The London Quarterly Review, Vol. 32

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Excerpt from The London Quarterly Review, Vol. 32: April and July, 1869 We feel a great responsibility in reviewing this work. It deeply affects our belief in Christianity itself. Dr. Davidson still clings to a belief of some kind in its Divine character. But he subverts our trust in the credibility of the records, in which our entire knowledge of it is contained. This will be apparent when we inform our readers of the nature of the results to which his criticism has conducted him. First: neither of the four Gospels was written by the per son to whom it has been ascribed. Secondly: they date respectively about as late as the years 100, 110, 120 and 150. Thirdly: even the three Synoptics contain a consider able number of unhistorical narratives and events, and been composed by persons who have more or less distorted the facts for party purposes, and have invented others. Fourthly the Gospel according to St. John is almost entirely nu historical. Fifthly: the Acts of the Apostles has a very small amount of matter in it which is really trustworthy, and the author has framed it with the intention of reconciling Petrine and Pauline Christianity, or, to use plain words, although he is the author of the third Gospel, whenever he did not find suitable materials he forged them. Sixthly: the only genuine writings in the New Testament are the two epistles to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans, two to the Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, Jude, and the Book of Revelation. Seventhly: the other epistles ascribed to St. Paul are the work of a much later age, or, to speak plainly, are forgeries, and the epistle to the Hebrews is also a late production. Eighthly: the first epistle of St. Peter is not the work of the Apostle, but of some Christian who wished to place Pauline doctrines in the mouth of the leader of Jewish Christianity, and the epistle of St. James, though essentially Jewish in its aspect, yet pre sents us with Jewish Christianity in a second stage of its development, and that the second of St. Peter, and second and third of John, are neither genuine nor apostolic. Lastly, though not least, in the audacity of its assertion, that the first epistle of St. John is not the work of the Apostle, and although external evidence is strong in its favour, it can be proved by internal evidence alone, not to have been written by even the author of the Fourth Gospel. Such is a brief view of the contents of the volumes before us. We owe it to our readers to give positive proof of the position which we assume, that whatever may be the amount of Dr. Davidson's erudition, it is rendered useless by an entire absence of the power of logical reasoning and sound judgment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.