Virgin Birth

[yngwie7]

The Apostles creed says: "Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,"

However, in place of this article the Arian Catholic creed says: Whom was born of Mary and Joseph,

Does the Arian Catholic church deny the virgin birth?

God bless you

[Danage]

The virgin birth is mentioned in Isaiah 7: 14, but as with all passages they are interpreted differently by different people.

You would have to ask the Archbishop as to weather Arians believe in the virgin birth, however.

[Katie Althorpe]

The Arian Catholic Church holds the view that the virgin referred to in Isaiah was a young woman of marriageable age!

The church later twisted this interpretation into the virgin "intacta", then perpetual virgin and now herself immaculately conceived and Queen of Heaven etc.

God bless you!

Rev. Katie Althorpe.

[David Kone]

It is my feeling that by allowing Mary to be a real person without all the myth attached that the nativity of Jesus becomes more sacred not less. The creation of any child is a sacred event in which the mother has a central roll. Mary must have been quite holy herself to have given birth to such an extraordinary child. I believe that when children are concieved in the spirit of love and in sacred respect of the Creator then those qualities are transfered to the child. Most people can not understand this as they only know of the sinful feelings attached to carnal lust and animal satifaction so they want to deny that a truely holy man can be born of a natural act.

[yngwie7]

It is my feeling that by allowing Mary to be a real person without all the myth attached that the nativity of Jesus becomes more sacred not less. The creation of any child is a sacred event in which the mother has a central roll. Mary must have been quite holy herself to have given birth to such an extraordinary child. I believe that when children are concieved in the spirit of love and in sacred respect of the Creator then those qualities are transfered to the child. Most people can not understand this as they only know of the sinful feelings attached to carnal lust and animal satifaction so they want to deny that a truely holy man can be born of a natural act.

I agree that mary was a real person. I agree that any child is a sacred event. I agree that Mary must have been quite holy herself to have given birth to such an extraordinary child. I agree that when children are concieved in the spirit of love and in sacred respect of the Creator then those qualities are transfered to the child. I agree that a truly holy man can be born of a natural act. You can still believe in all these things without rejecting the virgin birth.

What about the gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke, and the Apostles' creed? I don't agree that these are a myth attached to the nativity of Jesus, as I do not agree that all the miracles in the bible are myths.

May God bless you all

[David Kone]

I would not want to in any way take away from you your heart held beliefs. I just ask that no one take away my belief on the matter of the virgin birth. If I have to recite in creed the interpretations of others in which I have no faith to be fully accepted as a Christian then I am excluded from most churches for being honest. I do not believe that any of us have perfect knowledge or understanding therefore we should be tolerant of each other's interpretations of scripture. I think that the diversity that was evident in the early church before the reorganization started under Constantine was as indication of the health of the church. A strong tree has many branches and many of God's creatures find refuge there.

[yngwie7]

I respect your beliefs also. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was disrespecting your beliefs.

I guess I was under the impression that the Arian Catholic church accepted the scriptures and the apostles creed. But if they don't, what do they say about the apostle's creed and the accounts in Matthew and Luke?

Please forgive me and may God bless you

[David Kone]

I respect your beliefs also. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was disrespecting your beliefs.

I guess I was under the impression that the Arian Catholic church accepted the scriptures and the apostles creed. But if they don't, what do they say about the apostle's creed and the accounts in Matthew and Luke?

Please forgive me and may God bless you

My exasperation was not directed at you. Sorry if some fell your way. For some of us the inconsistencies and vagueness of terms used within the Gospels that seem to have the tinge of bias which is evident when other more logical choices could have been chosen when making the translation from one language to another but then only those words that reflected pre-existent pagan concepts were given preference cause us therefore to choose a more parsimonious interpretation. The first evidence we have of the Apostle’s Creed is a reference to it in a letter of the Council of Milan 390 AD. It can hardly by held as up as Gospel. The Gospels themselves perhaps also should examined carefully to see what they really have to honestly contribute to our understanding of those events of such great importance to us all. If you accept them as being the perfect inspired word of God then I really do not wish to change your mind about the truth of this but for those of us who are called to question the truth of the scriptures we would be denying our Lord if we did not follow that calling.

