(a) Was the story of Jesus’ virginal conception part of the original version of Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels, or was it tacked on later?

Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels are the only two books in the New Testament that attest to Jesus’ virginal conception, but some scholars think that Luke’s account of Jesus’ virginal conception in may have been added subsequently, while others suggest that it may not have even referred to a virginal conception. Let’s have a look at the reasons why.

(i) Luke’s Gospel

Were chapters 1 and 2 of Luke originally part of his Gospel?

What about Luke’s Gospel? In a blog article titled, Did Luke originally have chapters 1-2? (August 15, 2013), Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman summarizes the reasons why many scholars now believe that chapters 1 and 2 are not original to Luke’s Gospel, but were added on later:

• The beginning of ch. 3 reads like the *beginning* of a narrative, not the continuation of a narrative.
• The beginning of ch. 3 is the same, in substance, as the beginning of the source of Luke’s Gospel, Mark (they both begin with Jesus being baptized).
• Some of the central themes of chs. 1-2 are never referred to elsewhere in either the rest of the Gospel or the book of Acts (e.g., Jesus having come from Bethlehem; his mother being a virgin), even though lots of other themes from early chapters (e..g, the baptism by John) *are* referred to later.
• The voice at the baptism (“today I have begotten you” as “my son”) does not seem to make sense given the narrative of chs. 1-2 (where, according to 1:35, Jesus is the son of God because God made his mother pregnant)
• The genealogy that is given in ch. 3 doesn’t make sense if the Gospel already had chs. 1-2. The genealogy is given *after* the baptism. But the natural place for a genealogy is at the point in which a person is *born* (since the genealogy traces the bloodline up to the time of birth), not at the point of baptism (as a 30 year old!). Without chs. 1-2, however, the genealogy makes sense at the baptism, since it is at the baptism that Jesus is made the son of God according to the voice from heaven, and so immediately afterward the genealogy is given, in which Jesus’ family line is traced not only to Adam (so that he is the son of Adam) but from Adam to God (so that he is the son of God).

In his blog article, Arguments that Luke Did Not Originally Have the Virgin Birth (October 22, 2015), Biblical scholars Bart Ehrman mentions an additional reason for doubting that Luke’s Gospel originally contained an infancy narrative:

…[T]he style and emphases of chs. 1-2 are different from the rest of the Gospel. In particular, these opening chapters are written in a style very much reminiscent of what you find in the Greek Old Testament (the “Septuagint” as it is called). The rest of Luke’s book is not. It does make sense that chs. 1-2 would be. For the author of these chapters, Jesus’ birth is in close continuity with the earlier acts of God as found in Scripture, so much so that one can easily draw parallels between Jesus’ miraculous birth and the miraculous births of famous OT figures (especially, for example, the prophet Samuel).

From a contrasting perspective, Professor Andrew Lincoln argues on literary grounds that Luke’s Gospel must have originally included reference to a virginal conception in his paper, “Conceiving Jesus: re-examining Jesus’ conception in canon, Christology and creed” (a talk given to The Severn Forum on March 5, 2015):

So, as in other accounts of great figures in the Graeco-Roman world, Luke depicts Jesus as Son of God with a divine conception. Any doubts that Luke’s Gospel fits this convention should be dispelled when we remember how Luke completes his life of Jesus. His is the only one of the Synoptic Gospels to end with an explicit ascension (24:51,52), bringing his narrative as a whole into line with that of a number of other ancient historical and biographical depictions of those who were considered to be among the immortals and who have both a divine conception at the beginning and an ascension to heaven at the end of their lives. (pp. 4-5)

For my part, I find Lincoln’s reasoning persuasive on this point. However, the lack of literary resemblance between Luke 1-2 and the rest of Luke’s Gospel, coupled with the fact that events referred to in the infancy narrative are not referred to elsewhere in the Gospel, as well as the very odd placement of Luke’s genealogy of Jesus in chapter 3, leads me to conclude that the author of Luke’s Gospel may have decided to include first two chapters at the last moment, and that these chapters may have come from an outside source. But we cannot know for sure.

What is worth noting here, however, is that the structure of Luke’s account of Jesus’ life appears to have been modeled on that of pagan biographies of the immortals, although as we’ll see in part 7 below, the actual content of Luke’s account of Jesus’ conception was drawn from Jewish sources (1 Samuel 1; Judges 13). As a biographer, Luke evidently felt that he had to include a preface describing Jesus’ miraculous conception, for literary reasons. While this buttresses the authenticity of the passage, it hardly inspires confidence in its historicity.

Was Jesus God’s son or Joseph’s? Why the contradiction didn’t bother Luke

In his 2015 paper cited above, Professor Lincoln also acknowledges that Luke’s Gospel (and the book of Acts) also contains traces of a very different tradition, asserting that Jesus was born naturally:

…Luke’s Acts was one of the witnesses for the “seed of David” tradition in the speeches of Peter and Paul. Not only so but also in the rest of his infancy narrative and later in the story the references to Joseph, Mary and Jesus show no knowledge of the announcement of a virginal conception. Instead Jesus’ Davidic descent through Joseph is underlined and Joseph is straightforwardly referred to as Jesus’ father (e.g. 2:33,48). The people of Jesus’ hometown, Nazareth, respond to his synagogue sermon with “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (4:22). There is no mention in Luke of anything like adoption as an explanation; in this account it is Mary and not Joseph who is to do the naming of Jesus (1:31). (p. 5)

So how does Lincoln believe that Luke managed to harmonize the two conflicting birth traditions? Lincoln’s answer is that Luke was content to let them stand side by side, as complementary rather than conflicting accounts:

Biographers and others were sometimes content to do just what Luke does – to juxtapose two different sorts of accounts, one natural and one miraculous, about their subjects’ origins and to leave readers to make of the relationship what they will. So, for example, Plutarch does this with the conceptions of Romulus, Theseus and Alexander (Romulus 2-4; Theseus 2,3,36; Alexander 2,3) and Suetonius does it with Alexander (Divus Augustus 4,94). Evidently it was thought not to be inconsistent or inappropriate simultaneously to entertain different stories about the origins of a great figure, one involving ordinary physical lineage and the other, suitable in the light of the later heroic achievements of such a figure, involving a miraculous conception and an origin with the gods. It may well be, then, that Luke-Acts contains both a virginal conception and the tradition of the seed of David through Joseph not because the evangelist is a hopeless editor or unable to see what to us is a blatant inconsistency but because ancient conventions about dual paternity allow him and his readers to be quite comfortable juxtaposing both notions. (p. 5)

Was Luke describing a virginal conception in his Annunciation scene?

In any case, it is not certain that Luke was describing a virginal conception, anyway: Jesus scholar Geza Vermes argues that Luke’s Annunciation narrative refers instead to a conception by a prepubescent Mary, who was very young when she was betrothed to Joseph. Professor Vermes handily summarizes his reasons in a Guardian article titled “Face to faith” (The Guardian, December 16, 2006):

In Luke the virginal conception was announced to a girl on the point of marrying Joseph. Mary was baffled. How could she become a mother before they had come together? One may wonder whether her astonishment resulted from the knowledge that, not having reached the age of puberty, she was not yet ready for motherhood, for virgin in Jewish parlance could designate a girl too physically immature to conceive. The angel, in his answer, seems to argue that God could allow the pre-pubertal Mary to conceive just as he had caused the post-menopausal Elizabeth to become pregnant. Again in Jewish parlance, a married woman past child-bearing age was a virgin for a second time.

Does chapter 2 of Luke know of the virgin birth?

Finally, as Fr. Raymond Brown points out in his inaugural address, The Problem of the Virginal Conception of Jesus, delivered at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on November 28, 1971, the second chapter of Luke’s infancy narrative appears to derive from a source which knows nothing about Jesus’ virginal conception, and Luke’s original genealogy of Jesus may have listed Jesus as Joseph’s son:

As for Luke, most scholars have given up the thesis that Lk 1:34-35, which contains the only clear reference in this infancy narrative to virginal conception, is a post-Lucan scribal addition.[72] Yet there is considerable agreement that chapter 2 of Luke may have come from a tradition independent of 1:34-35 and ignorant of a virginal conception.[73] Certainly Mary’s puzzlement in 2:48-49 is explained more easily on this supposition. Also, the modifying phrase in Lk 3:23 (“Jesus being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, the son of Heli … “) may be Luke’s correction of a genealogy that originally listed Jesus as the natural son of Joseph. (1971, pp. 28-29)

The foregoing considerations prompt me to ask: if it is doubtful whether Luke’s original Gospel even included a narrative of Jesus’ virginal conception, and if traditions of a natural conception are also to be found within Luke’s Gospel, then why should the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception be regarded by most Christians as an essential tenet of Christianity? Doesn’t the evidence cited above call it into question?

(ii) Matthew’s Gospel

It is fairly certain that the original version of Matthew’s Gospel included a reference to Jesus’ virginal conception. Professor Andrew Lincoln, in a paper titled, “Conceiving Jesus: re-examining Jesus’ conception in canon, Christology and creed” (a talk given to The Severn Forum on March 5, 2015), has recently argued that Matthew’s Gospel also contains passages which unmistakably point to a virginal conception – namely, Matthew’s “underlining of conception from the holy Spirit before the angelic announcement (1:18), his use of the LXX Isa. 7:14 passage (1:22,23) and his adding to Joseph’s obedience the comment that ‘he had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son’ (1:25a),” which, says Lincoln, is very similar to “Graeco-Roman biographies about birth from the gods” (p. 4).

However, the original version of Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus may have included a statement that Joseph begot Jesus. As the late Biblical scholar Géza Vermes (1924-2013) points out in an article in The Guardian, titled “Face to faith” (December 16, 2006), some ancient manuscripts of Matthew’s genealogy actually declare Joseph to be the father of Jesus:

In some ancient Greek, Latin and Aramaic manuscripts, Matthew specifically asserts the paternity of Joseph: “Jacob begot Joseph, and Joseph, to whom the virgin Mary was betrothed, begot Jesus.”

In his work, The Nativity: History and Legend (New York: Doubleday, 2006), Vermes describes how the oldest Semitic version of Matthew’s Gospel contradicts the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception, in its genealogy of Jesus:

Of all the textual testimonies that run counter to the traditional orthodox stance, perhaps the most significant is the oldest Semitic witness, an early Syriac version of Matthew. It was found in the library of the monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai by two learned and adventurous Scottish ladies, Mrs. Agnes Smith Lewis and Mrs. Margaret Dunlop Gibson, and published in 1894. The so-called Sinaitic Syriac, or syr^syn, characteristically preserves even in connection with Jesus the formula which runs through the whole genealogy: “Joseph to whom was betrothed the virgin Mary, begot Jesus. But this is not a one-off accident. Five verses later, the same Syriac version characteristically supplements the words of the angel addressed to Joseph, “she [Mary] will bear a son,” by adding “she will bear a son for you,” which is a commonly used expression to denote paternity. Both passages concur in making crystal clear who the father is meant to be and revealing what must have been the Semitic original subjacent to Matthew 1:16. (2006, pp. 26-27)

In the interests of fairness, however, I should note that the NET Bible (New English Translation), a free on-line English translation of the Bible with over 60,000 translators’ notes, published in 2005 and sponsored by the Biblical Studies Foundation, adopts a contrary viewpoint to that of Vermes. In footnote to Matthew 1, it notes that the Syrian Sinaitic manuscript reading cited by Vermes is not found in any Greek manuscripts and mentions one scholar’s suggestion that it may have been “produced by a careless scribe who simply reproduced the set formula of the preceding lines in the genealogy.” By contrast, the standard reading of Matthew 1:16, which refers to “Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born,” has “overwhelming support from a variety of witnesses … and therefore should be regarded as authentic” (see footnote 9).

My tentative conclusion is that although Matthew himself believed in Jesus’ virginal conception, he may have drawn upon genealogical sources which did not. In any case, as we’ll see in part (c) below, there are reasons for thinking that the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels could only have been originally composed by people who had no knowledge of Jesus’ virginal conception.

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(b) Why Matthew’s and Luke’s narratives of Jesus’ conception, birth and infancy are not independent, as Christian apologists allege

“The Synoptic Problem – Did Luke rework Matthew’s Gospel? The Case Against Q” (Professor Mark Goodacre is interviewed by Derek Lambert (September 6, 2020))

In my Introduction above, I identified ten common fallacies committed by Christian apologists arguing for the historicity of Jesus’ virginal conception. Fallacy #6 was the widely held belief that Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels provide independent attestation to the virginal conception of Jesus.

Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ conception, birth and infancy are so strikingly divergent that it is common to hear even scholars claim that they agree on almost nothing. However, as Catholic Biblical scholar Joseph A. Fitzmyer reminds his readers in his commentary, The Gospel According to Luke (I–IX): The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1981), the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke actually agree on a common core of at least a dozen facts:

1. Jesus’ birth is related to the reign of Herod (Luke 1:5; Matt 2:1)
2. Mary, his mother to be, is a virgin engaged to Joseph, but they have not yet come to live together (Luke 1:27,34; 2:5; Matt 1:18)
3. Joseph is of the house of David (Luke 1:27; 2:4; Matt 1:16, 20).
4. An angel from heaven announces the coming birth of Jesus (Luke 1:28–30; Matt 1:20–21)
5. Jesus is recognized himself to be a son of David (Luke 1:32; Matt 1:1)
6. His conception is to take place through the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35; Matt 1:18, 20)
7. Joseph is not involved in the conception (Luke 1:34; Matt 1:18–25)
8. The name “Jesus” is imposed by heaven prior to his birth (Luke 1:31; Matt 1:21)
9. The angel identifies Jesus as “Savior” (Luke 2:11; Matt 1:21)
10. Jesus is born after Mary and Joseph come to live together (Luke 2:4–7; Matt 1:24–25)
11. Jesus is born at Bethlehem (Luke 2:4–7; Matt 2:1)
12. Jesus settles, with Mary and Joseph, in Nazareth in Galilee (Luke 2:39,51; Matt 2:22–23). (1981, p. 307)

Christian apologist Jason Engwer has an even longer list of no less than 40 points of agreement, in his blog article, Agreement Between Matthew And Luke About Jesus’ Childhood (Triablogue, November 30, 2013).

This agreement is important, as it calls into question the oft-heard assertion by Christian apologists that Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels provide two independent witnesses to Jesus’ virginal conception. This assertion relies on the questionable hypothesis (known as the “Q” hypothesis) that Matthew and Luke were written independently, each using Mark and a second hypothetical source called “Q” which contained many of Jesus’ sayings.

Professor Mark Goodacre is one of several scholars who rejects the “Q” hypothesis accepted by most scholars, and defends the alternative Farrer hypothesis, that Luke used Mark and Matthew. Readers who would like to learn more can watch the Youtube video above, or peruse his books, The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze [Sheffield Academic Press, 2001]), which is available online, and his better-known work, The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002). In a podcast (December 6, 2012), Professor Goodacre argues that Luke deliberately altered Matthew’s infancy narrative. First, he expunged Matthew’s story of the magi, because he regarded the presence of magicians at Jesus’ birth as theologically inappropriate. Second, Luke replaced Matthew’s account (which was written from the male-centered perspective of Joseph) with an account written entirely from Mary’s perspective, as it was she (and not Joseph) who actually gave birth to Jesus. Additionally, as Goodacre points out on page 132 of his 2001 book, The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze, Matthew’s and Luke’s infancy narratives even share words in common, including the following key sentence:

She will give birth to a son and
you shall call him Jesus. (Matthew 1.21)

You will give birth to a son and
you shall call him Jesus (Luke 1.31)

If Goodacre is correct, then Luke is not an independent witness to Jesus’ virginal conception, but rather, the author of a theological counter-narrative, written in reply to Matthew’s Gospel. That leaves us with only one original source of the story (Matthew). In the interests of fairness, I should state that Goodacre’s proposal that Luke drew directly on Matthew’s Gospel has not yet won general scholarly acceptance: for a critical but fair-minded review of Goodacre’s book, see “On Dispensing with Q?: Goodacre on the Relation of Luke to Matthew” by John S. Kloppenborg (New Testament Studies 49 [2003], pp. 210-236).

But even if the widely accepted Q hypothesis is correct, it would still be wrong to regard Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ virginal conception as two independent accounts, since both accounts ultimately stem from oral traditions. And when one is dealing with oral traditions, one needs to keep in mind the words of Jan Vansina (cited in the Introduction above), who is an acknowledged expert on the subject:

In history, proof is given only when two independent sources confirm the same event or situation, but… it is not possible to do this with oral tradition wherever a corpus exists and information flows are unstemmed (i.e., in most cases)… No one will consider the three synoptic Gospels as independent sources, even though they have different authors… they stemmed from one single oral milieu, from one corpus in one community. (Oral Tradition as History, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 1985, p. 159)

Finally, as we noted above, the current scholarly consensus is that Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels were written no earlier than 80 A.D. That’s a full fifty years after the death of Jesus. In other words, they are very late reports of Jesus’ infancy, written long after Mary and Joseph had died, which means that they are not eyewitness reports. That alone is enough to call their credibility into question. And even if their narratives of Jesus’ infancy were derived from independent traditions, all we could positively conclude from this fact is that belief in Jesus’ virginal conception must go back to at least 70 A.D., since as we saw in part 1 above, legends can spring up and take hold in as little as ten years. 70 A.D. is still forty years after the death of Jesus.

But there are further problems with Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ conception, birth and infancy, as we’ll see below: despite their agreements, the accounts appear to be at odds with Jewish beliefs about the Messiah’s ancestry, as well as being both internally inconsistent and mutually contradictory.

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(c) Problems relating to the genealogies of Jesus

Comparison of Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies (Table courtesy of Wikipedia.)

(i) Internal contradictions: although Matthew and Luke affirm Jesus’ virginal conception, they both contain genealogies of Jesus which implicitly assume that Joseph was Jesus’ father

Both Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels contain passages (Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38) which are generally held to affirm Jesus’ virginal conception. At the same time, both Gospels contain genealogies of Jesus which implicitly assume the contrary, despite the disclaimers later attached to each of them (see Matthew 1:16; Lk. 3:23). In other words, there is an internal tension within each of these Gospels.

The Encyclopaedia Biblica (edited by Thomas Kelly Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black; Toronto: George N. Morang and Company Limited, 1899), in its article on Mary (Vol. 3, p. 155), provides an excellent summary of the reasons why the genealogies of Jesus (found in both Matthew and Luke’s Gospels) could only have been originally composed by people who had no knowledge of Jesus’ virginal conception:

The two genealogies of Jesus in Mt. 1:1-17 and Lk. 3:23-38 (see GENEALOGIES ii.) differ so greatly that recourse has often been had to the supposition that they relate, one to Joseph, the other to Mary. Not only, however, is this in flat contradiction to the express statements which refer both of them to Joseph; the reference of either to Mary is further from the outset excluded as soon as it is observed that according to Lk. 1 36 Mary is a kinswoman of the Aaronite Elizabeth (6c). Even if, however, it were true that one of the two genealogies related to Mary, the other would still be that of Joseph, and thus by the mere fact of its existence would furnish the proof which in reality both of them afford, that when they were drawn up there was no thought of the virgin birth of Jesus. Therefore within a gospel which teaches this doctrine the insertion of ‘as was supposed’ (ὡς ἐνομίζετο) (Lk. 3:23) was quite indispensable. But had such an insertion been contemplated from the outset, it would not have been worth while to construct the genealogy at all.

Putting it starkly: what sense would there be in constructing a genealogy attempting to show that Jesus was a descendant of David if he had no biological father?

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(ii) Could Jesus have been David’s son by adoption?

The Holy Family. Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Dili, East Timor. Image courtesy of Kok Leng Yeo and Wikipedia.

Christian scholars have often proposed that Jesus was David’s son by adoption. However, Professor Yigal Levin, of Bar-Ilan University, refutes this proposal in his scholarly article, Jesus, ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of David’: The ‘Adoption’ of Jesus into the Davidic Line (Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28.4 (2006): 415-442), where he poses the following problem to his readers: “how, according to Mathew and Luke, could Jesus have been both the son of Joseph, descended from David, and the Son of God, born to a virgin?” The answer that most Christians (including Christian scholars) have given is “adoption”:

…[T]he solution that most commentators have suggested has been that Jesus was considered Joseph’s son by adoption, either simply through the act of marrying Mary and raising Jesus as his own (Mt.1.24-25), circumcising him and presenting him in the Temple (Lk. 2.21-24), protecting him from Herod (Mt. 2.13-14), travelling with him for the festivals in the Temple (Lk. 2.41-51) and teaching him a vocation (Mt. 13.55), or through some unspecified legal act.[18] For Kingsbury, for instance, this is the very message of the Gospel: ‘although Jesus is the son of David by adoption, his ultimate origin lies in God’(2001:164). In any case, the general assumption is that Jesus inherited his Davidic status by means of adoption.[19]

But when pressed for either precedence or proof of such adoption, the vast majority of commentators simply refer to ‘Jewish custom’ or ‘Jewish Law’...

The general hypothesis is apparently that since both evangelists, or at least Matthew, were ostensibly Jews, writing at least in part to a Jewish audience, their legal assumptions must have also been based on the Jewish law of the time.

However, as Professor Levin points out in his article, the idea of Jesus being David’s son by adoption would have made no sense within the world of first-century Judaism, or even in Judaism today:

…[W]hile adoption is known in some Ancient Near Eastern legal codes,[22] Jewish law, both in antiquity and in the modern era, has no such legal institution. Though there are several biblical stories that would seem to suggest something like adoption (e.g. Abraham complaining that Eliezer ‘son of my house’ will inherit him [Yaron 1960: 7], Ephraim and Manasseh by Jacob,[23] Moses by Pharaoh’s daughter, Ruth’s child by Naomi, Esther by Mordecai and Raguel by his son-in-law Tobias), almost all of these are cases of adoption within the existing family, often by women, who had little, if any, legal status to pass on, and in no case can it be shown that such an ‘adoption’ had any legal consequences.[24] As summarized by Tigay, ‘if adoption played any role at all in Israelite family institutions, it was an insignificant one’. Also ‘for the post-Exilic period…there is no reliable evidence for adoption at all’ (Tigay 1971: 300).[25] Only one of the Jewish papyri from Elephantine mentions something like adoption, apparently of a manumitted slave (Yaron 1961: 40).[26] And while several biblical passages, based apparently on Ancient Near Eastern terminology, use the idea of adoption as a metaphor for the relationship between God and either Israel or her king,[27] these are only metaphors. In the case of levirate marriage, the child remains with his birth parents, only assuming his dead childless uncle’s name.[28] And while later Halakhah did recognize the right of a legal guardian (epitropos, ‘apotropos’) to designate his charge as the heir to his property (for which see Falk 1978: 326-31), this was never seen as creating ties that superseded those that the child had with his natural parents (Schereschewsky 1971). The above-quoted Mishnah actually deals with inheritance, under the assumption that a man would know his real son, with no reference to adoption. In fact, Jewish Halakhah has no word to even express the concept.[29] While, presumably, a man’s taking in a foundling and raising him as a son would be considered ‘a good deed’,[30] such de facto adoption does not give the child any inherited status. For example, the ‘adopted’ son of a priest would not be considered a priest, and a boy and girl adopted by the same parents would be allowed to marry each other without fear of incest (Gold 1987: 443). And while a child is expected to respect his adoptive parents, he is not supposed to perform the rituals of mourning upon their death (Linzer 1970: 80; cf. also Gold 1994). In a nutshell, there is nothing in Jewish law, in either the Hebrew Bible or in later Halakhah, which can be seen as the model by which Jesus, Son of God, could have been considered the legal, but not genetic, heir to the Davidic throne.[31] (pp. 423-425)

Professor Levin contends that Matthew’s and Luke’s notion that Jesus was both the son of God and the son of David makes sense only within a Roman legal framework:

How, then, could Jesus have been considered both the physical Son of God and the legal son of David? The answer must be found in the primary legal system that was current in the Mediterranean world during the first century CE and that the authors and audiences of Matthew and Luke would have been most familiar with — that of the early Roman Empire.

In stark contrast to Jewish law and, in fact, to that of most other ancient societies, the Roman paterfamilias of the late Republic and of the early Empire had almost unlimited power to define his own familial ties and loyalties. He could marry almost whomever he wished (but only one at a time) or choose not to marry at all (though this was frowned on), he could form ties and alliances with other families through marriage of his children, he could refuse to recognize his own biological offspring by either exposing or selling them, and he could obtain offspring of his own desire through adoption (Corbier 1991a).[32] (p. 425)

Levin explains that for the Romans, “adoption was intended for the adoptive father, as a means of ensuring the continuity of the family’s name, wealth and rites (hereditas nominis pecuniae sacrorum) through an appropriate heir” (p. 427). However, “the Jewish population of Judea, even that part which had previously been essentially Hellenized, rejected Romanization to a large degree… And so, to a Judean of the first century CE, the very concept of legal adoption, in which the adopted son inherits the adopter’s legal status, would have been totally foreign.” (p. 429) What about Jewish communities of the Diaspora, that were scattered throughout the Roman empire? After examining the evidence, Levin concludes: “Not a single one of the sources that we have from those communities mentions anything like the Roman concept of adoption” (p. 431).

What are we to make of all this? Contrary to widespread scholarly claims that the author of Matthew’s Gospel was Jewish, Levin favors the view held by some scholars (notably Meier) that “Matthew and his community had, indeed, already severed their ties from Judaism” and that “the Gospel of Matthew is anti-Jewish and could only have been written by a Gentile” (p. 433). Luke, of course, is widely held to have been a Gentile, although a few scholars believe him to have had a Jewish background. At any rate, concludes Levin, “from the above investigation it would seem to me that whatever the ethnicity of the writers of Matthew and Luke may have been, their cultural and religious assumptions, at least in the matter of Jesus’ Davidic heritage, were far removed from those of contemporary Judaism” (p. 433). Surprisingly, Levin considers Mark to have “the greatest knowledge of, and the greatest hostility towards, Jewish law” among the authors of the three Synoptic Gospels, while Matthew and Luke were “farther removed from Jewish tradition” (p. 433). What’s even more telling is that “the New Testament ‘Son of God’ title that is closest to that used by the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Nero and Domitian is Θεοῦ Υἱὸς, which appears only in Matthew (14.33; 27.43, 54)” (pp. 433-434).

Levin concludes that Matthew and Luke’s way of harmonizing Jesus’ Davidic descent with his Divine Sonship makes sense only within a Roman, and not a Jewish legal framework:

In conclusion, it would seem to me that the authors of both Matthew and Luke, faced with the dual traditions of both Jesus’ Davidic Messianity and his Divine Sonship, dealt with the obvious contradiction in the only way that would have seemed natural to a subject of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian Principate: by assuming that Jesus, Son of God, could have been adopted into the royal line of Israel, all the while retaining his status as Θεοῦ Υἱὸς. (p. 434)

An Evangelical response to Levin

Evangelical scholar Greg Rhodea evaluates Levin’s research in his essay, Did Matthew Conceive a Virgin? Isaiah 7:14 and the Birth of Jesus (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 56/1 (2013) 63–77). Remarkably, he cheerfully accepts Levin’s findings, but insists that “the apparent contradiction between virginal conception and Davidic descent can be resolved” by Roman adoption procedures, adding that “the Gospel writers betray no evidence that they saw the situation as problematic” (2013, p. 75). But that’s precisely Levin’s point: the reason why the Gospel writers saw no contradiction is that they weren’t Jews, but Gentiles, who lacked familiarity with Jewish traditions. Had they been Jewish, they would have known better than to propose such a reconciliation.

Finally, Rhodea argues that Christians would never have invented the story of Jesus’ virginal conception, if it was already acknowledged by Christians that he was descended from David, precisely because the idea of a virginal conception clashes with the idea of Davidic descent:

…[T]he tradition of the Davidic descent would still seem to resist a later creation of the virginal conception if it were not true. One ought to remember that by skeptical assessment, the virginal conception is a late development. The tradition of Davidic descent in the early church is presumably earlier.

Rhodea concludes by quoting the words of John McHugh (The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament [Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1975] 276–77), to support his conviction that Jesus’ virginal conception represents an authentic tradition rather than an invention:

Could the idea of the virginal conception, without male seed of the line of David, have made its way into the church, and into the Palestinian Church, if it had first been heard of after A.D. 70, when it seems to destroy the very possibility of Jesus’ having been of the seed of David?

It seems to me that McHugh is making some assumptions here. First, as Levin demonstrates convincingly in his essay, the “adoption solution” accepted by most Christians today would not have troubled Gentile converts to Christianity. We don’t know whether most Christians were still converts from Judaism, by the end of the first century A.D. Some scholars (e.g. Ehrman) believe that they made up a majority of Christians by then.

Second, we don’t know how many Christians were left in Palestine after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (my guess is: not very many) and we don’t know whether these Palestinian Christians acccepted Jesus’ virginal conception or not. In his carefully argued essay, The Problem of the Virginal Conception of Jesus (an inaugural address given at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on November 28, 1971), Fr. Raymond Brown argues that there were some doubters:

Much more important is the rejection of the virginal conception by Jewish Christians. In mid-second century Justin, who himself believed that Jesus was conceived of a virgin, acknowledged the existence of Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah but declared that he was of merely human origin. (1971, pp. 20-21)

In a footnote (1971, p. 21, footnote 47), Brown cites Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho (chapter 48) as evidence for his contention, adding that “Justin’s tone seems to indicate that these Jewish Christians were not considered out-and-out heretics.” (However, by the time of Irenaeus, near 200 A.D., the situation had changed, and “there was much less fluidity about the obligation to accept the virginal conception.”)

I conclude that Matthew and Luke’s notion of Jesus being David’s son by adoption is utterly foreign to Judaism, and that Christian apologists have failed to come to grips with this problem of how Jesus can be legitimately called “son or David” if he was virginally conceived.

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(iii) Problems with the genealogies of Jesus, from a Jewish perspective

The Chabad-Lubavitch Mashiach Flag. The Hebrew word is mashiach (Messiah). Image courtesy of oren neu dag and Wikipedia.

