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Maksutov wrote:Mary cheated. Mary lied.

But let's invent a religion, a full blown theology to some how rationalize this.

Chap wrote:

Maksutov wrote:Mary cheated. Mary lied.

But let's invent a religion, a full blown theology to some how rationalize this.

I used to know a bit about New Testament scholarship a few decades ago. Without looking everything up again, and then going through the updating process, I'll just try to say what I find in my memory banks.

And that is that the 'infancy narratives' - that is, the parts of the gospel narratives that talk about the birth of Jesus- are a completely different kind of document from those parts that talk about his activity between the ages of about 30 to 33. In those later parts we are told that he had a mother, Mary, who may have been near him at the end, and also that some people in Nazareth thought he was 'the carpenter's son'. There may be some real historical content in all that.

But all the rest - contemporaneously claimed virgin birth, stories of angelic visitations, visits of shepherds and Magi - are very unlikely to resemble the actual circumstances of his birth. That stuff was narrated by people who felt that they needed some kind of background to this person who was, they had concluded, the promised Messiah. It was created because people had already made Jesus the centre of what was at least an active Jewish heresy. Christianity certainly did not originate FROM any claim made by the young Mary about the paternity of the child she was carrying, which we have no real reason to suppose people did not at the time think had been conceived with her husband quite normally. It was more the other way round.

Those more up to date in the field are welcome to correct me.

Maksutov wrote:I do have to blame the Pythons (and my avatar) for some of my religious views.

Chap wrote:

Maksutov wrote:I do have to blame the Pythons (and my avatar) for some of my religious views.

Maksutov wrote:Mary Christmas, everyone.

Maksutov wrote:Mary cheated. Mary lied.

But let's invent a religion, a full blown theology to some how rationalize this.

Kind of like Joseph Smith getting caught in the barn producing the vast BS edifice of "celestial marriage". And we got to see that mythmaking in real time.

Christianity is probably the same. In this case Mary may have been "overshadowed" by, say, a Roman soldier who moved on after producing the Messiah. But little Mary could tell a story and Joseph was either clueless or complicit. Either is far more likely than liaisons with angels and gods.

But don't let that take away the tinsel and the tunes, if there's something good in Christmas it's because you put it there, not some first century fantasists.

Mary Christmas, everyone.

subgenius wrote:Have you guys abandoned the whole pagan appropriation protest? because your critique is all over the place and a bit incoherent.

canpakes wrote:

subgenius wrote:Have you guys abandoned the whole pagan appropriation protest? because your critique is all over the place and a bit incoherent.

Both ideas can completely and comfortably overlap.

The incoherence that you seem to be experiencing appears to be internally generated, as usual.