Did Paul believe in the virgin birth?

C.J. Cornthwaite recently produced a video that's partly about the subject. I want to make several points in response:

Luke 3:38 And The Virgin Birth

The reference to Adam as "the son of God" in Luke 3:38 is unusual. And Jesus had just been referred to as the Son of God in Luke 3:22, right before the genealogy. The concept of Jesus' being the Son of God is a prominent theme in early Christianity, in Luke's writings and elsewhere. The similar terminology involved in the references to Jesus and Adam, the proximity between the references to Jesus' Sonship and Adam's, and the unusualness of referring to Adam as a son of God make more sense if Luke is paralleling the two.

They can be paralleled in multiple ways. Adam's initial sinlessness is reminiscent of Jesus' sinlessness, Adam's initial good relationship with God is reminiscent of Jesus' good relationship with the Father, etc. But the reference to Adam's sonship is in a genealogy, so it makes the most sense to focus on a parallel in terms of origins or begetting.

That doesn't single out a virgin birth. Jesus, in his humanity, could have been created without a father or mother, as Adam was. But the parallel could also be partial, so that Jesus' humanity comes from God's intervention, without sexual intercourse, even though he has one or more human parents. Isaac is referred to in the genealogy as the son of Abraham (verse 34), without being referred to in any unusual way, unlike Adam, which provides some evidence that Luke has something more in mind than just the sort of Divine intervention involved in Isaac's conception. The wording of verse 38 doesn't single out the virgin birth, but it leads us in the direction of some sort of Divine intervention in Jesus' origins beyond what we see with Isaac. The larger context, in Luke's gospel and in early Christianity more broadly, provides us with further information, including the fact that Jesus was born of a virgin. Most likely, both Luke 3:23 and 3:38 are alluding to the virgin birth.

That provides us with another example of how the material in Luke 1-2 is reflected in later chapters of the gospel, despite what critics often allege to the contrary. For other examples, see here.

Abraham In Matthew 1 And The Virgin Birth

One of the problems with the popular claim that the concept of a virgin birth was borrowed from paganism is that it would be so easy for anybody to come up with the idea without doing any borrowing. And pushing the earlier virgin birth claim into paganism just pushes the question back a step. Where did the initial pagan source get the idea? If pagans could come up with it without borrowing, so could Jews, including the early Christians.

The first two verses of Matthew mention Abraham. And verse 2 mentions his begetting of Isaac. That was a miraculous conception, though not a virginal one. Matthew may have begun his genealogy with Abraham because Abraham is the father of the Jewish people. Or he may have started the genealogy with Abraham because of the similarity between the miraculous conception of Isaac and the miraculous conception of Jesus. Or starting with Abraham may have been chosen for both reasons. Whatever the case, the opening two verses of Matthew's gospel illustrate how easily a virgin birth claim could originate without any significant influence from paganism. It's not much of a step from Isaac's miraculous conception to the miraculous conception of Jesus. And the remainder of Matthew's gospel is highly Jewish and anti-pagan.

Boy Jesus

Joan Taylor recently published a book about Jesus' childhood, Boy Jesus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic, 2025). Taylor is a scholar who's specialized in the study of Judaism and Christianity in the ancient world. She isn't a conservative, but her book argues for conservative views on some significant issues related to Jesus' childhood (e.g., Jesus' Davidic ancestry, the credibility of his genealogies, his Bethlehem birthplace). So, the book is a good illustration of the fact that conservative conclusions are often supported by non-conservative scholarship.

