r the birth of Jesus, Luke draws a
picture of humble circumstances and obscurity. These differences, taken
with the silence of the rest of the New Testament concerning a miraculous
birth, constitute a real difficulty. To many it seems strange that the
disciples and the brethren of Jesus did not refer to these things if they
knew them to be true. But it must not be overlooked that any familiar
reference to the circumstances of the birth of Jesus which are narrated in
the gospels would have invited from the Jews simply a challenge of the
honor of his home. Moreover, as the knowledge of these wonders did not
keep Mary from misunderstanding her son (Luke ii. 19, 51; compare Mark in.
21, 31-35), the publication of them could hardly have helped greatly the
belief of others. The fact that Mary was so perplexed by the course of
Jesus in his ministry makes it probable that even until quite late in her
life she "kept these things and pondered them in her heart."

61. No parts of the New Testament are challenged so widely and so
confidently as these narratives of the infancy. But if they are not to be
credited with essential truth it is necessary to show what ideas cherished
in the apostolic church could have led to their invention. That John and
Paul maintain the divinity of their Lord, yet give no hint that this
involved a miraculous birth, shows that these stories are no necessary
outgrowth of that doctrine. The early Christians whether Jewish or Gentile
would not naturally choose to give pictorial form to their belief in their
Lord's divinity by the story of an incarnation. The heathen myths
concerning sons of the gods were in all their associations revolting to
Christian feeling, and, while the Jewish mind was ready to see divine
influence at work in the birth of great men in Israel (as Isaac, and
Samson, and Samuel), the whole tendency of later Judaism was hostile to
any such idea as actual incarnation. Some would explain the story of the
miraculous birth as a conclusion drawn by the Christian consciousness
from the doctrine of the sinlessness of Jesus. Yet neither Paul nor John,
who are both clear concerning the doctrine, give any idea that a
miraculous birth was essential for a sinless being. Some appeal to the
eagerness of the early Christians to exalt the virginity of Mary, This is
certainly the animus of many apocryphal legends. But the feeling is as
foreign to Jewish sentiment and New Testament teaching as it is
contrad