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Untitled Article
of his .. m 101 stry 5 or by the evangelists and apostles in their histories and epistles ? How happens it that our Lord is repeatedly mentioned in the evangelical history as the son ; of Joseph and Mary * and that the historian never enters any caveat against the mistake nor warns his readers thatat is a popular error . And finally , and principally ,, how could all these things happen in the reign of Herod , when it appears demonstrable from the history of Luke * that Jesus was not born
till upwards of two , and probably upwards of three years after the death of that inhuman tyrant ? For by the account o £ Luke , ( chap . iii . 23 . See Grotius on the place , ) Jesus was a little turned of thirty in the fifteenth year of Tiberius : and Consequently , was born only fifteen years before the . death of
Augustus . Whereas it is certain from the history of Josephus , supported by astronomical calculation of a recorded lunar eclipse , that Herod died at least seventeen years and three quarters , and probably eighteen years and three quarters before Augustus . See Lardner ' s Dissertation upon the death of Herod in the first volume of his works . I know how
expert theologians , and keen disputants wince and struggle in order to disentangle themselves of this chronological dilemma . But dates , as Horace Walpole observes , are a sort of obstinate things : and astronomical phenomena do not easily give way to accommodate a polemic in distress . And though I give no
more credit than my friend himself does to the inspiration of Luke when he possessed competent means of information , yet I entertain so high an opinion both of his information and of his correctness as a writer , that I can never believe that he
affirmed of Jesus that he was just turned of thirty , meaning thereby , or at least knowing at the same time , that be was thirty-four or thirty-five years of age . All these difficulties , if he ever heard of them , niy worthy friend judiciously keeps . in the back ground , and gravely tells his readers that the two first chapters of Mai the w and Luke are rejected " principally because they contain an account of the miraculous conception of Christ /'
C The first chapter of Luke , ' says my friend , ( p . 118 . ) * is rejected merely on the authority of Marcion . " This is 6 ot true . I have already shewn that both the first and the second chapter are rejected upon much higher authority ; the
testimony of Luke himself . But I own that the testimony of Marcivn has its weight with me . He > like some learned Christian * of modern times , rejected , but I think without sufficient reason , all the evangelical histories excepting that of Luke . Of this gos * pd we know that he professed to believe that th ^ c opy whiclr
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Mr * Helshobfti ' s Strictures on Cftrprenter ' s L , e < $ ure $ m 3 pg $
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1807, page 369, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2382/page/29/
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