[Dialogue] Virgin Birth Part 2 (who knew?) and Life After Death. Light Reading ; >)

[KroegerD at aol.com]

April 25, 2007 
The Second Fundamental: The  Literal Accuracy of the Virgin Birth, Part Two  

For years now the book entitled "The Holy Bible" has topped America's best  
selling list by a wide margin. The pity is that this book is seldom read and  
even less seldom understood. Most Christians encounter the content of the Bible 
 only when they are in church, and that normally consists of only a few short 
 verses. Though the particular book out of which the lesson comes is usually  
identified, there is no sense of its setting and no idea of what comes before 
or  after. Over the centuries, favorite parts of the Bible have become so 
familiar  to listeners that they have actually been committed to memory. If one 
starts  Psalm 23: "The Lord is my Shepherd," or Luke's Christmas story: "And 
there were  in the same country," almost everyone can recite the next words. 
However, we  recognize passages only in isolation, never in context.  
Nowhere is this better illustrated than when we look at the story of Jesus'  
miraculous birth. It was first introduced to the developing Christian 
tradition  by Matthew in the middle of the 9th decade some 55 years after the 
crucifixion  or almost 90 years after Jesus' birth. Mark, the first gospel to be 
written  (ca.70), not only has no virgin birth story but actually accounts for the 
divine  presence in Jesus' life by saying that the Holy Spirit was poured out 
on him  when he was baptized by John as an adult. Mark had obviously never 
heard the  idea that Jesus' divine nature was established when he was "conceived 
by the  Holy Spirit." As further proof of this, one has only to note that Mark 
 characterizes Jesus' mother as thinking that he was out of his mind. She 
goes  with Jesus' four named brothers, James, Joses, Simon and Judah and his 
unnamed  sisters, to take him away (see Mark 3:31-35 and 6:1-6). That is hardly 
the  behavior of one to whom an angel has proclaimed that her yet to be born 
child  would not only be holy, but would also be called the "Son of the Highest." 
 
