The Bible; is it "the word of God?"

Front matter

FROM THE

BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY

COLLECTED BY

Contents

I. — THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Inspiration of Book, .

Language of Book, Custody of Book, The Ark

I. Cokveesation Between A Reformed Pundit And A Candid Student

Pundit. — The Bible has been put into my hands as being the " Word of God." I find great difficulty in judging of the character of this book, and hearing that you have made it your study, I come to you in the hope that you will assist me ia understanding how I am to look upon it. I am shaken out of my own persuasion, as a Hindu, and am told by Christians, with whom I have now come into contact, that their book is the only one to trust to. They say, in fact, that my fate in the future state depends upon my accepting, or rejecting, the statements made in this book. Will you, therefore, enable me to judge of its history and authority?

Student. — Gladly : I will answer to the best of my power any questions you may put to me on the subject.

P — In what sense is this book , to be considered " The in^iratiou

... of Book.

Word of God V God, I presume, did not actually write it ? S. — No; that is not alleged. It was written by man's

hand.

p. Was this effected by some one chosen person, whose

thoughts and hand were guided by God to compose the book ?

g_ JSTo. The statement is, that various people, at different

times, spreading over a long course of years, were used for the purpose ; as it is written, " God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets" (Heb. i. 1).

p. In what way was this instrumentality made use of?

S, — It is said by acts of inspiration. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. iii. 16). "Holy men

A of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. i. 21).

P. — "What warrant is there that what these different persons wrote was in very truth put into their heads by God ?

S. — This being a matter between themselves and God, there can be no independent testimony of the act of inspiration. The writers say they were so inspired, and demand confidence on the ground of being holy men.

P. — As the holiness of the writers appears to be one of the ingredients to the reception of what they may have said, what assurance is there that they were thus holy?

S. — Of that we cannot be said to have any. We have no account of the lives of any excepting David, the psalmist, and he was steeped in crime. Some of their thoughts, in fact, are on subjects so impure, that people avoid these passages, and wish them expunged; and one writer, Hosea (i. 1-6; iii. 1), carried out in action, alleging he did so by the direct command of God, offences against morality, of which elsewhere it is said that those thus guilty " God will judge" (Heb. xiii. 4).

P. — Then I am to read this book with discrimination, and • judge what in it is of man, and not of God.

S, — One would think so ; but you are seriously warned against interfering with it in any way. "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you ; neither shall ye diminish ought from it" (Deut. iv. 2). " If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life" (Rev. xxii. 19).

P. — Certainly ; it stands to reason, that, if God has considered it necessary to man's welfare in a future state to make verbal communications to him, any interference with his word must bring, not the individual only, but the whole race, into peril. Precautions, worthy of the infallible author, must, of Language course, have been taken to preserve his word intact. In what language were the inspirations communicated ?

8. — In Hebrew, as regards the Old Testament ; and in Greek, as regards the New.

P. — Are these living languages, and generally understood ?

S. — No. They are dead, and known only to the learned. Hebrew, for example, has been out of use since the time of Nehemiah, or for more than two thousand three hundred of Book.

years ; as, when the Scripture was read out to the people in his day, they had to " give the sense, and cause them to understand the reading " (Neh. viii. 8) ; that is, they had to interpret it into the current dialect, which was Chaldee. "We also everywhere depend upon translations.

P. — Have the translators been inspired ?

S. — No. No one pretends that this has been the case. They have simply done their work to the best of their ability as mere men.

P. — Can you give me a sample of the written Hebrew ? I should be glad to have it in English characters.

S. — I can. Here are the first seven verses of Genesis as they originally stood : —

P. — How is it possible to make anything of this array of letters undivided into words, or to pronounce so many consonants without intervening vowels ?

S. — The learned have done that for us. While Hebrew was a hving language, the above form of writing was intelUgible to those who used it, but when it fell out of use, it became necessary to supply help by dividing the words and introducing the vowels.

P. — How long after the language had become dead was this done ?

S. — It is doubtful when the division into words was effected. Points, to represent the vowels, were put in about fifteen hundred years after the language fell out of use.''

