There is, of course, no direct answer to your question, either in Scripture or even in our voluminous Tradition!
All that I would say is that if Adam and Eve were created de novo and were fully human (and fully male and female, respectively), then it doesn't seem that unlikely to me that God could create an extra set of chromosomes (including that elusive Y chromosome!) from the flesh of the virgin. The raw material of amino acids and what-not were all there.
If God could make an entire woman from Adam's rib, he can certainly do that! The Scripture doesn't say that Mary would spontaneously form a child, it says that she would be overshadowed by the power of the Holy Ghost, causing her conception -- that's pretty powerful stuff. There *was* a Father involved, even if we completely reject the Mormon idea that carnal relations took place.
The Scripture doesn't say that Mary would spontaneously form a child, it says that she would be overshadowed by the power of the Holy Ghost, causing her conception -- that's pretty powerful stuff. There *was* a Father involved, even if we completely reject the Mormon idea that carnal relations took place
Yes there was a "Father" but in Adam's case there was no "Mother." Thus one more difference in this strange equation. Besides, why is God "the Father?" God revealed Himself to Moses as the one Who is (I am who I am); that is entirely genderless.
The fatherhood comes from the ancient stereotypes associating "blood line" with the male line of inheritance and the early polygamies. The reason why it is possible to have more than one wife and still maintain a family is because the father is always known; thus the lineage is established. In the opposite case, if a woman had many husbands, the father would be unknown and the family would be lost.
Thus it was the male who generated his offspring, and a woman was but a "suitable vessel" (a "pot," if you will) where this generation was "cooked." Besides, women had no property rights and could not work. So, of course, man was the master and therefore God, being the Supreme Master, is also "male." Note that there is no female divinity in Judaism/Christianity. Woman was but a "suitable vessel" for man's "deposit" for future generations.
There is one more curious thing about Christ's Humanity: St. Augustine apparently believed that Christ would have died a natural death had He not been killed by Romans (cf St. Augustine, De Peccat., II, 29; P. L., XLIV, 180).
This seems a little strange considering that we are told by St. Paul that death came into this world through the sin of one man (Adam). If Christ is a pre-Fall second Adam, differences not withstanding, why is He susceptible to the post-Fall consequences? This also makes Him, a pre-Fall man, mortal and "slave to death." This also makes His death a necessity and not a divine will. But we know that Christ did not (and if fact could not) sin and, being pre-Fall and sinless, would not suffer death.
There is one more aspect of the whole issue of humanity that is a puzzle: we are all born as infants, become babies, grow into boys and girls, and mature into men and women, and then begin to decline into the old age and die. Our "aging" process and susceptibility to death is often used as a visible sign of our fallen nature that makes maturation a consequence of our spiritual corruption made visible in our physical appearance.
Thus, by that definition, Christ should have never grown from an Infant into a Child, and finally into a 30-year-old Man, susceptible to death! Of course, we can always say that He willed it so, which makes His humanity appear even less "just like us."
What I am driving at is that it is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, the divine from human; the inspired from rationalization; the ordained from man made, tec. I think one of the best examples of this mixture where human and divine is inseparable is the Orthodox fasting practice.
Not only did St. Paul "release" Gentiles from dietary restrictions of Pharisaical Judaism, but the disciples themselves were released from Judaic fasting practices until Christ's death. But early Christians, all of whom were Pharisees by worship, continued to fast twice a week. When Christianity spread into other areas, there were no specific rules as to when to fast, how long, or what not to eat. None of this is scriptural, of course and falls under the "Tradition."
The truth is that the Church eventually decided to "regulate" fasting and even insist on it to the point of excommunication! Thus, some Orthodox Churches teach that twice weekly fast is the same Fast as the Great Lent: no oil, animal products or wine; eat once (ninth hour), and always less than desired.
In the beginning, the Church regulated monastic fasts longer than that for laity. Many monastics have since then started fasting on Mondays as well, in order to "exceed the Pharisees" in righteousness.
All of this is man-made mumbo-jumbo for the lack of a better term and none of it Biblical or even Judaic or for that matter ethnic. Now, I am not saying that fasting is not good, because other religions recognize it as "purifying" and so on, but that is something that would come naturally with higher states of theosis, and not something that is pre-conditioned and imposed. The way it is can be likened to making a commitment before being in love.
Thus, whether we talk about the 'sola scriptura' which is an oxymoron because it is not independent of human rationalization (interpretation), or whether we speak of invented de-novo Church traditions, we see the same human element being the crucial hinge that seems to overlap everything else, including the imposition of a "gender," by necessity, to God.
CHAPTER 100
IN WHAT SENSE CHRIST IS [CALLED] JACOB, AND ISRAEL, AND SON OF MAN"Then what follows--'But Thou, the praise of Israel, inhabitest the holy place'--declared that He is to do something worthy of praise and wonderment, being about to rise again from the dead on the third day after the crucifixion; and this He has obtained from the Father. For I have showed already that Christ is called both Jacob and Israel; and I have proved that it is not in the blessing of Joseph and Judah alone that what relates to Him was proclaimed mysteriously, but also in the Gospel it is written that He said: 'All things are delivered unto me by My Father;' and, 'No man knoweth the Father but the Son; nor the Son but the Father, and they to whom the Son will reveal Him.' Accordingly He revealed to us all that we have perceived by His grace out of the Scriptures, so that we know Him to be the first-begotten of God, and to be before all creatures; likewise to be the Son of the patriarchs, since He assumed flesh by the Virgin of their family, and submitted to become a man without comeliness, dishonoured, and subject to suffering. Hence, also, among His words He said, when He was discoursing about His future sufferings: "The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the Pharisees and Scribes, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.' He said then that He was the Son of man, either because of His birth by the Virgin, who was, as I said, of the family of David and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham; or because Adam was the father both of Himself and of those who have been first enumerated from whom Mary derives her descent. For we know that the fathers of women are the fathers likewise of those children whom their daughters bear. For [Christ] called one of His disciples--previously known by the name of Simon--Peter; since he recognised Him to be Christ the Son. of God, by the revelation of His Father: and since we find it recorded in the memoirs of His apostles that He is the Son of God, and since we call Him the Son, we have understood that He proceeded before all creatures from the Father by His power and will (for He is addressed in the writings of the prophets in one way or another as Wisdom, and the Day, and the East, and a Sword, and a Stone, and a Rod, and Jacob, and Israel); and that He became man by the Virgin, in order that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in which it derived its origin. For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her, and the power of the Highest would overshadow her: wherefore also the Holy Thing begotten of her is the Son of God; and she replied, 'Be it unto me according to thy word.' And by her has He been born, to whom we have proved so many Scriptures refer, and by whom God destroys both the serpent and those angels and men who are like him; but works deliverance from death to those who repent of their wickedness and believe upon Him.