An Unusual Birth

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>>>At 01:08 PM 11/19/97 -0800, Helen Willis wrote:

>>>>I actually read this thing a long time ago I think. The only thing I really

>>>>remember about it was it claimed that Mary gave birth and that even after

>>>>the

>>>>baby was out of her, she was still a physical virgin.



>>>TILL

>>>Some apocryphal works claimed that Jesus was born through a hole

>>>miraculously put into Mary's side so that he would not be tainted by passing

>>>through the normal birth canal.

>>>

>>RALPH

>>That's exactly how the Buddha was born five hundred years earlier. What a

>>copycat Jesus was!

>

JOSEPH CREA

>    Although Gotama the Buddha's birth is assumed to have occurred sometime

>in either the fifth or sixth century BCE, the earliest biographies (the

>Nidaana Katha for the Theravadins -- the Mahaavastu for the Mahasangikas --

>and the Buddha-carita/Lalitavistara for the Mahaayanins) all date from the

>early centuries CE.  In the details preserved in the Pali Canon (canon

>closed sometime in the mid third century BCE) there is no mention of a

>miraculous birth.  So if we assume that the story was borrowed, it's a

>toss-up over who borrowed from whom.

>

RALPH
It is safe to say they were both from pagan sources; there is nothing on
virgin birth in the Hebrew tradition.

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