For the last time, we ARE NOT evolved from monkeys!

[blahflowers]

Something that occurs to me as a result of chatting about religion elsewhere:

How do Christian fundamentalists reconcile the events in the English version of the Bible that are due to mistranslation, such as Mary being a virgin?

Comments

[lozh.livejournal.com]

Christian fundamentalists are quite capable of believing mutally exclusive statements. Not only that, they are happy doing so.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Seven Reasons Why I Believe in the VIRGIN BIRTH OF CHRIST, by some nutty fundamendalist.

[ludy]

what's even wierder is the number of christians who think she stayed a virgin ever-afterwards when the Bible make it quite clear she had other children

[iliadawry.livejournal.com]

You're assuming that fundamentalists read the whole of the Bible. I find that to be an unwise assumption.

[spyinthehaus.livejournal.com]

The short version is, they generally don't - the KJV is a useful stopping-off point for a lot of Fundamentalist Protestant groups, because it is in English, has the authenticity of age and is demonstrably not Catholic. So, you roll with the punches. In the specific case of the description of Mary as a parthenos, you say that clearly they meant Virgin, whatever the origin word was, because that is how the story is told in the Bible you are holding, and therefore this is how God wants his story to be told. Since it's in the Bible, it's the literal truth, because if it wasn't the literal truth God wouldn't let it be in the Bible.