Posted on 12/19/2011 4:02:26 PM PST by rhema
In one of his columns for The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof once pointed to belief in the Virgin Birth as evidence that conservative Christians are “less intellectual.” Are we saddled with an untenable doctrine? Is belief in the Virgin Birth really necessary?
Kristof is absolutely aghast that so many Americans believe in the Virgin Birth. “The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time,” he explains, and the percentage of Americans who believe in the Virgin Birth “actually rose five points in the latest poll.” Yikes! Is this evidence of secular backsliding?
“The Virgin Mary is an interesting prism through which to examine America’s emphasis on faith,” Kristof argues, “because most Biblical scholars regard the evidence for the Virgin Birth … as so shaky that it pretty much has to be a leap of faith.” Here’s a little hint: Anytime you hear a claim about what “most Biblical scholars” believe, check on just who these illustrious scholars really are. In Kristof’s case, he is only concerned about liberal scholars like Hans Kung, whose credentials as a Catholic theologian were revoked by the Vatican.
The list of what Hans Kung does not believe would fill a book [just look at his books!], and citing him as an authority in this area betrays Kristof’s determination to stack the evidence, or his utter ignorance that many theologians and biblical scholars vehemently disagree with Kung. Kung is the anti-Catholic’s favorite Catholic, and that is the real reason he is so loved by the liberal media.
Kristof also cites “the great Yale historian and theologian” Jaroslav Pelikan as an authority against the Virgin Birth, but this is both unfair and untenable. In Mary Through the Centuries, Pelikan does not reject the Virgin Birth, but does trace the development of the doctrine.
What are we to do with the Virgin Birth? The doctrine was among the first to be questioned and then rejected after the rise of historical criticism and the undermining of biblical authority that inevitably followed. Critics claimed that since the doctrine is taught in “only” two of the four Gospels, it must be elective. The Apostle Paul, they argued, did not mention it in his sermons in Acts, so he must not have believed it. Besides, the liberal critics argued, the doctrine is just so supernatural. Modern heretics like retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong argue that the doctrine was just evidence of the early church’s over-claiming of Christ’s deity. It is, Spong tells us, the “entrance myth” to go with the resurrection, the “exit myth.” If only Spong were a myth.
Now, even some revisionist evangelicals claim that belief in the Virgin Birth is unnecessary. The meaning of the miracle is enduring, they argue, but the historical truth of the doctrine is not really important.
Must one believe in the Virgin Birth to be a Christian? This is not a hard question to answer. It is conceivable that someone might come to Christ and trust Christ as Savior without yet learning that the Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. A new believer is not yet aware of the full structure of Christian truth. The real question is this: Can a Christian, once aware of the Bible’s teaching, reject the Virgin Birth? The answer must be no.
Nicholas Kristof pointed to his grandfather as a “devout” Presbyterian elder who believed that the Virgin Birth is a “pious legend.” Follow his example, Kristof encourages, and join the modern age. But we must face the hard fact that Kristof’s grandfather denied the faith. This is a very strange and perverse definition of “devout.”
Matthew tells us that before Mary and Joseph “came together,” Mary “was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.” [Matthew 1:18] This, Matthew explains, fulfilled what Isaiah promised: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name ‘Immanuel,’ which translated means ‘God with Us’.” [Matthew 1:23, Isaiah 7:14]
Luke provides even greater detail, revealing that Mary was visited by an angel who explained that she, though a virgin, would bear the divine child: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy child shall be called the Son of God.” [Luke 1:35]
Even if the Virgin Birth was taught by only one biblical passage, that would be sufficient to obligate all Christians to the belief. We have no right to weigh the relative truthfulness of biblical teachings by their repetition in Scripture. We cannot claim to believe that the Bible is the Word of God and then turn around and cast suspicion on its teaching.
