"But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13, NRSV).[1] The second of these two verses from the prologue of John’s Gospel has been transmitted to us under two forms: one in the plural (just cited), one in the singular:[2] “who was born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:13, emphasis added). The former points to Baptism and the latter to the Virgin Birth of Jesus of Nazareth. In this paper I intend to respond to the hypothesis prevalent in the modern scholarship of the last two centuries which argues that the Virgin Birth is a mythological-theological construction aimed at vindicating the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. By looking at the antithetical relationship between political theology and Christian baptismal theology I intend to show how the Virgin Birth narrative becomes a protruding question mark in history. I will conclude with an open question on the philosophical presuppositions which undergird exegetical hermeneutics in modern biblical exegesis.
When surveying the exegetical landscape on the Virgin Birth, prominent figures come to the fore. First, there is Eduard Norden, especially his monograph Die Geburt des Kindes (the Birth of the Child),[3] which is a comparative analysis of Virgil’s fourth eclogue in the Aeneid. Secondly, there is Martin Dibelius’s work From Tradition to Gospel,[4] which applies form criticism to the stories and sayings of Jesus found in the Gospels. Finally, there is Rudolf Bultmann and his project of “demythologization” of the New Testament as a whole.[5] The conclusions reached by these prominent 19th and 20th century German exegetes is that the Virgin Birth is a mythological addition. Recently, in the United States, Bart Ehrman offered three models for the evolution of divine claims in reference to particularly notable historical figures. The first is “Gods Who Temporarily Become Human,” the second is “Divine Beings Born of a God and a Mortal,” and the third is “A Human Who Becomes Divine.”[6] Naturally, Ehrman situates Jesus in the third category. To do so, Ehrman draws an analogy between Jesus and Romulus:
One of the most striking examples involves the legendary founder of Rome, Romulus. We have several accounts of the life of Romulus, including one produced by a great early historian of Rome, Livy (59 BCE-17 BCE), who in one place states the opinion that Romulus was a “god born of a god” (History of Rome 1.16). […] There was, to be sure, rumors of divine involvement in Romulus’s conception. His mother was a Vestal Virgin, a sacred office that required—as the name indicates—a woman to abstain from sexual relations. But she became pregnant. Obviously, something went wrong with her vows. She claimed that the god Mars was responsible, and possibly some people believed her. If so, it simply shows again how a divine-human union could be taken to explain the appearance of remarkable humans on earth.[7]
An historical fact that needs to be accounted for is that there is an initial silence in the nascent Church on the Virgin Birth. The first mention of Jesus’ birth—historically—is found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Paul, speaking of Christ in Galatians 4:4, uses the phrase “having been born of a woman” (γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός). Paul’s intention, in this short phrase, is to explain that Jesus was “one of us,” as we can see from the passage immediately following: “born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal. 4:4b-5a). A Christian apologist might point to the fact that motherhood, not fatherhood, is important here; that this is a reversing of the usual thrust of Jewish emphasis in the Old Testament on the father as the life-giver. Yet, at face value, this is too weak of an argument and has insufficient explanatory power to support the weight of such an important Christian doctrine, especially today. Thus, the Virgin Birth only finds its most articulated form in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, where, beginning with Matthew, we read: “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 1:18). Likewise in Luke: “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God’” (Lk. 1:35).
As we have seen, prominent biblical scholars speculate that this later addition points to a mythological narrative designed to vindicate the divinity of Jesus, just as one finds, notably, in the stories associated with the Pharaohs. Pope Benedict XVI,[8] in the third volume of his Jesus of Nazareth series, on the infancy narratives, explains that “the narrative of the divine generation of the Pharaohs, which involves the deity physically approaching the mother, is ultimately about giving theological legitimacy to the cult of the ruler, it is a political theology that seeks to raise the king into the realm of the divine and thus to legitimize his divine claims.”[9]
The first thing to point out is that the early Christian movement was predicated on an astonishing new distinction between the political and the religious. Jesus’s words to Pilate, when it comes to the nature of his kingship, reveal something essential about the early Christian movement and the theology of martyrdom which pervaded it. Indeed, the need that Christians felt in depicting Christ’s crucifixion as an enthronement speaks to this novelty.[10] Jesus rules not through political power, but through witnessing to the truth and through self-communicating love.[11] In fact, Jesus says to Pilate “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.” (Jn. 18:36).
