God and my Neighbour Part 4

I claim that it is not true. For the word of G.o.d makes it appear that man was created by G.o.d in His own image, and that man sinned against G.o.d. Whereas man, being only what G.o.d made him, and having only the powers G.o.d gave him, _could_ not sin against G.o.d any more than a steam-engine can sin against the engineer who designed and built it.

6. Is the ethical code of the Bible complete, and final, and perfect?

No. The ethical code of the Bible gradually develops and improves. Had it been divine it would have been perfect from the first. It is because it is human that it develops. As the prophets and the poets of the Jews grew wiser, and gentler, and more enlightened, so the revelation of G.o.d grew wiser and gentler with them. Now, G.o.d would know from the beginning; but men would have to learn. Therefore the Bible writings would appear to be human, and not divine.

Let us look over these points again, and make the matter still clearer and more simple.

If the children of an earthly father had wandered away and forgotten him, and were, for lack of guidance, living evil lives; and if the earthly father wished his children to know that they were his children, wished them to know what he had done for them, what they owed to him, what penalty they might fear, or reward they might ask from him; if he wished them to live cleanly and justly, and to love him, and at last come home to him--what would that earthly father do?

He would send his message to _all_ his children, instead of sending it to one, and trusting him to repeat it correctly to the others. He would try to so word his message as that all his children might understand it.

He would send his children the very best rules of life he knew. He would take great pains to avoid error in matters of fact.

If, after the message was sent, his children quarrelled and fought about its meaning, their earthly father would not sit silent and allow them to hate and slay each other because of a misconception, but would send at once and make his meaning plain to all.

And if an earthly father would act thus wisely and thus kindly, "how much more your Father which is in Heaven?"

But the Bible revelation was not given to all the people of the earth.

It was given to a handful of Jews. It was not so explicit as to make disagreement impossible. It is thousands of years since the revelation of G.o.d began, and yet to-day it is not known to hundreds of millions of human beings, and amongst those whom it has reached there is endless bitter disagreement as to its meaning.

Now, what is the use of a revelation which does not reveal more than is known, which does not reveal truth only, which does not reach half those who need it, which cannot be understood by those it does reach?

But you will regard me as a prejudiced witness. I shall therefore, in my effort to prove the Bible fallible, quote almost wholly from Christian critics.

And I take the opportunity to here recommend very strongly _Shall We Understand the Bible?_ by the Rev. T. Rhondda Williams. Adam and Charles Black; 1s net.

There are two chief theories as to the inspiration of the Bible. One is the old theory that the Bible is the actual word of G.o.d, and nothing but the word of G.o.d, directly revealed by G.o.d to Moses and the prophets. The other is the new theory: that the Bible is the work of many men whom G.o.d had inspired to speak or write the truth.

The old theory is well described by Dr. Was.h.i.+ngton Gladden in the following pa.s.sage:

They imagine that the Bible must have originated in a manner purely miraculous; and, though they know very little about its origin, they conceive of it as a book that was written in heaven in the English tongue, divided there into chapters and verses, with headlines and reference marks, printed in small pica, bound in calf, and sent down by angels in its present form.

The newer idea of the inspiration of the Bible is also well expressed by Dr. Gladden; thus:

Revelation, we shall be able to understand, is not the dictation by G.o.d of words to men that they may be written down in books: it is rather the disclosure of the truth and love of G.o.d to men in the processes of history, in the development of the moral order of the world. It is the light that lighteth every man, s.h.i.+ning in the paths that lead to righteousness and life. There is a moral leaders.h.i.+p of G.o.d in history; revelation is the record of that leaders.h.i.+p. It is by no means confined to words; its most impressive disclosures are in the field of action. "Thus _did_ the Lord," as Dr. Bruce has said, is a more perfect formula of revelation than "Thus saith the Lord." It is in that great historical movement of which the Bible is the record that we find the revelation of G.o.d to men.

The old theory of Bible inspiration was, as I have said, the theory that the Bible was the actual and pure word of G.o.d, and was true in every circ.u.mstance and detail.

Now, if an almighty and all-wise G.o.d had spoken or written every word of the Bible, then that book would, of course, be wholly and unshakably true in its every statement.

But if the Bible was written by men, some of them more or less inspired, then it would not, in all probability be wholly perfect.

The more inspiration its writers had from G.o.d, the more perfect it would be. The less inspiration its writers had from G.o.d, the less perfect it would be.

Wholly perfect, it might be attributed to a perfect being. Partly perfect, it might be the work of less perfect beings. Less perfect, it would have to be put down to less perfect beings.

Containing any fault or error, it could not be the actual word of G.o.d, and the more errors and faults it contained, the less inspiration of G.o.d would be granted to its authors.

