The Joseph myth, again, is a very obvious construction. In Mark, which Dr. Conybeare repeatedly and shrilly declares to be the primary authority, Joseph is never once mentioned, though Dr. Conybeare, with the eye of imagination, finds that he is. In Matthew, he figures throughout the birth-story of the opening section, admittedly a late addition. In Luke, still later, he is still further developed, Mark's "son of Mary" becoming (iv, 22) "the son of Joseph," in a palpably late fiction. Any critical method worthy of the name would reckon with such plain marks of late fabrication. Joseph has been super-imposed on the myth for a reason; and the reason is that a Messiah "the Son of Joseph" was demanded from the Samaritan side as a Messiah the Son of David was demanded (albeit not universally) from the Judaic side. [422] By naming Jesus' earthly putative father Joseph, in the Davidic descent, both requirements were met, on lines of traditionalist psychology. When this solution is met by the Unitarian thesis that the idea of a Messiah Ben Joseph is late in Judaism, and that it arose out of the gospel story, we can but appeal to the common-sense of the reader. [423] For the Rabbis to set up such a formula on such a motive would be an inconceivable self-stultification. The lateness of Rabbinical discussion on the subject can be quite reasonably explained through its Samaritan origination. All the while, the Joseph story in the gospels belongs precisely to that late legend which the neo-Unitarian school is bound in consistency to reject as myth. But the prepossession in favour of a "human Jesus" balks at no inconsistency, and selects its items not on critical principles but simply in so far as they can be made to compose with a "human" figure that is to be conserved at all costs. The curious myth-motive of the "taxing" [424] at Bethlehem in Luke, an utterly unhistorical episode, has a remarkable parallel in the Krishna-myth, [425] which has been cited in support of the thesis that that myth in general is derived from the Christian story. The general thesis breaks down completely; [426] and in this one instance we are obviously entitled to ask whether the Christian myth is not derived from some intermediate Asiatic source connecting with the Indian. [427] As a mere invention to motive the birth at Bethlehem the story seems exceptionally extravagant. § 3. Minor Myths