Paul who wrote between the years 50-64, at least 10-15 years earlier than  
Mark, also appears to know nothing about the virgin tradition. Paul says in  
Galatians (ca. 52-53) that Jesus was "born of a woman" (not a virgin) and "born  
under the law." Later, in Romans (ca. 56-58) he adds that Jesus was descended  
from the house of David. There are no supernatural hints here.  
Because it is now obvious to scholars that Matthew is the source of the story 
 of Jesus' miraculous birth, it is particularly important to notice how he  
introduces this idea. Yet almost no one ever bothers to read the first 17 
verses  of Matthew's opening chapter, which constitute his introduction to the 
virgin  narrative. Our familiarity with Matthew's birth story begins with these 
words in  Matt. 1:18: "When his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they 
came  together, she was found to be with child." Joseph, being a just man and 
not  willing to make her a public example, decided to "put her away 
privately." There  is an obvious note of scandal here. Matthew addresses this scandal by 
having an  angel appear to Joseph in a dream to tell him that the child did 
not result from  unfaithfulness, but was the work of the Holy Spirit. The story 
goes on to  confirm this conviction with many miraculous signs. First Matthew 
claims that  this birth was foretold by the prophet Isaiah (7:14), which, as 
I noted last  week, is both inaccurate and based on a mistranslation. Next he 
has a star  appear to announce this birth to the entire world and finally he 
portrays magi  following that star to the house in Bethlehem where the baby was 
born. There  they present gifts that confirm his exalted status: gold because 
he is a king,  frankincense because he is divine and myrrh because it is 
associated with death  through which he will accomplish his purpose. Those are the 
familiar parts of  Matthew's birth story.  
Perhaps one reason Matthew's opening verses are not noted or read is that  
they are the "who begat whom" verses, which are among the most boring parts of  
the Bible. Matthew here traces Jesus' genealogy through 42 generations from  
Abraham to the moment of his birth. They read with all the excitement of a  
telephone directory. No lectionary I know includes them. Yet it is here, I am  
now convinced, that Matthew gives us the clues we need to understand his purpose 
 in creating the story of Jesus' miraculous birth. To understand these clues, 
 however, requires a thorough knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. So let me 
take  you into Matthew 1:1-17.  
Reading this genealogy carefully reveals things almost unheard of in the  
ancient world. Matthew included four women in his list of Jesus' ancestors,  
which in a patriarchal world was unusual enough, but even beyond that these four  
females are, by the social standards of his day, guilty of being sexually  
tainted women. Why would Matthew do that? Examine the text.  
The first of these "shady ladies" is Tamar, who is impregnated by Judah, her  
father-in-law, in what would be regarded as incest in that society. Her story 
is  told in Genesis 38. The line that produced Jesus, Matthew argues, flowed 
through  an incestuous relationship. Do you find that intriguing? Provocative? 
 Surprising? Then read on.  
The next woman mentioned is Rahab, whose story is told in the Book of Joshua  
(2:1-21, 6:22-25). She is identified in that text as a prostitute and is 
called  "Rahab the Harlot." The line that produced Jesus ran through a prostitute, 
 Matthew is saying.  
The third woman referred to in these introductory verses is Ruth, a Moabite,  
who seduces Boaz by getting him well drunk and climbing under his bed covers 
so  that when he awakens the next morning he finds her in his bed. Her story 
is in  the Book of Ruth, especially chapters 2-4. This act led to their 
marriage and to  the eventual birth of King David's grandfather Obed. The line that 
produced  Jesus, Matthew was saying, traveled through seduction.  
The final woman in this genealogy is not named, but is referred to simply as  
"the wife of Uriah the Hittite." We know her, however, as Bathsheba whose 
story  is told in II Samuel 11-12. First, King David had an adulterous 
relationship  with Bathsheba and then, to cover this affair, he had her husband Uriah 
put to  death. David next married Bathsheba and that union ultimately produced 
Solomon,  King David's successor. Matthew's message was clear, the line that 
produced  Jesus ran through an act of adultery accompanied by murder.  
Why has it not occurred to us to ask whether Matthew might be using this  
introduction to his narrative about Jesus' birth to a virgin to counter the  
rumors, abroad at that time, that the birth of Jesus was itself tainted by  
scandal. Embrace emotionally the fact that the story of Jesus' "virgin birth" is  
introduced by Matthew who traces Jesus' genealogy and proclaims that the line  
that produced this Holy Child ran through the incest between Judah and his  
daughter-in-law Tamar, the prostitution of Rahab the Harlot, the seduction of  
Boaz by Ruth and the adultery of David with Bathsheba. Then he tells us that  
Mary, the mother of Jesus, is pregnant prior to her marriage to Joseph and that  
Joseph is prepared to put her away. Matthew has taken great pains in these  
opening verses of his gospel to argue that the divine plans of God are not  
thwarted by incest, prostitution, seduction or adultery. God can act through all  
human distortions and when God acts the human circumstances do not matter.  
It is obvious to me that the early Christians had to deal with rumors about  
the scandal of Jesus' birth, just as they had to deal with the scandal of 
Jesus'  death. Other hints of scandal surrounding his birth are found in two 
Johanine  texts. In the first a member of the crowd says to Jesus: "We were not 
born of  fornication!" and in the other someone comments that "nothing good can 
come out  of Nazareth." He could not be the messiah they were saying since 
messiah can not  be an illegitimate child or be born in Nazareth. Earlier 
Christians had had to  confront the charge that messiah had to be a mighty victorious 
warrior, he could  not be a crucified man who had been hanged on a tree. No 
one could claim that  Jesus was the "one who was to come" until they dealt with 
this crisis, which  they did by identifying the death of Jesus with the death 
of the Paschal Lamb of  the Passover and with the slaughtered Lamb of God in 
the liturgy of Yom Kippur,  the Day of Atonement. The "scandal of his death" 
was thus turned into the heart  of the gospel and the passion narrative was 
created to interpret that death as  fulfilling the will of God. Later, they dealt 
with the charges of scandal  associated with his origins and his birth in two 
ways: first, by portraying his  birth as hardly scandalous since God was 
really his father, and second by  asserting that even if he had been illegitimate, 
God has always been able to  work through human frailty as the genealogy 
reveals that God did many times in  the past. So Matthew wrote that a star 
proclaimed his nativity and Gentile magi  journeyed to worship him. Later Luke would 
expand these symbols by suggesting  that angels broke through the darkness of 
night to announce his birth to  hillside shepherds, who then went and found him 
immediately, armed only with two  clues: he was "wrapped in swaddling 
clothes" and he was "lying in a manger."  
When we note these Jewish references in the stories of Jesus' birth, it  
becomes clear that both Matthew and Luke were not writing history. They were  
interpreting the divine power they had experienced in the life of the adult  
Jesus, who could overcome the rumors that surrounded his birth with the  
transformation of all things that were once believed to be scandalous, just as  he 
overcame the scandal of his execution by transforming death into the  resurrection. 
 
