The virgin birth of Jesus is the
Christian doctrine that
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...
was conceived by his mother,
Mary, through the power of the
Holy Spirit
In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts ...
and
without sexual intercourse. It is mentioned only in and , and the modern scholarly consensus is that the narrative rests on very slender historical foundations. The ancient world had no understanding that male semen and female ovum were both needed to form a fetus; this cultural milieu was conducive to
miraculous birth stories, and tales of virgin birth and the impregnation of mortal women by deities were well known in the 1st-century Greco-Roman world and
Second Temple Jewish works.
Christians—
Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
,
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
s,
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canoni ...
,
Oriental Orthodox
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are part of the Nicene Christian tradition, and represent ...
—traditionally regard the doctrine as an explanation of the mixture of the
human and divine natures of Jesus. The Eastern Orthodox Churches accept the doctrine as authoritative by reason of its inclusion in the
Nicene Creed
The original Nicene Creed (; grc-gre, Σύμβολον τῆς Νικαίας; la, Symbolum Nicaenum) was first adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325. In 381, it was amended at the First Council of Constantinople. The amended form is ...
, and the Catholic Church likewise holds it authoritative for faith through the
Apostles' Creed
The Apostles' Creed (Latin: ''Symbolum Apostolorum'' or ''Symbolum Apostolicum''), sometimes titled the Apostolic Creed or the Symbol of the Apostles, is a Christian creed or "symbol of faith".
The creed most likely originated in 5th-century ...
as well as the Nicene. Nevertheless, there are many contemporary churches in which it is considered
orthodox to accept the virgin birth but not
heretical
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
to
deny it.
The
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing.: ...
asserts the virgin birth of Jesus, deriving its account from the 2nd century AD
Protoevangelium of James, but denies the Trinitarian implications of the gospel story (Jesus is a messenger of God but also a human being and not the Second Person of the Christian Trinity).
New Testament narratives: Matthew and Luke
Matthew 1:18-25
18: Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
19: Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
20: But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21: She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
22: All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."
24: When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,
25: but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Luke 1:26-38
26: In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
27: to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
28: And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you."
29: But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
30: The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
31: And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.
32: He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.
33: He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."
34: Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?"
35: The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.
36: And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.
37: For nothing will be impossible with God."
38: Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
Texts
In the entire Christian corpus, the virgin birth is explicit only in the
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and ...
and the
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel of Luke), or simply Luke (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a two ...
. The two agree that Mary's husband was named Joseph, that he was of the
Davidic line, and that he played no role in Jesus's divine conception, but beyond this they are very different. Matthew has no
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...
, shepherds, or
presentation in the temple
A presentation conveys information from a speaker to an audience. Presentations are typically demonstrations, introduction, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea/product. Present ...
, and implies that Joseph and Mary are living in Bethlehem at the time of the birth, while Luke has no
magi
Magi (; singular magus ; from Latin '' magus'', cf. fa, مغ ) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius t ...
,
flight into Egypt
The flight into Egypt is a story recounted in the Gospel of Matthew ( Matthew 2:13– 23) and in New Testament apocrypha. Soon after the visit by the Magi, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the ...
or
massacre of the infants, and states that Joseph lives in Nazareth.
Matthew underlines the virginity of
Mary by references to the
Book of Isaiah (using the Greek translation in the
Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...
, rather than the mostly Hebrew
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...
) and by his narrative statement that Joseph had no sexual relations with her until after the birth (a choice of words which leaves open the possibility that they did have relations after that).
Luke introduces Mary as a virgin, describes her puzzlement at being told she will bear a child despite her lack of sexual experience, and informs the reader that this pregnancy is to be effected through God's
Holy Spirit
In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts ...
.
There is a serious debate as to whether Luke's nativity story is an original part of his gospel. Chapters 1 and 2 are written in a style quite different from the rest of the gospel, and the dependence of the birth narrative on the Greek Septuagint is absent from the remainder. There are strong Lukan motifs in Luke 1–2, but differences are equally striking—Jesus's identity as "son of David", for example, is a prominent theme of the birth narrative, but not in the rest of the gospel. In the early part of the 2nd century the gnostic theologian
Marcion produced a version of Luke lacking these two chapters, and although he is generally accused of having cut them out of a longer text more like our own, genealogies and birth narratives are also absent from Mark and John.
