[1] Renan says that "the family of David had, as it seems, been long
extinct" before Joseph's birth. Life of Jesus, Chap. XV.
[2] The first verse of Luke's Gospel says that "many" had written about
Jesus' life before him. If, as seems probable, he had Matthew's
narrative before him when he wrote his Gospel, it is an interesting
query why he rejected in his line of ancestry Solomon--the most
"glorious" of the Jewish rulers--in favor of the obscure and
comparatively unknown Nathan.
[3] It is somewhat curious that Matthew and Luke, who are the only two
evangelists to attribute a divine ancestry to Jesus (see heading
"Conception"), are the only two to give a genealogy of Joseph. From
their point of view, it was entirely immaterial whether Joseph was a
descendant of David or not. An attempt to trace Mary's lineage back to
David would have had some materiality.
On the other hand, it would seem that Mark and John, who ignore the
paternity of the Holy Ghost, would have deemed it of high importance to
establish, if possible, one of these genealogies. All Jewry at this time
was teeming with expectation of the coming of a Messiah, and their
prophets had marked Him out as one of the lineage of David (Psalms
CXXXII:2; Jer. XXIII:4; John VII:42). No stronger argument could have
been found to win the favor of the Jews to Jesus than the linking of His
name with David.
In Cadman's "Harmony of the Gospels," page 39, the author makes an
ingenious attempt to "harmonize" these two lines of ancestry--the
super-natural and the Davidian. This he does by making Luke's genealogy
one of Mary, instead of Joseph. By this means the super-natural
fatherhood of Jesus is saved and, at the same time He can claim, through
His mother, a descent from David.
The main trouble with this theory is that Cadman is obliged to make Heli
the father of Mary, when Luke expressly says that Heli was the father of
Joseph (Luke III:23). At another place, Luke speaks of _Joseph,_ not
_Mary_, as being of the house of David (Luke II:4).
[4] There was no God--the Holy Ghost--known to the Jews, and Joseph
could not have understood the meaning of the term without some
explanation.
[5] It is to be noted that Matthew does not explain why the angel
changed the name in the prophecy--Immanuel--to that of Jesus.
[6] Apparently the Angel must have told Mary His name.
[7] Cadman, in the work already referred to, page 37, "harmonizes" these
two variant accounts of the angelic announcements by giving Matthew's
version in his text, and simply referring to Luke's account in a note.
[8] From Luke's narrative it does not appear that Joseph had any doubts
as to Jesus being his child, or, if he did, how these doubts were
removed.
[9] 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).
[10] Evidently Elisabeth never told John of this visit of Mary, since
John says of his first meeting with Jesus that "I knew Him not," until
he saw "the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon
Him" (John I:31-33; see also Matt. XI:3; Luke VII:19).
[11] Unfortunate as it may be to lose the beautiful story of the birth
at Bethlehem, with its poetic imagery of the manger, the visit of the
"wise men," and the greeting of the shepherds, the evidence of the four
Gospels proves its untruth even more strongly than the story of the
miraculous conception.
(a) The contradictory details appearing in the two narratives discredit
each as a reliable authority.
Matthew has Jesus born in a house, greeted by "wise men of the East,"
and going to Egypt immediately after His birth, and remaining there
until after Herod's death.
Luke has Him born in a manger, greeted by shepherds, remaining in
Bethlehem for several weeks, then going to Jerusalem, and from there
_returning_ "into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth" (Luke II:39). His
parents could not have been in Egypt, avoiding the wrath of Herod,
because "they went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover"
(Luke II:41).
Herod's massacre of the innocents is, of course, unknown to Luke,
because, according to him, no "flight of the holy family to Egypt" ever
took place. This massacre is not mentioned in the four Gospels, except
in this Chapter of Matthew, nor is it recorded by any profane historian
of that time, like Josephus. Even supposing that Herod--a Roman tetrarch
and not an independent despot--would have dared a wholesale slaughter of
Roman subjects without express authority from Augustus Cæsar, yet so
terrible an event would have left an indelible impression on the Jewish
people. If it had occurred, connected as it was with the birth of Jesus,
it is incredible that the other evangelists should have omitted all
mention of it, as well as Josephus, who records the other cruelties of
Herod.
