PART II.

SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

It is not our intention to dwell at any length upon what are termed the miracles of Scripture. Of course they are contrary to experience, but then they are acknowledged miracles, and those who believe such things possible satisfy their minds by the persuasion that He who made the laws of nature can suspend them at will, or can introduce some new factor at need to bring about preternatural results.

Thus, if any one were to object to the statement made in the Book of Numbers (xxii., 28.) respecting the ass of the Prophet of Pethor, which spoke like a man, and knew the will of Jehovah better than his master, the answer would be, the Lord, who made the ass, could make it talk also. Again, if any one were to say that Peter could no more walk on the sea than any other man, the reply would be, that Jesus was a divine being, and sustained his rash disciple by His omnipotent power. So, if anyone were to demur to the chariot and horses which fetched Elijah from the banks of the Jordan, and carried him through the air to that mysterious country called by the Hebrews “heaven,” he would be told—well, I hardly know what he would be told, but certainly the miracle was substantially repeated when the crucified but risen Christ mounted through the air without either chariot or horses, and followed Elijah to the same mysterious region.

Not a few of the “miracles” of the Bible appear quite purportless, mere exhibitions of super-human power; but, as they are miracles, nothing more can be said. What end could be answered by that miracle performed by the bones of Elisha, recorded in the Book of Kings? It is said that the Moabites were burying a man, and being disturbed, cast the dead body into the grave of Elisha; but when it touched the bones of the prophet, it “revived and stood upon its feet” (2 Kings, xiii., 21). In fact the restoration of life is certainly the commonest of all miracles. We have the widow’s son restored to life by Elijah; the son of the widow of Nain; the daughter of Jairus; Lazarus, Jesus, and the many saints which came out of their graves after the resurrection, and appeared unto many (Matthew xxvii., 52, 53). Shakespeare was quite mistaken when he spoke of the grave as “that bourne from which no traveller returns.” Many have returned, but what is passing strange is that none have left any record of the land of shadows, and no curiosity seems ever to have arisen in any living being to learn from these resuscitated ones the secrets of the dead. This certainly is contrary to human experience. If some now in their graves were to go to London and “appear unto many,” they would be beset with questions—questions of infinite interest, questions of untold influence; but of all the numerous dead who came to revisit the earth, not one has left behind a single item of information, and if we except Lazarus and Jesus, not even the name of anyone has escaped. Some are called “saints;” but were these saints taken from Paradise, and sent to live again in this “vale of tears?” One was a Moabite, was he snatched from the “burning lake” to live a new life and die a second time in battle? It is past finding out; and truly so contrary to experience, so altogether strange, so objectless, so incredible, that those who relate such things must bear the responsibility.

But if several of the scripture “miracles” are mere wanton exhibitions of super-human power, not a few others are puerile in the extreme. Witness that of Elijah beating the Jordan with his cloak to make himself a passage across the river (2 Kings, ii., 8), a “miracle” repeated by Elisha, after the ascent of the Tishbite (2 Kings, ii., 14). Witness the tale told of Elisha respecting the woodman’s axe: The woodman dropped his axe in the river, and Elisha attracted the iron head to the surface of the water, merely by “casting a stick into the river” (2 Kings, vi., 6). Witness the petty wrath of the Shunamite against the children of Bethel. These thoughtless children mocked him, saying, “Go up, bald-pate!” and the enraged prophet “cursed the children in the name of the Lord,” when, lo! “two she-bears out of the wood tare forty-and-two of them.” In regard to Elisha, however, it must be said that his miracles outnumber all the rest of the miracles of the Old Testament put together, and they are none of them free from serious objection.

