What a child ought to know about the Bible

Foreword

by Dr. J. Paterson Smyth (Author of "How We Got Our Bible," "The Bible in the Making," "St. Paul's Life and Letters," etc., etc.)

I congratulate the publishers and the American children on this delightful little book. Mr. Stevenson has always been my ideal of a children's teacher, I have not heard him for twelve years, but I could repeat to-day the capital little parable of the spider and the missionary box with which he enforced that last lesson which I heard.

These lessons will certainly be interesting. But more important is the fact that the children will not have to unlearn in later years what they here learn. The fatal defect in so many religious lessons to children is that they keep on timid and conventional lines and are afraid to speak out. There are truths of which there is now no question amongst thoughtful people which could easily be taught to children and are not, though ignorance of them in later life often leads to doubt and misunderstanding.

It is a good rule for Bible teaching even to children to be thoroughly candid, to assert nothing as certain which is not certain, nothing as probable which is not probable, and nothing as more probable than it is.

Mr. Stevenson tries to do this. He is a devout teacher but a straight and candid one, and such teachers will help to produce in the new generation a stronger and more intelligent faith.

J. Paterson Smyth.

Preface

To Parents. — Give a child a *'point of view" on the Scriptures when young. He will then not have to unlearn much when older.

To Teachers. — The very best authorities have been searched, — the most careful research adopted.

To the numerous Scholars whose writings I have studied for this book, — God's blessing be on you for your work.

Contents

1. Introduction 7

2. The Times before History was written . 12

5. The Period of Joshua and Judges . . . 41

Introduction

1. Everyone who knows that George Washington was a great general will be able to understand this book. Because, if they are old enough to know that George Washington was a great general, they will be old enough to know that they may read all about him in the History of the United States.

2. Now, if you were to turn to your History of the United States, which you read in school, you will find on the first or second page, down near the bottom of the page, a date, 191 6, or some other such date, not very long ago. Now I want to ask you, do you think that the History of the United States was written in 191 6, or some other such date, not very long ago, and that none of it was written before then? Of course you will tell me that a lot of it was written before then, beginning with the oldest part first, and that it was all gathered together and made up-to-date in your book printed in 191 6.

3. Now I want to ask you if the little boys and girls had a History of the United States to read and learn in the time when George Washington lived? Of course you will tell me again that they had a History of America, telling what had happened up to their time. So we learn this, that History has been written slowly, bit by bit, the oldest part first.

4. Now I need not tell you that the little French boys and girls have a History of France to learn; the German boys and girls a History of Germany; but I would like to tell you that all nations have had a History, even those of long ago. You may be very clever at American History ; — what History do you know better than American History?

5. Do you know all about Peter the Great and Queen Catherine? No. Then it is not Russian History that you know better than American History. Do you know all about Confucius and Buddha. No. Then it is not Chinese History. All about Antony and Brutus? No. It is not Roman History. All about Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David? Ah, yes. Why, you say, of course, I know those things as well as American History. Then you know the History of the Israelites as well as the History of the United States.

6. I suppose you would think it very strange If in your American History you found sermons of great preachers, poems of great poets, and after every great event a paragraph saying whether God was pleased or not, and the whole book called some name, like, for instance, "Masterpieces." Yet that was the way the Israelites wrote their History, putting in great sermons and great poems, and always talking about God, and then they put it all together, and we call it the *'Bible." If j^ou are wondering what the great poems are in the Bible, and what the great sermons are in the Bible, turn to the first pages of the Bible, and look at the names of the books of the Bible. From the Book of Job to

INTRODUCTION 9

the Song of Solomon is a collection of great poems. From Isaiah to Malachi is a great collection of sermons, generally called prophecies.

7. Now we have found out this much so far. All History was written slowly, bit by bit, the oldest part first. Is the Bible different to all other history and written altogether, all at once? No. Is the Bible different to all other history, and written by an Angel? No. Is the Bible different to all other history because it has in it great sermons and great poems, and is always talking about God? Yes.

