Virgin birth of Jesus

==Cultural context==
{{Further|Miraculous births}}
Matthew 1:18 says that Mary was betrothed (engaged) to Joseph.{{sfn|Vermes|2006a|p=216}} She would have been twelve years old or a little less at the time of events described in the gospels, as under Jewish law betrothal was only possible for minors, which for girls meant aged under twelve or prior to the first mense, whichever came first.{{sfn|Vermes|2006a|pp=72, 216}} According to custom the wedding would take place twelve months later, after which the groom would take his bride from her father's house to his own.{{sfn|Vermes|2006b|p=72}} A betrothed girl who had sex with a man other than her husband-to-be was considered an adulteress.{{sfn|Vermes|2006b|p=72}} If tried before a tribunal, both she and the young man would be stoned to death, but it was possible for her betrothed husband to issue a document of repudiation, and this, according to Matthew, was the course Joseph wished to take prior to the visitation by the angel.{{sfn|Vermes|2006b|p=73}} 

The most likely cultural context for both Matthew and Luke is [[Jewish Christian]] or mixed [[Gentile Christian|Gentile]]/Jewish-Christian circles rooted in Jewish tradition.{{sfn|Hurtado|2005|p=328}} These readers would have known that the [[Roman Senate]] had declared [[Julius Caesar]] a god and his successor [[Augustus]] to be ''divi filius'', the [[Son of God]] before he became a god himself on his death in AD 14; this remained the pattern for later emperors.{{sfn|Hornblower|Spawforth|2014|p=688}} Imperial divinity was accompanied by suitable miraculous birth stories, with Augustus being fathered by the god Apollo while his human mother slept, and her human husband being granted a dream in which he saw the sun rise from her womb, and inscriptions even described the news of the divine imperial birth as ''evangelia'', the gospel.{{sfn|Borg|2011|pp=41-42}} The virgin birth of Jesus was thus a direct challenge to a central claim of Roman imperial theology, namely the divine conception and descent of the emperors.{{sfn|Borg|2011|p=41}} 

Matthew's genealogy, tracing Jesus's Davidic descent, was intended for Jews, while his virgin birth story was intended for a Greco-Roman audience familiar with virgin birth stories and stories of women impregnated by gods.{{sfn|Lachs|1987|pp=5-6}} The ancient world had no understanding that male semen and female ovum were both needed to form a fetus; instead they thought that the male contribution in reproduction consisted of some sort of formative or generative principle, while Mary's bodily fluids would provide all the matter that was needed for Jesus's bodily form, including his male sex.{{sfn|Lincoln|2013|pp=195–196, 258}} This cultural milieu was conducive to miraculous birth stories – they were common in biblical tradition going back to [[Abraham]] and [[Sarah]] (and the conception of [[Isaac]]).{{sfn|Schowalter|1993|p=790}}

Such stories are less frequent in Judaism, but there too was a widespread belief in angels and divine intervention in births.{{sfn|Casey|1991|p=152}} Theologically, the two accounts mark the moment when Jesus becomes the [[Son of God (Christianity)|Son of God]], i.e., at his birth, in distinction to Mark, for whom the Sonship dates from [[Baptism of Jesus|Jesus's baptism]],<ref>{{bibleverse|Mark|1:9–13}}</ref> and [[Paul the Apostle|Paul]] and the pre-Pauline Christians for whom Jesus becomes the Son only at the [[Resurrection of Jesus|Resurrection]] or even the [[Second Coming]].{{sfn|Loewe|1996|p=184}}

Tales of virgin birth and the impregnation of mortal women by deities were well known in the 1st-century Greco-Roman world,{{sfn|Lachs|1987|p=6}} and [[Second Temple]] Jewish works were also capable of producing accounts of the appearances of [[angel]]s and miraculous births for ancient heroes such as [[Melchizedek]], [[Noah]], and [[Moses]].{{sfn|Casey|1991|p=152}} Luke's virgin birth story is a standard plot from the Jewish scriptures, as for example in the annunciation scenes for Isaac and for [[Samson]], in which an angel appears and causes apprehension, the angel gives reassurance and announces the coming birth, the mother raises an objection, and the angel gives a sign.{{sfn|Kodell|1992|p=939}} Nevertheless, "plausible sources that tell of virgin birth in areas convincingly close to the gospels' own probable origins have proven extremely hard to demonstrate".{{sfn|Welburn|2008|p=2}} Similarly, while it is widely accepted that there is a connection with [[Zoroastrian]] (Persian) sources underlying Matthew's story of the [[biblical Magi|Magi]] (the wise men from the East) and the [[Star of Bethlehem]], a wider claim that Zoroastrianism formed the background to the infancy narratives has not achieved acceptance.{{sfn|Welburn|2008|p=2}}