168 REV. p. p. FLOURNOY, D.D., ON BEARING OF ARCH^OLOGICAL 



have in the case of the direct testimony of a witness. A foot- 

 print or finger-print may decide a question with more certainty 

 than the testimony of the most voluble witness. The Gospels, 

 especially, do not deal so much with doctrines as with 

 facts ; and when we see the evidence of care and truthfulness 

 of the narrators of these facts in their references to the 

 surrounding conditions in which those facts are said to have 

 occurred, we naturally infer that the same care has been used 

 and the same adherence to strict truth has been followed in the 

 narration of the facts themselves. 



Then, the writers' intimate knowledge of these conditions, as 

 exhibited by archaeology and history, shows us intimate know- 

 ledge of the facts narrated as having occurred in the midst of 

 this environment. 



In such particulars as can be tested by the light of history 

 and archaeology, we find in the narrators the truthfulness, 

 intelligence, and correct information of the best witnesses. It 

 can hardly be demanded that we should consider them 

 untruthful, unintelligent, and ill-informed as to those 

 particulars to which this test cannot be applied. If we find 

 them the best of witnesses in those cases where we have tests 

 of their correctness, shall we not naturally conclude that they 

 are reliable witnesses in cases where we have no such tests to 

 apply ? Finding them thoroughly reliable in the one case, 

 shall we doubt their reliability in the other ? 



When we find these great facts related by men who, by 

 incidental references, and the vividness of their descriptions, in- 

 dicate that they were eye-witnesses of them,* and then find their 

 accounts true to the facts of the whole surrounding situation as 

 seen in the light which history and archaeology have shed upon 

 them, we cannot think of them as either deceivers or deceived 

 in regard to the things declared by them to have taken place 

 in the midst of these surroundings, especially when no possible 

 motive for deception can be suggested, and when, further, we see 

 them declaring them true when confronted with loss, danger, and 

 death for doing so. 



In the case of Luke, we have a most accurate observer and 

 historian, who tells the " most excellent " Theophilus that " it seemed 

 good unto me, having traced the course of all things a-.-curately from the 

 tirst, to write unto thee in order." He tells us of his sources — "As many 

 have taken in ' hand to draw up a narrative .... who, from the 

 beginning, were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word." He was, 

 himself, doubtless among these witnesses and the scenes of the Avonderful 

 story during Paul's two years' imprisonment in Ctesarea. 