But Taylor takes some positions I disagree with, and I want to link several of my posts addressing those issues. She cites Yigal Levin's work against the idea that Jesus could have been considered a son of Joseph by adoption. She doesn't interact with Caleb Friedeman's response to Levin, discussed in the second hyphenated section of my post here. See here for my argument against the notion that Luke's infancy narrative wasn't finalized into its canonical form until the time of Marcion. On objections to the historicity of Luke's census account, I've written many posts, such as here and here. (To Taylor's credit, though, she's more reasonable than many other critics of the census account, such as by acknowledging that the census wasn't ancestral and that Joseph had more than an ancestral relationship with Bethlehem. On the evidence for such conclusions, see here.) She thinks Jesus' family was more supportive of him than they likely were. On the unbelief of his family (faith mixed with unbelief in the cases of Joseph and Mary), see Eric Svendsen's Who Is My Mother? (Amityville, New York: Calvary Press, 2001). Taylor probably thinks the family's unbelief would be too problematic for the historicity of other parts of the New Testament (and whatever extrabiblical sources), but they're not too difficult to reconcile. See the section of the post here discussing Matthew 13:54-55, for example. I've also discussed the subject elsewhere, like here on the gospel of Mark in general. Since Taylor mentions some early sources who rejected the virgin birth and sometimes cites Andrew Lincoln's book against the virgin birth, go here and here for my discussion of how widely the virgin birth was accepted early on, in response to Lincoln, and here for my overall assessment of Lincoln's book. On the issues Taylor is right about, she often leaves out a lot of the evidence that could be mentioned. There's far too much of that to discuss all of it here, but see, for example, this post on Jesus' relatives for further evidence supporting Jesus' Davidic ancestry and the genealogies (e.g., Luke's use of James as a source, James' comments on Davidic ancestry in Acts 15). Or see here on the Bethlehem birthplace. Or here on how much Matthew and Luke agree about Jesus' childhood.

The book goes into a lot of depth about what we know of the context of Jesus' childhood from extrabiblical sources, like Josephus and archeology. A lot of ground is covered: the physical characteristics of Bethlehem and Nazareth, what Joseph and Jesus would have done in their work as builders, connections between Jesus' childhood and his public ministry (e.g., his parables and illustrations), etc. You'll probably disagree with much of the book, but also learn some significant things from it.

Why would early sources who believed in the virgin birth not mention it?

Critics of the virgin birth often suggest that it surely would have been mentioned by sources like Paul and the authors of the gospels of Mark and John if those individuals believed in it. I've discussed the evidence for the virgin birth elsewhere, including evidence for the earliness of belief in it, and that evidence is weightier than objections like the one I'm considering in this post. Still, I want to say more about that objection.

A Response To Bart Ehrman's Webinar Against The Virgin Birth

It aired at 2:00 P.M. Eastern time today. It consisted of three segments, two presentations that were a little over an hour each and one session of questions and answers that lasted a little under an hour. I saw all of it other than about the first seven minutes of the first presentation, which I missed due to technical problems. The video isn't available for replay yet, but should be later this week. I plan to watch those first seven minutes at that point, then post any further comments that are warranted. But given the small amount of time involved and the nature of the webinar as a whole, I doubt that I missed much in those first several minutes.

When I provide documentation of something said during the webinar, I'll refer to the section involved and the approximate minute within that section. I don't have a video to play back at this point to get more precise numbers. So, "(second presentation, 21:00)" refers to something at roughly 21 minutes into the second presentation, "(questions and answers, 3:00)" refers to something about 3 minutes into the segment with questions and answers, etc.

Tovia Singer Is Wrong About The Origins Of Belief In The Virgin Birth

His YouTube channel recently put out a video on the virgin birth. He repeats a lot of claims I've addressed before. See here for resources on how much Matthew and Luke agree concerning Jesus' childhood, what they say about the timing of the family's residence in Bethlehem, etc. There are too many false claims in Singer's video for me to interact with all of them here. He refers, for example, to how "many" Evangelical scholars say that the infancy narratives are "hopelessly unreconcilable". He provides no documentation. I've reconciled the narratives, and so have other people. And I can cite non-Evangelicals acknowledging that the material can be reconciled. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, two very liberal Jesus Seminar scholars, acknowledged, "It is not impossible to harmonize them." (The First Christmas [New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007], 23) But the subject I want to focus on here is what Singer claimed about the origins of the virgin birth belief.

