Other Virgin Births

[juicekman]

Quite a few ancient societies/cultures have virgins who give birth to a savior and some people say that Christianity is just another one in a long line of these cultures. Does anyone know of an article or book that can explain this? Thank you and God bless you.

 

[survive]

We go over this pretty frequently (like, four or five threads at least int he last month I believe) in Apologetics. Have you searched that forum? I’m sure you’ll find good references there.
Long story short, almost all the stories that some people have promoted as “the same as the Gospel but earlier” are one of three things:
made up or hugely exaggerated and twisted out of all recognition by pop authors with an axe to grind,
pretty universal themes (food, motherhood, travel, danger etc.) it’s almost impossible to find a real or fictional biography lacking, since these elements appear in most lives, or,
AD appropriations from a Christian community into a pagan one, distortions of Christian belief by relatively isolated groups, and/or assimilations of BC Jewish Messianic prophecies into cultures that had contact with the Jewish people for long periods.

One example of the first phenomenon is that many copycattists say Isis was a virgin mother, becoming pregnant with Horus after her husband died. Well, in the Egyptian story, Osiris, being a god, could never really die and was never eally alive in this world either, but the murder of Osiris by Set made the former less mobile and too weak to call for help or speak. His biology worked though, and Isis enabled him to impregnate her in the natural fashion with a little mechanical help (don’t mean to be graphic but it makes all the difference to the meaning of the story).
Another chestnut is that Mithra was born of a virgin. The Persians actually thought he had emerged full-grown from a rock, which was never a person at all, always a plain old rock.

 

[Trishie]

I think we have to be careful not to be drawn in by unsubstanciated myths as if they were reality.
God bless you

Have a wonderful Christmas!

 

[paarsurrey]

Hi

I hear that Chenghez Khan was born of a virgin. A Chinese King was born of a virgin. A hero of Inkas was born of a virgin.

There are many insects born of a female witout mating with a male and recently I heard that a dolphin fish was born of a female without mating with a male.

I think it is a rare natural phenomenon, not a miracle.

Thanks

 

[Cluny]

Whenever parthenogenesis happens in other species, the offspring are ALWAYS female.

But in the case of Jesus this is the ONLY time it ever happened with a human being, period, and note that this offspring was MALE.

 

[ralphinal]

Hi

I hear that Chenghez Khan was born of a virgin. A Chinese King was born of a virgin. A hero of Inkas was born of a virgin.

There are many insects born of a female witout mating with a male and recently I heard that a dolphin fish was born of a female without mating with a male.

I think it is a rare natural phenomenon, not a miracle.

Thanks

Both of those legends arose after contact with Christianity. It has not been uncommon for myth makers to steal from each other when trying to outdo someone else. Both of those you cited were supposed to be great and powerful men. As such, it is logical that they would try to copy the greatest Human and only God made flesh to walk the earth.

 

[ckempston]

Hi

I hear that Chenghez Khan was born of a virgin. A Chinese King was born of a virgin. A hero of Inkas was born of a virgin.

Khan - born 1162 AD. Only one millenium after Christ. I imagine your reference to the Chinese king is similarly after Christ. The Inca empire started in the 13th century. All these stories would have easily been influenced by the spread of Christianity and would incorporate attractive parts of the story into their own traditions.

There are many insects born of a female witout mating with a male and recently I heard that a dolphin fish was born of a female without mating with a male.

Dolphins are mammals, not fish, and I think the instance you are referring to was a shark.

I think it is a rare natural phenomenon, not a miracle.

Thanks

Every childbirth is a miracle. Parthenogenesis in higher mammals almost always results in complications, and the pregnancy will not typically last past a few days. In any case, advances in science have given us instances of so-called “virgin birth,” but it is typically with human intervention, such as combining genetic material from two eggs to mock fertilization, or programming an egg as was the case with “Dolly” the sheep. That’s hardly what happened with Mary/Jesus:

newscientist.com/article/dn4909-virgin-birth-mammal-rewrites-rules-of-biology.html

 

[puzzleannie]

Quite a few ancient societies/cultures have virgins who give birth to a savior and some people say that Christianity is just another one in a long line of these cultures. Does anyone know of an article or book that can explain this? Thank you and God bless you.

stories of pagan gods in other cultures are stories invented about entities that do not exist and never existed. The historical event of a virgin giving birth to the One God incarnate in human flesh and retaining her virginal state perpetually is just that, an historical event, in fact, the event that is the hinge upon which all human history revolves, whether you date events around it using BC and AD or BCE and CE.

 

[Pier]

Quite a few ancient societies/cultures have virgins who give birth to a savior and some people say that Christianity is just another one in a long line of these cultures. Does anyone know of an article or book that can explain this? Thank you and God bless you.

It’s in the Bible (the Ten Commandments, specifically) that we are not to worship false gods.