The apology that a certain degree of variance is a proof of independent testimony is quite beside the present question, and so is the argument of Dr. Whately about Napoleon. No doubt half-a-dozen correspondents describing any event in the late war would dwell on different incidents, and see matters from different stand-points; one would have a bias towards the French and another towards the Prussians, one would be cast in a Tory mould and another would have Radical proclivities, one would see with military eyes and another with the eyes of a civilian, one would look towards the end and another would limit his vision to the present action; but who claims for these correspondents divine inspiration? who believes that they are all baptized into one spirit, and that the spirit which guides them has guaranteed that they shall speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? They write as human beings, with fallible judgments, and all the prejudices of caste, education, interest, and special advocacy; with so many things to bias judgment, no doubt there will be considerable variety of statement, but all this in no wise applies to the Bible writers—they are not supposed to write from any of these motives, but to be guided and directed by one and the same motive, and all to be led by the Spirit of unerring truth. With such writers there may be considerable verbal difference, but no substantial variety; there may be shades of variety, and different incidents may strike different eye-witnesses, but there can be no positive contradiction, and the same incident cannot be described as two antagonistic facts. If Samuel was right when he affirmed that David took from the king of Zobah 700 horsemen, the chronicler was wrong when he said the number was 7000. If the chronicler was correct in saying that Jehoiachim was only eight when he ascended the throne, his brother chronicler was in error when he declared that he was eighteen. If Jesus was the son of Joseph and Joseph a descendant of David, then Jesus was of the lineage of David; but if he was the son of quite another line he was not of the line of David. If the writer of the book of Kings was right in saying that no vessels of gold and silver were made of the money collected in the temple byJehoash, the writer of the book of Chronicles could not be correct in saying that all sorts of gold and silver vessels were made therefrom. If Matthew was right in saying that the soldiers arrayed Jesus in a “scarlet robe,” Mark and John were wrong in pronouncing it to be a “purple garment;” and if Jesus said to Peter, before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice, he did not say before the cock crowtwicethou shalt deny me thrice. If the writers were eye and ear witnesses, and if the guiding Spirit of God brought to their remembrance what Jesus said and did, such discrepancies could not have occurred.
These contradictions, and their number is legion, are not the shades of variety, the verbal differences of independent writers of truth, they are irreconcilable statements, one of which must be wrong, and if both claim to be guided by the Spirit of Infallible Truth, their claim cannot be allowed. It cannot be true that 22 is 42 and 7000 the same as 600; but give up inspiration and place the Bible on the same platform as any other ancient record, then everyone is at liberty to weigh its statements and to hold fast just so much as is consistent with the advanced knowledge of science, the general scope of experience, and the harmony of history.
No. 1.—“On the Identity of the Vital and Cosmical Principle.” By R.Lewins, M.D., Staff Surgeon-Major to Her Majesty’s Forces.
No. 2.—“The Physical Theory of Animal Life.” A Review byJulian.
No. 3.—“The Nature of Man Identical with that of other Animals.” ByJulian.
No. 4.—BiologyversusTheology; or “Christ and the Christian Idea, viewed from a Biological standpoint.” ByJulian.
No. 5.—BiologyversusTheology; or “The Mosaic and Christian Ideas wholly without Originality.” ByJulian.
No. 6.—BiologyversusTheology; or “Life on the Basis of Hylozoism.” ByJulian.
No. 7.—BiologyversusTheology; or “Identity of the Vital and Cosmical Principle, according toDr. Lewins.” ByJulian.
No. 8.—BiologyversusTheology—“The Mission of Moses,” from the German of Schiller. Annotated byJulian.
No. 9.—BiologyversusTheology—“Christ not divine nor his death vicarious.” ByJulian.
No. 10.—BiologyversusTheology—“The Curé Meslier and his Will,” from the German of Strauss, with Preliminary Remarks byJulian.
No. 11.—BiologyversusTheology—“The Bible irreconcilable with science, experience, and even its own statements.” ByJulian.
No. 12.—BiologyversusTheology.—“The Dinner of the Count de Boulainvilliers from Voltaire,” with an Introduction byJulian(in the press).
[3]Lay Sermons and Reviews. This paper, “On the Origin of Species,” was originally published in the “Westminster Review,” of April, 1860.
[14a]Job xxxviii., 8.
[14b]“On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in the creation of animals, and in their history, habits, and instincts,” by the Rev. William Kirby, M.A., F.R.S., rector of Barham.
[15]The common Hebrew cubit was about 22 inches. The “royal cubit” was three inches longer. The Roman cubit was 18 inches.
[19]See Dr. Davidson’sIntroduction to the New Testament. Baur, Zeller, Hilgenfeld, &c., take the same view. See also “BiologyversusTheology,” No. I.
[20a]It is obvious that the Book of the Kings, whether of Judah or Israel, is not the record called the first and second Book of Kings in our Bible, for it is not unfrequently referred to in the Chronicles, for “the rest of the acts” of certain kings, but the account in our Books of Kings, in some cases at any rate, is far more meagre than that of the Chronicles. To give one example: 2 Chron. xxvii., 7, refers us for a more detailed account to the book of the “Kings of Israel and Judah,” but the record given in 2 Kings, xv., 36–38, is far less ample than that of the Chronicler. It is no less certain that the book called “The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel” cannot be our books of Chronicles, inasmuch as they wholly omit the Kings of Israel, and speak only of the Kings of Judah.
[20b]Perhaps this expression may mean “the general scope of his preaching,” and not a book. It may go for what it is worth, and can in no wise affect the question at issue.
