The Virgin Birth 1: Mary, did you lie?

This episode begins what will probably be a five-part series on the Virgin Birth in the larger series on Gospel reliability and miracle reports. Here I focus on what it would mean for the evidence for the Virgin Birth if Mary herself was Luke's witness and told him (or affirmed to him in some other way--e.g., by presenting him with a document or notes) the material that we find in Luke's accounts of Jesus' infancy, the birth of John the Baptist, etc. I examine Mary's motives and the implausibility of her lending credence to such a massive lie about the conception of Jesus. This in turn draws attention to the importance of the reliability of the Gospels, and Luke in particular, in the evaluation of the evidence for the Virgin Birth.  (Side note: I make a verbal slip at one point in the episode as deoes occasionally happen. Since I'm trying to do these in one "take," I did not re-record. I am listing aspects of the birth narratives that would have been accessible to people other than Mary and list Joseph's dream. In the verbal context I appear to be saying that Joseph's dream is found in Luke. Of course it is found in Matthew.)  

Here is the lecture on the reliability of Acts that I mention. "Acts Gets Hard Things Right"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sdLTyM7Sks&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR02fIwnuM8jDtMRmycFMxoJvkBmUSWQrNuwT9b90c61vXSFyLFlYg-cRtI  

Originally uploaded to YouTube Dec 4 2020