enuineness of
the writings. It carries them up to the age of the reputed authors, to
an age in which it must have been difficult to impose upon the Christian
public forgeries in the names of those authors, and in which there is no
evidence that any forgeries were attempted. It proves, at least, that
the books, whoever were the authors of them, were composed by persons
living in the time and country in which these things were transacted;
and consequently capable, by their situation, of being well informed of
the facts which they relate. And the argument is stronger when applied
to the New Testament, than it is in the case of almost any other
writings, by reason of the mixed nature of the allusions which this book
contains. The scene of action is not confined to a single country, but
displayed in the greatest cities of the Roman empire. Allusions are made
to the manners and principles of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Jews.
This variety renders a forgery proportionably more difficult, especially
to writers of a posterior age. A Greek or Roman Christian who lived in
the second or third century would have been wanting in Jewish
literature; a Jewish convert in those ages would have been equally
deficient in the knowledge of Greece and Rome. (Michaelis's Introduction
to the New Testament [Marsh's translation], c. ii. sect. xi.)

This, however, is an argument which depends entirely upon an induction
of particulars; and as, consequently, it carries with it little force
without a view of the instances upon which it is built, I have to request
the reader's attention to a detail of examples, distinctly and
articulately proposed. In collecting these examples I have done no more
than epitomise the first volume of the first part of Dr. Lardner's
Credibility of the Gospel History. And I have brought the argument
within its present compass, first, by passing over some of his sections
in which the accordancy appeared to me less certain, or upon subjects
not sufficiently appropriate or circumstantial; secondly, by contracting
every section into the fewest words possible, contenting myself for the
most part with a mere apposition of passages; and, thirdly, by omitting
many disquisitions, which, though learned and accurate, are not
absolutely necessary to the understanding or verification of the
argument.

The writer principally made use of in the inquiry is Josephus. Josephus
was born at Jerusalem four years after Christ's ascension. H