Editing Virgin birth of Jesus (section)

==Historicity and sources of the narratives==
{{Jesus| in Christianity}}
The modern scholarly consensus is that the doctrine of the virgin birth rests on very slender historical foundations.{{sfn|Bruner|2004|p=37}} Both Matthew and Luke are late and anonymous compositions dating from the period AD 80–90, though this still places them within the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses, including Jesus's own family.<ref>{{cite book |last= van Os |first= Bas |year= 2011 |title= Psychological Analyses and the Historical Jesus: New Ways to Explore Christian Origins |publisher= T&T Clark |page= 57, 83 |isbn= 978-0567269515}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= Sanders |first= EP |year= 1996 |title= The Historical Figure of Jesus |publisher= Penguin |page= 5 |isbn= 0140144994}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last= Charlesworth |first= James |author-link= James Charlesworth |title= The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide |publisher= Abingdon Press |isbn= 978-0687021673}}</ref>{{sfn|Fredriksen|2008|p=7}} [[Marcus Borg]] stated plainly, "I (and most mainline scholars) do not see these stories as historically factual."<ref>{{cite book |last= Borg |first= Marcus |author-link= Marcus Borg |year= 2007 |title= The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions |publisher= HarperOne |page= 179 |isbn= 978-0061285547}}</ref> 

The earliest Christian writings, the [[Pauline epistles]], do not contain any mention of a virgin birth and simply state that he was "born of a woman" and "born under the law" like any Jew.{{sfn|Lincoln|2013|p=21}} 

Though the author of the [[Gospel of John]] is confident that Jesus is more than human, he makes no reference to a virgin birth to prove his point.{{sfn|Lincoln|2013|p=23}} John in fact refers twice to Jesus as the "son of Joseph," the first time from the lips of the disciple Philip ("We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth" – {{Bibleverse|John|1:45}}), the second from the unbelieving Jews ("Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose mother and father we know?" – John {{Bibleref2-nb|John|6:42}}).{{sfn|Lincoln|2013|p=24}} These quotations, incidentally, appear to be in direct opposition to the suggestion that Jesus was, or was believed to be, illegitimate: Philip and the Jews knew that Jesus had a human father, and that father was Joseph.{{sfn|Lincoln|2013|p=29}}

This raises the question of where the authors of Matthew and Luke found their stories. It is almost certain that neither was the work of an eyewitness,{{sfn|Boring|Craddock|2009|p=12}}{{sfn|Reddish|2011|p=13}} though the oral transmission that led to the Gospels would have involved eyewitnesses.<ref>{{cite book |last= Byrskog |first= Samuel |year= 2000 |title= Story as History - History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History |publisher= Mohr Siebrek Ek |page= 18-28, 69 |isbn= 978-3161473050}}</ref>  In view of the many inconsistencies between their narratives of Jesus' birth, neither is likely to derive from the other, nor did they share a common source.{{sfn|Hurtado|2005|p=318}} [[Raymond E. Brown]] suggested in 1973 that Joseph was the source of Matthew's account and Mary of Luke's, but modern scholars consider this "highly unlikely" given that the stories emerged so late.{{sfn|Lincoln|2013|p=144}} The two infancy narratives cannot be harmonized, precluding a single source for the two, but there are many agreements as well, suggesting that both stories use sources stemming from Palestinian Jewish Christianity. The historical memory of an early birth may lie behind the Virgin birth story.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hultgren |first=Stephen |title=The Jesus Handbook |publisher=Eerdmans |year=2022 |isbn=978-0802876928 |pages=355-6}}</ref> [[Larry Hurtado]] argues that the two narratives were created by the two writers, drawing on ideas in circulation at least a decade before the gospels were composed, to perhaps 65-75 or even earlier.{{sfn|Hurtado|2005|pp=318–319, 325}} [[Dale Allison]] and [[W. D. Davies]] argue that Matthew presents with minimal redaction a unified and preexisting infancy narrative. They view the infancy story as based off of haggadic legends about [[Moses]], though they maintain that elements in the story such as the names of Mary and Joseph and the location of Jesus in Nazareth during the end of [[Herod the Great|Herod]]’s reign are historical.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Allison |first1=Dale |author-link= Dale Allison |last2= Davies |first2= W. D. |author-link2= W. D. Davies | title= Matthew 1-7: Volume 1 | year= 2004 |publisher= T&T Clark |page= 190-94 |isbn= 978-0567083555}}</ref>

Matthew presents the ministry of Jesus as largely the fulfilment of prophecies from the [[Book of Isaiah]],{{sfn|Barker|2001|p=490}} and Matthew 1:22-23, "All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 'Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son...{{'"}}, is a reference to [[Isaiah 7:14]], "...the Lord himself shall give you a sign: the maiden is with child and she will bear a son..."{{sfn|Sweeney|1996|p=161}}{{sfn|Saldarini|2001|p=1007}} The Book of Isaiah had been [[Septuagint|translated into Greek]],{{sfn|Barker|2001|p=490}} and from this translation, Matthew uses the Greek word {{lang|grc-x-biblical|παρθένος}} (''parthenos''), which does mean virgin, for the Hebrew {{Script/Hebrew|עַלְמָה}} (''[[almah]]''), which scholars agree signifies a girl of childbearing age without reference to virginity.{{sfn|Sweeney|1996|p=161}}{{sfn|Saldarini|2001|p=1007}} This mistranslation gave the author of Matthew the opportunity to interpret Jesus as the prophesied ''[[Immanuel]]'', "God is with us", the divine representative on earth.{{sfn|Saldarini|2001|p=1007}} According to [[R. T. France]], the inclusion of Isaiah 7:14 was an explanatory addition to Matthew's birth narrative, albeit not the inspiration for it.<ref>[[R. T. France]] (2008), Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary, p.81-82</ref> According to [[Mark Goodacre]], the Gospel of Matthew did not base the virgin birth on a mistranslation of Isaiah.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://podacre.blogspot.com/2012/12/nt-pod-64-is-virgin-birth-based-on.html |title= NT Pod 64: Is the Virgin Birth based on a Mistranslation?| first= Mark |last= Goodacre |author-link=Mark Goodacre |date= December 20, 2012|website= NT Pod| access-date= September 12, 2024}}</ref>

Conservative scholars argue that despite the uncertainty of the details, the gospel birth narratives trace back to historical, or at least much earlier pre-gospel traditions.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.abc.net.au/religion/nt-wright-history-scepticism-and-virgin-birth/13686186|title= History, scepticism, and the question of the virgin birth (N. T. Wright)|website= [[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]]|date= 21 December 2021}}</ref><ref>[[R. T. France]] (2008), Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary, p.81-82</ref><ref>[[Craig Blomberg]] (2nd Ed. 2009), Jesus and the Gospels, p. 243-244</ref>{{sfn|Hurtado|2005|pp=319}}<ref>[[Raymond E. Brown|Raymond Brown]] (1977), The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke, pp. 104–121</ref> For instance, according to [[Ben Witherington III|Ben Witherington]]:
{{blockquote|What we find in Matthew and Luke is not the story of… a [god] descending to earth and, in the guise of a man, mating with a human woman, but rather the story of a miraculous conception without the aid of any man, divine or otherwise. As such, this story is without precedent either in Jewish or pagan literature.<ref>Witherington (1992), Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, p. 70</ref>}}