(b) The Purport of the Angelic Announcement in Lk. i. 30-3
In treating Mary's question in Lk. i. 34. we have concluded that it reflects the point of view of one who has received the announcement of a miraculous birth. But this conclusion does not compel us to interpret the words of Lk. i. 30-3 as containing such an announcement. We have to examine the passage so as to determine whether as a matter of fact it is susceptible of that interpretation. That its present context requires this view of Lk. i. 30-3 is a fact not lightly to be regarded; nevertheless, it must find justification within the passage itself before it can be accepted.
In the Revised Version, the angelic message reads as follows: “Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. (31) And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. (32) He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High: and the Lord God shall give [pg 037]unto him the throne of his father David: (33) and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”
We have already expressed the view that this prophecy moves strictly within Jewish limits (p. 29). Detailed study of the passage only serves to confirm this opinion. The Sonship mentioned in verse 32 bears a purely Messianic character. Dr. Plummer justly remarks: “The title υἱὸς ᾿Υψίστου expresses some very close relation between Jesus and Jehovah, but not the Divine Sonship in the Trinity” (op. cit., p. 23). Nothing is either said or implied in this announcement of a miraculous birth. The terms of the promise to Mary would be perfectly fulfilled by an ordinary birth within the marriage tie, so far, that is to say, as the mode of birth is concerned. We must therefore reject the view which speaks of “the strange declaration that she is to bear a son before she is married” (Plummer). We look in vain for this declaration. We agree that Mary's question in verse 34 demands such a declaration in order to make it rational. In fact, we ourselves have argued that verse 34 is “a reply to what is understood as the announcement of an immediate conception”. Nevertheless, even on the most generous interpretation of Lk. i. 30-3, it is impossible to find in the passage any such announcement.[35] There is thus a radical difference of point of view between the angelic announcement of Lk. i. 30-3 and Mary's question in Lk. i. 34. This difference of standpoint will be urged as one, though not the only reason for regarding Lk. i. 34 f. as a later insertion. But before we examine these reasons, we need to consider whether after all the angelic announcement may not contain some implication (which does not lie upon the surface of the passage) that a Miraculous Conception is promised.
We find it impossible to rest satisfied in the suggestion of W. C. Allen, that there may have been some unrecorded indication of something unique in the conception (Interpreter, 1905, p. 121 f.). A suggestion of this kind can neither be justified [pg 038] nor gainsaid, and is valuable only as a confirmation of the view that there is nothing “recorded” in Lk. i. 30-3 of a unique conception. To launch upon the waters of what is unrecorded would seem to be a policy of despair. There is much more to be said for an extremely interesting suggestion of Canon Box in his article on the Virgin Birth in Hastings's Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (see vol. ii, p. 806 a). Box argues that in the angelic announcement of Lk. i. 30-3 “an immediate conception is meant”. Accepting the view that a Hebrew original underlies the nativity-narratives of Lk. i, ii, he thinks that this original has been incorrectly translated in Lk. i. 31, where, in the Greek, we have the future tense συλλήψῃ, “thou shalt conceive”. “The Hebrew original of συλλήψῃ would be a participle”, he says, “and the exact rendering would be, ‘Behold, thou art conceiving now’ ”. There can be no doubt that, if this view can be allowed, the angelic announcement really does speak of a miraculous birth, and thus an adequate explanation is given of Mary's surprise in Lk. i. 34. There are, however, certain objections which, in the judgement of the present writer, appear to be fatal to this theory. We need not press the objection that it rests upon an initial assumption, the existence of the supposed Hebrew original, since this theory of a Hebrew (or Aramaic) documentary source is accepted by most British scholars. Nor is it more than a formal objection if we question if the word συλλήψῃ would necessarily be represented in the supposed Hebrew original by a participle. In the Hebrew NT. published by the British and Foreign Bible Society, the adjective הָרָה is used, and this is the case in similar passages in the Hebrew OT., viz. Gen. xvi. 11, xxxviii. 