List of virgin births
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about virgin births of any figures other than Jesus, accompanied by a verifiable reference to a source describing them as such. For a discussion of the specific Christian doctrine of the Virgin Birth, please see Virgin Birth (Christian doctrine). For information on the biological phenomenon, please see parthenogenesis.
Deganawidah: "According to the legend, Dekanahwideh was born among the Huron Indians …. His virgin mother had been informed in a dream by a messenger from the Creator that she was to bear a son destined to plant the Tree of Peace at Onondaga." Dekanahwideh, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
Montezuma (the Pueblo god-hero, not the Aztec Emperor): Supposedly conceived from a beautiful virgin when she either ate[1] a pinyon pine nut, or when it fell from a tree and landed on her belly[2], depending on the version.
Huitzilopochtli: The Aztec god of war and the sun, he was conceived when a ball of feathers fell on his mother Coatlicue while she was cleaning a temple. The ball of feathers was actually Mixcoatl, the god of the hunt.
Hunahpu and Xbalanque: The Mayan Hero Twins, in their holy book the Popol Vuh, were conceived after twin sons of the Creators were summoned by the lords of Xibalba and beheaded for playing a noisy ball game. The head of one twin, Huh Hunahpu, magically impregnated Ixquic (also known as Blood Moon).
Sathya Sai Baba: According to the book Easwaramma by the authorized biographer Narayana Kasturi.
Cúchulainn: according to The Birth of Cúchulainn he was born three times: the second and third may have been virgin births (the narrative is unclear).
Mithra: The Persian yazata Mithra is often cited as a virgin birth, but this is unclear. By the 3rd Century BC, Mithra's myth had become attached to that of Anahita. The Seleucid temple at Kangavar in western Iran (c. 200 BC) is dedicated to "Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithras." But it should be noted that Anāhitā was considered eternally immaculate, no matter how many sexual encounters she might have.
[edit] Use in modern storytelling
Mystery author James Patterson used the concept of the virgin birth in his 1980 novel Virgin, later rewritten by the author as Cradle And All. In the novel, an ex-nun turned detective investigates two simultaneously occurring virgin pregnancies and their possible relevance to a series of apocalyptic natural disasters.
Originally published in 1981, Robert Lieberman's bestselling novel Baby dealt with a contemporary virgin birth; the child, considered by many to be an angel, never speaks but sings in a wordless, enchanting voice, around which a cult is formed.
In John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany, Owen Meany is claimed by his parents to be a virgin birth.
The concept of virgin birth was introduced in Star Wars—Episode I: The Phantom Menace, where Shmi Skywalker, the mother of Anakin Skywalker, explains that her son had no father, and is hence the product of virgin birth. Qui-Gon Jinn speculates that the child was conceived by midi-chlorians, much in the same way that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. In the trilogy, Anakin is also likened to Jesus in other ways, as he is continually asserted as being "The Chosen One".
