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Christianity chooses to include the virgin birth of Jesus in its dogma, but biblically it is a circumstance narrated in only two of the Gospels and completely ignored in the rest of the New Testament. Not only ignored, but denied! And denied so explicitly that it is obvious that paganism, whose gods were frequently born of virgins, was parent to the idea. Matthew and Luke are responsible for the claim that Jesus' mother was a virgin, impregnated by the Holy Ghost, but then both of these Gospel-writers are brazen enough to give the Bible reader long (and completely different) genealogies of Jesus from Joseph to David and beyond.
Matthew wanted to make Jesus more authentic by tying in a virgin birth with a prophecy from Isaiah, bu the same virgin birth was not compatible with the Jewish tradition (and with other prophecies) that the Messiah would be of the house of David. Matthew has a special gift for concocting stories to fit prophecies; perhaps that talent makes it possible for him to go to a great deal of trouble to establish Jesus' descendancy from David, without an apology, just before he gives his account of the Virgin birth, concluding the genealogy thus: "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon until Christ are fourteen generations" (Matthew 1:17). This genealogy serves no purpose, if Jesus was not the son of Joseph.
Luke recognizes his own dilemma, at least, and adds a parenthetical aside to his introduction of Jesus' genealogy (which lists fifteen more generations to David than were named by Matthew); "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph" (Luke 3:23). Mark describes a scene that takes place when Jesus visits his own country. His former neighbors exclaim: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?" (Mark 6:3). No one recalls on this occasion or even hints at anything unusal about Jesus' parentage. How did Matthew and Luke know about a virgin birth? Was it revealed only to them?
John realized the peril involved in the claim of a virgin birth (or he was also not aware of a such a claim), for he not only makes no mention of it but promotes the counterclaim-that Jesus was descended from David. He reports Jesus' countrymen saying: "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" (John 6:42). John also gives an account of another incident: "Philip findeth Nathanael; and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph" (John 1:45). John even suggests that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, when he repeats the arguments of a group of doubters: "Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?" (John 7:40-43). The story used by the Gospel of Luke to have Jesus born in Bethlehem was that Joseph had to pay his taxes in the city of David, because Joseph was "of the house and lineage of David" (Luke 2:4). Apparently the populace believed that Jesus was born at home in Nazareth. Deliberate mishandling of facts surrounding Jesus' birth reeks of invention, even fraud.
The conflict about Jesus' origin was so embarrassing that Peter and Paul both denied the virgin birth indirectly, and in fact no biblical mention is made of it beyond what appears in Matthew and Luke. Here are Peter's words: "Men an brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David... knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne" (Acts 2:29-30). Paul has no doubts of Jesus' lineage: "Of this man's (Davids) seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Savior Jesus" (Acts 13:23). And "Concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3). Paul was not one to glorify womanhood by painting Mary as a virgin.
In all fairness to Peter and Paul, it is possible that the virgin birth became a figment of the imagination after their time, if the Gospels were written later than Acts or the Epistles. A real or imaginary hero becomes more fabulous with the passage of the years. But that still does not explain the fact that Luke, author of a genealogy of Jesus in the book that bears his name, is also supposed to have been the author of the book of Acts, in which the virgin birth is not spoken of, and in which both Peter and Paul flatly assert that Joseph was Jesus' natural parent.
Jesus would seem to settle the whole issue when he speaks to St. John in the Revelation: "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring to David..." (Revelation 22:16). It's a wise child that knows its own father, perhaps, but Jesus was a very wise child (Luke 2:40).