The whole argument generally advanced in support of the miracles of Jesus is singularly weak. It is said that miracles were needful to show that Jesus was the “Sent of God;” that the working of miracles is the seal of the Almighty to the credentials of Christ, as Nicodemus pleaded (John iii., 2), “No one can do these miracles which thou doest, except God be with him,” and Christ himself endorsed the same plea when he said to the disbelieving Jews, “Believe me for my works’ sake” (John xiv., 11). It is notorious that false prophets, and even Satan himself, are said to be workers of miracles. It is said that miracles are performed to deceive and lead astray, as well as to convince and lead to God. In fact miracles prove nothing—neither mission from God, nor approval of God, nor the truth of a doctrine, nor the power of God working in the person who performs them. They are restricted to the Jews, and nobody knows anything of the historians who have avouched them. Thus the great miracle workers of the Old Testament were Elijah and Elisha; but no one knows who wrote the Books of Kings, which describe their wonderful works, nor whether those records were compiled before or after the Captivity. The miracles of Christ are recorded in four Gospels, and who were the authors of these memorials? Luke was no eye-witness—he himself acknowledges that his Gospel was compiled from several existing ones (i., 1–4); but we are nowhere told by what guiding power he made his selection, nor why his compilation is better or more worthy of credit than the originals. Mark, like Luke, was no apostle, and no one knows who he was, when he wrote, or where his Gospel was written. The very fact that he was the John Mark referred to in the Acts (xii., 25) is a mere conjecture, and even if admitted would not prove that he was one of those who “companied” with the apostles from the baptism to the resurrection. The Fourth Gospel, like the First Epistle of John, is notoriously doubtful, as Bretschneider has shown in his “Probabilia;” parts are certainly spurious, and the whole seems to belong to the latter half of the second century. {19} We are, therefore, reduced to one Gospel—that of Matthew—and even of this it may be said, that no one knows whether it was written in Greek or Hebrew, for no one has seen the original. It is certain that parts of our present text are interpolations, and although it would appear that Matthew wrote what is termed the “Logia” (or sayings of Christ), it is far from certain that the “Logia” is the same as our First Gospel. The fact seems to be this: that Matthew noted down the discourses and parables of Christ; and unknown authors from time to time added to the original work, till ultimately it assumed its present form and proportions.

It must not be forgotten that our present canon of the New Testament was not established till the year 494; the canon recognised at the council of Laodicea (360–4) repudiated the Book of Revelations. The primitive Christians never refer to any book of the New Testament, and few quotations from it were made by the apostolic fathers. It is not till the close of the second century that we meet with any definite and distinct mention of New Testament Scriptures at all. Eusebius recognises as canonical books the four Gospels and Acts, the Epistles of Paul, and the first Epistles of John and Peter; but he considers the rest of the books as doubtful; and speaks of others as equally worthy of credit or rather discredit, such as the Acts of Paul, the Book of the Shepherd [Hermas], the Kerugma of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Clementine Epistles, the Doctrines of the Apostles, and the Gospel of the Hebrews; all these, except the first are mentioned by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, on whose authority our selection of Canonical New Testament Scriptures mainly depends.

It is not a little strange that none of the books cited by the authors of the Bible as their authority form any part of our canonical Scriptures. Thus Joshua (x., 13) and the prophet Samuel (2 bk., i., 18) refer to the “Book of Jasher;” Moses (Nos. xxi., 14) refers to the “Book of the Wars;” the Chronicles refer to the “Book of Nathan the Prophet,” the “Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite,” the “Vision of Isaiah,” the “Vision of Iddo the Seer,” the “Book of Shemaiah the Prophet,” the “Book of Iddo concerning Genealogies,” the “Lamentations of Jeremiah for king Josiah,” and the “Story [history] of Iddo” (2 Chron., ix., 29; xii., 15; xiii., 22; xxxii., 32; xxxv., 25); the writer of the first book of Kings (xiv., 19, 29) to the “Diary of the Kings of Judah,” and to another of the “Kings of Israel;” {20a} in 1 Kings iv., 29–33, we have mention of several works of Solomon unknown to us; in Acts, vii., 42, allusion is made to the “Book of the Prophets;” Paul refers more than once to his “own Gospel” (Rom., ii., 16; xvi., 25); {20b} and Jude (14) to the “Book of Enoch,” none of which form any part of our Bible.

In regard to the New Testament the number of books professing to set forth the words and deeds of Christ was very numerous, even when the Gospel of Luke was compiled, and when the canon was fixed by “uninspired” authority, the claimants were legion. The present selection was made by persons wholly incompetent to weigh evidence, and their only rule was what they arbitrarily judged to be orthodox, which, of course, means in agreement with their own religious opinions. This being the case, on what does the testimony of miracles rest? certainly not on eye-witnesses, not even on the authority of contemporaries. Paley says the men suffered persecution and even death in proof of their belief, but Paley has no ground for this assertion: first, because he knows nothing about any of the four Evangelists, and cannot tell whether they suffered persecution or not; and, secondly, he cannot know whether the names attached to these evangelists are real names or not. But allowing Paley’s assertion to be true, what is gained by it? It is by no means true that a willingness to suffer is a proof of truth. It may be a proof of obstinacy, of conviction, or even of cowardice, but can be no proof of truth. A boy who has stolen from a schoolfellow will often suffer greatly to maintain a lie; indeed the expression, “it was worthy a better cause,” is a proverbial proof that men suffer and labour for the wrong as well as for the right. Allowing, therefore, that the early disciples did suffer, it proves nothing, and certainly it will not prove the truth of the gospel narratives. It is now admitted by all biblical scholars that large parts of our Gospels are interpolations, some of the epistles are known to be spurious, and probably the only part of the New Testament at all worthy of credit is that taken from the “Logia,” or sayings of Christ. But we have run somewhat from our subject. In stating that Scripture contradicts experience, we would wholly set aside miracles, and limit our examples to matters more tangible. Our first observations shall be respecting the Mosaic account of prehistoric man.

