Virgin birth

"Which is more likely, that the whole natural order is suspended or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?" According to Christian mythology, Jesus was born to Mary, a virgin. The first mention of the virgin birth in the Bible occurs in the Gospel of Matthew, which was written over 70 years after the supposed birth.

Isaiah
contains the infamously disputed verse:

To this day, the question of what the term עלמה ('almah; "young woman") above refers to remains a divisive issue in Bible translations. Importantly, however, the text referred to the mother as 'almah, as opposed to bethulah ("virgin"). This suggests against a virgin birth hypothesis.

The word is rendered παρθενος (parthenos; "virgin") in the Septuagint. The Greek-speaking writers of the New Testament unknowingly wrote their stories to fall in line with the Septuagint, which was in error. Thus we have a myth built upon an error from a previous myth.

In reality, with the exception of the Young's Literal Translation Version, the New King James Version, and the English Standard Version, many instances of are not translated as "virgin." (NIV) is translated:

It would seem problematic to substitute "virgin" in this case.

As Gerald Larue states:

And as the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges states:

Finally, it's been noted that even if the word 'almah is to be translated as "virgin", it does not carry the connotation that said virgin would be a virgin at the time of birth or forever. It simply means that someone who was then a virgin should conceive. As such, it might be a virgin conception, but not a virgin birth.

Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew 1:20-23 (KJV) reads;

But while he (Joseph) thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Christians interpret this as fulfilling the prophecy laid out in Isaiah.

It's likely that Matthew has chosen to read almah as "virgin" in order to support the Nativity. Mark did not refer to Isaiah, but then it appears that Mark didn't consider the virgin birth of Jesus to be worth a mention in his gospel.

There is also the problem that Jesus was not named Immanuel. The name Yeshua (Jesus) probably "YHWH is a saving-cry" or comes from a root that means "to deliver, save, or rescue". The name Immanuel means "God with us".

Etymology of "virgin"
The New Testament Uses the Greek Word parthenos in relation to virginity. It Appears Excerpt from LSJ dictionary defines Parthenos as below. It Appears 14 times in ESV. ESV translates parthenos as "betrothed" 3 times, "daughter" Once, "virgin" 8 times According to LSJ Dictionary, parthenos can refer to the Virgin Goddess, a unmarried woman, A chaste Maiden, Unmarried man, A pupil, or Samian earth

Alternate fulfillments
Several other mother-son pairs have been proposed.

Mahershalalhashbaz
The first is Isaiah's wife and her son Mahershalalhashbaz. :

Interestingly, the last line of Isaiah 8:1-4 lines up with :

Mahershalalhashbaz was born and shown as a sign of God to Ahaz; anyone who could not be shown to Ahaz could not possibly be a sign to him. Furthermore, Mahershalalhashbaz is said to be going to refuse evil and to live while Syria and Israel are destroyed. (In this time, both Israel (the northern area of the Jews) and Syria decided to attack Judah (the southern area of the Jews). Why? Because Judah wouldn't help Syria and Israel team up against Assyria, which was getting extremely powerful and scary. )

However, it's hard to call Mahershalalhashbaz the son of the almah -- his mother had already given birth, and the word almah, even though not strictly requiring virginity, does heavily emphasize sexual innocence.

Strangely, Jesus does not fulfill these requirements. Were both Syria and Israel dethroned before Jesus learned ethics? Nope, because they'd been crushed and incorporated by the Romans before he was born.

Hezekiah
Another proposed fulfiller is Abi and her son Hezekiah. :

There is weak scriptural support for this. First, Hezekiah reigns while Syria and Israel are destroyed, as required. Second, Hezekiah is pious, as required.

This is problematic when squared with :

Immanuel is supposed to "shave" the king of Assyria (gain true independence) and bring the honey and butter (have prosperity). Neither is true, because soon after Israel and Syria were conquered,.

