This is the climax of destructive criticism.
Everything which Christ is reported by the Evangelists to have said or
done shares the natural explanations of Strauss. From his very birth to
his ascension, his life is no more remarkable than that of many others
who have taken part in the public events of their times.
Beginning with the annunciation and birth of John the Baptist, Strauss
considers the apparition to Zacharias and his consequent dumbness as
actual external circumstances, susceptible of a natural interpretation.
Zacharias had a waking vision or ecstasy. Such a thing is not common,
but in the present instance, many circumstances combined to produce an
unusual state of mind. The exciting causes were, _first_, the
long-cherished desire to have a posterity; _second_, the exalted
vocation of administering in the Holy Place and offering up with the
incense the prayers of the people to the throne of Jehovah, which seemed
to Zacharias to foretoken the acceptance of his own prayer; and _third_,
perhaps an exhortation from his wife as he left his house, similar to
that of Rachel to Jacob.
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