[cschwarm]

> Then I pointed that their prophet had a 9 year old wife (that by the way this girl also wrote good part of their holy book) and then she said that this does not count...

Tell a Christian that Jesus' mother, Mary, was probably 13 years old when she became pregnant, and they freak out as well.

Background:

* "In biblical times, people were married in early youth…" [1] * "Until late in the Middle Ages, marriage consisted of two ceremonies which were marked by celebrations at two separate times, with an interval between. First came the betrothal [erusin]; and later, the wedding [nissuin]. At the betrothal the woman was legally married, although she still remained in her father's house." [1] * "During the first century, however, it appears to have been the general rule that young people who were "of age" could arrange their own marriages. A girl was considered of age at twelve years and one day." [2] * "The betrothal period was fixed by law. For a maiden, it was from ten months to a year; for a widow, three months." [2]

Sources:

[1] http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Relationships/Spouses_a... [2] http://www.gospelgazette.com/gazette/2005/may/page20.htm

[ChrisClark]

Growing up in a Christian household (in Canada) it was common knowledge that Mary must have been really young. Not just my family, but family friends, talking about how people long ago had a shorter childhood. It was even mentioned in church. I've never run into a single person that was upset about it.

[cschwarm]

Since the term 'Christians' captures a sample of about 2.35 billion people, differences are to be expected. I admit I should have added a qualifier somewhere.

Anyway, there's also a difference, in my opinion, between the more fuzzy term "very young" and the more concrete term "13 years old".

For instance, consider the depictions of Mary throughout the centuries. In most, Mary is depicted to look like a young woman, but not as a 13 year old kid. I guess, a comparison of the different Bible translations could also produce some evidence. In general, more literal minded Christians seem to prefer ignorance about many details discovered by scholars in the last 100 years or so.

Another indicator is the look of actresses playing Mary in movies and documentaries [1]. More "realistically looking" actresses appear only rather recently, for instance in BBC1's 'Nativity' [2]. Still, even the young actresses act mature; for instance, in this short clip from the U.S. TV series "The Bible" [3]. Whether maturity can be expected in such a culture is open to debate, of course, but I have my doubts.

[1] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/filmchat/2006/09/who-is-the-you... [2] http://biblefilms.blogspot.de/2006/05/script-review-for-nati... [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwqt8_Vz-JY

[dragonwriter]

> For instance, consider the depictions of Mary throughout the centuries. In most, Mary is depicted to look like a young woman, but not as a 13 year old kid.

In quite a large number, Mary looks like a woman of young-but-marriageable age of either the same culture/ethnicity of the place where the depiction was made or one idealized there.

> Still, even the young actresses act mature

Which, given the depiction of Mary in the Bible, is unsurprising; even if social context didn't play a role (along with brain development) in maturation, it would be inconsistent with the source material to depict Mary as typical of her age.

[ChrisClark]

When I say very young, I actually mean people talk about her as if she was 12-14 years old. I should have mentioned that more clearly. That age was mentioned a lot.

I see you must be talking more about the crazy Christians you have in the US though.

[JabavuAdams]

Online, when someone writes "Christian", it's hard to tell whether they're referring to fundamentalists, or not.

I'm from Toronto (Canada), and it would be a bit weird for someone in my social group to just offer "I'm a Christian" except in response to "What's your religion?". It seems that in a lot of the US "I'm a Christian" is short-hand for "I'm a Christian Fundamentalist."

[rhizome]

I don't think that holds. I would see "Christian" as implying they're evangelical, where fundamentalists have a specific code they're living by and proselytizing, so they tend to use their specific denomination. There are lots of different kinds of Christian fundamentalists, but the specific fundamentals of their church differ between groups (7th Day Adventists, etc.).

[te_chris]

I agree with gp, over here the evangelical churches are almost always more extreme in their doctrine so myself and my friends perceive them as fundamentalists. You often find other Christians present themselves by their sect to distance themselves from the evangelicals.

[rhizome]

I understand, but my sense is that fundamentalists are separatists where evangelicals are communitarian and trying to build the flock, so to speak. Fundamentalists are "you're with us or you're with the enemy." Maybe I have only experienced relatively friendly evangelicals, though. :)

[socceroos]

Well, my specific denomination named themselves evangelical presbyterian, but we're fundamentalists. While you can glean that we have a Presbyterian form of government and purport to be evangelical in nature, to be honest, you cannot read too much into a name - a group of Christians are best understood by their fruits.

