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Analyzing Rodney Stark\u2019s treatment of the virgin birth of Jesus in his review of Stark\u2019s latest book, The Victory of Reason <\/em> (TNR January 6, 2006), Alan Wolfe writes, \u201cMary\u2019s virgin birth has what [Charles] Freeman calls a \u2018shaky\u2019 scriptural basis, given that the Gospels mention her siblings and that one of them, John, does not mention her at all.\u201d <\/p>\n Wolfe also got it wrong when he said scholar before saying that the New Testament references to the virgin birth use \u201cthe word parthenos, which could also mean young girl, rather than the Hebrew almah.\u201d The linguistic reality is the opposite: The Hebrew term is the broader of the two. <\/p>\n Not having read Stark\u2019s book, Wolfe may have scored some points with his review. As he presents Stark\u2019s arguments, some of them do sound rather silly. But I was left wondering about Wolfe\u2019s competence to review the book: A reviewer as brashly dismissive of a book as Wolfe is of Stark\u2019s should be more careful to get things right himself. <\/p>\n But what really chaffs Wolfe \u2013 and he is chaffed, make no mistake, using words like \u201cugly,\u201d \u201canachronistic,\u201d and \u201cabsurd\u201d to characterize Stark, and concluding that the book is \u201cthe worst book by a social scientist I have ever read\u201d \u2013 appears to be the \u201cscandal of particularity.\u201d He\u2019s happy with Mark Noll, Grant Wacker, or George Marsden, becuase they behave (in Wolfe\u2019s view) like good secularists within the academy \u2013 \u201cas scholars they must act differently within the academy than they do in the pews.\u201d Stark, who by his own testimony is not even a Christian, is not so politely reticent: Instead of writing about the virtues and cultural contributions of \u201creligion,\u201d he writes about \u201cChristianity.\u201d Shame on him. And how dare he! <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Analyzing Rodney Stark\u2019s treatment of the virgin birth of Jesus in his review of Stark\u2019s latest book, The Victory of Reason (TNR January 6, 2006), Alan Wolfe writes, \u201cMary\u2019s virgin birth has what [Charles] Freeman calls a \u2018shaky\u2019 scriptural basis, given that the Gospels mention her siblings and that one of them, John, does not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology-christology"],"yoast_head":"\n
This is mystifying. What, for starters, would Mary\u2019s siblings have anything to do with her virginity? I suspect Wolfe meant Jesus\u2019 siblings, but this too is irrelevant, for, if the possibility of a virgin birth be granted, Mary could have borne Jesus while a virgin and later had other children normally. This is, in fact, what those Protestants who still confess a virgin birth believe. It is also unclear how Mary\u2019s absence from John\u2019s gospel could provide evidence for the virgin birth one way or the other. <\/p>\n