Bart Ehrman's Upcoming Webinar Against The Virgin Birth

It's going to air on December 10. I plan to watch it, and I'll probably post about it again after doing so, but I want to make some preliminary comments.

I doubt he'll go much beyond the book Andrew Lincoln published on the topic a decade ago. Go here to read my review of Lincoln's work. Everything I've read about Ehrman's webinar to this point suggests that it's going to largely, if not entirely, be a reformulation of Lincoln's approach.

Since I was going to post an article about how to argue for the virgin birth this Christmas season, I'll go ahead and include that material here. After I address that subject, I'll add some further comments about interacting with Ehrman in particular.

A Good Resource On The Virgin Birth

Nick Peters just started a new web site on the subject. It features collections of material supporting the virgin birth in written, audio, and video form. If you have any ideas about other material to include, he's taking suggestions.

A Response To Vincent Torley On The Virgin Birth

He recently posted an article about a lack of evidence for the virgin birth and argued against the historicity of much of the infancy narratives in the process. I want to make several points in response:

Evidence For The Birth Narratives

Lydia McGrew has a good article on the subject at a site affiliated with the Unbelievable? radio program she recently appeared on. I also recommend participating in the comments section below the article. Too few Christians do that sort of work. Skeptics shouldn't be allowed to be so disproportionately represented in those contexts. If Christians have false priorities, are apathetic, are cowardly, or are lazy, among other problems, skeptics can easily outperform them. They often do.

Evidence For The Miracles In The Gospels

Lydia McGrew has been adding a lot of videos to her YouTube channel lately, such as a series on the feeding of the five thousand and one that just began on the virgin birth. There's a lot of good material there.

Joseph's fiat

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

973 By pronouncing her "fiat" at the Annunciation and giving her consent to the Incarnation, Mary was already collaborating with the whole work her Son was to accomplish. She is mother wherever he is Savior and head of the Mystical Body.

The "fiat" alludes to the Vulgate rendering of Lk 1:38:

fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum

“let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). 

Catholic theologians act like this means God was putting the plan of redemption up for a vote by giving Mary a veto. Of course, the Annunciation is an announcement of what God will bring to pass. 

I've read Catholic apologists claim that if the virgin birth was nonconsensual, then it was rape. That overlooks the elementary fact that rape requires sex: penetration of sexual intercourse. But of course, the virginal conception is nonsexual. Sexless rape?  

Be that was it may, let's play along with the Catholic argument for its own sake by drawing a comparison. In Mt 2, Joseph receives some revelatory dreams. These are premonitions of danger. The dreams implicitly raise the specter of alternate futures. If Joseph stays, his young son will be murdered by Herod's henchmen. But he can avert that hypothetical outcome if he gets out of Dodge in time. If things continue as is, along their current trajectory, Jesus will die a premature death. 

iii) This raises a question for Christian libertarians. Was failure to heed the angelic warning a live option for Joseph? Pause to consider what that would entail. We're not just talking about the fate of a lone individual. The fate of the whole human race would hang in the balance. The Incarnation would be in vain. Centuries of providential preparation would go up in smoke. God would have to start from scratch. So by parity of argument, why does Catholicism single out Mary's "fiat" but ignore Joseph's "fiat"? 

For that matter, the logic of the Catholic argument extends to so many other players in the history of redemption. Take the call of Abraham. 

