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Untitled Article
have so connected it with the descent from the mountain and the entrance info Capernaum , that no reader of his Gospel alone could come to any other conclusion than that it took place between those occurrences : nor could he have connected the application of Jairus with the feast at his own house , if he knew that it occurred , as St . Luke has placed it , at a very different time , after the Message of John , and the Parable of the Sower , &c . The supposed system of arrangement might be well adapted to his object ; but he could not have carried it so far as to sacrifice historical truth to it .
Where the relation of subject matter , or the real connexion of events with others not in close succession , or the want of connexion with those exactly contemporaneous , or uncertainty as to the actual time of occurrence , rendered arrangement by the order of time less convenient , or less useful , than by some other principle , there was nothing to prevent a faithful and accuratelyinformed historian of our Lord ' s ministry from departing from the order of time , provided he did not professedly unite the events together as occurring in close succession .
It deserves consideration that the constantly occupied period which St . Matthew records in the portion (§ 3—21 ) , beginning with ch . iv . 12 , and ending with ch . xi . 1 , —including the chief discrepancies in the order of time—probably occupied ( as we shall hereafter shew more at large ) less than the interval between the Tabernacles and the Dedication , which was about ten or eleven weeks . Now , how extremely difficult must it have been —nay , naturally impossible—for any one , not a continual eye-witness , to
have given a narrative of such a period , in strict chronological order , at the distance of thirty years from its occurrence , and after so many other interesting events : nay , how difficult would it have been for even an eye-witness to have done it , unless he had made some records at an earlier period , or had satisfied himself with a few prominent facts ! It must be recollected , too ,
when appreciating the resources of the Evangelists , that they had no maps , no public chronicles , no leading historical events to refer to ; that in the period peculiarly in our view , the whole series , though crowded with occurrences , had little necessary connexion , in its several parts , with time and place ; and that this little connexion would be likely to fade from the memory as the distance of time made the facts themselves alone of moment .
Those who adopt the Hypothesis that one Common Document formed the basis of the narrative part of the first three Gospels—whether in the refined form given it by Bishop Marsh , or in any more satisfactory one , if such there be—can scarcely avoid the conclusion , that the accordance between Mark and Luke , and their discrepancy from Matthew , so far from being an objection to the chronological accuracy of Matthew , favours the supposition that he alone followed the order of time : for why should not he , as well as
Mark and Luke , have adopted the order of their common document , except from his knowledge , as a personal witness , that it was not chronologically correct ? If it be replied that he departed from it for another purpose , such as Mr . Veysie supposed , we might repeat the remarks already offered against his supposition .
But let us proceed to consider the composition and characteristics of each Gospel , as respects the chronology of our Lord ' s Ministry . That St . Luke wrote his Gospel without any knowledge of St . Matthew ' s , or any personal knowledge of the facts recorded , appears to us indisputable from his introduction , ch . i . 1—4 ; and as he must have spent a considerable time in Palestine , during the period of Paul ' s imprisonment at Caesarea ,
Untitled Article
On the Chronology and Arrangement of the Gospel Narratives . 311
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 311, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/23/
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