The Virgin Birth of Christ

by J. Gresham Machen

An important and encyclopaedic study of the Christian doctrine of the Virgin Birth by a leading evangelical scholar.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Christmas, Church History, Christianity

432 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1967

About the author

John Gresham Machen was an influential American Presbyterian theologian in the early 20th century. He was the Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary between 1915 and 1929, and led a conservative revolt against modernist theology at Princeton and formed Westminster Seminary as a more orthodox alternative. This split was irreconcilable, and Machen led others to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Reviews

[Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely essential work on the importance of the virgin birth. Machen takes to task numerous hypotheses and theses to explain away the virgin birth, or make it into a myth that appeared after the fact, or that it had pagan origins. He gently but firmly takes each one to task and shows the shortcomings and faults in them all. He is gracious but compelling and his scholarship is absolutely impeccable. Even scholars who disagreed with his starting point agreed that he was altogether fair.

I feel like his work still stands as an excellent treatment of the subject even almost 100 years later.

[Erik Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And we must continue to insist, even in the face of widespread opposition, that if the virgin birth is a fact at all, it belongs truly to the realm of history."

I heard about Machen's work "The Virgin Birth of Christ" from studying some of the scholarship of R T France. My curiosity piqued, I acquired this book eager to see if it lived up to the praise given it by eminent scholars. To my delight, this book did not disappoint. Machen does excellent work handling the literary and historical authenticity of the Christian belief in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. With laudable clarity and precision, Machen explains the scholarly issues surrounding this doctrine and provides an excellent defense of the orthodox belief. Sadly, since the book was written in the early 20th century, some of the documentary issues he addresses are out of date. Nevertheless, this book remains an important work and I encourage pastors and serious Bible students to add this to their library.

[Miles Foltermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A difficult—but crucial—read. As far as I know, this book is singular in the ground it covers. Machen not only engages in extensive discussion about the Gospel texts and the patristic writings; he also interacts with the work of multiple liberal scholars. The textual analysis is not for the faint of heart. I actually found his relatively brief excursuses into theology and apologetics to be some of the best sections of the book.

[Josh Anders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the first third of this before deciding to shelve it. It’s a great book. Machen responds to some liberal critiques of the Virgin Birth but many of them are relative to his day. It is an excellent apologetic book if you are looking to read about the very, very particular topics he writes about. But in my case, the book was not something i felt compelled to read further into. Great resource to have in your library for papers and such, though.

[Pat Phelps · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a some what difficult read, and more academic, work of Machen. At times I wondered where he was going with the analysis, but it is well worth the read. Would recommend reading this slowly, biting off no more than 5 or 10 pages at a time.

Thought the last chapter of conclusions was the best part of the book by far for me. So much of the detail outlines in the book was summarized, and laid out intelligently.

[Tim Franks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great and VERY thorough work on the important doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus. This book isn't for all readers. It is deep in the weeds. It was written in 1930 and has a lot of illustrations and sources that are no longer known to us. Great defense of this vital belief of the Christian faith.

[Khrisered · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good but sometimes a bit too technical.

[Lucas Hondros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Withstands the test of time