But you failed to cite a passage from the Book of Mormon.  Where in the Book of Mormon is this clarified?

But you failed to cite a passage from the Book of Mormon.  Where in the Book of Mormon is this clarified?

Mary was a virgin, and that means no sex, not with God, not with man, not with anything that would break her hymen.

The Jews were very serious about women being virgins when they got married.  If Mary had not been a virgin, either Joseph had to say he had deflowered her, or she would have been stoned at the gate of the city.

There is no record of her having a problem with passing her “test” so she was found to be a virgin by the usual test.

As a Mormon, let me say that since we can create a virgin birth now with artificial insemination, I don’t think it would be too hard for god to have Mary carry his biological child without having sex with her, everything else in your “evidence” is your interpretation.

That’s funny, it sounds like we’ve both dones circles on this one. Yesterday I did a google search of the long sentence suggesting that Jesus was born in the “natural way”, and got about 7 hits. Out of the seven, I could only find the quote in one website (it was probablly there in the others, but they contained way to many quotes to sift through). In the place I found the quote, it provided the same reference you did, Jesus the Christ chapter 5, pg. 43. Because of the inconsistency of page numbers with JtC, I read the entire chapter and still couldn’t find it, but I figured I must have just skipped over it, and gave up. I remembered Bruce R. McConkie saying something to that effect in Doctrinal Commentary on the Newt Testament, I had this debate twice before with friends, but didn’t want to dig up my copy (we moved about a year ago, and I still have a lot of books in boxes).

Suffice it to say, based on our exchange from yesterday I had determined that I must have been in error all of these regarding Elder Talmage. On the one hand, referring to the conception as a “higher manifestation” of natural law, isn’t exactly spelling out artificial insemination. At the same time, does make it clear that the method was above our mortal means. At the same time, suggesting that it occured in the natural way, does seem to almost spell it out. If Elder Talmage had said both, then I clearly am wrong. So, in order to reconcile this in my mind, are we certain that Elder Talmage did not say this? As I mentioned, I have found one other source that listed the reference you have, is it possible that Elder McConkie was just quoting Elder Talmage?

I’ve fixed the quote by Talmage found in Chapter 5 of Jesus the Christ. It reads:

“The only instance of offspring from woman dissociated from mortal fatherhood is the birth of Jesus the Christ, who was the earthly Son of a mortal mother, begotten by an immortal Father. He is the Only Begotten of the Eternal Father in the flesh, and was born of woman.”

IMO that’s probably vague enough to fit what you are saying.

A little truth in this case the way the Only Begotten in flesh was to come into the world made it into some Greek mythology, some far eastern religions and some tribal religious histories….but the fulness of the truth is that the the human conception and birth of the One whose origins are of old is the source material for the traditions that appear in various cultures or religion down through the years.

Outside of LDS thought is the traditional Christian understanding grealty influence by men such as Origen and Augustine that all those pre-Christ pagan virgin birth stories were crafted by the Devil beforehand to sway people from believing in the uniqueness of Jesus’ birth and rather to get people to dismiss the story as myth because of the other stories that predate Jesus…

I think I prefer what I perceive as the LDS position

The Buddha was born of a virgin

Krishna was born of the virgin Devaki

Dionysus was born of the virgin Semele

Frigga was impregnated by the All-Father Odin and bore Balder, the healer and savior of mankind

The Mother Earth Goddess immaculately conceived and birthed the Sun (Son?)

And many of these offspring were considered saviors and died as martyrs, only to be resurrected.

Or is it true what Joseph Campbell says… “Mythology is what we call someone else’s religion.”?

Thoughts?

That is interesting. I cannot find the reference in Jesus the Christ (ch.5, pg.43) that mentions that the Jesus was concieved in the natural way. It should be noted that Reuben J. Clark was quoting Talmage in Jesus the Christ (pg 77 in my book, chapter 7 under the topic – Gabriels Annunciation of John and Jesus). There Talmage states that Jesus was begotten of God, not in violation with natural law, but a higher manfiestation thereof.

“Mary’s son is God’s Son; that he was conceived and begotten in the normal way; that he took upon himself mortality by the natural birth processes; that he inherited the power of mortality from his mother and the power of immortality from his Father…”

It was J. Reuben Clark, also quoted above, who talked about the “higher manifestation.” Read the entire quote, wherein he also speaks of this being done through an ordinary operation of the law by which God ordained that human beings should propagate.

“That Child to be born of Mary was begotten of Elohim, the Eternal Father, not in violation of natural law but in accordance with a higher manifestation thereof; and, the offspring from that association of supreme sanctity, celestial Sireship, and pure though mortal maternity, was of right to be called the “Son of the Highest.” In His nature would be combined the powers of Godhood with the capacity and possibilities of mortality; and this through the ordinary operation of the fundamental law of heredity, declared of God, demonstrated by science, and admitted by philosophy, that living beings shall propagate — after their kind.”

