The Gospel Of Mark And The Virgin Birth

 

The Gospel Of Mark And The Virgin Birth

Brett A. Todd

Many years ago, I presented a theological paper at a major university that was originally titled, “What If…”  The ellipsis or the dot-dot-dot in full would read, “What If Jesus Was Crazy?”  Of course, no good standing Christian would want to imply that the son of God was a little deranged. Or not? The point of my paper, with all the textual and exegetical scholarly details, was that God holds all people; especially those with mental disabilities in high esteem and with great love. 

Okay, so what does this have to do with the virgin birth?  Actually, I think it has a lot to do with the idea of the virgin birth.  In the Gospel of Mark, there is an interesting story where Jesus’ own family thought Jesus had become crazy.  We are talking not only about Jesus’ siblings but also Jesus’ mother (See Sanders).  Not only did his family think he had gone crazy, but so did the scribes who it seems by all appearances to be waiting for Jesus with his family.  You can read the story yourself in Mark 3:19-27.

So what did they do?  According to this story, they tried to “restrain” him.  We are not told how they tried to restrain him, but they tried.  Were they going to wrestle Jesus down to the ground and tie him up?  Were they going to move him to an isolated island or bring him to someplace for help?  We don’t know, however, things took a serious turn for Jesus and his ministry.  Since we are not only talking about Jesus’ family thinking Jesus was crazy, but also Jewish Scribes, we might ask what the Jewish leaders had in mind.  This is what Jewish Mishnah (1st and 2nd c.) states:

He that has a familiar spirit” (such is the Python which speaks from his armpits), “and the soothsayer” (such is he that speaks with his mouth), these are [to be put to death] by stoning… (Danby translation, m. Sanh. 7.7)

  There is no question that Matthew and Luke, in our Bibles, believed in the virgin birth, but for Mark it’s different.  Not only doesn’t he have an infancy story to tell, but more significantly, I don’t believe Mark would have shared such a story that Jesus’ mother and siblings thought Jesus was crazy if they, especially Jesus’ mother, Mary, really believed Jesus was born of the virgin.  It would seem likely this is why Matthew and Luke didn’t borrow Mark’s story of Jesus being crazy for this very reason, they believed he was born of the virgin.  The theory of virgin birth and Mary, the mother of Jesus, thinking that her son had gone crazy did not mix too well for Matthew and Luke.

More than likely Matthew’s infancy story was to show the Jews that Jesus’ virgin birth was the fulfillment of the Jewish Scripture (Isaiah 7:14) and for Luke, who was writing to the Gentiles, that Jesus was literally the offspring of God, the true son of God (See Strauss and Ehrmann).  The Gospel of Mark, however, had no such notion of a virgin birth.

In the next article, we will talk about Mary and Joseph.