A Virgin Birth

[Thomas]

As increasingly the norm, I am much indebted to the A Perennial Digression substack for the substance of the arguments offered here.

First, let's first look at sources: For the life of Jesus, scholars suggest Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Q (and Josephus, because he mentions him).

Now, if we at least try and order that list chronologically, we get something like proto-John, Paul, Mark, Josephus, Q, Matthew, Luke, and final-John. I have put proto-John first because the author claims to be an eye-witness. That may well be true, but the final recension of John, the version we hold, was most likely completed after Mark, Matthew and Luke had been completed and were in circulation. There might well have been proto-Synoptics, as well.

Chronologically, then, John introduces Jesus as an adult. Paul only offers Jesus "born of a woman" (Galatians 4:4). Mark, like John, starts his story at Jesus' baptism. Q says nothing. So that leaves us with two: Matthew and Luke.

If we try and reconstruct a birth narrative, the first hurdle is that Matthew and Luke tell different stories. In Matthew, Jesus is conceived and born of a virgin in fulfillment of the oracle of LXX Isaiah 7:14. In Luke, the virginal conception and birth is revealed by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary (Luke 1:26-38) and not to Joseph. Mary questions how, but assents to the mystery. Mt and Lk both agree that Jesus' virgin birth is connected to his Davidide ancestry: Matthew in his genealogy (1:1-17), and Luke has Joseph "from the house of David" (1:27) and Gabriel clarifies that the son will inherit "the throne of his father David" (1:32).

Both Gospels have Jesus born in Bethlehem, but disagree in the details.

In Matthew, the Holy Family already live there, only relocating to Nazareth after their return from the Flight to Egypt. In Luke, they go from Nazareth to Bethlehem and back again. It's a convoluted story, and it's chronologically incorrect. Herod is alive, yet Quirinius is governor of Syria. Herod died in 4BCE, but Quirinius wasn't appointed governor until 6CE, 10 years later.

Luke implies Emperor Augustus called for a universal census, for which we have no record (and we absolutely would have, had it happened). Furthermore, no ancient census is recorded as requiring workers to go to their places of birth – what would be the point? A census is to determine who lives where, not where people lived n-number of years ago. (And the economic upheaval of a workforce travelling to and fro for days or even weeks across the empire would have been considerable.)

There was a census in 6CE in Syria and Judea, and Luke would remember that. It triggered the rebellion of Judas of Galilee, Judas of Galilee, or Judas of Gamala, who led resistance to the census imposed for tax purposes by Quirinius. If Jesus was born when Quirinius was governor, and was around 30 when John baptized him (Luke 3:23), this means Jesus started his ministry around 36CE. Pilate was Prefect from 26 to 36CE, when he was recalled by Tiberius. Even if Jesus' ministry is only one year, as the Synoptics suggest, the timing is unlikely.

Matthew's story is the more likely, saying Jesus was born when Herod the Great was king, probably sometime in the last two years of his life, 6-4BCE. That would put Jesus around 30 at the start of Pilate's prefecture. Luke, confusingly, attests to this by saying that Jesus' birth happened when Herod was king (Luke 1:5). This can only be Herod the Great. (Another problem for another day is whether John the Baptist outlived Jesus – because in some gospel reconstructions, he might well have.)

Multiple attestation to the birth then runs into trouble when only two of the six attest to it, and furthermore because the attestation might be for ideological reasons, rather than historical.

Jesus of Nazareth does not quite fit the scriptural paradigm for a Davidic messiah. That the messiah should be able to trace a direct line to David’s city, Bethlehem, is stated in Micah 5:2. Matthew (2:5-6) and John (7:40-44) both concur that this was an expectation among Jesus' contemporaries, and John in particular finds it an objection to Jesus among Jesus' interlocutors (7:40-53) – here the argument blows up that Jesus can't be a prophet because he's not from Bethlehem, but Galilee.

Given that John was composed last, either John knows the Bethlehem story, and for some inexplicable reason chooses not to refute the accusation that Nazareth does not qualify Jesus as either a Davidide or a prophet, or he doesn't know it, but includes the criticism because that was the kind of thing Jesus was up against, or, he does know it, but sees it as a narrative device.

