Main point of the story is an Anglican Archbishop stating that some of the elements of the popularized portrayal of the Nativity may indeed be legend. Such as: the actual date of Jesus's birth, the visitation of 3 Kings, probably no asses or oxen in the stable.
Christians who are rooted in Scripture don't have a real problem with the contesting of those items: they aren't detailed in the account and are not essential doctrine necessary for salvation. It will come as more of a surprise to folks who are only familiar with the traditional portrayal.
However, it's in the transcript of the interview from which the story gets its genesis (no pun intended) that a truly amazing confession is contained: the Archbishop waffles and does not affirm exactly what his belief is concerning the Virgin Birth. Here's the text (SM is the interviewer, ABC is the Archbishop):
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SM The Virgin Mary next door to him?
ABC We know his mother's name was Mary, that's one of the things all the gospels agree about, and the two gospels that tell the story have the story of the virgin birth and that's something I'm committed to as part of what I've inherited.
SM You were a prominent part of a Spectator survey in the current issue which headlined' Do you believe in the virgin birth?' there are some people in this survey who would say they were Christian who don't have a problem if you don't believe in the Virgin birth;' how important it is it to believe in that bit?
ABC I don't want to set it as a kind of hurdle that people have to get over before they, you know, be signed up;, but I think quite a few people that as time goes on, they get a sense, a deeper sense of what the virgin birth is about. I would say that of myself. About thirty years ago I might have said I wasn't too fussed about it - now I see it much more as dovetailing with the rest of what I believe about the story and yes.
SM Christopher Hitchens and many others make the point that isn't the translation for young woman rather than virgin? Does it have to be seen as virgin; might it be a mistranslation?
ABC It is… well, what's happening there one of the gospels quotes a prophecy that a virgin will conceive a child. Now the original Hebrew doesn't have the word virgin, it's just a young woman, but that's the prophecy that's quoted from the Old Testament in support of the story which is, in any case, about a birth without a human father, so it's not that it rests on mistranslation; St Matthew's gone to his Greek version of the bible and said "Oh, 'virgin'; sounds like the story I know," and put it in.
===So it sounds like no big deal if you do or don't believe in the Virgin Birth if you're the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams.
To put it in colloquial terms, if you're not Superman, you can't leap tall buildings in a single bound, or be more powerful than a locomotive. Who you are determines what you can do.
And in this case if Jesus had two human parents then He also was under the curse of sin and liable to pay for His own sin debt, making it impossible for Him to pay for the sins of others.
We see the results in this denomination. There is a sitting bishop that is an open homosexual. And that's because at some point is was OK to have a homosexual as a deacon, and priest, and every other office between. It's become a religion and there is no life in religion itself. Life comes from fellowship with the Creator.
That's the result of systematic denial of what Scripture says for whatever reason we may have. To quote Mark Twain: "It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."
Jesus said in John 6:63 - "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life."
What I believe: the account found in Scripture of the birth of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, including the multiple references about Mary being a virgin.
What do you believe about the birth of Jesus and why? Why not?
