Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible

Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible

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They think and speak in poetry. Robinson, in the Christian Weekly, thus overstates and misapplies the first usage: We put thousands before hundreds, and hundreds before units. So if a literal rendering of one of those vast numbers be made into English, it will appear positively preposterous. Now, one cannot help thinking that there was no tonn in all those borders so large as this assumes.

Fifty thousand men besides women and children, would populate one of our larger modern cities. The verse reads,'seventy, fifties, and a thousand,' -that is, not seventy and fifty thousand, as it is translated, but seventy, two fifties, and one thousand, or one thousand one hundred and seventy men in all. There is quite as much reason for reading " seventies " as " fifties," since both the original words are, as they ought to be, in the plural number.

Besides, " fifties " may as well denote ten fifties as two fifties. Even treatises in the abstract sciences, geographi. Without an intimate acquaintance with the customs of pastoral life, without an accurate knowledge of the East and its manners, without a close intimacy with the manner of thinking and speaking in the uncivilized world Asia is one world; Europe and America, another.

Let an Asiatic be tried before his own tribunal.

An examination of the alleged discrepancies of the Bible

To pass just sentence upon him, we must enter into his feelings, views, methods of reasoning and thinking, and place ourselves in the midst of the circumstances which surrounded him. All their literary productions, from the most impassioned ode to the firman of the Grand Seigneur, belong to the province of poetry.

The luxuriant imagination and glowing ardor of the former express themselves in hyperbolical and extravagant diction; whereas the subdued character and coolness of the latter are averse to sensuous luxuriance. Passion and feeling predominate. In the Psalms pre-eminently, we see the theology of the feelings, rather than of the intellect. Logic is out of place there. Dogmas cannot be established on such a basis, nor was it ever meant to be so. The eastern minstrel employs intense words for saying what the western logician would say in tame language.

The fervid Oriental would turn from our modifying phrases in sickness of heart. We shudder at the lofty flights which captivate him. But he and we mean to express the same idea. The Occidental philosopher has a definite thought when he affirms that God exercises benevolence toward good men.

Isaiah has essentially the same thought when he cries out: Such bold and free imagery, when properly interpreted, develops a felicitous meaning,; but when expounded according to literalistic, matter-offact methodsj it yields discrepancies in abundance. To the interpreter of scripture, no two qualifications are more indis, pensable than common sense and honesty. Other dissonances in scripture are obviously attributable to the Eastern custom of applying a plurality of names to the same person or object.

In matters of every-day life, this custom is widely prevalent. Thus, in the Arabic,' there are different words or names for " sword," for " lion," for " serpent," for " misfortune," 80 for " honey. One of the apostles bore the following appellations: So we find Joseph, Barsabas, and Justus designating the same individual. Not infrequently the names of persons and places were changed on account of some important event. The custom prevails to some extent in modern times. The Persian king, Shah Solyman, began to reign in , under the name Suffee. During the first years of his reign, misfortune attended him.

He came to the conclusion that his name was an unlucky one, and must be laid aside, in order to avert further calamities. He was crowned anew under that name, and all the seals and coins which bore the name of Suffee were broken, as if one king had died, and another succeeded. Also, Biblical Repository for October, , pp. The custom of changing the name of the pope at the time of his election is not unlike, - Aeneas Sylvius becoming Pius II.

Often, in the Bible, the name of the head of a tribe or nation is put for his posterity. Thus, in a multitude of cases, "Israel" means the Israelitish nation; " Ephraim " and "Moab " signify the descendants of those men respectively. Keeping in mind the great latitude allowed by the Orientals in the use of names, we see the ready solution of many difficulties in the biblical record.

Not a few verbal contradictions arise from the use of the same word with different, sometimes opposite, significations. As Fuerst says, "Analogy in the Semitic dialects admits of directly opposite meanings in a word as possible. So " yarash" means both to possess and to dispossess; "ndikar," to know and not to kcnow; "s iqal," to pelt with stones and to free from stones; " shibar," to buy grain and to sell grain. So the Latin word " sacer " means both holy and accursed. This infelicity of human speech is not, indeed, peculiar to the East. In our version of the scriptures,l and in the early English literature,2 the word "let" is employed with the contradictory meanings, to permit and to hinder.

In common parlance, a boy " stones" a fruit-tree, and the cook " stones" certain kinds of fruit. This is due to the fact that the same English word has been employed by the translators to represent several original terms. Thus, in Luke xiii. It is well to remember, also, that in King James's version words are frequently employed in an unusual or obsolete sense. Thus we find " prevent "I signifying to anticipate or precede; " thought" 2 implying anxiety.

Often a knowledge of the ambiguity of their pivotal words enables us to reconcile two conflicting texts with the greatest ease. A very large number of discrepancies take their rise from errors in the mnanuscripts; these errors being occasioned by the similarity of the alphabetical characters to one another, and by the consequent blunders of transcribers. The reader need not be reminded that previous to the invention of printing, in the fifteenth century, books were produced and multiplied by the slow, laborious method of copying with the pen.

In a process so mechanical, mistakes would: The most carefully printed book is not entirely free from typograplhical errors; the most carefully written manuscript will exhibit defects of some kind. Such a course of providential arrangement we must confess to be quite possible; but it could have been brought about and main. Kalisch gives twelve examples in point. He might have added, Pe r and Kaph Z.

