Do you as a Christian believe in the virgin birth?

[Dynasty]

I am rather dubious, I must admit, although if Jesus was born of man it wouldn't negate his divinity in my eyes. I was just wondering what other people think, although what denomination you are..

sorry for my ignorance
did Jesus have brothers and sisters from Mary and Joseph?

I think the bible is fairly clear that Jesus had brothers and sisters.

and what do we know about them - were they followers of Christ?

I haven't got my bible to hand, but I believe James was the brother of Jesus, and he wrote a NT letter. In the gospels it's a bit ambiguous - his siblings and his mother at one point thought he was mad.

that is just it schrodinger.. I am transposing it to a modern setting. the brothers and sisters not being particularly understanding that the older brother is the son of God

Just did a search and found this -

Matthew 13:55
Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

not the same Judas I imagine?

No, I don't believe so. Though golly, that would be a powerful twist on the story, wouldn't it?

If i remember right, two of Jesus's disciples were called Judas.

Someone said Mary wasn't married when she was pregnant with Jesus so when did they get married. I thought Joseph was her husband? And I'm assuming the brothers are younger?

Totally agree with niminypiminy. "true" but not historically, literally "virgin".

No, not the same Judas. There were 2 disciples called Judas - Judas the son of James and Judas Iscariot.

Mary and Joseph were betrothed when she became pregnant but, after his dream/vision, Joseph decided not to put her aside but to accept her as his wife. it would have been a bit different to nowadays in that there wasn't a big ceremony or anything. Joseph would just have taken her into his home as his wife. She was his wife by the time the baby came. Yes, brothers and sisters would have been younger - at least 6 of them, 4 brothers are named and the word used is sisters.

In the Protestant Church, we don't believe in the Immaculate Conception. Jews believed, traditionally, that sin passed to the unborn child from its father, so there was no need for Mary to be without sin. She was the one who gave Jesus his Jewishness.

The word used in Isaiah is just the word for young girl, but I think, that if Jesus had had a human father then he would have inherited sin and not been the "2nd Adam" i.e. sinless. But, tbh, I don't think that the mechanics of the whole thing are that important. It's more important to accept Jesus as the son of od and to do what God requires of us.

No I don't believe it but I don't spend hours pondering those sorts of details - for me being a Christian is about how I live my life, helping others, trying to be a good person, believing in 'something' after death (not really sure what).

Yes. I've known people with very real physical problems who've spontaneously got better. I believe they've been healed by God. It's not that much of a stretch to consider that a God who can make people in wheelchairs suddenly get up & walk could make someone pregnant without any 'assistance'!

I am enjoying this thread. Thank you!
I have an unwavering belief in God, and that Jesus was the son of God.
I do still however enjoy unpicking the years of manipulations of the facts.

I also enjoy pondering about the realities of how things would have been on the ground at the time of Jesus rather than the sanitized view I was bought up with in my Good News Bible.

The virgin birth was Jesus' birth, born before Mary was married to Joseph so while she was still a virgin.

The Immaculate Conception was Mary's conception. She was conceived by her parents in the normal way, but she was without original sin. That is the sin which all other humans are born with because of the sins of Adam and Eve, and which is taken away by baptism. But because Mary had been chosen to be the mother of Jesus she was sinless from the get-go. (Which I think is what heather1 said earlier?)

That is RC doctrine.

www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/originalsin_1.shtml seems to explain it for a more general Christian viewpoint.

And yes, I believe - if God could create the whole universe, a little thing like making a virgin pregnant is easy peasy.

AGnu
my problem with things like that is that in parts of the world the power of prayer is being used instead of practical measures against things like HIV.

I don't doubt that you have experienced amazing things but I do think it is hazardous to rely on prayer and the power of the Lord. Do you know what I mean?

Ah so the immaculate conception was actually Mary's conception and the reason she was conceived without original sin was because she was chosen from before her conception and birth and as Jesus's mother.
Jesus's conception/birth is the virgin birth.
And protestants don't believe in Mary's immaculate conception because Jesus was Jewish through Mary and Jewish people believe sin is passed to a child through its father, as Jesus's father was God Jesus was obviously without sin.
Is this right?

Protestants don't believe in the immaculate conception because it was only declared an official doctrine of the Roman Catholic church after the reformation ( in 1854 in fact ).

Quite so, niminy, IC was never part of early Christian belief. Or even late Christian belief, but I think that it was something that cropped up from time to time in some areas of Christianity in the early days. It's been a long time since I studied this stuff, tbh.

Very, that's right. Jewish people believed that sin passed through the male line and Jewishness through the matriarchal line. Not sure how things are today, but I believe they still believe that it's your mother who makes you Jewish, so if your father is gentile then so are you.

This is really interesting, thanks.
So protestants don't believe in the IC because it is not specifically taught in the bible and that dogmatic theology is not authoritative, but they believe that based on what we know about Judaism Jesus would have been born without sin anyway because his father is God and obviously without sin?
Sorry for being so ignorant!

That's how my branch view it, Very. We definitely don't do dogmatic theology. Sola Scriptura is one of the five principles of Protestantism. And we reckon that for the sake of Jewish religious thought and belief and the fulfilment of prophecy, the Virgin Birth is important so that there was no human father to pass on sin.

Just a question- why does the church see sex as sinful?

Sex is seen as sinful because of institutionalised misogyny, the association of women with the 'lower' body and its urges, and the obsession with spirit over matter that reads woman=body and man=mind/spirit/higher things.

The Virgin Mary is a particularly toxic myth because her sinlessness gets blurred into the fact that she conceived without having (sinful, becaue associated with the body that is supposed to be transcended) sex - some early theologians (and medieval painters) depicted her as conceiving through the ear.

No, I don't believe in the virgin birth, and I don't know anyone who does, including priests. And the immaculate conception was a mid-19thc fudge job.

That's partly true, pigeonhouse. Paul talks of celibacy as a better state than marriage, but said it was better for people who couldn't be celibate to be married because they could then be 'chaste' -- ie not having sex indiscriminately but remaining faithful to their spouse. In the world of late antiquity faithfulness in marriage was not especially prized - for men, though it was of course for women. So one way of understanding Paul's statements about chastity in marriage is expecting men to be as sexually faithful as women were expected to be.

Of course the great influence on the 'sex is sinful' tradition is St Augustine, and it is largely due to him that the doctrine of original sin inherited through sex was promulgated. In the Orthodox churches, where the influence of Augustine is much less, the fall is seen very differently, and not connected to sex in the same way. And although it's true that there is a strain of dualism in Christianity (largely derived from Greek influence) which can lead to the woman=body, man=mind/spirit dichotomy, Christianity's Jewish inheritance is non-dualistic -- so in the Hebrew Bible body and spirit are one: we are our bodies.

So you have more recent theologians exploring ideas such as the female aspect of God, sex as part of our God-given goodness, and looking again at Mary as a powerful symbol of femaleness rather than the unapproachable, sinless virgin queen.