PRESENT DAY FACTORS IN NEW TESTAMENT STQDY. 



improvements were made in the art just about the time of 

 Christ's ministry. 



While we are thus touching upon the Acts it is well to bear 

 in mind how much both it and the third Gospel have been 

 strengthened by recent investigations. It is quite recently 

 that an inscription bearing the names of the two deities, Zeus 

 and Hermes, was found at no great distance from Lystia. 

 And if we turn to the Gospels it is of the highest importance to 

 notice how two remarkable details have helped to establish the 

 historical character of St. Luke's enrolment in the second 

 chapter of his Gospel. It is not too much to say that 

 indisputable and contemporary evidence now goes to show that 

 about the date of the first census, 8 B.C., Quirinius was governing 

 in Syria. And in addition to this we have evidence, as 

 Dr. Deissmann so frankly allows, that it was a recognized 

 custom, at all events in the Eoman East, for people to return to 

 their own homes or districts for purposes of the census. Other 

 well-known Germans, as, e.g., Carl Clemen, have also borne 

 testimony to the various points of contact between the 

 narrative of the Acts and the discoveries of recent years. 

 Indeed, no student of the N'ew Testament can fail to 

 see the wonderful light which is being thrown upon the scenes, 

 the language, tlie life, the topography of the several books, by 

 the papyri, the ostraca, the letters, the inscriptions which 

 recent years have made familiar to us. It is almost startling 

 at first to recognize how the very titles which were used in 

 addressing the Roman Emperors as, e.g., KvpLo<;, aMrrjp, vi6^ 

 Tov Oeov, eiKoou rod Oeov, ^eo? eiTL(f)avr}<=;, found a place in the 

 New Testament books ; and thus we may see how the Apostles 

 must have stirred a fresh and vital interest in the minds of 

 their hearers, and liow their message of the Lord of lords, and 

 the Saviour of the world, must have appealed to the Eoman 

 world around them.* 



And if we turn from great matters to small we can see the 

 way in which the papyri assert their use. Thus no one can fail 

 to note what a commentary we have upon St. Paul's counsel, 

 " Custom to whom custom is due, tribute to whom tribute," 

 Romans xiii, 7, when we remember that 218 different kinds of 

 dues were payable in Egypt. 



Or we turn to a letter dated a.d. 41 in which a man gives 

 the counsel to a friend who was in monetary troubles, " beware 



" Apostolic Preaching and Emperor Worship," by Professor 

 Kennedy. Expositor, April, 1909. 



