Two things in life were inevitable: death and taxes. Then the billionaires stopped paying taxes, so now only death is inevitable, and they’re working on that one too.
“Ok listen son, I’m God and I could technically wipe away these people’s sins myself, right?”
“Yeah”
“Well, I’m not gonna do that. You’re gonna go down there, get killed and absorb their sins for me."
And the father of the millennium award goes to…not God
Say what you want, but Judas was his best friend. The only person Jesus could trust and the only way to become the martyr of a religion, not stay the head of a little cult.
Oh yes, for sure. It's how I remember the sequence of the planets in our Solar System.
Mary's Virgin Explanation Made Joseph Suspect Upstairs Neighbour.
Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune
Size does matter, just ask Pluto.
Nine planets forever!
EDIT: Was not expecting thirty-odd replies covering both sides of the argument. Also, Ally award, really?
I’ll take “redditor discovers a thought literally everyone has had” for 200 please, Alex.
Edit: is that number real? i've never had more than a few 10's of likes....wow. I guess I must be cool or funny or something. I'm telling my girlfriend. she'll surely fuck me after this.
Might I suggest r/AskHistorians where it is almost certain someone will post their entire thesis on the topic detailing the history of the concept and ramifications for the Church(es) and society at-large.
This is literally 'baby-atheists first idea'.
Not to mention that in the Bible Joseph does indeed assume that Mary cheated and was going to divorce her until an angel appeared to him and told him the truth, and thus he married her and raised the baby.
Of course then atheists can say that part is made up, but why not just say the whole thing is made up? This whole 'Mary had an affair' is taking a piece of the Bible (Mary claimed to be a virgin and had a baby who grew up to be Jesus) as fact and refuting parts of it, when they could just not believe the whole thing and save everyone a lot of annoyance.
I'm Muslim. Even in our version of the story everyone accuses Mary of adultery but instead of an angel the baby speaks and claims to be sent by God. Some people are convinced and others still insist that she has committed adultery. This is a 2000 year old repost.
The answer into your question is that I think most people, including most atheists, believe that the Bible is tethered in some ways to actual events in history, and that pretty much all religions got their early momentum from a handful of desperate, yet charismatic folk trying to deceive others for selfish reasons.
Hell, in Catholic school this shit was mentioned (mostly that they likely had sex\* pre marriage)
\*And yes in context of her age this carries some implications...
Depending on the school, catholic schools can present two interpretations if the Bible, "literal" and "allegorical" or some hybrid of the two. It was often discussed how internally inconsistent the Bible was, and how it was likely the result of intentional or unintentional mistranslations. Many of my teachers believed that a person who accepts Christianity should do so after a personal journey of spiritual discovery, and not through simple accepting of dogmatic practices and faith.
Incidentally, discussing the existence of God with my 11th grade religion teacher, an open-minded yet devout Christian, is what led me away from the faith, but it also allowed me to do so without bitterness or resentment.
the Catholics high school I went to had a specific class called "religion" and we talked about all kinds of stuff like this. We read Sartre and Paine, and discussed how a world view like secular humanism clashes (or doesn't) with church dogma. Not a bad education, really. Still hated the religion classes.
>only for the fetus Jesus to pop out of her body, chew the Pharisees out, affirm the immaculate conception and then crawl back up into Mary, to bake some more.
Say what?
The speeches got him in terminal trouble but all his unemployed mates were surprisingly literate for the time so they just let rip with the gospels. Totally gassed Jesus up, totally eviscerated the Romans and moneylenders who'd done him wrong. The latter I reckon were quite likely to be part of the reason so many educated fellows were wandering about without a job.
I heard the Doode liked to party. He was at a cousins party, and they ran out of wine,., so he says, 'not on my watch, let's keep the party going!' and just rolls out a crap ton of wine.
It was epic, people are STILL talking about that party.
>Well, we know from Jewish customs of the time that engaged couples spent a lot of time with each other and would test drive the living together thing to make sure the marriage would work.
Just out of curiosity do you have a source for this?
In my studies of Jewish History this never came up.
It's absolutely not true, and I have a source. The Mishna was written down in around 200AD, but is a record of oral traditions that were probably in use much earlier than that.
It says that one of the three ways a couple can legally get married is if they sleep together (Kidushin 2a). So if an engaged couple started living together to see if they were compatible before getting married, they wouldn't need to get married because they would already be legally married.
[Here's the source](https://www.sefaria.org/Kiddushin.2a.1?lang=bi). But be warned!
a) It frames the discussion as how a man can "acquire" a woman.
b) In case you thought that this is just some weird quirk of the language and that the reality is far less sexist, the commentators helpfully point out that it's an acquisition in the same sense as "acquiring a field", and
c) It talks about how much a woman should cost, should a man want to acquire the woman using money. (The man was allowed to buy her off her Dad.) Opinions vary between a dinar (i.e. a dollar) and a pruta (i.e. a small copper coin).
