Cornell University Library BS413 .H22 About the Bible : being a coilection of olin 3 1924 029 270 366 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029270366 ABOUT THE BIBLE Being a Collection of Extracts from Writ- ings OF Eminent Biblical Scholars and OF Scientists of Europe and America WITH ten photographs two maps, and a page from the polychrome bible COMPILED BY CHARLES L. HAMMOND COOKE & FRY 70 fifth avenue new york i 900 Copyright, 1900, by Charles L. Hammond. This book is affectionately dedicated to my mother, and to the officers, teachers, and scholars of the Sunday schools of the world. PREFACE. The compiler and his family are members of an evan- gelical Church. He has taught in its Sunday school a class of young men. On the first page of the King James Version of the Bible the date of "the creation" is given as 4004 B. C. When a young man goes to college he learns from such teachers as Professor Henry S. Williams, Ph.D., Professor of Geology at Yale University, that the strata of the earth we live on represent "a duration of time of at least fifty million years." Forty years ago we were taught in the Sunday school that the date given on the first page of the Bible was correct; that the world was made in six days' time, by God, 4004 years B. C. We believed it then without question, and when we came to know better we forgave our teachers, because they had believed what they taught. Our children to-day will resent what they are taught if it is not true, and they will be right in resenting it, because their teachers know, or ought to know, the truth. When even in the Church of Eome one of its most scholarly and Christian men, past threescore years and ten, comes out boldly and says, "It is absolutely impossible for any reasonably well-educated man to join the Eoman Cath- olic Church if he understands what her teaching about Scripture really is," it is too late for even the most eminent Protestant ministei: to teach Sunday school teachers and scholars, "Blind faith is better than rational faith when- ever Christ is the object of it." The Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, is like a diamond mine. It contains the mpst precious truth, but 5 6 Preface. often the diamonds must be separated from the traditional nonessentials and legends which surround them. Men wrote in earlier times as they saw and understood; if we see more clearly, then we should work more earnestly and intelligently to bring to pass the time when the "kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Our libraries are full of books of information, down to date, written by the most scholarly and Christian men, but, like the ostrich who hides her head under her wing when attacked, we continue to teach our youth fable and tradition as the "word of God" on Sunday, unmindful of the fact that the rest of the week we send them to school or college where the truth is inculcated. Then we wonder at the great annual decrease in Sunday school attendance. Chicago, 111., October 29, 1900. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Grod — Man — The King James and the Revised Ver- sions of the Bible 9 II. Chronological Table 15 III. Astronomy 33 IV. The Polychrome Bible 36 V. Map of Palestine — History of Israel — Jesus Christ — History of the Church 38 VI. The Old Testament 51 Vll. The New Testament 88 VIII. Dr. St. George Mivart— Orthodoxy 106 IX. The Story of the Bible 109 X. Who Wrote the Bible ? 115 ^ XI. The New Conception of the Bible 132 Appendix 130 7 ILLUSTRATIONS. FACING PAGE Hon. Andrew Dickson White, LL.D., United States Am- bassador 1 Dr. Paul Haupt, Editor Polyclu'ome Bible, Professor Semitic Languages Johns Hopkins University 13 Rev. George P. Moore, D.D., President Andover Theolog- ical Seminary 14 Professor Simon Newcomb, LL.D., M.N.A.S., United States Government Astronomer 33 Page of Polychrome Bible 36 Map of Palestine 38 Rev. Dr. H. Oort, University of Leiden, Professor of Hebrew and Israelitish Antiquity 40 Map of Egypt 43 Rev. Dr. I. Hooykaas, Dutch Theologian, Holland 44 Rev. Dr. Abraham Kuenen, Professor of Theology Uni- versity of Leiden 44 Dr. St. George Mivart, English Roman Catholic, M.D., Ph.D., P.R.S 106 Walter L. Sheldon, Lecturer of t^ie Ethical Society, St. Louis, Mo 109 Rev. Washington Gladden, D.D., Congregational Minister, Columbus, Ohio 115 ABOUT THE BIBLE. Chaptee I. God — ^Man — The King James and the Revised Versions of the Bible. God. God is "the one Supreme or Absolute Being" (Century Dictionary). No man has ever seen God, but we ourselves are specimens of his work, and everywhere it is about us. Whether we examine a blade of grass with a microscope, or his heavens with a telescope, the more we see the more we must appreciate his infinite greatness and how insignificant we ourselves are. Man never was perfect ! History tea'ches us not of man's fall, but of his rise. The first; men we know of were very like ourselves, but the geologist and the scientist have found traces of men infinitely beyond our records. Printing. A little earlier than the discovery of America the art of printing from movable type was perfected, and the possession of books began to be a possibility for the many instead of the few. Scientific Eeseaech. "Eeligions were not before the present century the sub- ject of original scientific research." 10 About the Bible. We are near the close of the nirieteenth century, and if you walk about the streets you will find in front of many bookstores tables covered with cheap books, sold for ten or fifteen cents each, containing extracts from the works of such writers as Voltaire, Thomas Paine, and Eobert 6. Ingersoll. If you go to the public library, or the other great libraries, you will find as books of reference nearly everything that has been published on religion, but books that can be purchased by the ordinary man on this subject are often so bulky or so expensive that he does not read them. In most homes you will find the Bible, generally the King James Version. Let us examine one of them. At the head of each page, except in Psalms and part of Prov- erbs, will be found an assumed date and a caption. Of course, these are properly no part of the Bible, and are not found in the Eevised Version. In my family Bible at the head of the first column on the first page you read, "The world made B. C. 4004;" on one of the following pages, "The world drowned B. C. 3349 ;" on other pages, "Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed B. C. 1898." "Jacob wrestleth with an angel B. C. 1739." "The Lord talketh with Moses B. C. 1491." "Samson burneth the Philistines' corn B. C. 1140." But simple B. C. is not enough in many eases, and we read, "Euth lieth at Boaz's feet B. C. cir. 1312." "Cir." is a contraction for the Latin word circa, "about." "Elijah fed by ravens B. C. 925." "Elijah comforted by an angel B. C. cir. 906." "Elijah is translated from the earth B. C. 896." B. C. 896 is also stated to be the year in which Elisha in the name of the Lord cursed the little children who had mocked ■ him, and two she-bears came out of the wood, and tare forty-two of them (2 Kings 2. 23, 24). Abodt the Bible. 11 "Christ's redemption free. B. C. cir 712." "Shadraeh, Meshach, and Abednego accused B. C. 580." These gentlemen, it will be remembered, "were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning iiery furnace." It was "B. C. cir. 863" that Jonah "was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." Above the sixth chapter of the Second Book of Kings, under date of B. C. cir. 894, appears the heading, "Elisha causeth iron to swim." We build our great sea-going vessels of iron in the nine- teenth century, so there is nothing remarkable about iron swimming, but in this case it was an iron ax head that had dropped off its helve and fallen into the water. The Eevised Vebsion of the Bible. It is not strange that a person who has had a Bible for many years should value it more than a new one, but that a mother should purchase in A. D. 1900 a King James Bible for her child instead of a copy of the Eevised Version is strange. Suppose she bought for her daughter the geog- raphy she used forty years ago, in preference to the 1900 edition. Nevertheless the following replies were received from the five largest sellers of Bibles in Chicago in A. D. 1900 in answer to the question. Which do you sell the most of, the King James or Eevised Version of the Bible ? 1. "There has been no change in the ratio of sales during the past fifteen years. The Revised Version is being used as a text-book, and is not coming into general use by any means. We could not at this date give the difference between the two sales, but we pre- sume a fair estimate would be that the ratio is about one Revised Bible sold to one hundred of the Authorized Version." 2. "I should say that the sales of the two versions were as one 13 About the Bible. hundred to one. The new version is certainly not supplanting the old, and there are no signs, that 1 can discern, that it ever will." 3. "Last year we had for the first time editions of the revision with references which considerably increased the sales. In Teach- ers' Bibles and all the better grades we probably sold one third in the revision and two thirds in the old version. In children's Bibles and Bibles for church use probably nine tenths of the books used are still the old version, on account of the compara- tively few editions of the Revised Bibles, and the fact that com- petition has not brought the smaller volumes down to the low price at which the old version may be obtained." 4. "I feel quite sure that we sell more than one hundred of the King James Version to one of the Revised, and if we were to include all the cheap Bibles, such as are used for Sunday school use, I should imagine this ratio would increase to at least five hundred to one." 5. "The sale of the Revised Bible has not reached any great proportions with us. We should say that in our wholesale de- partment we sell one hundred old version to one copy of the new. The sale of the Revised Version is increasing slowly in the retail department. We would say that we sell two copies of the Revised Version to one hundred of the old." AVhat is the result? First. "The number of children in most Sunday schools is actually decreasing" (Sunday School Teachers' Lesson Book). Second. "It is almost impossible to find sufficient teach- ers for those who do attend" (ask any Sunday school super- intendent). A Christian mother who in A. D. 1900 purchases for her child a King James Bible shows as little understand- ing as if she insisted that the child use the same books in day school that she used there when a child. For five days in the week her child goes to school where every effort is made to have the latest and truest text-books. The teachers aim to teach the truth, and the scholars learn the truth. Examine some of these text-books used in our public schools and colleges, and you will be very certain (See p. 3i;.) (3uuJlM^^sLMA.^^aJ^ About the Bible. 13 to favor giving your child a Bible that has just as few errors and mistranslations as possible. Let us look for a moment at the text-book used in the high schools of Chicago — Myers' "Ancient History."* Against the statement on the first page of the King James Bible that the world was made in the year 4004 B. C. it says: "We do not know when man first came into posses- sion of the earth. His antiquity, like the age of the planet he inhabits, is shrouded in obscurity. But as the science of geology has taught us that the earth is very much older than we once thought, so diflierent sciences are telling us that man has been upon the earth a much longer time than we have been used to supposing." This school history says regarding the religious doctrines of the Egyptians : The unity of God was the central doctrine of the sys- tem. The Egyptians gave to the Supreme Being the very same name by which he was known to the Hebrews — Nuk Pu Nuk,' "I am that I am." On page 36 it quotes from Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians" as follows : "The peculiar character of Osiris (one of an Egyptian trinity), his coming upon earth for the benefit of mankind, with the title of 'manifestor of good and truth,' his being put to death by the malice of the evil one, his burial and resurrection and his becoming the judge of the dead, are the most interesting features of the Egyptian religion." Again our school history says, quoting from Rawlinson's "History of Ancient Egypt :" "It has been said that "^the forty-two laws of the Egyp- tian religion contained in the 125th chapter of the "Book * " Ancient History for Colleges and High Schools," hy P. V. N, Myers. Published by Glnn & Co., Boston, Mass. " Statistics show that Myers' His- tories (the Ancient and the General) are used in more than 3,700 schools and Institutions in the field of the Chicago office, which includes 22 States and Territories." 14 About the Bible. of the Dead," fall short in nothing of the teachings of Christianity/ and it is conjectured that Moses in compil- ing his code of laws, did but 'translate into Hebrew the religious precepts which he found in the sacred books' of the people among whom he had been brought up." "Such expressions are, no doubt, exaggerated; but they convey what must be allowed to be a fact — viz., that there is a very close agreement between the moral law of the Egyptians and the precepts of the Decalogue." Two other quotations must suffice : "On the authority of Sayce and Eawlinson the Chaldean dynasty or period goes back at least to 4300 B. C. . . ." "Near the frontiers of Egypt the Assyrian host, accord- ing to the Hebrew account,- was smitten by 'the angel of the Lord.' This expression is a Hebraism, meaning, often, any physical cause of destruction, as a plague or storm." ( See p. 3r;. ) ,/4 Chapter II. Chronological Table. Bearing in mind that this world we live on is not larger in comparison with God's universe than a single grain of sand to a se^ beach miles in extent, let us note some of the events that have occurred here. "The minimum estimate of the age of the earth is twen- ty million years. The records of early chronology carry the origin of man ten, twenty, or perhaps thirty thousand years or more into the past" (W. J. McGee, Director of the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution). "We may assume thirty thousand (30,000) years as the minimum time requisite to effect all the geologic and physical changes which have taken place since the de- position of the earliest discovered remains of man's in- dustry" (Daniel G. Brinton, M.D., Professor of American Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania, "Universal Cyclopedia," 1900). The first date in the Chronological Tahle that follows reads, "About 4400 years B. C," and this year is 1900 A. D., but here at the beginning of our table we are eon- fronted with the strange fact that the author of our chron- ological system did not know, within several years, when Christ was born, although he made that event our chron- ological starting point. A Eoman abbot about 535 A. D. began our present system of dating all events from the birth of Jesus, and it is now believed made an error of ahout four years. All the 'Christian nations of Europe, even, are not in agreement as to what day of the week or month to-day is! 15 16 About the Bible. Gkegoeian and Gbee'k Calbndaes. "A. D. 1583 Pope Gregory wisely ordered that the day following October 4 in that year should not be called the 5th, but the 15th of October. The change was immedi- ately adopted by all Catholic nations, but the Greek Church and most of the Protestant nations declined to accept the Pope's correction. In England it was at last adopted in 1753. There was great opposition and riots in different places, especially at Bristol, where several' per- sons were killed. The cry of the populace was, 'Give us back our fortnight,' for the people supposed they had been robbed of eleven days, though the act of Parliament had been carefully framed to prevent any injustice in the col- lection of interest, rents, etc. The Greek Church has not yet made the change. In Eussia, however, for scientific and commercial purposes, both dates are generally used. So the 7th of January, 1900, is written January -^. The difference was increased by one day this year and will re- main thirteen days until A. D. 3100." The dates in the following table are largely taken from Heilprin's "Historical Eeferenee Book," published by D. Appleton & Co., 1895, and from "The Bible for Learn- ers:" Cheottological Table. (Dates previous to B. C. 600 must be regarded only as the closest approximation possible.) B.C. About 4400 The first Egyptian dynasty founded. (This was about 396 years before the creation of the heaven and the, earth, according to the King James Bible.) About 1320 Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt. (This date differs from that in the King James Bible only 171 years. ) T%e Ten Commandments in their simplest form given out. B.C. About 1260 1068 About 1058-1018 About 1018-978 978 918 840 838 823 About the Bible. 17 Settlement of the Israelites in Canaan. Song of Deborah, Judges 5th chapter. (Deborah was a Hebrew prophetess and judge.) Period of the Judges. Codrus, the last king of Athens. Reign of the first Jewish king, Saul. King David's reign. Some of David^s poems (2 Sam. 1. 19-28; 3. 33, 34 ; Gen. 49). King Solomon's reign. Hiram king of Tyre. Solomon's kingdom divided into two kingdoms, Rehoboam king of Juda, and Jeroboam king of Israel. Lycurgus, Spartan legislator. Ahab king of Israel. Carthage (a great commercial city of Africa, on the Mediterranean, near present Tunis) founded. The prophet Elijah. Joash king of Israel. The "Booh of the Covenant" {Uxod. 21. 1 to 23. 19). (We do not mean to say exactly when any writing was made — in this case, for instance, that it was between 840 and 838 B. C— but simply that it was not iefore the date under which it is given in the table.) Amaziah king of Juda. Jeroboam II king of Israel. Flourishing period of the kingdom. In Israelite literature this time is known as the Assyrian period. The 4:5th Psalm, the SSd chapter of Deuteronomy, the 22d to the 2Uh chapters of Numbers, Amos, Sosea, the 9th 18 B.C. 809 About 800 116 111 758 753 741 725 719 715 712 704 to 681 699 643 636 to 546 626 About the Bible. to the Uth chapters of Zechariah, the pro- phetic narratives in the Pentateuch, the nar- ratives in Judges and Samuel, and the Song of Solomon were all written about this time. Uzziah king of Juda. Arose in Bactria (identical with modern prov- ince of Balkh), Central Asia, the religion of Zarathustra. The First Olympiad. (This was the date of a great athletic meet in Greece. The Olympiads were held every fourth year. Events were referred to as having occurred in such a year of such an Olympiad.) Israel tributary to Syria. Pekah king of Israel. First deportation of Jews to Assyria. Rome founded. Ahaz king of Juda, which was tributary to Assyria. Mioah and Isaiah written. Hezekiah king of Juda. (Great reformation.) Collection of Proverbs begun (chapters 25-29). Fall of the kingdom of Israel. Numa Pompilius king of Rome. The Assyrians in Judah. Sennacherib king of Assyria. Part of the 32d chapter of Exodus written. Manasseh king of Judah. Josiah king of Jxidah. Deuteronomy. Time of Thales (the father of Greek philos- ophy). Idolatry rooted out in Judah and Israel. The Chaldean period in Jewish literature. Na- hum, Zephaniah, 12th and 14th chapters of Zechariah, and Habakkuk vyritten. About the Bible. 19 B. C. 620 609 608 604 604 to 662 698 59'7 594 586 585 582 680 to 500 660 650 to 478 538 634 530 to 522 525 521-486 Draco, compiler of the first written laws of the Athenians. Battle of Megiddo. Jehoahaz king of Judah. Jehoiakim, king of Judah, as vassal of Egypt. Lao-tze, Chinese philosopher, born. Many of the Psalms written. Nebuchadrezzar. Jehoiakin king of Judah. First deportation of the Jews by the Chaldees. Solon (statesman, sage, and poet) in Athens. Jerusalem and the temple devastated by the Chaldeans. Second deportation. Gedaliah governor of Judah. Tyre besieged by Nebuchadrezzar. Murder of Gedaliah. Jeremiah taken to Egypt. Third deportation to Babylonia. Pythagoras, Greek philosopher. Earliest edition of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Lamentations, \Uh, 53^ About the Bible. 33 The article was written by Professor Simon liTeweonib, LL.D., M.N.A.S., the world-renowned astronomer of the National Observatory of the United States at Washington. 'Thanks are here given the professor and the S. S. McClure Co. for the use here made of the article. As what Professor Newcomb ^ays is of the utmost im- portance to all of us, let us post ourselves regarding him a little. He holds the highest evidences of his distinguished serv- ices in astronomical science in the degrees conferred upon him by Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Leiden, Heidelberg, and other great universities, and the highest medals of various societies. His specialty in mathematical astronomy is the study of the motion of the planets, and in this peculiar iield of inquiry he has no superior, and in the opinion of many no equal, in the world. Says Loewy in "JSTature" for May, 1899 : Professor Newcomb must be considered, without contradiction, as one of the most celebrated astronomers of our time, both on account of the immensity of his work and the unity of view which marks the choice of the subjects treated by him. He is gifted with a prodigious power of work, which is testi- fied by the extraordinarily long list of his researches. The re- ception which has been accorded to them by all competent men points to their author as one of the most illustrious representa- tives of celestial mechanics. This activity has embraced the most diverse branches of as- tronomy, and he has contributed in a very successful manner to elevate the level of the civilization of our age, enriching the do- main of science with beautiful and durable conquests. Said Professor ISTewcomb in the article before re- ferred to : "The. solar system is an immense central body, the sun, with a number of planets revolving round it at various dis- tances. On one of these planets we dwell. "Vast indeed are the distances of the planets when 34' About the Bible. measured by our terrestrial standards. A cannon-ball fired from the earth to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and continuing its course ever since with a velocity of eighteen hundred feet per second, would not yet be halfway to the orbit of Neptune, the outer planet. "And yet the thousands of stars which stud the heavens are at distances so much greater than that of Ifeptune that our solar system is like a little colony, separated from the rest of the universe by an ocean of void space almost im- measurable in extent. "The orbit of the earth round the sun is of such size that a railway train running sixty miles an hour, with never a stop, would take about three hundred and fifty years to cross it. Eepresent this orbit by a lady's finger- ring. Then the nearest fixed star will be about a mile and a half away; the next more than two miles; a few more from three to twenty miles; the great body at scores or hundreds of miles. Imagine the stars thus scattered from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and keep this little finger- ring in mind as the orbit of the earth. "One of the most beautiful stars in the heavens, and one that can be seen most of the year, is a Lyrce, or Alpha of the Lyre, known also as Vega. In a spring evening it may be seen in the northeast, in the later summer near the zenith, in the autumn in the northwest. On the scale we have laid down with the earth's orbit as a finger-ring, its distance would be some eight or ten miles. The small stars around it in the same constellation are probably ten, twenty, or fifty times as far. "Now, the greatest fact which modern science has brought to light is that our whole solar system, including the sun, with all its planets, is on a journey toward the con- stellation Lyra. During our whole lives, in all probability during the whole human history, we have been flying un- About the Bible. 