forms of supernatural births, of god-men and of illustrious heroes, were very much a part of the total milieu in the Mediterranean world of the centuries preceding and surrounding the emergence of the Christian movement. It was really a coded or esoteric way of saying that somebody was very special indeed. It was a metaphor in the ancient Greco-Roman world used to announce an entity of striking numinosity and power.
Early Christian apologists, in their disputations with Pagan critics, freely admitted there had been other virgin births. Horus, the ancient Egyptian saviour, was miraculously conceived, and Origen, in his famous debate with the Pagan philosopher Celsus, cites the story that when Plato was born of Amphictione, her husband, Ariston, was prevented from having intercourse with her until she had brought forth the child, which she had by the god Apollo.1
Similar stories circulated about Alexander, Apollonius of Tyana and dozens of others. There was an early tradition in the second and third centuries that the manger at Bethlehem was actually in a cave, and the symbol of supernatural births in this womb-of-the-earth-like setting also belongs to other ancient traditions. For example, the Greek god-man Adonis, whose death and resurrection after three days also came after the spring equinox on March 25, was born in a cave. So too was Mithras, whose cult is closely paralleled in early Christianity as well. Some second- and third-century Christian sarcophagi have carvings on them of the Nativity scene with the ox, the ass and the three Magi. The latter wear the hat of the god Mithras. The ass was traditionally associated with Seth, the brother and murderer of Osiris. It was also associated with the planet Saturn, a symbol for Israel. The ox or bull was for long ages the symbol for Osiris himself.
One of the clearest pieces of evidence that in the story of Jesus we are dealing with a mythical tradition lies in the two divergent accounts of the virgin birth found in Matthew and Luke. Incidentally, there are scores of scholarly treatments of the non-historicity of the “born of the Virgin Mary” phrase in the Creed, and only the most ultra-conservative of New Testament authorities would risk arguing today for taking it literally. Whether or not they believe in a historical Jesus of Nazareth, there is general consensus among Biblical scholars that the birth narratives are Midrashic (interpretive) expansions of universal mythical themes. Nevertheless, it is important for our study to set out the major reasons for this overall agreement.
In the first place, the birth stories in Matthew and Luke are very obviously later additions to the original traditions about Jesus. The average uninstructed person who picks up a New Testament could well be forgiven for thinking that Matthew—who tells one version of the miraculous birth—is not only the first Gospel to have been written but also holds the earliest testimony in the book. Matthew’s centuries-old position as the first of the four Gospels in any printed bible has lent immense authority to such a view. Of course, as anyone who has read even a little about the Christian scriptures knows, the Gospels together form a second, later stratum to the whole New Testament. The authentic letters of St. Paul are earlier than the Gospels by at least twenty to thirty years. What’s more, the earliest of the four Gospels is that of Mark, written in Rome and usually dated sometime after 70 CE. I personally agree with those scholars who argue for a later date of about 90 CE, but conservatives, of course, try to push for not later than 70 CE, the date of the destruction of the temple by the Romans under Titus.
What is important about this matter of dating is that neither Paul nor Mark mentions a word about any virgin birth. Paul, who was the closest of all to the presumed origins, says in one passage that Jesus Christ was “born of a woman,” but that is all. This is no evidence for historicity. The same, of course, was said by the Egyptians in their ritual myths about the god Horus. It was said of other mythic deities as well. Mark’s Gospel significantly begins abruptly not with a newborn but with an adult Jesus being baptized in Jordan by John the Baptizer. Significantly, none of the other epistle writers in the rest of the New Testament cites a miraculous birth.
Perhaps most important of all, the Fourth Gospel, that of John, which even from the earliest times, as we have seen, has been regarded as the “spiritual” or “mystical” Gospel, also fails to mention the virgin birth. Instead, this author chooses to place Jesus’ origins back before time was, that is to say, in the bosom of the Cosmic Source, or God. Hence the famous passage with which the Gospel opens—echoing the first verse of Genesis—“In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” More about that later.
Genealogies
The fact that a fictional tradition was gradually being established is attested to by the genealogies given to Jesus by the two sources that do speak of a virgin birth, namely, Matthew and Luke. Likely because the Gospel of Matthew was addressing the concerns of a mainly Jewish community, he traces Jesus’ ancestry back to a beginning with Abraham.2 He does so, significantly, in three groups of fourteen. Both numbers were of traditional, symbolical import. Together, they spoke of perfection. Luke reverses the order, beginning with Jesus himself and working backwards until he comes at last to Adam, whom he describes as the “son of God.”3 He was writing for a chiefly Gentile (Greek) community, and so, instead of emphasizing the Jewishness of Jesus, he stresses his universality. Jesus in this version comes directly from the first father of the race. Since Adam (most certainly) and Abraham (most likely) were also mythical figures, it’s fairly obvious what’s afoot.
But two other points must be made. There is absolutely no way the two genealogies can be made compatible, despite the contortions of some fundamentalist expositors. You just have to ask who Jesus’ grandfather was alleged to be and check the texts for yourself. Secondly, and this seems to me to be the clincher against which logic can offer no acceptable solution, both of these lengthy and involved attempts end in a genuine debacle. Both are attempting to show that Jesus was of the Davidic lineage and thus a fulfiller of Messianic prophecy. The ancient traditions demanded that. But, since both are also at pains to show that Mary bore Jesus without intercourse with Joseph, the whole structure collapses with the admission that the Davidic bloodline came through Joseph, not her. Thus Matthew lamely concludes his list with: “. . . and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.” Both genealogies thus become totally irrelevant as history. There is good reason why the unknown author of the first letter to Timothy, in chapter 1, verse 4, tells the young preacher to avoid giving heed to “myths and endless genealogies.”
Son of a Carpenter?
Speaking of Joseph, the “father” of Jesus, it is highly revealing to consider how he has been depicted down the ages as a carpenter—making Jesus, on the surface at any rate, “the carpenter’s son.”4 Mark, however, actually says that Jesus himself was a carpenter or stonemason: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?”5 This is the reading of the bulk of the earliest Greek manuscripts. But there are also some manuscripts that say the son of a carpenter. This was the preferred text used by Origen in the second century and argued for in his famous dialogue with Celsus, the Pagan philosopher. Matthew’s account quite plainly follows this textual tradition as well—he says “the carpenter’s son.” What is truly interesting, however, to those who see this all as eternal myth, is a truth elucidated by Carl Jung in his book Symbols of Transformation. Jung notes that not just Joseph but many, if not all, of the fathers of ancient heroes and/or god-men were artisans, carpenters or creative builders of one kind or another.6
According to an Arabian legend, Terah, Abraham’s father, was a master craftsman who worked with wood. Tyashtri, father of the Vedic god Agni, was a cosmic architect, a smith and a carpenter. Cinyras, the father of Adonis, was also a carpenter. Hephaestus, the father of the many-faced Hermes, was the Greek fire god who made, among other things, Achilles’ shield. Homer’s hero Odysseus was a wily craftsman who planned and created the famous Trojan horse. This mythic theme, Jung points out, is also followed in folk tales everywhere, with the more modest woodcutter as hero or father of the same. In other words, the entire tradition of Jesus as a carpenter or the son of one is a clear sign, not of historical detail, but