I can’t see that this in in odds with Bruce R. McConkie’s statements.

If dna is thought of the way MoHoHawaii describes, it is a temporal record of humanity. If God exists outside of time, and time is only measured unto men (Alma 40:8) then it seems dna could be based in mortality and not exist in the state of resurrected beings. The alternate would be that it would become highly purified in a resurrected being.

If there are no celestial gametes or if they are not compatible for fertilization with mortal gametes, then celestial bioengineering of a gamete that reproduces an earthly form of God’s celestial dna may have preceded Mary’s overshadowing. That line of thinking would lead back to the Holy Ghost-fertility agent theory.

I don’t want to look it up, but I believe Talmages words on the matter where something to the effect of, “The conception of Christ by Mary was not in violation of natural law, but a higher manifestation thereof”. I always took this to mean that Talmage favored the Holy Ghost-fertility agent theory, sort of in a “God’s way’s are higher than man’s way’s” context.

In a nutshell, virgin birth (miraculous quickening) is a doctrine that LDS tradition has repudiated for 170 years. The literal, physical descent of Jesus from a corporeal God is a core idea that differentiates LDS thought from other forms Christianty. Am I mistaken about this?

Thanks, BIV and everyone else, for indulging me on this thread.

I’ll have to do the analysis on why a resurrected person’s dna shouldn’t be that different from what it was before. So that status change is not what it takes to make someone divine and mortal.

Maybe there’s a misunderstanding– I agree with this point. It is more or less what I said in #57.

With synthesized DNA, any combination of nucleotides could be chosen as long as it resulted in human DNA, with all of its weirdness and echoes of ancient viral infections intact. (Otherwise, Mary’s immune system would have prepared for war.) A pattern could have been selected that appeared to be a combination of Mary and Joseph according to Mendelian principles, and it would still be a miraculous, extra-natural birth. This still seems far fetched, but at least it doesn’t cause contradictions like the idea that Elohim’s and Mary’s union was of the regular conjugal sort.

The problem is that LDS doctrine is very specific about the literal, biological descent of Jesus from Elohim. We’re not virgin birthers. HG-synthesized DNA won’t pass correlation.

Interesting notes though.

Well, he might do it because otherwise creating a God-human hybrid who could save humans from their sins would be impossible. Or, he might have directed billions of years of human evolution to ensure that human DNA matched his own closely enough that hybridization is possible. Given the whole omnipotence thing, no biggie in either case, it seems to me.

As someone who was raised Evangelical I am all too familiar with the techniques Evangelicals use in missionary outreach – I suppose the same techniques are used to varying degrees in all religions that actively seek converts. Here’s the problem.

First, the sinner is pointed to the signposts on the “Romans road”, then as he(she) follows the signs on the road he (she) comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ – defined differently in varying degrees depending upon denominational assumptions or context. Second, (unless you’re a raging Calvinist i.e. perserverance or eternal security) you must live a life that externally exemplifies that internal spiritual reality called saving faith. Part of this internal faith is to accept as authentic the “doctrines” of Christianity i.e. the five fundamentals (Inerrancy of the Scriptures, The virgin birth and the deity of Jesus, substitutionary atonement by God’s grace and through human faith, bodily resurrection of Jesus, The authenticity of Christ’s miracles or in the case of dispensationalists his pre-millennial second coming) though one could argue scripturally that Paul limited the essentials to faith in Christ’s death and ressurection that is both a verbal proclaimation and an internal heartfelt reality.

The LDS pattern of Faith in Jesus Christ, repentance (a turning from sin) baptism (John 3:5 – born of water and spirit) and a keeping of the commandments of Christ are with a few differences (baptismal understanding being on of them) very similiar to that to which Evangelicals adhere. There is nothing in scripture that tells us we will be judged on belief, and this is where Evangelicals fall short in theological thinking – every passage of the NT that speaks of judgement speaks only of works of good or evil – while belief might be the impetus of said actions it is not the core of the judgement or those who profess Christ (including evangelicals) would bot be told “not all who say Lord, Lord will enter into the kingdom” – the virgin birth and it’s detail are not a “saving” doctrine – neither is Jesus’ life as to whether he was single or married etc…the ressurection (which you mentioned above) is different because Paul says without the ressurection our faith is in vain – (that’s something to think about as well, the atonement would be meaningless without the ressurection of Jesus Christ to an immortal body of flesh and bones…a ressurection we are told we will partake of in scripture, why is that type of life th goal?) so you cannot compare the two and decide that they are equally essential….I am just rambling now, sorry