Undesigned Coincidences

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UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES

 

 

IN THE WRITINGS BOTH OF

 

 

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS,

 

 

AN ARGUMENT OF THEIR VERACITY;

 

 

WITH AN APPENDIX,

 

 

CONTAINING UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES BETWEEN THE GOSPELS, AND ACTS, AND JOSEPHUS.

 

 

BY THE

REV. J. J. BLUNT, B. D.

MARGARET PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, CAMBRIDGE.

 

 

NEW YORK:

ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,

No. 285 BROADWAY.

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1851.

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PREFACE

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The present “Volume is a republication, with corrections and large additions, of several short Works which I printed a few years ago separately; and which, having passed through more or fewer editions, have become out of print: I have thus been furnished with an opportunity of revising and consolidating thorn. These works were: “The Veracity of the Books of Moses;” “The Veracity of the Historical Scriptures of the Old Testament;” and “The Veracity of the Gospels and Acts,” argued from undesigned coincidences to be found in them when compared in their several parts; and in the last instance, when compared also with the Writings of Josephus. They were all of them originally the substance of Sermons delivered before the University, some in a Course of Hulsean Lectures, others on various occasions. And though two of them, the Veracity of the Books of Moses, and the Veracity of the Gospels and Acts, were divested of the form of Sermons before publication; the third, The Veracity of the Historical Scriptures of the Old Testament (which constituted the Hulsean Lectures) still retained it. I have thought that by reducing this to the same shape as the rest, and combining it with them, the whole would present a continued argument, or rather a continued series of in dependent arguments, for the Veracity of the Scriptures, of which the effect would be greater than that of the separate works could be, which might be read perhaps out of the natural order, and which were not altogether uniform in their plan. But as this test of veracity proved applicable, though in a less degree, for reasons I have assigned elsewhere, to the Prophetical Scriptures also, I have introduced into the present Volume in its proper place, evidence of the same kind which had been long lying by me, for the Veracity of some of those Writings; thus employing one and the same touchstone of truth, to verify successively the Books of Moses, the Historical Scriptures of the Old Testament, the Prophetical, and the Gospels and Acts, in their order.

 

The argument, as my readers will of course be aware, is an extension of that of the Horæ Paulinæ, and which originated, as was generally supposed, with Dr. Paley. But Dr. Turton,¹ the present bishop of Ely, has rendered the claims, of Dr. Paley to the first conception of it doubtful, by producing a passage from the conclusion of Dr. Doddridge's Introduction to his Paraphrase and Notes on the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, to the following effect.

 

“Whoever reads over St. Paul's Epistles with attention will discern such intrinsic characters in their genuineness, and the divine authority of the doctrines they contain, as will perhaps produce in him a stronger conviction than all the external evidence with which they are attended. To which we may add, that the exact coincidence observable between the many allusions to particular facts, in this, as well as in other Epistles, and the account of the facts themselves as they are recorded in the History of the Acts, is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of each.”

 

Be this however as it may. Dr. Paley first brought the argument to light in support of the Epistles of St. Paul; and I am not aware that it has since been deliberately applied to any other of the sacred books, except by Dr. Graves, in two of his Lectures on the Pentateuch, to that portion of holy writ. Much, however, of the same kind of testimony I have no doubt has escaped all of us; and still remains to be detected by future writers on the Evidences. For myself, though I may not lay claim to the merit (whatever it may be) of actually discovering all the examples of consistency without contrivance, which I shall bring forward in this volume,—indeed, I could not myself now trace to their beginnings thoughts which have progressively accumulated² —and though in many cases, where the detection was my own, I may have found, on examination, that there were others who had forestalled me, qui nostra ante nos, yet most of them I have not seen noticed by commentators at all, and scarcely any of them in that light in which only I regard them, as grounds of Evidence. It is to this application, therefore, of Expositions, often in themselves sufficiently familiar, that I have to beg the candid attention of my readers; and if I shall frequently bring out of the treasures of God's word, or of the interpretation of God's word, “things old” the use that I make of them may not perhaps be thought so.

 

As the argument for the Veracity of the Gospels and Acts, derived from undesigned coincidences, discoverable between them and the Writings of Josephus, does not fall within the general design of this work, as now constructed, and yet is related to it, and important in itself, I have thought it best not to suppress, but to throw it into an Appendix.

 

Cambridge,

May 3, 1847.

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¹ In his “Natural Theology considered with reference to Lord Brougham's Discourse,” &c. p. 23.

 

² I have availed myself in this republication, of several suggestions on the subject of the Patriarchal Church, (No. i. Part I.) offered to me some years ago in a letter by the Rev. J. W. Burgon of Worcester College, Oxford; and of one coincidence (No. xi. Part IV.) communicated to me in substance, by letter also, by the Rev. J. Daniel, of St. John's College, Cambridge, soon after the first Edition of the Veracity of the Gospels came out.

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Contents

 

The Veracity of the Books of Moses

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The Veracity of the Books of Moses.

 

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Part I.

 

It is my intention to argue in the following pages the Veracity of the Books of Scripture, from the instances they contain of coincidence without design, in their several parts. On the nature of this argument I shall not much enlarge, but refer my readers for a general view of it to the short dissertation prefixed to the Horæ Paulinæ of Dr. Paley, a work where it is employed as a test of the veracity of St. Paul’s Epistles with singular felicity and force, and for which suitable incidents were certainly much more abundant than those which any other portion of Scripture of the same extent provides; still, however, if the instances which I can offer, gathered from the remainder of Holy Writ, are so numerous, and of such a kind as to preclude the possibility of their being the effect of accident, it is enough. It does not require many circumstantial coincidences to determine the mind of a jury as to the credibility of a witness in our courts, even where the life of a fellow-creature is at stake. I say this, not as a matter of charge, but as a matter of fact, indicating the authority which attaches to this species of evidence, and the confidence universally entertained that it cannot deceive. Neither should it be forgotten, that an argument thus popular, thus applicable to the affairs of common life as a test of truth, derives no small value when enlisted in the cause of Revelation, from the readiness with which it is apprehended and admitted by mankind at large, and from the simplicity of the nature of its appeal; for it springs out of the documents the truth of which it is intended to sustain, and terminates in them; so that he who has these, has the defence of them.

 

2. Nor is this all. The argument deduced from coincidence without design has further claims, because, if well made out, it establishes the authors of the several books of Scripture as independent witnesses to the facts they relate; and this, whether they consulted each other’s writings or not; for the coincidences, if good for anything, are such as could not result from combination, mutual understanding, or arrangement. If any which I may bring forward may seem to be such as might have so arisen, they are only to be reckoned ill chosen, and dismissed; for it is no small merit of this argument, that it consists of parts, one or more of which (if they be thought unsound) may be detached without any dissolution of the reasoning as a whole. Undesignedness must be apparent in the coincidences, or they are not to the purpose. In our argument we defy people to set down together, or transmit their writings one to another, and produce the like. Truths known independently to each of them, must be at the bottom of documents having such discrepancies and such agreements as these in question. The point, therefore, whether the authors of the books of Scripture have or have not copied from one another, which in the case of some of them has been so much laboured, is thus rendered a matter of comparative indifference. Let them have so done, still by our argument their independence would be secured, and the nature of their testimony be shown to be such as could only result from their separate knowledge of substantial facts.

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3. I will add another consideration which seems to me to deserve serious attention: that in several instances the probable truth of a miracle is involved in the coincidence. This is a point which we should distinguish from the general drift of the argument itself. The general drift of our argument is this, that when we see the writers of the Scriptures clearly telling the truth in those cases where we have the means of checking their accounts,—when we see that they are artless, consistent, veracious writers, where we have the opportunity of examining the fact,—it is reasonable to believe that they are telling the truth in those cases where we have not the means of checking them,—that they are veracious where we have not the means of putting them to proof. But the argument I am now pressing is distinct from this. We are hereby called upon, not merely to assent that Moses and the author of the Book of Joshua, for example, or Isaiah and the author of the Book of Kings, or St. Matthew and St. Luke, speak the truth when they record a miracle, because we know them to speak the truth in many other matters (though this would be only reasonable where there is no impeachment of their veracity whatever), but we are called upon to believe a particular miracle, because the very circumstances which attend it furnish the coincidence. I look upon this as a point of very great importance. I do not say that the coincidence in such a case establishes the miracle, but that, by establishing the truth of ordinary incidents which involve the miracle, which compass the miracle round about, and which cannot be separated from the miracle without the utter laceration of the history itself, it goes very near to establish it.

 

4. On the whole, it is surely a striking fact, and one that could scarcely happen in any continuous fable, however cunningly devised, that annals written by so many hands, embracing so many generations of men, relating to so many different states of society, abounding in supernatural incidents throughout, when brought to this same touchstone of truth, undesignedness, should still not flinch from it; and surely the character of a history, like the character of an individual, when attested by vouchers not of one family, or of one place, or of one date only, but by such as speak to it under various relations, in different situations, and at divers periods of time, can scarcely deceive us.

