Are There Other Virgin Births Beside Jesus? | Bart D. Ehrman PhD

Are There Other Virgin Births Beside Jesus? | Bart D. Ehrman PhD

Join Bart Ehrman for a Special Christmas-Season Lecture: "Other Virgin Births in Antiquity". Was Jesus of Nazareth the ONLY miracle-working Son of God to be born of a Virgin?

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[TrggrWarning]

As shocking as it may seem, i too was born a virgin. It took me 13 years to shake that status.

[rebeccazegstroo]

Antecedent stories and tropes that cone together in Christianity are much more interesting than apologists and responding to apologists. Rome brought cultures and ideas together like never before. Where the various elements came from and how they fit together is very interesting.

[ShanLiB]

If Mary was a virgin and Joseph is not the biological father of Jesus, why did Mathew feel it was important to list Joseph's genealogy all the way back to Abraham?

[decades]

During the Greco-Roman era there was a belief that gods can impregnate women without sexual intercourse. Plutarch goes into this subject and says that a human can be impregnated by a god through "other forms of contact or touch". The miraculous impregnation of Io who gives birth to Epaphus/Apis (Epaphus was said to be the same being as the Apis bull) is one example.

Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2014), M. David Litwa:
_Plutarch shows himself prudent in every way. He knew well the story that Zeus begot Alexander by impregnating his mother Olympias in the form of a snake (Plut., Alex. 2.5-3.2). This myth was more or less transferred to Augustus by Asclepias of Mendes (in Suet., Div. Aug. 94.4), who said that Augustus’s divine father (like Plato’s) was Apollo. In contrast to these tales, Plutarch avoids any implication that Apollo appeared in anthropomorphic (or theriomorphic) form to have sex with Perictione [Plato's mother]. He has Florus merely mention "the vision which is said to have appeared to Ariston, Plato's father, in his sleep, which spoke and forbade him to have intercourse with his wife, or to touch her, for ten months" (Quaest. conv. 717e)... Matthew was less hesitant about a similar dream vision, in which an angel informs Joseph that Jesus is God's offspring (born from holy pneuma). Consequently, Joseph does not touch Mary until she has given birth (Matt. 1:20-25). In both cases, the purpose for such a story is similar: the purely divine origin of the child is secured. Yet how exactly, for Plutarch, would Apollo have been the efficient cause for Perictione's pregnancy? Plutarch's answer in Table Talk has already been discussed, and we have only to give it final summary here. First, a god cannot have sex with a woman because that involves a change to a mortal form and a consequent depreciation of the divine (incorruptible) nature. But if a god cannot change his own form, he can still change and make pregnant a mortal woman. He does so by "other forms of contact or touch"--namely, by divine power (Quaest. conv. 718a) and pneuma (Num 4.4)...Interestingly, Plutarch's description of divine begetting resembles the language that John's gospel uses to expound spiritual birth...The pneuma here is evidently the pneuma of God, and the phrase "born from holy pneuma" is the same phrase used to describe Jesus' birth in Matthew (__1:20__). John, like Plutarch, can also speak of pneuma in the broader sense of "wind" or "breath"... At the end of his discussion in Table Talk, Plutarch adds that “the Egyptians say that Apis is brought to birth by a touch of the moon”... As applied to birth, however, Luke’s use of pneuma and power fulfill a similar function as they do in Plutarch. Pneuma—in the elevated sense of “spirit”—can be used to refer to a non-sexual, non-anthropomorphic divine reality. Thus to use “pneuma” instead of simply “God” is a safe way of talking about spiritual—yet productive—contact between the divine and a mortal female while preserving Yahweh’s—and Apollo’s—dignified distance and lack of passion... In sum, both Luke and Plutarch effectively speak of divine pneuma and power as the efficient cause of pregnancy without hinting at perceived theologically crass features such as metamorphosis into a male body, penetration by a divine penis, and the ejaculation of divine seed into the womb..._

