ainter from Cirei Dep. Muhlenberg Be

AR 26 1908

THREE

DISSERTATIONS,

CONTAINING

1. The Testimonies of JOSEPHUS concerning JESUS CHRIST,
JOHN the BAPTIST, and JAMES the JUST, vindicated.

II. Concerning GOD's command to ABRAHAM to offer up
ISAAC his son for a sacrifice.

III. A Demonstration that TACITUS, the Roman historian,
took his history of the Jews out of JOSEPHUS.

DISSERTATION I.

THE TESTIMONIES OF JOSEPHUS CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST, JOHN THE BAPTIST, AND JAMES THE JUST, VINdicated.

SINCE we meet with several important testimonies in Josephus, the Jewish historian, concerning John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus of Nazareth, concerning Jesus of Nazareth himself, and concerning James the Just, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth; and since the principal testimony, which is that concerning Jesus of Nazareth himself, has of late been greatly questioned by many, and rejected by some of the learned as spurious, it will be fit for me, who have ever declared my firm belief that these testimonies were genuine, to set down fairly some of the original evidence and citations I have met with in the first fifteen centuries concerning them, and then to make proper observations upon that evidence, for the reader's more complete satisfaction.

But before I produce the citations themselves out of Josephus, give me leave to prepare the reader's attention, by setting down the sentiments of perhaps the most learned person, and the most competent judge that ever was, as to the authority of Josephus, I mean of Joseph Scaliger in the Prolegomena to his book De Emendatione Temporum, p. 17. Josephus is the most diligent, and the greatest lover of truth of all writers: nor are we afraid to affirm of him, that it is more safe to believe him, not only as to the affairs of the Jews, but also as to those that are foreign to them, than all the Greek and Latin writers; and this, because his fidelity and his compass of learning are every where conspicuous."