The statement uses the language ‘being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.’ Whether this language has a historical base is difficult to determine, but it seems clear to me that in Matthew’s and Luke’s birth narratives theological interests frequently override historicity and, in comparison with the rest of the New Testament, that the virgin birth does not belong to the centre of the gospel, and so I am open to the possibility that the language of conception by the Spirit and virgin birth refers not to a biological or historical fact but is to be seen as the evangelists’
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