Note 9 — Part I

The story of the miraculous conception of Jesus would be thrown out of any impartial court upon the evidence of the four Gospels alone.

(a) The two narratives of Matthew and Luke contradict each other on several important details, as is shown above. This discredits each of them as a reliable, accurate authority on this point.

(b) This story is entirely omitted from the narratives of our two first-hand authorities—Mark and John.

Now, it is unthinkable that the authors of these two Gospels, if they knew of this story and believed it to be true, would not have recorded so important a fact in the life of Jesus.

Consequently, they either did not know of the story or, knowing it, did not believe it to be true.

Either hypothesis is equally fatal to the credit of the story.

If they, writing shortly after Jesus' death and, presumably, investigating all sources of information about His prophetic career—probably personally interviewing those persons then living who had seen, heard and known Jesus most intimately—had heard nothing of this story, then it must have been such an obscure legend, buried in the inner consciousness of so few people, as to be unworthy of serious consideration as a fact of history.

If, on the other hand, these writers knew of the story, but, after investigation of the abundant sources of information at their command, rejected it as untrue, what warrant have subsequent historians, not possessing their special means of information, to claim that their decision was wrong?

(c) The story of Jesus' supernatural paternity is most effectually discredited by the fact that no such claim on His behalf was advanced by, nor was the story known to, those nearest to Him during His lifetime.

His nearest friends and neighbors, who had been in daily intercourse with Him at Nazareth for thirty years, had no suspicion of such a claim being made on His behalf, even some time after He had begun his preaching.

"Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?" (Matt. XIII:55; Mark VI:3.) (See also Matt. XII:47.)

Still later, the multitudes who came to hear Him knew nothing of such a claim.

"Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" (John VI:42).

Luke himself says that Jesus "was supposed" to be the son of Joseph (Luke III:23).

There is, in fact, no evidence in the four Gospels to show that, during Jesus' lifetime, there was, at any time or place or by any person, a public claim made that He was not as much the son of Joseph, in the natural course of events, as He was the son of Mary.

(d) Jesus in His lifetime never denied the paternity of Joseph.

On one occasion, in the synagogue at Nazareth, when He had been preaching and the people "wondered" at His "gracious words," "they said, Is not this Joseph's son?" And He said unto them, among other things, "No prophet is accepted in his own country" (Luke IV:22, 23). That is, the people were loath to accept Jesus' teachings because of His lowly birth. But Jesus, instead of claiming a divine parentage, impliedly affirms the fatherhood of Joseph.

On another occasion He is challenged as to His paternity, and does not deny that He is the son of Joseph (John VI:42).

If He had believed that the Holy Ghost was His father, then these two utterances would have been a suppressio veri—the equivalent of a falsehood—of which we cannot think Him guilty.

While Jesus never applies to Himself the title of "Son of David," yet His claim to this lineage must have been widely circulated, since He is given this title not only by the Jews (Matt. IX:27; XII:23; XX:30; XXI:9, 15; Mark X:47; XI:10; Luke I:32; XVIII:38), but also by the Gentiles (Matt. XV:22). His silence and failure to object, when so addressed, certainly constitutes a tacit approval of this description of Himself. But He could only be a descendant of David by reason of the fact that Joseph was His father. Undoubtedly Matthew and Luke inserted in their narratives these two genealogies of Joseph to prove a direct descent of Jesus from David through the paternity of Joseph. The Cadman theory of tracing a descent from David through Mary was not known to the evangelists (Matt. I:16; Luke II:4).

In His meetings with his family, while He seems rather cool and indifferent to them, there is no intimation that His relationship to them is not the ordinary one of son and brother (Matt. XII:47; Mark III:31; Luke VIII:19, 20; XI:28; John II:1, 12).

Jesus never refers to the Holy Ghost as His father, and, on four occasions only, calls Himself the "Son of God" (John III:16-18; V:20; IX:35; XI:4). None of the events in connection with which the term is used by John, are related in either of the three other Gospels. But this term would convey to His hearers no other significance than that with which they were familiar from the Old Testament, where it is applied to beings inferior to God (Gen. VI:2; Job I:6; II:1; XXXVIII:7; Ps. LXXXII:6; 2 Sam. VII:14). But this is very far from the attribute ascribed to Jesus through the miraculous conception, of being the equal of, or one with, God. Jesus Himself refers to others as being the "children of God" (Luke XX:36; Matt. V:45), and He speaks constantly of God being the "Father" of His hearers (Matt. V:16, 45; VI:1, 6, 14; XVIII:14 et passim). Apparently He makes no distinction between this "fatherhood," as related to others, and as related to Himself. For instance, He tells Mary to go to His disciples and say unto them, "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father and to my God and your God" (John XX:17).

Jesus' favorite appellation for Himself is "the Son of Man." He uses this name constantly throughout the four Gospels, and uniformly, except in the four instances cited from John. In speaking of the most solemn and important events of His career, He prefers this name to "the Son of God," or any other. "Of him, also, shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy angels" (Mark VIII:38; XIII:26; Luke IX:26). In passages like these, it seems necessary to eliminate the words "of man," if they are to harmonize with the theory of the paternity of the Holy Ghost. Again, on His trial, when the high priest "adjures" Him: "Tell us whether Thou be the Christ, the Son of God," Jesus follows His usual noncommittal answer, "Thou hast said," with the statement: "Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven (Matt. XXVI:64; Luke XXII:69; Mark XIV:62; John VIII:28; XII:23, 34, 35).

(e) Finally, to close all argument on this point, there are the many express statements of Jesus to the effect that He was not the same as, or the equal of, God (Matt. XIX:17; XX:23; Mark X:18, 40; Luke XVIII:19; John XIV:28; XVII:3).