There is probably no book on earth that has ever had anything like so large a circulation as that which is known as the Bible; and yet few among the many millions who possess a copy ever think of asking themselves the question, “Where and how did it originate?” They are satisfied with theipse dixitof their parson that it “came from God.” That may be sufficient to satisfy the unthinking multitude, but it does not suffice for thinking people, who prefer to follow the dictates of their reason rather than rest on the mere word of a man or a number of men who are paid to preach that the Bible is the word of God, and whose incomes would cease if their followers thought otherwise.
What is this Bible? Where did it come from? Let us see. As we now have it, it consists of a number of books, which are divided into two main portions, the Old and the New Testaments, the former being made up of the five books said to have been written by Moses under God’s inspiration, and called the Pentateuch, and a number of historical, poetical, and prophetic writings; and the latter consisting of four narratives of the life of Jesus, called the Gospels, a narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, a number of letters, and the Vision or Revelation of one John. The number of books which make up the Bible has varied from time to time, according to the fancy of the age; but about 360 years since a Council of Protestants determined that a number of hitherto received sacred writings were not the “Word of God,” and finally decided that only those now included in the authorised version were of divine origin. Before that time the following books had formed part of the Bible—viz., Tobit and Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and Maccabees, all of which are considered canonical at the present time by the Roman Catholic Church. Besides these writings there are a large number of others that have, at different times, occupied positions of honour in this ever-varying compilation, but which are now almost forgotten by pious divines, and entirely unknown by their credulous and ignorant dupes.
Dr. Dupin, Professor of Philosophy at the Paris University, and oneof the most pious and learned Christian writers of his time, gives a list of over 150 books that have, from time to time, been held sacred, and said to have formed part of the “Word of God,” as follows:—
OLD TESTAMENT.
Books now Considered Canonical by Jews and Christians.
Books Received as Canonical by some Jews and Rejected by Others.
Books Excluded from the Jewish Canon, and Reckoned as Apocryphal by some of the Ancient Christians, but Allowed as Canonical of late by the Church of Rome.
Books that are Excluded from the Canon without Apparent Reason.
Other Apocryphal Books of the same Nature, which are Lost.
Books Full of Fables and Errors, which are Lost.
NEW TESTAMENT.
Books Owned as Canonical at all times and by all Christians.
Books Questioned, but afterwards Admitted by the Church as Canonical.
Apocryphal Writings which are not Full of Errors.
Books Full of Errors; almost all of them Lost.
In addition to those already named there were a number of lost books referred to and quoted from by the authors of the various canonical books, such as:—
We can readily imagine what trouble our pious ancestors must have experienced in deciding which of these writings really emanated from the ghost of God and which were fraudulent productions, for the style in which most of them were written rendered it almost impossible to decipher them: written on rough skins, in ink which had become obliterated by age, many of them had fallen into the hands of monks and other rogues, who appeared to have suffered severely fromcacoëthes scribendi, and who recorded events connected with their own persons or surroundings over the original writing, like a lady “crosses” her letters, so that the whole manuscript became a complete jumble. In most cases the original or ground language was Hebrew or Greek in ill-formed and continuous capitals, undivided into words, and without accents, points, or breathings, while the “crossing” was in Arabic, Latin, or some other different dialect, badly written and accompanied with ink spots and senseless dashes. Out of this heterogeneous mass of scribblings the pious divines of the Reformation period compiled our authorised version of the Bible, the translation into English being made, in the case of the Old Testament, from the modern Hebrew text, and in that of the New Testament from Beza’s fifth edition of the Greek text.
There are three different versions of the complete Old Testament—viz., the Hebrew, the Greek Septuagint, and the Latin Vulgate, and two Samaritan versions of the Pentateuch, one written in Aramæn and the other in Arabic. The MSS. of the Hebrew version are all written in modern or Masoretic Hebrew, which dates from about the year 1,000A.D.The original language of the Hebrews, which was derived from the Egyptians and afterwards modified by contact with the Chaldeans, was very different from that we are accustomed to read to-day in Hebrew Bibles: instead of each word being separated from its neighbour, and vowel points being subscribed to assist in the reading, sentences,paragraphs, and even pages were written as though the whole formed but one long word; and, considering that the Hebrew alphabet consists of consonants only, the absence of the vowel points and final letters afterwards introduced rendered the meaning of the writer most obscure. For instance, the first verse of Genesis would have been written as follows in ancient Hebrew, but in letters more nearly approaching the cuneiform type, בראשיתבראאלהימאתהשמימואתהארצ. The equivalent letters in English are (reading from right to left, as in Hebrew) TS.R.A.H.T.A.V.M.Y.M.SH.H.T.A.M.Y.H.L.A.A.R.B.T.Y.SH.A.R.B and the translators tell us that they signify, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Now, as they stand, it is utterly impossible to pronounce the words; and, even supposing that vowels were added, this could be done in such a variety of ways that hundreds of different pronunciations might result; so also might the sense be varied by many different renderings. Suppose we wrote down the authorised translation, using consonants only, and leaving entirely out the vowels, the result would be as follows (reading from left to right, as in English), NTHBGNNGGDCRTDTHHVNSNDTHRTH, which would be entirely unpronounceable unless we added vowels; and, by adding vowels indiscriminately, a variety of renderings would result. The absurdity of a written language composed only of consonants is thus made very apparent. This difficulty opposed itself to the Jewish priests, and was obviated by the introduction of vowel points, the manufacture of five final letters, and the division of sentences into words according to the arbitrary rendering of the introducers of the vowel points; so that now we possess a Hebrew language which may be, and probably is, as unlike the ancient Hebrew dialect as chalk is unlike cheese.
By slightly altering the vowel points of a sentence or a word, the whole sense may be entirely destroyed; and that this has been frequently enough done requires no proof here, for it has been abundantly shown elsewhere. Certain priests have attempted to prove that the vowel points and final letters were in use in Ezra’s time; but it is now generally admitted by scholars that they were inventions of the middle ages. Hear what the learned Christian Dupin, Doctor of the Sorbonne, says:—“The Hebrew alphabet is composed of twenty-two letters, like those of the Samaritans, Chaldeans, and Syrians. But, of these letters,none are vowels, and, in consequence, the pronunciation cannot be determined. The Hebrews have inventedpoints, which, being put under the letters, answer the purpose of vowels. Those vowel-points serve not only to fix the pronunciation,but also the signification of a word, because, many times, the word being differently pointed and pronounced alters the meaning entirely. This is the consideration which has made the question as to the antiquity of the points of so much importance, and has, consequently, had such elaborate treatment. Some have pretended that these points are as ancient as the Hebrew tongue, and that Abraham made use of them. Others make Moses the author of them. But the most common opinion among the Jews is that, Moseshaving learnt of God the true pronunciation of Hebrew words, this science was preserved in the synagogue by oral tradition till the time of Ezra, who invented the points and accents to fix the meaning. Elias Levita, a German Jew of the last generation, and deeply learned in Hebrew grammar, has rejected this opinion, and contended that the invention of points took place in much more recent times. He ascribes the invention to the Jews of Tiberias and to the year 500A.D., and alleges that the invention was not perfected till about the year 1040A.D., by two famous Maserites, Ben-Ascher and Ben-Naphtali.”
Hear, also, what the learned and pious Dr. Prideaux says:—“The sacred books made use of among the Jews in their synagogues have ever been, and still are,without the vowel-points, which could not have happened had they been placed there by Ezra, and had, consequently, been of the same authority with the letters; for, had they been so, they would certainly have been preserved in the synagogues with the same care as the rest of the text.” He then goes on to say that no mention is made of the points in either the Mishna or Gemara, and continues: “Neither do we find the least hint of them in Philo-Judæus or Josephus, who are the oldest writers of the Jews, or in any of the ancient Christian writers forseveral hundred years after Christ. And, although among them Origen and Jerome were well skilled in the Hebrew language, yet in none of their writings do they speak the least of them. Origen flourished in the third, and Jerome in the fifth, century; and the latter, having lived a long while in Judæa, and there more especially applied himself to the study of the Hebrew learning, and much conversed with the Jewish rabbis for his improvement herein, it is not likely that he could have missed making some mention of them through all his voluminous works, if they had been either in being among the Jews in his time, or in any credit or authority with them, and that especially since, in his commentaries, there were so many necessary occasions for taking notice of them.” The Doctor then declares that after the Babylonish Captivity “the Hebrew language ceased to be the mother tongue of the Jews,” Aramæn, as we know, being the dialect of Judæa at the time of Herod.
We may, then, safely fix the date of our earliest Hebrew MS. at a later period than 1000A.D., for there does not exist one single ante-Masoretic or unpointed Hebrew MS. of the Bible. The Greek Septuagintwas also written in Greek capitals, without accents and breathings and without divisions between the words, and continued thus until the eighth century, when accents and breathings came into use, which were followed, in the tenth century, by small letters, as we have them now in our Greek Bibles. The very same may be said about the New Testament MSS., all of which are written in continuous Greek capitals.
The oldest MS. of the New Testament is the Codex Sinaiticus, discovered by Tischendorf at the convent of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai, in 1859, and supposed to belong to the fourth century. The Codex Vaticanus is also supposed to belong to the fourth century, and was first published at Rome by Vercellone, in 1858. The Codex Alexandrinus, containing both Old and New Testaments, is supposed to belong to the fifth century, and was first published by Woide, in 1786, and afterwards by Cowper, in 1860. Of the Old Testament it contains, besides the canonical and most apocryphal books found in our editions, the third and fourth books of the Maccabees, Epistle of Athanasius to Marcellinus (prefixed to the Psalms), and fourteen hymns, the eleventh in honour of the Virgin. Ecclesiasticus, the Song of the Three Children, Susannah, and Bell and the Dragon do not appear. Of the New Testament there is, in addition to the received books, the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians and part of the Second. The Codex Ephraemi is supposed to belong to the fifth century, and was published by Tischendorf in 1843. The Codex Bezæ is a Græco-Latin MS., said to belong to the sixth century, and first published by Kipling, in 1793, and afterwards by Scrivener, in 1864. All these MSS. are written in continuous capitals, so badly formed, and so jumbled together, as to be almost illegible.
According to the showing of those most interested in proving the antiquity of sacred writings, the very earliest MS. cannot lay claim to an earlier date than the fourth century; and, if the authors to whom the Church has attributed the various writings in the Bible wrote the said records, it is clear that the latest originals must date from the first century. But the originals do not anywhere exist, and consequently it is utterly impossible for anybody to know who wrote any one of the books of the Bible, which is, therefore, a compilation of anonymous writings, and, as such, is of no authority whatever. So far from being a divinely-inspired record, it is, as we have seen, a product of the cunning and ingenuity of knaves and fanatics, who deserve credit for only one thing, and that is that they managed to make any sense whatever out of the wretched scribble and scrawl from which they derived their information.