Was Jesus birthed like us?

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My friend and I were discussing how Christ physically entered the world. Someone in her Bible study raised the question, was Jesus really birthed like the rest of us? She said if Mary was without origional sin, she would not have pain with childbirth. And since Jesus could walk through walls, could he just “walk through” Mary’s womb? She wondered if that was why/how she did not experience the pain of childbirth.

Thoughts?
 
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Hope75:
My friend and I were discussing how Christ physically entered the world. Someone in her Bible study raised the question, was Jesus really birthed like the rest of us?
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I say yes. He was like us in all things but sin. He became a human being, and was born just like every other human being. He might be God, but there’s no magical “get-out-of-jail-free” card…He became human, and He’s here for the whole experience: birth, life, and death.
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Hope75:
She said if Mary was without origional sin, she would not have pain with childbirth.
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Most theologians suspect that that is true, although it doesn’t have to be…no one says Mary (or Jesus) was incapable of feeling physical pain. But I believe it’s also been a longstanding Christian tradition. And it makes enough sense, so I don’t really have any reason to disagree.
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Hope75:
And since Jesus could walk through walls, could he just “walk through” Mary’s womb? She wondered if that was why/how she did not experience the pain of childbirth.
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I really don’t think so…I would definitely say no. Christ only walked through walls when He had His glorified body, after the Resurrection. Before that, He was (more or less) a normal human being just like one of us. And besides, wouldn’t it almost seem a bit like “cheating” the whole “becoming one of us” aspect of His mission? Christ was born naturally/normally (even if it was significantly more painless for Mary), and He lived a normal childhood. To the people in His day, he would have seemed just like everyone else, with nothing special at all to set him apart…that is, until He began His public ministry, and the miracles started happening. :twocents:
 
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Hope75:
My friend and I were discussing how Christ physically entered the world. Someone in her Bible study raised the question, was Jesus really birthed like the rest of us? She said if Mary was without origional sin, she would not have pain with childbirth. And since Jesus could walk through walls, could he just “walk through” Mary’s womb? She wondered if that was why/how she did not experience the pain of childbirth.

Thoughts?
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I don’t believe that there is one shred of evidence that Mary had anything other than a normal birth. Anything else is purely unfounded speculation.
 
No, of course not. He was born on a cloud, with wonderful angels singing slavery spirituals in Thai surrounding him. Any good Catholic knows that.

Sick_Heretic.
 
I don’t remember where I read this but the early Jews defined virginity as not only refraining from intercourse but also that the woman’s hymen remain intact.

Consequently, this definition makes sense of Rev. Premm’s “Dogmatic Theology for the Laity” discussion where he states that Mary was virgin “before the birth,” “at the moment of Jesus’ birth,” and “even after the birth” (page 190).

I read this in an old theology book at the Phoenix diocese’s library, the Kino Institute.

It also said that the etymology of the word “hymn” was from the word “hymen.”

I’m not convinced either way, folks.
 
So you don’t like ideas of slavery-spiritual-singing Thai angels? Well, that offends me, and you are a racist. The ACLU is already suing you. See you in court.
 
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sick_heretic:
So you don’t like ideas of slavery-spiritual-singing Thai angels? Well, that offends me, and you are a racist. The ACLU is already suing you. See you in court.
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I sure hope “The Powers that Be” on this board boot you.
 
The essence of the problem is not whether or not Mary’s hymen was intact, but whether she ever had intercourse with a man. If no intercourse than Jesus had to have been conceived by the Holy Spirit and was not the natural son of any man. If Mary had been penetrated by a man then Jesus’s divine origin could be called into question. How he made his way out of the womb is irrelevant.
 
Mary: "Full of Grace"

The Fathers of the Church taught that Mary received a number of distinctive blessings in order to make her a more fitting mother for Christ and the prototypical Christian (follower of Christ). These blessings included her role as the New Eve (corresponding to Christ’s role as the New Adam), her Immaculate Conception, her spiritual motherhood of all Christians, and her Assumption into heaven. These gifts were given to her by God’s grace. She did not earn them, but she possessed them nonetheless.

