In what way is the Resurrection the best explanation?

[Pat Mustard]

anecdotal evidence

There is no such thing.

@Grandizer, earlier christians found retconning the jewish torah much easier because, being hellenic or hellinised jews, they were working of the pentateuch, a very badly garbled translation to greek of the jewish holy books.

[GrandizerII]

anecdotal evidence

@Grandizer,  earlier christians found retconning the jewish torah much easier because, being hellenic or hellinised  jews, they were working of the pentateuch, a very badly garbled translation to greek of the jewish holy books.

Yeah, I guess that's something to seriously consider as well. The Greek term parthenos in Isaiah 7:14 certainly misled people like "Matthew" into interpreting it as referring to a virgin woman.

[The Grand Nudger]

No no no, it's clear that the best explanation for that belief is that a virgin gave birth. This is the level of discourse we're being subjected to, I cant see how you could argue a person out of such a belief. Not the belief in resurrections or virgins births, the belief that this sort of argument is lucid.

So I say we lean in. May as well apply it to any other cult.. Those heavens gate people, for example, laughing at us from the mothership right now.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

No no no, it's clear that the best explanation for that belief is that a virgin gave birth.  This is the level of discourse we're being subjected to, I cant see how you could argue a person out of such a belief.  Not the belief in resurrections or virgins births, the belief that this sort of argument is lucid.

So I say we lean in.  May as well apply it to any other cult..  Those heavens gate people, for example, laughing at us from the mothership right now.

Since humans use XY sex determination, any parthenogenically produced offspring would be clones of the mother, and hence female.

The only vertebrate organisms that are an exception to this are turkeys, whose parthenogenic offspring may be male or female.

Thus, if the Nativity story is true, Jesus was either a woman or a turkey.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

A story about a young unmarried girl who goes out into the desert alone, at night, and comes back pregnant probably doesn't require any exploration of the details of parthenogenically produced offspring.

I'll take "This girl fucks" for 500, alex.

It's an example of a genre that was very popular in folklore, in the region, at the time. It's also a clever way of explaining (and minimizing) the phenomena of young girls getting knocked up - both as a cautionary tale and as a negotiation on their honor. Similarly, as fun as the typos in magic book are...and how often human beings misread some word, they're not the reason that people believed in the virgin birth. They already believed in it.

Getting knocked up by djinn is the ane equivalent of little red riding hood.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The Irish expression for a girl who got pregnant while not married (and therefore CLEARLY a virgin) was, 'A child happened to her.'  No naughtiness involved - it just 'happened'.

Boru

[GrandizerII]

I noticed snowtracks kudosed me for my last post.

Did snowtracks even understand what I was saying there? Or does snowtracks agree that the virgin birth probably was manufactured belief rather than actually happened?

[Jehanne]

I noticed snowtracks kudosed me for my last post.

Did snowtracks even understand what I was saying there? Or does snowtracks agree that the virgin birth probably was manufactured belief rather than actually happened?

I don't think that Jesus' earliest followers even claimed that he had risen from the dead. I believe that tradition began to first form several months after his execution.

[The Grand Nudger]

More like decades, if the early dates and notions of oral tradition are to be believed, and nearly a century if they're not. Recall...Mark, the earliest gospel, doesn't have what would later become the contemporary christian resurrection. Just that he was somehow raised up to the right hand of god in heaven - not bodily revived, and the notion that there would be visions in future. Some females go to the tomb and a guy tells them jesus isn't there, and they run off in terror and never tell a soul...except the narrator, I guess? That's how it ended. It was missing the important bit, and while later compilers noticed it enough to forge several alternate endings and place Mark after Matthew...whomever wrote Mark clearly didn't think it was missing anything. Didn't have a virgin birth, either. You can still find those forgeries in magic books today, though.

It would take the later gospels, and Paul...OFC, to add that fun little wrinkle. Pauls comment in corinthians about the futility of christianity if jesus hadn't been raised was in direct response to the gnostic heresy. The issue was not settled, at that time (whatever that time may have been), as to which of these beliefs would become the "christian" one. Pauls argument, such as it is, is impressive in it's incoherence.

Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? 30 And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour?

Good questions, Paul....good questions. If you weren't jamaican...why would you be wearing that hat? The history of christian belief is the history of a story's development, not an event or group of apostles. The apostles themselves are a part of that story - theologically (and numerologically, lol) but not factually important.

[Jehanne]

You forgot the part about being saved through childbirth.

😀