virgin mary - online puzzles

The virgin birth of Jesus is the doctrine that Jesus was conceived and born by his mother Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit and without sexual intercourse with her husband Joseph. The Catholic church holds it authoritative for faith and Protestants regard it as an explanation of the mixture of the human and divine natures of Jesus, but the consensus of modern scholars is that its historical foundations are very flimsy.

Cultural context

The ancient world had no idea that male semen and female ovum were both needed to form a fetus; instead they thought that the male contribution in reproduction consisted of some sort of formative or generative principle, while Mary's bodily fluids would provide all the matter that was needed for Jesus' bodily form, including his male sex. This cultural milieu was conducive to miraculous birth stories - they were common in biblical tradition going back to Abraham and Sarah. - and the most likely cultural context for both Matthew and Luke is Jewish Christian or mixed Gentile/Jewish-Christian circles rooted in Jewish tradition.Tales of virgin birth and the impregnation of mortal women by deities were well known in the 1st-century Greco-Roman world, and Second Temple Jewish works were also capable of producing accounts of the appearances of angels and miraculous births for ancient heroes such as Melchizedek, Noah, and Moses. Luke's virgin birth story is a standard plot from the Jewish scriptures, as for example in the annunciation scenes for Isaac and for Samson, in which an angel appears and causes apprehension, the angel gives reassurance and announces the coming birth, the mother raises an objection, and the angel gives a sign. Nevertheless, "plausible sources that tell of virgin birth in areas convincingly close to the gospels' own probable origins have proven extremely hard to demonstrate". Similarly, while it is widely accepted that there is a connection with Zoroastrian (Persian) sources underlying Matthew's story of the Magi (the wise men from the East) and the Star of Bethlehem, a wider claim that Zoroastrianism formed the background to the infancy narratives has not achieved acceptance.The Gospel of Luke says Mary is a virgin betrothed to Joseph, while the Gospel of Matthew says Jesus' virginal conception happens before Mary lives with Joseph in his house, because, in a Jewish wedding, by being betrothed to a man, the woman is already his wife, yet she does not start living in his house until the wedding is over. Mary's response to Gabriel - "How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?" (meaning, no sexual relations)- is an affirmation of Mary the wife of Joseph's virginity and obedience to the Torah that forbids adultery.In the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph intends to divorce Mary on suspicion of adultery because he is a righteous man, i.e., he is obedient to the Torah that mandates divorcing one's unfaithful wife. Because he is obedient, Joseph relents of his intention when, in a dream, he is informed by an angel of the virginal conception of Jesus.