Cultural context
Matthew 1:18 says that Mary was betrothed (engaged) to Joseph. She would have been twelve years old or a little less at the time of events described in the gospels, as under Jewish law betrothal was only possible for minors, which for girls meant aged under twelve or prior to the first mense, whichever came first. According to custom the wedding would take place twelve months later, after which the groom would take his bride from her father's house to his own. A betrothed girl who had sex with a man other than her husband-to-be was considered an adulteress. If tried before a tribunal both she and the young man would be stoned to death, but it was possible for her betrothed husband to issue a document of repudiation, and this, according to Matthew, was the course Joseph wished to take prior to the visitation by the angel.
The most likely cultural context for both Matthew and Luke is
Jewish Christian
Jewish Christians ( he, יהודים נוצרים, yehudim notzrim) were the followers of a Jewish religious sect that emerged in Judea during the late Second Temple period (first century AD). The Nazarene Jews integrated the belief of Jesus a ...
or mixed
Gentile
Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym fo ...
/Jewish-Christian circles rooted in Jewish tradition. These readers would have known that the
Roman Senate
The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...
had declared
Julius Caesar a god and his successor
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
to be ''divi filius'', the
Son of God before he became a god himself on his death in AD 14; this remained the pattern for later emperors. Imperial divinity was accompanied by suitable miraculous birth stories, with Augustus being fathered by the god Apollo while his human mother slept, and her human husband being granted a dream in which he saw the sun rise from her womb, and inscriptions even described the news of the divine imperial birth as ''evangelia'', the gospel. The virgin birth of Jesus was thus a direct challenge to a central claim of Roman imperial theology, namely the divine conception and descent of the emperors.
Matthew's genealogy, tracing Jesus's Davidic descent, was intended for Jews, while his virgin birth story was intended for a Greco-Roman audience familiar with virgin birth stories and stories of women impregnated by gods. The ancient world had no understanding that male semen and female ovum were both needed to form a fetus; instead they thought that the male contribution in reproduction consisted of some sort of formative or generative principle, while Mary's bodily fluids would provide all the matter that was needed for Jesus's bodily form, including his male sex. This cultural milieu was conducive to miraculous birth stories – they were common in biblical tradition going back to
Abraham
Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the Covenant (biblical), special ...
and
Sarah
Sarah (born Sarai) is a biblical matriarch and prophetess, a major figure in Abrahamic religions. While different Abrahamic faiths portray her differently, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all depict her character similarly, as that of a pio ...
(and the conception of
Isaac
Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was the ...
).
Such stories are less frequent in Judaism, but there too there was a widespread belief in angels and divine intervention in births. Theologically, the two accounts mark the moment when Jesus becomes the
Son of God, i.e., at his birth, in distinction to Mark, for whom the Sonship dates from
Jesus's baptism, and
Paul and the pre-Pauline Christians for whom Jesus becomes the Son only at the
Resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, whic ...
or even the
Second Coming
The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian (as well as Islamic and Baha'i) belief that Jesus will return again after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on messi ...
.
Tales of virgin birth and the impregnation of mortal women by deities were well known in the 1st-century Greco-Roman world, and
Second Temple Jewish works were also capable of producing accounts of the appearances of
angel
In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God.
Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles inc ...
s and miraculous births for ancient heroes such as
Melchizedek,
Noah
Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5 ...
, and
Moses. Luke's virgin birth story is a standard plot from the Jewish scriptures, as for example in the annunciation scenes for Isaac and for
Samson, in which an angel appears and causes apprehension, the angel gives reassurance and announces the coming birth, the mother raises an objection, and the angel gives a sign. Nevertheless, "plausible sources that tell of virgin birth in areas convincingly close to the gospels' own probable origins have proven extremely hard to demonstrate". Similarly, while it is widely accepted that there is a connection with
Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ...
(Persian) sources underlying Matthew's story of the
Magi
Magi (; singular magus ; from Latin '' magus'', cf. fa, مغ ) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius t ...
(the wise men from the East) and the
Star of Bethlehem
The Star of Bethlehem, or Christmas Star, appears in the nativity story of the Gospel of Matthew chapter 2 where "wise men from the East" (Magi) are inspired by the star to travel to Jerusalem. There, they meet King Herod of Judea, and ask hi ...
, a wider claim that Zoroastrianism formed the background to the infancy narratives has not achieved acceptance.
Historicity and sources of the narratives
The modern scholarly consensus is that the doctrine of the virgin birth rests on very slender historical foundations. Both Matthew and Luke are late and anonymous compositions dating from the period AD 80–100. The earliest Christian writings, the
Pauline epistles
The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest ext ...
, do not contain any mention of a virgin birth and assume Jesus's full humanity, stating that he was "born of a woman" like any other human being and "born under the law" like any Jew. In the
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Mark), or simply Mark (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to ...