35 eeasingly toward this iDeautiful constellation with a speed to which no motion on earth can compare. The speed has recently been determined with a fair degree of certainty, though not with entire exactness; it is about ten miles a second, and therefore not far from three hundred mil- lions of miles a year. But whatever it may be, it is un- ceasing and unchanging; for us mortals eternal. We are nearer the constellation now than we were ten years ago by thousands of millions of miles, and every future genera- tion of our race will be nearer than its predecessor by thousands of millions of miles. "When, where, and how, if ever, did this journey begin; when, where, and how, if ever, will it end? This is the greatest of the unsolved problems of astronomy. An as- tronomer who should watch the heavens for ten thousand years might gather some faint suggestion of an answer, or he might not. All we can do is to seek for some hints by study and comparison with other stars. "The stars are suns. To put it in another way, the sun is one of the stars, and rather a small one at that. If the sun is moving in the way I have described, may not the stars also be in motion, each on a journey of its own through the wilderness of space? To this question as- tronomy gives an affirmative answer. Most of the stars nearest to us are found to be in motion, some faster than the sun, some more slowly, and the same is doubtless true of all; only the century of accurate observations at our disposal does not show the motion of the distant ones. A given motion seems slower the more distant the moving body; we have to watch a steamship on the horizon some little time to see that she moves at all. "Thus it is that the unsolved problem of the motion of our sun is only one branch of a yet more stupendous one: What means the motion of the stars; how did they begin, and how, if ever, will they end?" Chaptbe IV. The Polychrome Bible. In order that we may study the Bible intelligently, let us take a page of it and see what it tells us about its own composition. By the kind permission of Professor Paul Haupt, Ph.D., Professor of Semitic Languages in the Johns Hopkins Uni- versity, Baltimore, editor in chief of the Polychrome Bible, and of Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co., of New York city, its publishers, we are permitted the use of a fac-simile of the twenty-first page of the book of Judges. The Polychrome Bible is printed in colors to show the composite structure of the books of the Bible. It is a new English translation, with explanatory notes and pictorial illustrations. The translators are the most eminent biblical scholars of Europe and America. The book of Judges was translated by the Rev. G. P. Moore, D.D., Presi- dent of Andover Theological Seminary. "The writers of the various parts of the page here shown are, as distinguished by the different colors, as follows : "Dark blue, EpJiraimitic writer. "Light blue, later additions to the Ephraimitic docu- ment. "Dark purple represents parts in which the Judaic and the Ephraimitic documents are so intimately fused that they cannot be separated hy literary analysis. "Light purple represents additions of the editor, who interwove the work of the EpJiraimitic and Judaic writers. "Yellow is used for the additions of post-Exilic authors or editors. t^ ^ ;> r^ 'S ^ lyi 'S G -*-> j5 : rt a; s CO 1) -M o bJD nj 13 r:] 13 s < 1 OJ u o :n fS -*-» r^ *-*-. mi p o p !5 a; "5 5J 6 o S c 3 o 3 ^ .s +-1 ^ u -a' G s IS < "be p o u CO o 1) o 1) 3 U >. rt a -4-1 -a '3 .G 1) 4-) f/5 o U ■^ ^ s r^ (A 1) •^ O en cn T3 r-; -a Q m OJ ^ r^ 4-t , 1 H 's rt r^ ,g' g s 1 a ■a > ry) O o 'M .^ KH r^H ^ •0^ rt jr - 1 _c .- ^ 9 (LI -4-» ^ J3 u< rt ^ jj n! E 0) ? c oj Ih "o J3 1) en H CTl y H-l > >i ^ O G 1) (U ' be T) 3 O o . u +-» . h < u "O T) n! m ^ jj &> 3 S ^ "s 4-1 4-t o u i-5 10 © S o 3 r-5 en ^« nj ■S rS ra „ aj $s '^'~ ^ -a V fi; c 3 Ih - CO a ^ t— ( o 'ctJ ■ p S z^ ^ , 1— 1 o "0 , q Cu re ni CTi - 'J'J ^^'>i < S 5 • o s Oh rt •o ^ -^ en d) ^ -S -^ 33 I-T-' "^ m " ^ o § § S3 . S S ^ " s J r ^ g < I ■*-' 1) •a tj ■£ o ■?= E 8 Ph •^ ^ J:^ ;i -V w -o rt ■ H r^ T3 c -i-* •< (U (/) "^ j3 OJ A V c/: -*-' OJ rt OJ H -^ ?? «J "O Ij OJ CO in T3 r^ u rt "OJ re re D aj o re n, .J5 ii -" s £ re n re V ^ ij 1 _co 're re ID a; S r^-t OJ u a' c V re "M r- !7> ." K ;^ < en O T3 Q O E E < About the Bible. 37 "Green indicates Deuteronomistic additions of the sixth century B. C." The Polychrome Bible is "a monument of devotion to Christian truth," and with it "the man of average good edu- cation can form as rational judgment about the Bible in the main as the most advanced of critics." Chapter V. Map of Palestine*— History of Israel— Jesus Christ— History of tlie Church. Origin of the Bible (the Books). The Bible consists of two parts: the Old Testament, ■written in Hebrew, and the New Testament, written in Greek. Many old Bibles contain a third part, called the Apocrypha. In the Chronological Table, Chapter II, the approximate periods at which the various books of the Bible were written is given. The books of the Old Testa- ment were gathered together in Greek by Jewish scholars, in the third century B. C, at Alexandria. This compila- tion is the Sepluagint. After the formation of the Catholic Church it was not * We are permitted by the Pilgrim Press of Boston to use the map in their Sunday school lesson books. It is accurate. The data regarding Palestine, distances, etc., are largely taken from Baedeker. Galilee, Samaria, and Judaea together have an area of about 6,000 square miles— nearly two thirds that of the State of Vermont. Jerusalem is about 32 miles east of the Mediterranean and 14 miles west of the Dead Sea. It is situated among the mountains, being about 2,B00 feet above the Mediterranean and 3,700 feet above the Dead Sea. The railroad between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean is 54 miles long, and the running time about 3J hours. Jerusalem is about 125 miles northeast of Egypt, 5 miles north of Bethlehem, and 15 miles southwest of Jericho. Its mean annual temperature is 63 degrees. Snow and frost are not uncommon in winter. The Jordan Kiver flows 137 miles from north to south, and empties into the Dead Sea, descending 3,000 feet in this distance. The Dead Sea, lying more than 1,200 feet below the Mediterranean, has, of course, no outlet. It Is 47 miles long, 10 miles wide, and 1,300 feet deep. It is surrounded by high and rugged mountains 2,000 to 3,000 feet in height. The Sea of Galilee (also called Sea of Tiberias and Lake Gennesaret) is 13 miles long and 8 miles wide. Its surface is about 700 feet below the Mediter- ranean. Nazareth is about 26 miles east from the Mediterranean Sea, and 65 miles north of Jerusalem. 38 About the Bible. 39 long before it felt the want of a list of apostolic or sacred writings, officially drawn up and established, to be placed side by side with the Old Testament as a rule of faith or canon. With regard to twenty of the books, agreement was soon reached, but as to the rest great diversity of opinion long prevailed. It was not till the fourth and fifth cen- turies that the matter was finally decided. The new writ- ings were called the New Testament, and all the books together. The Bible. It was decided by vote which books should be the word of God and which should not. Some were rejected, but those books which had a majority of votes were voted to be the word of God. About 405 A. D. Jerome completed his Latin version of the Old and New Testaments (the basis of the Vulgate). The first complete translation of the Bible into English was that of Wickliffe about 1383. In 1488 the first Bible was printed. It was in Hebrew. In 1611 appeared the King James Version, and in 1885 the Eevised Version. For more than twenty-two years there has been in the Chicago Public Library a book entitled "The Bible foe Leaenees." The following letter was the first intimation the compiler ever had of its existence, and was the direct cause of this compilation: Letter of Andrew D. White to Charles L. Hammond. "Embassy oe the United States of Ameeica, Berlin, September 18th, 1899. "Mt dear Sir : Your letter of September 4th and its in- closure greatly interested me. I have no doubt that the mistaken policy to which you refer is the cause of the diminution in the membership of Sunday schools. I no- tice in a recent paper some very striking figures showing 40 About the Bible. the steady and large decline in the numbers of Presbyte- rians in the United States. From the point of view of a citizen I sincerely regret this, for the sturdy qualities of Presbyterians and their sobriety of judgment generally have been an excellent force in the midst of varied political and social as well as religious questions. But this result is not at all to be wondered at, and I feel that it is attributa- ble to the very cause to which you refer. More and more our people are quietly getting a knowledge of the truth regarding our sacred books. More and more they are turning away from those who, instead of feeding them with the precious substance of our bible, give them the mere husks and rinds which in their hearts they know to be valueless. "Why not yourself prepare a lesson book from the Ee- vised Version, dwelling on the really and indisputably great and true things in our Scriptures. It would be an immense service if properly done. "I wonder if you have ever seen a book published by three of the most eminent and reverent scriptural critics of modern times, entitled 'The Bible for Learners.' "Some years ago a Western lady, evidently of very noble character, wrote me that she was anxious to bring up her children as earnest Christians and readers of the bible, but that she could not conscientiously put into their hands any of the books on biblical teaching to which she had access, and asked me what she could do. I recommended this book to her; she got it, used it with her children, and wrote me in most grateful terms saying that both for her and for them it had proved a great success. "I am not sure that it has been published in America; the copy I had was English." . . . "The Bible foe Learners" consists of nearly two thousand pages, and is bound in three volumes. The authors are Dr. H. Oort, Professor of He- SJjid- Note.— Dr. H. Oort, Dutcli tlieologian. bora 1836; admitted at Leiden 1854; Doctor of Theology, 18U0; meiiiljer o£ tlae Netherlands Reformed Chnrcli; Pro- les.sor of Eastern Languages, Literature, and Philosophv at Amsterdam until 1875; Professor of Hebrew (i. e., the institutions of the people of Israel in the Old Testament) at Leiden ; author of several treatises, all connected with the study of the Jews, amongst them "The Worship of Baalim in Israel," which was translated into English hv the Kight Key. T. W, Colenso, Bishop of Natal. His hook, "The Bil)Ie for Young Persons," is called in its American edition "The BiWe for Learners." About the Bible. 41 brew Antiquities at Leiden,* Holland, and Dr.I.Hooykaas, pastor at Eotterdam, with the assistance of Dr. A. Kuenen, Professor of Theology at Leiden. The American edition is published by Roberts Brothers, and Little, Brown & Co., of Boston. The copyright is owned by Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., by whose permission these extracts are given. "The Bible for Learners" treats the Bible from Genesis to the end of Eevelation with the utmost care and Chris- tian reverence, and with a painstaking minuteness of which only Dutch scholars are capable. If you are shocked by some of my references, as you certainly will be, get a copy of this book and read the matter in greater detail than my space allows. The Bible, unhke modern historical writings, contains no specific dates, no maps, no accurate measures of time or distances. The authors of " The Bible for Learners " say, in their introduction : "Every impartial judge must allow that no other sacred Book can bear comparison with the Bible, or approaches it, in beauty, truth, and value. "The Bible is of inestimable value; for instance, for our knowledge of antiquity; some parts of it have seldom been equaled as works of art, but above all the Bible is the book of religion. "We cannot assert that every part of the Bible gives us a pure reflection of God's being and God's will. "Time after time the writers of the books of the Bible go astray. "It is upon Jesus Christ that the whole Bible turns. In this lies the value not only of the New Testament, a great part of which refers to him directly, but of the Old Tes- tament as well. "In the eyes of the writers of the Bible everything was * The University of Leiden was founded ahout 1574 in the darkest period of the struggle hetween the Dutch and Philip II of Spain. 42 About the Bible. subordinate to their object, the conveyance of religious truth, so that they often sacrificed what we consider very important interests to it — historical truth, for example. As a rule, they concerned themselves very little with the question whether what they narrated really happened so or not. "If a narrative was edifying, then they called it true. Thus a legend might serve their purpose just as well as the true account of something that really happened. This is why the Old and New Testaments are so full of legends. "The accounts of the fortunes of the patriarchs teach us very httle about a hoary prehistoric age; those of the birth and childhood of Jesus hardly anything about the first years of his life." HiSTOEY OF Israel. "Practically the earliest facts we have concerning the Jews is that about 1330 B. C. they were shepherd tribes in Egypt, that they revolted from the slavery to which they were subjected, and emigrated with their flocks into the peninsula of Sinai, under the leadership of Moses. "Such a thing as national unity among these people was not thought of. "Moses was the 'soul of the movement,' and laid the foundations for the Jews' future greatness. This he did principally by introducing the worship of Yahweh as Is- rael's god, and giving out a fundamental code of laws. This was the 'Ten Commandments,' and at first they were probably something like this:. "1. I, Yahweh, am your god. Worship no other gods besides me. "2. Make no image of a god. "3. Commit no perjury. "4. Eemember to keep holy the Sabbath day. "5. Honor your father and your mother. "6. Commit no murder. MEDITERRANEAN EGYPT. ARABIA PETRAE CANAAN SCALE OF niLES- NoTB.— The peninsula oi Sinai, which is often confounded by Sunday school teachers with the peninsula of Arabia, is perhaps as large as the State of Massachusetts. A distance equal to that from the land of Goshen to Mount Suiai is traversed daily by our last mail trains in an alternoou, and the distance between Sinai and Palestine in a little greater time. The Eed Sea proper is a large body of water, 1,450 miles long, 200 miles wide, and 3,000 feet deep. The tradition is that the Israelites crossed near the modern town of Suez. (See map.) About the Bible. '43 "t. Break not the marriage vow. "8. Steal not. "9. Bear no false witness. "10. Covet not. "What else he did for his people we do not know. The principal sacred object possessed by the Jews was a mov- able ark near or in which Yahweh was supposed to live. "For half a century or more these Hebrew tribes led the life of wandering shepherds in the Arabian desert. At the end of this period, assisted by other tribes, they made themselves masters of the district east of the Jor- dan, and gradually pushed into Canaan under the leader- ship of Joshua, of the tribe of Ephraim. "During the first two centuries of the Israelites* in Ca- naan their history presents a scene of great confusion." "The chiefs of the various clans bore the name of Judges, or supreme chiefs. The shepherd tribes gradually became a nation cultivating the soil and finally governed by a king. Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, was the first king. They were sadly polluted by intercourse with the Canaanites, who were nearly related to them and spoke the same language, but in general the worship of Yahweh, according to Mosaic principles, triumphed. The chief sanctuary of the country, Shiloh, was consecrated to him. Although Yahweh was always the chief god, all kinds of Baals f were worshiped by his side. There was no definite priesthood. "While Saul's reign was short, it was not inglorious, but he had a quarrel with one Samuel, a great prophet, and this impaired his power so greatly he was no longer equal to the Philistines. * They did not gain complete possession of the country, and no better Idea of how they were situated can he obtained than by consulting the map of " The Seats of the Twelve Tribes in Palestine in the Eleventh Century " to be found in the Polychrome edition of the Bible. tBaal, the name of a solar deity worshiped with much licentiousness and sensuality. 44 About the Bible. "In 1058 B. C. David iDeeame king over the tribe of Judah, and a little later over all the tribes. He conquered Jebus, renamed it Jerusalem, removed the ark there, and made it his capital. "Regarding Yahweh and as to how he ought to be wor- shiped, his ideas were very crude and imperfect. Some- times he invoked Baals and made frightful offerings. He was something of a musician and poet, and cultivated both music and poetry. Many persons suppose he wrote most of the Psalms, but that is a great mistake. "David left Israel, a powerful kingdom, to Solomon, his second son by his wife Bathsheba, former wife of the murdered Uriah. "Solomon's reign was very brilliant. He had a daz- zling court, built costly palaces, and a magnificent temple to Yahweh and other temples to other gods. He engaged in commerce, and is said to have had near a thousand wives* and concubines !" "Solomon's reign seems, however, to have brought little happiness to his people. Taxation was high, and soon after his death his kingdom was divided into two king- doms, Israel and Judah. He undoubtedly got his great reputation from the fact of his having built the magnifi- cent temple to Yahweh, even though he built other sanc- tuaries to 'Ashtoreth, Milcom, and Chemosh, the gods of the Sidonians, the Ammonites, and the Moabites respect- ively.' "There was no image in Solomon's temple, but after his death the Israelites worshiped god in the form of a steer. "In the eighth century lived Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. "They taught that Yahweh was the Lord of hosts, in- accessible and holy, whose kingdom both in Nature and in *When the compiler was a child he was taught in the Sunday school by his teacher and from his lesson book that Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived. (7) >,-&¥^:x. t;^- i^szs? ^I'^n- i: t ^.r+ -;^ ^s"-- gist's. t^~ 5 wi'^S- SS s " 5 o ^.- i'"" - S -"c-= '^. C":? y rp " d:'-^ - -^ O M ^-^.?;a E: '^ ^ -T a; '-^ 5 =: — "^ Si ''^ — ■ ~ :^.^H=^^o j-"H' ^ a :: ;::^ =:--■<; — • 1 :« About the Bible. 45 the mind of man was ruled by his Spirit, and that he re- warded every man righteously and according to his works. "But these prophets and their followers were a very small minority. "Under King Ahaz, B. C. 741, there was hliilt near Jerusalem a Tophet for the use of persons wishing to sac- rifice to Molech. "The worship of Molech consisted in offering human sacrifices, generally children. The victims were lifted up into an opening in the breast of the brass statue and rolled into the red-hot furnace. "Hezekiah, king of Juda, B. C. 725, was the first king to follow what may be termed the Mosaic school, and to try and root out all worship of strange gods.* "About 626 B. C. occurred the reformation under King Josiah, which was the turning point in Israel's history. "In 586 B. C. Ifebuchadrezzar laid waste Jerusalem, and the Temple and carried off into captivity the cream of the population. "While they were in this captivity a Judcean whose writ- ings we have in Judges, Samuel, and Kings wrote up the whole story of Israel as we have it in the Bible. "During the century that followed the permission to return from Babylon the laws were written out relating to the distinction between clean and unclean, the different kinds of sacrifice, the celebration of the Sabbath and other feasts, etc., etc., and when Ezra went to Jerusalem, 458 B. C, he put them into operation. "The Law's supremacy dates from this time. Some of it was of heathen origin. "The decisive influence of the scribes does not go back of this period. "About half a century before the fall of Jerusalem, in * But, says the Christian re ader, all this hy no means agrees with the Bible. In reply, kindly turn to the Chronological Tahle, Chapter II, or to any recent encyclopedia, and see when the hooks of the Bible were written. 4 46 About the Bible. the former territory of the ten tribes, there rose a man in whom the spirit of the greatest prophets and the de- voutest psahnists lived again, in whom all that had been true and beautiful in the religion of Israel was restored and purified. Jesus of ITazareth wakened a new life. Though he sprang from Israel, his creation in the spirit- ual world belongs not to the history of the Israelite re- ligion, but forms the material for a new one."* "Jesus Chbist was born and bred in Nazareth, a secluded mountain vil- lage in Galilee. "His parents were called Joseph and Mary, and belonged to the humbler class of citizens. They had a large family. Little is known of the youth of Jesus. "We are not certain how old Jesus was when he entered upon his public life, but we know the occasion of it. His public career was very brief. "In the wilderness of Judah, not far from the Jordan Eiver, a prophet by the name of John had risen. The fame of John found its way to Nazareth, and Jesus went to hear him, was baptized by him, and remained some time with him. "John's career came to a sudden close. Was there no one to continue his work? Yes, its violent interrup- tion was the signal for Jesus to come forward. His char- acter was widely different from John's. He took up his task in quite a different spirit from that of John, and cherished a far more exalted and spiritual conception of the Messianic kingdom. He did not withdraw into the desert, but returned to Galilee, mingled in the busy life of the * The population of the world Is stated by Mulhall to be estimated in 1886 at about 1,500,000,000 people: 822,000,000 were In Asia, 347,000,000 in Europe, 197,000,000 in Africa, 112,000,000 in America, and 5,000,000 in Australasia. One fourth of this population justly honor Jesus to-day as the greatest of all who have ever lived on earth, and that quarter is immeasurably superior to the other three fourths. About the Bible. 47 people, and preached when and where he could find the opportunity. He established himself at Capernaum, a busy place by Lake Galilee, on the great commercial road to Syria. He went through the different towns of Galilee, preaching of the kingdom of God. Many disciples, some of them women, gathered around him, and wherever he went the people thronged to hear him. He chose twelve of his followers as his constant companions. The term of his preaching is usually estimated as three years. Oth- ers think it lasted only a httle more than a year (A. D. 34-35). However long or short, he was unwearied in his labors. Outward ceremonies, precepts about the Sabbath, Levitical 'cleanness,' prohibitions of certain kinds of food, etc., had little value in his eye. The moral requirements of the Law he placed in the foreground, at the same time extending their application. "Irreproachable conduct was not enough for him; he required purity in the very dispositions of the heart, bound- less love, mercy, humility, gentleness. He spoke of God as the 'Father in heaven,' whose love embraces all and who desires that all should be saved. "He accomplished his memorable Journey to Jerusalem by easy stages. "Under cover of darkness he was seized and was tried and condemned as a blasphemer or heretic. He was cru- cified outside the city walls. "The execution of Jesus was a crushing blow to his disciples. The authorities left them for the most part un- molested. They made no disturbance, and, what was more, they remained absolutely true to the Jewish ideas of religious life. "A young Pharisee by the name of Paul distinguished himself by his zeal in the persecution of the followers of Jesus. But before long a mighty change was wrought in the soul of this man. "Soon after, at Antioeh, the capital of Syria, Jesus was preached to the Greeks there; that is, to the heathen. •48 About the Bible. "Such a thing had never heen dreamed of hitherto by the followers of Jesus, for they believed that the Messiah and his kingdom belonged exclusively and entirely to the Jews. "A division into two schools arose among the disciples of Jesus. "The acknowledged leaders of one school were the apos- tles, especially Peter and John; and even their influence was overshadowed by James, the brother of Jesus, who was not one of the twelve. It was distinguished by unshaken fidelity to the Mosaic Law, believed the Messianic king- dom was for Israel alone and that all heathen who did not pass over to the Jewish religion would be excluded from the kingdom as 'unclean.' Its headquarters were at Jeru- salem. "The other school, whose pioneer was Stephen, held that the external rites of Judaism were no longer binding, and that the heathen who turned from their mythological fancies to faith in the one true God and in Jesus were as well entitled to salvation as the Jews. Faith was the one thing needful. "We will call the first party Jewish-Christian and the second Heathen-Christian, and the two parties were soon at bitter enmity. "Paul was a great man — ^perhaps the greatest of all men except Jesus. "In time the attitude of the two parties was necessarily changed. "It gradually became impossible to maintain such de- mands as circumcision and other regulations of the Mo- saic Law. The devastation of the very center of Jewish worship (Jerusalem) in A. D. 70 put an end to the sac- rificial service, and many of the points of dispute between the two schools lost all practical interest. "As is generally the case, a middle party arose, and the struggle of the Apostolic age ended in union under the Universal (Catholic) Church. About the Bible. 