"
(Middleton's Reflections answered by Benson, Hist. Christ. vol. iii. p.
50.) But what are these consequences? By no means the discrediting of
the history as to the principal fact, by a repugnancy (even supposing
that repugnancy not to be resolvable into different modes of
computation) in the time of the day in which it is said to have taken
place.
A great deal of the discrepancy observable in the Gospels arises from
omission; from a fact or a passage of Christ's life being noticed by one
writer which is unnoticed by another. Now, omission is at all times a
very uncertain ground of objection. We perceive it, not only in the
comparison of different writers, but even in the same writer when
compared with himself. There are a great many particulars, and some of
them of importance, mentioned by Josephus in his Antiquities, which, as
we should have supposed, ought to have been put down by him in their
place in the Jewish Wars. (Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 735, et seq.)
Suetonius, Tacitus, Dio Cassius, have, all three, written of the reign
of Tiberius. Each has mentioned many things omitted by the
rest, (Lardner, part i.
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