{"id":1283,"date":"2010-12-10T06:20:23","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T06:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/12\/virgin-territory--why-the-virginal-conception.html"},"modified":"2010-12-10T06:20:23","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T06:20:23","slug":"virgin-territory-why-the-virginal-conception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/12\/virgin-territory-why-the-virginal-conception.html","title":{"rendered":"VIRGIN TERRITORY— WHY THE VIRGINAL CONCEPTION?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spma.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

                <\/span>Let’s
\nmake one thing clear from the start.  <\/span>It
\nreally shouldn’t be called the virgin birth. 
\n<\/span>Yes a virgin gave birth in this story, but the miracle took place at the
\npoint of conception,  <\/span>not at the point of
\nbirth.   <\/span>And another thing, Isaiah 7.14
\nin the Hebrew really didn’t adequately prepare anyone, even Mary, for what is
\nto come.   <\/span>When early Jews read ‘a young
\nnubile woman will conceive and give birth to a child’ (Hebrew) or even ‘a
\nvirgin with conceive and give birth to a child’ 
\n<\/span>in neither case did that necessarily lead to the conclusion— ‘Oh a
\nvirginal conception is meant’.   <\/span>Why
\nnot,  <\/span>while the Hebrew and Greek are
\ncompatible with such a reading of the text, they are capable of other
\ninterpretations, for example ‘a virgin will conceive….’ as a phrase  <\/span>tells us nothing of the agency of
\nconception.  <\/span>You could assume that it was
\nby the normal means. In an honor and shame culture where virginity was highly
\nprized, there were a lot of virgins out there conceiving for the first
\ntime.   <\/span>Why is Mary’s story different? <\/p>\n

                <\/span>When
\nyou begin to understand how Isaiah 7.14 was understood prior to the time of
\nJesus,  <\/span>you will understand why the story
\nof the virginal conception comes as a surprise, and indeed suggested scandal to
\nthe skeptical.   <\/span>No one was looking for a
\nvirginally conceived messiah,  <\/span>and if
\nsome Jewish woman claimed that, well,  <\/span>a
\nrighteous man like Joseph had every reason to be skeptical and divorce her
\nquietly.   <\/span>And of course in the later
\nJewish tradition there was even the tradition that Mary had been impregnated by
\na Roman soldier named Panthera or Pantera (yes, apparently  <\/span>the source of the name of the heavy metal
\nband).   <\/span>Here’s the point,  <\/span>it was an actual historical event in the life
\nof Mary, an event that could not be avoided or explained away, that caused the
\nsearching of the Scriptures  <\/span>to find out
\nwhether God had forewarned his people about this strange event.   <\/span>In short, the story of Mary’s miraculous
\nconception is not conjured up out of OT prophecy, any more than it is conjured
\nup out of supposed parallel stories about Emperors.  <\/span>There are no stories about virginally
\nconceived Emperors— NONE.   <\/span>Stories of
\ndeities raping human woman are in no way parallel to this story, because in
\nthose myths, there is male agency involved, albeit a divine male.    <\/span>The Holy Spirit ain’t just another mythical
\ndivine guy.  <\/span>In short, the parallels fail
\nat precisely the crucial point, as do the results.  <\/span>The point of the divine impregnation stories
\nis to make clear how the Emperor came to have a divine nature.   <\/span>It’s a myth of origins.    <\/span>This is not at all the point or purpose of
\nthe story of the virginal conception.  
\n<\/span>The Son of God was already divine when he took on human form in the womb
\nof Mary.  <\/span>There was no need for divine
\nimpregnation to make someone divine in 
\n<\/span>the Gospel story.   <\/span>It was exactly
\nthe opposition that was being explained—– how a human being could be
\nconceived and born and be truly human without the agency of a human male.   <\/span>And why?     
\n<\/span>Why did the virginal conception have to happen? <\/p>\n

                <\/span>Now we
\nare swimming in deep theological waters. 
\n<\/span>Those without swimming and life-saving merit badges already should not
\njump into this water.  <\/span>Why is it in two
\nvery different birth  <\/span>stories in two very
\ndifferent Gospels  <\/span>the First and Third
\nEvangelists insist, are adamant—- there was a virginal conception?    <\/span>Well, of course, you could say— because that’s the way it actually happened.
\n<\/i>  <\/span>Yes, but that doesn’t in any way
\nanswer the prior question— Why did God see fit to do it this way, especially
\nsince early Jews weren’t expecting a virginally conceived son of David.  <\/span>Probably the most coherent and cogent
\nexplanation is that there was something wrong with human nature,  <\/span>something badly wrong.  <\/span>Sin had marred, distorted, warped the image
\nof God in each of us.   <\/span>We were, and
\nremain, fallen creatures.    <\/span>Now this sin
\nnature,  <\/span>this fallenness,  <\/span>this soul darkness,  <\/span>is not how we were created.   <\/span>While Pope was right that ‘to err is human’
\nit is not true that in order to be truly human as God designed us, one must
\nerr,  <\/span>one must sin.   <\/span>It is not a surprise then that there is
\ninsistences in Hebrews that Jesus was tempted like us in every respect,  <\/span>but he did not sin.   <\/span>Why was it important that the Son of Man be
\nfully like us in every way that God made us, 
\n<\/span>and not like us in our sin?<\/p>\n