The reader will observe that, if the left hand perpendicular line of He be accidentally omitted or blurred, we have Daleth left, thus, L, A; so Tav and Resh, thus, n,n; also Pe and Kaph, A,:. In fact, this is one of the most fruitful sources of error in the Hebrew manuscripts. Every one is aware how easily the English letters b and d are confounded, also p and q; how often we see N placed thus, N.

In print we see the figures 3 and 8, 6 -and 9, mistaken for each other. How frequently we find "recieve " for "receive," "cheif" for " chief," "thier " for" their," and the like. Now, if such errors occur, in the most carefully corrected print, what are 1 Hebrew Grammar, i. Moreover, as Theodore Parker 1 says, " it is to be remembered that formerly the IIebrew letters resembled one another more closely than at present. In fact, nothing but the most astounding miracle2 could have prevented such mistakes. We are now ready to add that, in thte ancient Hebrew, letters were, in all probability, used for numerals.

That is, letters were employed by the original writers to represent numbers, which were expanded and written out in full by later copiers. So, with us, one author might write " CXI. That the original writers did this, though not absolutely demonstrated, is generally conceded by scholars. Bentley, " That in millions of copies transcribed in so many ages and nations, all the notaries and writers, who made it their trade and livelihood should be infallible and impeccable; that their pens should spontaneously write true, or be supernaturally guided, thougrh the scribes were nodding or dreaming; would not this exceed all the miracles of both Old and New Testament?

New Testament has suffered less injury by the hand of time than any profane author. That they did so in post-Babylonian times we have conclusive evidence in the Maccabaean coins; and it is highly probable that this was the case also in earlier times. Hence, on the supposition that numeral characters were used, we are to explain the difference in numbers. So with regard to numbers; for letters alike in shape being used as numerals, were easily interchanged. Glassius 5 also decides in favor of the hypothesis, and discusses the subject with no little skill and ability.

On Printed Hebrew Text, i. Sprache und Schrift, pp. Faber's " Literas olihm pro vocibus in numerando a scrip toribus V. No parts of ancient books have suffered so much from errors of inadvertency as those which relate to numbers; for as one numeral letter was easily mistaken for another, and as neither the sense of the passage, nor the rules of orthography nor of syntax, suggested the genuine reading, when once an error had arisen, it would most often be perpetuated, without remedy.

It is, therefore, almost always unsafe to rest the stress of an argument upon any statement of numbers in ancient writers, unless some correlative computation confirms the reading of the text. Hence nothing can be more frivolous or unfair than to raise an objection against the veracity or accuracy of an historian, upon some apparent incompatability in his statement of numbers.

Difficulties of this sort it is much better to attribute, at once, to a corruption of the text, than to discuss them with ill-spent assiduity. Also certain discrepancies in the New Testament are explicable by the fact that, as is the case in the Codex Bezae, Greek letters bearing a close resemblance were used as numerals,3 and hence were mistaken for one another.

In our common Greek text, the number " six hundred three score and six " is indicated simply by three or sometimes four characters. Sacra, De Caussis Corrupt. It hardly need be added that errors as to nManmes have arisen in the same way, - from the similarity of certain letters. Thus we find HIadadezer and Hadarezer,l a Daleth i being mistaken for a Resh n - and many like cases. The key thus furnished, will unlock many difficulties during the progress of our work.

Multitudes of alleged discrepancies are the product of the imagination of the critic, influenced to a greater or less degree by dogmatic prejudice. Two classes of writers illustrate this remark. Of one class no names will be mentioned. The character, spirit, and motives of these writers render further notice of them inconsistent with the purpose of our work. The second class - not to be spoken of in the same connection with the former - comprises men possessing, in not a few cases, valid claims to scholarship, to critical acumen and to great respectability of character.

Foremost in this class may be placed De Wette, as he appears- in his earlier writings, and Dr. Samuel Davidson, as he is seen in some of his later works. It is painful to add that it seems impossible to acquit even these authors of great occasional unfairness in their handling of the scriptures. One can scarcely read the productions of these three, and some others of their school, 12 Sam.

On the contrary, Dr. Davidson's tendencies may be gathered fiom a comparison of the discussion of the Discrepancies, in his " Sacred Hernmeneutics," pp. Dr, Davidson's Introduction to the Old Test. Certain rationalistic authors have a convenient method for disposing of answers to the objections adduced by them. They begin at once to talk loftily of the " higher criticism," and to deride the answers and solutions as " gratuitous assumptions. Hence, when they read that Abraham twice equivocated concerning his wife; 2 that Isaac imitated his example; 3 that David was twice in peril in a certain wilderness,4 and twice spared Saul's life in a cave,5 they instantly assume that in each case these double narratives are irreconcilable accounts of one and the same event.

The absurdity of such a canon of criticism is obvious from the fact that history is full of events which more or less closely resemble one another. Take, as a well-known example, the case of the two Presidents Edwards, father and son. Both were named Jonathan Edwards, and were the grandlsons of clergymen. Both were 1 orks, i. Both were removed from these stations to become presidents of colleges, and both died shortly after their respective inaugurations; the one in the fifty-sixth, and the other in the fifty-seventh year of his age; each having preached, on the first Sabbath of the year of his death, on the text: We thus see that, if critics dared to tamper with the facts of secular, as they do with those of sacred, history, they would justly incur the ridicule of all well-informed persons.

