Miraculous births
They often include conceptions by miraculous circumstances and features such as intervention by a deity, supernatural elements, astronomical signs, hardship or, in the case of some mythologies, complex plots related to creation.
The Akkadian Enûma Eliš describes the birth of Marduk as follows: "Ea, having overheard the plan of the primordial deities to destroy the other gods, deceived Apsu and Mummu and put them to death.
"[This quote needs a citation] It was here that Marduk, the "most potent and wisest of gods" was created in the heart of Apsu and "He who begot him was Ea, his father, she who conceived him was Damkina, his mother".
[2] Oannes first appeared from the sea to teach the Babylonians the art of writing, sciences and crafts, the building of cities, the surveying of land, the observation of the stars, and the sowing and harvesting of all kinds of grains and plants.
[5]: 25 This account later became the basis for the Greek story of Uranus's castration by his son Cronus, resulting in the birth of Aphrodite, described in Hesiod's Theogony.
Sarah invited the women, who brought their infants with them, and on this occasion she gave milk from her breasts to all the children, thus convincing the guests of the miracle (B. M. 87a; comp.
The child came out from his mother after she had died and sat on the bed beside her corpse, already physically developed, clothed, speaking and blessing the Lord, and marked with the badge of priesthood.
Forty days later, Melchizedek was taken by the archangel Gabriel (Michael in some manuscripts) to the Garden of Eden and was thus preserved from the Deluge without having to be in Noah's Ark.
In his poem Theogony, the Greek poet Hesiod tells a story that Zeus had once lain with the goddess Metis, impregnating her, but, fearing that she might bear a child mightier than he himself, he swallowed her.
The Greek Anthology has the following: Zeus, turned to gold, piercing the brazen chamber of Danae, cut the knot of intact virginity.
He was given a semidivine status in Sophocles' "Oedipus the King," where he was said to be the son of either Pan, Loxias, "or the Bacchants' god, dweller on the hilltops ..." and one of the nymphs of Helicon.
Inscriptions show that he and the Ptolemies after him had the incidents of their birth regularly depicted in temple reliefs.”[28] (As cited by Boslooper) Norden calls this the Hellenistic virgin motif.
Throughout this period there were frequent longings for a savior from the present troubles.”[This quote needs a citation] Augustus was said to have had a miraculous birth and a childhood filled with many portents and signs.
In one, Suetonius narrates what he learned from Asclepias of Mendes: When Atia had come in the middle of the night to the solemn service of Apollo, she had her litter set down in the temple and fell asleep, while the rest of the matrons also slept.
When she awoke, she purified herself, as if after the embraces of her husband, and at once there appeared on her body a mark in colors like a serpent, and she could never get rid of it; so that presently she ceased ever to go to the public baths.
The Church fathers later claimed this was a reference to Jesus Christ, however, the poem was dedicated to Pollio, one of the great influential men at the time of the civil wars and Virgil's patron and friend.
Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom The iron shall cease, the golden race arise, Befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own Apollo reigns ...
For thee, O boy, First shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth Her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray With foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, And laughing-eyed acanthus.
Of themselves, Untended, will the she-goats then bring home Their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield Shall of the monstrous lion have no fear...[30] In the story of Krishna the deity is the agent of conception and also the offspring.
[35] In the Mahabharata epic, Surya, the god of the sun, impregnates Queen Kunti before her marriage to King Pandu, causing her to give birth to their son Karna.
In the time chosen by him, Maya, his mother, fell asleep and dreamed that four archangels carried her to the Himalayan Mountains where their queens bathed and dressed her.
[42] A detailed interpretation of the hagiographic nativity of Garab Dorje briefly contextualizes his mother, a bhikṣuṇī whose sadhana was Yoga tantra, and her parents.
The bhiksuni daughter has a dream in which a man holds the vase of the Astamangala, the 'threefold world', with the syllables 'oṃ ā hūṃ' and svāhā: The Lord of Secrets (gSang-ba'i-bdag-po) instructed the Holders of Wisdom (Rig-'dsin) in Dhanakośa in Uḍḍiyāna the contemporary Swat valley.
[43] The Yellow Emperor is sometimes said to have been the fruit of extraordinary birth, as his mother Fubao conceived him as she was aroused, while walking in the country, by a lightning bolt from the Big Dipper.
[55] A star reveals the birth of Jesus to a number (traditionally three) of magi, Greek μάγος, commonly translated as "wise man" but in this context probably meaning "astronomer" or "astrologer",[56][57] who travel to Jerusalem from an unspecified country "in the east".
[58] After the 1st century, traditions flourished that represented the thinking of that time, and also preserved source material for many of the ideas in the "theological writings of the church fathers."
[59] Later, the church fathers refer to subsequent books in the Oracles that are clear allusions to Christ, and probably dated from the close of the second or beginning of the 3rd century AD.
Blessed he has made me, wherever I may be; and He has enjoined me to pray, and to give alms, so long as I live and likewise to cherish my mother" in order to dispel rumours of conception.
Coatlicue, known for her devout nature and virtuous qualities, was at Mount Coatepec or Coatepetl ("Serpent Hill"; near Tula, Hidalgo) one day, sweeping and tending to her penance, when she discovered a bundle of feathers on the ground.
[72] In the Matter of Britain, the wizard Merlin is said to have been born to a royal nun fathered by an incubus, according to the story as presented by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
