Catholic Church Scandal!
I asked because it's kind of a litmus test about the trust we put in these molester-enablers discussed above in the thread.
Y'all believe it? What's the evidence?
Paul's letters (48-62) - the only Christian writings within Mary's lifetime. Never says she was a virgin. Says the opposite - Jesus was born of David's line (literally spermatoi in Greek). Romans 1:1-4.
Mark (c. 70) - the original surviving gospel. No virgin birth. God says "you are my son" after baptism.
Matthew (c. 80) - virgin birth after Wise Men visit Mary's house in Bethlehem and after Herod kills the babies (didn't happen). Why? Because "it was foretold." But was it? Isaiah 7 speaks of a woman (almah) not a virgin (betula) who was already pregant (no future tense). How could "Matthew" mess up so badly? Because he spoke Greek and was reading the Septuagent which says parthenoi (kind of like our "maiden").
Luke (c. 85) - virgin birth amidst a totally different nativity scene (manger in Bethlehem because originally from Nazareth; no wise men; no baby-killings; census that you had to go home for (didn't happen).
John (c. 90) - no nativity scene.
That's the evidence. My whole point is to say that you believe Mary was a virgin not because of evidence but because these molester-enablers say so. They and their enablers brainwashed you with this stuff.
So sorry for the lecture, but this is to follow-up on the post above that asked, quite cogently, why believe in the rest of the church while admitting that the latest branch that got caught is evil? They're all in cahoots.
Regarding Paul, in that passage he doesn't actually provide testimony on Jesus' genealogy, he's making a theologically based statement. Paul is explicit that everything he says about Jesus he learned either from scripture or direct revelation, "not from any man" (Galatians 1:12), and in this case he's pulling this knowledge of Jesus from 2 Samuel 7:12-16.
In that passage, God tells David that after he dies God will take his sperm and create a Son who will build his throne and eternal kingdom, which early Christians later interpreted be secretly about Jesus. So Paul says Jesus was made from David's sperm not because they had any records stating such, but because scripture said it must be so.
A further interesting note about that is that, though the modern translation of Paul is that Jesus was born of David's line, what Paul literally says is Jesus was
formed by God with David's sperm, using the same word he uses to discuss Adam being
formed by God with clay (
ginomai) instead of the word he uses elsewhere to describe one as naturally born (
gennaô). So again, he's talking theologically, not historically.