I've always struggled to reconcile how someone could suggest they're Christian but only choose to believe certain parts of the bible and dismiss the rest as just stories (note, I'm not referring to how specific parts of the bible are illustrative in nature). For me, the whole thing crumbles away if you dismiss parts of it.

I've heard people suggest that it's more important to take away the good things and good examples than to actually believe in the stories as facts.

Anyway, that's just a slice of my opinion.

I'm interested in your statement that evangelicals are communitarian and fundamentalists are separatists, I see this practically in some church communities - but I see the opposite in others. I would consider my church more on the separatist side than communitarian.

[epmatsw]

At least in Georgia, "Christian" usually implies you're non-denominational as opposed to Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, etc. It would be interesting to see a regional map of religious terms similar to the linguistic maps that are on the front page right now.

[k-mcgrady]

This is very true and is something I notice online a lot. People often bring up that Christian's don't believe in evolution and they believe the earth is only 5000 years old when that's not true of all of them. Catholic's for example follow scientific teaching on evolution.

I think the reason all Christian's have been lumped together is US Politics. Candidates want to show they believe in God but don't want to side with any particular faith and therefore use the Christian moniker..

[derleth]

Moreover, the only candidates who do take a stand as being of a specific faith are doing it to appeal to voters who largely fit the Young Earth Creationist/The Bible Is Literally True In Every Word mold, so that's the faith they profess.

Then, when they win, say, a House seat on the strength of a single district (a small part of a single state), they automatically have a national platform they can parlay into a global platform if they say something batshit crazy enough, thanks to the global 24-hour news cycle and the endless linking and repetition in the blogosphere.

It's a classic case of a very loud minority making the uncritical thinkers of the world believe "They're all like that".

[lotharbot]

Fundamentalism is a small (but vocal) subset of Christianity. Despite the name making it sound "old", it's only been around for about a century.

[jlgreco]

The subset is not particularly small in America.

According to the latest Gallup poll, 46% of Americans are sufficiently fundamentalist (christian or otherwise) that they believe that "God created humans in present form".

32% think that "Humans evolved, with God guiding", which is still a lot of the religious in America, but far fewer than many seem to expect. Fewer than those who reject evolution completely.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intel...

[dragonwriter]

> According to the latest Gallup poll, 46% of Americans are sufficiently fundamentalist (christian or otherwise) that they believe that "God created humans in present form".

That's not particularly either Fundamentalist or fundamentalist; "Fundamentalism" is a particular school of Christian theology for which specific creationism of that type is not distinguishing, and "fundamentalism" in the generic sense inspired by Christian Fundamentalism is "the demand for a strict adherence to orthodox theological doctrines" and cannot be identified by simply belief in a particular doctrine on a matter of "what happened", its defined by beliefs of how you treat people who disagree with your beliefs on such doctrines.

[lotharbot]

creationist often means fundamentalist, but not always.

EDIT: there is definitely a lot of fundamentalist influence in the US on certain topics, particularly on literal creation. But that influence has been waning for 30-40 years. And many of those who have been influenced on one or two topics are nonetheless very much not-fundamentalist on other topics.

[jlgreco]

That is subject to interpretation, but I disagree. If you can't consider your creation myth to be a metaphor, a nice back-story, or whatever... then basically you are unwilling or unable to budge on what should be a pretty uncontested point. Maybe you are progressive on other fronts, but at least in that regard you are a fundamentalist.

I would say that fundamentalist does not imply creationist (you'll find fundamentalist Roman Catholics for instance), but creationist does imply fundamentalist. Creationism is one of many fundamentalist stances.

[vacri]

Fundamentalism in Christianity stretches at least as far back as the Spanish Inquisition. Modern Europe has been shaped by centuries of infighting over the fundamentals of the religion. Similarly, Galileo is frequently proffered as an example of the church demanding its holy book's passages over actual observation.

To describe fundamentalism as modern is flat-out bizarre.

[rdouble]

The term 'Fundamentalism' refers to a specific American religious movement that took off around 1920. It has it's roots in a series of essays called "The Fundamentals" which were published in 1909-1910.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals

[vacri]

Perhaps as a label, which I guess is what's being referred to here, but the ethic goes back a much longer way.

[ixacto]

What about Joseph's age... If it had happened today both Joesph and Muhammad would both be considered pedos.

[Samuel_Michon]

Also, just like dedicated kids and teens clothing are a recent invention, the idea that people under 18 are somehow not ready for marriage isn’t as old as you may think.

“In 1880, the age of consent was 10 in most states but ranged from 7 in Delaware to 12 across nine states and the District of Columbia.”[1]

[1] http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/230?section=primary...

