http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_223.html
Cecil said that there has been one instance of virgin birth, which I assume was the Blessed Virgin Mary…but I remember hearing about a Civil War soldier who was shot in the testicle. The bullet then continued on its way until it hit a virgin girl in the uterus. Nine months later she had a baby.
Besides being without a doubt a big whopper of a tale, it wouldn’t exactly be a virgin birth in the sense that virgin birth is meant in the Bible. Today, we can artificially inseminate a virgin with the semen of any male donor, but the biblical virgin birth was without any male seed at all.
Just how many definition of virginal are there?
The story has been debunked by snopes
Indeed…by that definition, couldn’t any virginal sarrogate mother count aswell?
Not that it sounds terribly likely. But I remember seeing ads for that stuff all over college, and I don’t recall ever hearing about sex as a prerequisite.
Okay, so at the risk of sounding thick-headed, is His Cecilocity referring to the Jesus myth, or some other “pretty well publicized” case that I’ve somehow missed?
~Wolfrick
How many people actually believe there was a virgin birth? There are women today having sex and not having the education or inteligence to know that it correlates with getting pregnant. So, can we be so sure Mary was a virgin? Did someone actually check or is this just a word of mouth thing? And this whole story seems oddly familiar to a Greek Myth I once read about.
Well, crap. Next I guess you’ll be telling me there’s no Tooth Fairy?
Ask me how many people believe Jesus rose from the dead, I know the answer to that one, too.
Beliefs based on the new testament, which was written ages after the fact. The books attached to the original bible, as if the old testament wasn’t good enough. Stories that have been handed down from person to person through the generations, in fact become twisted, embelished and sway from the original fact. Given the true facts of how a woman becomes pregnant. It’s truly hard for me to believe such virgin birth happened.
I’m not saying 2 billion are wrong, I’m merely stating my view.
Also, Vast numbers doesn’t make a statement correct, remember there was a time when everyone believed the world was flat.
Elyzabeth hie thee to a library and check out Stephen Jay Gould’s book Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History. Read there his essay “Late Birth of a Flat Earth”. It may prove enlightening to you vis-a-vis “there was a time when everyone believed the world was flat.”
Just a suggestion.
But yes, if a large number of a people identify themselves as adherents of a particular religion, then we can safely assume that most of them believe in that religion’s basic tenets. The issue of Virgin Birth is not some esoteric minor point in Christianity that is disputed between denominations, as, for example, the exact nature of the Trinity is. Compare three early versions of the Apostle’s Creed (the basic statement of Christian belief):
Remarkably similar to the creed recited every Sunday by millions literally around the world. For a Christian, this is basic belief.
You, as a 21st-century educated young woman from a technological society, obviously do not share this belief. In fact, you believe that such a thing is impossible. That does not change anyone else’s belief. Nor does it give you a superior position to look down on that belief. If you were to poll those same people on whether they thought that there could be a Virgin Birth today, you might get very different answers. But the particulars of Christ’s conception are firmly settled.
(Full disclosure: I am a very lapsed Catholic who now tends towards agnosticism.)
Thank you for the reference material, I’ll have a look at it, paperbackwriter.
I never meant to seem superior or look down on anyone’s beliefs. I was once a christian, having many of my questions of the good book, stifled. I was only adding some information and view to the topic at hand. I was a christian yet never believed of the virgin birth, it didn’t make me any less of a christian. My faith was and still is in God.
If one were to have a true virgin birth, the fetus therefrom would presumably have only 23 of its required 46 chromosomes, so I would imagine it would be hideously deformed. I always thought that they just said it was a virgin birth because they didn’t want Mary to have had sex.
Hey, this is God we’re talking about. If He can create the entire Universe from nothing, then surely he can do the same for a little handful of chromosones to make a normal baby. It’s kind of illogical to demand that a miracle follow the known laws of science.
