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discourses , with such facts only as gave rise to them . * Leaving this oat of the question , the order of St . Luke , in the period referred to , is the same with that of St . Matthew and St . Mark . If the order of St . John be regarded as strictly chronological , our Lord must have been present at two festivals ( besides a Passover and a Pentecost
of which we have no account ) between the miracle of the Five Thousand and the last Passover , viz * the Feast of Tabernacles , and the Feast of Dedication . Now , the former of these , all the apostles must have attended ; and yet there is no intimation of this in the Gospel of Matthew ; nor can we find any interval , after the 14 th chapter , in which the transactions of above a year could have occurred .
If the order of St . John be not regarded as strictly chronological , no essential difficulty occurs from the position in his Gospel of the miraculous feeding of the Five Thousand . Now , his Gospel consists of several independent portions , ( principally supplementary to the other gospels , ) each complete and regular in itself , and each containing some intimation of the
period to which it belongs .-f * We have no evidence , or internal reason to believe , that he intended to arrange those separate portions in a chronological order : and to suppose this , reduces us to the necessity of admitting that he has passed by at least one Passover , as well as several other national festivals , without any notice whatever of the transactions which occurred at them .
It is attended with much less difficulty to admit ,, that the separate portions of St . John ' s Gospel are not exactly in chronological order , than that the
* See Marsh's Dissertation on the Origin and Composition of our three first Canonical Gospels , p . 202 . Without adopting ail Bishop Marsh ' s views in that acute investigation , or eveu maintaining that a separate collection of this nature existed before the time of Luke , we have no hesitation in the belief that the middle portion of the Gospel ( ch . x . 51 to xviii . 14 , as Marsh thinks ) consists of such Memorabilia ; and that St . Luke placed it in the interval betweeu our Lord ' s leaving
Galilee and his entering Judea , ( after passing through the Penea , ) as being the most convenient situation for a miscellaneous collection , the exact date of which he might be unable to ascertain . It is further probable , that he was led to this position by many of the discourses having been delivered in the Peraea—some of them on the last journey ; and it is not improbable that he collected them there while engaged in preparing materials for his invaluable narrative . + This subject will be considered more fully hereafter ; but it is proper to state here , that the Gospel of St . John consists of the following distinct parts ; and these may , not improbably , have first existed as separate supplementary narratives .
i . Transactions succeeding our Lord ' s return from the Desert , till soon after the first Passover ; which ( including the Introduction ) occupy the first four chapters . ii . Transactions at another festival of the Jews , probably the Pentecost ,- recorded in the vth chapter . Hi . The miracle of the Five Thousand , and Christ ' s subsequent discourse at Capernaum , not long before a Passover , ( which , following the evidence of the otiier gospels , we say was the last Passover J both recorded in the vith chapter , with which we unite the 1 st verse of the viith .
iv . Transactions at , and immediately succeeding , the Feast of Tabernacles ; occupying from ch . vii . 2 , to ch . x . 2 J > with which , undoubtedly , the xth chapter should have closed . v . Transactions at , and soon after , the Feast of Dedication ; from ch . x . 22 , to ch . xi . 54 , with which the xith chapter should have closed . vi . Transactions during our Lord ' s last visit to Jerusalem , at the Passover ; recorded in ch . xi . 55 , to the end of ch . xx . vii . A supplementary record , in ch . xxi ., closed by the declaration of the person — say one of the Ephcsiau Elders ^—who edited the Got * pel , and possibly arranged the separate document ; * .
Untitled Article
On the Chronology and Arrangement of the Gospel Narratives . 171
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 171, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/27/
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