8. You would think it a very strange thing if the History of England told you that some day in England would be born a great King, greater than King Edward or King George, who would rule over the whole world. I am sure you would be wondering if he would be born in your time. Well, that is exactly what the Bible, the History of the Israelites, says about the Israelites, for it very often tells about the King that is coming.

9. What a strange thing it would be if English History told you about a great King; and you could come into the world again two thousand years later and find that he had really come. Well, the King really came to the Israelites, and part of the Bible, and that the most important part, tells us what He did, and said, and taught. People now-a-days call the part of the Bible which tells that the King is coming, and has sermons and poems, — the Old Testament; and that part which tells about the King Himself, — the New Testament.

10. Now if I were to ask you, who told the writer of your American History to write an American History, you would probably tell me that you do not know; that he does not say who told him, and that for all you know he might have told himself to write it. And I could tell you that no writer of American History, or any other History, at any time, says that any one told him to write the History, except the men who wrote the Bible. And that the men who wrote the Bible say almost on every page that God told them to write it, and chose them to write it so as to teach people what God wanted them to do,

11. So we say that the Bible is the History of the Israelites, and the History of the great King, Jesus, who came; and God teaching the people of the world through the Israelites and through Jesus.

12. Supposing you were out in your garden, and your little brothers told you that you had better not do something which you were just going to do. You might say, what do they know about it, whether it is right or wrong. But if your big brother came down from your father upstairs, and gave you a message from your father not to do it, you would say, that is different, — it is the word of my father, a message from my father; he is speaking to me through my brother. So we say that the Bible is God's message to us; God speaking to us through the Israelites and through Jesus; It is God's word.

13. There is only one thing else I want you to learn in this chapter. I ask you, what is the difference between the American Nation and the United States? Why, you say, they are the same nation under different names. So the Israelite nation and the Jewish nation IS the same nation under different names. Therefore,

INTRODUCTION II

you will always remember that the Jews that you see now are the descendants of the old Jews we read of in the Bible.

14. What have we learnt so far then? That all History was written slowly, bit by bit, the oldest part first. The Bible also was not written all at once, or by an Angel, but slowly, bit by bit, the oldest part first. That the Bible is God's message to us, God speaking to us through the Israelites and through Jesus, and so it is the Word of God,

Chapter II Pre-historic, Or The Times Before History Was Written

15. Never be frightened by a big word. It will not eat you up. You can always tame it to tell you what it means. Lots of girls and boys like to use big words, but you will notice that wise men and women use simple words as often as possible. But there are times when we can use one big word instead of three or four little simple words. For instance, we say "coronation" instead of saying "the crowning of the king." So wc use "Pre-historic" instead of saying *^the times before history was written." When you find "pre" in front of a word it generally means "before." Prefix — to fix before, prepay — to pay before, pre-historic — before history. You know how much quicker it is to write shorthand than to write the whole thing out. So it is quicker to use words like "Pre-historic" than always to be saying "the times before history was written." So now you ought to feel very big and wise, as you know that pre-historic means before history was written.

16. Now I want you to know that the Pre-historic times of the Bible, or the times before history was written, are found beginning from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, and going on to the eleventh chapter of the Book of Genesis, — Genesis being the first

THE TIMES BEFORE HISTORY WAS WRITTEN I3

Book of the Bible, and now divided up for us into chapters and verses. You Vi^iU probably think that this little book which you are reading is very much like school, because in this chapter I talk to you about writing. But it is not the hard writing that you have to do in your school. You have learnt in the last chapter how history was written, bit by bit, the oldest part first; now you are to learn what happened before history was written.

17. Supposing you went out to the North American Indians, and you could speak their language. I am sure you have often played Indians, and you know they go about in tribes. Now if you were to ask an Indian to tell you the history of his tribe, he would not show you a history book, because he would not have one to show you. But he might tell you, our tribe used to live in the North, then went down to the South, and then came here, where I was born. You might ask him how he knew all that. He would reply, my father told me, and his father told him, and his father told him, and so on away back a great many years. So the story of the tribe was handed down from father to son. So I want to tell you that everything was handed down or told from father to son before history was written. So were the Great Lessons of the Beginning of the World, of Adam and Eve, of the Garden of Eden, of Cain and Abel, of the Flood, of the Tower of Babel, told from father to son for many, many years before they were written down. When they were first told we cannot tell. When they were first written we cannot tell. The earliest written copy of them that we have was written about the time of Abraham.

