Virginity of Mary: Fact or fiction?

We are in the Christmas season and once again, the global media is awash with stories that dismiss or try to explain the virginity of Mary, Mother of Jesus.

While various theologians have grappled with the issue over the centuries, the fact that Christianity has thrived beyond 2000AD testifies to the fact that the issue of the virginity of Mary cannot just be wished away.

This is more so from the fact that for billions of mainline Christians, who confess their faith in the Apostles Creed, the virgin birth is indisputable.

And yet, like the Resurrection story, few Christian dogmas attract as much controversy as that of the virgin birth. But should it?

PREGNACY
Casting aside the eye of faith, the Sunday Nation sought to approach the virgin birth topic from a contemporary angle.

What if teenage Mary – for she must have been no more than that when her fiancé, Joseph, discovered that she was pregnant – was Kenyan?

Dr Agnes Abuom, an Anglican and first layperson to serve as Moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), told Sunday Nation:

“If Joseph was a Luo or a Luhya man, he would not have cared to listen to the [Holy] Spirit, let alone try to protect Mary by exiting [from the engagement] silently. He would have disgraced her, including [her] family then abandoned her.”

As a widow in a socio-cultural milieu in which the use-and-dump culture reigns supreme, Dr Abuom exhibits admiration for Joseph, calling him “a gentleman”.

“He seems to have been in touch with his faith in an active manner, which most men do not have as a relationship.

"He was caring and must have loved Mary [enough] not to put her to public shame.”

STIGMA
She adds: “Mary’s contemporaries would, in my view, not have believed her.

"They would have mocked her and profiled her as a loose woman, not worth the man, Joseph.

"The gossip would have done the rounds and Mary would have been isolated.”

Although she does not dismiss the virgin birth, which she, as an Anglican woman, professes in the Apostle’s Creed, she does not equate the virgin birth dogma to the equally controversial resurrection doctrine.

“The virgin birth is important as a precursor to the Resurrection. But I would not equate the two.

"It is the Resurrection that defines my identity as a Christian. Therefore, while the incarnation (that is, Jesus as God taking human flesh) is critical, the Resurrection is a defining and distinctive charter of faith,” Dr Abuom says.

CONCEPTION
Former Global Programme Manager of the World Young Women’s Christian Association (WYWCA), Ms Hendrica Okondo, shares Dr Abuom’s view.

“Mary’s contemporaries would not have believed her and would have insisted on knowing the child’s father,” she says. 

And, had Joseph not agreed to protect her, she would have been stoned to death or chased away from home, married off to an old man or sent away to a relative who would mistreat her as she would be an extra mouth to feed.

Dr Ng’ang’a Gichumbi, a mental health professional interested in religio-theological issues that have a bearing on individual and social pathologies, shared his readings on the Virgin Birth.

His sources argue that the virginal conception is just myth.

“These authors imagine that tales of virginal conceptions were common in the ancient world, and were readily believed by the ancients, who were purportedly not as enlightened as modern man.

“Such commentators,” Dr Gichumbi adds, “normally point to ancient mythological systems – such as those among the Greeks and Romans – and maintain that there were many mythological tales of gods, who were virginally conceived.

"From this apparent evidence, they deduce that the Christian story of the virginal conception is simply another tale derived from the surrounding pagan myths.”

EARLY CHURCH
Dr Gichumbi’s sources consider the virgin birth as a mere theologoumenon, meaning, a theological statement that is more of an individual opinion than an authoritative doctrine.

They claim that those in the early Church, who taught the virginal conception, were not declaring an actual historical reality, but rather were only divulging a theological opinion about Christ’s origins.

A survey of contemporary literature addressing the virginal conception theme, he says, shows a lot of dissatisfaction with the doctrine.

He attributes this to two key reasons: One, debunking of the myth of virgin birth, and two, the devaluation of virginity by contemporary society.

MEDIA
In Kenya, mainstream media lifestyle columns, as well as popular magazines, are awash with articles that mock virginity and even make young people, who opt to postpone sex until they are married, feel 'backward', never mind the devastation that promiscuous sex has wreaked on society.

While in the past it was young men who boasted about their sexual exploits, today, both men and women find it normal to glamourise and indulge in premarital and extramarital sex.

Rudolf Bultmann, whom Gichumbi describes as an eminent biblical scholar, says the ancient worldview was riddled with mythical elements while the modern one is scientific and thus more pristine.

