He's lying

Virgin Birth redux

OK, no more posts on this, but I did find one "analysis" from Free Inquiry Magazine pretty funny:

Now, let’s turn to the Christian record. What do the Gospel writers say about Jesus? When it comes to his birth, as a group, they say nothing. The Gospels of Mark and John never mention the Nativity. Only Matthew and Luke describe it.

But it’s misleading to say “Matthew and Luke.” One might better say “Matthew vs. Luke,” for the Gospels bearing their names contradict* each other on almost every detail. The popular image of shepherds and wise men side by side before the cradle? Matthew says wise men. Luke says shepherds. Neither says both.

The star in the East? Only in Matthew.

“Hark, the herald angels sing” . . . but only in Luke. Matthew never heard of them**.

"Contradict" does not mean "a detail found in one story is missing from another." But that's a post for another day. What the author fails to mention studiously ignores is that one can tell the entire base story of Jesus' nativity from facts found in both accounts. To wit:

(1) Jesus was born during the reign of Herod****.
(2) He was born at Bethlehem in Judea.
(3) He was named Jesus by divine command.
(4) He was declared to be a Savior.
(5) He was conceived via the Holy Ghost.
(6) His mother, named Mary, was a virgin.
(7) She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph.
(8) Joseph was descended from King David.
(9) Joseph knew of Mary's pregnancy and its cause.
(10) He married her anyway and took responsibility for her child.
(11) The Annunciation and birth were attended by revelations and visions.
(12) After the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth.

What is amazing about the two birth narratives is not that they contain differences, but that as different as they are, on those details that are central to the story, they agree.  That is, unless one wishes to argue that "wise men vs shepherds" is more important than that Joseph accepted Mary's unexpected pregnancy. 

That doesn't mean there aren't problems. Frankly, the genealogies are an issue, though not as one might think.  Genealogy problems (as I've discussed before) are par for the course in the ancient world, but as no historian argues that Ceolwulf was legendary because different sources differ in genealogical details, no historian argues the same for Jesus.  If it's a problem***, that problem is theological, not historical. The theology is not really my interest.

But what it does mean is that if one looks for the underlying story of the Virgin Birth, one will find that all the points that matter are found everywhere that Jesus' birth is mentioned.

* You keep using that word, I do not think it mean what you think it means.
** No one should fail to note the argument from silence here.
*** And I'm not sure it is.  The differences, of course, have been noted since the First Century, and a number of possible solutions proposed (e.g. one line is Mary's, the lines are 'physical' versus 'legal.'). But the important points are that a) everyone knows the two genealogies have differences, and b) no one in 2000 years bothered to fix them.  That shows that the copyists' respect for textual integrity has been more important than their concern about 'difficulties,' modern atheist mumblings about mass changes and insertions aside. Such a respectful approach makes documents more historically valuable than if the ancients had tidied up what to us looks like a mess.
**** Let's keep this readable, shall we?
(1)  Matt. ii. 1, 13; Luke i. 5. 
(2)  Matt. ii. 1; Luke ii. 4, 6.
(3)  Matt. i. 21; Luke i. 31.
(4)  Matt. i. 21; Luke ii. 11.
(5)  Matt. i. 18, 20; Luke i. 35.
(6)  Matt. i. 18, 20, 23; Luke i. 27, 34.
(7)  Matt. i. 18; Luke i. 27; ii. 5. 
(8)  Matt. i. 16, 20; Luke i. 27; ii. 4.
(9)  Matt. i. 18-20; Luke ii. 5.
(10)  Matt. i. 20, 24, 25; Luke ii. 5ff.  
(11) Matt. i. 20, etc.; Luke i. 27, 28, etc.
(12) Matt. ii. 23; Luke ii. 39.

One pic to rule them all

Virgin Births and philosophical presuppositions

So anyway, in addition to upgrading the database at work and working on the thesis, I've been doing a little study on the Virgin Birth.  In doing so, I came across a funny article (now almost 10 years old) by Nicholas Kristoff of the NYTimes.  He seems a little perturbed that everyone believes in it:

So here's a fact appropriate for the day: Americans are three times as likely to believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus (83 percent) as in evolution (28 percent).

