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Questions From ReadersThe Watchtower—1956 | September 15
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Questions From Readers
● Matthew 20:29 and Mark 10:46 speak of Jesus healing the blind beggar Bartimaeus as Jesus was leaving Jericho, but Luke 18:35 reports the event as Jesus was entering Jericho. How can this contradiction be explained?—B. F., Canada.
The book Archaeology and Bible History, by Joseph P. Free, makes an interesting suggestion on this matter on page 295: “Just before the Lord met Zacchaeus at Jericho, he healed the blind in the same vicinity. In Matthew it says that this healing took place as Christ left Jericho, whereas in Luke the indication is that it took place on the way into Jericho. Some have suggested that these were two different events, and that is a possibility. Archaeology, however, has thrown additional light on this apparent discrepancy. Early in the twentieth century A.D. excavations were made at Jericho by Ernest Sellin of the German Oriental Society (1907-1909). The excavations showed that the Jericho of Jesus’ time was a double city. The old Jewish city was about a mile away from the Roman city. In the light of this evidence, it is possible that Matthew is speaking of the Jewish city which Christ had left, whereas Luke is speaking of the Roman, at which Christ had not yet arrived. Thus, on his way from the old to the new city, Christ met and healed the blind Bartimaeus. Therefore, if these three passages in Matthew, Mark, and Luke refer to the same event, there is not any contradiction; and if they refer to different healings, there of course would be no contradiction.”
This well illustrates the folly of arguing that the Bible contradicts itself, as some do. A complete knowledge of the facts of the times in which the events occurred clears up what seems to be a contradiction when viewed centuries later and without the complete background knowledge. Also, these apparent contradictions prove that there was no collusion among the different writers of the Bible or the copyists of the manuscripts. Such obvious contradictions, apparently, as the above one would certainly never occur. The fact that such seeming contradictions are in the Bible proves there is no collusion among its writers, and when the full facts are brought to light even the seeming contradiction itself disappears.
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Zionism Has No Inalienable RightThe Watchtower—1956 | September 15
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Zionism Has No Inalienable Right
● Arnold J. Toynbee, one of the foremost living historians, cannot be credited with faith in the Bible as God’s inspired Word. He holds that Christians should recognize “all higher religions as revelations of what is good and right,” and not claim exclusiveness. It is therefore of interest to note how Toynbee, on the basis of the Bible, points up the weakness of Zionism’s claim to Palestine. Toynbee accuses Zionists “of an importunity which verged upon impiety in their attempt to take out of God’s hands the fulfillment of God’s promise to restore Israel to Palestine on God’s own initiative.” He points out that Israel was given no inalienable right to Palestine but that her possession of that land depended solely upon God’s favor and Israel’s obedience to God’s commandments and that Zionism ignores these conditions. “In thus leaving God’s will and Israel’s conduct out of his reckoning, the Zionist parted with the spiritual ground which was the only sure basis for the Jews’ title to the soil of the holy land,” according to him. Toynbee goes so far as to say that the surest way for Israel to lose title to the holy land is for Zionism to stray into the delusion that a conditional “grant from Almighty God was an inalienable birthright.” (A Study of History, Vol. VIII, page 601) No question about it, the great Giver of every good gift and every perfect present sets his conditions: “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword.”—Isa. 1:19, 20, AS.
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