49 "A legend without the smallest historical foundation is related to the effect that Peter was bishop at Eome for a quarter of a century, and he is said to have been the first Pope. "The authority of the apostles offered a basis for the regulation of Church government. Most interesting con- tributions to our knowledge of this subject are furnished by the three so-called 'Pastoral Epistles' drawn up in the name of Paul. The Eoman Catholic Church. Matthew, 16th chapter, 17th to 20th verses. "These words, to which the Boman Catholic Church appeals in support of the supremacy of the Pope as Peter's successor, are certainly not genuine. Jesus did not rank Simon above the rest of the apostles, nor did he give him the name of Peter; and he never could or would have as- scribed to any of his followers the power excluding anyone from the kingdom of God, or of giving out laws and or- dinances. The Jewish-Christian party put these words into the mouth of Jesus to glorify their special Apostle." Pagan DocteineS;, Eites^ and Forms. Says Eev. E. E. Hall : "Soon after the so-called conversion of Constantine (about 313 A. D.) the Church entered on its apostasy from the primitive simplicity and purity which marked its ear- lier history. Pagans in vast numbers passed into the Chris- tian fold, bringing with them old practices and customs, and filling the places of Christian worship with the pag- eantry and the ornaments which characterized the worship of the gods in heathen temples. These unconverted mil- lions became only nominally Christian, impressing their character, together with the doctrines, rites, and forms of pagan religion, upon the Christian Church." 50 About the Bible. Pagan Customs Baptized. Says Lewis, "Paganism Surviving in Christianity :" "The ministers of various names in the Catholic Church imitated the profane model which they should have heen impatient to destroy. So the religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman Empire; but the victors themselves were insen- sibly subdued by the acts of their vanquished rivals. The customs of Pagan religion were only baptized with Chris- tian names." The Eoman Catholic Church, the Greek Church, Protestantism. Says Samuel Macauley Jackson : "The first direct challenge to the claim of the Eoman Catholic Church 'to act and speak with supreme author- ity was made by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Acacius, and the Greek Church separated from Eome, A. D. 1054. The total number of CathoHes of all nations to-day is claimed to be 185,000,000. "The Greek Church includes three separate branches: the Church within the Ottoman Empire, the Church in Greece, and the Eusso-Greek Church in Eussia. "Protestantism began A. D. 1539. As the word is used to-day, it has the meaning of opposition to the Eoman and Greek Churches. Protestants oppose the Eoman Church doctrinally because: "First. It raises tradition to the level of Scripture as a source of doctrine; "Second. It denies justification by faith alone; "Third. It makes the Pope the spiritual ruler of the en- tire Christian Church. "The first and second counts hold against the Greek Church, but there is more friendly feeling on the part of Protestants toward it than toward the Eoman Church." Chapter VI. The Old Testament Genesis, 1st and 3d chapters. "Genesis* is made up of portions of at least three works. Of the origin and the eariiest history of the Israelites we know little. Their history begins with Moses." "In the first two chapters of Genesis we have two Israel- ite representations of the creation. For a long time this statement in the first chapter of Genesis was regarded as a true history of the creation, but when students of astron- omy and geology had given an entirely different history of the earth the old opinion could not be retained without violence to common sense. "As a scientific product the narrative has no value. A moderately good schoolboy in our day can easily point out the writer's mistakes. "That the earth is a ball, which is always turning upon its axis, and at the same time pursuing its rapid course around the sun; that the whole earth, which seems so great to us, is no more in comparison with the universe than a single grain of sand on a sea beach miles in length — all this was unknown to the Israelites. "For them the earth was a disk, washed round by the ocean, over which the firmament rose like a giant cupola, while sun, moon, and stars moved on the inner surface of this vault. "That God rested from his work on the seventh day is an unworthy representation, for God is always working. * The reader will bear in mind that these extracts are from a book written by a Professor of Oriental Languages and the pastor of a Christian Church, with the assistance of a Professor of Theology, 5X 52 About the Bible. What did the writer mean when he said man was made after God's image. Did he think of man as like God in soul or in body ? It admits of no doubt that he meant in soul and body both." "Genesis was put together from works of very different dates — works, too, whose authors by no means all stood upon the same religious level. The second chapter when compared with the first illustrates this. In this account the earth is at first a dry plain, in the other the world was a chaos covered with water. In the first account God first creates the plants, then the animals, and finally man. Here the plants do not grow until after man is made, man is made before the animals, while the creation of woman closes the series. "In the first account grain and herbs are given to man as food from the moment of his creation. In the second account he only eats fruits at first, and the use of grain for food is treated as a consequence of his sin. "The second narrative is far more varied in coloring, and therefore more lively, than the first, which excels it in lofty simplicity." Paradise Lost. Genesis, 2d and 3d chapters. "If there is one Bible story more than another that has been dismembered and .distorted by commentators it is this story of paradise. Treading in the steps of the Apostle Paul, but going much further, the teachers of the Chris- tian Church have run up a whole block of doctrinal ed- ifices on the basis of this story. They have taken it as history, and have supposed it to state that Adam and his wife were created in absolute holiness, that they were per- fect in body, healthy and free from pain and violent pas- sions; that their souls in like manner were endowed with perfect knowledge of God, with the power of loving him and with immortality." About the Bible. 53 "They allowed themselves (and it was supposed that this was written in the ancient document) to be tempted by the Devil, and so all lands of disasters fell to their lot, among others death, and inability to know or to serve God. "This corruption passed down to all their descendants, who are therefore born guilty before God. "This is called original sin. "Not a word of all this is to be found in our story. A serpent does appear in it, but not a devil. So far from death being the consequence of their sin, Yahweh dreads even after their trespass that they might lay hand upon -the tree of life. They were not immortal before their sin, and did not become so after it. "This story is an attempt of the writer to explain the conditions under which he saw mankind existing. "We do not expect one who represents his god as walk- ing in a garden and clothing man in a garment made from the hides of beasts to think of him as the only god, and indeed our writer does not think of him so. "But we notice other things in this story besides the fact that the writer thinks of his Yahweh under a human form and only as one of the gods. "The serpent when speaking to the woman tells nothing but the truth. "Yahweh had deceived the man and the woman when he threatened them with death if they ate of the tree of knowledge." The Pateiaechs beeoee the Flood. Genesis, 5th chapter. "Adam was nine hundred and thirty years old when he died. All the men before the flood, usually called patri- archs, are represented as reaching a great age. Methuselah was nine hundred and sixty-nine. " 'The Book of Origins,' of which this story is part, was written after the Babylonian captivity by a priest." 54 About the Bible. "The Bible cannot really teach us the age of the world or of mankind, and people who are determined to make it do so only get laughed at for being so prejudiced as to rely on such erroneous statements. "Geology and astronomy teach us that the universe must at any rate be hundreds of millions of years old, and that even our earth counts its centuries by the thousand." The Flood.. Genesis, 6th and 7th chapters. "Amongst almost all ancient peoples we find a tradition of a great flood. In the legends of which we have so far spoken we have the work of two writers, one of whom speaks of the Supreme Being under the name of God, and the second uses the name Yahweh. "If one supposed that all the stories in the Bible were true we should iind great diiHculties in the ark, in which all animals, quadrupeds, reptiles, and birds were kept alive for about a year. But how can we believe that Noah col- lected all these animals and the food they would require in seven days? He was only warned one week beforehand. "One writer says Noah was to take one pair of every kind of animals into the ark, while the other says one pair of the unclean animals and seven pairs of the clean animals. The latter writer can say that after his deliverance Noah made a sacrifice of all kinds of clean animals to Yahweh, while if the first writer had said so all the stock of cattle and edible birds would have been destroyed." God's CovEisrAiirT with Noah. Genesis, 9th chapter, first seventeen verses. "God promised never to send a flood again, and as a token of this covenant he made the rainbow, to remind him of his promise, whenever it rained. What childlike ideas of God people had in ancient times, as if the memory of About the Bible. 55 the deity need to be refreshed in this way," and that the rainbow is not a product of natural laws. "After this story comes that of Noah's drunkenness and his cursing Canaan. It is from the hand of the same writ- er, who always speaks of God as Yahweh." The Tower of Babel. Genesis, 11th chapter, first nine verses. "On the west bank of the Euphrates, a little south of Babylon proper, the traveler may still see a mighty ruin. It is the basis, two hundred and eighty feet in height, of a colossal building, all that remains of the Temple of Bel. Its height far exceeded that of the great Egyptian pyra- mids. It was the basis of the story." A WoED about the Pateiaechs in Geneeal. Genesis, 12th chapter to end of book. "The rest of Genesis is about Abram, Isaac, and Jacob and his family. Have we now the firm ground of reality beneath our feet, or are we still in the realm of legend? It needs no proof that stories in which a deity goes about with men, holds conversations with them, and even eats in their tents, do not give us accurate accounts of real events. But did not Abram, Isaac, and Jacob and the rest really live ? When we examine the stories closely and com- pare them with each other we find this is not the case. That is to say, they do not signify men so much as groups of nations or single tribes."* "How striking is the story of Jacob's love of Benjamin, his youngest son, and, after Joseph's disappearance, the only child of his beloved Eachel that was left to him! How touching his unwillingness to let his darling go to * Man; readers wiU no doubt consider this a most extraordinary statement. Space does not admit my enlarging upon it, but read " Tbe Bible for Learners ' ' for yourselves. 66 About the Bible. Egypt with his brethren ! And how it surprises us, there- fore, to discover that this Benjamin was already the fa- ther of ten sons! (Genesis, 46th chapter, 21st verse.) This shows that tlie writer is telling us the fortunes of tribes under the form of a family history." Abeam the Believer. Genesis, 12th, 18th, 19th, and 21st chapters. "When Abram came to Egypt his faith grew weak, and he was afraid. He was a stranger, and his wife, Sarai, who was very beautiful, was with him. 'Suppose,' thought Abram, 'the Egyptians cast their eyes upon her, they are sure to kill me and make her marry one of them.' So he told his wife to say she was his sister. It fell out Just as he expected. The king himself had her brought to him to become one of his wives, and presented Abram (supposing him her brother) with a great number of sheep, cattle, asses, etc., etc., so that he became very rich. "The writer does not seem to have seen anything wrong in Abram's conduct. This shows he had no very exalted idea of integrity." "What an extraordinary idea of his god this writer had ! A god for whom nothing is too wonderful, who sees the future, and knows all that is in the heart of man, and who acts as the judge of all the earth; but, on the other hand, this same god is also represented as not only con- versing confidentially with Abraham, but even as eating and drinking with his angels, in the patriarch's tent. "At the age of ninety Sarah becomes the mother of Isaac. Hagar is driven out into the desert with her son. The writer makes Sarah imperious, past bearing, and cruel to her slave in the extreme, and Abraham shamefully weak: for who would drive out a woman and her child, helpless and unattended, into the desert?" About the Bible. 57 Abraham is Tempted to Offer Isaac. Genesis, 22d chapter, first nineteen verses. "The remembrance of this event is still preserved in the name of the mountain, 'Yahweh will appear.' This moun- tain was the site of the great temple in Jerusalem. "The most various nations of antiquity practised the horrible rite of sacrificing human beings, and especially children, in honor of the deities. It is undeniable this was the case with Israel." The Purchase of the Cave of Machpelah. Genesis, 23d chapter. "We can think of one reason for the writer laying so much stress on this purchase, viz., that he looked upon it as establishing the right of the Israelites to conquer Ca- naan." Jacob Obtains the Birthright and his Father's Blessing. Genesis, 25th and 27th chapters. "The story means to say that Jacob came into posses- sion of the power and consideration that Yahweh had des- tined for Esau. "Isaac perfectly understands that Jacob came with de- ceit and stole the blessing, but in spite of this the blessing does not lose its power. "If Yahweh desired to make Jacob chief of the brothers, could he not have done so in spite of Esau's being the elder, and of Isaac having blessed him ? Must Jacob deceive his brother twice in order that his god might be able to bless him ? Had the words of a man such a powerful influence over Yahweh ?" "Esau is rough but straightforward and, though not our ideal, more attractive than Jacob." 68 About the Bible. Jacob's Dream. Genesis, 28th chapter. "Few forms of worship were so universal in ancient times as the homage paid to sacred stones. The savage looks upon certain unhewn stones as deities, and worships them aceordinglj''. It is very difficult to make out what his ideas are, or to understand what goes on in his mind, because there is not much that does go on there. He re- flects but little, or not at all. We look for too much depth in him. "Now, among sacred objects worshiped by savages un- hewn stones occupy a prominent place, and even among more highly civilized peoples. "One of the most celebrated of all sacred stones is the 'Black Stone' in the Caaba at Mecca, formerly the com- mon sanctuary of the Arab tribes, and afterwards, down to the present day, the temple of Islam. "Among the ancient Israelites the worship of stones was very general. Bethel was one of the places at v/hieh there was a sacred stone. This city was of the greatest import- ance in the religion of Israel, especially after the division of the kingdom. There Jeroboam raised one of his golden oxen. The pilgrims who came to Bethel were much given to the worship of this stone. Now the priests and proph- ets of Yahweh were bent upon rooting out these forms of worship. The story of Jacoi's dream tvas told to make this stone harmless. "Let us be careful in thinking over this story not to water down its contents by ascribing modern notions to Jacob or the writer of Genesis. To the question, 'Where is God?' we have been accustomed from childhood to hear the answer, 'Everywhere,' so that it is difScult for us, really, to enter into the thoughts of men who had no idea of such an answer, but believed that their god was only present in certaiii places." About the Bible. 59 Jacob and Laban. Genesis, 39th to 32d chapters. "Two reasons for the departure of Jacob to Haran are given in Genesis; they difEer widely, and the writer of each is evidently a difEerent person. "In this account Isaac thinks just as Eebekah does about Esau. Here Jacob is the obedient son. One account treats him "as a crafty man, another simply sketches him as blessed of his god, whose help he can never celebrate enough. "In one story he is a most repulsive figure. He cheats his father-in-law, who certainly is just as bad as he is, however. A depth of immorality is opened before us that makes us shudder." Jacob's Eetuen to the Fatherland. Genesis, 32d, 33d, and 35th chapters. "The point that excites our attention most is of Jacob wrestling with God. There is something so extraordinary, and even so shocking, alike to head and heart, in the repre- sentation of a man wrestling bodily with God, that we can hardly imagine how thoughtful and religious men could ever have related such a story. Yet this is clearly what is meant. So, too, the legend is understood by Hosea. It was no symbolic wrestling. When it was over Jacob limped in consequence of the dislocation of his hip, and that is why the Israelites never eat the hip sinew of any animal. How in the world did people get hold of. such ideas ? To find a proper answer to this question, we must remember, in the first place, that we now are in the region of polytheism (belief in many gods) . The belief that there is only one God is entirely wanting in the old Israelite legends." 60 About the Bible. Joseph the Pavoeed oe Yahweh. Genesis, 37th to 42d chapters. "If we read the story straight through it runs pretty smoothly, and we should hardly guess that, like most of the legends of the patriarchs, it is put together from two accounts. So it is, however. "In one account Joseph tells the chief butler in prison that he was stolen from the land of Canaan, which is here described, somewhat prematurely, as the land of the He- brews. The whole story hinges upon dreams. Joseph dreams; the butler and the baker dream; and Pharaoh dreams. At the time when the stories about Joseph were written, no doubts had yet arisen as to the divine origin of dreams." Joseph the Loed oe his Beotheks. Genesis, 43d to 46th chapters. "Think for a moment on these points : The famine was foretold seven years before it began, and during the whole interval the king did everything that could be done to lighten the misery that was to come. Again, Jacob sends ten of his sons, each with his own ass, to buy corn. Why did he not send one son at the head of a caravan? The viceroy sold the corn in person. Finally, the representa- tion of Benjamin as a boy hardly agrees with another piece of information, according to which he was at this very time the father of ten sons." The Youth oe Moses. Exodus, 1st and 2d chapters. "At the head of Israel's history stands the mighty fig- ure of Moses. He lived in times when his people were as yet in a state of barbarism, and for many centuries after- wards no historian appeared amongst them; so it is not surprising we know but little of his life. About the Bible. 61 "It is an .undoubted fact that the ancestors of the Is- raelites were oppressed by the Egyptians. "When we examine the story of the youth of Moses close- ly we very soon see that it is a legend." Moses in Midian. Exodus, 3d and 4th chapters. "Yahweh commands Moses to ask Pharaoh's leave for the Hebrews to go three days' journey into the desert, to do honor to their god, while his real intention is to take them away from Egypt for good. Every Hebrew woman is to ask her neighbors to lend her gold, silver, and apparel, and Yahweh is to incline the Egyptians to treat the re- quest favorably. Actions for which we have no names ex- cept lying and stealing are here attributed to Yahweh. "A long conversation between Yahweh and Moses seems strange to us. It need hardly ie said that in ancient times such conversations never tooh place any more than they do now." Yahweh Compels Phaeaoh to Let Israel Go. Exodus, 4th to 13th chapters. "Two narratives again. The first story makes no effort to represent Moses more noble or true to his word than the impious Pharaoh. "In the second story Moses plays his game above board from the first, and from the first demands the complete liberation of his people. Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's heart. Eeally in a moral sense the Yahweh of one writer is no more holy than of the other. "The disasters with which Egypt is afflicted are colored so highly as to betray the writer into occasional contra- dictions. For example, he makes all the cattle of the Egyptians die of the murrain, but they reappear to be killed by the hail ; and when the last plague comes Yahweh slays the firstborn of the beasts, as well as of man. 63 About the Bible. "These Egyptian sorcerers, according to the story, were really able to turn sticks into serpents, water into blood, and to produce frogs." The Night op Deliverance. Exodus, 13th and 13th chapters. " 'This night shall Yahweh put to death all the firstborn in Egj'pt.' The king's eldest son suddenly died in the pal- ace, and in eYery home rose the wail for an eldest son or daughter, and at every stall the sheep or ox that was its mother's firstling fell dead. Try and picture the scene: Moses and Aaron summoned to the palace, the command given them to depart, the emigration of a whole people — all in one single night. Such quick movements are incon- ceivable; yet we cannot allow them longer, for this rapid- ity is given as the reason why all the Israelites had to eat bread that had not risen, the next day. "Eegarding the passover, we notice how badly this story agrees with the other, for there, instead of leaving Egypt in such haste that they could not let their bread rise, they are informed four days beforehand of the night on which they are to depart." The Exodus. Exodus, 13th to 16th chapters. "The so-called Eed Sea, or Sea of Eushes, is now con- nected by the Suez Canal with the Mediterranean. It is remarkable for a violent ebb and fiow of the tide, but the story cannot be made credible as it now stands, for the water is said to have stood up like a wall to the right and left of the Israelites. "In 1812 when Napoleon crossed the river Memen it took his army of two hundred and thirty thousand men three days and nights on three bridges in close file. If we remember that the Israelites are supposed to have num- bered three millions, there being six hundred thousand About the Bible. 