According to Catholic dogma, "by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary was invited to conceive the word of God in her womb," explains Susan Northway, director of the office of religious education for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City. "It's a mysterious working of God." And Catholics are comfortable with mystery — God being God, she says, anything is possible. Or, as Judge Memorial High School theology teacher Corethia Qualls says, "The limitations of our world — height, width, length, time — do not apply."

To Latter-day Saints, the virgin birth is "absolutely literal," says Thom Wayment, associate professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. "The Book of Mormon also mentions it, so it's confirmed in two different places," he says.

The Internet is full of complaints that the dogma of the LDS Church holds that Jesus was conceived through a literal physical relationship between God and Mary. Statements often cited include an entry in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, which says that God is "the literal parent of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," and "Jesus Christ is the Son of Elohim, both as spiritual and bodily offspring."

"Latter-day Saints simply don't talk about it," says Wayment about what statements like that might imply. As for critics who argue that the LDS position is that God had sexual intercourse with Mary, he notes that "some statements might seem to imply this to certain people, but those who delivered them didn't say it that way. If I were asked to describe what we think today, I would say that we believe that Mary conceived Jesus in a way that we do not fully understand and that Jesus was the Son of God or the Son of the Father. We also believe that Jesus is a literal son of his Father. How it happened is really immaterial to the discussion."

Jane Schaberg has yet a different take of the conception of Jesus. In her book "The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the New Testament Infancy Narratives," Schaberg argues that the scriptures point to a normal, human conception by a father other than Joseph. It was the baby, not the conception, that was holy, she says.

For Unitarians, says the Rev. Tom Goldsmith of First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City, Jesus was 100 percent human. "I don't think the virgin birth adds or detracts from the splendor of the story. Every faith has stories that may not be literally true. But it's so important for us to celebrate hope and light in whatever era we're living in."

Miller, the biblical scholar who says that most of his colleagues believe the virgin birth is a metaphor, argues that the challenge Luke gave his readers was "to not see God in the majesty and military might of Rome but in the quiet healing and compassion that Jesus enacted in his lifetime. That isn't affected in any way by whether one takes (the virgin birth) literally."

Miller is often asked to speak to church groups. "What I tell them," he says, "is, 'If you subtract the virgin birth, what are you left with? Everything.'"

On the other hand, to think of it as metaphor introduces a theological slippery slope of doubt about other biblical events, including the Resurrection. But as Miller points out, "We need some options other than that the Bible is all literally true or the Bible is a phony book."

Questions about the Bible "have to be asked earnestly and vigorously to have an adult faith," he says. "If we just repeat what we're told, then we're not adults."

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com