07-24-2006, 10:21 AM
Something in the BBC website refuting the panthera angle.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/m...vidence/3.shtml
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Mark Goodacre
The immaculate conception of Mary has no historical basis at all. This is something that was invented by later Christians to extend the idea of the holiness, the purity, the perpetual virginity, all of those kind of themes end up with Mary too having to be conceived immaculately. One of the difficulties that many people today have with the Virgin birth, is not so much historical; the idea that it couldn't happen, but theological; the idea that it must have happened in order for Jesus not to have had any sin. Ancient people like Augustine, tended to think that Adam's Original Sin was passed on in the act of sex and that therefore in order for Jesus to be holy and sinless it was necessary for him not to have been born from parents who had had sex. Theologically people now have more problems with the Virgin Birth than they would have done in the past. In the past it was almost necessary to have a virgin birth in order to get Jesus out of this rather sticky difficulty of having been born with ordinary human parents who'd had sex.
In the New Testament, many of the women characters are either so holy and pure that it's unrealistic, or they're prostitutes. And Mary falls into the category of being holy and pure and absolutely without sin; and she carries on in that trajectory right through the tradition so that she gets more and more holy and her virginity is stressed more and more and her holiness throughout her whole life is stressed, so that she too becomes sinless. She is assumed into heaven rather than having to die, she herself gets born of a virginal conception; so you get a development in the idea of the perpetual virginity, because she's begun a journey to becoming ever more holy, ever more pure which in the end can only end up with those kind of concepts of perpetual virginity.
Helen Bond
The virgin birth is a very powerful story which explains the theological truth that Jesus is the son of God and not just the son of God from his resurrection or from his baptism as perhaps the gospel of Mark might suggest but the son of God from the moment of his conception right from the very beginning, Jesus was the son of God.
To what extent it's historical is much more difficult to analyse. One of the difficulties is that we hear nothing at all of a virgin birth tradition, until late in the first century. Only the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which were probably written in the 80's or 90's of the first century, is there a mention of the virgin birth.
Another difficulty with the virgin birth idea is that the texts in Matthew and Luke are clearly overlaid with references to the Old Testament. They're evocative of the typical Old Testament annunciation narrative; the angel going down to one or two of the parents; the insurmountable problem, which usually in the Old Testament is the fact that the parents are elderly or barren, and then the angel says the problem is going to be surmounted and the birth ensues. It's very similar to the stories about the birth of Isaac or the birth of Samson or Samuel. Matthew and Luke are indebted to the Old Testament and they're drawing on these Old Testament ideas. The story of the birth of Jesus has to be even better so Mary can't be an elderly barren woman but instead she's a young girl who's also a virgin. They draw not so much on recollection from Mary herself but on Old Testament narratives.
<b>There is a tradition from at least the 2nd century onwards that says that Jesus' father was actually a Roman soldier called Panthera and that he raped Mary or that Mary had an adulterous relationship with him. This seems to have been quite popular in anti-Christian circles but the tradition is unlikely to have any historical basis. It's not historically impossible that Mary could have been raped by a Roman soldier, but the whole story is much likelier to have been anti-Christian slander from the 2nd century.</b>
Chris Maunder
There were lots of stories of miraculous births in Greco/Roman society. Famous figures tended to have a miraculous birth as people speculated on what it would have been like to be present at the birth of such a person. Astrology was also important, so it was felt that if a person was going to be very prominent their fate was already preordained, that in their horoscope one would see how wonderful they were going to be. It's not surprising they start began to think that perhaps their birth was miraculous and wonderful.
In the Greek and Roman system of gods and goddesses, the goddesses themselves could be said to be virgin mothers. Athene and Artemis were regarded as virgins. They gave birth and then dipped themselves into the rivers so their virginity was renewed.
The virgin birth stories in the gospels are not quite the same as the Greek and Roman stories. They differ in that there's a male god and a human mother and the male god comes down to earth and actually impregnates the mother in a very graphic way. In the gospel stories there's no mention of God or the Holy Spirit taking the form of a human being and actually coming down and impregnating Mary.
Rape
There was an ancient legend from the Jewish side that Mary was the victim of a rape and they actually gave us the name of the Roman soldier who was supposed to have carried out this rape, a man called Panthera, which apparently was quite a common name for Roman soldiers.
Recently some scholars looked at this theory and decided it was simply an ancient slur, something made up to try to prevent belief in Jesus. Some say that perhaps it isn't so impossible as previously we thought. There are certain clues in the New Testament to suggest that Mary was in quite a terrible state after the beginning of the pregnancy. The fact that she went in great haste to see Elizabeth. The fact that she talks about herself as a lowly handmaid, why is she lowly? Some people believe the lowliness was because she was actually the victim of a crime.
