What does the Bible say about Mary's pregnancy?
How long was it? What did Mary do during it?
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Asked December 21 2014
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Leeanne Talefenua
Supporter
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Ian Cowan
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I don't see Mary as a mere surrogate mother, as the early church taught (hence the RC and Orthodox Churches' continued use of the Greek word: theotokos = God-bearer). For the Lord Jesus to be both fully God and fully man ("made like his brothers in every way"),Mary had to provide some genetic input. So I believe her egg ("the seed of the woman") was fertilised miraculously by the Holy Spirit.
Modern (Mendelian) genetics bears this out: We have two copies of every gene (the scientific term is "diploid") so the Lord inherited one copy from Mary and one from God.
In answer to those who might protest that any input from Mary - a sinner like the rest of us - would taint the Lord with a sin nature, the key phrase "the Holy Spirit will overshadow [dominate] you" (Luke 1:35) implies that God's genes were all dominant and Mary's recessive, so the Lord could remain sinless despite being fully human.
Modern science can be a friend of scripture, not its adversary!
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