One popular objection to the Virgin Birth is that only two Gospels mention it. By way of reply:
i) Not only do only two Gospels record the Virgin Birth, but only two Gospels even have nativity accounts. And it's not coincidental that the only two Gospels which record the Virgin Birth are the only two Gospels with nativity accounts. Since Mark and John don't even have nativity accounts, it's hard to see how they'd fit the Virgin Birth into their narratives. Conversely, since Matthew and Luke have nativity accounts, it's not surprising in that connection that they mention the Virgin Birth. But if a Gospel doesn't even have a general account regarding the childhood of Christ, why would we expect a it to have an account of the Virgin Birth in particular?
Therefore, I think the presence of that specific detail in Matthew and Luke, as well as its absence in Mark and John, is hardly suspect.
ii) In addition, both Matthew and Luke have special reasons to include the Virgin Birth. In the case of Matthew, this would be of interest to his Jewish readers, not just because of the Isa 7:14 oracle, but more generally because of other OT figures whose conception was supernaturally mediated.
In the case of Luke, it's often thought that Mary was one of his sources. If so, it's only natural that he mentions the Virgin Birth.
Luke in also interested in parallels between Jesus and John the Baptist, including divine intervention regarding their respective conceptions.
Luke in also interested in parallels between Jesus and John the Baptist, including divine intervention regarding their respective conceptions.
iii) Christians know about the Virgin Birth because we've read Matthew and Luke. But why think that would have been widely known absent Matthew and Luke? Mary and Joseph are the only two individuals with direct knowledge of Virgin Birth.
iv) Even if Mark and John recorded the Virgin Birth, skeptics of the Virgin Birth are skeptical of Mark and John. They think Mark's fascination with miracles and exorcisms reflects legendary embellishment, and they think John's high Christology reflects legendary embellishment.
v) If Paul mentioned the Virgin Birth, they'd discount that because they don't think Paul had any firsthand knowledge of the historical Jesus. And even if he did, that would be towards the end of Christ's life. His public ministry. Not the beginning of his life.
vi) In principle, if James and Jude mentioned the Virgin Birth, that would be significant, coming from close relatives of Jesus. But skeptics of the Virgin Birth typically think the letters of James and Jude are pseudonymous. So even if they mentioned the Virgin Birth, that would be discounted.
Indeed, skeptics of the Virgin Birth generally use reported miracles as evidence for dating the Gospels late. So the argument is circular.
Critics can't propose multiple layers of development behind the infancy narratives, with earlier sources making claims that Matthew and Luke repeated, yet turn around and object in other contexts that Matthew and Luke are the only early sources who made the claims in question. As Charles Quarles notes regarding the notion that multiple sources behind Matthew's gospel affirmed the virginal conception:
ReplyDelete"That allusion or affirmation of the virginal conception appears in multiple pre-Matthew sources should make one pause before dismissing it too lightly." (in Robert Stewart and Gary Habermas, edd., Memories Of Jesus [Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Publishing Group, 2010], approximate Kindle location 4168)
Critics can't have it both ways. They can't argue, on the one hand, that Matthew and Luke were alone in claiming a virgin birth, yet argue, on the other hand, that they (Matthew and Luke) received the claim from earlier sources.
Furthermore, 1 Timothy 5:18 seems to refer to Luke's gospel as scripture. The implication is that the author of 1 Timothy (Paul, I would argue) is indirectly affirming the virgin birth.
When we get to the patristic era, the virgin birth tradition is affirmed early and widely. Ignatius, writing as bishop of a Pauline and Petrine church, affirms the doctrine while writing to other apostolic churches (Smyrna, a Johannine church, and Ephesus, which was both Johannine and Pauline). Ignatius' comments to the Smyrnaean church imply that the Smyrnaean bishop, Polycarp, affirmed the virgin birth. Polycarp was a disciple of the apostle John. Celsus, a second-century critic of Christianity, thought the virgin birth tradition was so early and so widespread that he attributed the virgin birth claim to Jesus himself.
Since we have good evidence that Mary was pregnant with Jesus prior to her marriage to Joseph, and the early Christians acknowledged that premarital timing of the pregnancy, we should ask why that suspicious timing wasn't more of an issue among the early Christian sources. If Paul, for example, knew that Mary was pregnant prior to marriage, yet didn't believe in a virginal conception, then why is there no indication that he or his opponents were addressing such a scandalous situation? If the virgin birth tradition was early and widespread, then that would better explain why Paul and the other early Christians seem to have believed in a premarital pregnancy, yet thought so highly of Jesus and didn't think there was any scandal to address like there would be without a virgin birth.
Anybody who's interested can find these and other issues discussed in more depth in my review of Andrew Lincoln's book on the virgin birth.