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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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346 Dr . Carpenter on the Introductory Chapter * to Luke ? s Gospel .
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nological difficulty whatever in St . Luke ' s Introduction . " * I am the more desirous to explain the grounds of my assertion , ( which I made , and now repeat , with full conviction , ) because in the two last editions of the Improved Version , after a reference made to my hypothesis respecting * the passage in Luke which is usually considered as teaching the miraculous conception , I find it stated , that " at any rate the chronological difficulty remains the same . "
The only points of chronological difficulty are the following : I . That St . Luke ' s statement of the time when the Baptist began his ministry , compared with our Lord ' s age at his baptism , assigns a period for his birth which is inconsistent , it is supposed , with the Introductory Narrative .
II . That the Census spoken of in Luke ii . 1 , did not take place till several years after the birth of Christ . The latter I think quite clear ; and it is virtually declared by the historian , as I shall state afterwards . I . The first difficulty solely arises from combining the chronology of the Introduction to St . Matthew ' s Gospel , with that of St . Luke ' s . In our present inquiry we have nothing to do with the former . The
communication made to Zachanas in the temple , is fixed by the historian ( ch . i . 5 ) to the reign of Herod ; but nothing that occurs afterwards requires us to place any other fact recorded in the Introduction before his death . Chronos asserts the contrary ; and I must notice his assertion ; but in the first instance I will pursue my own train of calculation .
The historian ( ch . i . 26 ) places the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary , in the sixth month after the heavenly message to Zacharias . If the birth of Christ occurred nine months after that period , ( on which supposition , to simplif y the question , we may proceed , ) still it might have been fourteen months after the death of Herod . Of course it might have been less .
* Chronos makes his quotation from ai * extract given by the Reviewer of my Reply to Bishop ( now probably Archbishop ) Magee . The reader may be referred to the whole Note in p . 299 .
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Herod died some time before a Passover either in A U . 750 , or in A . U . 751 . In the statement to which Chronos refers , I assumed the former , which I now think ( for a reason which I shall state hereafter ) to be less
nrobable than the latter ; but I will pursue the calculation on A . U . 750 , as the less favourable to my argument . If we suppose the birth of Christ to have occurred about a year after the death of Herod , this brings us to the spring of A . U . 751- In that case he was thirty years old in the spring of A . U . 781 .
The fifteenth year of Tiberius , reckoning from the death of Augustus , began Aug . 19 , A . U . 781 . The baptism of Christ may be placed in the latter part of January or in February , A . U . 782 , when he would not have comnletedvhis 31 st vear .
A . * St . Luke ' s words in iii . 23 , are not at all inconsistent with this : they are , Ka < olvtq <; 7 ] u 6 \ r \ < T 0 V (; axrei zrccv rpiaycovrcc oL ^ % o ^ tvoq . The literal rendering of the clause is , " And Jesus himself was about thirty years old when beginning : " and on considering
the connexion , and observing the language of the Evangelist in ch . i . 2 , and Acts i . 22 , I have no difficulty in supplying the ellipsis . I would , therefore , translate the clause thus : " Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry ; " so it is translated by Newcome , and by the Geneva Version of 1805 , and probably by others also .
Hence it appears that even taking the more unfavourable supposition respecting the time of Herod ' deatb , there is no discrepancy between the dates in the third chapter of Luke , and the Introduction . What I have thought the decisive argument for the earlier date or Herod ' s death , viz ., A . U . 7 ^ 0 , is the remarkable eclipse of the moon which occurred not long before , on the night when the Jewish Rabbics were burnt is
at Jericho b y Herod ' s order , lhis assumed to have been on the 13 th o March , A . U . 750 . But it appears from Playfair ' Tables , that there was a total eclipse of the moon at Jen ^\ on the ilth of January , A . U . /•> ¦ ; This far better accords with "it events narrated by Josep hus , *> et ^ the death of the Rabbies and the w
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1822, page 346, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2513/page/26/
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