'Was Virgin Mary a Virgin?' Lafayette Lecture Asks

She's an important part of the story of Jesus, a holy figure for Catholics around the world and even—thanks to a hit miniseries on the History Channel—a TV star.

And now Mary, the mother of Jesus, will be the focus of a Lafayette College lecture this Thursday: “The Virgin(?) Mary and Her Saucy Sisters."

That question mark isn't a typo.

The lecture, by Claudia Camp of Texas Christian University, "tackles the notion that while the virgin birth is an important part of Christian doctrine, it hangs on a very thin literary thread, especially in the Gospel of Matthew," the college said in a news release.

Camp will look at the women named in Jesus' geneology in the Bible, and how they "bring intimations of strangeness—illicit sex, deceit, and sometimes unexpected power—to the ancestry of Jesus and to the story of Mary."

The free lecture is scheduled for Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Kirby Hall of Civil Rights, and is part of Lafayette's Women's History Month programming.