Alice C. Linsley
"Must one believe in the Virgin Birth to be a Christian? This is not a hard question to answer. It is conceivable that someone might come to Christ and trust Christ as Savior without yet learning that the Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. A new believer is not yet aware of the full structure of Christian truth. The real question is this: Can a Christian, once aware of the Bible’s teaching, reject the Virgin Birth? The answer must be no." -- The Rev Dr. Albert Mohler (From
here.)
I agree with Dr. Mohler, and I would go farther to say that all the details of the Nativity account are to be believed. The Mother of God was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, her virginity was preserved, she gave birth in a manger, and the witnesses to the Incarnation were Bethlehem shepherds and Jewish Wise Men living in the East.
These are the exact details concerning the expectation of the Seed of the Woman (Gen. 3:15) that were anticipated by Abraham's Horite people and echoed in the Psalms, in Isaiah and in Micah.
Ancient rulers attempted to claim that they were the King of Kings by fabricating stories of their birth that corresponded to these details. Kushite and Egyptian rulers did not name their biological fathers in their king lists. The Pharaoh was called "son of Re" and Egyptian texts never mention an earthly father. Kingship was a manifestation of the solar deity's overshadowing of noble women. Sargon the Great (2300 B.C.) proclaimed that he didn't know his father because his mother was overshadowed by the sun (the emblem of the Creator) while in the palace temple. Here is a fragment of Sargon's legend from Akkad:
Sargon, the mighty king, king of Akkadê am I,
My mother was lowly; my father I did not know;
The brother of my father dwelt in the mountain.
My city is Azu-piranu, which is situated on the bank of the Purattu [Euphrates],
My lowly mother conceived me, in secret she brought me forth.
(From
here.)
Sargon was a Kushite ruler. In the ancient world, the east-facing temples were considered the mansion (hâît) or the house (pirû) of the deity. They were O-piru, meaning “Sun House” or “House of the Sun.” The priests who served at the temples were called
Hapiru and they were devotees of Horus.
Sargon I (Nimrod) is said to have been born to a lowly virgin queen who was overshadowed by the High God. He was born in an O-piru. His home city was called Azu-piranu, meaning House of God . Azu was an ancient name for the Creator. It is
Azu in Akkadian,
Asa in Chadic,
Asha in Kushitic, and
Ashai in Hebrew. Nehemiah 11:13 mentions a Jerusalem priest named Am-ashai.
In the oldest known Messianic tradition the Son of God is born as a calf to his mother Hathor whose is portrayed as a sacred cow, and the birth took place in a
stable with the Babe sleeping in a crib.
The shepherd-priest motif first found with Abel continues with Abraham who kept flocks and dug wells to support them. Jethro, the Priest of Midian, also kept flocks and offered sacrifices to God. Jethro was Moses' father-in-law. The shepherd-priest motif continues with David who tended his father's flocks and offered sacrifices that were accepted at the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite. The motif culminates in Joachim, the Virgin Mary's father, also a shepherd-priest. Even those who disclaimed Jesus as Messiah recognised that his mother Mary was the daughter of a ruler priest. Sanhedrin 106a says: “She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters.” It is said that she was so despised that some Jews tried to prevent the Apostles from burying her body.
Mary is "Miriam Daughter of Joachim Son of Pntjr (Panther) Priest of Nathan of Bethlehem." From the earliest predynastic times among the Egyptian Horites,
ntjr designated the king. The name Panther or
p-ntjr meant "God is King."
Here is the celestial archetype whereby Abraham's descendants would recognize the identity of Jesus, the only begotten Son of God who was born of the Virgin Mary.
Re, Hathor and Horus represent the Egyptian Triad in which Horus and his father were said to be “one.” Jesus makes this claim concerning Himself, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The Creator Re is associated with the temple in Heliopolis (City of the Sun) on the east side of the Delta. Hathor, the virgin mother of Horus, had her principal temples in Dendera and Memphis to the south of Heliopolis and on the west side of the Nile. The principal temples of Horus were further south in Nekhen and Edfu, and on the west side of the Upper Nile.
When Jesus claims to be "one" with his Father it is as a shepherd-priest. He says, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me." (John 10:27)
Horite priests kept flocks and sacrificed animals from these flocks. This is why their
shrines were located near sources of water.
Bethlehem was an ancient Horite settlement according to 1 Chronicles 4:4. The shepherds living there were descendants of the Horites who anticipated the coming of the Son of God in the flesh. When they beheld the angels and came in wonder to the manger to behold the Christ child, they must have been in wonder, even as we are, that the ancient prophecy was fulfilled in every detail.
That being the case, Christians embrace the Nativity narrative as a whole. We are not free to pick only details that appeal to us and reject those that may offend us.
Related reading:
Genesis and the True Meaning of Christmas;
Horite Expectation and the Star of Bethlehem
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