3. Had they been subject to taxation they would have been enrolled in their own country and not in some distant kingdom. 4. Cyrenius did not become governor of Syria until nearly ten years after the death of Herod, and Jesus was born, it is claimed, in the days of Herod. 10. "Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under" (Matt. ii, 16). The statement that Herod the Great, who was firmly established in his government, and who had full-grown male heirs to succeed him, was afraid that the babe of an obscure Nazareth carpenter would supplant him in his kingdom, is enough to cause a Covenanter to laugh on Sunday. Had Herod issued such a decree his friends, instead of executing it, would have had him confined in a madhouse. The fact that the Roman and Jewish historians of that age--one of whom, an enemy, gives a full and complete record of his life--know nothing of this awful tragedy, that an anonymous author writing nearly two centuries afterward is the only one who mentions it, is of itself sufficient to brand it as an atrocious falsehood. 11. "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias whom ye slew between the temple and the altar" (Matt. xxiii, 35). The divine historian ascribes these words to Jesus. Jesus was crucified, it is claimed, about 29 A.D. Zacharias was slain in 69 A.D., forty years after the death of Jesus. Some contend that Jesus refers to the Zachariah mentioned in 2 Chronicles (xxiv, 20, 25). But this Zachariah was the son of Jehoiada. Besides, the accusation of Jesus is intended to cover all time from the first to the last offense, and to name this Zachariah would be to admit that they had shed no righteous blood for 850 years. 12. "For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought. "After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished" (Acts v, 36, 37). According to Acts the sedition of Theudas occurred before the taxing, which was about 6 A.D. It really occurred while Fadus was procurator of Judea, about 46 A.D.--forty years after the date assigned in Acts.