It is a tragedy that our lack of knowledge about how the gospels were written 
 has led us to literalize these stories to the point where sincere but 
misguided  religious zealots could actually assert that a literalized virgin birth 
must be  one of the five fundamentals on which Christianity stands, missing 
thereby both  the integrity and the beauty of the gospel writers' interpretive 
story. No,  Jesus was not born of a virgin, but when we understand who he is, we 
will know  why the whole creation was said to have rejoiced that such a life 
could emerge  from our humanity and that in him God has visited God's people.  
John Shelby Spong  
_Note  from the Editor: Bishop Spong's new book is available now at 
bookstores  everywhere and by clicking here!_ 
(http://astore.amazon.com/bishopspong-20/detail/0060762071/104-6221748-5882304)   
A Reader from Dallas, Texas writes:  
I was introduced to your Internet essays only a few months ago and was so  
impressed with your ideas that I purchased and read your book A New  
Christianity for a New World. I heartily agree with your arguments against  the existence 
of a theistic God and with your discussion of the implications to  which such 
arguments lead. However, there is one fundamental implication that  was not 
discussed in this book: the issue of immortality. As a scientist trained  in 
physiology and biochemistry, I find it impossible to believe in the existence  
of life after death. I would be greatly interested in your comments on  
immortality, a topic intimately associated with all religious belief.  
Dear Reader,  
Thanks for your letter. I wrestle with that question constantly. If I write  
another book it will be on that subject. I have worked on it for years. I find 
 myself torn between my understanding of God that involves an unending  
relationship and the various religious concepts of life after death, which have  
little meaning for me. The very use of the word 'after' involves a dimension of  
time that is simply not appropriate to what we are seeking to describe, since 
 time itself is a category that makes sense only inside the time/space 
universe  that we human beings inhabit. I think the use of the idea of life after 
death as  a method of behavior control is not worthy of further consideration. 
It is  obvious that the deep survival instinct born of our evolutionary past 
drives  most of our life after death concepts. Despite these concerns I am still 
not  able to dismiss the possibility that we are and will be invited into the 
 eternity which God inhabits.  
It is still hard to know even where to begin to address this subject. I have  
become convinced that one essential first step is to learn to embrace death 
as a  friend not an enemy, because that introduces us to a new dimension of 
what it  means to be human. Whatever heaven means it is my conviction that it was 
not  designed to define a quantity but a quality of life.  
I have a profound sense of what it means to be a self-conscious human being.  
The gift of self-consciousness makes us capable of communing with the source 
of  life itself, however that source is defined. Whatever conclusions I 
finally work  out on this subject will be speculative at best for they are little 
more than a  human attempt to describe that which is beyond every human 
capability to  describe. I will, however, work from the human to the divine since 
there is no  other way that any human being can work. The acceptance of death as a 
fact of  life is a doorway into a new, rich understanding of what life is all 
about.  Heaven, if it is real, and I think it is, can only be another 
dimension of life  itself.  
I have written twice about this subject. One was the last chapter of my book, 
 "Resurrection: Myth or Reality?" The other was in the next to the last 
chapter  of "Why Christianity Must Change or Die." Those two places represent all I 
can  now say with integrity on this subject. I will write this next book, 
only if I  can find a way to say more.  
My best.  
John Shelby Spong 



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