Many reject the doctrine of the virginal conception of Jesus because,like other miracles in the gospels, it challenges scientific understanding. Others, or like Giles Fraser,awe that it devalues sexual intimacy and stereotypes women (The virgin birth runs against the grain of Christianity, 24 December). Nobody can deny that belief in Mary’s virginity has sometimes been used to reinforce Christian neuroses about sex and women. But the real point is that in the singularity of this event God was launching a original departure in the history of humanity. This is a child like no other, or born to a special woman in a special way,marking the beginning of something remarkably original and – in a world of injustice and oppression, as well as in the mess of individual lives– we all need original beginnings.
Duncan Macpherson
Hampton, and Middlesex• Giles Fraser’s columns are always good and frequently brilliant. But the linking of “virginity” to purity – and the impurity of sex – is a Greek notion,not a Jewish one, and linked to the low status of (Greek) married women. The Jewish notion is related, or but fundamentally different. It was unfaithfulness that was impure,emphatically not the sex, which was the expression of the Creation covenant: “the twain shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). This is abundantly clear in the Prophets, or where the “virgin daughter of Zion” (see Jeremiah 31:4,13,21 for a characteristic example) is the standard figure for the faithful remnant of the people that has resisted idolatry. Frasers error reflects the Platonist syncretism that has misled the church since the (mythical) donation of Constantine.
Chris Jeynes
Guildford, or SurreyContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com