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is assigned to it by Luke himself . But this is not all . In the second verse of the second
chapter of this foul excrescence , we have a much greater chronological difficulty . Here the pretended Luke errs on the opposite side . He had before placed the birth of Jesus nearly
three years too soon . He now places it more than ten years too late . If Jesus was born in the days of Herod , he must have been about 33 at least , at the time of his baptism . But if he was not born till the days of the taxin "* , when Cyrenius was governor of Syria , he could not have been more limn about 20 when he was baptized . This hist is a much more formidable difficulty in chronology than any that
occurs in the spurious chapters prefixed to Matthew ' s Gospel . Lardner accordingly discusses the taxing of Cyrenius at greater length than he does the fifteenth of Tiberius . Dr . Carpenter " after repeatedly considering his arguments with a perfect willingness to receive his opinion , " is dissatisfied with what he has said on
the latter difficulty . But his " double toil and trouble" bestowed on the former seems scarcely to have satisfied Lardner himself , for he concludes it in these words : << r If I have not been so happy as to remove every difficulty attending this text , yet 1 hope the reader will allow at least , that I have not concealed or dissembled any . " Like Dr . C , I too have repeatedly
considered Lardner ' s arguments , long at ^ o , with the same disposition , and with no better success . I have more recentl y attended to those of Mr . Benson . * The result has been to increase nty convictions that none of those sill y stories about the infancy of Jesus which are ascribed to Matthew and to Luke , were ever seen or heard of by those evangelists .
rat . < J Hie pretended Luke , like the pretended Matthew , not only contradicts Jhe genuine Luke , but he contradicts himself also . , Whoever this counterfeit was , he Vvas no evangelist . What-^< r lU v was , he was no chronologer . ?> hen viewed in reference to chronol y > the childish tales of wonder
pre-... " 1 'he Chronology of our Saviour ' s LLr > * Cambridge , 1819 , 8 vo .
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fixed to the rational and moral treatise of the beloved physician , present nothing to the eye but a mass of confusion . In everv other point of view they are more like the fictitious legends of Popery than like the genuine Gospel of Luke .
CHRONOS . P . S . A good review of Mr . Benson ' s book could not fail to be acceptable and interesting to the readers of the Repository . It is the vyork of an ingenious and sensible young man , with a mind possessed of native and acquired abilities , and stored with a very
creditable share of learning . Unfortunately , he straps a millstone about his neck before he plunges into the deep . That which is puerile , perplexed and contradictory , that whose genuineness has always been disputed by Christians ever since it vras known ,
( the rubbish that constitutes the spurious chapters , ) he takes for granted as the undoubted Gospel of the evangelists , and then labours by compression and extension , and all sorts of
distortion and screwing , to bring what is simple in itself ( viz . Luke iii . 1—23 ) , whose genuineness no Christian ever disputed , into consistency with a chaos which is inconsistent with itself . He
struggles hard ; but the load with which he has encumbered himself , drags him to the bottom in spite of all his " anxious" ( p . 213 ) efforts . It always has been so ; and always will be so . A man may as well try to serve God and Mammon , as to reconcile the
legitimate with the illegitimate evangelists . He who would give a true and consistent account , must hold to the one and despise the other . There is no other way under heaven , given among men , whereby he can succeed .
Mr . Benson concludes , from his inquiries , that Jesus was born in April or May , 4709 of the Julian period , ( 74 J of Rome , ) about two years before Herod ' s death ( pp . 116 , 117 ) ; that John the Baptist entered on his ministry in May , 4739 , Jul . per . [ 779 Rom . ] ( p . 220 ) ; * that Jesus was
* This is said upon the supposition that Tiberius reigned two or three years during the life of Augustus , and that Luke reckoned those to be years of Tiberius , and not of Augustus , of whom he
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their Chronology inconsistent with Truth and with itself . 263
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1822, page 263, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2512/page/7/
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