preexistence? I do not say the insertion was deliberate. And it is
difficult for us moderns to realize the polemic spirit in which the
Gospels were written. They were clearly not written as history. The
concern of the authors, I think, was to convert their readers to Christ.

"When we turn to John, what do we find? In the opening verses of this
Gospel the Incarnation is explained, not by a virgin birth, but in a
manner acceptable to the educated and spiritually-minded, in terms of the
philosophy of the day. And yet how simply! 'In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' I prefer John's
explanation.

"It is historically true that, in the earlier days when the Apostles'
Creed was put forth, the phrase 'born of they Virgin Mary' was inserted
for the distinct purpose of laying stress on the humanity of Christ, and
to controvert the assertion of the Gnostic sect that he was not born at
all, but appeared in the world in some miraculous way.

"Thus to-day, by the aid of historical research, we are enabled to regard
the Creeds in the light of their usefulness to life. The myth of the
virgin birth probably arose through the zeal of some of the writers of
the Gospels to prove that the prophecy of Isaiah predicted the advent of
the Jewish Messiah who should be born of a virgin. Modern scholars are
agreed that the word Olmah which Isaiah uses does not mean virgin, but
young woman. There is quite a different Hebrew word for 'virgin.' The
Jews, at the time the Gospels were written, and before, had forgotten
their ancient Hebrew. Knowing this mistake, and how it arose, we may
repeat the word Virgin Mary in the sense used by many early Christians,
as designating the young woman who was the mother of Christ.