In classical tradition
Greeks and Romans were fond of claiming their great leaders, saviors of their people, were born of miraculous births. This included Alexander the Great, the Roman emperor Augustus, and even Plato. There are alternative claims that Alexander and Augustus were born of gods such as Zeus, Alexander the Great one of recorded of a virgin after birth of Christ in Plutarch's "Lives".

In fact, it has been suggested that being born of a virgin was the ancient equivalent of being "born with a silver spoon in one's mouth" (i.e., never meant to be taken literally) and signified the "extraordinary personal qualities exhibited by an individual" as well as being an "attempt to explain an individual's superiority to other mortals. Generally, Mediterranean peoples looked at one's birth or parentage to explain one's character and behavior" and "veneration of a benefactor."

Extraordinary claims
... require extraordinary evidence. To support the claim that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy it would be necessary to demonstrate that he was born of a virgin.

The only evidence that this occurred is in the statements of Matthew and Luke. The writers of the Gospel are not exactly the most unbiased authors and have shown previous factual inaccuracy

Contradictions
There may be a contradiction inherent in this myth, because the Bible also states that Jesus was a "direct" descendant of King David through the male line. Obviously, if Jesus had no human father, he couldn't have been a biological descendant of King David through the male line. Ancient Hebrew culture did allow adopted sons to be counted as descendants (alongside other interesting cases of legal descent ), so Jesus could have been legally descended from King David. It's debatable to what extent this is in keeping with the original intent of the prophecy, however.

Additionally, it is worth noting that Matthew and Luke's claim of the virgin birth is inconsistent with how, in the Book of Mark, Jesus' family called his ministry crazy. You would think Mary and Joseph would remember something so significant as an angel telling them they were picked to raise God's kid.

However, Joseph makes no appearance in Mark's Gospel, in which Jesus is referred to as the "Son of Mary"; his biological father hadn't stuck around, and his name was not known, so in this Gospel Jesus is - literally - a bastard. It has been suggested that Joseph is pasted into the story in later Gospels to make Jesus' family life seem all respectable and proper, but never actually existed. For some, this clear indication that Mary brought up Jesus as a single parent lends weight to the Pantera theory, for which there is already good evidence.

Which genealogy is that of Mary?
The only way for Jesus to have had some sort of genetic link to King David would be if this was passed down through Mary. CARM states that the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew must be Joseph's, noting that it includes Jeconiah, who was barred from having a descendant who would sit on David's throne. Then, the genealogy in Luke becomes the genealogy of Mary.

The problem is, Luke does not explicitly state that the genealogy is that of Mary. Instead, it states that it was believed to have been traced down from Joseph. CARM argues that due to historical and cultural conventions, Luke actually attributed Mary's lineage to Joseph.

Apologetic responses
Many Christians believe and want to believe that the virgin birth of Jesus fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy and defend the flawed translation.

Additional theories
If any of these stories are true, it's pretty cool how Joseph took it all in stride.

Perpetual Virginity
One of the more remarkable aspects of the virgin birth is the belief in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary held by some Christian religions. The believers of this doctrine hold that Mary not only was a virgin when she conceived, but she continued to be a virgin after giving birth and for the rest of her life, even though Jesus had siblings, and more importantly Matthew 1:25 specifically states that Joseph "knew" Mary after the birth. They argue that those siblings were Joseph's children from a previous marriage, and Mary was their adoptive mother. (So much for Biblical literalism.) As said by Rufus in the film Dogma: "The nature of God and the Virgin Mary, those are leaps of faith. But to believe a married couple never got down? Well, that's just plain gullibility."

Interestingly, there is a 2nd-century text known as the Infancy Gospel of James, which never made it into the Bible, but which is the source of many Catholic and Orthodox beliefs about Mary. In this text, it is stated that Joseph was already very old at the time of his marriage with Mary (and that he had sons from a previous marriage). If so, he may not have been, shall we say, up to the task anymore.

