To think the Nativity story is more worrying in terms of consent issues than sleeping beauty etc?

[grobagsforever]

Inspired by the sleeping beauty discussion (but not a TAT). I agree that the message of men kissing women who can't consent is a damaging message for young girls but I'm baffled as to why more people aren't concerned about children being exposed to the nativity.

Mary is impregnated by a male God. In the biblical version she is 'asked' (although how she'd have the courageous to refuse I don't know) but in the children's Christmas version the line is usually something like 'The (male) angel appeared and told Mary she was to have a baby'

Then a mute Mary is transported by donkey at the request of another man, made to give birth in a stable and then visited postpartum by a series of men! All without her explicit consent or consultation.

Am I the only person who thinks this story should not be taught to young children??

Madhairday, I'm saying this kindly - it might be better to post links to articles arguing the point you are making, rather than giving the names of academics. People aren't going to trawl JSTOR or Google Scholar/books for examples of their work. But if you share articles you've found compelling that would be helpful.

'And scholars of NT biblical history have spent and continue to spend an awful lot of time on establishing whether Jesus existed in history, because that is part of their job.'

No, it's not. Any academic worth the name will be studying the culture, the society, the politics - everything about the period. They will not be focusing on one individual. My specialty is 1640's England, my research does not revolve around Charles I or attempting to prove he was divinely appointed.

Sure, Saskia. I just didn't want to bomb the thread with long and mainly fairly tedious links.

Here's a very brief piece: an atheists defence of the historicity of Jesus

A longer one, in two parts Did Jesus exist? Atheist's view on scholarly consensus against Jesus as myth theory

NT historical scholars necessarily concentrate on Jesus as a historical person or not. It's a specific field slightly different to ancient history. Much of my own theological education concentrated on the historicity of Jesus and the historical Jesus, it's a huge area with much scholarly research. Should we ignore that because bias?

Thanks for the links! Don't worry about posting them, we like links on MN

I'm off to bed now because I've got to get up at stupid-o-clock, but I'll have a read tomorrow!

*I think it's a dead end to argue about the existence of Jesus as a historical figure
*
Not least of which because there is no evidence of any kind that can be utilised to support one position or the other.

Your unconvincing arguments Madhairday have been debunked many times on many threads.

But, really, how embarrassing that in 2017 a group of supposedly educated and bright women would be debating how true a primitive fairytale is. With, of course, the usual "How dare you not respect my infantile beliefs".

There is much proof that David Ike and David Koresh both existed.
Both also claim to be God/ the second coming.
Just because it can be stated that someone existed it doesn’t mean you can prove that someone was the son of god.

No worries, Saskia :) was also typing on phone as in bed ill so getting frustrated over trying to do c&p links !

No unconvincing arguments here, Tabby, just telling the truth about the consensus of scholars in the area. How is this verifiable fact unconvincing? If we were talking about the actual evidence or my view on the resurrection your comment might be more accurate, but a simple statement of the scholarly consensus cannot be debunked.

I've said nothing about an expectation that others believe what I do. I have no such expectation. I just answered a misleading post with something anyone can find out.

I guess I'll keep on posting my poor old unconvincing arguments. It would get tedious if it was too one sided, after all.

Night all.

The Nativity does seem like a fluffy innocent activity most children enjoy but yes, Mary does appear a helpless mute victim in most of the plays.

To be fair, Joseph has even less of a part! Similarly mute.