A few days before Christmas, one of Christianity's holiest holidays, the New York Times pulled off a predictable stunt.
2,000 years of Christian tradition supporting the virgin birth of Jesus, ignoring the so-called “newspaper of record” We have published an editorial column with The historian titled it “The Conversation About the Virgin Birth That Probably Never Was.” The point of the interview with early Christian scholar Dr. Elaine Pagels was to sow doubts about whether Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus.
“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will call his name Immanuel.”
The New York Times published the interview online on December 21st. Printed in Christmas Eve edition of physical newspapers.
The interview focuses on Mr. Pagels. upcoming book In it, she claims that “Jesus may have been fathered by a Roman soldier, possibly by rape,” according to NYT columnist Nicholas Kristoff.
Seriously? ! Yes, unfortunately.
Christof said evidence for this claim in Pagels' book includes anti-Christian writings from later generations of the apostles that claim that Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier named “Panthera.” He pointed out that there was.
Pagels told the New York Times:
Yes, these stories were spread after Jesus' death among those in the Jewish community who considered Jesus a false messiah because his father was a Roman soldier. I dismissed such stories as old slander. But while we don't know what happened, there is too much circumstantial evidence to simply ignore it.
According to interviews, Pagels' argument appears to rely heavily on inaccurate conclusions about Mark's Gospel.
For example, Pagels states, “Mark is the first Gospel written.'' it's true. But she also argues that “Matthew and Luke are basically just revising it.” That's not true.
The authors of the Gospels, each inspired by the Holy Spirit, had the same polemical goal. It is to show that Jesus is actually the Christ, the long-awaited and promised Messiah of the Jews. However, each author uses a slightly different methodology to achieve their goals, which explains the differences between Matthew, Luke, and Mark.
What is true is that, according to popular theory, the authors of Matthew and Luke used the Gospel of Mark and additional material called “Q” to compile their works. But Matthew and Luke are not mere “revisions” of Mark's Gospel in any way.
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Mark makes no allusion to the virgin birth. Rather, he says, his neighbors called Jesus “Son of Mary.” In a strongly patriarchal society, this suggests that Jesus did not have a father that no one knew about, even one who had died. But even without a partner, Maria has many children. In Mark, Jesus has four other brothers and several sisters, but no acknowledged father or family tree.
However, this is a mistaken idea. Mr. Pagels is arguing from silence.
Just because Mark's account does not include Jesus' genealogy (contained in Matthew and Luke) does not mean that Mark somehow leaves open the possibility that Jesus was not born of the Virgin Mary. .
Importantly, Christians see that Jesus' virgin birth is foretold in Isaiah 7:14. It says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and he will be called Immanuel.” Matthew famously quotes this prophecy in Matthew 1:22-23.
Unfortunately, the theory advanced by Pagels and Kristof is not new.
In fact, this is a fringe theory in Biblical scholarship and is widely discredited. It has many problems, including a blinding and deafening lack of historical evidence to prove its authenticity, an obvious polemical motive to discredit Christianity, and language issues. , the reliability of the Gospels, and the lack of similar arguments from other early anti-Semites. -Christian writer.
One of the main problems with claiming that the virgin birth is not true is that it discredits Christianity as a whole.
“This truth about the conception of Jesus cannot be thrown away. If Jesus was conceived in the same way that everyone else was conceived, the Gospel writers would be lying. ,” explains Dr. Mitchell Chase, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “And if Jesus thought as everyone else has thought, then his humanity is corrupted by sin. If Jesus was corrupted by sin, then he himself will not be able to bring about salvation because he needs it.”
Therefore, according to Chase, the virgin birth is not an “unrelated issue.” Rather, it is “integral to what we Christians confess about Jesus.”
“Through the incarnation of the Son of God, the light of salvation was lit in the world,” Chase explains. “He is the Son of God, truly divine and human. He was born without sin and lived without sin so that he could die under our sins. Now He is risen and ascended to heaven. The incarnate Son is our perfect Mediator and Savior of sin.”
This isn't the first time the New York Times Tried to stir up doubts about the virgin birth In the days before Christmas. And sadly, it probably won't be the last time.
This is a predictable attack on fundamental Christian doctrines shared by all Christians, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant.
But one might wonder why the NYT never attacks the Bible's original proposition of God's creation. all — or the resurrection of Jesus. For those concerned about the veracity of “miracles,” these two propositions are far more troubling. If God created everything and Jesus rose from the dead, then Jesus' virgin birth is easy to “accept.”
And yet, pre-Christmas attacks always center around this one “miracle.”
Perhaps it is because critics of the virgin birth, if they can discredit the beginning of Jesus' life, By doing so, you can lose credibility at the end. — and with it, the life of Jesus.
Thankfully, Christians have the truth on their side in Jesus.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
