Part 3 — Part III.—Second Division. SCRIPTURE CONTRADICTS SCRIPTURE.

In the former part of this division numerous examples have been brought together to prove that the scope of Scripture in one place is not reconcilable with the statement given in another; it now remains to go one step further, and show that one Scripture positively contradicts another. In the former part the passages alluded to are obviously in error; in this part one text will be contrasted with another contradictory text, but it will not be possible to pronounce which is right, or whether both are not equally in fault. It will suffice in many cases simply to set one statement against another statement in separate columns, and leave the reader to form his own judgment; but in some few instances a remark or two will be given to point out the scope of the error to which attention is directed.

Gen. vi., 19, 20. The direction given by God to Noah was—“Of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark . . . they shall be male and [its] female; of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee to keep them alive.” Nothing can be more explicit. It is even expressly said that the cattle were not to exceed two; it was to be two “of all flesh;” two of “every sort.” Gen. vii., 2. This plain, positive direction is altered in the very next chapter, and a distinction is made between clean and unclean animals: “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female.” Seven pairs (or 14 animals) is a very wide deviation from the direction, two only of every sort shall be taken into the ark to keep them alive.

Gen. xlvi., 27; Deut. x., 22. In the books of Moses we are more than once told that all the souls of the house of Jacob which came into Egypt were “three score and ten.” Acts, vii., 14. By what authority does the martyr Stephen increase this positive assertion by the addition of five more? saying “all the kindred [of Jacob which came into Egypt] were three score and 15 souls.”

We read in Gen. xlvi., 26, that the number, exclusive of Joseph and his two sons, who were already in Egypt, and of Jacob himself, the founder of the race, “all the souls were three score and six;” but including these four, the number amounted to “three score and ten.” By adding together the names set down in Gen. xlvi., 15, 18, 22, 25, it will be found that the number amounts to 70; the five, therefore, added by Stephen, had no existence.

1 Sam., xxx., 1–10, 17. The Amalekites burnt Ziklag, and drove off the women as captives. Three days afterwards David and “his men” came to the place and saw the calamity which had befallen it. David consulted the ephod, and was told to pursue the “rovers,” for he should not only overtake them, but should recover all that they had taken captive. “So David went, he and the six hundred men that were with him, and came to the brook Besor.” Here David left behind 200 of the men, and with the remaining 400 overtook the spoilers, and extirpated them, for “he smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day, and there escaped not a man of them, save 400 who fled on camels.” 1 Chron., xii., 20–22. How is this transaction recorded by the chronicler? When David reached Ziklag, eight captains “of thousands” came to him, and helped him against the Amalekite raiders, and so many men flocked to his standard to help him, that his army was “a great host, like the host of God.” Certainly it seems very improbable that 400 men should be able to extirpate the whole army of the Amalekites which must have been pretty numerous, seeing 400 men mounted on camels managed to escape; but these 400 are spoken of as mere ciphers, for David and his men slew all the whole army, except these [few] young men who were on camels.

2 Sam., ii., 10. Ishbosheth, the rival king of David, is said to have reigned two years; and during these two years, David reigned over Judah only. 2 Sam., ii., 11. In the very next verse we are informed that David reigned seven years and a half over Judah only, during all which time Ishbosheth reigned over the rest of the tribes.

2 Sam., viii., 4, 5. David, says the writer of this book, took from Hadadezer, (?) King of Zobah, 1,000 chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and 22,000 footmen. 1 Chron., xviii., 4. In the corresponding passage recorded in the book of Chronicles, we are told that the number of horsemen was not 700, but seven thousand. The name of the king is here called Hadarezer.

2 Sam., x., 6, 18. Hadarezer hired 33,000 Syrians to oppose David; but David came against the allied army and “slew seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen.” 1 Chron., xix., 18. In the book of Chronicles David is said to have slain seven thousand men, which fought in chariots, and forty thousand footmen.

