Aibu to think wombs, virgin or otherwise, are not abhorent?

[PencilsInSpace]

Just got back from midnight service where we sang o come all ye faithful which praises christ for not abhoring the virgin womb.

I'm an atheist but culturally Christian and have sung those lyrics throughout my childhood without a second thought but they're awful aren't they?

Is a belief in the abhorrence of wombs central to Christianity or is it time to bin that verse, just as that verse from all things bright and beautiful about everyone staying in their place was binned?

1. there was no stable. The manger was standard in a family home.
2. the only ones who showed up that night were shepherds. The most humble and disregarded group in society.

One of the things I love about the carols from King's is the old language and I find I know nearly all the words. I'm by no means a regular churchgoer but the words come back to me from school days and in between. It's nostalgic.

Shepherds were not regarded as able to fully observe the cleanliness rules of Judaism, so no properly part of the People. An attitude which persisted. I don't know if it was done for my great-grandfather, him being chapel, but shepherds would until recently be buried with a wisp of fleece in their hand to explain to St Peter why they had missed so much church

This is turning into a really interesting thread

Well this went well for the OP! 😂

Huh, coincidence - just picked up my George Herbert that I haven't looked at in years and there he is rhyming "kind" with "wind" (in "Nature"), circa 1620-30 I guess.

I've always thoroughly disliked the line about, " A breastful of milk" in In The Bleak Midwinter.

It gave me far too many distracting thoughts about how much that would be, and the relative productivity of Mary's milk factory. Such a crass line, and would surely make your choirboys snigger @mitogoshigg.

Christina Rossetti wrote In the Bleak Midwinter, I quite like that line myself. This thread certainly shows we all like different things!

Shakespeare too.

Blow blow thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude

I really like the Rossetti words too.

OED gives a now obsolete 17th century definition of abhor as "to differ, diverge, or depart from". That's a core tenet of Christianity isn't it? That Jesus was human - in life, in suffering, and in birth.

Great points made above about linguistic evolution and translation.

I wish the same respect for historical context would be applied to other issues, deliberately viewed through a modern ( and distorting ) lens.

Blow, blow thou winter wind/ Thou art nor so unkind/ as man's ingratitude

Ach sorry. A repeated observation!

And the poor woman died of breast cancer, after writing that rather wonderful line.

The original uses ‘puella’ which means a young girl/woman not of marriageable age. It’s a diminutive, so it’s a more informal descriptor too. It can be and was used much like ‘baby’ is today - to describe something literally (‘a baby’), and as an affectionate nickname (‘my baby’). It can also be used to mean a young (female) slave or servant.

’Virgo’ would more commonly be used to denote an unmarried woman of marriageable age.

Whether either is intended to mean a lack of sexual experience depends on context. It was in the 1300s that the meaning of virgin shifted and it began to be primarily associated with chasteness.

What the translator meant when he went for ‘abhors not’ is hard to say. It could be that he meant ‘didn’t shy away from’ rather than ‘wasn’t repulsed by the womb (as the rest of us would be)’. It could also very well be that he didn’t think too deeply of it at all, was struggling with the rhyme scheme, and went ‘fuck it, that works’. It was his second attempt at translating it, and the line directly preceding it is clunky too, so it’s not at all outside the realms of possibility.

Lots of archaic words in poetry. We don't edit Shakespeare or Keats.

OP if you’re an atheist, what were you doing at the midnight service? Sounds like you popped in because it’s Christmassy and a bit of light entertainment? Maybe give it a miss next year if it all offends you.

I like the way prove and love both used to rhyme, and both basically rhyme with over.

An atheist turning up at a church service, not understanding the words of some of the hymns and therefore deciding they are “offensive”.

Mistranslation of virgin from Greek. Context for the word was more like young woman.

Me. Too busy sucking in that gas and air with teeth firmly clamped on the mouthpiece! To be fair also had epidural and for one birth pethidine. If not I'd be yelling with the best of them.

I winced at Midnight Mass with one of the readings and a sentence that talks about how no husband decided to have a baby.

I’m not too keen on ‘Christian children all must be, mild obedient good as he’.

@MerryMaker I’ve never heard that said at Mass. Which sentence is it?

Being as obedient as Jesus involves running off to tell grownups they are wrong about the world when you are 13, so it's more Greta Thunberg than Little Lord Fauntleroy.