P. — That is a long interval between the time when there was a familiar knowledge of the language, and the attempt to make its records intelligible. The. insertion of vowel points opens out great risk of error. For instance, in English, m d might be turned into "mad," "made," "mud," "mid," " maid," and so forth. Are the learned, on whom, of course, the unlearned have to depend, themselves satisfied with the work as performed ?

1 Smith's Diet, of the Bible, Art. Old Test.

S. — No. Sir Wm, Druminoiid, for example, says, " I have wholly discarded the Masoretic points. I believe there are few Hebraists will think of undertaking to defend the Masorah."^ The Masorah is a book of Jewish traditions, to the writers of which these points are attributed.

F. — ^Is the translation from the Hebrew to be depended on ?

S. — No. Sir Wm. Drummond says, " I have seldom seen two Hebraists, who read, and who translated, two chapters alike throughout the whole Scriptures."^ Custody of -P- — The Old Testament purports to be a very ancient record. Book. r^Q whom was the custody thereof assigned ?

S. — To the Jews. " Unto them were committed the oracles of God " (Kom. iii. 2).

P. — In what way were they to preserve them ?

S. — They were to deposit them in the ark. " Take this book of the law, and put it in the side (i.e., inside) of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee" (Deut. xxxi. 26). The ark was the most sacred object which the Jews possessed, and it was kept in the most holy place in their tabernacle, or temple, to which the high priest alone had access.

P. — Was this order attended to ?

S. — No. In the time of Solomon, " There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb" (1 Kings viii. 9). These tables contained commandments said to have been written with the finger of God. The ark. p — What has become of these tables of stone, and of the

ark?

S. — No one knows. They are not spoken of again after the time of Solomon, that is more than two thousand eight hundred years ago.

P. — Was there not something mysterious about the ark ? Had it not some innate power attaching to it such as is alleged as respects objects of Fetich worship ?

S. — So it is said. It is described as the appointed place where God would hold communication with Moses. " There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will ' (Edipus Judaicus, xvii., xiriii ° Idem, SO.

give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel (Ex. XXV. 22.) Moses goes, on an occasion, for the purpose of this communing. " Then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy-seat that was upon the ark of testimony from between the two cherubims" (Num. vii. 89.) Aaron was warned not to come " at all times into the holy place within the veil before the mercy-seat, which is upon the ark ; that he die not ; for I will appear," (God is said to have declared), " in the cloud upon the mercy-seat " (Lev. xvi. 2). The ark was at one time captured by the Philistines, and carried into the house of their god Dagon. In the morning it was found that " Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord ; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold ; only the stump of Dagon was left to him " (1 Sam. V. 4). On another occasion, God is said to have " smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and three score and ten men" (1 Sam. vi. 19). On another, when the ark was being conveyed on a cart, one " Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah ; and God smote him there for his error ; and there he died by the ark of God " (2 Sam. vi. 6, 7.)

P. — If Aaron could not approach the ark except on stated occasions, under penalty of death ; and if one man was struck dead for holding it up when shaken on the cart ; and if thousands were destroyed for simply looking into it ; how could the Philistines have possessed themselves of this sacred object without incurring destruction ? And how could it have finally been made away with, without a record appearing of the noteworthy circumstances that must have attended the ultimate profanation, or destruction, of what appears to have been God's throne on earth ?

S. — I am unable to tell you.

P. — To revert to the " Book of the Law," which was to promuigahave been preserved within the ark, besides the committing ^°^^^ it to what certainly should have been safe custody, were any methods enjoined for promulgating it among the people ?

S, — Yes. Each king, as he succeeded to the throne, was to make a copy of it, " and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life" (Deut. xvii. 18, 19). When the Israelites had passed into the land conferred upon them, they were to set up large stones and plaster them over, and inscribe " all the words of this law" upon them. " Thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly" (Deut. xxvii. 2-8). And every seven years, when assembled at Jerusalem at the feast of tabernacles, the priests were to " read this law before all Israel in their hearing " (Deut. xxxi. 10, 11).

P. — You astonish me. It must have been an enormous work to inscribe all the Book of the Law upon plastered stones. Was this accomplished ?

S. — So it is stated. Within the compass of an altar constructed by him, Joshua is said to have written upon the stones of it " a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel." Then he read it out, and "there was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them" (Josh. viii. 30-35).

