In the Gospel of John the main concern of the Evangelist (or the community that edited and completed the work) is that “you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (20.31). Throughout the Gospel he makes it most apparent that this is substantiated by Jesus’ peculiar relationship with God the Father as the Word of God who has come into the world. Jesus’ deeds verify this claim and that is why you should confess Jesus as Messiah.
In contrast to Matthew and Luke we find different responses to allegations regarding Jesus being a child born of fornication and not being born in Bethlehem.
In 7.42 some question whether Jesus could have been the Messiah since the Messiah had to have been born in Bethlehem. The Evangelist is ambivalent to whether this matters or not. He doesn’t clarify that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but neither is there any suggestion that he agreed with the accusation that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem. Again, I think he has mentioned over and over again that Jesus comes from God. If this is true, does it matter how he got here?!
Likewise, in 8.41 while Jesus and his opponents debate fatherhood (Jesus says that they are not children of Abraham, but Satan in vv. 31-47) the opponents of Jesus state “We were not born of fornication.” This seems to be an attack on Jesus. Who is Jesus to doubt the validity of their relationship to Abraham since he is the result of sexually immorality?! Rather than a virgin conception narrative the Evangelist expects the reader to call the bluff of Jesus’ opponents. Why would they say that when they know very well he claims to have come from God the Father. Now this doesn’t mean that John denied Jesus’ virgin conception, but rather he seems unconcerned with the accusation because in his eyes Jesus’ relation to the Father is enough to rebuff such accusations.
Obviously, we cannot know for sure what John thought about the virgin conception tradition though his logos Christology and later date of composition make me think he was aware of it and affirmed it indirectly. Likewise, we cannot know what he thought of the tradition that Messiah had to come from Bethlehem or whether or not he thought Jesus did come from Bethlehem. What we do seem to know is that he felt that these matters were secondary to who he knew Jesus to be.
the archives near Emmaus 
If NT Wright (and others) is correct about suggesting maybe John’s gospel was composed in an effort to correct the others, then this stands as a very important unaddressed issue. Like you say, Matthew and Luke seem to make much of the virgin birth, but John is rather silent. If he’s trying to present what actually happened, then, like you say, the virgin birth was a peripheral issue to him.
It amazes me, though, how often the virgin birth gets exalted into an absolute essential. Driscoll does this is Vintage Jesus and it’s terribly annoying. He basically says you must believe in the virgin birth in order to be a Christian. I wonder, if we only had John’s gospel, what he’d say then?
Thanks for pointing this out, Brian!
@Jeremy: If we had Mark alone we’d have no virgin conception. If we had Paul alone the same. So while I think the virgin conception is important because of it’s creedal status, I agree that to hinge salvation on it seems a bit odd.
Or maybe John realized that the virgin birth was already covered by the M & L, and thus didn’t see the need to redress this issue in his own Gospel. It seems that much of this will always remain in the realm of conjecture and silence (except on blogs and academic journals 😉 … of course).
More important than the virginity issue, I think, is the tradition about the annunciation. I am not inclined to reject the annunciation traditions out of hand, and I think they are enough support for a pre-existence theory without the corny pagan notions of virgin birth having to play a part. Of course the prologue of John makes the whole paternty issue kind of moot.
I remember that John’s passion narrative includes a little scene wherein Jesus turns over to ‘the beloved disciple’ the care of his mother Mary. So the fourth evangelist is the guy who had the greatest opportunity to ask about the events of the nativity (or he’s close to that guy).
Obviously we shouldn’t imagine he ever brought himself to ask his guest the totally rude question, “Is it true what the scoffers say?” But there is a chance that the annunciation traditions, if true, come from that quarter (another of those mysterious links between Luke and John).
Whether Luke is or is not ignorant of the book called ‘Matthew,’ if he knows where John lives, then I say he simply must have paid a visit before he calls his work complete. Bobby’s right about ‘conjectures’ – but my favorite is that Luke talked to John (at the time probably one of the last eyewitnesses).
