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Why
Would a Scientist Believe a Virgin Gave Birth?
Monday, December 30, 2012
This
post is from a blog I read daily called “Jesus Creed”.
If you are like me and are always trying to figure out how to most
accurately read the Bible,
this blog has lots of great gems for you.
I hope you take the time to read it carefully.
It will be worth your while. Enjoy!
Jeff
Most Christians
have a deep appreciation for the scriptures, both the Old Testament and the New
Testament. Many of our disagreements, especially the most heated discussions of
science and faith arise because we respect and wrestle with scripture as
inspired by God. As Paul tells Timothy, the scriptures are able to make us wise
for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. They are not to be taken lightly.
For those who
were not raised in the church however, or who have for any one of a number of
reasons become distrustful of the reliability of the scriptures, the questions
are quite different. Scripture relates some pretty incredible events and stories
– from Exodus with the story of parting of the Red Sea to the Gospels with the
virgin birth and the resurrection – to name just a few. Why should intelligent
educated person in secular, modern or postmodern, enlightened, Western society
take these seriously on any level?
Dr. John
Polkinghorne’s book Testing
Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible can provide some useful
insights here – whether one agrees with him across the board or disagrees with
some of his conclusions. Dr. Polkinghorne was a very successful scientist, an
expert and creative theoretical physicist involved in the discovery of quarks.
He was Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University before he
resigned to study for the Anglican priesthood. He has since been a parish
priest, Dean of the Chapel at Trinity Hall Cambridge and President of Queen’s
College, Cambridge. After retirement he continues to write, think, and lecture
about the interface between science and faith. I’ve read and commented on a
number of his books over the years -
Quarks, Chaos & Christianity and Belief
in God in an Age of Science are particularly good in my opinion.
In Testing
Scripture Polkinghorne isn’t dogmatic or defensive about about
scripture, rather he is explaining why he, as a scientist, scholar, and
Christian, takes scripture seriously. Both faith and reason play a role in his
approach to scripture.
How would
you address doubts from a nonbeliever about the incredible events in scripture?
How do you
reconcile a belief in these events yourself?
Chapters five
and six of Testing
Scripture look at Israel’s Bible and at the Gospels. Israel’s
Bible consists of many forms of literature. Dr. Polkinghorne mentions myth
telling deep truth in the form of symbolic story, history, law, wisdom writings,
apocalypse, and more. Most of the text was edited and shaped in post-exilic
Israel. But this does not mean that it was fabricated with no roots or history.
In fact Dr. Polkinghorne finds it difficult to believe that most of the material
is not rooted in sources that date far earlier. He sees this in Genesis
14 with Melchizedek of Salem (not a text that would be constructed in a
post-exilic history) and in the book of Judges to give just two examples. The
origins of these passages must lie in very ancient texts. Within the historical
conventions of the time Israel’s Bible records the history of God’s
revelation of himself through his particular relationship with his chosen
nation.
Even the Exodus,
dismissed by many scholars as impossible, Dr. Polkinghorne sees as rooted in
history. The text has been elaborated and shaped for theological and national
impact for sure. In particular Dr. Polkinghorne feels that numbers have been
exaggerated as is common in ancient texts. But this reshaping does not undercut
the historical roots of the incident or the importance of this event as God’s
revelation of his divine nature through his relationship with his people.
The Gospels likewise record a reliable history.
Within the historical conventions of their time they tell the gospel; the story
of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the good news of God’s
work in the world. Dr. Polkinghorne works through a number of different episodes
and events as he describes his reasons for taking the Gospels seriously. One of
the most interesting, though, is the one he leaves for last.