                <\/span>Well
\nfor one thing,  <\/span>Jesus came as the last
\nAdam to set right the fallen race of humankind. 
\n<\/span>You can’t be part of the solution if actually you are inherently and by
\nnature a part of the problem.   <\/span>In fact
\nJesus came to start a whole new race of humanity,  <\/span>the last race, the race in which there was
\nneither Jew nor Gentile, but all are one.   
\n<\/span>When Jesus came he accepted all the normal limitations of being  <\/span>fully human—- limitations of time, space,
\nknowledge, and power.    <\/span>He however was
\nnot a sinner either by birth or by behavior.   
\n<\/span>Why is this important? <\/p>\n

                <\/span>Paradoxically
\nenough, we find the answer to that not in the story about Jesus’s birth but in
\nthe story about his death.  <\/span>Jesus was, as
\nDorothy Sayers put it,  <\/span>the man born to
\ndie and not die just any sort of death.  <\/span> <\/span> <\/span>He came
\nnot to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom in the place of the
\nmany.  <\/span>Jesus was the one person for whom
\nJesus did not need to die, and indeed he is the one person who did not deserve
\nto pay the wages for sin,  <\/span>which is
\ndeath.   <\/span>In order for Jesus to offer an
\nunblemished and perfect sacrifice,  <\/span>he
\nhad to live a sinless life, and have a sinless nature.  <\/span>At the very same time, in order for him to be
\nour substitute, he had to be truly and fully human.  <\/span>He had to be able to die!   <\/span>He had to be mortal.    <\/span>The in some ways exhilarating and in some
\nways heartbreaking story of this whole deal is told in Phil. 2.5-11, where we
\nlearn that the Son of God, who was equal to the Father and had all sorts of
\ndivine frequent flyer miles, stripped himself of his divine prerogatives and
\ntook on the nature of a human being, and not just any sort of human— a
\nservant amongst humans,  <\/span> <\/span> <\/span> <\/span>Put in theological terms while the Son of God
\ndid not give up his divine nature in order to become human, he did indeed put
\nthe omnis on hold—- omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, etc.   <\/span>Human beings all have the limitations of
\ntime, space, knowledge and power, and so did Jesus.   <\/span>He was Adam gone right, obedient to the
\nFather.  <\/span><\/p>\n

                <\/span>The
\nreason Jesus’ death was sufficient to atone for the sins of the world, is
\nbecause his was a perfect self-sacrifice, an unblemished sacrifice.  <\/span>And in the Jewish schema of things,  <\/span>in the Biblical scheme of things,  <\/span>this was exactly what was necessary, and all
\nthat was necessary to atone for sins.  <\/span> <\/span>So way back at the beginning,  <\/span>the Son of God came into the world by means
\nof virginal conception, by passing our fallen human nature passed from one
\ngeneration to the next by normal human intercourse. <\/p>\n

                <\/span>What
\nabout Mary?    <\/span>Wasn’t she just a normal
\nJewish girl?  <\/span>Well of course there are
\nthe Catholic traditions about her immaculate conception and sinlessness, but in
\nfact nothing in the Bible favors this explanation, and somethings in the
\nGospels go clearly against it (but that’s a story for another day).   <\/span>If however we look at Luke’s birth narrative
\nhe stresses ‘and the Holy Spirit will overshadow you….” .  <\/span>In other words,  <\/span>God sanctified her womb, and so while she
\ncontributed the human nature to Jesus, 
\n<\/span>through a miracle in that womb, it was not a fallen one.    <\/span>God thought of everything!   <\/span><\/p>\n

                <\/span>Under
\nthe radar of the fallen world,  <\/span>and
\nwithout Jewish expectation, a virginally conceived Savior slipped into this
\nworld under cover of darkness, incognito.   
\n<\/span>And so it is that the hopes and fears of all the years, are met in
\nhim.  <\/span> <\/span>He certainly did not come to meet our
\nexpectations, he came to meet our needs.   <\/span>And the greatest need of all humans is our
\nsin sickness, a sickness unto death.   
\n<\/span>Jesus came that we might have life, and have it abundantly, indeed
\nforever.  <\/span>He came that he might give new
\nbirth to our sin sick souls.     <\/span>As
\nGeorge McDonald put it long ago—- “we were looking for a king to slay our
\nfoes and lift us high.   <\/span>But
\n(unexpectedly)  <\/span>you came a little baby
\nthing, that made a woman cry.”   <\/span> <\/span>  <\/span> <\/span>  <\/span><\/p>\n

Hallelujah…….. There is a good reason to celebrate this and
\nevery Christmas. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                Let’s make one thing clear from the start.  It really shouldn’t be called the virgin birth.  Yes a virgin gave birth in this story, but the miracle took place at the point of conception,  not at the point of birth.   And another thing, Isaiah 7.14 in the Hebrew really didn’t adequately prepare anyone, even…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nVIRGIN TERRITORY- WHY THE VIRGINAL CONCEPTION? - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/12\/virgin-territory-why-the-virginal-conception.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"VIRGIN TERRITORY- WHY THE VIRGINAL CONCEPTION? 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}