2 Sam., xxiv., 9. The “fighting men” at the close of David’s reign are stated in the book of Samuel to have been 1,300,000 (!); of these 800,000 were of Israel, and 500,000 of Judah. 1 Chron., xxi., 5. In the book of Chronicles the number of fighting men is even more astounding. It is given as 1,570,000; of which 1,100,000 belonged to Israel, and 470,000 to Judah.

2 Sam., xxiv., 13. When David numbered the people, a choice of three evils was given him. According to Samuel, the evils were: seven years of famine, three months pursuit by his enemies, or three days’ pestilence. 1 Chron., xxi., 12. According to Chronicles, the choice was: three years of famine, and not seven.

2 Sam., xxiv., 24. In the book of Samuel, David is said to have given to Araunah for the threshing-floor fifty shekels of silver [£5 13s. 6d.]. Chron., xxi., 25. In the book of Chronicles, he is said to have given for it 600 shekels of gold [£547 10s.].

1 Kgs., vii., 26. According to the book of Kings, Solomon’s brazen laver held 2,000 baths [15,000 gallons]. 2 Chron., iv., 5. According to the book of Chronicles, it held 3,000 baths [about 22,500 gallons].

2 Kgs., viii., 26. The writer of the book of Kings tells us that Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year. 2 Chron., xxii., 2. We are here informed that Ahaziah was 42 when he began to reign, and not 22. Both agree in the length of his reign.

2 Kgs., xiv., 7. In the book of Kings, Amaziah is said to have slain 10,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt. 2 Chron., xxv., 11–12. In the book of Chronicles he is said to have slain twice that number: 10,000 he smote, and 10,000 he cast down from the top of a rock, whereby “they were all broken in pieces” (!)

2 Kgs., xxiv., 8. The author of the book of Kings tells us that “Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and [he] reigned in Jerusalem three months.” 2 Chron., xxxvi., 9. The author of the book of Chronicles says that “Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem.”

1 Chron., xxii., 14. David, we are here told, bequeathed to Solomon for the temple the fabulous sum of 100,000 talents of gold, and a million talents of silver. In English money this would be seven thousand million sterling (say 7,000,000,000!). 1 Chron., xxix., 4. In this chapter the bequest is stated to have been only 3,000 talents of gold, and 7,000 of silver. This would amount to £166,650,000 English money. A good round sum for a petty state not bigger than Yorkshire, but still considerably reduced from that given in the previous record.

2 Chron. iii., 15. According to the chronicler the height of the two pillars made by Solomon for the temple was 35 cubits in the shaft, on which was a chapiter of five cubits. Altogether about 80 feet!! Jeremiah lii., 21, 22. Jeremiah tells us the shaft of each was only 18 cubits high. He agrees in the height of the chapiter (five cubits). According to Jeremiah the entire height was about 40 feet, or half that of the chronicler.

Jeremiah lii., 28–30. The “prophet” informs us that the total number of captives taken from Judah to Babylon was only 4,600. A modest number enough, compared with the number of fighting men, which averaged 300,000, according to the Bible historians. Ezra ii., 64. Ezra states that of the captives taken to Babylon only 42,360 were willing to return. All the rest preferred to remain where they were. No doubt Ezra would give us to understand that more remained in Babylon than went up to the land of their fathers.

The “prophet” has made a mistake in his sum. The three captivities were 3,320 + 832 + 745=4,897, not 4,600. One is puzzled to understand how 4,000 captives should have so stripped the kingdom as to leave it a wilderness; we find hundreds of thousands falling in a single battle without exhausting the country at all.

Matt. xvii., 1–2. Here we read “After six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain . . . and was transfigured before them.” Luke ix., 28. Luke says “About an eight days after . . . he took Peter, John, and James, and went up into a mountain, and was transfigured.”

Mark vi., 40. Mark says of the 5000 who were fed with five barley loaves and two fishes: “They sat down in ranks, by hundreds and by fifties.” Luke ix., 14. Luke says that Jesus directed his disciples “to make them sit down by fifties in a company.”

These last two examples are not very weighty, but in a book which professes to be inspired, and demands unreserved and unconditional belief, we expect minute accuracy. The argument we advance is accumulative. Probably no book of good reputation has so many contradictory passages as the Bible; the examples referred to in this pamphlet form but a small part of what might be brought forward, if we allowed ourselves a larger space.

