CHAPTER XX.

THE BIBLE AND HISTORY.

About one-half of the books of the Bible purport to be, to a considerable extent at least, historical. But from Genesis to Revelation there is scarcely a book which can be accepted as a reliable record of events. Nearly all of them abound with manifest absurdities, exaggerations, and contradictions. Their authors, for the most part, deal with matters concerning which the ancient profane historians take no cognizance; and this, in a measure, conceals their errors. But when they do refer to known historical events, they exhibit such an ignorance of the facts, or such a desire to pervert them, as to destroy their credibility. In this chapter will be presented some "sacred" history which reason rejects or the demonstrated facts of profane history disprove.

1.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

The Bible, it is affirmed, contains a connected and reliable historical and chronological record of events from the Creation down to the universally accepted dates of profane history. And yet between the three versions of the Jewish Bible there is an utter disagreement. The creation of the world, according to these versions, was as follows:

Hebrew, 4004 B.C. Samaritan, 4700 B.C. Septuagint, 5872 B.C.

The Talmud and Josephus, based upon the above, agree with neither, nor with each other. According to the Talmud, the Creation occurred 5344 B.C.; according to Josephus, 4658 B.C.

2.

"And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle. Even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt" (Ex. xii, 37, 38, 41).

"And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night.... And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground.... Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians" (Ex. xiv, 21, 22, 30).

The Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt is represented as having taken place in an incredibly brief space of time. It was after midnight when Moses was ordered to notify his people to depart. Before morning they were all en route from Rameses to the Red Sea, which they reached in three days and crossed in a few hours.

As there were 600,000 men, the total number of persons must have been nearly 3,000,000. Three millions is a number easily spoken and quickly written. But neither the author of this story nor those who accept it as history have the slightest conception of its meaning. They evidently think that three million people--old and young; men, women, and children; the sick and the lame, together with their flocks and herds, their household effects and provisions--could be moved with the celerity of a few hundred men. When Napoleon crossed the Nieman in 1812, it took his army of trained soldiers, inured to hardships and accustomed to rapid marches, three days and nights to cross the river in close file on three bridges. Had his army been as large as this body of Israelites, to have crossed the river on one bridge, allowing the necessary time for rest, would have taken six months. It would have required months to notify, assemble, and organize this vast population of slaves in readiness for their migration. And when the journey began, if the head of the column had left Rameses in the spring the rear of the column would not have been able to move before autumn.

3.

"Behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession" (Deut. xxxii, 49).

In the twelfth chapter of Joshua is given a list of thirty-one kingdoms which were conquered by them. This was in the fifteenth century B.C. From this time forward they are represented as a mighty nation by Bible historians.

Rameses III. overran Canaan and conquered it between 1280 and 1260 B.C. The Egyptian records give a list of all the tribes inhabiting it. The children of Israel--the Hebrews--were not there. In the fifth century B.C., when Herodotus, the father of history, was collecting materials for his immortal work, he traversed nearly every portion of Western Asia. He describes all its principal peoples and places; but the Jews and Jerusalem are of too little consequence to merit a line from his pen. Not until 332 B.C. do the Jews appear upon the stage of history, and then only as the submissive vassals of a Grecian king.

4.

1. "Elhanan, the son of Jair, the Bethlehemite, slew Goliath of Gath, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" (2 Sam. xxi, 19, H. V.).

2. "Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam" (1 Chron. xx, 5).

3. "Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" (2 Sam. xxi, 19, A. V.).

The above are three versions of the same passage. The first is a correct translation of the passage as it appears in the Hebrew. It is a part of one of the two discordant narratives used by the compiler of Samuel. The compiler of Chronicles saw the discrepancy and interpolated the words "Lahmi the brother of." Our translators interpolated the words "the brother of."

Critics admit that if the killing of Goliath is a historical event, which is improbable, it was Elkanah, and not David, who slew him. The story of David and Goliath given by the other narrator in 1 Samuel is a myth. This writer says: "And David took the head of the Philistine, and brought it to Jerusalem," evidently believing that the Israelites then occupied Jerusalem, whereas the duel between David and Goliath is said to have occurred 1062 B.C., while the conquest and occupancy of Jerusalem by the Israelites did not occur until 1047 B.C., fifteen years later.

5.

"And Solomon sent to Hiram, saying, ... Behold, I purpose to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God, ... and my servants shall be with thy servants, and unto thee will I give hire for thy servants" (1 Kings v, 2, 5, 6).

