The virgin birth is mainly associated with the birth of Jesus Christ. As the Bible says, his conception took place without the participation of a man, and the Virgin Mary, who gave birth from the holy spirit, was a virgin. But long before that, there were legends about the miraculous immaculate conception.
The Immaculate Conception in Antiquity
In ancient times, when people still did not reliably know about the biological processes taking place in the body, conception was often imagined differently. In ancient myths, there are versions about the embryo entering the woman's body. Such a woman was considered pregnant and had to bear a child. At the same time, expectant mothers did not assign the main role to men in the process of conception, they believed that pregnancy could occur if special ceremonies were performed with sacred stones, water, trees. Therefore, there were legends about the immaculate conception from water, wood, thunderstorms, sacred attributes.
In other ancient myths, in particular Greek, there is a widespread version that a woman can become pregnant from a deity who will choose her for his intimate pleasures. So the great god of thunder and lightning Zeus often came to appease beautiful virgins in different guises: a bull, a golden rain, a swan. After that, the girls gave birth to illegitimate children from the thunderer in due time. It was also the virgin birth.
Similar cases are mentioned in Eastern mythologies. For example, one of the ancient Chinese emperors, as legend has it, was conceived by his mother at the moment when she stepped on the trail of a giant. The conceptions of other emperors came from the spirit of the mountains, from a flash of lightning, from a dragon, from a swallow's egg, from a shooting star. Accordingly, all these conceptions took place immaculately, and the reasons for conception indicated that the future emperors and commanders were outstanding, talented, unique personalities, close to divine powers.
In the legends of ancient Egypt, there are also cases of the immaculate conception of some emperors. Even the legendary Zarathushtra was conceived by her mother, according to legend, from the stem of a wild plant.
Mongolian legends say that Genghis Khan was also conceived by his mother immaculately - from the gaze of a deity. The Immaculate Conception is attributed to the mothers of Plato, Pythagoras, Alexander the Great.
Russian folklore also has a theme of the Immaculate Conception. In some fairy tales, girls give birth to children from a magic seed, from a breath of wind, from swimming in a magic lake.
Is the virgin birth possible?
Currently, medicine disputes the fact of the immaculate conception, considering it impossible. I must say that this phenomenon has not been fully studied, since in the modern world there are isolated cases when all the facts prove that conception took place without the direct participation of a man, that is, without sexual intercourse.
