The last point raises a large question which it is impossible to consider here. As regards the second objection, while in some respects (C) would be further from the original than (A), in other and more important respects it would be appreciably nearer. In its use of ἐγέννησεν it would be nearer to the original than any reading we possess. As regards the first objection, we have frankly to agree that the textual evidence does not point that way. We cannot point to a shred of MS. evidence to support the conjectured reading. A generation ago this would have been considered a fatal objection. But, in view of the freedom with which the text of the Gospels was handled during the first half of the second century, and which the textual variants illustrate, this objection can no longer be regarded as insuperable. So long as we restrict ourselves to the attested readings, the problem remains insoluble. If, then, we can reach a reasonable conclusion on other lines, we are free to do so. Doubtless, in default of attestation, we can describe our results as no more than tentative. But we have no desire to claim more. As the problem stands at present, the test to be applied is, What reading, conjectured or attested, furnishes the best explanation of the facts at our disposal?, it being remembered that these facts include, not only the textual variants, but also the unique character of the Genealogy itself. It may be, as we have suggested, that new discoveries await us. But, unless we have entirely misread the evidence we already possess, no discovery is to be expected which will completely transform the textual problem. In conclusion, we may state certain propositions (apart from the question of the exact wording of the true text of Mt. i. 16) which have in their favour a high degree of probability. (1) The readings which we have called (A) and (B) are independent attempts to alter the original text in the interests of the Virgin Birth; that is, they are “doctrinal modifications”. (2) The reading of the Sinaitic Syriac is not unfavourable to the doctrine. It should no longer be spoken of as “the eccentric reading”, nor should we describe the translator as influenced by “heretical tendencies”. (3) _The original text of Mt. i. 16 implied the Virgin Birth, but it was stated from the unique point of view reflected in the Genealogy itself._ (4) _The text was liable to misunderstanding, and the history of the textual variants is the history of that misunderstanding._ CHAPTER VI. THE HISTORICAL QUESTION: ITS LIMITS AND BEARINGS Our purpose in the final chapter is to co‐ordinate the results we have reached, and to discuss their bearing upon the historical question of the Virgin Birth. We have also to determine how far strictly historical considerations can take us; to ask, that is to say, within what limits the problem is historical at all. It will be well first to summarize the conclusions to which we have already come.