From a Jewish perspective, both Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies appear to be incompatible with his being the Messiah. In order to understand why, a little background is in order. There was a widespread (but by no means universal) expectation within Judaism at the time of Jesus that the Messiah would be a descendant of David. Evangelical scholar Greg Rhodea explains the Biblical basis for this belief in his essay, Did Matthew Conceive a Virgin? Isaiah 7:14 and the Birth of Jesus (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 56/1 (2013) 63–77):

It is important to realize the place Davidic descent held in first-century messianic expectation. Anticipation of a Davidic savior arose out of the OT promises to David (2 Sam 7:12–13, 16) and the hopes of a Davidic heir who would be raised up accordingly (Isa 11:1–2; Jer 23:5; 33:15; Ezek 34:24; 37:25; Hag 2:23; Zech 3:8; 6:12; and perhaps 1 Sam 2:10; Pss 2:2; 6–9; 89:49–51; 132:10–18).[74]

This theme continued to develop in later Judaism.[75] The author of the Psalms of Solomon wrote, “See, Lord, and raise up for them their king, the son of David … to rule over your servant Israel in the time known to you, O God.”[76]

The Dead Sea Scrolls contain at least two significant texts. One document explains the promises made to David in 2 Sam 7:12–14: “This (refers to the) ‘branch of David’ who will arise with the Interpreter of the law who [will rise up] in Zi[on] in the [l]ast days” (4Qflor 1:10–14, cf. Jer 23:5; 33:15).[77] Along the same lines, a second document addresses the promises made to David and speaks of “the messiah of righteousness, the branch of David” (1Q242 5:1–4).[78]

Summing up the evidence, Rhodea quotes the scholarly verdict of D. R. Bauer, in his article, “Son of David,” (Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Andrew T. Le Peau; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1992, p. 767):

“Although there was much diversity in messianic speculation among individual Jewish groups, a general consensus emerged within later Judaism that the messiah would be Davidic along the lines set out by the exilic prophets.”

The belief that Jesus was a descendant of David was shared by several New Testament authors and is repeatedly affirmed in the New Testament (see Matthew 1:1; 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 21:9, 15; Mark 10:47–48; 12:35–37; Luke 1:27; 1:32; 2:4; 3:31; 18:38–39; 20:41–44; Acts 2:30–31; cf. 2:34; 13:23; Rom 1:3; 2 Tim 2:8; Rev 3:7; 5:5; 22:16). In this respect, the authors of Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels follow Jewish tradition. However, when we look more closely at the genealogies of Jesus which they present to support their contention that Jesus was descended from David, a number of problems arise.

Luke’s genealogy of Jesus is flawed, because it traces his Davidic ancestry through King David’s son Nathan, rather than his son Solomon. As Rabbi Yehuda Shurpin explains in an article written for Chabad.org titled, “Is the Messiah a Descendant of King Solomon?”, Jews have long believed that the Messiah will be a descendant of both David and Solomon – a belief which was articulated by Maimonides (1135-1204) in the preface to his commentary on the Mishnah, Sanhedrin, ch. 10, where he declares, in the context of his discussion of the Twelfth Fundamental Principle of Judaism, that “the king of Israel must come only from the house of David and seed of Solomon,” adding for good measure: “Anyone who rejects this family denies God and the words of His prophets.” The basis for this belief is a promise made by God to King David in the Hebrew Bible (1 Chronicles 22:9-10):

9 Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies. For his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. 10 He shall build a house for my name. He shall be my son, and I will be his father, and I will establish his royal throne in Israel forever.’

Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus is also deficient, as it traces Jesus’ Davidic ancestry through King Jeconiah, whose descendants were actually barred by God from sitting on the throne of David, by a solemn curse directed by God against King Jeconiah (also called Coniah) and all of his descendants (Jeremiah 22:24-30). The curse concludes as follows:

Thus says the Lord:
“Write this man down as childless,
a man who shall not succeed in his days,
for none of his offspring shall succeed
in sitting on the throne of David
and ruling again in Judah.”

To sum up: both Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies appear to be at odds with traditional Jewish beliefs about the Messiah’s lineage.

An Evangelical response to the above difficulties

Professor Douglas Bookman, in an online article titled, “The Genealogies of Jesus” (April 18, 2020; modified July 21, 2020), attempts to evade the force of this difficulty by combining the strong points of Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies: the former, he contends, traces Joseph’s descent, while the latter traces Mary’s. Bookman argues that Jesus’ virginal conception enabled him to escape the curse directed by God at Jeconiah and all his descendants:

Had Jesus been the physical son of Joseph, He would have inherited that curse. However, He was not the physical son of David through Joseph, but through Mary (compare the relative pronoun, “of whom,” in Matthew 1:16, which in the Greek is feminine singular). “Jesus, genuinely a son of David through Mary according to the flesh (cf. Rom 1:3), by reason of the virgin birth and nonparticipation in the seed of Joseph, qualifies to receive the title without coming under the curse.”[6]

However, as we’ll see below, the view that Luke’s genealogy of Jesus traces his line of descent through Mary is overwhelmingly rejected by scholars today, and for very good reasons. Also, contrary to Professor Bookman’s assertions, nothing in either Matthew’s or Luke’s wording suggests that Jesus is the son of David through Mary, and what’s more, Luke never even mentions Mary in his genealogy of Jesus.

I conclude that neither Matthew’s nor Luke’s genealogy of Jesus resolves the problems associated with Jesus’ Davidic ancestry. Both genealogies would appear to preclude his being the Messiah, on a traditional Jewish understanding, and most likely, neither genealogy is historically accurate.

Where, then, did the two genealogies come from, and why are they different? In his book, The Nativity: History and Legend (Doubleday: New York, 2006), Biblical scholar Geza Vermes proposes two likely-sounding explanations:

Unless we assume the not impossible theory that both evangelists largely shaped the documents themselves – this would not be the only well-meant act of creativity (pia fraus [pious fraud – VJT]) in religious history – the most plausible explanation of the enigma is tht the aim pursued by Matthew and Luke in compiling their genealogies was doctrinal, and not historical. To prove the Davidic family connection of Jesus, a prerequisite of his Messianic standing, they probably employed documents. But since their records are contradictory, they must have laid their hands on separate registers of David’s descendants. All they needed to do was reedit them so they both ended (or started) with Joseph and Jesus (or Jesus and Joseph). This was definitely possible, as we know from Jewish as well as from Christian sources that genealogical lists of this sort were circulating among the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era. (2006, pp. 35-36)

Vermes then proceeds to illustrate his case with the example of the first-century Jewish teacher, Rabbi Hillel, who was said to be a direct descendant of King David, on the basis of a genealogical scroll (yTaanit 68a).

To sum up: the genealogies of Jesus are most likely based on separate lists of David’s descendants that were floating around in the first century, and that were reedited to include the names of Jesus and Joseph. However, neither list of names is suitable for someone claiming to be the Jewish Messiah: Matthew’s is unsuitable because it makes Jesus the descendant of a cursed king, while Luke’s genealogy fails to trace Jesus’ ancestry through David’s son Solomon, choosing Nathan instead.

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(iv) Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies of Jesus explicitly contradict one another

Ancestors of Christ by Fr. T’oros Roslin (a priest from Armenia). 1262. Medieval manuscript: ink, paint and gold on parchment. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Public domain. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Additionally, the genealogies of Jesus found in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels explicitly contradict one another. Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman summarizes the contradictions in a blog post titled, Contradictions in the Gospels (April 16, 2019):

Matthew and Luke both give a genealogy of Jesus that is strictly patrilineal: father to son, going back for generations (Matthew 1:1-16 starting with Abraham and bringing the family line down to Joseph, Jesus’ alleged father; Luke 3:23-38 starting with Joseph and taking the family line the other direction, all the way past Abraham to Adam). Question: Who was Joseph’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and so on –all the way back to King David? Was it Jacob, Mathan, and Eleazar … (Matthew 1:15-16)? Or was it Heli, Matthat, and Levi… (Luke 3:23-24).

In considering the question, note: both genealogies are *explicit* that this is the line of Joseph (not, for example, Mary; or the brother of Joseph; or someone else. Joseph). And note, these are not simply alternative names for the same people: most of the names are *completely* different from one another, all the way back to David. That’s because in Matthew Joseph is the descendant of David’s son Solomon; in Luke he is the descendant of a different son, Nathan. Moreover, the genealogies are patrilineal – not traced through mothers but explicitly through fathers to sons.

Let’s focus on the most obvious contradiction here: who was Joseph’s father? Was it Jacob (as in Matthew’s Gospel) or was it Heli (as in Luke’s Gospel)? Let’s examine three common solutions that have been suggested.

Solution 1: One genealogy of Jesus is Joseph’s genealogy, while the other is Mary’s

One popular Christian response is that despite appearances, the genealogy of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel is actually Mary’s genealogy, not Joseph’s. However, Professor Uri Yosef, writing for the Website The Jewish Home, explains why this solution won’t work in an online article titled, Genealogical Scams and Flim-Flams:

According to Torah, Tribal lineage is determined exclusively by the biological (natural) father (e.g., Numbers 1:18). Consequently, female genealogies are irrelevant to bloodline and, in general, are not listed in the Hebrew Bible.

Dr. Douglas Bookman, Professor of Old/New Testament and Bible Exposition at Shepherds Theological Seminary, mounts an ingenious response to this argument in an online article titled, “The Genealogies of Jesus”. Luke, he says, is tracing Jesus’ descent through his nearest male relative: his maternal grandfather, Heli (Mary’s father). Bookman goes on to argue that this reading can actually be supported on purely linguistic grounds:

First, the name “Joseph” in Luke 3:23 is the only name in the list without the definite article. (Each name In Matthew’s genealogy also has the article.) This is compelling evidence that this name ought not be read as part of Luke’s genealogical list; rather, it is part of the parenthetical statement inserted in that verse. Thus, the verse should read, “Jesus Himself . . . being the son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Eli.”[5] It is not Joseph who is “the son of Eli,” but Jesus. Eli is best identified as the father of Mary. Luke is dealing resourcefully with a dilemma arising from the fact of Jesus’ virgin birth. Descent was not to be traced through a man’s mother, but through his father. But by reason of His supernatural conception in the womb of a virgin, Jesus had no physical father. Thus, His physical genealogy had to be traced through his nearest male relative, His maternal grandfather.

Footnote:
[5] A. T. Robertson, Harmony of the Gospels, (New York: Harper & Row, 1922), p. 261.

However, Professor David L. Blank, Professor of Classic Languages at The University of California-Los Angeles, has pointed out (in a private email communication) that the claim that Heli [Eli] in Luke 3:23 is the father of Mary and not Joseph, and that Luke is hinting at this by omitting the definite article before Joseph’s name, is grammatically nonsensical. Eli, he contends, is indeed the father of Joseph. The absence of a definite article in Greek before the name of Joseph does not indicate that Joseph is being skipped in Luke’s genealogy, and should not be construed as such.

Author Gerald Sigal, in his polemical work, The Virgin Birth Myth: The Misconception of Jesus (Xlibris, 2013, p. 99) makes two additional points which in my opinion merit consideration. First, there are three places in the New Testament where Jesus is called “son of Joseph” (Luke 4:22, John 1:45, 6:42), and in two of these, the definite article is not used. Second, a literal reading of Luke’s genealogy reveals why the article is not needed before “Joseph,” but is required before Heli and his forefathers: Jesus is described as “being [the] son, as was supposed, of Joseph, of the Heli, of the Matthat, …” The article is used to show that each noun is actually a genitive, thereby securely anchoring the list of ancestral names to Joseph. The article is not required when Jesus is referred to as “the son … of Joseph,” because the word “son” makes the connection obvious.

Jesse Johnson (M. Div., M. Th.) who is the Teaching Pastor at Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, VA, as well as being on the Board of Directors at The Master’s University and Seminary in Washington DC, presents additional reasons for rejecting the view that Luke’s genealogy is that of Mary, in an online article titled, Is Luke’s genealogy through Mary? (December 19, 2019):

First, saying that Luke goes through Mary does not solve the conflicts in the genealogies. After all, they come together in Zerubbabel, then divide again at Shealtiel, then unite again at David. Identifying Luke as Mary’s doesn’t help this problem...

Darrell Bock agrees, and also notes that it would be ironic if Luke’s gospel had Mary’s genealogy when it is in fact Matthew’s list that includes women, while Luke’s excludes them (in the Baker Exegetical Commentary on Luke 352)…

William Hendrickson, who actually does think that Luke presents Mary’s genealogy, gives a very strong argument against the view he himself holds:

“I find it strange that the view according to which Luke presents a genealogy of Mary still finds defenders. Why, Mary’s name is not even mentioned in the list! Is it at all reasonable to assume that a person would present a genealogy without even mentioning the name of the one person who—apart from Jesus himself—should be considered the most important of all?” (NTC, 222-225).

One is therefore compelled to agree with the conclusion of Biblical scholar Fr. John P. Meier: “Any attempt to use one of the two genealogies of Jesus to establish Mary’s lineage is doomed to failure.” (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, The Roots of the Problem and the Person, New York: Doubleday, 1991, p. 238).

Solution 2: The “legal inheritance” solution – and why I consider it inadequate

A second proposal for removing the discrepancy between Matthew and Luke is that they are entirely different kinds of genealogies: the former deals with legal inheritance, while the latter relates to biological paternity. This solution is favored by Jesse Johnson, in his article, Is Luke’s genealogy through Mary? (December 19, 2019). Johnson quotes Biblical scholars John Nolland and I. Howard Marshall (1934-2015) as proponents of this solution, citing Nolland’s The New International Greek Testament Commentary: The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdman’s, 2005):

Matthew gives the legal line of descent from David, stating who was the heir to the throne in each case, but Luke gives the actual descendants of David in the branch of the family to which Joseph belonged. (2005, p. 158)

The Wikipedia article, Genealogy of Jesus, sums up the cardinal difficulties involved with this view:

One of the traditional explanations is that Matthew traces not a genealogy in the modern biological sense, but a record of legal inheritance showing the succession of Jesus in the royal line.

According to this theory, Matthew’s immediate goal is therefore not David, but Jeconiah, and in his final group of fourteen, he may freely jump to a maternal grandfather, skip generations, or perhaps even follow an adoptive lineage in order to get there.[71] Attempts have been made to reconstruct Matthew’s route, from the seminal work of Lord Hervey[72] to Masson’s recent work,[73] but all are necessarily highly speculative.

As a starting point, one of Joseph’s two fathers could be by simple adoption, as Augustine suggests, or more likely the special adoption by a father-in-law with no sons, or could be a maternal grandfather.[74] …

A key difficulty with these explanations, however, is that there is no adoption in Jewish law, which of course is the relevant legal tradition even according to Jesus (Matt. 23:1–3), not the Roman legal tradition. If Joseph is not the biological father, his lineage does not apply to Jesus, and there is no provision available within Jewish law for this to be altered. One’s natural father is always one’s father. Nor is inheritance of lineage claims even possible through one’s mother, in Jewish law.[75]

Footnotes
[71] Johnson, Marshall D. (1988), The purpose of the Biblical genealogies (2nd ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 142, ISBN 978-0-521-35644-2
[72] Hervey, Arthur Charles (1853), The Genealogies of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Macmillan.
[73] Masson, Jacques (1982), Jesus, fils de David, dans les généalogies de saint Mathieu et de saint Luc, Paris: Téqui, ISBN 2-85244-511-5
[74] Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 1, pp. 27–29
[75] See, on this, the articles “Adoption” by Lewis Dembitz and Kaufmann Kohler in The Jewish Encyclopaedia (1906), available online at: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/852-adoption, and “Adoption” by Jeffrey H. Tigay and Ben-Zion (Benno) Schereschewsky in the Encyclopaedia Judaica (1st ed. 1972; the entry is reproduced again in the 2nd ed.), Vol. 2, col. 298–303. Lineage cannot be artificially transferred; one’s natural parents are always one’s parents. Guardianship, however, conveys most other rights and duties…

An additional problem with the “legal inheritance” theory, as I shall call it, is Matthew’s language: he repeatedly uses the term “begat” (ἐγέννησεν) in his genealogy. It is true that the verb “beget” can have a more general meaning, as in Psalm 2:7, where the Lord says to the king, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” However, in Matthew’s genealogy, where we can trace the names from Abraham right up to the time of the deportation to Babylon, a comparison with the Hebrew Bible shows quite clearly that “begat” (ἐγέννησεν) is being used in a biological sense: e.g. “Abraham begat Isaac.” To say that the word “begat” suddenly acquires a wider and less literal meaning in the last third of Matthew’s genealogy is highly ad hoc, to say the least.

Bart Ehrman points out a historical problem with the “legal inheritance” theory when he remarks that there’s no evidence that genealogies were ever traced through adoptive fathers in Palestine, during the time of Jesus, in the course of an exchange with Rev. Matt Firth (April 22, 2019) on the topic of Biblical inerrancy.

A final difficulty with the “legal inheritance” theory, to my mind, is that one cannot have an heir to the throne when the throne has been taken away. To speak of a legal inheritance for something which no longer exists is obviously nonsensical. As for the Messiahship, while there was a general expectation that the Messiah would be a descendant of David (as we saw above), there was no “heir apparent”: any male descendant of David who accomplished what the Jewish Messiah was supposed to accomplish would have been considered worthy of the title.

I conclude that the “legal inheritance” theory fails to reconcile the genealogies of Matthew and Luke.

Solution 3: The “levirate marriage” solution – and why it fails

A third way of resolving the discrepancy between the two genealogies is the suggestion that Jacob and Heli were half-brothers, and that Heli married but died childless, but after that, his brother Jacob married Heli’s widow, and they had a son named Joseph. In a response to Ehrman titled, Contradictions in the Gospels (April 16, 2019), Rev. Matt Firth (a Biblical inerrantist) attempts to reconcile the two genealogies of Jesus in this way. On this proposal, Joseph was Jacob’s son biologically, but Heli’s son legally. This harmonization is known as the “levirate marriage” solution. In a follow-up article (Are These Really Contradictions? My Response to Matt Firth, April 22, 2019), Ehrman points out that there’s no evidence that genealogies were ever traced through adoptive fathers at that time in Palestine:

First, I have never seen any evidence of a Jewish genealogy being traced through what you’re calling a “legal” father – that is, an adoptive father, with the actual father having died – as opposed to through the actual father.

In a second follow-up article (Contradictions and Contradictions: Final Response to Matt Firth, May 3, 2019), Ehrman refutes the “levirate marriage” proposal:

If Heli’s blood-brother Jacob married Heli’s widow and they had a child Joseph, so that the child was sometimes referred to as Heli’s and sometime as Jacob’s – wouldn’t Heli and Joseph (sic – should be Jacob – VJT) have the same father? And the same patrilineal line all the way back? But the name of their father is different. And the names in the patrilineal line are *all* different, for many generations, going all the way back to David.

To be sure, it is possible to come up with an explanation of why Heli and Jacob had different fathers. In an article written for the Roman Theological Forum (No. 11, May 1987) titled, “New Light on the Genealogies of Jesus”, John F. McCarthy discusses a harmonization first proposed by Christians living 1,800 years ago:

According to an explanation going back in essence at least to Julius Africanus in the first half of the third century A.D. (who claimed to have heard it as handed down by the relatives of Jesus), Joseph’s grandmother (Estha) bore Jacob to one husband (Matthan) and Eli to a second (Matthat). Joseph’s mother married Eli, who died without children; then she married his uterine brother Jacob, who raised up Joseph as seed to Eli. Thus Joseph had Eli as his legal father and Jacob as his biological father. The genealogy of Matthew shows the biological ancestry of Jesus, and that of Luke the legal ancestry.[3]

Fr. Raymond Brown rejects this proposed solution in his magisterial work, The Birth of the Messiah (New York: Doubleday, 1977), where he concludes: “The theory of a levirate marriage solves so little and has so many difficulties that it should be abandoned as a solution in the problem of the two genealogies, and even in the more restricted problem of Jesus’ overabundance of grandfathers” (p. 504). First, Brown points out that Matthan and Matthat are very similar names. If they are indeed different individuals, then one is faced with the “dubious coincidence” that the mother of Jacob and Eli married two men who had almost identical names. But if they are the same individual, then how do we account for the fact that in Matthew’s Gospel, Matthan’s father is listed as Eleazar, while in Luke’s Gospel, his name is Levi? Must we postulate yet another levirate marriage to account for this discrepancy?

But the weightiest objection marshalled by Brown is that at best, the levirate marriage hypothesis could only explain the discrepancies at the ends of the genealogies, but fails to account for discrepancies in the middle. For instance, Matthew traces Jesus’ descent through Zerubbabel’s son Abiud, while Luke traces it through Zarubbabel’s son Rhesa (where Zerubbabel and Zarubbabel are most likely the same individual, as in both genealogies, their father is named Shealtiel). If we go still earlier back, we find that Matthew traces Jesus’ descent through David’s son Solomon, while Luke traces it through David’s son Nathan. Nevertheless, John F. McCarthy defends the levirate theory by proposing that Jacob’s father Matthan was descended from David through Solomon, while Heli’s (Eli’s) father Matthat was descended from David through Nathan,. McCarthy triumphantly concludes that “Brown does not present cogent grounds for abandoning the possibility of a solution through levirate marriage” (his italics), and that the explanation of a levirate marriage “cannot be logically excluded” (again, his italics). But surely, mere logical possibility is setting the epistemic bar far too low. Almost anything is logically possible, if someone is willing to make enough ad hoc assumptions. And the “levirate marriage” solution is massively ad hoc.

To illustrate my point, here’s one way in which McCarthy tries to explain the fact that both Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies of Jesus list the names of Shealtiel (who’s called Salathiel in the Septuagint) and his son Zerubbabel, around the time of the Babylonian captivity, except that Shealtiel (Salathiel) is listed as the son of King Jeconiah in Matthew, while in Luke, he’s said to be the son of Neri:

Jechonias, having no son, adopted Salathiel, husband of his daughter and son of Neri, who was descended from David through Nathan. Salathiel thus became the legal son and successor of Jechonias. By the Law of the Levirate, the name of Salathiel’s biological father disappears from the genealogy and the name of Jechonias appears. Salathiel becomes a common ancestor of both Jacob and Eli.

The problem with the reconciliation proposed by McCarthy is that it proves too much. Applying the logic of the above passage, it would be possible to harmonize any two genealogies of a historical personage, even if they appeared to wildly contradict one another.

I conclude that attempts to harmonize the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels collapse under the weight of their numerous strained assumptions. They should be abandoned.

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(d) Tensions between Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ birth and infancy

The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682). Museo del Prado. Public domain. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

(i) Matthew and Luke offer different explanations as to why Jesus was born of a virgin

In a blog article titled, “Why was Jesus born of a virgin in Matthew and Luke?” (December 24, 2014), Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, points out a little-noticed fact: although Matthew and Luke both affirm the Virgin Birth, they do so for very different reasons. This in itself is not a contradiction (I’ll discuss the contradictions between the two Gospels shortly), but it is a striking contrast nevertheless. Here’s how Ehrman explains it:

Matthew seems to understand the importance of the Virgin Birth differently from Luke.

In Matthew’s version, Jesus is born of a virgin because this is what was predicted in the prophet Isaiah, as he explicitly states in 1:22-23: “All this happened in order that the word spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: ‘Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us.’” The quotation comes from Isa. 7:14…

My point: for Matthew the virgin birth principally shows that Jesus’ birth was a fulfilment of the divine plan, as revealed by the fact that up and down the line it fulfilled prophecy.

Luke has a different take. He never gives the “prophecy-fulfillment- formula” you find so often in Matthew (“this happened to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet….”). In his case the virgin birth has a completely different function. Jesus is born of a virgin because it is the Spirit of God that has made Mary pregnant, not a human being, so that in a very literal sense, Jesus is the “son of God.” …

This is not a contradiction between the two accounts. But it is a very big difference.

I should point out here that although Matthew portrays Jesus’ virginal conception as the fulfilment of a prophecy, there are weighty arguments against the proposal (made by some scholars) that early Christian belief in the virginal conception is simply the product of a mistaken reading of Isaiah 7:14. As we’ll see in part 7 and part 8 below, the Jews did not read the passage in this way, and there was no expectation that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. However, Ehrman is correct in pointing out that the author of Matthew’s Gospel saw Jesus’ virginal conception as the fulfilment of a prophecy, while for Luke, it serves a different purpose, in making Jesus the son of God.

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(ii) Matthew’s and Luke’s stories of Jesus’ birth and infancy contradict one another

Nativity of Jesus according to the Gospel of Luke. Image courtesy of Nederlandse Leeuw and Wikipedia. 1. Annunciation to Mary in Nazareth 2. Census of Quirinius (6–7 CE) 3. Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem 4. Birth of Jesus in Bethlehem 5. Annunciation to shepherds in fields nearby 6. Adoration of the shepherds in Bethlehem 7. Presentation of Jesus at Temple (Jerusalem) – – – – 8. Joseph, Mary and Jesus return to Nazareth

Nativity of Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew. Image courtesy of Nederlandse Leeuw and Wikipedia. 1. Annunciation to Joseph in Bethlehem – – 2. Birth of Jesus in Bethlehem 3. Magi visit Herod in Jerusalem 4. Adoration of the Magi in Bethlehem – 5. Joseph, Mary and Jesus’ Flight into Egypt 6. Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem 7. Death of Herod (4 BCE) 8. Joseph, Mary and Jesus return to Israel 9. Joseph, Mary and Jesus relocate to Nazareth

In a later blog post titled, Contradictions in the Gospels (April 16, 2019), Professor Bart Ehrman summarizes the contradictions between Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ birth and infancy:

In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth (Matthew 2:1-23), he is born in Bethlehem. Nothing indicates that his parents came from anywhere else to get there: there is no story here of a trip from Nazareth to register for a census only to find there was “no room in the inn.” They simply are in Bethlehem. When the wise men come to worship the child, the King of the Jews, Herod, learns of Jesus’ existence, and he sends the troops to kill him (2:16-18). Joseph is warned in a dream, and he takes Jesus and Mary and they travel, on foot, to Egypt, where they remain until Herod dies (2:13-15, 19-23). When they return home, though, they cannot return to Bethlehem (presumably their home, since there would be no other reason to ponder coming back there), and so relocate in Nazareth.

In Luke’s account (Luke 2:1-39) Joseph and Mary are from Nazareth and they end up in Bethlehem because of a census in which “the entire world should be enrolled” (Luke 2:1). Mary is pregnant, full term, and happens to give birth while they are there. After Jesus is circumcised (2:21), and brought to the temple (2:22), they perform the sacrifice required for women who have given birth in order to return to ritual purity (2:24). This is to follow the law laid out in Leviticus 12:2-8; the sacrifice was to happen 33 days after the circumcision (so 40 days after birth). As soon as that is completed, they return straight to Nazareth (2:39). There is no word in Luke about King Herod’s decision to have the child killed or of the flight of the holy family to Egypt. And so, the contradiction: if Luke is right that 40 days after Jesus’ birth, the family returned directly to Nazareth, how can Matthew be right that they instead went and stayed in Egypt until the death of Herod?

In a response to Ehrman (April 16, 2019), Rev. Matt Firth (a Biblical inerrantist) suggests that “Luke is happy to leave out descriptions of intervening events that he knows to have occurred and that his Greek grammatical usage is much more temporally flexible than it might seem on a surface reading,” so that “between Luke 2:38 and Luke 2:39 there was an intervening period in Egypt.” In a follow-up response to Rev. Firth (April 22, 2019), Ehrman points out that the Greek grammar of Luke’s Gospel is at odds with this strained reading of Luke:

In fact the text does indicate that it was immediately after completing the requirements of the law they went back to Galilee (not years later). The Greek says “hōs etelesan” – using the conjunction hōs with our friend the aorist. This is a very common construction in Greek. When hōs is used with an aorist indicative verb it is a temporal conjunction to be translated “when, after.” And when it is used this way, it indicates what happens *next*.

In a second follow-up response to Rev. Firth, Ehrman replies that Rev. Firth’s suggestion upends the entire logic of the passage in Luke:

The family is near Jerusalem (in Bethlehem); they have come to the Jerusalem temple where Jesus is recognized by the prophetess Anna (v. 38); when they finished following the requirements of the law (a reference to Leviticus 12: women who gave birth were to make an offering in the temple 40 days later for ritual cleanings), they went back to Nazareth. There is nothing about a flight to Egypt that lasted, in your reckoning for years. You have simply imported it into the text.

To clinch matters, Luke adds in verse 41 that “every year his [Jesus’] parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover” – an assertion which is at odds with Rev. Firth’s suggestion that the Holy Family stayed in Egypt for a period of several years, until Herod was dead.

I conclude that Biblical inerrantists’ attempts to harmonize the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke are unsuccessful, and that the two narratives do indeed contradict one another. This undermines the Christian belief in their reliability: either Matthew or Luke is factually mistaken. That being the case, one might reasonably ask: why should we trust these authors when they narrate a miracle in connection with Jesus’ conception? Should we not be suspicious of their stories?

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5. Matthew’s and Luke’s narratives of Jesus’ infancy refer to events which are historically questionable (e.g. the Star of Bethlehem and the census under Quirinius), thereby undermining their credibility as witnesses to Jesus’ virginal conception.

