(May 23, 2015 at 11:27 pm)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote:(May 23, 2015 at 10:45 pm)Jenny A Wrote: And how could anyone but Mary possibly have known she was a virgin?
It was the custom for the father to take a piece of cloth and stick it up the girl's vagina. If it came out bloody she was a virgin. Evidently it was done just before the girl got married. The father then kept the bloody rag as evidence that the girl was a virgin, at least she was when he stuck the rag in her. The procedure is in the Bible.
Deuteronomy 22:17 = https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/De...my%2022:17
Hardly accurate. All sorts of things that are not penetration will rupture a hymen. I did it myself climbing on a jungle gym at seven or so. Scared both me and my Mom for rather different reasons. I thought I was internally injured. She thought I'd been raped. And you can get pregnant from a guy ejaculating outside the vagina without penetration.
And the Bible doesn't mention either Mary's Dad, or Joseph testing. Joseph apparently believes it because an angel told him so.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.