Herein lies the inconsistency of much of the current criticism; particularly of that "higher criticism " of which we hear so much. The following case illustrates a spirit and practice not seldom exhibited by certain authors: Observe that no one of the above cases bears, in respect to points of coincidence, worthy comparison with this unquestioned instance in modern times.

We cannot but concur in the judgment couched in this and the following quotations. Henry Rogers,l criticising Strauss's Life of Jesus, says it ought to be entitled, " A collection of all the difficulties and discrepancies which honest criticism has discovered, and perverted ingenuity has imagined, in the four evangelists. The learned translator of Bleek 2 severely, yet fitly, designates the course pursued by certain authors as that " exaggeration of difficulties, that ostentatious parading of grounds of suspicion, which so painfully characterize much of the later biblical criticism, and not unwarrantably give rise to the question whether there be not some secret ground of malevolence, some unacknowledged, but most influential desire to find reasons for an already existing unbelief, to account for the bitter and determined hostility with which the books are treated.

Such are the spirit and methods of much of the sceptical criticism —even of the so-called "higher criticism " —of our day. We might also have adduced the very great compression of the narrative as a fruitful source of apparent incongruities. Such was the condensation which the writers were constrained to employ, that, in any given case, only a few of the more salient circumstances could be introduced.

Had the sacred historians undertaken to relate every circumstance, the Bible, instead of being comprised in a single volume, would have filled many volumes, and would consequently have proved unwieldy, and well nigh useless to mankind. If "the world itself could not contain the books" which should minutely detail all our Saviour's acts,' how much less could it " contain" those which should narrate circumstantially the history of all the important personages mentioned in the scriptures.

WVe thus see that, with reference to any given event, a host of minute particulars have dropped from the knowledge of mankind, and are lost beyond recovery, Hence, in many instances, the thread of the narrative is not simply not obvious, but can only be recovered, if at all, by prolonged and searching scrutiny. That circumstances, combined in so fragmentary and disconnected a manner, should sometimes appear incompatible, is a fact too familiar to need illustration.

WRY were the discrepancies permitted to exist? What good end do they contemplate? They were doubtless intended as a stimuluzs to the hlman intellect, as provocative of mental effort. They serve to awaken curiosity and to appeal to the love of novelty. The Bible is a wonderful book. No other has been studied so much, or called forth a tithe of the criticism which this has elicited. On the battle-field of truth, it has ever been round this that the conflict has raged. WVhat book besides ever caused the writing of so many other books? Take from the libraries of Christendom all those which have sprung, I will not say indirectly, but directly from it, - those written to oppose, or defend, or elucidate it,- and how would they be diminished!

The very multitude of infidel books is a witness to the power with which the Bible stimulates the intellect. Why do we not see the same amount of active intellect coming up, and dashing and roaring around the Koran? Though but a subordinate characteristic, they have prompted men to "search the scriptures," and to ask: How are these difficulties to be resolved? Things which are " hard to be understood," present special attractions to the inquiring mind. Professor Park 2 observes, in an admirable essay on the choice of Texts, "Sometimes a deeper interest is awakened by examining two or more 1President Hopkins, Evidences of Christianity, p.

Mlen are eager to learn the meaning and force of a text, one part of which is John xv. The Bible rouses the mind from its torpid state by declaring that man dieth and is not, and yet lives forever; that man is a worm of the dust, and yet is made little lower than the angels; that he must love, and yet hate his father, mother, brother, sister; that every man must bear his own burden, and yet each one bear the burdens of his brethren; that man's body will be raised from the grave, and yet not the same body; that Christ was ignorant of some things, and yet knew all things; that he could not bear his own cross, and yet upholdeth all things by the word of his power.

WVhen two classes of passages stand in apparently hostile array against each other at the opening of a sermon, the somnolent hearer is kept awake in order to see how the conflict will end. He may be raised by the discourse from his natural love of learning the truth to a gracious love of the truth which is learned.

Again, illustrating, as beautifully as suggestively, by the case of the mariner who steers midway between certain landmarks, he adds: The rabbies have a saying that " the book of Chronicles was given for argument," that is, to incite men to investigation and discussion. Not only do these " hard" things induce men to investigate the sacred volume; but meanwhile resolving themselves before the steady and patient eye of the student, they unfold deep and rich meanings which amply reward his toil. This process is exemplified in the case of the scholar quoted above.

I can now see that they not only do not contradict each other, but harmonize perfectly. In the early part of my biblical studies, some thirty to thirty-five years ago, when I first began the critical investigation of the scriptures, doubts and difficulties started up on every side, like the armed men whom Cadmus is 1 Rashi, ref'rring to 1 Chron.

Time, patience, continued study, a better acquaintance with the original scriptural languages and the countries where the sacred books were written, have scattered to the winds nearly all these doubts. They were meant to be illustrative of the analogy between the Bible and nature, and so to evince their common origin. The " self-contradictions " of the Bible are produced on a grander scale in nature. Wherever we turn our eyes, the material universe affords unmistakable traces of infinite wisdom, power, and benevolence.

The starry heavens, the earth robed in vernal green, the bright, glad sunshine, the balmy breezes, the refreshing dews and showers, the sweet song birds, the flowers of brilliant hues and delicious odors, the wonderful and countless forms of vegetation, the infinite varieties of insect and animal life, the nice adaptations and benevolent contrivances for their welfare everywhere visible in nature - all these proclaim the attributes and speak forth the praise of the Creator.