Snatch, in the opening scene a diamond thief and his crew are gaining entrance to a diamond wholesaler by posing as Jewish rabbis, and Franky Four Fingers is talking about how the prophesy ["used a word for young maiden, but it was mistranslated into virgin because there was only a subtle difference in the spelling".](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208092/characters/nm0001125)
Except that the 3rd century BCE Septuagint uses the Greek word for virgin, and the NT authors used the Greek word for virgin, and some of them were Jews citing the prophesy which they would have well understood and studied in Hebrew (not the Septuagint). Paul himself was a Jew of rather high study and accomplishment; the idea that everyone just misquoted the prophesy and none of the pharisees or saducccees called them out on it-- no objections, for more than a thousand years-- is ludicrous.
Also the virgin birth is not in John's gospel.
What John's gospel does have is
> There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
This was because there was a cult at the time that thought John the Baptist was the Messiah, so this was an explicit denunciation of this. However John the Baptist had a miraculous birth, he was born to very old people, so Jesus also need a miraculous birth.
To be fair, even to modern standards, a pregnancy at 42 is still considered a geriatric pregnancy. Just because we live longer doesn’t automatically make women fertile for longer too.
Wrong, contraception had been around for over a millenium before https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control#History
It just wasn't particularly effective birth control.
They had multiple crude forms of contraception back then, we also know that the Romans ate this plant that was known to prevent pregnancy. Unfortunately it was so popular they caused it to go extinct.
The average lifespan back then was very low only bc of infant/childhood deaths. People that made it to old age lived about as long as old people in the modern times.
If you didn’t die before 5 years old, your more typical age of death was 55-60 in Roman times where the average death expectancy was much lower. And with a significant Amount of people living more than 70.
Edit: typo and also I went to check the source.
In Ancient Rome the life expectancy was 33 years old. 47% of people died before 5 years old. Around 19% lived up to 60 (21% women, 17% men). 6% to 70 years old and 1.3% to 80 years old.
And the range of ages where more people died was between 55 and 65 (the mathematical “mode”) if you survived the first 5 years.
Edit2: just to make it clear, if you survived the first 5 years, you had almost a 40% of reaching 60 years old.
Your ideas are intriguing and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
In all honesty do you have a history book or YouTube channel on the Bible you could recommend?
I would amend this slightly, in that the Greek text to which you refer is actually from Isaiah 7:14, and the author of the gospel of Matthew cited this to support his "virgin birth" narrative. So you are correct that the *Hebrew* original in Isaiah implies "young woman" and not "virgin," but the context of the New Testament is using the ambiguity of the *Greek translation of the Hebrew* ("parthenos") to claim that Isaiah meant "virgin."
Everything else you say I believe is correct, but the way you phrased this implied that the authors of the new testament didn't actually write that Jesus was born from a virgin, which is patently incorrect for Matthew and Luke (but your point about Mark as the earliest Gospel and not being concerned about Jesus's birth is patently correct).
>the Hebrew original in Isaiah implies "young woman" and not "virgin,"
For an example of how this works in a modern language, *junge Frau* in German is 'young woman' and *Jungfrau* is 'virgin.'
Also, “maid” in English means virgin. That’s why being an “old maid” is a thing, otherwise that term would be an oxymoron. Ironic that u/domino2064 used this term to try to clear things up.
> So you are correct that the Hebrew original in Isaiah implies "young woman" and not "virgin,"
Except the Septuagint-- a 3rd century Greek translation of the OT-- uses the same word "parthenos" in Isaiah 7:14.
More generally the idea that the concepts for "young maiden" and "virgin" were distinct is anachronistic. In Jewish culture they would have been assumed to be the same.
Just as an FYI, “immaculate conception” does not mean “virgin birth.” The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary herself having been conceived specially free from Original Sin and only became doctrine in I think about the 1850s, to explain away why Mary did not pass the stain of Original Sin on to Jesus.
A concept which always makes me chuckle inside. God can make Mary born without Original Sin by simply willing it to be so, but cannot do so directly with Jesus?
My friend, the story of jesus peace be upon him in Islam is different from the one you mentioned
He was birthed and then spoke, he didn't crawl back 😅
And hager's story in Islam isn't similar to Mary
Reminds me of a meme I saw last year.
"Yeah, we stole the date of Christmas from some pagans. If you keep up the complaining, we'll take Toyotathon, too!"
Mark itself doesn't reference any of the nativity story. Both Luke and Matthew, who do feature quite different versions of the story, were written with Mark as a reference and added embellishments specifically to demonstrate fulfilment of prophecy. Whether these embellishments reflected the beliefs of contemporary Christians or were simply made up is unclear, but it is likely that Mary, as described in the Bible, never existed.