Ruth 4 And Christmas

The last chapter of Ruth should get more attention than it does during the Christmas season. Notice the references to Gentile inclusion, building the house of Israel, fame related to Bethlehem, a supernatural conception, and Davidic ancestry, for example. Much of what's in the passage is somewhat reminiscent of Christmas themes, and some of what's anticipated has been fulfilled more by Jesus than by David:

"'I have acquired Ruth the Moabitess [a Gentile]'…'May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built the house of Israel; and may you achieve wealth in Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem.'…So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went in to her. And the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. Then the women said to Naomi, 'Blessed is the Lord who has not left you without a redeemer'…to Boaz [was born], Obed, and to Obed was born Jesse, and to Jesse, David." (Ruth 4:10-11, 4:13-14, 4:21-22)

"The stories of Jesus's birth are the foundation of the world's most widely observed holiday. Christmas is celebrated by the world's two billion Christians, a number about twice that of the next largest religion, Islam. Moreover, because of the cultural and commercial importance of Christmas in Western culture and beyond, it is observed by many non-Christians as well. Indeed, no other religious holiday is so widely commemorated by people who are outside of the tradition that originated it....Since Matthew and Luke agree independently on those two points about Jesus - that he was descended from David's lineage and born in David's city [Bethlehem] - those must come from an earlier tradition than either of their Christmas stories. And, in fact, we find both of those points elsewhere in the New Testament." (Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas [New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007], vii, 130)

How old was Mary?

i) The claim is often made that Mary may have been as young as 12 years old when she got married. It was the custom back then for girls to marry very young.

ii) However, that may be anachronistic. One issue is whether the age of childbearing has changed. This is partly complicated by definitions. From the little I've read, puberty used to be a longer stage in maturation than it is today.

iii) In addition, I've read that a boy's voice used to break later, around 17, than happens today, in the developed world. 

iv) In girls, there's the distinction between the onset of puberty and menarche. 

v) Since, moreover, Jesus was virginally conceived, the issue of Mary's sexual maturity is moot in that regard. 

So there are lots of questions and ambiguities surrounding the issue. 

The nativity accounts in Matthew and Luke

There is something akin to an undesigned coincidence in this connection between Matthew and Luke. Luke tells us that Mary, a virgin espoused to Joseph, was found with child before they came together. In Chapter 2 we find Joseph traveling with his pregnant espoused wife, and it is clear that he took her as his wife and raised the child. This raises the question: Why did Joseph take it so well? Did he not have any questions? Did he simply take Mary's word for it?

Matthew answers all of this by giving us the other side of the story--Joseph's agonized doubts and the message in a dream assuring him that the child was conceived by the Holy Ghost. This occurs between the Annunciation in Luke and the journey to Bethlehem.Thus the two stories are complementary.

– Lydia McGrew

How Should We Argue For The Virgin Birth?

Steve Hays drew my attention to a recent interview with William Lane Craig in the New York Times, part of which discusses the virgin birth. Craig's responses to the questions he's asked are of mixed quality, and I won't be responding to most of what he said. But I want to comment on his remarks about the virgin birth.

He didn't have much space to discuss the issue, and he made some good points in the short space he had. But I would have addressed the subject differently.

Better than citing the multiple attestation provided by Matthew and Luke would be to cite the fact that widespread early belief in the virgin birth is the best explanation for why the premarital timing of Mary's pregnancy wasn't more controversial in early Christian and non-Christian circles. The premarital timing of the pregnancy is highly unlikely to have been made up by the early Christians. It seems to be something that was widely known early on. So, the lack of controversy over it needs to be explained. An accompanying belief in a virgin birth, accepted by Paul and other early Christians long before Matthew and Luke were written, is the best explanation. And even non-conservative scholars often acknowledge that the gospel material on the virgin birth is derived from pre-gospel sources. For these and other reasons, we ought to conclude that belief in the virgin birth not only predates the gospels, but was even widespread in that pre-gospel timeframe. Celsus and his Jewish source(s) attribute the virgin birth claim to Jesus himself rather than portraying it as something made up a couple or a few decades later, for example.