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KEY POINTS The four most questionable events in Matthew’s and Luke’s narratives of Jesus’ infancy are the Star of Bethlehem and Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents (in Matthew’s Gospel) and the Census of Quirinius and the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (in Luke’s Gospel). Regarding the Star of Bethlehem, the work of astronomer Michael Molnar has shown that a scientifically plausible account of the star can be given. However, the real difficulties with the story are historical and literary. First, we don’t know which constellation in the sky would have been associated with Judea by the magi, or Wise Men. Was it Aries, Aquarius or Gemini? Different authorities at the time gave different answers. So we simply don’t know how a horoscope would have been interpreted in antiquity. What’s more, we don’t even know which version of astrology would have been in use, at the time of Jesus’ birth. Second, we don’t know whether Matthew’s account was even intended to be an historical account of Jesus’ birth. What makes us think the author is trying to tell us history, and why should we trust him? There are unmistakable parallels between Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth and Jewish legends about Moses’ birth that were current in the first century A.D. (see Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities (2.205-206, 210-211)). In both sets of accounts, the child’s birth is foretold by wise men, and the king reacts by ordering a massacre of male children, and an angel appears to the child’s father in a dream and tells him not to be afraid. Finally, Matthew doesn’t list the sources for his story, or critically analyze them as a proper historian would do. In any case, since Matthew was not a historian, he would not have been granted access to official records. Since his highly supernaturalistic account was written eighty years after the events it describes here, we have good reason to question its historical accuracy. Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents also appears to be mythological. First, it lacks internal plausibility: surely King Herod could have sent spies to tail the Magi on their trip to Bethlehem, and either report back to him on the whereabouts of the infant Jesus or kill him immediately, making a massacre unnecessary. Also, had “all Jerusalem” (Matthew 2:3) been alarmed over the Magi’s reports of the birth of a new Messiah in Bethlehem, why are there no Jewish records of such an event? Second, why does Josephus, who had a known animus against Herod, say nothing about such a sordid massacre? Third, the episode appears to have been made up, in order to (i) fulfill the prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15 about the children of Rachel (who was said to have been buried near Bethlehem) being massacred, and (ii) provide Jesus and his family with a strong motive for fleeing to Egypt, so as to fulfill the prophecy in Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Finally, the incident bears a strong resemblance to the first-century Jewish legends of Moses’ rescue from the slaughter of Hebrew children in Egypt (see above). On the other hand, historian Paul Maier has defended the historicity of the incident, arguing that the relatively small number of infants slaughtered (a dozen or so, by his estimate) would probably have escaped the attention of Josephus. It has also been argued that the Massacre fits in well with Herod’s psychological profile as a paranoid, ruthless killer. Nevertheless, Herod’s failure to have the Magi followed should be enough to show that Matthew’s story, like his story of the Guard at Jesus’ Tomb (Matthew 27:62-28:15), doesn’t hold together: it is internally implausible. That, combined with the unmistakable parallels to Jewish stories about Moses’ infancy that were current in the first century (see above), renders it historically unlikely, in my view, which Maier himself admits is a widely shared one among scholars. Regarding the census of Quirinius reported in Luke, the biggest hurdle is the date. Matthew’s Gospel reports that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1), who died in 4 B.C., so Jesus was born at the latest in 4 BC, but the census by the Syrian governor Quirinius took place ten years later, in 6 A.D. Attempts to salvage the accuracy of Luke’s Gospel by suggesting that Quirinius was governor twice, or that the text is really saying that the census took place before Quirinius was governor of Syria, are strained and grammatically implausible. Dr. Richard Carrier, who is a classical historian, shows convincingly that all attempts to harmonize Matthew and Luke end in failure. They cannot both be right. What’s more, Luke’s Gospel appears to contradict itself: on the one hand, Jesus is said to have been born in the days of “Herod, king of Judea” (Luke 1:5), whom the vast majority of Biblical historians identify with Herod the Great (d. 4 B.C.), but on the other hand, we are told (Luke 2:1-7) that Jesus was born during the time of the census of Quirinius (6 A.D.). [I should note in passing that Carrier’s idiosyncratic view that Luke 1:5 actually refers not to Herod the Great but to his son Archelaus is rejected by virtually all Biblical scholars. Additionally, Carrier’s proposal requires him to date the start of Jesus’ ministry, when Jesus was “about thirty” (Luke 3:23) to 34 or 35 A.D., several years after the start of John the Baptist’s ministry in 29 A.D. (Luke 3:1-2), putting Jesus’ death in 36 A.D. However, virtually all Biblical scholars date Jesus’ death to either 30 or 33 A.D.] I conclude that Jesus could not have been born in the year 6 A.D. Luke’s dating Jesus’ birth to the time of the census under Quirinius in 6 A.D. is therefore incorrect; Jesus was probably born a few years earlier. Other objections have been raised regarding the likelihood of an empire-wide census under the Emperor Augustus, and of Jews having to return to their ancestral town to register for the census. On these points, Dr. Richard Carrier has defended Luke (see here), arguing that Emperor Augustus’s decree of 28 B.C. requiring that all provinces of the empire be taxed may have been belatedly applied to Judea in 6 A.D., making it the first time the Augustan decree affected Judea; also, Joseph may have been required to travel to Bethlehem if his family owned even a tiny plot of ancestral land there. In his online article, Census of Quirinius, Professor J. F. McGrath rebuts this proposal, by pointing out that if Joseph owned property in Bethlehem, then he wasn’t poor. So why does Luke portray Joseph and Mary as offering the sacrifice for poor people, when Jesus is presented in the Temple, 40 days after his birth? Also, why did a heavily pregnant Mary have to register for the census, along with Joseph? Why couldn’t she have stayed with her relatives, instead? These problems create additional reasons for doubting the accuracy of Luke’s account. Regarding Jesus’ presentation in the Temple, Luke appears to have conflated the purification of a woman after childbirth (when the child was a month old) with the presentation and redemption of a firstborn son, ten days later: only the former required a sacrifice of two small birds (mentioned in Luke), while the latter required the payment of five silver shekels (not mentioned by Luke). Luke also appears to have thought that both the husband and wife needed to be purified after the birth of a child see Luke 2:22), and that the Torah required the redemption of a firstborn son to take place in the temple in Jerusalem, whereas most scholars believe that the Law at that time allowed a firstborn son to be presented to any priest. However, conservative scholar Richard Bauckham, in his essay, “Luke’s infancy narrative as oral history in scriptural form” (in The Christian world around the New Testament, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017, Volume 2, pp. 131-142; also available online in document form) has vigorously defended Luke’s account, arguing that both Joseph and Mary may have needed to be purified, that Luke 2:27 (which refers to Mary and Joseph doing “for the child what was customary under the law”) is an implicit reference to the payment of five shekels, and that in fact, the Law of the time would have required all firstborn sons to be presented in the temple in Jerusalem (as mandated by Nehemiah 10:35-36): the silence of contemporary rabbis on the subject proves nothing. Bauckham concludes that “Luke deserves the benefit of the doubt.” Bauckham’s arguments merit serious consideration, so on this particular incident, I find the charge of historical inaccuracy against Luke not proved. In summary: it turns out that three of the four episodes selected above, which are narrated in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels, are historically very unlikely, while the fourth is rather doubtful.

The best way to evaluate the credibility of an account of a long-distant miraculous event (which is by definition supernatural and unrepeatable) is to check whether the non-miraculous events in the story are reported accurately. When we do this with Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ birth, we run into major difficulties, which are admirably summarized by John Loftus in the opening statement of his debate with William Albrecht on the topic, “Was Jesus Born of a Virgin?” I’ll mention just two here.

(a) The Star of Bethlehem

Image from Dr. Carol Davenport’s article, “What can science tell us about the Star of Bethlehem?” (December 24, 2015) at TheConversation.com. Creative Commons licence.

(i) Scientific problems with the narrative, and a possible solution

Matthew tells us that a star led some Wise Men (Magi) to the place where Jesus was born, in Bethlehem: “The star, which they (the Magi) had seen in the east, went on before them until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.” (Matthew 2:9–10, NASB). But as skeptic John Loftus points out, Matthew’s account appears not to make sense, from an astronomical perspective:

The Magi see the Star “leading” or directing them to Bethlehem from Jerusalem. Not only are moving stars pre-scientific nonsense, they would be moving in a southern direction, from Jerusalem down to Bethlehem. Stars don’t move in the sky, and they certainly don’t appear to move in a southern direction. They all appear to move from the east to west, like the sun, because of the spin of the earth. Then we’re told the Star stopped in the sky directly over a place in Bethlehem. But there’s no way to determine which specific house a star stopped over, if it did!

To be sure, there are scientific answers to these difficulties. Recently, it has been argued by the astronomer Michael Molnar that arguing that it probably referred to Jupiter appearing in the constellation of Aries (believed by astrologers to be a symbol of Judea) in the year 6 B.C., after which Jupiter was hidden by the Moon. On Molnar’s proposal, Loftus’s objections can be answered: in the first place, the Biblical term “in the east” is a literal translation of the Greek phrase en te anatole, which refers to what’s called a heliacal rising, where a planet (in this case, the planet Jupiter) would rise above the eastern horizon just before the sun is due to appear, and then disappear in the early morning sky; and secondly, that Biblical reference to the “star” stopping over the place where Jesus was born refers to a particular, brief moment when a planet stops moving, and changes apparent direction from westward to eastward motion, relative to the fixed background stars. This would have happened on December 19, 6 B.C., but by then, Jesus would have been at least eight months old, as the first heliacal rising of the planet Jupiter was on April 17, 6 B.C. For more details, see here and here.

On the other hand, Molnar, who is not a Biblical scholar, may be barking up the wrong tree with his convoluted exegesis of the phrase, “in the east.” The NET Bible (New English Translation), a free on-line English translation of the Bible with over 60,000 translators’ notes, published in 2005 and sponsored by the Biblical Studies Foundation, rejects the translation, “in the east,” in favor of what it says is the correct meaning, “when it rose,” in Matthew 2:2 and 2:9-10, for reasons explained in a footnote:

The term used for the “East” in v. 1 is ἀνατολαί (anatolai, a plural form that is used typically of the rising of the sun), while in vv. 2 and 9 the singular ἀνατολή (anatolē) is used. The singular is typically used of the rising of a star and as such should not normally be translated “in the east” (cf. BDAG 74 s.v. 1: “because of the sg. and the article in contrast to ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν, vs. 1, [it is] prob. not a geograph. expr. like the latter, but rather astronomical… likew. vs. 9”).

The highly respected ESV also translates Matthew 2:9 without using the phrase “in the east”: “And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.”

If the simpler ESV and NET translations are indeed correct, as they appear to be, then Molnar’s ingenious solution is redundant, for linguistic reasons.

(ii) Historical and literary problems with Matthew’s account of the Star of Bethlehem

But even if Molnar’s proposal could successfully resolve all of the scientific problems raised by Loftus above, we still need to address the more fundamental problems with Matthew’s account: first, ambiguities and frequent disagreements between ancient astrologers regarding individuals’ horoscopes, and second, uncertainties as to the genre of Matthew’s infancy narrative: was it history or was it folklore? Jonathan M. S. Pearce discusses both of these points in a blog article titled, Star of Bethlehem: Methodological Difficulties (October 2, 2015). Pearce emphasizes the uncertainties within the ancient study of astrology:

So, the ancient astrologers in the Western tradition already tell us that the act of interpretation is very difficult, and the evidence is that astrologers cannot agree even when they all follow the same rulebook… But more damning is the incredible level at which astrologers will contradict each other and even themselves. One particular example should be examined because of its importance to this study: what constellation or astrological sign corresponded to or influenced what region of the world; this is known as geographical astrology. This is important for Star research because of efforts to find the constellation which would have been associated with Judea. The only specific list that mentioned Judea comes from Ptolemy who connected that region with the zodiac constellation of Aries. However, a century earlier in the writing of Manilius this same general region is under the purview of Aquarius. Later in the same century, Dorotheus of Sidon goes with Gemini.[12]

So much for Molnar’s naive claim that the constellation of Aries was believed by astrologers to be a symbol of Judea. Which astrologer are we talking about? Concludes Pearce: “Considering how much contradiction there is between astrologers on so much, from methods to meaning, there is no respectable position one can take on how a horoscope would have been interpreted in antiquity.” But it gets worse. We don’t even know which version of astrology would have been in use, at the time of Jesus’ birth:

One of the defining features of the Western horoscope is the arrangement of the cardinal points. These are the locations of the eastern and western horizon (the ascendant and descendant), along with the point on the zodiac that is highest in the sky at the observer’s location and the point 180 degrees opposite on the zodiac (the midheaven and anti-midheaven). The location of these points in a horoscope are very important to interpretation, and considerable calculations are done to find and place them, yet they are absent from the older Babylonian versions of horoscopes. Moreover, we have no good information to help us even guess how ancient, eastern horoscopes were interpreted as most of them failed to include an interpretation, and we have no treatises on the subject.[14] The closest is the astrological text called the Enuma Anu Enlil, written sometime around 1000 BCE, but how this source was applied in the first century is almost impossible to extrapolate.

Pearce concludes: “This means we have almost no basis to discuss how any configuration of the stars would have been interpreted by eastern diviners.”

But the deeper question is whether Matthew’s account was even intended to be an historical account of Jesus’ birth. Pearce goes straight to the heart of the issue, in his article:

Lastly, we should consider an issue that is poorly addressed in the literature by those searching for the Christmas Star: what makes us think the author is trying to tell us history and why ought we trust him or his sources (if he had any concerning the Nativity)? … Are we dealing with a diary of events similar to Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars, a biography based on eyewitnesses such as Arrian’s history of Alexander the Great (the Anabasis), or do we have folklore and romances as in the stories of King Arthur? When it comes to the Gospels, this is not an easy question… But perhaps key is the fact that the story of the amazing portent at birth indicating greatness of the infant is part and parcel of stories told of heroes, kings, and gods in antiquity. This includes stellar features as well. Famous stars leading heroes to their destination include that of Timoleon on his way to Sicily[16] and Aeneas on his way to Italy.[17] We also have the parallels between Jesus’s birth and Moses’s, especially in non-canonical sources concerning the latter (which include a star at his birth interpreted by ‘wise men’ of sorts).[18] Put simply, how does one categorize the story?

Excursus: Parallels between the births of Jesus and Moses

In his groundbreaking work, The Birth of the Messiah (New York: Doubleday, 1977, p. 113), Fr. Raymond Brown draws readers’ attention to the parallels between the account of Moses’ birth in the book of Exodus and Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’ birth and infancy:

Matthew	Exodus
2:13-14 Herod was going to search for the child to destroy him, so Joseph took the child and his mother and went away	2:15 The Pharaoh sought to eliminate Moses, so Moses went away
2:16 Herod commanded that the boys of Bethlehem under age two be killed	1:22 Pharaoh commanded that all male Hebrew infants be killed
2:19 Herod died	2:23 The king of Egypt died
2:19-20 The angel of the Lord says to Joseph in Egypt, “return to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead”	4:19 The Lord said to Moses in Midian, “return to Egypt, for all those who were seeking your life are dead”
2:21 Joseph took the child and his mother and returned to the land of Israel	4:20 Moses took along his wife and children and returned to Egypt

If we look at popular Jewish stories about the birth of Moses that were current in the first century A.D., the parallels with Matthew’s narrative are even more apparent. Here, for instance, is what the Jewish historian Josephus records about the infancy of Moses, in his Jewish Antiquities (2.205-206, 210-211):

While they [the Hebrews – VJT] were in this plight, a further incident had the effect of stimulating the Egyptians yet more to exterminate our race. One of the sacred scribes–persons with considerable skill in accurately predicting the future–announced to the king that there would be born to the Israelites at that time one who would abase the sovereignty of the Egyptians and exalt the Israelites, were he reared to manhood, and would surpass all men in virtue and win everlasting renown. Alarmed thereat, the king, on this sage’s advice, ordered that every male child born to the Israelites should be destroyed by being cast into the river…

Amaram(es), a Hebrew of noble birth, fearing that the whole race would be extinguished through lack of the succeeding generation, and seriously anxious on his own account because his wife was with child, was in grievous perplexity. He accordingly had recourse to prayer to God …. And God had compassion on him and, moved by his supplication, appeared to him in his sleep, exhorted him not to despair of the future, and told him that …. “This child, whose birth has filled the Egyptians with such dread that they have condemned to destruction all the offspring of the Israelites, shall indeed be yours; he shall escape those who are watching to destroy him, and, reared in a marvelous way, he shall deliver the Hebrew race from their bondage in Egypt, and be remembered, so long as the universe shall endure, not by Hebrews alone but even by alien nations.”
(Thackeray, H St et al 1926-65. Josephus. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 10 vols LCL.)

In Josephus’ account, the birth of Moses, like that of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, is foretold by wise men, and the king reacts by ordering a massacre of male children. On top of that, an angel appears to Moses’s father Amram in a dream and tells him not to worry, and that God will rescue the child. The parallels are unmistakable.

Professor John Dominic Crossan has more to say about Matthew 2’s Mosaic connections in his essay, Virgin mother or bastard child? (HTS Theological Studies 59(3) 2003).

Conclusion

In his above-cited article, Star of Bethlehem: Methodological Difficulties (October 2, 2015), Jonathan M. S. Pearce wraps up his case for the non-historical character of Matthew’s birth narrative by noting that “Matthew… does not discuss his sources, does not separate witnesses, and provides not a hint of skepticism or critical engagement with the stories” – unlike proper historians of the time in which he wrote, such as Tacitus (and to a lesser extent, Suetonius). Since Matthew’s methods are less rigorous and his access to reliable information is remote (remember that he wrote his account fifty years after Jesus’ death and over eighty years after Jesus’ birth, and unlike Roman historians, he would not have been granted privileged access to historical records from the time when Jesus lived), Pearce concludes that we have to regard Matthew as highly suspect when it comes to historical facts, assuming he is even trying to tell us facts.

Let me conclude by quoting the verdict of Jesus scholar Professor Geza Vermes, in his article, Matthew’s Nativity is charming and frightening… but it’s a Jewish myth (The Telegraph, December 19, 2004):

We are led inescapably to this conclusion: that the awesomely influential Nativity story in the first book of the New Testament is a speculative, rather than a historical text. Far from being a report of a literal happening, it is an amalgam of flawed Greek-Christian scriptural references, and of “birth tales” current in Judaism in the first century AD. The story with which we are all so familiar is not fact, but folklore.

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(b) The Census of Quirinius in Luke

Mary and Joseph register for the census before Governor Quirinius. Byzantine mosaic c. 1315. Meister der Kahriye-Cami-Kirche in Istanbul – The Yorck Project (2002). Public domain. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

The difficulties with Luke’s account, in a nutshell

The historical difficulties associated with Luke’s account of the census under Quirinius are handily summarized in th following quote, which is taken from the online commentary on Luke 2, approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which concludes that Luke’s memory of the event is badly muddled:

* [2:1–2] Although universal registrations of Roman citizens are attested in 28 B.C., 8 B.C., and A.D. 14 and enrollments in individual provinces of those who are not Roman citizens are also attested, such a universal census of the Roman world under Caesar Augustus is unknown outside the New Testament. Moreover, there are notorious historical problems connected with Luke’s dating the census when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and the various attempts to resolve the difficulties have proved unsuccessful. P. Sulpicius Quirinius became legate of the province of Syria in A.D. 6–7 when Judea was annexed to the province of Syria. At that time, a provincial census of Judea was taken up. If Quirinius had been legate of Syria previously, it would have to have been before 10 B.C. because the various legates of Syria from 10 B.C. to 4 B.C. (the death of Herod) are known, and such a dating for an earlier census under Quirinius would create additional problems for dating the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (Lk 3:1, 23). A previous legateship after 4 B.C. (and before A.D. 6) would not fit with the dating of Jesus’ birth in the days of Herod (Lk 1:5; Mt 2:1). Luke may simply be combining Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem with his vague recollection of a census under Quirinius (see also Acts 5:37) to underline the significance of this birth for the whole Roman world: through this child born in Bethlehem peace and salvation come to the empire.

The central contradiction between Matthew and Luke

Dr. Richard Carrier’s carefully argued essay, The Date of the Nativity in Luke (6th ed., 2011) is essential reading for anyone wishing to familiarize themselves with the difficulties relating to Luke’s account of the census under Quirinius. (Although Carrier is not a Biblical cholar, he is a trained classical historian.) Carrier’s main conclusions are worth quoting at length. First, Carrier summarizes the central contradiction between Matthew and Luke, before adding that although he regards neither Matthew’s nor Luke’s account of Jesus’ infancy as historical, he thinks Luke is more likely to be correct than Matthew:

The Gospel of Luke claims (2.1-2) that Jesus was born during a census that we know from the historian Josephus took place after Herod the Great died, and after his successor, Archelaus, was deposed. But Matthew claims (2.1-3) that Jesus was born when Herod the Great was still alive–possibly two years before he died (2:7-16). Other elements of their stories also contradict each other. Since Josephus precisely dates the census to 6 A.D. and Herod’s death to 4 B.C., and the sequence is indisputable, Luke and Matthew contradict each other.

I think using [Luke’s using] a census in the story to explain both of Jesus’ reputed ancestral homes (the village of Nazareth and the town the messiah had to come from, Bethlehem) is rather convenient and looks more clever than genuine. And Luke’s probable use of Josephus suggests a deliberate attempt to paint a veneer of genuine history around an otherwise questionable hagiography. For Luke’s accuracy is only provable in details such as these, which were already painstakingly researched by other men and published in Luke’s own day….[T]hough Matthew’s account looks and smells like a fantastical legend (see below), I do not see Luke’s account as historically impossible, as some have tried to argue. To the contrary, I think Luke strained to force his story to seem more plausible than it already was when it got to him. But if one of the two authors must be correct, then Matthew is far more likely the one who has it wrong.…

The failure of attempts to harmonize Matthew (4 B.C.) and Luke (6 A.D.) on the date of Jesus’ birth

Next, Carrier explains at some length why the various attempts to reconcile Matthew and Luke all fail:

Some have tried to reconcile Matthew and Luke by inventing a second governorship of Quirinius, placing it in the reign of Herod the Great. However, we have no evidence at all that Quirinius served as governor of Syria twice, much less that he did so when Herod was king of Judaea. Moreover, no one ever governed the same province twice in the whole of Roman history, making the very proposal implausible. Three inscriptions and a coin have been used to imply otherwise, but none of these items contain any of the information claimed by those who want Quirinius to have been twice governor, and they offer no support to the theory. We also know who was governing Syria between 12 and 3 B.C. and therefore Quirinius could not have been governor then (or before, since he was not qualified before the year 12). Also, in section 3 it will be shown that there was never any such thing as a dual governorship, nor could there have been, given the nature of Roman political and social organization, and even if Quirinius had been governor or co-governor of Syria at an earlier date, no census could have been conducted in Judaea while Herod or his successor Archelaus were alive.

Even if Quirinius had been governor a previous time, conveniently during the reign of Herod the Great, and conducted a census, that census could not have included Judaea, for Judaea was not under direct Roman control at that time, and not being directly taxed. There is no example of, or rationale for, a census of an independent kingdom ever being conducted in Roman history. Therefore, the census Luke describes could only have been taken after the death of Herod, when Judaea was annexed to the Roman province of Syria, just as Josephus describes. All attempts to argue otherwise have no merit: Luke did not mean a census before Quirinius, could not have imagined Quirinius holding some other position besides governor, and could not have mistook him for someone else…

Some have tried to argue that the Greek of Luke actually might mean a census “before” the reign of Quirinius rather than the “first” census in his reign. As to this, even Sherwin-White remarks that he has “no space to bother with the more fantastic theories…such as that of W. Heichelheim’s (and others’) suggestion (Roman Syria, 161) that prôtê in Luke iii.2 means proteron, [which] could only be accepted if supported by a parallel in Luke himself.”[10.1] He would no doubt have elaborated if he thought it worthwhile to refute such a “fantastic” conjecture. For in fact this argument is completely disallowed by the rules of Greek grammar. First of all, the basic meaning is clear and unambiguous, so there is no reason even to look for another meaning. The passage says hautê apographê prôtê egeneto hêgemoneuontos tês Syrias Kyrêniou, or with interlinear translation, hautê(this) apographê(census) prôtê[the] (first) egeneto(happened to be) hêgemoneuontos[while] (governing) tês Syrias(Syria) Kyrêniou[was] (Quirinius). The correct word order, in English, is “this happened to be the first census while Quirinius was governing Syria.” This is very straightforward, and all translations render it in such a manner…

Another proposal is that hêgemoneuontos tês Syrias might mean simply “holding a command in Syria” and since Quirinius is known to have fought a war in Asia Minor between 6 B.C. and 1 B.C. (see above), perhaps Luke means to refer to the time when Quirinius was fighting this war, and not actually “legate of Syria.” This doesn’t actually solve any of the problems already discussed so far–no census of Judaea could have been held before 6 A.D. But the argument is not even reasonable to begin with. First, it makes no sense to date an event in Judaea by referring to a special command in a war in Asia. Why not simply name the actual legate in Syria? There is no reason to pass over the most obvious man and name another who has absolutely nothing to do with Judaea, much less a census there… Second, just because Quirinius was probably assigned a Syrian legion to fight bandits on the mountain border between Galatia and Cilicia, it does not follow that he had any kind of command in Syria…

Some are tempted to propose the notion that Luke made a mistake: that he really meant Publius Quinctilius Varus rather than Publius Sulpicius Quirinius. Of course, this would entail that Luke is wrong, and thus would admit that the text as we have it (which reads “Quirinius”) contradicts Matthew. And it fails to solve the census problem anyway (as discussed above).…

So there is no basis for imagining any scribal error in Luke. Certainly, if Luke borrowed his information from Josephus (cf. Luke and Josephus), then he clearly meant Quirinius. And it is not likely that Luke was mistaking the men, rather than making a mistake in writing the name: Quirinius is a cognomen [family name – VJT], but Quinctilius is a nomen [like a “nick name,” and similar to our middle name – VJT]…

One might try to argue that the census was actually not Roman at all, but conducted by Herod…. Had Herod conducted such a census on his own initiative, it would have been a truly remarkable event, and could not have escaped mention by historians such as Josephus. And Herod the Great enjoyed the greatest favor and freedom of any client king ever under Roman influence, so any Roman attempt to “force” Herod to run a census would have been even more inexplicable and unprecedented…

For the sake of completeness I will address an argument some Christian apologists advocate out of desperation to preserve Biblical infallibility, drawing on a particular work by Jack Finegan (Handbook of Biblical Chronology, rev. ed., 1998). This is the assertion that in fact Herod the Great was still living in 2 B.C., and since we do not know who was governing Syria then, it was “obviously” Quirinius. Besides having no evidence whatsoever for either fact (and thus it is an entirely ad hoc theory), the evidence we do have stands against such a thesis. For example, Josephus says, point blank, that Varus, not Quirinius, was governor when Herod died (Jewish War 1.9-10)…

There is no way to rescue the Gospels of Matthew and Luke from contradicting each other on this one point of historical fact. The contradiction is plain and irrefutable, and stands as proof of the fallibility of the Bible, as well as the falsehood of at least one of the two New Testament accounts of the birth of Jesus.

Of course, some apologists have proposed their own “solutions” to these difficulties. I discussed some of these proposals in a TSZ post, four years ago: maybe Josephus misdated the census of Quirinius (refuted here by Carrier), or maybe (as suggested in a 2009 article by Jared Compton) Quirinius actually governed Syria twice (first in a semi-official capacity from 3-2 B.C., and later, from 6-12 A.D., as Legate of Syria), and what Luke is really saying is that just before Quirinius was governor of Syria in 3–2 B.C., there was a census in Herod’s domain – a reading which Carrier argues makes no sense grammatically. After studying these attempts to preserve Luke’s accuracy as a historian, I have come to the conclusion that the solutions proposed by modern Christian apologists are desperately ad hoc and for the most part, historically misinformed.

Was Luke talking about a census or an oath of loyalty?

Bronze sculpture of The Orator, c. 100 B.C. Public domain. Image courtesy of Stockstad and Wikipedia.

But apologists don’t like to give up a case, particularly when the accuracy of the New Testament is at stake. In an article titled Quirinius: An Archaeological Biography (Bible Archaeology Report, December 19, 2019), Bryan Windle makes yet another attempt to rescue Luke’s accuracy:

As mentioned in the previous bioarchaeography of Caesar Augustus, he himself records a census that was begun in 8 BC, and another event in 2 BC in which the “entire Roman people” gave him the title of “Father of My Country.”[22] Josephus likely makes note of this event and says that 6000 pharisees refused to swear loyalty to Caesar. Some modern scholars have theorized that there was an empire-wide registration associated with this event, which would explain how Josephus knew there were 6000 pharisees who refused to take the oath to Caesar. One ancient writer – Orosius – likely referred to this registration when he wrote that census Luke refers to was the one in which all great nations took an oath of loyalty to Caesar and were “made part of one society.”[23]

However, Carrier has anticipated this objection, which is similar to one made by Jack Finegan, in his essay, and his response is devastating:

Finegan argues it [the event described by Luke – VJT] was when “the people of Rome” proclaimed Augustus Pater Patriae, “Father of his Country” (§ 525), but Finegan has badly erred here: this is a reference to a vote by Roman citizens, which would have nothing whatever to do with Judaeans. By confusing a vote with an oath-taking, Finegan conjures the false claim that Luke is referring to the registration of oaths of loyalty. Of course, this is already shot down by the fact that Herod was not alive in 2 B.C., as we’ve seen. And we have no record of such an oath in Judaea in that year or any year near it, despite the fact that Josephus usually records them: the last such oaths commanded by Herod were in 20 B.C.[17.4] and in 8 or 7 B.C.[17.5] Worse, this thesis is inherently implausible: Luke does not use the vocabulary of oath-swearing, nor does he describe such a process. For example, Joseph would not travel to Bethlehem if all he had to do was swear an oath of allegiance–that had to be done where he lived.[17.6]

Joseph’s journey only makes sense in the context of a census, where family land could require his presence (see second part of Luke’s Description of the Census above). Likewise, “that all that was inhabited be recorded,” using apographô as the verb, repeated again as the noun apographê, can only refer to a census: a register made for taxing. Indeed, the word does not even mean “count,” but “written up,” which meant a detailed record-making, and this term is never used in reference to registering oaths.

In the light of the evidence, I think the only conclusion an unbiased inquirer can reach is that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke contradict one another by an interval of ten years, when it comes to the date of Jesus’ birth.

Other difficulties with Luke’s account of the census

In his online article, Census of Quirinius, Professor J. F. McGrath outlines further problems with Luke’s account. Specifically: according to Luke 2:1-6, Joseph and his fiancee Mary had to register in the town of Bethlehem, in Judea, for the census under Quirinius. But if Mary and Joseph were from Nazareth, in Galilee, then the only likely reason why they would have had to register in faraway Bethlehem, in Judea, is that Joseph owned property there. (This is the explanation proposed by Dr. Richard Carrier, in a section of his essay titled, Luke’s Description of the Census.) But if that’s what Joseph did, then he wasn’t poor. So why does Luke portray Joseph and Mary as offering the sacrifice for poor people, when Jesus is presented in the Temple, 40 days after his birth? Also, why did Mary have to register for the census, along with Joseph? Why couldn’t she have stayed with her relatives, instead?

…[I]t is possible to maintain that Joseph had property in Bethlehem, and thus was only temporarily absent from there while living in Nazareth. But this attempted ‘solution’ simply raises another problem, namely why someone with property in Bethlehem is forced to rely on the hospitality of others when he goes there for the census. [That Joseph and Mary depended on the hospitality of others in Luke’s version of the story is clear, even though in Matthew’s version they are living in a house that is presumably their own. For the cultural background to the Lucan story follow THIS LINK]. And so Luke’s version, which has Joseph and Mary not only rely on the hospitality of others, but also offer the sacrifice the Law specified for those who were not wealthy (Luke 2:24; cf. Leviticus 5:7), excludes the one possible reason for the journey to have taken place: namely, the possibility that Joseph owned property in that area. Luke also tells us that Mary had relatives not far away, and so there is simply no reason why she should not have stayed with them, since women did not normally own property and were not required to register in the case of a census of this source.

