul. “Of course, silly. . . God’s not an accountant! He’s more complicated than that.”
That depends on whether “irregardless” is a real word or not.
diogenes, i have to take issue with a few things that you said. 1) Matthew doesn’t suggest that thousands were slaughtered. 2) you say “almost certainly” and “extremely unlikely” when you should (come on! you know you should!) say “it may be possible”. that will never do. 3) there is nothing to contraindicate Jesus’ birth in bethlehem. what on earth do people think? we have a plausible argument, unsupported by the Bible, so the Bible is a lie? 4) on the census issue a)just because the romans didn’t require travel for romans, doesn’t mean that the romans/herod/tax collectors jewish authorities didn’t require it of the jews. b)the sdstaff didn’t dispose of the issue. they addressed it. but, at the very beginning of the answer the staff said that they couldn’t answer the first two questions. 5)the family fleeing to egypt was not precipitated by the slaughter of the innocents. it was preceded by the angel’s warning. you also said that this was invented by matthew. Now, now! you know better than that!
at any rate, i can’t comment further on other OP questions…i’m working now…no, correct that, i’m AT work now, and i would have to take extra time to check the greek (and then find something with which to translate it!).
Diogenes, just a nitpick, but the virgin birth is probably a fairly early tradition. It isn’t in Mark (the earliest Gospel according to most scholars), true. But Luke and Matthew had picked up different versions of it from independant sources by the late first century. Given the significant differences btw. Matthew’s and Luke’s infancy narratives (and the fact that both mention the virgin birth), I’d guess that it is pretty early, and almost certainly predates Mark.
You’re right that it doesn’t say “thousands”. I guess I was thinking about popular depictions of a mass slaughter.
Basically, yeah, the Bible is a lie. There was no census of the world, and even if there had been, it would have been utterly absurd to require Jews to return to there place of birth. It would have served no useful purpose to the Romans and it would have created completely unnecessary chaos. The star of Bethlehem and the coming of the magi are obvious fictions and are taken from pre-Christian pagan traditions. The accounts of Herod slaughtering babies in Bethlehem, as well as the exile in Egypt do not exist anywhere outside of Matthew. They are clearly an attempt by Matthew to portray Jesus as a new Moses, and to make Jesus fit what Matthew (incorrectly) perceived to be a prophesy of the Messiah.
Compare:
Hosea 11:1
"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
Matthew 2:15
where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
This kind of (rather reaching) extropolation from OT “prophesies” is typical of Matthew. The birth in Bethlehem was seen as a necessary credential for a Messiah because it was the birthplace of David. Jesus is not associated with Bethlehem anywhere else except for Matthew and Luke (who got it from Matthew). The fact that the rest of Matthew’s nativity narrative is a demonstrably mythologized account rather than a literal historical one pretty much deals a deathblow to the credibility of a genuine birth in Bethlehem.
This is rather specious. The angel warned joseph that Herodc was out to kill Jesus.
Matthew 2:13
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
Which particular Greek passage are you interested in? I have a Greek NT right here, as well a giant Greek Lexicon.
Matthew is the earliest reference to the virgin birth (c. 65 C.E.). It is not referenced at all (as you said) in Mark, nor does Paul seems to show any awareness of such a tradition. Luke got it from Matthew. There is no evidence at all for a pre-Markan tradition of the Christian virgin birth, but virgin births, in general, were commonplace in ancient religious traditions.
You are perhaps unfamiliar with the Jewish land-inheritance system that was in place up to the destruction of the second Temple. It was forbidden for ownership of land to move between the tribes. A clear example of this is found in the OT, where a question is raised about a father who leaves only daughters to inherit his land (Numbers 36:6-12). Moses commands that they must marry men from the same tribe, so that the ownership does not pass outside. Furthermore, one of the main functions of the Jubilee year was to restore the balance of lands that may have been leased outside of the tribal structure. It is therefore not entirely impossible that a census (which afterall was intended to formalise taxation based on land holdings) could require the return of people to their ancestral lands.
Having said that, I am not in any way trying to support the concept that the arguments raised in this thread are sustainable. For a primary point, the whole idea of “virgin birth” is quite clearly a misconception on the part of the non-Jewish founders of the early Church, who were relying on translations of translations of the original OT texts, trying to make the point that Jesus was the expected Hebrew Messiah. Thus, the prophesy in Isiah (7:14) “A young maid will conceive …” was mistakenly rendered as “a VIRGIN will conceive…”. This was a very simple mistake, but instead of admitting it, it has led to the most convoluted and IMO ridiculous attempts to justify it all, creating a whole sub-religion of Mary’s immaculate conception, life-long virginity even after giving birth, non-sexual relationship with her husband, DNA miracles for the son etc. etc.
Except that Paul, whose writings precede Mark by a decade or so, is also unaware of this tradition. He also appears to be unaware that he was converted on the Road to Damascus by a blinding vision from Heaven.
More likely both Matthew and Luke got it from Quelle, the theoretical Q-Document.
Q is only a sayings gospel. It does not include any narratives.