# Question on Christian doctrine (all franchises) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 25, 2002, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864 "2002-12-25T18:27:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CastleAnthrax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@CastleAnthrax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CastleAnthrax)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/1 "2002-12-25T18:27:39Z")
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not get into a discussion of faith here, this is only a question of current doctrinal belief, not of your personal beliefs. Jesus is the son of God, right? Is he also the son of Mary or was she just a host mother? Was Jesus made from Mary’s egg and a spiritual sperm, or from her egg by God’s command, or only from god-stuff? What I’m asking, I guess, is was Jesus’s chromosomal makeup X-Y, or X-YHVH, or only YHVH? ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/2 "2002-12-25T18:40:52Z")
Well, Mary _is_ generally referred to as the Mother of God (although perhaps especially by Catholics and Orthodox). Most Christians have traditionally accepted the formulation that Jesus is both completely divine and entirely human. (There were a lot of doctrinal disputes about this, but this view was accepted as the mainstream Christian doctrine and applies to both Orthodox and Catholics, and to almost all of the Protestant groups who broke off from the Catholics. Jehovah’s Witnesses are one group notable for having a different view of the nature of Christ, although exactly how their views would factor into this particular question I’m not sure. I suspect Mormons might also have different views than most Christians.) So the accepted view would be that Jesus _was_ also the son of Mary. These sorts of doctrines were generally formulated before people understood about the exact roles of eggs and sperm and X and Y chromosomes, and nowadays I don’t think most theologians really like to get in to that sort of thing. Had medieval theologians known about chromosomes, there no doubt would have been much discussion of Jesus’ genetic makeup. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/3 "2002-12-25T18:42:45Z")
YDMV (your doctrine may vary), but Jesus was a human being. In Catholic doctrine he was CONCEIVED of the Holy Spirit and BORN of the Virgin Mary. Just who took part in that conception is unknown. Since Mary is, on faith, a virgin, both before and after Jesus’ birth, then she shouldn’t have a genetic stake in Jesus. I would think that he would be HS-HS (Holy Spirit-Holy Spirit) ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/4 "2002-12-25T20:15:50Z")
I don’t know that Mary’s being a virgin would make her a non-particpant in giving Jesus genetic material. I’ve never heard that put forth in my time in Protestant churches, which is starting to be considerable. BTW, the part about Mary being a virgin always is a Catholic thing. It’s one of the things the Protestants like to sort of ride the Catholics about. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/5 "2002-12-25T21:20:46Z")
Both Catholics and Protestants generally believe that Mary was a virgin at the time she conceived Jesus. (They may differ about whether she remained a virgin afterwards.) Both agree, however, that she was in every sense the Mother of God. This was settled in (IIRC) the Fourth Century, when the science of reproduction was not well understood. However in modern terms the implication would be that her contribution to his genetic make-up would have been exactly the same as the genetic contribution of any mother to any child. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/6 "2002-12-25T21:35:03Z")
I did read an interesting theory on the Net by a Bible teacher who suggested that Joseph may have indeed been the natural father & supplier of the Y-chromosone BUT that his sperm was miraculously implanted into Mary as a Divine Sign to them that Jesus was the spiritual Son of God. Another aside, tho modern Latter-Day Saints repudiate this teaching, Brigham Young said some things that seem to indicate that Heavenly Father, being an immortal physical being, conceived Jesus with Mary just like a mortal physical man conceives a child with a woman. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/7 "2002-12-26T17:14:18Z")
There are many, many Christians who don’t believe the virgin birth stuff at all and therefore Jesus’s chromosomes are entirely human. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/8 "2002-12-26T17:20:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ftg \* > \*\*There are many, many Christians who don’t believe the virgin birth stuff at all and therefore Jesus’s chromosomes are entirely human. \*\* Yes, but the OP is asking about doctrine, and the Virgin Birth is official doctrine of almost every Christian church in the world. _X-YHWH_. I like that. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/9 "2002-12-26T18:09:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > \*\* These sorts of doctrines were generally formulated before people understood about the exact roles of eggs and sperm and X and Y chromosomes, and nowadays I don’t think most theologians really like to get in to that sort of thing. Had medieval theologians known about chromosomes, there no doubt would have been much discussion of Jesus’ genetic makeup. \*\* I don’t have a cite for this, but somewhere I read that up until modern times it was believed that the child grew in the woman, but she contributed nothing. It was like planting a seed in the ground. Sounds ridiculous, but so does a lot of other theories before modern science came along. As **MEBuckner** says things would have been different if back then they knew more about “the birds and the bees”. ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/10 "2002-12-26T19:31:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BobT \* > \*\*Just who took part in that conception is unknown. Since Mary is, on faith, a virgin, both before and after Jesus’ birth, then she shouldn’t have a genetic stake in Jesus. > \*\* This doesn’t make any sense. _Virgin_ simply means she never had sexual intercourse with a (human) man, not that her ova were inert. Technically you could get “virgin mothers” today, too, if a virginal woman opted for artificial insemination (why she’d want to is another question entirely…) ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-on-christian-doctrine-all-franchises/144864/11 "2002-12-26T20:08:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Technically you could get “virgin mothers” today, too, if a virginal woman opted for artificial insemination (why she’d want to is another question entirely…) A lesbian may be technically a virgin, having never “known a man” and decide to have a child through artificial insemination.