Good tidings of great joy

Was Mother Mary a virgin?

For a long time I struggled with this notion. Not because "divine impregnation" is inherently unlikely – if God exists, nothing is impossible for Him – but because it seemed hard to reconcile with other passages in the Gospels. Why was Jesus disdained by his own family (see, e.g., Mark 3:21) if his parents had certain knowledge of his true nature?

Hard historical evidence for the Virgin Birth is scant: there is much more powerful evidence for the Resurrection. Nevertheless, Mary's virginity is expressly or impliedly affirmed in all four Gospels (cf. Mark 6:3; John 3:16, 16:28) as well as a New Testament epistle (see Hebrews 7:3). Catholics believe that Mary remained a virgin always, but I adhere to the Protestant view that she and Joseph subsequently had natural children.

There is cogent extra-biblical evidence that the very early Christians believed in the Virgin Birth. It is there, of course, in the Apostles' Creed and is also a tenet of Islam.

Sceptics advance various counter-arguments. One centres on the true meaning of the word "virgin" in the relevant biblical passages, a highly esoteric debate. Another argument is that this is yet another example of the evangelists "fulfilling" Old Testament prophecy (cf. Isaiah 7:14) and/or of inventing a story for theological reasons.

Two considerations above all tend to confirm the trustworthiness of the Gospel accounts.

First, there undoubtedly was a second-century rumour – widely put about by opponents of Christianity, including the Greek philosopher Celsus – that Jesus was the illegitimate son of Mary and a Roman legionary. Why would Christians have invented, much less staunchly defended, a story which gave rise to such a humiliating charge? In the Gospel version, Joseph himself was disturbed by the news of Mary's pregnancy, and tried quietly to call off the marriage – a detail which rings true. (See Matthew 1:19.)

Second, yet more fundamentally, where did the idea of divine impregnation come from? There are no close parallels in the Old Testament, though the evangelists struggled to find some. The Virgin Birth appears a prime example of the biblical phemenomon identified by Craig L. Blomberg:

[Various] Old Testament references are reworded or reapplied in ways that make it much more likely the Gospels writers were trying to show how the Old Testament fitted the events of Jesus' life and not the other way around. (My emphasis)

Several of the other Old Testament "prophecies" reflected in the Christmas story can be seen in the same vein.

Did angels, stars and comets accompany Jesus' birth?

Here, to put it mildly, we are in problematic territory.