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.
18 responses so far ↓
1 Peter Kirk // Dec 19, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Doug, thanks for clarifying your position. I would disagree with your “the event has no historical cause”, at least as being relevant. If the birth of an ordinary person has a historical cause, then on my understanding this birth has. Perhaps you are confusing “historical cause” with “scientific cause”, but that is to bring modern scientific thinking, anachronistically, into your evaluation of ancient authors’ intention. I accept that you can believe in the virginal conception of Jesus without believing that it is historically attested, but I have severe reservations about that kind of faith which are more complex than I want to go into here.
Then about your response to what I wrote:
It is an old technique to say something highly debatable and add superlatives like “extraordinarily” in an attempt to scare off those who might disagree. Luke specifically writes of his careful investigation of the facts and evaluation of various sources (1:1-4) just verses before he calls Mary a virgin (1:27,34). I accept that his point is not strictly biological, and so he cannot be understood as ruling out my suggestion. But his point is clear, that Jesus was not conceived within wedlock in the socially and morally acceptable way (1:27). It can also be inferred from the angel’s reply to Mary (1:35) that extramarital intercourse is not what Luke has in mind - although it is only Matthew who completely rules this out, at least with Joseph (1:18,25).
I don’t see how anyone can read Matthew or Luke without understanding them as intending to state that Jesus was born in a biologically anomalous way. That does not in itself imply that this was true, or even that they intended to write history - I suppose they may have been writing more in the genre of a historical novel in which the virgin birth was only part of their fictional world. Nevertheless it is clear that they intended to represent the birth as biologically anomalous.
Not in TNIV, he doesn’t; Luke 1:37 reads
And that seems a better understanding of the Greek. But yes, God could create from nothing, or from a different chromosome, a perfect copy of a human Y-chromosome. The philosophical question might be asked whether this copy is truly human or just a copy - as might have to be asked before long of genetically engineered artificial DNA. But concerning miracles I tend to use a form of Occam’s razor. If an apparent miracle could have happened by an unusual series of coincidences controlled by God’s providence, or by a simple divine intervention of moving something (perhaps just one sperm in this case!), that seems to me more likely to be what happened than that God created something new ex nihilo, or even from something else. For it is much easier to move something than to create it. So, if you don’t like the tampon idea, how about God miraculously transporting one of Joseph’s sperm into Mary’s womb? Speculative, of course, but so is you suggestion that he transformed an X-chromosome into a Y-chromosome.
2 doug // Dec 19, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Except that the authors don’t portray it as “an unusual series of coincidences controlled by God’s providence” but as a direct intervention. Aren’t you rewriting scripture in order to defend it?
3 scott gray // Dec 20, 2007 at 12:11 am
doug, peter–
joseph’s wankerchief?? even i, in my most ribald of agnostic moments, wouldn’t have thought of this sacreligiousity. you two have been too long in the damp cold. come visit in florida for a week or so, sit on the beach with a glass of champagne, enjoy the girls and the sun, and then go back to merry ole’ refreshed, and with a holy perspective.
i mean it.
good christmas to you both.
scott
4 doug // Dec 20, 2007 at 12:43 am
Scott,
That seemed to be what Peter was saying – my “ribald” characterisation of it, which seems to have offended you, was intended to stress how bizarre I thought this idea was (sorry, Peter, but I really do think it is bizarre)
5 Bob MacDonald // Dec 20, 2007 at 1:34 am
Sorry - folks - Secundus has deliberately withheld his impossible comments on the conception of Jesus - but - I had written elsewhere and I think it not impossible, and so far I have not been censured by the Spirit for this thought (and I know something of the way in which the wrath of God works having drafted too many psalm translations), I think that the best example we have of unwanted accepted births today are in the war rapes across religious lines in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The acceptance of these children, I was told (no reference available) resulted in possibilities of reconciliation that are still working themselves out today. Possibilities, I say. - was then Jesus a result of a war rape - by a Roman soldier? Then was Joseph able to accept her anyway and raise the child? This has a lot going for it in my opinion: Matthew’s ‘not so moral’ conceptions in the geneology, Luke’s pageant of acceptance and the after-the–fact results, and Mark’s portrayals of contention in the family. As a father of two non-adopted and two adopted children, the potential for contention is known. Panthera is not such a bad solution - even for a believer. And morality is not the issue - ever. (My two adopted children both have brain damage, one severe from birth - it is not morality, but relationship integrity that determines possible interactions and that quality of eternity life that is salvific.) There - I’m out - at least on this point. I am like Mary - and when the Spirit comes into me, I am perpetually virgin and in a chaste state, pure regardless of my past and walking in a new integrity with a new life in the Spirit - not inerrant, not theoritical, but thoroughly engaged and awaiting the fullness of the parousia.
