The first radio broadcast to responding units is always incredibly brief, offering just the bare details needed to get officers rolling in the right direction, aware of the most important issues they may be about to face.
Something very similar happens when police officers are dispatched to a crime scene. It really shouldn’t surprise us that the earliest version of the life of Christ would be the shortest and most focused account. But John never does this his silence serves as a presumption that the “virgin conception” has been accurately described by prior authors. If John did not agree with the virgin conception as described in the Gospels of Matthew or Luke, he certainly had the opportunity to correct the matter in his own work. Why? John clearly wanted to cover material that the other Gospel writers did not address over 90% of the material in the Gospel of John is unique to the text.
Yet John also omitted the birth narrative. The prior three “synoptic Gospels” were already in circulation and the issue of the virgin conception had already been described in two of them. John’s gospel is considered by scholars to be the last Gospel written. But Mark is not alone in omitting the birth narrative. Like Peter’s sermon in Chapter 2 of the Book of Act’s, Mark is focused only on the public life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. According to the Papias, Mark was Peter’s scribe his gospel is brief and focused. In fact, the outline of Mark’s Gospel is very similar to the outline of Peter’s first sermon at Pentecost. The gospel of Mark exhibits great influence from the Apostle Peter.
Eyewitnesses often omit important details because they either (1) have other concerns they want to highlight with greater priority, or (2) presume that the issue under question is already well understood. While it is true that Mark does not include a birth narrative, this does not mean that he was either unaware of the truth about Jesus or denied the virgin conception. Why doesn’t it contain anything about the virgin conception? Does the absence of a birth narrative in Mark demonstrate that the entire story is a late fictional creation? If the virgin conception was an historical event that was well known to the earliest Christians, why wasn’t it mentioned by Mark? Mark’s gospel is widely accepted as the first account of the life and ministry of Jesus. I’ve been examining the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ birth and responding to a number of skeptical objections related to the virgin conception.
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