virgin birth in Matt and Luke?

by peacefulpete 45 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Leolaia

  Yes, there is indeed a connection with the Melchizedek legends. The birth story of Noah in 1 Enoch 106 occurs also in the Qumran Genesis Apocryphon (1Q19), which has survived in the original Hebrew. In 1 Enoch 106:5-6, Lamech tells his father Methuselah: "I have begotten a strange son, he is not like an ordinary human being, but he looks like the children of the angels of heaven to me; his form is different, and he is not like us. His eyes are like the rays of the sun, and his face glorious. It does not seem to me that he is of me, but of angels". In the Genesis Apocryphon, we also that Lamech "decided that the conception was at the hands of the Watchers, that the seed had been planted by the Holy Ones or Nephilim" (3:1), but his wife Bitenosh told him: "This seed comes from you, this conception was by you, the planting of this fruit is yours, not by any stranger, neither by any Watcher, nor yet by any of the Sons of Heaven" (3:15-16). There is a common motif here with the Jesus nativity story of Matthew, in that Joseph (like Lamech) recognized that the blessed child was not his and (implicitly) suspected that someone else fathered the child.
  

  In the later (second century AD) book of 2 Enoch, the story was shifted from Lamech to Noah's brother Nir, and the "strange son" was Melchizedek. In 2 Enoch 71-72, we read that Nir's wife Sothonim gave birth to a wonder child "in the time of her old age and on the day of her death" (i.e. she was barren like Sarah in Genesis), even though her husband "had not slept with her, nor had touched her" (71:2). The combined motif is barrenness + conception without sexual intercourse. The latter component is present in the Lukan+Matthean narrative on Mary, while the former is present in the Lukan narrative on Elizabeth (presumably originally applied to Mary). Moreover, Zechariah (like Nir) was a "priest", and Elizabeth was "well along in years" in the Lukan story (Luke 1:5-7). Next, the text says that Sopanim "hid herself during all the days until she gave birth" (2 Enoch 71:3). This motif of isolation of the mother appears in the Ascension of Isaiah regarding Mary:
  

  "He did not live with her for two months. And after two months of days while Joseph was in his house, and Mary his wife, but both alone" (Ascension of Isaiah 11:5-7; compare Matthew 1:25, "He had no union with her until she gave birth to a son").

  When Nir found out that his wife was pregnant, he told her to "depart from me" (72:6), just as Joseph tried to "put [Mary] away" in the Ascension of Isaiah, but Sopanim replied in her defense: "I do not understand how my menopause and the barrenness of my womb have been reversed" (72:7). Then she died on the spot, and Nir became very upset. Then who should show up to console him but the archangel Gabriel:
  

  "The archangel Gabriel appeared to Nir, and said to him: 'Do not think that your wife Sopanim has died because of your error; but this child which is to be born of her is a righteous fruit, and one whom I shall receive into paradise, so that you will not be the father of a gift of God" (2 Enoch 72:11).

  This is strikingly reminiscent of Matthew 1:20, wherein an "angel of the Lord" appears to Joseph in a dream to tell him that Mary's son "is from the Holy Spirit" rather than of human parentage and will be destined to "save his people from their sins". In Luke, the resemblance is even closer, wherein the angel is named Gabriel and appears to Mary to tell her that "the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you," and child will be a "holy one ... called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). Then Nir and Noah go to bury Sopanim, and while they are digging her grave, "a child came out from the dead Soponim" who was as "strange" as the son of Lamech in 1 Enoch:
  

  "They saw the child sitting beside the corpse, and having clothing on him. And Noah and Nir were very terrified, because the child was fully developed physically, like a three-year-old. And he spoke with his lips, and he blessed the Lord. And Noah and Nir looked at him closely, saying, 'This is from the Lord, my brother.' And behold, the badge of priesthood was on his chest, and it was glorious in appearance" (2 Enoch 71:17-19).

  The theme of precociousness appears in 1 Enoch as well, and while it is missing in the canonical gospels it also appears in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and other Christian legends of the young Jesus. Then Noah and Nir feed the child some "holy bread" and name him Melchizedek. Then, later on in the chapter, the archangel Michael takes Melchizedek to heaven to safety in Paradise so he would not perish during the Flood.