6 scott gray // Dec 20, 2007 at 3:16 am
doug–
not offended. the whole thing strikes me as outlandishly funny. it was my moment to exercise a bit of pious stuffiness. i don’t get very many of them. i’m agnostic about the virgin birth, in addition to my long list of other things.
then bob goes and reminds us of rape victims in wars, which makes me both irate, and breaks my heart. and then tempers it with his patient waiting for parousia.
what i really meant, was, all of you come visit some time away from the cold.
and good christmas to you (all). safe and interesting holidays to you (all).
peace–
scott
7 Stephen (aka Q) // Dec 20, 2007 at 3:33 am
I thought your line, “Joseph’s wankerchief”, was the highlight of the post. Yes, it’s crude. But it is clear to me that you are deriding Peter’s suggestion. If your language is crass, that’s because Peter’s interpretation is crass.
Peter: have you read the text?
In other words, the conception is explicitly ascribed to an intervention of the Holy Spirit. The text precludes the possibility that Mary used a soiled cloth as a tampon. (And surely no woman would be so careless as to use any old cloth for the purpose, without even washing it first! — never mind a Jewish woman concerned about purity.)
And then there’s that bit, “therefore the child … will be called … the Son of God.” If Jesus was the product of Joseph’s sperm, what is the ground of the title, “Son of God”?!
By the way, I am sceptical about the virgin birth, so I’m not defending it on any fundamentalist grounds. But it’s manifestly clear what message the text intends to convey.
8 J. K. Gayle // Dec 20, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Dear Gentlemen (eloquent skeptics, debaters, agnostics):
Would any of you care to speculate, ruminate, or pontificate on other accounts of other miracles of other mothers’ conceptions (after years, tears, and skeptical laughter)?
Luke 1: “And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.”
1 Samuel 1: “Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the LORD. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”
Genesis 18: “Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?”
Why does any such woman so naturally get pregnant, with children you (and I) owe so much to?
The salient question, in at least one of these accounts, remains: “Is any thing too hard for the LORD?”
9 Naomisu // Dec 20, 2007 at 4:47 pm
“God could create from nothing, or from a different chromosome, a perfect copy of a human Y-chromosome.”
Hebrews 6:20 (speaking of Jesus)
…having become (ginomai) a high priest for ever AFTER THE ORDER OF Melchizedek.
Hebrews 7 3 (speaking of Melchizedek)
3 WITHOUT father, WITHOUT mother, WITHOUT genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life……..
I’ve read and heard several times that in the time of Jesus, people believed that a man sowed his seed in the fallow field of a woman’s body.
Early modern science discovered that human females had eggs and our interpretation of the birth of Jesus changed with this discovery. Someone once said to me. “Now we know about invitro fertilization and other methods of assisted contraception, how do we know it was Mary’s egg?” This young person was considering that if the seed was God’s, why couldn’t the egg be also. I have pondered this for some years. I once read a newspaper article which made an interesting observation about sightings of aliens. It noted that the descriptions of the aliens and their space ships were always based in present scientific knowledge and if the aliens technical capabilities were considered beyond ours, they were still within the bounds of our present human scientific comprehension. It does seem that God is not allowed to have the power to do what modern science has enabled humans to do as regards assisting contraception. God made the first Adam out of the dust (?loose earth?) and the second Adam (Jesus) out of Himself through the Holy Spirit
Gal 4:4
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, (ginomai = happening) of (OUT OF) woman, (ginomai = happening) under the law
10 Peter Kirk // Dec 21, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I’m sorry, Stephen, but this is precisely the kind of pagan gobbledegook which I am trying to debunk. Jesus was NOT, let me repeat NOT, according to any possible variety of even vaguely orthodox Christianity, the product of a sexual union between God and Mary. See my post Jesus is not a demigod. He was not the Son of God by biological descent of his human nature, but by eternal generation of his divine nature. If you don’t understand your error here, I suggest you start to learn the elements of the doctrine of the Trinity.
Naomisu, I see your point, but the problem with you suggestion is that it makes Jesus not human at all, in fact an alien.
Doug, are you implying that God never intervenes by naturally explicable events happening under his providential control? Is every answer to prayer a creative miracle? If you pray for rain and it rains, must it happen in a way which leaves meteorologists puzzled - or else is it just a coincidence? If you pray for money for your church and a rich parishioner gives a large gift, is that not an answer to prayer because the money was not specially created? You seem to have a strange doctrine of miracles and God’s providence.
11 J. K. Gayle // Dec 21, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Peter,
What if I’m an alien and a human who prays and God answers, sometimes naturally and other times inexplicably and miraculously?
G. K. Chesterton answers me this way:
“Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. . . . He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. . . . He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. . . The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility.”
