EVIDENCE FROM INCIDENTAL AGREEMENT WITH OTHER WRITINGS.

In Chapter II. we considered the evidential force of certain points of agreement between the New Testament writers and others, when both were making formal statements; now we consider points of incidental agreement, in which formal statements are made by the one class of writers, and only allusions to the same things by the other. In the instances to be cited the formal information is furnished by secular writers, and the allusions are made by the writers of the New Testament.

I. The period covered by New Testament history was characterized by frequent and complicated changes in the political affairs of Judea and the countries connected with it. None of these are formally described in the New Testament, though it contains many allusions to them of an incidental and isolated kind, while they are all described in detail by Josephus. Here, then, is an excellent opportunity to test the accuracy of the former writers; for perfect agreement here is attainable only through perfect accuracy of information and of statement on both sides.

This test is the more severe from the fact the New Testament allusions to these affairs are so brief, and so void of explanation, as to leave the reader who has no other source of information in great confusion concerning them. The history opens, in both Matthew and Luke, under "Herod the king." In the second chapter of Matthew, Herod the king dies; yet in the fourteenth chapter Herod appears again, and is called both "the king" and "the tetrarch;" and in the twelfth chapter of Acts, "Herod the king" beheads the apostle James. All this is said without a word of explanation. Again, at the close of the second chapter of Matthew Archelaus is king of Judea; in the twenty-seventh chapter Pilate is governor of the same; in the twelfth of Acts, Herod is king of the same; and in the twenty-third, Felix is its governor. Not a word of explanation. Yet again, Augustus Caesar issues a decree just previous to the birth of Jesus, that all the world shall be enrolled; when John the Baptist begins his ministry it is the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar; yet Paul many years afterward makes an appeal from Festus to Augustus. (Luke ii. 1-7; iii. 1, 2; Acts xxv. 21). Here, in reference to kings, governors, and emperors, there is both confusion and apparent contradiction. It is impossible for one who has not made a special study of the political history of the times, to get through this tangled network of allusions understandingly; but when we consult the formal history furnished by the unbelieving Jewish historian, we find every one of them strictly correct. As to the Herods, we find that the one under whom John and Jesus were born, and who soon afterward died, was succeeded by his son Herod as ruler of part of his father's dominions, with the titles, king and tetrarch; and that the Herod who beheaded James was a grandson of the first, made king by Claudius Caesar. As to the rulers of Judea, we learn that Archelaus who succeeded his father Herod as king of that part of the ancestral dominion, was deposed by the Romans when he had reigned only ten years, and governors, or more properly procurators, were appointed to rule over Judea. Pilate was the fifth of these in succession. Afterward the Herod who appears as king at the time of the death of James was made king as a personal favor by Claudius Caesar; but at the death of Herod the country was again placed under procurators, of whom Felix was one. As to the Augustus Caesar who appears in the narratives of Luke as if he was dead and yet alive again, we learn that the emperor called Augustus in the second instance was Nero, who bore the title Caesar Augustus Nero, and that his flatterers frequently styled him Augustus.

In the writings of Luke and John we find another allusion, partly of a political and partly of a religious character, which furnishes similar evidence. It is the allusion to the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. Luke (iii. 2) represents the two as being high priests at the same time, although the law of Moses allowed only one man at a time to occupy the office. He also, in another place, mentions the two together, calling Annas the high priest, and omitting the title from the name of Caiaphas (Acts v. 6). John indirectly recognizes Annas in the same light by representing the band that arrested Jesus as taking him to Annas first, and adding the remark that Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas, was "high priest that year," as if the high priest was appointed annually (xviii. 13. See also xi. 49). Inasmuch as the high priest was appointed for life, and there could be but one at a time, these two writers appear to have fallen into two mistakes in these allusions, and the charge that they have done so has been used as proof that these three books were written by men so ignorant of Jewish affairs as to suppose that there might be two high priests at one time, and that the office was filled annually. But it so happens that Josephus, in his elaborate account of Jewish affairs, furnishes facts which explain these apparently incorrect allusions, and show them to be strictly accurate. From him we learn that Annas was the rightful high priest by inheritance in the direct line from Aaron, but that he had been unlawfully deposed by Valerius Gratus, Pilate's predecessor, who appointed first one and then another in his place; and of these Joseph Caiaphas was the fourth (Ant. xviii. 2, 2). Under these circumstances there were two high priests, one holding the office by right of succession, a right which could not be disregarded by those who feared God, and the other exercising the functions of the office by virtue of military interference. The representations of Luke and John are therefore in perfect harmony with the facts. As to the remark that Caiaphas was high priest "that year," it is justified by statements of Josephus, that Valerius Gratus, after appointing his first successor to Annas deprived him of the office "in a little time," and that his next two appointments were made at intervals of one year each. It was this rapid and unlawful succession of appointments to the office which both suggested and justified the remark.

