Religious Zealots Father False Conclusions Upon the Faithful

Maclaren exposes a persistent vice in religious controversy: the treatment of inferences as articles of belief. The Asian Jews, seeing Paul in the Temple, constructed charges against him that were 'partly flat lies, partly conclusions drawn from misapprehension of his position, partly exaggeration, and partly hasty assumptions.' They could not distinguish between what Paul actually taught and what they supposed must follow from his teaching.…