John's Jesus says "You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world" (8:23) – that overrides everything.

(to be continued)

 

[wil]

What a cliff hanger...or is it just a teaser title.

Either way...never perused substack...should I? Do i have to?

 

[Thomas]

What a cliff hanger...or is it just a teaser title.

Either way...never perused substack...should I? Do i have to?

No. It's behind a paywall.

 

[Thomas]

Continued:

So, two nativity stories, they disagree on details, and one of them is rather implausible on the when, where, and why of Jesus’s birth.

The other is not much better.

Matthew's story of magi coming from Persia to visit the infant Jesus, who escapes Herod’s wrath and flees down to Egypt to come up again, does echo Moses – a child who escapes a murderous king, goes down to Egypt, then comes back as an agent of God.

On their return, after Herod has died, Matthew has the family relocate to Nazareth. The text reasons the move from Bethlehem to Nazareth as a precaution against Herod's son Archelaus (2:22), who might continue to hunt for the child. But Antipas, also Herod's son, ruled in Galilee, and by all accounts Antipas was an even more political animal than his father. The narrative in Matthew 2 weaves in no less than four prophecies into the space of 10 verses, the last being "And coming he dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was said by prophets: That he shall be called a Nazarene" (2:23).

If Luke tries too hard to get Jesus to Bethlehem, Matthew is struggling to explain why Jesus becomes associated with Nazareth. The historically simpler answer is that Jesus was born and raised in Nazareth, and that the Bethlehem story was a later tradition, to make Jesus fulfill the oracle from Micah and tick the relevant boxes. As son of Joseph, he qualifies as a Davidide, but evidently there were tensions regarding the precise fulfilment of prophecy.

+++

Was Jesus and his family Davidides? Scholars are skeptical. Tracing a genealogy over 1,000 years was as hard in the 1st century CE as it is today. Matthew's genealogy disagrees with Luke's – I was taught that Matthew's was Joseph's line, Luke's was Mary's – but both Matthew and Luke's are each attributed to Joseph, and in both, Jesus' relationship to Joseph is one of an adoptive stepfather. A belief in Mary as a Davidide does not emerge until the 2nd century CE, in the Protoevangelium of James.

This apocryphal text gives us a lot of how we think about the virginal conception and birth stories, as well as later Mariological traditions popular among Christians. It's the foundation of the nativity story in the Quran. The text was never considered canonical, and it's proof of Mary's virginity after the birth seems offensive to mine eyes, especially as it was never a requirement of the miraculous births of the Hebrew Scriptures. Mary's cousin Elizabeth, mother of the Baptist, is an example of miraculous birth – she was considered too old to conceive – but there is no implication that John was the fruit of something other than the usual method of procreation. (And why ever would anyone even bother to question whether the hymen is still intact after the birth?)

Ancient peoples frequently claimed divine, heroic and other kinds of ancestry for themselves all the time. Whether these claims are actually true, whether the people who made these claims believed they were true, and whether they were publicly accepted as true, are all separate issues.

Some scholars, like Bart Ehrman, seem not to get this when they evaluate whether Jesus was a Davidide. That is to say, it does not matter if Jesus really was a descendant of David, anymore than it matters if Jewish priests were actually descendants of Aaron and Levi: all of our sources about Jesus, including Paul, think he’s a Davidide, and this implies that people at least thought he was one.

Jesus was publicly acclaimed as messiah prior to his crucifixion, and was crucified as a messianic claimant, specifically in a royal-Davidic mode. It is quite possible that Jesus' ancestry to David was accepted by some but challenged by others, who found his Galilean origins in Nazareth unbecoming the dignity of a Davidic messiah. His family may have passed down a fairly long tradition of this descent – who’s to say? Joseph's family may have been regarded as of Davidic descent, and so might Mary's. Galilee was resettled by zealous Jewish families in the Hasmonean period, and several of the towns built there bear messianic names (Natsarit itself, Nazareth, is from netser, 'branch', a reference to the Davidic "branch" of Isaiah 11:1); several of these families may have cherished stories of royal descent. Joseph, in marrying a local girl, may well have married someone of a similar or shared family background.