Millard Erickson states this well: “If we do not hold to the virgin birth despite the fact that the Bible asserts it, then we have compromised the authority of the Bible and there is in principle no reason why we should hold to its other teachings. Thus, rejecting the virgin birth has implications reaching far beyond the doctrine itself.”
Implications, indeed. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, who was His father? There is no answer that will leave the Gospel intact. The Virgin Birth explains how Christ could be both God and man, how He was without sin, and that the entire work of salvation is God’s gracious act. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, He had a human father. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, the Bible teaches a lie.
Carl F. H. Henry, the dean of evangelical theologians, argued that the Virgin Birth is the “essential, historical indication of the Incarnation, bearing not only an analogy to the divine and human natures of the Incarnate, but also bringing out the nature, purpose, and bearing of this work of God to salvation.” Well said, and well believed.
Nicholas Kristof and his secularist friends may find belief in the Virgin Birth to be evidence of intellectual backwardness among American Christians. But this is the faith of the Church, established in God’s perfect Word, and cherished by the true Church throughout the ages. Kristof’s grandfather, we are told, believed that the Virgin Birth is a “pious legend.” The fact that he could hold such beliefs and serve as an elder in his church is evidence of that church’s doctrinal and spiritual laxity — or worse. Those who deny the Virgin Birth affirm other doctrines only by force of whim, for they have already surrendered the authority of Scripture. They have undermined Christ’s nature and nullified the incarnation.
This much we know: All those who find salvation will be saved by the atoning work of Jesus the Christ — the virgin-born Savior. Anything less than this is just not Christianity, whatever it may call itself. A true Christian will not deny the Virgin Birth.
What’s next?
Should we toss out that Jesus was the Son of God?
Exactly! He stumbles at the thought of a virgin birth, but not at the idea of the Eternal and Omnipotent Creator becoming Incarnate as a helpless infant?
Not true entirely. Many of the old translation were changed from ancient greek along with forgeries.
Just rewrite this in your head to “Kristof is absolutely aghast that so many Americans believe in the divinity of Jesus.”
There are actually some hardcore leftist pseudo-clergy who are using this argument. They hate the idea that Christianity is a religion, not a secular philosophy on a par with other secular philosophies.
One of the most influential-to-Marxism philosophers prior to Marx was Georg Hegel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel
His most influential idea was that an idea, or even an entire philosophy, was a “thesis”, and that if you argue against it, or even if you do not agree with it, you create an “antithesis”. And in a weird, Darwinian struggle of ideas, the end result is a “synthesis”, a better combination of the two ideas, or philosophies, into a new idea or philosophy.
It seems to make sense to people who don’t think about it too much.
But if you do, what comes to mind is not philosophy, but religion. Religion defies synthesis, because it refuses to compromise its beliefs with anti-religious ideas and philosophies.
And this bugs the hell out of philosophical types.
This is why they have such a bitter hatred of religion, precisely because it rejects the idea that it is just the same as some armchair philosopher’s theory.
This is why the divine, the unknown and the unknowable of religion are so hated, because philosophy has no such unshakable and unchanging ideas. If God says something, then it is the eternal truth. If a philosopher says something, it is just one guy’s opinion, and doesn’t change anything.
And they just can’t bear that thought.
Look, it’s real simple. Do you believe in God? An omnipotent God? A creator God that brought all things into being? Then, why, for God’s sake (and yours) do you think that he can’t bring about a divine revelation of Himself in a manuscript (with more correlation than any other documents in ancient history) and cannot suspend the laws he created to evidence His own divinity?
If you don’t (or can’t) believe, then just forget about God and the virgin birth. Just go ahead and relax. He’ll remind you about it on Judgement Day.
How about the Cross? The Death, Burial and Resurrection?
God taking a handful of ordinary people and using them to change the world?
How about that God become Man? Leaving everything that was good and perfect to come and live down here in the mud. Bad food, stubbed toes, sweat, tears, sunburn, toothaches.... all the stuff that we have to go though because we don't have a choice and He chose to do it? And He did it because He loves us and wants for us to be with Him? Us? He loves us enough to live like us just to allow us the option of coming to live with Him?
