Bible Irreconcilable (Julian)

THE BIBLE IRRECONCILABLE
JULIAN
LEWES:
GEORGE P. BACON,
STEAM PRINTING OFFICES.
1871
[No 11.
d
IBIOLOGY VERSUS THEOLOGY.
T H E B I B L E
IRRECONCILABLE WITH SCIENCE, EXPERIENCE,

- AND EVEN ITS OWN STATEMENTS,
IB Y J U LIA N .
-
– ~,
“Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas

Quique metus omnes et inexorabile fatum—
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.”
VIRGIL.
“Know, then, thyself—Presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man.”
POPE'S ESSAY ON MAN.
“If it be possible to perfect mankind, the means of doing so will

be found in the Medical Sciences.”
DESCARTES.
Teeuwes :
GEORGE P. BACON, STEAM PRINTING OFFICES.
1871.
C O N TENTS.
PAGE.
INTRODUCTION
PART I.-SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH SCIENCE.
(1) The Mosaic Cosmogony
(2) The Fall 11
(3) The Flood 13
PART II.-SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

(Miracles) 16
(1) Pre-historic Man . 21
(2) Increase of Man . 24
(3) Armies of the Jews, and numbers slain in battle 26
(4) Incredible Statements . 28
PART III.--THE BIBLE IRRECONCILABLE WITH ITSELF.
(a) Historic Errors 31

(b) Erroneous Figures 33
(c) Misstatements 39
PART III.-SECOND DIVISION.—SCRIPTURE CONTRADICTs SCRIPTURE.

Contradictory Texts 46
CONCLUSION 61
BIOLOGY PEI's US THEOLOGY.
The Bible Irreconcilable with Science, Experience,
and even its OWI. Statements,
INTRODUCTION.
“THE myths of paganism,” says Professor Huxley,” “are as

dead as Osiris or Zeus, and the man who should revive them,
in opposition to the knowledge of our time, would be justly
laughed to scorn; but the coeval imaginations current among
the rude inhabitants of Palestine, recorded by writers whose
very name and age are admitted by every scholar to be unknown,
have unfortunately not yet shared their fate; but even at this
day are regarded by nine-tenths of the civilised world as the
authoritative standard of fact, and the criterion of the justice
of scientific conclusions in all that relates to the origin of
things, and among them of species.
“In this 19th century, as at the dawn of modern physical
science, the cosmogony of the semi-barbarous Hebrew is the
incubus of the philosopherand the opprobrium of the orthodox.
Who shall number the patient and earnest seekers after
truth . . . whose lives have been embittered and good
name blasted by the mistaken zeal of bibliolaters? Who
shall count the host of weaker men whose sense of truth has
been destroyed in the effort to harmonise impossibilities,
whose life has been wasted in the attempt toforce the generous
new wine of science into the old bottle of Judaism? It is
true that if philosophers have suffered, their cause has been
amply avenged. Extinguished theologians lie about the
cradle of every science, as the strangled snakes beside that
of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and
* Lay Sermons and Revien’s. This paper, “On the Origin of Species,” was
originally published in the “Westminster Review,” of April, 1860.
4. Introduction.
orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced
to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed, if not anni
hilated; scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy is the Bourbon
of the world of thought: it learns not, neither can it forget;
and though at present bewildered and afraid to move, it is as
willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of Genesis con
tains the beginning and the end of sound science, and to visit
with such petty thunderbolts as its half-paralysed hands can
hurl those who refuse to degrade Nature to the level of primi
tive Judaism.”
We purpose, in this pamphlet, with all possible brevity,
to show that Scripture is irreconcilable with science, expe
rience, and even with its own statements.
PART I.
SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH SCIENCE.
(1.) The Mosaic Cosmogony.

IT is not our intention to go with any minuteness into the
thrice-told tale of the antagonism between the Mosaic cos
mogony and the revelations of geology. That only five days
intervened between the creation of heaven and that of man
is contradicted by every stratum of the earth.
We readily admit that the word “day” is used in Scripture
in a very vague sense, and that even the limiting phrase
“evening and morning ” by no means circumscribes the in
terval to twenty-four hours. As the sun did not even exist
till the fourth of these days, the three preceding ones could
not possibly have been divided by its setting and rising.
In like manner it may be admitted that Daniel’s “vision of
the evening and morning” (viii., 26) covers a period of 2,300
days, and his “seventy weeks” (ix., 24) may be 490 years,
that is seventy weeks of years; but all this gives very little
relief to the real difficulties. It is not true that there ever
was a period like that called by Moses “the third day;” a
period when the earth was drained, the sea gathered into its
bed, the rivers and lakes confined to their proper boundaries,
grass growing on the mountains, trees in the forests, fruits in
the vineyards, and all the vegetable kingdom complete; yet
no fish in the waters, no creeping thing on the earth, no bird
in the air. Even in the Cambrian period may be traced the
rudiments of animal life; and in the Silurian, long before any
trace of land plants can be detected, certain molluscs were so
abundant that the period of this formation has been distinctly
called “The age of brachiopods.”
Next to the Silurian or mollusc period comes the Devonian
or “age of fishes,” when the seas literally swarmed with in
habitants, and it is not till we arrive at the coal formation
that we come to the “vegetable age.” And what were these
vegetables? principally ferns and mosses, a rank production,
which can in no wise answer to the description : “The earth
brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree
yielding fruit after his kind . . . and the evening and the
morning were the third day.”
But of this enough. Come we to the physical features of
6 Scripture v. Science.
the heavens and the earth according to the writers of the Old
and New Testaments. -
The earth is represented by these writers as immovable in

the centre of the universe, and the heavenly bodies are de
scribed as revolving round it. The clouds (rakia) are supposed
to be a solid body sustaining an ocean of water similar to the
seas: “God said, let there be a firmament (rakia) in the
midst of [or between] the waters, and let it divide the waters
[of the sea] from the waters [of the clouds], and it was so.”
This solid firmament, or roof of the earth, is said to have
windows or casements in it, which are opened to let the rain
fall through.
The New Testament makes no advance upon these primi
tive notions. We are told (Matt. iv., 8) that the devil on one
occasion took Jesus to a high mountain, and showed him
thence “all the kingdoms of the world.” Of course the
writer supposed the world to be a flat surface, the whole of
which could be seen from one spot, if of sufficient elevation.
In like manner the solidity of the clouds is taken for granted,
for thrones are set upon them, and Christ, it is said, will
show himself hereafter “sitting on the clouds,” attended
with his court of angels.
We grant that many expressions of daily use will not bear
a close analysis. Thus we talk of being “charmed” and
“enchanted * without the remotest idea of incantation; and
when we say “the sun rises and sets * we ignore the active
character of these phrases. These, and hundreds of other
words, have acquired a conventional meaning: thus charmed
means “greatly delighted,” and the phrases “rising in the
east” and “setting in the west,” applied to the sun, mean
simply that it shows itself at daybreak in the east, and as
the day closes disappears in the west.
This conventional use of words is a very different matter to
the endorsing of vulgar errors. To say that the sunrises and
sets can mislead no one. It teaches nothing beyond an
optical fact, and can in no wise justify such teaching as this:
The earth is a vast plane, buoyed up on a bed of water; and
under this water is the region of hell, where Satan rules
supreme over the fallen angels. The clouds are a solid roof
sustaining an aerial ocean, the fountain of our rain; and
above this is the region of heaven, where God rules as an
earthly potentate, and where are mansions, streets, rivers,
and trees, after the fashion of this earth.
It is said again, if Moses had written like a modern geolo
Mosaic Cosmogony. 7
gist, no one would have understood him. Apply this to

Newton, or any early teacher of a new science. What would
be said of Newton, if he had taught the myths of Scandi
navian mythology under a similar plea P If his discoveries of
light and gravitation were not new, they were no discoveries
at all; but if they were new they were unknown. It is the
part of a teacher to teach, to correct errors, and not to per
petuate them; to tell what is not known, and not confirm the
folly of ignorance and superstition. -
Once more. It is said that the object of the Bible is to teach