63 men alone, the impossibility of the story is evident, for they are said to have crossed in a single night. "How strong the Israelites really were we cannot tell. Probably sixty thousand instead of six hundred thousand would be over rather than below the mark. "The Israelites worshiped a number of gods, but they did not all pay homage to the same. On the contrary, every tribe, every clan, every family, had its own god, or gods. One worshiped stones, another an animal; one the heavenly bodies, another a tree or mountain. It is certain that Moses came forward as the envoy of Yahweh. He was not the only god of the Israelites — for he had to share the honors of worship with others for centuries afterwards — but he was the special national god." Feom the Eed Sea to Mount Hoeeb. Exodus, 15th to 18th chapters. "The parts that speak of hallowing the Sabbath and the preservation of a pot of manna are of much more re- cent date than the rest. Manna is a substance well known in southern Europe and Asia; it may sometimes be use- ful as a medicine, but as a chief article of food would be most injurious." The Poett Yeaes' Wandering. Deuteronomy, 1st chapter, 1st verse; 2d chapter, 1st verse. "The book of Exodus is largely taken up with the de- scription of the tabernacle, that is, the tent. It never ex- isted, however, except in the imagination of the writer of the 'Book of Origins,' who gives us a detailed account of its shape and measurements, as well as of its material. "The Israelites never wrote history simply to preserve the memory of the past, but all their narratives had some special object — edifying, religious, or political. It is our task to endeavor to recover what actually took place, in 64 About the Bible. the full conviction that in the long run the truth will glorify God better than the most beautifully colored fic- tion." "What an extraordinary and impossible representation both of Yahweh and the people the Pentateuch gives us ! "On account of a fit of despondency which comes over the Israelites, Yahweh changes his plan. He had intended to bring them into Canaan, but they must die in the desert. So Israel wandered backwards and forwards along the mountains of Bdom for thirty-eight years. Is such a thing conceivable ?" The Work of Moses. Deuteronomy, 5th chapter; Exodus, 20th chapter; Num-. bers, 10th chapter. "It is due to Moses, in the first instance, that the unciv- ilized hordes that wandered through the Arabian deserts in the thirteenth century before Christ and afterward con- quered Canaan finally produced such noble results, but we must not be misled by the Jewish tradition which as- cribes to his hand the whole of the priestly legislation con- tained in the Pentateuch. It would be nearer the truth to call it the work of Ezra. "The worship of Yahweh, with the Ten Command- ments as its fundamental code, is the chief legacy which Moses left his people. Probably the celebration of the Sabbath existed before the time of Moses. Moses taught that the best way to honor their god was by leading a moral life." The Death op Moses. Deuteronomy, 3d and 34th chapters; Numbers, 30th chapter. "The time and death of Moses were as little known to posterity as the place of his grave. This is not surprising, for when his people had so far emerged from their barbar- About the Bible. 65 ous condition as to have a history Moses was already en- veloped in the mists of a far-ofE past." The Israelites at Jekioho. Joshua^ 1st to 9th chapters. "It was now four days from the Passover. The Jordan was swollen and had even overflowed its banks. It was impossible to ford it, but when the priests carrying the ark of the covenant came along, the stream stood still some miles above Jericho, and all the water below flowed off, leaving the river bed dry along the whole intervening space. . . . "And when the trumpets were sounded for the last time, at a sign from Joshua, a deafening war cry arose from the army ; the walls of Jericho fell down, and the city was in Israel's power. . . . "Ai shared the fate of Jericho : all the inhabitants were slaughtered, the city burned to the ground, and the corpse of the king hung on a cross. "This book is not the record of an eyewitness, but is of much later date than the events it records; at least two different writers." The Conquest of Canaan. Joshua, 9th to 13th chapters. "A careful comparison of our vaiious means of learning the truth lead us to the conclusion that if we desire to form a thoroughly false conception of the conquest of Canaan in every respect we can hardly do better than to accept that of the book of Joshua. In reality two and a half centuries were required for the gradual accomplish- ment of what is here said to have been finished in five years. "We have already pointed out more than once that an Israelitish tribe by no means consisted of the descendants 66 About the Bible. of a single man, and that Judah, Simeon, and the other sons of Israel were not persons at all, but mere person- ifications." Deborah and Barak. Judges, 4th and 5th chapters. "The book of Judges, like those of Joshua, Samuel, and Kings, is a prophetic work, and the author makes history subservient to his object of admonishing the people. "Our writer imagined Israel to have been quite a com- pact nation, governed by Judges and waging war or living at peace as a single whole. This conception is utterly un- true." The Sastctuary at Dan. Judges, 17th and 18th chapters. "The teraphim was an image about the size of a man and partly, at least, of human form. "The ephod was the priestly garment worn officially at the consultation of the oracle. Clothed in the ephod and with the help of the teraphim, the Levite or priest inquired the will of God. We do not know how he did this, but sometimes the lot was employed. "Kothing could be more misleading than the idea of the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua that the Israelites had an elaborate code of religious laws, fixed forms of worship, and a regular priesthood when they conquered Canaan." . . . Gideon. Judges, 6th, ^th, and 8th chapters. "The Israelites, before the time of Moses, worshiped a number of Baals, and the service of these gods was by no means superseded by that of Yahweh. "No one is ever called to any work by God in a super- natural* way. "The shafts and bullets of the godless find the mark as About the Bible, 67 well as those of the pious. The highest virtue is no pro- tection against a saber cut or a bayonet thrust." Jephthah's Daughter. Judges, 10th, 11th, and 12th chapters. "Two months after his return from the victory he ful- filled his vow. The victim, crowned with flowers, was led round the altar with music and song in honor of Yahweh. Who shall say how sick at heart her father was when he struck the fatal blow with his own hand and saw the blood of his darling child poured out upon the sacred stone while her body was burned upon the altar ! Thus Yahweh re- ceived his own, and the price of the victory was paid." Samson. Judges, 12th to 17th chapters. "The name Samson signifies 'sun god;' the stories about him are doubtless solar myths. "It is no more possible for a single man to catch three hundred jackals alive than it is for him to slay one thou- sand men with the jawbone of an ass." Samuel's Wokk. First Samuel, 7th chapter, '3d to 18th verses. "The functions of a seer of Yahweh were essentially the same as those of a heathen wizard." How Saul became King of Israel. First Samuel, 8th to 13th chapters. "This story is wonderfully self-contradictory. The at- titude of the people towards Samuel is quite incredible, and so is their method of choosing a king by casting lots. "The good nature of the Ammonites in granting the be- 68 About the Bible. sieged seven days for the express purpose of enabling them to send to their brethren for help is surely without a par- allel." Saul Rejected by Yahweh. First Samuel, 15th chapter. "Turning to the captive, Samuel exclaimed passionately, 'As your sword has made many women childless, so shall your mother be bereft of her son !' Upon this he swung the sacrificial ax on high, and hewed Agag in pieces, to the glory of Yahweh." YAHvyBH''s Chosen One at the Court of Saul. First Samuel, 16th and 18th chapters. "The account of Samuel's anointing David king is ob- viously legendary. In this world the crown of victory is often worn by sin, and the side that is worsted for the time is often the side of God." Jonathan and David. First Samuel, 17th to 24th chapters. "The story of this victory over Goliath cannot be ac- cepted as a correct account of the way in which David and Saul became known to each other. "The author says Goliath's head was carried to Jeru- salem (First Samuel, 17th chapter, 54th verse), whereas the city was still in the hands of the Canaanites at the time. Elsewhere in the book of Samuel (Second Samuel, 31st chapter, 19th verse) the honor of having slain Goliath is attributed to another man. In the Authorized Version the word 'brother' is interpolated, though the Hebrew says nothing of the kind. This is a specimen of the dangers into which we are brought by the conviction that there can be no contradictions in the Bible." About the Bible. 69 The Last Hours of Saul. First Samuel, 38th and 31st chapters. "The Israelites had not at this time any idea of a life after death. This seems very strange to ns, but these psalmists had no expectation of life after death. The writer believed in magic." Jerusalem the City of the King and op Yahwei-i. Second Samuel, 5th to 8th chapters. "This enormous army only existed in the imagination of the writer of the book of the Chronicles (First Chronicles, 12th chapter, 34th to 41st verses) .... "David determined to bring the ark in which Yahweh himself lived to Jerusalem. . . . "The writer of Chronicles little dreamed that in Da- vid's time 'the Law' ,did not exist at all. It was known as the law of Moses,' and he never doubted its right to the title. "The writer of Chronicles made David what he ought to have been if public worship had been organized in his days, as it was seven centuries later. "Nathan's answer to David says he must not build the temple for two reasons: first, because Yahweh prefers to live in a tent ; second, because David's son will build him a temple." The House oe Saul under David's Eule. Second Samuel, 9th and 31st chapters. "'Then give us seven of that man's sons and we will crucify them on the sacred, hill, before the face of Yah- weh.' "It was regarded one of the principles of Justice that the children should be put to death for the father's crimes. Here in the sight of the assembled crowd, and with sol- 70 About the Bible. emu prayers to Yahweli, the victims were probably first stoned to death and then fixed to the cross. "But there is one bright spot in the darkness of the scene — the faithful love of Eizpah as she guards the bod- ies of her sons." The Might of David, King of Israel. Second Samuel, 8th, 10th, and 13th to 21st chapters. "It was in one of these campaigns that Goliath was slain by Elhanan the Bethlehemite, an exploit which was afterwards attributed to David. . . . "David now added to the piumber of his wives and es- tablished a regular harem on an extensive scale, in which several of Saul's wives and concubines were placed (Second Samuel, 12th chapter). . . . "Absalom's hair is said to have weighed equivalent of six and a half pounds avoirdupois, which is impossible. . . . "Absalom took to himself his father's concubines. . . . "Joab was not the man to stick at a murder; he ad- vanced with a friendly greeting to Amasa, and as he em- braced him plunged his sword into his body." The Last Days of King David. First Kings, 1st to 12th chapters. "Just as after generations drew up all their religious laws in the name of Moses, so they made David the great psalmist and Solomon the proverb writer of Israel. "David's adultery with Bathsheba and treacherous mur- der of her husband throw a very dark shadow on his life. What pains us most is his foul treachery to his faithful servant Uriah. If in a fit of despair he had slain him with his own hand we might perhaps have forgiven him, but it is impossible in view of what happened to regard David as in any sense an upright man. "David is praised and Solomon blamed, though they About the Bible. 71 were really kindred spirits and pursued the same line of action. . . . "The support that Absalom secured is an eloquent testi- mony to the discontent of the Israelites under David's rule. "It is a mistake to look back upon the time of David as to a golden age; it is a still greater mistake to laud David himself as a model king." Solomon. First Kings, 3d, 10th, and 11th chapters. "Solomon married an Egyptian princess. His reign was a peaceful one. Commerce flourished greatly under his rule. He built ships and sent them to trade with Ophir (probably Hindustan) .... "The number of Solomon's wives was great, though no doubt the book of Kings exaggerates it greatly in saying that he had seven hundred princesses and three hundred inferior wives in his harem (First Kings,' 11th chapter). The writer of the book of Kings says Solomon at the be- ginning of his reign went to the celebrated bamah at Gibeon and offered one thousand head of cattle there as a sacrifice to Yahweh. The god on his side appeared to him in the night and asked, 'What gift should you most desire to re- ceive from me ?' and Solomon asked for wisdom. . . . "Imagine Solomon with his hundred wives or more say- ing, 'Who finds a wife finds a blessing.' The Proverbs rec- ognize Yahweh as omniscient. Can we believe Solomon thought so as he built his temples to those other gods ! "What raised Solomon so high in the eyes of posterity was his building the temple to Yahweh." The Curse of Canaan. Genesis, 9 th chapter. "The following legend certainly did not rise before the time of Solomon" (story of Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and of ISToah's drunkenness). 72 About the Bible. Elijah and Blisha, the Peophbts. "The story of the dearth proclaimed beforehand (First Kings, 17th chapter, 1st verse), the food which the ravens brought Elijah (6th verse), the miraculous vessels in which the meal and oil never grew less (16th verse), the return of the dead child to life (17th to 24th verses), the battle of the gods on Carmel (18th chapter, 19th to 41st verses), the miraculous meal in the desert which enabled the proph- et to walk right on for forty days and nights (in which time, by the way, he could have covered the distance be- tween Beersheba and Horeb twelve times over), the audible and visible appearance of Yahweh and his detailed in- junctions to the prophet (19th chapter, 5th to 16th verses) — all this, as we need not stop to prove, is entirely untrue." Ancient Hydraulics. "When they reached the bank of the river Elijah rolled up his mantle and in the presence of fifty prophets smote the waters with it; upon which the river instantly stood still, while the lower waters rolled away and allowed Elijah and his companion to cross over dry-shod" (Second Kings, 2d chapter, 7th and 8th verses). Aerial Transportation. "A chariot of fire yoked to fiery horses shot between them, and Elijah was caught up in a storm to heaven" (11th verse). That Wondereul Cloak Again. "When Elisha got back to the river, where still stood the fifty who had seen Elijah and him cross, he smote the water with Elijah's cloak which he had picked up, Elijah having dropped it when he was translated, and the miracle was again repeated and he crossed back dry-shod" (14th and 15th verses). About the Bible. 73 Water Pukipioation. "The water of Jericho was bad and the cause of much disease. Elisha commanded it to become wholesome and it was immediately made so" (19th to 23d verses). A TuEN IN Oil. "Once a woman came to Elisha in distress. He asked her what she owned, and she said nothing but a cruse of oil. He told her to collect all the vessels, etc., she could get and fill them with oil out of her cruse; she did so and then sold the oil, paid off her debts, and had money left for herself and her two sons to live on" (Second Kings, 4th chapter, 1st to 8th verses). Faith Cure. "A woman did Elisha some politeness ; her husband was an old man and she had no son. He told her in a year she would have one, and so she had, but the boy died. The mother went to Elisha and he returned with her and restored her son to life" (8th to 38th verses). Antidote for Poison. "At another time a lot of men ate some poisonous food, but Elisha made it all right" (39th to 41st verses). Excellent Commissary. "Again Elisha miraculously fed a number of his com- panions. Their entertainer had an insufficient amount of food for one hundred men and did not know what to do, but Elisha told him there was enough, and all ate their fill and there was some left over" (42d to 45th verses). "Two other stories show that foreigners as well as Israel- ites experienced Elisha's miraculous . powers (Second Kings, 5th chapter). The first is the story of the Syr- 74 About the Bible. ian general IsTaamaii, cured of leprosy by bathing seven times in Jordan. The second is about Elisha's serv- ant Gehazi, who could not bear to think of Naaman not paying for his treatment and cure. He follows the Syr- ian and told him Elisha would like a talent of silver ($2,000) and two suits of clothes. Naaman gave him two talents, and Elisha afterwards cursed Gehazi, saying, 'May the leprosy of Naaman be upon you and your family for ever,' and immediately the leprosy was upon him. "In the wars between Syria and Israel, Elisha's help was a great source of strength to the latter, for Yahweh re- vealed the secret plans of the enemy to him and he told the king." "The Israelites believed that all men, good or bad, de- scended to the world below except Elijah and Enoch, who were taken up to heaven, the abode of Yahweh and his angels." Miracle Wrought by Elisha^'s Bones. "After the death of the prophet Elisha another dead man was put into his tomb, but no sooner did he touch Elisha's bones than the man returned to life" (Second Kings, 13th chapter, 31st verse). "We who reject all these stories can find something else to admire in Elisha. "According to the Chronicles Yahweh scattered Jero- boam's army in flight, and five hundred thousand of his soldiers were slain" (Second Chronicles, 13th chapter, 17th verse). "The truth is there was no important difference be- tween the religion of Israel and Judah. "We must not attach too great importance to the fact that the temple at Jerusalem contained no image of Yah- weh, whereas golden bulls were set up at Dan and Bethel. The inhabitants of Judah stood upon no higher level than those of Israel. Altars, bamahs, asherahs, chammanim, teraphim, and images were common to them both. Every About the Bible. 75 city, every village, nay, every person, enjoyed perfect freedom to worship his own god or gods in the way that pleased him. In both abominable licentiousness was here and there perpetrated in honor of the deity. In both a motley polytheism prevailed, but in both the worship of Yahweh as Israel's god was maintained through everything. The unsatisfactory religious condition of Judah is admitted, with perfect frankness, by the book of Kings" (First Kings, 14th chapter, 32d to 2Sth verses; 15th chapter, 3d verse). "The chronicler goes on to say that the prophet Elijah rebuked Jehoram in a letter, etc. This is certainly un- true, for the prophet was already dead" (Second Chron- icles, 21st chapter, 12th verse) . "The story about Joash is as inaccurate as most of those in the book of Chronicles. "Isaac was the mythical ancestor of the Israelite and Edomite tribes who dwelt in the south round Beersheba. "Abram originally belonged to Judah, and Jacob (Is- rael) to central and northern Palestine. "These three patriarchs were about this time, we may suppose, brought into connection with each other as grand- father, father, and son. Moreover, the mutual relations of the tribes, were regulated in the legends, with great tact. All the twelve become sons of Jacob, that is, of Israel it- self. "We have not a single trustworthy report of the appear- ance of a prophet in Judah during the first two centuries after the disruption; for the stories in Chronicles deserve no credence." The Earliest Iskaelitish Law Book. Exodus, 31st and 33d chapters. "There is something to be said in support of the belief that this book was written in the first century after the disruption, but it is by no means certain, nor that it waa 76 About the Bible. composed in the kingdom of Judah, but it is at any rate the oldest Israelitish book of Law that we possess. . . . Of course the lawgiver had no idea of abolishing slavery, which was natural in ancient times, as it is monstrous and detestable in our own. "Should a Hebrew slave prefer permanent slavery to freedom after six years' service, which might well be the case if he maxried while a slave and had a family, his master must take him to a sanctuary of Yahweh, and there bore his ear with an awl to the doorpost, which signified that he was his slave for life. "Compared with many another code, even of modern times, these Israelitish laws of the ninth century B. C. are decidedly merciful. "The passages which most excite our admiration are its exhortations to humanity. It differs in essential respects from a modern code. It may be said to exhort rather than ordain." Israel under Jeroboam II. Second Kings, 14th chapter; Psalm 45; Deuteronomy, 33d chapter. "It is highly probable that the 45th Psalm was composed on the occasion of one of Jeroboam's marriages. "The eighth century B. C. was the period of Israel's greatest literary glory. It was the era of the Yahwist and the elder Elohist, whose narratives we still possess in the books of Genesis and Exodus, woven together, supplement- ed, and sometimes, alas ! curtailed by the last general editor of the Pentateuch. "About this time the same or other writers composed a good many of the narratives about the judges, Samuel, Saul, David and his successors, which we still possess. "Our first observation is that they regarded Israel as one people. This is evident from their treatment of the gen- erations before Moses. "The names of the patriarchs, and many of the legends About the Bible. ,77, attached to them, properly belonged to different districts of the country. "We must not suppose that all these legends were delib- erately invented and then strung together with conscious art, for nothing of the kind took place. Much of the sub- stance of the stories was already in existence, and was sim- ply adopted or modified by the writers of this epoch. For instance, it was certainly an old tradition that Esau and Jacob were twin brothers. "We have often seen that the historical good faith of these writers leaves much to be desired. They took up their pens not so much to write history as to admonish and encourage their readers." The Legend of Balaam. Numbers, 22d to 25th chapters. "It is an entirely fictitious story, fine in many respects, but its author has ill succeeded in his attempt to transport his readers to the time of Moses." The Prophet Hosea. Hosea, to the 12th chapter. "Again we find 'visions' recorded by the prophets which are invented from beginning to end. "All the prophets are called 'seers,' and to have visions was a recognized part of their profession. "The rhetorical expressions 'Yahweh said,' 'Yahweh showed me,' 'Yahweh commanded me,' etc., are in them- selves as innocent as those of the poets, but they were ren- dered dangerous and pernicious by the fact that the proph- ets demanded reverence and obedience for the oracles, which they prefaced with 'Thus says Yahweh,' as though they were the genuine utterances of their god." S& Abotji the Bible. Song of Solomon. "The so-called Song of Solomon is a love poem which the colleetors of the sacred writings probably took up be- cause they fancied there was some hidden spiritual mean- ing in it." The Fall of the Northern Kingdom. Second Kings, 15th to 18th chapters. "We find the same wavering conception even in such a man as Isaiah, who never flatly denies the existence of the other gods." The Call of Isaiah. Isaiah, 6th chapter. "A book of sixty-six chapters has come down to us under the name of Isaiah, but we cannot by any means accept all the oracles it contains as his. There is inserted amongst them, or appended, a number of discourses really written after the fall of Jerusalem. Several chapters in the first half and all the last twenty-seven date from no earlier pe- ri6d." Isaiah in the Ebign op Ahaz. Isaiah, 7th chapter. "This discourse has always attracted the special atten- tion of commentators, because of the passage, 'See, there is a woman; she is with child, and will bear a son,' which was mistranslated, 'Behold ! a virgin conceives, and brings forth a son.' It has been declared to be the announcement that the Messiah would have no earthly father. Anyone who reads the discourse right through will see that it refers to nothing of the kind. There is not a word about a vir- . St. George Mlvart weUsald: "What an absurdity to suppose King Ahaz could he comforted hy being told of an abnormal birth to take place five hundred years after his death." About the Bible. 