Loading...Here now is the eighth of my twelve favorite Christmas posts of years gone by, in our celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. This one is from 2014.
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A few days ago I raised the question of why anyone should think that you have to believe in the Virgin Birth in order to be a Christian. The reality is, of course, that many Christians do not believe in it, but recognize that it is a story meant to convey an important theological point – a point that could be true whether or not the story happened – that Jesus was uniquely special in this world, not like us other humans, but in some sense the unique Son of God. Just as the moral of a fairy tale is valid (or not) independent of whether the tale happened, so too with stories like this in the Gospels, whether you choose to call them myths (in a non-derogatory sense), legends, tales, or simply “stories intending to convey a theological truth.”
It is interesting, and not often noted, that Matthew and Luke – the two Gospels (in fact, the two NT books altogether) that recount the story of the Virgin Birth – do so for different reasons and draw different conclusions from it. The stories of Jesus’ birth in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 are very different from each other, and appear
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1. “A few days ago I raised the question of why anyone should think that you have to believe in the Virgin Birth in order to be a Christian. The reality is, of course, that many Christians do not believe in it…”
All the Christians I know believe in the virgin birth. As far as I know, all of the largest denominations and well as the community churches that have sprang up everywhere all teach and believe in the virgin birth.
Are there certain denominations that you know about that do not believe in the virgin birth?
2. “Matthew seems to understand the importance of the Virgin Birth differently from Luke.”
Would M and L have gotten the idea for a virgin birth from the same source and then went with their different understandings of it?
1. I don’t know of any denominations that disavow the literal virgin birth. But I know lots of Christians (including both ministers and professional Christian theologians) who do.
2. Their stories are so different in almost every way (apart from the major points themselves: Bethlehem/Virgin/etc.) that it appears they heard accounts from different (not the same) sources.
Wasn’t Mary traditionally also a virgin birth? Mary’s mother was a virgin? So both Mary and Jesus (per Luke) were conceived by the Holy Spirit? That seems gross. I guess it wasn’t thought of like that back then.
No, Mary’s birth involved an “immaculate conception.” Her mother (Anna) wsa not a virgin (she and her husband, Joiachim, had been trying to bet prenant for years); God worked a miracle so that when Mary was conceived, she did not receive a sin nature from her mother.
Dr Ehrman,
I always struggle with the same chicken-or-the-egg issue with Matthew’s claimed prophecies.
Do you think that he was elaborating a story (the virgin birth narrative) in order to prove the match with a pre-existing prophecy that he cared about (Isaiah 7:14), or was he rather dealt with a pre-existing, embarrassing narrative element (the fact that Jesus happened to be called the son of Mary but that his father’s name was uncertain or unknown, in a society where patrilineage is essential) and then looked up the Septuagint in order to find a line that explained it in a more satisfactory way?
Given the strange Matthew 2:23 passage where a verse unrelated to messianic attributes is invoked and claimed to be a prophecy in order to awkwardly explain a problematic aspect (the fact that Jesus came from a village as insignificant as Nazareth), I tend to go with the second explanation.
Or rather: to Matthew, nothing is accidental or unplanned, and even/especially problematic elements were really forecasted as prophecies the whole time for those who could see them. The problem is its own solution.
Yup, I see it pretty much as you do.
Dr. Ehrman,
Would it be conceivable (pun intended) to think that the educated Gentile and/or Jewish readers, listeners and writers of the various ‘virgin’ birth stories in that time mostly understood ‘virgin’ not to be literal but a metaphor or simile to simply meaning the newborn had ‘uncorrupted’ bloodlines or parents and the lessor-educated (majority) would have had no issues with accepting a literal meaning?
In other words, with a significant number of virgin stories circulating back then about various exalted personages, maybe the use of ‘virgin’ might have become a slang word for that region? There was certainly plenty of ‘slang’ used as insults found in the writings of those times from both Greek and Hebrew texts…!