Luke’s prologue gives no assurance that he plans to confirm everything that previous compilers (Mark, Matthew, and ?) have alleged regarding events of the Incarnation, but we get the idea that he has taken pains to discover “the truth concerning things of which you [Theophilus] have been informed.”
@Bobby: It is possible that he didn’t need to cover something already addressed. That may assume John thought Matthew and Luke had wide-enough circulation or that the churches to whom he wrote had copies. Hard to know.
@John: Interesting insights. Though I don’t see eye-to-eye on the “pagan notions of virgin birth” as being motivation for the Matthean and Lukan narratives (more on this tomorrow), I think your reconstruction does allow us to think deeply about whether or not the Evangelists knew and consulted each other during the development of their Gospels.
@Brian: Sorry about the reference to paganism. But I think you’ll agree that ‘annunciations’ of impending births are much more Biblical than virgin births – Paul doesn’t write about the VB either, as you probably know.
I think there could always be questions about possible leakage from paganism when it comes to tying God up with the male half of an impregnation. Enemies of Christianity are not shy of mentioning this. And then there’s the fact that ‘sacred virginity’ seems to be so ancient as to be pre-Hebrew (maybe not a big enough deal to make an issue of it – which is why I apologize).
@John: I agree that annunciations are more Hebraic and virgin conceptions seem to find a home in the pagan world. While it is possible that the connection comes through the Fatherhood of God, it am less inclined to accept the pagan roots of the idea based on Matthean and Lukan Christology being a tad lower than what I think would be necessary to postulate a “divine birth” theory. In whatever sense that Jesus is “God” in Matthew and Luke it seems a far cry from a full-bodied divine identity of pagan literature or even Johannine Christology.
Not sure what you mean by saying that their low christologies make “divine birth” theories are unnecessary to MT and LK. Are you saying the nativities are added on by later authors in both cases?
I get the most mileage with Luke’s nativity and (since I reject standard Q-theory) believe he knew the MT version and therefore must have refused to reprint it for good reason. Note that it’s allegedly based on the experiences of Joseph – a guy who was probably dead even before the Baptist had whiskers.
Luke’s story retains the virginity concept. Fine. Again, I think all the meat is in the annunciation stories (as far as the pre-existence of the Lord is concerned).
If Luke has the closest thing to the real, he must have gotten it from somebody close to Mary herself. Right now that is the beloved disciple, in my concept, as I said in my first comment.
Since I also hold that the author of John knows all three synoptics and sees himself in a corrective or supplemental role, there is no reason for him to duplicate his own nativitiy material – which he gave to Luke. Besides, I also think the concepts of the prologue are his and not ‘Hellenic’ – and those are much bigger fish to fry.
Ha, I just read my comment – it was the wine with dinner 🙂
I don’t mean to sound so sure of myself, only brainstorming your question about the fourth gospel stance on the nativity from the standpoint of (1) rejection of Q-theory, (2) doubt as to the basis of Matthew’s nativity and (3) belief as to Luke’s derivation of a very different nativity story via the beloved disciple or another source close to the family. Mere conjecture.
@John: To clarify I meant that I don’t see the virgin conception narratives as paralleling pagan virgin conceptions of deities. I assume that these narratives are original with the earliest forms of Matthew and Luke, but I don’t think they thought of Jesus as being a deity to the extent of Mithras, Osiris, or other pagan gods that people claim function as the source of Jesus’ “god born of a virgin” narrative. In other words, whatever it means for Israel’s God to dwell in Jesus it doesn’t parallel the concept of deity found in the pagan world all that well. Jesus is far too human for that.
Good clarification, Brian. And good point about the differences we both see between this Incarnation and earlier tradtitions of pagan incarnation-types.
But would exactly parallel stories be required if the primary evangelical objective was simply to break down pagan resistance to the good news of this particular Incarnation? [rhetorical question – answer is optional]