view, other undeniable mistakes. The genealogy of the nominal father
of Jesus in Luke is inconsistent with that in Matthew, in spite of the
flagrant dishonesty with which divines seek to deny this; and neither
evangelist gives the genealogy of Mary, which alone is wanted.--In
Acts vii. 16, the land which _Jacob_ bought of the children of
Hamor,[1] is confounded with that which _Abraham_ bought of Ephron the
Hittite. In Acts v. 36, 37, Gamaliel is made to say that Theudas was
earlier in time than Judas of Galilee. Yet in fact, Judas of Galilee
preceded Theudas; and the revolt of Theudas had not yet taken place
when Gamaliel spoke, so the error is not Gamaliel's, but Luke's. Of
both the insurgents we have a dear and unimpeached historical account
in Josephus.--The slaughter of the infants by Herod, if true, must, I
thought, needs have been recorded by the same historian,--So again, in
regard to the allusion made by Jesus to Zacharias, son of Barachias,
as _last of the martyrs_, it was difficult for me to shake off the
suspicion, that a gross error had been committed, and that the person
intended is the "Zacharias son of Baruchus," who, as we know from
Josephus, was martyred _within the courts of the temple_ during the
siege of Jerusalem by Titus, about 40 years after the crucifixion. The
well-known prophet Zechariah was indeed son of Berechiah; but he was
not last of the martyrs,[2] if indeed he was martyred at all. On the
whole, the persuasion stuck to me, that words had been put into
the mouth of Jesus, which he could not possibly have used.--The
impossibility of settling the names of the twelve apostles struck me
as a notable fact.--I farther remembered the numerous difficulties of
harmonizing the four gospels; how, when a boy at school, I had tried
to incorporate all four into one history, and the dismay with which
I had found the insoluble character of the problem,--the endless
discrepancies and perpetual uncertainties. These now began to seem to
me inherent in the materials, and not to be ascribable to our want of