RE: Mary's 10 Year Pregnancy!
September 18, 2013 at 8:34 am
(This post was last modified: September 18, 2013 at 8:39 am by Tonus.)
(September 18, 2013 at 8:08 am)Drich Wrote: In this case the claim was that there was no sex... So ask yourself what verifiable physological change does a woman endure after her first sexual experience?Right, someone would have had to insert a finger in her vagina and check that her hymen was intact. The Bible doesn't indicate who performed such a service, or who did so in this instance. It simply tells us that Mary was pregnant. My guess is that this never was done:
Matthew 1:18, 19 Wrote:This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.Based on the wording, it would seem that the circumstances work out as so:
> Mary is impregnated miraculously, not sexually. Her hymen is intact.
> Before he takes her home (thus making the marriage official) Joseph realizes that she is pregnant, and reaches the logical conclusion that she is not a virgin. Caught in a bit of a dilemma, he decides to spare Mary the scandal and decides to divorce her "quietly" (ie, the public will assume the child is his, and not that Mary is a fornicator).
> An angel appears to Joseph and explains the circumstances and tells him to go ahead and make the marriage official.
> Joseph, not realizing that he's playing sexual second-fiddle to god, decides that this is a good idea.
Thus it seems that she wasn't checked, since a swollen belly would have been all the check that was needed. Presumably, there was no social stigma attached to sexual relations between two people who had arranged to be wed, since the timeline would indicate that Mary's pregnancy was known before Joseph made the marriage official.
What is strange is that Mary apparently kept the secret of her pregnancy from everyone, even Joseph. Or perhaps she explained it to him and he did not believe until an angel corroborated her story (a reasonable reaction on his part). Joseph is either the ultimate nice guy (willing to spare Mary the shame even after learning that she's pregnant from someone else and believing that she told him a whopper of a lie to cover it) or he's the ultimate love-struck schmuck, too smitten to properly slut-shame his new bride. Granted, had he done that the book of Matthew would have read like a day-time soap opera.
TL;DR- no one checked Mary for virginity, since sporting a baby-bump made it seem a moot point.
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-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould