AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH UPON THE NEW TESTAMENT. 177 



Another sphere of criticism is the dates of the New Testament 

 books. We are asked to believe that for thirty or forty years no 

 authoritative Gospels existed, but the writings of the Apostle Paul 

 assume that his readers are fully acquainted with the Life and 

 Ministry of our Lord. 



There is the third question of authorship. But though there are 

 difficulties, yet the difficulties do not appear to be greater in sup- 

 posing that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the real authors 

 than those which beset the new critical theories. 



For my own part, although I have followed with considerable 

 attention the course of modern criticism for many years, I see no 

 reason to doubt that the Gospels and Epistles were actually written 

 by the authors whose names they bear, and that in spite of all 

 appearances to the contrary they do present evidences even of a 

 verbal inspiration. 



Lieut.-Colonel Mackinlay said : Dr. Flournoy has touched on many 

 parts of this important subject with very great skill; but limitations 

 of space have probably prevented him from alluding to others. 



A beautiful touch of linguistic accuracy in the New Testament, 

 not hitherto noticed so much as it deserves, has been discovered 

 during comparatively recent years, chiefly demonstrated by 

 Dr. Hobart ; he noticed that Luke is described as a physician 

 (Colossians iv, 14), so he made careful search in the Gospel of Luke and 

 in the Acts for medical terms, having previously made himself familiar 

 with a large number of the medical words in the works of Galen, 

 Hippocrates, and others. He discovered many examples of their 

 use ; for instance, in Luke xviii, 25, the word is used for a surgical 

 needle in the well-known simile of the camel and the eye of a needle, 

 while Matthew and Mark both employ the word for an ordinary 

 needle in their parallel passages (Matthew xix, 24 ; Mark x, 25). In 

 Acts X, 11, the Greek word which is used for the sheet let down 

 from Heaven in Peter's vision means a surgical bandage, and several 

 of the terms describing the tossings of the tempest in Acts xxvii are 

 medical words used to indicate the tremors of fevers. Hence we have 

 attestations of the statements that the same author wrote both the 

 Gospel of Luke (Luke i, 3), and the book of Acts (Acts i, 3), and 

 that he was a physician (Colossians iv, 4). 



Our author only mentions one definite New Testament date, that 

 of the death of Herod, A.D. 44, p. 161 (Acts xii, 161). During recent 



N 