But, looking into the same arena from another point of view, we see a very different spectacle. Want and wo, sorrow and suffering, appear dominant in the world. Frost and fire, famine and pestilence, earthquake, volcano, and hurricane, war and intemperance, a thousand diseases and tell thousand accidents, are doing their deadly work upon our fellow-creatures. All this fearful devastation is going on in a world created and governed by infinite wisdom, power, and love. MSilton's terrible picture too often finds its counterpart. Nowhere in the Bible "Immnediately a place Before his eyes appeared, sad, noisome, dark, A lazar-house it seemed, wherein were laid Numbers of all diseased, all maladies Of ghastly spasm or racking torture, qualms Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds, Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs, Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,.

Let a man solve the grand problem of the ages; let him tell us why an infinitely wise, powerful, and benevolent Creator allowed evil to enter at all his universe — let him explain this contradiction, and we may safely engage to explain those which occur in the Bible. For none of them - not all together -are so dark, unfathomable, and appalling as this one grand, ultimate Discrepancy.

Nevertheless, nature is confessedly his work. Now, we find the Bible claiming the same supernatural origin, and exhibiting, among other features of resemblance, similar, though far less important, discrepancies; hence these latter afford a valid presumption in favor of its claim.

Nearly in the same line of thought, says Dr. Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; Despair Tended the sick, busiest, from couch to couch; And over them triumphant Death his dart Shook, hut delayed to strike, though oft invoked With vows, as their chief good and final hope. Sight so deform, what heart of rock could long Dry-eyed behold? Yet here and there isolated cases of monstrosity appear. It is irrational, because we cannot account for such cases, to deny that the universe is the product of intelligence. So the Christian need not renounce his faith in the plenary inspiration of the Bible, although there may be some things about it, in its present state, which he cannot account for.

There is a contradiction in supposing such an object to exist, whether alone or in conjunction with others; and there is a contradiction in supposing it not to exist. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as one; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as many. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as personal; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as impersonal.

It cannot without contradiction be represented as active; nor without equal contradiction be represented as inactive. It cannot be conceived as the sum of all existence; nor yet can it be conceived as a part only of that sum. It is true that we cannot reconcile these two representations with each other; as our conception of personality involves attributes apparently contradictory to the notion of infinity. The disagreements of scripture were beyond question designed as a strong incidental proof that there was no collusion among the sacred writers.

Their differences, go far to establish in this way, the credibility of these authors. The inspired narratives exhibit' substantial agreement with circumstantial variation. Should their evidence agree precisely in every word and syllable, this fact would be held by the court proof of conspiracy. The well-known " Howland will case," 1 in New Bedford, some years since, affords an illustration of the principle. In this famous case some one or two millions of dollars was at stake, and over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars were expended for costs and counsel fees in two years.

Upon the case were brought to bear the resources of many of the ablest counsel in New England, and the skill of the most ingenious scientific experts of the United States. The main issue of fact raised was whether the signature to the second page was written by Miss Howland, or whether it was a forgery. The minute and exact resemblance of the first and second signatures, in all points, was the grand stumbling-block in the case.

In a word, the signatures agreed too well.

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Now, had the biblical writers agreed in all particulars, even the minutest, had there been no discrepancies in their testimony, the cry of " Collusion, Collusion! We maintain, therefore, that the very discrepancies, lying as they do upon the surface, without reaching the subject-matter, the kernel of scripture, -and being, moreover, capable of adjustment,- are so many proofs of its authenticity and credibility.

This term denotes differences in the spelling, choice, and arrpngement of words in the Greek text. They show- that there has been no collusion among our witnesses, and that our manuscript copies of the Gospels, about five hundred in number, and brought to us from all parts of the world, have not been mutilated or interpolated with any sinister designs that they have not been tampered with by any religious sect, for the sake of propagating any private opinion as the word of God. These discrepancies are, in fact, evidences of the purity and integrity of the sacred text.

They show that the scriptures which we now hold in our hands in the nineteenth century, are identical with those which were received by the church in the first century as written by the Holy Ghost. The Greek Testament has come down to us, to all intents and purposes, unimpaired. Each of the five hundred manuscripts, with its slight variations in the orthography, selection, and collocation of words, is an independent witness to this fact.

The disagreements of the sacred writers effectually bar the charge of "i conspiracy " on their part. Another object of the discrepancies was, it may be presumed, to lead us to value the spirit beyond the letter of the scriptures, to prize the essentials of Christianity rather than its form and accidents. Mlany things point in the same direction. For example, we have no portrait of Jesus, no authentic description of his person.

No wood of the " true cross" remains to our day. It is not difficult to divine the reason why no relics of this kind are left to us. Suppose the original text of the holy volume had been miraculously transmitted, in the very hand-writing of the authors, and perfect in every letter and figure. The world would have gone mad over it.

Idolatry the most stupendous would have accumulated around it. Crusades more bloody and disastrous than those for the recovery of the holy sepulchre, would have Preface to Greek Four Gospels, p. It would have ensanguined and darkened the whole history of the Christian religion. MIen would have worshipped the letter in flagrant opposition to the spirit of the sacred book.

