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Hello everyone! Another week at the seminary has gone by and I have learned a lot. I wanted to bring up many highlights to your attention. One story was about a professor who heard audible voices, twice. I originally had that story on this post but it extended the post to about 950 words and this topic of virigin mary is one I really want you guys to mentally wrestle with. If you guys want to hear about the audible voices story, please let me know. For today I want to mainly focus on virgin Mary’s choice. Before I do I want to say that tomorrow I will blog on the few positive impacts religion has had on my life. And on Tuesday I want to continue on my deconversion process, which is about my time helping out at a church plant. With those announcements out of the way, let’s dive into this week’s secret atheist agent experience.
Theo 2 – Virgin Mary… this story is a very interesting story. Mary’s virgin status is only mentioned by two books, Matthew and Luke. Mark and John don’t touch on it and neither does Paul and Peter in their writings. Now in Matthew 1:18 casually mentions how Mary is pregnant. My question is, did she even have a choice? I asked that in class, man the stares that I got in class. I already know what Luke says so I’m waiting for the teacher to say lets turn their, which she does.
Luke 1:28-37 mentions the dialogue that occurs between Mary and the angel. Please read it before you continue reading this. Ok you’re back. Some of you may read verse 38 and will be saying “you see! she does accept!” Don’t get too excited just yet. Let me break down my point.
I will assume that the Bible is God inspired at this moment. The author Luke was a very technical writer and likely the most educated writer in the NT, other than Paul. With his background knowledge, he was most likely careful in his word usage. The word “will” is used an amazing 10 times! Now in the Greek version will isn’t directly exactly used, but it’s implied in it’s syntax. For example, syllempse, translates to “you will conceive” because it is written in a future indicative. More precise the book Greek Grammar by Daniel Wallace on Pages 569-570 says this is an Imperatival Future, which is used for commands. It also says it’s not as forceful as other commands, but it’s still a command.
Ok so Virgin Mary was commanded to have God’s child and people argue that verse 38 shows her accepting. Lets take a closer look, “Mary responded, ‘I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.’ and then the angel left her.” Keyword here is servant. The word, duole, is better translated as handmaiden, a female servant. The professor said that it’s better translated as slave. Doule is similar to doulos (slave). Either way a servant, handmaiden, or slave doesn’t have much of a choice when their boss or master tells them what to do. That is precisely what Mary portrays and then says let it happen. So she really didn’t have much of a choice.
Let’s not forget that last week I learned that Luke-Acts is a humorous fable. How else would Luke know such accurate word usage in the private conversation between Mary and an angel? Some people may argue, well God told him. But that fails because we are aware of the contradictions between Luke and the other gospels. If God was telling Luke what to write you would expect no contradictions. People then change their argument to that they were inspired and those contradictions show there was no plagiarism. I’m not trying to create a strawman but this is what many people do say. Oh boy the rationalizations are so immense among apologists that you really have to admire the bs they put out. Thank you again.