Jesus born in manger to Virgin Mary, affirms Williams

In an interview with Simon Mayo on BBC Five Live on Wednesday, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams, cleared the confusion on some key details in the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, including his birth in a manger to the Virgin Mary.

When asked by Mayo, "the baby Jesus in a manger; historically and factually true?" the Archbishop replied, "I should think so...yes, he's born in poor circumstances, slightly out of the ordinary."

Regarding the accuracy of Mary being a virgin, Dr Williams said, "The two gospels that tell the story have the story of the virgin birth and that's something I'm committed to as part of what I've inherited."

Earlier in the month, Spectator asked the Archbishop and other prominent Christians Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Charles Moore, Ann Widdecombe and Jonathan Aitken if they believed in the Virgin Birth.

The survey asked them 'Do you believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ?' to which Dr Williams replied, "Yes; I believe that the conception of Jesus was a moment when the creative action of God produced a reality as new in its way as the first moment of creation itself."

When asked by Mayo on Five Live just how important it was as a Christian to believe in the Virgin Birth, the Archbishop said it should not be regarded "as a kind of hurdle that people have to get over before they, you know, be signed up".

"But I think quite a few people that as time goes on, they get a sense, a deeper sense of what the virgin birth is about," he added. "I would say that of myself. About thirty years ago I might have said I wasn't too fussed about it - now I see it much more as dovetailing with the rest of what I believe about the story and yes."

The Archbishop also remained untroubled by doubts over the use of the term 'virgin' to describe Mary at the time of the conception of Jesus, saying that it need not be regarded as a mistranslation.

"One of the gospels quotes a prophecy that a virgin will conceive a child," he explained. "Now the original Hebrew doesn't have the word virgin, it's just a young woman, but that's the prophecy that's quoted from the Old Testament in support of the story which is, in any case, about a birth without a human father, so it's not that it rests on mistranslation.

"St Matthew's gone to his Greek version of the bible and said, "Oh, 'virgin'; sounds like the story I know," and put it in."

Moving onto other traditional notions of the Nativity story that traditionally appear on Christmas cards, Dr Williams said that he could "live without the ox and asses" that typically appear on cards peering over the baby Jesus in the manger, and added that it "very unlikely" that there would be snow on the ground.

The Archbishop also rubbished Christmas cards that portray two of the three wise men, known as Magi in the Bible, as black while the third one is white, when the issue was raised later in the interview by Mayo.

The Archbishop answered, "Well Matthew's gospel doesn't tell us that there were three of them, doesn't tell us they were kings, doesn't tell us where they came from, it says they're astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire.

"That's all we're really told so, yes, 'the three kings with the one from Africa' - that's legend; it works quite well as legend."

He admitted he was unsure as to whether it was specifically a star that hung above Bethlehem at the time Jesus was born, but added that he had no problem in believing that the astrologers were following something they had seen that was out of the ordinary.

When Mayo asked him if there was a star above the place where the child is, Dr Williams answered, "Don't know; I mean Matthew talks about the star rising, about the star standing still; we know stars don't behave quite like that.

"That the wise men should have seen something which triggered a recognition of something significant was going on, some constellation, there are various scientific theories about what it might have been at around that time and they followed that trek, that makes sense to me."