We must next briefly consider the question of the historical value of the Synoptic Gospels, so far as it bears upon our immediate problem. It is right to urge that our first aim must be to examine the Virgin Birth tradition without bias or presuppositions of any kind. But it is no less true to say that our estimate of the credibility of the Gospels as a whole must react upon that task in the end. Whether the Synoptic Gospels are but a tissue of legends, or whether they fulfil a good standard of historical value, are questions which cannot be ignored. For those who claim infallibility, as well as inspiration, for the Evangelists, the problem is at an end: Lk. and Mt. teach the Virgin Birth; the doctrine is therefore true! But for most people to-day that short and easy path is impossible. The Gospels do not claim infallibility, and their contents do not bespeak it. There can be no question that a trained observer of to-day would have described many incidents in the life of Jesus very differently. There are parables which have been unconsciously hardened into miracles, sayings of Jesus which have been misunderstood, stories which have grown amidst the exigencies of controversy and in the process of evangelization. These things are no more than we might expect. They were inevitable; [pg 123] What bearing has such an estimate of the Gospels upon the historic truth of the Virgin Birth tradition? Obviously, it does not save us from the trouble of testing the tradition by such tests as we can apply. That the tradition has found a place in the New Testament is not in itself a certificate of truth. The Evangelists certainly believed the tradition; they were intellectually honest; but they may have been mistaken. The ultimate question is the truth of the authorities upon which they rested and of the belief they reflect. Their importance as writers is that they countersign the tradition with the high authority they possess. But, however high their authority, it is not that of infallibility. The truth of the Gospels is the truth of their sources. As regards the Virgin Birth tradition, the sources cannot be traced back to Mk. and Q, the two primary Synoptic documents, but to the later tradition of the Christian Church, at the time when Mt. and Lk. were written. The First and Third Evangelists have endorsed that tradition; the problem of the Virgin Birth is whether they were right. Nothing that we have [pg 124] |