Jesus' plausibly Davidic credentials don't help the historicity of either Matthew or Luke. In both cases, asserting Jesus' Davidide status would have been the impetus for a Bethlehem nativity, a narrative deeply connecting him with David and the messianic tradition, and of anticipating and/or responding to complaints about Jesus' qualifications to be a messiah in the Davidic mode.

continued ...

 

[wil]

No. It's behind a paywall.

There is one reason for me to avoid the other is you...you and this fantastic thread. Your education and abilities of rehashing and Synopsis in such a way to allow folks like me to absorb are far more worthy than anything I could share.

Idk how much of this is virtually verbatim cut and paste and how much is your analysis of what you've read...and that hardly matters, totally intriguing read which I appreciate.

I like a lot about Barts books, but as I said before regarding the debate between he and bishop spong at lyceum you've totally identified why I prefer Jack. Bart discovered the inconsistencies and after decades of Bible study the lies and misinformation from previous preachers and teachers upset him so he "threw the baby out with the bath water". Where ss Sponge accepted human frailty and ego and realized it was developed long before scripture was and scripture was replete with it...but there was essence in both the old and new testaments worth their weight in gold in modern daily life.

I anxiously await the next chapter...and so wish you were in evolved in that discussion with Bart and Jack and rather than me gleaning from the actual discussion I would be able to read your thoughts and cliff notes on the discussion!

 

[Thomas]

Continued:

A shared element of the nativity stories is that Jesus' virginal conception establishes Jesus as Son of God.

Paul, Mark and John all also believe Jesus is Son of God, and Paul and John have higher Christologies than the others, but none mention of a virgin birth. So a virgin birth narrative is not the only way to attribute divine sonship to Jesus. This could serve as an argument in the story's historical favour. Mt and Lk had other options, but chose this one. Could it be that they did because they had reason to think it happened? It might be that the virgin birth is an example of the criterion of embarrassment, and implies the veracity of the event, in the style of Tertullian’s Credo quia absurdum?

Why spin up some virgin birth narrative when there were other, less bizarre routes to declaring Jesus' sonship?

Stories of miraculous conceptions and births for demigods, heroes and divine humans were both widespread and normative in the Ancient Near East. The virgin birth narrative is not out of place in the literature and landscape of the religious world of antiquity.

The Hebrew Scriptures describes a few miraculous births. Mt and Lk both refer to these stories – in Genesis, Isaac is miraculously conceived and born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age. There's sufficient reason to suspect that HaShem is the father of Isaac. When the angel tells Matthew's Joseph that τέξεται δὲ υἱὸν καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν, (1:21 "And she will bring forth a son, and thou shall call his name Jesus), the formula is not only a reference to LXX Isaiah 7:14, καὶ τέξεται υἱόν καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Εμμανουηλ, but also LXX Genesis 17:19, τέξεταί σοι υἱόν καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ισαακ ("And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac"), and in the story of the birth of Samson, when the Angel of the Lord tells Samson's mother, καὶ οὐ τέτοκας καὶ ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξεις καὶ τέξῃ υἱόν (LXX Judges 13:3 "Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son"), the only thing missing is the name.

Samuel has a somewhat miraculous birth, as Hannah his mother was barren, but her prayers were answered and she bore a son. Early Jewish exegesis adduced special births of this kind to the likes of Noah and Moses. So, while the virgin birth is unique to the Gospels, a Jewish hero with a miraculous birth story was well established in Greco-Roman Judaism. Mt and Lk are participating in a literary trope well known to Jewish writers, and this puts their infancy narratives into a context that makes them less likely to be reporting objective events and more likely to be weaving a rich literary account of Jesus’s early life that would be enticing to readers of Jewish scripture, and would signal something of what was to follow.

