I don’t know about you, but this is the time of year when I get all kinds of amusing messages affirming the literal accuracy of the Christian myth of a virgin birth 2000 years ago. When someone tells me that they have Compelling Historical Evidence for the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ, as they so often do, I pay attention, because it is always so enlightening. Not enlightening in the sense that they convince me their beliefs are reasonable, but enlightening because they always show off how weak their evidence is. Here’s the initial puffery I was sent.
Here are some historical evidences for the virgin birth of Jesus Christ:
A physician and world-class historian documented it
Modern archaeology affirms it
An agnostic professor of mythology is convinced
Old Testament prophets predicted it centuries in advance
The earliest Christians believed it universally
Oooh. Well, gosh. An authority and a whole scientific discipline have said it’s so, to the point that it convinced an agnostic? Must be true. Until you read a little further.
A physician and world-class historian documented it. And that physician was…Luke, the author of the gospel of Luke! That’s a little bit circular, ain’t it? That’s not independent confirmation at all, it’s saying that the guy who promulgated the myth says the myth is true, therefore it is true. It’s like saying that a war hero and super-genius documented the truth of Scientology, and then revealing that you’re talking about L. Ron Hubbard. Scientology must be true because L. Ron Hubbard said it was true. Would he lie?
The best part of this story is that the author claims that Luke wrote the gospel while Mary was still alive (which is already improbable, since Luke was written sometime around 80-100AD, so even if God had raped a child to father Jesus, she would have been extremely old), but has to admit that they really know nothing about when Mary died. So he speculates that he had the opportunity to interview Mary, and therefore he did.
If Mary was still alive, he, a doctor of medicine, investigated the story of the virgin birth by hearing it from Mary’s own lips.
Beautiful. Likewise, if Sasquatch actually existed, I, a professor of biology, investigated the story of Bigfoot by actually tracking down a gigantic ape living in the Pacific Northwest. This is evidence that Sasquatch exists.
Modern archaeology affirms it. Sadly, the only thing mentioned in this section is that one 19th century archaeologist, Sir William Ramsay, believed the New Testament was true. I don’t usually regard 150 year old tours of the Holy Land to constitute “modern archaeology”. Otherwise, no evidence is actually given, other than that “Old guy says so!”
An agnostic professor of mythology is convinced. Aaaaand…that agnostic professor of mythology was none other than C.S. Lewis. And that, my friends, is the rest of the story.
Old Testament prophets predicted it centuries in advance. <groan> Seriously? Old book says the prophet will be born of a virgin, addition to old book says their preferred guy is the prophet, and to confirm that, book has words that say he was a virgin, fulfilling the prophecy, therefore he had to have been a virgin.
Are all their evidences going to consist of loops of circular logic? I prophesy that this will be so.
The earliest Christians believed it universally. Therefore, every religion is literally true, because they all have bits of dogma that are believed universally by early advocates. Joseph Smith actually did receive a set of golden plates from the angel Moroni, because early Mormons all believed it was true.
You know, even if I were inclined to accept the mythology of Christianity — and in my youth, I was, since I was brought up in it — that the true believers are so credulous and so accepting of patently bad evidence would tend to drive me towards disbelief.
Except the OT actually says young woman, not virgin. And it wasn’t talking about Jesus, it was talking about some other character. See Isaiah chapter 7 for more.
Citing C. S. Lewis as an “agnostic”? Huh?
I’ll admit, this one leaves me a bit baffled. How, exactly, would archaeology confirm a virgin birth?
Oh my. The conflation of belief and evidence continues. If we’re to continue believing all the things previously believed universally, there’s gonna be one big mess. Contradictions for everyone!
Caine @3
Hell, I’d be impressed if modern medical science could confirm a currently occurring virgin birth.
“The earliest Christians believed it [the virgin birth] universally”
Ummm – nope. And using the Apostle’s and Nicean Creeds (which date from 2nd C. ACE and 325 ACE respectively) is a nice way to sidestep a couple hundred years of church history in which the various beliefs of ‘Christianity’ were still being formulated. It is worth noting that Paul never mentioned a virgin birth in any of his letters. Not even all of the Gospels do.
