If this statement be true, then God must have "led a very busy life;"
for the world is literally loaded down with scriptures. There are not
less than eleven hundred and fifty pious effusions that may come under
this head, and at least that number claiming to have originated from the
fountain of divine inspiration; but the religious sects and religious
orders will tell us that but one of those eleven hundred and fifty
scriptures is the product of the Divine Mind, and but one of them has
received the seal and sanction of Almighty God. Then our salvation hangs
by a very slender thread; for no rule has been furnished us by Infinite
Wisdom by which we can distinguish which is the spurious and which the
genuine, or which is the scripture given by inspiration of God. All
pious nations have had their scriptures in profusion. Let us hold a
court, and hear the testimony of some of the witnesses with respect to
the validity of their respective claims. Here is a Hindoo, a pious soul
of the Brahmin order. "Well, brother, we wish you to tell us whether you
know any thing about the scriptures given by inspiration of God."--"Most
certainly I do." Well, where and what are they? "Why, after existing in
the mind of the great God Brahma from all eternity, they were revealed
by him, about nine thousand years ago, to the holy richis (prophets),
who penned them into a Holy Book for the instruction and salvation of
the world, now known as the Vedas. They are pure, holy and divine, and
point out the only sure road to salvation."
Here comes a Chinese mandarin. Well, brother, what light can you
throw upon this subject? Have you ever seen "the scriptures given by
inspiration of God"? "That is a question easily answered. The Five
Volumes are the purest, the holiest, and the most sublime production
ever given to the world. There is nothing immoral, no obscene language,
to be found in this 'Holy Book.' Its precepts are matchless; and it
is the only book whose teachings are calculated to 'make wise unto
salvation.' It will save all men who receive it, and obey it."
Take a seat: we want now to hear from a disciple representing the land
of Iran. Brother Persian, the question is, Where is "the scripture given
by inspiration of God"? "Your question surprises me. The Holy Zenda
Avesta has been circulating for thousands of years; and have you not
seen it? It points out the only sure road to the kingdom of eternal bliss,
and contains the only true religion for the human race." Very well: be
seated. There is yet another class of devout worshipers we wish to
interrogate on this all-important subject. Brother Mahomedan, will you
please to step forward, and help us solve this difficult problem? Where
are "the scriptures given by inspiration of God"? "Have you never read
that holy and inspired book, the Koran? If so, you ought to be able to
answer the question; and, if not, you are risking your eternal salvation
by remaining ignorant of its beautiful truths: for it consigns to an
endless fiery hell all who disbelieve and reject its sublime teachings,
and refuse to travel the road it has marked out to paradise and eternal
bliss." Thus we are making but little progress toward settling the
question, Where is "the scripture given by inspiration of God"? We will
now question the Christian Church. Here we are met at the very threshold
with two hundred answers. "Join our church, and beware of counterfeits,"
meets us at every church-door. We do not mean to say that every church
has a separate Bible, though virtually it almost amounts to this, as
each denies to all others that use of the Bible and construction of
its doctrine and teachings which alone can insure salvation. But, in a
broader sense, there are two hundred answers to the question, Where are
we to find "the only scriptures given by inspiration of God"? The two
hundred translators and four hundred commentators make out more than two
hundred distinct systems of faith, and virtually more than two hundred
Bibles. When we look at the numerous and widely different translations
of the Bible, and the numerous collection of books by different churches
which have been made to constitute the Bible at different periods, and
the numerous alterations which Christian writers tell us have been made
in all of the books of the Bible, and the great number of gospels and
epistles floating over the world at one period and afterwards denounced
as spurious, and the constant alteration of the Bible by adding some
books and rejecting others, we can see at once that it is impossible
ever to find any way of determining which are "the scriptures given
by inspiration of God." Here let it be noted, that, for nearly three
hundred years, the Christian world had no Bible but the Old Testament,
and that, during that period, hundreds of gospels and epistles
were written, and thirty-six Acts of the Apostles, by all kinds of
scribblers, or, as one Christian writer calls them, "ignorant asses."