Pantera
Another theory is that a Roman soldier called Pantera was the true father of Jesus, though the support for this theory is quite weak. These claims come from the Babylonian Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin 107b; while weak evidence and most likely an attack on Christianity, many Jews will cite this as proof Jesus was not born of a virign.

Special conception in other religions
Okay, let's go into a little more detail and try to figure out if a pattern is emerging here.

Greek mythology

 * Leda: Leda's father was the Aetolian king Thestius. The story goes that Zeus (the dude with the lightning bolts and thunder clouds) admired Leda very much. So, like any randy god, he took the form of a swan and seduced her. Ew. Anyway, the result of this celestial gettin' down were two eggs. From these eggs hatched Helen of Troy, Clytemnestra, and Castor and Pollux. Technically, this isn't virgin birth since Zeus (and Thestius) physically did the deed, but the sentiment is more or less the same: a "miraculous birth-event", semi-divine, semi-human.


 * Perseus: son of Danae, who was locked away in a room as a child and impregnated by Zeus (busy fella, that Zeus) in the form of a shower of gold (no, really).


 * Zeus would later impregnate Alcmene by disguising himself as her husband Amphitryon (grandson of Perseus; seriously, Zeus had no sense of shame). The child, Heracles, would later perform many great deeds including bringing one person back from the dead. Heracles eventually died painfully as a result of treachery and ascended to godhood. Nope, never heard about anyone like that.


 * Hephaestus: According to some accounts, the goddess Hera was so annoyed at how Athena had sprung forth from Zeus' head that she conceived Hephaestus without the aid of a man, by force of will alone. Apparently, it didn't go so well, as she threw him off Mount Olympus after seeing his ugly face. Hephaestus is the only Greek god who is lame - compare the effect of nails through the feet.

Hinduism
The idea of a miraculous conception occurs commonly in Hindu scriptures.


 * Krishna descended directly into the womb of his mother, Devaki.


 * Avatars (incarnations ) of the god, living in the human realm, descend into human women's wombs, i.e., without intercourse.


 * Karna resulted from Queen Kunti asking the god Surya for a child, without taking Kunti's virginity, just before she married King Pandu.


 * The Pandavas: Brahmin laid a curse upon King Pandu, telling him not to touch either of his two wives sexually or he'd die. Queen Kunti, ever resourceful, simply asked the other gods to give her and her co-wife children. The gods gave them the Pandavas.

Egyptian mythology

 * The popular idea that Horus was born of a virgin Isis is confounded by the fact that Herodotus records that the Egyptians believed that Isis was impregnated by having intercourse with the spirit of the dead Osiris. However, Herodotus also stated this:


 * Aeschylus in his Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound stated "Again and again in the night, visions would appear to me (Io) in my room and entice me with seductive words: "O blessed maiden, why do you remain a virgin for so long when it is possible for you to achieve the greatest of marriages?" It is important here to remember that Ancient Greek did not have a separate word for virginity, the concept was intrinsically connected with the unmarried woman, the parthenos.


 * "My divinity is adored throughout all the world in divers manners, in variable customs and in many names, for the Phrygians call me the mother of the Gods: the Athenians, Minerva: the Cyprians, Venus: the Candians, Diana: the Sicilians, Proserpina: the Eleusians, Ceres: some Juno, others Bellona, other Hecate: and principally the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustom to worship me, do call me Queen Isis." (Apuleius (2nd century CE) The Golden Ass or Metamorphoses)


 * Hestia, Athena, Artemis and Hecate were all virgin goddesses in Greek mythology.


 * "In the most remote age it appears that Osiris, Isis, Horus, and Set were all independent and unconnected deities, belonging probably to different tribes. Isis was a virgin goddess at Buto in the Delta, Horus came to be worshiped with her,..."

So in reality, depending on the group, Isis was worshiped as a virgin goddess before the time of Christ.

