Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its HistoryBesant, Annie
Religion
Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History
Besant, Annie
Christianity -- Controversial literature
that some most extraordinary and abnormal fact had taken place in nature
of which we did not know the cause. But to prove a miracle to any person
who consistently denies that he has any evidence that any being exists
which is not a portion of and included in the material universe, or
developed out of it, is impossible" ("The Supernatural in the New
Testament," by Prebendary Row, pp. 14, 15). We maintain that Nature
includes _everything_, and that, therefore, the _supernatural_ is an
impossibility. Every new fact, however marvellous, must, therefore, be
within Nature; and while our ignorance may for awhile prevent us from
knowing in what category the newly-observed phenomenon should be
classed, it is none the less certain that wider knowledge will allot to
it its own place, and that more careful observation will reduce it under
law, i.e., within the observed sequence or concurrence of phenomena. The
natural, to the unthinking, coincides with their own knowledge, and
supernatural, to them, simply means super-known; therefore, in ignorant
ages, miracles are every-day occurrences, and as knowledge widens the
miraculous diminishes. The books of unscientific ages--that is, all
early literature--are full of miraculous events, and it may be taken as
an axiom of criticism that the miraculous is unhistorical.
(2). _The numerous contradictions of each by the others._--We shall here
only present a few of the most glaring contradictions in the Gospels,
leaving untouched a mass of minor discrepancies. We find the principal
of these when we compare the three synoptics with the Fourth Gospel, but
there are some irreconcilable differences even between the three. The
contradictory genealogies of Christ given in Matthew and Luke--farther
complicated, in part, by a third discordant genealogy in
Chronicles--have long been the despair of Christian harmonists. "On
comparing these lists, we find that between David and Christ there are
only two names which occur in both Matthew and Luke--those of Zorobabel
and of Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus. In tracing the list
downwards from David there would be less difficulty in explaining this,
at least, to a certain point, for Matthew follows the line of Solomon,
and Luke that of Nathan--both of whom were sons of David. But even in
the downward line, on reaching Salathiel, where the two genealogies
again come into contact, we find, to our astonishment, that in Luke he
is the son of Neri, whilst in Matthew his father's name is Jechonias.
From Zorobabel downwards, the lists are again divergent, until we reach
Joseph, who in St. Luke is placed as the son of Heli, whilst in St.
Matthew his father's name is Jacob" ("Christian Records," Dr. Giles, p.
101). According to Chronicles, Jotham is the great-great-grandson of
Ahaziah; according to Matthew, he is his son (admitting that the Ahaziah
of Chronicles is the Ozias of Matthew); according to Chronicles,
Jechonias is the grandson of Josiah, according to Matthew, he is his
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