Excerpt from an interesting Facebook thread:

• Daniel – That Jesus lived is beyond question. That he was raised from the dead has a lot of compelling arguments to defend it.

So, if we walk backward from this through the texts of the New Testament, it doesn’t make it infallible, but it does allow the possibility that some of the other miracles did occur. Does that mean other people literally were raised from the dead after Jesus, and wandered around Jerusalem? Well, even evangelical scholars don’t feel a need to defend this as literal history.

When it comes to the virgin birth, different people have different readings of M & L. But if you accept that God raised Jesus from the dead, accepting the virgin birth isn’t a stretch, because it is not even biologically impossible, as it happens in quite a few species, it is just profoundly unlikely to happen naturally.

That being said, there are lots of problems with the infancy narratives, as most scholars of almost all persuasions will agree.

• Jonathan - ‎”I don’t know” is a slightly less of a cop out than, “It’s a mystery”.

It’s either trivial, because we don’t KNOW anything; or it’s an inconsistent suspension of belief. We don’t KNOW the virginal conception DIDN’T happen just in the same way that we don’t KNOW that the Ugaritic shaman DIDN’T cause the Sun to cease rising. That is, we know we have no reason to believe it, but we’re gonna pretend…

• Jonathan – Are we seriously appealing to reptilian parthenogenesis? It doesn’t happen in humans. We’re _really_ desperate if we’re hunting for analogs among the reptiles. (Actually, I know of one case of virginal conception in humans, which I will reveal for a small fee.)

And once we admit an omnipotent God, virginal conception is not a problem in principle. This is trivial. The question is not one of possibility, it is one of historical evidence. And evidence for one surprising fact does not transfer to become evidence for another, different surprising fact. Especially not for composite texts like the Gospels, composed as they are from pericopes.

(As it happens, I do believe in the resurrection. Also, as Murray will tell you, I believe in magical bread, wine, and water. Well…that’s another story I’ll tell for an insignificant fee.)

• Murray : “Presuppositions…that’s a dirty word religious people like to use for what are otherwise reasonable prior probabilities. As far as we can tell, the sun has risen every day for a really long time. Say we find a text—hell, why not two texts—in which some Ugaritic shaman caused the sun to stop rising. What do we do with these texts? With the information we have, about the likelihood of the actual occurrence and the compositional habits of ancient authors, we reasonably conclude (if tentatively) that this probably didn’t happen. And yet we privilege this particular set of Judeo-Hellenistic texts. Interesting.”

In respects of presuppositions, I am not suggesting that only those who question historicity of the account bring presupposition to the text, I’m saying EVERYBODY does and, to be clear, I have at least as great a difficulty with those who argue for historicity on the presupposition of inerrancy (or some such) as those who reject it.

With that in mind, let me just agree totally that I don’t have a problem with people assigning prior probabilities on something like the virgin birth. Indeed, I’d say that anybody coming to the Gospel infancy narratives ought to do so with a strong “bias” against the probability of virginal conceptions.

And note, in passing, that this is true even of those in the first-century – even of those in the narrative world of the text. Even Joseph, after all, doesn’t immediately assume “virginal conception” when he hears of Mary’s pregnancy.

The problem, however, is precisely that we’re dealing with probabilities. More, I actually have some idea how the probability argument is constructed. So I actually know that the probability argument doesn’t offer any sort of closure particularly as we’re dealing with an account which suggests that our probability argument is poorly formed in as much as it excludes the possibility of events such as that narrated in the text at the outset.

Your point about the proclivities of early authors is well taken – certainly there is nothing improper in suggesting that the infancy narratives are the sort of literature that we might expect to arise from a process of literary development.

Most intriguing is your suggestion that we’re here privileging the account. My initial response is to object that if we were, we would not be countenancing the possibility that the text is in error. But I suspect this isn’t quite your point. Rather, I take your point to be that we wouldn’t give any benefit of the doubt to any other text, so why do so here? Yes? This is a good question. I’ll admit to not having a good answer.

Ultimately the problem isn’t that I don’t know what I’m talking about here, Jonathan. I know what the issues are, probably better than most, and I don’t see how one’s conclusion on this matter can ever be anything other than a reasonably direct consequence of the assumptions one brings to the text. Of course people think their assumptions are well-grounded – I’m also not arguing that other people don’t know what they’re talking about. But let’s be clear, we’re talking about a textual account of an event which even the text acknowledges is unprecedented – a fact which wouldn’t be so bad if the event in question were of marginal importance (which it may be, even on this I’m undecided).

• Jonathan – Actually, I think you know what you’re talking about better than I do, even. The last time I read anything about serious about the infancy narratives was…oh lord, Raymond Brown?

Where we disagree most, I think, is what to do, epistemically, with the uncertainty. It seems to cop out to just say, “I don’t know”. Given the evidence, I think we should dare to admit, “Actually, there’s no reason to believe this”. And then, well, we should just not believe it.

• Murray – ‎”Are we seriously appealing to reptilian parthenogenesis? ”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but parthenogenesis can only result in female offspring – as without the father contributing a Y chromosome, you can’t get but females?

Personally, I think this entire “let’s explain miracles by appeal to known processes” sucks – I don’t like it with the virgin birth, and I don’t like it with Moses parting the Red Sea, I do not like green eggs and ham.

