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The life of Jesus, or, A critical examination of His history. Translated
The life of Jesus or A critical examination of His history Translated Author:David Friedrich Strauss Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: quainted with the events which occurred in the capital. He, nevertheless, himself admits that a certain obscurity must always remain upon the motives which have ... more »led to this omission, but that, at any rate, it should not lead us to unfavourable conclusions with respect to the fourth evangelist. It is in the nature of things that, on such differences and such omissions, different individuals, should pronounce different judgments. My own opinion is, that the silence of the fourth evangelist with respect to the casting out of devils belongs to those incidents which give rise to difficulties of no small magnitude. § xci. Cure of tlie Man Sick of the Palsy. Did Jesus consider certain diseases in the light of punishments ? The synoptics relate that, in the presence of the messengers of John the Baptist, Jesus, to prove that he was " he who was to come," laid stress upon the fact that "the lame walk" (Matt. xi. 5); and, on another occasion, the people were astonished, amongst other diseases that were cured, to see "the maimed to be whole," and " the lame to walk " (Matt. xv. 31). In place of the lame, at other times, mention is made of those afflicted with palsy (Matt. iv. 24); and the fact is that in the detailed accounts which we have of this kind of cure (Matt. ix. 1; viii. 5, and the parallel passages) the individuals operated upon are described, not as lame, but as afflicted with palsy. The impotent man mentioned in John (v. 5), belonged, doubtless, to the " halt," described in the third verse. In the same place allusion is made to those afflicted with "withered" limbs; and Matthew (xii. 9, and parallel passages) has also noticed the cure of a man who had a " withered hand." But as these three species of cure of individuals afflicted with affections of the limbs will be noti...« less