Quotes From Those Denying the Virgin Birth

Yesterday morning I began a series of messages entitled "Christmas Apologetics." The first two messages in the series deal with the Virgin Birth. In setting up the seriousness of the issue before us today, I listed and quoted from a number of different people who do in fact deny the literal virgin birth of Christ.


Below are the quotes that I gave you yesterday. I simply am cutting and pasting from my sermon manuscript. Please note, however, that I retrieved all of the quotes from two main sources.


The first from Al Mohler's web-site. Click here to find numerous articles he has written and posted regarding the Virgin Birth.


The second from the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) web-site. Click here for a host of articles written in the area of the Virgin Birth.



Here are the quotes/comments I presented yesterday:

A writer for The New York Times, Nikolas Kristoff has written: “The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time…most biblical scholars regard the evidence for the Virgin Birth…as so shaky that it pretty much has to be a leap of faith.”

John Meacham, a writer for Newsweek, wrote that “the Nativity narratives are the subject of ongoing scholarly debate over their historical accuracy…almost nothing in Luke’s stories stands up to close historical scrutiny.” He argues that the infancy and birth narratives were simply invented by the early church in order to answer awkward questions and develop a fully-orbed theology and understanding of Jesus. He claims that Matthew and Luke wanted to tell the story of Jesus’ birth, but had little to work with.

John Dominic Crossan, a Roman Catholic Scholar, and a member of the “Jesus Seminar” movement discounts the biblical narratives about the virgin birth as invented theology.

Bishop Joseph Sprague of the United Methodist Church said that the “myth of the virgin birth was not intended as historical fact, but was employed by Matthew and Luke in different ways to appoint poetically the truth about Jesus as experienced in the emerging church.” He claims that Jesus was born to human parents and did not possess trans-human, supernatural powers.

Cecil Sherman, at one time a Southern Baptist, but later became the coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship said, “A teacher who might also be led by the Scripture not to believe in the virgin birth should not be fired.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick, a 20th century Protestant preacher, preaching from the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church in New York City said that Christians, “may hold quite different points of view about a matter like the virgin birth.” Though he held the doctrine to be true he insisted that others, equally Christian, could disagree with those who believe in the virgin birth to be historically true.

Chloe Breyer, Episcopal priest at St. Mary’s Manhattanville Church in West Harlem wrote this in an article entitled “The Earthly Father—What if Mary Wasn’t a Virgin?” :
… the infancy narratives from Matthew and Luke must be squared with some startling silences, alternative Greek translations, and a couple of snide comments from Jesus' hometown critics. Paul never mentions the virgin conception and in Galatians describes Christ as "born of a woman." John's Gospel says nothing on the subject of Jesus' conception. And Mark describes the shocked response of the synagogue-goers of Jesus' hometown of Nazareth when Jesus as an adult returns to preach and teach as God's chosen one. The Nazareth Jews presumably would have known better than anyone about the irregular timing of Jesus' birth. "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" his parents' neighbors ask one another. Since Jewish men of the time were identified in relationship to their father…scholars take this remark as an insinuation about Jesus' parentage--one that was so offensive that the later Evangelists Luke, Matthew, and John changed it.

Alan Jones wrote Reimagining Christianity
From the book…
"I believe the Bible and the creeds but not literally, and I'm no atheist. I love the tradition and am nurtured by it. I have a great devotion to Mary the Mother of God but am agnostic about her literal virginity-- or, to put it bluntly, I couldn't care less about it." Page 31
"For my part, I won't allow those who insist on a literal interpretations [sic] of these myths and doctrines to deprive me of my devotion to her [Mary]. Was she literally a virgin? I don't know...But much of the emphasis on virginity arose from a negative and destructive view of sexuality. So I doubt very much whether Mary was literally a virgin..." Page 175