The examples given above are more or less connected with figures. The rest of the examples to be stated are independent of such sources of error. A few shall be given in detail and others in parallel columns.

Gen., i., 27.

Adam and Eve, we are here told, were created on the sixth day. The words are quite explicit, “male and female created he them, and God blessed them . . . and the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

We are little prepared to hear in the very next chapter that God did not create them a male and female on the sixth day, and of course did not bless them. What is still more strange is that the chapter opens with the words: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them, and on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made.”

According to v. 21 we find that God did not rest from his work at the close of the sixth day, nor was his work ended, nor was woman yet made; for after this “rest,” or during this “sabbath,” we are not told which, Adam being thrown into a deep sleep, one of his ribs was abstracted, and out of this rib was Eve made.

Gen., iv. 14.

After Cain had killed his brother Abel he was “driven by God from the face of the earth;” and Cain said: “My punishment is greater than I can bear . . . I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth, and it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me.”

One would suppose from this that the world was populated at the time, and not that Cain was the first-born of the human race.

Gen., xlix., 10.

“The sceptre shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh come.” We are told that Shiloh [the peaceful one] means “the son of peace,” the Messiah, Jesus Christ. If so, how thoroughly did facts contradict this prophecy. Judah had no sceptre till David’s time, 650 years after these words were spoken; it held the sceptre 460 years, and it departed from Judah 580 years before Shiloh came.

Exodus, xx.

The chapter contains the decalogue read in the Anglican churches every Sunday morning. Moses broke the first pair of stone tables, but having prepared two others Jehovah “wrote upon them the words that were on the first tables.”

By comparing Exod. xxxiv. with Exod. xx., it will be found that there is very little resemblance between the first and second decalogue. Only three of the ten commandments are at all alike, the other seven of the first pair of tables find no counterpart in the second.

1 Sam., ix., 2.

Saul is called “a choice young man and a goodly,” yet had he at the time a son in man’s estate.

1 Sam., xv., 7–20.

Saul positively affirms that he had “utterly destroyed all the Amalekites, except Agag,” and him Samuel “hewed to pieces.” Some twenty years after this extirpation, David is appointed to destroy the very same people, and he also “smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day, and there escaped not a man of them, save 400 young men, which fled on camels.” (1 Sam. xxx., 17.) (See also 1 Chron., iv., 41–43.)

1 Sam., xvi., 18.

When David was introduced to king Saul, he is described as “a mighty valiant man, and a man of war;” but in the next chapter he is called a “stripling unpracticed in arms,” and unused to armour.

In the former of these two chapters (v. 21), he is represented as Saul’s companion, who “stood before the king, and Saul loved him greatly;” in the latter (xvii., 55, 56), he becomes a stripling wholly unknown to the monarch and his officers, for Saul asks Abner “whose son is this youth? and Abner said, As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell. And Saul said, Inquire whose son the stripling is.” Yet this stripling was a “mighty man of valour,” who had actually been Saul’s “armour bearer” and beloved companion. He had lived with Saul, had played to him in his moody fits, and charmed away his ill-temper, had been a cause of jealousy to the king, who had even tried to kill him, and yet neither Saul nor Abner had ever seen him or known his name.

2 Sam., viii., 17.

The writer says there were two high priests during the rebellion of David, one elected by Saul and the other by David: they were, “Zadok son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech son of Abiathar.”

If anyone will read the narrative with tolerable care he will see that Ahimelech was dead, having been slain by Doeg when he put the city of Nob to the sword (1 Sam. xxii., 18); besides Ahimelech was not the son but the father of Abiathar, (1 Sam. xxii., 20; xxiii., 6), and the father of Ahimelech was Ahitub, a “fact” repeated three times in as many verses, in 1 Sam. xxii., 9–12.

