Virgin Birth Based on Outdated Beliefs About Conception?

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The question still isn’t settled but I don’t really have the energy to keep playing Devil’s Advocate so thanks for doing some research.
 
Wesrock said:
This bolded is rather what I don’t believe follows at all. It’s like the history channel trying to explain the virgin birth by a natural parthenogenesis. It’s superfluous. There was no need for it to sound plausibly natural.
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Yes.

It’s like saying that miracles have no scientific explanation.

If they did did they wouldn’t be miracles.

People arguing this are missing the point.
 
Usagi said:
Okay. But what is there to refute? Either way, the male and female each provide something and you don’t have women spontaneously getting pregnant without sex.
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Actually there are cases, medically speaking.

But what has never ever happened as far as I know in a medically verified case is that such a pregnancy came anywhere close to coming to term, or even survived the first few hours.
 
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billsherman said:
Neither Matthew nor Luke demonstrate any interest in the biology of Jesus’ conception. How could they? They, just like us, have no idea how it occurred.
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Wasn’t Luke actually a physician by trade?

So if even he didn’t venture to offer an explanation, this is saying something.
 
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For me they are useless, offensive, demeaning speeches.

The Virginity of Our Mother Mary is one of the most eloquent signs of the coming of God into the world, and does not admit even the most distant insinuation.

Furthermore, these speeches begin as serious and end with profanity and obscene laughter.

I know, I’ve seen it many times in Italy, on purpose I say: don’t get reduced like us, come on!

I don’t intend to add anything else.
 
@YHWH_Christ

I’m confused. Whether it’s the archaic belief or the modern one, intercourse is necessary for conception either way.
 
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YHWH_Christ said:
Many historians and scholars believe the virgin birth as found in the Gospels is based off of ancient ideas about how children were conceived, in that it was believed that male semen was only a generating principle and that the female bodily fluids were all that was essentially needed to produce offspring. However, we now know that the male semen is essential for the formation of a child as it provides the other half of the genetic material in the sperm cells and, in the case of males, the Y chromosome. The authors of the Gospels had no understanding of modern genetics and were operating within their understanding of conception and would have based the virgin birth around this. How do we refute this?
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The Gospel accounts themselves refute this idea. When Mary is told she is to bear a son she says “how can this be, since I am a viegin?” She KNEW both male and female were required to make a baby and that she hadn’t slept with any man.

When Joseph finds out she is pregnant - and not by him- he first wants to divorce her. Why? The clear implication is that he thinks she has been unfaithful. Again, he knew you need a man.and a woman to make a baby, and that he wasn’t the baby daddy.

Heck, it goes back much earlier. in Genesis we read “and Adam knew (slept with) his wife Eve, and she gave birth”. Way back.then, they still knew how babies are made.
 
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LilyM said:
When Joseph finds out she is pregnant - and not by him- he first wants to divorce her. Why? The clear implication is that he thinks she has been unfaithful.
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It’s not true!!!
Study before you swear !!!
 
paperwight said:
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brown_bear:
It’s not true!!!
Study before you swear !!!
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And where does swearing come into it?
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Exactly. I did not swear at any point.

Why would the virtuous Joseph want to.put his betrothed Mary away on finding out she was pregnant except … well … that he thought she had been less than.upright? Surely a just man wouldnt do this injustice to a woman who he knows to be honourable?
 
  1. Joseph does not want “divorce”, because “sending her away in secret” is not synonymous with divorce
  2. Joseph does not think that Mary was unfaithful, but that something mysterious has happened in her, and that he is no longer worthy to be beside her.
 
YHWH_Christ said:
The question still isn’t settled
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But what is the actual question? It really doesn’t matter what the cultural belief regarding the underlying process of conception was, they still clearly knew that both male and female were necessary for a child to be formed, but the Virgin Birth happened outside that requirement, and so was miraculous.
 
But if you would have thought nothing but betrayal, you are not Joseph, he intuited the Mystery that the Angel then revealed to him.
 
brown_bear said:
  1. Joseph does not want “divorce”, because “sending her away in secret” is not synonymous with divorce
  2. Joseph does not think that Mary was unfaithful, but that something mysterious has happened in her, and that he is no longer worthy to be beside her.
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Well its hardly a secret when she shows up at home, is it. The more proper word is “quiet”, in other words he doesn’t want to go to the extenr of publicly accusing her to the authorities

But for him to put her away quietly or otherwise would still have brought huge shame on her. Like sending damaged goods back to tge shop. It wpuld be taken for grantes that she had at least done something morally wrong.
 
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Joseph does not doubt Mary, but himself: help, I will no longer be able to stay by her side, to protect the Mystery!
 
brown_bear said:
Joseph does not doubt Mary, but himself: help, I will no longer be able to stay by her side, to protect the Mystery!
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So why does the angel.have to tell Joseph in so many words that the child is from.God? Why not just tell him to marry Mary and not worry and leave it at that? Unless Joseph needs to be reassured about the child’s origins?

If anything, why doesn’t finding out the child is the Son of God make him even MORE anxious …unless that isn’t what he was really anxious about?

Eta: I just reread St Matthews account. It says flat out that Joseph ‘did not want to expose her to public disgrace’ (Matt 1:19). So he clearly did doubt her.
 
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Joseph knew with certainty that Mary had always been faithful to God, that Mary’s honor was assured by adhering to God’s will, that a plan had been revealed to Mary that was unknown to her three months earlier.
But Joseph didn’t know any more than that, he needed the revelation.

Yes, knowing that Jesus was the Incarnate Word, on the one hand it will have given him joy, on the other perhaps anxiety.
 
brown_bear said:
Joseph knew with certainty that Mary had always been faithful to God, that Mary’s honor was assured by adhering to God’s will, that a plan had been revealed to Mary that was unknown to her three months earlier.
But Joseph didn’t know any more than that, he needed the revelation.

Yes, knowing that Jesus was the Incarnate Word, on the one hand it will have given him joy, on the other perhaps anxiety.
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Read Matt 1.19 - why would Mary have been exposed to public disgrace then? And given that Joseph did NOT at first know the cause of Marys pregnancy, why would.he not have assumed it occurred in the usual.natural manner?
 
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