The strength of the idea is that just as Jesus in his crucifixion identifies with those who suffer, Mary, as victim of rape, is somebody that women who suffer can identify with.
The problem of the theory is that Jesus could have been the son of a Roman soldier which is even more unpalatable for people than the idea that Mary wasn't a virgin. The idea that Jesus was somehow genetically dependent upon a rapist is more difficult to swallow and it would take a tremendous radical leap of faith to accept that kind of theory.
Virginity throughout the Birth
The book of James establishes that Mary was a virgin during the birth of Jesus - in other words she remained intact, physically, despite the birth which is miraculous and it leads to later speculation that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life, both before Jesus, during the birth of Jesus, and after. The book of James begins to speculate on the birth of Jesus in quite graphic detail.
The idea that Mary is intact comes from the idea that she suffers no pain. This is theologically important to the early Christians because in Genesis is the curse of the two human beings who are responsible for the fall. Adam's curse is to work in sweat in the fields and Eve's curse is to bear children in pain. The idea that Mary and Jesus are free of sin, that they are immaculate, leads us to think that Mary wouldn't suffer the pain of Eve, that she would have a painless birth. Some would argue that this makes her rather distant from the ordinary woman. The way that the tradition has dealt with that is to say she had a painless birth but she wasn't without pain because she saw her son die on the cross. The great traditions of Mary as the Mother of Sorrows comes into being and there are often depictions of Mary as a woman in tears, of a woman laid low by grief. John's gospel refers to the crucifixion as a laborious birth, so if Mary does have a painful birth in the Christian tradition she has it at the crucifixion.
Tal Ilan
The word virgin developed in western culture has become a synonym for purity and good behaviour. But virginity in Jewish society at the time that we are talking about was about ensuring that the new husband wasn't getting second hand merchandise. Virginity was only important for the moment of the first marriage.
The first marriage was more important, for example in the Jewish marriage contract for a first marriage they paid twice as much as for a second marriage. Virgins went out on the wedding procession with their hair sort of open and flowing so that everyone could see and it would then be remembered that she had been a virgin when she entered her husband's house at that event. In fact after a while instead of being a prize it became a burden. We know this from several Jewish burial inscriptions were women are buried and on their tomb as part of the mourning of the girl it says how sad she died a virgin.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/m...vidence/3.shtml
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
Mark Goodacre
The immaculate conception of Mary has no historical basis at all. This is something that was invented by later Christians to extend the idea of the holiness, the purity, the perpetual virginity, all of those kind of themes end up with Mary too having to be conceived immaculately. One of the difficulties that many people today have with the Virgin birth, is not so much historical; the idea that it couldn't happen, but theological; the idea that it must have happened in order for Jesus not to have had any sin. Ancient people like Augustine, tended to think that Adam's Original Sin was passed on in the act of sex and that therefore in order for Jesus to be holy and sinless it was necessary for him not to have been born from parents who had had sex. Theologically people now have more problems with the Virgin Birth than they would have done in the past. In the past it was almost necessary to have a virgin birth in order to get Jesus out of this rather sticky difficulty of having been born with ordinary human parents who'd had sex.
In the New Testament, many of the women characters are either so holy and pure that it's unrealistic, or they're prostitutes. And Mary falls into the category of being holy and pure and absolutely without sin; and she carries on in that trajectory right through the tradition so that she gets more and more holy and her virginity is stressed more and more and her holiness throughout her whole life is stressed, so that she too becomes sinless. She is assumed into heaven rather than having to die, she herself gets born of a virginal conception; so you get a development in the idea of the perpetual virginity, because she's begun a journey to becoming ever more holy, ever more pure which in the end can only end up with those kind of concepts of perpetual virginity.
Helen Bond
The virgin birth is a very powerful story which explains the theological truth that Jesus is the son of God and not just the son of God from his resurrection or from his baptism as perhaps the gospel of Mark might suggest but the son of God from the moment of his conception right from the very beginning, Jesus was the son of God.
To what extent it's historical is much more difficult to analyse. One of the difficulties is that we hear nothing at all of a virgin birth tradition, until late in the first century. Only the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which were probably written in the 80's or 90's of the first century, is there a mention of the virgin birth.