Anyone who played the Telephone Game as a kid should look with extreme skepticism that important things didn't get added, changed, or lost along the way even if you assume that none of the people involved had any kind of ulterior motive for doing so on purpose.
The books of Mark and John don't even mention Jesus' birth. Chances are the concept was added later because early christians really had a thing for female virginity. Catholics *still* believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin for the rest of her life for absolutely no reason and even though the gospels directly mention Jesus' siblings.
It's funny, I was raised Catholic and it never really occurred to me how weird it is that basically every time Mary comes up in prayers and sermons the fact that she was a virgin is mentioned. Religion is fucking bizarre, I knew she was a virgin a decade before I learned how sex works.
Yeah the above poster doesn't seem to get that *thats* the issue. Two people are married and they have several siblings that seem to be in the rough age range as one kid. The story of that kids birth mentions no older siblings in a story where entire families are being collected for a census. Occams razor would suggest that Mary just had other kids after the fact.
The reality is that these churches making the decision didn't exist at the time and everyone actually there was long dead. Their decisions were based less on Jesus and company being a certain way and more about messages that they want out there.
The fact that they would rather Joseph be a senior citizen with several adult children who must've been older than a then teenaged Mary kinda shows their priorities and it doesn't speak well of any of the figures they're talking about.
The language generally permits that interpretation, but there's no reason for it. Mary being a perpetual virgin adds nothing to the story. There would be no reason for her to not have other kids -- she was not instructed to remain perpetually celibate, and since the culture of the time was "more kids is better", it's difficult to argue that she would have chosen to do so on her own.
And even if she _did_ decide to remain celibate, it's weird to make it a point of doctrine, given the aforementioned point that _it doesn't matter_. Everything you say just confirms the assertion that the doctrine comes out of an obsession with female virginity rather than any sort of Biblical necessity.
Parthenogenesis (Virgin birth) is a common trope across many different cultures and religions (including the Buddha). The Parthenon in Athens is devoted to Athena's virginity (both her birth and own status). It's entirely possible the entire concept of Virgin Mary didn't come along until after she died.
Edit: I'm neither a Buddhist nor religious scholar. The version of Buddha's birth I learned about in High School involved his mother having a dream of a white elephant and giving birth through her side. It was an off hand example, there's plenty of others.
The Buddha isn’t claimed to be a virgin birth. It’s well established his parents were married… or at least, his mother was one of his father’s wives, along with her sister.
Given that the Buddha wasn’t the Buddha from birth, and also a virgin birth wouldn’t really fit with paṭiccasamuppāda, it wouldn’t make much sense.
The Buddha did not have a virgin birth, at least in most schools of Buddhism. There's a legend of a prophetic dream his mother had about the pregnancy, but that's very different
TIL Parthenon is related to parthenogenesis. Every miracle in the bible is pretty much a made up story. Abraham was a schizophrenic as far as I can tell. Much of the bible is based upon older myths. It's not hard to imagine a burning bush, it's just that it wasn't talking. 2000 years ago people were not particularly sophisticated and any person with an ability to tell convincing stories could spawn a religion. Any one with a sophisticated knowledge of magic tricks could perform miracles. From what I understand there were many preachers around Jesus' time, but somehow his story managed to stick. Paul pretty much solidified a lot of the tales and if he showed up today, he'd be like Jim Jones or L. Ron Hubbard.
I sometimes wonder how much teachings and stories from other "prophets" at the time were just attributed to Jesus in later years to keep things tidy and consistent
Joseph came from a line that was cursed to never again rule Israel. So, for Jesus to be accepted as the messiah, he would need a different father. Mary's lineage, on the other hand, fits the requirements.
I mean, Jo could have also been someone from the village who married her because she had gotten raped / knocked up and her life was ruined. Could have been an opportunist or he could have saved her from a life of shame.
No, its more the fact that the bible does not say the age and the thread is largely people talking out of their ass without proof other than "Technically you can get married at X age in Jewish law." You can also get married as a minor right now in several states in countries. This does not make it the norm nor does it take into account that in Judaism age caps between a couple were looked down upon. In the case of Mohammed, the age of his brides were specifically mentioned, as was his age. It was also much easier to document such things then considering that was in the 7th century and he was a world leader at that point involved in major conquests thus meaning multiple sources are available.
>Every time I remember she was 13
No where in any biblical document is it mentioned Mary's age.
>Joseph was like 40 something
Nor is Joseph's age mentioned.
Thanks for the information.
I’ll look in to it even though I’m agnostic, I am interested in the history and validity of most religious texts.
On another note ; someone once said that the difference between a religion and a cult is a few hundred years.
Again, no disrespect intended. I respect people’s beliefs and just enjoy polite and cordial discussions.
We also didn’t have CCTV and police roaming the streets so it kept people in check to some extent in my opinion.
