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To: fishtank
I think (yup...just my thoughts) the 'Immaculate Conception' was an incredible theological solution to the problems that the 'sacrificial lambs' blood had to be pure, perfect, sinless, spotless. For the blood of Jesus to be effective when shed, he couldn't be stained by sin. Enter the Immaculate Conception - the blood of Mary, then of Jesus, was perfect. Problem solved!

What wasn't understood at the time was the the blood from the mother did not pass to the child. Interesting point that, in this case, the truth of science didn't catch up to the bible until I don't know when.

9 posted on 12/08/2011 8:37:33 AM PST by LearnsFromMistakes (Yes, I am happy to see you. But that IS a gun in my pocket.)
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To: LearnsFromMistakes
What wasn't understood at the time was the the blood from the mother did not pass to the child. Interesting point that, in this case, the truth of science didn't catch up to the bible until I don't know when.

Huh? Jesus did not have Mary's genes(and mitochondria)? Adam was not Mary's ancestor?
13 posted on 12/08/2011 8:43:56 AM PST by DarkSavant
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To: LearnsFromMistakes
I think (yup...just my thoughts) the 'Immaculate Conception' was an incredible theological solution to the problems that the 'sacrificial lambs' blood had to be pure, perfect, sinless, spotless. For the blood of Jesus to be effective when shed, he couldn't be stained by sin. Enter the Immaculate Conception - the blood of Mary, then of Jesus, was perfect.

That may be the theological rationale you advance, but it isn't the rationale the Catholic Church uses.

The argument is really pretty simple:

  1. The fourth commandment of the Decalogue (using the Protestant numbering) says, "Honor thy father and thy mother".
  2. Jesus fulfilled this commandment perfectly.
  3. Jesus, uniquely among sons, also created his own mother.
  4. Creating someone with original sin isn't "honoring" them; neither original sin nor actual sin ever honors anyone.
  5. Therefore, Jesus honored his mother by creating her free from original sin, thus fulfilling the commandment ... perfectly.
The Scriptures bear this out. Luke's Gospel has the angel greeting Mary as "kecharitomene", as though it were her name. That's the perfect passive participle of charitoo, "to grace". It means that Mary was completely graced as an already completed action, hence Jerome translated it into Latin as gratia plena, or "full of grace".
15 posted on 12/08/2011 8:48:19 AM PST by Campion ("It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins." -- Franklin)
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To: LearnsFromMistakes

What wasn’t understood at the time was the the blood from the mother did not pass to the child. Interesting point that, in this case, the truth of science didn’t catch up to the bible until I don’t know when.


Sounds like you are using a Greek view of ‘blood.’ In Hebraic scripture blood is ‘life.’ Not plasma etc. The life indeed passes to the child from the mother so the theological issue remains. However, the idea that sin is ‘inherited’ is a common problem for both Protestants and Roman Catholics. Two peas in a pod really.


23 posted on 12/08/2011 9:00:47 AM PST by Rippin
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