79 gin or a miraculous conception, and what Isaiah said had no reference to a distant future." "The ancient men of God could no more predict the fu- ture than we can." The Assyrians in Judah. Second Kings, 18th to 31st chapters. "Isaiah^s hopes were not put to shame, for according to the historian that very night the angel of Yahweh smote a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians in their camp. The fact seems to be that Sennacherib returned to his own country with an army thinned by a devastating pestilence. "It need hardly be said that both Isaiah's accurate an- nouncement of the fifteen years that still remained to Hez- ekiah and the miraculous movement of the shadow on the dial, which would imply a complete revolution in the whole solar system, are purely legendary." Judah undee Manasseh and Amon, 699 to 643 B. C. Second Kings, 21st chapter. "All the rites which the ancient Israelites shared with the heathen were soon restored to honor. Foremost among these were the sacrifices of children to Molech. "Jeremiah repeatedly declares that the Judseans sac- rificed beneath every green tree, and held licentious fes- tivals upon every lofty hill ; that their gods were as many as their cities, and that they burned incense to Baal in every street in Jerusalem." The Beginning oe Josiah's Reign. Second Kings, 33d chapter; Jeremiah, first and second chapters. "In ancient times the very religion of a people depended to an almost incredible extent on the king. 80 About the Bible. "Jeremiah's discourses as written did not always agree with what he had said. He did not commit his prophecies to writing until twenty-three years after he had begun to utter them. They were afterwards completely burnt up and he rewrote them. Jeremiah had a lofty conception of Yahweh's moral demands, and appears for the most part as a preacher of repentance." JOSIAH^S EeFOEMATION. Second Kings, 33d and 33d chapters. "It was the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign (626 B. C). The temple was being repaired, and the chief priest, Hilkiah, told the king's private secretary that he had made a wonderful discovery in the temple. He had found the book of 'the Law.' Josiah immediately set about carrying out the religious reformation demanded by the newly dis- covered book of 'the Law/ and it became the rule of faith and conduct for after generations. "Who wrote it ? How did it get into the temple ? Most likely it was written by Hilkiah himself. If he or his son really wrote it, then it was what is called a 'pious fraud,' that is, a lie told for the glory of God, and, alas ! it is not the last lie that has been told for that purpose. "The book was certainly written about the time of its discovery. It is true that it introduces Moses as uttering the precepts and exhortations of which it consists, but this is a literary fiction. "Before Josiah's time Deuteronomy would have been unintelligible. In his reign it exactly expressed the de- mands of the Mosaic school." Josiah's Defeat at Megiddo. Second Kings, 33d chapter; Jeremiah, 11th chapter. "Josiah opposed the advance of the Egyptians. A bat- tle was fought at Megiddo, in the plain of Jezreel; Israel About the Bible. 81 was defeated and Josiah slain. This was the end of Judah's independence." Jbhoiakim and Jeremiah. Second Kings, 33d chapter; Jeremiah, 35th and 36th chapters. "It is still common to speak of the seventy years' captiv- ity. It was not quite fifty years between Jerusalem's dev- astation, 586 B. C, and the return, 538 B. C. "We must utterly relinquish the idea that the details of the future were revealed to a prophet. Jeremiah no more Tcnew them than any of us." The Fall of Jerusalem. Second Kings, 35th chapter; Jeremiah, 32d, 37th, and 39th chapters. "Jerusalem was very strongly fortified and the garrison was hrave; but it was full of fugitives and ill provisioned. Scenes of horror became familiar. Children cried in vain for bread. Eich men died of hunger. Mothers devoured the very children at their breasts. "Under these circumstances Jeremiah might account himself fortunate in sitting quietly in prison and receiving his rations by favor of the king. "The last king of David's house (Zedekiah) was a pit- iable creature ! After a siege of a year and a half Jerusa- lem fell, 586 B. C. For a whole month the city w;as given up to Nebuchadrezzar's soldiery. Zedekiah's sons were put to death in his sight, then his eyes were put out, and, covered with chains, he was carried off to Babylon, where he died in a dungeon. Jeremiah's prediction that Yah- weh would visit him again, and that he would have an honorable burial, was never fulfilled." 83 About the Bible. The Eemnant in Jud^a. Second Kings, 35th chapter; Jeremiah, 40th to 44th chapters. "The population of Judah had been woefully thinned by famine, pestilence, and war. There was imminent dan- ger of total anarchy. The Chaldasan king did his best to save it from this fate, otherwise he would not be able to secure the tribute he expected from it. He appointed Gedaliah, a Judasan of noble family, as governor. Jere- miah was treated by the Chaldseans with great distinction. The second deportation was probably caused by the murder of Gedaliah." The Eeturut under Zerubbabel. Ezra, first three chapters ; Isaiah, 54th to 61st chapters. "The main provisions of this spurious edict, however, were really carried into effect. Cyrus gave permission to the Jews to return to their fatherland, and he gave back to their leader all the consecrated utensils that Nebu- chadrezzar had brought from Jerusalem. The journey was of many months' duration." The Eebuilding of the Temple. Ezra, 3d to 7th chapters; Zechariah, 2d to 5th chapters; Joel, Haggai. "The writer of Ezra lived two and a half centuries after the events he recorded. "In extent and magnificence the second temple was doubtless insignificant when compared with the first, bui it was a far greater work of faith than the edifice of Sol- omon had been. That ostentatious monarch had given Yahweh a dwelling place at the expense of his subjects, whereas the second temple was the free and generous gift of a poverty-stricken people." 'About the Bible. 83 Ezra the Scribe. Ezra, 7th chapter to end of book. "Eighty years had elapsed since Zerubabbel's return. Jerusalem's wall lay in ruins once more. Was Israel to melt away among the nations and lose its own peculiar character ? This danger was averted by the rise of a great man, who returned from Babylonia at the head of several thousand exiles and brought fresh blood into the Jewish State. It was Ezra the priest. "The priestly spirit had gained a complete ascendency amongst the Babylonian Israelites. At first this may seem strange, for, since they had no access to the temple, the legislation pf Deuteronomy precluded them from offering sacrifices to Yahweh. But the phenomenon is quite explic- able. Ever since Josiah's reformation Israel had obviously been moving in the direction of the systematic piety of 'the Law,' that is to say, the excessive estimation of outward forms and ceremonies. The temple the exiles could not have, but the Law did not stand or fall with the temple; and Yahweh had given other commands besides those that related to sacrifice. Could they not still observe the Sab- bath, abstain from everything unclean, and scrupulously conduct themselves, as Yahweh's consecrated people? "This 'tabernacle' is a pure fiction, and in laj'ing down regulations about its servants the writer gives free scope to his imagination, surrounding Moses with a regular priesthood, divided, arranged, and clothed as he, the writ- er, deemed desirable. . . . "Many did actually dismiss their wives, and in some cases their children with them. It was no small matter to dismiss all the foreign women and their children. In a moment of excitement the hasty resolve was taken. We stand aghast at such fanaticism, and well we may! It is but the worship of Molech in another form. Ezra's Yahweh is not our God." 84 About the Bible. The Mosaic Law. Numbers, 5th and 6th chapters ; Leviticus, 16th and 25th chapters; Exodus, 31st chapter. "When we contemplate the host of precepts which the compilers of the law gave the faithful, we naturally ask where all these forms and ceremonies came from. Did the priests invent them or borrow them? We may describe a great many of them as of heathen or ancient Israelitish origin, and these two denominations are nearly equivalent, for when Moses promulgated the Ten Commandments and introduced the worship of Yahweh, the different tribes had numerous and varied religious usages already, many of which they shared with non-Israelitish peoples. "The compilers of the so-called Mosaic Law opposed the heathen practices in some respects with the utmost energy, but in some only. On the other hand, the priests adopted and confirmed many practices foreign to Mosaism, and some cases actually opposed to it. Sometimes they mod- ified them, but generally took them Just as they found them — the rite of circumcision, for instance, and the distinc- tion between clean and unclean animals. What a contrast between these minute subdivisions of the diverse sacrifices and the free spirit of the prophet who exclaimed (Jere- miah, 7th chapter, 21st to 24th verses), 'Treat your burnt offerings like ordinary sacrifices and make a meal of them ! For when you came out of Egypt, I gave you no precepts about these things, says Yahweh, but commanded you to obey me.' "The law about the year of jubilee remained a dead letter, like so many others, but it is indicative of the com- piler's spirit. The soil of Canaan was Yahweh's possession, and they who had received it from him, and were as strangers in his inheritance, might not permanently relin- (]uish it to others, inasmuch as it was not theirs," About the Bible. 85 Eejoioing in the Law of Yahweh. Second Chronicles, 39th and 30th chapters ; 19th, 84th, 119th to 134th Psalms. "When we remember what difficulty Ezra and ISTehemiah had in introducing the priestly Law and how they smoth- ered freedom we might suppose that the triumph of the Law marked the commencement of a spiritual slavery which choked the religious life. This would be a gross mistake. It is true the supremacy of the Law was in the long run fatal to that true piety which cannot live without liberty, but the Law for some centuries was no burden to the pious, but a joy. . . . "The custom seems to have gradually established itself, first in Jerusalem, and afterwards in every place where Jews resided, of constantly meeting to offer up prayers and listen to the explanation of the Law. At first the expos- itors were generally Levites, or priests, but gradually lay- men also came forward. These interpreters were called Scribes, and gradually became a distinct order. "What the Chronicler represents as taking place under Jehoshaphat (Second Chronicles, 17th chapter, 7th to 10th verses), about 914 to 889 B. C, did really happen after the time of Ezra, 458 B. C. . . . "The synagogue in no way took the place of the temple, but it provided in some sense for the religious wants of the Jews, who could only visit Jerusalem once or twice a year, and it gave something not found in the temple, namely, instruction. The Scribes, moreover, provided for the administration of justice." The Story of Jonah. "The story of Jonah is rich in meaning if taken as a poem, though senseless enough if taken as history. It ghows what was going on in many a Jewish heart." 86 About the Bible. Psalms. "There is no other book in the Old Testament that has so rich a history as the Psalms. The object of the collector was to furnish the choir of Levites at the temple with a hymn book. With this object he provided many of the poems with musical notes, which are unfortunately almost unintelligible to us. It is exceedingly difficult to determine the date of any given poem in the book of Psalms. Some of them may possibly, or probably, belong to Manasseh's time, though they may have been written one or more cen- turies later." The Jews under Greek Supeemacy. Daniel, 8th chapter; Esther, Ecclesiastes, Psalm 44. "The whole period of Judsea ias a Grecian province fur- nished an unfavorable contrast to the period under the Persians ; for, whereas the religious usages of the Persians had had a great attraction for the pious Jews, the cus- toms of the Greeks were strange and hateful to them. But their actual martyrdom only began 167 B. C., when Antioehus IV. laid waste the synagogues, erected an altar to Jupiter in the court of the temple, compelled them to work on the Sabbath and to eat pork — in a word, attempted to abolish their religion by force. The end of this period of martyrdom was the heroic insurrection of the Macca- bees, followed by a desperate war. "There was no ofBcial list of the books to be regarded as sacred writings, and each priest or scribe had to make his own selection, rejecting one and accepting another. In fact, the scribes still took considerable liberties with the written law, and continued to incorporate many fresh regulations in it. There is one rather long section of the Pentateuch which was not written until after Alexander the Great (Exodus, 35th chapter to end of book). "A profound influence was exerted on the religion of About the Bible. 87 the Jews by that of the Persians. Yahweh had always been thought of as surrounded by angels, but it was under Persian influences that an elaborate system of angelology arose, divided into orders, and their princes the archan- gels had names given them, as Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, etc. "Although the Jews did not borrow the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead from the Persians, yet it was under the iniiuence of their beliefs that it made its way amongst them. "Heathen usages could easily make their way in the Jewish system if only they could furnish themselves with orthodox explanations. A striking example is the intro- duction, or rather the legalization, of the feast of Purim by means of the book of Esther. The Story oe Esther. "The story of Esther is a tissue of glaring impossibil- ities from first to last, nor can the derivation of the name of the Purim feast, upon which it all turns, be accepted as correct. The book is inspired by a thoroughly bad spirit of intolerance, national pride, and vengefulness. EOOLESIASTES. "Ecelesiastes begins, 'Words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem,' but the writer has not the least intention of really passing himself off as Solomon." The Hope oe the Oppressed Believers. Daniel, 1st to 8th chapters ; Psalm 118. "These stories are full of wonders which are impossibil- ities, and a most erroneous representation of the course of history." Chapter VII. The New Testament. The Descent oe Jesus. Matthew, 1st chapter; Luke, 3d chapter, 33d verse to end of chapter. " 'Pedigree of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abra- ham.' These words stand at the head of the first page of the l^ew Testament. As we read through the first chapter of Matthew we come upon an extraordinary contradiction. Firsts we have three series of ancestors of fourteen gen- erations each, ending, Jacob, Joseph, Jesus. But in the following verses we are informed that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, after all, and that Jesus really had no con- nection with him. Second^ in the Gospel of Luke there is another pedigree of Jesus, or rather of Joseph, the father of Jesus, but it only agrees with that of Matthew in fif- teen names, and is different from it in no less than forty ! "Even as to the place where Jesus was born opinions differ. "All this is not difficult to explain. The Apostles and other preachers confined themselves in speaking about Je- sus to the time of his public activity in Israel. To this they could bear witness. When the later Christians wished to know more of his early days there was no one left who could give them any information. Were they content to rest in their ignorance? Not at all. It was far more in the spirit of the age to try and determine what must have happened. They believed they could draw from a source of information which deserved such explicit confidence that even had persons been living acquainted with the facts it would have hardly been necessary to consult them. 88 About the Bible. 89 This was the 'Old Testament.' So by putting together a number of texts from it generally in a grossly arbitrary way, they made up a complete history of Jesus. "The compilers of his genealogies entertained no doubt that Joseph was the father of Jesus. Otherwise his de- scent would not have been in the least to the point. "The primitive tradition declared emphatically that Nazareth was the place from which Jesus came." The Bieth and Youth of John. Luke, 1st chapter, 5th to 25th and 57th to 80th verses. "This story bears every mark of being a pure invention. The name of the angel is as good Hebrew as though he were a Jew. Might we not just as well suppose the inhab- itants of heaven to speak Greek or English, as Hebrew?" The Bieth ov Jesus. Luke, 1st chapter, 36th to 56th verses; 3d chapter, 1st to 30th verses. "The story of the birth of Jesus is one of the sweetest and most deeply significant of the legends in the Bible. That it is a legend, without even the smallest historical foundation, we must, of course, admit; or if we have any doubt on the subject a moment's 'consideration will remove it. If a messenger from heaven had really come to bring a divine revelation to Mary, the result must have con- firmed his predictions, and since Jesus never fulfilled these expectations it is obvious that the revelation was never made. Both the promise and the song of praise owe their origin to the obstinate belief of the Jewish Christians, re- tained even after the death of Jesus, that he would come again from heaven, would expel the Eomans, establish an earthly kingdom, and, in short, realize their dreams of national triumph" (Acts, 1st chapter, 6th verse, and else- where) . 90 About the Bible. "If the birth of Jesus had really taken place under such extraordinary circumstances, how could it have been pos- sible that every trace of such wonders should have disap- peared and left no recollections of them? Yet this takes place according to the Gospel. Jesus' own family show beyond a doubt that they had not the faintest conception of the lofty significance of his personality. This would be inconceivable were the story genuine history. If even a little of what has been told us were true, then at least his mother would have believed in him, and would not have failed so utterly to understand him. "But when we consider it rightly this sweet old legend of the birth of Jesus, with all its wondrous beauty, gains a fresh charm for us when it ceases to rank as history. The Peesentation in the Temple. Luke, 2d chapter, 21st to 39th verses. "We too often forget that Jesus was an Israelite, not only by birth and education, but in his whole style of thought, speech, and light. . . . "We have no sufficient grounds for supposing that Jesus was the eldest son of Joseph and Mary. . . . "To invent a prophecy when the event it predicts has already taken place is a common practice in both the Old and Wew Testaments, and is not even yet abandoned. Again, the Evangelist unconsciously contradicts himself. How could the parents of Jesus have been surprised after the message of Gabriel and the song of angels heard by Bethlehem? If Jesus had been greeted as the Messiah when a baby he could not have remained in obscurity, and his family, especially his mother, would have been pre- pared for all that happened and could not have refused to believe in him. How did the legend rise, then? it may naturally be asked. We answer that it was a poetical crea- tion of the faith of the primitive Christians." About the Bible. 91 The Wise Men from the Bast. Matthew, 3d chapter. "The brow of many a theologian has been bent over this narrative! For as long as people believed in the mirac- ulous inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, of course they accepted every page as literally true. "In ancient times the Jews, like other peoples, might very well have believed there was some immediate connec- tion between the stars and the life of a man. . . . "One does not see, however, how a star in the heavens could point out the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, advance in front of the travelers, and stand still over one particular house ! This is so utterly absurd that it cannot even be accounted for as an optical delusion. "Another difficulty is presented by the slaughter of the innocents. Herod was capable of such a hideous crime, but the hopeless stupidity with which he is represented as having gone to work is quite inconsistent with his well- known craftiness. . . . "Josephus, who gives us a minute account of the atroc- ities perpetrated by Herod up to the last moments of his life, does not say a single word about this unheard of crime (the murder of the innocents), which must have been so notorious. Surely he must have known of it, and must have mentioned it, had it ever been committed. Jesus' Eelatives. Luke, 2d chapter, 40th verse to end. "The family of Joseph and Mary was rather a large one. There were five sons and several daughters, though we do not Icnow how many. Of course, they all had to work for their bread, and we find it mentioned that Jesus himself worked as a carpenter. "Of Joseph we know nothing directly, but since Jesus speaks of a father's love as a reflection of the love of God, 93 About the Bible. since he could find no higher or more glorious name for God himself than that of 'Father,' we may safely conclude that Joseph was a faithful, careful, afEectionate parent — in a word, all that a father ought to be. Of the brothers of Jesus we afterwards meet with James as a man of ex- traordinary strictness of principle, immovable determina- tion, and great influence." "When we are convinced that the story of Jesus' birth is not genuine history, its emblematic meaning comes out clearly. It embodies a poetical conception and description of the person and the lot of Jesus, and foreshadows his life and work in a few bold lines and significant contrasts." * * This is the deliberate statement of these three great Dutch Protestant divines and Christian scholars published nearly thirty years ago. Are there others who agree with them? The late Dr. St. George Mivart, the great EngUsh Roman Catholic scholar and writer, did, and was excommu- nicated by his Church because he would not recant. No person who has read Andrew D. White's great work on the " Warfare of Science and Theology" can doubt what his belief Is. Dr. Emil G. Hlrseh is Rabbi of Sinai Congregation, Chicago, and Professor in the University of Chicago. He has preached in the evangelical church to which the compiler belongs. Under date of October 25, 1900, he writes him as follows : " Dear Sir: In reply to your note I beg leave to say that there is no such thing in existence, either in my own congregation or that of another Rabbi, as a creed which would give you the information desired. In fact, the Jewish ' Church ' as a whole is without an authoritative creed accepted by all Jews. I can give you my own views on Jesus, which, however, may not be those of another Jew, be he layman or Rabbi. I with all Jews, without distinction of religious differences, do not regard Jesus as the son of God in any sense or manner or degree except in so far as every human being is God's son. But I with many other Jews of liberal religious views respect him as a great teacher. His words express truths which the noblest of his day among the Jews also taught. He was crucified by the Romans for being proclaimed by his disciples as the Messiah, 1. e., the pohtical king of the Jews. Such a claim was tanta- mount to raising the standard of rebellion against Roman supremacy." There is a great Christian Church which believes that Jesus is the prom- ised Christ, the divinely appointed Messiah, but that there is only one God, and that he Is only the father of Jesus Christ as he is the father of all man- kind. Some of its members in America have been Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry W. Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, Robert CoUyer, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Tempora Mutantur. Dr. Mark Hopkins was President of Williams College from 1836 to 1872, and retained the pastorate of the college church till 1883. How little could he About the Bible. • 93 Baptism of Jesus. Mark, 1st chapter, 9th to 11th verses. "However this story of the dove came into existence, it obviously rests on a system of interpretation and a set of ideas which we cannot accept. Moreover, though the whole scene is in perfect harmony with the Israelites' conception of the imiverse, neither our knowledge of Nature nor our knowledge of God suffers us to conceive of the heavens opening to let the Spirit of God, in the form of a dove and the voice of God pass through ! Mark himself represents the whole thing as a vision. We can never believe that Je- sus had visions. His mind was so clear and healthy, his temperament so firm and uniform, his self-control so com- plete and invincible, that we cannot conceive of his being subject to visions." Jesus Begins his Woek. Matthew, 4th, 7th, 8th, 13th, and 14th chapters; Mark, 4th chapter. "It would be a mistake to deny that Jesus ever healed those 'possessed by devils.' In those days, and especially among the Jews, this 'possession' was a kind of epidemic. Josephus makes repeated mention of it. 