Time for something completely different.
My understanding, without background references is that the traditional
justification for the virgin birth was that it was how Christ obtained a
sinless nature. My suspicion is this related to ancient ideas on how
conception occurred, that the man planted the seed in the woman who
essentially provided the a suitable host. This idea of conception seems
to have survived into the early microscope era, I recall seeing early
drawings of sperm where people thought they could see homunculi in the
sperm. Thus with the virgin birth, God provided the seed and mary was
simply the cooperative recipient. Am I correct in this, or right off
base?
Now I take the Virgin Birth as a "given". In that case, in the light of
the modern understanding of what happens at conception, how do we
understand it, and more importantly, what is the theolological
justification?
Jon
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