Why I believe in the virgin birth - by Peter Ellwood

This article was published either in the Western Mail or in the South Wales Echo during the years I lived in Cardiff, and written by the doctor, Peter Ellwood. I have it stuck in the front of my favourite commentary on Luke and have long intended sharing it more widely. It is shared here with the permission of neither author nor newspaper, but I hope that no objection would be raised. Anyway, here we go. I can always delete it, can't I.

Why I believe in the Virgin Birth, by Peter Elwood

There has been much discussion recently as to whether or not the virgin birth of Jesus Christ is a traditional belief of the Christian Church, and as to whether or not it is a necessary belief for the Christian. Little attention seems to have been paid to the relevant historical documents and very few letters or statements in the controversy have claimed support, or even draw attention to, the Biblical record. As a scientist I have little concern for tradition, but I am enormously interested in evidence.

Before one looks for evidence for the Virgin Birth, it is pertinent to consider the nature of the evidence one has for one's own parentage. Little reflection is needed to realise that in the nature of things one can never have proof. Even today, with blood grouping and other technologies, at best a putative parent can only be excluded, never proved. Ultimately the only possible evidence which can relate to conception is the testimony of those concerned, though one can of course draw inferences from the behaviour of those who claim to have been involved as this may give clues to the dependability or otherwise of their testimony. What all this means is that while I can never have absolute proof of my own parentage, I can evaluate the testimony of my parents and their behaviour and I can judge their truthfulness with regard to other matters which have been open to checking.

Personal

One might also query why, in a matter which has come under such debate, the Biblical record makes so few references to the conception of Jesus. It could be pointed out of course that we do in fact have far more details than is the case with almost any other figure in history.

At the same time, one must accept that even today with our liberated attitudes, details about conception are intensely personal and few talk openly about such a matter. Furthermore, in the case of Mary, she was probably alive during the time when the New Testament gospels and letters were written and it is natural that the writers should avoid doing anything which might expose her to the public attention and curiosity.

Add to this the fact that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus was amenable to investigation and there were many who claimed to be witnesses, and it is clear why the early Church stressed and preached His resurrection as the best evidence for His uniqueness, rather than His birth.

One's attitude to the claim that Jesus Christ came by virgin birth must therefore depend on how one regards the evidence recorded in the first chapters of Matthew and Luke. The second of these is crucial, and as a doctor I find it somewhat appropriate that it was to Luke, a physician, that Mary confided her story. Luke claims to have made careful inquiries and his account deserves very careful study.

In the early part of Luke's first chapter, Zacharias and Elizabeth are presented. These were an elderly, childless and intensely religious couple. In fact, they are presented as somewhat austere, just about the last couple to whom a young girl would go for help were she in any trouble. Furthermore, it was a very special time for Zacharias as he had been selected to perform certain duties in the temple, a privilege which probably at most came to a man only once in his life-time. In the middle of all this, Elizabeth became pregnant – perhaps something of an embarrassment for both fo them in view of her age and his special duties at that time. However, Luke simply adds that Elizabeth hid herself, though characteristic of a doctor, he notes the stage of Elizabeth's pregnancy – the sixth month.

The story now shifts to Mary, a young girl; related to Elizabeth but living a long way from her. Luke records Mary's claim that an angel had appeared to her and had predicted that she would become pregnant. Mary's reaction is utter amazement - “How could this happen, I have not known a man ?” Further developments in her vision perplex Mary even more and in resignation she states, “So be it.”

However, among the predictions by the angel, one fact was given. “Your cousin Elizabeth is six months pregnant.” This was the sole piece of factual evidence within the message Mary attributed to her vision. Luke records that Mary immediately went “with haste” on the long journey to see her cousin, no doubt in a state of considerable agitation and distress at what she had been told.

This sudden decision by Mary to go and see her elderly, childless, religious cousin is of great interest. The account of Elizabeth presents her as hardly a natural choice as an understanding counsellor for a young girl had that girl behaved foolishly and got herself pregnant. On the other hand, if Mary’s story as recorded by Luke is true, then what would be more natural than for Mary to have gone to Elizabeth in order to check the one fact in her vision.

Extraordinary

The account ends with the somewhat prosaic statement that after a stay of three months with Elizabeth Mary returned home. The delay was no doubt occasioned by Mary’s need to obtain unequivocal evidence of her pregnancy, and perhaps to give time for her to be strengthened sufficiently to enable her to return to the gossip and questions she would have to face in her home town, and the inevitable disbelief of Joseph.

However, Luke, again in his medical concern for the stages of pregnancy, mentions in passing that it was after Mary’s three-month stay that Elizabeth was delivered of her child. A normal pregnancy then, as now, lasts nine calendar months, and so the six months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy at the time of Mary’s vision is validated. However, in this casual note of timing lies further very powerful evidence in support of Mary’s story. The record states that Mary had gone “with haste” to see Elizabeth. The timings given by Luke give remarkable incidental support to this and imply that Mary had gone without even waiting for any evidence of her own pregnancy. Had her story not been true, and had she behaved unwisely, Mary would certainly have waited at least one month and possibly several before seeking help.

Of course, one has to face the possibility, suggested by some theologians, that the virgin birth was a story devised by the early Church. But what an extraordinary story for the early disciples, ridiculed and persecuted as they were, to devise. As far as is known, there was no belief among the Jews that their Messiah would come by virgin birth, so there was no expectation which the early Church might have wished to fulfil. There is no hint in the records of any irregular behaviour by Joseph, so there was no need for a pre-marital conception to be covered up. Indeed, Matthew’s record portrays Joseph, when he learned of his fiancée’s state, as having reacted in a perfectly natural way to what he must have taken, at least at first, as evidence of unfaithfulness, and he determined to dissolve his engagement.

One wonders therefore is the theologians who suggest that the story is a “gloss” devised by the early Church have really thought through the full implications of their suggestion. That Joseph was not involved seems certain, so the suggestion seems to leave no alternative explanation other than some grossly irregular behaviour on Mary’s part. Do our theologians really want to have a part in such a suggestion? Indeed, further implications follow because it is necessary to suppose that Luke and Matthew, and perhaps others, all of whom taught in the name of absolute truth and urged men to be prepared to die for the truth, were themselves perpetrators of deliberate deceit. The suggestion founders on an unacceptable moral inconsistency.

The fact of the virgin birth is totally consistent with the central Christian claim that Jesus is God incarnate, and is fully consistent with the other evidence of his deity.

A belief in the virgin birth does not, however, necessitate blind faith on the part of the believer: there is compelling evidence in the written records.