The Immaculate Conception is not essential to the Biblical narrative, since it isn't there - see above, a long way above. It is about Mary's birth, not Jesus, and the Bible gives little information about Mary.

Thank you Nicole, for supplying information which I couldn't recall.

I didn't go into everything I could have said, being short of time, but only implied it. To be explicit, Jesus was either the result of a miracle, which does not need, and should not have, explanations placed on it which depend on physical states of extreme peculiarity (especially in this case, which I'll come back to), or of a normal sexual relationship.

The point of the Incarnation was that God became like us. (This is probably true of those other virgin stories which Little Hawk referred to.) The more odd the process of Jesus birth, the less true is the Incarnation. If it depended on Mary being a chimera or a hermaphrodite, Jesus is not like us. If God says, I will be born as a baby, and makes it so, not abhoring the Virgin's womb, he could be more like us than that. If God says, I will be born in the ordinary way, to a married couple who know each other in love, he would be most like us. I would prefer if it were that way.

When I was prepared for confirmation, the curate asked if anyone had a problem with the virgin birth. I kept quiet. He than explained that it was important because one of Joseph's ancestors had committed some offence to God and his descendants were hence barred from the Davidic throne. I still kept quiet. If that was his best argument, he had a very weak case.

I feel that those who want Jesus to have been the result of a miracle have a serious problem with human love and its expression. That some don't want his birth to have been painful and messy, is more understandable, but if God was going to use the "beam me out" method of emerging from the womb, why bother going in there in the first place. It defeats the object. If they want the birth to have been in the absence of midwives, there is another odd problem in their minds as well, about women. (What does it mean if God is brought into the world by normal women, and then seen out of it by them, as well?)

If it is necessary to postulate that Mary was 13, we need to look very carefully at the men concerned with that belief. Still carrying the purity of the child? Really? Like the children sought out in the belief that sex with a virgin cures AIDS? The way these men see women is profoundly flawed. (And if some who go along with this are women, maybe thay haven't thought it through very carefully.) I wouldn't want one in charge of any young girls in my care. If the Incarnation is about God becoming one with us, and he refuses to involve himself with a woman, as if he could not know that an older woman was still a virgin, if that were necessary, then the Incarnation is not for women. Mary has to be more of an adult than that. Yes, God could ensure that her poorly developed womb and bones could carry him safely, but why should he? If that is part of his message, then I know what sort of man he was, and I want nothing of him.

However, the small knowledge I have of God is not like that. God could be born of a rape victim, and still be God. God could be born of a prostitute, and still be God. Of a woman of any age, of a couple in any circumstances, and still be God. I think he would prefer to be conceived and carried in love, but if he can arrange a safe birth from a thirteen year old, he could probably get over that limitation, if necessary.

If you believe that God became one of us, the physical details shrink into insignificance beside that amazing event. Or should. If the physical details become vital to the belief, you need to look at the core again. God became man. Or he didn't. That's all that matters.

Penny