ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Barth's dogmatic location and characterization of the doctrine of the virgin birth and it outlines the most significant developments of these matters throughout Barth's career. It concerns the development of Barth's understanding of the virgin birth as a sign of the mystery of the incarnation. By the mid 1930s, however, Barth came to characterize the virgin birth, not as a constitutive element in Christ's life, but as a sign of Christ's identity. As we saw in The Great Promise, Barth believes that he reached this conclusion through a careful exegesis of the infancy narratives, albeit one undertaken in relative isolation from their wider literary and canonical context. In the Church Dogmatics (CD), Barth made his characterization of the virgin birth even more precise. By the time of the CD, Barth had come to the firm conviction that the virgin birth is to be affirmed as a sign of the incarnation.
