Re: survival skills for teenage geeks

[Paul Baker <pbaker@where2getit.com>]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2003, at 07:13  AM, Hamish Moffatt wrote:

> Interesting post Paul - thanks.
>
> On Tue, Jan 21, 2003 at 10:38:17PM -0600, Paul Baker wrote:
> > You really can't take anything in the bible literally. The bible was
> > passed entirely verbally for many hundreds or thousands of years 
> > before
> > it was written down. Things are bound to get changed as they are 
> > passed
> > from one generation to the next and even across languages. And of
>
> A couple of months ago my local newspaper (www.theage.com.au) published
> an opinion from a columnist (who was a legitimate minister of some kind
> IIRC), suggesting that the virgin birth of Jesus was an artifact of 
> many
> translations of the bible and not something that actually happened. An
> interesting argument - and one that brought in a lot of irate letters 
> to
> the editor!

My religion teacher (at my Catholic HS) said that most likely what 
really happened was that Mary was rapped by a guard or other government 
official which was very common for that time. But now if that story was 
passed down through the ages it wouldn't make the birth of Jesus sound 
magical enough for him to actually be the son of God. So it was changed 
to a supernatural birth by the virgin Mary.


--
Paul Baker

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
         -- Philip K. Dick

GPG Key: http://homepage.mac.com/pauljbaker/public.asc