P. — What might have been about the number of the multitude ?

S. — At the time the Israelites left Egypt, or forty years before the act in question of Joshua, the number of the adult males of Israel, without reckoning the Levites, was found to be 603,550 (Num. ii. 32, 33). This, it has been computed, would represent a population of from two to three millions.^

P. — How could one man have compassed so much writing, and then have made his voice reach to so vast a multitude?

S. — I am unable to say.

P. — Are there any remains of these inscribed stones ?

8. — We never hear of them again.

P. — How could it be expected that the people should apprehend, and bear in mind, such an extensive and minute collection of precepts and laws as are contained in the books attributed to Moses, on hearing them read out to them but once in seven years ?

S. — I cannot tell you.

• Bisliop Colenso on the Pentateuch, I. 35.

P- — Were the orders that each king was to take a copy of the law, and that it was to be read out thus publicly at the feast of tabernacles, observed ?

S. — There is evidence to the contrary.

P- — Perhaps, as the book of the law was not kept in its appointed place, within the ark, I should rather ask was such a book ever forthcoming ?

S. — Such a book was discovered in the reign of Josiah, Discovery which was upwards of 800 years after the edict was given to °^^°°^- lay up the book in the ark, and about 350 from the time of Solomon, when it is seen it was not there. " And Hilkiah the highpriest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord" (2 Kings xxii. 8).

P. — What certainty was there that the book so found was the original record containing the inspired word of God ?

S. — The persons who are said to have so found it are represented to have thought it to be such. There is no other assurance.

P. — Can you account for the book being all along in the temple, and yet not known of to the priesthood till Hilkiah brought it to light ?

S. — I am unable to do so.

P. — Were there any writers of that day, and do they say anything of this discovery ?

S. — The prophet Jeremiah was of that time. He says a good deal about the priests, to their prejudice, and shows that his mind was exercised on the subject of the law. He makes no mention of the book, and it is to be gathered that it was an oral, not a written code, that was current in his day. Anticipating " devices" against himself, he says, " the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet" (Jer. xviii. 18).

P. — Putting aside the question of the actual custody of the Observance book, can its existence be established by the fact of the ob- ° ^ ^'^' servation of its precepts during the eight hundred years in question that intervened between Moses and Josiah ?

S. — No ; that cannot be satisfactorily shown. Ignorance is displayed of some of the most prominent of these laws, such as cannot be reconciled with their currency in those days.

(I.) There is Dot a trace of any king having provided himself with a copy of the law.

(2.) Nor does it appear that there was ever a promulgation of the law to the people. There is not even a note that the feast of tabernacles, at which the law was to be promulgated, was kept.

(3.) The Israelites, when they entered the land appointed to them, were to have no relations whatever with the people they were to dispossess, but were to exterminate them. " When the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them ; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them" (Deut. vii. 2). But no sooner did they come into the land than they made a covenant with Rahab of Jericho, and all her house, and saved them alive (Josh. ii. 14 ; vi. 17, 22, 23); and then with the Canaanites of Gezer, whom " they drave not out," but placed under tribute (Josh. xvi. 10) ; also with the people of Bethshean, and five other Canaanitish tribes inhabiting numerous "towns" (Josh. xvii. 11-13). David, in like manner, spared the Moabites, and the Syrians, and accepted gifts from them (2 Sam. viii. 2, 6 ; x. 1 9). Solomon also entered into terms with Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and took tribute from them (1 Kings ix. 20, 21) ; and, in fact, he allied himself with all the tribes " from the river (Euphrates) unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt" (1 Kings iv. 21). Jehosaphat did the like with Philistines and Arabians (2 Chron. xvii. 11).

(4.) " Neither shalt thou make marriages with them" (Deut. vii. 3). Salmon married Rahab of Jericho, and their fourth direct descendant was David, from whom came the whole line of the kings of Judah (Matt. i. 5, 6). Naomi's two sons married Moabitish women. When these became widows, one of them, Ruth, married Boaz, and from them king David was the third in descent (Ruth i. 4 ; iv. 13, 1 7). David married Maacah, daughter of the king of Geshur (2 Sam. iii. 3), and also Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah the Hittite, and from this latter union came Solomon (2 Sam. xi. 26, 27). And Solomon no sooner came to the throne, and while still in full acceptance by God, than he married a daughter of the king of Egypt (l Kings iii. 1).