(1.) _The Biblical prehistoric man not reconcilable with historic experience_.

The writer of the Book of Genesis represents Cain as a tiller of the ground. His son was Enoch, who built a city called Enoch; and during the lifetime of Adam lived Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain, all sons of Lamech. The first of these was the “father of such as dwell in tents,” the second the inventor of both “harp and organ,” and the third a forger of “every artifice in brass and iron.”

The Flood came and swept away the whole race of man except the arkites; but the grandsons of Noah were Mizraim, Cush, and Canaan, sons of Ham; Asshur, Elam, Lud, Madai, Javan, and Tiras, the founders of the Egyptians, Cushites, and Canaanites, the Assyrians, Elamites or Persians, Lydians, Medes, Ionians, and Thracians; while Canaan and Cush gave birth to Sidon, founder of the Sidonians, and Nimrod the despot, who founded a vast empire, “the beginning of which was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calah the great city.”

Here we are introduced to agriculture from the very beginning: Adam tilled the garden of Eden; Cain, the first earth-born man, was a farmer; and Noah, the representative of the new race, was the planter of a vineyard. While Adam still lived we have tents invented, musical instruments, and “every artifice in brass and iron;” while Noah was still alive we have the fathers born of all the great empires, which have to the present day perpetuated their names. Is this credible? Is it not rather of a piece with the old system of taking the names of places, cities, and empires, and concocting personages to account for them? We all know that the ancient Greeks and Romans did so; we all know that Geoffrey of Monmouth has done as much for our own country. Thus Britain, Cornwall, Devon, and so on, suggested the mythical heroes, Bryt, Corin, and Debon. The people or place suggest the name, and the founder is a mere myth. It is wholly irreconcilable with all the experience of geology and history, that the very first families of the earth should be founders of empires, inventors of brass and iron works, tents and musical instruments, tillage and vine dressing; in fact, the men immediately following Adam and Noah were like those which Moses had seen in Egypt, and he never dreamt of a more primitive race. {22}

Now, what says science and history of prehistoric man? The earliest traces of which we have authentic record prove that men lived in caves, not cities like that of Enoch; they lived by hunting and fishing, not by agriculture and breeding sheep, like Cain and Abel; far less by vine-dressing, like Noah. They had small hands, for the implements found give room for only three fingers of an ordinary man; their skulls were long, and their legs more nearly allied to the monkey type.

There is no trace in the palæolithic period of any such human beings as Moses describes; none even in the next period, styled by Sir John Lubbock the later or “polished stone age,” like Tubal-Cain, a “worker in brass and iron,” none like Jubal, who could “handle the harp and organ.” Long, long before the “age of bronze” dawned upon the earth, ages upon ages of a ruder and still ruder race lived and passed away; a race whose instruments were stone, first rough and subsequently smooth and polished.

It is impossible in the present state of human knowledge to determine what length of time elapsed before the palæolithic age glided into the neolithic, but it must have been very great, and even then the rude life which presents its records to observation shows that man was far removed from the Mosaic description of the immediate children of Cain and grandsons of Noah. There were no builders of cities, no founders of empires; but as we ascend higher and higher from the drift, we trace a certain knowledge in pottery and a goodly skill in working up stone into warlike and other implements. The gallery graves of the earth, even in the latest age of the neolithic period, resemble Eskimo huts more than regular cities and palaces, and it is not till we arrive at the evening of this long day that we discover any trace of herdsmen and tillers of the soil.

All this vast history of man finds no place in the Book of Genesis. As the writer of that book knew nothing of the rocks and their mighty revelations, he knew nothing of man but in the state of civilised society. The one and the other are wholly irreconcilable with the logic of facts, and deserve no higher place than the wild legends of India and China, Greece, Rome, and our own Britain. What would Sir John Lubbock say to the legend: that Noah the first man, so to speak, was a vinedresser; that within a century his offspring were building a tower, the top of which was to reach the skies, a tower described as a most finished and extraordinary work of art? What would he say to the statement that primitive man, long before the neolithic or even palæolithic period produced the founders of such grand empires as Babylon, Assyria, Persia, and old Greece? It is an insult to our understanding, a contradiction to our eyes, a gainsaying of the infallible records of the rocks, to place credence in such legends. They are palpably untrue, wholly impossible, and as wholly irreconcilable with history and the experience of facts. {23}

(2.) _The Scripture accounts of the increase of man wholly irreconcilable with experience and history_.

We shall confine our remarks under this head to three instances—the builders of Babel, the age of Abraham, and the Exodus from Egypt. Other instances will doubtless recur to the reader, but the scope of argument would be much the same in every example.

The builders of Babel are placed about 100 years after the flood. The general impression left by the Bible account is, that the race of man was pretty numerous. “The whole earth,” says the writer, “was of one language and one speech.” This would not be said of a clan or a nation, but must refer to several nations. It would be absurd to call Sussex or Kent “the whole earth,” nor less so to say it was all of “one language and one speech.” It would be scarcely less impertinent to say all England, or all France, spoke one and the same language. But to say that all Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, England, and Sweden, spoke one language and used one speech would be far otherwise. When, therefore, the historian makes the statement that “the whole earth was of one language and one speech,” he virtually says there were several different nations, and a good round number of peoples. The writer continues—“And it came to pass as they (?) journeyed from the east they found a plain in the land of Shinar and dwelt there,” and they “made bricks” (!) and used “slime for mortar,” and said one to another, “Let us build a city, and a tower whose top may reach to heaven;” but the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth. [Gen. xi., 1–9.]

Now, at the abatement of the flood the earth contained just four men and four women. According “to experience,” a population under the most favourable circumstances possible may double itself in 25 years; {24} but let us take the increase of the prolific race of Abraham, which, according to Scripture authority, doubled itself in 20 years [Gen. xlvi., 27]. This would make the entire population of the earth at the dispersion 256 souls. Suppose half males and half females, we get 128 of each sex, and supposing one-third to be adults and two-thirds children, we have somewhat less than 43 adult males, and this was the entire population of grown men in “the whole earth.” These 43 men “were all of one language and one speech.” These 43 men “made bricks,” and said one to another, “let us build a city and a tower whose top shall reach to heaven,” and the speech of these 43 was confounded, and the two score and three were “scattered over the whole earth.” Nothing of comment need be added.

The next event we would advert to is the period of Abraham. There were then several large empires and populous nations. Egypt had its regular court and standing army; Nineveh was older still; China and India were certainly advanced in organisation. We read of nine kings who made war “in the vale of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea” [Gen. xiv.]; some of the Greek states, as Argos and Attica, were founded; and Etruria must have been in its hey-day. This would demand a population of some hundreds of millions at the least; but what was the fact, according to the Bible reading?

Noah was scarcely dead when Abraham was born; some calculate that he had been dead two years, while others think the two lives overlapped each other. As Noah was 950 years old at death, and 600 when he entered the ark, we are not left to conjecture respecting the interval, which, of course, was 350 years. There were four men and four women when the flood ceased; and suppose the increase to be the extraordinary one of doubling five times in a century, we have 256 souls at the end of the 1st century, 8,192 at the close of the 2nd, and one-and-a-half million at the death of Noah; say two millions at the birth of Abraham, a population inferior to that of Lancashire, and only two-thirds that of London. These two millions are supposed to have furnished forth several large empires, most of which would require more than the whole number. Again we leave the subject without adding a word of comment.

The number of the Exodus has already been considered in No. 8 of this series. It is given by the author of the book as 600,000 “fighting men” or adult males; and if the women equalled the men, and the children were two to one, we have 600,000 adults of each sex, and 1,200,000 children of each sex, somewhat more than three-and-a-half millions, say three millions. The increase of 70 souls in 215 years, although oppressed by taskmasters, and although for 80 years of the time the decree of Pharaoh to put to death every male infant at birth, was supposed to be in force. Taking the same rate as that given above, the 70 at the close of the first century would have been 2,240, and 124,540 at the time of the Exodus. Allowing the children to be twice as many as the adults, this would give us 6,703 as the number of “fighting men,” or, in round numbers, 6,000 instead of 600,000.

