--> I am glad to hear that. But it is a shame that the church had to be torn apart in the process of finding that resolution. Again, it comes back to politics. We assume the church is above politics and it is not. We also assume the church should have some kind of divine protection from politics and it does not.
Some people assume those things today. However many of the Church fathers did not assume such things, and many railed against Church and Empire becoming way too cozy. Some were persecuted for saying it, then in retrospect the Church "figured out" these people were in fact saints.
There are a lot of caricatures of the Christian Church in our modern society, and of ancient people's in general. The thing that irks me is that the biggest proponents of these caricatures are so called "skeptics" and people who claim to weigh the evidence, when in fact they just make up their own evidence like anyone else does. Which is why I'm doubting "certitude" on any issue more and more.
"Can you explain how/why the issue of whether a 1st century Galilean Jewish woman had sex or not affects your own life?"
--> With pleasure. I do not see Jesus’ birth as having been a virgin birth at all. According to my belief system, the virginity refers to the "virgin" material that our universe was created from, and the Son refers to our universe itself. The story of a virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus was put together for two reasons. One, to explain cosmic concepts to very primitive people. I see it as an altering of original teachings that actually make a lot of sense. Second, I see it as an intentional re-writing of the original truths for political purposes. I see this as an important example of how cosmic truths get re-written and changed as the centuries go by, and how we must all be on guard to protect ourselves from church leaders to try to pass off such teachings as the truth.
Interesting! I don't necessarily agree with your interpretation, however it's an interesting one. Thank you for sharing. I will think about it and ponder it. However the idea that Jesus was born of a Virgin is quite early and not something invented centuries later. (that she remained a virgin forever, that's debatable though) That of course doesn't make it true, but we knew through historical scholarship it's an early doctrine.
"I'm just curious how it makes a difference to your life whether or not Mary had sex 'after' she gave birth to Jesus?"
--> Because it tells me that I cannot trust church leaders who would even suggest such a thing.
Oh I see. What I meant was the actual fact of Mary ever having sex or not, not whether the Church was right or wrong on the issue. I think we're in agreement then. It doesn't matter one way or the other as far as her person goes. What does matter is "did the Church get it right or wrong?" If that's what you mean then I would definitely agree,
that issue does matter. However it doesn't for me invalidate an entire religion just because someone somewhere got something that doesn't really matter anyways right or wrong. If Mary died a Virgin I don't care. If she died not a Virgin I don't care.
Like you though I DO care if the Church got the issue correct or not though.
--> . By the way, does Orthodoxy claim infallibility in the way Rome does?
We have no single head who can proclaim infallible dogmas. (nor did Rome for a long time of course) Eastern Orthodoxy does believe that the Church is infallible, but it takes a much longer view of history, and there have been times when the Church leaders proclaimed a teaching, that was later rejected by the laity, so in a way infallibility is not an act of will by one group of men in power (though they've tried to make that the case many times) but a concensus of all the faithful, clergy and laity, who of course must also be agreement with the Scriptures and Holy Tradition. This can be hard to hammer out practically speaking, but that is why we take the infallibility stance in the LONG view, not a short term view of history. Even now we have a couple Bishops in the world trying to usurp power and theological primacy that is not theirs to have, and the laity have so far been a check against this usurpation.
The Church is infallible on dogmatic issues (which are actually very few and far between compared to other forms of Christianity)...but not in politics, or even canonization of saints, and technically even the canon of the Bible has never been infallibly defined. (some Orthodox have more books than others) It keeps infallible definitions to beliefs it feels are necessary to make one Orthodox.
The Trinity and the Christological dogmas (100% man, 100% God, 2 wills united in one person) and the Virgin birth and the stance of the Sacraments (particularly Eucharist and Baptism) are pretty much the ONLY issues that are absolutely dogmatic. (what one must believe to be Orthodox) Yet even belief is something that Orthodoxy sees as being in flux, and something one must struggle with. Which is why I can ask and doubt all these things and still remain Orthodox in good conscience. As a friend of mine says there is "room for doubt".
I suppose you might find this openess somewhat strange since you don't want any contradictions, however I find it refreshing that I can read 2 renowned Church fathers debate an issue at opposite ends both give convincing arguments yet maybe neither are correct.
There's still plenty of dogmas to doubt, and history in general, but I personally prefer the "I don't know" approach. But that's just me.
--> I agree. But does Orthodoxy teach of a God – a being – who walks around in a garden?
No! In fact, no one in the early Church, including the West, ever believed God was "walking about" in a garden. That is one of those modern caricatures I was talking about. What happens is people read that TODAY, and it does kind of sound and look like God was physically walking around in the garden, yet if you go back and actually read even the very first Christians, as well as the early Rabbis believed, they are adamant that the language was a metaphor and that God was NOT walking in a garden. Now of course Christians then took an Incarnational approach, where the Logos became enfleshed as Jesus at a point in history, which is where Christian Judaism and Pharisaic Judaism parted ways, and later became Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism respectively, but no one at that time every believed that text to be literal.
What the original writer/writers of Genesis believed of course we don't know for sure, because we don't have a lot of information about that point in time, (but considering Genesis was probably influenced by babylonian religion, it's probably unlikely they took it literally either) but definitely by the time of Christ no Jew, or later Christian teacher taught God literally walked in a garden in ancient Mesopotamia.
--> I am glad to hear that too. I want to share the interpretation of original sin that my belief system teaches. The story of Adam and Eve -- snakes chasing fruit -- is all about sex. According to my belief system, as soon as humanity became able to have sex, it descended into one huge orgy, and this caused humanity to actually lose a great deal of its progress along the path. These orgies did a lot of damage, and this is the original idea that has come down to us as (the way I see it) the confusing and mistaken concept called original sin.
Hold your breath and grind your teeth, but that's actually pretty close to what Augustine of Hippo said.
He was actually the first Christian writer to put forth a concept of "original sin" which the Western Church later accepted as dogmatic teaching. For Augustine the first "sin" was about sex, and thus sex to him was something horrible because it was something not originally intended. Of course the Western Church took this idea and centuries later ran with it, inventing priestly celibacy, and in fact they even tried to force married priests to abstain from sex with their wives, because sex was "icky" so to speak. I'm sure your faith doesn't go to the Augustinian extreme, but it's quite interesting to see the connection and how a similar teaching could lead to 2 very different interpretations.