Doubtless, with a view to counteract this tendency to idolatry and formalism, the scriptures are given to us in their present condition. Our attention is thereby diverted from the external and formal features to the internal and essential elements of scripture. The numerous manuscripts with their trivial differences, the so-called " imperfections " of our present text, together with the " self-contradictions " of the sacred books - all afford a fresh application and illustration of the inspired saying, " The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

The biblical discrepancies were plainly appointed as a test of moral character; and, probably, to serve an important judicial purpose. They may be regarded as constituting no insignificant element of the means and conditions of man's probation. There is a peculiar and striking analogy and harmony between the external form and the interior doctrines of the Bible. Both alike present difficulties — sometimes formidable - to the inquirer. Both alike put his sincerity and firmness to full proof. Hence, as Grotius 1 has fitly said, the Gospel becomes a touchstone to test the honesty of men's dispositions.

Our Saviour's teachings were often clothed in forms which to the indifferent or prejudiced hearer must have seemed obscure, if not offensive. To the caviling and sceptical Jews he spoke many things in parables, that seeing they might see and not perceive, and hearing they might hear and not understand. He thus tested and disclosed'De Veritate Religionis Christianae, lib. The indolent and superficial, the proud and fastidious, were discouraged and repelled by the rough husk in which the doctrinal kernel was encased.

In an analogous manner, the apparent contradictions of the Bible afford "opportunity to an unfair mind for explaining away and deceitfully hiding from itself that evidence which it might see. Those who are disposed to cavil do, in the wise arrangement of God, find opportunities for caviling. The disposition does not miss the occasion. In the words of Isaac Taylor: The very same extent of surface from which a better reason, and a more healthful moral feeling gather an irresistible conviction of the nearness of God throughout it, furnishes to an astute and frigid critical faculty, a thousand and one instances over which to proclaim a petty triumph.

There is light enough for those whose main wish is to see; and darkness enough for those of an opposite disposition. Those persons who cherish a cavilling spirit, who are bent upon misapprehending the truth, and urging captious and frivolous objections, find in the inspired volume, difficulties and disagreements which would seem to have been designed as stumbling-stones for those which "stumble at the word, being disobedient: He will' choose our delusions'; he will' chastise us by our wickedness,' and' reprove us by our backslidings,' and'give us the reward of our own hands.

When the difficulties of scripture are approached with a docile and reverent mind, they may tend to our establishment in the faith; but, when they are dealt with in a querulous and disingenuous manner, they may become judicial agencies in linking to caviling scepticism its appropriate penalty - even to the loss of the soul. Replies to Essays and Reviews, p. WHAT is the effect of the discrepancies, in relation to the integrity of the text, and to the moral influence of the Bible? They neither unsettle the text, nor essentially impair its integrity.

They fail to vitiate it, in any appreciable degree. The conclusion reached by eminent scholars and critics, after protracted and thorough investigation, is, that the sacred text has been transmitted to us virtually unaltered.

Says Isaac Taylor,' "The evidence of the genuineness and authenticity of the Jewish and Christian scriptures has, for no other reason than a thought of the consequences that are involved in an admission of their truth, been treated with an unwarrantable disregard of logical equity, and even of the dictates of common sense.

The poems of Anacreon, the tragedies of Sophocles, the plays of Terence, the epistles of Pliny, are adjudged to be safe from the imputation of spuriousness, or of material corruption; and yet evidence ten times greater as to its quantity, variety, and force, supports the genuineness of the poems of Isaiah, and the epistles of Paul. In all but a few animportant cases, the genuine reading is settled beyond dispute. The candid and scholarly Bleekl asserts that "the Hebrew manuscripts have been preserved unaltered generally; and this in a measure of which we find no second example in other works which have been multiplied and circulated by numerous manuscripts.

And thus it has happened, even in spite of the great care with which the Jews, who were filled with unbounded reverence for the holy scriptures, watched over their preservation and transmission without injury, that they could not escape the common lot of all ancient books. In the course of repeated copying many small errors crept into the text, and various readings came into existence, which lie before us in the text as it is attested in the records belonging to the various centuries The copyists have committed these errors by seeing or hearing wrongly, by faithlessness of memory, and by other misunderstandings; yet not arbitrarily or intentionally.

And by none of them have the essential contents of scripture been endangered. Gesenius 4 says, " To state here in few words my creed, as to the condition of the Hebrew text in a critical respect. Stuart,1 " that have been examined, some eight hundched thousand various readings actually occur, as to the Hebrew consonants. How many as to the vowel-points and accents, no man knows. And the like to this is true of the New Testament. But, at the same time, it is equally true, that all these taken together do not change or materially affect any important point of doctrine, precept, or even history.

A great proportion, indeed the mass, of variations in Hebrew manuscripts, when minutely scanned, amount to nothing more than the difference in spelling a multitude of English words. What matters it as to the meaning, whether one writes honour or honor, whether he writes centre or center?

The same list may be found in Menasseh ben Israel's Conciliator. Introduction to Old Test. Bishop Herbert Marsh' has the following very just inference: Moreover, notwithstanding its minute discrepancies and "vqrious readings," the text of the New Testament is better establishecl than that of any other ancient book. No one of the so-called "classics," not Homer nor Herodotus, compares favorably, in this respect, with the New Testament. Stowe,3 "Of the manuscript copies of the Greek Testament, from seven hundred to one thousand of all kinds have been examined already by critics, and of these at least fifty are more than one thousand years old, and some are known to be at least fifteen hundred years old; while the oldest of the Greek classics scarcely reach the antiquity of nine hundred years, and of these the number is very small indeed, compared with those of the Greek Testament.