My hunch is that Luke, in particular, was using the ‘virgin’ in a non-literal mode in light of the other stories he was possibly already familiar with. A number of Jewish scholars also frequently like to comment that the Jewish people were very comfortable understanding terms in stories as metaphors/parables.
Has anyone composed a type of ‘slang dictionary’ for that era? Might be a good dissertation project….
In Isaiah 7, King Ahaz is invited to request a sign from God, with the option to choose something “deep as Sheol or high as the heavens.” This phrase suggests Ahaz could seek either oceanic omens or celestial signs (explaining his reluctance to do so). Instead, God offers a sign: an ALMA will give birth. Notably, “alma” is not only a Hebrew term for “maiden” but also the name of the Semitic constellation Virgo/Latin (Parthenos in Greek).
Jupiter (associated with the Most High) is sometimes found in Virgo. Furthermore, the prophecy states that the events will unfold before the child learns right from wrong. Interestingly, the constellation following Virgo is Libra, symbolizing the scales of justice and the concept of right and wrong.
Matthew’s account fulfills Biblical prophecy in an antagonistic way to the aristocracy of 1st century Jerusalem. Luke’s narrative seems designed to curry favor with the priestly class. It’s centered around the Temple and Jesus performs the expected levitical duties of a good Jew. The virgin birth emphasizes Jesus’ holiness. But what’s the point of appeasing the priestly class if the temple was destroyed before Luke’s gospel? And might Theophilus be associated with a 1st century priest?
Interesting ideas! My sense is that the metaphorical language in the prophets, who are heavily poetic, is not to be taken literally, unless there are clear indications in the text otherwise. As to Luke, yes, the temple is hugely important, but precisely, it appears, because it was indeed destroyed (as predicted clearly in ch. 21). One of Luke’s main emphases is that the salvation that came to the Jews and their center of worship was, because Jesus was rejected, taken from Jerusalem to the gentiles (hence the book of Acts, starting with 1:8). Most interpreters suspect that if Theophilus was an actual person (I’m not sure he was) the fact he is called “most excellent” is a key: the only two other persons called that in Luke-Acts are both highly placed Roman officials)
Hi Bart,
The site says that leaving a comment is the best way to ask any question.
I have read your fist book, and I am working on three others.
I have many interesting questions for you, but I am starting with three less interesting questions to understand where you are coming from beyond what is in your books.
1. How confident are you that the mainstream narrative on global warming, climate change, etc. is mostly right or mostly wrong?
2. How confident are you that the mainstream narrative on all things Covid is mostly right or mostly wrong?
3. How confident are you that the mainstream narrative on Zionism/Israel, such as that held by the US Congress, the media, and Christian Zionists is mostly right or mostly wrong?
Thanks!
I will have far more interesting questions going forward.
1. I am sure that it is entirely right; no doubts in my mind (that it’s real and we’re in trouble). 2. Entirely right (if by mainstream you mean that it is a question of science not speculation). 3. I won’t be getting into political issues here. That applies to the first wo questoins as well, but they do not have the *necessarily* religoius overtones of the ethical issues connected with Zionism. I do talk aobut Christian Zionism on the blog, but only in historical terms (where it came from and what has generated it). If you have questions about the Bible and early Christianity, though, I am
Dr. Ehrman,
How did the Baptist tradition come up with songs like
I) know it was the blood1
2) The blood will never lose its power
3) Plead the blood over your family, “Oh, the blood of Jesus, it washes white as snow”
It seems Ephesians at 1: 7 is only talking about the bleeding done by Jesus at crucifixion and maybe when he was whipped by the Romans–and when he sweat blood in Gethsemane, but the songs in the Baptist tradition seem like Medea making a potion out of Prometheus’ blood.
Hebrews 13:12 says that Jesus suffered to sanctify people through his blood.
Some say that the blood of Jesus is divine and that people can use it to work miracles for their bodies.
Finally, I’m finding eucharistic miracles.
Question: how did some Christians (Baptists) find a scriptural basis for Jesus’ divine blood being a source of healing/salvation when pleading to God in prayer?