And Elyzabeth, it’s very probable that billions of people believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. This does not, of course, imply that that the Virgin Birth actually occured: That would be a question for our Great Debates forum, not here. In any event, Cecil was making the reference as a joke, and he doesn’t necessarily believe it, either, but he figured his readers would know what he’s talking about.
the fact that it was a virgin birth is more important then they didn’t want marry to have had sex. It is important because it fullfills the prophecy of isaiah (7:14) which says “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” incase your wondering Immanuel or Emmanuel (same word) means God with us
Where did you get that definition of a “true virgin birth”? Analysis of the bible is a matter of the current interpretation of the translation of the re-telling of the person’s perception of events at the time of recording, which was a couple thousand years ago. The meaning of “virgin birth” could have been vastly different than what science has added to the concept today. Per Merriam-Webster Dictionary, many of the definitions for virgin imply lack of sexual intercourse, however, there are several definitions that define virgin simply as "an unmarried woman". Another definition is "free of impurity or stain". The inference is that sex is impure and does not occur until after marriage. While that may have been true many yeasrs ago, particularly when the woman (girl) was offered for marriage by the family as soon as she became physically able to bear children; in today’s society, sex before marriage is commonplace; and an unmarried woman is not necessarily chaste, thus that definition is not applicable TODAY. Another definition was "pure in thought and act". Mary was unmarried at the time of conception. She is also revered as pure in every way. Therefore, she was, by the definition of the times, a virgin. Not one of the definitions I saw included “without a male sperm combining with a female egg”. One could conclude that it is possible that God, an angel or a human (perhaps at God’s direction?) impregnated Mary with a male seed (providing all of the necessary chromosomes) either by natural or super-natural means.
Incidently, depending on which definition of “virgin birth” that is used, test tube babies, artificial insemination, and surrogate mothers are all examples of a childbirth without (necessarily) sexual intercourse; and if you have the money, marriage is not required either.
paulapdt,I have no idea as to how the religious percieve this or any other biblical event, but I am aware that there are many literalists, as well as those to whom the bible is strictly allegorical. The fact that Mary was visited by an angel who told her of her pregnancy indicated to me that this was the first that she heard about this blessed event. Your comments are interesting, however.
In any case, I have no idea what, if anything, actually went down, and as usual, I was being facetious. Religious people have always puzzled me. I don’t understand how people believe in anything, so quoting scripture to those like myself clarifies nothing.
MonaLisa9: << I always thought that they just said it was a virgin birth because they didn’t want Mary to have had sex. >>
drewder: << It is important because it fullfills the prophecy of isaiah (7:14) which says “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son…” >>
Not only didn’t they want Mary to have had sex, but they wanted Mary herself to be conceived immaculately (that is, without sex.) Thus, early Christian philosophy/theology that sex is bad or sinful was internally consistent.
The Isaiah quote was a popular mistranslation of the Hebrew to the Greek – the majority of scholars of ancient Hebrew language agree that the word is much better translated as “a young woman” rather than “a virgin” (although there are a very small minority of scholars of ancient Hebrew who claim that the two words are synonymous.)
<b>paperbackwriter</b> is on to something when he/she writes that a virgin birth happening 2000 years ago vs it happening today are two different things.
As a matter of fact, I think Gibbon wrote in “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” that the church fathers of the 300s and 400s AD had a policy saying that wonders happened up to the early 200s AD or so, but that the time of wonders is now past. They were apparantly flooded with requests for sainthood and wanted to put an end to them, without disqualifying the tales of supernatural events central to the faith, like the virgin birth, Jesus walking on water etc.
Don’t know what the Church’s policy on wonders is these days… Any clergy among the readers?
**
CK, my understanding of the immaculate conception of Mary is not that Mary’s parents didn’t have sex, but just that Mary was born without the taint of Original Sin. I’m fairly certain that most Christians will agree that Mary was concieved in the old-fashioned way.
Ah, yes, the old almah vs. besulah argument again.
In any event, I don’t know of any scholars who hold the two words to have the same meaning. The fact of the matter is that the words are totally different:
almah means young woman (virginal or not). There is a masculine version of this word too (elem) which is found in 1 Samuel 20:22.
In fact, Elem has the same meaning is na’ar (which is the word used to describe the same person in 20:21). The female version of na’ar (na’a’ra) most definitely does not mean virgin (the word is used to describe Dina after she was raped in Genesis).
besulah, OTOH, means virgin. But that’s not the word that Isaiah uses in 7:14.
Of course, all of the above is meaningless when you consider from the context of Isaiah 7 that verse 14 couldn’t be talking about Jesus anyway…
Zev Steinhardt
well you’ll also find that in about 70 ad a large part of the old testament was changed by the jewish elders because they didn’t want to be associated with the Christians (such being bad for your health at the time) but unless you think that mary slept around before she was married (highly unlikely) then you must accept that she was a virgin since even joesph was a little bit skeptical at first and why would isaiah say that he would show a sign that a young women shall concive as such things happen quite often and isn’t anything speical. after all with in 24 hours of him writing it many young women conviced.