Note 37 — Chapter IV · BIRTH AND EARLIEST EVENTS OF THE LIFE OF JESUS.

In opposition to this natural explanation, so full of difficulties on every side, Bauer announced his adoption of the mythical view37; in fact, however, he did not advance one step beyond the interpretation of the Rationalists, but actually repeated Paulus’s exposition point for point. To this mixed mythical explanation Gabler justly objected that it, equally with the natural interpretation, multiplies improbabilities: by the adoption of the pure, dogmatic mythus, everything appears simpler; thereby, at the same time, greater harmony is introduced into the early christian history, all the preceding narratives of which ought equally to be interpreted as pure mythi.38 Gabler, accordingly, explained the narrative as the product of the ideas of the age, which demanded the assistance of angels at the birth of the Messiah. Now had it been known that Mary was delivered in a dwelling belonging to shepherds, it would also have been concluded that angels must have brought the tidings to these good shepherds that the Messiah was born in their manger; and the angels who cease not praising God, must have sung a hymn of praise on the occasion. Gabler thinks it impossible, that a Jewish christian who should have known some of the data of the birth of Jesus, could have thought of it otherwise than as here depicted.39