The Second Fundamental: The Literal Accuracy of the Virgin Birth, Part Two
For years now the book entitled "The Holy Bible" has topped America's best selling list by a wide margin. The pity is that this book is seldom read and even less seldom understood. Most Christians encounter the content of the Bible only when they are in church, and that normally consists of only a few short verses. Though the particular book out of which the lesson comes is usually identified, there is no sense of its setting and no idea of what comes before or after. Over the centuries, favorite parts of the Bible have become so familiar to listeners that they have actually been committed to memory. If one starts Psalm 23: "The Lord is my Shepherd," or Luke's Christmas story: "And there were in the same country," almost everyone can recite the next words. However, we recognize passages only in isolation, never in context.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than when we look at the story of Jesus' miraculous birth. It was first introduced to the developing Christian tradition by Matthew in the middle of the 9th decade some 55 years after the crucifixion or almost 90 years after Jesus' birth. Mark, the first gospel to be written (ca.70), not only has no virgin birth story but actually accounts for the divine presence in Jesus' life by saying that the Holy Spirit was poured out on him when he was baptized by John as an adult. Mark had obviously never heard the idea that Jesus' divine nature was established when he was "conceived by the Holy Spirit." As further proof of this, one has only to note that Mark characterizes Jesus' mother as thinking that he was out of his mind. She goes with Jesus' four named brothers, James, Joses, Simon and Judah and his unnamed sisters, to take him away (see Mark 3:31-35 and 6:1-6). That is hardly the behavior of one to whom an angel has proclaimed that her yet to be born child would not only be holy, but would also be called the "Son of the Highest."
Paul who wrote between the years 50-64, at least 10-15 years earlier than Mark, also appears to know nothing about the virgin tradition. Paul says in Galatians (ca. 52-53) that Jesus was "born of a woman" (not a virgin) and "born under the law." Later, in Romans (ca. 56-58) he adds that Jesus was descended from the house of David. There are no supernatural hints here.
Because it is now obvious to scholars that Matthew is the source of the story of Jesus' miraculous birth, it is particularly important to notice how he introduces this idea. Yet almost no one ever bothers to read the first 17 verses of Matthew's opening chapter, which constitute his introduction to the virgin narrative. Our familiarity with Matthew's birth story begins with these words in Matt. 1:18: "When his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child." Joseph, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, decided to "put her away privately." There is an obvious note of scandal here. Matthew addresses this scandal by having an angel appear to Joseph in a dream to tell him that the child did not result from unfaithfulness, but was the work of the Holy Spirit. The story goes on to confirm this conviction with many miraculous signs. First Matthew claims that this birth was foretold by the prophet Isaiah (7:14), which, as I noted last week, is both inaccurate and based on a mistranslation. Next he has a star appear to announce this birth to the entire world and finally he portrays magi following that star to the house in Bethlehem where the baby was born. There they present gifts that confirm his exalted status: gold because he is a king, frankincense because he is divine and myrrh because it is associated with death through which he will accomplish his purpose. Those are the familiar parts of Matthew's birth story.
Perhaps one reason Matthew's opening verses are not noted or read is that they are the "who begat whom" verses, which are among the most boring parts of the Bible. Matthew here traces Jesus' genealogy through 42 generations from Abraham to the moment of his birth. They read with all the excitement of a telephone directory. No lectionary I know includes them. Yet it is here, I am now convinced, that Matthew gives us the clues we need to understand his purpose in creating the story of Jesus' miraculous birth. To understand these clues, however, requires a thorough knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. So let me take you into Matthew 1:1-17.
Reading this genealogy carefully reveals things almost unheard of in the ancient world. Matthew included four women in his list of Jesus' ancestors, which in a patriarchal world was unusual enough, but even beyond that these four females are, by the social standards of his day, guilty of being sexually tainted women. Why would Matthew do that? Examine the text.
The first of these "shady ladies" is Tamar, who is impregnated by Judah, her father-in-law, in what would be regarded as incest in that society. Her story is told in Genesis 38. The line that produced Jesus, Matthew argues, flowed through an incestuous relationship. Do you find that intriguing? Provocative? Surprising? Then read on.