These were put in circulation as constituting "the only scriptures given
by inspiration of God." Most of them were afterwards condemned by
the Church fathers as being the product of the Devil, and as being
calculated to lead every soul down to hell who should read and believe
them. But there never was any agreement among church-leaders as to which
of the three hundred gospels and epistles in circulation were
spurious, and which were genuine; nor has there ever been any rule for
distinguishing them, or determining which was which. How, then, was
it possible to know which were "the scriptures given by inspiration of
God"? Here arises a query of most striking import, which should sink
deep into the mind of every honest investigator of this subject. Should
it not be set down as a moral impossibility that an all-wise God would
inspire men to write gospels and epistles for the instruction of mankind
and the salvation of the world, and then let them get mixed up with
hundreds of others "inspired by the Devil," and calculated to lead to
perdition"? It must have been the means of effecting the eternal ruin of
thousands, if not millions, of immortal souls.
And nearly all Christian writers admit there was no way of
distinguishing the poisonous and pernicious productions from the
"inspired." It is also admitted that the former were more read than the
latter. Now, we must assume that a God would be essentially lacking
in the ingredients of good sense (or rather would be a mere imaginary
being) who would do business in such a bungling and reckless manner as
to furnish man with a revelation of his will, hang his salvation upon
it, and then abandon the field for three hundred years, and let every
thing run to ruin. Such a God _ought to "repent, and be grieved to the
heart_." Look what kind of stuff the people swallowed for gospel during
that period! The Gospel of the Infancy, which was afterwards condemned
as the work of devils and impostors, was, during this period, accepted
as inspired by nearly the whole Christian world; and see what it
contains. In the first chapter it is related that a woman had a son who
was, by the intervention of some witches, turned into an ass, when she
hastened off to the mother of the young Messiah (Jesus), and related
her grievance to that amiable personage, which so excited her compassion
that she forthwith seized the young child Jesus, and set him astride the
ass's neck, when, "lo and behold!" it took all the ass properties out of
the animal, and restored him back to manhood, or rather boyhood. And
all the biped asses then in Christendom swallowed this assinine story
as "scripture given by inspiration of God," The same book relates that
various sick and impotent persons visited the child Jesus, and were
cured of their diseases by having his swaddling-clothes wrapped about
their heads, necks, or other portions of the body, and forthwith the
devils departed (on one occasion in the shape of a dog). If there is a
lower plane of senseless superstition than this, I pray God I may never
know it. And all this was gospel and "inspired scripture," for whole
centuries, with the _majority_ of Christendom. Both preachers and laymen
read and believed those "Holy Scriptures." This is about as senseless
as the story of some devils coming out of a woman, and taking up their
abode in a herd of swine. These stories are all "chips of the same
block," and all equally incredible.
CHARACTER OF THE VOTERS WHO DECIDED WHAT SCRIPTURES SHOULD BE CONSIDERED
INSPIRED.
It is now well known that the first authentic collection of Gospels
and Epistles, called "the Bible," was made by the Council of Nice
325 A.D.,--a body of drunken bishops and lawless bacchanalians. The
Christian writer, Mr. Tyndal, says they got drunk, came to blows, and
kicked and cuffed each other; and that "the love of contention and
ambition overcame their reason." They claimed to be under the influence
of "the spirit." Undoubtedly they were; but it was a kind of spirit that
men hold intercourse with by uncorking the bottle, and not the spirit of
gentleness and peace. He says, "They fell afoul of each other;" and such
was the severity of their blows, that one member was mortally wounded,
and died a short time after. It was simply a disgusting and disgraceful
row,--a scene of rowdyism of at first seventeen hundred, and finally
about three hundred, Christian bishops, without a character for either
virtue, sobriety, or honesty. One-writer says, "They were abandoned
to every species of immorality, and addicted to the most abominable
crimes:" and such was their extreme ignorance, that but few of them
could write their names. Their method of deciding which Gospels ana
epistles were divinely inspired was quite unique. It is stated they were
all placed under the communion-table; and, when the proper signal was
given (so says Irenæus), the inspired Gospels "hopped on to the table,"
which separated them from the spurious. Why the spurious Gospels did
not possess the hopping power and propensity is not stated. Two of the
bishops, Crysante, and Musanius, died during the council, before the
vote was taken; but such was the importance of the occasion, that they
did not withhold their votes on that account. The proper documents being
prepared and carried and placed near their defunct bodies, they mustered
all the force their dead bodies could command, and signed them; and
thus, between the living and the dead, we have got a Bible which, it is
presumed, contains all the scripture given by "inspiration of God" under
the new dispensation. The Gospels and Epistles thus voted into favor
were not arranged together in the form of an authentic Bible until
nearly sixty years after.