religion and not science. Granted. And the object of an as
tronomer is to teach astronomy, of a geologist to teach geology.
What then? Is the astronomer and geologist free to revel in
all sorts of errors provided they do not affect his special
science? No one would advance such a plea except for a sinister
purpose. But admitting it for the sake of argument, what
is gained by the admission? The express object of the first
chapter of Genesis is to teach science. It professes to tell us
low the world was made; and all its teaching is wrong. The
object of Genesis vii. and viii. is to teach history. It pro
fesses to tell us how the world was destroyed by a flood; and
the teaching is all wrong. The object of Genesis xi. is to
teach ethnology. It professes to tell us how men became dis
persed over the earth, and how it is that different nations
speak different tongues; and the teaching is all wrong. It is
no justification to plead that Moses was not skilled in geology,
history, and ethnology. If he knew nothing about these
matters, why did he profess to teach them, and why give it
out that what he taught was told him by God? If God is
the God of truth he can no more teach false science than
false morals; it is equally untruthful to falsify a scientific or
historical fact, as to falsify a moral precept or church doctrine.
It is said that the writers of Scripture were inspired by
divine wisdom to write nothing but truth. Now either the
world was made in six days or it was not; either the flood
covered the whole world or it did not; either the sun stood
still at the bidding of Joshua or it did not; either Balaam’s
ass spoke Hebrew and the serpent in the garden spoke the
language of Adam, or they did not. If these things are not
positive facts they are fictions, and could only deceive as they
still do. It is inconceivable that Professor Airy or Huxley,
knowing certain facts, should write a book and wholly ignore
that knowledge. It would be puerile in the extreme if they
were to plead in excuse for such folly that they were writing
on another subject. The true question is this: were they
knowingly stating fiction and falsehoods as veritable facts? If
they knew that man was not made of dust, nor woman of a
rib taken out of Adam while he was asleep; if they knew that
the world was not made in six days, but affirmed that it was;
if they knew that the serpent was not doomed to crawl on
the ground and eat dust because the devil chose to assume
its shape, but said that it did, then are they altogether to
blame, and it is a matter wholly indifferent whether they
were writing science or theology. So with the “inspired
penmen.” They profess to write truth, to write facts, and
if the words they utter are not truths, and the events
they record are not facts, it is quite beside the question
whether they pertain to the immediate object of their books or
not.
Lastly, it is said that science at present is unsettled, and
therefore it is too early to pronounce upon the scientific
teaching of the Bible. No doubt there are questions in science
still in nubibus, and others sub judice, but what of that?
Because a science is still not fully developed, is it worth
nothing? has it no voice, no authority? It is still doubtful
whether some of the nebulae are unfinished stars, or stars so
thickly clustered together that at this distance they look like
“ cloud.” Because this question is not fully determined,
must we ignore the fact that the earth is a globe; that the
planets roll round the sun; that the clouds are due to evapo
ration, and rain to a change of temperature? The Bible says
the earth is a plane, and the clouds a solid flooring; that the
sun, moon, and stars are set in the atmosphere between the
upper and lower waters. We are told to suspend judgment
on these points, because there are problems of astronomy and
eology yet unsolved. This indeed is clinging to a hope
#. hope; it is the obstinacy of a Gambetta, who finding no
help in man, dreamt in his enthusiasm that the stars in their
courses would fight for France against the Prussians.
To return to the Mosaic notion of creation. The writer
tells us that man was made in the image of God—a male and
a female. “Let us make man in our image, after our like
ness. So God created man in his own image; in the image
of God created he him ; male and female created he them.”
This seems to imply an Isis as well as an Osiris, a female
as well as a male deity, and no doubt Moses, who derived
his inspiration from the Egyptian priests, believed this
sexual divinity. But what is meant by “the image and
Mosaic Cosmogony. 9
likeness of God?” We are told over and over again

that God has no image, no bodily form, and we are for
bidden to make any likeness of any creature and look on
it as a likeness of God. Theologians tell us the likeness
referred to is righteousness and true holiness. But why say
“the image and likeness?” image seems to point to bodily
form. Besides, Adam was not like God in holiness and true
righteousness, for he hearkened to temptation, and if he was
“like God,” it implies that Satan might delude even God,
and that God might by possibility fall like Adam.
Having made man, the writer says: “God ended his work’
(Gen. ii., 2). He made man and ceased the work of creation.
Strange, that the writer should say this, and yet in the very
same chapter contradict the statement, by the “new crea
tion” of a woman! The dogma, however, that the creative
work of God was sealed up, never to be re-opened when
man was made, is in direct antagonism to the whole read
ing of the rocks. Geology shows us worlds of extinct
vegetables and animals, the types of which, in one geolo
gical period differed entirely from those which existed at
a succeeding one, and every anterior period had a flora
and a fauna wholly unlike any of those with which we are
familiar. There are hosts of creations at every era, and
there has never been a period from the mystical “Begin
ning,” when the creative force has ceased from its operations.
At one period we see nothing superior to shell-fish and sea
worms, and for a time the work of creation seems ended; but
another set of rocks unfold themselves, and show us myriads
of molluscs, especially of the arm-footed kind, trilobites and
graptolites, stone-lilies and corals. Again a change comes
over created things: mountains are upheaved, but no grass
grows upon their sides, the ocean bed is contracted, and the
waters are tenanted by innumerable swarms of fishes, for the
most part unlike any which now exist. This dynasty of the
fishy tribe gives place in time to the “age of ferns and mosses,”
and the lizard race makes its appearance; but it is not till we
come to the “secondary group of rocks” that we meet with
the fish-lizards and the predacious plesiosaur, the bird-beaked
saurian, and the labyrinthodon. Ages roll on, ages past all
calculation, and new families of molluscs, fishes, and reptiles
put in their appearance for the first time: ammonites and
belemnites among the molluscs; eryons and horse-shoes among
crustaceans; pterodactyls, teliosaurs, steneosaurs, and mega
losaurs among reptiles, with here and there a sort of opossum,
the first type of the mammal family. In the air flew the
giant pterodactyl ; on the dry land stalked the ponderous
megalosaurus; in the sea whole hosts of marine lizards pur
sued their carnivorous instincts. Huge turtles crept along
the muddy coasts, and strange fishes swam in the deep ocean;
but no man existed; no flocks fed upon the mountains; no
birds carrolled in the groves. The lordly lion commanded
not in the forest; the majestic eagle was not the king of birds.
The master spirits were saurians, whose sway was universal;
and this brings us to the third great era, that of the tertiary
rocks. This third series of rocks contain fossils more and
more nearly allied to existing plants and animals; we meet
with mammals in considerable numbers, but by far the largest
number of them are thick-skinned, and, as a rule, they were
both more bulky and longer in the legs than those which now
exist.
Coming at last to the age of man and existing species, we
still find the work of creation has not ceased. Every new
manufacture brings forth some new form of plant or animal,
so that creative force can no more cease from operation than
any other form of force. If God is the Creator he must create;
there can be no nas or has been with deity; deity must of
necessity be always the universal Non, the great I am. Infinite
love must always be loving, for love without loving is no longer
love. Infinite power must always be potential, for to remit
the potentiality of power is to lose the power. Power and
force are not latent faculties, but active only. In man it is
otherwise, because man, as man, has a beginning and there
fore an end, and the works of such a creature must have the
same limits; but power, as power, cannot possibly begin and
end; if it has a beginning that beginning must be the result of
previous power, which is absurd ; and if it has an end it is
no longer power, which is a contradiction.
Man is the creature of a day, and when the day is over it can
be said of man he was, and of the works of man they once
mere. As with man there is a past, so must there be a future.
To every nas there must belong a shall be. Man, therefore,
can be an inventor, a doer, a maker, and cease inventing,
doing, making, as he can cease living, or exhaust the limit of
his faculties; but God cannot be a creator one day and not
another, a doer yesterday and not to-morrow, an agent at one
time and not another, or his works would have a past, and if
a past a future also ; and whatever has a past and future
must belong to time; nay more, whatever has a past and
The Fall. 11
future must of necessity be finite, limited, and imperfect. If

God is infinite, the great “I Am,” the “same yesterday, to
day, and for ever,” it can never be said of His operations they
once were, but are now ended; He was once a Creator, but is
so no longer; His power to create was once active in its po
tentiality, but has ever since been in abeyance. Every faculty
of the infinite, every act and attribute must itself be infinite,
with no remission, and no shadow of turning. To say that
God ended His work of creation on the sixth day and ceased
from His labour, is to predicate change in the unchangeable,
limitation in the infinite, rest in activity, repose in motion. It
isto humanise deity, mortalise immortality, temporise eternity,
limit infinity, and make a past to the everlasting “Now.” It
is to make God a man, differing only in degree; eternity time,
differing only in extension; the ever present a mere non,
between a “was ” and a “will be.” Facts, therefore, as well
as reflection must show the untruth of the dogma that for six
days God was a creator, and then ended His work, and ceased
from His labour.
(2) The Fall.

As a supplement to the cosmogony, comes the legend of the
Fall. Of course, the object of this tale is to account for the
fancied imperfection of the works of God. The gist of the
matter is this: Adam and Eve were commanded to abstain from
a certain tree growing in Eden. This abstinence was to be the
test of their obedience. The devil tempted Eve to eat of the
forbidden fruit, and Eve induced Adam to do the same. In
consequence of this disobedience, God cursed the serpent
whose form Satan had assumed;—he cursed the ground,
causing it to bring forth thorns and thistles; cursed Eve in
..her instincts of love and maternal functions, and Adam in
assigning him the toil of working for his daily bread. Over
all came the sentence of death : “By one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin” (Rom. v., 12).
According to this legend, “death is the wages of sin.” It
was Adam’s apostacy that brought both sin and death into
the world, but neither sin nor death can possibly be due to
such a cause. Adam’s apostacy could not bring “sin” into the
world. The very act of disobedience is a proof that “sin”
already existed. The sin preceded the overt act, was the
cause of it, and the cause must inevitably exist before its
effect. It was sin that produced apostacy, and not apostacy
which produced sin. Take the case of Cain: It is said that
Cain slew his brother Abel. What would be thought of the
logician who should affirm that because Cain slew Abel, hatred
was introduced into the heart of man, and that death should
follow as a perpetual punishment? Should we not reply, it
was because Cain hated Abel that he rose up and slew him?
The passion of hatred preceded the act of murder. It was
malice aforethought, and if anything resulted from the mis
deed, it was not hatred but contrition, not thoughts of evil
but thoughts of bitter grief. Hatred was the cause of murder,
and murder the parent of sorrow. So with Adam and Eve.
If there had not been already “an evil heart of unbelief,”
there never would have been an act of disobedience. Eve
sinned, not because she was innocent, but because she was
sinful. She disobeyed, not because she was obedient, but
because her heart “was not right with God.” The bare act
was nothing, the sin was there already, and if she had never
eaten of the tree, the thought of her heart would have been
sin. It is not true, therefore, that sin is the consequence of
Adam's apostacy, inasmuch as it produced the apostacy itself.
By one man’s disobedience sin did not enter into the world,
neither is it true that death is “the wages of sin.”
Below the surface of the earth for the depth of some six or
eight miles, thousands and millions of once living creatures
lie buried in the rocks; creatures which lived and died before
man had any being. Of these creatures, myriads were car
nivorous; and one specimen, at least, has been disinterred of
a fossil animal inclosed in the body of another, by whom it
had been devoured for food.
Hence, death existed long, long before the very creation of
man; millions upon millions of animals were buried in the
rocks before Eve was made of the sleeper’s rib. So says
geology, and what is the testimony of physiology P
Every leaf and blade of grass, every drop of water, and
even the invisible air, are crowded with insects and animal
cules; insomuch that not a leaf can be eaten, not a drop of
water can be drank, not a gasp of air can be inhaled, without
destroying the life of some insect creatures. If, however,
only one insect or animalcule died before the Fall; if by the
effect of earthquake or volcano, the force of tempest, the
rending of rocks, the slip of an avalanche, the fall of a tree,
or even by accident, one animal lost its life, the point is
proved; for that one animal at least died, and therefore death
was not the consequence of a disobedience not yet incurred.
The Flood. 13
Again, it is well known that carnivorous beasts and birds

of prey have an anatomy adapted to their predacious habits.
Their teeth or beak, their paws or talons, their whole struc
ture and digestive organs, prove that they live on carrion,
and a lion could no more eat straw like an ox, than an ox
could eat carrion like a lion. If, therefore, there was no
death before the Fall, we are reduced to one or other of these
dilemmas: Either there were no animals that lived on prey,
or else at the Fall all predacious animals were wholly re
created, their teeth and jaws were re-constructed, their beaks
and talons, their organs of deglutition and digestion; in short,
their entire anatomical structure. A gratuitous assertion
wholly incapable of proof, and contradicted by every animal
fossil in the pre-Adamite world.
(3) The Noachian Flood.

What we said of the cosmogony we repeat under this head
also: it is not our intention to enter upon this subject at
any length. It has been proved to demonstration that no
single trace of such a cataclysm can be detected in the rocks
or features of the earth; but all these rocks and all these
features bear their testimony against such an event.
No doubt the stratified rocks speak of the agency of water,
but that agency was not the deluge. No doubt the gravel
and the boulders found so extensively accumulated over the
northern hemisphere were carried from their native places
by the force of water; but that water was not the flood. No
doubt traces of marine animals may be discovered on every
high mountain, no matter how far that mountain may be dis
tant from the main ocean; but these fossils were not de
posited there by the breaking up of the great deep and the
40 days of incessant rain which fell upon the ark. These
fossils extend downwards for some six or eight miles in depth,
and how could a flood of some few months in duration make
such a deposit P. The fossils of the rocks are all deposited in
the nicest order; those of one period are never mixed with
the fossils of another. No antiquarian could sort his speci
mens with more order. No museum could observe more
method in its arrangements. A deluge would sweep down
everything in confusion and bury plants, animals, and min
erals in one common ruin; such is not the character of the
rocks—every fossil reveals the rocks from which it was dug,
and every rock will tell the searcher what fossils he may ex
pect to find there.
We are told that the animals taken into the ark were the
same as those which existed on the earth when the flood
came, and that the animals preserved by Noah were the
parents of existing species; but the fossils of the rocks are
wholly different to any existing specimens of plant or animal.
Shell fish are found upon inland mountains, but not the shell
fish of our present system. Bones of animals are found far
from the native haunts of the living creatures, but they are
altogether strange bones, and never belonged to the animals
of the ark. They are all relics of extinct species, and amongst
all the fossils no trace of man can be detected. No trace of
the houses built by Cain and his offspring. No trace of the
iron and brass instruments forged by Tubal-Cain and his
descendants. We find traces of the most delicate leaves of
plants, traces of birds, and beasts, and creeping things; but
none of man, or of the works of man. If the same flood
swept away both man and beast, bird and fish, reptile and
insect, tree and boulder, how is it we never find them buried
in the same bed—overwhelmed in the same grave? Demon
stration could not go further. The whole earth from its
lowest depth to its surface denies the universality of the
flood, and not one particle of proof can be pointed out in con
firmation of the legend.
Moses says that the fountains of the great deep were broken
up (Gen. vii., 11). He believed that there was a subterranean
abyss of water under the earth,” and the Rev. William
Rirby, in one of the “Bridgewater Treatises,”f actually
attempts to justify this notion. It would be an insult to the
understanding of our reader to waste arguments on such a
hypothesis. It is enough to state it, and it must fall with the
weight of its own worthlessness.
Again. Moses says, “And the waters prevailed exceedingly
upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the
whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upwards did the
waters prevail, and the mountains were covered” (Gen. vii.,
19, 20). Moses says the depth of the water was 15 cubits,
and that all the high hills that were under the whole heaven
were covered. Of course the writer was ignorant of that
simple principle, known now to every schoolboy, that water
finds its level. He supposed that it would follow the irre
gularities of the earth's surface, here investing a mountain
* Job xxxviii., 8. - - -
+ “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.
The Flood. 15
and there dipping into the valleys, so that a uniform

depth was preserved throughout, the highest hills being
covered with a depth of 15 cubits like the valleys. We
must, per force, believe this, or we are driven to the more
unlikely hypothesis, that Moses supposed a level of some 30
feet deep of water would suffice to cover the loftiest moun
tains.” Whichever solution is taken, the inference is the
same—that the statement is wholly irreconcilable with
...science.
Once more. After the waters had prevailed for about a year,
Noah sent forth a dove, and the dove came back to the ark
with an “olive leaf plucked off” (Gen. viii., 11). This olive
tree withstood the pelting rain, withstood the rush of the
subsiding water, withstood the wind that drove the waters
back to their abyss; but what is stranger still, it blossomed
under water, and when its head was left towering above the
flood which enveloped its trunk, its branches had put forth
leaves. Probably the grass was not injured by the flood, as
the beasts were dismissed from the ark to find their own food.
Strange that trees and herbs, covered with a depth of 30 feet
of water, should grow just as well as in the sunshine; but
small inconsistencies of this sort are as nothing to the glaring
impossibility of the whole legend.
Many other examples of a similar contrariety might be
added, but the mere multiplication of evidence can serve no
useful purpose when enough has been brought forth to esta
blish the point in question. We might refer to the miracle
of Joshua (x., 12.) in proof of the vulgar notion that it is the
sun which moves over the earth, not the earth round the sun;
we might direct attention to Gen. ix., 13, in proof that
Moses supposed the rainbow to be a miraculous exhibition
of God’s power in confirmation of his covenant with Noah;
or we might dwell on the 2nd Epistle of Peter (iii., 10–12)
to show that the prince of the Apostles believed that the
heavens could be burnt with fire, like the roof of a house,
and the elements be melted by fervent heat. We might cite
a whole host of verses to prove that the Scripture writers
believed the earth to be a vast plane with an abyss, and the
whole rigidly fixed on a solid foundation wholly immovable.
Or we might turn to the physiological notions of the Bible
writers to show that they were no more in advance of the
* The common Hebrew cubit was about 22 inches. The “royal cubit" was
three inches longer. The Roman cubit was 18 inches.
period than their notions of astronomy, geology, and general
history. They referred intellectual operations to the kidneys
or reins:—“My reins instruct me in the night season"
(Ps. xvi., 7). The affections they ascribe to the heart, and
bodily pain to the bones. They believed epilepsy to result
from demoniacal possession; that mandrakes provoked fecun
dity in women (Gen. xxx., 14–16; Cant. vii., 13.); that
peeled withes, placed before pregnant ewes, would affect the
colour of their lambs (Gen. xxx., 37.); that ants eat corn
and lay up for themselves a store for winter (Prov. v., 6.);
that bees can be generated from a dead carcase (Judges xiv.,
8.); that falling meteors or stars prognosticate evil (Ezek.
xxxii., 7.; Matt. xxiv., 29.); that spittle contains a charm to
cure blindness and other maladies (John ix., 6, 7.; Mark vii.,
33–35. ; viii., 23, 24.); and that the stars exercise an
influence on the lot of our life (Judges v., 20). But to
enumerate all the instances of contrariety between Scripture
and science would occupy more than all the pages of the
present pamphlet; suffice it to say, that every false notion of
the age is endorsed as an inspired fact, and no single error is
corrected, or new truth brought to light. We must now
leave this part of our subject and proceed to the next
division.
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
Miracles. 17
sea than any other man, the reply would be, that Jesus was a
divine being, and sustained his rash disciple by His omnipo
tent 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
Rings, 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 Lon
don 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 informa
tion, 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 in
credible, that those who relate such things must bear the
responsibility.
C
18 Scripture v. Experience.
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
Rings, 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 ſ” 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 pro
phets, 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 de
scribe 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 ac
knowledges that his Gospel was compiled from several exist
ing ones (i., 1-4); but we are nowhere told by what guiding
power he made his selection, nor why his compilation is better
Miracles. 19
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 con
jecture, 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.* 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. Thefact 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. Euse
bius 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 Irenaeus, 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
* See Dr. Davidson's Introduction to the Wen Testament. Baur, Zeller, Hilgen
feld, &c., take the same view. See also “Biology versus Theology,” No, I,
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;” 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);f 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 pro
fessing 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 suf
fered 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 evange
* 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.
t 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. -
Prehistoric Man. 21
lists 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 con
tradicts experience, we would wholly set aside miracles, and
limit our examples to matters more tangible. Our first ob
servations shall be respecting the Mosaic account of prehis
toric man.
(1.) The Biblical prehistoric man not reconcilable nºith historic

