Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Step 5: The Virgin Birth

Most non-Christians assume that all Christians believe in the doctrine of the virgin birth. Although that is not true during the Christmas Season we certainly run up against this belief at every turn. It is certainly assumed in our carols and pageantry. Few Christian habits/traditions are as destructive and misinformed as is this one. The story of Mary being a virgin is a great story and has truths to tell us but it is not history. That many believe it to be fact is a tragic exposure of ignorance, spiritual laziness and the power of the first aforementioned sin.

Belief in the virgin birth was clearly not important to all early Christians because it is not mentioned in the earliest Gospel, Mark, or in the latest Gospel, John. Indeed, that only two of the Gospels, the ones that have birth naratives at all, mention it is some context should inform us that the idea was a tool used by those early evangelists and not a main part of the message itself. And it is only used in the birth narative sections of these two gospels. There is absolutely nothing within the body of any of the gospels that imply anything out of the ordinary regarding the family of Joseph and Mary. The story is told in Matthew but only after the author goes to great lengths to impress upon the readers that Jesus of Nazareth is part of and indeed the product of all the good and holy men that had come before him within the Jewish people. He is a descendant through Joseph. The writer of this gospel is very concerned to prove that Jesus was predicted by Jewish scriptures and bends over backward in his proof-reading and searching for anything that could possibly be construed or contorted to be used to that affect. It is clear that much of what he writes is to support these scriptures. It is ironic that the quote he uses as proof is in error. He is quoting from he modern Greek translation of his day. The problem lies in the fact that in the original Hebrew, the word used is that Matthew reads as "virgin" really is "young woman'. No virginity is implied. Every translator today know this. But the tradition is followed. It seems as if we don't have enough nerve to correct the translation glitch.

There was another reason for the virgin birth to be included in birth narratives. We must remember that the gospels as we have them were written to Gentiles in a Greek-thinking culture by other Gentiles. This was done some thirty to seventy years after Jesus, after his followers began to understand that Jesus was not going to come back and lead them to glory. With this change in understanding they became aware of the need to write things down in ways that would help future people to understand, believe and follow. Although they were not Jewish (the Jewish followers of Jesus being mainly killed by the Romans in the rebellion in the 60's) they used the Jewish forms of literature. Two gospels, those we call Matthew and Luke adopted the Jewish custom of introducing the main part of their writing with stories that set the stage, that told the big truths that were bigger than time and history. The best example of this in Jewish scriptures is the first ten chapters of Genesis that sets the stage for and lays out the truths in a rememberable and challenging, but yet unhistorical way for the rest of the Torah.
So how to tell present and future Greek thinking people about Jesus of Nazareth? Fact: the TRUTH and WORD of the God of Israel was and is found in Jesus of Nazareth, now for them CHRIST. What forms of speech and imagery would best be used to convey this truth? To the Jew, The SON OF GOD meant someone who was especially close to God, but had certainly no divine connotation. To those with a Greek cultural background it meant much more. In Greek mythology Hercules was the offspring of Zuse and Princess Lia (or her stand-in). In their mythology gods were very sexual and randy beings. So the Virgin Birth helped to explain the reality of what people experienced in Jesus to be understood withing the Greek culture for whom the gospels were directed.

There was also within Greek culture (as opposed to the Jewish) an understanding that anything good and of God was not earthy and of course, sex was very unholy. How could one through whom God comes to us be sexual or even be born because of sex? Again this concern was solved by the story of the virgin birth. It is tragically ironic that this simple story that was told to clear things and help in understanding now is such an obstacle. It us used by the so-called fundamentalists proof of belief. If one does not believe in the virgin birth they are definitely not Christians and are therefore going to fry! How stupid, un-Christ like and how very unlike the early church. Saint Paul didn't know anything about it so if it doesn't make sense to us, don't worry about it.

I long to hear a good sermon preached on the virgin birth, on how it answered questions in that time, questions that we still have today. Questions about how God comes to us and leads us through this Jesus of Nazareth, questions of life and birth and death. But the questions and answeres must be in language and imagery that are our own, not that of a foreign culture two thousand years ago. Use the imagery but remake it to be your own. When you sing "Silent Night" don't take it literally but allow it to take your mind and soul on a search of mysteries, of God, earth and you, to awaken yourself to the possibility of God becoming real within you again, like a baby, ready to be raised again in new life.

Step 6: More on the Christmas Story in Matthew

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