the Bible vs the Davinci Code

placing a womanon an unrealistically high altar when she is in fact just human is hardly good for the rest of the women in this world. jesus could be perfect because he was god, mary was perfect just because? hardly satisfying. most won't live up to it. as for the book having an effect, i'm sorry to say i was a pain in the ass to bible studies long before i read it. my family is atheistic, so their questions and rage naturally ahve always filtered in. however, my blame has never lain with god, rather with the political and social preferences of the fallable human beings.

 

Mary was human, she obviously sinned, however, I (Catholics) believe she was born without original sin, so that Christ would not be tainted as he was conceived. She is, I beleive, our holy mother in heaven in addition to the mother of Christ, as well as queen of heaven.

 

Then Mary's mother and Father were born without original sin too?


Please reply as this is an honest question.

 

i never saw how that was necessary, for mary to be born without original sin. how does that happen, anyway? this is one of those points that gives me a headache.


glad you're back, jozak.

 

Jozak, I definitely understand why you would believe that. After it would be a necessary condition that Christ be born without a sinful nature (or what you call "original sin"). If all humans have fallen and have original sin, then how could one give birth to a human that does NOT have original sin? There are two possibilities:

1. Mary was born without a sinful nature (original sin). This is what many Roman Catholics believe and is not a completely unreasonable statement. However, it does bring up a few questions. How was SHE born without a sinful nature? Did God intervene and remove the original sin from her in the womb? In my opinion, it leaves too many questions.

2. Original sin is passed from FATHER to child. It is the male in the relationship that gives the child original sin. This is demonstrated at least once in scripture. Notice in the Garden of Eden that Eve sinned before Adam, but that creation didn't fall. What logically follows is this: women do not pass their own sinful nature to their offspring. Creation fell only after Adam ate the fruit. This is called Federal Headship. As the Federal Head of creation, when Adam fell, so did all of creation. All humanity fell with him, because all humanity would be his offspring and would have the sinful nature. The thing about this that works, in my opinion, is that it makes the virgin birth logically necessary. For Christ to still be human but not have a sinful nature he would have to be born from a woman but have no human father.

I think that option 2 is more consistent, answers questions instead of raising more questions, and makes sense of the virign birth. It answers the question "why did Christ have to be born of a virgin?" He could have no earthly father (so as to not have a sinful nature) and to prove that He had no earthly father, he was born from a woman who had never slept with a man.

Does that make sense?

 

(I haven't read through all the posts, sorry if someone already said this)

Personally, I'm doubtful about whether Jesus ever existed, but if he did, how could he not have kids or be married? As a Jewish man 2000 years ago, he would have been married by age 20 or so, if not sooner. Every man got married, it was basically required.

And I don't see why this is such a big deal to believers. If he was fully human (as well as fully divine, i know, i know...), having a wife and kids is just another human thing he did. You aren't out there saying he didn't eat, or laugh, or cry. Sexual urges and the need for closeness, love, etc are all human traits. And with social pressure to get married, and not starting his preaching till he was around 30, he had some time to kill (lol).

 

Well, put into context, this comes from a society that is entirely male-dominated, including religion. You could take that literally, and then you would miss the point. Keep in mind the Gnostic Gospels are FULL of symbolism and allegory. So could this simply mean that women would be made equal and elligible for heaven? That it was put in that specific phrasing to make it understandable to the intended audience (which was an audience living nearly 2000 years ago in a male dominated society...not a modern society that is more equal). I think that is more likely.

 

actually, that is helpful. but as to why MARY had to be born sinless (was her father perfect?) i'm still in a fog.

 

It comes from a fallacious line of thinking. The basic idea is that a child has the nature of its parents. Therefore, if Christ was the son of a sinful mother then He would have a sinful nature. Since God's nature cannot be sinful, then for Christ to be God and have a sinful nature yeilds direct contradiction. To deal with the issue, the Roman Catholics (I don't know about Eastern Orthodox) assert that Mary had no sinful nature and the contradiction is resolved.

The fallacy, I believe, is the idea that a child has the nature of its parents. It is just as likely that the sinful nature stems from only one of the two parents. This is not explicitly stated, but we do know of one woman who was perfect and then fell... however, her fall did not doom all of mankind. It was Adam's fall that affected his descendents. That would seem to imply that Eve's nature, though sinful, would only doom herself (not her offspring). Read up on federal headship and it will make more sense... I am not very good at explaining things. Anyway, without the idea that males pass on their sinful nature I find it hard to justify the Virgin Birth. Why is it logically necessary that Christ had to be born of a virgin? In my opinion, it only makes sense if you say that He could have no biological father because that would imbue something contrary to God's nature. The only thing in us that is contrary to God's nature is our sinful nature. Therefore, it is not a large logical leap to see that having a biological father would imbue a sinful nature, but apparently, a sinful mother would NOT. Therefore, you have the virgin birth as a logical necessity for it is the only way that a human could have the nature of a human without being tainted from the beginning.

Hmmm... makes you wonder... could sin be genetic as well as spiritual?

