Jo. ch. ii. v. 18.  “The Jews said to Jesus, what sign showest thou to us, that thou doest these things?  Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.  The Jews answered, saying, forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou build it in three days?” The Jews could never have spoken these words, here related; for the temple then standing was built by Herod, who reigned but thirty-seven years, and built it in eight years.  This, therefore, must be a blunder of the Evangelist’s.

Jo. xiii. v. 21.  Jesus says to his Disciples, “a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.”  This is not true, for the love of man towards his neighbour, was not a new precept, but at least as ancient as Moses, who gives it, Levit. xix. as the command of God, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

Acts vii. v. 4.  “When he (Abraham) went out of the land of the Chaldees, he dwelt in Charran; from thence after his father was dead, he led him into this land in which ye dwell.”  This directly contradicts the chapter in Genesis where the story of Abraham’s leaving Haran is related; for it is certain from thence, that Abraham left his father Terah in Haran alive, when he departed thence.  And he did not die till many years afterwards.  This chronological contradiction has given much trouble to Christian Commentators, as may be seen in Whitby, Hammond, &c. &c.

V. 14, Stephen says, “Jacob therefore descended into Egypt, and our Fathers, and there died.  And they were carried to Sichem, and buried in the sepulchre which Abraham bought from the Sons of Hemor the Father of Sichem.”  Here is another blunder; for this piece of land was not purchased by Abraham, but by Jacob.  Gen. xlix. 29; so also see the end of Joshua.  But it is evident, that Stephen has confounded the story of the purchase of the field of Machpelah, recorded in Gen. xxiii. with the circumstances related concerning the purchase by Jacob.

In v. 43 of the same chapter, there is another disagreement between Stephen’s quotation from Amos, and the original. [In the Acts the quotation is,—­“Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the Star of your God.  Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them, and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.”  In Amos, ch. v. 26—­“But ye have borne the tabernacle of Moloch and Chinn your images, the Star of your God which ye made,” &c.]

So also there is in the speech of James, Acts xv. a quotation from Amos, in which to make it fit the subject, (which after all it does not fit,) is the substitution of the words, “the remnant of men,” for the words, “remnant of Edom,” as it is in the original.

All these mistakes, besides others to be met with in almost—­I was going to say in every page, of these Histories of Jesus and his Apostles, sufficiently show how superficial was the acquaintance of these men with the Old Testament, and how grossly, either through design or ignorance, they have perverted it.  Indeed from these mistakes alone, I should be led strongly to suspect, that the Books of the New Testament were written by Gentiles, as I can hardly conceive that any Jew could have quoted his Bible in such a blundering manner.