Broader still, in the wider Near Eastern and Greco-Roman world, there is a vast array of cults to and stories about gods cavorting with humans and producing demigods, heroes, and other divine, or quasi-divine, persons. From Gilgamesh on, to Herakles, Achilles, Aeneas; Romulus and Remus, Alexander, Julius Caesar and Octavian, ANE and Greco-Roman cultures were open to claims of divine parentage, both mythological or historical. The ancients evolved philosophical understandings of divine births that 'defanged' their mythic tales of divine rape/seduction by making them accounts of divine pneuma, rather than semen, as the impregnating agent in the human mothers. Ln like manner, scholars reckon that in the original versions of miraculous birth, Yahweh featured as the father, later displaced by angels as intermediary. Genesis 4:1 says "And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord"; Yahweh may originally have been the father of Isaac, and almost certainly the original father of Samson.

Contrary to later Christian apologetics, Mt and Lk have a divine birth because they know their audience. Ancient Jews valued those kinds of stories for Jewish heroes, and Ancient Jews valued those stories because ancient people generally valued them. A divine birth story undergirds Jesus' claim to divine sonship for Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike, such things are expected of the sons of God. Christian exegetes drew on the continuity of trope to emphasise Jesus' legitimacy as Son of God. Justin Martyr points out that Christians claim nothing different for Jesus from what the Greeks already believe of Herakles or Dionysos (1 Apol. 21.1-3).

continued ...

 

[Thomas]

Continued ...

On all of these grounds a historian, doing history, would be inclined to dismiss the virgin birth as history. The sources are not unified in affirming it, and the sources that do share a virgin birth story are late and don't agree on it either. Mt and Lk also have a clear motive, rhetorically, literarily, and theologically, to adduce a virgin birth – to underline that Jesus is Son of David and Son of God – though clearly these beliefs are not dependent on a virgin birth; in fact, writers with higher Christologies than either of them don’t have one.

History is about establishing probability, plausibility and possibility from its sources. Whether miracles are possible or not is a philosophical and theological question, and one separate from whether a particular miracle has actually occurred. History can't decide if miracles do or don't happen, that's outside the scope of history as a discipline. History can help, however, in establishing the probability of a miracle.

On that basis, history cannot rule out the virgin birth.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke, like all the New Testament texts, are exactly that – they are testament, attestations to truths of a theological nature, not a record of an historical actuality.

In saying, therefore, that the virgin birth is theology, not history, it's not a question of whether it happened or not. The blunt answer is, we don't know, and we can't know. History is not the past itself, but a logical reconstruction, on the basis of evidence and inquiry, always subject to the possibility of misreading. No honest historian can deny that. Therefore we should not treat history’s word as final in all instances.

Nor, on the other hand, can we treat theological claims as proofs of historical ones.

An end.

 

[Thomas]

...and so wish you were in evolved in that discussion with Bart and Jack and rather than me gleaning from the actual discussion I would be able to read your thoughts and cliff notes on the discussion!

Yeah, but you know me, there'd be nods and smiles, but so much frustration and annoyance! I'd have probably spilt my coffee all over my notes right at the end, and ruined the lot.

Then I'd have to reconstruct them, from memory ... and ... oh dear, round and round we go!

 

[wil]

Well that is all well and good. But now that that review has an end...where does Thomas end? Toward Bart (the facts of the misleading symoptics with a bent toward the movement is greater than truth disappointment or leaning toward Spong (the rest of the stories are worthy despite innacuracies)?

 

[TheLightWithin]

in Genesis, Isaac is miraculously conceived and born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age. There's sufficient reason to suspect that HaShem is the father of Isaac.

I don't think I'd ever heard that!

 

[Qbit]

...in Genesis, Isaac is miraculously conceived and born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age. There's sufficient reason to suspect that HaShem is the father of Isaac.

Imagine Jesus being reincarnated seven times, in a 'womb/furnace of earth', to be purified enough to take on the challenge of the eighth and final incarnation. Yes, it sounds like blasphemy to some. To others, it is a Revelation.

Psalms 12:6 - The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

The above is a reincarnation verse whether you accept it or not. Isaac may have been one of those incarnations...

