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 WAS JESUS' MOTHER REALLY A VIRGIN WHEN HE WAS BORN? This is a question that no amount of poking about in historical documents is going to answer. Your answer will depend on what you already believe about other questions: miracles, the authority of the church, the Bible... Two of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke, tell the story of Jesus's birth and they agree that Mary was a virgin, and her pregnancy was the miraculous work of God. And the creed spoken in churches every Sunday affirms: "He was born of the Virgin Mary". On the other hand, the letters of St Paul – which were written before the Gospels – say nothing at all about the virgin birth. This, some say, suggests that legendary stories about Jesus's birth grew up later on, between the time of Paul and the writing of Matthew and Luke. It must be added, though, that Paul says astonishingly little about any aspect of Jesus's life, so this on its own is a weak argument. However, it was common practice in the ancient world to add miraculous births to the legends of great men, from prophets to emperors, so if you're not predisposed to believe the biblical stories, you can see where they might have come from. The answer is, then, that if you're a fairly traditional Christian (or a Muslim), you would be likely to accept that Jesus's mother was a virgin. If you don't already believe in the traditional stories of Jesus for other reasons, then you probably won't believe this either. More questions about Jesus' life |
Picture: carvings showing the story of Christ on the west front of Chartres Cathedral, France. |
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