Just getting caught up, so if you haven't gotten to my previous question about alternates for Mary, don't worry about it. You have answered it here.
This last sentence caught my eye. You said Mary's "flesh" clothed Jesus in his incarnate form. Are you familiar with embryology? The fertilized egg and then embryo (we don't know at what exact stage the human Jesus took up residence in Mary's womb) is completely separate from the mother's. The DNA is different and even the blood type is different. The baby is NOT and never has been the "flesh" of the mother. In fact, in some cases, the developing child gets treated as a foreign substance in some mothers and her antibodies work to kill the invading cells. A negative Rh factor mother will develop antibodies against an Rh positive baby, and after the first child is born - without a special injection to prevent it from happening - subsequent pregnancies with Rh positive babies are threatened.
Not intending to give a biology lesson, but I was surprised to see a statement that implied Jesus' incarnate body was clothed with Mary's flesh. That is not a correct statement. If you mean her womb protected Jesus' incarnate body for the months he was in utero, then - never mind. ;o)
Thanks for the lesson. I totally get what you are saying but it seems to me that you are forgetting of whom we are speaking. We are not talking about the mundane conception of a baby.
Jesus, to be the Son of Man, a human, had to be born of a woman in the same way we all are. However, and here is the catch, He was not conceived by a man. In the normal course of human life, one needs the egg of a woman and the seed of a man. Jesus had only one side of that equation.
Each parent contributes half the genes of the newly created life, and from those genes, the fertilized egg develops. From these genes we get our skin tone, eye color, hair color, height, weight etc....dominant genes and heredity and all that if you will.
As His Father, the Holy Spirit did not have these human genes to pass along to Jesus in His human form, all of those had to have come from Mary. Simple biology.
Again, we are not talking about the ordinary here, we are talking of Jesus, God made Man. Though He was fully human, He was not ordinary was He?
When God formed woman from Adam’s rib, he says that she is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone because she came from him. In like manner, so are our children, because they come from us.
So yes, though a completely separate person with a unique DNA, the child is still a product of the parent, flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone. And since Mary was the only human in the formation of that product, it was indeed her flesh that clothed Him.
We do know the exact stage the human Jesus “took up residence” in Mary’s womb. What an odd thing to say and what a disjointed and impersonal way to express His conception.
The angel tells Mary, “The Holy Spirit will overshadow you and you will conceive a child.”
Conception is a singular event. It happens when the egg is fertilized. So, Jesus was conceived and became human in that nanosecond of conception. He was not “placed” there in any other form or stage of human life, nor did He take up residency like Mary was a roadside inn or incubator.
Lastly, as to the alternate Mary question. I did answer it by referring you to the post in which I answered the same question from another poster.
#752 if I remember correctly.