This book challenges the traditional church belief in a Virginal Conception of Jesus. Professor Parrinder shows that the idea of a Virginal Conception was unknown to the first generations of Christian. Indeed, the belief only appeared in Matthew's Gospel in the last quarter of the first century, some eighty years after the supposed event. Notions of a Virgin Birth and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary were, rather, formulated in apocryphal writings from the second century. The Gospels name four brothers of Jesus and at least two sisters. For a long period some Christians held the natural view that Jesus was the legitimate son of Joseph and Mary, and that the Family had nine members.