In the testimony of witnesses before a court, nothing is more common than for apparent contradictions to arise between credible witnesses or between different statements of the same witness. In all such cases, it is considered entirely logical and legitimate for counsel to show that on some reasonable hypothesis the statements can be harmonized. So in regard to apparently inconsistent statements in written documents. But when we come to the Bible, our modern critics of the German type forbid us to do this. Nothing is weaker or more contemptible in their eyes than the work of "the harmonizers" or the "apologists." They insist that apparent contradictions shall be regarded as real ones, and they hold it up as a cowardly subterfuge to attempt a reconciliation. They will not allow for the Bible that which their common sense compels them to allow for any other written document; and yet they loudly proclaim that the Bible must be interpreted precisely as other books are. In writing about the Bible they seem to be glad when [303] they can find two statements which they can declare contradictory. They think it honest and candid to admit contradictions, and they take so much pleasure in it that they sometimes manufacture contradictions where another man of sense can see none.

      A striking instance of this habit came under my eye recently in reading Prof. H. E. Ryle's commentary on Nehemiah, written for the "Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges." Commenting on Neh. 1:1, he says:

      In chapter 2:1 we find that the events described in the beginning of that chapter are said to have taken place in the month of Nisan, in the "twentieth year of King Artaxerxes." Now, Nisan is the first month, Chisleu the ninth month in the year. How, then, comes it that in this verse the events of the ninth month seem to precede those of the first month, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes?

      He gives two or three explanations that have been advanced, and then adds:

      It is better to acknowledge that we have here a contradiction and to suppose that a mistake has been made either by the compiler or by a scribe who was anxious that the extract from Nehemiah's writings should open with the mention of a date, and inserted, from chapter 2:1, the year of the king's reign, not perceiving the difficulty to which it would give rise. The omission of the king's name is an additional reason for suspecting an error in the text.

      It is passing strange to me that a grave and learned commentator should be puzzled by the fact that the ninth calendar month in one year, and the first in the next year, should both fall in the twentieth year of any king's reign. It could not be otherwise, unless his twentieth year began on a month lying between these two. If the reign began on the tenth, the eleventh or the twelfth month, its first year would not include the ninth month of the same year, but it would include the first month [304] of the next year. But if it began on the eighth month, or any other back to the second, it would include the ninth month of that year and the first of the next year. If Professor Ryle had stopped to think of his own professorship, he would have been saved from making this charge against Nehemiah; for if his professorship began, as it most probably did, the first of September, the first year of it included the ninth month of that year, which was September, and the first month, January, of the next year. The same is true of his twentieth year, and of every other year that his professorship continues. And not only would the months September and January be thus included, but so would the months Chisleu and Nisan of the Jewish calendar.

      But the most surprising thing in Professor Ryle is, that he really states this explanation of what he so strangely considers a difficulty, and states it to reject it. He says:

      Another explanation has been given, that the years of Artaxerxes' reign were not reckoned as calendar years from the month of Nisan, but from the month in which he ascended the throne. If, therefore, his reign began in any one of the months between Nisan and Chisleu, Chisleu would precede Nisan in the year thus calculated. But for this view there is no evidence from other sources.

      Why need evidence from other sources? When in the history of the world was a king's reign counted from any other month than the one in which he began to reign? It would be just as sensible to count a man's birth from January when he was born in May or June. It is a simple matter of course that if Artaxerxes began his reign in any month between the first and the ninth, the ninth month of that year and the first of the next were included in every full year that he reigned: and the statement of Professor Ryle, that it is better to admit [305] here a contradiction, is to assume that contradictions in the Bible are better than harmony, and so much better that commentators may properly manufacture a few where none exist.

[SEBC 303-306]