Is there Evidence in the Gospels that the Virgin Birth was a Cover-Up for... Something Else?

I was raised to believe that Joseph married
Mary to protect her from stoning
When she was pregnant
In those days to be pregnant and without a
Husband was death
Mary redeemed the sins of eve
God flavored Mary because she obeyed
God
She obeyed men not like the women of today
You didn't see Mary on the street corner
Yelling more rights for women
Nor did she look down on men

And in the end God spared her from death

I was raised to believe that Joseph married
Mary to protect her from stoning
When she was pregnant
In those days to be pregnant and without a
Husband was death
Mary redeemed the sins of eve
God flavored Mary because she obeyed
God
She obeyed men not like the women of today
You didn't see Mary on the street corner
Yelling more rights for women
Nor did she look down on men

And in the end God spared her from death

a reply to: Sigismundus

What is likely being glossed over is the fact that all three of the Mary's (the triple goddess) that were present at the cruxifixction and the 5 "whores" in the lineage are all symbolic of the divine feminine which was removed during the Josian purge. Mary the Great or the Tower of the tribe of Benjamin was the high priestess of the first temple cultus which was essentially the same as the pagans. (It was a carry over of the cult of Hathor-Mary (Isis). the Nehushtan, the Golden Menorah, the cherubim, the veils, all "pagan". It goes back to Abraham at least with the Israelites with the sacred oak that he encamped at. )

When Mary anoints Jesus with the expensive perfume that may be symbolic of the anointing oil that was a sign of the divine mother, the oil that opens the eyes, the christening of the high priest/king (in the order of the canaanite melchizedek). The nard that had been hidden away since the second temple was seen as an imposter, a product of the brood of vipers.


Have you read any of Margaret Barker? She is a quite well respected OT scholar. Much of what I've just wrote is my very poor summation of her thesis.

margaretbarker.com

[snip]

a reply to: Sigismundus

For the genealogical reference to Mary (aka Miryam) in the line of forebearers, please consult 'Matthew' 1:15b - 1:16
'And Matthan was the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of [Jesus] who is called the Messiah...."

The only thing I find surprising in that entire genealogy is that Mary is the ONLY woman. Jewish law is Matriarchal. 'Jewishness' is transmitted through the mother. This error leads me to suspect that the author was not Jewish, and was not familiar with the Jewish tradition and law.

a reply to: Sigismundus

('EL is on our side'; 'EL is with us', which is at any rate a war chant from the 8th century BCE).

Of course, EL is the name of the supreme god of the Canaanites and other Semitic tribes in the region. EL was the God of Abraham, the prototype for the Elohim/Yahweh and is included in the very name of Isra-EL - 'God Strives'.

originally posted by: rnaa
a reply to: Sigismundus

('EL is on our side'; 'EL is with us', which is at any rate a war chant from the 8th century BCE).

Of course, EL is the name of the supreme god of the Canaanites and other Semitic tribes in the region. EL was the God of Abraham, the prototype for the Elohim/Yahweh and is included in the very name of Isra-EL - 'God Strives'.

According to Kabbalah, each of the ten Sephiroth of the Tree of Life (Otz Chiim) is assigned a Godname, an Archangel, an Order of Angels and a Mundane Chakra. They express the essence of the Sephiroth in the four Kabbalistic "Worlds". EL is the Godname of Chesed ("Mercy"), the fourth Sephirah. YAHWEH is the Godname of Chokmah, the Sephirah above Chesed on the Pillar of Mercy. ELOHIM is the Godname of Binah, the Sephirah opposite Chokmah on the Pillar of Judgement.
The Godnames express mathematical archetypes governing the nature of reality as expressed through the corresponding Sephirah. For details of their relevance to science, see here.

the physical Mary, birth mother of Jesus, is treated differently in the Gospels than in the Revelation book,
Chapter 12


I suspect that the long winded texts concerning the birth mother (Mary) were inserted into the text to inject secret Code by the writers of the Gospels...
the whole of all the writings in the compilation of books making up the Bible are rife with these secret codes which were devised to orchestrate the readers mind & neural pathways in a covert & obscure form of Ritual
(much like walking a 'sacred' path fashioned after an animal or a geometric shape---as in the NAZCA Lines)