Mary didn’t die.
Here is the evidence
http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus.html
It must be true or it wouldn’t be in a book!
#3: Maybe they found her hymen in a collection of saintly relics. Yeah, that’d do it.
Our Lady of the Splash Conception!
PZ #8, you obviously weren’t paying attention to the hymen video you posted (http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/12/13/common-sense-about-hymens/)
They mentioned in passing that virgin births may or may not destroy the hymen. Sheesh, pay attention!
Well, I seem to remember reading that any number of Jesus’ foreskins are known with absolute certainty to be found in any number of reliquaries about the place – so I guess there could easily be a fair few Marian hymens floating around.
And here I thought this was going to be one of the more plausible myths, such as: The Earth is a ball in a giant cosmic arcade game (the old mechanical type, albeit with a few cosmic additions like relativity and Ents), and its been circling the a mega-points Sol hole for ages now, much to the frustration of the players. The so-called new orbit start is actually when it gets within range of the flippers, who are about to deliver an all-mighty WACK! in an attempt to steer it into Sol. However, the timing and force delivered has to be just right or it will trundle around in its by-now well-worn groove…
Comets, asteroids, fly saucers, and peas are all projectiles WHACKED! at the Earth in an attempt to deflect it, preferably into Sol, or for additional points, bells, and whistles, bounce it about the solar system, Velikovsky-like, and eventually into Sol.
And the turtles aren’t all the way down, they are actually holding the Cosmological Orbit Game arcade machine up.
On the other hand, there is compelling evidence of Mary’s death, as depicted by a police artist.
Anthonybarcellos @ 13:
Oooh, Caravaggio. One of my most favourite painters.
Opposablethumbs @ 11:
Which brings up another question, how would one distinguish a dried up bit of foreskin from a dried up bit of hymen?
I thought the foreskin was meant to be on Saturn?
To be fair, he did write extensively about how he was an atheist or agnostic or pagan or something when he was young, and then changed his mind and became a Christian due to the evidence (where “evidence” means “really really strong gut feeling”).
My recollection is that JRR Tolkien was involved in his conversion — but was disappointed that he did not become a Catholic as Tolkien was.
It’s a perfect 1:4:9 black slab?
Well, the DNA in the dried foreskin ought to match the DNA in the transubstantiated frakkin’ cracker… That’s science!
Marcus @ 19:
But what do you use to match the DNA in the as yet undiscovered virgin birth hymen?
Another undiscovered virgin birth hymen. If it’s the same, then they both must be genuine. That’s a scientific fact!!!!1!
</snark>Apologists just love the “Luke, World Class Historian” business. The evidence cited here is just that he knew and didn’t fudge the toponymy of contemporary Asia Minor and the Aegean. That is, the place names in Luke-Acts existed. This always cracks me up, because what? The bar for being considered a historian at all, much less a “World-Class” one, is knowledge of basic political geography in one’s own time and place? Acts is rather more in line with ancient Greek romances like An Ethipian Tale and Daphnis and Chloe, which like Acts, are also Mediterranean travel narratives, and also do not resort to made up places.
But what this oft repeated claim of Ramsey’s, about 32 countries, 54 cities and 9 islands without a miss never addresses is the unknown and seemingly legendary places in the gospel narrative that “Luke” repeats uncritically in his use of Mark. Gethsemane, for one, appears nowhere in antiquity but the New Testament texts. And where is this Arimathea that the rich man Joseph is supposed to hail from? There was apparently no such place. Like all apologetics, the claim relies on cherry-picking, and even if it didn’t, it can’t support the conclusion it purports to.
Don’t get me started on the OT prophecies. Anyone who claims to be convinced by such patently circular reasoning is just admitting that they suspend all critical judgment when considering Christian claims.
“Early Christians believed this universally.”
False. Marcion did not believe this. I don’t think the Ebionites did, either.
Doesn’t count. They were not True Christians.
Remember the Outer Limits episode where a queen bee took human form? Test the Jesus foreskin DNA to see if he was actually a drone bee………
Opposablethumbs @ 11:
The only thing we know about Jesus’s physical body was that he had at least five penises because at least five different medieval churches had his foreskin as a relic.
