The first Gospel that was written was the Gospel of Mark. It makes no mention of the "virgin birth". It's only mentioned in Matthew and Luke, which were the next two Gospels to be written.
The writer of Matthew - whoever it was - was trying to show that jesus had come 'in fulfillment of prophecy'. So he searched the Torah for anything he could use to show that jesus had fulfilled prophecy.
One prophecy that he mined was from Isaiah 7, which mentions that "the maiden is with child and she will bear a son, and will call his name Immanuel."
In translating that verse, the writer of Matthew translated it to mean (1) that a VIRGIN would bear a son, that (2) the "virgin" was not YET pregnant, when the verse actually says that the young woman was already pregnant, and (3) ignored the fact that this prophecy was applicable to a particular moment in time, and was not a prophecy of something that would happen thousands of year in the future.
But, that misinterpretation has flourished into a "Virgin Birth" myth, with all of the details filled out (the shepherds in the field, Mary being told by an Angel that she'd bear god's child, the explanation to Joseph) and including other mined "prophecies" of being a Nazarene (no such prophecy in the OT) and being born in Bethlehem (that prophecy was supposed to be fulfilled at a time when there was a war with the Assyrians, not at some future time).
The Roman Census, the "no room at the Inn", the Star, the wise men, all of it.
ALL OF THAT is based on misinterpretations of prophecies in the OT.
That's an example of how religions are invented.
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