Jesus, the Unprecedented Human Being. Giosuè Ghisalberti
the baptismal water with the spirit ←33 | 34→descending on and in him and confirming his regeneration. Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, are both concerned with presenting his virgin birth – an event that has elicited innumerable, and often diametrically opposed, responses, easily dismissed by the historian and a motivation for the theologian who reflects on the being of God and his intentions. The historian dismisses; the theologian submits.
Using a peculiar metaphor, Vermes tells us that the nativity story is “a million miles away from fact and reality.”80 Indeed, it is out of this world; and distance has nothing to do with it. Vermes cannot concede that history as a category (as a discipline) is unable to contain the virgin birth. On the other hand, N.T. Wright’s ultimate conclusion on the belief in the virgin birth can still surprise – and not simply for the affirmation of theological faith. He concludes his chapter on the “virginal conception” with: “if that’s what God deemed appropriate, who am I to object?”81 A hermeneutic reader restrains himself here: speculating on God’s intentions seems, at the very least, precarious. Brown believes that “infancy stories,” whether they were pre-Gospel or composed by Matthew and Luke, were written so they could be made “the vehicle of the message that Jesus was the Son of God acting for the salvation of mankind.”82 Needless to say, the metaphysical complication of such a belief leaves this reader with nothing to rely on but the narrative and what it accomplishes. On the other hand, and with the certainty of the skeptic (and, perhaps, with a little too much confidence in historical knowledge), Lüdemann tells us that “the statement that Jesus was engendered by the Spirit and born of a virgin is a falsification of the historical facts.”83 An agnostic could never be so presumptuous.
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History and theology are both in extremis. They exhaust themselves with presuppositions and conclusions. Now that two prevailing traditions of history and theology have been briefly considered, one more concern needs to be addressed before turning to the narratives proper to interpret their significance. Whatever the merits of Bultmann’s demythology, and he remains important by stressing meaning over any myth or fact, he tells us that the idea of a divine generation from a virgin is “completely impossible” in the Old Testament and in Judaism. Therefore, he concludes, “it was first added in the transformation in Hellenism, where the idea of the generation of a king or hero from a virgin by the godhead was widespread.”84 By reclaiming Jesus back into a Hellenistic narrative tradition, he is thereby reduced to being a copy, a model, mimetic. Jesus’ virgin birth cannot be equated or compared; it neither reflects pre-existing mythologies on the supposed extraordinary births of certain individuals (i.e. the emperor Augustus, with all the pretensions of divine origin) nor can it be included in a prior tradition – actual or narrative. “If the virgin birth,” writes Machen, “was not a fact, the idea of the virgin birth certainly was; and as a fact it requires some explanation.”85 It is, above all, the idea that is of interest and requires neither an appeal to its historicity nor to its theological importance, much less being modeled on some pre-existing narrative – be it poetry, folk-tale, or saga. The virgin birth demands some imagination; the narrative is open to such a reading. Equally if not more important, the entire sequence of the virgin birth narratives require to be interpreted so as to recognize the consequences of Jesus’ birth and the events to take place, none more important than Luke’s two births (of John and Jesus) and the slaughter of the innocents in Matthew and the repercussions it will have for the life and death of Jesus.
The relation of dead children in Egypt to the re-emergence of the Jewish people was foundational; both are implicated in a binding relationship. Jesus’ birth will initiate a radical disassociation from the past, first by distinguishing two pregnancies (by Elizabeth and his mother Mary, the first as an analogue of Sarah’s pregnancy and Isaac’s birth, the second as absolutely independent of all prior history and returning to transform the past during Passover), and then by substituting himself, in death, as a revelation necessary for the future. If the freedom of Exodus was dependent on an all-encompassing death of children, ←35 | 36→Jesus will return to the scene of liberation and death not to confirm prophecy, as the narrative insists, but to reclaim the past in order to anticipate a wholly different future. Only Jesus dares to remember the night of the Exodus from Egypt; and only he can dedicate a moment of his life to recognizing the anguish of Egyptian mothers in mourning and the experience of freedom of the Jewish people long enslaved, and with a commemoration not sufficiently stressed by Matthew even though he must be commended for being the only one to include the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem. However, always intent on a prophetic justification, Matthew believes the flight and return to Egypt has been foretold: “this was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son”. ” (Matt. 2:15). Matthew relies on an interpretation of Hosea 11:1 to make Jesus’ sojourn in Egypt prophetic. “The quotations from Scripture in these stories were almost certainly introduced by Matthew.”86 By doing so, Matthew has neglected an absolutely crucial moment to occur much later in the future, when Jesus redeems the lives of the children who died on the night of the Exodus. The culpability of the Pharaoh and his people can no longer be imposed on the innocence of children. Jesus therefore relieves them of an undeserving death; he rescues all of them from out of their time and brings them into himself so that they will be able to accompany him during his own terrible night in the Garden of Gethsemane. Only the memory of dead children could console him as he struggled with the ordeal of an impending end.
The virgin birth has been, for obvious reasons, the subject of much debate and has exposed the vulnerability of commentators. A case in point, and one exemplary so as to be comparative: at the same time as Shenk, for example, writes that the virgin birth of Jesus means it is “a new birth for a new creation,” he then adds (and the two thoughts are incommensurable), that its purpose is “to ground our adoption into the Royal Family of Christ.”87 Jesus does not belong to a “Royal Family.” The meaning of the virgin birth, while certainly representing a “new creation,” should not be related to any prior tradition, and most certainly not one with any monarchical pretensions. The monarchical has no place in Jesus’ future world; all the kingdoms of the world are to be abolished as an archaic remnant of a time and history coming to an end. Monarchies are irrelevant even if the gospel writers cannot invent a vocabulary adequate to Jesus’ vision of the future ←36 | 37→and do so only with a “kingdom” or basileia. Matthew’s gospel will be in conflict with Jesus being a successor, someone who inherits, who becomes part of a line, a descendant. But nothing could be further from Jesus’ mind – because nothing could be more alien to him – than to view himself as part of what Tabor calls a “royal dynasty.” Tabor makes untenable claims. “He surely knew growing up that he and his brothers were male heirs of the royal line of King David and he would have been well aware of the significant messianic implications of this heritage.”88 The monarchical/messianic relationship cannot be imposed on Jesus since every single category used to define his life and teaching all must necessarily struggle to properly represent him since he defies any understanding that would limit his meaning. There is nothing more inappropriate than to impose monarchial ambitions on Jesus. His words must be heard and understood without equivocation. “My kingdom is not from this world” (John 18:36).
“The virgin birth is “myth,” in the highest and best sense of the word.”89
The myth or story is revealed as logos.
The two “myths” or stories in Luke and Matthew