King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2008), Adela Yarbro Collins, John J. Collins:
_It has been pointed out that the Old Greek translation "probably means only that she who is now a virgin will later conceive and give birth; no miracle is involved." Therefore, "the Isaian prophecy did not give rise either to the idea of the virginal conception or to Matthew's narrative..." What then was the catalyst that evoked a miraculous reading of Isa __7:14__? The best explanation is that the author of Matthew and his predecessors were aware of Greek and Roman stories about great men being fathered by deities with human women. The Isaian prophecy enabled followers of Jesus to interpret the origin of Jesus as equally or even more miraculous... the story is analogous to and probably inspired by Greek and Roman stories, but the typical form of the story is adapted to a Jewish context... like some Greeks and others roughly contemporary with Matthew, the evangelist rejected the mythological expression of the idea. An analogy to this rejection is found in Plutarch's "Life of Numa": "And yet the Egyptians make a distinction here which is thought plausible, namely, that while a woman can be approached by a divine spirit and made pregnant, there is no such thing as carnal intercourse and communion between a man and a divinity." Aeschylus wrote in similar language about the impregnation of Io [mother of Epaphus] by Zeus: "Whence [Argos] we boast ourselves sprung, from the breath of Zeus' nostrils, And the touch of his procreant finger laid, For a dynasty's founding, on a king's daughter, even the gnat-tormented heifer-maid." The term "breath" here translates the Greek word pneuma, the same word used by Plutarch, Matthew, and Mark..._

Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources on biology (BRILL, 1994), edited by Robert W. Sharples, Pamela M. Huby, William Wall Fortenbaugh:
_Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 43 368c, describes the sacred Apis-calf as an image of Osiris, and says that it was believed to be produced without the involvement of a bull, when the light of the moon fell on a cow in heat... It may not be irrelevant that the Apis calf was identified by the Greeks with Epaphus, the child of Io who combines human and bovine forms. Epaphus was named from his being fathered by Zeus "with a touch"- only. The touch of Zeus' hand is indeed a different matter from impregnation by celestial light; but it may be noted that Plutarch, referring to gods begetting children on mortal women, refers to them doing so not as a mortal man would but "through other touchings", haphai, and shortly afterwards refers to Apis being produced by the touch, epaphe, of the moon._

Death and afterlife in Ancient Egypt (British Museum Press, 2001), John H Taylor:
_Apis was believed to be incarnate in a bull, born to a virgin cow which was supposed to have been impregnated by Ptah through the agency of fire from heaven..._

The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (Thames & Hudson, 2003), Richard H. Wilkinson:
_Mythologically, it was said that the Apis bull was born to a virgin cow that had been impregnated by the god Ptah... In this context the living Apis bull itself was sometimes called the "ba" [=physical manifestation] of Osiris_

[TankUni]

The Virgin Birth is a classic example of how the religion changed as it moved into the Roman population, came into contact with the established pagan religions and needed to compete.

[chainedmindsasylum]

The fact that Mark doesn't mention it and his mother thinking he's gone mad makes it Game Over. The virgin birth is a bold faced LIE that emerged later

[soupbonep]

To illustrate Bart's point about a modern mother telling people that she never had sex, I ask ever hear the song "Benny's from Heaven" by Eddie Jefferson? It's about a soldier who comes home from war to find that his wife had a baby. Sung to the tune of Pennys From Heaven, here are some of the words,
"Darling won't you please explain
So I won't seem so dumb
Tell me where did little Benny come from?
And every time he asked she'd say
Benny's from heaven
His face got red
But she repeatedly said
Benny's from heaven"
Makes me think about Joseph's reaction to Jesus. Just what was said about his reaction?

[RolanRoyce]

There are two virgin births in the Mahabharata, first Satyavati and later Kunti, also called Pritha. The one involving Kunti is most likely the inspiration for the Jesus virgin birth myth and being the son of a God myth. Kunti's son was conceived by the sun god Suryah, Suryavati's was just a Rishi, which is a sage or saint. In both of the Mahabharata virgin birth stories, the females had their virginity magically restored afterward. Satyavati's son actually popped out immediately, no 9 month wait. Kunti's took the normal time but then she put him, Karna, in a basket coated with wax and placed in a river, to be found and raised by a charioteer and his wife.

