Virgin Birth of Isa
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peace Arnold,
For sake of argument, let's say adam=mankind in this verse, it does not change the fact that 359 is clearly equating the creation of Jesus like that of adam/mankind (i.e. created out of dust, "be" and it is), as Muhammad Asad points out
As is evident from the sequence, the above passage is part of an argument against the Christian doctrine of the divinity of Jesus.
The word "divinity" is used, nothing about virgin birth. To prove this further, M.Asad explicitly states in his following note
*I.e., regarding the true nature of Jesus. According to all the reliable authorities, verses 59-63 of this surah were revealed in the year 10 H., on the occasion of a dispute between the Prophet and a deputation of the Christians of Najran who, like all other Christians, maintained that Jesus was "the son of God" and, therefore, God incarnate. Although they refused the "trial through prayer" (mubahalah) proposed to them by the Prophet, the latter accorded to them a treaty guaranteeing all their civic rights and the free exercise of their religion.
Thus, M.Asad did not see these verses as evidence against a virgin birth.
Please note, I am not saying there is a virgin birth, nor there isn't one, I am simply clarifying.
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Peace,
And I posted it because of his correct comment that the Arabic concerning Adam is in the present tense and therefore refers to Mankind in general. And again, are we born by the use of virgin births? No, so your whole reference to why Asad said is pointless.
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peace Arnold,
It is possible I have misunderstood your evidence presented, but we shall see what is pointless and what is not through discussion )
I do not understand how you have linked statement A with statement B, as shown below
...the Arabic concerning Adam is in the present tense and therefore refers to Mankind in general.
And again, are we born by the use of virgin births? No, so your whole reference to why Asad said is pointless.
The verses are not even discussing virgin birth. I can only assume you have extrapolated the following
creation of Jesus = 'dust, "be" and it is'
creation of mankind = 'dust, "be" and it is'
creation of Jesus = creation of mankindExtrapolation
'dust, "be" and it is' equals procreation involving male AND femaleIs that what you're implying? If so, please provide Quranic evidence for the extrapolation.
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Are we created just out of dust? No...we go through a whole process as shown in 225. Our nature is being made up out of 2 seperate genepoles. Jesus is just part of the human race as everybody else and has gone through the same stages of creation as everybody else. This is why the comparison is made between Mankind and Jesus.
Plus the concept of virgin birth was not part of the original beliefs of Christians, but was introduced through Mithra legends and Isis-Horus worship in the first century. How can the Quran suddenly support a doctrine that wa snot even present among the first followers of Jesus?
This is my line of thinking, in where I keep the logical side of the interpretation and I am not alone in this thinking. If people want to stay neutral or hold on to the traditional understanding is their choice.
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peace Arnold,
It would be helpful if you clarified what I highlighted.
Are we created just out of dust?
When I use "dust", I was just using what you used initially, for coherence in our discussion. It more correctly means soil/earth/dust. As far as I'm aware, every component in our body can be found in earth.
Where in 225 does it show "Our nature is being made up out of 2 seperate genepoles." or in what way does 225 give evidence to your view?
This is why the comparison is made between Mankind and Jesus.
No, the comparison is made to disprove the 'divinity / Son of God / God incarnate' view, as pointed out by M.Asad. This is clear. What you have attributed to these verses is an extrapolation. What I am trying to clarify is the evidence behind this extrapolation.
Plus the concept of virgin birth was not part of the original beliefs of Christians, but was introduced through Mithra legends and Isis-Horus worship in the first century. How can the Quran suddenly support a doctrine that wa snot even present among the first followers of Jesus?
Impossible to verify. Showing "evidence" from history is not the same as showing "rejected by the Quran".
This is my line of thinking, in where I keep the logical side of the interpretation and I am not alone in this thinking. If people want to stay neutral or hold on to the traditional understanding is their choice.
I wish to clarify the "evidence" presented, that is all.
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Salaam Wakas,
Yes, of course it is about the divinity of Jesus, but I believe it also clearly says "he is created as any other human". I will write a more eloborate thoughtline when I have more time to show why and how I think this way.
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I have to agree with Arnold Yasin. The rest of mankind have simple births without any virgins being involved and Jesus is no different.
There is no point in fettering those verses to the concept that "Jesus is not divine" alone. That reeks of traditionalist idealogy and "context of revelation"/"asbab nuzool". It of course must mean that Jesus is no more divine than the average man, but it definitely cannot be restrained to just that statement alone - if God willed, god would have said exactly that in clear words and HAS DONE SO ALREADY (2116, 517, etc). Instead we get a comparison to men regarding his creation (again, said in general in 2117). I wonder if Zakariya is involved at all (339).
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peace Arnold, OPF,
I think we should be careful about the wording we use when saying things like "rejected by Quran" or "clear" etc. Hence this issue was brought up. Many members (and people generally in the real world) use strong terminology when it is uncalled for and cant be substantiated. Members need to be very wary of this due to its frequency.