A person's neural networks pathways are a sublime & subliminal way of placing the reader or practitioner under a 'Spell' which the human writers of religious manuscripts hid-in-plain-sight & call the 'discovery' as being God Code (in an attempt to salvage their mystical stranglehold over the religious seeker...


the seed has been planted.... you are welcome





micpsi... a Star for your contribution, I think that you & I are in the same ballpark...

a reply to: Sigismundus

In Hebrew an 'un-touched virgin woman' is bethulah (בְּתוּלָה) but no Hebrew version of Isaiah 7:14 that I know of uses Bethulah in this place - the term seems to be 'almah' at Isaiah 7:14 Why this verse from Isaiah 7:14 was dragged into the Matthean Gospel story (as in the Lucan Infancy Narrative) was to build up the image of a god-man who is the literal 'son of God' with supernatural powers, at the same time glossing over the salacious innuendo about 'Jesus' possible illegitimacy and seizing upon the ambiguity of the Greek translation from the Hebrew in Isaiah 7:14 that suited the writer's intentions; but no where in the Gospels does it say that 'Jesus' was ever called Immanuel during his lifetime ('EL is on our side'; 'EL is with

Regardless of your insistence of Mary being tainted, you seem to not understand that you must have the autographs before the Septuagint was translated to prove any point of what the literary proof is. You can not have a word study when you do not have the autographs to compare. It is futile and very foolish and cannot be done.

You have the Aleppo Codex and the Dead Sea Isaiah as well as the Septuagint of which none can be compared to the autographs. Even though you may be close you still have no comparison to the intent of the Isaiah author of 7:14. If the DSS were the original copy of the autographs you would still have to produce the autographs to prove any word study.

The Septuagint was translated from Hebrew to Greek with those manuscripts of Hebrew lost but even the original translation of the Septuagint is lost or at best questioned. What have you left that can be trusted in a word study? Nothing. A Greek scribe can be only as accurate as to his copy to compare his work. One could have a vast majority of the over 5,000 Greek manuscripts recovered but what is there to compare that majority unless that scribe has the autograph? Nothing.

a reply to: rnaa

You wrote QUOTE "The only thing I find surprising in that entire genealogy is that Mary is the ONLY woman. Jewish law is Matriarchal. 'Jewishness' is transmitted through the mother. This error leads me to suspect that the author was not Jewish, and was not familiar with the Jewish tradition and law..." UNQUOTE

Wikipaedia is instructive here showing that (following the beliefs of the Karaites) patrilineal descent (i.e. through the father) was the norm prior to the Rabbinic period. Certainly the Daviddic line would have to be male, at any rate. The idea of Matrilineal descent derives from the post 70 CE period. ANd it is clear that both 'Matthew' and 'Luke' trace the ancestry of 'ho Iesous' through the male not the female lines, despite the 5 women in 'Matthew''s recension of the list.

"Matrilineality in Judaism is the view that people born of a Jewish mother are themselves Jewish. The Torah does not explicitly discuss the conferring of Jewish status through matrilineality. The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) also provides many examples of Israelite men whose children begotten through foreign women appear to have been accepted as Israelite. In contrast, Jewish oral tradition codified in Mishnah in the 2nd century CE serves as the basis of a shift in Rabbinic Judaism from patrilineal to matrilineal descent.

The Mishnah (Kiddushin 3:12) states that, to be a Jew, one must be either the child of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism, (ger tzedek, "righteous convert"). Orthodox opinion regards this rule as dating from receipt of the Torah at Mount Sinai, but most non-Orthodox scholars regard it as originating either at the time of Ezra (4th Century BCE) or during the period of Roman rule in the 1st–2nd centuries CE, as patrilineal descent is known to have been the standard of Judaism prior to that time.

In the Hellenistic period of the 4th Century BCE – 1st Century CE some evidence may be interpreted to indicate that the offspring of intermarriages between Jewish men and non-Jewish women were considered Jewish; as is usual in prerabbinic texts, there is no mention of conversion on the part of the Gentile spouse. On the other hand, Philo of Alexandria calls the child of a Jew and a non-Jew a nothos (i.e. a mamzer, bastard), regardless of whether the non-Jewish parent is the father or the mother...