1 8. Now we will suppose that you are still out among the Indian tribes, and that you wanted to teach them to write. You might draw on the sand a rough picture of something like this. Three little canoes and three little round circles as pictures of the sun. This would mean, "gone on a journey over the water for three days," each circle or sun meaning the sunshine or the day. This is what we call picture writing. IVe no doubt you could think of a lot of messages like that which you could write on the sand, and if you taught the whole tribe they could write messages like that to each other after a while. Now that is exactly how in the very olden days before history was written people began to write. We call it picture-writing.

19. But we will say, instead of writing these pictures on the sand, you took some soft clay, and made it into the shape of a brick, and wrote these pictures on it very small, with a bit of iron for a pen; and then you made a fire and baked the bricks hard, — supposing you did all that, — ^well, that is just the way people in the very olden times began to write. But when you are in school, in writing, you are very careful almost to paint the letters, you would almost think you were drawing a picture; but if you look at your father's writing, you will find that he has not been very careful to form his letters well, because he has to write much faster now. So when people began to know how to write, they did not need to stick so close to the pictures, and could write faster, and so writing changed. It was this changed picture-writing that was used in the time when Abraham lived.

20. Now you are still out with the Indians, and you ask another boy of the same tribe about the history of

THE TIMES BEFORE HISTORY WAS WRITTEN I5

his tribe. And he says also that they came from the north to the south, and then to their present place, and he adds a lot of silly stories about a great bear and a great tiger having a fight, and the bear killing the tiger, and taking the tiger's tail, and dragging the tribe south by the tiger's tail, and a lot of other stories like that. Why, you would say, he imagined all that. So I want to tell you there are two accounts of the Beginning of the World, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the Flood. One a straightforward account which we fkid in the Bible, and the other an account belonging to the Babylonian nation in the time of Abraham, which is something the same, except that it has silly imagined stories like one god killing another and skinning him, and hanging his skin up for the sky. And it is the last account, the silly imagined story account, that we may see for ourselves in the British Museum written on clay bricks in the Babylonian picture-writing.

21. Now we have got this far, and learnt this much. Pre-historic means the time before history was written. The history of a nation was told by father to son before history was written. So the story of the Beginning of the World in the Bible, of Adam and Eve, of the Garden of Eden, of Cain and Abel, of the Flood, of the Tower of Babel, was told by father to son for many, many years before history was written. When they were first told, or first written, we cannot tell, but the earliest copy of them which we have is in the British Museum, the silly imagined account of the Babylonian nation written about the time of Abraham.

You remember in our last chapter we said that God taught the people of the world through the Bible; that the Bible was God teaching the world in messages and lessons. Now let us look at those grand old lessons that God taught before history was written.

22. I must tell you here that the number seven has always amongst all nations been a very sacred number. And you can easily see how such a hard lesson as you read in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis about the Beginning of the World could be more easily learnt by remembering it by seven days. All girls and boys who have to learn anything off by heart know that it would be easier to learn it that way than almost any other way. Wise men tell us that God took centuries and ages, not days, to make the world; — the sacred number of seven days was the most convenient way of remembering it as it was told by father to son for a great many years before it was written down.

23. Now if I were to take you into a school, and we were to try to find out if the teacher of the school was a just teacher, and good and kind, supposing something like this happened. We got hold of a boy who was naughty and disobedient, and was always getting scoldings and whippings to make him good; and he told us the teacher was a brute. We would say, this disobedient boy tells us the teacher is a brute, because he is disobedient and naughty. We then get hold of another boy, who is the best behaved boy, and tries to do the best, and he tells us the teacher is perfect, just, good and kind. And then we get hold of the strangest boy of all, a boy who tells us there is not any teacher at all, but the children learn from each other. Which of these three would we believe? The disobedient boy who called the teacher a brute, because he wanted to

THE TIMES BEFORE HISTORY WAS WRITTEN 1 7

be disobedient and naughty? The good boy, who told US the teacher was good, perfect, just and kind? The strange boy who tells us the children learn from each other, and that there was no teacher? Why, we would take what the best boy told us, to be sure; he ought to know best.