“It is impossible to repristinate (that is, restore to the original condition) a past world picture by sheer resolve, especially a mythical world picture, now that all of our thinking is irrevocably formed by science.

"A blind acceptance of New Testament mythology would be simply arbitrariness,” Bultmann says.

RAPE
Dr Gichumbi mentions Catholic priest and university professor Edward Schillebeeckx as one of the scholars who regard the virginal birth concept as a theologoumenon.

Prof Schillebeeckx posited that stories of the virginal conception were not intended to provide any empirical truth or secret information about the history of the holy family.

The stories merely highlight a truth of revelation, namely, that “Jesus is holy and Son of God from the very first moment of his human existence.”

Dr Nyambura Njoroge – the first woman to be ordained minister by the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) – takes a demurred approach to the story of the Virgin Mary.

She views Mary alongside her predecessors such as Tamar, King David’s daughter, who was raped by her half-brother, Amnon.

She also mentions Rahab, the prostitute of Book of Joshua, who is regarded as a model of hospitality.

PROPHESIES
There is also Ruth, David’s grandmother, to whom Jesus’ lineage is traced, and Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, whose death King David plotted to hide his adultery with the woman he spied bathing.

Each of these women, Dr Nyambura says, had an “exceptional story” that needs to be explored in-depth to demystify the Virgin Birth and to seek to understand the mind of God in fulfilling the prophecies on the birth of the Messiah.

The theologian elevates the role of Joseph, which at first might appear insignificant, to take Kenya’s present-day realities into account.

“…in a context where we have many teenage mothers, who are left to shoulder heavy parenting responsibilities by men who refuse to do the right thing, Joseph serves as a role model for positive masculinities.”

As Programme Director of the Ecumenical HIV and Aids Initiative and Advocacy at the World Council of Churches, Dr Nyambura views negative masculinities as a key factor in the spread of the disease that has no known cure, more than 30 years since it was first diagnosed.

ANGEL GABRIEL
What if Joseph had rejected the Angel Gabriel’s request that he sticks with Mary?

Mr Terence Chibire, an IT practitioner and lay Catholic, is certain that the society Jesus was born into having been “traditional” and “conservative” and with a mother and father who were “extremely devout”, Joseph’s rejection of Mary would have caused a major scandal, more so because her relatives and friends would most likely have been as devout as Mary’s parents.
But what if he, Mr Chibire, was caught up in the same situation, and called upon to shelter a woman who was carrying another man’s child?
Although he admires St Joseph— “He gave unquestioning obedience to God’s request, just like Abraham when requested to sacrifice Isaac; Joseph was called to co-operate with God’s will and he did — I would [do likewise] but with a lot of difficulty, since I also have my own ideas, wishes and desire that compel me to think otherwise.”
As a matter of fact, it was not that easy for Joseph, either. As Dominican priest and Mariology scholar at Tangaza University College Denis Vincent Wiseman points out in a September 29, 2017 paper titled: “The Virginity of Mary”, the biblical statement: “And Joseph, the spouse of Mary, who wished at first to put away his betrothed Mary, supposing her to be pregnant by intercourse with a man, i.e., from fornication...” has been interpreted as a suspicion on the part of Joseph. He quotes St Justin who in reference to Catholic Church Fathers Ambrose, Augustine, and John Chrysostom as assuming what is known as “Joseph’s suspicion.”
Be that as it may, Fr Wiseman also refers to a statement of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, which points at the usual focus on the absence of a human father of Jesus. “While there is no human father, the Virginal Conception is “a sign of the presence and work of the Spirit,” manifesting the divine sonship of Christ and our new births in the Spirit.”
As a lay Christian, the virgin birth is as important to Mr Chibire as the Resurrection, although it is one of those mysteries that’s “never discussed” in lay circles because of the misunderstanding surrounding it. Many times, he says, it is confused or replaced with the Immaculate Conception dogma. The latter posits that for Mary to be worthy of carrying the Christ in her womb, she, too, had to be conceived without sin – a position feminists reject. (See Sidebar).
Mr Chibire’s rootedness in a dogma on the basis of faith confirms Dr Nyambura’s statement: that Jesus’ birth and resurrection “are important in the Salvation developments and plan and the role of human beings in each are significant. One involves birthing and believing (messengers and dreams) actions, while the other involves witnessing and believing actions. From the personal encounter of Mary in her womb with the Holy Spirit to the empty tomb, and the personal encounter of Mary Magdalene with the resurrected Christ, we have the Good News – the Gospels.”

Ms Kweyu is a freelance writer and consulting editor