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Miraculous (Not Virgin) Births in Ancient Pagan Texts

In my previous post I pointed out that there do not appear to be any instances in the other religions of antiquity of a virgin birth – where a woman gives birth without having sex.   In this post I’ll lay out the more typical view of how a “son of God” came into the world.  It very much does involve sex.   Most of the post will deal with one (very funn) story in particular which is emblematic of the rest.    For this post I will quote a section from my recent book, How Jesus Became God.  *******************************************************************  Even though Apollonius of Tyana was understood to be a pre-existent god come in the flesh, that is not the normal Greek or Roman way of understanding how a divine human could be born of a mortal.  By far the more common view was that a divine being comes into the world – not having existed prior to birth – because a god has had sex with a human, and the offspring then is in some sense divine.  [...]

2020-04-03T14:11:59-04:00December 30th, 2014|Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|

The Need for Context

I AM NOW REVISING THE NEW TESTAMENT PORTION OF MY BIBLE INTRODUCTION, AND THOUGHT THAT SOME OF THE SECTIONS IN IT MAY BE OF BROADER INTEREST. AND SO I WILL POST A FEW OF (WHAT STRIKE ME AS) THE MORE INTERESTING PARTS HERE ON THE BLOG OVER THE NEXT WEEK OR SO. THE FOLLOWING IS HOW I BEGIN THIS SECOND SECTION. BEFORE THIS PORTION ARE AN OPENING EIGHT CHAPTERS DEVOTED TO THE HEBREW BIBLE. THEN THERE IS THIS TRANSITIONAL CHAPTER, FOLLOWED BY FIVE ON THE NT. TO GET GEARED UP FOR THE NT, I START AS FOLLOWS. THIS WILL SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU IF YOU’VE READ SOME OF MY OTHER BOOKS ********************************************************************************************************************** Throughout our study so far we have seen why it is important to know the context of a biblical writing if we want to interpret it correctly. You cannot understand what Isaiah meant when he said that “a young woman has conceived and will bear a son, and you will call him Immanuel,” without knowing that he spoke these words in the context [...]

2020-04-03T19:23:28-04:00September 14th, 2012|Book Discussions, Greco-Roman Religions and Culture|
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