The next woman mentioned is Rahab, whose story is told in the Book of Joshua (2:1-21, 6:22-25). She is identified in that text as a prostitute and is called "Rahab the Harlot." The line that produced Jesus ran through a prostitute, Matthew is saying.
The third woman referred to in these introductory verses is Ruth, a Moabite, who seduces Boaz by getting him well drunk and climbing under his bed covers so that when he awakens the next morning he finds her in his bed. Her story is in the Book of Ruth, especially chapters 2-4. This act led to their marriage and to the eventual birth of King David's grandfather Obed. The line that produced Jesus, Matthew was saying, traveled through seduction.
The final woman in this genealogy is not named, but is referred to simply as "the wife of Uriah the Hittite." We know her, however, as Bathsheba whose story is told in II Samuel 11-12. First, King David had an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba and then, to cover this affair, he had her husband Uriah put to death. David next married Bathsheba and that union ultimately produced Solomon, King David's successor. Matthew's message was clear, the line that produced Jesus ran through an act of adultery accompanied by murder.
Why has it not occurred to us to ask whether Matthew might be using this introduction to his narrative about Jesus' birth to a virgin to counter the rumors, abroad at that time, that the birth of Jesus was itself tainted by scandal. Embrace emotionally the fact that the story of Jesus' "virgin birth" is introduced by Matthew who traces Jesus' genealogy and proclaims that the line that produced this Holy Child ran through the incest between Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, the prostitution of Rahab the Harlot, the seduction of Boaz by Ruth and the adultery of David with Bathsheba. Then he tells us that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is pregnant prior to her marriage to Joseph and that Joseph is prepared to put her away. Matthew has taken great pains in these opening verses of his gospel to argue that the divine plans of God are not thwarted by incest, prostitution, seduction or adultery. God can act through all human distortions and when God acts the human circumstances do not matter.
It is obvious to me that the early Christians had to deal with rumors about the scandal of Jesus' birth, just as they had to deal with the scandal of Jesus' death. Other hints of scandal surrounding his birth are found in two Johanine texts. In the first a member of the crowd says to Jesus: "We were not born of fornication!" and in the other someone comments that "nothing good can come out of Nazareth." He could not be the messiah they were saying since messiah can not be an illegitimate child or be born in Nazareth. Earlier Christians had had to confront the charge that messiah had to be a mighty victorious warrior, he could not be a crucified man who had been hanged on a tree. No one could claim that Jesus was the "one who was to come" until they dealt with this crisis, which they did by identifying the death of Jesus with the death of the Paschal Lamb of the Passover and with the slaughtered Lamb of God in the liturgy of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The "scandal of his death" was thus turned into the heart of the gospel and the passion narrative was created to interpret that death as fulfilling the will of God. Later, they dealt with the charges of scandal associated with his origins and his birth in two ways: first, by portraying his birth as hardly scandalous since God was really his father, and second by asserting that even if he had been illegitimate, God has always been able to work through human frailty as the genealogy reveals that God did many times in the past. So Matthew wrote that a star proclaimed his nativity and Gentile magi journeyed to worship him. Later Luke would expand these symbols by suggesting that angels broke through the darkness of night to announce his birth to hillside shepherds, who then went and found him immediately, armed only with two clues: he was "wrapped in swaddling clothes" and he was "lying in a manger."
When we note these Jewish references in the stories of Jesus' birth, it becomes clear that both Matthew and Luke were not writing history. They were interpreting the divine power they had experienced in the life of the adult Jesus, who could overcome the rumors that surrounded his birth with the transformation of all things that were once believed to be scandalous, just as he overcame the scandal of his execution by transforming death into the resurrection.
It is a tragedy that our lack of knowledge about how the gospels were written has led us to literalize these stories to the point where sincere but misguided religious zealots could actually assert that a literalized virgin birth must be one of the five fundamentals on which Christianity stands, missing thereby both the integrity and the beauty of the gospel writers' interpretive story. No, Jesus was not born of a virgin, but when we understand who he is, we will know why the whole creation was said to have rejoiced that such a life could emerge from our humanity and that in him God has visited God's people.
John Shelby Spong
To those who don't agree with Spong: Other than breaking Christian legend & tradition, why is believing the Virgin Birth necessary to being a practioner of Jesus' delivered, "Two New Commandments"? Warm regards, Roger