SCIENCE & THE BIBLE by Bolton Davidheiser, Ph.D., Chairman of the Science Division, Biola College
Virgin Birth
¥ M> irgin birth, or parthenogen esis, is much more common among insects and lower forms of life than most people realize. It is a well- known fact that male bees or drones develop from unfertilized eggs. It is probably somewhat less well known that common plant lice or aphids produce only one generation a year containing both males and females, while the other six generations con sist exclusively of females. There are other insects as well as many other lower creatures in which males are rare or unknown. Parthenogenesis has been induced by laboratory methods. Among the most noted cases are the silkworm moth, the frog and the rabbit. The methods used in producing rabbits which have no father presumably could be employed successfully in the case of human beings also. Expert surgery would be involved. But even though parthenogenesis occurs normally in many of the lower forms of life and can be induced in higher forms, it was quite surprising when the discovery was made at a Department of Agriculture experi mental station that chicken and tur key eggs may develop without ferti lization and without any laboratory assistance. In the case of turkeys it was observed that about a quarter of the eggs started to develop embryos without fertilization. Most of them did not develop very far and very few reached the hatching stage. The longest-lived turkey chick which had no father attained the age of 22 days. This natural p a r t h e n o g e n e s i s among chickens and turkeys seems to have a hereditary as well as an en vironmental basis, for to a certain ex tent it can be increased or decreased by selection of the stock from which the birds studied are taken; also the amount of parthenogenesis is found to be significantly increased when the
birds are vaccinated for fowl pox. In response to the publicity about parthenogenesis it is perhaps not sur prising that a number of women have reported bearing a child who had no father. Most of these cases were quickly proven to be untrue and the latest report is that the one remaining case was not verified by the method of skin grafting. The skins of such a mother and child should be inter changeable in grafts, as they are in no other case with the exception of identical twins. There are those who are quick to try to set aside every miracle of Scripture with a natural explanation. Even well-meaning evangelists have pointed to the drone bee as an ex ample of virgin birth in nature to make the virgin birth of our Lord seem more credible to the unbeliever. But the things of the Spirit of God are spiritually discerned and seem as foolishness to the natural man. The veracity and reliability of the Word of God are basic tenets of the Chris tian faith, and to explain away the supernatural as natural in order to appeal to the unbeliever is neither honest nor effective, for a human being who was virgin-born in ac cordance with the laws of nature would have no more power over sin than anyone else. And even from the natural standpoint this explanation would not do, for a human being pro duced in this way, just as a rabbit so produced, would be expected to be female. The virgin birth of our Lord was supernatural and it was different from any other birth that ever was or ever will be. He existed from the beginning and left the glories of heaven to become incarnate in hu man form by a virgin birth that He might permit Himself to be offered as a vicarious sacrifice for our re demption. END.
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