[Dialogue] Virgin Spong

[Charles or Doris Hahn]

Greetings Dick,

Thanks again and again for putting Spong on the list
serve.  The information in this weeks edition is
familiar to anyone who has done serious bible study,
but it is put together so well and so succintly.  What
a gift. 

A Joyous Christmas to you and yours!

Charles Hahn

--- KroegerD at aol.com wrote:

>  
> December 14, 2005 
> The Virgin in the New  Testament 
> As the Christmas season arrives, the icon of the
> Virgin Mary enters the  
> consciousness of the Christian world in a
> significant way. She is universally  
> recognized with her eyes lowered, the infant Jesus
> in her arms, and located in a  
> stable. Joseph normally stands guard behind the
> manger. Sheep and cattle fill 
> in  the humble scene. Madonna and child have
> provided the content for many 
> artists  over the centuries. Most of us assume that
> this portrait is 
> historically true  and beyond reasonable doubt and
> that the Virgin Mother is a force for 
> good, the  image of female purity and virtue.
> Unfortunately, both of those 
> conclusions are  highly debatable at best and clear
> distortions of reality at 
> worst. A look at  some biblical facts might be in
> order.  
> Paul, the first writer of what was destined to be
> called the New Testament,  
> wrote his epistles between 50 and 64 C.E. An
> examination of these texts will  
> reveal that Paul knew nothing about a tradition of a
> miraculous birth or of a  
> virgin mother. He certainly never mentions either.
> However, an argument from  
> silence is not very strong, so it is essential to
> note that Paul contradicts  
> such a tradition when he asserts that Jesus was
> "born of a woman, born under 
> the  law (Gal.4: 4)." The Greek word used here for
> "woman" has no connotation 
> of  virgin associated with it at all. His phrase
> "born under the law" was 
> another  way of saying that he was Jewish. Paul does
> mention that Jesus has a 
> brother  named James with whom Paul does not get
> along very well (Gal. 1:19). 
> James was a  force in the Christian movement in
> Jerusalem against which Paul had 
> to contend.  James appears to have achieved this
> position only because of his 
> physical  kinship to Jesus. Before the 8th decade of
> the Common Era, this is 
> all the  Christian movement seems to have known
> about Jesus' family of origin.  
> In the early 70s, the first gospel called Mark made
> its appearance. There was 
>  no birth story in this original gospel either.
> Jesus rather bursts upon the  
> scene in Mark's narrative as a full-grown adult
> being baptized in the Jordan  
> River as part of the John the Baptist movement.
> Revealing no knowledge of a  
> virgin birth tradition, Mark explains the God
> presence they find in Jesus by  
> saying that at his baptism, the Holy Spirit was
> poured out upon him from 
> heaven  and the heavenly voice of God acknowledged
> Jesus as "my beloved son." That  
> acknowledgment appears to lean on words from Isaiah
> 42, in which the  
> mythological servant figure, around whom II Isaiah
> builds his prophetic message,  is 
> also referred to by a heavenly voice as God's son.  
> Mark does introduce Jesus' family later in his
> gospel, but it is not a  
> flattering portrait. His mother, as yet unnamed, and
> his brothers and sisters  are 
> portrayed as thinking Jesus is "beside himself" and
> they go to take him away  
> (Mk 3:21, 31-35). No father is mentioned as part of
> this family constellation. 
>  Jesus rejects their attempt to define him inside
> their structures by 
> claiming  that "whoever does the will of God" is his
> family (Mark 3:35).  
> Later Mark fleshes out the data on the family of
> Jesus (see Mark 6:1-6). Here 
>  a critic of Jesus from the crowd shouts, "Is this
> not the carpenter, the son 
> of  Mary?" Please note that Jesus, not Joseph, is
> the carpenter in this 
> earliest  gospel. Mark has never heard of Joseph.
> Note also that the designation, 
> "the son  of Mary" is the first and only time that
> the name of Jesus' mother is 
> mentioned  either in Mark or in any Christian
> written material until the 9th 
> decade when  Matthew's Gospel comes into being. This
> passage also names the 
> four brothers of  Jesus-- James, Joses, Simon and
