By Jim Nichols

Several years ago, I began writing an opinion piece on the Middle East, Israel, and Palestine. This was well before the current military, political, and religious catastrophe there. I worked hard gathering background information and history of the area. I had written most of the article before I realized that I did not know what I was saying. It was all getting mixed in my mind, and I was wondering what my whole point was. That article is still sitting, unfinished, on the computer hard drive somewhere. I was reminded of advice that stated, “Write what you know about, not what you don’t.”

While I am not sure that is always true because often you and I learn about a topic by forcing ourselves to consider it, it does make sense. Since I found that I did not know much about the Middle East, Israel, and Palestine, I wondered what I did know something about. My answer was that I believe I understand some biology. Or do I?

When I was a boy, we used to joke about saying something “sacrilegious.” That is, some church topic was the butt of some wiseacre comment, and we were a bit nervous as to whether that was an appropriate topic. You might be thinking the title of this article falls into that category. I say in honesty, however, that the biologist side of me has wondered about it for many years.

The presence or absence of a Y chromosome is the determining factor of gender in virtually all humans. Among the 46 chromosomes in each cell, one of them is a Y chromosome in males; females lack it. If we assume that Jesus was biologically male, that will lead us to conclude that he had a Y chromosome. If we accept the Biblical rendition of Mary’s pregnancy as a virgin, it causes us to wonder about the origin of the Y chromosome of Jesus. I know this seems to be a strange consideration, but I find it provoking in a positive way.

The next step in the consideration, of course, is that this takes us into the struggle to understand Jesus’ divinity and humanity. Here and elsewhere in God’s world, we are faced with a paradox. Our human minds conclude that something (or someone) cannot be two complete things simultaneously. Yet, faith teaches us that Jesus was truly human and truly divine. Our human mathematics assumes that to add something here one must subtract something there. Apparently, that is not necessarily true in the spiritual world.

There are several potential complications to consider, few of which are solvable by us. For instance, if we believe that God’s Son is eternal, that means that Mary’s son existed before Mary existed. The divine Son became a humble human being without altering his relationship with the Father and the Spirit. Pope Leo I (400-461) commented on the incarnation, “What he did was to enhance humanity not diminish deity.” By becoming a mortal, it “. . . was a drawing-near in mercy not a failure in power.” God’s love for humans and the creation was so great that he became a man to dwell with us to restate his love and new life. 

I suspect that Jesus did, indeed, have a Y chromosome. Where he got it is unclear. It is also unclear how life on earth began initially. Unless we assume life always existed, there must have been at least one time when life came from non-life; we do not see that occurring today. We also are unable to explain how multiple women unable to bear children for some reason (think Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, etc.) had their condition altered. There is lots of strange biology here. How do we explain Jesus’ (and others in scripture) resurrection? We are not even able to explain a talking donkey. 

This seems to me to be grand stuff. These impossibilities can be either faith-affirming or damaging. Because of the ongoing daily miracles occurring around me that I cannot explain, I remember the angel Gabriel in Luke 1 saying to Mary, “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain