conceived miraculously, was raised to be holy, and had led a holy

life up until the time she was betrothed to Joseph.

In the account of James, Mary gives birth to Jesus before she and
Joseph reach Bethlehem to register for the census. After the birth, a
midwife named Salome gives Mary an internal exam and discovers
that her hymen is still intact. James’s gospel was probably written
70 to 80 years after the gospels of the New Testament.

This story later led to the official Roman Catholic doctrine that
Mary was a perpetual virgin, meaning that she never had sex. Mary
did not inherit the sin nature and did not participate in that act that
passes along the sin nature through intercourse.

The idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary has since caused

problems for people who read the Bible because, as we will see,
several passages in the New Testament mention the brothers and
sisters of Jesus.

Suggested Reading

Brown, The Birth of the Messiah.

———, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus.
Lecture 2: Was Jesus’s Mother a Virgin?

Meier, A Marginal Jew.

Questions to Consider

1. Do Matthew and Luke portray Jesus as born from a virgin for the same
reason or for different reasons?

2. Is there any way a historian can establish the probability of a virgin

birth?

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