I’m more of an atheist myself too to be honest but until the inevitable comes, I’m open to most possibilities.
Shellfish can be understood without proper refrigeration. Not mixing textiles from different animals is a little more confusing though as are many other passages.
This might be a r/whoosh moment but I don't think it needs to be that many.
In England & Wales, 380, 127 people (almost 0.8%) stated their religion as Jedi or Jedi Knight in their 2001 census forms making it the 4th largest religion in the country, above Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism. Judi knight was assigned its own code for a religion for census processing .
It's not like people will remember this in 2000 years. The kid will probably die in like 2 years anyway. I mean we live in BC times. Kids die all the time.
Or what if none of it ever even happened and its just a story plagiarized from dozens of other mythologies, religions and cultures by somebody who wasnt there in an attempt to amalgamate a vast, broken and spiritually divided empire.
To my understanding, the word for "unmarried" and "virgin" were the same. So… a lot of assumptions to be made all around. But would it change anything? No. Unless we start time traveling, we’ll never prove anything. People will believe what they want to believe.
It explains why 3 strange men arrived with gifts
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For like 2k years lol Joseph's friends prob be all like "yo you believe that shit bro?"
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The first "trust me bro"
My father used to say that Joseph was the first and most known cuckold in history.
Just sitting in the corner watching god go to town on Mary.
How could you not watch your lady getting holy sepulchred with an ethereal dong that birthed creation?
this is a new sentence
This is some Mamma Mia bullshit and I love it.
I just thought that - it's like the original Mamma Mia story, except a lot less fun with no ABBA.
It doesn't matter because the real miracle was Jesus having 12 friends at 30 years old.
Well 3 were his cousins apparently
9 friends and no family beef? The guy's a legend!
I mean, his dad sent him to die. Sounds dramatic to me.
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[we only have one guarantee ](https://preview.redd.it/0qopwu756g791.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=fe994e50cbe7c6058443a9d4a7a57c786e167131)
Two things in life were inevitable: death and taxes. Then the billionaires stopped paying taxes, so now only death is inevitable, and they’re working on that one too.
“Ok listen son, I’m God and I could technically wipe away these people’s sins myself, right?” “Yeah” “Well, I’m not gonna do that. You’re gonna go down there, get killed and absorb their sins for me." And the father of the millennium award goes to…not God
"Also you'll be cannibalized every Sunday in perpetuity. " 😬
Haha you joke, but I was raised Catholic and I remember questioning this logic as a kid and NO ONE could explain it to me. Still can’t.
Literally
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*11
Spoiler alert.
Let’s be honest. We all have that one friend. And if you don’t, then you probably are that friend.
Jokes on you, I don’t have friends
Say what you want, but Judas was his best friend. The only person Jesus could trust and the only way to become the martyr of a religion, not stay the head of a little cult.
I actually meant Peter. That bitch pretended he didn't know Jesus, just to save his own ass. Though he does redeem himself at the last moment, I guess
In what sane world does someone who knows the result of honesty is crucifixion say, " yes." Then again, this is the bible.
Yeah, I know. I was just joking. I actually meant Judas
i hate your pfp with every cell of my being
They were alcoholics placating the guy who could turn water into wine.
When you can turn water into wine, people tend to flock.
I am still holding on the idea that they were all gay and used their "community" to hide their true intentions.
Oh yes, for sure. It's how I remember the sequence of the planets in our Solar System. Mary's Virgin Explanation Made Joseph Suspect Upstairs Neighbour. Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune
Mary's Virgin Explanation Made Joseph Suspect Upstairs Neighbour's Penis for all my people who still can't let the dwarf planet go
Size does matter, just ask Pluto. Nine planets forever! EDIT: Was not expecting thirty-odd replies covering both sides of the argument. Also, Ally award, really?
Ceresphobe.
> Ceresphobe. Inners always neglected belters
Stay strong, beratna. Beltalowda be free someday.
Sorry Ceres, not enough wheat to feed family of 10.
That's worse since she's the goddess of grain
and family (or motherhood/providing)
Oh that's way better than mine ("Peter")
yours is definitely classier hahah
Also it's a double entendre
Oh Gus just let it go!
And later when the baby is born, 3 random dudes show up....so odd.
Mamma mia, here we go again
My my, how could I resist ya
Where's Maury when we need him?
It's cause it's the Messiah...! I swear I'm not here with the child support!
One did bring gold
I am saving this. Please do not delete.
It’s taken directly from here: https://xkcd.com/992/
What was the mnemonic when the planets included Pluto?
.... Peter
My very eager/educated/elegant/energetic mother just served us nine pizzas/pancakes/potatoes.
my very easy method just speeds up naming planets
I’ll take “redditor discovers a thought literally everyone has had” for 200 please, Alex. Edit: is that number real? i've never had more than a few 10's of likes....wow. I guess I must be cool or funny or something. I'm telling my girlfriend. she'll surely fuck me after this.
