Mark begins immediately with Jesus’ ministry in accord with his stress on Christ as Servant (cf. 10:45). But we would expect a physician, Dr. Luke to give attention to the circumstances of the birth. He begins with the announcement of Christ’s birth of a virgin:

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus." . . "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." [1:26-35]

The emphasized text again demonstrates that the conception of Christ was supernatural: Mary was a "virgin" (parthenos), "pledged to be married." Mary’s reaction of being "greatly troubled" and being "afraid," as well as her astonished question, "How will this be?" reveals that she was a virgin. The angel gave some description of how the conception would happen through the Holy Spirit and "the power of the Most High."

When Luke records the birth he again stresses that Mary was only "pledged to be married," which in that culture meant she had not yet had sexual intercourse with Joseph. The supernatural appearance of the angel and the heavenlv choir demonstrate that something extraordinary had happened. Mary’s reaction was to contemplate in awe the mystery of it all. Obviously she knew something supernatural and holy had occurred (vs. 19).

John stresses the overall divinity of Christ, and doesn’t dwell on particulars. Nevertheless, there are a couple of strong intimations in John’s Gospel that Jesus was virgin born. When Jesus performed his first miracle at Cana of Galilee his mother was obviously aware of his supernatural origin and confident that he could do the supernatural. John wrote: "On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’ ‘Dear woman, why do you involve me?’ Jesus replied. ‘My time has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you."’ Indeed, the emphasized text reveals that Mary seems not only to believe that Jesus could do a miracle but to be requesting one, even though she had never seen him do one since this was Jesus’ "first miracle" (vs. 11). Her understanding of his supernatural ability came from her past relationship with Jesus, including his birth.

Even the insult of Jesus’ enemies shows that the circumstances of his birth had stirred general gossip, as might be expected if the story spread. Jesus said to them, "‘You are doing the things your own father [Satan] does.’ ‘We are not illegitimate children,’ they protested. ‘The only Father we have is God himself.’" The Jews may have simply been responding defensively to Jesus’ attack on their misplaced confidence in the fatherhood of Abraham. If so, it is an odd rejoinder. But it makes perfect sense if they were turning the argument back on Jesus’ own legitimacy. Even Joseph had needed an angelic visitation to be convinced of Mary’s purity (Matt. 1:20). He and Mary likely faced a continuing shadow on their reputations. But Jesus faced the matter boldly in responding to his sniggering accusers, "Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?" (John 8:46).

The Epistles are filled with references to Jesus’ sinlessness. In the context of teaching about the innate sinfulness that adheres to each descendant of Adam (for example, Romans 5), these teachings themselves indicate that God had done something different in Jesus (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 John 3:3). Paul’s reference to Jesus as "born of a woman" is relatively explicit. He wrote, "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law" (Gal. 4:4). This refers to Genesis 3:15. In a Jewish patriarchal culture one is begotten of a male (the father). To bring attention to being "born of a woman" is to show that something unusual is occurring—in Jesus’ case a virgin birth.

It is difficult to deny that the New Testament teaches the virgin birth of Christ. The easier attack is to say that it is a myth patterned after Greek and Roman gods and was not really a historical event. For a full refutation of the charge that the Gospels evolved over a few generations into a myth-filled legend of Jesus’ life, see in particular articles [in the Baker’s Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics on] on the New Testament, plus see MITHRAISM, DIVlNE BIRTH STORIES, BIBLE CRITICISM, JESUS SEMINAR, and Q DOCUMENT. In brief:

Historical evidence that Jesus was supernaturally conceived of a virgin is more than substantial. Indeed, there are more eyewitness contemporary records of the virgin birth than for most events from the ancient world. The records show no signs of myth development. Indeed, they are surrounded by historical references to real people, places, and times. Thus, there is no reason to believe Jesus was not literally, biologically born of a virgin just as the Bible claims he was. Only an unjustified antisupernatural bias is ground for any conclusion to the contrary.

A particular battleground text is Isaiah 7:14, which is cited by Matthew. Critics argue that it has no predictive value. At worst the text refers to events in Isaiah’s time only, which were applied typologically to Christ but have no predictive value. There is reason to believe the text refers, in part or whole, to a prediction of the virgin birth. In any case, there are other clear predictive texts in the Old Testament.