If you do a word study in the NT you’ll find lots of references to the importance of Jesus’ blood for salvation, includig Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; John 6:53-56; Acts 20:28; Romans 3:25; 5:9;1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:25, 27; etc. etc. Hebrews chs. 9-10 are particularly important. But there are other places as well in 1 John, 1 Peter, Revelation
In the Baptist denomination of my youth, the eucharistic blood (which was only symbolic, “In remembrance of me”), was unfermented grape juice.
Oddly, every other word in the KJ bible was literal, but “wine” actually meant something that was almost impossible to have (without fermenting or spoiling) in first century Palestine — Welch’s.
Dr. Ehrman: I find it interesting how the understanding of the Greek translation might affect such a crucial NT story. Also, it is in Luke’s narrative that we get the “no room in the inn” comment. I have read one commentary that the Greek original literal translation is more like “the travelers shelter was not for them”. Do you have any thoughts on the Greek original of Luke 2:7?
It’s a tricky Greek word (KATALUMA) that could mean either “inn” or “guestroom.” It is found in only two other places in the NT, Mark 14:14/Luke 22:11 (Luke has copied Mark’s verse verbatim) where Jesus is clearly referring to a room, not an inn. In Luke 2:7, though, the context appears to suggest “a place where travelers stayed” rather than “a particular room in a house” since, having not found a place to stay in it (the KATALUMA) they end up having to stay with the animals — as shown not by the presence of a donkey, ox, and sheep (These aren’t mentioned)!, but by the fact that they were forced to use a feeding trough (“manger”) for a crib.
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains:
…
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransomed ones of God
Be saved, to sin no more:
…
Steefen,
I see your point of what might be called “blood fetishism” (in an anthropological sense) in the hymns you quote.
In the Catholic world, which of course is widespread, diverse, and has had a long time to develop certain garden paths, your observation reminds me of the “Sacred Heart” cult (I don’t mean that pejoratively), which to me is an odd fascination with literally the heart (the organ) of Jesus.
Another is a extreme focus among some on the pain and suffering of the passion. One such “devotion” popular among those who find this important is a book called “The Dolorous [meaning: painful] Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ” is is a 382(!) page description of the last 24 hours or so before and through the crucifixion [by the way, reading it, one concludes Jesus and the guards dragging him from court to court were all world-class sprinters].
I’ve always found this theologically narrow. All humans suffer, and many have suffered far more, I’m sure, than even what the “Dolorous Passion” narrates in great detail. Surely the theological big event would be that God might choose to experience mortality at all, not the specifics of its inevitable outcome.
“My point: for Matthew the virgin birth principally shows that Jesus’ birth was a fulfillment of the divine plan, as revealed by the fact that up & down the line it fulfilled prophecy.”
Before I read that the Scriptures that St Paul writes about was the OT only. I assumed since the God’s Spirit or “divinely inspired” meant IT made sure that the Gospels aligned with the OT predictions.
“not a contradiction between the 2accounts. But it is a very big difference. What mattered to Matthew was the fulfillment of Scripture; what mattered to Luke was the divine ancestry of Jesus. Later readers would simply combine the 2accounts, as if they were saying the same thing,”
I’m stuck on this point. Until Y2k, I learned the Gospels were 1 story & hell with the differences!
This is unacceptable: “God worked a miracle so that when Mary was conceived, she did not receive a sin nature from her mother”!
As for climate change: there were huge differences in each of the 4 seasons living in Shanghai & Beijing, less so in SF Bay Area
Since I’ve chosen to remain a practicing Christian, I’m pretty much required to believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus as doctrine. I’m fine with that since there’s no easy way to disprove it (no way to get a DNA sample). But no, I don’t find it plausible at all.
I don’t think you’re required as a Christian to believe it. Paul, for example, doesn’t say anything about it. And I know a ton of Christians (including activie ministers) who don’t believe it “literally.” It just depends what *kind* of Christian you want to choose to be (and why that kind!)