Was there really a virgin birth in the Bible? No and yes, in that order.
The virgin birth of Jesus to Mary is a cornerstone of Christian belief, and has been for nearly two thousand years. Yet for all its centrality, it remains a matter of controversy not just because of the boldness of the claim that a virgin woman conceived and gave birth, but because of two different kinds of confusion about the text. The result is that some people (wrongly) claim that both the Old Testament and the New Testament refer to Jesus’s birth to a virgin Mary, while other people (wrongly) claim that the virgin birth is just a mistranslation. The truth is more nuanced and more interesting.
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