eaperience.
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 for
ger 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 be
ginning : 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
22 Scripture v. Ezperience.
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 P
Is it not rather of a piece with the old system of taking the
names of places, cities, and empires, and concocting person
ages to account for them? We all know that the ancient
Greeks and Romans did so; we all know that Geoffrey of Mon
mouth 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 irrecon
cilable with all the experience of geology and history, that
the very first families of the earth should be founders of em
pires, inventors of brass and iron works, tents and musical
instruments, tillage and vine dressing ; in fact, the men im
mediately following Adam and Noah were like those which
Moses had seen in Egypt, and he never dreamt of a more
primitive race.*
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 palaeolithic period of any such
* Take two examples of this etymology. HEBREw is supposed to be derived
from Heber, son 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 is heber (an emigrant, one that has
crossed over); if so, Abraham was called a hebren, because he was a sojourner
who had crossed over into the “land of promise.”
Again, CANAAN is 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).
'Ali this is most improbable, although in keeping with the practice of ancient
chroniclers. Modern historians findmore probable derivations in some local pecu
liarity or suggestive characteristic. Thus Argos, in Greece, is mythically derived
from Argos, its 4th king; but Strabo tells us the word means a plain. Devon
shire is not a corruption of Debon's share or lot (Faery Queen ii., 10), but of
the Saxon defn-afon (deep water). Similarly Canaan means lon, 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.”
Prehistoric Man. 23
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 palaeoli
thic 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 im
plements. 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 herds
men 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 winedresser; 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 P What would he say to the statement that
primitive man, long before the neolithic or even palaeolithic
period produced the founders of such grand empires as Babylon,
Assyria, Persia, and old Greece? It is an insult to our un
derstanding, 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.”
* 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
(2.) The Scripture accounts of the increase of man n-holly
irreconcilable nith ea perience and history.
We shall confine our remarks under this head to three in
stances—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;* 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 disper
* 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.]
Increase of Man. 25
sion 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 Abra
ham. 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 ad
vanced 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 P
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 extra
ordinary 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 add
ing 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, some
what 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.” 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 in
stead 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 manage
able; but the writer of the Book of Exodus is responsible for
the larger numbers, and with them only are we concerned.t
(3.) The armies of the Jen's, 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 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.
f 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 l l 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 popu
lation of the world is somewhat more than 1,000 millions, 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.
Armies. 27
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
IHebrews, and more than three-fourths was desert. After the
division each kingdom was about the size of Norfolk and
Suffolk.3%
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 P
the 400,000 men under Abijah slew 500,000 of the enemy
with swords and bows | | +
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 French
men had slain 500,000 Prussians, should we believe it? Sup
pose 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
* The nominal limits of “the promised land ” were the Euphrates and Medi
terranean 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 princi
pality 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.
# 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 º smaller than either, and more than three-fourths of it was unin
habited | |
28 Scripture v. Earperience.
counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, but what are we told of its
army P
#éhronicles, 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 state
ments 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.” -
Incredible Statements. 29
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 suck
lings, 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 P Is it credible?
In the parallel account given in 2 Sam. x., 6, there is no men
tion 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 play
things 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 Sol
omon “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
Historic Errors. 31
sterling in gold. Truly the principality of Wales could

never compete in wealth with this Pactolus of a kingdom lº
Come we now to our last division.
PART III.
THE BIBLE IRRECONCILABLE WITH ITSELF.
We shall subdivide this head into two parts. Under the

first we will bring forward biblical blunders or misstatements,
and under the second positive contradictions.
The two former parts of this paper were concerned with the
dogma of general inspiration; this part looks to the verbal
inspiration of the Bible. There surely can be no safe mean
between verbal inspiration and no inspiration at all. Give
up the verbal inspiration and the wedge is introduced which
must inevitably destroy the whole dogma; but if one single
blunder can be pointed out, that one blunder will be fatal to
the notion of verbal inspiration.
As the errors of Scripture are very numerous, nothing like
an exhaustive list can be included in a small pamphlet like
this, but every end will be served by the instances subjoined,
which we have arranged in groups, for the purpose of preserv
ing something like order.
(a.) Historical Errors.
2 Sam. xxi., 8.
The first example we would bring forward refers to Saul's
daughter Michal, who is called in the book of Samuel “the
wife of Adriel.” Now, Adriel did not marry Michal (Saul's
youngest daughter), but Merab. Michal married first David
and then Phalti.
This will be evident by a reference to 1 Sam. xviii., 19, 27,
* 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 money instanter,
but the king of a little territory considerably smaller than Belgium managed to
raise that sum thirty-five times over.
32 Scripture Errors.
where it is said: “When Merab, Saul's daughter, should
have been given to David, she was given to Adriel to wife.
And Michal, Saul's daughter, loved David; and Saul gave
him Michal, his daughter, to wife.”
During the persecution, David fled from the presence of the
king, and Saul then “gave Michal to another husband,
whose name was Phalti” (1 Sam. xxv., 44). It is, there
fore, an historical error to call Michal the “wife of Adriel.”
2 Chron. xv., 17.
Speaking of Asa, king of Judah, the chronicler says, his
“heart was perfect all his days, [but] the high places
were not taken away out of Israel.” Where Israel obviously
ought to be Judah. The kingdom of David was divided
into Judah and Israel, and Asa had nothing whatever to do
with the latter.
A similar blunder occurs in 2 Chron. xxi., 3, where Jeho
shaphat is called “the King of Israel,” whereas he was King
of Judah, as will appear evident from 1 Kings, xxii., 41,
where it is said “Jehoshaphat, son of Asa, began to reign
over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab, king of Israel.” (See
also 2 Chron. xxiii., 2.) -
And again, 2 Chron. xxviii., 27, we have the sam

error repeated; for, speaking of Ahaz, king of Judah, the
writer says, “they buried him in Jerusalem, but brought
him not into the sepulchres of the Kings of Israel,” meaning
the kings of Judah.
2 Chron. xxi., 12.
Here we have a very glaring error. Elijah is represented
as sending a threatening letter to Jehoram, king of Judah;
but the Tishbite had been “taken up to heaven in a chariot
of fire” during the reign of Jehoshaphat, Jehoram’s father;
and the prophet alluded to should be Elisha, and not Elijah.
The blunder arises from a confusion in the mind of the
chronicler between Jehoram king of Israel, and Jehoram
king of Judah. This will be understood by turning to
2 Kings, viii., 20, where the revolt of the Edomites, which
preceded the “threatening letter,” is narrated. The trans
lation of Elijah is given six chapters further back, viz.
2 Kings, ii., 11.
Matt. xxvii., 9.
The writer is speaking of Judas, who returned the money?
casting it down before the priests. This money was used for
Erroneous Figures. 33
the purchase of a field to bury strangers in, and the Evan

gelist adds: “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by
Jeremy the prophet, saying : “They took the 30 pieces of
silver . . . . and gave them for the potter’s field.’”
These are not the words of Jeremiah at all, but of Zecha
riah. (xi., 12, 18.)
Mark ii., 26.
Here we have an historical error made by Christ himself.
The disciples had been blamed for plucking ears of corn on
the Sabbath day; whereupon Jesus retorted—“Have ye not
read what David did when he had need and was an hungered
. . . . how he went into the house of God in the days of
Abiathar, the High Priest, and did eat the shew bread?”
The High Priest alluded to was not Abiathar, but Ahimelech.
The account will be found 1 Sam. xxi., 1–6. “Then came
David to Nob, to Ahimelech the [Highj Priest . . . and
said to him . . . give me [the] five loaves [under thine
hand] . . . And the priest answered . . . “There is
no common bread under mine hand, but [only] the hallowed
bread, . . . So the priest gave him [the] hallowed
bread.”
Acts, vii., 15, 16.