The earliest manuscripts of Herodotus extant are, one in the Imperial library at Paris, "' executed in the twelfth century"; one in the Florentine library, which Mlontfaucon assigns to the tenth century, and one in the library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England, which may possibly 1 Lectures on Criticism and Interpretation, p. Among the manuscripts of the New Testament, we have the Alexandrian, written about A. So far, therefore, as an authenticated and settled text is concerned, the classics are very far behind the New Testament.

The existing manuscripts of I-Ierodotus and Thucydides are modern enough when compared with some of those of the New Testament. Bentley, in his annihilating reply to Collins, speaking of the manuscript copies of Terence, the oldest and best of which, now in the Vatican library, has "hundreds of errors," observes, " I myself have collated several, and do affirm that I have seen twenty thousand various lections in'that little author, not near so big as the New Testament; and am morally sure, that if half the number of manuscripts were collated for Terence with that niceness and minuteness which has been used in twice as many for the TNew Testament, the number of the variations would amount to above fifty thousand.

In the fitting words of Scrivener,' "As the New Testament far surpasses all other remains of antiquity in value and interest, so are the copies of it yet existing in manuscript, and dating from the fourth century of our era downwards, far more numerous than those of the most celebrated writers of Greece or Rome. Such as have been already discovered and set down in catalogues are hardly fewer than two thousand; and many more must still linger unknown in the monastic libraries of the East.

On the other hand, manuscripts of the most illustrious classic poets and philosophers are far rarer and comparatively modern. We have no complete copy of Homer himself prior to the thirteenth century, though some considerable fragments have been recently brought to light which may plausibly be assigned to the fifth century; while more than one work of high and deserved repute has been preserved to our times only in a single copy.

Now the experience we gain, from a critical examination of the few classical manuscripts that survive, should make us thankful for the quality and abundance of those of the Nlew Testament. These last present us with a vast and almost inexhaustible supply of materials-for tracing the history, and upholding at least within certain limits the purity of the sacred text; every copy, if used diligently and with judgment, will contribute somewhat to these ends.

So far is the copiousness of our stores from causing doubt or perplexity to the genuine student of holy scripture, that it leads him to recognize the more fully its general integrity in the midst of partial variation. For it is only when so viewed, that the comparative strength and completeness of the proof which belongs to this particular case, can be duly estimated. When exhibited in this light, it will be seen that the integrity of the records of the Christian faith is substantiated by evidence in a tenfold proportioz nzore various, copious, and conclusive I than that which can be adduced in support of any other ancient writings.

If, therefore, the question had no other importance belonging to it than what may attach to a purely literary inquiry, or if only the strict justice of the case were regarded, the authenticity of the Jewish and Christian scriptures could never come to be controverted, till the entire body of classical literature had been proved to be spurious. For the text of Shakespeare, which has been in existence less than two hundred and fifty years, is " far more uncertain and corrupt than that of the New Testamentt, now over eighteen centuries old, during nearly fifteen of which it existed only in manuscript.

The industry of collators and commentators indeed has collected a formidable array of' various readings' in the Greek text of the scriptures, but the number of those which have any good claim to be received, and which also seriously affect the sense, is so small that they may almost be counted upon the fingers. WVith perhaps a dozen or twenty exceptions, the text of every verse in the New Testament may be said to be so far settled by the general consent of scholars, that any dispute as to its meaning must relate rather to the interpretation of the words, than to any doubts respecting the words themselves.

But in every one of Shakespeare's thirtyseven plays, there are probably a hundred readings still in 1 The- italics are our own. Norton's2 estimate, there were, at the end of the second century, as many as sixty thousand manuscript copies of the Gospels in existence. That these variations are of slight importance we have already seen; so that in spite of the " fifty thousand various readings"3 of which we are often told, he must be very ignorant or very mendacious who represents the text of the New Testament as in a dubious and unsettled state.

Its antiquity and all other circumstances being taken into the account, there is no other book which compares with it in possessing a settled and authenticated text. The famous Bentley,4 one of the ablest critics England has ever seen, observes: But even put them into the hands of a knave or a fool, and yet with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, nor disguise Christianity but that every feature of it will be the same.

Stuart,' that they are so easily accounted for, and of so little importance, that "'they make nothing of serious import against the claims which the matter, the manner, and the character of the scriptures prefer as the stable ground of our belief and confidence and obedience. Hodge,2 "These apparent discrepancies, although numerous, are for the most part trivial; relating in most cases to numbers or dates. The great majority of them are only apparent, and yield to careful examination.

Many of them may be fairly ascribed to errors of transcribers. The marvel and the miracle is, that there are so few of any real importance. Considering that the different books of the Bible were written not only by different authors, but by men of all degrees of culture, living in the course of fifteen hundred or two thousand years, it is altogether unaccountable that they should agree perfectly, on any other hypothesis than that the writers were under the guidance of the Spirit of God.

In this respect, as in all others, the Bible stands alone The errors in matters of fact which sceptics search out bear no proportion to the whole.: No sane man would deny that the Parthenon was built of marble, even if here and there a speck of sandstone should be detected in its structure. When a person hears it stated that, in the collation of the manuscripts for Griesbach's edition of the New Testament, as many as one hundred alndl fifty thousand various readings were discovered, he is ready to suppose that everything must be in a state of uncertainty.