Craig shouldn't have used the brief space he had to claim that there are no Jewish or pagan parallels to the virgin birth. The more important point is that there's no evidence of borrowing from such sources. Critics can't just allege that there are Jewish and/or pagan parallels to the virgin birth. They need to go on to the second step of arguing that the Christian claim was in some significant way derived from the sources in question. They not only can't do that, but also would have to overcome a lot of evidence to the contrary in attempting to establish their allegation. There are many explicit and implicit anti-pagan sentiments throughout the New Testament. That's not the sort of environment in which we'd expect borrowing from paganism. The burden of proof is on the shoulders of those who want us to believe that such borrowing occurred. That's a better point to make than to claim that no parallels exist, which invites critics to then bring up one alleged parallel after another. Each supposed parallel has to be discussed, after which the critic can just go look for another one. They often aren't particularly careful about claiming supposed parallels, so the potential for wasting time and misleading people is large.

Another point that ought to be made in these discussions, which Craig didn't bring up, is that a virgin birth not only wasn't expected by ancient Jews, but even diminishes Jesus' fulfillment of one of the most widely expected characteristics of the Messiah. He was expected to be a descendant of David. And a virgin birth would diminish Jesus' claim to Davidic ancestry. Why make up a claim about a Messianic figure that gives him a characteristic the Messiah wasn't expected to have at the expense of diminishing a characteristic he was so widely expected to have?

The best argument for the virgin birth is the evidence for the Divine inspiration of the documents that affirm it. But Craig doesn't bring the subject up, and his comments about issues like the historicity of the Old Testament and Biblical inerrancy weaken the case for Divine inspiration and make people who are influenced by Craig less likely to appeal to it. But we should appeal to it. Scripture is Divinely inspired, and the evidence for its inspiration is a good argument for beliefs like the virgin birth.

For more about making an argument for the virgin birth, see here and here.

Hear, O house of David

13 And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isa 7:13-14).

To critics, the Christian interpretation is special pleading. One argument for the 8C identity of the son is the claim that the sign child is something Ahaz must see or will see. There are, however, some basic problems with that argument:

i) How does a normal pregnancy constitute a sign? How would Ahaz even know which mother and child embodied the sign? Surely there were lots of candidates. Lots of pregnant women.

ii) Actually, the oracle isn't directed at Ahaz but the house of David. That's certainly broader than Ahaz and open to a longitudinal fulfillment. The house of David will witness the sign. 

iii) By way of reinforcement is the use of the second person plural in vv13-14. So, once again, the oracle isn't addressed to Ahaz but has a collective audience. 

Mutually Exclusive Skeptical Claims About Christmas

On the one hand, critics often claim that something like the virgin birth or the Bethlehem birthplace is found in too few early sources. On the other hand, critics often claim that the New Testament documents should be attributed to a much larger number of authors than traditionally thought, even to the point of breaking up a single document into a lot of pieces allegedly originating with various individuals, schools, communities, etc.

But skeptics can't have it both ways. Breaking up Matthew's material on the virgin birth into multiple sources, for example, results in more sources supporting the virgin birth. As Charles Quarles notes:

"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)

Similarly, if the gospels are going to be attributed to community authorship, multiple editions of the gospels are going to be proposed and attributed to different authors, Paul's letters are going to be attributed to several sources, etc., then the number of early sources affirming a traditional Christian view of Jesus' childhood is substantially increased. And see here for documentation that traditional claims about Jesus' childhood are much more prevalent outside the infancy narratives than people often suggest. If we attribute the documents to as large a number of sources as skeptics often suggest we should, then the skeptical objection that too few early sources affirmed the claims in question is weakened accordingly.

The mechanics of the virgin birth

Jason Engwer has a new post on the virgin birth: 

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-virgin-birth-with-biological.html

Jason has been defending the virgin birth for years. I daresay few Christian apologists have written as much or more than he in defense of the virgin birth. 

1. There are two stock objections to the virgin birth:

i) It's scientifically impossible. A Y chromosome is required to make a human male body. 

ii) It delegitimates Jesus as the Davidic heir.