The Illegitimacy of Jesus
A different view of Mary, Jesus's conception, and "the least of these"
On this final Sunday of Advent, which is also Christmas Eve this year, I want to offer a piece I wrote for The Just Word Commentary for today.
By Tess GC
***Content warning: This entry includes mention of sexual assault***
This piece is about the possibility that the Gospel writers never intended to convey a ‘virginal conception’ of Jesus, and in fact knew that Jesus’s conception was a human one, and even likely the result of sexual assault. This theory has been well developed, especially by Catholic theologian Jane Schaberg in her 1987 book The Illegitimacy of Jesus.
I won’t say much more about it, and I hope you’ll read my entry on the Just Word website. This is a story about the depths of pain and danger in Mary and Jesus’s lives, and I think it makes the story of Jesus an even more humbling one. As I write in the piece, “This story of an illegitimate conception and an illegitimate child is a story of real life, our real lives! How even more miraculous and full of hope is this tale of the woman and her child who were just like us, who changed the world.”
I hope you all take care of yourselves, and talk to you in the new year.
A very powerful essay, brought tears to my eyes. It’s shocking to read what the visionary scholar endured as backlash.
Holy crap this piece is brilliant. Thanks so much for having the courage to write this! And seeing my name in there was a real honor. <3