A statement of the facts relieves every difficulty. The truth is, 1 History of Old Test. But by all the omissions, and all the additions, contained in all the manuscripts, no fact, no doctrine, no duty prescribed, in our authorized version, is rendered either obscure or doubtful. Moreover, as the text of scripture is not vitiated, so its moral inf. In respect to them, Prof. Bush' strikingly and felicitously remarks, " Their apparent contrariety shows at least with what confidence the book of God appeals to our reason on the ground of the general evidence of its origin, exhibiting, as it does, such examples of literal self-conflict in particular passages.

A work of imposture could not afford to be thus seemingly indifferent to appearances. The truth of our proposition becomes obvious when we carefully consider the influence of the Bible, both upon individuals and upon society in general,- its effect upon mankind. WVe cannot specify here, what every community furnishes, instances of men once dishonest, turbulent, profane, sensual, or drunken, who, under the influence of the Bible, have thoroughly reformed their conduct and life, and become as remarkable for meekness, benevolence, purity, and self-control as they had previously been notorious for the opposite traits.

Among those who have recognized the influence of the Bible, and bowed reverently to its authority, we find many of the "' foremost mel n" of the race - the acutest and most powerful intellects, the most distinguished poets, statesmen, and scholars Notes on Exodus, Vol. Had the Bible been, as some assert, full of irreconcilable discrepancies and insoluble difficulties, it could scarcely have commanded the homage of such minds and hearts as these. For, it is not extravagant to say that these men were as acute in detecting imposture, and as competent to discriminate between truth and falsehood as are, in our own time, the Bishop of Natal and the Duke of Somerset.

In proof of the power of the Bible to leaven and renovate society, we need only point to the Sandwich Islands, and to the mission fields and schools of India and Turkey; we need but allude to the marked difference between nations which have received the Bible and those which have rejected it, —between Prussia and France, between England and Spain.

On a candid survey of the field, we see the correctness of Chancellor Kent's saying: Nor does infidelity furnish any substitute for the Bible. Never book spake like the Bible. No other comes home to the heart and conscience, with light and power and healing as does this. It teaches man how to live and how to dcie. A celebrated infidel is said to have exclaimed in his last moments, " lam about to take a leap in the dark.

Tremblers on the verge of the dark and terrible valley which parts the land of the living from the untried hereafter, take this hand of human tenderness, yet godlike strength, or they totter into the gloom without prop or stay. They who look their last on the beloved dead listen to this voice of soothing and peace, else death is no uplifting of everlasting doors, and no enfolding in everlasting arms, but an enemy as appalling to the reason as to the senses, the usher to a cliarnel-house where highest faculties and noblest feelings lie crushed with the animal wreck; an infinite tragedy, maddening, soul-sickening -a'blackness of darkness forever.

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Rorison, in Replies to Essays and Reviewa, pp. In such cases, the burden of proof devolves upon the objector. Tihe solutions proposed in the following-pages are hypothetical; though, in the majority of cases, the probability amounts to almost absolute certainty. In offering these solutions, we neither assert nor undertake to prove that they are the only, or even the actual solutions; we merely affirm that they are reasonable explanations of each case respectively, and, for aught that can be shown to the contrary, they may be the real ones.

Therefore, according to the principles of logic and common sense, they countervail and neutralize the discrepancies which are adduced, and leave the unity and integrity and divine authority of the sacred volume unimpaired. The Discrepancies of Scripture may, perhaps, be most suitably arranged under three heads: Henry Rogers well says, " The objector is always apt to take it for granted that the discrepancy is real; though it may be easy to suppose a case and a possible case is quite sufficient for the purpose which would ncltralize the objection.

Of this perverseness we can call it by no other name the examples are perpetual It may be objected, perhaps, that the gratuitous supposition of some unmentioned fact - which, if mentioned, would harmonize the apparently counter-statements of two historians - cannot be admitted, and is, in fact, a surrender of the argumeont. But to say so, is only to betray an utter ignorance of what the argument is. If an objection l e founded on the alleged absolute contra liction of two statements, it is quite sufficient to show any not the real, but only a hypothetical and possible medium of reconciling them; and the objection is in all fairness dissolved; and this would be felt by the honest logician, even if we did not know of any such instances in point of fact.

We do linow, however, of many. Of such a vast and incongruous mass of materials as has accumulated during the investigation, it has seemed well nigh impossible to make a rigorously exact and clearly-defined classification. Obviously, many of the following cases might, from their complex or feebly marked character, fall equally well in some other, or in more than one, of the divisions. In such cases, that arrangement has been adopted which seemed most natural and obvious.

The most prominent or important element in a difficult passage has determined the class to which that passage should be referred. If anything has been lost in scientific precision and nicety, it is believed that much has been gained in simplicity, convenience, and practical utility, by abandoning the attempt at a complex, logical classification, and grouping the discrepancies under a few characteristic heads.

God can do all things. Can not do some things. It swas imposssible for God to lie. Omnipotence does not imply the power to do every conceivable thing, but the ability to do everything which is the proper object of power. For example, an omnipotent being could not cause a thing to be existent and non-existent at the same instant. The very idea is self-contradictory and absurd.

When it is said that God can do " all things," the phrase applies to those things only which involve no inconsistency or absurdity. According to Voltaire, the quotation from Judges asserts that the Lord " could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley.

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God gave to Judah that degree of prosperity which, on the whole, was best for him. The fourth text refers not to physical but to moral impossibility, - such as is intended when we say, " it was impossible for Washington to betray his country. In an analogous yet higher sense, it is "impossible" for God to utter falsehood. God is tired and rests. God knows all things. Tries to find out some things. Thou knowest my downsitting and Now I know that thou fearest God, mine uprising, thou understandest my seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thoughllt afar off.

