Bible Passage

leedsfan88

Hey all, i'm looking for a passage in the bible that refers to the immaculate conception?

Also i've read somewhere that the immaculate conception in facts refers to Mary being conceved as opposed to Jesus

Cheers in advance

PDN

leedsfan88 wrote: »

Hey all, i'm looking for a passage in the bible that refers to the immaculate conception?

Also i've read somewhere that the immaculate conception in facts refers to Mary being conceved as opposed to Jesus

Cheers in advance

Yes, the immaculate conception is the doctrine that Mary was conceived without original sin. And good luck with finding any reference to it in the Bible!

Fanny Cradock

The Immaculate Conception is often confused with the conception and birth of Jesus. It is a Roman Catholic doctrine that says that Mary was born without original sin and remained in a state of grace (sinless) for the rest of her earthly existence.

I'm not sure that you will find any specific mention of the immaculate conception in the bible. Indeed, I think you have to do a fair bit of reading your own thoughts into biblical texts to come up with the notion of the Immaculate Conception. Other than her role as the mother of Jesus, theologically speaking I don't see that Mary is deserving of any special veneration. (See Mariology for more on the RC theology). Perhaps some of my RC brothers and sisters will disagree, though :pac:

Piano man

Hi leedsfan,

the other posters are right in saying you'll be hard pushed to find an explicit reference to the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption in the Bible.
The closest you'll find is the angel's greeting to Mary, using the Greek word 'kecharitomene' which is a perfect passive participle of 'charitoo', meaning "to fill or endow with grace." Since this term is in the perfect tense, it indicates that Mary was graced in the past but with continuing effects in the present.
This came up in a thread a few months ago, and it was established that this passage could not be the sole grounds for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, if it was it would be a pretty dubious claim. So we have to look elsewhere.
In the Bible you won't find it, because the Gospels are about Jesus' life, not His Mother's, and the epistles are aimed at establishing Christian communities, and though Marian devotion existed right back in the Early Church, it was obviously more important to establish the facts and theology of the Resurrection and the new order established by Christ.
To give any kind of convincing argument for these doctrines, one must first realise that the Catholic Church has an authority given by Christ to teach and instruct the faithful infallibly (supported by Scripture, incidently, though the New Testament was only compiled in the fourth century), and also to be open to the Private Revelation that has been ongoing since the end of the Public Revelation.
Here's an article you might want to read: http://www.catholic.com/library/Immaculate_Conception_and_Assum.asp
(This is just the tip of the iceberg - there is a massive treasury of Marian writings that are worth reading to fully understand it)

God bless:)