The presence of _inference_ in the Synoptic narratives is perhaps not so widely recognized as it ought to be. Whether we ought to be so ready as we often are to suppose the existence of special information, documentary or oral, when the First Evangelist and St. Luke add details to the Markan narrative, or relate entirely new facts, is a pertinent question. In many cases there is much justice in the supposition. In other cases it may easily be that the new detail or narrative has been shaped by inferences playing upon difficulties or ambiguities left by earlier narratives and traditions.(96) This would be a perfectly natural circumstance, the existence of which would be more readily acknowledged if obsolete theories of Inspiration did not continue to exact unlawful tribute. In the case of the First Gospel this use of inference is sometimes manifest, especially in the accounts of the Burial and the Resurrection of Jesus.(97) Whatever judgement may be passed upon Prof. Kirsopp Lake’s brilliant examination of the Resurrection narratives, there can be little doubt but that he has shown that inference, as well as information, shaped the formation of early Christian tradition. This conclusion, even if accepted, would not justify us in supposing that the narratives of Mt. i, ii are nothing more than the inferential resolution of difficulties left by the story of the Virgin Birth. But it would suffice to make it probable that, to an extent which we may leave undefined, inference did play its part, either in the mind of the Evangelist or in the thought of the Christian community. It is, indeed, quite possible to admit this view, and yet to hold that behind the narrative there is a nucleus of historic fact. Dr. Gore, who believes that the story goes back to Joseph, does not hesitate to say: “... to suppose such angelic appearances ... to be imaginative outward representations of what were in fact real but inward communications of the ‘divine word’ to human souls, is both a possible course and one which is quite consistent with accepting the narrative as substantially historical and true” (_Dissertations_, p. 22 f.). Canon Box expresses a similar view when he writes: “To us [the narrative] seems to exhibit in a degree that can hardly be paralleled elsewhere in the New Testament the characteristic features of Jewish Midrash and Haggada. It sets forth certain facts and beliefs in a fanciful and imaginative setting, specially calculated to appeal to Jews.... The task that confronts the critical student is to disentangle the facts and beliefs—the fundamental ground‐factors on which the narration is built—from their decorative embroidery” (op. cit., p. 12).