 

You cannot put the "gospel" of Thomas into context. All the quotes are taken completely out of any sort of context. It's like me saying "That really sucks." Your reaction would probably be "What sucks?" You would lack context and would ask "what sucks" in order to clarify what the heck I am talking about. A series of cryptic quotes that are supposedly from Jesus are nothing more than jibberish as we have no idea what the heck He was talking about (even if they ARE legitimate quotes). Anyway, back to Thomas. It is a poor excuse for a gospel... in fact, it isn't one. A gospel tells the good news, Thomas is just a collection of supposed quotes and, as a work of historic literature, has pratically no leg to stand on in terms of its authenticity. All mentions of it from the early church writers (and I mean pre-Nicean, pre-Constantine writers) are negative at best. They all spoke poorly of it if they said anything at all. And the "gospel" of Thomas cannot be verified to exist before 200-300 AD (where as the big 4 legitimate gospels and Acts are all verified to have been written pre-100).

 

i think you did a good job of explaining it. though i have a hard time believing that sin is passed down through genetics, rather, through attitudes that are impossible to change, as well as though what is now genetic responsibility for our own actions. i think all of our human drives are the same, if more complex than animals. however, our knowledge and our requirements demand a degree of responsibility for our behavior.

 

No. Think about it like this: Christ is a direct heir of King David. Would King David and all the men down to Christ have to be sons of god? No, just as Mary could have been specially conceived by her parents, Christ was born of Mary and the Holy Spirit.

 

The bible says that all of mankind is born with a sinful nature. It is true that this isn't fully developed until the child grows and matures. However, it's man's fall from grace that made us this way. That is why Jesus died on a cross. He came to save us from our sinful nature. The word of God says that he looked down upon Mary with favor. No where does it say that Mary was born without sin. Regardless of how he came into the world, Jesus couldn't have been born with sin in the first place because he is God manifested in the flesh!!! That is why he was born of the holy spirit and not the seed of Joseph. Revelation tells us that the antichrist is a man possessed with the spirit of satan. Does that mean his parents were born directly into allegiance with the devil? Mary was chosen to be the vessel that bore Christ in the flesh. Abraham was chosen by God to be the father of all nations. God chose to reveal himself to Moses upon mount Sinai. These people were merely mortals who were whole-heartedly committed to God and therefore blessed by him. But they themselves are humans just as you and I.

 

if christ was born without the natural tendency to sin, then his sinless life wouldn't really be a triumph. he'd have had it easy.

 

My problem is that I don't think your precious Bible bears many more facts then "Code" does.

 

Where is James is it detailed? I just looked through it (it's a short book) and I didn't find any references to Mary. I am not saying that they are not there, I am simply looking for where you found them.

Why do you think that? If spending time with sinners for 33 years did not corrupt Him, then why would a "sinful" womb?

He would be unable to sin, yes. The triumph comes not from His living a sinless life, but from His freely sacrificing that perfect life for us. And just because He couldn't sin didn't make it easy. It would be easy to not sin, but that wouldn't make the reprocusions any less hard. Imagine being the only boy in school who couldn't lie or cheat. Imagine living a life that when someone strikes you unfairly, you cannot strike back in vengeance... you can't even get angry. Even if you want to... No, I do not think that His life was easy.

 

i disagree. life WOULD be easier without the torments and temptations. it's EASY to keep your cool when that's just how you are. no, i think it was crucial for him to have the same nature as us and to overcome it, to show that it COULD be done.

 

Maybe I am thinking of the wrong book I just watched a HUGE documentary on the books that were left out of the bible and one of them details this with Mary, I could have sworn it was James. At any rate, I'll see what I can find.

Christ could have sinned if he had wanted to. He was 100% man and god. It's not necessarily that the womb would have corrupted him, but like I said, the Early Church fathers beleived in the Immaclate conception as well, and Mary was, as the bible said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you" (Luke 1:28). The phrase "full of grace" is a translation of the Greek word kecharitomene.

From Catholic.com:
"The traditional translation, "full of grace," is more accurate than the one found in many recent versions of the New Testament, which give something along the lines of "highly favored daughter." Mary was indeed a highly favored daughter of God, but the Greek implies more than that (and it never mentions the word for "daughter"). The grace given to Mary is at once permanent and of a unique kind. Kecharitomene is a perfect passive participle of charitoo, meaning "to fill or endow with grace." Since this term is in the perfect tense, it indicates a perfection of grace that is both intensive and extensive. So, the grace Mary enjoyed was not a result of the angel’s visit, and was only as "full" or strong or complete as possible at any given time, but it extended over the whole of her life, from conception onward. She was in a state of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence to have been called "full of grace."

 

Again, I point to writings of Early Church fathers and apostoles that recognize the Immaculate conception. You are basing your opinion on the non-biblical doctrine of sola scriptura. You dismiss ANYTHING that is not found in the bible. I hope you are aware of who actually compiled the bible--The Church, and it wasn't completed until the 3rd century, so what do you think Christians relied on up until that point? Tradition.