That number, according to Kristoff, includes not only 91% of Christians, but 47% of non-Christians as well. Now, what made me laugh is not that more non-Christians believe in the Virgin Birth than believe in evolution, but that the American School system teaches one and not the other. If Kristoff and other lefties at the Times would follow the logic there, they would conclude that the best way to get Americans to believe in evolution would be to ban it.  That's not really a recommendation. I'm just saying.

But I do have to laugh at what passes for argumentation against it.  For example,

Jaroslav Pelikan, the great Yale historian and theologian, says in his book ''Mary Through the Centuries'' that the earliest references to Mary (like Mark's gospel, the first to be written, or Paul's letter to the Galatians) don't mention anything unusual about the conception of Jesus. 

Paul never mentions Mary in a single one of his letters - that Galatians gets included as an "earliest reference to Mary" just highlights Kristoff's ignorance here. The man simply doesn't know what he's talking about.

That said, this is a textbook example of the argument from silence. For what reason should we expect Paul to include a description of the Virgin Birth in this letter about freedom from the law? The objection is even sillier once it is noted that Paul's letters which appear after Luke wrote his Gospel still do not contain any allusions to it. Why not?  It was simply not a topic Paul needed to address.

Mark, for his part, does not mention anything in Jesus' life before he was thirty. Are we then to presume that Jesus sprang into being at that age and gave his first sermon? Jesus' birth, circumcision, haircuts, favorite pets, and trips to Disneyland are not subjects Mark chose to address. That he did not know of them is *one* possible explanation for that absence. To make it the *only* possible explanation is foolish.

There's a reason the argument from silence is a fallacious generalization. The argument that something does not exist because x does not mention it is incredibly dangerous in form, having as it does no positive evidence in its favor and needing only a single piece of evidence to overturn it. Plenty of biblical scholars have eaten crow because they argued, for example, that there were no such people as Hittites or that there was no writing in Moses' day.  You'd think that after three centuries they would learn. But when you consider that Mark, which might or might not be  "the earliest" reference to Mary, was written within a handful of years of Luke and Matthew, both of which teach the Virgin Birth in full, you'll see that it's not just a silly and lame argument, it's fatally subjective. The only reason he cuts "earliest" off at Mark is because the rest of the evidence is against him.

The next one is better:

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke do say Mary was a virgin, but internal evidence suggests that that part of Luke, in particular, may have been added later by someone else (it is written, for example, in a different kind of Greek than the rest of that gospel).

"Internal evidence suggests..." is a nice way of saying "if you look really really hard...and twist."  The fact is that all non-fragmentary copies of Luke and Matthew, including the earliest ones, contain the Virgin Birth stories.  All of them. So there is no documentary evidence upon which to hang such a "may have been."

When Kristoff says Luke is "a different kind of Greek," he does not really mean that - all of Luke is written in Koine Greek. What he means is that the early section contains Hebraisms, Hebrew figures of speech. Which does actually tell us something, since Luke is a Gentile. Hebraisms are evidence that his information came from a Hebrew-speaker and is recorded in her* own words as much as possible. Vague asides aside, there is no evidence that Matthew's account was added later, either. Unlike the story of the Woman Taken in Adultery, for which there is evidence of later addition, Virgin Birth stories are part and parcel of the original gospels as written.

But the saddest comment is this:

As the Catholic theologian Hans Küng puts it in ''On Being a Christian,'' the Virgin Birth is a ''collection of largely uncertain, mutually contradictory, strongly legendary'' narratives, an echo of virgin birth myths that were widespread in many parts of the ancient world.

And it's sad because it's so undeniably deceptive.  "Virgin Birth myths" do not appear in Jewish literature, not even (as I mentioned before) in Isaiah, which is absolutely necessary to square with the hebraisms mentioned above. Myths that appear "in many parts of the ancient world" do you no good if they do not appear among the Hebrews. Nor do the stories from the rest of the world square with the word 'virgin' - they are usually just stories of horny gods seducing beautiful women. What Küng and others do is generalize that Romulus and Remus were the sons of a god, and Jesus was the son of God, and therefore the stories are an 'echo.' That is not the way to do science, kids.

Secondly, if one actually bothers to read Luke or Matthew, it will be obvious that the narrative is anything but "uncertain"**. They give names, dates, genealogies, kings, places. Luke in particular is as historically anchored as any writing in the ancient world.  Not perfect, perhaps, but as close as anything else.

