Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
"Immaculate Conception" means Jesus was born of a virgin
In Catholic doctrine, "Immaculate Conception" refers to Mary's own conception, not Jesus's birth.
Luke 1:35, in every translation this tool compares.
The doctrine, formally defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854, holds that Mary herself was conceived by her parents (Joachim and Anna, in tradition) without the stain of original sin: a claim about the very start of Mary's own life, decades before Jesus was born. It is not a statement about how Jesus was conceived at all.
The virgin birth of Jesus is a separate doctrine entirely, drawn from Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-35, and shared across Catholic, Orthodox, and most Protestant traditions in a way the Immaculate Conception (a distinctly Catholic dogma, not held by Orthodox or Protestant churches) is not. The two get merged constantly in casual usage, largely, it seems, because both phrases involve Mary and both involve the word "conception," but they're answering entirely different theological questions about two different people's births.
