1. Mark being the first of the synoptic gospels makes no mention of Jesus being born of a virgin. Matthew & Luke, the other two synoptic gospels, have differing reasons for Jesus’ immaculate conception.
So what? Mark does not discuss any of Jesus' life before his ministry began. Matthew and Luke does talk about his birth. There is no reason to dismiss Matthew or Luke or Mark because neither one conflicts with the other just because one offers details the others do not. Who are you to tell Mark how to write his gospel? In addition several commenters on the original post pointed out that "immaculate conception" historically does not refer to Jesus but to Mary and that does not go back to the first century. Jesus' being born of the Virgin Mary goes back to the beginning. No where does the Bible say Mary also had virgin birth.
2. Matthew, a Greek speaking non-Jew, goes to extraordinary lengths to match Jesus’ life to Old Testament prophecy. His inadequate Hebrew linguistic skills cause him to make more than 20 interpretative errors of the Hebrew Bible. The glaring error being he cites Isaiah 7:14 as a messianic prophecy, which it is clearly is not. Further, he mistakes the Hebrew word ‘alma’ to mean virgin. Thus the Jesus myth of a virgin birth is nothing more than a language balls up.
Again the comments made on the post thoroughly dismiss this point. I wrote about this earlier this week myself at Biblical Exegesis: Isaiah 7:14
3. Luke, the only other gospel to mention virgin birth, does not make any reference to the prophecy as being the reason for Jesus’ non-sexual conception.
Seriously?!!! Luke does not contradict the prophecy and nor does he say that there is no prophecy of Jesus’ non-sexual conception. There is no point to be made here.
4. Luke writes that Jesus was born when Quirinius was the governor of Syria! Problem is that Quirinius did not become governor of Syria until 10 years after the death of Herod. Which means Matthew can’ be right with his claim that Herod was king at the time of Jesus’ birth.Well, that's not quite true. We know that Quirinius was in Syria between 8 and 5 BC. No where in the Bible says that Quirinius was called "governor" it says that he was governing. Quirinius was running the first census during the time of Jesus' birth. You can read a great post about this at Historical Evidence for Quirinius and the Census.
Common Sense! Herod was so willing to endear himself to the Jews by spending considerable time and money on the temple in Jerusalem, do we really think that he would keep records that he massacred innocent male babies in Bethlehem? Besides this Bethlehem was a small town. With a population as estimated to be about 1000 citizens we can surmised that there were about 10-30 babies killed - horrible as that is. And of course anyone who knows anything about Herod "The Great" knows that such a thing was well possible given his character. Here is another great article on this subject: Did Matthew Fabricate the Account of Herod’s Slaughter of the Bethlehem Infants?5. Despite extensive records of King Herod’s reign there is no mention of a baby killing edict of children under the age of two in the Bethlehem vicinity.
Top 10: Problems with Baby Jesus « Rationalists's Blog
Hmm, interesting list, but mostly pretty weak arguments. Numbers 4, 6, and 8 are the only ones that seem to have much substance to them. I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on point #8, as I've had problems with it myself.
ReplyDeleteI think that they are all weak and no substance.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm not saying they're good arguments, only that other than those three, they hardly seem like arguments at all. I mean seriously, Mark doesn't mention it, therefore it never happened? What sense does that make? By that logic(?), Jesus actually didn't exist between the ages of 12 and 30, since none of the Gospels talk about that time.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I misunderstood you. Thanks so much for your comments. Part 2 is going to be posted tomorrow
ReplyDelete