those verses. In vers. 31–33 Jesus is called son of David and son of
on his diction, in particulars such as these particles where he usually followed his own habits.
2. The conversation in 1:34, 35, unduly separates 6"Â Æ*@× FL88Z:N® in ver. 31 from the corresponding 6"Â Æ*@× 84FV$,J º FL((,<\H F@L 6"Â "ÛJ¬ FL<,\80N,< (ver. 36). An argument of this kind cannot have much independent weight, because prose style is seldom perfectly regular.
3. Ver. 35 is a doublet of vers. 31, 32, and is in part inconsistent with those verses. In vers. 31–33 Jesus is called son of David and son of the highest; in ver. 35 He is called son of God, because He is that through His birth. If the writer had had in his mind the "son of God" of ver. 35, he would have omitted the "son of the highest" and the "David his father" of vers. 31–33.
As Hilgenfeld has pointed out, though LÊÎH ßR\FJ@L does not require any such thing as is described in ver. 35, yet it by no means excludes it. And the mention of the "throne of his father David" simply indicates that the promise was put in Old Testament terms, though the promise of the everlasting reign perhaps points to an explanation to follow (Hilgenfeld). Even if the Davidic descent through Joseph is really incompatible with 1:34, 35, that does not prove that those two verses are an interpolation, for if the redactor /pg. 56/ did not feel the contradiction, perhaps the original author did not. After all, the thing is largely a question of taste. Perhaps Hilgenfeld, who sees a well-conceived progress in the whole passage, is as well entitled to his opinion as is Harnack, who sees in it only a pair of clumsily joined doublets. Wernle46 (with a different purpose) argues along the same lines as Hilgenfeld, pointing to Ignatius and to the readings of Syrsin in Matt. 1 as showing that a part of the ancient Christians could think of "from the seed of David" and "from the Holy Ghost" together without offense. So perhaps the double interpretation of divine sonship would not be regarded as contradiction but as climax. It is therefore by no means necessary to follow B. Weiss in regarding ver. 35 (*4Î 6"Â…LÊÎH 2,@L$) as