[pre-nicean berean]

Isaiah 7:14 can be translated as either virgin or young women or maiden. But the only one that seems logical would be virgin. The verse states it would be a sign. A young woman becoming pregnant by a man would not be much of a sign. A virgin however would be a great sign.

We also read much in Matthew that lends evidense to a virgin birth as well. Matt. 1:18,19 verse 18 tells us she became pregnant before they came together. And verse 19 tells us Joseph was going to put her away silently. It would make no sense that Joseph wanted to be rid of her if he had in fact had relations with her. And this all does allude back to OT prophecies such as that of Is. 7:14 Then in Matt. 1:25 it tells us that Joseph did not know her till till after she had brought forth her firstborn son.

So it seems pretty clear that his birth was in fact a miraculous birth, and Mary was a virgin. No, she was not a perpetual virgin. She had other children by natural relations. Matt. 1:25 makes this clear subtely as well. It says he did not know her till after she gave birth to Jesus. So this also implies that he did know her after this time. And scripture states Jesus had brothers and sisters.

Grace and Peace , Grey yates

[Postulare42]

Hebrew=girl
Septuagint Greek=virgin

[David Kone]

There is another possibility, which I encourage those who seek the truth of these things to consider, that the history given in Matthew was never intended to be taken literally but is a hidden teaching meant to preserve the inner meaning among the initated. If you go to the thread on Auxentius,
http://forum.arian-catholic.org/showthread.php?t=113&highlight=gothic, you find Rabbi Barry says:

“This concept so resonates with me. Our Lady, the Holy Spirit, is indeed Our Queen and a pure virgin at all times. As the very essence of Light Descending, she is represented on Earth as the Shekinah and is Queen of the Kingdom called Malkuth, Kingdom. It is in this pure form that she forever is the Bride of Christ who is her Perfect Spouse.”

Jesus the man was born most certainly as any other man. It is the birth of Christ, that is, the anointed spiritual self of Jesus, which proceeded from the Eternal Virgin. We must be very careful in relating anything in the Bible to corporal events. It was those who understood the true teachings the least who codified the outward meaning of the stories into dogma.

[holyguyver]

I also agree that I would not want to belittle or try & take away anyones cherished beliefs :) . I in speaking of my own person beliefs do believe in the virgin birth, though at the same time I accept & agree that the scriptures actually say a young woman of marriageable age, that Virgin was perhaps a devious purposeful mistranslation on the part of some people, & I also accept that Mary may have not been a physical virgin. :)

[Danage]

In line with Arian Catholic dogma, I accept the belief that Mary was not a virgin. This is, as has been stated before, in line with the Hebrew, and also Jewish beliefs. I wanted to put forward one way of looking at the 'virgin birth'. Maybe Mary was a 'spiritual virgin', so to speak, accepting what is pure and good in faith, and ignoring the traditions of the Rabbis. This is totally contrary to the text, but I think she was a spiritual virgin, meaning she kept to the pure, unadultered faith of the Jews.

Thus, while I deny the 'virgin birth' and Mary's physical virginity, I see that she could have been a spiritual virgin, so to speak. Mary was married to Joseph, and Yeshuah was the Spiritual Son of God, and physical son of Joseph and Mary, and I thus believe that Mary was a 'spiritual virgin'. Does everybody see where I am coming from?

Also, in Revelation the church is called a 'pure virgin bride', which is, of course, spiritual.

Pax et bonum.

[Jesus John]

Dear Dan,

Your thoughts to be a spiritual virgin (denying the literal) about Mary seems very interesting. I do not know if this is an official believe of the ACC but I know that Joseph and Mary was not married while she became pregnant. This claim that Mary and Joseph (or with anyone else) had adultery. It is a contradiction to be a virgin in the spirit. A pure person can not do this. Lots of people in her time blamed Mary doing a shameful thing, but the Gospel and Qur'an is same in this subject; Mary was a virgin and no man touched her, she became pregnant without any sex, this was a miracle which only Allah knows the answer how it realized.