For me it’s either “historical event” or “theologically informed myth” – but not some middle of the road, “yes there really was something that LOOKED like God did something, but it was all just a terrible mistake…”

Scientists can be terrible when they try to “rescue” the miracles of the bible. 🙂

• Daniel – I think Raymond Brown was more an expert on John’s Gospel. Joseph Fitzmeyer was better on the infancy narratives.

• Murray – Dunno about Fitzmeyer, but you’re absolutely correct on Brown.

• Jonathan – Brown has a book on the infancy narratives the size of Tom Wright’s book on the resurrection. I’m not sure if there’s been a more extensive treatment since 1998.

I have nothing interesting to add about the intellectual bankrupcy of appealing to parthenogenesis. I still have the story about human virginal conception though. It involves a girl without a vagina. Seriously.

• Daniel – My point about miracles is there are two types. Hugely unlikely (like winning lotto ten times in a row), and the positively miraculous, like the raising of Lazarus.

Mary’s pathenogenesis is at least biologically possible (through Jesus or Mary being a hermaphrodite, and others), unlike the Resurrection, but I am, like Murray, not the least interested in finding profoundly unlikely material explanations for biblical miracles.

My point is that the event is not ludicrous if you accept the resurrection, even if the infancy narratives cause you to doubt the census, Herod’s wrath and the Magi.

Biblical miracles can be just plain crazy (like Joshua’s long day or Jonah in the belly of the fish), or morally offensive (like the killing of every Egyptian first born or Elisha’s bears). But I don’t see how the virgin birth fits either of these categories.

• Murray – ‎”Where we disagree most, I think, is what to do, epistemically, with the uncertainty. It seems to cop out to just say, “I don’t know”. Given the evidence, I think we should dare to admit, “Actually, there’s no reason to believe this”. And then, well, we should just not believe it.”

Part of the problem is that I don’t care very much (hence I decided not to comment on this thread – manic laugh) so I’ve never tried to resolve what is, to my mind, an insignificant ambiguity.

If forced to it, I’d say the infancy narratives are bunk, and yet…

Perhaps because I’m rather comfortable with not resolving the issue in my own mind, I can’t quite share Graeme’s view that I should decry the virginal conception altogether. I really don’t have a theological pony in the race as I think you’re right about its theological irrelevance.

Just another consideration, by the way: I believe that in the first century, it was understood that the woman contributed nothing to conception. They understood nothing about the combination of sperm and egg, instead believing that the male deposited “seed” in the womb, much as one might plant seed in a garden. Unless one brings THAT understanding to the infancy narratives, the significance of the virgin birth is likely to be elusive.

I looked up the Brown reference (The Birth of the Messiah) only to experience one of those “of course” moments. I knew of this book, but as my studies have focused on John’s Gospel, I tend to associate Brown with GosJ.

Finally, if you have stories to tell, please do so – or are you seriously hanging out for a bribe?

• Bribe. I need cash. But fine, I’ll bite.

In 1988, a 15-year-old girl in…ah crud, Africa somewhere (I know, that’s super culturally insensitive…), was brought to the hospital with what looked like labour pains. So, the doctors went into delivery mode…and discovered that she has no vagina. It was closed. Developmental defect, etc. After some investigation, turns out about 9 months prior, she engaged in fellatio, and was then stabbed by her ex-lover. The sperm somehow made its way from the Gi tract to her reproductive system. Voila!

You might want to google this, for more (and more accurate) information on the matter.

• Jonathan – It’s not clear that you’ve established two “types”, Daniel. Without a robust definition of “positively miraculous”, you don’t have much of a case.

More generally, I think any definition of miracle that involves violations of “Laws of Nature” (whatever those are) are problematic (not least because they make rarely explicated assumptions about “laws of nature”). But that’s another story. Which appears in a paper I gave recently. It’s on the web somewhere. <shameless self-promotion ends>.

OK, so I’m watching Lauren Graham’s character make out with some high school teacher. And it’s 2am. So, I’m going to check out now. Instead of this intellectually engaging exchange, I might start contemplating if having fantasies about Lauren Graham is morally problematic. Or creepy.

Good night!

• Daniel – I’m not paying the bribe either, so thanks for this little tidbit.

Like Murray, I don’t think the virgin birth should be a line in the sand for anyone, and often it is based on Augustinian notions of original sin and other, worse, types of misogyny.

The infancy narratives are more a textual/historical problem (where did M&L get these details?) than a case that a virgin birth should be ludicrous to any thinking Christian.

• Murray – I’m with Daniel on the “where did they get the details” question and the lack of any obvious chain of transmission might be the biggest clue that somebody just concocted the lot.

It’s just gone 12am, so I might turn in too.

• Rowland – And I slept through this interesting exchange… Thanks to you three!

I’m going to put this (edited slightly) on my website today unless I hear from any of you to the contrary… I’ll give you all time to sleep in 🙂

• Murray – And the report on Jonathan Jong’s virgin birth story from the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology:

Verkuyl, Douwe A.A. “Oral Conception. Impregnation Via the Proximal Gastrointestinal Tract in a Patient with an Aplastic Distal Vagina. Case Report.” British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 95 (September 1988): 933-34.

Available on line at: http://img2.tapuz.co.il/CommunaFiles/21227065.pdf

• Jonathan - Lauren Graham’s character broke up with her daughter’s high school teacher, because “It’s complicated”. The daughter seems to have had a crush on the teacher. It’s all very strange.