The Virgin Birth

With the approach of the festive season of Christmas upon us our thoughts turn to Jesus’s miraculous birth. The exception to the biological rule of male and female cohabitation for procreation is now foremost in our minds. In the Western scholarship, this exception to the rule is and has been hotly debated, both by non-religious and the Church based scholars, and is being questioned even now.

Consider this heading: - “Catholic Church no longer swears by the truth of the Bible" THE TIMES October 05, 2005, by Ruth Gledhill, religion correspondent.
"We should not expect to find in the Scriptures full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision, they say in The Gift of Scripture. …..”

The Encyclopaedia Britannica has this to say on the issue of legends, “Legends developed in Christianity because of a need to answer questions posed by the less intellectual Christians, the need for stories of exemplary Christians, and the transference of the deeds of pagan gods and goddesses in popular piety to those of saints and martyrs”.

Historically the myth of virgin births of deities predates Christianity. Mithra, the Iranian God of light, Aphrodite (Venus), Diana who causes and eases child birth pangs and the preposterous myth of virgin birth of Macedonian Alexander the Great, to portray him as divine and super natural are but a few legendary examples!

Dr Barbara Thiering, a theologian, who for decades was involved in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a scholar of the Gospels, has this to say in her book ‘Jesus the Man’, “In the Hellenistic world of times, there were religious women called Vestal Virgins, the word virgin meaning a kind of nun. In the same sense, the woman in an Essene marriage would, before her first wedding be a virgin, meaning a member of an institution or order, and she would also be, normally, a virgin physically”.

She continues to explain that among the Essenes, a group of very religious people, sex was strictly for procreation and the ritual was a long drawn one at that. Betrothal of the couple lasted over years followed by the ‘first wedding’ whereafter cohabitation was allowed and then the ‘final’ wedding when the woman was confirmed three months pregnant. Mary however, fell pregnant during the period of betrothal and before the first wedding.

According to Thiering, the holy family including Joseph the carpenter belonged to this group. “Jesus was the leader of a radical faction of Essene priests. He was not of virgin birth.” she says. Nevertheless The Bible mentions Joseph the carpenter, a number of times as the father of Jesus Christ, as in Mathew 1-18 etc.

Generally for the Muslims, the Immaculate Conception of his mother and his own is considered sacrosanct, and to question it would be at the least irreverent if not downright blasphemous!

The purpose of this article is therefore to “contemplate” the issue in the light of the Qura’n and its teachings to use intelligence(25:73). Majority of Muslims believe that;
•God can just say “be and it is”. Hence nature’s laws can change mid stream. That is, HE performs such miracles at whims.
•Therefore Jesus/Isa was created without the male intervention. Hence he had no human father. Mary/ Maryam was therefore a perpetual virgin. This confirms their ‘special-ness’ out side the main stream laws of procreations .
•Jesus/Isa is by his mother’s name only, therefore he must have had no father.
•Jesus/Isa argued with the elders while still in cradle, a further miracle.
In the religious ‘Traditions’ of Muslims, (as in Christianity) the above belief is held as an article of faith. To argue differently could be traumatic experience for the followers of the religion.

It is therefore necessary to scrutinise the issue in the light of Qura’n, the source of Muslim’s faith, which encourages us to use our intellect as in 47-24.A God-given intellectual freedom that must be cherished at all times.

Firstly, the Biblical assertion of the virgin birth and therefore God being the Father is categorically denied. Examples are;
25-2-“… no son has HE begotten, nor has he a partner in HIS dominion”
72-3-“…He has taken neither a wife nor a son”, and
112-3-“He begets not nor is HE begotten” and many more.

The above assertions are of necessity in keeping with the uniqueness of God and non-sharing of His godliness.