> Judas, who presumably are 
> Mary's sons. This  passage also states that Jesus
> had sisters. The word is plural, 
> meaning at least  two, but in this patriarchal era
> when women were not 
> valued, they were also not  honored with names. It
> is clear that by this time, no 
> story of a miraculous  birth or a virgin mother had
> entered the Christian 
> tradition. Therefore, the  tradition of a miraculous
> birth to a virgin mother cannot 
> possibly be a part of  the earliest Christian
> proclamation called the 
> Kerygma.  
> In the middle years of the 9th decade, Matthew wrote
> his gospel, basically by 
>  expanding Mark's text, which he clearly had before
> him, fashioning his work  
> specifically for his more traditional Jewish
> audience. He is the author who  
> introduces the virgin birth to Christianity. Some
> five to 10 years after  
> Matthew, Luke writes a gospel in which he also
> expands Mark's story but fashions  
> it for his audience, which was made up of Jews
> dispersed throughout the 
> empire,  as well as for a number of people closely
> associated with the synagogues 
> called  'gentile proselytes.' Luke also includes a
> story about Jesus having a 
> miraculous  birth. The two stories are quite
> different, but few people recognize 
> that  because Matthew and Luke have their birth
> stories blended in Christmas 
> pageants,  which are the source of most peoples'
> knowledge of Jesus' birth.  
> Matthew begins his gospel with a list of Jesus'
> direct line of ancestry  
> stretching from his father Joseph all the way back
> to David and Abraham. This is  
> the first biblical mention of the name of Joseph and
> indeed the first 
> reference  to the existence of such a person. After
> establishing both Jesus' Jewish 
> and his  royal roots through Joseph, Matthew tells
> the story of the miraculous 
> birth of  Jesus, which he bases on Isaiah (7:14).
> Matthew misreads that text as 
> saying  "Behold a virgin shall conceive." Matthew
> appears to be unable to 
> read Hebrew,  for whenever he quotes the Hebrew
> Scriptures he quotes a Greek 
> translation. If  he had read it in Hebrew, he would
> have known that this Isaiah 
> text does not  have the word "virgin" in it. It is
> an account of a critical time 
> in Jewish  history in the 8th century BCE when
> Jerusalem was under siege by 
> the armies of  the Northern Kingdom and the Syrians.
> Isaiah states that the 
> birth of a child to  a woman (presumably in the
> royal family) would be a sign 
> from God that Jerusalem  would not be destroyed by
> this attack. The birth of a 
> child some 800 years later  would hardly meet that
> criterion. It is a strange 
> use of a text but Matthew used  the Bible strangely
> on more than one occasion. 
> Most scholars today believe that  that text really
> says "Behold a young woman 
> is with child." That is hardly the  story of a
> virgin!  
> Matthew goes on to give us the familiar details of a
> star, magi, gifts of  
> gold, frankincense and myrrh. These details appear
> to be based on Isaiah 60, in  
> which kings are said, "to come to the brightness of
> God's rising," bringing  
> gifts of gold and frankincense. Traveling on camels,
> these kings are also said 
>  to have come from Sheba. It is the word Sheba that
> brought myrrh into the 
> story,  since it led expositors to recall the visit
> of the Queen of Sheba to pay 
> homage  to Solomon, another 'king of the Jews.' As
> her tribute she brought 
> truckloads of  spices of which myrrh was the most
> familiar. Matthew makes Joseph 
> the primary  star in his original birth drama. In
> Matthew it is Joseph who 
> receives the  annunciation from the angel in a
> dream, Joseph who names the 
> child, Joseph who  flees with the child to Egypt,
> Joseph who, when it is safe, 
> returns to Bethlehem  and responding to another
> threat, it is Joseph who moves the 
> family to Nazareth.  The Virgin is a minor figure in
> Matthew's story. She is 
> portrayed as a 'fallen  woman.' Joseph debates
> whether or not to embrace her 
> as his wife until God in a  dream assured him of the
> baby's sacred origin.  
> Luke refashions the birth story centering it on
> Mary. In Luke's narrative it  
> 
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