Myth of the Nativity: The Virgin Birth Re-Examined by Andrew Welburn


Myth of the Nativity: The Virgin Birth Re-Examined
Title : Myth of the Nativity: The Virgin Birth Re-Examined
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 086315543X
ISBN-10 : 9780863155437
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : -
Publication : First published March 1, 2007

The conception and birth of Jesus is one of the most mysterious and challenging stories in the Gospels, surrounded by many signs and miracles. Is it possible to understand the Virgin Birth in a light that is both true to its origins and meaningful in our times? In this carefully argued study, Andrew Welburn says that we must reimagine the events of the Virgin Birth through the eyes of the Gospel writers. He explores many parallel stories and prototype characters, drawn from Jewish, Persian, Egyptian and Roman sources, which could have been known by them. Stories of unusual children with mysterious parenthood have, in fact, long inspired human beliefs and story-telling - an awareness often lost to modern orthodox Christianity. Welburn concludes that the Virgin Birth is part of a greater story, a synthesis of many traditions, and stands for, above all, a promise of spiritual rebirth.

Myth of the Nativity: The Virgin Birth Re-Examined Reviews

  • Arthur George

    This is a fascinating take on the notion of the virgin birth described in Matthew and Luke. In the field of mythology, it is already a commonplace to note, as Joseph Campbell and others did, that virginal or other abnormal births of hero figures such as Jesus and Buddha signify spiritual births/rebirths. Welburn, without even belaboring that basic idea, plunges headlong into the particular details of how that idea evolved in the cultural milieu of mystic Judaism, Gnosticism, Egyptian and Zoroastrian mythology, early Christian apocrypha, and the pagan traditions of the Greco-Roman world, as reflected in the particular mythological texts from each tradition. Welburn's presentation had me reaching out to read the various texts that he discusses as I followed his argument. It was particularly interesting how Welburn argued that Matthew and Luke operated from different perspectives yet settled on the same metaphor.