Born of a Virgin? Reconceiving Jesus in the Bible,
tradition and theology
Andrew T. Lincoln
SPCK £25
(978-0-281-05839-6)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50 (Use
code CT260 )
ANDREW LINCOLN is one of the most respected New Testament
scholars currently working in England. This is the first book of
his to build on his biblical skills to delve into more general
theological issues. His principal puzzle is why the virgin birth
became so overwhelmingly important a doctrine, and what effect this
has on Christian doctrines and attitudes. He writes with low-key
gentle persuasiveness, courteous to those who disagree, and
frequently agreeing with Raymond Brown that "the issue is not one
of proof but of probabilities." Above all, he keeps his focus
steady on the central Christological issues.
Very properly, he begins by establishing positively that the
virgin birth is only one view of Jesus's genesis represented in the
New Testament. In view of the equally strong Gospel evidence that
Jesus had brothers and sisters, in view of the sturdy testimony of
our earliest witness that there was nothing remarkable about the
birth of Jesus, "a descendant of David according to the human
nature he took", how did this elaborate story become necessary?
Then unusual and perceptive shocks begin. About Matthew, the
first shock is that the quotation from Isaiah 7.14 is introduced
not to prove that Mary was a virgin (the famous parthenos
from the Greek version of the text can, but need not, imply lack of
sexual contact), but to introduce the name "Emmanuel", enabling
Matthew to bracket his Gospel with the divine presence of Christ
among us, cf. 28.16-20.
The second shock is that the Joseph dream-story reads most
comfortably if it is seen as putting right the status of Jesus: had
it not been for the adoption by Joseph, he would have been despised
as a mamzer, a child conceived out of wedlock.
About Luke, the first shock is that Luke "the historian" is so
wildly at sea (no census at this time, no reason for dragging a
pregnant wife to Bethlehem, no purification of the father, no
presentation of the child required in the Temple, etc.) that he
clearly had no special source of information.
The second shock - and this touches them both - is that
Hellenistic stories of heroes and sons of gods engendered by
deities and virginal mothers (with or without the co-operation of a
father) had penetrated so far into Hebrew biographical writing that
it would be merely a conventional way of expressing the status of
Jesus. For Luke, both the virginal birth and the physical ascension
accord both with his leaning towards physical realism (the dove at
the baptism, the risen Christ eating fish, the cloud of the
ascension), and his desire to put Jesus on a level with the emperor
Augustus as an alternative to imperial ideology.
Moving into the second century, we find that the virgin birth is
quite unmentioned in many of the texts, touched by Ignatius of
Antioch, emphasised by Justin's Dialogue with Trypho the
Jew, and then important in Irenaeus at the end of the century as a
counterblast to Docetism. Tertullian's energetic and earthy
treatment leaves no room for virginity in partu. Not until
Origen, Athanasius, and Basil is it found offensive to speak of
siblings of Jesus.
A great change takes place with Ambrose, the champion of
virginity as an ascetical position (Letter 42). Absent from the
Nicene Creed of 325, "born of the virgin Mary" appears in the
revision of Constantinople in 381. The importance of the doctrine
is finally confirmed by Augustine under the influence of his own
sexual struggles and his opposition to Pelagius.
Then comes a huge leap to Schleiermacher's penetrating opening
up of the whole field, and a slightly disappointed inquiry into
Karl Barth's contribution. In the back of any reader's mind
throughout the discussion must have been the difficulties posed by
modern genetics: where did Jesus's Y-chromosomes come from? Can
they be miraculously inserted by God? "What is not assumed is not
saved," Gregory of Nazianzus said. The discussion is saved till the
end. This is one of the most important and most challenging works
of biblical theology which I have had the privilege to read in
recent years.
Was the Birth of Jesus According to
Scripture?
Steve Moyise
SPCK £12.99
(978-0-281-07106-7)
Church Times Bookshop £11.70 (Use
code CT260 )
IN A neat, systematic, and well-organised little
book, Steve Moyise offers a balanced and fair investigation into
every aspect of the historical and theological yield of the Gospel
infancy narratives. His chief interest is the insight that these
stories provide into the person of Jesus; so he duly leaves many
questions about historicity open.
It is impressive that he frequently agrees with the
conclusions of Raymond Brown's massive study (1977, revised 1993)
while also quoting with approval the much less traditional
assessments of Borg & Crossan, What the Gospels Really
Teach About Jesus' Birth (2009). Perhaps the most crucial
judgement is the footnote on page 97, that what for some amounts to
a modest leap of faith is for others a descent into the
irrational.
For me, a valuable insistence was that many of the
"fulfilments" of the Old Testament in the Gospels are not
fulfilments of prophecies, but indications of typology; the Old
Testament did not foretell that something would happen, but the
New Testament authors saw that an event in the story of Jesus had
its "prequel" in the story of Israel.
Fr Wansbrough is a monk of Ampleforth, emeritus
Master of St Benet's Hall, Oxford, and a member of the Pontifical
Biblical Commission.