Marinate your brain in that for a while.
When you think about the rest of it the virgin birth is not the most amazing part of the story.
a. We are born in the image of Adam after the Fall, We share his original sin by real imputation and his sin nature by genetic transmission. Thus we share his spiritual death, His sin is our sin, his sin nature our sin nature, his condemnation our condemnation. Rom. 5:14.
b. Christ is in the image of Adam before the fall.
c. Since Jesus was born of a virgin, there is no reception of a sin nature or imputation of AOS.
d. God the Father imputed all our sins to Christ on the cross, Rom. 5:15.
The result then is that man is declared righteous, he is not made righteous, sin is not overlooked, it is not just as if I had never sinned. He is declared by God to be righteous not because of what he is or will be but solely because he possesses the righteousness of Christ.
http://deanbible.org/Media/Doctrines/H-N/Imputation%20and%20Justification.pdf
How then did they heap on themselves the title 'biblical scholar'???
Some people study about the bible...Others study the bible...There's a world of difference...
Just chuck these guy's opinions into the round file and continue on learning God...
I have more faith in God than I have of the different Jewish sects...
God says he will preserve His word, forever...I don't think a few Jewish sects tripped Him up...
You can believe anything you want to believe, it’s a free country.
If you want to believe in Jesus Christ you must believe in the whole story or none of it.
That’s your choice.
Humankind is unable to comprehend
Humankind is unable to comprehend
It was the Jewish sect that translated that! I will make you a bet. I bet you can not find where the first 5 books of the bible , written in ancient greek, are located or stored for referance.
I suspect a substantial proportion of those on FR knew there was, as you say, a little “hanky/panky” going on when translating the New Testament to get the well-known Vulgate Bible. However, the intentional and inappropriate insertions are few, and the Vulgate was for the most part a sincere effort to work from the best available Greek manuscripts of primarily the second century AD (including reference to Origen Adamantius' work) as a revision of the even more flawed "Old Latin" text. As for the Vulgate Old Testament, the older manuscripts that Jerome used whenever possible were in Hebrew/Aramaic (the Tanakh), and Greek (the Septuagint) was only a last resort. The Vulgate as far as I knew did a good job on the OT, other than the debate over whether to include what Jerome himself referred to and thoroughly documented as the apocrypha. Regarding the quality of St. Jerome's Vulgate translation, we have plenty of Greek manuscripts that were completely unaffected, which allow us to see and correct deviations.
As you might guess, I'm a fan of the Vulgate in concept and as a remarkable work for mostly one man. I'm also a fan of the KJV, which has a majestic, poetic brilliance well beyond the archaic language. I don't see KJV as the only possible "true" translation, but I see it as an excellent work. The big question in translation is how far to deviate from a word-for-word rendering. Too literal is unreadable or awkward, and too free a paraphrase may blur or change critical aspects of the meaning. When I read Aramaic or Greek side by side with the KJV, I think the translators in almost every passage did a miraculously good job. [Note: I am going from memory, since I don't have the relevant materials with me, and I apologize if there are any "oopsies" in my comments above]
Great resources.
Here’s another for those who doubt portions of Scripture.
1Jn 5:9-12
(9) If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.
(10) He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
(11) And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
(12) He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
You have supported my view, so to speak. Litterature, and the bible is a work of litterature, has to have an appeal or no one would read it. As to the first 5 books of the bible, we are not sure who even wrote it. I suspect it is lore handed down through time as a sort of history but no one knows the accuracy. Ther was 900 years between Abraham and Moses. and before that was Noaha and a flood but there is no first hand transcript of that event.
>> Christians are “less intellectual.”
An ironic assertion given the theory that those who tend to think with their gonads are the foolish ones.
LLS
LLS
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