Churches of Christ: if they think we are wrong and they are right, why would they want to contaminate their message with what they consider our error? The Scriptural principle outlined in the preceding paragraph operates, regardless of which is right and which is wrong. Maybe Ochoa and Smith are not sure they are right. Surely they would not reprint as their own The Watchtower and Awake! if they thought those magazines in error. And if the writers for and the editor of the Gospel Broadcast are so unstable, how can the readers feel confident in the paper’s guidance? Readers can hereafter wonder when they see its articles: Are they by Churches of Christ ministers as it says, or are they reprints from the Watchtower or Awake! magazines? How can readers hereafter rely on that paper or its writers or its editor?

Christ Jesus said: “Be on the watch for the false prophets that come to you in sheep’s covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will recognize them. Never do people gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they? Likewise every good tree produces fine fruit, but every rotten tree produces bad fruit; a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, neither can a rotten tree produce fine fruit. Every tree not producing fine fruit gets cut down and thrown into the fire. Really, then, by their fruits you will recognize those men.” (Matt. 7:15-20, NW) So the conclusion of the matter is an easy application of this rule given by Christ. Do you think plagiarism is fine fruit from a good tree? Or do you think it is bad fruit from a rotten tree? You answer for yourself.

Herod the Great, Wanton Murderer

WHAT the Bible records regarding the various Herods is very brief. In going to secular or profane history for additional information it is both interesting and strengthening to faith to note how truly representative of the individual Herods those fragmentary Scriptural references really are.

The Herods and their immediate predecessors ruled in Palestine during the greater part of both the first century before Christ and the first century after Christ. They were Idumeans, or Edomites, whose people the Maccabean princes of the Jews had subjugated in the second century B.C. Early in the first century B.C., an Idumean, one Antipas, was appointed by the then ruling Jewish prince to be governor of Idumea. Upon his death he was succeeded by his son Antipater. This Antipater succeeded in causing strife between the members of the Jewish royal family from which he benefited, so that Julius Caesar made him governor of Judea as well as a Roman citizen.

At the time Antipater was appointed governor of Judea he gave the governorship of Galilee to his son Herod and that of Jerusalem to another son, Phasael.

According to Josephus, when Herod was made governor in 47 B.C. he was very young, only fifteen years of age. (Antiq. 14:9, 2) Some historians insist that a copyist’s error crept in here and that the record should read twenty-five years, so as to