{"id":32659,"date":"2015-12-19T06:32:30","date_gmt":"2015-12-19T11:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=32659"},"modified":"2015-12-19T06:32:30","modified_gmt":"2015-12-19T11:32:30","slug":"would-you-lie-to-defend-the-virgin-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/12\/would-you-lie-to-defend-the-virgin-birth.html","title":{"rendered":"Would You Lie To Defend The Virgin Birth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I was disturbed to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.charismanews.com\/culture\/53743-compelling-historical-evidence-for-the-virgin-birth-of-jesus-christ\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Charisma News<\/em><\/a>\u00a0appealing recently to outright falsehoods in its efforts to encourage readers to keep accepting the virgin birth as though it were a historical fact that is supported by evidence.\u00a0Here are the claims they make:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0 \u00a0 A physician and world-class historian documented it<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Modern archaeology affirms it<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 An agnostic professor of mythology is convinced<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Old Testament prophets predicted it centuries in advance<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The earliest Christians believed it universally<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They pretend that Luke\u2019s infancy account is not problematic on its own terms. They repeat the falsehood that there is evidence for a second stint by Quirinius as governor of Syria. They pretend that it was predicted in the Old Testament. And they lie in saying that the earliest Christians believed it universally.<\/p>\n<p>None of that is true. The texts in Genesis and Isaiah which they refer to were not predictions of Jesus or a miraculous birth. Paul viewed Jesus as of the seed of David according to the flesh. And\u00a0we know enough about the career of Quirinius that we\u00a0cannot honestly even invent an undocumented second stint as governor of Syria in a time period that would fit the birth of Jesus and\/or match up with Matthew. One can fact check all the claims made and find them false.<\/p>\n<p>Contrast the approach of\u00a0<em>Charisma News<\/em> with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.psephizo.com\/biblical-studies\/was-luke-in-error-about-the-date-of-jesus-birth\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the recent blog post by Ian Paul<\/a>, which acknowledges the genuine difficulties, while looking for ways that it might nonetheless be possible to conclude that Luke was not in error.<\/p>\n<p>Why do some Christians think it is OK to <a href=\"http:\/\/biologos.org\/blogs\/dennis-venema-letters-to-the-duchess\/adam-eve-apologetics-and-christian-witness\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">outright lie in support of their beliefs<\/a>? What good do they think doing that will accomplish?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bibleinterp.com\/opeds\/mcg358015.shtml\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">written about this topic before<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2009\/12\/contradictory-christmases.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">more than once<\/a>. See too <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2015\/12\/the-year-jesus-was-born\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Philip Jenkins\u2019 recent post about the year Jesus was born<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was disturbed to see Charisma News\u00a0appealing recently to outright falsehoods in its efforts to encourage readers to keep accepting the virgin birth as though it were a historical fact that is supported by evidence.\u00a0Here are the claims they make: \u00a0 \u00a0 A physician and world-class historian documented it \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Modern archaeology affirms it \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":19943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,32,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evangelicals","category-gospel-of-luke","category-gospel-of-matthew"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Would You Lie To Defend The Virgin Birth?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was disturbed to see Charisma News\u00a0appealing recently to outright falsehoods in its efforts to encourage readers to keep accepting the virgin birth as\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/12\/would-you-lie-to-defend-the-virgin-birth.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Would You Lie To Defend The Virgin Birth?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was disturbed to see Charisma News\u00a0appealing recently to outright falsehoods in its efforts to encourage readers to keep accepting the virgin birth as\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/12\/would-you-lie-to-defend-the-virgin-birth.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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