Another difficulty with the virgin birth idea is that the texts in Matthew and Luke are clearly overlaid with references to the Old Testament. They're evocative of the typical Old Testament annunciation narrative; the angel going down to one or two of the parents; the insurmountable problem, which usually in the Old Testament is the fact that the parents are elderly or barren, and then the angel says the problem is going to be surmounted and the birth ensues. It's very similar to the stories about the birth of Isaac or the birth of Samson or Samuel. Matthew and Luke are indebted to the Old Testament and they're drawing on these Old Testament ideas. The story of the birth of Jesus has to be even better so Mary can't be an elderly barren woman but instead she's a young girl who's also a virgin. They draw not so much on recollection from Mary herself but on Old Testament narratives.
<b>There is a tradition from at least the 2nd century onwards that says that Jesus' father was actually a Roman soldier called Panthera and that he raped Mary or that Mary had an adulterous relationship with him. This seems to have been quite popular in anti-Christian circles but the tradition is unlikely to have any historical basis. It's not historically impossible that Mary could have been raped by a Roman soldier, but the whole story is much likelier to have been anti-Christian slander from the 2nd century.</b>
Chris Maunder
There were lots of stories of miraculous births in Greco/Roman society. Famous figures tended to have a miraculous birth as people speculated on what it would have been like to be present at the birth of such a person. Astrology was also important, so it was felt that if a person was going to be very prominent their fate was already preordained, that in their horoscope one would see how wonderful they were going to be. It's not surprising they start began to think that perhaps their birth was miraculous and wonderful.
In the Greek and Roman system of gods and goddesses, the goddesses themselves could be said to be virgin mothers. Athene and Artemis were regarded as virgins. They gave birth and then dipped themselves into the rivers so their virginity was renewed.
The virgin birth stories in the gospels are not quite the same as the Greek and Roman stories. They differ in that there's a male god and a human mother and the male god comes down to earth and actually impregnates the mother in a very graphic way. In the gospel stories there's no mention of God or the Holy Spirit taking the form of a human being and actually coming down and impregnating Mary.
Rape
There was an ancient legend from the Jewish side that Mary was the victim of a rape and they actually gave us the name of the Roman soldier who was supposed to have carried out this rape, a man called Panthera, which apparently was quite a common name for Roman soldiers.
Recently some scholars looked at this theory and decided it was simply an ancient slur, something made up to try to prevent belief in Jesus. Some say that perhaps it isn't so impossible as previously we thought. There are certain clues in the New Testament to suggest that Mary was in quite a terrible state after the beginning of the pregnancy. The fact that she went in great haste to see Elizabeth. The fact that she talks about herself as a lowly handmaid, why is she lowly? Some people believe the lowliness was because she was actually the victim of a crime.
The strength of the idea is that just as Jesus in his crucifixion identifies with those who suffer, Mary, as victim of rape, is somebody that women who suffer can identify with.
The problem of the theory is that Jesus could have been the son of a Roman soldier which is even more unpalatable for people than the idea that Mary wasn't a virgin. The idea that Jesus was somehow genetically dependent upon a rapist is more difficult to swallow and it would take a tremendous radical leap of faith to accept that kind of theory.
Virginity throughout the Birth
The book of James establishes that Mary was a virgin during the birth of Jesus - in other words she remained intact, physically, despite the birth which is miraculous and it leads to later speculation that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life, both before Jesus, during the birth of Jesus, and after. The book of James begins to speculate on the birth of Jesus in quite graphic detail.
The idea that Mary is intact comes from the idea that she suffers no pain. This is theologically important to the early Christians because in Genesis is the curse of the two human beings who are responsible for the fall. Adam's curse is to work in sweat in the fields and Eve's curse is to bear children in pain. The idea that Mary and Jesus are free of sin, that they are immaculate, leads us to think that Mary wouldn't suffer the pain of Eve, that she would have a painless birth. Some would argue that this makes her rather distant from the ordinary woman. The way that the tradition has dealt with that is to say she had a painless birth but she wasn't without pain because she saw her son die on the cross. The great traditions of Mary as the Mother of Sorrows comes into being and there are often depictions of Mary as a woman in tears, of a woman laid low by grief. John's gospel refers to the crucifixion as a laborious birth, so if Mary does have a painful birth in the Christian tradition she has it at the crucifixion.
Tal Ilan
The word virgin developed in western culture has become a synonym for purity and good behaviour. But virginity in Jewish society at the time that we are talking about was about ensuring that the new husband wasn't getting second hand merchandise. Virginity was only important for the moment of the first marriage.
The first marriage was more important, for example in the Jewish marriage contract for a first marriage they paid twice as much as for a second marriage. Virgins went out on the wedding procession with their hair sort of open and flowing so that everyone could see and it would then be remembered that she had been a virgin when she entered her husband's house at that event. In fact after a while instead of being a prize it became a burden. We know this from several Jewish burial inscriptions were women are buried and on their tomb as part of the mourning of the girl it says how sad she died a virgin.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->