, dating from around AD 70, we read of Jesus saying that "prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house" – , which suggests that Mark was not aware of any tradition of special circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth, and while the author of the
gospel of John
The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...
is confident that Jesus is more than human he makes no reference to a virgin birth to prove his point. John in fact refers twice to Jesus as the "son of Joseph," the first time from the lips of the disciple Philip ("We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth" – ), the second from the unbelieving Jews ("Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose mother and father we know?" – John ). These quotations, incidentally, are in direct opposition to the suggestion that Jesus was, or was believed to be, illegitimate: Philip and the Jews know that Jesus had a human father, and that father was Joseph.
This raises the question of where the authors of Matthew and Luke found their stories. It is almost certain that neither was the work of an eyewitness. In view of the many inconsistencies between them neither is likely to derive from the other, nor did they share a common source.
Raymond E. Brown suggested in 1973 that Joseph was the source of Matthew's account and Mary of Luke's, but modern scholars consider this "highly unlikely" given that the stories emerged so late. It follows that the two narratives were created by the two writers, drawing on ideas in circulation at least a decade before the gospels were composed, to perhaps 65-75 or even earlier.
Matthew presents the ministry of Jesus as largely the fulfilment of prophecies from the
Book of Isaiah, and Matthew 1:22-23, "All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son...", is a reference to
Isaiah 7:14, "...the Lord himself shall give you a sign: the maiden is with child and she will bear a son..." But in the time of Jesus the Jews of Palestine no longer spoke Hebrew, Isaiah was translated into Greek, and Matthew uses the Greek word ''parthenos'', which does mean virgin, for the Hebrew ''
almah
''Almah'' ( ''‘almā'', plural: ''‘ălāmōṯ''), from a root implying the vigour of puberty, is a Hebrew word meaning a young woman ripe for marriage; despite its importance to the account of the virgin birth of Jesus in the Gospel of ...
'', which scholars agree signifies a girl of childbearing age without reference to virginity. This mistranslation gave the author of Matthew the opportunity to interpret Jesus as the prophesied
Immanuel, ''God is with us'', the divine representative on earth.
Theology and development
Matthew and Luke use the virgin birth (or more accurately the divine conception that precedes it) to mark the moment when Jesus becomes the
Son of God. This was a notable development over Mark, for whom the Sonship dates from
Jesus's baptism, and the earlier Christianity of Paul and the pre-Pauline Christians for whom Jesus becomes the Son at the
Resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, whic ...
or even the
Second Coming
The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian (as well as Islamic and Baha'i) belief that Jesus will return again after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on messi ...
. The
Ebionites, a
Jewish Christian
Jewish Christians ( he, יהודים נוצרים, yehudim notzrim) were the followers of a Jewish religious sect that emerged in Judea during the late Second Temple period (first century AD). The Nazarene Jews integrated the belief of Jesus a ...
sect, saw Jesus as fully human, rejected the virgin birth, and preferred to translate ''almah'' as "young woman". The 2nd century gnostic theologian
Marcion likewise rejected the virgin birth, but regarded Jesus as descended fully formed from heaven and having only the appearance of humanity. By about AD 180 Jews were telling how Jesus had been illegitimately conceived by a Roman soldier named
Pantera or Pandera, whose name is likely a pun on ''parthenos'', virgin. The story was still current in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
in satirical parody of the Christian gospels called the
Toledot Yeshu. The Toledot Yeshu contains no historical facts, and was probably created as a tool for warding off conversions to Christianity.
The virgin birth was subsequently accepted by Christians as the proof of the divinity of Jesus, but its rebuttal during and after the 18th century European Enlightenment led some to redefine it as mythical, while others reaffirmed it in
dogma
Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam ...
tic terms. This division remains in place, although some national synods of the Catholic Church have replaced a biological understanding with the idea of "theological truth", and some
evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exp ...
theologians hold it to be marginal rather than indispensable to the Christian faith.
Celebrations and devotions
Christians celebrate the conception of Jesus on 25 March and his birth on 25 December. (
These dates are traditional; no one knows for certain when Jesus was born.) The
Magnificat, based on Luke 1:46-55 is one of four well known Gospel
canticle
A canticle (from the Latin ''canticulum'', a diminutive of ''canticum'', "song") is a hymn, psalm or other Christian song of praise with lyrics usually taken from biblical or holy texts. Canticles are used in Christian liturgy.
