Tracing the Idea of Supernatural Births

Scholars have long sought the origin of the concept of the virgin birth in comparative religions, where there is a wealth of material about miraculous births. Supernatural beginnings are claimed for Zarathustra, Buddha and Lao Tzu, all founders of religions. In the Mediterranean world it was said that the god Apollo begat men as varied as Plato, Pythagoras and Augustus. Zeus-Ammon was said to be the father of Alexander the Great. Such legends illustrate the tendency to explain the origins of heroic figures in supernatural terms, but they differ in important ways from the nativity stories of Matthew and Luke. The parallels, for example, consistently involve some sort of sexual union in which a divine male, in human or animal form, impregnates a woman, while Mary’s conception through the Holy Spirit is nonsexual.