FAITH.--THE BIBLE.
A word, in passing, on the Bible as a whole, I am of the opinion that
a very great many people look upon the Bible as simply one book, one
testimony--one witness for God; when in fact it is not _one_ book, but
a collection of books; not one witness for God, but the collected
testimony of many witnesses for him.
The word does not come, I am assured on very good authority, from the
word _biblos_, as many have supposed; nor does it signify _the book_ by way
of eminence--the Book of books, but it is a word derived from the Greek
biblia, meaning _the books_, and is a term first applied by Chrysostom
to denote the collection of small books which constitute the Old and
New Testaments; and this term with the prefix "Holy," soon came into
general use. This is how the Jewish Scriptures came to be called the
Holy Bible; meaning, really, the holy or sacred books. The Bible is
made up of sixty-six distinct books, bound together in one volume, and
written by about forty different authors. And if each book is not a
separate and independent witness for God, it cannot be denied that each
author is.
The first of the sacred writers is Moses, whom Bacon calls "God's first
pen;" the last is the Apostle John. These two writers, the first and
the last, are separated by a period of some two thousand years; and
the men who wrote as they were moved upon by the Holy Ghost, in that
lapse of time, and whose works have been preserved to us in the Bible,
occupied various positions in life, ranging from the grand old war
king of Israel, David, and the wise king Solomon, down to the humble
shepherd Amos, the despised tax collector Matthew, and Peter, the
unlearned fisherman. But whatever the condition of life occupied by
these men, or whatever the nature of their respective writings, whether
histories, biographies, poems, prophecies, or only didactic discourses
on morals or religion, they all, in some way or other, bear witness
to the existence of God, and give us some information respecting his
character and attributes.
It is now our task to inquire briefly into the authenticity and
integrity of these writings. For convenience I shall take up the two
Testaments, the Old and the New, separately:
First, then, the Old Testament: It is maintained by the best biblical
scholars, that the books which now constitute the Old Testament,
were collected as we have them, immediately after the return of the
Jews from the captivity in Babylon; that would be about the middle
of the fifth century, B. C. The work is ascribed to Ezra, Nehemiah;
and the men of the great synagogue. In proof of this they point
to the testimony of the son of Sirach, who flourished between the
years 310-370, B. C.;[A] and who speaks of the canon--with its three
divisions as finally made up.[B] By the "three divisions," I mean those
divisions made by the Jews in their scriptures, and which are supposed
to be contemporary with the completion of the canon. Those divisions
are (1) the Pentateuch, or Law;[C] (2) the Prophets; and (3) the
Hagiographa.[D] It is of these divisions that the son of Sirach speaks.
[Footnote A: _Vide_ Kitto.]
[Footnote B: See the prologue to the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in the
Apocrypha.]
[Footnote C: The five books of Moses--Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy.]
[Footnote D: This is a Greek term for the sacred writings not included
in the other two divisions. The Talmud places the following books in
this division: Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles,
Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra and Chronicles. The books not
included in this list, nor in the Pentateuch, of course, constitute the
division called the Prophets.]
Josephus in his first book against Apion (section viii) enumerates
twenty-two books, "Which contain the record of all the past times;
which are justly believed to be divine; and of them, five belong to
Moses, which contain his laws, and the traditions of the origin of
mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three
thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the
reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia [5th cent. B. C.], the prophets,
which were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their time in
thirteen books, the remaining four books[E] contain hymns to God and
precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true our history hath
been written since Artaxerxes, very particularly, but hath not been
esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers,
because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that
time."
[Footnote E: Our thirty-nine books of the Old Testament were so grouped
by the Hebrews as to make but twenty-two, which accorded with the
twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. What are generally known as
the minor prophets, twelve in number, are connected as one book. The
Book of Ruth was coupled with Judges; Ezra with Nehemiah; Lamentations
with Jeremiah; while the two books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles were
counted but one each.]
This testimony settles the question back to the commencement of the
fifth century B. C., that is, for a period of about twenty-four hundred
years the authorship of the respective books of the Old Testament has
been ascribed to the men who today are regarded as their authors. The
rabbis say: "The wise men have left us the Law, the Prophets, and
the Hagiographa, combined into one whole;" and then they specify the
authors of the sacred books. That specification ascribes the respective
books to the men now regarded as the author of them. The Talmud says:
"Moses received the law at Sinai, and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua
to the Elders; the Elders to the Prophets; the Prophets to the men of
the Great Synagogue," and, as we have seen, it was Ezra, Nehemiah,
and the men of the Great Synagogue who made up our present collection
of books known as the Old Testament. Josephus in speaking of those
who wrote the scriptures says--"Every one is not permitted of his
own accord to be a writer, nor is there any disagreement in what is
written; they being only prophets that have written the original and
earliest accounts of things as they learned them of God himself by
inspiration; and others have written what hath happened in their own
times, and that in a very distinct manner also."[F]
[Footnote F: Josephus against Apion, Book I, Sec. 8.]
