I work on the assumption that the writer of John was familiar with one or more
of the earlier Gospels and only repeated what he felt necessary for his
reflection on the meaning of the work of Christ. I see no problem, then, with
his not mentioning the virgin birth as such. It was sufficient for his purposes
the the Word became flesh.
Whether Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, or whether Joseph was His genetic
father I doubt I shall discover for certain either way in this life. Happily my
faith does not depend on a virgin birth, although if I had to vote on it, I
would probably be in the Yes camp.
Nevertheless, supposing Jesus was born through the action of the Holy Spirit
rather than by the usual process of conception, I can imagine that His mother
and supposed father would not have made a song and dance about it. That would
have brought mocking incredulity from the neighbours and possibly attracted
negative attention from the authorities. They would therefore have raised Him
as the child of them both, so as far as the folk who knew them were concerned
He was the son of Joseph and Mary, Ieshua Bar Joseph (pardon my non-existent
Hebrew).
Jesus does not appear to have based any of the claims He made about Himself on
His having been born of a virgin. Maybe, then, the details of His birth and the
events leading up to it didn't come out until Luke, researching for his Gospel,
sat down with Mary and discovered some of the things she had been "treasuring
in her heart" until then. That's what I like to think, anyway.
Its good that our group in its new form is serving its purpose as a forum for
this kind of discussion.
John Barnett
On 15 December 2020 at 15:15 dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
It is of course possible that Jesus was formally adopted as Joseph's son,
though I consider that highly unlikely. I don't know for sure whether he
would be called Joseph's son for identification purposes, but we have to
assume that Joseph was already dead by the time Jesus began his public
ministry, so I would think it unlikely that Jesus would still be identified
twice as the son of Joseph (in the texts that you mentioned, Ann).
But the fact is that John's Gospel does not mention the virgin birth as a
doctrine, so that when John says that Jesus was the son of Joseph he does not
qualify this in any way by saying that Jesus was born of a virgin, and he
does not even say that Jesus was the son of both Joseph and Mary. Some would
reply to me that John does not mention the birth of Jesus at all, so he would
not describe his birth as that from a virgin. I don't agree with this
argument, since a doctrine as revolutionary as that of the virgin birth ought
to have had more than a passing mention in any gospel. Given that John's
text assumes Jesus' paternity from Joseph, I see that there is no argument
for the virgin birth from John's Gospel.
It also has to be said that the earliest NT writings, the genuine
epistles of Paul, never refer to the virgin birth, even when Paul is
recommending or referring to chastity in 1 Corinthians 7 and 2 Corinthians
11.2. In 1 Corinthians 11 and 15 he mentions the traditions surrounding the
Last Supper and the Resurrection which he was taught soon after his
conversion, but again there is no reference to the virgin birth.
Only 1 text in Mark (Mark 6.3) could refer to the virgin birth, but the
NRSV margin reading 'son of the carpenter and of Mary' has early attestation
in the 3rd century Chester Beatty papyrus. Luke's references to the virgin
birth show evidence of editing (or tampering) in the annunciation narrative
and the genealogy, but Mary and Joseph are both called Jesus' parents 5 times
in Luke 2 and Jesus is Joseph's son in Luke 4.22. Matthew's use of Isaiah's
prophecy (Matthew 1.23 and Isaiah 7.14) is too ambiguous as a result of
translation difficulties to use as an argument for the virgin birth.
Irenaeus in 180 AD says the Ebionites did not believe in the virgin birth
(Against all Heresies 3.21 and 5.1) and Epiphanius in c 403 says that
Ebionite was at first a common name for all Christians (Adv. Haer. 29.1). It
is only in c 300 AD that Eusebius writes that some (but not all ) Ebionites
believed in the virgin birth.
So from where do you get the idea of the virgin birth? Classical
paganism! Thanks to the pagan Emperor Constantine who forced the whole
church to believe in the virgin birth in his Nicene Creed of 325 AD.