To this uniform accuracy of allusions to political affairs there are two apparent exceptions, which have been set forth by unbelievers as historical blunders. The first is the statement of Luke concerning an enrollment ordered by Augustus Caesar just previous to the birth of Jesus, and the consequent journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem (Luke ii. 1-5). Three points of objection have been urged which are worthy of consideration: First, it is said that there is no evidence other than Luke's statement, that Augustus issued such a decree. This objection is without force; for it consists in nothing more than an array of the silence of other writers against the positive statement of Luke, and this, too, when the silence is accounted for by the consideration that other writers had no such occasion for mentioning it, and no occasion at all that we know of. Second, Luke represents the enrollment as having been made when Quirinius was governor of Syria, whereas it appears from Josephus that he was not governor of Syria till after the deposition of Archelaus, which occurred not less than ten years subsequent to the birth of Jesus.1 It is here alleged that in connecting it with the birth of Jesus he has made a chronological mistake. But a careful inspection of Luke's language shows that he connects only the issuing of the decree, and the beginning of its enforcement in Judea, with the birth of Jesus; and that only the making of the enrollment as a whole is connected with the governorship of Quirinius. Moreover, the statement, "This first enrollment was made when Quirinius was governing Syria," is parenthetical, and it indicates a distinction in time between the issuing of the decree and the making of the enrollment. Now, if Luke's contemporaries knew that there was an interval of ten years between the issuing of this decree and its general execution in the empire, but that it was partially executed, at least in Judea, at the time it was issued, no thought of a chronological mistake could have occurred to them on reading this passage; and as it so happens that we are in possession of this knowledge given by Luke, no such thought should occur to us.2 Third, it is urged that the execution of the decree could not have required Joseph and other Jews, as stated by Luke to go every man to his own ancestral city. Probably this is true as respects the letter of the decree itself; but certainly such a procedure was not forbidden in the decree; and if the Jewish polity required it, it is most unreasonable to pronounce it incredible. That the Mosaic law of inheritance, coupled with the restoration of lands which had been sold, at the end of every fifty years, to the heirs of the original owners, required a registry to be kept in every town of the land-owners in the vicinity, is a well known fact; and this together with the fondness of the Jews from other considerations for keeping their genealogies, is sufficient to account for the circumstance, without supposing that there was anything said about it in the decree. The fact that Joseph took Mary with him in her present condition, may be accounted for, either because he wanted her under his immediate care in the trial through which she was about to pass, or because, being an heiress with a prospective interest in the ancestral inheritance, it was needful that her name be enrolled as well as his. There is certainly nothing so strange in this circumstance as to justify a doubt of its credibility.

