Why would Mary insist that she was a virgin knowing that story would be too wild to be believed?

Post date: Dec 23, 2013 6:22:06 PM

Excerpt from The Unshakable Truth  by Josh and Sean McDowell.

Jesus was born of a virgin

1. expected since Gen 3

2. If the historical Jesus really was born to a virgin, it would provide compelling evidence for his deity.

a) Q: is there evidence that what is recorded in NT actually happened?

3. accounts of the event: historical record from NT (Matt 1:18, 22-23; Luke 1:34-35)

4. reactions of Jesus' contemporaries (Mark 6:3; John 8:41)

a) it was common knowledge in Jesus' hometown that he had been conceived before Mary's wedding to and without the aide of Joseph

1) he was labeled as an illegitimate child

2) jewish rabbis invented story that Jesus was son of a Roman soldier, admitting that

Jesus was not born of an ordinary marriage

b) Q: how do we know that his critics were not right? that his birth was miraculous? or that Mary was lying and Joseph deceived?

c) responses of Mary and Joseph (Matt 1:18-20, 24)

1. Q: why would Mary insist that she was a virgin knowing that story would be too wild to be believed? why didn't she come up with a more believable and acceptable story? why did she not take an easier way out?.... because it was true.

a) instead of a rational explanation, she says that she became pregnant by God.

2. Joseph was naturally convinced that Mary had committed fornication and would have

been difficult to convince otherwise

a) but he believed Marry knowing the full implications: ridicule, humiliation of being married to a shamed woman and raising her child of adultery, deceived by Marry, and a fool--- ruined reputation for life.

b) why would Joseph still marry Mary if it did not really happen as Mary claimed?

c) Joseph believed the truth and did the right thing.

* Book Available here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Unshakable-Truth%C2%AE-Experience-Essentials/dp/0736928782