From the books of the Old Testament something may be learned as to
the manner in which the original parchments of the sacred books were
preserved previous to the days of Ezra, extending as far back even as
to Moses himself--1451 B. C. and some of the passages that I shall
notice--belonging to a subsequent period to Moses, yet previous to the
days of Ezra--refer to a collection of sacred books that leave small
doubt that the books of Moses and other sacred writings were the ones
to which allusion is made.
We are told that after Moses wrote the Law, he delivered it to the
priests, the sons of Levi, with a commandment to put it in the side
of the Ark of the Covenant,[G] that it might be there for a witness
against Israel, whom Moses by the spirit of prophecy, foresaw would
turn away from God.
[Footnote G: Deut. xxxi: 9, 24, 25, 26.]
In laying down the duties of the future King of Israel, Moses says:
"And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that
he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is
before the priests, the Levites"[H]--showing that it was the intention
of Moses to have the Law always preserved by the priests. When Joshua
had completed the book that bears his name, it is said: "And Joshua
wrote these words in the book of the Law of God";[I] which was
doubtless the book which Moses had placed in the Ark of the Covenant in
care of the priests.
[Footnote H: Deut. xvii: 18.]
[Footnote I: Joshua xxiv, 26.]
When the form of government of Israel was changed into a monarchy,
Samuel explained the character of the new kingdom to the people, "and
wrote it in a book and laid it up before the Lord."[J] This was three
hundred and fifty years after Moses, and yet the practice of laying up
these important records before the Lord, as Moses had done with his
books, still prevailed; and I doubt not were placed side by side with
the books of Moses and Joshua, if not attached to them.
[Footnote J: I. Sam. x: 25.]
Four centuries and a half later than Samuel, bringing us to about 640
B. C., in the reign of good king Josiah, Hilkiah, the high priest, when
the temple was undergoing some repairs, found the Book of the Law in
the house of the Lord,[K] and sent it to the king, who read it; and
when he saw how far Israel had departed from the observance of it, and
the judgments pronounced against them on condition of their forsaking
the law, he sought to lead his people to repentance.
[Footnote K: II. Kings xxii--see the whole chapter.]
Isaiah, some seventy years before this, when wishing to confirm some
of his own prophecies, recommended the people to seek out the Book of
the Lord and read it.[L] The value of this passage is, that it gives
us the testimony of Isaiah that such a book as "the Book of the Lord"
was known to the people, that they had access to it, that it was a
recognized authority on questions about which there might arise doubts.
And there can scarcely be two opinions as to this book, alluded to by
Isaiah, being either the original or an authorized copy of the writings
placed in the keeping of the priests, and found by Hilkiah.
[Footnote L: Isaiah xxxiv: 16.]
We have traced this matter down to 640 B. C.; there is one more step to
take, to reach Ezra, in whose days the books of the Old Testament were
collected, some one hundred and eighty-five years after the date above
noted.
What became of the sacred records of the Jews at the time Jerusalem
was laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, about 588 B. C.,[M] is difficult to
learn. But the document granting permission to Ezra and the priests
to go and rebuild the temple at Jerusalem is addressed to him thus:
"Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto Ezra, the priest, a scribe of the law
of the God of heaven, perfect peace." Then follows permission for all
the people of Israel in his realm to go to Jerusalem with Ezra. He then
continues: "Forasmuch as thou art sent of the king * * * to inquire
concerning Judah and Jerusalem, _according to the law of thy God which
is in thy hand_."[N] From this it appears that during the captivity the
priests were permitted to retain possession of the sacred records. At
any rate Ezra had them when he departed from Babylon for Jerusalem, so
that they had been preserved, and that, doubtless, by the priests. This
brings us to the period when the books of the Bible were collected as
we have them today. And from that time, more than two thousand years
ago, until the present, the Old Testament has been what it is now; the
multiplication of copies and of translations, as well as the subsequent
controversies between Jews and Christians, combined to secure the
sacred writings against alterations.
[Footnote M: This is the Hebrew Chronology, according to Usher.]
[Footnote N: Ezra vii: 12-14.]