Look forward to a more elaborate thoughtline from you both about this subject. I would say though, that a lot of discussion has taken place on this topic, in previous threads, like most other topics brought up on the forum.
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I agree that the quran does not "reject" but it passively implies that it's a farcical interpretation. If the quran describes god as al-haqq then why would anything in it be out of line with such a thing?
Anyway, the burden of proof is in the person suggesting change to established thought and they have to provide positive evidence to the contrary. The established thought, regardless of the 2.5 billion christians and the other billion muslims that may wish to say otherwise based on their beliefs alone, is that virgin births just do not happen and for humans, cannot happen. Find a modern person who has reproduced asexually without being cloned.
I can't believe people are allowing their interpretations of the quran to be derived from preconceptions and the idea that linguistically it doesn't rule it out - that just doesn't compute with and and nor should it if we hold to be true.
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There's another aspect called 'evidence' which those advocating a virgin birth need to bring. Whether or not Arnold's use of "the quran rejects" is a bad extrapolation or not, the fact remains that virgin birth IS an extrapolation, the absence of mention of a father is nothing that indicates Jesus didn't actually have one.
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There is a rare biological anomaly whereby there are to embryos or the previous stage in a pregnancy, but only one (a girl's) developa and the other embryo is embedded in the feminine organs of the girl, developing later when she is a grown up as it it was her own child. In fact it is a brother or a sister. This fenomenon has a name but I do not tremember it.
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There is a rare biological anomaly whereby there are to embryos or the previous stage in a pregnancy, but only one (a girl's) developa and the other embryo is embedded in the feminine organs of the girl, developing later when she is a grown up as it it was her own child. In fact it is a brother or a sister. This fenomenon has a name but I do not tremember it.
"Fetus in fetu" and it's not a very nice case. Jesus's birth was arguably a very "wanted" scenario, and this is far, far far from the case. And this condition doesn't produce anything but a vegetable twin.
In addition, if Mary had that condition she would have to be in medical care and would be far and away from normal. Not only that, the "pregnancy" would be visible for years, not a sudden onset as seen in the quran.
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There is a rare biological anomaly whereby there are to embryos or the previous stage in a pregnancy, but only one (a girl's) developa and the other embryo is embedded in the feminine organs of the girl, developing later when she is a grown up as it it was her own child. In fact it is a brother or a sister. This fenomenon has a name but I do not tremember it.
Salaam all,
I think you mean the fetus in fetus phenomenon, a sort of teratoma. The fetus inside never finishes its development and is already dead at delivery. It may remain undiagnosed years and years.More interesting is this verse about Mary's mother and Mary herself
"So when she delivered she said ?My Lord, I have delivered a female,? and God is fully aware of what she delivered, ?And the male is not like the female, and I have named her Mary, and I seek refuge for her and her progeny with You from the outcast devil.? (3; 37) [There is a comparative in the arabic text I would have translated it and God is more aware of what she delivered)How can God be more aware of the gender of the newborn than its mother ? Was there a doubt? In the eyes of Mary's mother, no, the baby was a female. In the divine plan, not exactly and God knows better what it was.
Paraphrasing huruf, there is a rare biological anomaly called mosaic in which, without much details, there coexist in the same body two (or more) types of cells, for example (may be in the case of Mary) cells XY and others XX. It is not scientifically impossible to have a genotypic hermaphrodism with a feminine phenotype. Ovaries and tests may have coexisted (a case was described in 1976, although highly pathological) and "something" caused an X cell from the ovaries and a Y cell from the testes to fuse immaculada conceptiou!
I'd like to finish with what one of the ancients said "there is no benefit from knowing it and there is no harm from ignoring it" ;D
Ang God knows best,
Salaam
sun
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That was just one instance of the possibility that it is was indeed a virgin birth without it being necessarily "unnatural". The fact that we may not know how it happened doesn't make it impossible to happen in a perfectly exlaniable way even if it is beyond our cpacity to come to know it.
Here is another possibility.
http//www.errantyears.com/1997/may97/0220.html
Salaam
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How do medical anomalies prove the existance of a healthy, miracle worker? Jesus, quranically is clearly a very able person and none of these people would have either the respect from being 'normal' or the mobility to do anything like he did.
When you bring a true virgin birth instead of seriously damaging anomalies, I'll eat my words.
The fact that we may not know how it happened doesn't make it impossible to happen in a perfectly exlaniable way even if it is beyond our cpacity to come to know it.
Evidence then conclusion. Not the other way round.
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Salaam decepticus, all
The case of hermaphrodism (2 DNA of different genders) or chimera (...of the same gender) carried by one human does not result in seperate entities in anyway.
Besides, we have a detailed description of Mary's labour. That was not an anomali.The phrase "and the male is not like the female" is "said" by God, as it is meaningless if said by her mother The construction (X is not like Y) implies that X is better than Y, or more intense according to the context, and this is the explanation of "God knows best" (I prefer the superlative). She wanted a male and He gave her a female because He knows this is better.