Here again we have an unpardonable historical error. The
writer says: “So Jacob died, and our fathers, and were
carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that
Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor.”
This was not Abraham, but Jacob. Abraham bought of
Ephron the Hittite, the field of Machpelah (see Gen. xxiii.,
16, &c.); it was Jacob who bought the “parcel of a field at
the hand of the children of Hamor [Emmor], Shechem’s
father, for 100 pieces of money.” (Gen. xxxiii., 19; and
Joshua, xxiv., 82.)
(b.) Erroneous figures.

These are so numerous it is universally allowed that no
dependence is to be placed upon them; but the instances
subjoined are sufficiently striking, and in any book except the
Bible would be termed errors.
Joshua, xv., 21-32.

Here the writer says that twenty-nine cities towards the
coast of Edom were awarded to the tribe of Judah, and he
D
gives the names; but if any one will count the names set
down he will find they amount to thirty-eight.
The enumeration occupies twelve verses, two of which contain four names,
and the other ten verses three each.
Judges, xii., 6.
This is a very gross error or exaggeration. The writer says
that 42,000 Ephraimites were slain atthe passage of the Jordan,
because they “could not frame to pronounce” the word
Shibboleth aright. By turning to the census (Numbers, xxvi.,
37) it will be seen that the entire population of the tribe was
only 82,500, and by comparing this census with the previous
one it will be further seen that the tribe of Ephraim was on
the decrease, but even in its palmiest days it never amounted
to 42,000. (See Numbers, i., 33.)
2 Sam., xv., 7.
Here we have the tale of Absalom's revolt. Having mur
dered his half-brother Amnon, he fled to Gesher, the court of
his grandfather; but after the lapse of three years he was per
mitted to return to Jerusalem, on condition that he kept away
from court for two years. At the expiration of this time he be
came reconciled to the aged king, and “tarried forty years,”
when he revolted.
This of course is a blunder. The whole reign of David was
only forty years, and this was towards its close. Probably
“forty years ” should be forty days, but the correction is
only a guess, and the text is responsible for the mistake.
1 Chron., i., 13-15.
The First Book of Chronicles begins with a genealogy from
Adam down to David. The subject occupies several chapters,
but any attempt to reconcile the numerous genealogies of
Scripture is quite hopeless. Let any one, for example, take
the two tables of Matthew and Luke, and it will presently
appear how little they correspond; or take the genealogy of
Simeon given in Gen., xlvi., 10, and 1 Chron., iv., 24, and
compare them together; or that of the sons of Benjamin
given in Gen., xlvi., 21; 1 Chron., vii., 6; and 1 Chron., viii.,
1. In Genesis his sons are said to be ten, in Chron., vii.,
they are three, in Chron., viii., they are five.
1 Chron., ii., 14.
One would have thought that no diversity could possibly
exist respecting David, the favourite king; but what is the
fact? The Bible writers agree neither respecting his father's

family nor his own.
The reference given above states David to be “the seventh
son of Jesse;” but in 1 Sam., xvi., 10, 11, he is represented to
be the eighth son. The writer says, “Jesse made seven of
his sons pass before Samuel; and Samuel said: Are these all
thy children P and (Jesse answered) there remaineth yet the
youngest, and he keepeth the sheep.”
Similarly, in regard to the sons of David, compare 1
Chron., iii., 6-8, and 1 Chron., xiv., 5-7, with 2 Sam., v.,
15-16. If anyone had known about David one would sup
pose that Samuel would have been that man, but Samuel says
only seven sons were born to David in Jerusalem, whereas the
chronicler says he had nine, viz., (1) Ibhar, (2) Elishua, (3)
ELIPHELET, (4) Nogah, (5) Nepheg, (6) Japhia (7), Elishama,
(8) Eliada, (9) ELIPHELET. It will be seen that the name
Eliphelet occurs twice in the Book of Chronicles but only once
in the book of Samuel. The other name omitted by the pro
phet is Nogah.
Now we are upon the subject of genealogy we would direct
attention to two other examples. In 1Chron., iii., 22, we read
that the “sons of Shemaiah [were] Hattush, Igeal, Bariah,
Neariah, and Shaphat, six;” but only five names are given,
so that “six” should have been five.
The other example is 1 Chron., vii., 14-15, compared with
Numbers, xxvii., 1. The chronicler says: The children of
Manasseh were first Ashriel, and “the name of the second
was Zelophehad, who had daughters;” but the author of the
book of Numbers says Zelophehad was the “son of Hepher,
the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh,”
and that no mistake may possibly exist respecting the
Zelophehad referred to, the writer expressly mentions that it
was the Zelophehad who had “the daughters.” (See verse 7.)
1 Chron., vi., 57-60.
Here the chronicler enumerates the cities given to Aaron,
and says: “All their cities were 18;” but according to the
list subjoined the number should have been eleven.
2 Chron., xxi., 20.
We are told that Jehoram at death was 40 years old. “He
was 32 when he began to reign, and reigned eight years.”
Next chapter [xxii., 2] we are told that his son, who imme
diately succeeded him, was 42 years old when he began to
reign; so that Ahaziah was two years older than his father.
What makes the blunder worse is this: Ahaziah was the
youngest of several children [2 Chron., xxi., 17*]; but the
blunders do not end even here, for we are furthermore in
formed [2 Chron., xxii., 8] that Jehu “slew the Princes of
Judah [even] the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah,” i.e., the
grandsons of Jehoram. The number thus slain was 42 [2
Kings, x., 13-14], only the author of the book of Kings does
not call them "grandsons, but “brethren of Ahaziah.”
Let whichever of these records be accepted, the error is
equally palpable. If the princes slain by Jehu were the
brothers of Ahaziah, then Jehoram, who died at the age of
40, had 43 sons, the youngest of which was 42 years old at
his father's death. If, on the other hand, the princes referred
to were the grandchildren of Jehoram, then had he 42 grand
sons at the age of 40.
2 Chron., xxviii., 7.
This is another example similar to the one above. Zichri,
we are told, was “a mighty man of Ephraim,” and he “slew
Maaseiah, the son of king Ahaz.” In the 1st verse of the
chapter we are informed that “Ahaz was 20 years old when
he began to reign, and he reigned 16 years;” so that his age
at death was 36, and he was succeeded by Hezekiah, his son.
The next chapter [2 Chron., xxix, 1] opens thus—“Heze
kiah began to reign when he was 25 years old;” so that Ahaz
at the age of 20, had at least two sons, one of which was
grown to man's estate, and the other was half the age of his
father. We read of early marriages, but it is most unusual
for any father to have a son at the early age of four or five,
and it is more likely that the chronicler is in error than that
such an event should be rigidly true.
2 Chron., xxxiv., 1.
A similar statement is made respecting Josiah, who had
four sons, and at least two wives before he was 16. His four
sons were Johanan, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, and Shallum
1 Chron., iii., 15]. Shallum, his youngest son, succeeded
im [Jer. xxii., 11]; this young man was also called Jehoahaz,
if the author of the book of Chronicles may be relied on
[2 Chron., xxxvi., 2].
He was 23 years old at his father’s death, and as Josiah
died at the age of 39, Shallum was born when his father was
16 [2 Chron., xxxiv., 1]. He reigned only three months, and
* Ahaziah was also called Jehoahaz and Azariah.
was then succeeded by Jehoiakim, an elder brother, who was