We saw above that Dr. Carrier was inclined to give Luke the benefit of the doubt when he states that Jews would have had to return to their ancestral town, in order to register for the census. However, Carrier has no answer regarding the inconsistency that Professor McGrath highlights in the passage above, between Joseph’s wealth and his humble gift at the Temple, which would have made sense only if he was poor.

Does Luke contradict himself regarding the date of Jesus’ birth?

Unlike the vast majority of Biblical scholars, Dr. Carrier theorizes that the “Herod king of Judea” referred to in Luke 1:5 is not Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C., but his son Herod Archelaus, who was ethnarch of Samaria, Judea, and Idumea from 4 B.C. to 6 A.D. Carrier’s idiosyncratic view is that Jesus (assuming he existed) was probably born in 6 or 7 A.D. However, Carrier’s proposal requires him to date the start of Jesus’ ministry (when Jesus was “about thirty” according to Luke 3:23) to 34 or 35 A.D., several years after the start of John the Baptist’s ministry in 29 A.D. (Luke 3:1-2), putting Jesus’ death in 36 A.D. Virtually all Biblical scholars reject this proposal and date Jesus’ death to either 30 or 33 A.D. If they are right, then Jesus could not have been born in the year 6 A.D., and Luke’s chronology is not only mistaken, but internally inconsistent, as he places the birth of Jesus in the days of King Herod the Great (who died in 4 B.C.), while at the same time insisting that it occurred during the census under Quirinius in 6 A.D. Luke’s account of Jesus being born at the time of the census of Quirinius (in 6 A.D.) must therefore be mistaken.

To sum up: it looks as if Matthew’s stories of the Star of Bethlehem and Herod’s Massacre have no historical basis, and it also looks as if Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth during the census under Quirinius in 6 A.D. is mistaken, too. And if the Gospels cannot be trusted when narrating historical events, how much less should we trust them when narrating supernatural ones, such as the virginal conception of Jesus?

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6. Why the miracle of Jesus’ virginal conception is massively ad hoc, when viewed from a biological perspective, and why that weakens the historical evidence for the miracle

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The DNA double helix. Image courtesy of genome.gov. Public domain.

KEY POINTS There are no known cases of parthenogenesis occurring naturally among mammals, and even if there were any, the progeny would be female, not male. What’s more, any mammal that was created by parthenogenesis would have double doses of maternally imprinted genes and would lack paternally imprinted genes, which would probably result in developmental abnormalities. It is often said that the ancients were ignorant of human biology and unduly credulous regarding reports of miracles, but they certainly knew that it takes a man and a woman to make a baby, and even in the early days of Christianity, there were many skeptics who scoffed at the notion of a virgin conceiving. Recently, skeptics have raised the question, “Where did Jesus get his Y-chromosome?” Christians who answer that God made it, while Mary supplied the rest of Jesus’ genome, fail to realize that they are changing the traditional doctrine, according to which Jesus took his flesh entirely from Mary. Or as St. Paul puts it, “God sent His Son, made of a woman” (Galatians 4:4, KJV). The only orthodox solution is to say that God transformed one of Mary’s X-chromosomes into a Y-chromosome in the ovum from which Jesus developed, as well as adjusting the imprinting of Mary’s genes to make Jesus’ embryo like a normal male embryo. But the real difficulty with the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception from a scientific perspective is that in order to generate Jesus’ embryo, God would have had to make millions of purely arbitrary choices, when rearranging the genome of one of the Virgin Mary’s ova. This in turn makes the doctrine much more ad hoc than any rival, naturalistic explanation of Jesus’ conception and birth – which means that it is no longer possible to argue for the doctrine on historical grounds.

(i) Is a virginal conception (parthenogenesis) scientifically possible?

According to the Wikipedia article on parthenogenesis, there are no known cases among mammals, in nature, and if there were any such cases, they would be female:

There are no known cases of naturally occurring mammalian parthenogenesis in the wild. Parthenogenetic progeny of mammals would have two X chromosomes, and would therefore be female…

Induced parthenogenesis in mice and monkeys often results in abnormal development. This is because mammals have imprinted genetic regions, where either the maternal or the paternal chromosome is inactivated in the offspring in order for development to proceed normally. A mammal created by parthenogenesis would have double doses of maternally imprinted genes and lack paternally imprinted genes, leading to developmental abnormalities.

…[T]here have been no scientifically confirmed reports of a non-chimeric, clinically healthy human parthenote (i.e. produced from a single, parthenogenetic-activated oocyte).

In an article titled, The Science Behind Jesus’s Virgin Birth (December 27, 2015) at vice.com, reporter Mark Hay cites expert testimony showing that the notion of a woman who was a virgin giving birth to a child has no scientific basis:

“I have been asked [about the virgin birth] many times,” said Warren Booth, a leading expert in parthenogenesis at the University of Tulsa, “and honestly I can come up with no feasible explanation as to how a female that had abstained from intercourse could give birth to a child of either sex.”

Indeed, as Hay explains, to make the Biblical account scientifically plausible, one would have to bizarrely suppose that Mary was either a male-female genetic chimera or intersex:

In her 2012 book Like A Virgin, science writer Aarathi Prasad offers a couple [of] workarounds. One possibility, Prasad theorizes, is that Mary could have been a genetic chimera — meaning, formed from both male and female embryos—which would have meant she had Y chromosomal material that could have been absorbed into her theoretically self-created Christ child. Alternatively, Prasad offers, Mary could have been intersex — having both female and male genetic characteristics. Specifically, she could have been born with ovotestes, a condition in which a woman gets an X chromosome from her father that contains a sprinkle of Y chromosome, leading to the development of a hybrid ovary-testes organ. If Mary only manifested her male material in her gonads and, again, had a perfect balance of masculine and feminine tissues and hormones, her ovotestes could have produced sperm and eggs simultaneously, sending them down the fallopian tubes together, and resulting in fertilization and implantation within her functional uterus.

It goes without saying that the two scenarios described above are astronomically unlikely, and that neither has been observed in nature. Michael Alter has also pointed out that both scenarios would make Mary physically blemished, from a Biblical perspective.

Of course, the absence of scientific plausibility for the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception shouldn’t trouble devout Christians, as God, the Author of the laws of nature, is not bound by His own laws. Or as Christian apologist Jonathan Sarfati puts it in his article, The virginal conception of Christ at creation.com (first published in Apologia 3(2):4–11, 1994; last updated 24 December 2014), “if God made the heavens and the earth, a Virginal Conception is no trouble for Him.”

(ii) Did the scientific ignorance of the ancients make it easier for them to believe in the story of Jesus’ virginal conception?

In his article, Debunking the Nativity: The Male Genome (December 10, 2016) at “A Tippling Philosopher” blog, author Jonathan M.S. Pearce provides a brief overview of what people in antiquity believed about human reproduction:

The understanding of how the whole biology of reproduction took place was woefully inadequate as an accurate representation of reality. The Greeks had done some thinking on the subject. The preformationists believed that the father was like the plough and the mother the field. This meant that the seed and all the ‘genetic’ material was delivered by the father with the mother merely providing the milieu in which the development took place.

Later, Aristotle, based on research into animals, and recognising that children could look like more distant relatives, moved the thinking on a little. He believed the mother provided the material cause whilst the father provided the moving cause.

On Aristotle’s male-centered view, “females served only to nourish what a male had created,” as Anne Crowther puts it in an online review titled, “Hot seeds, cold wombs” (Times Literary Supplement, August 23 & 30, 2019). However, Aristotle’s theory was far from being universally accepted. Hippocrates of Kos (c.460 – c.370 B.C.), the father of medicine, realized that mothers make a contribution to their offspring as well. The Roman physician Galen (129 – c.210 A.D.) held to a similar view. However, the human ovum was not identified by scientists until the year 1827, when it was seen under a microscope for the first time by Karl Ernst von Baer.

In any case, Pearce’s objection that the ancients knew little about how babies were made has little force. As Christian apologist Jonathan Sarfati observes in his article, The virginal conception of Christ at creation.com (first published in Apologia 3(2):4–11, 1994; last updated 24 December 2014),

…the ancients knew very well how babies are made — needing both a man and a woman, although they did not know certain details about spermatozoa and ova. In fact, Joseph (Mt. 1:19) and Mary (Lk. 1:34) questioned the announcements of the Virginal Conception because they did know the facts of life, not because they did not!

I might add that skepticism about Jesus’ virginal conception is almost as old as Christianity itself. Back in the second century (c. 177 A.D.), the pagan Roman philosopher Celsus accused Jesus of having been born illegitimate and of fabricating the story of his birth from a virgin. Here is how Origen summarizes Celsus’ accusations against Jesus (Contra Celsum, Book 1, chapter 28):

For he represents him disputing with Jesus, and confuting Him, as he thinks, on many points; and in the first place, he accuses Him of having “invented his birth from a virgin,” and upbraids Him with being “born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a God.”

Celsus also quoted the testimony of an unnamed Jew who alleged that Mary “bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera” – a story which Origen roundly rejected as a fable (Contra Celsum, Book 1, chapter 32). Regardless of whether one believes Celsus’ accusation or not, it gives the lie to the oft-repeated claim that the ancients were credulous and highly prone to believing in miracles.

(iii) Where did Jesus get his Y-chromosome?

“Like his brothers in every respect”: Pearce’s appeal to Hebrews 2:17

In his article, Debunking the Nativity: The Male Genome (December 10, 2016) at “A Tippling Philosopher” blog, author Jonathan M.S. Pearce discusses the possibility that Jesus’ “magically fused with Mary’s egg (or indeed another supernatural egg implanted into Mary) to make a fully workable genetic sequence.” Pearce argues that this solution is problematic on two grounds: first, it “invalidates the claim that Jesus was fully man, since he was clearly half-God,” and second, it “prompts the question as to what criteria were used for deciding such a genome.”

In connection with his first point, Pearce cites Hebrews 2:17 (“Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people”) in an attempt to argue that someone whose genes came from God wouldn’t be truly human. However, his argument proves too much, as the same argument could be used to show that Adam would not have been human either, had he been created by God from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7) and had he grown up without a father or mother. Even theists who reject creationism as unscientific would nevertheless agree that God could have made the first human beings that way, had He so wished, and that these people would have been none the less human for having been created directly by God.

Lincoln on our common humanity with Jesus and the inadequate rationale for his virginal conception

However, Professor Andrew Lincoln, in a paper titled, “Conceiving Jesus: re-examining Jesus’ conception in canon, Christology and creed” (a talk given to The Severn Forum on March 5, 2015) argues that in Jesus’ particular case, either God’s creation of Jesus’ entire genome de novo or His creation of the genes that would normally be contributed by a male creates a host of theological difficulties: either Jesus had no genetic connection with the rest of the human race, or he had a connection (through his X-chromosome) that was just as tainted as ours, making a virginal conception a complete waste of time. [These arguments would not apply to the creation of Adam, as he was the founder of the human race.] In the end, Lincoln arrives at the same conclusion as Pearce – that if Jesus was conceived virginally, then he was not fully human (Hebrews 2:17):

According to our present knowledge, to be a fully human male Jesus would have needed an X chromosome from Mary and a Y chromosome from a human father.[2] Some recent defenders of a literal virginal conception would accept this but reply, “Well, God must have supplied de novo either the genes that had come from a male or both sets of genes.” But both options fail to meet the problem. In the latter case – both sets – Mary would have been simply the surrogate mother of this embryo, which would have no real continuity with the human race to this point, although it could have been a copy of a human being with its genetic endowments. In the former case, if God miraculously supplied a human Y chromosome without sexual contact, what was the point of the miracle and what is the message it conveys about sexuality? Why not use that of Joseph or some other male through the normal means? If the further response is that this was a Y chromosome untainted by previous genetic traits so that Jesus could be the beginning of a new creation, then two further objections remain. Does Jesus then really and fully share the human condition he was to redeem and why could a normal X chromosome be employed, which would have been tainted by previous genetic traits? A traditional answer to the latter question would be to appeal to the immaculate conception of Mary herself, but that logically involves an infinite regress of immaculate conceptions (p. 8)

The point should be clear. Given what we now understand about reproduction, a literal virginal conception means that Jesus would not “have become like his brothers and sisters in every respect” (Heb. 2:17).

In a later section of his article, Professor Lincoln points out what he describes as “another major irony about the contemporary defence of the virginal conception that holds that God supplied the male Y chromosome”:

Those who propose this don’t appear to realise that they are in fact changing the traditional doctrine. Whereas previously God provided the animating spark through the Spirit and Mary supplied the human substance, now God has to supply part of the human substance, part of Jesus’ humanity. (p. 8)

An orthodox response to Lincoln

It seems to me that Professor Lincoln makes a very powerful case here, but orthodox Christians have a couple of replies available to them. First, Lincoln mis-characterizes the traditional Christian belief about original sin: he seems to be under the mistaken impression that it was traditionally thought to be transmitted genetically from Adam to his descendants, making our genes “tainted.” Now, if this were indeed the case, then as Lincoln rightly points out, nothing but a de novo creation of Jesus’ genes would free him from the taint of original sin – but at the same time, such an act would genetically sever Jesus from the rest of the human race. But is Lincoln correct on this point? It is certainly true that many Christians have linked Jesus’ freedom from original sin to his virginal conception, as Catholic Biblical scholar Fr. Raymond Brown acknowledges in his inaugural address, The Problem of the Virginal Conception of Jesus, delivered at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on November 28, 1971. Brown traces the history of this line of thinking back to the late fourth century:

Ambrose and Augustine, the Fathers of the Western Church who figured prominently in developing the theology of original sin, explained that Jesus was free from sin because he was conceived of a virgin.[31] Behind this explanation lies the thesis that the transmission of original sin is bound up with the sexual nature of human propagation and the sensual appetites aroused by procreation. (1971, p. 15)

In a footnote on the same page [31], Brown notes: “While the Greek Fathers did not deal with this matter in terms of original sin, they too related the moral perfection and sinlessness of Jesus to his virginal conception.” However, he adds that “even the defenders of the traditional understanding of the concept [of original sin – VJT] have for the most part abandoned the ‘concupiscence theory’ of the propagation of sin” (1971, p. 15), before concluding that “it is difficult to argue that in order to be free from original sin Jesus had to be conceived of a virgin [32]” (1971, p. 16).

Indeed, many Christians today would argue that original sin is passed down spiritually, not genetically. As Bodie Hodge of Answers in Genesis helpfully explains, “original sin … is passed along spiritually by virtue that all are descendants of Adam. But God withheld original sin from entering Christ in the womb.” In that case, Jesus’ inheriting an X-chromosome from his mother Mary does not automatically render him “tainted,” after all.

Second, orthodox Christians could argue that God did not create Jesus’ Y-chromsome, but simply transformed one of Mary’s X-chromosomes into a Y-chromosome in the ovum from which Jesus developed, as well as adjusting the imprinting of Mary’s genes, so as to make Jesus’ embryo just like a normal male embryo. As we’ll see below, however, this solution has problems of its own.

A final observation I’d like to make is that Lincoln’s argument against Jesus’ virginal conception in the passage above is based on theological reasoning about the impropriety of God’s creating Jesus’ Y-chromosome, rather than scientific reasoning as such.

Nevertheless, Jonathan M. S. Pearce makes (in passing) an additional argument relating to Jesus’ Y-chromosome, which relies quite heavily on mathematical and scientific reasoning. Pearce’s argument consists of a parenthetical remark, that Jesus’ virginal conception raises the question as to “what criteria were used for deciding such a genome.” I shall develop this question into a proper argument below. What my argument demonstrates is not that the Virgin birth never happened, but that the historical evidence adduced for Jesus’ virginal conception is manifestly insufficient to overcome the ad hoc character of this particular miracle. It is to this argument that we now turn.

(iv) Why a virginal conception would have been massively ad hoc, from a biological perspective

French ivory sculpture of the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus. Louvre Museum, Paris. 13th century. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

There is a vital difference between explaining what happened and explaining how it happened. With regard to Jesus’ virginal conception, there is no reason to suppose that scientists should be able to do the latter, but they should certainly be able to to the former. What did God do, when He caused Mary to conceive supernaturally?

The point I am making here is that if you had asked an early Christian what God actually did when bringing about the miracle of Jesus’ virginal conception, they would have simply answered: “He did the work that a male seed normally does.” More specifically, they would have believed that God, acting like a human father, shaped Jesus’ embryo as a sculptor shapes stone, guiding its development. Different opinions were held about precisely when the embryo received its structure, but that was the general idea.

What we know today (and what the Greeks and Romans didn’t) is that living things are made up of cells, which were not identified until the 17th century. That adds a whole layer of complexity to living things, as there are 37 trillion cells in an adult human body. To be sure, each of us develops from a single cell: a fertilized ovum. But what we now know is that DNA serves as the basis of heredity, and that the DNA in a single human body cell is made up of roughly 3,000,000,000 base pairs, where only four bases can be used: A (adenosine), G (guanine), T (thymine) and C (cytosine). About 99.9 per cent of these base pairs are shared by all human beings, but that still leaves about 3,000,000 base pairs that may vary between any two human individuals, and this variation is largely random.

That means that in order to make Jesus’ embryo, God would have had to make millions of random choices. This is very different from sculpting a statue. An artist, when faced with an array of possible options for the size and shape of a body part, might simply go with the default choice: whatever is found in most human beings. An alternative approach would be to go for the human average. But when it comes to a random sequence of bases, there is no default to fall back on. Nor is there any “average” of A, G, T and C.

What all this means is that Jesus’ virginal conception requires God to make millions of ad hoc choices, without any particular rhyme or reason. And that realization should influence our evaluation of the historical evidence for Jesus’ virginal conception. When an alleged miracle becomes massively ad hoc, we should start questioning whether it actually happened. That’s why we no longer believe in a global Biblical Flood: we now realize that to make it work, God would have had to have done a huge amount of extra work, including working lots of miracles which Scripture never even hints at (e.g. making the Earth’s excess heat go away, after the Flood).

So my first question is: now that we know that the virginal conception of Jesus is even more ad hoc than the miracle of a global Flood would have been (as it involves God making millions of random choices), should we continue to give it credence?

An apologist might reply that the analogy between the Genesis Flood (which requires a host of extra miracles in addition to the Flood itself) and the virginal conception of Jesus is a flawed one, since none of these ad hoc choices in selecting Jesus’ genome would have required a miracle, and that the only miracle involved would have been God’s massive rearrangement of the genome of one of the Virgin Mary’s ova. Fair enough. But I have another question for the apologist.

Any miracle we ascribe to God should at least have the merit of providing an explanation which has greater unifying power and is less ad hoc than rival naturalistic explanations. For example, Dr. William Lane Craig rejects naturalistic explanations of the Resurrection of Jesus precisely because he thinks they all involve making ad hoc assumptions (e.g. about what happened to Jesus’ body), which the miraculous explanation (God raised Jesus from the dead) neatly avoids. In that case, since the miracle of Jesus’ virginal conception is massively ad hoc (as we’ve seen), how can it possibly be superior to any rival naturalistic hypothesis, on explanatory grounds? And if it isn’t, then why should we continue to believe it?

I conclude that science has effectively undermined any historical case that could be made in favor of Jesus’ virginal conception, by rendering it massively ad hoc and thus evidentially unsupportable.

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7. Are contemporary historical defenses of Jesus’ virginal conception on historical grounds convincing, and if not, how might the doctrine plausibly have arisen?

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The Rt Revd N T (Tom) Wright delivering the James Gregory Lecture, “Can a scientist believe in the resurrection”, St Andrews, Thursday 20 December 2007. Image courtesy of Gareth Saunders and Wikipedia.

KEY POINTS In this section, I examine what I consider to be the best contemporary defense of the historicity of Jesus’ virginal conception, by Biblical scholar N. T. Wright. Wright’s three-step argument proceeds as follows. First, miracles are a real possibility. (Wright’s book-length study, The Resurrection of the Son of God, has convinced him of this fact.) Second, the Gospel story of Jesus being born of a virgin has no intellectual precedent, in either Jewish tradition (which contained no expectation of a virginal conception) or pagan myths (which are nothing like the “fiercely Jewish” accounts we find in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke). Finally, if the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ virginal conception are mere inventions, than how did we end up with two such divergent accounts as those we find in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels, within the space of just fifty years? Wright concludes that the skeptical hypothesis that belief in Jesus’ virginal conception arose (and diversified) spontaneously within such a short period is tantamount to “intellectual parthenogenesis” – which is almost as much of a miracle as the real thing! In reply, it seems to me that Wright commits Fallacy #1 which I identified in the Introduction above: that of assuming that world-changing beliefs never arise spontaneously. Contrary to what Wright assumes, strange beliefs can and sometimes do arise “out of the blue.” The other main flaw in Wright’s argument is one that I identified as Fallacy #2 in my Introduction: confusing the motivation for a story with the model used to create a story, and confusing the origination of a belief with the confirmation of that belief. The motivation for the story of Jesus’ virginal conception probably came from pagan converts to Christianity, who were accustomed to hearing stories about the miraculous conception and birth of their emperors, and who may well have reasoned that Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, must have had an even more miraculous conception and birth. However, the model used to create the story could not have been pagan, as pagan stories of miraculous conceptions usually involve a god having sexual intercourse with a young woman – a scenario which Jews and Christians alike would have rejected as anthropomorphic. Instead, Jewish models appear to have been used: in Matthew’s case, the conception and birth of Samson (Judges 13) and first-century Jewish folk stories about the birth of Moses; and in Luke’s case, the conception and birth of Samuel (1 Samuel 1 and 2). A skillful storyteller would have easily been able to “revamp” one of these narratives into an account of the conception, birth and infancy of Jesus. However, such a miraculous story would never have won any credence among Christian believers without some sort of confirmation that it was true. In the absence of any historical confirmation from Jesus’ own family, nothing less than Divine confirmation would have been deemed necessary. To pagan converts to Christianity, Isaiah 7:14, which appears to foretell a virginal conception in the Greek Septuagint version of the Bible that they would have been accustomed to (“Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us’”), would have served as that confirmation, but only in retrospect. However, as late as the fourth century, there were Jewish converts to Christianity who maintained that this verse did not refer to a virginal conception, and that Jesus was conceived naturally.

Having discredited the historical evidence for Jesus’ virginal conception, it remains for me to examine whether any kind of case can be mounted for the doctrine, on historical grounds. There are some Christian apologists who freely acknowledge that we do not possess any good evidence for Jesus’ virginal conception, but nevertheless argue that the best explanation for early Christian belief in Jesus’ virginal conception is that it is based on an actual historical memory of the event, within the early Christian community. Here, I shall focus my investigation on what I consider to be the best contemporary defense along these lines of the historicity of Jesus’ virginal conception, by Biblical scholar N. T. Wright, and I shall endeavor to show that it is unconvincing. I will then argue that contrary to Wright’s claims, it is not too difficult to formulate a plausible secular hypothesis as to how belief in the miracle might have arisen.

(a) Wright’s three-step argument for the historicity of the tradition relating to Jesus’ virginal conception

In an article titled, Suspending scepticism: History and the Virgin Birth (December 28, 2011), written for the ABC Religion & Ethics blog, Biblical scholar N. T. Wright argues eloquently for the historicity of Jesus’ virginal conception. Wright takes as his starting point his conviction (which he defends in his book, The Resurrection of the Son of God) that Jesus is truly risen from the dead. This means that miracles are a live possibility. What is special about Jesus is that his coming into the world brings “Israel’s story to its climax.” Next, Wright argues that the Gospel story of Jesus being born of a virgin has no intellectual precedent, in either Jewish tradition (which contained no expectation of a virginal conception) or pagan mythology (otherwise we would not expect them to be so “fiercely Jewish”). Lastly, if the stories of Jesus’ being born of a virgin are inventions, then how did we end up with two such different accounts by the time Matthew and Luke’s Gospel were written?

My argument… works in three stages.

First, the position I have reached about the resurrection and incarnation of Jesus opens the door to reconsidering what we would otherwise probably dismiss. “Miracle,” in the sense of divine intervention “from outside,” is not in question.

What matters is the powerful, mysterious presence of the God of Israel, the creator God, bringing Israel’s story to its climax by doing a new thing, bringing the story of creation to its height by a new creation from the womb of the old. Whether or not it happened, this is what it would mean if it did.

Second, there is no pre-Christian Jewish tradition suggesting that the messiah would be born of a virgin. No one used Isaiah 7:14 this way before Matthew did. Even assuming that Matthew or Luke regularly invented material to fit Jesus into earlier templates, why would they have invented something like this?

The only conceivable parallels are pagan ones, and these fiercely Jewish stories have certainly not been modelled on them. Luke at least must have known that telling this story ran the risk of making Jesus out to be a pagan demigod. Why, for the sake of an exalted metaphor, would they take this risk – unless they at least believed the stories to be literally true?

Third, if the evangelists believed them to be true, when and by whom were they invented, if by the time of Matthew and Luke two such different, yet so compatible, stories were in circulation?

(b) My reply to Wright’s three-step argument

Before I examine the validity of Wright’s argument, I’d like to call readers’ attention to a central assumption that it makes: that there has to be an explanation of how the idea of Jesus’ virginal conception came to be accepted by Christians in the first place. To believe that no explanation is required, argues Wright, is to “believe in intellectual parthenogenesis: the birth of an idea without visible parentage” – a notion which strikes Wright as so absurd that he mockingly compares it to belief in miracles. It should be immediately apparent that Wright’s argument commits a fallacy – namely, Fallacy #1 in our list of fallacies in the Introduction above, or the notion that world-changing beliefs never arise “out of the blue.” As we saw with the case of the Taiping Rebellion, which took the lives of 30 million people in the biggest war of the 19th century, beliefs that change the course of history can and sometimes do arise for the most trivial of reasons. In the case of the Taiping Rebellion, Hong Xiuquan’s belief that he was the younger brother of Jesus, which fired up his followers in China, arose as a result of some delirious visions he had while bedridden in 1837, coupled with the fact that he just happened to come across a pamphlet written by a Christian missionary several years later, which (he thought) gave him the key to understanding his visions. We can trace how Hong’s strange belief arose, but only because we live in the modern age. Had Hong’s rebellion taken place in the ninth century instead of the nineteenth (yes, there were Christians in China back then), it is highly doubtful whether historians today would be able to identify the causes of Hong’s sudden conviction that he was Jesus’ younger brother, and it would strike us as a case of “intellectual parthenogenesis.” So even if the skeptic has no explanation of how Christians came to believe in Jesus’ virginal conception, he is perfectly entitled to answer, “So what? I don’t need one.”

It is curious that in his article, Wright makes no mention of the theory, popular in some scholarly circles (see here and here, for instance), that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception arose as a counter-polemic to accusations that Jesus was conceived out of wedlock, whether because Mary had a clandestine affair before she got married to Joseph or because she was raped by Roman soldiers. I discuss this theory below in part (c) of my Appendix, where I reject it on the grounds that the Pharisees are depicted as interacting with Jesus (something they would never have done if he was illegitimate), as well as the fact that he was invited to read in the synagogue in his home town (which illegitimate offspring were not allowed to do). Finally, the early tradition that Jesus was a descendant of David (found in Romans 1:3-4) could never have arisen if there had been any suspicion that Jesus’ birth was illegitimate. Professor James McGrath of Butler University, Indianapolis, covers all of these points in his article, “Was Jesus illegitimate? The evidence of his social interactions” (Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 5.1 (2007): 81-100).

Let us now examine the three premises of Wright’s argument. Even if we grant Wright his first premise, that Jesus rose from the dead, it would be fallacious to infer the occurrence of a separate miracle from this fact – especially one which allegedly occurred more than thirty years prior to the Resurrection of Christ. The virginal conception must be argued for on its own merits.

Wright’s third premise is also contestable. As we’ve seen, the two stories are not compatible (contrary to Wright’s claim) and there is no reason to believe that they are independent either. Here, Wright commits Fallacy #6 in our list of fallacies in the Introduction above: the belief that Matthew and Luke’s Gospels provide independent attestation of Jesus’ virginal conception. They don’t. As Jan Vansina, an expert on oral tradition, points out in a passage I quoted at length above, “No one will consider the three synoptic Gospels as independent sources, even though they have different authors… they stemmed from one single oral milieu, from one corpus in one community” (Oral Tradition as History, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 1985, p. 159). Additionally, as we saw in part 4(b) above, Professor Mark Goodacre has argued that Luke is not an independent witness to Jesus’ virginal conception, but rather, the author of a theological counter-narrative, written in reply to Matthew’s Gospel. If he is right, then that leaves us with only one original source of the story of Jesus being born of a virgin (Matthew).

In any case, what’s not disputed is that both Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ miraculous conception were written several decades after the events they describe: about fifty years afterwards, according to most scholars. Fifty years is certainly long anough for two divergent accounts to spring up: as we saw in part 1 above, miraculous legends can grow up in as little as ten years.

As I see it, what’s wrong with Wright’s second premise is that it fails to disentangle three separate questions: (i) what was the impetus for the story of Jesus’ virginal conception? (ii) what was the model for the story of Jesus’ virginal conception? (iii) what served as confirmation of the story, once it had been written? Wright also makes the error of assuming that the story of Jesus being born of a virgin had a single origin: either Jewish or pagan. (In failing to distinguish these questions, Wright commits Fallacy #2 in our list of fallacies in the Introduction above.) What I am proposing is that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception was critically dependent on both Judaism and paganism: on the former for its original model (in the Jewish Scriptures), and on the latter for its theological impetus. Finally, confirmation of the story came from the Greek Septuagint version of Isaiah 7:14. This confirmation would have impressed pagan converts to Christianity (but probably not many Jewish ones).

