Arthur McGowan, I'm asking you to drop in here if you get a chance, and vet my answer to see if there's anything contrary to doctrine. Some of it may be my legitimate theological “opinion,” but I wouldn’t want any of it to be heresy.
MHGinTN, I don't know if my answer is precisely RC doctrine or not: so if there is any fault in the way I am saying it, please attribute this to me, personally, your favorite Catholic (if I may flatter myself!)
You wrote: "Dear One, which parent, Mary or Joseph, is in the line from David?"As I understand it, there two ways to determine the Davidic line: the legal line and the biological line.
The Joseph line is legal: Jesus is of the house of Joseph, therefore (legally) of the house of David, because He is Joseph's legal but not biological son. This legal status as Joseph’s (adopted) son is the basis of His legal claim.
The Mary line is biological: Jesus is of the flesh of Mary, her true offspring, her descendant, her blood relative, her Son in every sense of the word: genetic, gestational, parturient, nurturant, legal, religious, social, emotional, psychological, physical. Jesus assumed (took up unto Himself) His human nature --- an entire and perfect human nature, complete in every detail --- from Mary. She is a descendant (seed) of David ---- as well as of Abraham, of Noah, of Adam and Eve, and her true maternity establishes Jesus’ biological claim to be heir of David, to be Messiah, to be Jewish even (son of a Jewish mother), to be Son of Man.
You wrote: "If you see the term 'seed of the woman' in only physical perspective, how do you read Rev 12?"
Not sure what you mean by “only physical.” It is essential to acknowledge that Jesus has come ‘in the flesh’, i.e. physically.
2 John 1:7
Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist.
The Woman in Rev 12 is a multivalent “Great Sign,” not a literal big huge person up in the sky, clothed with thermonuclear solar energy by being wrapped in a medium-sized star 93 million miles away. (Oy.) This is a symbolic vision. She represents, in distinct but related ways, Israel (Virgin Daughter of Zion), Mary (Mother of the Messiah, Mother of the Redeemer), and the Church (Mater Ecclesia, Holy Mother Church, Mother of the Redeemed).
As far as I know, one’s “seed” (e.g. Abraham’s seed; or implied in the phrase the “fruit of your loins,” with loins denoting the generative capacities) means one’s natural offspring.
I understand “seed” to mean the natural generative source of Jesus’ flesh. He took flesh from Mary the Virgin. “The Word was made Flesh.” She is the natural and proximate source of His human nature: He is incarnate of her.
You wrote: ”GOD chose Israel as HIS bride. She is the 'woman' who cries out in pain at birthing the Messiah, the Messiah Who is caught up to Heaven before satan can devour Him.”Certainly true. Yes, GOD chose Israel; God chose Mary; God chose the Church. Israel is His bride. Mary is His bride. The Church is His bride.
You wrote: ” My point, albeit a point apparently never addressed before, is that God would not defraud Joseph. “
| I think that’s an important, even a crucial point. I am very glad that you are focusing on this. Marriage in the normal, natural, conjugal sense means that both husband and wife implicitly gift each other with the entirety of their future procreative capacity. Any child they have will be the fruit of their lawful holy marital union, through their coition, exclusively. They will have children of their bodies with each other, only. This is irrevocable and must not be otherwise sold, traded, modified, donated, shared, bartered, loaned, given away, contracted to a third party, or in any way violated (until they are parted by death.) |
Do we agree on that?
God would not defraud Joseph. And I think I addressed that when I said Mary and Joseph had not, in fact, embarked upon, and did not intend marriage in the above physical/conjugal sense. Therefore a conjugal marriage vow was not violated.
If Mary ---with Joseph’s knowledge and consent --- did NOT intend nor vow nor her whole future procreative capacity to Joseph, then he was therefore not defrauded. But had she so vowed, then I’d say, yes, Joseph would have been defrauded by her becoming pregnant outside of their covenant union. But this was not the case. Her prior covenant, which determined the manner of her maternity, was with God, not with Joseph.
You wrote: ”If Mary brought an orphan child into her arms and nursed that child, and washed and clothed that child, and loved that child and raised that child, while married to Joseph, she would not be violating her marriage vows to Joseph, vows which put all her genetic future as his, not shared with another.”True --- theoretically. But that’s not what she did.
If Mary had had an allogenetic embryo implanted her womb, that would have violated her marriage vow (if she had vowed herself in the normal wifely/procreative manner) to Joseph.
For anyone to have a baby by some kind of artificial implantation violates marriage because (among other reasons) it introduces a third party into the procreative process.
