Virgin birth
Virgin birth
The Virgin birth motif is a subset of the Desolate woman motif.
The first mention of the Desolate Woman motif is Genesis 1:2
- Ge 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
In the voice of the priest there is a virgin birth:
- Ge 2:21 ¶ And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
The Virgin birth motif in the voice of the prophet is Genesis 3:15
- Ge 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Others have mentioned that in the culture of that day, it was understood that men had seed, not women, and so the reference to the seed of the woman is a hint of the virgin birth. However, we don't know anything about the culture of that day. God hides the prophecies in word play and riddle.
- Ge 4:1 ¶ And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
- Ge 4:2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
In these two scriptures Cain was born by Adam 'knowing' Eve. But the 'knowing' is not mentioned in the birth of Abel. This is the riddle of the virgin birth. The same kind of word play is used by Matthew when interpreting the genealogy of Jesus. One section of the genealogy is a reference to Jesus being the 'Only Begotten Son' because the ones listed were only son's and the word 'begotten' was used in the original scriptures. Another block of ancestors refer to Jesus as the "Unbegotten Only Son" because they too are only sons but the word 'begotten' is not used in the scripture in favor of another formula.