The second of the two allusions which are held to be mistakes, is that in the speech of Gamaliel (Acts v. 36, 37) to the careers of Theudas and Judas of Galilee. In this passage Theudas is represented as preceding Judas of Galilee, whereas Josephus describes a Theudas whose career was quite similar, but who figured much later than Judas.3 It is charged that the author of Acts put this speech into the lips of Gamaliel, Theudas not having yet figured when the speech is said to have been made; and that in doing so he betrays the fraud by his chronological blunder. But this charge depends altogether on the identity of the Theudas mentioned by Luke with the one mentioned by Josephus. If there may have been an earlier Theudas, answering to the account given by Gamaliel, then Luke may be accurate both in his facts and his chronology. Now it so happens that Josephus, though he mentions no other Theudas as heading an insurrection, does mention a number of insurrections occurring at the right period to suit the remark of Gamaliel, wit hout mentioning their leaders. He says of the period just preceding the deposition of Archelaus: "Now at that time there were ten thousand other disorders in Judea, which were like tumults, because a great number put themselves in a warlike posture, either out of hopes of gain to themselves, or out of enmity to the Jews;" and more directly to the point, he says: "And now Judea was full of robberies; and as the several companies of the seditious lighted upon any one to lead them, he was created a king immediately, in order to do mischief to the public."4 That one of these leaders may have been named Theudas is not at all improbable in itself; and when we have the statement of a veracious writer that he was, it is a most unjust procedure, in the absence of all conflicting evidence, to charge him with error. No ordinarily veracious writer, not a Bible writer, would be so charged.  

This unfailing accuracy, often appearing in the midst of what at first seems to be confusion and contradiction, not only evinces the historical reliability of the New Testament writers, but it shows, by the absence of explanation where explanation to us of a later age seems needed, that they were conscious of telling a story which would be rocognized as true by the people of their own generation--a story which needed no bolstering up in order to sustain itself. If they had written, as has been alleged, in a later generation, they would have felt the necessity of many explanations which they have omitted, and by this very circumstance they would have betrayed themselves; hut, writing as they did in the midst of the generation wherein all these political changes took place, the known intelligence of their readers forbade the introduction of explanations, or rather precluded the thought of them.

II. Under the Greek and Roman dominions, the former beginning about B. c 333, and the latter about B. C. 60, Jewish coins went out of use in Palestine, and those of these two nations took their place, both sets being in circulation at the same time. There is no account of this change in the New Testament, but there are many allusions in it to the coins in current use, and as such a mixture of coins is necessarily a source of confusion, incidental references to them furnish a very good test of a writer's accuracy.

(1). The shekel, the coin in most common use among the early Jews, and the one most frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, is not mentioned at all in the New Testament. This is just as it must have been if these writers were well posted in the affairs of Palestine at the time of which they write; but if they were pretenders, writing at a later age, and after the Jewish nation had been dispersed, they could not have been thoroughly familiar with such matters, and they would naturally have adopted the phraseology of the Old Testament. This they never do.

(2). Where, according to the supposition just mentioned, the Jewish half-shekel would have been mentioned, that is, in connection with the poll tax for the expenses of the temple (Ex. xxx. 15), the collector of this tax, in asking Jesus for it, calls it the didrachma, a Greek coin of nearly but not exactly the same value; and when Jesus, in order to procure the money to pay for Peter and himself, sends the latter to catch a fish and find the money in its mouth, he tells him he will find a stater, another Greek coin twice the value of the didrachma, and nearly the value of the shekel. (Matt. xvii. 24-27).

(3). The two coins which the poor widow cast into the treasury, called mites in our version, were pieces of the smallest Greek copper coin, called the lepton, a coin in use at the present day in Greece; and Mark, lest his readers might not know the value of Greek coins, tells them that the two were equal to the Roman quadrans (xii. 42). How could this little matter have been so accurately represented, if

Mark had not been both a well informed and a very careful writer?

(4). In stating the value of two sparrows, Matthew resorts to Roman coinage to get the exact amount, and says that they sold for an assarius, the piece next in value above the quadrant. Here, that we may see the extreme care for accuracy, we should observe that the quadrans was worth about half a cent of our money, and the assarius about a cent and a half. (Matt. x. 29).