Regarding the impetus for the story of Jesus’ virginal conception, I completely agree with Wright that Jewish converts to Christianity would not have had any such expectation, because of the prevailing Christian belief (shared by many Jews in the first century A.D.) that the Messiah had to be a descendant of David, coupled with the fact that in Judaism, lines of descent were traced from father to son. This would necessitate Jesus’ having a human biological father (presumably, Joseph). Also, as Wright points out, “there is no pre-Christian Jewish tradition suggesting that the messiah would be born of a virgin.” Instead, what I would propose is that the impetus for the story of Jesus’ virginal conception came from pagan converts to Christianity, who would have expected and even demanded a miraculous birth for Jesus. To a pagan mind, the question would have been: how could he not have had one? After all, some of their own emperors, such as Augustus, were said to have been conceived supernaturally. Wouldn’t the conception and birth of Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, have been even more grand? The early Christian Father Origen (185-254 A.D.), in his four-volume work, Contra Celsum (Book 1, chapter 35), espouses this line of thinking in the following passage, where he argues that it was more fitting that the Savior, Immanuel (“God with us”), should be born of a virgin:

And which of the two is the more appropriate as the mother of Immanuel (i.e., God with us) — whether a woman who has had intercourse with a man, and who has conceived after the manner of women, or one who is still a pure and holy virgin? Surely it is appropriate only to the latter to produce a being at whose birth it is said, God with us.

In a similar vein, the fourth-century Latin hymn Veni, Redemptor Gentium (“Come thou, Redeemer of the Earth”) by the Christian bishop and theologian, St. Ambrose of Milan (c. 397 A.D.), declares in its opening stanza that a Virgin Birth is the birth that “fits a God”:

Come, Thou Redeemer of the earth,
Come, testify Thy Virgin-birth:
All lands admire, — all times applaud;
Such is the birth that fits a God.

It also seems to me that Wright wants to have it both ways, regarding the alleged pagan antecedents of Jesus’ virginal conception: on the one hand, he argues that the tawdry myth of Augustus’s virginal conception is nothing like the quintessentially Jewish narratives of Jesus’ conception and birth that we find in the Gospels, but on the other hand, Wright contends that the pagan parallels would have been strong enough to deter the Gospel authors from including them in their gospels, unless they knew that the miraculous event that they were narrating (i.e. Jesus’ virginal conception) actually happened. Both arguments cannot be correct.

I mentioned above that Jewish Christians would have had a contrary expectation, as they were looking for a Messiah who was from the line of David. So how did belief in Jesus’ virginal conception get off the ground, given that Christianity was originally a Jewish religion? Also, if members of Jesus’ family (such as James) were still alive, wouldn’t they have shot down the proposal that Jesus’ mother conceived him virginally? What I would suggest is that the belief most likely arose outside Palestine, at a time when members of Jesus’ immediate family had passed away (i.e. some time after the martyrdom of James, the brother of Jesus, in 62 A.D.), and at a time when the early Christian Church was mostly made up of Gentiles. After the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the church in Palestine would have been a shadow of its former self, and in the predominantly Gentile Church that survived, the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception may well have found a more fertile milieu.

However, the model for the story of Jesus being born of a virgin was not a pagan model but a Jewish one. Indeed, the pagan accounts of women impregnated by gods are quite unlike the narratives of Jesus’ birth that we find in Mathew’s and Luke’s Gospels – a point which even Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman (who is an agnostic) freely acknowledges in his blog article, “Widespread Claims of Pagan Virgin Births” (December 29, 2014). The most likely reason why the early Christians rejected the pagan miraculous birth narratives as models for their account of Jesus’ miraculous birth is that they generally involved a god having sexual intercourse with a young woman: something unthinkable for Christians who believed in an incorporeal, transcendent Deity. Within the early Christian community, a conscious decision was therefore made to look elsewhere for inspiration. That inspiration came from the Biblical accounts of the births of Samson and Samuel (both of whose mothers were said to have conceived miraculously, as they were well past childbearing age when they gave birth) and Moses (who was the subject of many Jewish myths, back in the first century, as we discussed above in part 5). These accounts were adapted and fashioned into an account of the conception, birth and infancy of Jesus.

(c) But why was Jesus said to have had a virginal conception?

Left: The oldest known icon of Christ the Savior (Pantokrator), from Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai. 6th-century.
Right: Bust of the emperor Caesar Augustus wearing the Civic Crown, at Glyptothek, Munich. Images courtesy of Wikipedia.

Here, however, a difficulty presents itself. The Jewish Bible has several stories of miraculous conceptions, but no virginal ones, as noted by Professor John Dominic Crossan in his 2003 essay, Virgin mother or bastard child? (HTS Theological Studies 59(3):663-691):

Virginity is strikingly unusual against the general biblical tradition of extraordinary conceptions where a child is specially marked for future greatness by being born to aged and/or infertile parents. The classical examples are Isaac in Gen 17:15-21 & 21:1-3 (old age), Jacob in Gen 25:21 (infertility), Reuben in Gen 29:31-32 (lack of love), Joseph in Gen 30:1-3,22-24 (infertility), Samson in Judg 13:2-25 (infertility), Samuel in 1 Sam 1:1-20 (infertility). In those cases, it is God who opens and shuts the womb for miraculous conception but there is no suggestion of virginal conception. (2003, p. 687)

So why was Jesus said to have had a virginal conception? An obvious suggestion, considered by Crossan, is that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception was invented as a form of theological one-upmanship, as a way of showing that Jesus’ conception was even more remarkable than that of the prophet, John the Baptist, whose mother, Elizabeth, was past the age of childbearing when she conceived him:

You can see clearly from the parallelism of John and Jesus in Luke 1-2, that the virginal conception of Jesus is intended to exalt it over the miraculous conception of John and thereby over the entire biblical tradition summarized in the Baptist’s aged and infertile parents.[31] (2003, p. 687)

At the same time, Crossan acknowledges that ascribing a virginal conception to Jesus would have run the risk of laying Jesus open to accusations of being “a bastard,” since “a child born of an aged and/or infertile mother is visibly known, empirically evident, legally provable, and socially undeniable while one born of a virginal mother can be believed only at that mother’s positive statement and the father’s negative one” (2003, p. 687). So, why would the early Christians have been willing to run that risk? The answer proposed by Crossan is a political one: the stories were a way of showing, clearly and unmistakably, that Christ is greather than Caesar. The first Roman emperor, Augustus, was said to have had a miraculous, though non-virginal conception: according to one legend, his mother conceived him after being impregnated by a serpent while she was sleeping. The stories of Jesus being born of a virgin were written from a thoroughly Jewish perspective, but with a political agenda, as a way of countering Rome’s ideological dominance and its emperors’ claims to divinity: they highlight the fact that Jesus, whose conception was not only miraculous but virginal, is superior to the Roman emperor. Concludes Crossan: “Divinity and virginity were dangerous claims for Jesus’ conception but they were also one way to oppose and transcend imperial claims for divinity and non-virginity” (2003, p. 689).

The stories of Jesus’ virginal conception also had a deeper theological meaning, which Professor Geza Vermes calls attention to in his essay, Face to faith (The Guardian, December 16, 2006):

Luke and Matthew stress that Jesus’ conception by a virgin through the Holy Spirit outshines all other miraculous conceptions in the Bible. By placing their wonderful infancy narratives at the beginning, Matthew and Luke intended to intimate to their gentile audience that Jesus was not only the Messiah, but also God’s son, not just figuratively in the Jewish sense, but really by nature.

At the same time, the early Christians went to great pains to emphasize that Christians were obedient subjects of the Roman empire: hence the Biblical injunction (Matthew 22:15-22, Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-26) to “render unto Caesar”; hence Jesus’ statement (John 18:36) that “My kingdom is not of this world”; hence St. Paul’s insistence that “there is no authority except from God” (Romans 13:1). While placing Christ above Caesar, the early Christians also enjoined submission to Caesar, which undoubtedly facilitated the propagation of their religion within the Roman Empire.

However, such a miraculous story about Jesus’ conception would never have won any credence among the Christian community as a whole without some sort of confirmation that it was true. In the absence of any historical confirmation from Jesus’ own family, nothing less than Divine confirmation would have been deemed necessary. Pagan converts to Christianity may have combed the Scriptures for hints of Jesus’ supernatural birth. The “discovery” of Isaiah 7:14, which appears to foretell a virginal conception in the Greek Septuagint version of the Bible that the early Christians would have used (“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel”), must have seemed like a heaven-sent seal of approval for the virgin birth stories that would have been circulating back then.

(d) Wright’s concluding statement

Wright wraps up his case by demolishing the skeptical proposal that Christian belief in the virginal conception of Jesus had its origins in a fictionalized, metaphorical account of Jesus’ birth. Wright argues :

This is how it would look: Christians came to believe that Jesus was in some sense divine. Someone who shared this faith broke thoroughly with Jewish precedents and invented the story of a pagan-style virginal conception. Some Christians failed to realize that this was historicized metaphor, and retold it as though it were historical. Matthew and Luke, assuming historicity, drew independently upon this astonishing fabrication, set it (though in quite different ways) within a thoroughly Jewish context, and wove it in quite different ways into their respective narratives.

And all this happened within, more or less, fifty years. Possible? Yes, of course. Most things are possible in history. Likely? No.

Smoke without fire does, of course, happen quite often in the real world. But this smoke, in that world, without fire? This theory asks us to believe in intellectual parthenogenesis: the birth of an idea without visible parentage. Difficult – unless, of course, you believe in miracles, which most people who disbelieve the virginal conception don’t.

In reply: there is no need for a skeptic to postulate that the stories of Jesus’ virginal conception went through an initial phase where they were regarded as allegory, before being accepted as factual. On the contrary, it is quite plausible to suppose that the virginal conception was believed literally from the get-go. Regarding how the stories of Jesus’ virginal conception came to be accepted as historical and not merely metaphorical, I have already argued that to pagan (not Jewish) converts to Christianity, the Greek Septuagint text of Isaiah 7:14 (“Behold, a virgin shall conceive…”) might well have provided the confirmation they needed, that the stories of Jesus’ being born of a virgin were indeed true. However, Hebrew-speaking Jewish converts would not have been convinced – which perhaps explains why St. Justin Martyr, writing c. 165 A.D., appears to acknowledge the existence of Jewish Christians who rejected the doctrine in his Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 48. Commenting on this fact in his essay, The Problem of the Virginal Conception of Jesus (an inaugural address given at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on November 28, 1971), Fr. Raymond Brown remarks in a footnote (#47, p. 21): “Justin’s tone seems to indicate that these Jewish Christians were not considered out-and-out heretics.” Professor Andrew Lincoln, in a paper titled, “Conceiving Jesus: re-examining Jesus’ conception in canon, Christology and creed” (a talk given to The Severn Forum on March 5, 2015), explains that differing interpretations of Isaiah 7:14 lay at the heart of this theological difference of opinion: “Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho (43,48,66-68,100) concedes that there are Jewish Christians who hold that Jesus had a natural birth but he himself is convinced of the virginal conception tradition primarily because of his view of prophecy.” Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 3.21.1, 5.1.3) and Tertullian (Carn. Chr. 14, 18) also mention these Christians, who were called Ebionites. Professor Lincoln observes: “Epiphanius is still worried about refuting this view in the fourth century.”

To sum up: despite Wright’s puzzlement as to how Christians came to believe in Jesus’ virginal conception, it is not too difficult to construct a plausible account as to how such a belief may have arisen. But the larger point that needs to be made here is that no such account is required: strange beliefs can and do sometimes arise “out of the blue.”

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THE PROPHETIC ARGUMENTS FOR JESUS’ VIRGINAL CONCEPTION

8. Are there any Biblical prophecies of Jesus’ virginal conception?

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Biblical illustration of the Book of Isaiah, chapter 7. Image courtesy of Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing and Wikipedia.

KEY POINTS The only prophecy in the Bible that has ever been cited in support of the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception is Isaiah 7:14, a prophecy addressed to King Ahaz of Judah (c. 735-720 B.C.) and quoted in the Gospel of Matthew (1:23), and in which God promises to give King Ahaz a sign: the virgin [or young woman] will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. So, which is it? Virgin or young woman? The answer is: young woman. In the words of Dr. Clifford Hubert Durousseau, a former member of the Chicago Biblical Research Society and the Society of Biblical Literature, “Almah as ‘young woman’ is not a non-Christian or Jewish translation: it is the correct translation… [T]he Greek Gospel of Matthew based its proof-from-prophecy upon a term which Isaiah did not use.” (Isaiah 7:14b in New Major Christian Bible Translations, Jewish Bible Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 3, 2013, p. 178). Christian scholars agree. The NET Bible (New English Translation), a free on-line English translation of the Bible with over 60,000 translators’ notes, published in 2005 and sponsored by the Biblical Studies Foundation, translates Isaiah 7:14 as follows: For this reason the Lord himself will give you a confirming sign. Look, this young woman is about to conceive and will give birth to a son. You, young woman, will name him Immanuel. Matthew appears to have been quoting from the Greek (Septuagint) translation of the Hebrew Bible (“Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son…”), but it turns out that the Greek word for “virgin” (parthenos) did not always mean “virgin”: it once had a broader meaning, back in 200 B.C., when it simply meant “young woman.” (For instance, in Genesis 34:2-4, Shechem raped Dinah, the daughter of the patriarch Jacob, yet the Septuagint refers to her as a parthenos, even after she had been raped.) In any case, Isaiah 7:14 was never intended to refer to a miraculous birth in the distant future. In the words of Christian Biblical scholar Frederick Dale Bruner, “There is almost total unanimity among scholars that Isaiah’s prediction here to Ahaz is a prediction coming to a young woman in Isaiah’s lifetime – Isaiah is not predicting a messianic birth centuries later” (Matthew: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12 (Matthew a Commentary), Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdman’s Publishing Company; Revised and expanded edition, 2004, p. 35). Or as Fr. Raymond Brown acknowledges in his acclaimed work, The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1979, p. 148): “[The Masoretic Text] of Isa 7:14 does not refer to a virginal conception in the distant future. The sign offered by the prophet was the imminent birth of a child, probably Davidic, but naturally conceived, who would illustrate God’s providential care for his people.” Finally, even if the Hebrew word almah is translated “virgin,” the passage does not refer to a miraculous conception, but to a woman who is now a virgin conceiving naturally, in the very near future. Or as Biblical scholar James Tabor, Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, puts it: “Whether one renders ‘almah as “virgin” or “young woman” the meaning is essentially the same – that a young girl who has not had sexual intercourse will in fact get pregnant – not that she will get pregnant without sexual intercourse… Anyone reading Isaiah 7:14 in context would realize it is talking about the divinely sanctioned birth of a normal child in Isaiah’s time… This birth was to be a sign to Ahaz, the king of Judah, that despite the threats of the Assyrians, poised in the north to conquer Jerusalem, God would be with his people (“Immanuel”) and protect them.” This last point is an important one, as it refutes the oft-heard objection (going back to St. Justin Martyr in the second century A.D.) that the purely natural birth of a child could not serve as a sign, and that Isaiah must have been alluding to a miraculous birth. Justin’s argument blurs the distinction between a sign and a miracle. As Fr. Raymond Brown puts it, “The sign offered by the prophet was the imminent birth of a child, probably Davidic, but naturally conceived, who would illustrate God’s providential care for his people. The child would help to preserve the House of David and would thus signify that God was still ‘with us.'” St. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.) was the earliest Christian apologist to defend the Christian reading of Isaiah 7:14, in his Dialogue with Trypho, where he castigates the Jews as “a people hard-hearted and without understanding, both blind and lame, children in whom is no faith” (chapter 27) and argues at length that Isaiah 7:14 obviously refers to Jesus. Dr. Robert J. Miller, who is the Rosenberger Chair of Christian and Religious Studies at Juniata College, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, critically evaluates Justin’s arguments in an article written for the Westar Institute (home of the Jesus Seminar), titled Prophecy, Christology, and Anti-Judaism in Justin Martyr, where he concludes: “Justin’s argument for the virgin birth is a textbook example of bad exegesis. It hinges on his insistence on an ambiguous translation of the original text, a willful ignoring of literary context, a nonsensical construal of grammar, and an interpretation of the magi story that is, frankly, bizarre… Persuasive as Justin’s arguments surely were for ancient Christians, today they fall completely flat.” Dr. Miller goes on to explain that St. Justin’s hostility towards the Jews was based on doctored Christian paraphrases of the Scriptures, composed originally by Jewish Christians as exegetical commentaries on their true meaning, which he and other Gentile converts mistakenly assumed were the actual words of Scripture. Even today, one can still find Christian apologists who stoutly affirm that the Scriptures foretell Jesus’ birth from a virgin, based on flawed arguments that have changed little since Justin’s day. I respectfully submit that it is time for these authors to abandon their arguments, and acknowledge that there are no explicit Biblical prophecies referring to Jesus’ virginal conception.

Having discredited the historical case for Jesus’ virginal conception, it remains to examine the alleged Biblical prophecies supporting the doctrine. I shall demonstrate below that most scholars today believe there are none, and for very good reasons.

The only prophecy in the Bible that has ever been cited in support of the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception is Isaiah 7:14, a prophecy addressed to King Ahaz of Judah (c. 735-720 B.C.), which the New International Version of the Bible translates as follows: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” In a footnote, the NIV adds that the Hebrew word translated “virgin” can mean “young woman.” But when Matthew cites this verse in his Gospel to refer to the birth of Christ, he writes: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’)” (Matthew 1:22-23). Matthew uses the term “virgin” here, because he is apparently quoting from the Greek (Septuagint) translation of the Hebrew Bible, which translates the Hebrew word almah as parthenos, or “virgin.” So who’s right? Did the word mean “virgin” in Hebrew, and if not, did the Greek translators make a mistake?

(a) What did the Hebrew word almah mean: virgin or young woman?

Let us begin with the original Hebrew meaning of the passage. Scholarship has now firmly established that the Hebrew word almah used by Isaiah means “young woman,” not “virgin.” Dr. Clifford Hubert Durousseau, a former member of the Chicago Biblical Research Society and the Society of Biblical Literature, who taught Bible as Literature courses during his tenure at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, surveys Biblical usage of the Hebrew term almah in an article titled, Isaiah 7:14b in New Major Christian Bible Translations (Jewish Bible Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 3, 2013) and concludes that Isaiah did not intend it to mean “virgin”:

Almah as “young woman” is not a non-Christian or Jewish translation: it is the correct translation. Lexicography confirms it. This is the plain meaning of the word almah as found in Proverbs 30:19, the way of a man with a young woman [almah, MT; neanis, LXX], referring to sexual intimacy and proving it need not connote “virgin.” There is only one word for “virgin” in Hebrew, betulah, and Isaiah did not use it… In other words, the LXX translation uses a word that signifies something which the Hebrew word does not, and the Greek Gospel of Matthew based its proof-from-prophecy upon a term which Isaiah did not use. (2013, pp. 178-179)

For the benefit of readers seeking an authoritative Christian source, I would recommend The Word of God: A Guide to English Versions of the Bible (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982), edited by Lloyd R. Bailey, a former Methodist pastor and a retired Professor of Hebrew Bible at the Divinity School of Duke University, who is currently a Professor of Religion at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Appendix 2: A Comparison of Versions, which is written by Professor Bailey himself, ranks ten different versions of the Bible according to their accuracy of translation of Isaiah 7:14. When discussing the meaning of the Hebrew word ‘almāh, which is used in this passage, Bailey makes it quite clear that “young woman” is the correct reading:

‘almāh. This is a noun, the center of the argument about the meaning of this verse. Does it describe a female’s sexual status (virgin) or her age status (young woman)? When viewed objectively, in the context of its occurrences throughout the Hebrew Bible, all the evidence favors the latter understanding. (1982, p. 200)

(In a footnote on p. 218, Bailey refers his readers to the article “Virgin” in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Supplementary Volume.)

On page 199, Bailey points out that the word ‘almāh is preceded by the definite article. He comments:

It indicates a definite person, known to Ahaz and to Isaiah, and likely mentioned in a part of the conversation that has not been preserved: “the [aforementioned] ‘almāh.” It is not some indefinite or future person (as if it were “an ‘almāh“). (1982, p. 199)

There are two more words in the passage that Bailey comments on. One is hārāh (“pregnant”), which refers to “either the present or the immediate future,” and the other is yoledet (a participle of the verb “to bear a child”), which is “not a future tense” but is “used for actions on the verge of happening.”

So, which translation of Isaiah 7:14 does Bailey favor? There are two translations which he awards with a 100% accuracy rating: the Jerusalem Bible (“the maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son”) and the New Jewish Version, now styled as “NJPS” (“the young woman is with child and about to give birth to a son”).

Bailey’s remarks have been largely borne out by the NET Bible (New English Translation), a free on-line English translation of the Bible with over 60,000 translators’ notes, published in 2005 and sponsored by the Biblical Studies Foundation. The NET translates the entire verse of Isaiah 7:14 as follows:

For this reason the Lord himself will give you a confirming sign.[a] Look, this[b] young woman[c] is about to conceive[d] and will give birth to a son. You, young woman, will name him[e] Immanuel.[f]

(I might point out in passing that the initial planning group for the NET Bible was made up of scholars who were “interdenominational and evangelical”, so it can hardly be accused of having a secular or anti-Christian bias.)

With regard to the word ʿalmah, translated as “young woman,” the translation notes:

Though the Hebrew word used here (עַלְמָה, ʿalmah) can sometimes refer to a woman who is a virgin (Gen 24:43), it does not carry this meaning inherently. The word is simply the feminine form of the corresponding masculine noun עֶלֶם (ʿelem, “young man”; cf. 1 Sam 17:56; 20:22). The Aramaic and Ugaritic cognate terms are both used of women who are not virgins.

Regarding the word harah, translated as “about to conceive,” the NET notes:

Elsewhere the adjective הָרָה (harah), when used predicatively, refers to a past pregnancy (from the narrator’s perspective, 1 Sam 4:19), to a present condition (Gen 16:11; 38:24; 2 Sam 11:5), and to a conception that is about to occur in the near future (Judg 13:5, 7)… In Isa 7:14 one could translate, “the young woman is pregnant.” In this case the woman is probably a member of the royal family. Another option, the one followed in the present translation, takes the adjective in an imminent future sense, “the young woman is about to conceive.” In this case the woman could be a member of the royal family, or, more likely, the prophetess with whom Isaiah has sexual relations shortly after this (see 8:3).

(b) What did the Greek word parthenos mean: virgin or young woman?

However, Matthew 1:23 quotes the prophecy from Isaiah 7:14 as follows: “Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us.’” Matthew is generally thought to have been quoting from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, or Septuagint (LXX). However, the NET Bible, in its footnote [20] on Matthew 1:23, notes:

It is unclear whether the author is citing the MT [Hebrew Masoretic Text – VJT] or the LXX. The use of the word παρθένος (parthenos, “virgin”) may be due to its occurrence in the LXX, but it is also possible that it is the author’s translation of the Hebrew term עַלְמָה (’almah, “young woman”).

Was the Septuagint translation of almah as parthenos a mistake? Apparently not. The word parthenos did not always mean “virgin”: it once had a broader meaning, back in 200 B.C., when it simply meant “young woman.” Rabbi Tovia Singer provides a striking example in an article on Outreach Judaism:

The Greek word Παρθένου (parthenos) can mean either a young woman or a virgin. Therrefore, Παρθένου can be found in the Septuagint to describe a woman who is clearly not a virgin. For example, in Genesis 34:2-4, Shechem raped Dinah, the daughter of the patriarch Jacob, yet the Septuagint refers to her as a parthenos after she had been defiled. The Bible reports that after Shechem had violated her, “his heart desired Dinah, and he loved the damsel (Sept. parthenos) and he spoke tenderly to the damsel (Sept. parthenos).” Clearly, Dinah was not a virgin after having been raped, and yet she was referred to as a parthenos, the very same word the Septuagint used to translate the Hebrew word alma in Isaiah 7:14.

In his blog article, “Why was Jesus born of a Virgin in Matthew and Luke?” (December 24, 2014), Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman notes that the word parthenos changed its meaning over the centuries: in its older sense, it meant “young woman,” but by Matthew’s day typically meant “woman who has never had sex.” Ehrman suggests that this change generated a huge misunderstanding when Matthew encountered the word parthenos in the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 7:14:

It’s not clear why the Greek translators of Isaiah used the term PARTHENOS to translate ALMA, but they probably too simply took it in its older sense of “young woman.” When Matthew took the verse over, however, he applied the meaning more common in his day to the Greek, and understood Isaiah not to be talking about a child born in the day of Isaiah, but a future child to be born of a “virgin.”

(c) Was Isaiah 7:14 ever intended to refer to a miraculous birth?

Now that the meaning of the terms has been established, it remains to discuss what the original prophecy actually meant. Was it ever intended to refer to a miraculous birth? Biblical scholars are virtually unanimous that it was not.

In his commentary, Matthew: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12 (Matthew a Commentary) (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdman’s Publishing Company; Revised and expanded edition, 2004), Biblical scholar Frederick Dale Bruner acknowledges the current scholarly consensus that Isaiah 7:14 was never meant to be a prophecy of a virgin giving birth in the distant future, but refers rather to a young woman giving birth during the lifetime of Isaiah:

Isaiah 7:13-14 is a promise made explicitly to “the house of David,” an important fact that we have just learned from the genealogy that Jesus is a member of this auspicious house: “Then Isaiah said, ‘Hear then, O house of David! The Lord himself will give you a sign. The young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel'” (NRSV). There is almost total unanimity among scholars that Isaiah’s prediction here to Ahaz is a prediction coming to a young woman in Isaiah’s lifetime – Isaiah is not predicting a messianic birth centuries later. Luz is scathing with Christian history’s triumphalist use of Isa 7:14 against the Jews, as though the Jews were obstinate, and Christians perceptive, in the right reading of this text; the only right interpretation of Isa 7:14 today, Luz concludes, is to show how badly we Christians used it over the centuries (5th ed., 1:152, where Luther especially “owes” the Jews). (2004, p. 35)

Swiss theologian and professor Ulrich Luz (1938-2019), who is cited in the passage above, states the matter very bluntly in his acclaimed commentary on Matthew: “Luther declared his willingness to pay the ‘stubborn, condemned Jews’ a hundred guilders if [almah at] Isaiah 7:14 really means ‘young woman’ and not ‘virgin.’ He owes them.” (Matthew 1-7 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1989) pp. 123-4.)

The testimony of Fr. Raymond Brown (1928-1998) on Isaiah 7:14, in his acclaimed work, The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1979) is also worth quoting:

[The Masoretic Text] of Isa 7:14 does not refer to a virginal conception in the distant future. The sign offered by the prophet was the imminent birth of a child, probably Davidic, but naturally conceived, who would illustrate God’s providential care for his people. The child would help to preserve the House of David and would thus signify that God was still ‘with us.’ (1979, p. 148)

Dr. Richard Carrier, whose Ph.D. is in ancient history, discusses Isaiah 7:14 in his online article, The Problem of the Virgin Birth Prophecy (2003; revised 2007), where he emphasizes the significance of Fr. Brown’s testimony:

The best [scholarly commentary] on this issue is Raymond Brown’s Birth of the Messiah. Brown is a devout Catholic. But he is an objective scholar, usually fair to all parties in any debate, and always erudite and cautious. He is internationally recognized as a leading, if not the leading expert on the Christian nativity accounts…

He surveys additional points and concludes that “Isa. 7:14 does not refer to a virginal conception in the distant future” but to “the imminent birth of a child, probably Davidic, but naturally conceived” (§ 5B2, i.e. p. 148). Since this comes from a renowned authority who is Catholic (and thus going against his biases), this conclusion carries special weight here.

(d) Even if the Hebrew word almah meant “virgin,” it wouldn’t imply that Isaiah 7:14 refers to a miraculous conception

After discussing Isaiah 7:14 at length, Dr. Carrier concurs with Fr. Raymond Brown’s opinion that even if the Hebrew word almah is translated “virgin,” the passage does not refer to a miraculous conception:

… [It is] the opinion of myself and Brown that within the natural ambiguity of the text in question virgins of good reputation can naturally conceive–not just in the sense that they can conceive on their wedding night (which is certainly a possible meaning of the Isaiah passage), but also, as Brown points out, in the sense that a man might in the future take as a bride someone who is now a virgin. On that reading, “a virgin will conceive” in the sense that someone who is now a virgin, at the time Isaiah spoke, would at some point marry and have a child (possibly even conceiving the moment she loses her virginity). Certainly that would be considered a fulfillment of the prophecy.

I noted above that the NET Bible translates Isaiah 7:14 as follows:

For this reason the Lord himself will give you a confirming sign.[a] Look, this[b] young woman[c] is about to conceive[d] and will give birth to a son. You, young woman, will name him[e] Immanuel.[f]

According to footnote [d], the Hebrew word harah may mean either “is pregnant” or “is about to conceive” (the meaning preferred by the translators). In that case, the passage could certainly refer to a woman who is now a virgin but who will shortly marry and conceive.

This point is of vital importance. What it means is that Christian apologists’ attempts to show that the Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14 originally referred to a young woman who was a virgin are completely irrelevant. Even if they are right, the passage in Isaiah does not refer to a virginal conception, but to a woman who is now a virgin conceiving naturally, at a date in the near future.

(e) The apologist’s last stand: How could a non-miraculous conception possibly serve as a sign from God?

One last question remains to be answered. How could the birth of a child to a young woman have served as a sign to King Ahaz, if she was not a virgin?

The NET Bible, in its footnotes on Isaiah 7:14, explains that the word “sign” used in the passage need not denote a miracle:

The Hebrew term אוֹת (ʾot, “sign”) can refer to a miraculous event (see v. 11), but it does not carry this sense inherently. Elsewhere in Isaiah the word usually refers to a natural occurrence or an object/person vested with special significance (see 8:18; 19:20; 20:3; 37:30; 55:13; 66:19). Only in 38:7-8, 22 does it refer to a miraculous deed that involves suspending or overriding natural laws. The sign outlined in vv. 14-17 involves God’s providential control over events and their timing, but not necessarily miraculous intervention.

Biblical scholar James Tabor, Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, also addresses this question in a blog article titled, A Virgin Shall Conceive…What Does it Really Mean? (June 30, 2019). Professor Tabor concludes:

It has nothing to do with a young woman, or virgin, becoming pregnant without a man – but rather a “wondrous” pregnancy that is orchestrated by the power of God. In that sense only is it “beyond the natural.”

In fact, this whole controversy over these alternative translations turns out to be moot. Whether one renders ‘almah as “virgin” or “young woman” the meaning is essentially the same – that a young girl who has not had sexual intercourse will in fact get pregnant – not that she will get pregnant without sexual intercourse. That much is incontrovertable (sic) in the Isaiah passage. All “young women” are not virgins but the assumption, in such a context, is that this one will be, because of her age.

