Bible Studies, II

BIBLE STUDIES,

BY NEPH1 L. MORRIS.

II.

"The integrity of the records of the Christian faith is substantiated by evidence, in a ten-fold proportion, more various, more copious and conclusive than that which can be adduced in support of any other ancient writings.— Isaac Taylor.

If the old Christian churches of Jerusalem, Rome and Ephesus had been securely locked, and the keys concealed, so that from 200 A. D. until now nobody could have entered and disturbed the things inside, and the doors could now be opened, what profoundly interesting discoveries would be made. At once the most sacred and absorbing thing to engage our attention would be the voices hushed through the silence of centuries within the old darkened and decayed record chests. Upon opening them we should find old rolls of red and yellow parchments with writing on them. No one church would have in it any great supply of the writings, because all books were written by hand in those days, and hence not so numerous as in these days of printing. And during those awful persecutions, waged by Roman emperors, the sacred books in great numbers were burned, the persecutors hoping by that means to stamp out the "strange superstition" called Christianity. But if we were to collect from all the churches and private libraries of the Christians, what their record chests held, and were to bring them together after assorting them, we would find:

1. Some manuscripts of the Old Testament, written in Hebrew, the original language of the scriptures.

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i. Since the Greek tongue had taken the place of the Hebrew at least 6oo years before this time, we would find many of the Old Testament books translated into Greek for general use in the churches.

3. A number of rolls of Apocryphal books, not accepted as being inspired, but written by good men and of value for the explanation of the scriptures. Some of these would belong to the Christian age, while others would date all the way from the captivity to the verge of the Christian era.

4. Some copies, and possibly the original copies, of the Gospels, of the Acts, the Epistles of the Apostles Paul, Peter, and James; and the book of Revelations.

While looking upon this pile of time-worn papers, written nearly eighteen hundred years ago, we would have before us all the sources from which we get our Bible, and we must not forget that they would be all manuscripts, that is, all written in script by hand ; and whenever copies were needed, they had to be written that way. You will observe, •too, that in the tedious process of copying, many mistakes, doubtless, would find their way into the copy. Sometimes the copyist would mistake one word for another; sometimes after writing the last word of a line, on looking up again from his copy his eye might catch the same word at the end of the next line and he would go on from that, omitting the whole line between. In this way and others errors would be continually made. These errors would be repeated by the man that copied from the first copy, and he would add errors of his own. So that as copies increased, mistakes would be likely to increase also, and therefore, as a general rule, the earlier a manuscript the more likely it is to be correct.

Some of the early fathers, knowing how likely their writings and the scriptures were to being marred in the above manner, took precaution against it, by methods similar to the following interesting one: Iraneus, bishop of Lyons, in the second century, in one of his books wrote thus: "Whosoever thou art who shall transcribe this book, I charge thee with an oath by our Lord Jesus Christ, that thou carefully compare what thou hast transcribed, and correct it according to this copy whence thou hast transcribed it, and thou transcribe this

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oath in similar manner, and place it in the copy." But even such cautions as these were either not early enough given or sufficiently strong to preserve in all cases the accuracy of the texts.

GENUINENESS DEFINED.

If the original manuscript of each book of the Bible were still extant, and if the fact of its being such could be proved, every copy that agreed with that manuscript would be perfectly genuine. There are, however, none of these original manuscripts known today, but there are circumstances and conditions under which copies have been made and preserved which prove their substantial genuineness, with almost as much certainty as if the originals were really here. A book is said to be genuine if it still remains as it was written by its author. If, in text, it is not now as originally written, it is considered to be corrupt, and if the book was not written by the alleged author it is said to be spurious.

The great importance of the question of genuineness will be seen in this: Suppose the books of the Old Testament were not written by the authors to whom they are ascribed, and were not written in the age in which it is claimed they were, but on the contrary were written by authors who lived at a much later period — that is, suppose they prove to be spurious books; then, of course, the history in them would by no means be deserving the great credit that is given to genuine records. The prophecies said to be contained in them would be open to the suspicion of having been invented after the events had transpired; and lastly, so far as the Old Testament is concerned, Jesus Christ and his Apostles would have approved and recommended the works of imposters; and by such recommendation they would demonstrate that they themselves were either victims of the fraud or parties to it. Hence, to repeat, it is evident how great importance the question of genuineness is; and it is almost equally important to know about the time such books were written. The age in which a book is written and by whom it is written, is a question of fact that can only be answered by proofs from history. Trustworthy witnesses, who possessed both the means of knowing, and who were also willing to communicate the truth, are the

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ones whose testimony is acceptable. Facts derived from such a source are called

EXTERNAL PROOFS.