This was done by the Council of Laodicea in the year 363. After this,
council after council was called to _vote in or vote out_ some of the
books adopted by previous councils, and to settle some important church
dogmas. The first council voted the Acts of the Apostles and Revelation
out of the Bible (i.e., voted them down); but the second council, which
met in 363, voted them in again. Another council, which met in 406,
voted them, with several other books, out of the Bible again. And thus
were books and dogmas voted in and voted out of "the infallible and
inspired word of God," and altered and corrected, time after time and
century after century, by twenty-four different councils, composed of
bigoted bishops and clergymen, so quarrelsome and belligerent that they
resorted to fisticuff fighting in several of the councils; and thus
was "God's Holy Word" and "perfect revelation" tossed to and fro like a
battledore,--this book voted in, and that one voted out, and sometimes
half a dozen at a time. And where was the "all scripture given by
inspiration of God" at the end of this revolutionary and demolishing
clerical crusade? And where was its author, that he would suffer the
whole thing to be taken out of his hands, altered and corrupted till he
could not know his own book, and would not have been willing to father
it if he had been able to recognize it? William Penn says, that "some
of the scriptures which were taken in by one council as inspired were
rejected by another council as uninspired; and that which was left
out by the former council as apocryphal was taken in by the latter as
canonical. And certain it is that they contradict each other. And how
do we know that the council which first collected and voted on the
scriptures--voting some up, and some down--were able to discern the true
from the false?"
Here the whole thing is set in its proper light by a devout Quaker
preacher. The extract contains a volume of instruction, and shows the
impossibility of our determining the "all scripture given by inspiration
of God."
ADDITIONS, ALTERATIONS, AND INTERPOLATIONS.
We have a vast amount of testimony to prove that councils, churches, and
clergymen arrogated to themselves a lawless license to change, insert,
and leave out various texts, chapters, and even whole books, from "God's
unchangeable word," till it may now be assumed to be thoroughly changed.
From a large volume of testimonies we will cite a few: The version of
the Old Testament made under Ptolemy Philadelphus, 287 B.C.,--the most
reliable version extant,--Bishop Usher pronounces a spurious copy, full
of interpolations, additions, and alterations. He says, "The translators
of the Septuagint added to, and took from, and changed at pleasure;" and
St. Jerome says that Origen did the same thing with the New Testament.
Bishop Marsh testifies, in like manner, that Origen, who first collected
the Bible books together, confessed that he made many alterations in
them before they fell into the hands of the Council of Nice. Dr. Bentley
admits that the best copy of the New Testament contains hundreds of
irreparable omissions, errors, and mistakes. The Rev. Dr. Whitby says,
"Many corruptions and interpolations were made almost in the apostolic
age." Dupin says, "Several authors took the liberty to add, retrench,
correct divers things." Some of the clergy and churches rejected books
which did not suit them, while others altered them to suit their fancy.
We are told that Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, made countless
numbers of alterations in the Bible in the sixth century for the purpose
of making them suit his Church. Eusebius says he found so much proof
that the Gospel of Matthew had been altered and corrupted, that he
rejected it as being unworthy of confidence. Victor Wilson informs us
that a general alteration of the Gospels took place at Constantinople
in the year 506 by order of the Emperor Anastasius. St. Jerome complains
that in his time many alterations had been made in the Bible, and that
its different translations were so essentially changed that "no one copy
or translation resembled another." Scaliger testifies that the clergy
and the churches put into their scriptures whatever they thought would
serve their purpose. Michaelis says, "They thrust in and thrust out as
best suits fancy." In the name of God, we would ask how any person
in his sober reason can think of finding "all scripture given by
inspiration of God" in the midst of such a general wreck, ruin, and
demolition of the original scriptures. It is as impossible as to raise
the dead or to find Charlie Ross. The Rev. Dr. Gregory says that no
profane author has suffered like the Bible by profane hands. Where,
then, can we find "all scripture given by inspiration of God"?
FORGED GOSPELS AND EPISTLES.
