Born of a Virgin?: Reconceiving Jesus In The Bible, Tradition And Theology

by Andrew Lincoln

Elizabeth’s pregnancy, despite her old age and lack of ability to conceive previously, now produced as evidence that with God nothing is impossible, has relevance not only to Mary’s ability to have a child who is Son of God but also to the manner in which she will have this child. If a barren woman can bear a child, a virgin can conceive. After all, nothing is impossible with God! Mary’s response, expressing her obedience to the divine word, is to be seen as including her acceptance of a miraculous conception for her future son. This reading of the latter part of Luke’s account is, of course, in essence the traditional interpretation. On a sequential reading it entails that with Mary’s question the account moves from one wholly comprehensible within Jewish cultural expectations to one that narrates an event totally unprecedented in Jewish Scripture, namely God bringing about the birth of a human without the presence of a male seed.