But lastly, while the accounts have differences - else they should be obviously copied one from another - the two accounts are no more contradictory than are accounts of the same football game carried in the newspapers of the teams' home cities. Matthew knows nothing of Mary's thoughts but gives us great insight into Joseph's. Luke knows nothing of Joseph's mind but catalogs all of Mary's worries and joys. The best explanation for these facts ought not be hard to figure out.

But the final argument, that it's "strongly legendary," is not hard to understand, and it is within this assertion that we find the real objection. Hans Küng, as he explains in What I Believe, sees "nature miracles" as violating natural law, which is not to be allowed. We are not to wonder if miracles "really happened," but to concentrate on their meaning*** instead.  In short, Küng, like Kristoff, and like so many of the Biblical scholars to which the latter appeals, holds a philosophical objection to miracles. All miracles. He would not look twice if the Luke says Jesus was potty trained****, because that does not mess with his philosophy. But miracles are not allowed in his conception of the universe - divine intervention in nature is a "violence" (his word) that he will not allow. Show me a theologian who disbelieves in this miracle, and I'll show you one who classifies them all as legend, a priori.

Therefore the problem is not with the two millennia old "great intellectual traditions of Catholic and Protestant churches" that Kristoff bemoans the death of: most Christians have always believed in and taught the Virgin Birth. The problem lies instead with the three century old philosophical school of materialism that does not allow it.

But fear not, Nicholas, that's dying, too.

* I'm pretty sure it's the lady pictured. After all, who else would know?
** A book that begins,  "A number of attempts have been made to put together in order an account of those events which took place among us as they were handed down to us by those who saw them from the first and were preachers of the word. So it seemed good to me, having made observation, with great care, of the direction of events in their order, to put the facts in writing for you..." Luke 1:1-3 (BBE) is not dealing with uncertainty in the mind of its author.
*** Why an event that didn't really happen should have meaning I don't know.
**** Which he doesn't. Enter argument from silence here.

99 problems but a Christmas ham ain't one

What happens at my house when I'm not there

Jaley shares how TK and Molly spend Christmas Break:

So, my sisters were playing with Barbies in the kitchen. Some epic stuff went down.

TK: "Yay! I am swimming in the pool~Swimming in the pool...OHMYGAWSH ZOMBIE!"

Molly: :o *gasps*

TK: "Look! The zombie is going after Alicia, she is swimming in the pool and has NO. IDEA. THAT ZOMBIES ARE GANNA EAT HER."

Molly: "We better go save her, then! Bad zombies."

TK: "Nope. It's naptime for Sarah.

Me: "Woah. Wait. If Alicia is about to get attacked by zombies, she will get bitten, resulting in either her dying a terrible and gorey death, or her being infected and chasing you until her poor little zombie brain gives out."

TK: "...Huh? But...the Barbies are tired from swimming all day. They need rest time." (is oblivious to basic Resident Evil logic)

Molly: (nodnod, cause she pretty much agrees to whatever TK says) "Yes! Naptime!"

Me: ... ._. "You guys would be terrible in a zombie apocalypse."

TK and Molly: (ignore my comment, about five minutes pass by, full of fake snoring sounds and major giggle fits)

TK: "Okay, wake-up time! Let's go see if Alicia is alive!"

Molly: *picks Alicia out of the pool* :O "SHE LIVES!"

TK: "Yay!" *gigglegiggle* (checks the pool) "Oh. But her babies died. Huh."

Me: xD "Remind me to never let you two babysit my future kids."

Molly: "Poor dead babies..."

This is what happens when you give my sister a couple of Barbies and a swimming pool. Babies die. Such a terrible tragedy.

Last chance to use this pic

On that Christmas Day

There was a young Jewish girl named Mary, and she was scared. She wasn't exceptionally beautiful or exceptionally smart or exceptionally strong, in fact, she didn't feel herself to be any of these at the moment. She simply felt alone and confused and overwhelmed. And small. For standing before her moments before was a creature she had heard about but had never seen. In fact, no one had seen one for hundreds of years, and it was whispered by bearded old men that such things did not exist, that they had never really existed, and that the old stories were spiritual truths and not real true ones. It was a messenger with an overwhelming presence, bringing a message that was as exciting as it was distressing: she was going to be a mother. While the messenger had been unexpected, in some ways the news was not. Mary had always believed she would be a mother someday, and now that she was engaged to a carpenter, she looked forward to motherhood. But part of the message was both unexpected and troubling: she was going to be a mother right now, and the child would not be the son of her husband. She did not understand all that meant, really, but she did understand that she would have to tell him, and she had a fairly good idea what his reaction would be. Which is why she was not looking forward to telling him. Not one little bit.