'Possession' was have foreseen the hook on the "Apostles' Creed" written hy his son Archi- bald and published before the close of the century he lived in. Faith. The reverend doctor virho writes the weekly Sunday school lesson In a Chicago dally newspaper has no trouble apparently In believing everything in the Bible to be true. Granting this, Is it not strange that when he reflects on the mighty differences between himself and such men as those just mentioned he should be so positive in teaching children? In a recent lesson paper he spoke of " the eighty million (80,000,000) suns besides our own in space." If one can believe there are eighty million suns besides our own, it certainly is not impossible to conceive of eighty million other inhabited worlds. And yet Christian people stand up Sunday after Sunday and repeat the words of they know not whom, that they believe that God Almighty, the Maker and Euler of all these systems, sent his ordy Son to this little world to be crucified! 7 94 About the Bible. at bottom a nervous derangement, which showed itself sometimes in temporary or permanent insanity and in other ways. When we examine the story of the 'possession' contained in the Gospels, we find that the symptoms they describe agree very well with what may still be observed in the case of persons suffering from similar nervous affec- tions. . . . "There is a monstrous exaggeration in the statement that the people brought all who were sick of any disease to Je- sus and that he healed them. These short and compre- hensive general assertions constantly recur and are never to be trusted. If all these statements were true there would have soon been no sick people left in Galilee or Jerusalem; but the Gospels always bring them upon the scene again and so contradict themselves. . . . Emblematic Stoeies. "Emblematic stories were very common among Chris- tian communities of the first century, and have left abun- dant traces in the Gospel. The consequence is that we are always coming across representations or accounts of things which excite our attention by their very singular char- acter and by invariably containing something marvelous, often something impossible. "When we examine them more closely, we discover that they are only intended to set forth some idea or some truth, and are in fact elaborated figures of speech or emblems. They strike us as very strange, but it was common enough in the Bast, for these men could not deal with abstract ideas." Jesus and the Eeligion of His People. Mark, 2d and 3d chapters. "Jesus was put to death as a heretic; but his faithful disciples and friends were afterwards left undisturbed as orthodox Jews. Our Gospels record sayings and actions About the Bible. 95 of JesTis which are in conflict with the Law; but Paul, whose hands it would have strengthened infinitely to have been able to quote them, appears to have known nothing of them." Matthew, 5th to 8th chapters. "Jesus or any of his contemporaries never doubted for a moment that Moses was really the author of the five books of the Law. He considered all external observances insignificant in comparison with a virtuous life. He maintained the unconditional supremacy of the claims of morality, and he regarded them as the original, unalterable, and supreme commandments of God. . . . "He followed out the principles of the ancient prophets, and consulted nothing but his own judgment and the ex- perience of his own soul. "The Jewish religion insisted on religious hatred; but Jesus requires love, which, like the love of God, regards no difference of faith. The God of Jesus was not the Ood of the Old Testament." Luke, 7th, 14th, 15th, and 18th chapters. "Our custom of kneeling down, closing the eyes, and fold- ing the hands in prayer was unloiown to the Jews." Matthew, 14th and 15th chapters; Luke, 13th chapter. "The Mishna, the oldest and most important part of the Talmud, is divided into six books, and the whole of one of them treats with incredible minuteness of 'puri- fications.' There are one hundred and twenty-six chap- ters in it, four of which are specially devoted to the wash- ing of hands before meat." Were the hands to be held up or down ? Were the fingers only, the whole hand, or the arm up to the elbow to be made wet? 96 About the Bible. Jewish Thirst for the Marvelous. Luke, 17th chapter; Matthew, 16th chapter; Mark, 8th chapter. "... These two stories show that the Christians actu- ally went so far as to ascribe raisings from the dead to their Master. Jesus did indeed declare that he called the (spiritually) dead to life again (Matthew, 11th chapter, 5th verse) ; but these stories owe their origin not so much to a misconception of this saying as to the simple love of the marvelous, which could not bear the Christ to be outdone by the prophets Elijah and Elisha. "... These stories are not without artistic merit, but from a religious point of view they have little or no value. "... Before long it was asserted that Jesus had restored a body to life after it had been buried four days and was already decomposing !" Jesus Appears at Jerusalem. Matthew, 31st chapter. "What were the thoughts of Jesus on the last day of his journey cannot be known. One thing, however, is certain — ^that Luke is mistaken in making him bewail the impen- itence of the city and foretell its future destruction in minute detail as soon as he approaches and beholds it; for the city's impenitence had not as yet appeared, and Luke is evidently confounding the feelings which inspired Jesus a week or two later, after the failure of his efforts, with those of his first approach to the city." The Miracle op the Fig Tree. Matthew, 21st chapter, 18th to 31st verses ; Mark, 11th chapter, 13th and 14th verses. "Early in the morning, as Jesus was going to the city from Bethany with his friends, he felt hungry, and seeing About the Bible. 97 a fig tree at some little distance in full leaf he went up to it to pluck some fruit, but found that there were only leaves upon it. 'May never man eat fruit of you again !' he cried, and the tree immediately withered. "We can hardly receive this little story as it stands, not so ranch because of its gross impossibility as because this curse is so utterly unworthy of Jesus. The first two Gos- pels have doubtless failed to reproduce it faithfully. Mark, who spreads it over two days and makes the unfortunate remark that it was not time for figs yet, is especially far out." Gethsemane. Matthew, 36th chapter. "When Jesus found the disciples were asleep he said, 'My Father, if this cup cannot pass away without my drinking it, thy will be done !' Never, perhaps, has a word been spoken upon earth that has unlocked such treasures of consolation and strength in suffering as that prayer of Jesus: 'Thy will be done.' "It is unfortunate that Luke throws suspicion upon his whole version of the affair by going on to say that Jesus healed the wound by touching the bleeding ear, and that not only officers of the temple, but even high priests and elders were included in the band, all of which is equally incredible." The Crucifixion". Mark, 15th chapter. "The sentence of death was carried out under the or- ders of the judge, and in this case, therefore, by the Boman soldiers, and not, as Luke implies, by the Jews" (Luke 23d chapter, 25th verse). "Even the oldest accounts we have mention two wonders during the last hours of the life of Jesus. We are told that from noon until three o'clock darkness came over all the earth. Now, since the Passover is always celebrated 98 About the Bible. at full moon, an actual eclipse of the sun is, of course, out of the question, but the symbolical significance of the story is as clear as possible. At the very moment, we are told, when Jesus breathed his last the heavenly adorned and em- broidered tapestry that hung as a curtain between the Holy and the Holy of Holies, in the temple, was rent in two from top to bottom. Here, also, it would be absurd to look for historic facts. . . . "The earth trembled, says a later account in Matthew, the rocks were cleft, and the sepulchral caves gaped open, while many bodies of long-buried saints returned to life. We sympathize intensely with the feelings that occasioned these stories, but they are not based on historical facts." The EBSURKECTioisr oe Jesus. Matthew, S^th and 38th chapters; Luke, 34th chapter. "We would gladly use an expression of his own, and speak of his 'rising again,' or 'resurrection/ But this word is commonly used to signify something very different from his triumph after defeat. For when the faith of the Apos- tles and other disciples recovered from the shock, it took the form of a belief that Jesus had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven. This is what is generally meant by 'The Eesurrection,' and if we were to employ the word it might seem as though we accepted this early be- lief as an historical fact. The resurrection of Jesus is not an external fact of history, but simply a form of be- lief assumed by the faith of his friends and earliest dis- ciples." The Day oe Pentecost. Acts, 2d chapter. "Well-grounded objections may be urged against the credibility of this account. Peter's discourse, like the other speeches in this book, is simply invented for him by the author, in accordance with the usual custom, of the About the Bible. 99 time, nor can we well believe that his first discourse re- sulted in a conversion in mass and the baptism of three thousand people in a single day. . . . "But be the how and the when what they may, a body of believers in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah shortly to be expected was as a fact established at Jerusalem, where it constantly increased. Its members, in after years, at any rate, were known by the nickname of 'Nazarenes/ after the birthplace of their Messiah. We have a right to call this body of believers a community." The Collision of the Two Parties. Galatians, 2d chapter; Acts, 15th chapter. "We must now return to the community at Jerusalem. For fifteen years or more it had held its own and even in- creased, in spite of more than one fierce persecution. Mean- while various other communities had been founded else- where on Jewish soil, chiefly by the zealous and successful labors of Peter, who traveled about preaching from place to place. Of these labors we have but a very imperfect and distorted account in the book of Acts, but they are es- tablished by the unequivocal testimony of Paul, which is above all suspicion. At the head of the Christian com- munity at Jerusalem stood James the brother of Jesus, supported by Peter and John. As to this James we know that his strict observance of the Law gained him the title of 'the Just,' and that he enjoyed the esteem of the Phar- isees themselves." Paul. Second Corinthians, 11th chapter; Acts, 18th and 19th chapters, etc. "A great deal of what the author of Acts tells us is impossible to believe, and he passes over matters of ex- treme importance in absolute silence. He says that before 100 About the Bible. leaving Corinth Paul had taken the vow of a N'azarite. We know that this is a moral impossibility, but it is far from the only occasion upon which our author transforms the Apostle to the heathen into a rigid Jew. . . . "Paul was such as we have described him, the greatest of the followers of Jesus and the founder of the Christian Church! But he stands so far below Jesus that in his subtle doctrinal system we can hardly recognize the simple but eternally enduring and inexhaustible wealth of the principles of Jesus; in the sharp lines of his personality we can hardly trace the lineaments of the beloved image of Jesus." The Disciple whom Jesus Loved. "After 200 A. D. it was generally supposed that the 'disciple whom Jesus loved' was John, after whom, accord- ingly, the fourth Gospel was named and the tradition • arose that he had never died ! We may well doubt, however, whether John is really meant at all by the 'disciple whom Jesus loved.' At any rate, the true historical John, that narrow and violent apostle, one of the two 'sons of thun- der,' one of the three 'pillars' of the community at Jeru- salem, cannot be intended." Many good people who long ago gave up believing many of the legends in the Old Testament to be statements of facts still believe everything in the New Testament to be actual truth, but the Rev. Drs. Oort, Hooykaas, and Kuenen do not hesitate to speak as fol- lows about many passages in the "Acts" and other books of the New Testament, and to give their reasons for so speaking. Before saying they are wrong do them the justice to read their great work, "The Bible for Learners." "... Quite apart from the miracles and visions, then, the story is a palpable fiction." "... The whole story is a pure invention and anything but a purposeless one." "The following account of the way in which the stay About the Bible. 101 at Philippi was brought to a close certainly cannot be ac- cepted as it stands. ..." "... We cannot accept this narrative as true." "... Here again the account is full of exaggerations, especially as to the value of the books, for the Christians were most of them in needy circumstances" (Acts, 19th chapter, 19th verse) . Origin op the Books oe the New Testament. "A writing of the Jewish Christians is the book of Eev- elation, written A. D. 68 or 69, soon after the death of Paul. It attacks his character, but still more his doctrines, and brands his followers as servants of Satan." "The apostle John had in all probability nothing to do with Revelation." "In the Revelation we have the thoughts of a Jewish Christian of Asia Minor who may very well have been one of St. Paul's Ephesian opponents. If we ask what it was in the Pauline doctrines that especially shocked him, we find that he loathed them as teaching the believers to eat meat oilered to idols and to practice inchastity." "The Epistle of James is of later date, and though it is from the hand of a Jewish Cliristian it breathes a far gentler and freer spirit." "Certain writings, intended to bring about a reconcilia- tion, were issued by the friends of Paul. Among these are the Epistle to the Hebrews and the book of Acts." "The Epistle to the Hebrews is a treatise which seems to have been written after the destruction of the temple, but before the Epistle of James, and was addressed to the Jewish Christians who were in danger of being drawn back into Judaism by their excessive veneration for the Mosaic ritual." "We must never forget that the majority of the writings of the New Testament were not really written or published by those whose names they bear. In those days people saw 103 About the Bible. no harm in such literary frauds, though they would now be considered highly culpable and even criminal." "The two letters to Timothy and the letter to Titus were certainly composed long after the death of Paul. It is more than probable that the letters to the Ephesians and Colossians are also unauthentic, and the same sus- spicion rests, perhaps, on the first but certainly on the second of the Epistles to the Thessalonians." "We may give the Epistle of Jude a passing notice, for it, too, is of Jewish-Christian origin. It gives itself out as written by the brother of James (and Jesus), but it is really of much later date." "The First Epistle of Peter was not written by that apostle, nor the second, which is perhaps the latest book in the Bible. Of the three Epistles of John, the first is not an epistle at all, and does not bear any name, while the other two profess to be the work of an elder whose name is not given." "But we are more interested in the five historical books of the !N'ew Testament. We could never be thankful enough if we might really suppose them to be written by the men whose names they bear. John and Matthew were apostles of Jesus. Barnabas was a fellow-traveler and friend of Paul. Mark was a companion and beloved dis- ciple of Peter. Luke was a friend and disciple of Paul. Who could be better informed as to Jesus and the apostles than these eye-witnesses and their close and intimate friends. "But, alas ! not one of these five books was really written by the person whose name it bears, and they are all of more recent date than their headings would lead us to suppose." "We cannot say that the Gospels and the book of Acts are unauthentic, for not one of them professes to give the name of its author. They appeared anonymously. The titles placed above them in our bibles owe their origin to a later ecclesiastical tradition which deserves no confidence whatever. Abodi the Bible. 103 "The author of Acts wrote his work with desire to se- cure peace to the community. His book was probably com- posed at Eome. After the fall of Jerusalem the center of Christianity naturally gravitated there. "The name Acts of the Apostles is very inappropriate, for the first part is chieiiy concerned with Peter and the other exclusively with Paul, whereas there were twelve or thirteen apostles. If only we could trust the writer fully ! But the utmost caution is necessary. Fortunately, we have another account of some of the things this writer tells us, written by Paul himself. "We would rejoice still more in an accurate knowledge of the life of Jesus. We hardly have any sources but the first four books of the New Testament. Paul gives us a few general characteristics and makes a few allusions in his letters, but this is all. He had never known Jesus personally. "The passage in Josephus' 'Jewish Antiquities' that re- fers to Jesus is certainly spurious, and was inserted by a later and a Christian hand. The Talmud compresses the history of Jesus into a single sentence. We must be con- tent with the Gospels. "Compare them with each other. The moment we do so we notice that the fourth Gospel stands quite alone, while the first three form a single group, not only follow- ing the same general course, but sometimes showing even a verbal agreement, which cannot possibly be accidental. "A careful examination shows us that the difference between Matthew, Mark, and Luke on the one hand, and John on the other, is so great that we must choose between them, since we cannot possibly harmonize them. In a word, John gives us a totally different impression both of the whole and of the separate details from that conveyed by the Synoptics. "Attempts to remove this contradiction have been in vain. There is no escaping the fact, we must make our choice. Nor can we hesitate as to what that choice shall be. 104 About the Bible. "We may read the Gospel of John for our edification (indeed, there is perhaps no other book of the Bible more eminently suited to this purpose), but for the history of Jesus we cannot use it, and need never consult it." "The fourth Gospel forms a beautiful and well-ordered whole, but it is far otherwise with the synoptic Gospels. They can hardly be said to have had authors at all. They had only editors or compilers." The Bible in the "Universal Cyclopedia.'" Reference is here made to the article on "The Bible" in the "Universal Cyclopedia," published by D. Appleton & Co., and edited by Charles Kendall Adams, LL.D., Pres- ident of the University of Wisconsin. The article on "The Bible" was written by the late Eev. Philip Schaff, LL.D., Professor in the Union Theological Seminary, Kew York. He says that the oldest complete manuscript of the Old Testament in existence dates from A. D. 1009, and of the New Testament from the fourth century. Regard- ing the inspiration so called of the books of the Old Tes- tament, he says: "The crude and superstitious theories of inspiration which have prevailed to some extent in the Christian Church are of rabbinical manufacture. They were prev- alent in the seventeenth century but are now generally abandoned by the great majority of Protestant divines." Regarding the New Testament, he says : "We have no record or tradition of the original handi- work of the writers." "The first printed text was not published till 1520. The doubt as to the various authorities was settled in the El- zevir edition, 1624-1633, not by fhorougMy investigating the matter^ but by arbitrary sanction." Under date of Leyden, July 2d, 1900, Dr. Oort says aijout " The Bible for Learners :" " It is some ttiirty years since we wrote it, and some of the data is more or less antiquated now." While to the great mass of churchgoiug Americans many of their state- ments are absolutely news unheard of, they are not so to many. About the Bible. 105 "The preYailing opinion of scholars at the present time appears to be that the Gospel of Mark presents the nearest approach to the original of the synoptical Gospels." Eegarding John, he says: "The Gospel of John is clearly independent of the oth- ers in its material, scope, and purpose. It takes up the life of our Lord not so much pragmatically (practically) as philosophically and mystically — in its religious rather than its historical aspect." Chapter VIII. Dr. St. George Mivart — Orthodoxy. St. George Miyart, M.D., Ph.D., F.E.S., the great English Eoman Catholic scholar, who passed from earth this year at the age of seventy-three years, originally was one of the stoutest opponents of the Darwinian theory, and as Darwin himself acknowledged by far the most formid- able of his critics. "He argued stoutly that the teachings of science need not be contradicted by those of religion — that one may hold, for example, that the world was not made in six days, or that the Deluge was not a historical event, and yet be a good Catholic. But in 1893 the Pope declared that one must not allow that there are any historical or scientific errors in the Bible, inasmuch as it was all dic- tated by the Holy Ghost, with no admixture of human er- ror. Dr. Mivart, past seventy, protested against this. His old friend Cardinal Archbishop Vaughan refused to argue with him, told him he must submit, and when he delayed and asked questions he was forbidden the sacraments. But Dr. Mivart did not submit. He believed that the rev- elation of God in Kature is as authoritative as that in the Bible, and that there can be harmony between religion and science, each having its own place." This good man and great Christian, long recognized the world over as the leading scientist within the Eoman Catholic Church, died early in April, 1900, in London. His body was placed in a temporary vault at Kensal Green, a Protestant cemetery, permission having been re- fused to inter the body in the family grave at the Catholic cemetery. 106 DR, ST. GEORGE MIVART. About the Bible. 107 And yet how much he had to be thankful for in the fact that he lived in the last years of the nineteenth century ! Remember the words of Galileo's recantation, A. D. 1633, less than three hundred years ago : "I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, heing a prisoner and on my knees, and before your Eminences, having be- fore my eyes the Holy Gospel, -which I touch with my hands J abjure, curse, and detest the error and the heresy of the movement of the earth." "The Protestant Church was hardly less energetic against the new astronomy than the mother Church." In an article published in the "Nineteenth Century," January, 1900, St. George Mivart said : "As every man with a healthy and active mind must change his views as his knowledge increases, so every well- constituted community must likewise modify its opinions. Of a community, as of a man, an animal, or a plant, it may alike be said, to cease to change is to cease to live." He also wrote : "Pious people have sometimes seemed to think that they could hardly believe too much, and felt that to be over- credulous was safer than to entertain an 'honest doubt.' I^ ow, however, the duty of caution in credence is being rec- ognized, and ere long it will be regarded as an imperative duty." His statement that "We have a moral responsibility not to prostitute the noble faculty of reason by giving assent to propositions which are not supported by adequate evidence," might well be seriously pondered over by the able and loved pastor of a church in Boston, Mass., who in his weekly Sunday school lesson, published in a Chicago paper April 14th last, under the heading "Miracles of Healing," said, "Blind faith is better than rational faith whenever Christ is the object of it." 108 About the Bible. Orthodoxy. The Greek Church calls no one orthodox not of its communion. The Roman Catholic Church denies orthodoxy to Protestants, and Protestants claim orthodoxy does not belong to those not believing in Trinitarianism. A fair criticism on all the authorities quoted in this book is that none of them is orthodox. This but a short time ago would have been a very serious charge. In an article in the April number of the "N"orth Amer- ican EevieV Eev. Minot J. Savage, D.D., of the Church of the Messiah, New York City, asks and answers the ques- tion "After Orthodoxy — What?" in, to me, a most satis- factory manner: "Is it darkness and despair, a being in the world with- out God and without hope ? No ! As the pessimism and despair of Orthodoxy fades away, like the darkness before the rising sun, it leaves us in a world containing a nobler religion, a grander God, a more hopeful man, a more help- ful Jesus, a more comprehensive Bible, a better Church, and a more inspiring destiny." Chaptbh IX. The Story of the Bible.