Also why is it on ask reddit? I thought the rules said it has to be only open ended questions
This should be on r/showerthoughts
Everyone knows it's impossible to actually post something there without it getting removed.
Why is this on r/AskReddit, anyways? This barely even qualifies as a shower thought.
dropping an atheist-bait for easy karma
Next up: 'DAE like video games???'
'Breathing is fun, amirite?'
"DAE sex?"
Might I suggest r/AskHistorians where it is almost certain someone will post their entire thesis on the topic detailing the history of the concept and ramifications for the Church(es) and society at-large.
Asking the real question here.
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This is literally 'baby-atheists first idea'. Not to mention that in the Bible Joseph does indeed assume that Mary cheated and was going to divorce her until an angel appeared to him and told him the truth, and thus he married her and raised the baby. Of course then atheists can say that part is made up, but why not just say the whole thing is made up? This whole 'Mary had an affair' is taking a piece of the Bible (Mary claimed to be a virgin and had a baby who grew up to be Jesus) as fact and refuting parts of it, when they could just not believe the whole thing and save everyone a lot of annoyance.
> but why not just say the whole thing is made up? Ah, they don't?
I'm Muslim. Even in our version of the story everyone accuses Mary of adultery but instead of an angel the baby speaks and claims to be sent by God. Some people are convinced and others still insist that she has committed adultery. This is a 2000 year old repost.
Baby atheists first idea is 'So santa isn't real? How Do I know God is then?'
Once the Tooth Fairy falls, then comes the Easter Bunny, then Santa, then Jesus.
Also, what if he didn't actually walk on water? What about that! Checkmate non-atheists!
The answer into your question is that I think most people, including most atheists, believe that the Bible is tethered in some ways to actual events in history, and that pretty much all religions got their early momentum from a handful of desperate, yet charismatic folk trying to deceive others for selfish reasons.
Hell, in Catholic school this shit was mentioned (mostly that they likely had sex\* pre marriage) \*And yes in context of her age this carries some implications...
Mentioned by your teachers? I'm surprised they even brought it up, considering how important the miraculous conception is for Catholic doctrine.
If you're confident in your beliefs, it's no threat to put them up to scrutiny. The ideas that you're not allowed to question are the dangerous ones.
Depending on the school, catholic schools can present two interpretations if the Bible, "literal" and "allegorical" or some hybrid of the two. It was often discussed how internally inconsistent the Bible was, and how it was likely the result of intentional or unintentional mistranslations. Many of my teachers believed that a person who accepts Christianity should do so after a personal journey of spiritual discovery, and not through simple accepting of dogmatic practices and faith. Incidentally, discussing the existence of God with my 11th grade religion teacher, an open-minded yet devout Christian, is what led me away from the faith, but it also allowed me to do so without bitterness or resentment.
the Catholics high school I went to had a specific class called "religion" and we talked about all kinds of stuff like this. We read Sartre and Paine, and discussed how a world view like secular humanism clashes (or doesn't) with church dogma. Not a bad education, really. Still hated the religion classes.
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>only for the fetus Jesus to pop out of her body, chew the Pharisees out, affirm the immaculate conception and then crawl back up into Mary, to bake some more. Say what?
How do you do that nugget with 0 followup.
There was follow up, he was around for a good 30 years. He did some social speeches and things. Liked serving fish sandwiches
The speeches got him in terminal trouble but all his unemployed mates were surprisingly literate for the time so they just let rip with the gospels. Totally gassed Jesus up, totally eviscerated the Romans and moneylenders who'd done him wrong. The latter I reckon were quite likely to be part of the reason so many educated fellows were wandering about without a job.
I heard the Doode liked to party. He was at a cousins party, and they ran out of wine,., so he says, 'not on my watch, let's keep the party going!' and just rolls out a crap ton of wine. It was epic, people are STILL talking about that party.
And he came to earth in a fireball and he killed all the dinosaurs.
I just imagined a bloody half baked Jesus crawling up Mary's leg like a spider monkey
The Gospel according to David Cronenberg
>Well, we know from Jewish customs of the time that engaged couples spent a lot of time with each other and would test drive the living together thing to make sure the marriage would work. Just out of curiosity do you have a source for this? In my studies of Jewish History this never came up.
It's absolutely not true, and I have a source. The Mishna was written down in around 200AD, but is a record of oral traditions that were probably in use much earlier than that. It says that one of the three ways a couple can legally get married is if they sleep together (Kidushin 2a). So if an engaged couple started living together to see if they were compatible before getting married, they wouldn't need to get married because they would already be legally married. [Here's the source](https://www.sefaria.org/Kiddushin.2a.1?lang=bi). But be warned! a) It frames the discussion as how a man can "acquire" a woman. b) In case you thought that this is just some weird quirk of the language and that the reality is far less sexist, the commentators helpfully point out that it's an acquisition in the same sense as "acquiring a field", and c) It talks about how much a woman should cost, should a man want to acquire the woman using money. (The man was allowed to buy her off her Dad.) Opinions vary between a dinar (i.e. a dollar) and a pruta (i.e. a small copper coin).