Joseph set down his tools and walked out into the night air. His shoulder ached, as he had worked longer this day - seeking distraction, perhaps - than any other day he could remember. His hands, though calloused, were rubbed raw, and he picked at a blister absentmindedly. It would have to be tomorrow, he finally decided. Tomorrow would be the day his dreams came crashing down, for he would be a divorcee even before his own wedding. He balled his fists, then as he had too many times lately, let out an anguished roar that echoed over the quiet street. How could she have done this to him, to them? A sweet young girl, pretty in her own way, he could certainly understand how another man could be attracted to her, for he was very much. Yet she had broken her solemn promise and the promise of her parents that she would be his and his alone. Gathering himself, he shook his head, and tried to decide once again whether he would seek vengeance or suffer the ill will of God patiently. No, there would be no vengeance, that was settled. Just more tears, most likely. He would call off the wedding quietly, just the four of them in that little hovel, for there was nothing to be gained by exposing the girl to any more trouble than she had brought on herself with her rubbish about angels. But why did she insist on making it so much harder on him than it already was? He sat down on the wet ground and pulled a small flap of skin from his palm, wondering if there was another town where he could start again, another place that had not reveled in the rumors that Joseph's little Mary was pregnant with a child that was not his. Another place where coldhearted men did not laugh into their beards when he walked by. He counted two, maybe three. And they were all far enough away for his purposes. He let out a tired sigh and closed his eyes, and his swollen eyelids (was he crying?) suddenly shone red, as if he were sitting before a fire, the light of which burned through his skin. When he opened them again, his first thought was that his private anguish and public humiliation had driven him mad at last. For before him stood a dazzling figure in white and it was looking down on him with cold unblinking eyes. Joseph closed his moistened eyes again and opened them. And hearing his name spoken, he began to kneel, and then at the angel's stern rebuke, to stand.

Mary clenched her tiny fists as she looked out through the door of her parents' home. "Because this is the Lord's doing, everything will be alright," she assured herself for the hundredth time, though she had not completely convinced herself yet. Joseph was approaching the small house in which joyful promises had once been made. The very house within which her tears had not ceased to flow in weeks. Of course he had not believed about the angel. He had demanded what he called "the real truth" on several occasions, each time his voice rising, his eyes blazing. When at last her tears came he always stomped away, and now that she was leaving Nazareth for a few months he was returning again, this time to say those three little words she wanted to hear least of all: "I divorce you." Instead what he said was, “We need to marry before you leave.”

Of course it had to be taxes: nothing less than the greedy swords of Ceasar could induce a man to make this trip. Mary was as big as a house, and Joseph thought he could hear the ladened donkey complaining as it climbed the last hill before his ancestral home. Home, he almost laughed as he tugged the reins of the beast that carried his wife. He had never lived here, nor had his parents, and he wondered if there would even be a home where they could stay, where they could rest before he told the soldiers that he had traveled 150 miles to get to Bethlehem but still had no money to pay them. Maybe they would settle for the donkey. Hopefully there was no room in the prison. It turned out there was no room anywhere.

Joseph had never seen a miracle before. He had seen the angel of course, though there had been times, when he was alone late at night or when his few remaining friends laughed openly at him, when he wondered if he had really even seen that. But of this there could be no doubt. The child had been born: a son as Mary had promised and a healthy one from what he could see in the dark. While frantic, distantly-related women still scurried about, Mary had laid the babe in a manger on a bed of clean straw, the gathering of which was the only useful task menfolk could apparently perform during birth. But it was no longer dark. There was a star outside that shone like the sun of day, a light directly above the barn which cast firm shadows and drew gasps in the suddenly-full sheep pen, and Joseph walked out into it. A motley group of shepherd boys was telling an assembling crowd that they, too, had seen angels. And those angels had told them where to find the newborn king. Here. And as Joseph squinted at the star, he listened to what the angels had told the shepherd boys: We bring tidings of great joy, for to you is born this day in Bethlehem a savior, which is Christ the Lord. And with joy welling in his heart, Joseph believed, fully, for the first time.