| What was "conceived" in Mary was the idea, the ideology, the thing established at the beginning by which the priesthood was developed and called "anointed". This is called "of the holy spirit" for God established it as his "elect" and "chosen" people and as His inheritance. The body of priests being portrayed accounts for that which was conceived from the beginning. Jesus the man child would raise-up this dead body of priests to be exalted above every name in Israel.
Mary had known no man before Joseph. The story is open to interpretation. This interpretation of how the ideology of the priesthood was conceived through Mary's lineage and she the vessel, sounds more plausable because it presents Mary as a virgin until she married Joseph and gave birth to Jesus. Nothing extraordinary, no miraculous birth. Setting presidence in the standard arrangement of who's who in Israel. Mary carried the Levite heritage that was "conceived" at the beginning and of which Levi was the only name anointed for the family line of priests in Israel. This is what Jesus stood for and raised that standard from the dead, because in Jesus day the Levite priesthood was not in power at Jerusalem, and so that it should not die a second time, but live forever, the ideology was reinforced in the exalted "Christ", the anointed body.
Also consider that the purpose of Jesus was to overthrow the power of reigning priests at Jerusalem and sit down on the right hand of God on the throne of the New Jerusalem. "and if I cast out demons by the word of God, the kingdom of God is come unto you". The victory was stated in the only begotten son who was chosen as the elect at the beginning and in name of the Levitical priests, and by which Jesus was "conceived" in that ideology. Jesus being not in representation of himself alone but of the others in that lineaged line of Levite priests. Theirs was the kingdom as given to them and no others. They alone had right to the priesthood because it was given and covenanted only to them. And they alone were a one body called anointed, and called "Christ". (Christians) |