The Father of Jesus

It is clear that for many early Christian authors, the Virgin Birth was unknown. Paul seems to know nothing about it, and neither does Mark. John has a pretty clear view that God is the Father of Jesus, but never gets into the biological relationship. Lot’s of people are called “Son of God” without it meaning that God is the biological father. In fact, the story of the Virgin Birth is only known to Matthew and Luke for certain (though both tell the story with some significant differences) since none of the other authors of the New Testament mention it explicitly. Even Luke seems to slip up on occasion. In Luke 2:43, for instance, the more reliable manuscripts read: “and his parents did not know.” Later editors caught the problem and changed it to say: “and Joseph and his mother did not know.” All this leads one to wonder whether the Virgin Birth matters all that much. If it didn’t matter to most early Christians, who didn’t seem to know about, should it matter so much to us?