[22]Take two examples of this etymology.Hebrewis supposed to be derived from Heber, sou of Salah, great-grandson of Shem, who is called “the father of all the children of Heber” (Gen. x., 21–24); but Abraham, the 6th remove from Heber, is called a Hebrew after he crossed over into Canaan (Gen. xiv., 13). The more probable derivation of the word isheber(an emigrant, one that has crossed over); if so, Abraham was called ahebrewbecause he was a sojourner who had crossed over into the “land of promise.”
Again,Canaanis said to have been so called from Canaan son of Ham, and Canaan’s eldest son was, according to the same authority, Sidon, founder of the Sidonians, and his other sons were founders of the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgasites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites (Gen. x., 15–18).
All this is most improbable, although in keeping with the practice of ancient chroniclers. Modern historians find more probable derivations in some local peculiarity or suggestive characteristic. Thus Argos, in Greece, is mythically derived from Argos, its 4th king; but Strabo tells us the word meansa plain. Devonshire is not a corruption of Debon’s share or lot (Faery Queenii., 10), but of the Saxondefn-afon(deep water). Similarly Canaan meanslow lands, as opposed to “Aram” (the highlands), and being suited to commerce from its nearness to the coast, the word in time became a general term for “a trader.”
[23]Arphaxad was born “two years after the flood” [Gen. xi., 10]; at the age of 35 he had a son, Salah [v., 12], in thirty more years Salah had his son Eber, and before Pelez was born, which was 34 years later, the Dispersion had taken place.
[24]It may be safely asserted that population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical progression of such a nature as to double itself every 25 years.—Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. xviii., p. 3, col. Practically, such an instance is rare, if not wholly uninstanced. Take the increase of England and Wales as an example. In 1377 it was 2,092,978, in 1483 it was 4,689,000; in the 100 years, ending with 1800, the population had increased from 5,475,000 to 8,675,000; and in the century ending with 1860 it increased nearly threefold, the largest increase we have experienced. [In 1760 it was 6,736,000, in 1861 it was 20,062,725.]
[26a]The average size of an ox in the herd is 60 stone (of 8 lbs.), and of a sheep six stone. When the Armistice of 28 days was lately proposed, the supply of Paris for the time was estimated at 34,000 oxen, 8,000 sheep, 8,000 swine, 5,000 calves, 100,000 cwt. of salt meat, eight million cwt. of hay and straw, 200,000 cwt. of meal, and 30,000 cwt. of dried vegetables. For the cooking of food, the estimate was 100,000 tons of coals, and 14 million square feet of wood.
[26b]The absurdity of such an increase as even the “small” supposition of doubling every twenty years will be obvious to any one who will take the trouble of working out the figures for 440 years, which would bring us to the reign of David. At the Exodus the number was three millions; if they doubled every twenty years the people in the little kingdom of David would have been twelve and a half trillion!! And if the increase of the book of Exodus is taken as the standard the numbers must be increased a hundred-fold. Now the whole population of the world is somewhat more than 1,000millions, so that in a space not so large as Yorkshire, and three-fourths wilderness, would be gathered together more than all the inmates of all the world twelve thousand times over.
[27a]The nominal limits of “the promised land” were the Euphrates and Mediterranean Sea on the east and west, the “entrance of Hamath” and “river of Egypt” on the north and south, giving a surface of 60,000 square miles; but Sidonia and Philistia on the west, the land of the Moabites and Ammonites on the east never belonged to the kingdom of David, the real extent of which was about 45 miles broad and 100 miles long. Yorkshire is 90 by 130, the principality of Wales 65 by 150; so that the entire kingdom of David in its greatest extent was considerably smaller than Yorkshire or Wales, and only one quarter of it was inhabited, the rest being desert or wilderness.
[27b]Take Prussia. Every Prussian is liable to be called into military service as soon as he attains his 20th year, and after he has completed his 27th year he enters the Landwehr. Suppose war is proclaimed, then every layman in Prussia between 20 and 27 is liable to be called into the ranks, and would constitute a standing army of 200,000 strong; by adding the Landwehr of the first call, 100,000 more would be supplied; and by enrolling all who have not rendered their full service to the state, the entire amount would be increased to 600,000. How absurd, therefore, to speak of double the number of soldiers in such a petty nation as Judah or Israel! The entire population of Yorkshire is less than two millions, of Wales not equal to “David’s army;” yet the entire kingdom of David was smaller than either, and more than three-fourths of it was uninhabited!!
[31]Our national debt is not half a quarter of this sum, being somewhat less than 800 millions sterling. Suppose an English historian had told us that a king of wealthy England had laid by money enough to pay off the national debt eight times, what would be thought of the statement? But suppose we had been told that one of the kings of Wales or of Northumbria had saved all this money for a church, would the most credulous believe it? France finds it no easy matter to raise 200 millions, and all Europe would be puzzled to find the moneyinstanter, but the king of a little territory considerably smaller than Belgium managed to raise that sum thirty-five times over.
[36]Ahaziah was also called Jehoahaz and Azariah.
[44]See Virgil,Geor.i., 184, 185;Æneid, iv., 402–406; Horace,Satires, bk. i.,s.i., 33 &c.
[53]See No. IX. of this Series.
[54]Ut apud PersasArsaces, apud RomanosCæsar, apud EgyptiosPharao, ita apud JudæosChristuscommuni nomine rex appellatur.Ps. Clem. Recog.i., 45, p. 497.