(5.) " An Ammonite," it is said, " or Moabite, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord ; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever" (Deut. xxiii. 3). Neither David, who had in him the blood of Canaanitish and Moabitish ancestry, nor his son Solomon, -whose descent was further tainted with the blood of a Hittite, can be said to have had the requisite purity of stock ; and yet we have the one elected king as a man after God's heart, and the other the chosen builder of the temple.

(6.) " The man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be be put to death" (Lev. xx. 10). David committed adultery with Uriah's wife (2 Sam. xi. 4), and while both he and she should have suffered death, they were allowed to marry and become the parents of a whole line of kings.

(7.) " He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death " (Lev. xxiv. J 7). " Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death ; but he shall be surely put to death " (Num. xxxv. 31). " He shall be delivered into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee" (Deut. xix. 11-13). If ever there was "innocent blood " shed, it was that of Uriah, and the guilt of his murder was deepened by its motive, the adultery with his wife. Nathan was God's appointed instrument to deal with David for his crime. " Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword," was Nathan's judgment on him, " and hast taken his wife to be thy wife." And for this double guilt God is represented to have " taken satisfaction " by destroying the innocent offspring of the adulterous intercourse (2 Sam xii. 1, 9, 14).

(8.) It was enjoined on the king that he should not " multiply wives unto himself, that his heart turn not away" (Deut. xvii. 17). David evidently knew of no such divine restriction. His first wife, Michal, Saul's daughter, being taken from him, he Compensated himself with two others, Abigail and Ahinoam (1 Sam. xxv. 42-44). When king in

Hebron, we find him with four more ; namely, Maacah, Haggith, Abital, and Eglah (2 Sam. iii. 3-5). As soon as he had established himself in Jerusalem, he "took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem " (2 Sam. v. 1 3). How many we are not told. The concubines were so numerous, that, when he fled from Absalom, he could leave ten " to keep the house " (2 Sam. xv. 16). It appears, moreover, that he had appropriated all Saul's relicts, who, according to the prophet Nathan, had been given over " into his bosom " by God (2 Sam. xii. 8), the Deity violating his own order. What number of females were thus added to the royal seraglio we are not informed. Still not satisfied, this model king, through the murder of Uriah, possessed himself of Bathsheba in addition (2 Sam. xi. 2*7).

(9.) The priestly ofSce was not general to the Levites, but was confined to the family of Aaron (Ex. Xxviii. 1) ; and to invade it was death (Num. iii. ] 0). Accordingly, when Korah, who was a mere Levite, and Dathan and Abiram, who were Reubenites, aspired to the priesthood, the earth opened in judgment upon them, and swallowed them up, with all who belonged to them (ISlum xvi, 1-40). Gideon, who was an Abiezrite — that is, of the tribe of Manasseh — made an offering to an angel, which was accepted, fire coming miraculously at the angel's touch out of the rock on which the offering had been laid, and consuming it. And after this, he built an altar, and was ordered by God to sacrifice upon it (Jud. vi. 11-27). Manoah was of the tribe of Dan. He was visited by an angel, before whom he " took a kid, with a meat-offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord." And the priestly offices of this Danite were accepted : " For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar" (Jud. xiii. 2, 20). Micah, an Ephraimite, consecrates one of his own sons, who thus "became his priest." Then he meets with a man " of the family of Judah," who, nevertheless, is considered to be "a Levite." Micah "consecrates " him, and hires him to be his domestic priest, the worship, however, being idolatrous ; and then he says, in his simplicity, " Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest " (Jud. xvii. 1-13).

