if we believe that each writer selected and arranged his material (as Luke

1:1-4 or John 20:30,31 suggest that they did), every item falls into place,

and so-called discrepancies are seen to be but the necessary consequence of

dealing so tersely with so vast an amount of matter.  The assessment of

historic fact, the weighing of evidence, the analogy of history generally,

lie outside the scope of these passages.  Suffice it for us to observe, as

Sir Ambrose Fleming D.Sc. F.R.S. has written:

'We must take this evidence of experts as to the age and authenticity

of this writing, just as we take the facts of astronomy on the evidence

of astronomers who do not contradict each other.  This being so, we can

ask ourselves whether it is probable that such a book, describing

events that occurred about thirty or forty years previously, could have

been accepted and cherished if the stories of abnormal events in it

were false or mythical?  It is impossible, because the memory of all

elderly persons regarding events of thirty or forty years before, is

perfectly clear.

No one could now issue a biography of Queen Victoria, who died thirty-

one years ago, full of anecdotes which were quite untrue.  They would

be contradicted at once.  They would certainly not be generally

accepted and passed on as true.  Hence, there is a great improbability

that the account of the resurrection given by Mark, which agrees

substantially with that given in the other Gospels, is a pure

invention.  This mythical theory has had to be abandoned because it

will not bear close scrutiny'.

The evidence of the resurrection given by the Evangelists comes under one of

the following headings:

Either they were telling lies knowing they were lies.

Or they were telling lies in which they were sincerely deluded.

Or they were simply telling the honest truth.

There will be no need to elaborate these three features.  We write

these pages with the conviction that the Evangelists and the apostles who

testified to the fact of the resurrection were not only simply telling the

honest truth, but that they were divinely inspired in the choice of their

material, including the omission or the inclusion of particular items, as the

Spirit of God led them to make their contribution to the Scriptures of Truth.

The various side issues already indicated, such as the question of the

immortality of the soul, the nature of the soul, and allied themes must wait

until we have surveyed the evidence of that supreme chapter on the

resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15.

This great chapter of the resurrection arose apparently out of the

apostle's definition of the gospel which he had preached, or at the least of

the fundamental issues that were involved.

'For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures;

That He was buried, and