The Lost "Book of the Nativity of John": A Study in Messianic Folklore and Christian Origins With a New Solution to the Virgin-Birth Problem

Hugh J. Schonfield

Hitherto few scholars have treated John the Baptist as an independent personality, apart from the subordinate position accorded him in the Gospels of forerunner to Jesus. The policy of the Gospel writers, crystallized in the saying put into the mouth of the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel, "He must increase, but I must decrease," was consistently directed to utilizing this historic figure as the supr…