The Unitarian Bible says, in its preface, "It is notorious that forged
writings, under the name of the apostles, were in circulation almost
from the apostolic age." Mosheim testifies that "several histories of
Christ's life and doctrines, fall of pious frauds and fabulous wonders,
were put in circulation before the meeting of the Council of Nice;" and
he states, like William Penn, that he had no confidence in their ability
to distinguish the true from the false. We will here quote another
statement of William Penn: "There are many errors in the Bible. The
learned know it: the unlearned had better not know it." Here is another
sad proof of the blinding effect of reading and believing a book which
abounds in errors. He would have the unlearned and honest reader swallow
all the errors of the Bible, and be thereby morally poisoned by them,
rather than have the book brought into discredit by having its
errors exposed. This circumstance of itself is sufficient to seal its
condemnation. Belsham says, "The genuine books of the Bible were but
few compared with the spurious ones." This would be inferred from the
circumstance of only four Gospels being adopted out of fifty, and only
seventeen Epistles out of more than one hundred. Daille says, "The
Christian fathers forged whole books; but neither he nor anybody else
can furnish any rule for determining which they are."
LOST BOOKS FOUND OR RE-WRITTEN.
Dupin says a portion of the books of the Old Testament were burned in
wars, and others lost by the Jews themselves; and in the Second Book
of Chronicles (xxxiv. 14) we are told that Hilkiah found the Book of the
Law after it had been lost eight hundred years. This law appears to have
constituted the most important portion of the Jewish sacred writings.
The circumstance gives rise to some very strange reflections and
conclusions. It appears from this circumstance that the Lord's holy
people had been without any law to guide or govern them for eight long
centuries. Now, can we suppose for a moment that their God, Jehovah,
was a being of infinite wisdom to write or dictate a law, and base the
happiness and welfare of his people if not the world on that law, and
then, through carelessness or otherwise, suffer it to get lost, and
remain unfound for eight hundred years, so that nobody could have the
benefit of it during that long period? The very thought is a trespass
upon our good sense, and does violence to our reason. And where was the
law during all that time? and how was it preserved for so long a period
of time? If written on papyrus or parchment, it would have perished
in less than a century from being exposed to the weather: for we can't
assume it was preserved in a drawer or box, as, in that case, it would
not have been lost; and, if engraven on stone, the weight would have
been fifty times as much as Hilkiah could carry. We are told that when
Josiah the king heard the law read, he rent his clothes (2 Chron. xxxiv.
19).
Well, that is strange indeed. It must have been a very curious law, or
he must have been a very curious man. Why the reading of a few plain
moral precepts should drive a man to insanity, and cause him to tear his
clothes, is something hard to understand. And it is evidence that the
whole Jewish tribe had never known or read much about the law: otherwise
a knowledge of it would have been preserved by tradition, and the king
would not have been so profoundly ignorant of it. If the law was the
Pentateuch, as some writers assume, the king would have had to stand a
week to hear it all read; and it seems strange that "Shaphan the scribe"
could pick up a document covered with the mold, rust, and dust of eight
centuries, and read it off with sufficient expertness for the king to
listen to with patience. But the wonder and difficulty don't stop here.
It was only about a quarter of a century until this great "holy and
divine law" was lost again; which left "the Lord's holy people" again
without any moral code to guide them, or a governing law, for six
centuries longer. No wonder they preferred worshiping a calf (see Exod.
xxxii.) to paying homage to a God so reckless of their welfare and
happiness. On this occasion it became so thoroughly lost, that it
never "turned up" again; and there seemed to be no way to remedy the
deplorable loss but to have it written over again. At least that appears
to have been the impression of Ezra the priest, who set himself to the
onerous task of reproducing the long-lost document from memory or from
a second installment of divine inspiration. (See Esdras.) Such a memory
does not often fall to the lot of mortals to possess,--a memory that
could enable a man to reproduce a document which neither he nor any
other person had read for six hundred years. If the world could be
furnished with such a mental prodigy at the present day, we might again
have the benefit of the numerous books and libraries which have
been destroyed by fire in modern times. It would require no previous
knowledge of any of those works to achieve the task of reproducing
them. Perhaps we may be told that we are becoming "wise above what is
written." It would require no mental effort to attain to this eminence,
and become obnoxious to such a charge. In this case, a few brief
sentences, and the whole thing is dismissed: no details are given. The
story of Hilkiah finding the Book of the Law sounds very much like Joe
Smith finding the Mormon Bible; and the case of Ezra's re-writing it is
matched by the story of "Vyass the Holy" finding the divine law of the
Brahmins some three thousand years before Hilkiah was born. Mr. Higgins
says that nearly all ancient religious nations had the tradition of
losing and finding their holy books, holy laws, and holy languages. The
query is here suggested, that if such an important document could be
restored to the people in the manner adopted by Ezra, why was not
this expedient resorted to a thousand years sooner, and thus save the
demoralization of the Jews? The policy adopted is too much like "locking
the stall after the horse is stolen."
