Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
And yet there are Christians who do not believe in the virgin birth. You may not call them Christians, but they do. Who judges such things? Surely not you or I.
Some biblical scholars think that the concept of a virgin birth was added to Christianity later on. Paul doesn't mention a virgin birth and his writings are earlier than the gospels, and Paul does specifically talk about Jesus' birth. Mark is the earliest gospel and doesn't mention it either.
Matthew has the virgin birth, but Matthew always goes out of the way to try and fit his account with his reading of OT prophecy.
Some view it as a fulfillment of what they think is a prophecy in Isiah 7:14, but it appears that the authors of Matthew and Luke may have been using an incorrect translation of Isiah in Greek, where "young woman" is mistakenly translated as virgin.
Even some modern translations of bibles translate Isiah 7:14 correctly in that they say "young woman" rather than "virgin".
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I just wanted to point out that I agree with your points here. The ultimate problem and conflict is that if Christ was not born from a virgin Mary then it discounts the meaning of Christ's placement in history. The idea is that his birth has no human interference but a gift directly from God, basically a sacrifice from God, his only son. That is going to be why it is so important that Mary was a virgin.