Karaite Judaism holds that Judaism can only be transmitted through the father, and thus holds a rule of patrilineality. As a result, historical Karaite Jewish and Rabbinical Jewish communities would usually not intermarry with each other, even when the two Jewish communities lived side by side, such as in Alexandria and the Crimea. Karaite Judaism argues that Jewish identity can only be passed through the father, since all Jewish descent in the Tanakh is traced patrilineally..."

a reply to: Sigismundus

Karaite Judaism holds that Judaism can only be transmitted through the father, and thus holds a rule of patrilineality. As a result, historical Karaite Jewish and Rabbinical Jewish communities would usually not intermarry with each other, even when the two Jewish communities lived side by side, such as in Alexandria and the Crimea. Karaite Judaism argues that Jewish identity can only be passed through the father, since all Jewish descent in the Tanakh is traced patrilineally..."

Karaite Judaism is not the authority in this matter.

Quote
The original and current Jewish definition of a born Jew is someone whose mother is Jewish. Even though the Torah forbids a Jewish woman to marry a Gentile man, if she does, her children will still be Jewish.

The Torah also forbids a Jewish man to marry a Gentile woman, and if he does, his children by that woman will not be Jewish.

This annoys a great many people who wish to consider themselves Jewish, despite their non-Jewish mother. It is not my intention to annoy anyone. It is my intention to explain Judaism, and not to rationalize any dilution or changes in Jewish Law.
Unquote

www.beingjewish.com...

a reply to: Seede

You wrote: QUOTE Karaite Judaism is not the authority in this matter. Quote The original and current Jewish definition of a born Jew is someone whose mother is Jewish. Even though the Torah forbids a Jewish woman to marry a Gentile man, if she does, her children will still be Jewish. The Torah also forbids a Jewish man to marry a Gentile woman, and if he does, his children by that woman will not be Jewish. This annoys a great many people who wish to consider themselves Jewish, despite their non-Jewish mother. It is not my intention to annoy anyone. It is my intention to explain Judaism, and not to rationalize any dilution or changes in Jewish Law. UNQUOTE

For Rabbinic Judaism from the Middle Ages to the present (see the Talmud) it is true that matrilineal lineage holds sway to-day by most conservative and orthodox communities, but that was NOT the case during the 2nd Temple period (BCE 400-70CE) and before where the descent was Patrilineal i.e. prior to the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome, c. 66-72 CE). The Karaites merely adhered to the male dominated Sadducean, (pre-Talmudic) halakha that represented normative Judaism prior to the Jewish War of 66 CE.

A quick glance at Biblical genealogies makes it clear that up until the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome patrilineal descent was the norm - you only have to consult the many examples of Jewish kings who took non-Jewish spouses – and in inter-tribal marriage during the Biblical era, paternal descent was likewise decisive. A non-Jewish woman marrying a Jewish man didn’t even have to convert. She was now part of the tribe and her children would naturally be Jewish. Jewish family status continues to go by the father’s side to this day when determining whether one is a cohen (priest) or a levite.

The issue of 'who exactly is a Jew' is hotly debated nowadays, especially in Eretz Yisro'el. There is no simple answer - In the end, there is no universally agreed upon answer among Jews, and in some cases other groups have other answers entirely -

In 1983, the organized Reform Jewish Movement adopted the principal of patrilineal or matrilineal descent for mixed couples. Reform Judaism considers a child of an interfaith couple to be Jewish IF ONE PARENT is Jewish and the child is raised as a Jew and receives a Jewish education and celebrates appropriate life cycle events, such as receiving a Hebrew name and becoming bar or bat mitzvah. This also assumes that the child is being raised exclusively as a Jew and not practicing another religion. -

Today, more than one third of Jews inter-marry and, more often than not, it is Jewish men who marry non-Jewish women. As a result, there are an estimated 220,000 children in the United States born to non­-Jewish women who married Jewish males. THe Reform branch of Judaism has allowed for patrilineity in declaring a person 'Jewish' if either spouse is a Jew regardless of gender.

What 'normative' Judaism will do with this conundrum in future one can only guess at....

