*4`, stands a number of times in Acts, but only once in the third
well as on account of Matt. 1:24, where it is said that Joseph took Mary to wife. Also Matt. 1:20 may have had an influence.42 Therefore, in view of the preponderance of the external testimony for the omission of (L<"464, it is almost as violent a change to insert it as it is to delete the words B"D2X<@< and B"D2X<@L in 1:27.
The important point to observe is that 1:27 and 2:5 (to say nothing of passages which seem to attribute a peculiar importance to Mary rather than Joseph, and to say nothing of 1:41 where Elisabeth seems to greet Mary as already mother of the Lord) rest as dead weights upon any theory which separates 1:34, 35, from the context. The theory must have exceedingly strong independent support if it is not to break down under the strain. We now examine that independent support.
Harnack43 has enumerated as many as ten arguments for regarding /pg. 55/ 1:34, 35, as an interpolation. Let us briefly examine them to see whether they are as formidable in quality as they are in quantity.44
1. In vers. 34, 35, we find the particles ¦B,\ and *4`, one of which, *4`, stands a number of times in Acts, but only once in the third Gospel, while ¦B,\ (according to the best text of Luke 7:1) occurs nowhere else in the Lukan writings. Harnack concludes that 1:34, 35, betrays a non-Lukan diction, and is therefore an interpolation. To derive any argument from *4` is plainly to rely too much upon "the constancy of the use of particles in the Gospel of Luke," especially since we have one other case where the word occurs. As to ¦B,\, it will be enough to remark that it is rash to attribute too much weight to one word in an argument from diction, especially in view of the Lukan expressions which Zimmermann has pointed out in the two verses.45 Of course, too, Harnack's argument from the non-Lukan character of ¦B,\ depends on the correctness of his opinion that Luke was the author (rather than merely the translator or redactor) of the first two chapters. And even if Luke was the author, yet it is not unlikely that his source may have here and there exerted an influence