25 years old [2 Kings, xxiii., 30]; so that Josiah was only 14
when his second son was born. His eldest son Johanan must
have been above 26 years of age, and this would make Josiah
under 13 at the birth of his first-born.
Now, the age of hundreds of persons have been given in
the Bible, but no single example can be found to induce a
belief that the Jews were precocious fathers. We never find
it said that so and so was 4 or 5, 10 or 12 years old, and
begat sons and daughters. The age stated is about the same
as with ourselves, and there is every reason to believe that
the instances referred to above are oversights.
Ezra i..., 7–11.
This shall be the last example under this division of our
subject, though far more remains behind than we have here
brought under notice. -
In this passage Ezra gives the number of gold and silver

vessels restored by Cyrus. They are the sacred vessels car
ried by Nebuchadnezzar into Babylon, and the number re
stored is estimated at 5,400; but the articles specified amount
to only 2,499. There were 30 gold chargers, and 30 gold
basins, 1,000 silver chargers, with 1,000 other vessels in silver,
410 silver basins, and 29 knives. The deficiency, therefore,
is 2901.
This miscalculation is sufficiently strange, but the state
ment becomes infinitely more astounding when we read the
account given us in the book of Kings respecting the spolia
tion of these vessels [2 Kings, xxiv., 13]. It is said that
Nebuchadnezzar “cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which
Solomon had made.” This was in the reign of Coniah or
Jehoiachin.
In the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar, in the reign of Zede
kiah the captain of the Babylonian army “broke in pieces *
the brazen vessels, but took the brass; and he broke in pieces
the gold and silver vessels, but took the gold and silver with
him to Babylon. So that the gold and silver vessels were
twice reduced to metal [2 Kings, xxv., 13-16]. Jeremiah
[lii., 17-23] enters into minute details.
These vessels seem to have possessed a wonderful re
creative power. They were always being taken away to
supply a temporary want of money, yet were always in the
temple ready for a new spoliation.
(1) Shishak, king of Egypt, in the 5th year of king Reho
boam, “took away the treasures of the house of the Lord ;
he even took away all; and he took away all the shields of
gold which Solomon had made” [1 Kings, xiv., 25–26].
(2) Asa followed the example of Shishak, for he also “took
all the silver and gold left in the treasures of the house of the
Lord ” to give to Benhadad king of Syria. [1 Kings, xv., 18.]
(3) Jehoash, king of Judah, could not take away Solomon’s
vessels of gold and silver, because they were gone already,
but he “took all the hallowed things that Jehoshaphat,
Jehoram, and Ahaziah had dedicated, and his own hallowed
things, and all the gold found in the treasures of the house
of the Lord . . . . and sent it to Hazael king of Syria. [2
Kings, xii. 18.]
(4) Jehoash, king of Israel, also “took all the gold and
silver, and all the vessels found in the house of the Lord,” and
returned to Samaria with his spoils. [2 Kings, xiv., 14.]
(5) Ahaz, king of Judah, wanted money, and followed the
example of his predecessors, for he also “took the silver and
the gold found in the house of the Lord,” and sent it to the
king of Assyria. [2 Kings, xvi., 8.]
(6) We have not to tarry long before we come to Hezekiah,
who “gave the king of Assyria all the silver found in the
house of the Lord,” and “cut off the gold from the doors
and pillars to give to the king of Assyria.” [2 Kings, xviii.,
15-16.]
(7) Once more the temple was spoiled, before we come to
the final spoliations by the king of Babylon, in the 8th year
of Jehoiachim king of Judah. This has been alluded to
already.
It will be observed that it is not always said that the vessels
were taken out of the temple, but in several of the spoliations
it is said simply that the treasures were taken out of the house
of the Lord; by turning, however, to 1 Kings, vii., 51, it will
be seen that the “treasures” include the vessels, for we are
told that “the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, did
Solomon put among the treasures of the house of the Lord.”
Hence Shishak took away all the treasures of the temple,
all the silver and the gold and the vessels that Solomon had
placed there. If all in this case means less than all we have
Asa to follow, who took away “all that was left.” Jehosha
phat, Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Jehoash, made new vessels and
hallowed things, but Jehoash gave all these to Hazael king
of Syria; and though all the treasures were given away already,
the king of Israel makes a raid on the temple and carries off
Misstatements. 39
to Samaria “all the vessels” both of silver and of gold; Ahaz

does the same ; Hezekiah takes all the silver vessels and cuts
off all the gold ornaments of the doors and pillars. After this
comes Nebuchadnezzar, who finds all the vessels of Solomon
somehow still treasured in the temple, and seizing on them he
cuts them to pieces, but they are not yet destroyed nor even
lost, for some 10 or 11 years afterwards Nebuzzar-adan, cap
tain of the guard of the king of Babylon, lays his hand on the
Sacred vessels, and took them “in gold and in silver” to Nebu
chadnezzar. Ezra tells us the number amounted to 5400, but
how they could be given to so many, cut to pieces and repaired,
sent to Assyria, Samaria, and Syria, yet be all wonderfully
found safe and sound in a temple in Babylon, is, to say the
least, past understanding. Come we now to another class of
errorS.
(c.) Misstatements.
Exod. vi., 3.
God is represented as saying: “I appeared unto Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, by the name God Almighty [El Shadday],
but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.”
Now the name Jehovah occurs over and over again in the
Book of Genesis, and has given rise to the Jehovistic and
Elohistic controversy, made familiar to English readers by
Bishop Colenso. Abraham, we are told, built an altar to
Jehovah near Bethel [Gen. xii. 8.], and another in Hebron
[Gen. xiii., 18.] but stranger still, when the sacrifice of Isaac
was stopped, the patriarch called the spot Jehovah-Jireh [Gen.
xxii. 14]. How could he call it so, if the very name Jehovah
was unknown to him?
Exod. xvii., 8-13.

The children of Israel had scarcely entered the “wilder
derness” when the Amalekites came to oppose them. A
severe battle ensued, in which the Israelites were at first
worsted, but ultimately the foe was “put to the sword.”
The whole history leads to the belief that the people left
Egypt unarmed. They were slaves, and it is not at all likely
that Pharaoh would have suffered 600,000 slaves to carry
swords. It is very true that our English version says “the
children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt”
[Exod. xiii., 18.], but the marginal reading is “by five in a
rank,” which seems the more probable. No time was given
for preparation, for the people were “urgent to send them
away in haste,” they had not even time to prepare food before
they left, but “took their dough before it was leavened ’’
[Exod. xii., 34]. Having crossed the Red Sea, they would
have no opportunity of procuring swords, so that this battle
must remain a mystery.
1 Sam. xvii., 54.
Here we are told that David, having cut off the head of
Goliath, “carried it to Jerusalem.” How could this be, seeing
that Jerusalem at the time was in the hand of the Jebusites,
and did not fall into the hand of the Israelites till several
years afterwards? When David slew the giant he was a mere
stripling, say 15 or 16 years of age, but when he took Jeru
salem from the Jebusites he was above 30. [2 Sam. v., 6.]
2 Sam. vii., 12, 13, 16.
The prophet Nathan is commanded by God to say that the
Lord “will set up his seed after him, and establish the
kingdom of David for ever ;” and again “thine house and
thy kingdom,” says Nathan, “shall be established for ever,
thy throne shall be established for ever.” What is the fact?
Solomon reigned 40 years, but towards the close of his
reign, sat on a very tottering throne; no sooner did Reho
boam succeed than 10 parts out of 12 revolted; and in 380
years more the kingdom of Judah had ceased to exist; so
that the repeated promise of Nathan that the kingdom should
endure for ever proved altogether a failure.
Jeremiah, xxxv., 18, 19.
Precisely the same promise was made to the Rechabites,
with precisely the same results: “Thus saith the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel, because ye have obeyed the com
mandment of Jonadab your father [to drink no wine], Jona
dab, the son of Rechab, shall not want a man to stand before
me for ever.” Great efforts have been made to show that the
Rechabites still exist; but I apprehend that few scholars will
place any reliance on the conflicting accounts. Brett pro
fesses they are in Hungary; Niebuhr says they are in Medina;
the “Bible Cyclopaedia” asserts that they live in Mecca; the
missionary Wolff maintains that they live near Jerusalem;
Signor Pierotti affirms that he found them in the vicinity of
the Dead Sea.
Misstatements. 41
1 Kings, xxii., 19–23; 2 Chron. xviii., 22.

We are here told that God himself sent lying spirits into
His prophets, not by way of punishment, but in order to mis
lead; so that, admitting certain books to have been written by
prophets, and even that God sent His “spirit” to inspire them,
it by no means follows that the books are worthy of credit.
It is not enough to be a prophet, it is not enough to be moved
by the spirit, it is not enough that the spirit comes from God,
we must ourselves decide the all important question whether
the spirit is a “ lying spirit” or the “spirit of truth.” The
two kings Ahab and Jehoshaphat enquired of the prophets
whether or not they should make war against the Syrians,
400 prophets agreed in the answer, go, for “the Lord will de
liver them into your hands.” Nothing could be plainer,
nothing more decisive; but Michaiah says, don’t believe the
prophets, “for the Lord has put a lying spirit into all their
mouths” to compass the destruction of the two kings. Here
were 400 who said “go,” and one who said “no,” the pro
phets have been deceived by a spirit of falsehood. Is it at all
credible that the God of truth would employ spirits of untruth
to go upon his missions? How can it be said that God abhors
lies when he employs lying spirits as his ministers? But,
without doubt, the lying prophet is recognised in Scripture,
for besides these 400 we have the lamentable tale of the old
prophet of Bethel, who told the prophet of Judah to go home
with him, declaring that the Lord had sent him, but “he
lied,” and the prophet of Judah was slain by a lion for trust
ing the word of his brother prophet [1 Kings, xiii., 18]. There
is an inconsistency in all this revolting to common sense; and
so, indeed, is there in the notion of the parliament referred to
in the book of Job [ii., 1], “there is a day when the sons of
God present themselves before Jehovah, and Satan is present
amongst them,” and God speaks to Satan and employs him
to do His bidding. Paul says there is no fellowship between
God and Belial, light and darkness, and he is right.
2 Kings, iii., 15–20.
Elisha said to the king of Israel, “The Lord will deliver
the Moabites into your hands,” and that Israel should smite
“every fenced city of Moab, and every choice city.” None of
this prophecy came true, and why? Because the king of
Moab, when “he saw the battle was too sore for him, sacri
ficed his eldest son on the wall for a burnt offering.” The
Israelites, seeing this, were panic struck, fled, and left the
prophecy unfulfilled [see verses 26, 27].
2 Chron. xvi., 1.
There is some great mistake here. “In the thirty-sixth
year of the reign of Asa,” says the chronicler, “Baasha, King
of Israel, came up against Judah, and built Ramah;” but
what says the book of Kings? “In the third year of
Asa, King of Judah, began Baasha to reign over Israel, and
he reigned twenty-four years” [1 Kings, xv., 33]; if this latter
statement is correct Baasha died in the twenty-seventh year
of the reign of Asa, and could not have waged war against
him nine years afterwards.
Dan. i., 1.
The writer says that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, laid
siege to Jerusalem in the third year of Jehoiakim; but Jeremiah
says [xxv., 1.] that the fourth year of Jehoiakim was the first
of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. So that he was not king at all
in the “3rd year of Jehoiakim.”
Matt., i., 17.
Matthew says, “all the generations from Abraham to David
are fourteen; and from David to the captivity are fourteen;
and from the captivity to the birth of Christ are fourteen.”
This is true in no sense. The “periods” are quite unequal
in length; the “genealogies" are not alike in number; and
fourteen in no case is correct. According to Bible chronology
the first period was 911 years, the second 497, and the third
584. -
- John, i., 18.

