In many discussions of the Virgin Birth, the question of Alternative Theories occupies a prominent place. Our purpose in the present section is to ask what place it may legitimately be given. Has it the importance which is often claimed?

Attention has frequently been called to the inability of those who reject the Virgin Birth to agree upon an alternative theory. The failure is patent. Harnack and Lobstein, on the one side, plead for a Jewish-Christian origin for the doctrine, in which the influence of Isa. vii. 14 played a decisive part; on the other side, Soltau, Schmiedel, Usener, and others, trace the tradition to the effect of non-Christian myths. Not only so; the advocates of each theory specifically reject the other. Lobstein, for example, thinks that “it would be rash to see direct imitations or positive influences” in the analogies “between the Biblical myth and legends of Greek or Eastern origin”. While there was mutual action between the worship or doctrine of paganism and advancing Christianity, “nothing warrants historical criticism in considering the tradition of the miraculous birth of Christ as merely the outcome of elements foreign to the religion of Biblical revelation” (The Virgin Birth of Christ, p. 76). Schmiedel, on the other hand, rejects the Jewish-Christian origin of the tradition, “Nor would Isa. vii. 14 have been sufficient to account for the origin of such a doctrine unless the doctrine had commended itself on its own merits. The passage was adduced only as an afterthought, in confirmation.... Thus the origin of the idea of a virgin birth is to be sought in Gentile-Christian circles” (EB., col. 2963 f.).106

It is not strange, perhaps, that some writers have pressed these [pg 125] contradictions into the service of Apologetics. Thus, for example, Dr. Orr does not scruple to say: “As in the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrim, ‘neither so did their witness agree together’ ” (op. cit., p. 152). He even presents the remarkable argument that Dr. Cheyne's theory “gives the death-stroke to all the theories that have gone before it”, and yet is itself “absolutely baseless” (ib., p. 178). Sweet's argument is more cautiously introduced. He recognizes that the contention has its limits. He instances Bossuet's argument against the Reformation drawn from the Variations of Protestantism and G. H. Lewes's inference from the History of Philosophy that philosophy is impossible (op. cit., p. 299). But, having said this, Sweet argues that the critics agree in nothing “save dislike and depreciation of the documents”, and that “their theories are mutually destructive”.

It appears to us that this line of argument is open to serious objection; it is unfair, and it is unwise.

It is unfair, because it is neither uncommon nor unreasonable to find men agreed in rejecting a tradition or belief, and yet at variance in respect of theories of origin. It is one thing to say that a belief is untrue; quite another thing to account for its existence. That men agree upon the one point is more significant than that they differ upon the other. The view we have mentioned is unwise, because its triumph may be short-lived. There is always room for the emergence of a better alternative theory, which shall combine the excellences, and avoid the weaknesses, of pioneer attempts.

It does not need a prophet to suggest that the next alternative theory will be psychological and eclectic. If the tradition is not historical, it is not likely that we can account for its rise by one factor alone. We may regard it as established that prophecy alone did not create the tradition, and that it was not invented on the analogy of non-Christian myths. Nevertheless, it may be that Isa. vii. 14, together with the idea that underlies non-Christian legends, played an important part in the formation of the Christian tradition. If the tradition is not historical, its ultimate origin must be sought in the overwhelming impression which Jesus left upon believing hearts and minds; in the conviction that from the time of His Birth, and not only at His Baptism and Resurrection, Jesus Christ was the Son of God by the anointing of the Holy [pg 126] Spirit. The presumption that His Birth must have been remarkable would be strengthened by the Old Testament stories of the birth of Isaac, of Samson, and of Samuel, and especially by the tradition which already had gathered round the birth of John. It may also have been stimulated by the belief, found the whole world over, that the origin of great men is supernatural and miraculous. Even amongst the Jews the idea was present, that the Messiah's origin would be strange, and that no man would know from whence he came (Jn. vii. 27). If there is reason to presuppose such a point of view, we can easily imagine the electric effect which such a passage as Isa. vii. 14 would have upon those who studied Old Testament prophecies in the light of their experience of Jesus. It is vain to object that it is only in the LXX that this connexion could be established, and that in the Hebrew the word rendered “virgin” means a young woman of marriageable age. The First Gospel (i. 23) shows that it was the LXX rendering which was already read, and doubtless preferred, in the primitive Christian community. Still more fatuous is it to say, as it has been said again and again, that no Jew ever interpreted Isa. vii. 14 of the Messiah. As well might we say of other passages that no Jew would have interpreted them Messianically! The question is not how Jews regarded Isa. vii. 14, but how it may have appeared in the eyes of Jews who had come under the spell of Jesus. The passage cannot have created belief in the Virgin Birth, but it could have crystallized a belief for which wonder and speculation had prepared the way. “So it must have been!” men could well have argued. On this supposition the belief antedated the tradition. But that beliefs have created traditions again and again is enough to show that it could have been so here. Nor is the time-element the insuperable difficulty it has been supposed to be. The idea that a myth would require fifty years to grow is absurd.107 Provided the parents of Jesus were already dead, the myth could have sprung up new born.

In sketching the foregoing theory our purpose is not to assert its truth, but rather to illustrate its by no means inherent improbability. It could be true; or, at any rate, this judgement [pg 127] might any day have to be passed upon some alternative theory, superior to any that has yet been stated. The agreement of the Virgin Birth tradition with historic fact may be the true solution of the problem, but it is not the only solution that is possible, nor can its superiority be established by the comparative method alone. We therefore work along wrong lines if we attempt to argue the historic character of the Virgin Birth tradition by dwelling upon the incongruities and contradictions of alternative theories. The baleful attractiveness of such a method ought strenuously to be resisted. It may yield a few showy triumphs, but few, if any, solid results. Of course, if we have first satisfied ourselves that the Virgin Birth is historically true, the practice is less objectionable; but it is doubtful if even then it adds much to results otherwise obtained. To include the method in the process of proof is to build upon sand.

On the other hand, this view is equally sound, if our solution of the problem is one of the alternative theories to which we have referred. We have sketched a theory which we have claimed might be true. But what more could be claimed by the comparative method? Its justification or lack of justification lies elsewhere. The possible may not be the probable, nor the probable the true. The importance of the question we have discussed in the present section is that it reveals what are the by-paths and what is the high-road of a true investigation. The question of alternative theories is purely secondary. The high-road is where we left it at the end of Section II. Can the tradition, endorsed by the First and Third Evangelists, be vindicated?