Anyone reading Isaiah 7:14 in context would realize it is talking about the divinely sanctioned birth of a normal child in Isaiah’s time to a young woman of that time – the 7th century BC. This birth was to be a sign to Ahaz, the king of Judah, that despite the threats of the Assyrians, poised in the north to conquer Jerusalem, God would be with his people (“Immanuel”) and protect them…

The idea then is not that a “young woman” will bear a child without a human father, but rather that a special child will be born, and that birth will be a sign of salvation for the people.

It should by now be clear to any fair-minded reader that the prophetic argument for Jesus’ virginal conception can no longer be sustained – and as we’ve seen, the historical argument cannot, either. That leaves us with theological arguments in support of the doctrine.

(f) How might a Christian apologist defend their appeal to Isaiah 7:14 as a reference to Jesus?

Recently, Christian apologist Dr. William Lane Craig responded to a reader’s question on Old Testament Prophecies of Jesus’ Resurrection (September 20, 2019). The reader had asked him, “Why would the disciples quote [Ps 16.10] as to directly parallel David’s body with Christ’s?” Craig’s answer is revealing:

The answer that they wanted to show that Jesus’ resurrection was in some sense a fulfillment of Scripture, and, since the Old Testament has almost nothing to say about the resurrection, they had to apply novel interpretations to passages that weren’t really about the resurrection. Now if that sort of hermeneutic strikes you as dishonest, understand that for an ancient Jewish exegete discerning such deeper meanings in the Scriptures was normal procedure and would be seen as a strength of one’s view… Jews of that day might say in response, “Hmm! I never read it that way before. Interesting!”

…Because they had come to believe that Jesus was risen, the disciples went to the Old Testament to find proof texts for their belief. That usually involved reading such passages in a new way that would not have occurred to them had they not come to believe that Jesus was risen.

Craig was writing about Psalm 16:10 (“You will not allow your holy one to see corruption”), but his point could be generalized to apply to Isaiah 7:14. The passage wasn’t really about Jesus’ conception, but a Christian might, if they wished, see a deeper level of meaning in the verse, as a reference to Jesus. Fine. But that’s no longer an argument from prophecy. That’s a novel reinterpretation of a prophecy. And while I have no quarrel with Christians who wish to do this, I do have a quarrel with Christian apologists who continue to dogmatically insist that this verse “really” refers to Jesus, and that other Christians are bound to believe as much. That’s arguing in the teeth of the evidence.

(g) Excursus: How not to argue for Jesus’ virginal conception: the case of Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.)

St. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.) was the earliest Christian apologist to defend the Christian reading of Isaiah 7:14 in his Dialogue with Trypho. Indeed, the defense by later Christian apologists of the claim that this passage refers to Jesus’ virginal conception is largely based on arguments that were developed by Justin Martyr. Justin’s arguments are critically evaluated in an article written for the Westar Institute (home of the Jesus Seminar), titled Prophecy, Christology, and Anti-Judaism in Justin Martyr by Dr. Robert J. Miller, who is the Rosenberger Chair of Christian and Religious Studies at Juniata College, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Dr. Miller’s conclusions are sobering:

Analysis of the argument from prophecy in the Dialogue with Trypho has yielded several salient conclusions about Justin’s interpretation of scripture.

• His exegeses of prophecies are possible only from the presuppositions of Christian faith. Justin’s examples are ample evidence that Christians found Jesus in the OT only because they already knew he had to be there and then went looking for him.
• What Justin thinks are quotations of scripture are often Christian mashups that rewrite and embellish scripture to make it say what Christians want it to.
• Justin ridicules Jews for deleting passages from scripture that are in fact Christian interpolations.
• Justin’s argument for the virgin birth is a textbook example of bad exegesis. It hinges on his insistence on an ambiguous translation of the original text, a willful ignoring of literary context, a nonsensical construal of grammar, and an interpretation of the magi story that is, frankly, bizarre.

On every important point about prophecy where Justin disagrees with Trypho, Justin is wrong, despite the fact that Trypho is Justin’s literary creation. The only reason Justin lets Trypho disagree at all in this shamelessly one-sided “dialogue” is so that its Christian audience can see how baseless Jewish objections really are. Persuasive as Justin’s arguments surely were for ancient Christians, today they fall completely flat. (p. 17)

With meticulous logic (pp. 9-14), Dr. Miller lays bare the logical and exegetical flaws in Justin’s arguments that Isaiah 7:14 was referring to a miraculous birth of a future Messiah. Dr. Miller concludes:

Justin’s robust attempt to prove that Isaiah predicted the virgin birth must be judged a failure. Justin’s arguments are structured as refutations of Trypho’s two objections to the Christian interpretation of Isaiah 7: first, that Isa 7:14 is about a young woman, not specifically a virgin, and second, that Isaiah’s prophecy about the birth of a promised child refers to Hezekiah, son and heir of King Ahaz, to whom the oracle was delivered.

Justin counters the first objection in two ways: by stridently asserting that Trypho is wrong about the wording of 7:14, and by arguing that the birth announced in the prophecy must be a miraculous birth in order to be a sign. Justin’s first assertion is nothing more than his insistence that his text of Isaiah (the Septuagint) is right and Trypho’s text (either the Hebrew text or a literal Greek translation of it) is wrong. Despite Justin’s adamant insistence on the accuracy of the Septuagint,[41] anyone who could read Hebrew would disagree and would be right to do so. Justin’s argument that the birth in 7:14 had to be miraculous in order to qualify as a sign ignores the verse’s immediate context (Isa 7:10–13), which shows that the predicted birth will be a sign from God because of when the boy will be born, not because of the manner of his conception. That Justin ignores that context deliberately is clear from the fact that he quotes 7:10–13 in full, but does not allow it to influence his interpretation of 7:14. Justin tries to refute Trypho’s second objection — that the promised sign was fulfilled by the birth of prince Hezekiah — with a complicated interpretation of Isa 8:4, joined with a convoluted and capricious interpretation of the story of the magi in Matthew. Justin’s argument here is undermined on several counts, but is decisively ruled out by the plain meaning of Isa 8:3. (pp. 14-15)

Dr. Miller goes on to explain that St. Justin’s hostility towards the Jews was based on doctored Christian paraphrases of the Scriptures, composed originally by Jewish Christians as exegetical commentaries on their true meaning, which he and other Gentile converts mistakenly assumed were the actual words of Scripture. Since he believed that it was “self-evident” that the scriptures were about Jesus, Justin concluded that Jews must be willfully and therefore culpably wrong, which prompted him to engage in savage diatribes against the Jews, such as the following: “you are a people hard-hearted and without understanding, both blind and lame, children in whom is no faith” (Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 27).

Sadly, even today, one can still find Christian authors who cast similar aspersions against the Jews, based on their certainty that the Scriptures foretell the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that only a blind person could fail to acknowledge this fact. After examining the flaws in the exegetical arguments these authors employ (which have changed little since Justin’s day), I respectfully submit that it is time for these authors to abandon them altogether, and acknowledge that the prophetic arguments for Jesus’ virginal conception are bogus.

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THE THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS FOR JESUS’ VIRGINAL CONCEPTION

9. Can the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception be supported by theological arguments alone?

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A house of cards. Image courtesy of “Lost” from the Netherlands and Wikipedia.

KEY POINTS Some apologists have attempted to defend the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception on theological grounds. Perhaps the strongest theological argument in favor of the doctrine is that the birth of the Redeemer had to have been the result of a supernatural act of God, because our fallen human race is incapable of redeeming itself. Had Christ been born naturally, his coming into the world would have been the result of man’s will, not God’s. However, what this argument overlooks is that even for a human being conceived naturally, that person’s identity as Redeemer of the human race (making them a Divine Person assuming a human nature) could still be entirely determined by God. Putting it another way: God is quite capable of assuming a human nature that has been conceived naturally. A second argument, which some Christians justify by appealing to Luke 1:35, ties the virgin birth to Jesus’ divine sonship: Jesus was conceived of the Virgin Mary because he was the Son of God. However, the verse in Luke does not mention the Father, but only the Holy Spirit, who was not the father of Jesus. And as Fr. Raymond Brown argues in his inaugural address, The Problem of the Virginal Conception of Jesus, delivered at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on November 28, 1971, “while the doctrine of the virginal conception draws attention to the fact that Jesus was not simply a man like all others and is God’s Son in a unique way, it would be impossible to prove theologically that the Son of God could not have become incarnate as the product of a marital union between Joseph and Mary” (1971, p. 16). A third argument, going back to the late fourth century and associated with the Church Fathers Ambrose and Augustine, is that that Jesus was free from original sin precisely because he was conceived of a virgin. But as Brown argues in the address cited above, “while the virginal conception may enter into the mystery of Jesus’ sinlessness, it is difficult to argue that in order to be free from original sin Jesus had to be conceived of a virgin” (1971, pp. 15-16). In any case, even if there were a good theological argument for Jesus’ virginal conception, one would want some independent historical evidence that such a miracle had actually occurred, before coming to believe in such a doctrine. Why? Because if the miracle actually happened, it would be extremely strange if there were no such evidence. As we’ve seen, however, the historical evidence is badly flawed. Finally, many people argue that a virginal conception would have been at least theologically “fitting,” but this does not warrant belief in such a miracle unless one can demonstrate decisively that a purely natural conception would have been unfitting.

There are Christian scholars today who readily acknowledge that the historical evidence for Jesus’ virginal conception is poor and that the prophetic argument for Jesus being born of a virgin has no merit, but who continue to defend the doctrine on purely theological grounds. Let us therefore examine the most popular theological arguments for Jesus’ virginal conception.

(i) The coming of the Redeemer was the result of God’s will alone, and not man’s; hence, Jesus’ conception must have been virginal

One very popular argument for Jesus’ virginal conception is that the birth of the Redeemer had to have been the result of a supernatural act of God, as our fallen human race is incapable of redeeming itself, and had Christ the Redeemer been born naturally, his coming into the world would have been the result of man’s will, rather than God’s. Traditionally, proponents of this argument, which goes back to St. Irenaeus in the late second century, have endeavored to justify it by appealing to John 1:13, which (they say) refers to Jesus, who “was not born either by the will of the flesh, or by the will of man.” (Scholars today are agreed, however, that this is a mistranslation, and that the verse refers not to Jesus but to those who believed in Jesus’ name: these individuals are said to have been “born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”)

In any case, this theological argument for Jesus’ virginal conception strikes me as a flawed one: if, for instance, the angel Gabriel had appeared to Mary after her marriage to Joseph and said to her, “The child you conceive when you next have intercourse with your husband will be the Son of the Most High,” and Mary had assented, the subsequent birth of the Redeemer would have been a natural event, but the coming into the world of the Redeemer would have been entirely God’s work, not man’s.

In an essay titled, The Christology of Wolfhart Pannenberg (Themelios Volume 25 – Issue 2, February 2000), Professor Donald Macleod argues a child born naturally of two human parents could not possibly be an independent, pre-existent person:

Besides, a child born in the normal way from two human parents would have been an independent person in his own right and any union between him/her and the eternal Son of God would have involved either Adoptionism or Nestorianism (and probably both). (2000, p. 22)

Underlying this argument is the assumption that the child’s natural conception would have to be (at least logically) prior to his/her union with God. Were that the case, Macleod’s accusation of Adoptionism would indeed be justified. But let us return to the scenario I described above, where Gabriel appears to Mary prior to her having intercourse with Joseph and tells her that the child she will conceive will be God’s Son. God then assumes this naturally conceived individual from the moment of its conception, which He has of course foreseen. In this case, God’s decision to assume this individual’s human nature is logically prior to his conception. I see nothing impossible in the scenario I have sketched. As far as I can tell, then, this particular argument for Jesus’ virginal conception fails to establish its theological necessity.

Interestingly, there have been Christians who have argued that Jesus’ virginal conception is at odds with his pre-existence. For instance, the Encyclopaedia Biblica (edited by Thomas Kelly Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black; Toronto: George N. Morang and Company Limited, 1899), in its article on Mary (Vol. 3, p. 159, col. 2964) by Professor T. K. Cheyne, reasons as follows:

[T]he NT writers have, all of them, still the correct consciousness that the two theories are incompatible. He who has already lived the life of a divine being in heaven does not need to be ushered into the world in any such manner. To state the point more precisely: the theory of the virgin birth and the theory of the pre-existence must be regarded as attempts on parallel lines; the virgin birth, however, does not raise Jesus so high in the sphere of the divine as the pre-existence does.

While Cheyne is entirely correct in pointing out that pre-existence does not entail a supernatural birth, I believe he is wrong in perceiving a tension between the two beliefs. Certainly, the early Church Fathers, from the time of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 A.D.) onwards, perceived no such tension. The two beliefs are logically independent, but by no means incompatible.

(ii) Jesus had to have been born of a virgin because he was God’s Son

A second argument, closely related to the first, ties the virgin birth to Jesus’ divine sonship: Jesus was conceived of the Virgin Mary because he was the Son of God. In support of this assertion, many Christians appeal to Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1:35), where the angel Gabriel declares to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of God.” Here, Luke appears to link Jesus’ divine sonship to his virginal conception.

However, Catholic theologian and Biblical scholar Fr. Raymond Brown cautions against taking this argument too far in in his inaugural address, The Problem of the Virginal Conception of Jesus, delivered at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on November 28, 1971. In this connection, Brown mentions the Eleventh Council of Toledo, famous for its beautiful confession of the Trinitarian faith, which was held in the year 675 A.D. This council condemned as “impious” the claim that “the Holy Spirit is the Father of the Son because Mary conceived by the overshadowing of the same Holy Spirit, lest we should seem to affirm that the Son has two Fathers” (DS 533). Presumably the author of Luke’s Gospel would not have regarded the Holy Spirit as Jesus’ Father. Brown concludes that “while the doctrine of the virginal conception draws attention to the fact that Jesus was not simply a man like all others and is God’s Son in a unique way, it would be impossible to prove theologically that the Son of God could not have become incarnate as the product of a marital union between Joseph and Mary” (1971, p. 16). In a footnote [34], he adds that “in the relationship between virginal conception and incarnation, it is not the first that is essential for the second; it is the second that makes the first credible.” To buttress his case, Brown cites the work of (then) theologian Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI). In his Einführung in das Christentum (2nd ed.; Munich, 1968) p. 225, Ratzinger “insists that the divine sonship of which faith speaks is not a biological fact (as is the virginal conception) but an ontological one” (1971, p. 16).

(iii) Jesus had to have been born of a virgin, in order to be free from original sin

A third argument for the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, going back to the late fourth century, is that that Jesus was free from original sin precisely because he was conceived of a virgin. However, Fr. Raymond Brown handily disposes of this argument in his above-cited address (1971):

Ambrose and Augustine, the Fathers of the Western Church who figured prominently in developing the theology of original sin, explained that Jesus was free from sin because he was conceived of a virgin.[31] Behind this explanation lies the thesis that the transmission of original sin is bound up with the sexual nature of human propagation and the sensual appetites aroused by procreation. Many modern theologians feel an urgency to reformulate the truth contained in the doctrine of original sin, but even the defenders of the traditional understanding of the concept have for the most part abandoned the “concupiscence theory” of the propagation of sin. Thus, while the virginal conception may enter into the mystery of Jesus’ sinlessness, it is difficult to argue that in order to be free from original sin Jesus had to be conceived of a virgin. (1971, pp. 15-16)

Brown observes in a footnote [31]: “While the Greek Fathers did not deal with this matter in terms of original sin, they too related the moral perfection and sinlessness of Jesus to his virginal conception.” Once again, it is difficult to see why either moral perfection or sinlessness would require a virginal conception.

It is true that on a certain view of original sin which is popular with many Protestants, having human parents would be incompatible with his freedom from original sin. As Associate Professor Brandon Crowe, of Westminster Theological Seminary, puts it in his online article, The Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ (thegospelcoalition.org, January 15, 2020; modified 29 April 2020):

Were Jesus to have been born with a sinful nature, he would not be the sinless Savior. The virgin birth is the means by which the holy Son of God was incarnate, born without sin.

However, Professor Crowe’s argument proves too much, because it would also preclude Jesus from taking flesh from his human mother. (The traditional Christian belief is that he took flesh “of the Virgin Mary.”) If having a human parent is enough to taint your nature, then Jesus would have been tainted merely by virtue of having a human mother. (I would also refer readers to Professor Andrew Lincoln’s paper, “Conceiving Jesus: re-examining Jesus’ conception in canon, Christology and creed” (a talk given to The Severn Forum on March 5, 2015), which was discussed in part 6 above.)

I might mention in passing that Catholics, who make up the majority of the world’s 2.3 billion Christians, believe that the Virgin Mary was, by a singular privilege bestowed on her by God, conceived free from original sin, but at the same time, they also maintain that she was conceived naturally. Many Orthodox Christians, like Catholics, also believe that Mary was free from actual sin (i.e. that she never committed any sins). According to most Christians, then, being sinless does not require a miraculous conception.

In his address, Brown also discusses an additional argument for the Virgin Birth, put forward by Origen: namely, that Mary, having been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit at the Annunciation, would have been spiritually defiled by subsequently having sexual marital intercourse with a man; hence, she must have remained a virgin all her life. However, the argument’s chief flaw, highlighted by Brown, is that “the infancy narratives do not make the slightest connection between the virginal conception and the special value of the state of virginity” (1971, p. 15).

I conclude that none of the theological arguments for the doctrine of the Virgin Birth is terribly convincing. The best that can be said of them is that if Jesus was really the incarnation of a Divine Person, then a virginal conception would be a fitting sign of this fact. However, this does not entail that such a conception is theologically necessary.

I may of course be mistaken in my brusque dismissal of the theological arguments for Jesus’ virginal conception, and perhaps there is something I am missing here. But there is a larger point that I’d like to make about Jesus’ virginal conception: given the extraordinary nature of the miracle in question, theological grounds alone can never be adequate justification for believing in such a doctrine – and still less for requiring other Christians to do so as well, under pain of excommunication from the Christian Church. One would want some independent evidence that such a miracle had actually occurred, before coming to believe in such a doctrine. And there is none. As we have seen, there is no eyewitness testimony (either firsthand or secondhand) that comes down to us from the first century, and the two Gospel accounts we possess of this miracle are historically unreliable.

How belief in Jesus’ virginal conception got off the ground: a thought experiment

To see why theological arguments are an inadequate explanation for belief in a miracle of this sort, let us imagine an early Christian community whose leaders have concluded, after many years of reflection on Jesus’ life and on the Scriptures, that he must have been born of a virgin. They begin to teach this doctrine to their congregation. But one person objects: “Hang on a minute! If this miracle really happened, how come we haven’t heard about it until now? Wouldn’t Jesus’ own family have told us?” Good questions both. What the foregoing scenario suggests to me is that theological reflection alone cannot explain how belief in Jesus’ virginal conception got off the ground. There had to have been some other decisive factor (call it X), and I don’t think it was the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14, either: at best, it served to confirm the belief, once it had sprung up. For reasons discussed in part 7 above, I think “X” could have simply been popular demand (on the part of pagan converts) for a miraculous conception and birth for the Messiah, coupled with pagan incredulity at the notion that the Messiah’s entrance into the world could have been an inconspicuous one.

“Coulda, woulda, did”: the woolly-minded thinking underlying theological arguments for Jesus’ virginal conception

Theological arguments for Jesus’ virginal conception strongly resemble St. Eadmer of Canterbury’s arguments for Mary’s immaculate conception (the doctrine that she was naturally conceived, but free from the stain of original sin) in the early twelfth century. St. Eadmer’s arguments could be summarized in a four-word Latin slogan: “Potuit, Decuit, Ergo Fecit,” which means: “He [i.e. God] was able to do it, and it was fitting that He do it, therefore, He did it!” The problem I have with this argument is that it tries to second-guess God. We don’t know what God would or would not do in a particular situation, except to say that He would not do anything wicked. A virginal conception may be theologically “fitting,” but that does not warrant belief in such a miracle unless one can demonstrate decisively that a purely natural conception would have been unfitting.

The theological case for Jesus’ virginal conception therefore looks rather weak. In the absence of independent evidence for Jesus’ virginal conception, I conclude that the Christian churches would be better off making belief in it optional, despite the fact that Christians have been virtually unanimous in their affirmation of the doctrine from the early second century A.D. onwards, as well as including it in both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed.

Readers who have finished perusing parts 1 to 9 above have no need to read the Summary below, as it simply repeats the Key Points covered in each part. Instead, they should go straight to the Epilogue.

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SUMMARY

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The key problems with the historical evidence for Jesus’ virginal conception are as follows:

1. We have no reports of the miracle of Jesus’ virginal conception, dating from Jesus’ lifetime (c. 5 B.C. to c.30 A.D.) or the first few years after his death.

The earliest Biblical accounts of Jesus’ virginal conception are dated by most scholars to around fifty years after Jesus’ death.

Fifty years is plenty of time for a miraculous legend to spring up and take hold in a community. Indeed, we have documented cases of miraculous legends springing up and taking hold among believers, as little as ten years after a person’s death.

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2. We have no later reports quoting the testimony of eyewitnesses who were there when an angel announced to Joseph or Mary that the miracle of the Virgin Birth would take place, or who saw or heard anything supernatural relating to Jesus’ birth.

We have no first-hand testimonial evidence for the miracle of Jesus’ virginal conception. Only two gospels mention this miracle (Matthew and Luke), and neither Matthew nor Luke gives us firsthand testimonial evidence for such an extraordinary miracle. Even if the evangelists had personally interviewed Mary and Joseph (which neither of them claims to have done), this would constitute only second-hand testimony in the case of Mary, which means that we are unable to independently cross-examine her. As for Joseph’s testimony, it’s worthless because it’s entirely based on what he was told by an angel to do in a dream. But in any case, neither Matthew nor Luke actually quotes the testimony of eyewitnesses, in their accounts of Jesus’ birth. In his preface (Luke 1:1-4), Luke does not claim to have personally interviewed eyewitnesses; he only claims to have based his work on other, earlier eyewitness accounts of what Jesus said and did. Finally, Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ infancy (Luke 1-2) appears to have been added on to his original Gospel narrative, which naturally begins with chapter 3. Thus we have no guarantee that Luke’s infancy narrative was even indirectly based on eyewitness testimony.

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3. The earliest Christian writers to mention Jesus’ mother (St. Paul and St. Mark) appear to have believed that Jesus was conceived naturally.

(a) Regarding St. Paul:

In Romans 1:3, Paul refers to Jesus as a descendant of David. But according to the Jewish Torah (Numbers 1:18), tribal lineage is determined solely by the biological father, and the idea of Jesus being David’s son by adoption would have been utterly foreign within the world of first-century Judaism. It follows that if Paul believed that Jesus was descended from David, he did not believe that Jesus was conceived of a virgin.

Although Paul declares Jesus to be “of the seed of David” in Romans 1:3-4, he fails to make any reference to the Holy Spirit’s role in Jesus’ birth; instead, he tells us that Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.” Such a striking omission is incomprehensible if he believed that Jesus was conceived of a virgin.

Finally, in Galatians 4:4, Paul not only declares that Jesus was “born of a woman,” but also “born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law” (Galatians 4:4), which implies that Jesus had to become just like the people he came to redeem, in order to become their redeemer. That would seem to rule out a virginal conception.

(b) Regarding St. Mark:

Mark 3:21 describes an incident in Jesus’ early ministry where his mother and brothers come to take him out of the public eye, because they think he’s crazy. (At least, that’s the best translation of the Greek.) But if Mary conceived Jesus supernaturally, then she would have known he was not crazy. Her apparent belief that her son had gone out of his mind indicates that she (and by extension, Mark) believed that Jesus was conceived naturally, like other human beings.

Mark 6:3 (where Jesus is called “son of Mary” by the people of his hometown of Nazareth) does not count as evidence either for or against the virginal conception of Jesus. Jesus’ townsfolk may well have said something along those lines because that is how they knew him. Alternatively, the reading “son of Mary” may not be original: a copyist may have changed the original “the son of the carpenter and Mary” to “the carpenter, the son of Mary.”

Mark 10:47-48 shows that Mark regarded Jesus as a son of David, and there are several verses (Mark 1:11, 5:7, 9:7, 14:61-62) where Mark refers to Jesus as the Son of God. However, Mark, writing in the first century, would have seen no tension between Jesus being the Son of God and his being a son of David. From both a Jewish and a Roman standpoint, there was nothing to prevent Jesus, the Anointed King, from being both ‘Son of God’ and a son of man. The idea that divine descent precluded human parentage seems to be unique to the first chapters of Matthew and Luke.

All in all, it seems reasonable to conclude that in all likelihood, neither St. Paul nor St. Mark knew of the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception, and that they actually believed he was conceived naturally.

4. The first two Gospels to report Jesus’ virginal conception (Matthew and Luke) are highly problematic: they are at odds with themselves (internally inconsistent), at odds with each other (mutually contradictory) and at odds with Jewish beliefs and practice (notably, in their claims about the Messiah’s ancestry and about Jesus being Joseph’s adopted son). Additionally, the claim made by many Christian apologists that Matthew and Luke are independent witnesses to Jesus’ virginal conception is incorrect.

(a) There is some uncertainty as to whether the original versions of Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels even included a reference to Jesus’ virginal conception

Biblical scholars continue to debate whether Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ virginal conception and birth in Bethlehem (Luke 1-2) was originally part of his Gospel, or whether it was added on later. Scholars such as Bart Ehrman argue that the first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel were added on later, for reasons summarized here. Even if the first two chapters are original to Luke, it is not certain that Luke was describing a virginal conception, anyway. Jesus scholar Geza Vermes argues that Luke’s Annunciation narrative refers instead to a conception by a prepubescent Mary, who was very young when she was betrothed to Joseph. In a 2006 article, “Face to Faith” (The Guardian, December 16, 2006), Vermes notes that “virgin in Jewish parlance could designate a girl too physically immature to conceive.” But even if the angel Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary does refer to a virginal conception in Luke 1:34-35, “there is considerable agreement that chapter 2 of Luke may have come from a tradition independent of [Luke] 1:34-35 and ignorant of a virginal conception,” as Fr. Raymond Brown points out in his inaugural address, “The Problem of the Virginal Conception of Jesus” (pp. 28-29), delivered at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on November 28, 1971. What’s more, adds Brown, “the modifying phrase in Lk 3:23 (“Jesus being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, the son of Heli… “) may be Luke’s correction of a genealogy that originally listed Jesus as the natural son of Joseph.”

While Matthew’s Gospel contains an unmistakable reference to Jesus’ virginal conception in its first chapter (Matthew 1:18-25), the genealogy in the same chapter seems to predate belief in Jesus’ virginal conception. One (Syriac Sinaitic) manuscript even declares that it was Joseph who begot Jesus.

(b) Contrary to what many Christian apologists claim, Matthew and Luke do not provide independent attestation of Jesus’ virginal conception

In any case, Matthew and Luke are not independent witnesses of Jesus’ virginal conception, as Christian apologists commonly claim. Despite the fact that Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ infancy are so strikingly divergent, they agree on a common core of at least a dozen facts, calling into question the oft-heard assertion by Christian apologists that Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels provide two independent witnesses to Jesus’ virginal conception. It is entirely possible, as Professor Mark Goodacre has argued, that Luke deliberately altered Matthew’s infancy narrative, expunging the reference to the magi because he thought it was theologically inappropriate and replacing Matthew’s account, which is written male-centered perspective of Joseph, with an account written entirely from Mary’s perspective. In other words, Luke’s infancy narrative may have been written as a theological counter-narrative to the account in Matthew’s Gospel. If that’s the case, then we don’t have two independent witnesses to Jesus’ virginal conception, after all.

But even if Luke didn’t make use of Matthew’s Gospel, it would be wrong to think of Matthew and Luke as independent witnesses, because both accounts ultimately stem from oral traditions, where information was allowed to flow freely. Ultimately, all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) “stemmed from one single oral milieu, from one corpus in one community,” as Professor Jan Vansina, an acknowledged expert on oral tradition, puts it (Oral Tradition as History, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 1985, p. 159).

In any case, both Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels were written a full fifty years after the death of Jesus – which raises the question: how reliable are they, in their narratives of Jesus’ conception and birth? The short answer is that there are good grounds for considering them quite unreliable.

(c) Problems with the genealogies of Jesus

First of all, there are good reasons for thinking that the genealogies of Jesus (found in both Matthew and Luke’s Gospels) could only have been originally composed by people who had no knowledge of Jesus’ virginal conception. For there would be no point in drawing up a genealogy of Jesus that went though Joseph unless Joseph was actually Jesus’ biological father. As Numbers 1 and Numbers 36 make abundantly clear (see especially Numbers 1:17-19 and Numbers 36:5-9), which clan and tribe an Israelite belongs to depends on who their biological father was. So from a Jewish perspective, it would make no sense to claim descent from David unless your biological father was a descendant of his. But of Jesus were conceived virginally, then obviously, he could make no such claim.

Christian scholars have suggested that Jesus was Joseph’s son (and David’s descendant) by adoption, but as Professor Yigal Levin, of Bar-Ilan University, has pointed out, the reality is that “Jewish law, both in antiquity and in the modern era, has no such legal institution” (“Jesus, ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of David’: The ‘Adoption’ of Jesus into the Davidic Line”, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28.4 (2006):423). Consequently, the idea of Jesus being David’s son by adoption would have made no sense within the world of first-century Judaism, or even within Judaism today. Levin concludes that Matthew and Luke’s way of harmonizing Jesus’ Davidic descent with his Divine Sonship makes sense only within a Roman, and not a Jewish legal framework.

In any case, Luke’s genealogy of Jesus, which traces his Davidic ancestry through David’s son Nathan, rather than his son Solomon, runs afoul of Jewish requirements that the Messiah must be direct male descendant of King Solomon (I Chronicles 22:10). Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus is even more problematic, as it traces Jesus’ Davidic ancestry through King Jeconiah, whose descendants were actually barred by God from sitting on the throne of David (Jeremiah 22:30). As if that were not bad enough, Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies of Jesus explicitly contradict one another. They can’t even agree on who Joseph’s father was. Attempts to reconcile the genealogies found in the two Gospels collapse under a mountain of difficulties. Briefly: the theory that one genealogy of Jesus is Joseph’s, while the other is Mary’s, is at odds with Scripture, which plainly states (Numbers 1:17-19; Numbers 36:6-9) that one’s tribal lineage is traced through one’s biological father; hence, female genealogies are irrelevant to one’s bloodline. The theory that Matthew’s genealogy deals with legal inheritance, while Luke’s relates to biological paternity, won’t hold water, either: since there is no adoption in Jewish law, inheritance of lineage claims is always through one’s biological father. In any case, there’s no evidence that genealogies were ever traced through adoptive fathers in Palestine. The suggestion that Jacob and Heli were half-brothers, and that Heli married but died childless, but after that, his brother Jacob married Heli’s widow, and they had a son named Joseph, fails to explain why Heli and Jacob had different fathers. Nor does it explain why the two genealogies diverge at the name of Joseph’s father, but reunite 500 years earlier at the names of Zerubbabel and Shealtiel, only to diverge once again, until they meet up once more at David (c. 1000 B.C.).

