A HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS, IN THE REVISED VERSION. WITH SOME NEW FEATURES. BY JOHN A. BROADUS, D.D., LL.D. THE NOTES AT THE END OF THE VOLUME SECOND EDITION. New York. A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON, 51 EAST 10TH STREET. 1894. PREFACE. This work is the fruit of more than thirty years spent in teaching the English New Testament. I first used as a text-book the Harmony of Dr. Ed. Robinson, and for some twenty years past that of Dr. G. W. Clark. Both are valuable works, deserving their wide reputation. But I have become more and more convinced that most harmonists seriously err in laying stress on the division of our Lord's ministry into Passover years. It is quite impossible to determine with any great confidence whether the feast of John 5:1 was a passover, and the two known passovers of John 2:13 and 6:4 have really no important relation to the development of our Lord's ministry. Besides, the length of his ministry, and the dates of his birth and death, cannot be precisely fixed. But cease to labor for an exact chronology, quit regarding the feasts (except the last Passover) as important epochs in his work, and you presently perceive that his ministry divides itself easily into well-defined periods, in each of which you can trace a gradual progress, (a) in our Lord's selfmanifestation, (b) in the hostility of his enemies, and (c) in his training of the Twelve Apostles. Thus we become able to follow the inner movements of the history, towards that long-delayed, but foreseen and inevitable collision, in which, beyond all other instances, the wrath of man was made to praise God. The chief marks of this historical progress in the Life of our Lord I have tried to indicate by brief foot-notes, and other notes in italic letters placed here and there between the sections. Many of these brief notes also touch various points of harmonizing, of chronology, and other matters, so that the reader may quickly get the most important necessary information or help, and move forward. Questions requiring more elaborate discussion have been treated by my colleague, Dr. A. T. Robertson, in longer notes placed at the end of the volume, which in my judgment are remarkably complete and discriminating, and will greatly aid the careful student. |