Finnish and Karelian mythology

 * Marjatta: while herding, she eats a lingonberry and becomes pregnant. She gives birth to a boy who will grow up to be the king of Karelia. (Though researchers currently regard this chapter of the Kalevala as an attempt to reconcile Finnish mythology and Christianity, artificially added by Elias Lönnrot during the compilation.)

Buddhist mythology
The Buddha, who went on to achieve considerable deeds in matters spiritual, features in tales of his mother's miraculous impregnation.

Immaculate conception
Virginal Conception should not be confused with Immaculate Conception (or the Immaculate Reception for that matter). The doctrine of Immaculate Conception arose because the question was asked how Christ could be born of a woman who would inevitably be tainted with original sin. In order to get around the problem, the church decreed that Mary herself was immaculately conceived - without original sin - and this allowed Christ to be born without original sin. (It is not clear how Mary's parents avoided original sin or why an omnipotent God did not make more exceptions, though.)

Parthenogenesis
Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction in which growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization. More than 2,000 species are thought to reproduce parthenogenically, including plants, vertebrates (such as some fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds), and invertebrate animals (particularly rotifers, aphids, ants, wasps, and bees). This phenomenon is not naturally observed in mammals, although it has been artificially induced in rabbits, mice, and monkeys. In animals using the XY chromosome system, parthenogenesis always results in female offspring.

However, in 1995 there was a reported case of partial-parthenogenesis; a boy was found to have some of his cells (such as skin and white blood cells) lacking any genetic content from his father. Scientists believe that in the boy's case, an unfertilized egg began to self-divide but then had some (but not all) of its cells fertilized by a sperm cell; this must have happened early in development, as self-activated eggs quickly lose their ability to be fertilized. The unfertilized cells eventually duplicated their DNA, boosting their chromosomes to 46. When the unfertilized cells hit a developmental block, the fertilized cells took over and developed that tissue. The boy had asymmetrical facial features and learning difficulties but was otherwise healthy. This would make him a parthenogenetic chimera (a child with two cell lineages in his body).

Mammalian parthenogenetic (PG) embryos undergo early developmental demise due to imbalanced expression of imprinted genes and exhibit cell proliferation defects and restricted contribution to mesodermal and endodermal tissues when combined with normal embryos as chimeras. However, in both mouse and human, PG embryonic stem cells (ESCs) can be readily derived from blastocysts developing after in vitro activation of unfertilized oocytes; these cells exhibit key characteristics of pluripotent stem cells, including multilineage in vitro differentiation potential.

Haplodiploidy mating system
Many insects, such as wasps, bees, and ants, use a haplodiploidy mating system, where the sex of the offspring is determined by whether it inherits a single or paired set of chromosomes. In this system, an unfertilized egg can be laid without mating, but it will always develop as a male since it inherits only one set of chromosomes from the mother; females are produced via mating with a male, causing the offspring to inherit a set of chromosomes from both mother and father. In this system, virgin births of boys happen quite frequently.

While Christian 'scientists' may applaud these virgin births, you may not want to remind them that one of the evolutionary advantages of haplodiploidy mating is how convenient it makes incest. If no males are available for a young female to mate with, she can get biblical with a few virgin births followed by "getting biblical" with the sons she produced to produce a whole multitude of grandchildren. Hey, it still beats Adactylidium, where siblings mate in the womb before eating their way out of their mother's body and leaving their brothers and cannibalised mother dead while the pregnant sisters all move on to find food to feed the sibling orgy going on in their wombs. Isn't nature beautiful?

Sperm Donation
It is quite possible for a woman to get pregnant in the modern day without the need to have sex via sperm donation. If one defines female virginity as never having sex with a man, many lesbian women would count as virgins. Thus, for a religion that celebrates the miracle of virgin birth, surely Christians must be excited for the increased frequency of virgin births resulting from lesbian women more frequently choosing to become parents... right?