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    date of the commencement of Herod ' s reign , there might have been good reason for this investigation ; but even then the minute induction which he gives , would have been needless for the author ' s leading purpose ; and it has

    so much chaff in it , that it is extremely difficult to discern the grain § that may be really productive . At the close he comes to a conclusion , as to the year of Herod ' s death , which we deem correct , but to which the previous reasonings did not seem to be pointing ; and from this conclusion , as it seems , he draws an inference which Dr . Whaiely could not have taught him .

    The reader will judge : " The result of all our reasonings , hitherto , [ i . e .. in the thirty pages preceding ' , designed , as it appeared , to shew Josephus ' s computation of the date of Herod ' s accession to the throne , ] is to this effect ; that the death of Herod cannot he placed either earlier or later than the spring quarter of A . U 751-[ B . C . 3 . ] The building of the temple , therefore 9 which was begun in the eighteenth year , and , being completetl in a year and six months afterwards , coincided with the annual recurrence of a feast of Tabernacles , must have been begun about the time of a feast of Passover . It was begun , then , about the time of the Passover in the eighteenth year of his reign , " &c .

    This series of inferences our readers will find in p . 223 of the first volume of Mr . GreswelPs work . It is quite unnecessary to analyze it ; and we shall only add that it is but a specimen of a large class wbich might be selected from this production of the Clarendon Press . Next follows an Appendix respecting " the reigns and succession of the Maccabaean princes , " which has the merit of being very short . For its insertion in this work we see no sufficient reason .

    The Third Appendix is " On the Time of the Deposal of Herod Antipas , and on the Eclipse before the Death of Herod" [ the great ] . The first portion is introduced , because there is a coin of Herod Antipas , which , ( the author argues , ) if the time of his deposai could be ascertained , would be of use in fixing the year of his father ' s death . As this was done , by direct means , in the first Appendix , surely this disquisition of sixteen closelyprinted pages might have been dispensed with ; but , it appears , after the close of the investigation , that the author ' s object must have been to parry an objection which might be derived from this coin against the date he has assigned to Herod ' s death , viz . A . U . 751 , or B . C . 3 . " It is not , however , roy intention , " he says , ( p . 245 , ) ' * to reckon up all the objections which might be produced against this opinion , and to shew

    how insuperable they would be : I have noticed , or shall notice , only the two most plausible of the arguments in its favour—the testimoDy of the coin of Antipas , which we have hitherto been considering—and the supposed date of the eclipse , which Josephus proves Qie means the statements of Joseph us prove ] to have some time or other preceded the death of Herod . " The attentive reader has presumed that the critic has misrepresented his author , and that this opinion" refers not to 751 but to 750 . In our

    vindication we must quote the preceding sentence . Mr . Greswell begins the paragraph with observing , that the opinions of the learned have not much fluctuated except between 750 and 751 ; and that some strong arguments which might be adduced for this latter date , he passes by for the present . Arguing summarily , he maintains , presuming the tune of the Council of Berytus to be 749 , that it is ** absolutely impossible that the death of Herod could have happened so soon after it , as at the Passover of A . Um 750 : it could not have happened before the Passover of A . U . 751 , at thfe

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    On the Chronology and Arrangement of the Got / pel Narratives . 39

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1831, page 39, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2593/page/39/