  Since Melchizedek appears as a messianic figure in 11Q13 and is explicitly linked with Jesus in Hebrews 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:1-17, the connection between the birth legend of Melchizedek and Jesus is especially important. In fact, there is direct evidence that this birth legend was applied to Jesus in Christian tradition. F. I. Andersen, in his translation of 2 Enoch, notes that "in a Christian legend, when Jesus goes to school and confounds his teacher Levi with his erudition, Levi exclaims, 'I think he must have been born before the Flood, before the Deluge' " (cf. Luke 2:46-52; Infancy Thomas 6:1-8:2; 15:1-4). This is almost certainly an allusion either to Enoch or Melchizedek. The resemblance between the stories however is also especially close in the case of Mary's conception in Infancy James (cf. especially in Joachim being a priest, Anna as old but childless, and Joseph's severe reproach on Mary for her pregnancy).

  There are a few other features in the Melchizedek story in 2 Enoch that resembles legends about Jesus. In the Quran, the infant Jesus gives an oration from his cradle shortly after being born (Sura 19), and the same story is told in the older (but still comparatively late) Arabic Gospel of the Infancy. Also, the child Melchizedek is "entrusted to the care" of the archangel Michael in 2 Enoch 72:3. This evokes a fragment of the Gospel of the Hebrews, cited by Cyril of Alexandria (Discourse on Mary Theotokos 12a), which claimed that "when Christ wished to come upon the earth to men, the good Father summoned a mighty power in heaven, which was called Michael, and entursted Christ to the care thereof. And the power came into the world and it was called Mary, and Christ was in her womb seven months". Then, when Michael is about to take Melchizedek into Paradise, the text says that "Michael took the child on the same night on which he had come down; and he took him on his wings, and he placed him into the paradise of Edom [=Eden]" (2 Enoch 72:9). Interestingly, Origen cites another fragment of the Gospel of the Hebrews wherein Jesus says: "Even so did my mother, the Holy Spirit, take me by one of my hairs and carry me away onto the great mountain Tabor" (Commentary on John, 2.12.87). The concept is similar to that in 2 Enoch (where the one flying Melchizedek to heaven is Michael) and Ezekiel 8:3 which refers to an angel who "took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up to between earth and heaven".

  The Jesus tradition, thus, appears to be quite dependent in some way on the cluster of motifs attested in the legend of Melchizedek and the birth of Noah in 1 Enoch. Indeed, when we take into account the haggada based on the birth of Moses, the material from 1 Samuel, Nazorean traditions of Miryai, the bar-Joseph and Joshua messianic titles, the star messianic motif from midrash on Numbers, and contemporary mother-goddess concepts from Hellenistic mysteries, is there any major feature in the nativity stories of Matthew and Luke that could not be traced to plausible antecedent traditions?
• 

  peacefulpete

  Thanks, Leolaia. I meant to include Genesis Apocryphon with the 1 Enoch legends but got sloppy as always. A while back I mentioned a book , "The Logic of Incest: A structuralist analysis of Hebrew Mythology" by Seth Kunin, and hoe I understood it only dimmly. Throughout the book the argument is one of "Divine Birth" in opposition to Natural Birth. The tension in some stories (Like Abraham marrying a sister) is explained as deliberate mytheme developed in 5th century. Anyway as of that early period the way to portray divine providence was to insist that births were the work of god rather than the unwitting human characters involved. This at times meant that even the human understanding of appropriateness (both moral and cultural) was deliberately offended. Apparently this similar logic was carried thru to the 2nd century, but with new obsession with spirit involvement in the sexual aspects.

  I wholeheartedly agree with your assesssment at the close of the last comment. To add, the 7 month pregnanacy may have been from Semele and Dionysus. The Gold Frankinsence and Myrrh were sacrements from solar worship (yellow color) of an number of specific cults. The Magi (zoroastian astrologers) similarly are from other cult.
• 

  peacefulpete

  BTW...I just ran across your thread where you announced your graduation!! Congratulations! What did you do your dissertation on?
• 

  Farkel

  "Therefore Jehovah himself will give you men a sign: Look! The maiden herself will actually become pregnant, and she is giving birth to a son, and she will certainly call his name Immanuel." - Isaiah 7:14, NWT
  
  This verse is used by true believers to "prove" that the Bible prophesied Jesus' birth of a virgin hundreds of years in advance.
  
  In fact, this verse proves nothing. Virgins or maidens become pregnant every single day of the week. They start out as a virgin. They have sex. They become pregnant. Doh!
  
  Secondly, true believers cannot name ONE place in the Bible where Jesus is called "Immanuel." Therefore, whatever "sign" that verse was, it most certainly wasn't a "sign" about the birth of Jesus.
  