The novelty of Jesus’s kingdom is striking: Ratzinger explains that “in the world they inhabited, the two spheres—political and religious—were inseparable.”[12] For the Jews, the Jerusalem Temple was what brough political cohesion and national identity. For Rome, it was the sacral nature of the imperium. And yet, Benedict emphasizes that “through the message that he proclaimed, Jesus had actually achieved a separation of the religious from the political, thereby changing the world: this is what truly marks the essence of his new path.”[13]
Additionally, the Johannine and Pauline emphasis on Christ’s body being the new temple (cf. Jn. 2:21; 1 Cor. 3:11) and the new “place of worship” (cf. Jn. 4:21) that is performed “in spirit and in truth” (cf. Jn. 4:23) points to the universalizing nature of Christian worship; one which is no longer tied to a particular political system or geographical location. For this reason, although we may speak of a Christian theology of politics (which would be political ethics), we may not speak of a Christian political theology. Ratzinger summarized this with the following pithy phrase: “The Kingdom of God is not a political norm of political activity, but it is a moral norm of that activity.”[14]
Furthermore, critical scholarship overplays its hand by engaging in uncritical comparisons. These comparisons betray a lack of awareness of other disciplines, thereby showing the inherent hermeneutical limitations of historical criticism. In reference to the pitting of god-kings alongside the Nazarene, Benedict explains:
The difference between the concepts involved is so profound that one really cannot speak of true parallels. In the Gospel accounts, the oneness of the one God and the infinite distance between God and creature is fully preserved. There is no mixture, no demi-god. It is God’s creative word alone that brings about something new. Jesus, born of Mary, is fully man and fully God, without confusion and without separation, as the creed of Chalcedon in the year 451 was to clarify.[15]
Herein lies the crux of the difference: the theological claims of the New Testament find themselves embedded not within the mythological context of pagan religion, but squarely within the demythologizing trajectory of the Old Testament Tradition. In fact, they find themselves within the trajectory of the demythologizing of political power’s claim to divine status! This observation should draw attention to the otherwise anomalous marriage between the Greek philosophical tradition and the Hebrew biblical tradition that ensues in the Christological debates of early Christianity. In light of this, one can hardly say that Christianity is the “mythological narrative” of a “Christian political theology.”
As was mentioned above, the nature of Jesus’s kingship reveals something essential about the early Christian movement and the theology of martyrdom which pervaded it. In fact, the martyrdom of Jesus was understood as the source of a new way of living; a new life which began in Baptism. As Paul explains, Jesus’s death was a paradigm for Christian life: “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Immediately following this, we read in more explicit terms:
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (Rom. 6:5-8).
This relationship between baptism and Jesus’s crucifixion pervades all the records and is the source and the raison d’être of the Christian theology of martyrdom. Going further, it also includes the early Christian understanding of the significance of the Last Supper and its association to the crucifixion. In fact, these associations are placed on the lips of Jesus himself: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (Mk. 10:38). And so, this brings us back to where we started: to the prologue of John’s Gospel.
Ratzinger comments on the singular and plural forms of verse 13 as follows:
This double form of transmission is comprehensible, because in each case the verse refers to both agents. In that sense, we actually need always to read both versions together, because only between them do they present the whole meaning of the text. If we take the usual plural version as our starting point, this refers to those who are baptized. […] If we take the singular form […it becomes] clear that Jesus’ conception from God, his new birth, is for the purpose of including us, of bringing new birth to us.[16]
The richness of John’s prologue, however, cannot withhold its multilayered meaning from the contemplative reader. Ratzinger immediately seizes upon the fact that verse 14 points directly to the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel: “The clause concerning the Logos that becomes sarx, […] expresses at the same time his self-giving sacrifice, the mystery of the Cross and the mystery of the paschal sacrament that derives from it.”[17] In fact, he adds that “Hidden within it again is the saying from the psalm: ‘A body have you prepared for me’ (Heb 10:5; Ps 40).”[18]
It is apparent that the prominence of baptism and of the eucharist structure the inner core of the prologue in a way which existentially links them to a new mode of living that is Christian. Ratzinger concludes:
Just as verse 14, which speaks of the Word becoming flesh, points forward to the eucharistic chapter of the Gospel, so here there is an unmistakable allusion to the conversation with Nicodemus in chapter 3. Christ says to Nicodemus that it is not enough to be born in the flesh in order to enter into the Kingdom of God. New birth from on high is needed, a rebirth from water and spirit (3:5). Christ, who was conceived by the Virgin through the power of the Holy Spirit, is the beginning of a new humanity, of a new way of living. To become a Christian means to be brought in to share in this new beginning. […] The transformation that happens here has all the drastic quality of a real birth, of a new creation. But in this sense the Virgin Mother is once more standing at the center of the redemption event. With her whole being, she stands surety for the new thing that God has brought about. Only if her story is true, and stands at the beginning, can what Paul says be true: “Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17).[19]
More could be said of the identification of the Virgin Mother, of Mary, with the Church; but what should become clear by now is that the martyrdom of the Nazarene was seen as inaugurating a mode of living which witnesses to the truth of love over and against the political theology of despots. The entire inner logic of the Gospel spills forth from these reflections, which, in associating the Virgin Birth with baptism, bespeaks an antithetical relationship between the former and political theology.
