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UPDATE: Essays on Jesus’ Conception and Virgin Birth
Image of the “spark” of conception, a physical reaction recently observed when sperm meets an egg. The flash you see in the upper right is actually made of zinc, and its brightness could indicate the strength of fertilization. Research done at Northwestern University.
This past Sunday we discussed the virginity (including the perpetual virginity) of Mary, mother of Jesus, and how Aristotelian philosophy shaped Greco-Roman, Jewish, and the Gospel writers and the New Testament writers in general on how they understood human conception, and how this thought contributed to the understanding of Jesus’ conception and identity.
These essays were based on an article written by Andrew Lincoln titled “How Babies Were Made in Jesus’ Time” that appeared in the Nov/Dec 2014 issue of Biblical Archeology Review.
A Look Into Jesus’ Conception
“The Nativity”, Lorenzo Lotto (1480 – 1556/57), 1523, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
This week, we will take a mini-break from Confessions and discuss the topic of the Virgin birth and Christology.
We will be going over an article from the November/December 2014 issue of Biblical Archeology Review titled “How Babies Were Made in Jesus’ Time” by Andrew Lincoln. A brief synopsis of the article can be found here; for the complete article you have to order from the website.
Update: Chapter 16 – Perspectives of the True Church: Part II (1492 – 1517) – The Expulsion of the Jews in Spain, the Spanish Inquisition, and Erasmus
Here are our responses from last night as we finished up Chapter 16.
We focused on the Spanish Inquisition and the legacy that Erasmus left in influencing the Protestant Reformation.
We had a lively discussion last night, mainly spurned on by Erasmus’ preference of Origen’s theology over and against Augustine. We discussed the nature of original sin, and I was surprised to find out that basically half the group still held on to (or were at least somewhat reluctant about abandoning) the doctrine of original sin. Though we all agreed with the basic understanding of human evolution, most of the group still believed that God somehow interfered in the process and specially endowed human beings with the capacity to know and understand God. (I personally am in the very small minority of believers who believe that was not the case – in terms of divine interference in human evolution – but I’ll leave that for a future post perhaps.)
Project Augustine 