The Bible statement of a 'virgin' giving birth to Jesus as it appears in Isaiah 7:14 is a mis-translation. The Hebrew word for virgin is 'bethula'- The word for an unmarried woman is 'almah'. This word 'almah' has been wrongly translated as virgin in the early text of the Bible.

The idea of a virgin being impregnated by a divine spirit was introduced by Matthew 1:18 and Luke 1:26-35. Both would have been familiar with the Greek and Roman Gods who were said to have cohabited with human beings and had children by them. They also would know the story in the Bible which says "The sons of God saw that they (humans) were fair and took wives for themselves of all that they chose ..... when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans who bore children to them. They were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown". Genesis 6:2-4. Matthew and Luke would not doubt the possibility of a divine conception. It would be natural for the believers to think that surely Jesus would have been born of a holy conception. They might feel it was right to assume a virgin birth without proof or authority.

Mark makes no such claim of the divinity of Jesus in his gospel. Surely if Mark thought the virgin birth was a fact, he would have included it in his story. Neither Mark nor Jesus made such claim. We must regard the idea as first appearing after the death of Jesus by thirty or more years.

There are contradictory verses in the New Testament such as the announcement that Jesus would bring peace and goodwill among men Luke 2:14 and "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother." etc. etc. Matt.l0:35. There are similar verses in Luke 12:35. These statements do not appear in Mark. They are quite out of character with the spirit and direction of the life of Jesus. I suspect later additions.

There are other contradictions found scattered throughout the gospels which are difficult to accept. Here is another "To you has been given the secrets of the Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything is in parables so that they may indeed see but not perceive and may indeed hear but not understand." Mark 4:11-12. This is out of context and opposed to the stated purpose of Jesus. To preach his message but not to let the people understand, is contradictory. Again and again he talks about the Kingdom of God but here he is withholding information from the people- Surely this is an insertion.

Around the time of Jesus, most of the people believed that things could happen by magic- The expectation of the people was such that the words of Jesus were enough to cure many of their psychosomatic sicknesses. This is similar to a hypnotist who develops co-operation with his clients so that he can hypnotise them. In those days the people knew nothing about the workings of the human mind; nothing about hypnotism, the sources of dreams, trances, epilepsy or hallucinations and illusions. We know very much more than they did 2,000 years ago. To them, a dream became a message from God. Perhaps Jesus was an expert hypnotist creating illusions. Again and again we see in the Gospels the expectation of the people that things can happen by magic. There was a strong belief that God could do anything and an equally strong desire to see evidence of divine power. The stage was set for belief in miracles and acts of God. The disciples found the tomb empty and quickly jumped to the conclusion that Jesus was risen from the dead. People have always believed that which they want to believe. Even today, fortune telling, psychics and spiritualism are big business.

Dr. Brian Edwards is a popular broadcaster and writer. He tells a true story of Irish Logic. "When I was a schoolboy in Northern Ireland my interest was in cycling. Each year, along with a friend, I would take off during the summer holidays on my maroon 3-speed to explore the highways and byways of that foreign land - the South! On one such occasion my friend and I found ourselves billeted with a delightful elderly couple in a little thatched cottage in County Clare. No electricity, no gas, the kettle permanently on the boil, and next to it an Irish stew, topped up with meat and murphies as the need arose. In the evenings the old man would smoke his pipe and tell tales of the fairies and the little people.

Bread and a saucer of milk were invariably put outside the door before retiring and invariably gone in the morning. On the last night, my friend - a Protestant atheist from Belfast - could restrain his scepticism no longer. "Tell me the truth," he said, "Do you really believe in the wee folk?" "I do not, I do not," the old man finally replied, "But they're there, mind you!"