  Farkel
• 

  Leolaia

  Thanks, Pete! My topic was reconstructing with historical sources how languages change in their social context. I'll post more on the nativity stories in a bit. (Found some more interesting stuff)

  Farkel, the Hebrew word almah translated "virgin" actually means "young maiden" or even "girl" (cf. Genesis 24:43; Exodus 2:8; Psalm 68:25; Proverbs 30:19), not "virgin" per se. So you're quite correct!
• 

  Billygoat

  If Jesus was born of a virgin; I ask what is the purpose of giving JOSEPH'S bloodline?

  It's a spiritual thing - jws do not know 'spiritual'

  I don't think it's so much spiritual versus cultural. (I'm remembering from a old Sunday School lesson I taught a long time ago, so bear with me...)

  Back then, when a man adopted a child, everything he had was then inheritable to the adopted child. Adoption into a family was much more literal than the way our culture believes. So when Jesus was adopted by Joseph, he was not an adopted child, but he WAS his child. Thus inheriting his geneology as well.
• 

  Leolaia

  Billygoat, PP....Part of the issue is the use of the word gennaó in Matthew 1:1-16, which generally refers to "procreation" and physical "begetting" (cf. for instance, Matthew 19:12, referring likely to birth defects). There has been a long debate over whether the term can refer to legal kinship and whether it is used in this sense in Matthew. Part of the problem is that the wording of Matthew 1:16 has been deliberately tampered with, and it is difficult to tell whether the original reading is extant. The W&H has "Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, from whom (ex hés) was born Jesus, who is called the Christ". This reading is based on most of the oldest manuscripts (P1, Sinaiticus, B, C, K, L, P, etc.). This is similar to the formula that occurs in Matthew 1:3 of Judah fathering his sons through Tamar and in v. 6 of David fathering his son Solomon through Bathsheba, except that the verb in v. 16 is passive (egennéthé), which obscures the identity of the one who did the begetting. The wording is thus consistent with both natural parentage through Joseph as well as divine parentage, but there is no explicit mention of a Mary being a virgin in this geneology, and -- if one knew nothing of the tradition of the virgin birth -- the purpose of the geneology itself would recommend Joseph as the father, as the lineage is being traced through him to King David. However, other versions of the same verse exist that alter the wording somewhat. The Codex Koridethi, the Ferrar group of manuscripts, the Vulgate, and Armenian versions dispense with the passive voice and add that Mary was "betrothed" and a "virgin": "Jacob begat Joseph, to whom (hó) being betrothed (mnésteutheisa) the virgin Mary bore (parthenos Mariam egennésen) Jesus, who is called Christ". Here the subject of gennaó is Mary, which is grammatically odd since (as Narkissos pointed out) the verb gennaó typically signifies male begetting and not female birth-giving. This is especially noticeable since the verb had just been used over 40 times to mean male begetting in the same text. This suggests that this was a secondary reading intended to harmonize the verse more closely with the virgin-birth story that follows. Finally, the Syriac text reads: "Jacob begat Joseph and Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary the virgin, begat Jesus who is called Christ". This text is superior to the second above, as it makes Joseph the subject of the verb, and thus fits best with the preceding geneology. However, it also contains the words "betrothed" and "virgin," which are missing in all early manuscripts and thus are probably late incursions into the text and probably represent a harmonizing attempt to fit the geneology with the nativity story that follows. If we posit the Vorlage of the Syriac text as more original than the Ferrar-Vulgate variant (which could be regarded as an attempt to shoe-horn the implied male parentage into the dogma of the virgin birth), and if we agree that the "the virgin" is a later addition, then we are left with comparing the W&H text with the proto-Ferrar/Vulgate/Syriac version:

  W&H: "Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, from whom was begotten Jesus, who is called Christ"

  Other version: "Jacob begat Joseph and Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary, begat Jesus who is called Christ"

  I think the W&H is very close to the original, in containing an ex- clause that patterns with the other examples of Tamar and Bathsheba in the geneology. If we bring it in line with the other examples, we would get:

  Original version?: "Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary and Joseph begat Jesus from Mary, who is called Christ".

  The W&H common text would be derived by replacing "Mary" which the relative pronoun and turning the active verb into a passive (deleting Joseph as the subject), whereas the basis of the other textual variants would be derived by deleting the reference to "husband" in the first clause and inserting a new clause after "Joseph" that has "betrothed" as its verb, and then later variants manipulated the wording even further by adding "virgin" and even making the verb "begotten" take "Mary the virgin" as its subject. This would hypothetically account for the different variants.