Revelation 12:5 - And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

Revelation 12:5 is about Sarah birthing Issac, yet he is caught up to the throne to 'rule all nations'.

Now why would Jesus have seven spirits instead of one like everyone else?

Revelation 5:6 - And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

Was he born seven times? Did he keep all of those spirits in one body? Did he retain his past life memories? Sounds like the answer is yes to all.

Meanwhile, every time Satan reincarnates, he gets a new head, not a new eye. In other words, he gets a memory wipe each time. Seven heads = seven reincarnations. His spirits are divided...

Mark 3:25 - And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

Going back to your quote...

Who did Abraham meet just before this verse?

Genesis 15:1 - After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

After what things? This...

Genesis 14:18-19 - And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:

Nobody seems to connect the two events. Melchizedek was instrumental in the process of Abram becoming Abraham and being given the Star Seed blessing.

Genesis 15:4-5 - And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

The two events are fundamentally tied to each other.

 

[Qbit]

...John's Jesus says "You are from beneath, I am from above...

Beneath what? If Jesus is standing in front of you, then 'beneath' is 'down there'. As in Hell...

Psalms 139:15 - My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

We all come from 'beneath', from the 'lowest parts of the earth'. How did we get there?

 

[Qbit]

History can help, however, in establishing the probability of a miracle.

It would be a miracle if "scholars" understood the birth of Jesus as being birthed from the lower parts of the earth...

Ephesians 4:9 - Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

Now look at the verse with proper interpretation and exegesis.

Jesus first descended from Heaven. You know this!

John 3:13 - And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

Now that he ascended... Do you see it? Similar verse as Ephesians 4:9. He 'came down' from Heaven. How?

This...

"...he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?"

Do you get it? Jesus *first* descended into the womb of Mary, the 'lower parts of the earth'.

Yet, some call it Hell!!!!!

 

[Thomas]

Imagine Jesus being reincarnated seven times ...

Jesus wasn't reincarnated, He was resurrected – and He only needed to do it once.

"... flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 15:50).

You're missing the Pauline distinction is between a σῶμα ψυχικόν (soma psychikon), a body given life by psyché, the 'soul' or organic 'life-principle' and a σῶμα πνευματικόν (soma pneumatikon), a body that is constituted from an entirely deathless spirit, pneuma.

St Paul goes on to draw out the distinction. The resurrected body is neither resuscitation nor reincarnation of a material body one has in the
fallen world, but a radically different kind of being.

Revelation 12:5 is about ...

The Book of Revelation tends to be about whatever people read into it.

 

[Thomas]

Beneath what? If Jesus is standing in front of you, then 'beneath' is 'down there'. As in Hell...

We all come from 'beneath', from the 'lowest parts of the earth'. How did we get there?

These texts should be understood in the context in which they are written.

The Ancient Jews, like many cultures, believed themselves as being born into a realm somewhere beneath the heavens, and above the realm of the dead – to the Jews it was Sheol. The Jews do not believe in Hell as we do, and certainly don't conflate this life with that one.

 

[Thomas]

It would be a miracle if "scholars" understood the birth of Jesus as being birthed from the lower parts of the earth...

LOL, it would be a mistake!

Now look at the verse with proper interpretation and exegesis.
Jesus first descended from Heaven. You know this!

OK ...

He 'came down' from Heaven. How?

Born of a woman – the topic of this thread – as John says, "And the Logos became flesh ... " (John 1:14).

Do you get it? Jesus *first* descended into the womb of Mary, the 'lower parts of the earth'.
Yet, some call it Hell!!!!!

In which case they're conflating two meanings.

Biblically, the phrase "lowest parts of the earth" (Hebrew: בְּתַחְתִּיּוֹת אָרֶץ tachti erets; Greek: τὰ κατώτερα μέρη τῆς γῆς ta katōtera merē tēs gēs) is an idiomatic phrase, the meaning determined by context.

It means the underworld, Sheol or Hades, as in Psalm 63:9; used metaphorically it means the womb in Psalm 139:15, signifying both the hidden, mysterious process of human formation, and God’s intimate knowledge of a person even before their birth – but it does not mean that the womb is synonymous with Hell.