Thou compassest my thine only son from me. For there forty years in the wilderness, to hlumis not a word in my tongue, tbt, lo, O ble thee, and to prove thee, to know LORD, thou knowestit altogether. Thou shalt not hearken unto the Thou Lord, which knowest the hearts words of that prophet, or that dreamer of all vmen. In the texts at the right, the language is accommodated to the human understanding, uttered, as it were, from man's point of view. The words addressed to Abraham, "N ' ow I know that," etc. I have demonstrated, made manifest by evident proof, my knowledge of thy character.

A chemical professor, lecturing to his class, says: Having performed the experiment, he says, "I now know that such and such results will follow. The texts from Deut. Such is the interpretation which men would give to his treatment of thee. Forgets not his saints. Yea, they may forget, yet will I not And God remembered Noah.

The latter text is shaped " after the manner of men. He then " put forth a token of his remembrance. Behold he that keepeth Israel shall Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Sometimes God, in wisdom,. He gives no sign of activity with reference to either, so that a superficial observer might say, "he sleeps.

Nlot in some places. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Adam and his wife hid themselves or whither shall I flee from thy pres- from the presence of the Lorno God eonce? If I ascend up into heaven, thou amongst the trees of the garden. Can any hide they have done altogether according to himself in secret places that I shall not the cry of it, which has come unto me; see him?

Do not I fill and if not I will know G;en. And though they hide quake; bist the LoRnD eas not in the themselves in the top of Carulel, I will earthquake: The "presence of the Lord," from which Adam hid himself, and Cain and Jonah fled, was the visible and special manifestation of God to them at the time; or else it denotes the place where that manifestation was made.

The builders of Babel and the inhabitants of Sodom had pursued their wicked course, as far as divine mercy could permit. God had been far away from these corrupt men; he was 9" not in all their thoughts. Such expressions as s" God came down," the Jewish writers term " the tongue, or language, of the event," - that is, the proper interpretation of the event, the lesson it was designed to teach. In such cases, God's acts are translated into words. The " language of the event" is, God comes down, interposes, to frustrate certain mad schemes of ambition.

Murphy thinks that, as the Lord, after watching over Noah during the deluge, had withdrawn his visible and gracious presence from the earth, when he again directly interposes in human affairs, there is propriety in saying, "The Lord came down. He did not speak in or by these, but by "the still small voice. MIunk's French version, Vol. Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, ii. Ihis origin in time. Before the mountains were brought God came from Teman, and the Holy forth, or ever thou hadst formed the One from mount Paran. The second text has, singularly enough, been adduced as teaching that God originated in time.

The passage simply refers to the wonderful displays of divine power and glory which the Israelites witnessed in connection with the giving of the law;l Teman and Paran being "the regions to the south of Palestine generally, as the theatre of the divine manifestations to Israel. Plnurality of Divine Beings. And the Lor-D appeared unto him in And this is life eternal, that they the plains of Mamre: Worship him, all ye gods.

The Lord GoD and his Spirit, hath sent me. The first two texts from Genesis have the word for "God" Elohim in the plural form. With reference to Abraham and the " three men "- superhuman beings in the form of man, — the patriarch appeared'Introduction to Genesis, pp. The meaning is, that it is also sent, i. It is found in no Greek manuscript before the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and in no early version. In the I-Iebrew, verses 7, 8, and IHas a material body and organs.

A spirit hath not flesh and bones. Tab]es ofstone,written with the finger Luke xxiv. God is a Spirit. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust. HIe had horns coming out of his hand. These texts, which represent God as having hands, fingers, wings, feathers, horns, and the like, are simply the bold figures and startling hyperboles in which the Orientals are wont to indulge. They would never, for a moment, think of being understood literally in using them. Repents, and changes his plans. God is not a man, that he should lie; I will not go up in the midst of thee; neither the son of man, that he should for thou art a stiffnecked people: And he said do it?

D have spoken it: For I anz the LorD, I change not. Behold the days come, that I will cut off thine armn, and the arm of thy father's house. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2: It is certainly true that the Bible contains some statements which we in our present state of knowledge are not able to fully understand. We are still learning about the original languages, the Hebrew and the Greek.

There are a number of words or idioms which only occur a few times in Scripture, and it sometimes happens that even the best scholars are not in full agreement as to their exact meaning. In spite of the heated criticism that the Bible has received from the critics, there has not been so much as one single error that has been definitely proven to exist anywhere in the Bible.

Without exception, to this very day, were the skeptic has stated the Bible has been in error, archaeology has proven it to be correct. We should also notice, that for the most part that the alleged errors have been trivial. In no cases have important doctrines or important historical events been in question. There certainly were opportunities for copyists or translators to make mistakes through the centuries, and it is certain that they indeed did make mistakes, but few if any of them are anything more trivial mistakes. No one has the right to say there are errors in the Bible unless he can show beyond reasonable doubt that they were in the original manuscripts.

When we remember that the Bible was written over a year period of time, by some forty authors, living in different ages with different points of view in life and with diverse literary talents and had a part in its production, that the religious and political history of the country was hopelessly complicated, the marvel is, that there are only a few things in the Bible which are difficult to understand.

When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. To Him be honor and eternal dominion!

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