12 doug // Dec 21, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I’m sure I might have a strange doctrine of a great many things, Peter, but here my point is that the gospel narrative is quite explicit in telling the story (stories) of an eschatological intervention of God in human history, not a co-operative working with the physical laws of the historical world.
13 Peter Kirk // Dec 22, 2007 at 12:31 am
Doug, which verse in the gospel infancy narratives mentions “an eschatological intervention of God in human history”? That may be how you (and I) understand Luke 1:35, but it is an interpretation, not something “quite explicit” in the narrative.
14 Naomisu // Dec 22, 2007 at 9:09 am
Peter,
I included the story of aliens to explain how people are influenced by “science” not to say that Jesus was an alien. I said that he was God from conception.
After readiing your explanation of how the seed might have transferred across to Mary and the following comments made by other men, I realised that many men seek to learn more about how cars work or the rules of their favourite sport than the workings of the human body especially regarding reproduction. A search on the internet will tell you that human sperm cannot live outside the human body for very long, not even one day. Science, for the sake of assisting reproduction, has been able to make them survive for much longer but only in a sterile enclosed system stored in very specific ways.
My point to you was that in Genesis, God made the human Adam out of the soil but he was still 100% human. If God made the second Adam, Jesus, also in His image but chose to begin it with the creation of the very sperm and egg and their implantation within Mary, that does not make Jesus alien but 100% human too. It is interesting that you say that Luke 1:35 does not have anything to do with the narrative. It fits with the idea of the Holy Spirit bringing about Jesus’s conception.
As I said modern science discovered earlier that human females had eggs (in 1827 see here http://www.nndb.com/people/026/000100723/ -still learning how to post links on blogs) And so Mary’s own eggs came into the equation. Later modern science has enabled the inception of someone else’s egg fertilised outside of the human body to be implanted within another female body and leave it to grow. Can we not allow God to have as much power and capability (and more?) as humanity finally has in our modern times?
I think that Jesus was 100% human and 100% God from conception. “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
15 Naomisu // Dec 22, 2007 at 11:48 am
I just realised that readers of this post may think that because I spoke of the first Adam as a reality that I may not know what science has actually been saying for the last several hundred years. They may put me into one of several labelled boxes. I don’t put my trust in science because it fails humanity many times. It has often caused harm to humanity and yet there is a compulsion by many to understand Jesus’ conception and birth through the constraints of science.
Science cannot explain salvation through Jesus Christ and we don’t expect it to. Can we expect science to explain God’s intervention into the world to bring that salvation through Jesus’ birth and life and death?
16 Peter Kirk // Dec 22, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Naomisu, I did not say “that Luke 1:35 does not have anything to do with the narrative.” I said that it is not explicitly about “eschatological intervention”. Indeed “It fits with the idea of the Holy Spirit bringing about Jesus’s conception.” But it does not state that that conception took place apart from an egg from Mary’s ovaries and/or a sperm from some man.
You correctly say that God COULD do what you suggest but then conclude from that that he DID do it. This is faulty logic. God could have done all kinds of things at the first Christmas - such as miraculously create from nothing a beautiful palace for his Son to be born in. But he didn’t.
17 Stephen (aka Q) // Dec 23, 2007 at 3:47 am
Peter:
I neither stated, nor implied, that God had sex with Mary. Just to be clear about that.
According to Genesis, God created the heavens and the earth simply by speaking: “Let there be light,” etc. God is not a mere human that God must use physical mechanisms to accomplish God’s ends.
I’m not saying that God “spoke” Jesus into Mary’s womb. The text doesn’t attempt to tell us how God wrought the miracle. However, the text does explicitly ascribe the miracle to the Holy Spirit’s “overshadowing” of Mary. (I believe that’s the NIV translation I’m quoting from memory.)
Do you want to shut me up to only two, equally crude options? — Either Jesus was the product of Joseph’s sperm, or of God’s sperm?
I think Luke’s account is less earthy than either of those two options; akin to the spiritual sublimity of Genesis 1.
As for the title, “Son of God”, it doesn’t need to be interpreted in crude, earthy terms, either. “Son of God” means, in essence, “not the son of Joseph (or any other human being).” Its significance is that it negates the alternative explanation.
It means, in other words, that the birth was not brought about by a human sperm entering Mary’s body — whether in the usual way or in an unusual way of the sort you propose. The birth was miraculous — brought about by the intervention of the Holy Spirit.
18 Peter Kirk // Dec 27, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Well, Stephen, the remaining question is simply whether the Y chromosome which is required for Jesus to have been a normal male human came from Joseph or from God. I mean “from God” in the same sense as your “Son of God” in that “Its significance is that it negates the alternative explanation.” If you say that God provided some of the genetic material for Jesus, that is very close to saying that he was Jesus’ physical father. Since you apparently don’t want to say the latter but do want to say the former, how do you make the distinction?
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