After this, the children of Dan set up one Jonathan to be their priest ; and he is described as the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh. He should properly have been an Aaronite. Of what tribe he really was, is not clear. As the son of Gershom, he would be a Levite ; but again, with strange confusion, he is derived from Manasseh. Of this family, nevertheless, it is said that they " were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land" (Jud. xviii. 30). Samuel was of the tribe of Ephraim (l Sam. i. 1), and yet exercised the priestly office acceptably. " And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt-offering wholly unto the Lord ; and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel, and the Lord heard him" (1 Sam. vii. 9). On the occasion of bringing up the ark, which had been captured by the Philistines, the Levites, (it is not said the Aaronites,) " offered seven bullocks and seven rams " (1 Chron. xv. 26). And David, who was of Judah, headed the procession, " clothed with a robe of fine linen," and having on " an ephod of linen," which was a priestly garb (Lev. vi. 10 ; Ex. xxviii. 6), and officiated. " And when David had made an end of offering the burnt-offerings and the peace-offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord" (1 Cbron. xv. 27 ; xvi. 1, 2). On another occasion, there was a divine recognition of his act, God having " answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt-offering (1 Chron. xxi. 26). Solomon, his son, officiated in the same manner. " And the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the Lord. And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace-offerings, which he offered unto the Lord, two and twenty thousand sheep " (1 Kings viii. 62, 63). And this met with divine acceptance, for " fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt-offering and the sacrifice ; and the glory of the Lord filled the house " (2 Chron. vii. 1). Elijah the Tishbite, who was of Gilead, that is, of the tribe of Manasseh (1 Kings xvii. 1 ; Num. xxvi. 29), placed himself in competition with the priests of Baal, and erected an altar, on which he offered up a bullock, and fire from heaven came down and burnt up the sacrifice, in token that God had accepted it (1 Kings xviii. 19-38).

(10.) Of the Levites, that division who were Kohathites had charge of the ark. The Aaronites were first to cover up the ark and the other holy furniture, and the Eohathites were to carry the same during the pilgrimage in the desert (Num. iii. 31 ; iv. 4-15.) They were not even to set eyes on these sacred objects, when uncovered, under penalty of death (Num. iv. 20). The Philistines captured the ark, but finding it a troublesome possession, they gave it up. Then " the men of Kirjath-jearim," (not Kohathites, be it observed,) " came and fetched up the ark of the Lord, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eleazar, his son, to keep the ark of the Lord ; and it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirjath-jearim, that the time was long, for it was twenty years" (1 Sam. vii. 1, 2). At the end of this time David came with his people, " and they set the ark of God upon a new cart," drawn by " oxen," and so took it to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. " And the ark of the Lord continued in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months; and the Lord blessed Obed-edom aad all his household" (2 Sam. vi. ]-] 1). From thence David took it to Jerusalem (v. 12-16), and in the parallel account in Chronicles it is said that Levites, (not, however, Kohathites,) were employed for the purpose (1 Chron. xv. 1, 15). Throughout, the covering the ark up from profane eyes by the Aaronites, and the peculiar office of the Kohathites in its transport, are regulations evidently unknown of ; and this sacred object is even borne on a cart as any other commodity might be, and is twice deposited in private houses. On the last occasion, the abode of one who would seem to have been of a Gentile tribe (2 Sam. xv. 19) was made use of.

(11.) There was to be none other than the one appointed altar for sacrificial purposes. The edict was, " whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers which sojourn among you, that offereth a burnt offering or sacrifice, and bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation to offer it unto the Lord, even that man shall be cut off from among his people " (Lev. xvii. 8, 9). " Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest ; but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee" (Deut. xii. 13, 14). This law was understood in the days of

Joshua, as shown when a certain section of the tribes justified themselves, and described an altar they had set up to be a testimonial one, and not for sacrifice (Josh. xxii. 9-29) ; but subsequently it was unknown to, or overlooked, by even the pious rulers of Judah. Samuel judged Israel in rotation, at Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpeh, and there he performed sacrifices. He also set up an altar at his own house in Kamah (1 Sam. vii. 5-12, 16, 17; X. 3, 8). David built an altar on the threshing floor of Oman, and sacrificed there with acceptance. Besides this, Gibeon was in his day the constituted place for sacrifice (1 Chron. xxi. 26-29). Absalom sacrificed in Hebron (2 Sam. XV. 9, 12), and Adonijah at Enrogel (1 Kings i. 9). Elijah did so on Mount Carmel (1 Kings xviii. 19-38), Asa, Jehosaphat, Jehoash, Amaziah, Uzziah, and Jotham, all godly kings, tolerated sacrifices on high places. Manasseh did so even after his reformation (1 Kings xv. 14; xxii. 43; 2 Kings xii. 3; xiv. 4; xv. 4, 35; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 17).