Catholic Church
...
s: the
Benedictus and the Magnificat in the first chapter, and the
Gloria in Excelsis and the
Nunc dimittis in the second chapter of Luke, which are now an integral part of the Christian
liturgical
Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...
tradition. The Annunciation became an element of
Marian devotions in medieval times, and by the 13th century direct references to it were widespread in French lyrics. The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the title "Ever Virgin Mary" as a key element of its Marian veneration, and as part of the
Akathist
An Akathist Hymn ( el, Ἀκάθιστος Ὕμνος, "unseated hymn") is a type of hymn usually recited by Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic Christians, dedicated to a saint, holy event, or one of the persons of the Holy Trinity. The nam ...
s hymns to Mary which are an integral part of its
liturgy.
The doctrine is often represented in
Christian art in terms of the
annunciation to Mary by the Archangel
Gabriel
In Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), Gabriel (); Greek: grc, Γαβριήλ, translit=Gabriḗl, label=none; Latin: ''Gabriel''; Coptic: cop, Ⲅⲁⲃⲣⲓⲏⲗ, translit=Gabriêl, label=none; Amharic: am, ገብ ...
that she would conceive a child to be born the Son of God, and in
Nativity scenes that include the figure of
Salome. The Annunciation is one of the most frequently depicted scenes in Western art. Annunciation scenes also amount to the most frequent appearances of Gabriel in medieval art. The depiction of Joseph turning away in some
Nativity scenes is a discreet reference to the fatherhood of the Holy Spirit, and the virgin birth.
In Islam
The
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing.: ...
follows the
apocryphal gospels
The New Testament apocrypha (singular apocryphon) are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cite ...
, and especially in the
Protoevangelium of James, in its accounts of the miraculous births of both Mary and her son Jesus, but while it affirms the virgin birth of Jesus it denies the Trinitarian implications of the gospel story (Jesus is a messenger of God but also a human being and not the Second Person of the Christian Trinity). Surah , for example, follows the Protoevangelium closely when describing how the pregnant "wife of Imran" (that is, Mary's mother
Anne) dedicates her unborn child to God, Mary's secluded upbringing within the Temple, and the angels who bring her food.
Gallery
File:Holy Doors.jpg, Holy Doors, Saint Catherine's Monastery
Saint Catherine's Monastery ( ar, دير القدّيسة كاترين; grc-gre, Μονὴ τῆς Ἁγίας Αἰκατερίνης), officially the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Katherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai, ...
on Mount Sinai in Egypt, 12th century
File:Sandro Botticelli 080.jpg, Sandro Botticelli (1489–90)
File:Annunciation nesterov.jpg, Mikhail Nesterov, Russia, 19th century
File:Mural - Birth of Christ.jpg, Eastern Orthodox Nativity depiction little changed in more than a millennium
File:Birth of Jesus - Capella dei Scrovegni - Padua 2016.jpg, Giotto
Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto ( , ) and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/ Proto-Renaissance period. ...
(1267–1337): Nativity with an uninvolved Joseph but without Salome
File:Meister von Hohenfurth 002.jpg, Medieval miniature of the Nativity,
See also
*
Adoptionism
*
Almah
''Almah'' ( ''‘almā'', plural: ''‘ălāmōṯ''), from a root implying the vigour of puberty, is a Hebrew word meaning a young woman ripe for marriage; despite its importance to the account of the virgin birth of Jesus in the Gospel of ...
*
Christology
In Christianity, Christology (from the Greek grc, Χριστός, Khristós, label=none and grc, -λογία, -logia, label=none), translated literally from Greek as "the study of Christ", is a branch of theology that concerns Jesus. Differ ...
*
Denial of the virgin birth of Jesus
*
Immaculate Conception
The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception.
It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth wh ...
of Mary
*
Incarnation (Christianity)
In Christian theology, the incarnation is the belief that the pre-existent divine person of Jesus Christ, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, and the eternally begotten ''Logos'' (Koine Greek for "word"), took upon human nature and ...
*
Isaiah 7:14
*
Perpetual virginity of Mary
The perpetual virginity of Mary is a Christian doctrine that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin before, during and after the birth of Christ. In Western Christianity, the Catholic Church adheres to the doctrine, as do some Lutherans, Angl ...
*
Parthenogenesis
Parthenogenesis (; from the Greek grc, παρθένος, translit=parthénos, lit=virgin, label=none + grc, γένεσις, translit=génesis, lit=creation, label=none) is a natural form of asexual reproduction in which growth and developmen ...
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Virgin Birth Of Jesus
*
Christianity and Islam
Christology
Gospel of Luke
Gospel of Matthew
Islamic belief and doctrine
Mary, mother of Jesus
New Testament miracles
Gabriel
Holy Spirit