And yet, we are still faced with the initial silence of this event in the nascent Church. What might explain this silence? Benedict concludes as follows:
It seems natural to me that only after Mary’s death could the mystery be made public and pass into the shared patrimony of early Christianity. At that point it could find its way into the evolving complex of Christological doctrine and be linked to the confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God—yet not in a manner of a story crafted from an idea, and idea reformulated as a fact, but vice versa: the event itself, a fact that was now in the public domain, became the object of reflection—understanding was sought.[20]
Benedict had spoken of this previously, as Cardinal prefect, during an interview with journalist Peter Seewald: “In Matthew the Mother plays almost no part; the story of Jesus’ childhood is written more from the point of view of Joseph. Obviously, I would say here, people were discreet so long as she was alive. And obviously she herself was always discreet.”[21] Now, whether these personal reflections are exegetically supported can be a matter for debate. But what emerges from everything considered in this paper so far is the protruding question mark which is the narrative of the Virgin Birth. What would the real motives of such a story be?
The question of its historicity, and therefore of faith, suddenly presents itself to the scholar as a reasonable hypothesis. Its continued preposterousness in academia raises historical and philosophical questions that might just warrant some historical criticism themselves. Faith, in this case, is construed as esoteric and irrational folk-magic alongside the abandonment of supposedly “purely rational” and “enlightened” principles. But a cursory look at the history of religions suggests that Christianity is not a mythological religion but a demythologizing “monotheistic revolution” with Logos as the object of its “faith.”[22] Suffice it to say that skepticism is a necessity in scholarship. But this includes being skeptical of radical skepticism.
In conclusion, the comparison of the Virgin Birth of Jesus of Nazareth to the virgin births of other figures such as Romulus and the Pharaohs fails both to understand the motives of each and the nature of their respective theological claims. Furthermore, the fact that baptismal theology is associated with the Virgin Birth, that the theology of baptism is the source and content of the theology of martyrdom, and that the theology of martyrdom is antithetical to political theology, raises the question as to what the purpose of such a narrative might be? Although there is an initial silence—which could be explained by the fact that the Virgin in question was still alive and discreet—the Virgin Birth narrative becomes a protruding question mark in history. That considering the possible historicity of such an event is met with extreme academic prejudice begs the question as to whether an historical and critical investigation into the presuppositions of historical criticism is not warranted.
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (San Francisco: American Bible Society, 1865).
[2] Joseph Ratzinger, God is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 22.
[3] Eduard Norden, Die Geburt des Kindes: Geschichte Einer Religiosen Idee (Leipzig, Berlin: B. G. Teubner, 1924), 76.
[4] Martin Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel (Cambridge, UK: James Clarke, 2022).
[5] Rudolf Bultmann, The New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1984).
[6] Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2015), 18, 21, 25.
[7] Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 25.
[8] I will be referring to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI by the name he held at the time he wrote what I cite from him.
[9] Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), 51-52.
[10] The crowning of thorns, the purple garment, the inscription above the Cross, etc. Cf. John 19:14, “Here is your king!”
[11] “This is my body, which is given for you” (Luke 22:19).
[12] Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2011), 169.
[13] Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 169.
[14] Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 59.
[15] Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), 52-53.
[16] Joseph Ratzinger, God is Near Us, 23.
[17] Joseph Ratzinger, God is Near Us, 21.
[18] Joseph Ratzinger, God is Near Us, 21.
[19] Joseph Ratzinger, God is Near Us, 23-24.
[20] Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 53.
[21] Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2002), 296.
[22] For more on this cf. Joseph Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian belief and World Religions (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004).
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