The Christian Bible tells the story of the conception of
Jesus by a woman who had not "known man."
This tells a larger story, the story of how a new definition
of what it means "to be a man" came to be.
Here's the scenario: when Mary revealed that she was
pregnant, she furiously insisted that she was not pregnant by a
"man." She probably described her impregnation, "There was this
guy who got me pregnant, but he was not a real man. Yes, he was a guy with a
penis, but a "real" man would not force me before marriage and then
abandon me and my child. That was no "man" who fathered this
baby!" Being a good girl, she may not have had appropriate words to
describe what she really thought he was.
Mary likely despaired for the baby's future, because the
belief of the day was that the children of a bad man were definitely destined
to also be bad.
Mary told her tale of woe, and it was her enlightened
listener who guided her to see that the child's potential had nothing whatever
to do with the despicable way in which he was conceived. No matter whether the
father was a louse or not, the baby would grow up to be a good person. Despite
the fact that its parentage was tainted, the child, untouched by sin of its own,
could be raised in love. It could develop fully its unlimited potential to do
good for mankind. Out of Mary's despair came instead the joy of hope for a
wonderful future for her child.
This change in perception was a miraculous giant step in mankind's development of a consciousness of the self as independent of the family or society.
In the new way of thinking, every child is born with a potential for good that is unlimited by
the history of his birth. The story of the successful glory of Jesus, despite
his lack of a "man" for a father, cements this new belief.
The biblical account of Jesus' conception and eventual glory
is a metaphor for the societal sea change. It reflects
the new idea, that individual people, no matter their background, really do
have control over their own destiny.
