The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the OldEnglish, George Bethune
Religion
The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old
English, George Bethune
Rationalism
But though our author's history of these extraordinary facts is
neither consistent with reason, and probability, nor with the other
histories of the same event; it proceeds in pretty strict conformity
to the manner in which it sets out. For to convince us still more
fully that the author was totally ignorant of the mode of computing
time in use among the Jews, and habituated to that in use among
the Greeks and Romans? He reckons the Sabbath to last till day
light on Sunday morn, and says, (chapter xxviii.), "that in the end
of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn, towards the first day of the
week," the two Marys before mentioned, came, (not as in Luke, to
embalm the body, for, with a guard round the sepulchre, that would
have been impracticable, but) to see the sepulchre. "Whilst they
were there, the author tells us, there was another great earthquake,
and an angel descended, rolled away the stone, and sat upon it, at
whose sight, the soldiers trembled, and were frighted to death. But
to prevent the like effect of his appearance upon the women, he
said unto them, fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus who was
crucified. That the women as well as the soldiers were present at
the descent of this angel, appears not only from there being nobody
else, by whom these uncommon circumstances could have been
related, but also by the pronoun personal ye, inserted in the original
Greek, which in that language is never done, unless it be
emphatically to mark such a distinction, or antithesis, as there was
on this occasion, between them and the Roman guard. Here,
however, the author is inadvertently inconsistent with himself, as
well as with the other evangelists; and forgetting that the sole
intent of rolling away the stone, was to open a passage, absolutely
necessary to the body of Jesus to come forth out of the sepulchre;
and that if he had risen and come forth after the angel had rolled it
away, both the women and the soldiers must have seen him rise, he
makes the angel bid them look into the sepulchre, to see--that he
was not there! and tell them that he was already risen; and that he
was gone before them into Galilee, where they should see him! In
their way, the author adds, Jesus himself met the women, and said,
"be not afraid, go tell my brethren to go into Galilee, and there
shall they see me." He says that the eleven apostles went
into Galilee, to an appointed mountain, and saw him there;
notwithstanding that some of them were so incredulous, as not
to believe even the testimony of their own senses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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