Diarmaid MacCulloch: Sex, Sense And Christianity

[Kellii]

@Kevin_Levites

I intend no offense, but I’ve always wondered if Mary’s “virgin” birth was a narrative pushed by her significant others to cover up rape or incest, or perhaps that she was a prostitute and got knocked up.

After all, the alternative was probably getting stoned to death, and maybe her family forgave her and engineered a pious deception to cover up a youthful sexual indiscretion. This might have been particularly important if incest was involved.

Any explanation is way more believable than she was magically impregnated by a supernatural being. She certainly would have had incentive to lie about it. Either Joseph was just one of the gullible fools, or he understood the situation and pretended otherwise. Either way I think he was the hero of this story as he saved her and her baby’s life. Of course if he was the actual father he’d have had his own reasons to lie. A whole religion and mythology was founded on a soap opera plot.