The evangelist says—“No man hath seen God at any time;”
similarly we read in Exodus [xxxiii., 20), “There shall no man
see my face and live.” How does this agree with Gen. xxxii.,
24–30, where Jacob is said to have wrestled all night with
a mysterious being, and “called the name of the place Peniel,
for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”
Sarah also “looked upon God” when she was told that her
husband would have a son [Gen. xvi., 13]. Moses, Aaron,
Nadab, and Abihu, with the 70 elders of Israel “ saw the God
of Israel . . . they saw God, and did eat and drink.”
[Exod. xxiv., 9–11]. Moses, was on two occasions 40 days
with God, and saw his “similitude,” and spake to him “mouth
to mouth" [Numbers, xii., 8]. Numerous other instances will
occur to every reader; if anything is revealed in Scripture
more positively than another, it is that God has appeared to
Misstatements. 43
many, from Adam to John, talked to them familiarly, and they

have lived.
John, xxi., 25.

John says, “There are also many other things which Jesus
did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose
that even the world itself could not contain the books that
should be written.” I will not go this length respecting the
mis-statements and errors of Scripture; but it would be no
exaggeration to say, if all were written down, this pamphlet
would not contain them.
*** We will conclude this part of our subject nith one, or two
errors of a different sort. -
Deut. i., 1.
The writer says—“These are the words which Moses spake
to all Israel on this side Jordan, in the plain over against the
Red Sea.”
At the time he was as near Jordan, and about as far from
the Red Sea as he well could be. The expression “On this side
Jordan” means in this verse east of the river, but after the
Israelites had come into the lot of their inheritance, “this side
Jordan” meant west of the river, and east of it was called
“beyond Jordan” [Joshua, ix., 1,10].
Judges, vii., 3.
This is another geographical error. It is stated that Gideon
ordered it to be proclaimed throughout his host that all who
had no stomach for the pending fight with the Midianites
were at liberty to depart early from Mount Gilead.
Now, the encampment of Gideon was in the valley of Jez
reel, west of the Jordan; whereas Mount Gilead is beyond
Jordan, far away from the site of the battle.
2 Chron. xx., 35-37.
This is a third example of geographical confusion, similar to
those marvellous blunders of old Homer. . The chronicler says
that Jehoshaphat built ships in “Ezion-gaber to go to
Tarshish.” Ezion-gaber was a harbour in the Red Sea, and
Tarshish is generally supposed to be Tartessus, the famous
Phoenician emporium near the mouth of the Guadalquiver,
and not far from the modern Cadiz. It was far more than the
navigators of Jewry could have accomplished to sail from the
Red Sea to Spain, and certainly Jehoshaphat would not have
chosen that harbour for building ships for the Mediter
I’d Ilearl.
Prov. vi., 6-8; xxx., 25.

Solomon says: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard—which pro
videth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the
harvest.” No doubt it was a vulgar error of very wide diffu
sion that ants feed upon corn, and lay up a store of grain in
harvest time for winter use. Pliny, AElian, Ovid, Virgil,
Horace,” and several in our own country, have endorsed the
instruction of Solomon, but what is the real fact? In the
first place, ants are dormant in winter; and in the next place,
they do not feed upon corn, but chiefly on animal food. What
Solomon and others supposed to be grains of corn are in
reality the cocoons which they bring out of their nests in
fine weather to air, and after they have exposed them to the
sun they carry them back again. Efforts have been made to
prove that there is a species of ant which lives on grain; but
even if such could be found, it is not the exception, but the
rule which must characterise the animal. No one would say
to a person, you are “white as a rose,” or “black as a
cherry;” though there are white roses and black cherries. In
all proverbial expressions and general allusions, the ordinary
character is referred to, and not the exceptions.
Matt. xiii., 31, 32; Mark, iv., 31, 32.
Jesus said: “A grain of mustard-seed . . . is the
least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest
among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the
air come and lodge in the branches thereof.”
It is not correct that the “grain of mustard is the least of
all seeds.” Many seeds are smaller, as that of the foxglove
and tobacco plant; nor is it correct that mustard anywhere
grows into a tree, “so that the birds of the air come and
lodge in the branches thereof.”
The exaggeration in the corresponding verse of the second
Gospel is even greater than that of Matthew. Mark says:
“It is less than [any of] the seeds that be sown in the
earth . . . but becometh greater than all herbs, and
shooteth out great branches.”
* See Virgil, Geor. i., 184, 185; Æneid, iv., 402–406; Horace, Satires, bl. i.,
s. i., 33 &c.
Misstatements. 45
Here, again, critics have come forward to prove that the

mustard seed of the text was not mustard seed, but some
thing else. Some one fancies he has discovered a seed which
better answers the description, and says Jesus did not mean
mustard, but the seed of the critic. Such puerile defence
does more harm than good. Moses did not mean “six days.”
by six days; Joshua did not mean that the “sun was to stand
still,” when he commanded it so to do; Solomon did not mean
“ants” by ants; nor Jesus, “mustard-seed ” by mustard seed.
In fact, words have no meaning, but may be fitted with a
sliding scale to fit the wishes and knowledge of every reader.
The dishonesty of this practice is palpable, and any system
which needs such shoring should be suffered to fall through its
own weakness.
1 Chron. iv., 17; and 1 Chron. vii., 14.

Being on the subject of blunders, we would commend our
readers to the two verses referred to above—“The sons of
Ezra were Jether, Mered . . and Jalon; and she bare
Miriam, Shammai, and Ishbah.”
Again. “The sons of Manasseh [were] Ashriel, whom she
bare . . . and the name of the second was Zelophehad.”
I know not if the reader can understand these verses; I must
candidly confess I am wholly unable to attach any meaning
whatever to them.
Another puzzle will be seen in Ecclesiastes, vii., 27–29, but
probably the translation is in great measure responsible for
the obscurity of this passage. The preacher says: “Behold,
this have I found, counting one by one to find out the account;
which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a
thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I
not found.” It would be no easy matter to make out what
the preacher “has found,” which requires such a blowing of
trumpets. The original Hebrew may throw some light upon
his meaning, but I am certain that if any candidate for the
civil service had written those verses, no examiner would
commend their perspicuity.
PART III.-SECOND DIVISION.
SCRIPTURE CONTRADICTS SCRIPTURE.
In the former part of this division numerous examples

have been brought together to prove that the scope of Scrip
46 Scripture v. Scripture.
ture in one place is not reconcilable with the statement given
in another; it now remains to go one step further, and show
that one Scripture positively contradicts another. In the
former part the passages alluded to are obviously in error; in
this part one text will be contrasted with another contradic
tory text, but it will not be possible to pronounce which is
right, or whether both are not equally in fault. It will suffice
in many cases simply to set one statement against another
statement in separate columns, and leave the reader to form
his own judgment; but in some few instances a remark or
two will be given to point out the scope of the error to which
attention is directed.
Gen. vi., 19, 20. Gen. vii., 2.