IF Mary were a surrogate mother, and IF she were at the same time married to Joseph in the fully conjugal sense, having vowed herself to have children only by Joseph, this would have been a violation of her vow to Joseph. Joseph would have been defrauded.
But that’s not what she did, either.
Her procreative potential and capacity, her motherhood, was, by prior covenant --- in fact, I would say by God’s intention from all eternity--- predestined to God, not to Joseph. This happened before Mary, a human person, God’s mortal creature, ever existed.
You wrote: ”When Joseph took Mary to be his wife, regardless of her being pregnant by the Holy Spirit, I conclude that Joseph adopted Jesus thus Jesus is in the line of Joseph and whom Joseph is descended.”True.
You wrote: ”By Mary taking the role of mothering Jesus, Jesus is in the line of those from whom Mary is descended. The Gospel of Luke gives us those lineages.”Here the crucial distinction must be made. If by “the role of mothering” you mean merely adoptive or surrogate mothering: No. If you mean “full mothering in every sense of the word”: Yes.
We must understand that Jesus was not the “adopted” son of Mary. He had one adopted human parent (Joseph), and one natural human parent (Mary). Jesus was Mary’s natural Son: from her he took His human nature. (Notice nature --> natural). He was her Son according to her seed, and hence the descendant from the “flesh” and “loins” of David, hence the seed of Abraham, hence the Son of Man.
You wrote: ”IF Jesus was conceived as a union of sperm and egg, that would say God inseminated Mary. “I do not say God inseminated Mary. I don’t think there was semen involved. I think God impregnated her using her seed (ovum) which was miraculously made fertile by Him. It is utterly beyond our power to investigate. We don’t know how.
In the animal kingdom (certain worms and mollusks and so forth), parthenogenesis always results in female offspring. So this was different from that. But still it was still in some manner a parthenogenesis (in a miraculous manner), that is to say, it had to have involved Mary’s physical contribution which was Jesus’ genetic, genealogical link to the human nature of the entire human race.
You wrote: ” IF God used an ovum from Mary and created Jesus without a spermatozoon, that would also defraud Joseph of his right as sole husband to Mary's genetic future. “
You have to read this with a big IF. That’s IF Mary were pledged to Joseph as ordinary wives are, to procreate only with him. But I am convinced that she was not.
You wrote: ”IF, on the other hand, God made the embryonic Jesus by His will, not using an ovum from Mary or a spermatozoon, then the Holy Spirit implanted the embryonic Jesus in Mary's womb, BY HER CONSENT AND JOSEPH"S AGREEMENT, then GOD has not defrauded Joseph because Mary being a surrogate Mother to the baby is an agreed adoption by both supporting parents. And we have BIBLE evidence that Mary AND Joseph took the roles of parent and were still doing so at Jesus's age of twelve, at the very least.”
I understand your line of argument here. However, I think it denies the Incarnation. It would be useful to consider what Christians mean by “Incarnation,” as opposed to the Muslim concept of--- well, call it allogenetic implantation.
Muslims believe in the virgin birth, but do not believe in the Incarnation: that is, they hold that Jesus was created “de novo” like Adam and merely carried by Mary. They do not believe that Jesus was the true son of Mary, nor that He was a member of her family, nor even a member of her species. I repeat: Muslims hold that Jesus was NEITHER the son of God NOR the son of Mary according to the flesh. She was just a kind of surrogate reproductive concubine.
They believe Jesus was a direct creation of God, a human-like person and yet a kind of distinct humanoid species, so to speak. It’s as if scientists genetically modified a Siberian wooly mammoth clone and then implanted it in an African elephant “cow”. It was carried by an elephant, but it’s still a different species, a one-of-a-kind, custom-modified, allogene wooly mammoth.
In other words, Islam does not teach that Jesus was truly human, only that he was a created being, created de-novo, that looked human except he was not actually related to the human species. He was NOT a “man like us an all things except for sin” --- or so Muslims would say. But they are in error. Jesus was not directly created by God in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as the Muslims believe. He was conceived of her flesh, in her womb. This is what makes Him truly human: that He partook of her nature.
You wrote: ”My point is aimed at the very specious Catholicism nature of claiming 'GOD used a genetic gamete from Mary, thus Mary is so specially touched by GOD (as HIS inseminated wife) that she obtains goddesshood!'”This formulation is exactly 180o wrong. Fascinatingly and precisely wrong.
Jesus assumed real flesh from His real mother. He did not assume godhead from a goddess: He assumed humanity from a human. Mary is a human person. Is, was, and always will be a human person. Woe to those who say she is a goddess: this is a radical misunderstanding.