(5). As the Romans had dominion in Palestine in the New Testament period, their coins must have been in more general circulation than those of the Greeks; and we should therefore expect to see them more frequently mentioned if our writers are accurate. This is just what we find; for the Roman denarius, about sixteen cents of our money, was the most common silver coin in use in all the Roman empire, and it is the one most frequently mentioned in the New Testament. It is mentioned fourteen times, and in the following passages: Matt, xviii. 28; xx. 2, 9, 13; xxii. 19; Mark vi. 37; xii. 15; xiv. 5; Luke vii. 41; x. 35; xx. 24; Jno. vi. 7; xii. 5; Rev. vi. 6.

Such accuracy as this, an accuracy that never fails, is under the circumstances proof of perfect familiarity with the subject, such familiarity as is acquired only by personal contact with it, and also of such care in writing as is known only among historians of the first class.

III. In the account of the Jewish people given by Josephus, their sentiments on various subjects, and the views of the various parties among them, are fully stated. The New Testament writers do not attempt such an account, but they have occasion now and then to allude to these matters, and these allusions furnish another test of their accuracy. We make a few specifications.

(1). We first specify their allusions to the Jewish expectation of a Messiah. It is assumed throughout the Gospels and Acts that the Jews were looking for a Messiah, called in Greek the Christ, in fulfillment of prophecies contained in the Old Testament; and in many places the unbelieving Jews are represented as giving utterance to this expectation. They had fixed upon the place of his birth (Matt. ii. 4-6); they expected him to be a son of David (xxii. 41-43); they thought that he would settle all difficult questions (Jno. iv. 25); that he would restore the kingdom of David (Acts i. 6); and that he would abide forever (Jno. xii. 32-34). Now the existence of this expectation among the Jews, thus tacitly assumed by the New Testament writers, is formally asserted by at least three secular writers of that period. Josephus says that one reason why the Jews were bold enough to undertake a war with the Romans, was that there was an oracle found in their sacred writings to the effect that about that time one from their country would become ruler of the habitable earth. He claims that the oracle was fulfilled in Vespasian, who was called from the command of the Roman army in Judea to be emperor of Rome; but this is an evidence at once of his unbelief in Jesus, and of his willingness to flatter the emperor who had bestowed on him many signal favors.5 Suetonius says: "An ancient and settled opinion had prevailed throughout the whole East, that fate had decreed that at that time persons proceeding from Judea should become masters of the world. This was foretold, as the event afterward proved, of the Roman emperor; but the Jews applied it to themselves, and this was the cause of their rebellion."6 Tacitus says: "The greater number believed that it was written in the ancient books of the priests, that at that very time the East should become very powerful, and that persons proceeding from Judea should become masters of the world."7 His language is so nearly identical with that of Suetonius as to suggest that they obtained their information from a common source, (probably from Josephus), but this does not render their statements any less credible. Certain it is that if we had no information on this subject at all in the New Testament, we would believe on the testimony of these three writers that such an expectation as they mention in common did prevail at that time, and this is all that is necessary to prove the truthfulness of the New Testament writers in assuming the same thing.

(2). There is similar evidence in the allusions to the state of feeling between the Jews and the Samariums. John represents a Samaritan woman as being surprised that Jesus asked her for a drink of water, and explains her surprise by saying that the Jews and the Samaritans have no dealings (iv. 9); and he represents the Jews when reproaching Jesus as saying, "Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a demon?" (viii. 48). Luke says that on one occasion Jesus and his disciples were going towards Jerusalem, and wishing to lodge in a Samaritan village by the way, "they did not receive him because his face was as though he were going to Jerusalem" (ix. 5156). These statements are made in an incidental way while giving accounts of other matters, and they are given without a word of explanation as to the cause or causes of this animosity. On examining the formal history of the Jews by their countryman Josephus, we find the same state of feeling. He gives a full account of an incident very similar to that mentioned by Luke, which resulted in a great deal of bloodshed. He says that it was the custom of the Galileans, when they went to Jerusalem to the festivals, to pass through the country of the Samaritans; and that on one occasion certain persons belonging to the border town of Ginea came out against a company of the Galileans thus journeying, and killed a great many of them. This led to retaliation on the part of the Jews, and to contentions before the Roman commanders, which finally culminated in a settlement of the contest by an appeal to the emperor.8

