The Historical Evidence for the Virgin BirthTaylor, Vincent
Religion
The Historical Evidence for the Virgin Birth
Taylor, Vincent
Bible. Gospels; Jesus Christ -- Nativity; Virgin birth
Yet another class of interpolations may possibly be found in certain
passages in the Gospels which later conditions obtaining within the
Christian Church have shaped. That later experience did interpret the
words of Jesus and give the sense of them in its own terms, need not be
questioned. But it should always be remembered that in any suspected case,
the process may well have been complete by the time that the Evangelists
wrote, and that the passage is not an interpolation at all. There are very
good grounds for this opinion even in cases in which variations in
rendering can be cited from patristic and other sources, as, for example,
in the case of the Great Commission in Mt. xxviii. 19. This fact makes it
all the more difficult to concede an interpolation where the textual
record is unbroken, though again the possibility that such cases do exist
may well be left open.
The cases just considered help us when we come to think of _doctrinal
modifications_. As regards these, it is important to draw again a
distinction which has been already made. We must distinguish, on the one
hand, between those instances of doctrinal modification that are due to
the Evangelists themselves, and which are in no sense interpolations, and,
on the other hand, those which may subsequently have been made by later
scribes or readers. Cases of the former kind unquestionably occur in the
Gospels. We have only to examine the way in which the First and Third
Evangelists have treated the Second Gospel, which lay before them, to be
assured of this. Alterations, e.g., are made out of a sense of reverence
for the person of Jesus (cf. Allen, ICC., St. Mt., p. xxxi f.). Mt. xix.
17 (“Why askest thou me concerning that which is good?”), and the changes
which Mk. vi. 5 f. has been subjected to, both in Mt. and Lk., will serve
as illustrations.
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