Chapter XVII
IN the course of a summer visit many years
ago at one of the historic homes of Ireland, an incident occurred which often comes to my mind as read the criticisms of the critics upon the Gospel narratives.
The eldest son and daughter of the house left us one morning to spend the day with relatives some half-dozen miles away. Late at night, from my bedroom window, I saw the returning carriage drive up to the hall door. The lady alighted with a gentleman who was not her brother. At breakfast next morning she told us that her brother had remained at his cousin’s house, and she had brought back a Mrs. Somebody — mentioning a name I did not know. Owing to the disturbed state of the country, surprise was expressed that two ladies should have thus driven home alone at night. This enabled me to press the question whether a gentleman had not
221 escorted her; and her answer was unequivocal that her only companion had been the lady she named.
When in my official life I have found a conflict of testimony between persons of known integrity, I have always sought some way of reconciling them. But in this case I confess I was baffled; and had I not had more confidence in my friend than the critics have in the Bible, I should have given her up as being utterly untruthful, and perhaps worse. But I afterwards obtained from her the solution of the enigma. The lady she named was the wife of their doctor. His house was near the gate of the park; and when his wife alighted he took her place in the carriage and drove with my friend to the hall door.
Not all the Biblical critics of Christendom can find in Scripture a more hopeless conflict of testimony than would have been my friend’s account, and my own, of her return to her father’s house that night. If we had both written about it without first comparing notes, I should have asserted that her only companion was a gentleman; she would have declared that her only companion was a lady. ‘ Sherlock Holmes” himself could have made nothing of it. And yet the solution of it seems ludicrously simple when
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all the facts are known. She was thinking of her six miles’ drive; I, of her arrival at the house. Both accounts, therefore, would have been absolutely true, though to all appearance one or other would have seemed absolutely false; and any one who attempted to play the réle of “reconciler” would have fared badly at the hands of the critics.:
There are difficulties in the Gospel narratives which appear equally inexplicable. And the efforts of zealous “reconcilers” to explain them sometimes do more harm than good. They probably admit of some very simple explanation, which would be obvious if all the circumstances were in view. The question, however, to which they give rise in the mind,I will not say of a competent critic, still less of a spiritual Christian, but of any person endowed with common sense — a quality which seems to be sometimes lacking to both Christians and critics — concerns the general character of the writings thus seemingly impugned. And here I am not assuming that the Evangelists were inspired, but merely that they were competent and trustworthy witnesses.
To introduce into this book a glossary of difficult passages would be wholly foreign to its scope: indeed it would make it unreadable. In the preceding chapters I have selected illustrative examples of the objections dealt with, and I will still pursue the same course. I will proceed to give instances of difficulties which appear insoluble, of others which are easily explained, and of a third class which indicate only the perversity or the ignorance of those who urge them.
Of the class first mentioned I know of no case more apt than that of the blind men outside Jericho. A definite contradiction seems to mark the Gospel narratives. Iam not referring to the fact that Matthew mentions two men as healed on the occasion, whereas Mark and Luke speak of one only. The received explanation of this — that “the sources from which each Evangelist took his narrative” differed in this way — is strangely shallow and unintelligent, for this only puts the “difficulty” one step back. But a little knowledge of human nature and of real life will oust that “difficulty” altogether. If either Evangelist said that the Lord cured only one blind man on the occasion, the matter would be different. But one of the two men was evidently a well-known character — ‘ blind Bartimeus” — while the other, possibly, was a stranger to the
* See Matt. xx. 29-34; Mark x. 46-52; and Luke xviii. 35-43.
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locality. Two of the Evangelists speak only of the man who was known: Mark names him, and Luke refers to him as “a certain blind man.” To represent this as a “contradiction” bespeaks the perversity of fools.
But a very real difficulty remains; Luke represents the incident as occurring when the Lord was approaching Jericho, while the other Gospels say expressly that it was when He was leaving the town. The contradiction here seems as hopeless as that recorded in my Irish story. Possibly, however, the explanation of it would be just as simple; but I, at least, decline to play the rélé of “Sherlock Holmes” in dealing with Holy Scripture.
A popular preacher and writer who is one of the lesser lights of the Higher Criticism has published the statement that in his Oxford days “the whole foundation” of his faith was shaken by discovering that, in Acts v. 36, Gamaliel is said to have mentioned an insurrection under one Theudas, whereas Josephus records an insurrection under a man of that name half a century later; the inference being, of course, that the Evangelist was thus proved to have blundered.
Who among us has not been equally silly at times! But some of us are shrewd enough to
16 conceal our silliness from other people. There are three possible explanations of the difficulty, any one of which would suffice. First, in any conflict of statement between a writer so accurate as Luke, and a writer so notoriously inaccurate as Josephus, the presumption of error is entirely against the historian, and not against the Evangelist. Secondly, it is very probable that the Theudas of Gamaliel’s speech is one of the insurgents mentioned by Josephus under another name. But thirdly, the whole difficulty assumes that the historian enumerates all these insurrections, whereas, in fact, he declares there were ‘thousands” of them; and one Theudas may well have been the leader of such an outbreak before ‘the days of the taxing,” and another Theudas may have headed a similar revolt during the reign of Claudius.?