"And Solomon had three score and ten thousand that bare burdens, and four score thousand hewers in the mountains; beside the chief of Solomon's officers which were over the work, three thousand and three hundred" (15, 16).

"So was he seven years in building it" (vi, 38)

"And the house which King Solomon built for the Lord, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits" (2).

The main building of Solomon's Temple, then, was about 96 feet long, 32 feet wide, and 48 feet high. One hundred and fifty thousand men engaged seven years in building a house as large as a village church or a country store! The mountain labored and brought forth a mouse!

6.

"And the children of Israel fled before Judah: and God delivered them into their hand. And Abijah and his people slew them with great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men" (2 Chron. xiii, 16, 17).

Five hundred thousand slain in one battle! At the battle of Gettysburg, one of the greatest battles of modern times, for three long days, two mighty armies of America engaged in deadly conflict, and when it was ended, the defeated army had less than five thousand killed. And yet we are asked to believe that this puny race of Hebrews, too insignificant to attract the notice of ancient historians, marshaled in battle two contending armies, the carnage of which equaled that of a hundred Gettysburgs.

Talk about oriental exaggeration! If you wish to find its choicest specimens, search not the pages of Persian and Arabian romance, but read a chapter of sacred history.

7.

"And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land; and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand" (2 Kings xv, 19).

The king who reigned in Assyria at this time was Iva-lush. Assyria never had a king named Pul.

8.

"Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein" (Dan. v, 1, 2).

"In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace" (5).

"And this is the writing that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN" (25).

"In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans [Babylon] slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom" (30, 31).

As a dramatic piece of fiction Belshazzar's Feast is good; as a chapter of ancient history it is bad. Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar; neither was he king of Babylon. Darius the Mede did not take the kingdom.

9.

"And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)... And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David), to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child" (Luke ii, 1-5).

This cannot be accepted as historical for the following reasons:

1. Cæsar Augustus never issued a decree that all the world should be taxed, nor even one that all the Roman world should be taxed.

2. If he had issued such a decree Joseph and Mary would not have been subject to taxation, because they lived in Galilee, an independent province.

3. Had they been subject to taxation they would have been enrolled in their own country and not in some distant kingdom.

4. Cyrenius did not become governor of Syria until nearly ten years after the death of Herod, and Jesus was born, it is claimed, in the days of Herod.

10.

"Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under" (Matt. ii, 16).

The statement that Herod the Great, who was firmly established in his government, and who had full-grown male heirs to succeed him, was afraid that the babe of an obscure Nazareth carpenter would supplant him in his kingdom, is enough to cause a Covenanter to laugh on Sunday. Had Herod issued such a decree his friends, instead of executing it, would have had him confined in a madhouse. The fact that the Roman and Jewish historians of that age--one of whom, an enemy, gives a full and complete record of his life--know nothing of this awful tragedy, that an anonymous author writing nearly two centuries afterward is the only one who mentions it, is of itself sufficient to brand it as an atrocious falsehood.

11.

"That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias whom ye slew between the temple and the altar" (Matt. xxiii, 35).

The divine historian ascribes these words to Jesus. Jesus was crucified, it is claimed, about 29 A.D. Zacharias was slain in 69 A.D., forty years after the death of Jesus. Some contend that Jesus refers to the Zachariah mentioned in 2 Chronicles (xxiv, 20, 25). But this Zachariah was the son of Jehoiada. Besides, the accusation of Jesus is intended to cover all time from the first to the last offense, and to name this Zachariah would be to admit that they had shed no righteous blood for 850 years.

12.

"For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought.

"After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished" (Acts v, 36, 37).

According to Acts the sedition of Theudas occurred before the taxing, which was about 6 A.D. It really occurred while Fadus was procurator of Judea, about 46 A.D.--forty years after the date assigned in Acts.

The Bible is largely a medley of fables, mythologies, and legends. These legends contain a modicum of truth--how much cannot be determined. The reliable historian faithfully presents the facts contained in the materials at his command. These so-called sacred historians do not. With them history is secondary to theology and made subservient to it. Every event is represented as a special act of divine Providence and is tortured to uphold and serve their theological notions. Referring to the author or compiler of Judges, Dr. Oort says: "The writer has drawn most of his narratives from trustworthy sources.... Our gratitude to him would indeed be still greater than it is, if he had given us all that he found in his authorities unmixed and unaltered. But to an Israelite historian this seems to have been a simple impossibility" (Bible for Learners, Vol. I., p. 363).