 

Perhaps I may add, that the turn which biblical criticism has of late years taken, gives the peculiar argument here employed the advantage of being the word in season; and whilst the articulation of Scripture (so to speak), occupied with its component parts, may possibly cause it to be less regarded than it should be in the mass and as a whole, the effect of this argument is to establish the general truth of Scripture, and with that to content itself—its general truth, I mean, considered with a reference to all practical purposes, which is our chief concern—and thus to pluck the sting out of those critical difficulties, however numerous and however minute, which in themselves have a tendency to excite our suspicion and trouble our peace. Its effect, I say, is to establish the general truth of Scripture, because by this investigation I find occasional tokens of veracity, such as cannot, I think, mislead us, breaking out, as the volume is unrolled,—unconnected, unconcerted, unlooked for; tokens which I hail as guarantees for more facts than they actually cover; as spots which truth has singled out whereon to set her seal, in testimony that the whole document, of which they are a part, is her own act and deed; as pass-words, with which the Providence of God has taken care to furnish his ambassadors, which, though often trifling in themselves, and having no proportion (it may be) to the length or importance of the tidings they accompany, are still enough to prove the bearers to be in the confidence of their Almighty Sovereign, and to be qualified to execute the general commission with which they are charged under his authority.

 

I shall produce the instances of coincidence without design which I have to offer, in the order of the Books of Scripture that supply them, beginning with the Books of Moses. But before I proceed to individual cases, I will endeavour to develop a principle upon which the Book of Genesis goes as a whole, for this is in itself an example of consistency.

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I.

 

There may be those who look upon the Book of Genesis as an epitome of the general history of the world in its early ages, and of the private history of certain families more distinguished than the rest. And so it is, and on a first view it may seem to be little else; but if we consider it more closely, I think we may convince ourselves of the truth of this proposition: that it contains fragments (as it were) of the fabric of a Patriarchal Church—fragments scattered, indeed, and imperfect, but capable of combination, and, when combined, consistent as a whole. Now it is not easy to imagine that any impostor would set himself to compose a book upon a plan so recondite; nor, if he did, would it be possible for him to execute it as it is executed here. For the incidents which go to prove this proposition are to be picked out from among many others, and on being brought together by ourselves, they are found to agree together as parts of a system, though they are not contemplated as such, or at least are not produced as such, by the author himself.

 

I am aware that, whilst we are endeavouring to obtain a view of such a Patriarchal Church by the glimpses afforded us in Genesis, there is a danger of our theology becoming visionary: it is a search upon which the imagination enters with alacrity, and readily breaks its bounds—it has done so in former times and in our own. Still the principle of such investigation is good; for out of God’s book, as out of God’s world, more may be often concluded than our philosophy at first suspects. The principle is good, for it is sanctioned by our Lord himself, who reproaches the Sadducees with not knowing those Scriptures which they received, because they had not deduced the doctrine of a future state from the words of Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” though the doctrine was there if they would but have sought it out. One consideration, however, we must take along with us in this inquiry, that the Books of Moses are in most cases a very incomplete history of facts—telling something and leaving a great deal untold—abounding in chasms which cannot be filled up—not, therefore, to be lightly esteemed even in their hints, for hints are often all that they offer.

 

The proofs of this are numberless; but as it is important to my argument that the thing itself should be distinctly borne in mind, I will name a few. Thus if we read the history of Joseph as it is given in the 37th chapter of Genesis, where his brethren first put him into the pit and then sell him to the Ishmaelites, we might conclude that he was himself quite passive in the whole transaction. Yet when the brothers happen to talk together upon this same subject many years afterwards in Egypt, they say one to another, “We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear.” (Genesis 42:21) All these fervent intreaties are sunk in the direct history of the event, and only come out by accident after all. As another instance. The simple account of Jacob’s reluctance to part with Benjamin would lead us to suppose that it was expressed and overcome in a short time, and with no great effort. Yet we incidentally hear from Judah that this family struggle (for such it seems to have been) had occupied as much time as would have sufficed for a journey to Egypt and back (Genesis 43:10). As a third instance. The several blessings which Jacob bestows on his sons have probably a reference to the past as well as to the future fortunes of each. In the case of Reuben the allusion happens to be a circumstance in his life with which we are already acquainted; here, therefore, we understand the old man’s address (Genesis 49:4); but in the case of several at least of his other sons, where there are probably similar allusions to events in their lives too, which have not, however, been left on record, there is much that is obscure; the brevity of the previous narrative not supplying us with the proper key to the blessing. As fourth instance. The address of Jacob on his death-bed to Reuben, to which I have just referred, shows how deeply Jacob resented the wrong done him by this son many years before, and proves what a breach it must have made between them at the moment; yet all that is said of it in the Mosaic history is, “and Israel heard it,” (Genesis 35:22)—not a syllable more. It is needless to multiply instances; all that I Wish to impress is this, that in the Book of Genesis a hint is not to be wasted, but improved; and that he who expects every probable deduction from Scripture to be made out complete in all its parts before he will admit it, expects more than he will in many cases meet with, and will learn much less than he might otherwise learn.

 

Having made these preliminary remarks, I shall now proceed to collect the detached incidents in Genesis which appear to point out the existence of a Patriarchal Church. And the circumstance of so many incidents tending to this one centre, though evidently without being marshalled or arranged, implies veracity in the record itself; for it is a very comprehensive instance of coincidence without design in the several parts of that record.