* "To-DAT we know more about the way the Bible grew and was put together than about the growth and develop- ment of the plays of Shakespeare, and the knowledge has come to us mostly in the past one hundred years, and the most of it, so far as the people are concerned, in the past twenty-five years." "The Sermon on the Mount, beyond a question, comes nearer to the original teachings of Jesus than anything else in all the Scriptures." , . , Original Ma^ktuscripts. "Most people have wondered why we have none of the original manuscripts of the Scriptures, particularly of the New Testament. The reason is not hard to give. Parch- ment, on which our earliest manuscripts are written, did not come into use, so far as we can learn, until about the fourth century A. D. The earlier manuscripts were on material made chiefly from the papyrus plant, and unfor- tunately they had little durability, decaying or rotting away in the course of about one hundred years." "The earliest known manuscript of the Old Testament dates from about 1000 A. D." "Until about fifty years ago the oldest complete manu- script of the New Testament dated from the sixth or seventh century, and unfortunately these manuscripts themselves were not always in accord." "The 'Codex Sinaitieus,' the oldest known manuscript in * The following extracts are from " The Story of the BlWe from the Stand- point of Modern Scholarship," hy Walter L. Sheldon, Lecturer of the Ethical Society of St. Louis, Mo., and are here given by his kind permission. (Unity Publishing Co., Chicago, HI.) a 109 110 Aboui the Bible. existence, coming from about 350 A. D., was' discovered about forty years ago by a German scholar while tempo- rarily in a monastery near Mount Sinai." "The New Testament was written in a language not spoken by Jesus." "Our Bible opens with the story of the Garden of Eden. According to tradition, this was the earliest portion of the Bible written." "Towards the end of the Old Testament we find books which go under the name of Prophecies. Eead them over, and you will not find a single reference to the story of the Garden of Eden, or to Adam and Eve. We find refer- ences to Moses and the Israelites, and their crossing the Eed Sea, but no allusion to the first parents or the beau- tiful garden." "In any other history we would take it for granted that these prophets had never heard of Eden or Adam and Eve, and the new scholarship will tell you it is practically cer- tain that Moses himself had never heard of them." "If the books were arranged in the order in which these chapters of Genesis were written, they would come nearer the end of the Old Testament than the Prophecies." "Is it destructive to learn such things ? On the contrary it is reconstructive." "Which Bible should we choose? The old-fashioned kind, which gives us the wonders of the Bible, or the Higher Criticism, which gives us the truth ?" "We have been taught to trace the origin of the Bible to the epoch of Moses, but that is a mistake. It was the 'exile' so called, which, humanly speaking, led up to the Bible." "The date for the Old Testament, that is to say, for the recognition or establishment of a 'sacred literature,' was the year 444 B. C. Much of that literature had come into existence before. But up to that time it was only litera- ture." "The Bible does teach history, and in a marvelous and About the Bible. Ill most valuable way. It is a perfect gold mine of informa- tion about the early world. If you want to read history, 'Search the Scriptures.' But remember that in reading history, as in reading anything else, one must have in- telligence and use it. The first point to bear in mind is that in the early world books of history were not written with the same purpose, or according to the same plan, as books of history at the present time. It was the exception when they were written strictly for the purpose of record- ing facts." "The Bible is a sublime record of how man by degrees came to know his God. If you pick up a fragment of rock by the roadside you may not be able to tell what it means in the earth's history, or how it came there. But the trained eye, or trained mind, can. The truth about the Bible goes back for its origin to the scholars of Germany. As an important theory it is only about half a century old, and of much less age in the English-speaking world. It came out boldly in Great Britain for the first time in an article by a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman on 'The Bible' in the last edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica.' His name was W. Eobertson Smith. He was tried for heresy, but the outcome was practically a victory for him, although it deprived him of his position as a professor at Aberdeen. Yet it appears to have been settled by the Free Presby- terian Church of Scotland that a man was entitled to hold the attitude held by Smith without necessarily being in contradiction to the doctrines of this church." "Lux MUNDI." "In 1889 appeared a volume of sermons by a number of the clergy of the Church of England, entitled 'Lux Mundi.' They made a great sensation. The editor of them. Rev. Charles Gore, said, 'It is the essence of the Old Testament to be imperfect, because it represents a gradual process of education, by which man was lifted out of the depths of sin and ignorance.' " 112 About the Bible. The Jewish Church. "The books of the Old Testament teach history, but when you read a passage at random from one of them you can- not take it as you would a passage of modern history. When was the Jewish Church established ? On the face of the records, reading them as an untrained observer would read the history of that piece of rock he picked up on the roadside, this Jewish Church was developed and estab- lished to its fullest extent by the founder of the Jewish State, Moses ; and it was all done before the Jewish people had settled in Palestine and had founded their city of Jerusalem." "It is now generally recognized that the Jewish Church, with its elaborate ceremonialism and its priesthood, dates about eight hundred years after Moses, and is connected with the first fall of Jerusalem, 'the exile,' 'the return,' and the restoration of Jerusalem. It was during that exile that this great scheme was formulated, and after the return that a Jewish Church was fully established." "It seemed wise and honest, to the leaders in those days, to throw hack the origin for all this to the founder of the Jewish State, Moses. A method of that kind was not looked upon in those days as deception. The evidence for all this has grown greater and greater by the study of scholars into the structure of those historic books. The battle royal centered around the Pentateuch, or the Pive Books of Moses. Tradition stated that Moses was their author, and this had been asserted so long that it was thought to say so in the books themselves, but it did not. It only attributes certain limited portions to Moses." "In the days when the Israelites were conquering the Canaanites, to all appearances they had no reluctance to make graven images and to 'worship' them. Not until five or six hundred years after the death of Moses did the great fight come against idolatry, and it came not through the lawgivers but through the Prophets." About the Bible, 113 • "In this Book of the Law, found B. C. 631, at Jerusa- lem, was contained the Ten Commandments. This was the first solemn proclamation of the Decalogue." "Keep in mind that after the restoration of Jerusalem and the foundation of the Jewish Church the people were the subjects of a new empire, that of Persia, down to the rise of Alexander the Great." "Rearrange the books of the Bible so as to place them in their chronological order, and you will see how the chil- dren of Israel went through all the stages of development from idolatry up to their belief in an imageless God. What of the 'brazen serpent' set up by Moses in the wilderness, at which all the people were to look and be saved from the poison of the serpent's bite? According to any or- dinary interpretation of literature, that serpent was a God. What of the ark ? Did the Jews not feel that their God lived in it ? that it was his dwelling place ? Why did they carry it to battle with them, if they did not believe that it was the abode of their God ?" "If the new scholarship has established anything, it is that Israelites grew out of a stage of idolatry, just as they grew out of a stage of polytheism." The Gospels. "It is not my purpose to go into the subject of the his- toric trustworthiness of 'the Gospels.' We have the best evidence that these memoirs developed somewhat gradually like the historic records of the Old Testament. Only the development in this case was much more rapid; for while it took five or six hundred years for the historic documents of the Old Testament to take their shape, we have pretty good reason for thinking that these memoirs were in ex- istence within about a hundred and twenty-five years after the death of Jesus. They did not stop growing even then. Additions crept into them, with changes here and there, for four hundred years. We are not sure, indeed, that we have the Pentateuch exactly as it was put forward by Ezra 114 About the Bible. in the year M4 B. C. It went on growing, or being changed, for two or three hundred years, but not to a very large extent. One can see how this must be so, in the fact that in the last revision of the English Bible you will find one well-known and very striking story in the Gospel of John placed in brackets in the Eevised Version. Why? Because it was not found in that famous text discovered at Mount Sinai about the middle of this century. In your childhood, as well as mine, you were accustomed to re- citing the close of the Lord's Prayer as you foujid it in the Sermon on the Mount, in your English Bible, 'For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for- ever.' You turn to the Eevised Version issued by the English Church, and these words are not there at all. The revisers simply had to leave them out." ''Jesus cut the old formalism in two with a single state- ment, and threw the commandments back on their original purpose, when he said, 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' " "Explain Jesus! I cannot, any more than I can explain the coming of the other great prophets. He belongs to the mysteries of which I speak, and which neither science nor philosophy can account for." "The world-movement which we call Christianity had its start in a tremendous personality ; call that personality Divine or human as you will." Chapter X. Who Wrote the Kfale?* The Book of Esthbe. "The name of God is not once mentioned in the book of Esther, and it seems like blasphemy to intimate that the Spirit of- God could have had anything to do with its composition. It is absolutely sickening to read the com- mentaries, which assume that it was dictated by the Holy Ghost, and which labor to justify and palliate its fright- ful narrative. One learns with a sense of relief that the Jews themselves long disputed its admission to their canon. ... "Dr. Martin Luther is orthodox enough for me, and he more than once expressed the hearty wish that the book had perished. That, indeed, we need not desire ; let it Te- main as a dark background on which the Christian moral- ity may stand forth resplendent ; as a striking example of the kind of ideas which Christians ought not to entertain, and of the kind of feelings which they ought not to cher- ish." Infallibility of the IvTew Testament. "To say that their training and association made the men who wrote the books of the New Testament infallible is to speak beyond the record. There is no promise of in- fallibility, and the history makes it plain enough that no such gift was bestowed. ... "The inspiration vouchsafed them did not make them infallible in their ordinary teaching, or in their admin- * Extracts Irom " Who Wrote the Bible ? A book for the People." by ITosft- in^on Gladden,. By the kind permission ol Bev. Washington Gladden, pas- tor of First Congregational Church, Columbus, 0., and Messrs. Houghton. Mifflin & Co., the publishers. U5 116 About the Bible. istration of the Church. They made mistakes of a very serious nature. It is beyond question that the majority of the apostles took at the beginning an erroneous view of the relation of the Gentiles to the Christian Church. ''They insisted that Gentiles must first become Jews be- fore they could become Christians ; that the only way into tlie Christian Church was through the synagogue and the temple. It was a grievous and radical error; it struck at the foundations of Christian faith. And this error was entertained by these inspired apostles after the day of Pentecost ; it influenced their teaching ; it led them to pro- claim a defective gospel. This is not the assertion of a skeptic, it is the clear testimony of the Apostle Paul. Eead the second chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians. . . . "It is evident that one or the other of these opposing parties in the apostolic college must have been in error, if not greatly at fault, with respect to a most vital ques- tion of Christian faith and doctrine. . . . "If these apostolic men could make such mistakes in their counsels and teaching, how can we be sure that they never make a mistake when they sit down to write — that then their words are always the very word of God? We can have no such assurance. . . . "That the books of the New Testament were written by inspired men is indeed indubitable; that they possessed a degree of inspiration far exceeding that vouchsafed to any other religious teachers, that this degree of inspiration enabled them to bear witness clearly to the great facts of the Gospel of Christ I am very sure; but that they were absolutely protected against error, not one word in the record affirms, and they themselves have taken the utmost pains to disabuse our minds of any such impression. That theory about them was made up by other men hundreds of years after they were dead. . . . "It is manifest that when Paul wrote his first Epistle to the Thessalonians, about A. D. 53, he expected that Christ would return to earth while he was alive. . . . About the Bible. 117 "The Thessalonians had began to neglect their daily duties and to behave in the same foolish way that men have behaved in all the later ages when they have got their heads full of this notion. Paul's second letter was written chiefly to rebuke this fanaticism and to bid them go right on with their work making ready for the Lord's coming by a faithful discharge of the duties of the present hour. . . ." Oeiginal Language of the Gospels. "When we speak of the Greek as the original language of the Gospels we do not speak with entire accuracy. The Greek does not give us our Lord's original words. . . . ISTo man on earth knows, or ever will know, what were the precise words that our Lord used in his Sermon on the Mount, in his conversation with the woman at the well, in his last discourse with his disciples. . . . "If our Lord had thought it important that we should have his very words he would have seen to it that his very words were preserved and recorded for us in Aramaic in- stead of the Greek translation of his words, made by his followers, which we now possess. . . . "The Gospels themselves- contain abundant proof that the Holy Ghost did not dictate the words employed by their writers. . . ." Last Woeds oe the Bible. "The common notion about the last words in the Bible is that the 'book' here referred to is the Bible. It is a mis- take ; they do not refer to the Bible, but to the book of Eev- elation. When these words were written, says Dr. Barnes in his 'Commentary,' 'the books that now constitute what we call the Bible were not collected into a single volume.' The Bible of the early Christians was the Old Testament. They relied wholly upon it for religious instruction; they had no thought of any other Sacred Scripture. "When the New Testament writings first came into the 118 About the Bible. hands of the disciples there was not, it is probable, any con- ception in their minds that these were sacred writings, to be ranked along with the books of the Old Testament. They read them for instruction and suggestion; they did not at first think of them as holy. . . ." The Value of the Diffeeent Books. "The books of the Bible are not all of equal rank and sacredness. ... I do not wish to part with any of them. I find instruction in them all, though in some of them, as in Esther and Bcclesiastes, it is rather as records of savagery and of skepticism, from which every Christian ought to recoil, that I can see any value in them." The Okigiital Manusceipts. "The original New Testament writings, which came from the hands of the apostles and their amanuenses, we do not possess. These were probably written not on skins, but upon the papyrus paper commonly used at that day, which was a frail and flimsy fabric, and under ordinary circumstances would soon perish." How Much is the Bible Woeth? "1. The Bible is not an infallible book, in the sense in which it was once popularly supposed. . . . When we dis- cover that the 'various readings' of the differing manu- scripts amount to one hundred and fifty thousand, the im- possibility of maintaining the verbal inerrancy of the Bible becomes evident. . . . "2. The book is not infallible historically. ... Its writers were not miraculously protected from mistakes in dates and numbers and the order of events. "3. It is not infallible scientifically. . . . "4. It is not infallible morally. . . . Many things are commanded in the Bible which it would be wrong for us to do. . . . Any man who accepts the Bible as a code of About the Bible. 119 moral rules, all of which are equally binding, will be led into the gravest errors. . . . "The notions of the writers often concerning their duties to God were dim and imperfect; so were their notions concerning their duties to man. All the truths that they could receive were given them; but there were many truths, which they could not receive, which to us are as plain as daylight. . . . "The old rabbinical theory that the Bible was verbally dictated by God and is absolutely accurate, and that it is blasphemy to raise a question concerning any part of it, is a consistent theory. Between this and a free but reverent inquiry into the Bible itself there is no middle ground. "That it is useless and mischievous to make for the Bible claims that it nowhere makes for itself — to hold and teach a theory concerning it which at once breaks down when an intelligent man begins to study it with open mind — ^is be- ginning to be very plain. "The quibbling, the concealment, the disingenuousness which this method of using the Bible involves are not con- ducive to Christian integrity. This kind of 'lying for God' has driven hundreds of thousands already into irreconcil- able alienation from the Christian Church. It is time to stop it." Biblical Infallibility. "The attempt of any intelligent man to maintain the theoretical and ideal infallibility of all parts of these writ- ings is a criminal blunder. ... "The New Testament writers could not have consist- ently held such a theory as the infallibility of the Old Testament books, else they would not have quoted them, as they did, with small care for verbal accuracy. . . . "It was not until the period succeeding the Eeformation that this dogma of Biblical Infallibility was clearly formu- lated and imposed upon the Protestant Churches. . . . "Men made up their theories of the Bible out of their 130 About the Bible. ideas about God, and then went to work to fit the facts of the Bible to their preconceived theories. This has re- quired a great deal of stretching, and twisting, and lopping off here and there; the truth has been badly distorted, sometimes mutilated. The changed view of the Bible, which greatly alarms some good people, arises from the fact that certain honest men have determined to go di- rectly to the Bible itself and find out by studying it the facts. . . . "By a careful and reverent study of the Bible itself we find the Bible to be: "I. The book of righteousness. Ko other book in the world fixes our thoughts so steadily upon the great interest of character. The Bible keeps always before us the fact that the one great concern of every man is to be right in heart and in life. . . . Eighteousness is life; righteousness is salvation; this is the one message of the Bible to men. "II. The Bible is the record of the development of the Tcingdom of righteousness in the world. Man knows in- tuitively that he ought to do right; his notion of what is right is continually being purified and enlarged. . . . "But say many, 'If the Bible is not infallible, it is no more than any other book ; we have no further use for it.' Thousands of fair-minded men have taken the word of such teachers, and have thrown the book away. May God forgive the folly of these blind guides! But what stupid Reasoning is this! If your watch is not infallible is it therefore worthless? Tour physician is not infallible; are his services therefore worthless? Your father is not infallible; are his counsels worthless? The Church of God is not infallible, and never was ! Are its solemn serv- ices and its inspiring labors and its uplifting fellowships worthless? . . . "It is not true that the Bible no longer has any value for those who have ceased to hold the traditional view of it. . . . "The idolaters who make it treason to disbelieve a single About ihb Bible. 131 word of the Bible, and the iconoclasts who treat it as noth- ing better than any other book, are equally far from the truth. . . . "The divine influence which illumines and sanctifies the pages of the Bible is waiting to enlighten our minds that we may comprehend its words, and to prepare our hearts, that we may receive its messages. Some things hard to understand are here, but the Spirit of truth can make plain to us all that we need to know. "No man wisely opens the Bible who does not first lift up his heart for help to find in it the way of life, and to him who studies it in this spirit it will show the salva- tion of God." Chapter XI. The New Conception of the Bible. Many people will read the following letter with great profit and thankfulness : "Embassy of the United States oe America, "Berlin, October 17th, 1899. "Dear Mr. Hammond : . . . I was somewhat amused by one or two of the letters of which you inclosed me copies, which seem to indicate a feeling that if the parts of the Bible which jou do not wish to teach your children were not taught, there would be nothing left. That is the most monstrous charge ever brought against the Bible, and it cannot be repelled too vigorously. "Let the whole book, or rather series of books, be pub- lished as at present, but in teaching let the stress be laid upon those everlasting things which are not in the slight- est degree affected by progress in knowledge regarding mythical and legendary parts. "I really hope that you will get hold of the book which I mentioned in my last letter, namely, 'The Bible for Learners,' for I feel sure that it will not only interest you, but be of use to you. "With renewed thanks I remain, "Most respectfully yours, "And. D. White." The continent we lire on was only discovered by Olirlstians four hundred and eight years ago, Australia less than three hundred years ago. People living here and in many other parts of the world never could have heard of the Bible until nearly one thousand five hundred years after Jesus' crucifix- ion. Should they be punished forever because of their lack of opportunity ? God's sun has always shone on the Americas and on Australia exactly the same as it has shone on Palestine. 122 About the Bible. 