Bethlehem was some six miles south of Jerusalem, and Nazareth some sixty
or seventy miles north of Jerusalem. Matthew does not explain why Joseph
and Mary should have been in Bethlehem at this time, especially in view
of her then approaching confinement. In fact, the inference from
Matthew's narrative would be, that they were residents of Bethlehem at
this time. But the unvarying testimony of all the Gospels, except in
this one passage, is that Galilee was the native country of both Joseph
and Mary, and that their home, after her marriage, was at Nazareth. Luke
states this explicitly (Luke I:26), and Matthew himself, in every other
passage but this, speaks of Jesus as coming from Nazareth, and asserts
that Galilee was "his own country" (Matt. XIII:54; XXI:11; XXVI:71).
Luke, who recognizes Nazareth as the native city of Joseph, explains his
presence in Bethlehem on the theory that he, being of the house of
David, came to Bethlehem to be enrolled under the census taken by
Quirinius, pursuant to a decree of Cæsar Augustus (Luke II:1). But the
authorities generally agree that this census did not extend to the
tetrarchies, like Judæa, and that it was taken at least ten years after
the birth of Jesus (Renan, Life of Jesus, Chap. II). Besides, it is
taxing one's credulity to the utmost to suppose that the Roman officers
would have allowed a citizen of Nazareth to enroll himself in an
insignificant village, more than sixty miles distant, on the ground that
some problematical ancestor had been anointed with oil in that place a
thousand years before (1 Sam. XVI:13).
As to the contradictory accounts of Matthew and Luke concerning Jesus'
movements immediately after His birth, Cadman in his "Harmony of the
Gospels" pp. 4, 45, 48, "harmonizes" them by printing each of them
without comment, as though both could be true.
(b) The silence of Mark and John as to the birth at Bethlehem is even
more significant than in the matter of the miraculous conception.
There were two points most essential for Jesus and His followers to
establish in order to convince the Jews that He was truly their expected
Messiah: (1) that He was of the "house of David"; (2) that He "came"
from Bethlehem.
The Old Testament prophecies were explicit on these two points (Jer.
XXIII:5; Micah V:2; Ps. CXXXII:11).
This was the general expectancy among the Jews at the time of Jesus'
birth (Matt. II:5, 6; XXII:42; Luke I:32).
"Hath not the Scripture said that Christ cometh of the seed of David,
and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?" (John VII:42).
With such importance attaching to a birth at Bethlehem, the argument is
irresistible that Mark and John, in not mentioning it, either did not
know of the story, or, knowing it, did not believe it to be true. Either
hypothesis is equally fatal to the credibility of the story.
It is further to be noted that, while the claim of Jesus' paternity by
the Holy Ghost, if publicly asserted, might have stirred up some scandal
among the good people of Nazareth, it could not have been absolutely
disproved. But, at the time the Gospels were written, it was
comparatively easy to absolutely prove whether Jesus was born at
Nazareth or at Bethlehem, more than sixty miles distant.
(c) The claim was never publicly made that He was born at Bethlehem,
notwithstanding the great support which that fact, if true, would have
given to His cause. To His friends and neighbors of thirty years'
standing at Nazareth, and to the "multitudes" in general, He was known
only as "Jesus of Nazareth" (Mark VI:1-4; Matt. XXI:11; XXVI:71; Mark
XIV:67, 70; Luke IV:16, 22; XXII:59; XXIII:6; John VII:41, 42; XVIII:5,
7, 8; XX:19).
(d) Neither Jesus nor His apostles ever put forth this claim, even _when
the objection was made that He could not be the Messiah, because He came
from Nazareth_.
The evidence on this point is, of course, mostly negative, consisting in
an entire absence in the four Gospels of any reference to His birth at
Bethlehem, except the first account given in Matthew and Luke.
Thereafter it is as though it had never occurred, for anything that the
Gospels have to say about it.
But in two or three instances the question was directly raised.
Philip, one of the apostles, finds Nathaniel and says to him: "We have
found Him, of whom Moses, in the law and the prophets, did write, _Jesus
of Nazareth, the son of Joseph_.