24; Judg. xiii. 7 (verse 3, perf.); 1 Sam. iv. 19; 2 Sam. xi. 5; Isa. vii. 14. A more serious objection arises from Lk. ii. 21, where it is said that the name Jesus was so called by the angel “before he was conceived in the womb” (πρὸ τοῦ συλληφθῆναι αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ). On the theory we are considering, this must be held to be either a second mistranslation of the Hebrew original, or a departure from it. In either case we must conclude that a promised conception, and not an immediate one, was the considered view of the translator of the Hebrew document. A second and conclusive objection to the theory of Canon Box rests upon [pg 039] questions of grammatical syntax. Is it correct to say that “the exact rendering” of the participle (or adj.) would be, “Behold, thou art conceiving now”? It is true that the active participle is “mainly descriptive of something present” (Davidson, Hebrew Syntax, p. 134), but it is also true, to quote the same authority, that “the participle does not indicate time, its colour in this respect being taken from the connexion in which it stands”. The same consideration also applies to הָרָה in all the OT. instances referred to above. Where it is made clear in the context that conception has already taken place, הָרָה is translated in the RV. by the present (cf. Gen. xvi. 11, xxxviii. 24; 2 Sam. xi. 5). Where, however, there is no such indication, it is rendered by the future, and the announcement is treated as a promise (cf. Judg. xiii. 7).
To convict the translator of the Hebrew document of an error in translation, it is clearly necessary to show from the context of Lk. i. 31 that conception has already taken place. In other words, the translation preferred by Canon Box, if it is to be accepted, must be justified by some statement, either previously made, or made within the angelic announcement itself; it must be required, that is to say, by something in the narrative previous to Mary's question in Lk. i. 34.[36] But these conditions, which are by no means arbitrary, cannot be met. We must, therefore, conclude that the translator was quite justified, when he used the future (συλλήψῃ), and so represented the announcement as a prophecy; and we must draw this conclusion, irrespective altogether of the difference of point of view which thus stands revealed between this announcement and verse 34 in the connexion in which it now appears. Indeed, the argument of Canon Box seems capable of being employed in a direction the very reverse of that intended. It could be argued that since, in point of fact, the translator has used the future in verse 31, there was nothing in the Hebrew original to suggest to his mind the idea of an [pg 040] immediate conception; not even the statement of verse 34, which might have suggested, though it does not justify, the rendering, “Behold, thou art conceiving now”. Thus we might enlist the considered view of the translator, that a promised conception is meant, in support of the contention that Lk. i. 34 f. is a later insertion. Without pressing this view, we may fairly say that there is much more to be said for it than for the theory we have discussed. The latter theory, in spite of all that can be urged in its favour, fails to justify itself. In that case its failure seems to illustrate the somewhat desperate expedients to which we must have recourse, in order to find in the angelic announcement the thought of an immediate conception. On the question as a whole, we can only conclude that such a view is neither stated nor implied in the announcement, but that, on the contrary, its reference is to the future.
(c) Reasons for regarding Lk. i. 34 f. as a Later Insertion
Having sought to give their full force and proper meaning to the two passages, Lk. i. 30-3 and Lk. i. 34 f., we may now consider the arguments which can be advanced in favour of regarding the latter passage as an interpolation. In respect of these arguments, there is far from general agreement among those who are at one in the conclusion reached. But the significant fact is not the diversity of opinion as regards the mode of proof, but the agreement of so many scholars in holding the passage to be a later insertion.[37] The arguments we shall examine are not equally cogent, and, as in the first part of the present chapter, we shall call attention to their limitations as well as to the points in which they are strong. We shall also treat the case entirely apart from the results suggested in the first half of our inquiry. Those results, if valid, set up a presupposition against Lk. i. 34 f. But it seems much the best not to avail ourselves of such an argument, but rather to consider the passage in itself and in relation to its context. If in this way we find reasonable grounds for considering Lk. i. 34 f. to be [pg 041] a later insertion, we have then a double series of arguments converging on one conclusion.