No evidence as the 'Gospels' are not proven as are rhetorical 'an exaggerated question'. Used for or belong to mere effect; in this case bombastic effect regarding DOGMA (exclusion or inclusion).

a reply to: Seede

You wrote: QUOTE Regardless of your insistence of Mary being tainted, you seem to not understand that you must have the autographs before the Septuagint was translated to prove any point of what the literary proof is. You can not have a word study when you do not have the autographs to compare. It is futile and very foolish and cannot be done.

You have the Aleppo Codex and the Dead Sea Isaiah as well as the Septuagint of which none can be compared to the autographs. Even though you may be close you still have no comparison to the intent of the Isaiah author of 7:14. If the DSS were the original copy of the autographs you would still have to produce the autographs to prove any word study.

UNQUOTE

We do have 21 Dead Sea Scrolls from Caves 1-11 (c. 160 BCE to 68 CE) which are written in Hebrew for the book of Isaiah some of which seem to follow the Hebrew Vorlage to the later Greek Septuagint family LXX of MSS (c. 250 BCE) - others follow the proto-Masoretic text (as in the Great Isaiah scroll). But of course we are a long way from looking at autographs written in paleo-Hebrew - but at least there is evidence that the LXX Septuaginta translated the Hebrew in front of them veery punctiliously - which was not known before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves 1-11 (until 1947 it was assumed the LXX was merely a bad translation from the protoMasoretic...but now we know better)

Emmanuel Tov has spent decades comparing texts of the protoLXX and the Masoretic : here is a LINK for you to consult if you want more detailed explanations from an academic point of view...

www.emanueltov.info...

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

as much as I enjoy this interpretation, I don't think the patriarchal writers of the bible approved of any goddess worship (which this sounds like).

a reply to: alkalisunshine

They didn't approve of goddess worship which is why there is no clear cut goddess within the Bible, but they couldn't completely leave the Mother out either, otherwise people's inner selves wouldn't have latched on to the story like we see today. The Catholic church's veneration of Mary as the Mother of God is a thinly veiled form of goddess worship, though you'll have a hard time getting them or their followers to admit as such.

Our inner selves always seek for the truth and these veiled stories scratch that inner itch we have for the truth. The stories in all holy books mimic the truth but are sold as literal history when they are really just allegorical lessons on spiritual concepts.

Jesus being the light of the world and image of God is an allegorical commentary on what we all are on a fundamental level which is an image of light that reveals the world around us. What is most obvious about yourself in this moment? The light you see, that is the image of God and light of the world.

To get the true meaning of any biblical story (or any religious story for that matter) you must internalize it and relate the narrative to aspects of yourself.

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: Sigismundus

Akragon: It would probably make more sense then the "virgin birth" legend...
Virgin could also be a mistranslation in the gospels, which was meant to mean "young woman"
Its pretty hard to tell what actually happened from the limited knowledge we have of the events surrounding the life of Jesus
it seems the church does tend to embellish in many case

I thought 'virgin birth' meant from the Absolute; a Virgin Birth of spirit not having had to experience the path of growth or hamster wheel of 'reincarnation' and so is directly one as a virgin is a virgin spirit encompassing all 9 dimensions born of a human mother and father. The idea of a virgin birth is not original (pagan) but added after the beginning of the Christian Era a century later (to satisfy pagans still living and practicing).

Eh The Bible teaches that Mary was a Virgin at Christs conception however she did not remain so her whole life.

originally posted by: Punisher75
Eh The Bible teaches that Mary was a Virgin at Christs conception however she did not remain so her whole life.

As Akragon said, the Hebrew word 'almah' does not mean 'virgin' but a young woman of a marriageable age. Joseph according to Matthew is the reputed father. Look at the geneology given that names 14 generations and fourteen more. Matthew knew (or thought) Jesus was the Messiah from Hebraic tradition.

a reply to: vethumanbeing
Almah (עלמה, plural: alamot עלמות, in Arabic Amah آمه which means unspecified women or a women passed teen age aside of her sexual status) is a Hebrew word meaning a young woman of childbearing age who has not yet had a child, and who may be (but does not have to be) an unmarried virgin or a married young woman.

So no it does not HAVE to mean Virgin, however it does include the meaning.
The greater issue is not the definition of one word, with dual meaning; but rather which definition the word should use.
We are speaking about Christian Soteriology so in that context we know that the meaning is virgin and not just young girl.