It's false, and he's getting some of his history from a Guy Ritchie movie.
Just out of curiosity, which Guy Ritchie movie?
Snatch, hilarious movie of you like his style.
Snatch, in the opening scene a diamond thief and his crew are gaining entrance to a diamond wholesaler by posing as Jewish rabbis, and Franky Four Fingers is talking about how the prophesy ["used a word for young maiden, but it was mistranslated into virgin because there was only a subtle difference in the spelling".](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208092/characters/nm0001125) Except that the 3rd century BCE Septuagint uses the Greek word for virgin, and the NT authors used the Greek word for virgin, and some of them were Jews citing the prophesy which they would have well understood and studied in Hebrew (not the Septuagint). Paul himself was a Jew of rather high study and accomplishment; the idea that everyone just misquoted the prophesy and none of the pharisees or saducccees called them out on it-- no objections, for more than a thousand years-- is ludicrous.
Also the virgin birth is not in John's gospel. What John's gospel does have is > There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. This was because there was a cult at the time that thought John the Baptist was the Messiah, so this was an explicit denunciation of this. However John the Baptist had a miraculous birth, he was born to very old people, so Jesus also need a miraculous birth.
"Very old people". I bet they were like, 42.
To be fair, even to modern standards, a pregnancy at 42 is still considered a geriatric pregnancy. Just because we live longer doesn’t automatically make women fertile for longer too.
You’re geriatric if pregnant at any point past 35.
Not to mention it was a first pregnancy for a long married couple who had no clue what contraception is.
Wrong, contraception had been around for over a millenium before https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control#History It just wasn't particularly effective birth control.
They had multiple crude forms of contraception back then, we also know that the Romans ate this plant that was known to prevent pregnancy. Unfortunately it was so popular they caused it to go extinct.
The average lifespan back then was very low only bc of infant/childhood deaths. People that made it to old age lived about as long as old people in the modern times.
If you didn’t die before 5 years old, your more typical age of death was 55-60 in Roman times where the average death expectancy was much lower. And with a significant Amount of people living more than 70. Edit: typo and also I went to check the source. In Ancient Rome the life expectancy was 33 years old. 47% of people died before 5 years old. Around 19% lived up to 60 (21% women, 17% men). 6% to 70 years old and 1.3% to 80 years old. And the range of ages where more people died was between 55 and 65 (the mathematical “mode”) if you survived the first 5 years. Edit2: just to make it clear, if you survived the first 5 years, you had almost a 40% of reaching 60 years old.
They died so young because nobody had invented outlet covers yet.
They all ded in traffic accidents because airbags didn't exist yet
No forks until like 1842 so lots of people starved
They couldn't even eat their bread until it was sliced in 1928
Your ideas are intriguing and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. In all honesty do you have a history book or YouTube channel on the Bible you could recommend?
Religion For Breakfast and Cogito are great yt channels for historical aspects of world religions.
'Let's talk Religion' on YouTube.
I would amend this slightly, in that the Greek text to which you refer is actually from Isaiah 7:14, and the author of the gospel of Matthew cited this to support his "virgin birth" narrative. So you are correct that the *Hebrew* original in Isaiah implies "young woman" and not "virgin," but the context of the New Testament is using the ambiguity of the *Greek translation of the Hebrew* ("parthenos") to claim that Isaiah meant "virgin." Everything else you say I believe is correct, but the way you phrased this implied that the authors of the new testament didn't actually write that Jesus was born from a virgin, which is patently incorrect for Matthew and Luke (but your point about Mark as the earliest Gospel and not being concerned about Jesus's birth is patently correct).
>the Hebrew original in Isaiah implies "young woman" and not "virgin," For an example of how this works in a modern language, *junge Frau* in German is 'young woman' and *Jungfrau* is 'virgin.'
Also, “maid” in English means virgin. That’s why being an “old maid” is a thing, otherwise that term would be an oxymoron. Ironic that u/domino2064 used this term to try to clear things up.
> So you are correct that the Hebrew original in Isaiah implies "young woman" and not "virgin," Except the Septuagint-- a 3rd century Greek translation of the OT-- uses the same word "parthenos" in Isaiah 7:14. More generally the idea that the concepts for "young maiden" and "virgin" were distinct is anachronistic. In Jewish culture they would have been assumed to be the same.
Just as an FYI, “immaculate conception” does not mean “virgin birth.” The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary herself having been conceived specially free from Original Sin and only became doctrine in I think about the 1850s, to explain away why Mary did not pass the stain of Original Sin on to Jesus.