You wrote: ” IF an ovum from Mary was used or inseminated by God, do you see what this means regarding 'extra-human quality for Mary'…. and for defrauding of Joseph?”
You wrote: ”At the very base of Catholicism's Mariology is this stealthy impugning of God's character.”
Not so. Those who accept this idea you have proposed --- allogenetic implantation instead of Incarnation --- accept that God seized Mary and used her as a disposable fetus carton and then dropped her when He was was done with her. He used her as a surrogate. Thus God wronged Joseph because He (God) used Joseph’s woman who was priorly vowed to be the mother of Joseph’s children exclusively. This would be so gravely wrong. This truly impugns God’s character.
”You wrote: We see the same impugning of God's character in the Catholicism Eucharist, where Catholicism claims JESUS violated the commandment to not eat the blood by feeding His flesh and blood to the disciples on the night before the crucifixion!”
That’s another, longer argument, but suffice it to say that blood was not previously forbidden because it was too filthy, etc. but because it was too sacred (“Life is in the blood.”) When God willed to give us His blood to drink (“My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink” – John 5:55) it was to make this exceptional, incomparably sacred gift: that we might imbibe His life. The previous prohibition against consuming blood was exactly to prepare us for this one, unthinkably sacred, exceptional and unique gift. His blood. His life. That’s what He said.
You wrote: ”GOD is not duplicitous. GOD is not a defrauder. GOD is not a liar. God does not play trickster. “
True. Well said.
You wrote: ”Catholicism makes GOD to be a law violator.”Wrong. See above.
You wrote: ”God is seen as inseminating Mary as HIS wife, raising Mary to goddesshood!”
Wrong. “Goddesshood” is completely out of the picture. Mary is handmaid, not goddess. We all know that.
You wrote: ”You are absolutely right that we do not know the particulars of HOW God made the body of Jesus.”
Amen. But to insist that an ovum from Mary was not used and that Mary was the surrogate but not the natural mother of Jesus has wrongful implications I am trying so hard to point out “to thinking people, thinking Christians!”
Thank you, MHGinTN, for this good exchange of views.
Please bless us and guide us, Jesus, True God and True Man.
Jesus, my Lord, my God, my All.
There is nothing in the NT to support your claim.
Call no man father
Certified heresy-free.
An ovum is popped from the female's gland called Ovary. This ripe gamete then proceeds into the fallopian tube which leads from the abdomen down to the uterus. The spermatozoon penetrates the ovum in the fallopian tube and the ovum immediately closes the surface, chemically, so no other spermatozoon can penetrate. The ovum then divides the chromosome package it has so half of the genes can unite with the haploid spermatozoon (half the normal chromosome package of the normal human being. The newly formed single cell, called a zygote, proceeds down the fallopian tube, dividing into a cell mass known as the morulla, and it is the larger call mass which then implants in the uterine wall and the uterus is then known as a womb. The new life thus gestating in the womb then builds ALL the parts for life in the water world of the amniotic sac, AND the body which will eventually live in the air world upon birthing.
Your claim that JESUS IS the blood offspring of Mary is immediately suspect since it would mean, by definition, that an ovum from Mary was inseminated or somehow transformed into the zygote of JESUS.
Clearly, you demand this because it implies a goddess-hood status fro Mary, even the only human being of nature bloodline to JESUS! But you are asserting something that impugns GOD's character since Mary was already betrothed/married to Joseph! You would gladly impugn GOD's character to support the mythos of Mary the demigoddess! How very Catholic of you. But you think you have an 'out' by claiming with ZERO evidence again, that Mary and Joseph never had sex. And of course you are ignoring the FACT based in Scripture that MAry was already betrothed to Joseph, implying MAry consented to giving her genetic future to Joseph (betrothal) then cancelling that vow and being impregnated by GOD, without Joseph knowing, since the SCRIPTURES tell us when Joseph discovered Mary was pregnant he secretly thought to divorce her! In typical satanic twist, you ignore the evidence that there was not celibacy pact with Mary when she conceived in her womb!
The hold satan has on Catholic minds is thoroughly angering, and so sad because you folks cannot see how you impugn GOD to try and make HIS WORD support your mythology!
I don’t understand how you can stand wallowing around with these jabbering, spittle-flecked demons.
Making up ways to set aside the facts of defrauding does not reveal what actually was done by GOD to implant JESUS in Mary's Womb. And surrogacy DOES NOT VIOLATE THE BETROTHAL VOWS IF none of the pledged genetic future of the woman is not involved ... a less intimate example would be nursing an abandoned or orphaned child.