Should Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus? There is no evidence the apostles did. When did it become a feast day? Weren’t birthdays a pagan thing?
Why was he named Jesus when, as stated in Matthew 1:23, the Messiah was to be called Immanuel?
Matthew 1:23 quotes Isaiah 7:14 as “a virgin will conceive” from the Septuagint, but the original Hebrew uses the word “almah” meaning “young woman of marriagable age.” Was Matthew wrong to quote this?
What does Joseph’s reaction, in Matthew 1:19, to the news of Mary’s pregnancy tell us about his character?
Why would Joseph take a 9-month pregnant Mary to Bethlehem instead of taking her earlier? Why did he take her at all? Couldn’t he have just left her in Nazareth?
These are among the questions we explore in this week’s episode of the Jimmy Akin Podcast!
Click Play to listen . . .
or you can . . .
 CLICK HERE! |
|---|
. . . or subscribe another way (one of many ways!) at JimmyAkinPodcast.Com.
SHOW NOTES:
JIMMY AKIN PODCAST EPISODE 025 (12/18/11)
* Logos Bible Software update
* Android app announcement
* Special “Apologetics of Christmas” Interview with Jason Ward of www.CatholicDadsOnline.org (pt. 1)
WHAT’S YOUR QUESTION? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO ASK?
Call me at 512-222-3389!
jimmyakinpodcast@gmail.com
Join Jimmy’s Secret Information Club!
Today’s Music: Away in a Manger (JewelBeat.Com)
Copyright © 2011 by Jimmy Akin
I bet this shall help many out there Uncle J. Thanks for making this podcast. Greetings from Ghana.
Very interesting, accept Marry would have only been 3 months pregnant not 9 when she came back to Joseph after running away. Joseph was indeed a good man. During that time a woman who had done such a thing was to be publicly humiliated and possible stoned to death (even with child) according to the discretion of Joseph and the laws of Leviticus. Even though it seemed like she ran away a virgin only to sleep around, get pregnant, and came back to town and disgraced Joseph in front of everyone, still Joseph chose to believe her and raise Jesus as if He were his own. For someone to do that they must have seen something or heard something amazing! Besides I’m pretty sure he checked to see if her Hymen (the layer of foreskin that conceals the vaginal area) had been ruptured which was a common way to check a woman virginity in the past. Joseph may have been Jesus’s Step Father but he was indeed one of the greatest examples of how a Father and a man of God should be. 🙂
“Besides, I’m pretty sure…”
Based on WHAT evidence?
Mary, (one R) did not ‘run away’. The reference to 9 months above is the trip to Bethlehem to register for the census, NOT the Visitation to Elizabeth, AND your suggestion that Joseph performed a gynecological exam on her is offensive. Jimmy, I respectfully request that it be removed!
Apologetics, I’ll have to agree with Bill912.
Look at it this way. Jews were terrified of entering the Holy of Holies where God was supposed to dwell, so it is highly likely the Joseph being a pious Jew would not “approach her entrance” even remotely. It’s one of the reasons for believing the Joseph and Mary lived did no consummate their marriage.
I would however disagree with steven that the post should be deleted, unintentionally offensive or not.
Just like the intentionally offensive billboard, “Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow”, it shows that even atheists can see that Mary had to be ever virgin. It’s only Protestants who deny this, mostly because they want see the Catholic view of Mary as wrong since if it were otherwise Mary would need to be venerated and one of their main objections to the Catholic Church would have to be dropped.
I’d also disagree with steven on another point. Yes, it would look like she ran away to the outside world, even though she didn’t. There’s nothing wrong with Apologetics’s comment. It shows Joseph’s faith that he trusted both Mary and the Angel.
But Apologetics is wrong that the laws of Leviticus entered into this. As with the case where disobedient children were supposed to be stoned, these law more in place to protect the wives and children from unsupervised honor killings (which are still common in Hindu and Muslim lands) than to punish the offenders (the recorded history of such stonings is very rare). Joseph faced a choice, trust God and Mary and disgrace himself, or distrust God and Mary and protect his reputation (either through divorce or publicly forgiving her after publicly rebuking her). He chose the former, to his glory.
Anyone else having problems downloading the podcast? I’ve tried several times using multiple methods (iTunes 10.5.2.11 and Firefox 8.0.1). It goes for a while and then quits.
Eric: Sorry you’re having trouble! The whole thing downloaded and plays just fine in iTunes for me. Perhaps a reboot or browser cache clear would help?
In the podcast you spoke highly of the Logos bible software. Are you ok with the works Raymond Brown featuring so prominently on the the Catholic edition of the software?
Anil Wong,
Many Catholics dispute the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, such as the orthodox scholar John Meier. The current Pope is a big fan of his work.
-JP