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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
The affirmation that Jesus Christ ‘was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary’ is beset by many problems and difficulties, and to deny or try to ignore their existence is bad theological scholarship. But it is also bad theological scholarship — though this is sometimes in danger of being overlooked —to refuse to consider seriously and with as open a mind as possible any evidence or any rational argument, whether historical or theological, which can be adduced as in any way supporting this affirmation of the Apostles' Creed. It seems to me that neither those who accept the historicity of the Virgin Birth nor those who reject it have a monopoly of prejudice. I cannot here attempt anything like a full or systematic discussion of this difficult and controversial subject. The best I can do is to set down briefly and as clearly as I can a few reflections as a very modest contribution to the on-going debate.
page 178 note 1 So very recently Luz, U., Das Evangelium nach Matthaus 1, Zurich, Einsiedeln, Cologne, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1985, p. 102Google Scholar (‘ … der im NT nur durch Matthäus und Lukas bezeugten Jungfrauengeburt …’). Some systematic theologians have accepted this view of the matter without due questioning (e.g., Lochman, J. M., The faith we confess, Philadelphia, 1984Google Scholar; Edinburgh, 1986, p. 110).
page 178 note 2 Cf. the discussion in McHugh, J., The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament, London, 1975, pp. 274–277.Google Scholar
page 179 note 3 It is read by Nestle-Aland26.
page 179 note 4 On Mark 6.3 see further Cranfield, C. E. B., The Gospel according to St Mark, Cambridge, 9 1985, pp. 193–196Google Scholar; Staufler, E., ‘Jeschu ben Mirjam: kontroversgeschichtliche Anmerkungen zu Mk 6.3’, in Ellis, E. E. and Wilcox, M. (ed.), Neotestamentica et Semitica: studies in honour of Matthew Black, Edinburgh, 1969, pp. 119–128.Google Scholar
page 179 note 5 Cf. Barrett, C. K., The Gospel according to St John, London, 2nd edition, 1978, p. 348.Google Scholar
page 179 note 6 Op. cit., p. 164.
page 180 note 7 Op. cit., p. 295.
page 180 note 8 See further Cranfield, C. E. B., A critical and exegetical commentary on the Epistle to the Romans 1, Edinburgh, 6 1987, pp. 58–59Google Scholar; J. McHugh, op. cit., especially pp. 276–277, 283, 320–321.
page 182 note 9 See further J. McHugh, op. cit., pp. 290–291.
page 182 note 10 Cf. Stauffer, E., Jesus and His Story, London, 1960, pp. 28–31, 167Google Scholar; Hammond, N. G. L. and Scullard, H. H. (ed.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1970, p. 220 (s.v. ‘Census’).Google Scholar
page 182 note 11 Cf. Stauffer, op. cit., pp. 31–33, 167–168.
page 183 note 12 Stauffer, op. cit., pp. 33–34, 35–36, 168. See also McHugh, op. cit., p. 141f. (he notes that Josephus refers to what is mentioned in Acts 5.37 as an ποτμησις, not an πογρφ).
page 183 note 13 Cf. Stauffer, op. cit., pp. 34–35, 168.
page 183 note 14 Op. cit., p. 37.
page 183 note 15 
in Matt. 2.2 and 9 is better taken to mean‘at its rising’ than ‘in the east’.
page 184 note 16 See further Stauffer, op. cit., pp. 36–38, 169. With regard to Matt. 2.9, it should surely be said that to insist that the evangelist meant that the star actually travelled in front of the Magi from Jerusalem to Bethlehem at a camel's pace (having already preceded them in this way from their home to Jerusalem) and then came to a sudden stop immediately above the stable is more than a little pedantic and prosaic. (That the Magi themselves, if they were of the calibre of the men who worked in Sippar, are not likely to have entertained any such idea, should go without saying!) Is it not rather like insisting that every one who uses the expressions ‘sunrise’ and ‘;sunset’ must believe that the sun goes round the earth?
page 184 note 17 Op. cit., pp. 38–42.
page 185 note 18 A stimulating brief account of these pages of Barth is Whitehouse, W. A., ‘God's heavenly kingdom and His servants the angels’, in SJT 4 (1951), pp. 376–382CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in his The Authority of Grace: essays in response to Karl Barth, Edinburgh, 1981, pp. 47–52.Google Scholar
page 185 note 19 Op. cit., p. 322.
page 185 note 20 Cf. StaufTer, op. cit., pp. 23–25, 165f.; also the essay by him cited above. See also Chadwick, H., Origen: Contra Celsum, Cambridge, 3 1980, p. 31, note 3.Google Scholar
page 187 note 21 Luz, op. cit., p. 102, note 25. But how can one believe that Diogenes Laertius 3.2 warrants the assertion, ‘Die Quellenlage ist hier [i.e., with regard to the supernatural birth of Plato] besser als bei Jesus’? Other references (not specified by Luz) for the story of Plato's birth are given by Chadwick, op. cit., p. 321, note 12. Origen's own reference in Contra Celsum 1.37 should also be mentioned.
page 187 note 22 Cf. McHugh, op. cit., p. 290f.
page 189 note 23 On the significance of the Virgin Birth reference should be made to Barth's, Church Dogmatics 1/2, pp. 172–202Google Scholar (= Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/2, pp. 187–221); also Dogmatics in Outline, London, 1949, pp. 95–100Google Scholar (a magnificent six pages which deserve and require to be read and re-read with very great attentiveness); and J. McHugh, op. cit., pp. 330–342.