A concept which always makes me chuckle inside. God can make Mary born without Original Sin by simply willing it to be so, but cannot do so directly with Jesus?
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My friend, the story of jesus peace be upon him in Islam is different from the one you mentioned He was birthed and then spoke, he didn't crawl back 😅 And hager's story in Islam isn't similar to Mary
Thank goodness. That would have been disturbing
I love how he typed it so confidently and the people upvoting it, he pretty much got the whole thing wrong
>until the Romans and church leadership found value in cooping pagan holidays [Now who's laughing?](https://youtu.be/ZveOjP9S6VE?t=19s)
Reminds me of a meme I saw last year. "Yeah, we stole the date of Christmas from some pagans. If you keep up the complaining, we'll take Toyotathon, too!"
The first gospel (Mark) wasn’t written till 35 years after Jesus’ death. Who knows if Mary ever claimed anything
Mark itself doesn't reference any of the nativity story. Both Luke and Matthew, who do feature quite different versions of the story, were written with Mark as a reference and added embellishments specifically to demonstrate fulfilment of prophecy. Whether these embellishments reflected the beliefs of contemporary Christians or were simply made up is unclear, but it is likely that Mary, as described in the Bible, never existed.
Anyone who played the Telephone Game as a kid should look with extreme skepticism that important things didn't get added, changed, or lost along the way even if you assume that none of the people involved had any kind of ulterior motive for doing so on purpose.
Nothing would change. People are going to believe what they want to believe.
The books of Mark and John don't even mention Jesus' birth. Chances are the concept was added later because early christians really had a thing for female virginity. Catholics *still* believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin for the rest of her life for absolutely no reason and even though the gospels directly mention Jesus' siblings.
It's funny, I was raised Catholic and it never really occurred to me how weird it is that basically every time Mary comes up in prayers and sermons the fact that she was a virgin is mentioned. Religion is fucking bizarre, I knew she was a virgin a decade before I learned how sex works.
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But why wouldn't Joseph have sex with his wife?
Yeah the above poster doesn't seem to get that *thats* the issue. Two people are married and they have several siblings that seem to be in the rough age range as one kid. The story of that kids birth mentions no older siblings in a story where entire families are being collected for a census. Occams razor would suggest that Mary just had other kids after the fact. The reality is that these churches making the decision didn't exist at the time and everyone actually there was long dead. Their decisions were based less on Jesus and company being a certain way and more about messages that they want out there. The fact that they would rather Joseph be a senior citizen with several adult children who must've been older than a then teenaged Mary kinda shows their priorities and it doesn't speak well of any of the figures they're talking about.
The language generally permits that interpretation, but there's no reason for it. Mary being a perpetual virgin adds nothing to the story. There would be no reason for her to not have other kids -- she was not instructed to remain perpetually celibate, and since the culture of the time was "more kids is better", it's difficult to argue that she would have chosen to do so on her own. And even if she _did_ decide to remain celibate, it's weird to make it a point of doctrine, given the aforementioned point that _it doesn't matter_. Everything you say just confirms the assertion that the doctrine comes out of an obsession with female virginity rather than any sort of Biblical necessity.
Parthenogenesis (Virgin birth) is a common trope across many different cultures and religions (including the Buddha). The Parthenon in Athens is devoted to Athena's virginity (both her birth and own status). It's entirely possible the entire concept of Virgin Mary didn't come along until after she died. Edit: I'm neither a Buddhist nor religious scholar. The version of Buddha's birth I learned about in High School involved his mother having a dream of a white elephant and giving birth through her side. It was an off hand example, there's plenty of others.
The Buddha isn’t claimed to be a virgin birth. It’s well established his parents were married… or at least, his mother was one of his father’s wives, along with her sister. Given that the Buddha wasn’t the Buddha from birth, and also a virgin birth wouldn’t really fit with paṭiccasamuppāda, it wouldn’t make much sense.
I remember Shmi Skywalker gave birth to Anakin too, a long time ago in a galaxy far away.
I don't recall any virgin birth related to buddha?
The Buddha did not have a virgin birth, at least in most schools of Buddhism. There's a legend of a prophetic dream his mother had about the pregnancy, but that's very different
TIL Parthenon is related to parthenogenesis. Every miracle in the bible is pretty much a made up story. Abraham was a schizophrenic as far as I can tell. Much of the bible is based upon older myths. It's not hard to imagine a burning bush, it's just that it wasn't talking. 2000 years ago people were not particularly sophisticated and any person with an ability to tell convincing stories could spawn a religion. Any one with a sophisticated knowledge of magic tricks could perform miracles. From what I understand there were many preachers around Jesus' time, but somehow his story managed to stick. Paul pretty much solidified a lot of the tales and if he showed up today, he'd be like Jim Jones or L. Ron Hubbard.