The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
As a parallel to the politer query of Thomas Paine, who asked similar questions about the resurrection, we might ask the writer whether s/he would believe someone today who said a young woman s/he knew had given birth to a child without having sex (or artificial insemination). And what if that person were just an acquaintance of the young woman? And what if that person were a distant acquaintance of a distant acquaintance of that young woman? On one hand, I suppose that the degree of separation undermines both the evidence and the supposed motivation of the person making this implausible report. But on the other, the evidence of such a report is pretty shaky to begin with, and the motivation has clearly shifted from family reputation to religious fervor…
Al Dente @26:
Not necessarily – maybe he had one penis, but a magical regrowing foreskin that he had to periodically chop off. It might also explain how he got better after being supposedly killed…
Holy shit, is Jesus actually Wolverine?
“The earliest Christians believed it universally.”
Nope. The first version of the gospels were free of miracles around the birth. Otherwise it would be strange that John and Mary later show surprise that Jesus is taking an interest in religious things when they visit the temple.
The stuff about supernatural events surrounding the birth were inserted into the gospels later, when the christians had been interacting with pagan society for a while, and the pagan ideas about portents naturally surrounding momentous events had seeped into the narrative (by this time, all those who were of the same generation as the disciples were dead, so few would have objected to the gospel being “improved” along the same lines as pagan belief).
Greek gods impregnated mortals all the time in contemporary mythology, so the idea of the holy ghost impregnating Mary was close to hand, especially when you consider the translation mismatch between Hebrew and Greek words for “young woman” (one of them implying virginhood, the other not).
“Not necessarily – maybe he had one penis, but a magical regrowing foreskin that he had to periodically chop off. It might also explain how he got better after being supposedly killed…”
-You know, that Alien bounty hunter in the X-File was really hard to kill. maybe John and Mary had adopted one juvenile that had been abandoned by its parents, just like Jor-El from Krypton?
Perhaps this is a good place to plug this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Bethlehem-Skeptical-View-ebook/dp/B00FH46NC8/
which demolishes all the “plausible explanations” for the Star of Bethlehem. This is one historicity claim that draws into the theorising a lot of people who should know better. Even planetaria get into the act (though that’s probably more of a “give the people what they want so they’ll show up” issue).
Sasquatch is real. He prefers the name Bigfoot, and has been living the retired life in the Florida Keys since the early 80’s . After his retirement he outsourced his big footing duties to undocumented Yeti and unemployed circus midgets and investing his savings into tech stocks. Freeing up his time to follow his dream of being a musician. Although that dream never really materialized, he did meet his future wife.
After Elvis faked his death and had the sex change, she met Bigfoot backstage at a Rolling Stones concert and the two fell instantly in love. Married in 1983 and having three children before her death of ovarian cancer of the prostate in 1992.
Today he travels the world on his private cruise ship and avoids the media spotlight. Although there have been occasional rumors of him coming out of retirement and going back to nature. Friends and family dismiss these as just rumors meant to drive up the value of the brand.
Is it me, or aren’t all of those basically just dressed up Arguments from Authority? It is isn’t it?
Coyote12 @33
You forgot to mention the epic Parcheesi tournaments he plays in with Skunk-Ape and Man-Bear-Pig.
Skunk-Ape and Man Bear-Pig are cheap myths cooked up in the minds of less hairy primates, usually when they observe some of Bigfoot’s formerly unemployed circus midgets trying to perform their big footing duties after beer forty. (Beer forty is an insider term meaning chugging 40 beers at happy hour like the Big guy normal does. They really take their jobs seriously, but have you ever seen a 65 pound midget try and chug forty beers in under 4 hours? And then try and work? not a pretty sight, and thus all the supposed skunk ape sightings, when in reality it’s just 4 drunken midgets in a Bigfoot™ suit fighting over who farted.
Odd oversight, CS Lewis was the first chair of medieval and renaissance literature at Cambridge, not mythology. Had an honorary doctorate in divinity which I suppose qualifies as a professor of one particular myth, but that’s not really what’s implied is it?
Supposing a virgin birth, which is more plausible: divine intervention, or handjob gone wrong?