This blunder about Ahimelech has been copied into other places, for example, 1 Sam. xx., 25; 1 Kings iv., 4; 1 Chronicles xviii., 16, but there cannot be a shadow of doubt that Abiathar, and not Ahimelech, was the high priest appointed by David: first, because Abiathar fled to David for safety; secondly, because he was the high priest during the entire reign of David; and finally, because he was deposed by Solomon, who told him he would have put him to death if he had not served before David. (1 Kings ii., 26.)

Jeremiah, xxii., 29, 30.

“O earth, earth, earth!” exclaims the prophet, “hear the word of the Lord—Thus saith the Lord: Write ye this man [Coniah] childless.”

According to 1 Chronicles, iii., 17, 18, Coniah, or Je-coniah had eight sons, viz: Assir, Salathiel, Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazar, Jecamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah.

Jeremiah, xxxvi., 30.

Jehovah told Jeremiah that Jehoiakim “should have none to sit on the throne of David:” but we are told (2 Chronicles xxxvi., 8) that his son succeeded him, and after his son his brother.

Ezekiel, xxx., 13.

This and the two following chapters speak of the conquest of Egypt by Babylon. The writer says that the country should be made desolate from north to south, and that there should be “no more a prince of Egypt.”

Not one word of this corresponds with the known history of Egypt. Herodotus does not give the slightest hint of such a calamity. Merchants frequented the country without interruption long after that, and if the people had been scattered, the cities utterly wasted for 40 years, and “no king had succeeded to the throne,” it must have been known. The silence of historians on this point is a most conclusive proof that the logic of fact did not accord with the word of prophecy.

The same may be said of the Pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea. No history confirms this tale, and no king of Egypt can be made to tally with the catastrophe. But Egypt was not an insignificant kingdom like Judah, which no one knew about; it was the foremost kingdom of the world, and if one of its kings had been drowned in the sea with all his host, some mention must have been made thereof.

GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST.

Take another example. Both Matthew and Luke labour to prove the genealogy of Christ from David. Luke traces Joseph to Adam, through David (iii., 23–36), and Matthew gives the descendants of David down to “Joseph, the husband of Mary.” The object of both is to show that Jesus, through Joseph, came in the direct line, and was therefore of the lineage of David.

The interpolated miraculous conception, abandoned by biblical scholars, [53] utterly stultifies the purpose of these pedigrees. Matthew and Luke “prove” that Jesus was of the lineage of David because Joseph, the husband of Mary, was in the direct line. The miraculous conception goes to show that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, and consequently that Jesus was not of the line of David at all. Here, then, is a dilemma:—if Jesus was the son of Joseph his divinity must be given up; if he was not the son of Joseph, he was not of the line of David, and his Messiahship must be given up.

By casting an eye over the two genealogies, it will be seen that they differ in all points except at certain nodes, and the usual answer is, that Luke’s is the pedigree of Joseph, and Matthew’s that of Mary. But there is not the slightest indication of this difference in the Gospel text; both profess to give the genealogy of Joseph. Matthew says, “Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born” (i., 16); there cannot be a shadow of doubt that this is meant for the pedigree of Joseph, the husband of Mary. If not, the genealogy was that of Rahab the harlot, for verse 5 tells us that Boaz was the husband of Rahab, of whom Obed was born. So again in verse 6, Bathsheba is given as the wife of David, and mother of Solomon. Luke says (iii., 23), Jesus was [as was supposed] the son of Joseph, the son of Heli; and does not even mention Mary. The three words in brackets are a mere gloss, and could not have been written by Luke, as they would destroy the very thing he was trying to prove: Jesus was the son of Joseph, Joseph of Heli, and Heli was a descendant of David, Abraham, and Seth. If Jesus was not really the son of Joseph, why trouble himself to show that Joseph was in the line of David, Abraham, and Seth?