24. So in the early days of the world there were nations who told us that their teacher, God, was a brute and foolish, because they were disobedient and wicked. But the one nation who, like the good boy, always tried to do right was the Israelite nation, which gives us the right picture of our great Teacher, God, telling us God is perfect, just, good and kind. So we say, everything in the Bible is sacred. So the Great Lesson of the Beginning of the World is sacred; it tells us that the world did not make itself, that the world was not made by a brute, but that the world was made by a good, just, perfect and kind God. So the Great Lessons of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, tell us that God taught the first pair of people He put into the world that He is just, good, perfect and kind, and punishes wicked people and helps good people.

25. Children, have you ever read a book called "Pilgrim's Progress"? If not, get it and read it. It tells the story of a Christian man in a children's storybook way. It is different from every other book, because it is so simple a child may read it, and so true that the wisest man must reverence it. The story of the Garden of Eden is the "Pilgrim's Progress" of the early days of the world. It is so simple a child could l8 WHAT A CHILD OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THE BIBLE

remember it, and it is so true that the wisest man has to reverence it,

26. If I were to say to you, "The Path of Knowledge lies through the School/' you would not think that I meant that there was a real path going from the primary classroom through all the others up to the highest classroom, and that there was a real path covered with real knowledge so you could walk on knowledge. And you would not say because I did not mean all this, that it was not true. But you would say, yes, it is perfectly true that the Path of Knowledge lies through the School.

27. So when the Bible says of Cain in Genesis, chapter four, verse ten, **the voice of thy brother's blood crieth," because it doesn't mean that the blood really cried, we do not say, "it cannot be true." But we say that it means that Cain ought to be punished for his murder.

28. So when the Bible speaks about the Garden of Eden, because it may not mean a real speaking serpent, and real mysterious trees, we ought not to say it is not true. For it may mean that everyone is forbidden to touch or do certain things, the serpent is the bad suggestions that come to everyone, to steal jam or to shirk school when they are young, to steal reputations and shirk work when they are grown up, and that God always finds them out, and punishes the wicked people and helps the good people. What a wonderful lesson! No wonder in the early days of the world it helped people so much.

29. I have now to tell you that there are a great number of stories of the Flood in all nations, and even

THE TIMES BEFORE HISTORY WAS WRITTEN IQ

amongst Indian and savage tribes. That the Flood was probably in the very, very early days of the world. And that "all the world'' means "all the then known world.'' Suppose you were in a school where there were many bad boys and girls. You know when boys and girls get tog wicked for school and home, they are sent to the Reformatory. The Reformatory is a place where they take boys and girls who are wicked and try to make them good. Supposing one day in your school of bad boys and girls, a van came from the Reformatory, and took away all the bad boys and girls, and there were only seven good ones left. Have you ever sat in a circle and told the boy next to you a story, and he tells the same story to the next boy, and so on all round the circle until it comes back to you again? I think you will be astonished if it comes back to you without being exaggerated. Well, it would not matter so much about the size of the van, or the size of the Reformatory, or how^ long it took to get the wicked boys out of the school, so long as you who remained remembered the lesson, that the wicked boys were taken to the Reformatory and the good boys were left to make a better school.

30. So we believe that in the early days of the world God took the wicked people by a flood into His great Reformatory, and left the good people to make a better world. We say that the story handed down by father to son for a great number of years might have got exaggerated, and we do not say that God should have guided it so that it could not have been exaggerated; but we do say that God guided it so that its Great

Lesson was written for us, that God punishes wicked people and helps good people.