To complicate matters further, one of the oldest manuscripts of Matthew’s Gospel, the Syriac Sinaiticus (c. 400 A.D.), even declares Joseph to be the biological father of Jesus, in its genealogy: “Joseph, to whom was betrothed the virgin Mary, begot Jesus” (Matthew 1:16).

(d) Contradictions between Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ infancy

Second, if we turn to Jesus’ virginal conception, we find that Matthew and Luke offer completely different explanations as to why Jesus was born of a virgin: was it to fulfill a prophecy (as in Matthew) or because it is the Spirit of God that has made Mary pregnant (as in Luke)? The two accounts of Jesus’ infancy also contradict one another: Luke says that 40 days after Jesus’ birth, his family returned directly to Nazareth, where Joseph and Mary had lived before, whereas Matthew insists that shortly after Jesus’ birth, his family instead went to and stayed in Egypt until the death of King Herod, only returning after his death and settling in a town called Nazareth, in order to fulfill a prophecy. They can’t both be right: either Matthew or Luke must be factually mistaken. That being the case, why should we trust these authors when they narrate a miracle in connection with Jesus’ conception?

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5. Matthew’s and Luke’s narratives of Jesus’ infancy refer to events which are historically questionable (e.g. the Star of Bethlehem and the census under Quirinius), thereby undermining their credibility as witnesses to Jesus’ virginal conception.

The four most questionable events in Matthew’s and Luke’s narratives of Jesus’ infancy are the Star of Bethlehem and Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents (in Matthew’s Gospel) and the Census of Quirinius and the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (in Luke’s Gospel).

Regarding the Star of Bethlehem, the work of astronomer Michael Molnar has shown that a scientifically plausible account of the star can be given. However, the real difficulties with the story are historical and literary. First, we don’t know which constellation in the sky would have been associated with Judea by the magi, or Wise Men. Was it Aries, Aquarius or Gemini? Different authorities at the time gave different answers. So we simply don’t know how a horoscope would have been interpreted in antiquity. What’s more, we don’t even know which version of astrology would have been in use, at the time of Jesus’ birth. Second, we don’t know whether Matthew’s account was even intended to be an historical account of Jesus’ birth. What makes us think the author is trying to tell us history, and why should we trust him? There are unmistakable parallels between Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth and Jewish legends about Moses’ birth that were current in the first century A.D. (see Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities (2.205-206, 210-211)). In both sets of accounts, the child’s birth is foretold by wise men, and the king reacts by ordering a massacre of male children, and an angel appears to the child’s father in a dream and tells him not to be afraid. Finally, Matthew doesn’t list the sources for his story, or critically analyze them as a proper historian would do. In any case, since Matthew was not a historian, he would not have been granted access to official records. Since his highly supernaturalistic account was written eighty years after the events it describes here, we have good reason to question its historical accuracy.

Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents also appears to be mythological. First, it lacks internal plausibility: surely King Herod could have sent spies to tail the Magi on their trip to Bethlehem, and either report back to him on the whereabouts of the infant Jesus or kill him immediately, making a massacre unnecessary. Also, had “all Jerusalem” (Matthew 2:3) been alarmed over the Magi’s reports of the birth of a new Messiah in Bethlehem, why are there no Jewish records of such an event? Second, why does Josephus, who had a known animus against Herod, say nothing about such a sordid massacre? Third, the episode appears to have been made up, in order to (i) fulfill the prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15 about the children of Rachel (who was said to have been buried near Bethlehem) being massacred, and (ii) provide Jesus and his family with a strong motive for fleeing to Egypt, so as to fulfill the prophecy in Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Finally, the incident bears a strong resemblance to first-century Jewish stories of Moses’ rescue from the slaughter of Hebrew children in Egypt (see above). On the other hand, historian Paul Maier has defended the historicity of the incident, arguing that the relatively small number of infants slaughtered (a dozen or so, by his estimate) would probably have escaped the attention of Josephus. It has also been argued that the Massacre fits in well with Herod’s psychological profile as a paranoid, ruthless killer. Nevertheless, Herod’s failure to have the Magi followed should be enough to show that Matthew’s story, like his story of the Guard at Jesus’ Tomb (Matthew 27:62-28:15), doesn’t hold together: it is internally implausible. That, combined with the unmistakable parallels to Jewish stories about Moses’ infancy that were current in the first century (see above), renders it historically unlikely, in my view, which Maier himself admits is a widely shared one.

Regarding the census of Quirinius reported in Luke, the biggest hurdle is the date. Matthew’s Gospel reports that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1), who died in 4 B.C., so Jesus was born at the latest in 4 BC, but the census by the Syrian governor Quirinius took place ten years later, in 6 A.D. Attempts to salvage the accuracy of Luke’s Gospel by suggesting that Quirinius was governor twice, or that the text is really saying that the census took place before Quirinius was governor of Syria, are strained and grammatically implausible. Dr. Richard Carrier, who is a classical historian, shows convincingly that all attempts to harmonize Matthew and Luke end in failure. They cannot both be right.

What’s more, Luke’s Gospel appears to contradict itself: on the one hand, Jesus is said to have been born in the days of “Herod, king of Judea” (Luke 1:5), whom the vast majority of Biblical historians identify with Herod the Great (d. 4 B.C.), but on the other hand, we are told (Luke 2:1-7) that Jesus was born during the time of the census of Quirinius (6 A.D.). [I should note in passing that Carrier’s idiosyncratic view that Luke 1:5 actually refers not to Herod the Great but to his son Archelaus is rejected by virtually all Biblical scholars. Additionally, Carrier’s proposal requires him to date the start of Jesus’ ministry, when Jesus was “about thirty” (Luke 3:23) to 34 or 35 A.D., several years after the start of John the Baptist’s ministry in 29 A.D. (Luke 3:1-2), putting Jesus’ death in 36 A.D. However, virtually all Biblical scholars date Jesus’ death to either 30 or 33 A.D.]

I conclude that Jesus could not have been born in the year 6 A.D. Luke’s dating Jesus’ birth to the time of the census under Quirinius in 6 A.D. is therefore incorrect; Jesus was probably born a few years earlier.

Other objections have been raised regarding the likelihood of an empire-wide census under the Emperor Augustus, and of Jews having to return to their ancestral town to register for the census. On these points, Dr. Richard Carrier has defended Luke (see here), arguing that Emperor Augustus’s decree of 28 B.C. requiring that all provinces of the empire be taxed may have been belatedly applied to Judea in 6 A.D., making it the first time the Augustan decree affected Judea; also, Joseph may have been required to travel to Bethlehem if his family owned even a tiny plot of ancestral land there. In his online article, Census of Quirinius, Professor J. F. McGrath rebuts this proposal, by pointing out that if Joseph owned property in Bethlehem, then he wasn’t poor. So why does Luke portray Joseph and Mary as offering the sacrifice for poor people, when Jesus is presented in the Temple, 40 days after his birth? Also, why did a heavily pregnant Mary have to register for the census, along with Joseph? Why couldn’t she have stayed with her relatives, instead? These problems create additional reasons for doubting the accuracy of Luke’s account.

Regarding Jesus’ presentation in the Temple, Luke appears to have conflated the purification of a woman after childbirth (when the child was a month old) with the presentation and redemption of a firstborn son, ten days later: only the former required a sacrifice of two small birds (mentioned in Luke), while the latter required the payment of five silver shekels (not mentioned by Luke). Luke also appears to have thought that both the husband and wife needed to be purified after the birth of a child see Luke 2:22), and that the Torah required the redemption of a firstborn son to take place in the temple in Jerusalem, whereas most scholars believe that the Law at that time allowed a firstborn son to be presented to any priest. However, conservative scholar Richard Bauckham, in his essay, “Luke’s infancy narrative as oral history in scriptural form” (in The Christian world around the New Testament, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017, Volume 2, pp. 131-142; also available online in document form) has vigorously defended Luke’s account, arguing that both Joseph and Mary may have needed to be purified, that Luke 2:27 (which refers to Mary and Joseph doing “for the child what was customary under the law”) is an implicit reference to the payment of five shekels, and that in fact, the Law of the time would have required all firstborn sons to be presented in the temple in Jerusalem (as mandated by Nehemiah 10:35-36): the silence of contemporary rabbis on the subject proves nothing. Bauckham concludes that “Luke deserves the benefit of the doubt.” Bauckham’s arguments merit serious consideration, so on this particular incident, I find the charge of historical inaccuracy against Luke not proved.

In summary: it turns out that three of the four episodes selected above, which are narrated in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels, are historically very unlikely, while the fourth is rather doubtful.

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6. The miracle of Jesus’ virginal conception is massively ad hoc, when viewed from a biological perspective, which severely weakens the historical evidence for the miracle.

There are no known cases of parthenogenesis occurring naturally among mammals, and even if there were any, the progeny would be female, not male. What’s more, any mammal that was created by parthenogenesis would have double doses of maternally imprinted genes and would lack paternally imprinted genes, which would probably result in developmental abnormalities.

It is often said that the ancients were ignorant of human biology and unduly credulous regarding reports of miracles, but they certainly knew that it takes a man and a woman to make a baby, and even in the early days of Christianity, there were many skeptics who scoffed at the notion of a virgin conceiving.

Recently, skeptics have raised the question, “Where did Jesus get his Y-chromosome?” Christians who answer that God made it, while Mary supplied the rest of Jesus’ genome, fail to realize that they are changing the traditional doctrine, according to which Jesus took his flesh entirely from Mary. Or as St. Paul puts it, “God sent His Son, made of a woman” (Galatians 4:4, KJV). The only orthodox solution is to say that God transformed one of Mary’s X-chromosomes into a Y-chromosome in the ovum from which Jesus developed, as well as adjusting the imprinting of Mary’s genes to make Jesus’ embryo like a normal male embryo.

But the real difficulty with the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception from a scientific perspective is that in order to generate Jesus’ embryo, God would have had to make millions of purely arbitrary choices, when rearranging the genome of one of the Virgin Mary’s ova. This in turn makes the doctrine much more ad hoc than any rival, naturalistic explanation of Jesus’ conception and birth – which means that it is no longer possible to argue for the doctrine on historical grounds.

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7. Contemporary historical defenses of Jesus’ virginal conception on historical grounds are unconvincing. What’s more, there are plausible hypotheses as to how the doctrine might have arisen.

In this section, I examine what I consider to be the best contemporary defense of the historicity of Jesus’ virginal conception, by Biblical scholar N. T. Wright. Wright’s three-step argument proceeds as follows. First, miracles are a real possibility. (Wright’s book-length study, The Resurrection of the Son of God, has convinced him of this fact.) Second, the Gospel story of Jesus being born of a virgin has no intellectual precedent, in either Jewish tradition (which contained no expectation of a virginal conception) or pagan myths (which are nothing like the “fiercely Jewish” accounts we find in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke). Finally, if the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ virginal conception are mere inventions, than how did we end up with two such divergent accounts as those we find in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels, within the space of just fifty years? Wright concludes that the skeptical hypothesis that belief in Jesus’ virginal conception arose (and diversified) spontaneously within such a short period is tantamount to “intellectual parthenogenesis” – which is almost as much of a miracle as the real thing!

In reply, it seems to me that Wright commits Fallacy #1 which I identified in the Introduction above: that of assuming that world-changing beliefs never arise spontaneously. Contrary to what Wright assumes, strange beliefs can and sometimes do arise “out of the blue.”

The other main flaw in Wright’s argument is one that I identified as Fallacy #2 in my Introduction: confusing the motivation for a story with the model used to create a story, and confusing the origination of a belief with the confirmation of that belief. The motivation for the story of Jesus’ virginal conception probably came from pagan converts to Christianity, who were accustomed to hearing stories about the miraculous conception and birth of their emperors, and who may well have reasoned that Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, must have had an even more miraculous conception and birth. However, the model used to create the story could not have been pagan, as pagan stories of miraculous conceptions usually involve a god having sexual intercourse with a young woman – a scenario which Jews and Christians alike would have rejected as anthropomorphic. Instead, Jewish models appear to have been used: in Matthew’s case, the conception and birth of Samson (Judges 13) and first-century Jewish folk stories about the birth of Moses; and in Luke’s case, the conception and birth of Samuel (1 Samuel 1 and 2). A skillful storyteller would have easily been able to “revamp” one of these narratives into an account of the conception, birth and infancy of Jesus. However, such a miraculous story would never have won any credence among Christian believers without some sort of confirmation that it was true. In the absence of any historical confirmation from Jesus’ own family, nothing less than Divine confirmation would have been deemed necessary. To pagan converts to Christianity, Isaiah 7:14, which appears to foretell a virginal conception in the Greek Septuagint version of the Bible that they would have been accustomed to (“Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us’”), would have served as that confirmation, but only in retrospect. However, as late as the fourth century, there were Jewish converts to Christianity who maintained that this verse did not refer to a virginal conception, and that Jesus was conceived naturally.

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The prophetic arguments for Jesus’ virginal conception

8. The prophetic arguments for Jesus’ virginal conception are unconvincing.

The only prophecy in the Bible that has ever been cited in support of the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception is Isaiah 7:14, a prophecy addressed to King Ahaz of Judah (c. 735-720 B.C.) and quoted in the Gospel of Matthew (1:23), and in which God promises to give King Ahaz a sign: the virgin [or young woman] will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

So, which is it? Virgin or young woman? The answer is: young woman. In the words of Dr. Clifford Hubert Durousseau, a former member of the Chicago Biblical Research Society and the Society of Biblical Literature, “Almah as ‘young woman’ is not a non-Christian or Jewish translation: it is the correct translation… [T]he Greek Gospel of Matthew based its proof-from-prophecy upon a term which Isaiah did not use.” (Isaiah 7:14b in New Major Christian Bible Translations, Jewish Bible Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 3, 2013, p. 178). Christian scholars agree. The NET Bible (New English Translation), a free on-line English translation of the Bible with over 60,000 translators’ notes, published in 2005 and sponsored by the Biblical Studies Foundation, translates Isaiah 7:14 as follows:

For this reason the Lord himself will give you a confirming sign. Look, this young woman is about to conceive and will give birth to a son. You, young woman, will name him Immanuel.

Matthew appears to have been quoting from the Greek (Septuagint) translation of the Hebrew Bible (“Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son…”), but it turns out that the Greek word for “virgin” (parthenos) did not always mean “virgin”: it once had a broader meaning, back in 200 B.C., when it simply meant “young woman.” (For instance, in Genesis 34:2-4, Shechem raped Dinah, the daughter of the patriarch Jacob, yet the Septuagint refers to her as a parthenos, even after she had been raped.)

In any case, Isaiah 7:14 was never intended to refer to a miraculous birth in the distant future. In the words of Christian Biblical scholar Frederick Bruner, “There is almost total unanimity among scholars that Isaiah’s prediction here to Ahaz is a prediction coming to a young woman in Isaiah’s lifetime – Isaiah is not predicting a messianic birth centuries later” (Matthew: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12 (Matthew a Commentary), Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdman’s Publishing Company; Revised and expanded edition, 2004, p. 35). Or as Fr. Raymond Brown acknowledges in his acclaimed work, The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1979, p. 148): “[The Masoretic Text] of Isa 7:14 does not refer to a virginal conception in the distant future. The sign offered by the prophet was the imminent birth of a child, probably Davidic, but naturally conceived, who would illustrate God’s providential care for his people.”

Finally, even if the Hebrew word almah is translated “virgin,” the passage does not refer to a miraculous conception, but to a woman who is now a virgin conceiving naturally, in the very near future. Or as Biblical scholar James Tabor, Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, puts it: “Whether one renders ‘almah as “virgin” or “young woman” the meaning is essentially the same – that a young girl who has not had sexual intercourse will in fact get pregnant – not that she will get pregnant without sexual intercourse… Anyone reading Isaiah 7:14 in context would realize it is talking about the divinely sanctioned birth of a normal child in Isaiah’s time… This birth was to be a sign to Ahaz, the king of Judah, that despite the threats of the Assyrians, poised in the north to conquer Jerusalem, God would be with his people (“Immanuel”) and protect them.”

This last point is an important one, as it refutes the oft-heard objection (going back to St. Justin Martyr in the second century A.D.) that the purely natural birth of a child could not serve as a sign, and that Isaiah must have been alluding to a miraculous birth. Justin’s argument blurs the distinction between a sign and a miracle. As Fr. Raymond Brown puts it, “The sign offered by the prophet was the imminent birth of a child, probably Davidic, but naturally conceived, who would illustrate God’s providential care for his people. The child would help to preserve the House of David and would thus signify that God was still ‘with us.'”

St. Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.) was the earliest Christian apologist to defend the Christian reading of Isaiah 7:14, in his Dialogue with Trypho, where he castigates the Jews as “a people hard-hearted and without understanding, both blind and lame, children in whom is no faith” (chapter 27) and argues at length that Isaiah 7:14 obviously refers to Jesus. Dr. Robert J. Miller, who is the Rosenberger Chair of Christian and Religious Studies at Juniata College, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, critically evaluates Justin’s arguments in an article written for the Westar Institute (home of the Jesus Seminar), titled Prophecy, Christology, and Anti-Judaism in Justin Martyr, where he concludes: “Justin’s argument for the virgin birth is a textbook example of bad exegesis. It hinges on his insistence on an ambiguous translation of the original text, a willful ignoring of literary context, a nonsensical construal of grammar, and an interpretation of the magi story that is, frankly, bizarre… Persuasive as Justin’s arguments surely were for ancient Christians, today they fall completely flat.” Dr. Miller goes on to explain that St. Justin’s hostility towards the Jews was based on doctored Christian paraphrases of the Scriptures, composed originally by Jewish Christians as exegetical commentaries on their true meaning, which he and other Gentile converts mistakenly assumed were the actual words of Scripture.

Even today, one can still find Christian apologists who stoutly affirm that the Scriptures foretell Jesus’ birth from a virgin, based on flawed arguments that have changed little since Justin’s day. I respectfully submit that it is time for these authors to abandon their arguments, and acknowledge that there are no Biblical prophecies referring to Jesus’ virginal conception.

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Theological arguments for Jesus’ virginal conception

9. The doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception is incapable of being supported by theological arguments alone, and in any case, the arguments are unconvincing.

Some apologists have attempted to defend the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception on theological grounds. Perhaps the strongest theological argument in favor of the doctrine is that the birth of the Redeemer had to have been the result of a supernatural act of God, because our fallen human race is incapable of redeeming itself. Had Christ been born naturally, his coming into the world would have been the result of man’s will, not God’s. However, what this argument overlooks is that even for a human being conceived naturally, that person’s identity as Redeemer of the human race (making them a Divine Person assuming a human nature) could still be entirely determined by God. Putting it another way: God is quite capable of assuming a human nature that has been conceived naturally.

A second argument, which some Christians justify by appealing to Luke 1:35, ties the virgin birth to Jesus’ divine sonship: Jesus was conceived of the Virgin Mary because he was the Son of God. However, the verse in Luke does not mention the Father, but only the Holy Spirit, who was not the father of Jesus. And as Fr. Raymond Brown argues in his inaugural address, The Problem of the Virginal Conception of Jesus, delivered at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on November 28, 1971, “while the doctrine of the virginal conception draws attention to the fact that Jesus was not simply a man like all others and is God’s Son in a unique way, it would be impossible to prove theologically that the Son of God could not have become incarnate as the product of a marital union between Joseph and Mary” (1971, p. 16).

A third argument, going back to the late fourth century and associated with the Church Fathers Ambrose and Augustine, is that that Jesus was free from original sin precisely because he was conceived of a virgin. But as Brown argues in the address cited above, “while the virginal conception may enter into the mystery of Jesus’ sinlessness, it is difficult to argue that in order to be free from original sin Jesus had to be conceived of a virgin” (1971, pp. 15-16).

In any case, even if there were a good theological argument for Jesus’ virginal conception, one would want some independent historical evidence that such a miracle had actually occurred, before coming to believe in such a doctrine. Why? Because if the miracle actually happened, it would be extremely strange if there were no such evidence. As we’ve seen, however, the historical evidence is badly flawed.

Finally, many people argue that a virginal conception would have been at least theologically “fitting,” but this does not warrant belief in such a miracle unless one can demonstrate decisively that a purely natural conception would have been unfitting.

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EPILOGUE

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In this essay, I have tried to mount a strong case against the apologetic arguments in favor of Jesus’ virginal conception, in order to expose their weaknesses for all the world to see. As I hope readers will agree by now, the arguments are far from convincing, or even probable, whether taken singly or cumulatively. My object was to show that believing in Jesus’ virginal conception requires a good deal of faith, even for a Christian. There is no good historical evidence for the doctrine; the prophetic arguments are not worth the paper they’re written on; and the theological arguments are anything but compelling. Additionally, belief in a virginal conception seems to require God to make millions of ad hoc choices, as we discussed in part 6 above. One might reasonably ask: is it time for Christians to throw in the towel, and abandon belief in Jesus’ virginal conception?

Despite the doubts that I have raised, I do not think it would be wise for Christians to abandon belief in the doctrine. Empirically, the evidence suggests that churches which do so also end up giving up their belief in the divinity of Christ. For this reason alone, I would urge them to retain the doctrine. Additionally, I share the belief of Christians down the ages that there is a certain “fittingness” about the theological arguments for Jesus’ virginal conception: it would have been an appropriate way for the Son of God to come into the world, even if he didn’t have to. So I would urge Christians not to throw the (theological) baby out with the bath water.

What I would urge the Christian churches to do, however, is give up their dogmatic insistence on belief in this doctrine as a touchstone of faith, and allow individual Christians to make up their own minds as to whether they believe the doctrine or not. This is a step which many Christian denominations – Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Calvinists and Evangelicals of various stripes, or more than 80% of the world’s Christians – seem very reluctant to take. So long as they refuse to do so, however, they are creating an obstacle to faith. If belief in the virginal conception of Jesus is a vital part of the Christian faith, then any argument against the virginal conception is ipso facto an argument against Christianity itself. An intelligent seeker after truth, upon being told by zealous believers that belief in the virginal conception of Jesus is a sine qua non of Christian faith, is liable to reject Christianity for that very reason, if she is aware of how poor the evidence for the doctrine really is. I say: let us not place stumbling blocks in the path of people coming to Christ.

Let me now pose a question for Christians who continue to insist on the virginal conception as one of the “fundamental” Christian beliefs: what if you are just as mistaken as those devout Christians in the nineteenth century who insisted on taking literally the Biblical account of the creation of man from the soil of the ground (Genesis 2:7)? Concerning this analogy, Fr. Raymond Brown, who first proposed it in his inaugural address, The Problem of the Virginal Conception of Jesus (given at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on November 28, 1971)) writes:

…[W]e have learned to distinguish between the theological insight and the physical imagery in which it was clothed. Could the same be said if Catholic theologians were forced to distinguish between the valid insight of faith that God intervened in the conception of His Son and a past notion of the biological how of that intervention, namely, virginal conception? (1971, p. 13)

At this point, there may be some believers who will simply dig in and say: “The Bible declares it; that settles it.” Or as Associate Professor Brandon Crowe, of Westminster Theological Seminary, puts it in his online essay, Jesus Christ: The Last Adam (thegospelcoalition.org, January 15, 2020; modified 29 April 2020):

Any number of intricate, intellectual arguments can be mounted against the notion that Adam was the first human being. We must make a choice: will we believe the plain teaching of Scripture, even where it seems improbable or impossible?

In reply, I would ask Professor Crowe: is it fair to ask someone who is considering becoming a Christian to believe something which her intellect tells her is impossible?

Let me ask the “fundamentalists” another question: would you stake your eternal destiny on the literal biological reality of Jesus’ virginal conception? That is: would you be prepared to miss out on Heaven if it turned out that you were mistaken?

Honoring the real Mary

I’d like to finish by quoting from Professor James Tabor‘s blog article, Mary: Mother of God or Jewish mother of seven? (March 3, 2017). After reviewing what the Gospels tell us about Mary – that she was “the mother of seven children – Jesus and his four brothers – James, Yose, Simon, and Judah and at least two sisters (Mark 6:1-6),” that she is “present at his [Jesus’] crucifixion and involved in the rites of his burial, along with Mary Magdalene and perhaps his sisters (Mark 15:40-41, 47; 16:1),” and that in Jesus’ dying moments, she is given “into the care of ‘the disciple whom he loved'” (whose identity is disputed) – Tabor argues that from a historical standpoint, “Christian dogma and devotion … rob both Jesus and his brothers and sisters, not to mention the mother that bore them, of their humanity.” He forthrightly denounces what he sees as the Christian mythology that has grown up around Mary:

The very concept of an asexual ‘mother of God’ is alien and foreign to Jewish culture and to the Hebrew Bible. Such ideas … could only thrive in the centuries after the first generation had passed on, when James and the other brothers of Jesus were dead, the family dispersed, and the original Jewish followers of Jesus were scattered with little influence or effect on the increasingly Gentile movement that was growing up outside the land of Israel.

In his concluding paragraph of his article, Tabor makes a passionate plea for the recovery of the historical Mary. Only by so doing, he argues, can we honor Mary properly:

I have no desire to be offensive here but when one backs off a bit from the theology and the mythology, the ideas associated with “Mariology,” as pious as they seem, are in fact a travesty on what she was in reality – that is the Jewish mother of Jesus and his family. It is indeed commendable that so many millions of people, whether Catholic or Protestant, want to remember Mary, mother of Jesus. One has to ask, though, whether removing her from her own children, and all we might imagine that she held dear, in terms of her life and Jewish faith, can be properly seen as “devotion” to her memory? Far from being sacrilegious or blasphemous giving Mary her human place as the devoted Jewish mother of Jesus and his siblings shows honor to Mary in a way that is long overdue.

Scripture does not definitively settle the question of whether the “brothers” of Jesus were Mary’s children or Joseph’s by a previous marriage. (It is very unlikely that they were cousins, St. Jerome suggested in the fourth century.) But on the basis of the Scriptural evidence available, there is a better-than-even chance that Mary had other children, as Tabor contends. And as we have also seen, the Scriptural evidence for the virginal conception of Jesus is highly contentious at best: Scripture itself seems to bear witness to an older tradition in which Jesus was conceived naturally. By stridently insisting on the virginal conception of Jesus, it may turn out that Christians are dishonoring the real Mary, mother of Jesus. And that is why I believe Christians should keep an open mind, because we cannot know for sure.

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APPENDIX: A brief survey of previous explanations of how the story of Jesus’ virginal conception may have arisen, and what’s wrong with them.

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KEY POINTS (a) The theory that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception is based on pagan myths won’t hold water. In none of the stories of the divine humans born to the union of a god and a mortal is the mortal a virgin. (b) The theory that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception was based on a prophecy (Isaiah 7:14) is unconvincing. Scholars today are virtually unanimous that Isaiah’s prediction to Ahaz applied to a young woman in Isaiah’s lifetime. On this point the Jews are right and traditional Christian apologists are wrong. Also, in the original Hebrew, the word used in the prophecy was not “virgin” (almah) but “young woman” (parthenos). The word parthenos, which first appeared in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (Septuagint) around 200 B.C., originally meant “young woman,” but by the first century A.D. it meant exclusively “virgin.” Even so, the text is unlikely to have generated the belief that Jesus was born of a virgin, although it may have confirmed this belief, after it had been formulated. (c) The theory that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception was a counter-polemic to accusations that Jesus was conceived out of wedlock, whether because Mary had a clandestine affair before she got married to Joseph or because she was raped by Roman soldiers, founders on the fact that the Pharisees are depicted as interacting with Jesus (something they would never have done if he was illegitimate), as well as the fact that he was invited to read in the synagogue in his home town (which illegitimate offspring were not allowed to do). Finally, Jesus and his family were known to be descended from David. (d) The theory that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception was based on the fact that when Mary got married, she was very young, and too physically immature to conceive (in popular Jewish parlance, a virgin) is intriguing, but fails to explain how belief in one miracle (that God made a physically immature girl conceive after having sex with her husband Joseph) got transformed into belief in another miracle (that God made a young woman conceive without having sex with Joseph). (e) The theory that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception was invented in order to resolve a royal dilemma about the origins of the Messiah (namely, that Jesus is presented in Matthew’s gospel as a descendant of Jeconiah, whose family had been barred by God from ever being the Messiah) is highly implausible. It is much more likely that whoever drew up the genealogy in Matthew’s gospel simply did a bad job, because they were not Jewish, and were therefore unaware that no descendant of Jeconiah could ever qualify as the Messiah. (f) The theory that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception was invented as a way of showing that Jesus was the Son of God puts the cart before the horse. Belief in Jesus’ Divine sonship seems to have arisen before belief in Jesus’ virginal conception.

I shall now briefly review several theories as to how belief in Jesus’ virginal conception may have arisen in the first place.

(a) Was the Virgin Birth story based on pagan myths?

In its article on Mary, New World Encyclopedia makes the following suggestion as to how the Virgin Birth story may have arisen:

For skeptics and for rational-minded believers who do not accept that God works in ways that are contrary to science — human parthenogenesis is scientifically implausible and has never been observed — the virgin birth is a legend, possibly adopted from the Greek mystery religions of that time: For example, Horus, a major god of the Egyptian mystery religion, was born of the virgin Isis; and Mithra, whose cult rivaled Christianity during the first few centuries of its existence, was conceived when the creator-god, in the form of light, entered a virgin.

However, in an online article titled, Pagan Parallels to the Virgin Birth? (October 2, 2014) over at the Ladder of Jacob blog, Christian apologist Ben Burton explains why the skeptical proposal that the Virgin Birth was based on pagan myths just won’t wash:

In almost all of the pagan parallels, a god or a goddess has sexual intercourse with the woman/goddess. The exception to the fact is the son of Zoroaster, who was reported to have been conceived by a virgin bathing in a lake, which Zoroaster spilled his seed in before his death. Brown notes, “It is also difficult to date the tradition that, after Zoroaster’s death, his seed which had been preserved in a body of cold water impregnated a virgin who bathed therein.”[12] Brown also mentions four “seeming exceptions” but says, “I show that divine intercourse is really presupposed in all four.” One fact, among many, which has seemed to escape the minds of the ‘pagan parallel proponents’, is that after sexual intercourse, you are no longer a virgin. However, the ‘virgin birth parallel’ argument still continues to be claimed by the skeptics.

