How does the story of the virgin birth of Jesus compare with these stories from the Hebrew Bible?
Those Christians who claim a conception that does not involve a male is a greater display of God’s power than one that does, do so from a limited perspective of both theology and biology. If we think carefully about this argument it becomes more difficult to defend. Again Miller is helpful: “For an aged woman like Sarah to conceive, God has to make up for a lack of an ovam; for a virgin to conceive, God has to make up for the lack of sperm. It seems arbitrary to regard one as more miraculous than the other” (Miller 2003:236). How is the story of the virgin birth of Jesus told in Islam? Very briefly, several passages in the Qur’an purge any hint of God and sexuality. God effortlessly brought about the virginal conception of Jesus, just as he had the creation of Adam, by simply giving the command, ‘Be’. Where are we then? We can be certain Mary did not conceive Jesus without the assistance of human male sperm. Neither did she conceive by herself. With little historical evidence as well a