But it is quite evident that Matthew and Luke supposed Jesus to be the son of Joseph. So did the neighbours of Joseph and Mary, for they said (Matt, xiii., 55), “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” It never oozed out in his native village that Mary’s son was other than her son in the usual course of nature. Even Mary herself says to Jesus “thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing” (Luke ii., 48); Mary calls Joseph the father, and not the reputed father, of Jesus, and never seems to have had a shadow of doubt about it. So was it with the disciples; their adherence to Jesus had nothing to do with his divinity. They none of them ever hint at such a notion. Philip said to Nathaniel “We have found him of whom Moses spoke, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John i., 45); not Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Jehovah, but Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. All were anxious to prove his lineage from David, and none cared to set aside so very important a point. Of course they spoke of him as “Christ,” but Christ was merely an accepted title for “King of the theocracy,” and in order that Jesus might be the “Christ,” it was absolutely essential that he should be a descendant of David. [54] The interpolated legend of the miraculous conception is a fatal blunder, and if accepted would utterly destroy the claim of Jesus to the Messiahship.

Gen., ii., 17. The Lord God said to Adam, “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Gen., iii., 17–19. Unto Adam God said, “Because thou hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee not to eat [not thou shalt surely die, but] in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.”

Two things strike us in reading the latter passage: (1) Adam did not “surely die” on the day he ate of the forbidden fruit; and (2) there is not the slightest hint to justify the common dogma that death was the penalty incurred by Adam, but simply toil—toil till he died. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground.” On the subject of death it may be here remarked that the scripture makes mention of thousands and hundreds of thousands, who are not to die at all. We have the case of Enoch (Gen., v., 24), the case of Elijah (2 Kings, ii., 11), and all the inhabitants of the earth who will be alive “at the last day” (1 Corinthians, xv., 51). Either death is not “the wages of sin,” or these persons are not of the race of Adam. The “curse” is not transmitted to them; if not to them, why to others? And what becomes of the dogma of Adam and Christ as federal heads? The whole theory is utterly overturned.

1 Kings viii., 9; 2 Chron. v. 10. The historic books of the Old Testament agree in the fact that there was “nothing in the ark save the two tables which Moses put therein at Horeb.” Hebrews ix., 4. The writer of this book affirms that besides the tables of the covenant, there were in the ark “the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded.”

The pot of manna and Aaron’s rod ought to have been in the ark, inasmuch as Moses was told to place them there (Exod. xvi., 33, 34.; Numbers xvii., 10); but this is only another instance of the inconsistency complained of.

1 Kings, xxii., 48, 49. The writer tells us that “Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish [i.e. Spanish galleons] to go to Ophir for gold. . . . Then said Ahaziah to Jehoshaphat, let my servants go with thy servants in the ships, but he would not.” 2 Chron. xx., 35, 36. In the Book of Kings we are told that Jehoshaphat would not allow Ahaziah to join in the adventure to Ophir. The chronicler says that “Jehoshaphat joined Ahaziah” in making these galleons.

2 Kings, ix., 11–13. The royal historian distinctly says that Jehu was expressly raised by God to the throne of Israel to extirpate the wicked house of Ahab, and “avenge the blood of the prophets shed by Jezebel.” Hosea, i., 4. Hosea says: “The Lord said I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and (because he extirpated the house of Ahab) I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.”

2 Kings, ix., 27. The book of Kings informs us that when Jehu fell on the race of Ahab, Ahaziah “fled to Megiddo, and there died.” 2 Chron., xxii., 9. The chronicler says he was caught by the agents of Jehu “hid in Samaria,” and being taken captive to Jehu, was then slain.

2 Kings, x., 17. Here the slaughter of the house of Ahab is placed in Samaria. 2 Kings, x., 11, 12. Here it is placed in Jezreel, and after Jehu had slain “all that remained of the house of Ahab, all his great men, and his kinsfolk, and his priests . . . he arose and departed and came to Samaria.” This agrees with Hosea, i., 4, cited above.

1 Chron., xi., 1–3. On the death of Saul we are here told that “Then all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron, saying, . . . thou shalt be ruler over . . . Israel . . . and David made a covenant with them in Hebron . . . and they anointed David king over Israel.” 2 Sam., ii., 1–11. Here we are informed that David and his men went to Hebron at the death of Saul, “and the men of Judah came and anointed him king over the house of Judah.” But Abner took Ishbosheth, son of Saul, and made him king over all Israel. David was for seven years and six months king over the house of Judah only.