31. Thus also in the Great Lesson of the Tower of Babel we find God not guiding the story so that it could not get exaggerated, but guiding it so that its Great Lesson was written for us. God punishes any short cuts to Heaven, or, we might say, happiness. If in your school you were all sitting together and copying from one another, your teacher would separate you, and tell you there was no short cut like that to knowledge. When you grew older you would be very thankful for that Lesson. So when the world grew older, the good and wise people were very thankful to God for guiding men to write down and preserve such a Great Lesson as the Tower of Babel, telling us that God's way into Heaven and happiness is the only way.

32. I have only one thing more to tell you before I finish this chapter. Some men who are living now have tried to tell us that these Great Lessons of God are not very good accounts of the Beginning of the World, the beginning of people in the world, and the beginning of different languages. But listen to what the wise and good men tell us about all their study through the telescope and the microscope and all that we call science. They tell us that the world was made in order, by stages ; and this the Bible tells us in the first chapter. That there must have been a first pair; and this the Bible tells us in the Garden of Eden chapter. That all nations and languages came from one centre, probably Babylon, or Babel. That there is no reason why a great flood of a great river should not have come

THE TIMES BEFORE HISTORY WAS WRITTEN 21

amongst the few people who were gathered together in one place in the early, early days of the world.

33. What then have we learnt in this chapter? In the time before history was written, History was told from father to son. So the first eleven chapters of Genesis were told. When they were first written, or when they were first told, we cannot tell. But Abraham probably had them as his Bible written on clay bricks in the old picture-writing of the Babylonian language. In these great Lessons, the Beginning of the World, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel, are found, as wise men tell us, very good accounts of the Beginning of the World, of people, and of nations and languages. But it is not so much the language of them that God guided, as that God guided the Great Lessons; that He Himself made the world, by stages; that He is perfect, good, just, and kind; that He punishes wicked people and helps good people; Great Lessons, indeed, before which we bow in reverence, and thank God for guiding and preserving them for us in His sacred book, the Bible, which is the teaching of God to the world, the Word of God to the people of the world.

Chapter III

34. Here is another hard word for us to attack, and tame, to give us its meaning. You have often, I suppose, in your school given a dialogue, so you knovi^ that a dialogue is a conversation between two or more people. Do you know what a monologue is? Well, a monologue is a conversation by one person, if I may put it so. The last part of these two words, '^dialogue" and "monologue," that is "logue" means "talk." Whereever you find "mono" before a word it means "one." It comes from a Greek word meaning "one." Monologue means talk by one; monotone means one tone; monotony means one sameness ; monarch means the rule of one, for the last part of monarch, the "arch," comes from a Greek word meaning rule. Now you ought to feel very clever at knowing two Greek words; "mono" at the beginning of a word means one; "arch" at the end of a word means rule.

35. Can you think of any other word ending with "arch"? Why, Patriarch, to be sure. Yes. So patriarch means the rule of someone. Of whom? Did you ever hear of a boy calling his father "pater"? So "pater" means father. Patriarch then means the rule of the Fathers. When we talk then of the Patriarchs of the Bible we mean the Fathers of the Israelite nation, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. For in the days of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph there was no Israelite nation proper, but Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were at the head of the family that afterwards grew so large that it became a nation. You may often read in the Bible a sentence like this, "The God of our Fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." So the part of the Bible I am going to tell you about now in this chapter is the period of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, beginning at the eleventh chapter of the Book of Genesis, and going on to the end of that Book.

36. You will remember that you have already learnt that in the days when Abraham lived there was picture-writing. Abraham, being a fairly well-to-do man of those times, having plenty of flocks and servants, must have known how to write and read the picture-writing. For when he lived there were libraries and schools. He might therefore have written down his own history, the story of his own life. So also Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph might have written the stories of their own lives. But whether they did or did not, we cannot tell. It has generally been thought that Moses wrote, or caused to be written, all that the Bible tells us up to the time of his death, which of course includes the Bible that Abraham probably had, and the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. It was possible for Moses to write it, because, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, he must have known how to write. He would not probably write in a book, but on various papyrus papers which we will talk about later, these papyrus sheets a long time afterwards being formed into a book. It is highly probable that Moses wrote this part of the Bible because he would have seen the Egyptians writing the history of their nation.