[gngeal]

Age of consent is one thing, but "the idea that people under 18 are somehow not ready for marriage" certainly IS old. Just FYI, the median age for a bride on her first wedding was somewhere around 22-23 in the Middle Ages.

[samatman]

This post, and the comments, indicate this number may have been roughly accurate for Britain/ Northwest Europe, but not for the Mediterranean: http://womenofhistory.blogspot.com/2007/08/medieval-marriage...

I wonder about the tradeoffs involved here. Tentative hypothesis: in Northern climates, the labor of daughters was more valuable, so fathers kept them around for longer before marrying them off. I'd enjoy an expert monograph on this topic.

[gngeal]

this number may have been roughly accurate for Britain/ Northwest Europe, but not for the Mediterranean

I admit that I have significant holes in knowledge regading the "Middle Ages in the Mediterranean" region of space-time. I am biased towards the NW region of Europe partly because there's a wealth of material accessible to me pertaining to the area, partly because I derive most of my income from providing language services for the language spoken in the region, and therefore I am expected to have more than just a passing familiarity with this region's culture and history (although I am partially excused from having to know it to any significant depth as I specialize mostly in technical and engineering texts where this knowledge isn't all that important, and history is merely my part-time hobby). I haven't seen a general work dedicated to the Romance-speaking and Mediterranean regions either in English or in my native tongue yet, therefore I plead incompetent on this charge. :-)

I might, however, try to dig up some data pertaining to my native, i.e., Central European environment; however, not on such a short notice for it to be relevant to this discussion.

EDIT: I wonder about the tradeoffs involved here. Tentative hypothesis: in Northern climates, the labor of daughters was more valuable, so fathers kept them around for longer before marrying them off.

My take on this - I believe that some of the factors involved were:

- the necessity for young people to help their families work on the household,

- the necessity for young women to earn their dowry, if their families couldn't provide it for them (usually by entering into service of nobles or townsmen for a few years),

- the stagnation of land development outside periods of borderland colonization (different periods in various countries, in Central Europe, this period of colonization would have taken place between 11th and 13th century), meaning that someone had to retire first for another pair of young people to get their household.

I'm quite sure there would have been other reasons that I can't recall right now.

[Samuel_Michon]

Citation needed. Also, in the Middle Ages, weddings were seen as business arrangements between families. Such arrangements could be made revolving very young children. Matilda was betrothed to Henry V when she was an infant and the two married when she was 12, so clearly, society didn’t feel one had to be 18 to marry.

[gngeal]

Citation needed.

Of course, here you are:

"Historians have demonstrated that peasants married at significantly later ages than aristocrats. Whereas members of the nobility usually married between age 14 and age 20, peasants probably married in their mid- to late twenties. It is likely that new families could not form until the parents of the potential couple were either dead or old enough to retire, so that they could turn over their land and dwelling to the new couple." [Linda Mitchell, Family Life in the Middle Ages, Greenwood 2007, p. 40]

"Reliable statistics are rare for the Middle Ages, but the evidence suggests that the typical age of marriage among the peasantry was the late twenties for men, the early twenties for women; similar ages probably applied for the urban laboring classes. The ages decline, particularly for women, further up the social scale. Among prosperous urban families, the marriage age for women was typically the late teens; the age varied widely for men. In the aristocracy, ages in the mid-teens for women and early twenties for men seem to have been common." [Jeffrey L. Forgeng, Daily Life in Medieval Europe, Greenwood 1999, p. 27]

[The following text is concerned with the very beginning of Early Modern period-post Late Middle Ages] "When individual ages are looked at, however, we do find very occasional marriages in the early teens. One girl gave her age as thirteen, none as fourteen, four as fifteen, twelve as sixteen, but all the rest of the brides in the sample, 990 of them, were seventeen or over, and more than four out of five had reached the age of twenty. Only ten of the men were younger than this. The commonest age for women was twenty-two, for men twenty-four; the median - the age below which as many got married as above it - was some 22.75 for women, 25.5 for men." [Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost: Further Explored, Routledge 2001, p. 83]

[Samuel_Michon]

Thanks for the citation, but it doesn’t actually address my earlier statement. Nowhere in the text is it mentioned that was it believed that folk under 18 were not ready for marriage. The reason peasants got married in their twenties was a practical one, mostly financial. Ethics and mores are mentioned nowhere, on the contrary: the text mentions teen marriages did occur.

[gngeal]

I'd say that "somehow not ready for marriage" DOES include material reasons. If most marriages didn't happen early because of this, that still makes early marriages quite unusual for most contemporary people. That was the point I was trying to make. (And I do have the experience that people regularly scoff at things that defy social norms and customs, and I have no reason to believe that people in the Middle Ages were any different.)