(It can also simply mean lowlands or valleys, as in Isaiah 44:23.)

+++

In Ephesians we read: "Which is why it says, "Having ascended on high, he took a host of captives prisoner, he gave gifts to human beings." Now, what does this "he ascended" mean if he did not [first] descend into the earth's lower parts?" (4:8-9)
The '[first]' is bracketed because it's not there in the citation by Irenaeus, and scholars believe it is a later addition for clarification.

But there are still two ways to read the text:
The first is that He descended from a higher realm to this lower one, was born of a woman, was crucified and died, then was resurrected and ascended into heaven.

The second is an interpretation, from the 2nd century on, that in the three days He was (supposedly) in the tomb, Jesus descended into Hell and freed the captives there.

This, "the Harrowing of Hell", is a theological exegesis that relies primarily on:
1 Peter 3:18–19 "For Christ also suffered on account of sins, once and for all, a just man on behalf of the unjust, so that he might lead you to God, being put to death in flesh and yet being made alive in spirit, whereby he also journeyed and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison," and and 1 Peter 4:6 "Because it was for this that the good tidings were proclaimed to the dead, that though judged in flesh according to human beings they might live in spirit according to God."

 

[Carlos]

Perhaps the so called "New Testament" is too much "gentilistic" (new word that defines a written style tending to be inclined to gentile influence).

I have no idea who was the first one inventing that Jesus walked on earth for about thirty three years and a half.

But, let's give credit to such numerical amount.

He dies at eve of Passover. This means he was born thirty years and six months before that Passover. If Passover when he died was at beginning of April, this means he was born in the beginning of the month of October. If Passover when he died was at the end of March, then he was born at the end of September. Simple mathematics.

No matter if he was born at the end of September or beginning of October, there is a scriptural feast in those days, which is the feast of tents. A feast that last seven days.

According to the scriptures, the Israelite were to travel to the Temple or a designated place to praise their god three times a year, and the feast of tents was one of those times. This means, all men to travel to Jerusalem or to the designated place.

The Roman ruler, no matter who was in charge, could have used, in that year, the opportunity to make a census, due to the presence of all Israelite men at one place in the same week. No wonder why hostels and similar places were full of visitors, not because a call from a Roman authority but a call from the scriptures.

Some push this idea much much further. A Jesus born on the first day of such feast of tents, and get circumcised at the eight day, a day that is also another feast "the last and great day". The meaning of those feasts also help to decipher the future events prepared for humanity.

Too much coincidence, but such is what the New Testament is about, yes, that kind of coincidences to make the character Jesus the perfect candidate to be the Messiah.

When you ignore the "gentilistic" narrative found in the New Testament and use the scriptural "coincidences" instead, there you go, you will have your Messiah fulfilling the scriptures since birth.

And, his name? Yeshu, of course, because Yeshu means Salvation of Yah, because "Yah is the only one who saves", not Yeshu the Messiah but the father Yah the one who saves. Another symbolism found in the name to reinforce his mission to bring people towards his father. His name shall be Yeshu because Yah (the father) shall/will save his people.

And about the virgin woman conceiving and giving birth, that of course is possible, but a woman continuing a virgin after giving birth, that... that brings to a looooong unnecessary debate.

 

[Thomas]

Perhaps the so called "New Testament" is too much "gentilistic" (new word that defines a written style tending to be inclined to gentile influence).

Then again, perhaps not.

This means he was born thirty years and six months before that Passover.

How d'you work that?

The Roman ruler, no matter who was in charge, could have used, in that year, the opportunity to make a census, due to the presence of all Israelite men at one place in the same week. No wonder why hostels and similar places were full of visitors, not because a call from a Roman authority but a call from the scriptures.

Could have. Which year did you have in mind?

Some push this idea much much further...

Who, exactly?

And about the virgin woman conceiving and giving birth, that of course is possible, but a woman continuing a virgin after giving birth, that... that brings to a looooong unnecessary debate.

I think so ...