In Born of a Virgin?, Andrew Lincoln expresses the view that Luke, in the early part of his account of the circumstances of Jesus’ birth, acknowledges the tradition that Jesus was conceived without the biological participation of a man.

But thereafter, according to Lincoln, all the signs are that Luke and his sources regarded Jesus’ conception and birth as being through entirely normal means.

• The text underlines that Joseph is of the house and lineage of David (Lk 1:27-32).
• Joseph takes the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem because of his Davidic ancestry (2:4,7,11).
• Simeon talks perfectly naturally about Jesus’ parents (2:27) and then of Joseph as the father (2:33).  The amazement of the parents is as if ‘there had been no annunciation by Gabriel to Mary, no salutation from Elizabeth and no Magnificat on Mary’s own lips.’
• Mary speaks to Joseph as the ‘father’ (Lk 2:48), and Jesus’ talk of his ‘Father’s house’ carries no hint that his relationship with his heavenly Father excludes natural fatherhood.
• Luke’s genealogy is traced through Joseph and back to David (Lk 3:23-38).
• Those most acquainted with Jesus, outside his immediate family, refer to him as ‘Joseph’s son’ (Lk 4:22; a saying which Luke has no qualms about altering from Mark’s ‘Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary?’, Mk 6:3).

Then we have the references in Acts to Jesus being descended from David’s ‘seed’ or ‘loins’.  This would scarcely make sense (according to Lincoln) if Luke and his sources did not think that Jesus was the biological son of his human father.

Lincoln recognises that there is one possible exception to this pattern: in Luke 3:23b, Jesus is described as ‘the son, as was supposed, of Joseph son of Heli’.  This may reflect a tradition about the virginal conception, but it is to be noted that Luke does not say that this supposition was false (as similar passages suggest he might have done, if indeed he thought that the supposition was false).  Lincoln thinks that if the supposition were false, then the entire genealogy would be undermined.

Comment

I respect Lincoln’s schoarlship, even though I remain unconvinced by his overall approach and conclusions.

It seems to me that he gives insufficient attention to the impact of eyewitness testimony, and to the distinct possibility that Luke fathfully reported what the various characters said.  In Simeon’s case, and that of the residents of Nazareth, for example, there is no reason to suppose that they knew anything about the virginal conception.