[milesskorpen]

Weddings between nobles would be the exception, not the norm — despite the focus on history books.

[Torgo]

I am not sure that marriages of royalty are representative, their marriages had entire countries, delicate alliances, and survival of families on the line. That probably drives extreme decision-making.

[tome]

I got a bit confused there until I realised that England need not be the only kingdom that had a Henry V!

[Samuel_Michon]

No, your first instinct was right. I was talking about King Henry V and his wife, Matilda of England.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_of_England

[gngeal]

Except that the Henry V in question was a German guy. :) "The Holy Roman Empire", despite its name, was initially a Frankish and then a purely German institution, comprising a lot of the lands of Central Europe (plus a bit of Western Europe, for as while).

[tome]

But your link says she "was the daughter and heir of King Henry I of England" and "married Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor"!

[speeder]

I know...

Most Christians that I know refuse to read the bible properly, then I take the bible and teach them the stuff in there, several freak out, to the point I do not do it anymore to stop freaking people out...

I am a Christian myself, and the bible asks you do not be a "stumbling block" (or something like that the english term), so I guessed that is good idea to stop freaking people out pointing those things.

Not that I won't talk about them, to those that come to me and ask I cheerfully explain everything I know about the Bible, even the taboo (for example, why the Bible regulamentates slavery)

[dkhenry]

I have never met a biblical scholar who denies that Mary was a young teen. In fact to the best of my knowledge there is not a single christian denomination (Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox,... ) that believes anything to the contrary. So who are these Christians you know and do they actually _follow_ their claimed religion ?

[at-fates-hands]

I'm Catholic and this was never brought to my attention.

There were a lot of things which were left out which I sought out answers to later in life - like how Jesus spent the majority of his life in the Middle East, but is represented as about Anglo-Saxon as you can be. Or what was he doing between 12-30 when he suddenly reappeared and was baptized by John and starts his ministry?

Again, I was never informed of these things, and to be honest, I really didn't care. These "discrepancies didn't make me a better Catholic, nor did they make me want to renounce my religion had I known them.

[speeder]

I am referring to common people, you know, the old lady that barge in a store shouting that the long haired cashier will go to hell?

[dkhenry]

I don't want to play the no true scottsman game here, but at some point you have to.

[Dove]

By that standard, the guy on the bus who tells me about lasers from outer space that make his legs hurt when he talks about the government . . . he's a fair representative of "most scientists".

If you want to take random encounters with people on the street as representative of a philosophy, you have to at least go to a place where that philosophy is practiced. To talk to the 'average scientist', you'd better at least be looking for him on a university campus -- better at a conference somewhere. To talk to the 'average Christian', you had better at least be looking in a church.

It's not just a sampling issue; those groups also police their membership. What you want to take an average over is not people who declare themselves 'hackers', but people who the community of hackers agrees are 'hackers'. Best way to do that is go to where they meet.

[jonnathanson]

"Tell a Christian that Jesus' mother, Mary, was probably 13 years old when she became pregnant, and they freak out as well."

Another fun fact: in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is somewhere between 15 and 16, and Juliet is 13.

[te_chris]

Well that explains the hysterics at the end...

[leephillips]

Something rather significant in the development of the human female usually occurs between the ages of nine and 13. This does not justify sexual contact between and adult and a 13 year old, of course. Are you suggesting the Holy Ghost had taken indecent liberties and should have waited until Mary was a few years older?

[dclowd9901]

Not for nothing, but she was supposedly gestating a child that was immaculately conceived, thus no sex was had... thus, not really related to sexual contact with minors.

That's what a Christian would say, anyway.

[fr0sty]

In the interests of correctness, that's a (rather common) misunderstanding of the phrase "immaculate conception".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception

"The Immaculate Conception should not be confused with the perpetual virginity of Mary or the virgin birth of Jesus; it refers to the conception of Mary by her mother, Saint Anne."

[rada]

dclowd's point was that no sex was had to conceive Jesus, which is correct:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception#Virginal...

[cobrausn]

I don't think so, at least not if they actually read the New Testament. I remember very little of it, but I do remember it mentioning that Joseph did not 'know' her until after she gave birth. Pretty sure that means they didn't wait another 5 years to consummate their marriage.

[Samuel_Michon]

So marrying at 13 is fine as long as you don’t consummate the marriage until you’re 18? I haven’t met many Christians who feel that way. Most of the time, the rationale is ’those were different times, it was normal then’.