I
have left till last what are among the best-known and best-loved narratives in
the Gospels: the stories of the birth of Jesus. We find them only in Matthew
1.18-2.12 and Luke
2.1-20. John, after his timeless Prologue, and Mark, without any
preliminaries, both start with the encounters between John the Baptist and Jesus
at the beginning of the public ministry. We are so used to conflating the two
gospel accounts that it is only when we read them carefully and separately that
we become aware of how different they are. Luke seems to tell the story very
much from the point of view of Mary, and the visitors to the newborn Jesus are
the humble shepherds. Matthew seems to see things much more from Joseph’s
perspective, and his visitors are the magi. . . . Luke gives us a very specific
dating of the birth in relation to a Roman census, but there are severe
scholarly difficulties in reconciling this with Matthew’s (plausible)
statement that it took place during the reign of Herod the Great. A principle
concern of both narratives is to explain why, if Mary’s home was at Nazareth,
Jesus was born in Bethlehem, as Messianic prophecy required. I do not doubt that
there is historical truth preserved in the birth stories, but establishing its
exact content is not an easy task. (p. 67-68)
As with some of
the other stories in the gospels and in other parts of scripture there are
discrepancies that can be difficult to reconcile and harmonize. There is no
strong reason, however, to doubt a historical root, down to and including the
birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
A Virgin
Gave Birth. The conception of Jesus
is a different issue. Matthew
1:18 relates the claim:
This
is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to
be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be
pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph responds
to Mary’s pregnancy by planning to divorce her and an angel in a dream
reiterates the claim “what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
Luke
1:34-35 records Mary’s response when told she would conceive and give
birth to a son, the Messiah.
“How
will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel
answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
The very idea
that a virgin conceived and bore a son raises an eyebrow or two in our secular
Western society – both modern and postmodern. At the risk of being a
little too earthy – conception in humans requires input from two sources.
After all, we all know that an egg from the woman requires the DNA from the
sperm provided by a man to make it whole, capable of producing a new individual.
One might, perhaps conceive of a clone of some sort using only Mary’s DNA –
but this could only make a female, not a male. No Y Chromosome in Mary. If a
virgin gave birth to a son it was a truly miraculous conception. The DNA had to
come from somewhere. Did God just produce a a unique set of chromosomes to
join with Mary’s? Was it Joseph’s DNA? Some other Jew? Was this a
divine artificial insemination?
How and can an
intelligent, educated, experienced person believe in a virgin birth?
Dr. Polkinghorne
gives his reasoning:
Luke,
very explicitly in his story of the Annunciation (1.34-35), and Matthew, more
obliquely (1.18), both assert the virginal conception of Jesus. Christian
tradition has attached great significance to this, often rather inaccurately
calling it the ‘virgin birth’. Yet in the New Testament it seems nowhere as
widely significant as the Resurrection. Paul is content to simply lay stress on
Jesus’ solidarity with humanity: ‘God sent his Son, born of woman, born
under the law’ (Galatians
4.4). The theological importance of the virginal conception lies in its
lending emphasis to the presence of a total divine initiative in the coming of
Jesus, even if this truth is much more frequently expressed by the New Testament
writers simply in the language of his having been sent. Jesus was not
opportunistically co-opted for God’s purpose when he was found to be suitable,
but he was part of that purpose from the start. The virginal conception
is a powerful myth, and I believe that in the religion of the Incarnation the
power of story fuses with the power of a true story, so that the great Christian
myths are enacted myths. On this basis, I find myself able to believe in
the virgin birth, even if the motivating evidence is less extensive than for the
belief in the Resurrection. (p. 68-69, emphasis added.
Interaction
not Intervention. One of the most
important criteria for thinking through the incredible claims in scripture is
God’s interaction with his creatures rather than his intervention in his
creation. The miracles ring true when they enhance our understanding of the
interaction of God with his people in divine self-revelation. The virginal
conception is part of the Incarnation, “The Word became flesh and made his
dwelling among us”. The magnificent early Christian hymns quoted by Paul in Col
1.15-20 and Phil
2.6-11 catch the essence of this enacted myth (meaning it actually happened)
as well.
For more:
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