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that Marcellus was appointed to succeed him , and that he arrived just after the death of Tiberius , Now , Tiberius died in the year 790 , therefore Pontius Pilate was appointed Procurator of Judea in 780 . But Luke states that he was Procurator in the 15 th year of Tiberius , or , according to the com * roon reckoning , in the year 782 . According , however , to Mr . Rowe , the 15 th year of Tfiberius was in the year 779 , which was upwards of a year before Pontius Pilate ' s appointment ; therefore Luke could not have intended to date the 15 th year of Tiberius from the year 764 .
If the preceding view of chronology be correct , it necessarily follows , that our Saviour was not born until after the death of King Herod , and that , therefore , Luke could not have written the history attributed to him . It is presumed that this assertion will be further supported by a brief examination : of his undisputed writings . Now Luke , as Mr . Rowe admits , rests the authenticity of his history on the fact of his having derived it from those who were from the beginning eye-witnesses and ministers of the word . Let it be
asked , from what beginning ? Certainly , from the beginning of the public manifestation of Christ , for until this period there were no " ministers of the word . " It is just and natural , therefore , to conclude that he would commence his history from this event , rather than , without giving his readers any notice , make another beginning of a narrative which was to extend through twelve years , then leave a chasm of eighteen years , and finally leap to "the beginning" which he had previously announced . It is also not unworthy
of remark , that Luke , in the commencement of the Acts of the Apostles , does not intimate that his former treatise , meaning his Gospel ,, contained the least information respecting our Lord , beyond " all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up . " And in chap ; ii . ver . 22 , he relates that Peter addressed his audience in the following terms : " Ye men of Israel , hear these words ; Jesus of Nazareth , a man approved ( rather pointed , or marked out ) of God among you by miracles , and
wonders , and signs , which God did by him , " &c . Now , neither the statement of Luke , nor the address of Peter , would have contained the whole truth , if the former , in his Gospel , had inserted a great deal more , and embracing a different period , than he here intimates that it comprised ; and the latter knew that our Lord had been marked and pointed out in a most extraordinary and miraculous manner long before God did any miracle , wonder or sign , by him . Further , there is not the slightest evidence from which it can
be inferred , that the apostles had the least personal knowledge of Christ prior to his baptism ; and had they known or believed that he was designated to be the Messiah before he was conceived , his subsequent miraculous conception and birth , and the wonderful circumstances said to have attended the nativity , their whole conduct from their appointment until the ascension , and their uniformly profound silence on a subject so singular and important , are , beyond expression , most marvellous and unaccountable .
Considering , then , that the disputed passages in Matthew and Luke were by some sects rejected as spurious from a very remote age of Christianity ; that since the church so early and infamously prostituted its interests to the favour of secular and half-pagan governments , the mere fact of their antiquity deserves little weight ; that the two narratives of the nativity contain palpable
contradictions ; that it is impossible to reconcile the facts of ancient chronology with the times and circumstances with which they have been identified ; that the undisputed writings of Luke are at utter variance with the suspected portions attributed to him ; that our Saviour and his Apostles never betrayed any knowledge of these extraordinary events ; and that the whole conduct of
Untitled Article
330 On the Prefaces to Matthew and Luke .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1827, page 330, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1796/page/18/
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