The key to understanding all these graces is Mary’s role as the New Eve, which the Fathers proclaimed so forcefully. Because she is the New Eve, she, like the New Adam, was born immaculate, just as the First Adam and Eve were created immaculate. Because she is the New Eve, she is mother of the New Humanity (Christians), just as the first Eve was the mother of humanity. And, because she is the New Eve, she shares the fate of the New Adam. Whereas the First Adam and Eve died and went to dust, the New Adam and Eve were lifted up physically into heaven.

Of particular interest in the following quotations from the Fathers are those that speak of Mary’s immaculate nature. We will all one day be rendered immaculate (sinless), but Mary, as the prototypical Christian, received this grace early. God granted her freedom from sin to make her a fitting mother for his Son.

**Even before the terms “original sin” and “immaculate conception” had been defined, early passages imply the doctrines. Many works mention that Mary gave birth to Jesus without pain. But pain in childbearing is part of the penalty of original sin (Gen. 3:16). Thus, Mary could not have been under that penalty. By God’s grace, she was immaculate in anticipation of her Son’s redemptive death on the cross. The Church therefore describes Mary as “the most excellent fruit of redemption” (CCC 508). **

more…
 
Mary gives birth to Our Lord

“And it came to pass, that when they were there, her days were accomplished, that she should be delivered” (Luke 2:6); this language leaves it uncertain whether the birth of Our Lord took place immediately after Joseph and Mary had taken lodging in the grotto, or several days later. What is said about the shepherds “keeping the night watches over their flock” (Luke 2:8) shows that Christ was born in the night time.

After bringing forth her Son, Mary “wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger” (Luke 2:7), a sign that she did not suffer from the pain and weakness of childbirth. This inference agrees with the teaching of some of the principal Fathers and theologians: St. Ambrose [56], St. Gregory of Nyssa [57], St. John Damascene [58], the author of Christus patiens [59], St. Thomas [60], etc. It was not becoming that the mother of God should be subject to the punishment pronounced in Genesis 3:16, against Eve and her sinful daughters.
 
**Q: Was Mary like other women in her biological cycle?

** Introduction

Where angels fear to tread–A fitting theme for the treatment of such a “delicate” theological question: Did the Blessed Virgin Mary menstruate? On one hand it seems that such a distasteful question should never be asked; it might be referred to as one of those finer theological points that would better be left a mystery. On the other, imagine the fuss it might raise in certain sectors we might call “feminist” which lay claim to a woman’s menstrual cycle as a sacred rhythm that synchronizes her with cosmic forces. Keeping both of these objections in mind, it is a question that I will still attempt to analyze here with the deepest respect for both Mary and women in general.

I plan to look at this question mostly from a scriptural-theological perspective, not a biological one. My arguments will not hinge so much on the physiology of menstruation as much as on the theological significance behind it, primarily for the Jews of the Old Testament. There are biological factors though that do raise questions and thus need to be taken into consideration, and when appropriate I will make reference to them.

more…
 
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scriabin:
I don’t remember where I read this but the early Jews defined virginity as not only refraining from intercourse but also that the woman’s hymen remain intact.

Consequently, this definition makes sense of Rev. Premm’s “Dogmatic Theology for the Laity” discussion where he states that Mary was virgin “before the birth,” “at the moment of Jesus’ birth,”
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I think this was part of this other woman’s argument. How could she have delivered a child vaginally and still have an intact hymen? And therefore remain a perpetual virgin.

Then, I was thinking, a c-section would have left the hymen intact… But I have no basis for thinking this is how our savior entered the world.

The pain issue was another thing that puzzled me…
If Christ suffered, why wouldn’t our Mother suffer. Is there a difference between experiencing physical pain and suffering?
 