Among the difficulties which, though easily explained, seem to unsettle the faith of a certain sort of people, there is one that may serve to illustrate the perverseness of some of the
For the sake of argument I here treat the Third Gospel as a merely human book.
2 Antiquities, xvii. 10,4, and xx. 5,1. Josephus mentions three Judases within ten years, and four Simons within forty years as leaders of such revolts. There may well, therefore, have been two named Theudas in the same half-century.
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German critics. ‘ Verily I say unto you,” the Lord declared in telling of the dread events which are to herald His return, “this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.” 1 What meaning can possibly be given to these words, save that the Parousia was to occur in the lifetime of those to whom He spoke? The question is answered by a fact well known to the critics themselves, that the word here rendered generation ‘has in Hellenistic Greek the meaning of a@ race, or family of people.” 2 And any intelligent reader can see that in other passages also it is used in that sense.3 The Jews, instead of suffering the fate of every other conquered race in all the world’s history, were to remain a separate people to the end. The Lord’s words, therefore, instead of proving a stumbling-block ought rather to establish our faith.
People seem to be strangely troubled about the Inscription upon the Cross. Dean Alford writes : —
“The title over the cross was written in Greek.
* Matt. xxiv. 34.
2 Alford’s Greek Testament; and see any Lexicon.
3 See, ¢.g., chap. xxiii. 36, and various passages in the LXX., as, Ce Gel, XXXI6’3; [Cla Vill. 3:
es ean pe ee ee ee, Se et
According then to the verbal-inspiration theory, each Evangelist has recorded the exact words of the inscription; not the general sense, but the inscription itself — not a letter less or more. This is absolutely necessary to the theory.”! Extraordinary statements‘ these from a writer who is usually so sensible and so accurate. Whether any inspiration other than veréal inspiration is possible, is a problem of metaphysics, and I am not going to discuss it here. Neither shall I defend any “verbal-inspiration ¢heory.” What concerns us is the fact of inspiration, so plainly taught by the Lord Himself: And as we have seen in a previous chapter, the fact of inspiration is consistent with sometimes insisting upon the exact words of Scripture with a definiteness so minute that men would call it “hair-splitting,” and in other instances quoting Scripture in a way that men would call “loose.” Whatever human theories of inspiration may demand, verbal inspiration does not assume that ‘each Evangelist has recorded the exact words of the inscription,” but chat the record as given by each was guided and controlled by the Spirit of God. And no one who has studied the human element
™ Com,, voloi., Prol, 1.78 viv ro. in other Divine miracles will be surprised at finding a human element ‘in this miracle of inspiration.
But to resume. Each of the four Gospels gives the inscription in a slightly different form. Here is the text of each : —
“This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Matt. XXvii. 37).
“The King of the Jews” (Mark xv. 26).
“This is the King of the Jews” (Luke xxii. 38).
“Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John xix. 19).
Now let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the full inscription was, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Its purpose was clear — not in the least to identify the accused, but solely to give the accusation on which he was condemned. Pilate would not have noticed the charges which so excited the religious leaders of the Jews; but the claim to be a King they represented as a folitical offence. And though he saw that the prisoner was no rioter, no leader of sedition, and that the accusation was dishonestly preferred, he feared lest the Sanhedrim should make trouble for him with Czsar if he refused to entertain it.’ Therefore he yielded to
— —
* John xix, 12.
their clamour. But he revenged himself upon them by putting up the charge in a form that brought them into contempt, giving prominence to the royal title. Their remonstrance was most noteworthy. ‘Write not ‘Zhe King of the Jews, but that He said, “I am King of the Jews.’”! And this, which alone was essential, or important, all the Gospels agree in giving.
But this is not all. ‘The title over the cross was written zz Greek.” If Dean Alford’s words are to be judged as the Bible is judged, this statement is a sheer blunder. ‘The title” was written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin; and this is probably the explanation of the whole matter. ‘The Hebrew Gospel” might be expected to record the Hebrew inscription. Luke, writing for a Roman officer, would, not unnaturally, reproduce the Latin.2 The inscription as given by John may well be the Greek. And Mark gives merely, as his words imply, the gzs¢ of the charge — “the inscription of the accusation.”
I have dealt thus fully with this matter in spite of the fact that I am personally unable to sympathise with people who find a difficulty in
* John xix. 21. 7 “This is the King of the Jews” has a distinctly Latin ring. differences of the kind. Such differences only prove that the Gospels are not, as the critics would tell us, copied from one another, or from a common source, but that they are wholly independent narratives. And they weigh nothing with people who have any practical knowledge of men, or who have intelligent views of inspiration. For nothing tends more to discredit witnesses than mechanical uniformity of statement; and in revelation, as in nature, we may expect to find endless variety of detail combined with absolute unity in essentials.
In conclusion, I will deal with a difficulty of a totally different character. But it is important enough to deserve a chapter to itself. The three first Gospels, we are told, are at variance with the fourth, as to the day on which the Lord was crucified.