Dec 19 2007
The virgin birth — Luke’s new creation story
Peter Kirk posts what I regard to be a mistaken reading of the birth narratives, especially the Lukan account. Before I interact with what he says about his own views, however, I want to try to clear up some confusions about my views as he portrays them in the post.
First, I believe there is almost nothing an historian can say about the Virgin Birth while speaking as an historian. The sources are relatively late, and in a large measure of apparent disagreement about the details. I have explored this at some length in several posts. The narratives in which the tradition is expressed are not only in disagreement, but reveal some of the significant theological themes of their respective authors as one would expect in a prologue. This places further question marks over how the historian or literary critic should understand the texts, and indeed their genre and (for those of us for whom it significant, among whom I place myself) their authorial intent. Finally, from the historian’s point of view, the event has no historical cause, and there is no easily identifiable way in which any subsequent historical event in Jesus’ life could be said to be necessarily contingent on his virginal conception in any way that could offer evidence for it. That, in a nutshell, is the problem for an historian.
However, (despite Peter’s view of me) I place myself among the ranks of those who believe in the virginal conception of Jesus. Rather like the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his interview today on Five Live (catch the brief conversation between him and Ricky Gervais as well), I would say that while it wasn’t so important for me some years ago, the interconnections and significance of it have become more so in recent years. In part that results from my overall stance vis-à-vis the scriptures, the church’s tradition and authority, and above all faith in the risen Christ. In part it rests on its integration with the whole of my Christology.
Peter says in his extraordinary post:
There is no biological way that he could have been conceived as a normal human man from a normal human woman without sperm from a man being involved. And if he was not conceived with human sperm as well as a human egg, it is very hard to believe, as all orthodox Christians do, that Jesus is fully human as well as fully divine …
My point [is] that sperm find their way into women’s wombs by various methods, not only by sexual intercourse or the various kinds of “fooling around” suggested in other comments at Exploring Our Matrix. One possibility might be use of a contaminated cloth as a tampon. I don’t want to speculate further on how this might happen, nor do I want to suggest any inappropriate behaviour by Joseph and Mary.
But, if a human sperm made its way into Mary’s womb apart from normal intercourse, Jesus could have been born of a virgin although conceived by the normal fusion of a sperm with an egg. This implies that we can say both that Jesus was biologically fully human, as Peacocke rightly insists, and that his mother was a virgin who could say “I know not a man” (Luke 1:34, KJV). (My emphasis)
I quote this at length in his own words to avoid (I hope) misrepresenting him or parodying him. But it seems to me that this is a way of trying to “defend” the historicity of the scriptures that effectively removes their integrity. It is extraordinarily doubtful that Matthew or Luke shared or intended to represent any such kind of biological understanding or interest. Peter’s suggestion dislocates them from their historical context in order to preserve their historical value. This is not generally the most productive reading strategy. It belongs with such bizarrely materialistic defences of miracles such as Elijah dousing the altar with naphtha instead of water, or the 5,000 all suddenly remembering they’d brought a picnic along and being inspired to share it.
More seriously, and here I limit myself to Luke’s account, such a modern biological re-reading works entirely against what is being narrated. Luke is concerned to represent a new creative act of God. The work of the Holy Spirit is to move over the waters of Mary’s womb as once he moved over the face of the deep. Just as in the old story the flesh of the first human was taken and turned into woman, so now the flesh of the woman will be taken for the new humanity. The miracle is that God does not start afresh, but with what he has already created.
“Nothing is impossible for God” says Gabriel. That includes the miracle of transforming an X-chromosome into a Y. To argue for a sperm to be somehow involved is to avoid the implication of this as the beginning of eschatological transformation, and to turn a miracle in the story into a natural (if accidental) phenomenon in history. Peter says “There is no biological way that he could have been conceived as a normal human man from a normal human woman without sperm”. But the point of the stories, surely, is that he is not conceived in a biological way. Both Matthew’s and Luke’s stories are about the extraordinary intervention of God in human history. Turning this into an accident whereby the Blessed Virgin uses Joseph’s wankerchief for a tampon is perhaps the most bizarre defence of the Virgin Birth I have ever encountered.