{"id":1408,"date":"2018-12-24T05:50:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-24T05:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2025-09-29T16:21:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T16:21:36","slug":"nyts-nicholas-kristoff-professor-was-jesus-really-born-to-a-virgin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1408","title":{"rendered":"NYT’s Nicholas Kristoff asks: “Professor, was Jesus Really Born to a Virgin?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to my friend Paul for sending me this.<\/p>\n

The NY Times op ed columnist Ncholas Kristoff likes to ask the above sort of questions at Christmas to various religious personalities of note. Here he questions Professor Williiam Lane Craig who has a fine reputation for defending what CS Lewis called "Mere Christianity. It's a short column; takes under five minutes to read.<\/p>\n

Professor, Was Jesus Really Born to a Virgin?<\/a><\/p>\n

Kristof<\/strong>: Merry Christmas, Dr. Craig! I must confess that for all my admiration for Jesus, I\u2019m skeptical about some of the narrative we\u2019ve inherited. Are you actually confident that Jesus was born to a virgin?<\/em><\/p>\n

Craig<\/strong>: Merry Christmas to you, too, Nick! I\u2019m reasonably confident. When I was a non-Christian, I used to struggle with this, too. But then it occurred to me that for a God who could create the entire universe, making a woman pregnant wasn\u2019t that big a deal! Given the existence of a Creator and Designer of the universe (for which we have good evidence), an occasional miracle is child\u2019s play. Historically speaking, the story of Jesus\u2019 virginal conception is independently attested by Matthew and Luke and is utterly unlike anything in pagan mythology or Judaism. So what\u2019s the problem?<\/p>\n

HIt the link above for four more questions and answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to my friend Paul for sending me this. The NY Times op ed columnist Ncholas Kristoff likes to ask the above sort of questions at Christmas to various religious personalities of note. Here he questions Professor Williiam Lane Craig who has a fine reputation for defending what CS Lewis called "Mere Christianity. It's a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7673,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions\/7673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}