These critics agree in regarding Jesus as a natural man, naturally born, and it is to them that we must reply. When an orthodox Christian like the Rev. Dr. T. J. Thorburn, holding by the Annunciation and the Virgin Birth, sets himself to rebut the myth-theory [27] by scouting myth analogies, it would be idle to argue with him. A writer who can believe he has evidence for a story of human parthenogenesis has no conception of evidence in common with us. It is accordingly needless to point out that he constantly and absurdly misunderstands the myth argument; [28] that he discusses Evemerism without knowing what it means; [29] and that he merely juggles with such cruces as the stories of the Transfiguration and the Ascension. From one at his standpoint we can expect nothing else; and to those whom his exposition satisfies no myth-theory can appeal. When he resorts to the device of denying "spiritual insight" to those who accept scientific tests, he merely exemplifies the normal procedure of orthodox incompetence. The religious reasoner who flouts reason usually certificates and betrays himself in that inexpensive fashion. Our argument is addressed to those who profess to apply to Biblical matters the principles of historical criticism. The biographical school, as one may inoffensively term the variously minded champions of the historicity of the record, abandon the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection as impossibilities. That is to say, they accept the myth-theory as regards those two cardinal items of the Christian legend. They also in general recognize that the fourth gospel, in so far as it differs vitally from the synoptics, is in the main a process of myth-making. But, clinging to the alleged substratum, most members of the school adhere to the fundamental historicity of the Crucifixion. Here they stand with Strauss, who found in the execution of Jesus by Pontius Pilate a solid historical fact. Strauss is generally explicit as to his reasons for accepting and rejecting; and while he resolves into myth at least nine-tenths of the gospel narratives, finding them mere inventions to "fulfil" supposed Old Testament predictions, he finds the testimony of Tacitus unquestionable as to the execution. [30]