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It’s interesting that the number of scientists that identify as atheists varies depending on their discipline. The highest number of believers are in the social sciences whereas the fewest are in biology and physics. This makes sense to me because they are the two sciences that’s findings are constantly contradicting religious dogma.
Sure seems like the biological sciences are knocking at the door of parthenogenesis which will affirm the Immaculate Conception.
Parthenogenesis happens all the time. It occurs in all sorts of invertebrates and even some vertebrates like varanid lizards. But unless Jesus was a rotifer or Komodo dragon then parthenogenesis wouldn’t explain the virgin birth. Besides, organisms that employ the XX, XY chromosome system (as humans do) and undergo parthenogenesis can only produce a clone of the mother because no Y chromosome is present. That means Jesus had to be a woman.
“The Virgin Birth” is a translation error. We know it’s impossible from a biological point of view — at least for humans. It was a mistranslation of Hebrew scripture (Isaiah), which used “almah” (young woman) not “bethulah” (virgin). The Septuagint mistranslates “young woman” into the Greek “parthenos” (virgin).
In order to claim divine parentage for Jesus, the gospel of Matthew posits the fulfillment of a prophecy which was never about a “virgin birth” in the first place. As in, the entire thing is built on an error of translation.
It also shows how important Greek myths were to the theology of early Christianity. The Greek gods, especially Zeus, were always impregnating mortal girls, thus producing demi-gods — like Heracles, Perseus and Achilles.
The dead and resurrected messiah also draws on Greek and earlier myths going back to at least the Egyptians. Deities being torn apart and brought back to life again, like Osiris and Dionysus. This appears to be a reflection of actual human sacrificial practices of ritual slaughtering of kings — to protect a tribe, a kingdom or produce a better harvest, etc. etc. Eventually, they got wise, and no longer allowed themselves to actually be killed, but were instead, symbolically sacrificed and then reborn from under the skirts of priestesses, usually.
We find echoes of this in myths and thousands of years later, like the Arthurian myth of the Fisher King, the Holy Grail, the Waste land and so forth. The king being tied directly to the earth. His failing health or loss of limb meaning meaning the tribe or kingdom was in grave danger of collapse. In that story, the king’s being pierced by a spear is a euphemism for castration . . . which was perhaps the ultimate in connections between king and country.
From Ritual to Romance, by Jessie L Weston, was one of the great early books studying this. T.S. Eliot drew heavily from it for his great poem, the Wasteland.
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