Presuming the Bible text to be correct, the three millions led by Moses into the wilderness would require daily for food 3,000 oxen and 30,000 sheep, that is allowing half-a-pound of food per head. Of course meat might be replaced by bread, but it would not decrease the difficulty to have corn to carry across the Red Sea.{26a} As it was 45 days before manna was supplied, the fugitives must have driven before them 1,135,000 sheep, and 135,000 oxen. Hence there were three million of men, women, and children, a mixed multitude of camp followers, more than a million sheep, and 135,000 head of oxen to lead in flight across the Red Sea, with the horsemen and chariots of Pharaoh in pursuit. Of course, on the reduced scale of 6,000 instead of 600,000, all this would be divided by 100; and although there would still remain above a thousand oxen and eleven thousand sheep, the numbers would be much more manageable; but the writer of the Book of Exodus is responsible for the larger numbers, and with them only are we concerned. {26b}

(3.) _The armies of the Jews_, _and the numbers slain in war irreconcilable with experience and history_.

Akin to the above is the extravagant numbers given in Scripture of the fighting men mustered on several occasions by the petty kingdom of Israel before it was divided, and of the still more petty states of Judah and Israel after the revolt of the ten tribes. The whole undivided kingdom was nominally 60 miles broad, and 140 miles long, less than the county of Yorkshire. Much of this never came into the power of the Hebrews, and more than three-fourths was desert. After the division each kingdom was about the size of Norfolk and Suffolk. {27a}

Let us first take two examples of the undivided kingdom. At the close of David’s reign, the number of fighting men is given (2 Samuel, xxiv., 9) as 1,300,000; and, after the revolt, Abijah, grandson of Solomon, is said to have headed an army of 400,000 chosen men against Jeroboam, who had 800,000 men under him. This gives 1,200,000 fighting men in two petty kingdoms, the aggregate of which was less than the principality of Wales. But what will be said of the sequel? the 400,000 men under Abijah slew 500,000 of the enemy! with swords and bows!! {27b}

The late unhappy, but gigantic contest between Germany and France, makes us pretty familiar with war, the size of armies, and the number slain by the most murderous instruments ever used by man. Suppose Gambetta had said 400,000 Frenchmen had slain 500,000 Prussians, should we believe it? Suppose he had said that 500,000 out of 800,000 had fallen by the sword, should we believe it? It is wholly irreconcilable with experience, and most incredible.

Come we now to an example or two of the divided kingdom. The kingdom of Judah was about equal in area to the two counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, but what are we told of its army?

[2 Chronicles, xiv., 8.] Asa, grandson of Rehoboam, King of Judah, had 300,000 heavy-armed troops, and 280,000 light-armed, nearly 600,000, and “all mighty men of valour!!”

[2 Chronicles, xvii., 14–18.] Jehoshaphat, son of Asa, had an army of 1,160,000 soldiers, “all mighty men of valour!”

[2 Chronicles, xxv., 5, 6.] Amaziah, King of Judah, had 300,000 “choice men, handling spear and shield, above 20 years old,” and a mercenary contingent of 100,000 Israelites, which he hired for 100 talents of silver (£34,200).

[2 Chronicles, xxvi., 12–13.] Uzziah’s army consisted of 307,500 trained soldiers “under 2,600 chief officers.”

No such armies as these correspond with our experience. Compare the armies of Europe with those of these petty princes, and see how wholly irreconcilable are these statements to the plain unvarnished statements of dry facts.

We have given one instance of slaughter under Abijah, king of Judah, and will now add one example of Pekah, king of Israel.

[2 Chronicles, xxviii., 6, 8.] Pekah is said to have slain in one day 120,000 valiant men of Judah, and to have carried away captive 200,000 souls, with much spoil.

Mr. Cardwell proposes to raise our army to 108,000 men. “This,” says _The Times_, “is more than twice as large as the largest army ever taken into battle by Wellington, and three times as large as [the English contingent of] that with which he conquered at Waterloo.” What would _The Times_ say of the armies of Judah and Israel?

Where there is no motive for exaggeration the numbers are much more modest. Thus the army of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, no doubt, was very formidable, but it dwindles to nothing compared to the gigantic armies of Judah and Israel. The army of the “great king” amounted only to 185,000 men (2 Kings, xix., 35); if Judah could muster its million or even half million of valiant men, all in the prime of life, there was no need of a miracle to lay the invaders in the dust.