I will quote again from Dr. Gladden:

What I desire to show is, that the work of putting the Bible into its present form was not done in heaven, but on earth; that it was not done by angels, but by men; that it was not done all at once, but a little at a time, the work of preparing and perfecting it extending over several centuries, and employing the labours of many men in different lands and long-divided generations.

I now turn to Dr. Aked. On page 25 of his book, _Changing Creeds_, he says:

Ignorance has claimed the Bible for its own. Bigotry has made the Bible its battleground. Its phrases have become the s.h.i.+bboleth of pietistic sectarians. Its authority has been evoked in support of the foulest crimes committed by the vilest men; and its very existence has been made a pretext for theories which shut out G.o.d from His own world. In our day Bible wors.h.i.+p has become, with many very good but very unthoughtful people, a disease.

So much for the att.i.tude of the various schools of religious thought towards the Bible.

Now, in the opinion of these Christian teachers, is the Bible perfect or imperfect? Dr. Aked gives his opinion with characteristic candour and energy:

For observe the position: men are told that the Bible is the infallible revelation of G.o.d to man, and that its statements concerning G.o.d and man are to be unhesitatingly accepted as statements made upon the authority of G.o.d. They turn to its pages, and they find historical errors, arithmetical mistakes, scientific blunders (or, rather, blunders most unscientific), inconsistencies, and manifold contradictions; and, what is far worse, they find that the most horrible crimes are committed by men who calmly plead in justification of their terrible misdeeds the imperturbable "G.o.d said." The heart and conscience of man indignantly rebel against the representations of the Most High given in some parts of the Bible. What happens? Why, such men declare--are now declaring, and will in constantly increasing numbers, and with constantly increasing force and boldness declare--that they can have nothing to do with a book whose errors a child can discover, and whose revelation of G.o.d partakes at times of blasphemy against man.

I need hardly say that I agree with every word of the above. If anyone asked me what evidence exists in support of the claims that the Bible is the word of G.o.d, or that it was in any real sense of the words "divinely inspired," I should answer, without the least hesitation, that there does not exist a sc.r.a.p of evidence of any kind in support of such a claim.

Let us give a little consideration to the origin of the Bible. The first five books of the Bible, called the Pentateuch, were said to be written by Moses. Moses was not, and could not have been, the author of those books. There is, indeed, no reliable evidence to prove that Moses ever existed. Whether he was a fict.i.tious hero, or a solar myth, or what he was, no man knows.

Neither does there appear to be any certainty that the biblical books attributed to David, to Solomon, to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest were really written by those kings or prophets, or even in their age.

And after these books, or many of them, had been written, they were entirely lost, and are said to have been reproduced by Ezra.

Add to these facts that the original Hebrew had no vowels, that many of the sacred books were written without vowels, and that the vowels were added long after; and remember that, as Dr. Aked says, the oldest Hebrew Bible in existence belongs to the tenth century after Christ, and it will begin to appear that the claim for biblical infallibility is utterly absurd.

But I must not offer these statements on my own authority. Let us return to Dr. Gladden. On page 11 of _Who Wrote the Bible?_ I find the following:

The first of these holy books of the Jews was, then, The Law, contained in the first five books of our Bible, known among us as the Pentateuch, and called by the Jews sometimes simply "The Law," and sometimes "The Law of Moses." This was supposed to be the oldest portion of their Scriptures, and was by them regarded as much more sacred and authoritative than any other portion. To Moses, they said, G.o.d spake face to face; to the other holy men much less distinctly. Consequently, their appeal is most often to the Law of Moses.

The sacredness of the five books of "The Law," then, rests upon the belief that they were written by Moses, who had spoken face to face with G.o.d.

So that if Moses did not write those books, their sacredness is a myth.

Now, on page 42, Dr. Gladden says:

1. The Pentateuch could never have been written by any one man, inspired or otherwise.

2. It is a composite work, in which many hands have been engaged. The production of it extends over many centuries.

3. It contains writings which are as old as the time of Moses, and some that are much older. It is impossible to tell how much of it came from the hand of Moses; but there are considerable portions of it which, although they may have been somewhat modified by later editors, are substantially as he left them.

On page 45 Dr. Gladden, again speaking of the Pentateuch, says:

But the story of Genesis goes back to a remote antiquity. The last event related in that book occurred four hundred years before Moses was born; it was as distant from him as the discovery of America by Columbus is from us; and other portions of the narrative, such as the stories of the Flood and the Creation, stretch back into the shadows of the age which precedes history. Neither Moses nor any one living in his day could have given us these reports from his own knowledge.

Whoever wrote this must have obtained his materials in one of three ways:

1. They might have been given to him by divine revelation from G.o.d.

2. He might have gathered them up from oral tradition, from stories, folklore, transmitted from mouth to mouth, and so preserved from generation to generation.

3. He might have found them in written doc.u.ments existing at the time of his writing.