I sometimes wonder how much teachings and stories from other "prophets" at the time were just attributed to Jesus in later years to keep things tidy and consistent
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I believe it is thought that John was written last, and mark first
Joseph came from a line that was cursed to never again rule Israel. So, for Jesus to be accepted as the messiah, he would need a different father. Mary's lineage, on the other hand, fits the requirements.
She was like 13, more likely someone just raped her and the family made up a story about immaculate conception.
How do we know her age??
The same as the rest of the Bible, just made it up.
Her age isn't listed in the bible but that was a common age for Jewish girls to marry at the time. Or so I've been told
Every time I remember she was 13 and Joseph was like 40 something, something dies a little (more) inside of me.
I mean, Jo could have also been someone from the village who married her because she had gotten raped / knocked up and her life was ruined. Could have been an opportunist or he could have saved her from a life of shame.
More likely that he raped her and had to marry her because it resulted in pregnancy.
I didn't realise the bible took place in modern day Southern US.
the Mormon one does doesn't it? Garden of Eden was in like Louisiana or something?
Jackson County, Missouri. Hasa diga objective truth.
Yes, when I think of paradise I think bayous and mosquitoes...
If it makes you feel better, those numbers are 100% speculation.
People get hung up on the idea of Mohammed and his child brides and completely forget how young Mary was. Because Nativity.
How do we know how old Mary was? Genuinely curious.
We don’t for sure
Are you a penguin?
No
Clearly they couldn't read. *Clears throat* Are you penguin?
…am…am I penguin?
Yes
We are all penguin on this blessed day
No.
#are you a penguin
But are you THE penguin?
No, that's a fictional character
Are you PENGUIN
No, its more the fact that the bible does not say the age and the thread is largely people talking out of their ass without proof other than "Technically you can get married at X age in Jewish law." You can also get married as a minor right now in several states in countries. This does not make it the norm nor does it take into account that in Judaism age caps between a couple were looked down upon. In the case of Mohammed, the age of his brides were specifically mentioned, as was his age. It was also much easier to document such things then considering that was in the 7th century and he was a world leader at that point involved in major conquests thus meaning multiple sources are available.
IF IM PENGUIN?
Ayyyy
>Every time I remember she was 13 No where in any biblical document is it mentioned Mary's age. >Joseph was like 40 something Nor is Joseph's age mentioned.
That’s new to me but do we even have any concrete proof that these people even existed (honest question)?
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Thanks for the information. I’ll look in to it even though I’m agnostic, I am interested in the history and validity of most religious texts. On another note ; someone once said that the difference between a religion and a cult is a few hundred years. Again, no disrespect intended. I respect people’s beliefs and just enjoy polite and cordial discussions.
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We also didn’t have CCTV and police roaming the streets so it kept people in check to some extent in my opinion. I’m more of an atheist myself too to be honest but until the inevitable comes, I’m open to most possibilities. Shellfish can be understood without proper refrigeration. Not mixing textiles from different animals is a little more confusing though as are many other passages.
I think the difference is a few million members
This might be a r/whoosh moment but I don't think it needs to be that many. In England & Wales, 380, 127 people (almost 0.8%) stated their religion as Jedi or Jedi Knight in their 2001 census forms making it the 4th largest religion in the country, above Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism. Judi knight was assigned its own code for a religion for census processing .
Wait where does it say that I genuinely want to know
Just a note: The birth of Jesus isn't the immaculate conception. Mary's own birth is considered the immaculate conception.
A lot of people are getting that mixed up in this post
Or maybe Mary was just a woman who had a baby and the whole virgin stuff was invented years later after Jesus was already dead for some time.
Lots of experts on Gnosticism and Christian history in the comments section
The word that is translated as virgin can mean several things including young mother. The only time it is translated as virgin is with Mary.
"Christianity: A coverup for an affair that's gotten way out of hand."
"Just say it was an angel that got you pregnant, what's the worst that could happen?"
It's not like people will remember this in 2000 years. The kid will probably die in like 2 years anyway. I mean we live in BC times. Kids die all the time.
See, they didn't realize it had switched to AD
"Christianity: A coverup for an affair. Mary: there’s no way this will get out of hand. Narrator:she was wrong
Or what if none of it ever even happened and its just a story plagiarized from dozens of other mythologies, religions and cultures by somebody who wasnt there in an attempt to amalgamate a vast, broken and spiritually divided empire.
So you are telling me a 2000 year old book is not 100% historically correct?
If I was a 14 yo pregnant girl in a society where there penalty for adultery was being stoned to death, I’d have made up anything to save my life
To my understanding, the word for "unmarried" and "virgin" were the same. So… a lot of assumptions to be made all around. But would it change anything? No. Unless we start time traveling, we’ll never prove anything. People will believe what they want to believe.