Issue date: 2/21/07 Section: Opinion

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"Faith power works wonders." That is a line that I hear from my father almost every time I talk to him. I do agree that the power of faith can "work wonders." However, over the past couple years I have challenged many assumptions I had about faith as it pertains to religion, particularly Christianity.

I have never been anything close to a devout believer, but having been raised Catholic, I held on to a few core beliefs of the faith. I still believed in Jesus as savior, the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception and birth of Jesus Christ and the presence of an all knowing, omniscient God. It wasn't until I took an early western civilization class that I realized that the few religious beliefs I still clung onto were probably wrong.

I was somewhat embarrassed after thinking to myself, "Why did it take me so long to challenge these things I held as truth for so long?" One belief in particular that I let go of was the notion of the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception of Jesus Christ.

My western civilization professor told us that there was a discrepancy between the early Greek Bible and the translations from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The unearthed Dead Sea Scrolls are 15,000 papyrus documents found in a cave in Qumran, Israel in 1947. These scrolls contain text of the Hebrew bible and are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

The dates when they were composed range from the first century BCE to 68 CE, however certain documents and collections have dates ranging from 300 BCE to 60 CE.

The discrepancy lies in the word meaning "virgin" in the early Greek Bible. After translating the Dead Sea Scrolls, they reveal that this was a mistranslation: The original Hebrew word from the scrolls simply meant young woman. Needless to say, I was rather surprised and thought to myself that 2,000 years of believing in the notion of virgin birth was shattered.

However, there was no commotion, no upheaval and no denouncing of Christianity. I then thought to myself that possibly this small exaggeration didn't have much effect on the Christian canon. However, the whole idea behind the concept of the virgin birth is that Jesus was born without sin. So, any idea challenging the virgin birth is challenging Jesus' "clean slate." But to me, it's like saying that the Beatles didn't write any of their songs and lip-synced their live performances.

So enough with the history lesson, what does all this mean? Well, I have come to the conclusion that the "Immaculate Conception" concept is completely false despite the fact that billions of people have thought the opposite for about 2,000 years.

Why after this discovery would anyone still believe in the Immaculate Conception? I guess I underestimated what my dad has been telling me; faith is a very powerful thing.

Why is it then, did we all grow up believing the George Washington "cherry tree myth" but then discover years down the road that it was a complete fabrication. Why were people able to dispel that myth with empirical historical evidence, but not dispel the myth of the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception and birth of Jesus Christ using empirical historical evidence?

Either people are too scared to challenge their own beliefs, too ashamed or simply refuse to believe in something that contradicts what they hold to be true. Being a college student has taught me that few beliefs are sacred, that is, anything and everything can be challenged. Indeed, the college experience is nothing if not a chance to challenge old ideas and be open-minded to change.

I guess one could say I am throwing a pebble at a mountain here, but the separation of fact from fiction shouldn't stop at Judeo-Christian doctrine simply because it has such a long history and huge following around the world. Not to compare religion to slavery, but slavery (especially American slavery) was a long-held, widely practiced belief, but that didn't stop people from challenging its place in history.

Scott Allen can be reached at opinion@statehornet.com

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