It happened in those days, around 2020, that a heavily pregnant girl of around 13-14 stayed overnight in a stable. There Mary, as she was called, gave birth to a son. There was a man there, Joseph, but he was not the father if we are to believe the Bible story. Instead, it was the Holy Spirit who saw to it that Jesus came into being. At every baptism and high mass in the Norwegian church, it is repeated: That Jesus was not made in the usual way, with a man and a woman having sex. No, mother Maria, she was a virgin. The shark comes Maria’s story is best known, but it may not be so unique if we are to believe American women. In 2013, a survey was published in which 45 out of 7,080 women said that they had had children without having had sex. Admittedly, the researchers don’t have a whole world of faith that it was actually true. But in nature, virgin births actually happen all the time. Photo: Albert Kok / Wikimedia Commons There is even a separate technical term for it, which of course is entirely Greek. Parthenogenesis simply means virgin birth. It describes a way of reproduction where a new individual is developed from an egg cell in a female without the intervention of any male. The offspring usually look exactly like the mother. The researchers know of both bees, mites and sharks that do this. And last year a new study on an endangered type of condor was published. But it has never been documented that this has happened in humans. Basically, there are many obstacles for a self-fertilised egg cell to develop into a fetus in humans. – For mammals in particular, it is important to mix genetics from two different organisms as part of the survival strategy, explains molecular biologist Sigrid Bratlie. But if we imagine that our bodies were not equipped with many obstacles, and that Mary did not actually have sex before she gave birth to Jesus. Åssen can it be explained by natural science, and something other than strong faith and a virile holy spirit? Jesus(ine) – Either Maria may not have been completely sincere about what was really going on. Or someone has lied about the gender of Jesus, says Bratlie. Photo: Sturlason – Maria, as a biological woman, simply could not have a son on her own. You may remember from science at secondary school that women have two X chromosomes, while men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. And parthenogenesis sets some clear limitations. – The Y chromosome is not found in her cells, and it would be necessary to be able to create a son. – So if Maria had a child without having sex, what would the result have been? – A girl. God above other gods Religious historian Helene Næss has written the book “Maria, God’s mother”. She believes that it would have worked badly with a girl-Jesus as savior when the new Christian religion was created. – If the Virgin Mary had had a girl, they would have had to rewrite it to say it was a boy, she says. The story of the hill on which Jesus was born is somewhat similar to stories from other religions. There, too, women become pregnant with gods, in all sorts of ways. But unlike most other religions, Christianity’s savior is made in orderly, pure forms. Mary was a virgin, according to the Bible. Photo: Anne Lognvik / news – The virgin birth was something that showed the hill that the Christian god was more powerful than all the other gods. Because even though they were gods, they were also subject to basic forces, such as sexuality and violence, says Næss. She says that the story of Mary as a virgin has changed in meaning over the past 2,000 years. – At some point, the virgin birth goes from being a mindblowing miracle that is used as proof of God, to becoming an ideal. Because Maria became an image of how other women should behave. Tech freak Maria? But back to the natural sciences. Before you run out into the world to shout that Jesus was a lady, you should get another possible explanation from molecular biologist Sigrid Bratlie. – In 2022, it is entirely possible to have children without sex: Approximately 5 percent of all births in Norway are the result of assisted fertilization. So it is quite possible that they were early on in the West Bank. That Maria, for example, has been inseminated, she says. You don’t actually need super-modern equipment to do that. The first documented successful insemination occurred in Philadelphia in the USA in 1884. A doctor tried to help a childless couple. But when nothing else worked, he drugged the woman with chloroform and injected the sperm from one of his students into the woman. Only 25 years later did she learn what had happened when she became a mother. – So one can speculate that this is what happened at the time when Jesus was born, says Bratlie.
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If the Virgin Mary was a virgin, Jesus would probably have been a girl, according to molecular biologist – news Trøndelag