Of course each of the Hebrew authors had his contemporaries to whom he gave his book. They received it from his hands, and, transcribing it, gave it, or a copy of it, to others. It is certain that these second and third parties knew by whom and when the books were written; and this knowledge they imparted to their immediate descendants, and these again to their posterity, and so on from one generation to another through all succeeding ages; and thus by tradition a source of strong evidence for the genuineness of the sacred books is afforded. And as there were fewer books in earlier times than now, the tradition in relation to their origin would be more easily preserved. Nor was there any motive to induce the Hebrews to corrupt this simple tradition about the authorship of their books, and the times in which they were written. If the Hebrew nation had been disposed to change anything about their records it would doubtless have been in the history contained in the books; for they are full of reproofs and censures to their nation. Certainly they would not corrupt the tradition concerning the authorship of their books, and leave unchanged the history so damaging to their national pride.

The Hebrews testify to the genuineness of their sacred books, though in doing so they become witnesses against themselves; a circumstance which renders their testimony for their books unexceptionable. If these books are by some considered forgeries, we ask what motive could such a forger have to impel him to such a bold enterprise? It could not have been national pride, for there is scarce a book which does not blaze with denunciation for national sins, or that does not weep for their waywardness. Love of fame could not have been his motive, for that passion would have taught him to flatter and extol the national character. Love of wealth could not have been the motive, for no wealth was to be obtained by painting a bad picture of the past or prophecying a more deplorable future. It is a fact that the names of some Bible authors are unknown. Had these documents

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come from forgers, so important a thing as the pretended author's name would certainly have been supplied, and would most probably have been worked into the writings themselves.

It is conceded that the Old Testament existed in its present form at the beginning of the Christian era. Jesus himself referred to it in its three-fold division of the law, the prophets and the Psalms. Philo, a native of Egypt who lived in the first century of the Christian era, quotes the books of the Jewish Bible and tells us that his people, especially the Jews of Palestine, regarded them alone as having canonical authority. He expressly says that some of them were of divine origin. Going back still farther we find a witness whose testimony is superior to any thus far considered — Josephus, who was himself a Jewish priest and a contemporary with the Apostles, though much younger than they, having been born in the year 37 A. D. In his treatise against Apion, he says: "We have not thousands of books discordant and contradicting each other; but we have only twentytwo, which comprehend the history of all former ages and are justly regarded as divine."* This establishes beyond refutation the fact that the Old Testament existed at the beginning of the Christian era substantially the same book as it is today.

About fifty years B. C, the Targums were written by Onkelos and others; and being but highly colored paraphrases of the scriptures, accompanied with comments and fanciful allegories as well as legendary matter — resembling very much the Talmud — they became witnesses of the books from whence they were chiefly derived, that is, the books of the Old Testament.

Jesus the son of Sirach, and author of the book of Ecclesiasticus (Apocrypha), mentions the names of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and makes reference to their propehcies; he speaks also of the twelve minor prophets and others.

*The thirty-nine books of our present Old Testament were so grouped by the Hebrews as to make but twenty-two, which accorded with the twentytwo letters of the Hebrew alphabet. What are generally known as the minor prophets, twelve in number, are united into 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 book of Ecclesiasticus is supposed to have been written about 232 B. C. , and was translated from the Syro-Chaldaic into the Greek by its author's grandson, for the Alexandrian Jews.

Going back fifty years more, to the year 282 B. C. , we have the Greek version of the Old Testament, usually called the Septuagint,* which was translated by the Jews of Alexandria. It consists of the same identical books that are in our Old Testament of today, and proves that we still have those identical books which the most ancient Jews attested to be genuine. This is an attestation which no ancient profane books possess. And since there are no authentic books extant of greater antiquity than those of the Old Testament, it is impossible to ascend higher in search of testimony. m Each of these versions or books point to the fact that they are only copies or translations of works which must have antedated them, and some of them cite the more ancient books by name; whence it is evident that those ancient authors long since received testimony from their ancestors, that those most ancient books were the genuine works of the authors whose names they bear.

*One very old tradition regarding the Septuagint is that King Ptolemy Lagi requested from the jews at Jerusalem, a Greek version of their scriptures for his great Alexandrian library; that the Jews sent seventy elders skilled in the scriptures and languages; that the king separated them in different cells for their work, and that after the lapse of seventy days, when they all appeared together before him with their versions, "God was glorified, for they all agreed exactly word for word." The truth probably is, that the version was made by Alexandrian Jews, whether for King Ptolemy or not we cannot tell.