IMPOSSIBILITY OF POSSESSING A RELIABLE TRANSLATION.
It is quite evident, from the facts presented and from others which will
hereafter be presented, that, if God ever gave forth a revelation of his
will to the founders of the Jewish and Christian religions, the world is
not in possession of it now, and can not find it in a book as old as the
Christian Bible, and written by simply stringing consonants together
in a line without any vowels, and without any distinction of words, and
which must necessarily be an enigma that would puzzle any scholar to
decipher. Hence the learned Le Clere says, "Even the learned guess at
the sense in an infinity of places, which has produced a prodigious
number of discordant interpretations." And Simonton, in his "Critical
History," says, "It is unquestionable that the greater part of the
Hebrew words of the Old Testament are equivocal in their signification,
and utterly uncertain; and that even the most learned Jews doubt almost
every thing in regard to their proper meaning." To talk of finding "all
scripture given by inspiration of God" environed with such difficulties,
is to talk nonsense. We will illustrate the nature of these difficulties
by citing a case. We will look at the random guessing at the meaning of
a single word of a single text by the most learned students and scholars
in biblical literature. The word indicating the material of which Noah's
ark was com-posed, our translation says, was gophir-wood: but the Arabic
translation says it was box-wood; the Persian translation says it was
pine-wood; another translation makes it red ebony; and still another
declares it was wicker-work; Davidson, assuming to be "wise above what
is written" the case, says it was bulrushes cemented with pitch; another
writer translates it cedar-wood, &c. And thus God's Holy Book, designed
for the guidance of man, has been the sport and the bauble of learned
guessers in all ages of Christendom, who evidently know as much about
it, in many cases, as a goose does about Greek.
MANY DIFFERENT CHRISTIAN BIBLES.
Owing to the multiplicity of Bible translations, which differ widely in
their doctrines, precepts, and the relation of general events, making a
different collection of books to constitute "the word of God," various
churches, and even individual professors, have assumed the liberty
to compile and make a Bible for themselves. The Roman-Catholic Bible
differs essentially from that of the Protestants', having fourteen more
books. The Bible of the Greek Church differs from both. The Campbellites
have a translation of their own. The Samaritan Bible contains only the
Five Books of Moses. The Unitarians, having found twenty-four thousand
errors in the popular translation, made another translation containing
still many thousand errors.
The American Christian Union, having found many thousand errors in King
James's translation, are now engaged in a new translation. How many more
we are to have, God only knows. Martin Luther condemned eleven books of
the Bible, as we have already stated, and thus made a Bible for Himself.
Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews he denounced in strong terms. Eusebius,
the learned ecclesiastical writer, throws eight Bible-books
overboard, and had a Bible to his own fancy. Dr. Lardner and
John Calvin each condemned five or six books, and had a Bible peculiar
to themselves. Grotius places the heel of condemnation on several books
of the Bible. Bishop Baxter voted down eight books as uninspired, and
unworthy of confidence. Swedenborg accepted only the Four Gospels and
Revelation as inspired. The German fathers rejected the Gospel of St.
Matthew, and I know not how many other books. The Bible of the learned
Christian writer Evanson did not contain either Matthew, Mark, or
John. The Unitarian Bible does not contain Hebrews, James, Jude,
or Revelation. The Catholics denounce the Protestant Bible, and the
Protestants condemn the Catholic Bible, as being full of errors. A
number of other churches and learned Christians might be named who had
Bibles of their own selection and construction. And thus every book in
the Bible has passed under the flaming sword of condemnation, and
has been voted down by some ecclesiastical body or learned and devout
Christian. Each church has either made out a Bible for itself, or
accepted that which came the nearest teaching the doctrine of their
own peculiar creed. In the midst of this rejection, expulsion, and
expurgation of Bibles and Bible-books, where can we find "the scripture
given by inspiration of God"? We have it upon the authority of Dr. Adam
Clark, Eusebius, Bishop Marsh, and other writers, that many texts
and passages contained in our Bible can not be found in the earlier
editions; thus showing that many gross interpolations and forgeries have
been practiced by the Christian fathers. Christ's prayer on the cross,
"Father, forgive them," &c., the story of the woman taken in adultery,
the passage relative to the three that bare record in heaven, &c.,
they assure us, can not be found in any early translation of the Bible.
Where, then, are "the scriptures given by inspiration of God"? Who can
tell?