ONE of the foundation stones of our faith is the Old Testament. If
that book is not true, if its authors were unaided men, if it contains
blunders and falsehoods, then that stone crumbles to dust.
The geologists demonstrated that the author of Genesis was mistaken as
to the age of the world, and that the story of the universe having been
created in six days, about six thousand years ago could not be true.
The theologians then took the ground that the "days" spoken of in
Genesis were periods of time, epochs, six "long whiles," and that the
work of creation might have been commenced millions of years ago.
The change of days into epochs was considered by the believers of the
Bible as a great triumph over the hosts of infidelity. The fact that
Jehovah had ordered the Jews to keep the Sabbath, giving as a reason
that he had made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, did
not interfere with the acceptance of the "epoch" theory.
But there is still another question. How long has man been upon the
earth?
According to the Bible, Adam was certainly the first man, and in his
case the epoch theory cannot change the account. The Bible gives the
age at which Adam died, and gives the generations to the flood--then to
Abraham and so on, and shows that from the creation of Adam to the birth
of Christ it was about four thousand and four years.
According to the sacred Scriptures man has been on this earth five
thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine years and no more.
Is this true?
Geologists have divided a few years of the worlds history into periods,
reaching from the azoic rocks to the soil of our time. With most of
these periods they associate certain forms of life, so that it is known
that the lowest forms of life belonged with the earliest periods, and
the higher with the more recent. It is also known that certain forms of
life existed in Europe many ages ago, and that many thousands of years
ago these forms disappeared.
For instance, it is well established that at one time there lived in
Europe, and in the British Islands some of the most gigantic mammals,
the mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, the Irish elk, elephants and
other forms that have in those countries become extinct. Geologists say
that many thousands of years have passed since these animals ceased to
inhabit those countries.
It was during the Drift Period that these forms of life existed in
Europe and England, and that must have been hundreds of thousands of
years ago.
In caves, once inhabited by men, have been found implements of flint and
the bones of these extinct animals. With the flint tools man had split
the bones of these beasts that he might secure the marrow for food.
Many such caves and hundreds of such tools, and of such bones have been
found. And we now know that in the Drift Period man was the companion of
these extinct monsters.
It is therefore certain that many, many thousands of years before Adam
lived, men, women and children inhabited the earth.
It is certain that the account in the Bible of the creation of the first
man is a mistake. It is certain that the inspired writers knew nothing
about the origin of man.
Let me give you another fact:
The Egyptians were astronomers. A few years ago representations of the
stars were found on the walls of an old temple, and it was discovered
by calculating backward that the stars did occupy the exact positions as
represented about seven hundred and fifty years before Christ. Afterward
another representation of the stars was found, and by calculating in
the same way, it was found that the stars did occupy the exact positions
represented about three thousand eight hundred years before Christ.
According to the Bible the first man was created four thousand and four
years before Christ If this is true then Egypt was founded, its language
formed, its arts cultivated, its astronomical discoveries made and
recorded about two hundred years after the creation of the first man.
In other words, Adam was two or three hundred years old when the
Egyptian astronomers made these representations.
Nothing can be more absurd.
Again I say that the writers of the Bible were mistaken.
How do I know?
According to that same Bible there was a flood some fifteen or sixteen
hundred years after Adam was created that destroyed the entire human
race with the exception of eight persons, and according to the Bible
the Egyptians descended from one of the sons of Noah. How then did
the Egyptians represent the stars in the position they occupied twelve
hundred years before the flood?
No one pretends that Egypt existed as a nation before the flood. Yet
the astronomical representations found, must have been made more than a
thousand years before the world was drowned.
There is another mistake in the Bible.
According to that book the sun was made after the earth was created.
Is this true?
Did the earth exist before the sun?
The men of science are believers in the exact opposite. They believe
that the earth is a child of the sun--that the earth, as well as the
other planets belonging to our constellation, came from the sun.
The writers of the Bible were mistaken.
There is another point:
According to the Bible, Jehovah made the world in six days, and the work
done each day is described. What did Jehovah do on the second day?
This is the record:
"And God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and
let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and
divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which
were above the firmament. And it was so, and God called the firmament
heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
The writer of this believed in a solid firmament--the floor of Jehovah's
house. He believed that the waters had been divided, and that the
rain came from above the firmament. He did not understand the fact
of evaporation--did not know that the rain came from the water on the
earth.
Now we know that there is no firmament, and we know that the waters are
not divided by a firmament. Consequently we know that, according to the
Bible, Jehovah did nothing on the second day. He must have rested on
Tuesday. This being so, we ought to have two Sundays a week.
Can we rely on the historical parts of the Bible?
Seventy souls went down into Egypt, and in two hundred and fifteen years
increased to three millions. They could not have doubled more than four
times a century. Say nine times in two hundred and fifteen years.
This makes thirty-five thousand eight hundred and forty, (35,840.)
instead of three millions.
Can we believe the accounts of the battles?
Take one instance:
Jereboam had an army of eight hundred thousand men, Abijah of four
hundred thousand. They fought. The Lord was on Abijah's side, and he
killed five hundred thousand of Jereboam's men.
All these soldiers were Jews--all lived in Palestine, a poor miserable
little country about one-quarter as large as the State of New York. Yet
one million two hundred thousand soldiers were put in the field. This
required a population in the country of ten or twelve millions. Of
course this is absurd. Palestine in its palmiest days could not have
supported two millions of people.
The soil is poor.
If the Bible is inspired, is it true?
We are told by this inspired book of the gold and silver collected
by King David for the temple--the temple afterward completed by the
virtuous Solomon.
According to the blessed Bible, David collected about two thousand
million dollars in silver, and five thousand million dollars in gold,
making a total of seven thousand million dollars.
Is this true?
There is in the bank of France at the present time (1895) nearly six
hundred million dollars, and so far as we know, it is the greatest
amount that was ever gathered together. All the gold now known, coined
and in bullion, does not amount to much more than the sum collected by
David.
Seven thousand millions. Where did David get this gold? The Jews had
no commerce. They owned no ships. They had no great factories, they
produced nothing for other countries. There were no gold or silver mines
in Palestine. Where then was this gold, this silver found? I will
tell you: In the imagination of a writer who had more patriotism than
intelligence, and who wrote, not for the sake of truth, but for the
glory of the Jews.
Is it possible that David collected nearly eight thousand tons of
gold--that he by economy got together about sixty thousand tons of
silver, making a total of gold and silver of sixty-eight thousand tons?
The average freight car carries about fifteen tons--David's gold and
silver would load about four thousand five hundred and thirty-three
cars, making a train about thirty-two miles in length. And all this for
the temple at Jerusalem, a building ninety feet long and forty-five feet
high and thirty wide, to which was attached a porch thirty feet wide,
ninety feet long and one hundred and eighty feet high.
Probably the architect was inspired.
Is there a sensible man in the world who believes that David collected
seven thousand million dollars worth of gold or silver?
There is hardly five thousand million dollars of gold now used as
money in the whole world. Think of the millions taken from the mines of
California, Australia and Africa during the present century and yet the
total scarcely exceeds the amount collected by King David more than
a thousand years before the birth of Christ. Evidently the inspired
historian made a mistake.
It required a little imagination and a few ciphers to change seven
million dollars or seven hundred thousand dollars into seven thousand
million dollars. Drop four ciphers and the story becomes fairly
reasonable.
The Old Testament must be thrown aside. It is no longer a foundation. It
has crumbled.