Um, I don’t think so. Let’s face reality. Unless one truly believes that Jesus was God and born of a virgin, then Jesus was born the same way we all were: from an act of sexual intercourse. The Bible tells us she had no relations with Joseph prior to the birth; so, as Lenny Bruce might say: There are only two possibilities. Mary had sexual relations willingly, or unwillingly.

It has been speculated that Jesus was fathered by a Roman soldier – a young Roman man in his prime. If that were so, all bets are off as to Jesus’s physical appearance. Personally, I have no problem with the rape theory, if fact I think that it actually adds to Jesus’s story. A poor, illegitimate bastard child entering the world as societies’ lowest of the low, only to rise to heights akin to the Son of God. Teaching the world how to love, how to treat all men and women with the utmost respect regardless of their circumstances. To me, the probable reality of Jesus surpasses the improbable myth.