(3). In all of the five historical books of the New Testament the sect of the Pharisees plays a conspicuous part, and the Sadducees are occasionally mentioned; but in not one of them is there a formal account of either of these sects, stating whence they originated, or what in full were their peculiarities. The writers allude to them constantly as if they were well known to their readers, and such doctrines or practices as characterized them are referred to in the same incidental way. Josephus, on the other hand, mentions them quite frequently with formal statements of their doctrines and practices, and as he was himself a Pharisee, his statement must be regarded as authentic, except where they can be suspected of party bias. A comparison of his formal statements with the informal allusions of the New Testament writers, is a very good test of the accuracy of the latter. Matthew represents Jesus as alluding to the reputation of the Pharisees for righteousness of a high order, by saying to his disciples that unless their righteousness shall excel that of the scribes and Pharisees, they shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (v. 20). On this point Josephus says that the Pharisees "are a certain sect of the Jews who appear more religious than others, and seem to interpret the laws more accurately" (Wars, i. 5, 2). Matthew in another place represents them as reproaching Jesus for transgressing the tradition of the elders; and Mark, in speaking of the same incident, says that they held the tradition of the elders; but neither tells what the tradition of the elders is; and to this day commentators and critics are dependent on the statements of Josephus for a definition. He confirms what these writers say, and at the same time explains it by saying, "The Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them and say that we are to esteem the observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers. And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side" (Ant., xiii. 10. 6). The popular influence of the Pharisees here alluded to by Josephus is repeatedly affirmed by him, and it constitutes another point of coincidence. He says that the Pharisees have so great power over the multitude, that when they say anything against the king, or against the high priest, they are presently believed" (xiii. 10. 5). He says again, that "on account of their doctrines they are able to greatly persuade the body of the people; and that whatsoever the latter do about divine worship, prayers, and sacrifices, they perform according to their directions" (xviii. 1. 3). This is precisely the kind of influence that is ascribed to them in the New Testament. Jesus devoted the whole speech recorded in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew to an effort to break down their influence; while John says they had agreed to exclude from the synagogues in Jerusalem every one who should confess that Jesus was the Christ, and that at one time many of the rulers believed on Jesus, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest they should be put out of the synagogue (ix. 13, 22; xii. 42). As to the more prominent differences between the parties, concerning angels, spirits and the resurrection of the dead, the joint testimony of the two sets of writers is equally explicit.9

IV. One of the greatest difficulties in the way of historical composition, is the maintenance of geographical and topographical accuracy. This is strikingly true when a writer attempts to describe events which transpired in a country with which he is not thoroughly familiar. When the Encyclopedia Brittanica, for example, was first published, although its articles were written by experts in the several departments, it contained so many blunders of this kind in regard to places in America, that the publishers of its rival, the New American Cyclopedia, issued a pamphlet of considerable size, containing a list of these blunders. A more notable instance is found in the Germania of Tacitus. So many and so serious are his mistakes in the geography of Germany, that some scholars have doubted whether a work so erroneous could have been written by an author of his known reliability.10 Josephus, though a native of Palestine, and familiar from his early days with every part of it, especially with Jerusalem and Galilee, makes some prodigious misstatements in regard to both of these localities. He says, for instance, of the outer wall of the temple, that "the lowest part of it was erected to the height of three hundred cubits, and in some places more; "whereas it is known by the observations of modern explorers that the highest part of it could never have been half that high. He also says, with greater exaggeration, that such was the height of the battlement on the southern end of this wall, that if one standing on top looked down into the valley "his sight could not reach to such an immense depth." Again, he says of Galilee, that "the cities in it lie very thick, and that its villages are everywhere so full of people, that the very least of them contains above fifteen thousand inhabitants."11 

But the most remarkable of these classes of mistakes are those yet to be mentioned--those of writers who have visited Palestine for the express purpose of describing its localities for the instructions of others. It is notorious that a considerable part of the task of every writer who visits that country consists in correcting the topographical mistakes of his predecessors. And even the guide hooks written by scholars with the most minute attention to details, with a view to enabling the tourist to find his way to every spot without the aid of a living guide, are more or less characterized by similar errors. The author used in his tour of Palestine the very best of these, and its accuracy was a constant source of gratification; but in a few instances it was found at fault, especially in the points of the compass, and the relative order of the location of villages.  

