“for Jesus to be fully human he had, for both biological and theological reasons, to have a human father as well as a human mother and the weight of the historical evidence strongly indicates that this was so – and that it was probably Joseph. Any theology for a scientific age which is concerned with the significance of Jesus of Nazareth now has to start at this point” (Arthur Peacocke, Evolution: The Disguised Friend Of Faith? (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2004) p.228).
Peacocke earlier quoted C. J. Cadoux, who wrote: “Nor indeed is it enough for scholars to leave the issue open, on the sole ground that the evidence for the miraculous birth is insufficient. If a miracle is asserted to have occurred, and cogent evidence for its occurrence cannot be adduced, and belief in it can be readily accounted for along other lines, the duty of scholars is not to leave the reality of it open to question, but to reject it, not as inconceivable, but as in all probability not true” (C. J. Cadoux, The Life Of Jesus (West Drayton: Penguin Books, 1948) p.30; quoted Peacocke, op. cit., pp.223-224).
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