[Danage]

Dear Dan,

Your thoughts to be a spiritual virgin (denying the literal) about Mary seems very interesting. I do not know if this is an official believe of the ACC but I know that Joseph and Mary was not married while she became pregnant. This claim that Mary and Joseph (or with anyone else) had adultery. It is a contradiction to be a virgin in the spirit. A pure person can not do this. Lots of people in her time blamed Mary doing a shameful thing, but the Gospel and Qur'an is same in this subject; Mary was a virgin and no man touched her, she became pregnant without any sex, this was a miracle which only Allah knows the answer how it realized.

Hi Oguzhan,

I see the whole idea of the literal virgin birth as coming from the myth of Mithras, as well as a mis-translation of Isaiah 7:14, which clearly called Miriam a 'young woman'. Also, according to Qara'i belief, which I adhered, and still adhere to, the blood is passed by the father, not the mother.

It also says in the Tanakh that the nationality of the Israelites was determined by their fathers, not their mothers. The Rabbinates say that the mother's blood determines a Jew, but it is in fact a father's blood that determines a Jew.

I do, however, believe that the Holy Ghost gave Yahushoa's spirit to the foetus that was the son (ben) of Joseph. This, I think, would probably stand in opposition to official church doctrine, but I don't honestly know.

As a slight aside, it is also interesting to note that the circumcision creates a covenant between God and the Israelite boy in the days before John the Baptist. When a man first has sex with a virgin woman, the woman bleeds, not excessively, but she still bleeds, creating a blood covenant between the husband and wife, thus making them man and wife, completely one in the spiritual flesh.

A lot of things in the Tehudah are spiritual, but to create a foetus the wife must not be a virgin, thus to create a foetus, albeit by a miracle, suggests that God is making His son a bastard, as his grace said.

It is for this reason that I see that the Messiah is the literal son of Mary and Joseph, the spiritual son of the Father, and the son of a spiritual virgin. At least, that's my take on it.

Pax et bonum.

[Jesus John]

Salaam, Shalom, Peace to everyone,

"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." (John 1:3)

"And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35)

Now, I am speaking with some of Christians who said that the only One Lord has three view/face/identity, the first is the Father, the second son Jesus, the thirth Holy Spirit. All are one, not apart, one. We know that Mary become pregant through the Holy spirit.

Let me explain what it looks like to me. The Only One Lord who has three view/face/identity used his thirth view/face/identity (Holy spirit) and made Mary (a human) pregnant to get his second view/face/identity (Jesus) in life. But John 1:3 says that every thing which is made is made from him (Jesus), if this is true than Mary which is made from Jesus become pregnant to his source! This mean that Jesus has been created twice or I have lost my mind.

[Rev Smith]

I agree with Brother Danage, it would not have been much of a sign for Mary to have conceived her child in the usual way. What happened next in Roman doctrine is more interesting, it seems to me that to deny Mary her humanity for the rest of her life (and the scriptural references to Jesus' siblings) is going further than we ought to go. That God choose to make the greatest of his creations through a virgin birth conforms to Isiah, and scripture. The rest is purely mythologizing Mary.

[Aurian333]

Difficult subject and perhaps a detail that could cause distraction and dissention. Does it really matter? Could Jesus have been just as divine if he was the result of a pre-marital union of Joseph and Mary? Does God not choose whom God wills to carry out God's will? We must try to understand the culture and people of the time in order to understand the message of the scriptures. Virgin birth often refered to a woman's first child. In a highly legalistic and religious culture like the Jewish culture of Mary and Joseph's time, a pre-marital union could cause many problems.
Take into account when the accounts were written...years after the events had occured.

I cannot allow myself to accept anything written by humans to be completely pure and true. Yet I do accept the teachings of Christ as valid and a good path for me to follow.

I ask the questions here...

Did Jesus ever call himself the Son of God?
Did Jesus ever say he was imaculately concieved?

