This is a bit provocative, especially at this time of year, but I can’t resist it.
A correspondent to the latest edition of the London Review of Books has pointed out that if Jesus was, indeed, the offspring of a virgin birth, He only would have received X chromosomes from his mother, and no Y chromosomes from an earthly father. As woman have only X chromosomes, therefore, Jesus was a woman …
(Of course, this excludes the possibility of deliberate intervention from on High.)
I’m rather surprised this hasn’t been the subject of a Michael Baigent-type book already.
Discuss.
Now that you mention it, if Eve had a different set of chromosomes from Adam. where did she get them?
Of course, this excludes the possibility of deliberate intervention from on High.
… which is the whole point! why do you think this conundrum is referred to as le mystère de l’Incarnation, even with the intervention of the Holy Spirit (which was originally – pre-Bible – a female bird flying over the waters, but such minutiae are better forgotten).
Ø : Maybe I shouldn’t have started this ….
M-L: Ditto !
I’m more than happy to drop the chromosome thing, but now I’m really curious about the bird.
I remember hearing somewhere that the Holy Spirit in some ancient language or other is actually feminine and plural. In a related theme, the Egyptian guy I audited an Arabic class from mentioned in the class that “Allah” as in “Allahu al-akbar”–the traditional way of referring to the Deity–is technically feminine plural in classical Arabic (yes, he was Moslem).
As far as the chromosome question, since the underlying assumption is the idea of a God capable of resurrecting the dead, not to mention creating life itself, rearranging a few chromosomes should be child’s play.
Back to the Holy Spirit as bird, iirc in some medieval paintings the dove of the Holy Spirit is impregnating Mary through her ear.
Okay, maybe that’s enough information.
Enough information
…as in TMI? Not really, there’s nothing prurient about it. In fact, religious art portraying the annunciation generally shows a lily in there somewhere to emphasize Mary’s purity. Conceptio per aurem was how the incarnate Word became Flesh, somewhat based on Luke 1:37 “For no word from God shall be void of power.” The dove symbolized the Holy Spirit, and always went straight for the ear, here, here, here (as “the serenity of Mary conveys her humility and acceptance of what is to come”), and definitely here straight from the hand of God to Mary’s ear. There are some echoes here of Hermes Trismegistus (remember St. Augustine was Manichean before he became Christian) where anything incarnated in the usual carnal way is mortal; immortality is achieved by being born of the Word.
Remarkable, I was looking up Hermes Trismegistus just last night, for no particular reason except that I had forgotten a lot about him. The long arm of coincidence …
Those ae lovely works you linked to, Nijma.
Talk about coincidence, I just checked out the blog of Z. D. Smith whose Kosher computer repair shop is furnishing the LHians with some irresistible pun material on the SIKBAJ, CEVICHE, FISH & CHIPS thread, and found his free download of, among other things, a computer generated soundtrack of Pk Trismegistus .
http://music.apodion.net/album/pneumatic-psychic-sarkic
Oh, words in the ear.