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Originally Posted by awareness
To me we're chopping at the leaves and ignoring the root.
This is the virgin birth implications thread. What's the implications if the virgin birth wasn't true? ... let's be honest with questioning the virgin birth, and all its implications.
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I'm asking what is the textual basis to question the virgin birth idea? Because some of the gospels feature it and some don't? Timotheist seems to think that if there is any discrepancy between the narratives then one of them must be false. So if John's gospel didn't mention the virgin birth, and Paul didn't feature it doctrinally, then Timotheist (as I understand the argument) is saying that synoptic accounts of the virgin birth are suspect.
I'm saying that eyewitness accounts can differ, especially years after the fact, and conveyed second- and third-hand, without one of them being wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by awareness
And that brings us into iffy-land. Where we can't be certain of anything..
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Not me. I have lots of certainty. Let me give an analogy. I've never been to Kathmandu, Nepal, but the "Google Earth" feature allows me to check it out. Before the internet days, I could find an entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica. So I have a fair amount of certainty that the place actually exists. There are witnesses and I trust them because they are corroborated.
How do I know George Washington crossed the Delaware? Multiple witnesses. How do I know Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon? Multiple witnesses. How do I know Hannibal crossed the Alps? Multiple accounts. How do I know that in the NT there was a "James the elder" (brother of John) and a "James the lesser" brother of Jesus? Multiple accounts stretching back into antiquity.
So I know there was a Rome (just as there is today), a Jerusalem (ditto), and so forth. Some of the smaller details might be in dispute, like which recension of the LXX closely matches the Masoretic Hebrew of the Orthodox Psalms or whatever. But the big picture never changes. Love God, love your neighbor. And Jesus is the Lord.
It's really not that confusing.