Question re Mary.

by Tez 4 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Tez

  Well it started with one and sort of developed from there.. Firstly, Mary was a virgin when she miraculously conceived Jesus, so does that mean then that he was illegetimate, and if so then why did Jehovah not simply allow her to marry Joseph, send an angel to Joseph to advise him to abstain from sexual intercourse until after the birth of Jesus? After all Joseph was the only one who could testify at that time that Mary was a virgin, he could have easily have done that even if they had been married. The fact that she was a virgin would not have been obvious until the birth when it could be proved that her hymen was intact. Jehovah is supposed to highly esteem the sanctity of marriage so why did he go about the birth of his most precious son in this manner? Think I will start another topic with regard to my next question. Be interested in hearing your comments on this.

  Thanks

  Tez
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  Sad emo

  I've read somewhere that in Judaism (certainly at that time), betrothed was 'as good as married', so effectively Joseph could have had sexual intercourse with Mary prior to the marriage itself (but we're told he didn't anyway). This does make sense since people referred to Jesus in the Gospels as 'the son of Joseph the carpenter'.

  The reason for Joseph not to publicly expose Mary's pregnancy is that she would have been stoned for adultery - so Joseph only kept quiet the fact that the child wasn't his = no problem.
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  Joe Grundy

  Other posters will reply in a far more scholarly way than I can, but a few thoughts:

  - 'virgin birth' was not an uncommon requirement for gods and heroes

  - 'virgin' may have different meanings from that which we assume (i.e. never had intercourse) ranging from 'young woman' to 'pre-menarchal pregnancy'

  - I have limited knowledge on this issue but I believe that it is far more difficult for a lay person to identify a virgin than is sometimes believed. I have always had sympathy for women required to 'prove' their virginity either in OT times or nowadays in some cultures. I am reminded of the (fictional) accounts in 'Fanny Hill' of 'professional virgins' who could by means of subterfuge and trickery command higher fees from the several men who 'deflowered' them (this would be OK until your clients started sharing experiences, I suppose).
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  Scully

  why did Jehovah not simply allow her to marry Joseph, send an angel to Joseph to advise him to abstain from sexual intercourse until after the birth of Jesus?

  If you read the first chapter of Matthew, you'll see that's exactly what is believed to have happened.
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  peacefulpete

  You make a good point, why would a God who requires adulterors to be stoned cretae that threat of death upon his favored maiden? I also will make only a brief comment about the stories, (there are two) of Jesus' birth. The text as it reads in Matt. has mary "found to have conceived" prior to the two "coming together", I guess she was showing. Her child was "conceived of the Holy Spirit", meaning simply some miraculous aspect to the pregnancy. The virgin/maiden quote from Is 7 does not imply lack of intercourse but youthful woman. It is posssible that the author of Matt did not intend to imply she had not had sex but only that the child was the result of a special blessing and not Joseph's. Matt's geneaology includes "wayward" women as ancestresses of Jesus, so perhaps this was a deliberate commentary. Luke writing later reflects the general interpretation of Matt inspecifically saying she had not known a man (no sex). Going back to Matt, the verbal connections between the John the B. nativity and Jesus' have suggested to researchers that the stories are doublets. J.the B. strories were possibly assimilated into the Jesus legends. Both nativities are literarily dependant upon the OT Samuel conception and Moses nativity for the intertestamental writings.

  There is some feeling that the whole episode is secondary to Matt's original wherein Jesus was simply son of Joseph as he is called everywhere else in Matt including the geneaology.