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buffalo:
“And it came to pass, that when they were there, her days were accomplished, that she should be delivered” (Luke 2:6); this language leaves it uncertain whether the birth of Our Lord
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took place …

Yes, it is implied that she gave birth, but is states, simply “delivered”.

I understand this is not something I need to figure out, I just like to ponder the situation. 🙂
 
I agree with rwoehmke that the main thing is whether or not Mary had intercourse, not whether her hymen was broken.

But that’s us from the 21st century looking back on ancient Judaism.

It doesn’t matter to me what I *think * or what I’d *like * to believe…but What does the Church teach?

Where would one find the Church’s speculation on such an arcane topic?
 
This is from the link that buffalo gave us:

But we do know dogmatically as Catholics that Mary would not have “bled” during her giving birth to Jesus. We know this from the dogma of Mary’s Perpetual Virginity - before, after, and particularly during the birth of Jesus. It is an article of divine Catholic faith that Mary preserved her virginity - inviolate from any physical damage or destruction. This would mean, on a physical level that Mary’s hymen remained intact. This can be a contentious issue for some, since we know that the hymen can be burst outside of sexual intercourse or giving birth and the girl would still be considered a virgin. But theologically, it is different for Mary because of her integral involvement with the Incarnation and Redemption worked by Jesus. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger explains in his book Daughter Zion:

“The cavalier divorce of “biology” and theology omits precisely man from consideration; it becomes a self-contradiction insofar as the initial, essential point of the whole matter lies precisely in the affirmation that in all that concerns man the biological is also human and especially in what concerns the divinely-human nothing is “merely biological.” Banishment of the corporeal, or sexual, into pure biology, all the talk about the “merely biological,” is consequently the exact opposite of what faith intends. For faith tells us of the spirituality of the biological as well as the corporeality of the spiritual and divine. On this point the choice is between all or nothing. The attempt to preserve a spiritual, distilled remainder after the biological element has been eliminated denies the very spiritual reality which is the principal concern of the faith in the God become flesh.”
All of this being said though, I will argue that there is more. In being a virgin in partu (in birth) Mary not only preserved the physical integrity of her hymen, but also she did not have the discharge of fluids mentioned in Leviticus 12.

So I guess there is a Catholic tradition that has Mary’s hymen being intact during birth. But is it a Tradition with a capital ‘T’?
 
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rwoehmke:
The essence of the problem is not whether or not Mary’s hymen was intact, but whether she ever had intercourse with a man. If no intercourse than Jesus had to have been conceived by the Holy Spirit and was not the natural son of any man.
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A woman does not have to have her hymen intact to be a virgin. I’ve been reading that in the U.S. today this is becoming increasingly common as women are becoming more involved in sports. Certain physical activities (not sexual) can cause the hymen to tear naturally. Would these women who have not yet had intercourse be any less virgins?
 
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scriabin:
It doesn’t matter to me what I *think * or what I’d *like * to believe…but What does the Church teach?

Where would one find the Church’s speculation on such an arcane topic?
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Any ‘speculation’ is it is just that - speculation, and in fact the speculation of individual scholars/Catholics, there is no speculation on the part of ‘the Church’ as a body.

Either way, it is in no way essential or even important to our beliefs to believe in a vaginal or non-vaginal birth, so I’m happy to have no opinion whatever on the topic.
 
Semperjesse, it doesn’t matter how we in America 2006 define virginity. I agree with you. A woman’s torn hymen doesn’t mean a lack of virginity.

But how did ***the Jews ** * define virginity?
 
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scriabin:
Semperjesse, it doesn’t matter how we in America 2006 define virginity. I agree with you. A woman’s torn hymen doesn’t mean a lack of virginity.

But how did ***the Jews ***define virginity?
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Not sure, but Mary said she had never known a man. Not that her hymen was intact.
 
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