No one will contend that the Old Testament contains all the writings of
the Jews, perhaps not all the sacred or inspired writings; for there
are a number of books and writings of prophets referred to in these
very books of the Old Testament, which are not to be found in the
collection. But that fact does not destroy the value of these we have,
or refute the testimony they bear for God. That very care which may
have excluded from the sacred collection some books which were really
inspired, has also prevented many worthless and uninspired books from
becoming connected with the word of God.
What is set down so far in this chapter relates to the Hebrew version
of the Scriptures alone; but about three hundred years B. C., by some
set down at 285 B. C., an event occurred which did much to preserve the
integrity of the Hebrew Scriptures; by that I mean the probability of
alterations being made in them was lessened, and they the more likely
to be brought down to us just as they were written originally.
At the date above given, Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, was
gathering up the books which constituted the splendid Alexandrian
Library, and being informed by his librarian, Demetrius Phalerius,
concerning the Hebrew Scriptures, he at once set himself at work to
procure a Greek translation of them. The better to secure this object
he set at liberty many Jews in his kingdom, and sent word to the high
priest at Jerusalem, Eleazar, his desire, asking that six Elders from
each tribe of Israel, such as were skilled in the law, should be sent
to him to translate their Scriptures for him. This was done, and it is
said that the work was completed in seventy-two days.[O]
[Footnote O: For a full account of this matter see Antiquities of the
Jews by Josephus, Book xii, chapter ii.]
This translation is called the _Septuagint_, meaning the seventy, often
represented by the Roman numerals LXX; but whether it is so called
because it was translated by about seventy Elders, or for the reason
that the translation occupied about seventy days is not clear. At any
rate copies of this translation were multiplied, and in the days of
Messiah's personal ministering in Judea was the version most in use,
and the one he and his Apostles usually referred to, when sustaining
their teachings by that which aforetime had been written by inspiration.
That this is true is evident from the following facts: There are in
the New Testament 225 quotations from the Old;[P] and of these over
one half, that is 120, agree _verbatim_ with the Septuagint. "That these
quotations," says an able writer, "must have been taken from the
Septuagint is plain from the _copia verborum_, the remarkable fertility
of expression, in the Greek language, which forbids us to believe that,
had the quotations been from the Hebrew, the Greek rendering would have
agreed _verbatim_ with the passages in the Septuagint version. Of any
Old Testament passage made up of only ten words, there are not fewer
than thirty modes of translating it into Greek; and such indeed are the
possible varieties, that if thirty different persons were translating
into Greek a Hebrew sentence of _three lines_, none of them, though all
were to give a perfectly correct rendering, would be found exactly
agreeing in the Greek words employed, or in the collection of these."
[Footnote P: The only books in the Old Testament not quoted in the New
are Ruth, I. and II. Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes,
Song of Solomon, Lamentations, Obadiah, Nahum and Zephaniah.]
Again, of the one hundred and five remaining quotations in the
New Testament, from the Old, thirty-nine agree _verbatim_ with the
Septuagint, except that a synonymous word occurs once in two or three
lines. There are next, twenty-two quotations agreeing _verbatim_ or
nearly so, with the Septuagint, but even in sense differing from the
Hebrew text. Hence out of the two hundred and twenty-five quotations
in the New Testament from the Old, we may say that not fewer than one
hundred and ninety must have been taken from the Septuagint version.
From about three centuries B. C., then, the Old Testament has existed
at least in two languages, and this has contributed much, as I before
said, to prevent the corruption of the text and preserve the integrity
of the Scriptures; for if changes were made in the Hebrew, it would be
discovered from the LXX.; and if alterations were made in the LXX.,
it could be detected from the Hebrew. There were other translations
made of the Scriptures into still other languages, but as my space is
limited, I cannot give an account of them here.
We have now seen how the books of the Old Testament, as we have them
at the present day, were collected by Ezra, some 2400 years ago; we
then went to the last book written by Moses--Deuteronomy--and from it
learned that his writings were deposited in the ark of the covenant in
charge of the priests and Levites; how Joshua and Samuel also laid up
their writings before the Lord; and how Isaiah referred the Jews to
these sacred writings in confirmation of his own prophecies; how when
in 640 B. C. the temple was undergoing some repairs the high priest
found in it an ancient copy of the law; and how Ezra in Babylon had the
sacred writings in his possession, so that he at that time would have
no difficulty in fixing upon the authorship of the sacred books then
before him.
I shall further examine this question of the authenticity of the Old
Testament in my next chapter, but the testimony I shall there consider
will also have a bearing upon its integrity, and will likewise tend
to confirm the claims as to its containing the revelations of God to
the Jews; and to this latter consideration I especially invite the
attention of the reader.