We will conclude this part of our subject with a few examples of incredible statements, which cannot be classed under the foregoing heads.

(4.) _Incredible Marvels or Statements_.

Joshua, vi., 20.

A procession of priests is said to have walked round the fortifications of Jericho, and when they blew with their trumpets “the walls fell down flat.”

Judges, iii., 31.

Shamgar, we are told, slew 600 of the Philistines with an ox-goad. Doeg, the Edomite (1 Sam., xxii., 18), “with his own hand,” slew in one day 85 persons “who wore a linen ephod,” besides “all the men and women, children and sucklings, asses, oxen, and sheep,” of the town of Nob. Abishai, David’s brother-in-law (2 Sam., xxiii., 18), slew 300 with his own spear; but Adino, the Eznite, (v. 8), slew with his own hand in one battle 800 men (!) Impossible as these statements undoubtedly are, they dwindle into insignificance before the exploit attributed to Samson (Judges, xv., 16), who, “with a new jawbone of an ass,” slew 1000 Philistines (!!). A thousand men laid low by one with no other instrument than an ass’s jaw (!!); but the marvel does not end here, for when Samson had thrown away his weapon, “there came water from a hollow place in the jaw,” and the thirsty Samson drank thereof to revive his fainting spirit.

Ruth, iv., 21, 22.

Boaz was great grandfather of David, and the mother of Boaz was Rahab the harlot. In this brief space is to be crowded all the events recorded in the book of Joshua, the book of Judges, the book of Ruth, and part of the First Book of Samuel, a period of about 400 years.

Take a familiar case. George III. was grandfather of our Queen, and he was grandson of George II. This exactly corresponds with the text; but 400 years would carry us back not to George II., but to Edward IV. What would be thought of an historian who said that Edward IV. was the father of Queen Victoria’s great grandfather? But the statement referred to is identical thereto.

1 Kings, xx., 30.

We are informed by the writer of the book of Kings that some of the routed host of Benhadad fled to Aphek, when a wall fell, and by its fall crushed to death 27,000 of them (!).

2 Kings, i., 9–12.

Elijah is said to have brought fire from heaven by his bare word, and by this means were consumed two companies sent to arrest him, each company consisting of 50 men.

Jonah.

The prophet Jonah is said to have been swallowed by a whale. Presuming it possible for a whale to swallow a man, no man could live three days and three nights in the belly of a fish, and then be cast by it on dry land.

Deuteronomy, viii., 4.

Moses tells us that in forty years’ time the “raiment of his three million wanderers” waxed not old, and though marching all that time about the hot desert, “their feet did not swell” from the scorching sand.

1 Chronicles, xix., 6, 7.

Hanun of Ammon sent 1000 talents of silver (£342,000) to Mesopotamia, for the hire of 32,000 chariots (!!). Is not this wholly at variance with sober history? Is it credible? In the parallel account given in 2 Sam. x., 6, there is no mention of these 32,000 chariots of war.

2 Chronicles, xiv., 9.

It is stated that Mareshah, in Judea, was invaded in the reign of Asa, by a million Ethiopians and 300 chariots (!!).

These are a few specimens of the unhistoric character of the history of the Old Testament. We will add one or two instances of the equally incredible statements of the wealth of Bible Kings.

2 Samuel, viii., 7; 1 Chronicles, xviii., 7.

Hadarezer’s army is represented to have been furnished with shields of gold. We read occasionally of some rich prince, like Glaucus, having golden armour, but never of a whole army being equipped with golden shields. We are told also that Solomon made 300 shields of gold for the temple; but these were mere ornamental plates, “3 pounds of gold went to one shield,” the value of these was not above half-a-million of English money, they were mere playthings compared to those in Hadarezer’s army (1 Kings x. 17).

2 Chronicles, vii., 5.

At the dedication of the temple, we are informed that Solomon “offered in sacrifice 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep.” Compare this with the sacrifice of Hezekiah, “70 bullocks, 100 rams, and 200 lambs” (2 Chron. xxix., 32).

1 Chronicles, xxii., 14.

This profusion of wealth, unexampled as it may be, is wholly eclipsed by king David, who laid up for Jehovah about 7,000 millions sterling (!!); that is to say, a million talents of silver and 100,000 talents of gold; in English money 342 millions sterling in silver, and 5,500 millions sterling in gold. Truly the principality of Wales could never compete in wealth with this Pactolus of a kingdom! {31} Come we now to our last division.