  Also, the Jewish Christians like the Nazoreans and the Ebionites were strongly attracted to Matthew, and they were famous for believing that Jesus was fathered by Joseph. They claimed that Jesus was "a man in a like sense with the rest of the human family" but who was the first to "observe completely the law" (Hippolytus, Against All Heresies 7.22), "a plain and common man, who was justified because of his superior virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.27), "begotten by Joseph" and "natural birth" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.21.1; 5.1.3), "a bare man, merely the seed of David" and "born of human seed" (Tertullian, De carne Christi 14, 18), "begotten like other human beings" (Origen, Contra Celsus 5.61), and so forth. The addition of the virgin story in the version of Matthew that was popularized among the proto-orthodoxy would place the gospel in a more acceptable light.
• 

  peacefulpete

  The virgin phase's inclusion in the 3rd century can be explained theologically, it's deletion is more difficult to understand. For this reason alone the shorter of the two should probably be seen as older as you said.
  

  Another thought about Is 7:14, Price speculates that the passage was part of an older birth or enthronement oracle in the style of Is 9:6 and 11:1-10. And it was reused by the present author for his own message. If this is the case then it is possible that the virgin meant was Shahar (Ps 110:3) the goddess. IOW the words may have originally meant sexual virgin but by Isaiah's time almah was ambiguous enough to be used in a new context, that of a woman (I was arguing this was his wife, I'm now favoring his not meaning any particular woman, but speaking sardonically of childbirth in the desperate times) then giving birth to a doomed child. Matt 500 years later uses the passage for a new use. Whether meant to imply sexual virgin or maiden is the question.

  Also Leolaia, how about Joe Antiquities 2.9.2-3 as a source for Matt? Joe's version of the Jewish tradition has Pharoah specifically targeting Moses (rather than a population control as in Ex) as the fortold deliveror of the Jews because his own prophet warns him. Amram get a vision and assures him that he would save them from Egypt. We know Luke used Joe why not Matt?
• 

  Leolaia

  Another thought about Is 7:14, Price speculates that the passage was part of an older birth or enthronement oracle in the style of Is 9:6 and 11:1-10. And it was reused by the present author for his own message. If this is the case then it is possible that the virgin meant was Shahar (Ps 110:3) the goddess. IOW the words may have originally meant sexual virgin but by Isaiah's time almah was ambiguous enough to be used in a new context, that of a woman (I was arguing this was his wife, I'm now favoring his not meaning any particular woman, but speaking sardondically of childbirth in the desperate times) then giving birth to a doomed child. Matt 500 years later uses the passage for a new use. Whether meant to imply sexual virgin or maiden is the question.

  One small quibble....Shahar was a male god in Canaanite mythology, the "twin" brother of Shalem. Both were fathered by El and were born at the same time, but they had two separate mothers, Asherah and Rahmay -- the latter being an epithet meaning "womb" (KTU 1.23). Mark Baker argues on the basis of other texts (e.g. KTU 1.6 ii 5, 27-28, "womb of Anat") that Rahmay is to be identified with Anat. The mythological reference to the "womb of Shahar" in Psalm 110:3 is thus intelligible as the mother of Shahar. John Day in YAHWEH AND THE GODS AND GODDESSES OF CANAAN discusses Psalm 110 and regards it as drawing on Jebusite Shalem-Shahar mythology. First of all, the allusion to the "womb of Shahar" occurs in a passage concerning the troops arrayed on "the day of battle" (v. 3), and this fits very well with the personality of Anat as the goddess of war. Second, the next verse (v. 4) concerns Melchizedek, the priest of El-Elyon in Salem according to Genesis 14, and Shalem is the same of the god of dusk; indeed "Jerusalem" means "foundation of Shalem" (cf. Jeruel, "foundation of El," in 2 Chronicles 20:16). Third, Elyon is the rivaled god in Isaiah 14:12-15, El-Elyon is the god of Melchizedek in Genesis 14, and Shahar is mentioned in both the Isaiah and Psalm texts. Another interesting thing about Anat is that one of her stock epithets was "virgin", hence:
  

  "Virgin Anat (btlt 'nt) spread her wings, she spread her wings and winged her way towards the shores of Shamek, filled with wild oxen...The cows gave birth [...], a bull for Virgin Anat and a heifer for the Beloved of the Powerful One....A bull she bore, the cow embraced him and covered him with [...] and gave him his first milk, his infant milk" (KTU 1.10 ii 10-13; iii 1-3, 20-26).