133 The last testimony presented regarding the historical truth of parts of the Bible, and as to what would be the result of Christians accepting " the truth," is taken from the second volume of "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom/'* written by Hon. Andrew Dickson White, and dedicated to the memory of Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University. Mr. White's "reasons for giving such very full refer- ences were twofold : first, to stop the mouths of gainsayers ; and secondly, to enable other scholars to follow out various trains of thought for themselves." Regarding the Old Testament, he says : "A few years ago a change in interpreting Scripture seemed absolutely necessary, but it seemed almost hopeless. Dr. Baylee, Principal of St. Aidan's College, England, de- clared that in Scripture, 'Every scientific statement is in- fallibly accurate; all its histories and narrations of every kind are without any inaccuracy. Its words and phrases have a grammatical and philological accuracy such as is possessed by no human composition.' "In 1861 Dean Burgon preached in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, as follows: 'The Bible is the very ut- terance of the Eternal; as much God's own word as if high heaven were open and we heard God speaking to us in a human voice.' "In 1865 Canon MaclSTeile declared in Exeter Hall, 'We must either receive the verbal inspiration of the Old Tes- tament, or deny the veracity, the insight, the integrity of our Lord Jesus Christ as a teacher of Divine Truth.' "As late as 1889, Canon Liddon, preaching at St. Paul's Cathedral, said, 'Since the founder of Christianity alluded * This work Is published by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., and can be found at all bookstores. It is the result of more than twenty-flve years of study and personal investigation, and every statement is supported by reference to his authority. No person can aitord not to have read this great work. My earnest thanks are hereby given to Mr. White and his publishers for the use of this matter. The compiler cannot find words to adequately express his appre- ciation and admiration of the character and work of Andrew Dickson White. 134 About the Bible. to the transformation of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, of Noah's ark and the flood, and to the sojourn of Jonah in the whale, the Biblical account of these must be accepted as historical, or Christianity must be given up altogether.' '•'In the light of what was rapidly becoming known, no argument could be more fraught with peril to the interests which the gifted preacher sought to serve. "The universal belief in the Church was that the names of all created things, except possibly fishes, were given them by Adam in Hebrew. This theory was ruined when other and earlier names for the same animals were found in an earlier (older) language than the Hebrew (the Sans- krit) , and especially when Egyptian hieroglyphics and pic- tures revealed animals and their names at a period earlier than agreed on by all the sacred chronologists as the date of creation. "We now know that language is the result of evolutionary processes in obedience to laws more or less clearly ascer- tained. "Sir Edwin Arnold, by his poem, 'The Light of Asia,' spread far and wide a knowledge of the anticipation in Buddhism of some ideas which until recently were considered distinctively Christian, and when the Buddhist scriptures came to be fully examined there were disclosed interesting anticipations of statements in later sacred books : Buddha's miraculous conception; his virgin birth; the previous an- nunciation to his mother Maja; his birth during a journey by her; the star appearing in the East; the angels chant- ing in the heavens at his birth; his temptation, etc., etc." Mr. White says, and his scholarship certainly entitles him to our earnest attention, that : "The style of the Bible is not supernatural and unique, but simply the Oriental style of the land and times in which its various parts were written." "That Kueneu proved that Old Testament history is largely mingled with myths and legends." About the Bible. 125 "That the laws attributed to Moses were a far later development and much of their historical setting an after- thought; that as far back as the time assigned in Genesis to the Creation a great civilization was flourishing in Mes- opotamia; that long ages before the Scriptural date as- signed to the migration of Abraham from Ur of the Chal- dees the Chaldean civilization had blossomed forth in Art, Science, and Literature." "That the ancient inscriptions recovered from the sites of Chaldean and kindred civilizations presented the He- brew sacred myths and legends in earlier forms — forms long antedating those given in the Hebrew Scriptures." "That the accounts of the creation, the tree of life in Eden, the institution and even the name of the Sabbath, the deluge, the tower of Babel, and much else in the Pen- tateuch were simply an evolution out of earlier Chaldean myths and legends." "So perfect was the proof of this that the most eminent scholars, in the foremost seats of Christian learning, were obliged to acknowledge it." "It has been found out that the legends of the plagues in Egypt are in the main but natural exaggerations of what occurs there nearly every year. Take the changing of the waters of the Nile into blood. About the middle of July in eight or ten days, the river changes from grayish blue to dark red, occasionally of so intense a color as to look like newly shed blood." "Modern researches have shown that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was certainly not overwhelmed in the Eed Sea; that the most striking parts of our sacred Joseph legend were drawn from the old Nile story of 'The Two Broth- ers ;' that the story of the exposure of Moses in the basket of rushes, his rescue, and his subsequent greatness had been previously told long before Moses' time." "Egyptologists have published plans of Egyptian tem- ples, and copies- of the sculptures on their walls, revealing the earlier origin of some of the most striking features of 126 Asoni THE Bible. the worship and ceremonial claimed to have been revealed especially to the Hebrews. They have found in the Egyp- tian 'Book of the Dead/ and in various inscriptions of the Nile temples and tombs, earlier sources of much in the ethics so long claimed to have been revealed only to the 'Chosen People' in the 'Book of the Covenant/ in the 'Ten Commandments/ and elsewhere." "They have given to the world copies of the Egyptian text, showing that the theology of the Nile was one of various fruitful sources of later ideas, statements, and prac- tices regarding the brazen serpent, the golden calf, trini- ties, miraculous conceptions, incarnations, resurrections, ascensions, and the like." "In the article on language in the 'Biblical Eneyelo- pasdia/ edited by Dr. John McClintock and Kev. Dr. Strong, which appeared in 1873, the whole sacred theory is given up and the scientific view accepted." "The result has been a blessing both to science and to religion. No harm has been done to Eeligion, nor has any harm been done to the Bible." "In these myths and legends, caught from earlier civil- izations, we see an evolution of the most important re- ligious and moral truths of our race. Myth, legend, and parable seem, in obedience to a divine law, the necessary setting for these truths as they were successively evolved, ever in higher and higher forms." "What matters it then that we have come to know that the account of creation, the fall, the deluge, and much else in our sacred books, were remembrances of lore ob- tained from the Chaldeans?" "What matters it that the beautiful story of Joseph is found to be in part derived from an Egyptian romance of which the hieroglyphics may still be seen?" "What matters it that the story of David and Goliath is poetry, and that of Samson a myth?" "What matters it that the inculcation of high duty is embodied in such stories as those of Jonah and Balaam ?" About ihe Bible. 137 "What matters it that Darwin changed the whole aspect of our creation myths ? that Lyell and his compeers placed the whole story of the creation and of the deluge of Noah among legends? that Copernicus put an end to the sun standing still for Joshua? that Halley, in promulgating his laws of comets, put an end to the doctrine of 'signs and wonders?' that Pinel, in showing that all insanity is phys- ical disease, relegated to the realm of mythology 'the witch of Endor' and all stories of demoniacal possession ?" "What matters it that the anthropologists, by showing how man has risen everywhere from low and brutal be- ginnings, have destroyed the whole theological theory of the fall of man?" Regarding the New Testament, Mr. White says : "No less important has been the closer research into the "New Testament in recent years." "It has been clearly shown that the first three Gospels, which down to a recent date were so constantly declared to be three independent testimonies, agreeing as to the truth recorded, are neither independent of each other nor in that sort of an agreement which was formerly asserted." "All Biblical scholars of any standing have come to ad- mit that all three took their rise in the same original sources." "As to the fourth Gospel, it has no right to the name, and is 'an unhistorical product of abstract reflection,' mainly due to some gifted representative, or representa- tives, of the Alexandrian school." Regarding the Revised Version of the Bible, which appeared in 1881, Mr. White says : "Although all but one of the English revisers represented Trinitarian bodies, they rejected the two great proof texts accounted essential bulwarks of Trinitarian doctrine, namely, the text of the three witnesses from the Epistle of John, and the interpolation of the word 'God' in the six- 128 About the Bible. teenth verse of the third chapter First Epistle of Timothy. They substituted the correct reading of Luke 3. 33. Thus we have the true reading, 'his father and his mother/ in- stead of the old piously fraudulent words, 'Joseph and his mother.' "An even more important service was the virtual setting aside of the last twelve verses of the Gospel according to St. Mark, for among these stood that sentence which has cost the world more innocent blood than any other, the words, 'He that believeth not shall be damned.' "The more we know of our sacred book the less certain we become as to the authenticity of 'proof text,' and re- vision has disengaged more and more as the only valuable residuum, like the gold in the bottom of the crucible, the personality, spirit, teaching, ideals, of the blessed Founder of Christianity." Many people seem to have the idea that if they once admit that the Bible is not what their forefathers have held it to be, everything will be lost to them. Far from it ! Says Mr. White : "In the light of modern science, the sacred text has been transformed." "Out of the old chaos has come order." "Out of the hopelessly conflicting statements in religion and morals has come the idea of a sacred literature, which mirrors the most striking evolution of morals and religion in the history of our race." "Of all the sacred writings of the world, our own is the most beautiful and the most precious. It exhibits to us the most complete religious development to which human- ity has attained, and holds before us the loftiest ideals our race has known. "As to the Divine power in tJie universe, beginning with the tribal God of the Hebrews — one among many jealous, fitful, unseen, local, sovereigns of Asia Minor — we have been borne on to the idea of the Just Ruler of the Whole Earth, as revealed by the later and greater prophets of Is- About the Bible. 129 rael, and finally to the belief in the Universal Father, as best revealed in the 'New Testament." "As to Man, beginning with men after Jehovah's own heart, cruel, treacherous, revengeful, we are borne on to an ideal of men who do right for right's sake, who search for and speaJc the truth for truth's sake, who love others as themselves." "As to the world at large, the races dominant in religion and morals have been lifted from the idea of a 'Chosen People,' stimulated and abetted by their tribal god in every sort of cruelty and injustice, to the conception of a vast community in which 'the fatherhood of God over- arches all, and the brotherhood of man permeates all.' " "Out of the old conception of our Bible, as a collection of oracles, as a mass of entangling utterances, fruitful in wrangling interpretations which have given the world long and weary ages of hatred, malice, uncharitableness, fetich- ism, subtlety, pomp, tyranny, bloodshed, and solemnly con- stituted imposture — of everything which the Lord Jesus Christ most abhorred — ^has gradually been developed, through the centuries, by the labors, sacrifices, and even martyrdom of a long succession of men of God, the con- ception of the Bible as a sacred literature — ^no longer an oracle good for the 'lower orders' to accept but to be sneered at by the enlightened, but a revelation, not of the fall of man, but of the rise of man; an exposition not of temporary dogmas and observances, but or the eternal LAW OF righteousness^ THE ONE UPVTAED PATH EOK IN- DIVIDUALS AND FOE NATIONS." FINIS. APPENDIX. These letters of Hon. Andrew D. White were not written for publication, but he has kindly permitted it. X. is my personal friend, educated at one of the great universities, an earnest Christian and a Sunday school worker. He wrote for me a brief criticism of "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom," which was sent to Mr. White. The following was Mr. White's answer : "Embassy of the United States of America, "Berlin, March 30th, 1899. "C. L. Hammond, Esq. "My dear Sir : Accept my thanks for your kind letter of January 30th, with inclosure from Mr. X., and my re- grets that until now I have not had leisure to reply. "I note in Mr. X.'s letter sundry things which lead me somewhat to distrust his fairness. For example, he speaks of Dana (whom he holds to be a 'humble Christian thinker') as a 'geologist,' but Marsh (whose orthodoxy he doubts) he speaks of as a 'bone specialist.' I knew both these men well. Dana was one of my teachers, a noble, beautiful character, and, though his scientific ideas made their way, he had, with his father-in-law. Pro- fessor Silliman, to encounter in early life bitter opposition from such a colossus of orthodoxy as Professor Moses Stewart, of Andover. Marsh was, at his recent death, the foremost of living paleontologists, and, though he sup- ported the Darwinian theory vigorously and stood firmly by Huxley, was never attacked as skeptical because the world had moved on. "As to the literary criticisms of Mr. X., I find no 130 'About the Bible. 131 difficulty in analyzing the first sentence to which he refers, nor in understanding the next; nor do any of my many deeply religious correspondents appear to have found any such difficulty. On re-reading the whole passage it appears to me to say lucidly and decisively what the writer means, and that is the most that can be demanded of any sentence. Curiously enough, one or two of the sentences which he most bitterly attacks are simply quotations, and marked as such, from one of the greatest biblical scholars of modern times. "As to Mr. X.'s statement that 'Mr. White's view is not gaining ground in these last days of the nine- teenth century,' I distinctly take issue with him. What he calls 'Mr. White's view' is, it is quite likely, not yet gaining ground in sundry orthodox Sunday schools, or even in sundry bible classes frequented by most excellent people, but that it is absolutely taking possession of the sources from which theological and exegetical opinions come, at least so far as Protestants are concerned, is cer- tain. "Mr. X. cites Neander and Eenan for his view. The former died about fifty years ago, and an enormous growth in biblical criticism has taken place since then, Eenan, as is well known, changed his view on the subject before his death. As to Professor Harnack, I know him person- ally, and from my talks with him do not believe that we differ. "Mr. X. imputes to me a 'change of view.' There has been none of the sort he indicates : time has but strength- ened the views I have long held on the subject referred to. "He also reproaches me for not consulting men like Sanday, Westcott, and Woolsey. As to Sanday, I did cite him, as you will see, and he makes an admission fatal to the view taken by Mr. X., as you will see by glancing over my Vol. II, p. 386. I would also suggest that Mr. X. look at the passages cited under the name of Sanday in the index if he thinks that the authority of that scholar is 132 About the Bible. ranged on the so-called 'orthodox' side. As to Woolsey, he was one of my instructors and most valued friends, pre- sided when I gave a summary of the main conclusions of my book in a lecture entitled 'Warfare of Science' at New Haven, stood manfully by me as regards its spirit and main statements, and publicly expressed himself to that efEect before my audience. "As to Westcott, while I respect him greatly, and have not the slightest disposition to deny his honesty, he, like so many high dignitaries in England and elsewhere, took the so-called 'orthodox' view — and verily he and they have their reward. For services of this kind to orthodoxy, Light- foot and he were successively elevated to the Bishopric of Durham, while men who wrote on the other side, no matter how reverently, were considered under the ban, or, as in the case of Eobertson Smith, turned out of their professorships. "Again let me say I do not impugn the honesty of the 'apologists,' but I simply state the fact that for generations the honors of the Church have been given to them, while the fearless investigators have been neglected if not per- secuted. "Mr. X. calls me a 'special pleader.' This seems to me obviously unjust. I believe that any unprejudiced jury would declare the charge to lie against him with far more force than against me. I have made no 'special plea' for any sect or party, but have endeavored Judicially, after much study and thought, to state what I believe to be the truth. As you must know, if you have read my book, I have not been a partisan of Eoman Catholics, Protestants, or Freethinkers, but have stated the facts as I found them. "Mr. X. finds my citation of the 'Encyclopaedia Britan- nica,' p. 642, to be an article on 'Birds.' In my edition, which is the original British with the New York title-page of 1878, it is 'Bible.' "Your correspondent also finds fault with me for citing Cone and Crooker, and declares that both are out of date. About the Bible. 133 On the contrary, they are more recent than most of those he names, and for the purpose of summing up the simple plain facts and statistics it is entirely proper to cite them. "Let me make a comparison : Suppose I am writing upon a recent opinion as to the constitutionality of an income tax, and I cite from some very modest writer of a digest, Mr. Doe, or from some collector of statistics, Mr. Eoe, a simple statement of well-known opinions of different au- thorities pro and con, revealing as a simple fact that the majority of the authorities is increasingly in favor of the constitutionality of such a tax — and then suppose that Mr. X. says : 'Mr. White cites Mr. Doe and Mr. Eoe, but fails to cite Mr. Choate, a far greater authority.' "The evident reason for my citation is that the men I cite give simple statistical and historical statements which can be verified as a matter of fact, while Mr. Choate — ' doubtless of far greater genius and higher standing — hold- ing a brief for a certain view, advocates it with great abil- ity. "Mr. X. finds fault because, instead of what he calls the 'negative provision' embodied in the charter of Cornell University, he would have preferred the 'positive state- ment' that 'the religion of the Gospel of Christ is to be the basis of the religion to be taught at Cornell.' "Your correspondent is evidently unaware of the prob- lem involved. The original endowment for Cornell Uni- versity was given by the United States and by the State of Kew York, and by a man of the deepest religious char- acter, but who held the questions to which Mr. X. attaches such great importance as of absolutely no account com- pared with what he considered to be the known fundament- al teachings on which stress was laid by Christ himself. It was universally held that, in an institution endowed by the nation and state, where men of all denominations were to come together, they should be absolutely equal, and that there was no right to enforce any particular view, whether 134 About the Bible. Mr. X.'s view of the fourth Gospel or any other, upon its students. "But, as a matter of fact, a deeply and reverently re- ligious feeling in the best sense has prevailed there ; broad, tolerant, and thoughtful men of all denominations having been allowed to freely express their opinions, and the re- sult has been, as I believe, a very noble and beneficent in- iluenee. "Pardon me for writing you so long a letter ; indeed, it would be far longer were I not greatly driven by pressing business. "I remain, dear Sir, "Very respectfully yours, "And. D. White." In another letter Mr. White says : "I like greatly the declaration of principles adopted by your church* which you kindly send me. In that declara- tion I could unite with all my heart. I have often won- dered that some leaders in church organization were not wise enough to throw overboard a mere 'acceptance' of creeds made by men, and unite on the simple broad basis of just such a declaration of principles as this which you have sent me. "Of all the absurdities that men have ever devised, per- haps the greatest, as well as the one which has caused the most shedding of innocent blood, is the idea that mere be- lief in a formula is of the slightest account, one way or the other. Among our soldiers of the Civil War, belief in General Grant was a great element of success; but belief in General Grant did not mean belief in any formula that certain metaphysical men had devised, concerning his birth and modes of action, but it meant belief in his right and capacity to lead, and willingness to follow him in that leadership to the end which he was seeking to attain. And so with belief in Christ. * The Kenwood Evangelical Church, Chicago. 'About the Bible. 135 "I was myself brought up after the strictest sect in the Episcopal Church, and I still love that church, hut it has always seemed to me an impertinence to require men to stand up in the midst of the service, and recite a statement of belief made nobody knows by whom, and nobody knows where, as to the exact meaning of which no two persons exactly agree." When the Rev. James S. Dickey, D.D., pastor of the Union Church of Berlin, Germany, recently preached in the Chicago church above referred to, he mentioned the names of many of the distinguished men of his congregation. The first on the list was the Hon. Andrew D. White, the American Ambassador. The following autograph letter of Rev. Dr. Oort is especially instruct- ive. He is now sixty-four years old, and has had nearly thirty years to consider the statements In " The Bible for Learners." Letter of Dr. H. Oort to Charj^es L. Hammond. "Leiden, Holland, September 4, 1900. "I answer your letter briefly, as it is not easy for me to write in a foreign language. Please excuse any blunders. "I send you the three photographs you ask for. If you will be so kind as to send me a copy of your book I will be glad, as I read English. It was agreeable to hear you like our book ('The Bible for Learners'), but as it is some thirty years old some of the data is more or less antiquated. The new translation of the 'Old Testament' by Kuenen, Hooykaas, Kosters, and myself has many better statements about things and the chronology. "Abraham Kuenen was a Doctor of Theology and of Letters. You can find much about him and his work, especially his merits in 'Old Testament' matters, in 'The New World,' 1892, pages 64-89, by Professor C. H. Toy,* and in 'The Jewish Quarterly Eeview,' 1893, pages 571- * Crawford Howell Toy, A.M., LL.D,, Professor of Hebrew and Lecturer on Biblical Literature In Harvard University. 136 About the Bible. 605, by Eev. Philip H. Wicksteed.* He was a member of the Beformed Church (the form of the Presbyterians). "Isaac Hooykaas was a Doctor of Theology; in the first years of his public life a minister in the Eeformed Church, afterward in a community of the 'Eemonstrantists/ your Unitarians. He was a very learned and pious man. He died August 28th, 1894. "My full name is Henricus Oort. I am a Doctor of The- ology, and was for twelve years a minister in the Eeformed Church, till I was appointed in 1873 to a professorship in Amsterdam. In IST'S I came here as Professor of Hebrew and Israelitish Antiquity. Our university (the University of Leiden) has fifty professors and one thousand students. It has no test. "In our faculty of theology four of the professors are members of the Eeformed Church. One is a 'Eemon- strant.' The Queen names the professors. "Half of our people and more belong to the Eeformed Church. Most of them are Orthodox. A large part of the ministers, about one third, are not Orthodox, but either what we call 'Evangelical' or what we call 'Modern,' that is, adherents of modern criticism. Kuenen and Hooykaas are or were 'modern" more or less radical. "You write of your family. Well, Kuenen, Hooykaas, and I, we all have large families — each of us eight chil- dren. One of my sons is a minister in a community of the 'Eemonstrants,' another a minister in the Eeformed Church." * These magazines are on file In most gieat American libraries. Eev. Philip H. Wiclssteed was the translator of " The Bible for Learners."