Additionally, Professor Bart Ehrman (a Biblical scholar who is himself an agnostic) presents weighty reasons why he finds the “pagan myth” proposal unconvincing. In a blog article titled, Miraculous (Not Virgin) Births in Ancient Pagan Texts (December 30, 2014), Ehrman takes issue with skeptical claims that the Virgin Birth story has pagan parallels:

In none of the stories of the divine humans born to the union of a god and a mortal is the mortal a virgin; the very point of the stories is that she is not. This will be one of the ways that the Christian stories of Jesus differ from those of other divine humans in the ancient world. It is true that (the Jewish) God is the one who makes Jesus’ mother Mary pregnant through the Holy Spirit (see Luke 1:35). But the monotheistic Christians had far too an exalted view of God to think that he could have temporarily become human to play out his sexual fantasies. The gods of the Greek and Romans may have done such things, but the God of Israel was above it all.

When a reader named LWH asked Ehrman about “examples of gods claimed to be born of a virgin: Mithra, Attis, Buddha, Krishna, Quexalcote, Horus, Adonis, Quirinus, and Indra,” Ehrman succinctly replied: “None of these was born of a virgin.”

In an earlier blog post, titled, Widespread Claims of Pagan Virgin Births (December 29, 2014), Ehrman is particularly scathing in his treatment of a bestselling book by authors Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, titled, “The Jesus Mysteries: Was the ‘Original Jesus’ a Pagan God?” Freke and Gandy suggest in their book that Christianity was based on a pagan mystery religion involving a myth of a godman who died and rose from the dead. This divine figure was called by various names (Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, Adonis, Baccus, Mithras), but “fundamentally all these godmen are the same mythical being” (p. 4). The trouble with such assertions, as Ehrman points out, is that there is zero evidence for them:

What, for example, is the proof that Osiris was born on December 25 before three shepherds? Or that he was crucified? And that his death brought an atonement for sin? Or that he returned to life on earth by being raised from the dead? In point of fact, no ancient source says any such thing about Osiris (or about the other gods). But Freke and Gandy claim that this is common knowledge. And they “prove” it by quoting other writers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who have said so. But these writers too do not cite any historical evidence.

When asked by another reader where the story of the Virgin Birth originally came from, Ehrman replied, “My hunch is that it originated as a response to widespread claims that Jesus’ had been born out of wedlock” – a suggestion I’ll discuss below.

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(b) Was the Virgin Birth story based on a prophecy (Isaiah 7:14)?

Fr. Denis Vincent Wiseman debunks the suggestion that belief in Jesus’ virginal conception originally sprang from a reading of Isaiah 7:14, in his scholarly article, The Virginity of Mary Dogma (University of Dayton, article from the series All About Mary, July 19, 2002):

Isaiah 7:14 is not Matthew’s source for believing in the virginal conception of Jesus. The authors of the ecumenical work, Mary in the New Testament, comment: “[I]t was unlikely that Matthew first came to the idea of the virginal conception of Jesus by reflecting on Isaiah 7:14, a text, that, as far as we know, no Jew had previously seen as indicative of a virginal conception of the Messiah. However, if there was already an idea that Jesus had been virginally conceived, this may have reminded Matthew of Isaiah 7:14 which the would then have reinterpreted as foretelling this conception.”[9]

[Fr. Raymond] Brown in his work, The Virginal Conception & Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, likewise affirms: “[I]t is dubious that Isaiah 7:14 was the origin of Matthew’s tradition of a virginal conception; elsewhere, including chapter 2, it is Matthew’s custom to add fulfillment or formula citations to existing traditions. And, indeed, there is no proof that Isaiah 7:14 played any major role in shaping the Lucan account of the virginal conception.”[10]

References
9 Raymond E. Brown et al., Mary in the New Testament, (New York: Paulist, 1978), 92.
10 Raymond E. Brown, The Virginal Conception & Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Pau1ist, 1973), 64.

Evangelical scholarship is equally dismissive of the suggestion that Christian belief in Jesus’ virginal conception arose from their reading of Isaiah 7:14. Greg Rhodea discusses this suggestion at length in his article, Did Matthew Conceive a Virgin? Isaiah 7:14 and the Birth of Jesus (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 56/1 (2013) 63–77). Rhodea’s carefully worded conclusion is worth quoting at length:

This examination considered whether the virginal conception was invented to fulfill the prophecy of Isa 7:14. First, this study looked at both the Hebrew text and the Greek of the LXX, and found that in neither case was a supernatural virginal conception demanded. Neither עַלְמָה nor παρθένος can bear the weight of insisting that the woman in question conceived while remaining a virgin. It also seems that there is no evidence of Jewish expectation for the messiah to be so conceived.

Second, this study looked at the Gospel of Matthew and saw that Matthew appears to add his fulfillment citations to existing tradition, and not the other way around. Matthew’s birth narrative proceeds clearly if the citations are removed, and the OT references are peculiar choices if one could pick any prophecies for Jesus to fulfill. This also matches the practice of early Christians generally — they began with the traditions about Jesus and went looking in the OT for support, and not the other way round.

Third, this study showed that the invention of Jesus’ virginal conception would seem to threaten the early Christian belief in Jesus’ Davidic descent. If Jesus got his heritage from Joseph, then the virginal conception would deny him a biological descent from David. All three of these lines of evidence mitigate against the invention of the virginal conception to fulfill messianic expectation. In short, it seems unlikely that “Matthew wrote that Jesus was born of a virgin because that’s what he thought Scripture predicted.”[107]

Refs:
[107] – Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them) (New York: HarperOne, 2009) 74.

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(c) Was the Virgin Birth story based on accusations that Jesus was illegitimate?

One popular proposal is that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception may have arisen as a counter-polemic to accusations that Jesus was conceived out of wedlock. Professor Bruce Chilton argues for this proposal in his online article, “The Mamzer Jesus and His Birth” (October 2005). Professor Chilton points out that “in John’s Gospel opponents appear to taunt Jesus with being born of “fornication” (porneia; John 8:41)”; additionally, “he was called ‘son of Mary’ in his own town (Mark 6:3) rather than ‘son of Joseph.'” Chilton suggests that the rumors about Jesus’ illegitimacy started when Mary was discovered to be pregnant, despite the fact that she and Joseph were known to be living apart, even though they were betrothed: Mary lived in Nazareth, while Joseph resided in a town in Galilee seven miles away, called Bethlehem (not to be confused with the town of Bethlehem in Judea).

A related proposal, put forward by Catholic theologian Jane Schaberg in her book, The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), is that both Matthew and Luke inherited a historical tradition that Jesus was conceived out of wedlock, and intended their readers to understand that Jesus was illegitimately conceived (probably by rape). At the same time, both authors wished to convey the theological message that God, siding with the wronged woman, Mary, has made her child the Son of God. Schaberg’s proposal is vigorously defended by Frank Reilly in his article, “Jane Schaberg, Raymond E. Brown, and the Problem of the Illegitimacy of Jesus” (Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 21.1 (2005) 57-80).

However, Professor James McGrath of Butler University, Indianapolis, comprehensively rebuts both hypotheses in his article, “Was Jesus illegitimate? The evidence of his social interactions” (Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 5.1 (2007): 81-100). He argues that the best biographical evidence we have concerning Jesus relates to his adult life, and that on the basis of his social interactions as an adult, it is most unlikely that Jesus would have belonged to the stigmatized class of mamzer (people who were of illegitimate birth):

As we now turn to the implied social status of Jesus as evidenced by his adult interactions, let us begin with the references in the tradition to Jesus associating with tax collectors and sinners… It is clear that Jesus is thought to be associating with individuals that are considered unworthy of the attention of the religiously and/or morally respectable… For Jesus’ action to be provocative, his standing must have differed from that of ‘tax collectors and sinners’…

We may also note that the Pharisees are depicted as interacting with Jesus even though he clearly flouts purity concerns. If Jesus were a person of questionable birth, and he showed disregard for ritual purity, why would they not simply have shunned or ignored him? …

Jesus’ public role in the synagogue also provides evidence regarding Jesus’ status… The evidence for Jesus not merely entering but teaching in synagogues is found throughout the Gospel tradition, including passages like that in Mark 6 where the audience is less than enthusiastic. These stories are unlikely to have been created from scratch by Christian authors, and therefore are likely to have a historical core, however slim… The conclusion to be drawn from this is not that mamzerim were therefore allowed to speak in the synagogue, since it has not been demonstrated that Jesus had this status. It would be far more natural to surmise on the basis of this evidence that not only was Jesus not a mamzer, but that he was somewhere significantly further up the social hierarchy in terms of his status…

This brings us nicely to our next point, the tradition that Jesus was a descendant of David. Schaberg claims that ‘The earliest record does not name Joseph as Jesus’ father’.’ It does however identify Jesus as descended from David. The ‘son of David’ tradition is already traditional by the time Paul wrote to the Romans (1:3-4)…

To summarize, then, the son of David tradition can be traced back earlier than the miraculous birth tradition, to the letters of Paul. It is inconceivable that this tradition could have arisen around someone who was the child of a single mother, or who was generally suspected of being the child of someone other than his purported father. Jesus thus had the status associated with being ‘descended from David’. This does not necessarily mean that he really was. History abounds with examples of families that believed or claimed they had noble roots, without there being any basis in fact for those claims. Whether Jesus had David as a genetic ancestor we cannot ever hope to ascertain. But the evidence does support Jesus and his family having the reputation of being descended from David, and this is all that matters for the purpose of our present study. This status was presumably connected with the whole family, since Jesus’ brother James is also depicted by Josephus as being highly regarded in Jerusalem in his time, and Eusebius records further information about other relatives of Jesus recognized some generations later as descendants of David. (2007, pp. 94-97)

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(d) An alternative proposal from Geza Vermes: Mary was very young

In an article in The Guardian, titled “Face to faith” (December 16, 2006), Biblical scholar Géza Vermes (1924-2013) puts forward an intriguing hypothesis as to how the story of Jesus’ virginal conception may have arisen:

In Luke the virginal conception was announced to a girl on the point of marrying Joseph. Mary was baffled. How could she become a mother before they had come together? One may wonder whether her astonishment resulted from the knowledge that, not having reached the age of puberty, she was not yet ready for motherhood, for virgin in Jewish parlance could designate a girl too physically immature to conceive. The angel, in his answer, seems to argue that God could allow the pre-pubertal Mary to conceive just as he had caused the post-menopausal Elizabeth to become pregnant. Again in Jewish parlance, a married woman past child-bearing age was a virgin for a second time.

The attractiveness of Vermes’ account is that it is at least semi-plausible that early Christian belief in one miracle associated with Jesus’ conception (Mary’s having conceived at an age when she was too young to conceive) could have been transformed into the belief that another miracle had occurred (Jesus was conceived without a human father). The main difficulty with the theory, as I see it, lies in envisaging how the Christian community came to forget what kind of miracle had occurred in relation to Jesus’ conception and birth. I submit that any theory which is forced to posit collective amnesia on the part of the Christian community is inherently unlikely.

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(e) Was the story of Jesus’ virginal conception invented in order to resolve a royal dilemma about the origins of the Messiah?

There is a theory which is popular among some apologists, that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception was intended to resolve a royal dilemma about the origins of the Messiah: namely, that Jesus is presented in Matthew’s gospel as a descendant of Jeconiah, whose family had been barred by God from ever being the Messiah.

Rev. Will Nelken explains how Matthew’s gospel resolves the problem, in a sermon titled, Messiah’s Tree, presented at Trinity Community Church, San Rafael, California, on December 17, 2017:

The main purpose of Matthew’s genealogy, then, is to show why Jesus could NOT be king if He were really Joseph’s son. His purpose was not to show the royal line. For this reason, Matthew starts his Gospel with the genealogy, presents the Jeconiah problem, and then proceeds with the account of the virgin birth which, from Matthew’s viewpoint, is the solution to the Jeconiah problem.

In summary, Matthew deduced that if Jesus were really Joseph’s son, He could not claim to sit on David’s throne because of the Jeconiah curse; but Jesus was not Joseph’s son, for He was born of the virgin Mary (Matthew 1:18-25).

For my part, I have to say I find Nelken’s theory highly implausible. It is much more likely that whoever drew up the genealogy in Matthew’s gospel simply did a bad job, because they were not Jewish, and were therefore unaware that no descendant of Jeconiah could ever qualify as the Messiah.

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(f) Was the story of Jesus’ virginal conception invented as a way of showing that Jesus was the Son of God?

The Encyclopaedia Biblica (edited by Thomas Kelly Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black; Toronto: George N. Morang and Company Limited, 1899), in its article on Mary (Vol. 3, p. 155), puts forward the interesting proposal that belief in Jesus’ virginal conception sprang from the generalized belief that Jesus was the Son of God:

Whilst, however, it was to be expected that the Church’s worship would naturally lead onwards on an ascending line from the general idea that as Messiah Jesus must have been the son of David to the genealogies, and from the general idea that he was in an ethical sense the son of God, and belief in his having been filled with the Holy Spirit at his baptism to the dea of the supernatural birth, next to that of his pre-existence, and lastly to his identification with the Logos, we have seen that pre-existence (from Paul onwards) and possibly identity with the Logos (10) were attributed to him earlier than a supernatural birth. Both together are first met with in Justin (see below, ad. 17 a) and Ignatius (ad Magn. 6 1 8 2; ad Eph. 7 2 ; ad Smyr. I 1, etc.); the NT writers have, all of them, still the correct consciousness that the two theories are incompatible. He who has already lived the life of a divine being in heaven does not need to be ushered into the world in any such manner.

The author then considers an obvious difficulty for this theory, that belief in Jesus’ pre-existence actually preceded belief in Jesus’ virginal conception, and concludes that the latter belief arose within a separate part of the Christian church hadn’t been influenced by St. Paul’s theology: “As, nevertheless, the theory of the virgin birth came into being at a later date, it must have arisen within circles to which the idea of the pre-existence was unknown, or to which (for it could not always remain unknown) it was not acceptable, that is to say in circles which were not affected with Paulinism.”

However, it appears to me that the theory that the story of Jesus’ virginal conception was invented as a way of showing that Jesus was the Son of God puts the cart before the horse.

Biblical scholar James Tabor, who is Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has a somewhat different take in his online article, Did Paul Invent the Virgin Birth? (Huffington Post, February 22, 2013), where he concludes that although St. Paul himself knew nothing of the doctrine of Jesus’ virginal conception, he invented the doctrine of Jesus’ pre-existence with God before his birth, which in turn gave rise to the later Christian teaching that Jesus was born of a virgin:

I am convinced that the idea of Jesus’ birth from a virgin — without a human father — implicitly goes back to the apostle Paul. Paul’s letters date several decades before our New Testament gospels and it is Paul’s understanding of Jesus as the pre-existent, divine, Son of God, that lays the conceptual groundwork for our Christmas stories.

Paul never explicitly refers to Jesus’ virgin birth nor does he ever name either Mary or Joseph. What he does affirm is that Jesus pre-existed before his human birth and subsequently gave up his divine glory through his birth as a human being. He writes that Jesus “though existing in the form of God” emptied himself and took on human form, “being made in the likeness of humankind” (Philippians 2:6-7). He says further “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). He has to be referring here, metaphorically, to the “riches” of Jesus’ pre-existence with God, since all our sources have Jesus born of a poor peasant family. Paul also writes “In the fullness of time God sent forth his Son, made of a woman . . .” (Galatians 4:4). The implication of these texts is that Jesus’ mother was merely the human receptacle for bringing Jesus into the world. It is not a far step from these ideas about Jesus’ pre-existence to the notion of Jesus as the first-begotten Son of God — eliminating any necessity for a human father.

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Bibliography

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Historical Evidence for the Virginal Conception of Jesus

Bruner, Frederick Dale. Matthew: A Commentary. Volume 1: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdman’s Publishing Company; Revised and expanded edition, 2004. See here for the quote on the slim historical evidence for the doctrine of the virgin birth (p. 37).

Taylor, Vincent. The Historical Evidence for the Virgin Birth. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1920.

The Virginal Conception of Jesus – Arguments For and Against

Brown, Raymond. The Problem of the Virginal Conception of Jesus. Delivered in the James Memorial Chapel of Union Theological Seminary, N.Y.C., on
Nov. 18, 1971 as an inaugural lecture on the occasion of the author’s becoming Auburn Professor of Biblical Studies, a joint appointment of Union Seminary and Woodstock College.

Crowe, Brandon D. The Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ. Article at thegospelcoalition.org. January 15, 2020; modified 29 April 2020.

Fitzmyer, J. (1973). The Virginal Conception of Jesus in the New Testament. Theological Studies, 34, 541 – 575.

Gruber, Daniel. Modern Rabbis and the Virgin Birth of the Messiah. Article at Elijahnet blog.

Hutchings, Rev. Dawn. Was Mary a Virgin or was Mary raped? Article at ProgressiveChristianity.org. December 1, 2014.

Jews for Judaism. Was Jesus the Messiah? June 22, 2009.

Loftus, John. Tonight’s Debate Opener vs William Albrecht On “Was Jesus Born of a Virgin?” Article at debunking-christianity.com. January 26, 2020.

Lonsdale, David, S.J. Mary and the New Testament. Way 24 (2, 1984) 133-145.

Machen, J. Gresham. “The Virgin Birth”. The Bible To-day (19.3 (December, 1924): 75-79).

Norman, Asher. Twenty-six Reasons why Jews Don’t Believe in Jesus. Black, White and Read Publishing. Los Angeles. 2007.

Sarfati, Jonathan. The virginal conception of Christ. Online article at The Virginity of Mary Dogma. University of Dayton. Article from the series All About Mary. July 19, 2002.

Wright, N. T. Suspending scepticism: History and the Virgin Birth. Article written for the ABC Religion & Ethics blog. December 28, 2011.

Yosef, Uri Ph.D. Messiah Wanted. Article written for the Messiah Truth Project, Inc.

The Reliability of the Gospel Traditions

Arlandson, James M. Eyewitness Testimony in Luke’s Gospel. Blog article. From the Series: Historical reliability of the Gospels. May 13, 2008.

Ferguson, Matthew Wade. Why Scholars Doubt the Traditional Authors of the Gospels. Article for Internet Infidels. 2017.

Ferguson, Matthew Wade. Matthew the τελώνης (“Toll Collector”) and the Authorship of the First Gospel. Celsus blog article. April 15, 2014.

Did St. Paul and St. Mark believe in the Virginal Conception of Jesus?

Biblehub commentaries on Romans 1:3.

Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange. What are the implications of calling Jesus “the son of Mary” in Mark 6:3? Question asked August 12, 2015; edited April 13, 2017. ThaddeusB’s reply is dated August 15, 2015.

Ehrman, Bart. “Does Mark’s Gospel implicitly deny the virgin birth?” Article at ehrmanblog.org. December 27, 2014.

Encyclopaedia Biblica: a critical dictionary of the literary, political, and religious history, the archaeology, geography, and natural history of the Bible. Edited by Cheyne, T. K. and Black, J. Sutherland. George N. Morang & Co. Ltd. Toronto: 1899-1903. Article: Mary (Volume 3, cols. 2951-2971) by Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., D. Litt., D.D.

Wayne, Luke. Did Paul deny the virgin birth? Online article at Christian Apologetics Research Ministry (CARM). December 15, 2018.

Wallace, J. Warner. Why doesn’t Mark say anything about Jesus’ birth? Online article at Why Was Jesus Born of a Virgin in Matthew and Luke? Article at ehrmanblog.org. December 24, 2014.

The Historical Reliability of Matthew and Luke’s Infancy Narratives

(a) Scholarly articles and sources

Bauckham, Richard. “Luke’s infancy narrative as oral history in scriptural form.” The Christian world around the New Testament. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Volume 2, pp. 131-142. Also available online in document form.

Carrier, Richard. The Date of the Nativity in Luke (6th ed., 2011). Article on Internet Infidels Website.

Maier, Paul. The Date of the Nativity and the Chronology of Jesus’ Life. In Chronos, Kairos, Christos: Nativity and Chronological Studies Presented to Jack Finegan, ed. Jerry Vardaman and Edwin M. Yamauchi (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1989), pp. 113-130.

Maier, Paul. Truth or Fiction: Did Herod Really Slaughter Baby Boys in Bethlehem? Desiring God Website. Interview no. 755 with Pastor John Piper. December 22, 2015.

McGrath, J. F. Census of Quirinius. From the study course series The Historical Jesus. Butler University. Undated.

Pearce, Jonathan M.S. Star of Bethlehem: Methodological Difficulties. A Tippling Philosopher blog article. October 2, 2015.

Pomeroy, Ross. Was the Star of Bethlehem the planet Jupiter? Real Clear Science. December 18, 2016.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Luke 2.

(b) Non-scholarly articles

Engwer, Jason. A Review Of Jonathan Pearce’s Book On The Infancy Narratives (The Nativity: A Critical Examination, England: Onus Books, 2012). Triablogue blog article. July 8, 2013.

Babinski, Ed. A Response To Jason Engwer’s Review (Published At Triablogue) Of Jonathan Pearce’s Book On The Infancy Narratives Of Jesus In The Gospels Of Matthew And Luke. Blog article. 2013.

Engwer, Jason. Is Luke’s Census Historical? Triablogue blog article. August 19, 2010.

Engwer, Jason. Agreements Between Matthew and Luke About Jesus’ Childhood. Triablogue blog article. November 30, 2013.

Engwer, Jason. A Response To Annette Merz On The Infancy Narratives (Part 8). Triablogue blog article. October 13, 2016.

Engwer, Jason. Annette Merz’s Claims About The Infancy Narratives (a nine-part series). Triablogue blog article. October 24, 2016.

Engwer, Jason. Understanding And Arguing For Luke’s Census Account. Triablogue blog article. December 1, 2017.

Isaiah 7:14

Bailey, Lloyd R. (ed.) The Word of God: A Guide to English Versions of the Bible. Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1982.

Beegle, Dewey M. Virgin or Young Woman? An Exegetical Study of Isaiah 7:14. The Asbury Seminarian. 1954. Vol. 8: No. 1, p. 20-34.

Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange. Does Isaiah 7:14 refer to a virgin? (March 14, 2015).

Carrier, Richard. The Problem of the Virgin Birth Prophecy. Article at Internet Infidels (https://infidels.org/). 2003.

De Sousa, Rodrigo. Is the Choice of PARTHENOS in LXX Isa. 7:14 Theologically Motivated? Journal of Semitic Studies LIII/2. Autumn 2008.

Durousseau, Clifford Hubert. Isaiah 7:14b in New Major Christian Bible Translations. Jewish Bible Quarterly. Vol. 41, No. 3, 2013.

Foster, Joseph F. Ask a Linguist – Subject: Ancient Greek Meaning of Parthenos. October 4, 2004. (Scroll down to view.)

Greenspoon, Leonard. The Septuagint and/in Popular Culture. Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. Volume 36, 2003. pp. 61-74.

Kell, Garrett. Is Jesus Really the Virgin-Born Child in Isaiah 7? Article at https://www.thegospelcoalition.org. May 9, 2020.

Kravitz, Rabbi Bentzion. Isaiah 7:14 – A Virgin Birth?. Article at jewsforjudaism.org.

McDowell, Sean. Is the Virgin Birth Based on a Mistranslation of the Original Text? SeanMcDowell.org. December 18, 2018.

Messiah Truth. Does Isaiah 7:14 Foretell the Messiah?

NET Bible (New English Translation). Isaiah 7:14. Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. 1996-2017.

Pearce, Jonathan M. S. Debunking the Nativity: The Mistranslation of “Virgin”. Article at “A Tippling Philosopher” blog. December 7, 2016.

Pentiuc, Rev. Dr. Eugen J. The Word ‘almah in Isaiah 7:14: A New Etymology. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. August 12, 2013.

Rhodea, Greg. Did Matthew Conceive a Virgin? Isaiah 7:14 and the Birth of Jesus. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 56/1 (2013) 63–77.

Singer, Rabbi Tovia. A Christian Defends Matthew by Insisting That the Author of the First Gospel Relied on the Septuagint When He Quoted Isaiah to Support the Virgin Birth. Article at https://outreachjudaism.org.

Virtual Yeshiva Discussion Forums. Origin of the Septuagint.

Wikipedia. Isaiah 7:14.

The Genealogy of Jesus

(i) Scholarly articles

Bookman, Douglas. The Genealogies of Jesus. Article written for Shepherds Theological Seminary. April 18, 2020.

“genealogy of Jesus.” In A Dictionary of the Bible, edited by W. R. F. Browning. Oxford Biblical Studies Online, http://www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/article/opr/t94/e737 (accessed 04-Nov-2020).

Levin, Yigal. Jesus, ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of David’: The ‘Adoption’ of Jesus into the Davidic Line. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28.4 (2006) 415-442.

Shurpin, Rabbi Yehuda. “Is the Messiah a Descendant of King Solomon?” Article written for Chabad.org. January 2, 2012.

(ii) Non-scholarly articles written from a Jewish perspective

Bar, Dr. Eitan. Is Jesus Really From the Line of David? Article on One For Israel blog.

Jews for Judaism. Was Jesus the Messiah? June 22, 2009.

Loflin, Lewis. The Non-Messianic Genealogy of Jesus.

Singer, Rabbi Tovia. Mary’s Genealogy. Article at outreachjudaism.org.

(iii) Non-scholarly articles by Christians and Messianic Jews

Fruchtenbaum, Arnold. The Genealogy of the Messiah. Article on Jews for Jesus blog. April 20 2018.

Jackson, Wayne. The Importance of Messianic Genealogy. ChristianCourier.com.

MacArthur, John. The Messiah’s Royal Lineage. Sermon at Grace to You blogsite. April 2, 2000.

Manning, Erik. A hopeless Bible contradiction? Why do Matthew and Luke give us two different genealogies for Jesus? Article on Is Jesus Alive blog. June 26, 2019.

McCarthy, John F. New Light on the Genealogies of Jesus. Roman Theological Forum. May 1987.

Nelken, Rev. Will. Messiah’s Tree. Sermon presented at Trinity Community Church, San Rafael, California, on December 17, 2017. (Relies heavily on Arnold Fruchtenbaum of Jews for Jesus.)

Yehoshua, Avraham. The Davidic Lineage of Messiah Yeshua. Article on The Seed of Abraham blog. Revised in March 2020.

Zondervan Academic blog. Why Are Jesus’ Genealogies in Matthew and Luke Different? December 14, 2016.

The Family of Jesus

Lazarus, S. P. James – Full Brother of Jesus, His Stepbrother or Cousin?. Article at familytombofjesus.wordpress.com.

Tabor, James. Mary: Mother of God or Jewish mother of seven? Blog article. March 3, 2017.

How was Jesus virginally conceived? (The science behind the “Virgin Birth”)

Bluemel, Craig. How God Conceived Jesus in Mary’s Womb. 2005. Article at bibleanswerstand.org.

Britton, Khadijah. A Scientific Miracle: Theories of Mary’s Virgin Birth. Popular Science blog article. December 24, 2013.

Hay, Mark. The Science Behind Jesus’s Virgin Birth. Article at vice.com. December 27, 2015.

Pearce, Jonathan M. S. Debunking the Nativity: The Male Genome. Article at “A Tippling Philosopher” blog. December 10, 2016.

Wikipedia. Parthenogenesis.

Origin of Belief in the Virginal Conception of Jesus

Crossan, John Dominic. Virgin mother or bastard child? 2003. HTS Theological Studies 59(3):663-691.

Ehrman, Bart. Miraculous (Not Virgin) Births in Ancient Pagan Texts. Article at ehrmanblog.org. December 30, 2014.

Hutchings, Rev. Dawn. Was Mary a Virgin or was Mary raped? Article at ProgressiveChristianity.org. December 1, 2014.

Merrill, John. The Passion and The Nativity. Review of two books by Geza Vermes, at biblicalarchaeology.org. January 03, 2012.

Pearce, Jonathan M. S. Debunking the Nativity: The Virgin Birth. Article at “A Tippling Philosopher” blog. December 5, 2016.

Rhodea, Greg. Did Matthew Conceive a Virgin? Isaiah 7:14 and the Birth of Jesus. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 56/1 (2013) 63–77.

Vermes, Geza. Face to faith. The Guardian. December 16, 2006.

Wright, N. T. Suspending scepticism: History and the Virgin Birth. Article written for the ABC Religion & Ethics blog. December 28, 2011.

The Infancy Narratives

Carrier, Richard. The Date of the Nativity in Luke (6th ed., 2011).

Maier, Paul. The Date of the Nativity and the Chronology of Jesus’ Life. In Chronos, Kairos, Christos: Nativity and Chronological Studies Presented to Jack Finegan, ed. Jerry Vardaman and Edwin M. Yamauchi (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1989), pp. 113-130.

McGrath, J. F. Census of Quirinius.

Engwer, Jason. A Review Of Jonathan Pearce’s Book On The Infancy Narratives (The Nativity: A Critical Examination, England: Onus Books, 2012). Triablogue blog article. July 8, 2013.

Babinski, Ed. A Response To Jason Engwer’s Review (Published At Triablogue) Of Jonathan Pearce’s Book On The Infancy Narratives Of Jesus In The Gospels Of Matthew And Luke. Blog article. 2013.

Engwer, Jason. Annette Merz’s Claims About The Infancy Narratives (a nine-part series). Triablogue blog article. October 24, 2016.

Engwer, Jason. Agreements Between Matthew and Luke About Jesus’ Childhood. Triablogue blog article. November 30, 2013.

Articles by Dr. Uri Yosef at thejewishhome.org

O Little Town of Bethlehem … (of Galilee)
Genealogical Scams and Flimflams
Isaiah 7: 14 – Part 1: An Accurate Grammatical Analysis
Isaiah 7: 14 – Part 2: Refuting Christian Apologetics
Isaiah and his Sons
The “Seed of a Woman”: A Kernel of Deception

Miscellaneous

The credibility of the Christmas story by Vincent Torley. The Skeptical Zone, December 31, 2016.

The virgin birth (conception) of Jesus. ReligiousTolerance.org.