“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.” (Matthew 1:18–25 ESV)
What is one to make of the virgin birth? There are some that have suggested that the virgin birth had to be inserted because that is what Greco-Roman god-men experienced and Jesus is just based on those myths. A problem with this is that when you try and track down the supposed virgin birth of Horus, Dionysus or Mithras it soon becomes difficult to find a true virgin birth. What critics really mean is a supernatural birth which is not the same as a virgin birth. The story of Jesus’ virgin birth is extremely different in its description to the the tales of supernatural births in the myths. Did the early Christians really feel the need to attribute a virgin birth? If so, why is Paul silent on it? Did he miss the memo about creating a Greco-Roman god-man?
When we compare Matthew’s account to Luke’s account we see that we are dealing with two separate but compatible traditions. This multiple attestation suggests we are in the realm of history rather than myth.
What about Matthew’s citation of the prophecy of Isaiah? Critics will point out that the Hebrew almah means young woman rather than virgin as if this was an argument against the virgin birth. Instead, I see this as an argument for. The Old Testament did not demand that the messiah be born of a virgin. If there had been no virgin birth story for Jesus, no one would say “What about Isaiah’s prophecy?” This means that the early Christians did not feel pressure to make up a virgin birth to make Jesus fulfill the prophecy. What likely happened was that they had this knowledge of Jesus’ virgin birth and noticed that the Greek of Isaiah used parthenos meaning virgin and that this sacred language expressed what they knew to be true.
