A small point of clarification

Submitted by Ilsenstein (United States), May 18, 2014 at 14:29

A small point of clarification is needed for the statement by R. Zand, regarding the Koran and the Immaculate Conception. The Koran does not affirm, as R. Zand states, the Immaculate Conception. Instead it affirms the virgin birth of Jesus, at III:47, XIX:20-21 and LXVII:12. Not a general Christian belief, the Immaculate Conception is a specifically Roman Catholic doctrine which was defined by Pope Pius IX only in 1854 AD. It asserts that Mary, Jesus' mother, was herself conceived without sin and never carried the stain of Adam's original sin. (Developing further the cult of Mary, Pius XII in 1950 proclaimed ex cathedra the doctrine of the Assumption: that Mary did not experience human death but was assumed directly to heaven.)

Why the Koran repeated the virgin birth statement is problematic since In Christian orthodoxy the virgin birth has always functioned to assist the proposition that Jesus was much more than a prophet. The virgin birth idea comes from a uniquely Christian reading of Isaiah 7:14 as mistranslated in the Septuagint, which the Koran would not endorse (in spite of III:45, IV:171, V:17 and IX:30) if it were 1) logically consistent on Jesus' status relative to God and / or 2) eternal, thus preceeding the Septuagint and its error at 7:14. But this is not the place to elaborate on that many faceted problem of the Koran.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".