Virgin birth may sound like the stuff of myths and miracles, but now it’s the stuff of science, too. In recent years, asexual reproduction, aka virgin birth, has been confirmed in a number of organisms. And we’re not just talking about bacteria budding off one another. Large animals, like pythons, sharks, and komodo dragons, have been reported to reproduce with no sex involved. In these animals, the process is known as parthenogenesis, in which the females produce eggs that can develop without fertilization.
Could parthenogenesis, or some other scientifically conceivable process, have been at work in the most famous virgin birth story around? Dr. Aarathi Prasad, who’s writing a book about reproduction sans men, The End of Sex, ponders the question of Mary’s virgin pregnancy in the The Guardian. She points out one major problem with Jesus’s lack of paternity: that Jesus was male, presumably with an X and a Y chromosome. Since human females have only X chromosomes, there would be no way for Jesus to acquire his Y from Mary. Unless…
