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Untitled Article
earliest . " And he then proceeds with the passage abpve cited , which necessarily refers to the latter date , 751 . We presume that he had first stopped at 750 : but ( with that tendency to the accumulation of reasoning , without regard to relevancy or force , which so much characterizes this work ) he unfortunately added the succeeding clause which , as introduced , destroys the connexion . —But we must forbear noticing these things . If the reader will take half the trouble to find out false reasonings , incuriae , needless
accumulations , &c , that we have to discover what is really solid and useful m the work before us , he will require no vindication of our strictures . Few will give the tenth part of the labour we have to either ; and yet if a person is investigating the same subject , Mr . Greswell ' s conjectures and errors may often aid him in discerning the truth ; and while we censure his omissions of reference to those critics who have defended opinions which he opposes , we . readily yield him the praise of the faithful and ( we see no reason to doubt ) accurate statement of a vast quantity of learned data , which may assist others in coming to sounder conclusions than his own often are .
The question discussed in the second part of this Appendix , on the Eclipse before the Death of Herod , is of real importance ; but this we shall have occasion to notice hereafter . The Fifth Dissertation presents useful calculations and data respecting the computation of the Jewish Passovers and other feasts . The Sixth enters upon the difficult question of the 15 th year of Tiberius Csesar . In this the author does not even notice the cautious , and by far more useful
examination of the subject by Lardner ; nor the valuable investigations of Mr C , Benson , which may be referred to as a contrast with Mr . GreswelPs . Lardner felt difficulties which Greswell seems never to have perceived ; and Benson , while he appears fully satisfied in his own conclusions , is not so presumptuous as to say with the learned Dissertator , ( p . 272 , ) that , if Tiberius were actually associated with Augustus in the administration of the empire , he knows not " from what date but the date of this association , an evangelical historian could possibly have deduced the years of his reign . "
Surely it was at least possible that he might date from the commencement of the sole sovereignty of Tiberius , after the death of Augustus ; especially as all the heathen historians and Josephus did so , and as there is found no clear instance in which the joint sovereignty of Tiberius with Augustus has furnished the era of computation . All that can reasonably be maintained in favour of this mode of computation is , that Luke might possibly have dated by it ; and that from the circumstance that he wrote in the provinces , which Tiberius ' s tribunician pow ' er peculiarly respected , it is less improbable that he did so , than if he had written at Rome .
Mr . Greswell ' s Seventh Dissertation is " on the beginning of the Government of Pontius Pilate . " In the course of this , the author adduces some curious facts to shew that , according to the rate of travelling which prevailed in ancient times , a journey from Rome to Judaea would in summer occupy eight or ten weeks , and in winter much more . In reference to the latter period , he cites Nicias ( in Thucydides vi . 21 ) as reminding the Athenians that it was a four months' voyage even from Sicily to Athens . *
- The Eighth Dissertation respects " the united , and the sep arate , duration of the ministry of John the Baptist , and of Jesus Christ ; " in which ( p . 294 ) he maintains first , generally , that the true date of the commencement of the personal ministry of our Saviour is also the true date of the termination or the personal ministry of John the Baptist ; and then qualifies a position which could not possibly be maintained without such qualification , by refer-
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40 On the Chronology and Arrangement of the Gospel Narratives ;
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1831, page 40, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2593/page/40/
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