Monday, August 5, 2024

Rhyne R. Putman (Reformed/Trinitarian) on the Virginal Conception of Jesus and the Question of Jesus's Genetic Makeup

  

Our sex is determined by the pair of chromosomes we have. We have either male chromosomes (XY) or female chromosomes (XX). Females always provide one X chromosome, and males provide either the X or the Y chromosome. So, here is the rub: Natural parthenogenesis cannot account for the virginal conception because Jesus could not have been born male without a Y chromosome from a human father—at least in a natural process. But this is not in and of itself a defeater for the virgin conception. If we believe Adam was created by God without a Y chromosome from a natural father, then God could have created Jesus as male without a chromosome from a human father as well. . . . On this side of eternity, we will never know how this worked. Maybe God the Holy Spirit fertilized Mary’s ovum without a sperm. Maybe God created a sperm in the likeness of David that inseminated Mary’s ovum. He may have done something entirely different. What we can know is that the Holy Spirit somehow interrupted the normal process of human reproduction to create the true human nature of Jesus within Mary’s womb. (Rhyne R. Putman, Conceived by the Holy Spirit: The Virgin Birth in Scripture and Theology [Brentwood, Tenn.: B&H Academic, 2024], 312-13)

 

   

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