It does blow my mind that the interpretation of who God is doesn’t seem to hinge upon the virgin birth, and in fact may be all the stronger if not.
What was that vision though - that “she would have a child, and that God was in charge of the situation”? Or that “as a virgin she will have a child, by God”?
After this, you switched contexts btw, talking about Christianity as a whole, rather than the singular point of whether Jesus was born from a “virgin” vs. “maiden”. However, Christianity is not all one unified things - we know that it is good & pure & true when it does things like take care of widows & orphans, feeds the homeless, visits the sick & in prison, etc.; but we also know that “Christianity” is false if it includes things like priests having the right to sexually abuse little children. Also in the USA, many people are equating “being Christian” with “voting Republican, no matter who the nominee is (and what crimes they may have already committed)”. These behaviors persist despite verses such as Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18-19 that say explicitly never to add anything.
Rather, the Bible literally commands us to “Test everything against what we know to be true” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and Matt. 24 gives explicit warnings against people trying to add all manner of falsehoods, etc.
So, not knowing any of Greek, Aramaic, the Jewish language and especially that of the ancient Semites, I cannot really “test” whether the Bible says that Jesus was a virgin. And seeing all the other ways that others are misusing the scriptures to mean whatever they want it to, I am skeptical. God is pure power incarnate and would not be diminished in the least if He chose to be born to a non-virgin, imho, but I could see how others who place more value on human superstitions than whatever may have actually happened could see things differently. Which, aside from my laziness to dig deeper into finding the real truth of the matter, is what keeps me stuck in my doubt. And anyway, as we both said, it doesn’t really seem to matter either way:-).
I think the reason why a virgin was chosen was to show it was without a doubt not the son of any human man but literally conceived by God. Although I think they kept it under wraps and most thought He was Joseph’s son.
After this, you switched contexts btw, talking about Christianity as a whole, rather than the singular point of whether Jesus was born from a “virgin” vs. “maiden”. However, Christianity is not all one unified things - we know that it is good & pure & true when it does things like take care of widows & orphans, feeds the homeless, visits the sick & in prison, etc.; but we also know that “Christianity” is false if it includes things like priests having the right to sexually abuse little children. Also in the USA, many people are equating “being Christian” with “voting Republican, no matter who the nominee is (and what crimes they may have already committed)”. These behaviors persist despite verses such as Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18-19 that say explicitly never to add anything.
Rather, the Bible literally commands us to “Test everything against what we know to be true” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and Matt. 24 gives explicit warnings against people trying to add all manner of falsehoods, etc.
So, not knowing any of Greek, Aramaic, the Jewish language and especially that of the ancient Semites, I cannot really “test” whether the Bible says that Jesus was a virgin. And seeing all the other ways that others are misusing the scriptures to mean whatever they want it to, I am skeptical. God is pure power incarnate and would not be diminished in the least if He chose to be born to a non-virgin, imho, but I could see how others who place more value on human superstitions than whatever may have actually happened could see things differently. Which, aside from my laziness to dig deeper into finding the real truth of the matter, is what keeps me stuck in my doubt. And anyway, as we both said, it doesn’t really seem to matter either way:-).
I think the reason why a virgin was chosen was to show it was without a doubt not the son of any human man but literally conceived by God. Although I think they kept it under wraps and most thought He was Joseph’s son.