In the New Testament no such mistakes are found. Whether its writers speak of their own or of foreign lands, they always speak with faultless accuracy, so that their argus-eyed critics for two thousand years have not been able to detect them in an error.12 This accuracy extends not only to the relative location of places, and to the points of the compass, but to the most minute details, even to the relative elevations of places mentioned in the narratives. One of the most difficult things in the experience of a traveler is to remember, as he passes from one place to another, whether he has come up or down. Indeed, there are few persons who can say of places not far from their own homes, whether it is up or down to them, unless there is a very striking difference in the level. But in this particular the New Testament writers, and the same may be said of the Old Testament writers, are never at fault. The man who fell among robbers was going "down to Jericho" (Luke x. 30); everybody went "up to Jerusalem" (Matt. xx. 17, 18; Luke xix. 28, 29; Acts xi. 2, xv. 2; Gal. i. 17); they went "down to Gaza" (Acts viii. 26); "down to Caesarea" (ix. 30); "down to Lydda"(ix. 32); "down to Antioch" (xi. 27); and so with equal accuracy of every other place. How impossible it would be for writers who were not very familiar with the country to do this, can at once be realized if the reader will imagine himself describing the movements of men from place to place in Palestine, and noting when they go up and when they go down.

These facts not only establish for the New Testament writers a character for accuracy and closeness of observation above that of other men, but they suggest the question, How were they able to maintain an accuracy so unprecedented? If the fact does not prove that they enjoyed supernatural guidance, it points, at least, in that direction. 

1 Antiquities, xvii. 13, 2; xviii. 1,1.

2 For a more elaborate discussion of this question, pro and con, see Strauss, New Life, ii. 22-26; and F. C. Cook, Speaker's Commentary, in loco, and authors there referred to.

3 Antiquities, xviii 1, 1.; xx. 5, 1.

4 Ant, xvii. 10, 4, 8.

5 "But now what did most elevate them in undertaking this war was an ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how, about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth. The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea." (Wars, vi. 5, 4).

"When we were come to Rome, I had great care taken of me by Vespasian; for he gave me an apartment in his own house which he lived in before he came to the empire. He also honored me with the privilege of a Roman citizen, and gave me an annual pension, and continued to respect me to the end of his life. . . . I also received from Vespasian no small quantity of land, as a free gift, in Judea." (Life of Josephus, Sec. 76).

6 Life of Vespasian, Sec. 4.

7 History, v. 13.

8 Antiquities, xx. 6.

9 Matt. xxii. 23; Acts xxiii. 8; cf. Ant. xviii. 1. 3, 4.

10 Encyclopedia Brittanica, Art. Tacitus.

11 Wars, v. 5. 1; Ant., xv. 11. 5; Wars, iii. 3. 2.

12 The author of "Supernatural Religion" attempts to break the force of this evidence by asserting that there are several geographical errors in the Gospel of John; but he makes only two specifications, both of which are errors on his own part. He charges that the writer of this Gospel, in speaking of a Bethany beyond Jordan where John was baptizing, either referred to the Bethany near Jerusalem and mistook its position, or invented a second Bethany, and thus displayed an ignorance improbable in a Jew. But this is assuming without proof that there was no Bethany beyond the Jordan; an assumption which claims knowledge where the author possesses none. Again, he asserts incorrectly that John locates Ænon near to Salem in Judea; and because the place was quite unknown in the third century, he thinks that there is here another blunder. But the place has been recently identified by Capt. Conder, as all persons know who are acquainted with Palestine exploration literature, and thus another false charge is refuted. (See Sup. Rel, ii. 417, 418).