I have a friend who was raised christian but has left the faith many years ago. From time to time we will have discussions about faith. One question that he brought up to me was the virgin birth. He mention that if God created science and the humans ability to reason, how would we explain the virgin birth, or was Mary a liar?
Actually, its not modern science that explains it, it is ancient science and ancient literature.
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As for ancient science:**
The ancients believed that the man’s seed contained the entire makings of the child. In other words, the woman contributed only a place of incubation until birth. Thus there it made no sense to argue over who contributed what. The birth of a being who is a pure god is perfectly logical since there is no need for the woman to contribute any of her ungodly self.
As for ancient literature:
The literary form known as the “Infancy Narrative” was a common form of writing about important people up through the time of Jesus. The ancients believed that in order for a “man” to be considered a god with powers well above average, they had to have divine origins. The most powerful and great men were always described as being born of mortal women and divine fathers.
Consider the roman emperor Augustus - he was the son of the god Apollo, conceived by the god disguised as a snake. Romulus was the son of the god Mars. Alexander the Great was the son of Zeus Ammon**. **Publius Scipio also was the the son of a god become snake and Dionysus was the son of Zeus.
These stories were common, accepted, and even expected of great men. It should be no surprise that the same stories were told of Jesus - how else would the majority of people accept that he was a god?
The church dogmatically states that we must consider this (
from Dei Verbum):
The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. (7) For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert,
due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another.
The virgin birth stories are not the only similarity in the birth stories mentioned above - they all also include various combinations of unusual occurrences in the sky and unusual happenings on earth (that should sound familiar).
None of us believe that Alexander or the others were gods but of course *our *myth of the virgin birth is not only “true” but is also a required belief (a little threat of eternal torture never hurts).
Some will say that the other great men died and didn’t rise from the dead. Well, I’ve never heard of that being a requirement for a god. I also point out that the only contemporary statement of that is in the same writings as the birth stories - not exactly independent evidence.
Just a few thoughts to consider…
