Quotes Compiled by Robert Hyatt
June 1999

Burton, ed., We Believe, God
One of the great questions that I have referred to that the world is concerned about, and is in confusion over, is as to whether or not his was a virgin birth, a birth wherein divine power interceded. Joseph Smith made it perfectly clear that Jesus Christ told the absolute truth, as did those who testify concerning him, the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, wherein he is declared to be the very Son of God. And if God the Eternal Father is not the real Father of Jesus Christ, then are we in confusion; then is he not in reality the Son of God. But we declare that he is the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh.

B. H. Roberts, Defense of the Faith and the Saints, Vol.2, p.269
"When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness; he was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family; and when he took a tabernacle it was begotten by his father in heaven after the same manner as the tabernacles of Cain, Abel and the rest of the sons and daughters of Eve. I could tell you much more about this; but were I to tell you the whole truth, blasphemy would be nothing to it in the estimation of the superstitious and over-righteous of mankind. Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten by the same character that was in the Garden of Eden. And who is our Father in Heaven."--Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 1, pages 50-1.

Bruce R. McConkie, The Promised Messiah, p.468 - p.469
And so it is with the Eternal Father and the mortal birth of the Eternal Son. The Father is a Father is a Father; he is not a spirit essence or nothingness to which the name Father is figuratively applied. And the Son is a Son is a Son; he is not some transient emanation from a divine essence, but a literal, living offspring of an actual Father. God is the Father; Christ is the Son. The one begat the other. Mary provided the womb from which the Spirit Jehovah came forth, tabernacled in clay, as all men are, to dwell among his fellow spirits whose births were brought to pass in like manner. There is no need to spiritualize away the plain meaning of the scriptures. There is nothing figurative or hidden or beyond comprehension in our Lord's coming into mortality. He is the Son of God in the same sense and way that we are the sons of mortal fathers. It is just that simple. Christ was born of Mary. He is the Son of God—the Only Begotten of the Father.

Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, Vol.1, p.83
Luke 1:31. Thou shalt conceive in thy womb] Our Lord was destined to have all of the essential experiences of mortality, including conception and birth in the natural and literal sense. Jesus] Greek form of the Hebrew Yeshua, Jeshua, Joshua, or Jehoshua, meaning Jehovah is salvation or deliverance.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p.471 MARY
See ANNUNCIATION, CHRIST, IMMACULATE CONCEPTION THEORY, MAGNIFICAT, VIRGIN BIRTH. Our Lord's mother, Mary, like Christ, was chosen and foreordained in pre-existence for the part she was destined to play in the great plan of salvation. Hers was the commission to provide a temporal body for the Lord Omnipotent, to nurture and cherish him in infancy and youth, and to aid him in preparing for that great mission which he alone could perform. Certainly she was one of the noblest and greatest of all the spirit offspring of the Father.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p.743 SON OF MARY
See CHRIST, MARY, SON OF DAVID, SON OF GOD, SON OF JOSEPH, VIRGIN BIRTH. Christ is the Son of Mary. (Matt. 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; Mosiah 3:8.) Mary was "the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh .... She was carried away in the Spirit" (1 Ne. 11:18-19), was "overshadowed" and conceived "by the power of the Holy Ghost" (Alma 7:9-10) -- but the Holy Ghost is not the Father of Christ -- and when the Child was born, he was "the Son of the Eternal Father." (1 Ne. 11:2

James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, Ch.7, p.81
His message delivered, Gabriel departed, leaving the chosen Virgin of Nazareth to ponder over her wondrous experience. Mary's promised Son was to be "The Only Begotten" of the Father in the flesh; so it had been both positively and abundantly predicted. True, the event was unprecedented; true also it has never been paralleled; but that the virgin birth would be unique was as truly essential to the fulfillment of prophecy as that it should occur at all. That Child to be born of Mary was begotten of Elohim, the Eternal Father, not in violation of natural law but in accordance with a higher manifestation thereof; and, the offspring from that association of supreme sanctity, celestial Sireship, and pure though mortal maternity, was of right to be called the "Son of the Highest." In His nature would be combined the powers of Godhood with the capacity and possibilities of mortality; and this through the ordinary operation of the fundamental law of heredity, declared of God, demonstrated by science, and admitted by philosophy, that living beings shall propagate -- after their kind. The Child Jesus was to inherit the physical, mental, and Spiritual traits, tendencies, and powers that characterized His parents -- one immortal and glorified -- God, the other human -- woman.

Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol.2, JESUS CHRIST
For Latter-day Saints, the paternity of Jesus is not obscure. He was the literal, biological son of an immortal, tangible Father and Mary, a mortal woman (see Virgin Birth). Jesus is the only person born who deserves the title "the Only Begotten Son of God" (John 3:16; Benson, p. 3; see Jesus Christ: Only Begotten in the Flesh). He was not the son of the Holy Ghost; it was only through the Holy Ghost that the power of the Highest overshadowed Mary (Luke 1:35; 1 Ne. 11:19).

Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, Vol.1, p.82
Virgin birth] Mary was a virgin "A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins" (1 Ne. 11:15) -- until after the birth of our Lord. Then, for the first time, she was known by Joseph, her husband; and other children, both sons and daughters, were then born to her. (Matt. 13:55-56; Mark 6:3; Gal. 1:19.) She conceived and brought forth her Firstborn Son while yet a virgin because the Father of that child was an immortal personage.

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p.84 BIRTH
When the spirit children of the Father pass from his presence into this mortal sphere, a mortal birth results. Again by the ordained procreative process a body is provided, but this time it is made from the dust of this earth, that is, from the natural elements which appertain to this temporal sphere. Three things are necessary to effect every mortal birth. They are: water, blood, and spirit -- the same elements found in every rebirth into the fellowship of God's kingdom. (Moses 6:59.)

Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, Vol.1, p.82
Gabriel came to Mary before her conception, and to Joseph after it became apparent that his espoused wife was with child, to announce that she should be "the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh." (1 Ne. 11:18.) In both visits the unborn child was heralded as the promised Messiah, the heir to the throne of David, the Lord God Omnipotent who should come down and through the normal birth process make flesh his tabernacle. (Mosiah 3:5-8.)