2 Chron., xxiv., 22. Joash, it is said, “remembered not the kindness of Jehoiada [his foster father], but slew his son,” i.e., Zechariah the High Priest, see v. 20. 2 Chron., xxiv., 25. Here we are told that Joash slew not the son of Jehoiada, but the sons; for the servants of Joash conspired against him not for the blood of Zechariah, but “for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada.”

2 Kings, xii., 13. When Jehoash repaired the temple he placed a money-box beside the altar for voluntary contributions, but (says the writer) there was not money enough collected to make “bowls of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, nor any vessels of gold or silver.” 2 Chron., xxiv., 14. The chronicler contradicts this assertion point blank, and affirms that with the money so collected “were made vessels for the house of the Lord, vessels to minister and to offer, and spoons, and vessels of gold and silver.”

2 Chron., xxxiii., 15. Manasseh is represented as having taken the strange gods and idols out of the house of the Lord . . . and of having “cast them out of the city.” 2 Kings, xxiii., 6. But in the reign of Manasseh’s grandson, whose name was Josiah, these strange gods and idols were still in the temple, for Josiah “took them out of the house of the Lord . . . and stamped them to powder.”

Psalm, lxxii., 20. We read, here “the prayers [i.e., the psalms] of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.” 1 Chron., xvi., 7–36. Here is given a psalm which the chronicler says “David delivered first.” From verse 8 to 22 is Psalm cv., 1–15; the next 11 verses are Psalm xcvi.; and the remaining verses are Psalm cvi., 1, 47, 48. In the “headings” 18 of the psalms, after the lxxii., are ascribed to David, viz., ciii., cviii., cix., cx., cxxii., cxxiv., cxxxi., cxxxiii., cxxxviii., cxxxix., cxl.–cxlv.

Matt., i., 23. Matthew says the birth of Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah (vii., 14), “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel” [God with us.] Matt., i., 16. The son of Mary was Jesus, called the Christ.

(1) The child referred to by Isaiah was to be still an infant when Rezin and Pekah should be cut off. Isaiah says, “Before the child [Emmanuel] shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, [Syria and Israel] shall be [deprived] of both her kings.” It required no great penetration to foretell that the league of Ahaz with Tiglath-pileser the great king, would soon annihilate the petty princes of Damascus and Israel. (2) All scholars, both Jewish and Christian, agree that the child referred to was the expected infant of Isaiah himself. Within two years Pekah fell by the hand of Hoshea, and Resin by the sword of the Assyrians. (3) The Jews affirm that the word virgin [almah] does not of necessity mean a maiden or unmarried woman. If Isaiah in the text referred to his wife, she was already mother of at least one child two years old. Joel, i., 8, applies the word to a widow advanced in life: “Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth,” see Prov., xxx., 19.

Matthew, v., 1. Jesus “seeing the multitude went up into a mountain, and when he was set, he opened his mouth and taught the people.” [Here follow the beatitudes.] Luke, vi., 17. Jesus came down with his disciples, and stood in the plain, and said: &c. [Here follow the beatitudes.]

Matt., viii., 28. “When [Jesus] was come to the other side [of the lake] into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs.” Mark, v., 1, 2; Luke, viii., 26, 27. “When they came over unto the other side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes, there met him out of the tombs a certain man which had devils a long time.”

Matt, xx., 20, 21. “The mother of Zebedee’s children . . . said unto [Jesus], grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand and the other on the left in thy kingdom.” Mark, x., 35–37. “James and John the sons of Zebedee came unto [Jesus] saying, grant unto us that we may sit one on thy right hand and the other on thy left in thy glory.”

Matt., xxii., 46. Here we are told that Jesus puzzled the Pharisees with the question, “How can Christ be David’s son, seeing that David calls him lord?” “And no man,” adds the writer, “from that day forth, durst ask him any more questions.” Mark, xii., 34. Mark gives a different version. He says a certain scribe asked Jesus, “Which is the first commandment of all?” And when Jesus answered the scribe well, adds, “No man after that durst ask him any question.” Luke, xx., 40. Luke agrees with neither of his brother evangelists. He states the matter thus: The Sadducees tell Jesus of a woman who married seven times, and ask whose wife of the seven she would be in the resurrection. After Jesus had replied, some of the scribes remarked, “Master, thou hast well said,” and Luke adds, “after that they durst not ask him any question.” Which is right would be hard to say. Only one can be so.

