not the honest and inspired
followers and disciples of Jesus Christ; if they were capable of the
last, they were not Jews but Gentiles, ignorant that the Jews in the
time of Jesus, acknowledged no books as inspired scripture but
the books of the Old Testament. See Appendix, A.

A reasonable and reasoning man, such as I have supposed, may
ask himself if it be possible that men filled with the Holy Ghost,
and whose minds were supernaturally opened to understand the
scriptures, could make mistakes such as these.

Lastly, he will recollect, on discovering what is about to be stated,
that the Apostles and followers of Jesus Christ were Jews, and
consequently could not be ignorant of what was notorious to the
whole nation, for instance, that the Jewish Sabbath begins at
sunset on Friday evening, and ends at sunset on Saturday
evening. Nevertheless the author of the Gospel called of Matthew
makes ch. xxviii. 1. the Sabbath to end at dawn of day on Sunday
morning: while the author of that called of John apparently
reckons, ch. xx. 19. the evening of the first day of the week as a
part of the first day of the week; whereas it is in fact, according to
the law and customs of the Jews, who then and now reckon their
days from sunset to sunset, the beginning and a part of the
second day of the week. Such mistakes appear to me to indicate
that the writers of those Gospels were Gentiles not perfectly
acquainted with Jewish customs, and therefore not Matthew and
John.[fn 6]

There are other traces of ignorance of Jewish customs, to be
found in the Gospel called of Matthew, which betray the Gentilism
of the author of it. For instance, he says ch. xxvi. 24[fn7], that
Jesus told Peter, that "before the cock crew he should deny him
thrice;" the same is also found in Mark ch. xiv. 30. in Luke ch. xxii.
54[fn8], and in John ch. xiii. 38. Now it is asserted in the Mishna (i.
e the oral law of the Jews.) in the Bava Kama according to Mr.
Everett p. 448. of his work, that cocks were not permitted in
Jerusalem where Peter's denial took place; [probably because that
bird is constantly scratching up the ground with his feet, and was
thereby liable to turn up impurities, by touching which in passing
by, a Jew would be ceremonially defiled, and rendered incapable
of visiting the Temple to perform his devotions, till after the
evening of the day on which the defilement took place], therefore
all the four Gospels which all contain, this story, mu