[TwoWitnessesUSdotcom]

Isaiah 7:14 can be translated as either virgin or young women or maiden. But the only one that seems logical would be virgin. The verse states it would be a sign. A young woman becoming pregnant by a man would not be much of a sign. A virgin however would be a great sign.

We also read much in Matthew that lends evidense to a virgin birth as well. Matt. 1:18,19 verse 18 tells us she became pregnant before they came together. And verse 19 tells us Joseph was going to put her away silently. It would make no sense that Joseph wanted to be rid of her if he had in fact had relations with her. And this all does allude back to OT prophecies such as that of Is. 7:14 Then in Matt. 1:25 it tells us that Joseph did not know her till till after she had brought forth her firstborn son.

So it seems pretty clear that his birth was in fact a miraculous birth, and Mary was a virgin. No, she was not a perpetual virgin. She had other children by natural relations. Matt. 1:25 makes this clear subtely as well. It says he did not know her till after she gave birth to Jesus. So this also implies that he did know her after this time. And scripture states Jesus had brothers and sisters.

Grace and Peace , Grey yates

I couldn't agree with you more and I find you living up to your name of Berean!

The Virgin Birth (immaculate conception as some call it) is a complete non-issue it should not be allowed to cause rifts between believers (except for the fact that to deny it casts doubt on the voracity of scripture, which I am reluctant to do).

What is at issue here is what virgin birth means to some who try to make it proof that Christ was God incarnate and did not possess the same physical appetites as any other man (adamic curse teaching). When they go there they cross the line, in my humble opinion, because these issues are at the heart of our salvation.

If Christ was not "tempted in all ways yet without sin" then we cannot trust ANYTHING the Apostle who said this wrote! If we do not have an high priest who is familiar with all the physical temptations as we then again we can no longer trust the writings of the Apostle who said it!

If Christ was not Joseph's biological son then he was NOT the seed of David and cannot be Messiah at all!

It's not belief in virgin birth that is at issue, but what they do WITH the belief by damaging the reputation of those who testified of Christ, and by excusing themselves from walking as Christ walked because they believe it.

In fact, if someone can manage to believe in trinity and still say "I can be like Christ" and eventually achieve it, then the trinity itself is not a serious error. That's a BIG IF!

[Danage]

I believe in the virgin birth, as testified to in the Scriptures.

Yes, Isaiah 7:14 uses 'almah' (young woman of marriageable age), but what would be so miraculous about a 'young woman' giving birth?

Also, 'almah' is a rare Hebrew word, as testified in this excerpt from the 'King James Bible Commentary', which I agree with in this respect:

The word virgin is the unique and uncommon Hebrew word almah. The more commonly used word for virgin is bethulah; but in spite of its frequent usage to denote a virgin, it is in at least two passages (Deut 22:19; Joel 1:8) used to refer to a married woman. Therefore, Isaiah’s choice of the rare word almah better signifies virginity than the more common term bethulah. While it is true that almah can be translated ‘young woman,’ it is never intended in the Hebrew language to deny the legitimacy of that young woman’s virginity

EDIT: The second sentence, I have just seen, has already been elaborated on by another user, but the quote above, is, I think, still relevant.

[Postulare42]

Difficult subject and perhaps a detail that could cause distraction and dissention. Does it really matter? Could Jesus have been just as divine if he was the result of a pre-marital union of Joseph and Mary? Does God not choose whom God wills to carry out God's will? We must try to understand the culture and people of the time in order to understand the message of the scriptures. Virgin birth often refered to a woman's first child. In a highly legalistic and religious culture like the Jewish culture of Mary and Joseph's time, a pre-marital union could cause many problems.
Take into account when the accounts were written...years after the events had occured.

I cannot allow myself to accept anything written by humans to be completely pure and true. Yet I do accept the teachings of Christ as valid and a good path for me to follow.

I ask the questions here...

Did Jesus ever call himself the Son of God?
Did Jesus ever say he was imaculately concieved?

Let's at least begin with a nod to the culture:

http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13912-son-of-god

and

http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6726-god-children-of

and contrast

http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13913-son-of-man