Matt., xxvi., 6, &c.; Mark, xiv., 3, &c. Matthew and Mark say that Jesus was banqueting in the house of Simon the Leper, when a woman came and anointed him with spikenard. John, xii., 1, &c. John places this anointing in the house of Lazarus, and says the woman’s name was Mary, who took a pound of spikenard for the purpose.

There cannot be a doubt that all these refer to the same event or tradition. It was just prior to the “entry into Jerusalem” which brought about the trial and condemnation. It is wholly incredible that this anointing with spikenard should have been done twice at about the same time.

Matt., xxvi., 34. Jesus said to Simon Peter: “Verily I say unto thee that this night before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.” See also Luke, xxii., 34; and John xiii., 38. Mark, xiv., 30. Jesus said: “Verily I say unto thee that this day, even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.”

Matt., xxvi., 73. Matthew describes the third “denial” thus: “After a while came they that stood by and said to Peter, surely thou art one of them, for thy speech bewrayeth thee.” Mark and Luke give substantially the same account. John, xviii., 26. John says it was not “they that stood by,” but “one of the servants of the High Priest, whose ear Peter [had] cut off.” This servant said, “Did not I see thee in the garden with him,” and not that “thy speech bewrayeth thee.”

Matt, xxvi., 74. Matthew, in accordance with his dictum, makes Simon Peter deny thrice any knowledge of Jesus, and, having so done, “immediately the cock crew.” Mark xiv., 68–72. Mark has another tale to make good, and says that Simon Peter denied once, and the cock crew once; after this Peter denied twice more, and then the cock crew a second time.

Matt, xxvii., 5. Matthew says that Judas, after he had betrayed his master, “went and hanged himself.” Acts, i., 18. Simon Peter says, “This man [Judas] purchased a field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out.”

Simon Peter says that Judas bought a field with the money he received from the priests. The evangelist says he flung the money down in the temple, and the priests bought with it the potter’s field to bury strangers in. What is meant by “falling headlong” is very difficult to make out.

Matt, xxviii., 2–5. Matthew tells us that an angel “rolled back the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and sat upon it; and the angel said, ‘Fear not . . .’” John xxi., 1. We are told that Mary saw two angels sitting; one at the head and the other at the feet. Mark xvi., 4, 5. Mark says the stone was rolled away, and the visitors on “entering into the sepulchre saw [the angel] sitting on the right side. And he said,” &c. Luke [xxiv., 4] says there were two men who stood. They had “shining garments,” and they said, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?”

Mark x., 46; Matt, xx., 29. Mark says, and Matthew agrees with him, that Jesus met with Bartimeus, the blind beggar, on leaving Jericho. Luke xviii., 35. Luke says it was not on leaving Jericho, but as he was about to enter the city.

Mark xiv., 69. In regard to the second denial of Simon Peter, Mark says “A maid saw him again, and said to them that stood by, this is one of them.” Luke xxii., 58. Luke tells us the person was not a woman, but a man; and Peter answered “Man, I am not,” i.e., not one of the disciples.

Luke, ix., 1. Here we read that Jesus “called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure [all] diseases.” Luke, ix., 38–40. We are hardly prepared in the same chapter to hear that the disciples had not power to cast out devils, and cure diseases, for a man says to Jesus, “Master, a spirit taketh my son and teareth him; and I brought him to thy disciples to cast it out, but they could not.”

John xix., 6. When Jesus was brought before the Roman procurator, Pilate said to the Jews, “Take ye him, and crucify him.” John xviii., 31. This is very strange, seeing the Jews had just said to Pilate, “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.”

Would any Roman procurator have told the Jews to crucify a criminal, knowing that it was strictly forbidden by the Roman senate?