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Jesus’s Birth Stories Reveal Some of the Mysteries of Life

by Shirley Paulson, PhD

According to the Bible, Jesus’s birth is…well, different. Is that because he’s special, and this is a signal that we should treat him as not exactly human? Or is his birth story an unusually good example of how we humans should understand ourselves?

There are many references to ‘birth’ and ‘being born’ from ancient writings that lead me to ponder the second option. First, an example from the ancient Jewish text, Job:

A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, comes up like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last. (14:1,2  NRSVue)

But Jesus says we have other options to consider. As he told Nicodemus, in order to experience the realm of God, he needed to be reborn from above. (John 3:3, Scholars Version)

What does it mean to be born at all?

Most of us may think, as Nicodemus did, that it is impossible to be born any way other than through the natural way we’re all familiar with. And yet, that doesn’t seem to be a very satisfying answer if it leads us to Job’s assessment that we’re “full of trouble” and then just die away.

Many of the ancient writers strive for answers that lead to a deeper meaning of life. In one of the Nag Hammadi texts, The Stranger’s Book (Allogenes), we recognize this struggle to understand something more:

“My son, let’s pray to God…to the Father of all the ages, to send us a spirit of knowledge to reveal the mysteries, so that we may know ourselves; specifically, where we’ve come from, where we’re going, and what we need to do to live.”

I think the stories of Jesus’s birth and his own teachings about birth provoke these kinds of questions. Where do we come from? Where are we going? Where did Jesus come from? Where was he going?

The biblical accounts of Jesus’s birth

Out of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, only two of them tell us anything about Jesus’s birth. In the Gospel of Matthew, we have only a very short answer to the question about how he was conceived:

While his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before she moved in with him, she was found to be pregnant by the holy spirit. (1:18, Scholars Version)

The Gospel of Luke tells us more about the purpose of this kind of conception:

In the sixth month the heavenly messenger Gabriel was sent from God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a girl betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. The girl’s name was Mary. He entered and said to her “Greetings, highly favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was shaken by these words and wondered what this greeting could mean. The heavenly messenger said to her, “Don’t be afraid, Mary. You see, you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.” . . .  And Mary said to the messenger, “How can this be since I’m still a virgin?” The messenger replied, “The holy spirit will hover over you, and the power of the Most High will cast its shadow on you. This is why the child to be born will be holy, and be called son of God.”

But then the Gospel of John—which does not say anything special about Jesus’s birth—describes the connection between the divine origin of God’s children and the kind of life they lead.

He (John, the Baptist) came only to testify about the light. Genuine light—the kind that enlightens everyone—was coming into the world. . . . To all who embrace it, to those who believed in it, it gave the right to become children of God. They were born not from blood, not from physical desire, not from male desire; they were born out of God. (1:13, Scholars Version)

These biblical references to the contrast between birth from human sex and birth from a divine source draw us back to the original question I posed: Is Jesus’s unusual birth a signal that we should treat him as not exactly human? Or is he an unusually good example of how we humans should understand ourselves?

Considering our divine origin from extracanonical writings

Here are a few samples of the many references from extracanonical writings on the subject of divine conception and birth for those who welcome it.

From the Gospel of Philip:

The heavenly man has more children than a man on earth. If the offspring of Adam are many and die, how many more are the offspring of perfect beings who do not die and are born each second? . . . By a kiss the perfect conceive and give birth. That is why we kiss. From the grace in others we conceive. (Chapter 28) 

From the Odes of Solomon: 

The holy spirit opened her womb and mixed the milk of the Father’s two breasts.
And she gave the mixture to the age, without their knowing, and those who receive it in its fullness are of God’s right hand.

The young woman’s womb, like a bird net, caught it, and she received conception and gave birth. (Ode 19)

And one more example from the Secret Revelation of John illustrates the idea of a divine conception:

In every way It (“the virginal Spirit”) gazes upon Its image, seeing it in the spring of the Spirit. . . And Its thinking became a thing. . . And It gazed into Barbelo (Mother) in the pure light. . . and she conceived from It. . . This was only-begotten of the Mother-Father who had appeared.” (6:11-13; 7:1-5)

When we see how often the concept of birth in general was discussed in the context of a divine action, we may gain a wider appreciation for the meaning of Jesus’s spiritual conception. It seems to turn the focus toward the spiritual perfection and divine purpose of the Father/Mother/Creator of all.

Celebrating the birth of Jesus can give hope to humanity that we are able to understand ourselves as something beyond “full of trouble,” coming up like flowers and withering, or fleeing like a shadow that does not last (Job). Jesus’s birth story may be the answer to our prayers that he has “revealed the mysteries, so that we may know ourselves; specifically, where we’ve come from, where we’re going, and what we need to do to live” (Allogenes).