  This birth narrative, which designates Anat as a heifer that gives birth to a male heir, is cognate to several later Hebrew traditions that describe the Messiah as born from a heifer. Thus, in the "Animal Apocalypse" of 1 Enoch, we encounter the coming of the Messiah described as the birth of a white bull: "Then I saw that a snow-white cow was born, with huge horns; all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky feared him and made petition with him all the time" (1 Enoch 90:37). The Apocryphon of Ezekiel similarly related the story of "the heifer that gave birth," to which people said, "She has given birth and she has not given birth" (Tertullian, De carne Christi, 23; Epiphanius, Panarion Haeresies 30.30.3; Gregory of Nyssa, Against the Jews, 3; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 7.17; Acts of Peter 24). As the patristic references indicate, the folkloric story of the heifer giving birth -- rooted as it was in Canaanite mythology -- was influential in early Christian thinking about Mary; in fact, the rumors about Mary's maternity reported in Ascension of Isaiah 11 seem to reflect the passages quoted from the Apocryphon of Ezekiel. Finally, it is also interesting that the Ugaritic word for "virgin" in this text (btlt) actually means "young maiden" or "adolescent girl" which is similar to almah in Isaiah 9:6; it is cognate to Akkadian batultu "adolescent, young girl" and Hebrew betula, which apparently did not mean "virgin" as well in Hebrew since it had to be qualified in Genesis 24:16 by the phrase w's lw' yd'h "and a man had not known her". Mark Baker suggests that Anat was called "virgin" because she was arrested at a stage when gender roles were not clearly distinguished, so that she could be both mother and hunter/warrior. She is thus a virgin in the sense of Artemis and interestingly the Greek goddess Artemis was directly dependent on Anat; the myth of her dispute with Actaeon is a Greek version of the Canaanite myth of Aqhat.
  

  Also Leolaia, how about Joe Antiquities 2.9.2-3 as a source for Matt? Joe's version of the Jewish tradition has Pharoah specifically targeting Moses (rather than a population control as in Ex) as the fortold deliveror of the Jews because his own prophet warns him. Amram get a vision and assures him that he would save them from Egypt. We know Luke used Joe why not Matt?

  I actually mentioned this tradition earlier in this thread, re the extracanonical haggada on Exodus 1-2 that appears in Josephus, Pseudo-Philo, and so forth. Matthew however is not dependent on the form of the tradition that is in Josephus. He is closer to Pseudo-Philo, but closest to the tradition in the Sefer ha-Zikronot which has seven points of contact in plot with Matthew: (1) a portentous sign witnessed by the tyrant about a future rival, (2) panic on the part of the tyrant, (3) consultation with the tyrant's advisors on how to resolve the impending crisis, (4) the massacre, (5) husband divorcing the Savior's mother, (6) reassurance in a dream vision that emphasizes the greatness of the future child, (7) remarriage. Thus, I doubt the writer is directly dependent on Josephus but an early form of the haggada that is later preserved in the Sefer ha-Zikronot.

  There is another haggadic legend that also has obvious parallels with the nativity story in Matthew: the birth legend of Abraham, which combines the motifs of a portentious star and intended murder of the child, along with "soothsayers" of the king who witness the star and present gifts to the parents of the child. Have you encountered this?

  "On the night when he was born, Terah's friends, among whom were councilors and soothsayers of Nimrod, were feasting in his house, and on leaving late at night they observed a star which swallowed up four other stars from the four sides of the heavens. They forthwith hastened to Nimrod and said: "Of a certainty a lad has been born who is destined to conquer this world and the next; now, then, give to his parents as large a sum of money as they wish for the child, and then kill him." But Terah, who was present, said: "Your advice reminds me of the mule to whom a man said, 'I will give thee a house full of barley if thou wilt allow me to cut off thy head,' whereupon the mule replied: 'Fool that thou art, of what use will the barley be to me if thou cuttest off my head?' Thus I say to you: if you slay the son, who will inherit the money you give to the parents?" Then the rest of the councilors said: "From thy words we perceive that a son has been born to thee." "Yes," said Terah, "a son has been born to me, but he is dead." Terah then went home and hid his son in a cave for three years" (Sefer ha-Yashar).

  Interesting, no?
• 

  Terry

  
  "Back then, when a man adopted a child, everything he had was then inheritable to the adopted child. Adoption into a family was much more literal than the way our culture believes. So when Jesus was adopted by Joseph, he was not an adopted child, but he WAS his child. Thus inheriting his geneology as well."

  *****************************************************************************************************************

  Geneology becomes meaningless in this case.

  It is like playing poker with all wild cards. Every hand becomes valueless because anything can be anything.

  It no longer matters who was the father of or son of....if somebody comes along and adopts.

  For example: the law of primogeniture says, in effect, the firstborn inherits. That is, the oldest son gets it all.

  But, the bible is always turning this upside down. The younger son tricks or outsmarts the older son and all becomes topsy-turvy.

  The bible is full of this.

  Nothing means anything when anything can mean something.

  And you may quote me.