[vuduball]

Young women have been telling their fathers this story since the beginning of time.

[kennethmarshall]

They do understand logic but they throw it out of the window when it comes to their cherished beliefs. I remember the same feeling as a six-year-old boy trying to figure out how Santa got round all the houses in the country in one night . Defied logic yet I assumed that somehow it was true because my parents told me it was true and I firmly believed it

[douglasmstewart]

I like that over the last ten years Bart has started to look more and more like Elton John. I’m so tempted to write anonymous gospels about this and hope they’re found in a few hundred years.

[shanejohns]

"'Beside', without the s, tells us the location of something. 'Besides', on the other hand, means “in addition, ” “in addition to, ” “moreover, ” or “as well, ” depending on context."

[steveflor]

Of the 100 or so extant religions,
Christianity has the tall tales grand prize.

[Airic]

3:45, Bart tries making a point saying Mark 3:33-35 mentions Jesus denying his mother and brother since his mom thought he was crazy, as proof that his mother didnt know Jesus’ purpose therefore the virgin birth never happened, BUT…Matthew 12:48-50 also tells this story as well of jesus denying his mother etc, and Matthew DOES mention the virgin birth, therefore his rebuttal falls short! hmm…

Wasn't Paul secretly working for the Flavian Dynasty? Weren't all of the original Roman Catholic Saints' members of the Flavian Dynasty? Weren't all of the original symbols used by the earliest Christians identical to those of the Flavian Dynasty? And isn’t one of the earliest iconographic symbols for Christianity, located in a catacomb, under the city of Rome, which was owned by a Flavian Princess?

Weren't all of the original Jesus cult texts produced under the oversight of the Flavian Dynasty? Didn't the Flavian Dynasty posses the only remaining copy of the Hebrew Tanakh other than the Greek Septuagint translation? Isn't there Flavian typology in the Gospels? Weren't the canonical texts all back dated like the historical fiction of Gone With The Wind? Wasn't Emperor Vespasian known as the Jewish Messiah? Wasn’t Pope Clement of Rome a Flavian? Wasn't Josephus a temple whore for the Flavian Dynasty? Weren't the Flavian’s, as well as Paul, descended from King Herod?

There was no separation of Church and State in the Roman Empire. And Christianity is clearly a Greco-Roman hybrid form of Judaism created by the Flavian Dynasty. As an attempt to adapt, pacify, and integrate the rebellious and defiant Jews into the rest of the Greco-Roman Empire. Just like the Greeks created Hermes Trismegistus to integrate Egyptian mythology with Greek mythology.Then finally Neo-Flavian Constantine chose the Flavian family religion to be the official religion of the entire Roman Empire. In order to consolidate power in his fractured Empire. And then Eusebius edited and rewrote the history of the previous 3OO years. Destroying all contradictory evidence. It isn't history it is all simply Greco-Roman mythopoetic literature. Today it is known as Historical Fiction.

“What profit hath not this fable of Christ brought us.”

Pope Leo X 💙

[daveschellenberg]

what if the virgin birth is just poetic language for a spiritual birth or awakening after a physical birth.

[JamesRichardWiley]

There are amazing stories about virgin births occurring among human primates.
There are also stories about a Jewish man floating into an airless space called Heaven
and an Arab man riding a chariot drawn by winged horses into the Van Allen Radiation Belt.
There are all kinds of fascinating stories for humans to read and believe.

[amirpatel]

In Hinduisms Mahabarata, there is case of a prophesized birth of sorts, that the king would be slain by the 8th son of his cousin, the king went on to lock his cousin and her husband in a dungeon and proceed to kill the first 6 children as they literally came out, then divine intervention for the 7 and 8th child, the 8 child being Lord Vishnu, who then later in his life killed his uncle the king. Its messed up i know.

[hendrikbarboritsch]

Did Luke "correct" the geneology of Jesus, so that it refers to Mary's lineage and not Joseph's, as described in Matthew's account?
This is what apologists claim.