Secondly, the nineteenth Chapter -Maryam is the seminal chapter of Isa ibn Maryam’s story in the Qura’n. To quote:19-20- Maryam says to the angel in man’s shape “How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?” and 19-21- The answer “So(it will be)…”

The story then continues that Maryam conceives and gives birth to a son, suffering the “pains” normally attached to child birth (19-23), a natural reaction to God’s laws. As she was from the higher religious and priestly class, they questioned her rebellion of having a child out side their self imposed religious celibacy custom. She points to her boy who answers them- “ I am indeed a servant of God. HE has given me a book (kitab) and made me a messenger”(19-30). A certain time span seems to have elapsed as the as yet ‘uninitiated’ boy or youth, hence called a ‘child’ in the Essenean religious realm, is now a messenger and has a Book to his name.

In the context of the above quoted verses:-
Mary/Maryam in verse 19-20 establishes the fact that she had the ‘knowledge’ even then that a child is conceived in nature by the involvement of male and female of the species. Her statement that she is not ‘unchaste’ refutes the allegation that she broke any of the nature’s or social moral rules, and the divine reply that ‘so it will be’, confirms adherence to God’s laws which are immutable.
Verse 48-23 and others, stress the fact that God’s laws are unchanging and that HE does not make exceptions mid-stream, to quote--“(Such has been) the practice (approved) of God already in the past: no change will you find in the practice (approved) of God”33-62.

With reference to procreation there are quite a few verses that emphasise the involvement of male and female of the species. Only a few examples are quoted: 30-30- “…(establish) God’s handiwork according to the pattern on which HE has made mankind; No change (let there be) in the work (wrought) by God…”, 35-11-“… then HE made you from pairs…”, 42-11- “…HE has made for you pairs from among yourselves, …By this means does HE multiply you…” etc.

But the best quotation of all, one that seals any claim for exemption in the process of human creation is the Chapter named Yaseen, which every Muslim is familiar with:
“Glory to God, Who created in pairs all things that the earth produces, AS WELL AS THEIR OWN (HUMAN) KIND …36-36! Nothing could be more emphatic than that. The human species is not exempt from the process and that Jesus/Isa and Mary/Maryam were, like all other prophets and other human beings, mere human including Prophet Muhammad and the others to date. Logically therefore Isa must have had a human father.

Yet exemption is sought from within this very same Chapter, that Qura’n stresses the limitless capacity of God to do as HE pleases! “ Indeed when HE intends a thing, HIS command is “Be” (kun) and it is 36-82”.

Of course God can. HE created this universe, the heavens and the earth including every thing that is in between when there was nothing. But having created, not as a magician with a flick of the fingers, but over evolutionary time (7-54 etc), set up laws that are fixed for ever as seen above and does not allow corruption in the laws of HIS creation (30-30).

The other claim that the Qura’n seeks to emphasise the ‘virgin birth’ by naming Isa as Isa ibn Maryam and not Isa bin who ever(Joseph the carpenter of the Bible) could be simply argued from 19-23 where Maryam bemoans her fame of being from the high class dynasty -“would that I had been a thing forgotten and out of sight”. She was far too notorious to be ignored, for she had caused a social revolution within the hierarchy of religious elite and that did not go down well with their norms. But poor Joseph was merely a carpenter/priest, a non entity, hence Isa was known with reference to his mothers’ fame.

Apart from the fact that in those early days, the father/mother was often known by the fame of the son/daughter as in abu/umm so and so. The modern example, of being known by other than the father could be given as Prince Charles—who? one might ask! ‘The son of Queen Elizabeth II’ or ‘Asif Zardary-- who?-The husband of Benazir Bhutto’, fits comfortably for Isa as the son of Maryam, rather than Yusuf/ Joseph the carpenter.

Further, all messengers from Prophet Muhammad going back beyond Isa ibn Maryam to all the nabees, were equal in their mission “ nothing is said to you that was not said to the messengers before you …41-43”, and all messengers without distinction were equal in the God’s scheme of things (3-84), only the space, time and the circumstances were different. No other messenger was given any special exemption from the laws of nature it seems. It seems then that poor Joseph, a mere carpenter, a man of the Essene group of priest is left holding the baby for Mary, so to speak!

It appears that the cliché “so that the body-church remains functional” on the premise that a church, a hierarchical and elitist institution for all “religions”, is important for the spiritual wellbeing of any community, and must survive despite the logic!