The direction given by God to This plain, positive direction is
Noah was—“Of every living altered in the very next chap
thing of all flesh, two of every ter, and a distinction is made
sort shalt thou bring into the between clean and unclean ani
ark . . they shall be male mals: “Of every clean beast
and [its] female; of fowls after thou shalt take to thee by sevens,
their kind, and of cattle after the male and his female.”
their kind, of every creeping Seven pairs (or 14 animals) is a
thing of the earth after his a very wide deviation from the
kind, two of every sort shall direction, two only of every
come unto thee to keep them sort shall be taken into the ark
alive.” to keep them alive.
Nothing can be more explicit.
It is even expressly said that
the cattle were not to exceed
two; it was to be two “ of all
flesh;” two of “every sort.”
Gen. xlvi., 27; Deut. x., 22. Acts, vii., 14.

In the books of Moses we are By what authority does the martyr
more than once told that all the Stephen increase this positive
souls of the house of Jacob assertion by the addition of five
which came into Egypt were more ? saying “all the kindred
“three score and ten.” [of Jacob which came into
Egypt] were three score and
15 souls.”
We read in Gen. xlvi., 26, that the number, exclusive of Joseph and his
two sons, who were already in Egypt, and of Jacob himself, the founder of the
race, “all the souls were three score and six ;” but including these four, the
number amounted to “three score and ten.” By adding together the names set
down in Gen. xlvi., 15, 18, 22, 25, it will be found that the number amounts to
70; the five, therefore, added by Stephen, had no existence.
Contradictory Teacts. 47
1 Sam., xxx., 1-10, 17. 1 Chron., xii., 20–22.

The Amalekites burnt Ziklag, How is this transaction recorded
and drove off the women as by the chronicler? When David
captives. Three days after reached Ziklag, eight captains
wards David and “his men." “of thousands' came to him,
came to the place and saw the and helped him against the
calamity which had befallen it. Amalekite raiders, and so many
David consulted the ephod, and men flocked to his standard to
was told to pursue the “rovers,” help him, that his army was
for he should not only overtake “a great host, like the host of
them, but should recover all God.”
that they had taken captive. Certainly it seems very improbable
that 400 men should be able to extir
“So David went, he and the
sia, hundred men that were with pate the whole army of the Amalekites
which must have been pretty numerous,
him, and came to the brook seeing 400 men mounted on camels
Besor.” Here David left be managed to escape ; but these 400 are
hind 200 of the men, and with spoken of as mere ciphers, for David
and his men slew all the whole army,
the remaining 400 overtook the except these [few) young men who
spoilers, and extirpated them, were on camels.
for “he smote them from the
twilight even unto the evening
of the next day, and there
escaped not a man of them,
save 400 who fled on camels.”
2 Sam., ii., 10. 2 Sam., ii., 11.

Ishbosheth, the rival king of In the very next verse we are in
David, is said to have reigned formed that David reigned seven
two years; and during these years and a half over Judah
two years, David reigned over only, during all which time
Judah only. Ishbosheth reigned over the
rest of the tribes.
2 Sam., viii., 4, 5. 1 Chron., xviii., 4.

David, says the writer of this In the corresponding passage re
book, took from Hadadezer, (?) corded in the book of Chron
King of Zobah, 1,000 chariots, icles, we are told that the number
and seven hundred horsemen, of horsemen was not 700, but
and 22,000 footmen. seven thousand. The name of the
king is here called Hadarezer.
2 Sam., x., 6, 18. 1 Chron., xix., 18.
Hadarezer hired 33,000 Syrians In the book of Chronicles David
to oppose David ; but David is said to have slain seven
came against the allied army thousand men, which fought in
and “ slew seven hundred chariots, and forty thousand
chariots of the Syrians, and footmen.
forty thousand horsemen.”
2 Sam., xxiv., 9. 1 Chron., xxi., 5.
The “fighting men" at the close In the book of Chronicles the
of David's reign are stated in number of fighting men is even
the book of Samuel to have been more astounding. It is given
1,300,000 (!); of these 800,000 as 1,570,000; of which
were of Israel, and 500,000 of 1,100,000 belonged to Israel,
Judah. and 470,000 to Judah.

When David numbered the peo According to Chronicles, the
ple, a choice of three evils choice was : three years of
was given him. According to famine, and not seven.
Samuel, the evils were : seven
years of famine, three months
pursuit by his enemies, or three
days' pestilence.
In the book of Samuel, David is In the book of Chronicles, he is
said to have given to Arau said to have given for it 600
nah for the threshing-floor fifty shekels of gold [#547 10s.].
shekels of silver [45 13s.6d.].
1 Kgs., vii., 26. 2 Chron., iv., 5.
According to the book of Kings, According to the book of Chron
Solomon's brazen laver held icles, it held 3,000 baths [about
2,000 baths [15,000 gallons]. 22,500 gallons]. -
2 Kgs., viii., 26. 2 Chron., xxii., 2.

The writer of the book of Kings We are here informed that Aha
tells us that Ahaziah was 22 ziah was 42 when he began to
years old when he began to reign, and not 22. Both agree
reign, and he reigned one year. . in the length of his reign.
2. Kgs., xiv., 7. 2 Chron., xxv., 11-12.
In the book of Kings, Amaziah In the book of Chronicles he is
is said to have slain 10,000 said to have slain twice that
Edomites in the Valley of Salt. number: 10,000 he smote, and
10,000 he cast down from the
top of a rock, whereby “they
were all broken in pieces” (!)
2. Kgs., xxiv., 8. 2 Chron., xxxvi., 9.
The author of the book of Kings The author of the book of Chron
tells us that “Jehoiachin was icles says that “Jehoiachin was
eighteen years old when he be eight years old when he began
gan to reign, and [he] reigned to reign, and he reigned three
in Jerusalem three months.” months and ten days in Jeru
salem.”
1 Chron., xxii., 14. 1 Chron., xxix., 4.

David, we are here told, be In this chapter the bequest is
queathed to Solomon for the stated to have been only 3,000
temple the fabulous sum of talents of gold, and 7,000 of
100,000 talents of gold, and a silver. This would amount to
million talents of silver. In £166,650,000 English money.
English money this would be A good round sum for a petty
seven thousand million sterling state not bigger than Yorkshire,
(say 7,000,000,000 l). - but still considerably reduced
from that given in the previous
record.
2 Chron. iii., 15. Jeremiah lii., 21, 22.

According to the chronicler the Jeremiah tells us the shaft of
height of the two pillars made by each was only 18 cubits high. He
Solomon for the temple was 35 agrees in the height of the
cubits in the shaft, on which was chapiter (five cubits). According
a chapiter of five cubits. Alto to Jeremiah the entire height was
gether about 80 feet !! about 40 feet, or half that of the
chronicler.
Jeremiah lii., 28–30. Ezra ii., 64.

The “prophet” informs us that Ezra states that of the captives
the total number of captives taken taken to Babylon only 42,360 were
from Judah to Babylon was only willing to return. All the rest pre
4,600. A modest number enough, ferred to remain where they were.
compared with the number of fight No doubt Ezra would give us to
ing men, which averaged 300,000, understand that more remained in
according to the Bible historians. Babylon than went up to the land
of their fathers.
The “prophet” has made a mistake in his sum. The three captivities were
3,320 + 832 + 745=4,897, not 4,600. One is puzzled to understand how 4,000
captives should have so stripped the kingdom as to leave it a wilderness; we find
hundreds of thousands falling in a single battle without exhausting the country
at all.
Matt. xvii., 1–2. Luke ix., 28.

Here we read “After six days Luke says “About an eight days
Jesus taketh Peter, James, and after . . . . he took Peter, John,
John, and bringeth them up into and James, and went up into a
a high mountain . . . . and was’ mountain, and was transfigured.”
transfigured before them.”
Mark vi., 40. Luke ix., 14.
Mark says of the 5000 who were Luke says that Jesus directed
fed with five barley loaves and two his disciples “to make them sit
fishes: “They sat down in ranks, down by fifties in a company.”
by hundreds and by fifties.”
These last two examples are not very weighty, but in a book which professes to
be inspired, and demands unreserved and unconditional belief, we expect minute
E
accuracy. The argument we advance is accumulative. Probably no book of good
reputation has so many contradictory passages as the Bible; the examples re
ferred to in this pamphlet form but a small part of what might be brought for
ward, if we allowed ourselves a larger space.
The examples given above are more or less connected with

figures. The rest of the examples to be stated are independ
ent of such sources of error. A few shall be given in detail
and others in parallel columns.
Gen., i., 27.
Adam and Eve, we are here told, were created on the sixth
day. The words are quite explicit, “male and female created
he them, and God blessed them . . . and the evening and the
morning were the sixth day.”
We are little prepared to hear in the very next chapter
that God did not create them a male and female on the sixth
day, and of course did not bless them. What is still more
strange is that the chapter opens with the words: “Thus the
heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them,
and on the seventh day God ended his work which he had
made.” -
According to v. 21 we find that God did not rest from his

work at the close of the sixth day, nor was his work ended,
nor was woman yet made; for after this “rest,” or during this
“sabbath,” we are not told which, Adam being thrown into
a deep sleep, one of his ribs was abstracted, and out of this
rib was Eve made.
- Gen., iv. 14.

After Cain had killed his brother Abel he was “driven by
God from the face of the earth;” and Cain said: “My
punishment is greater than I can bear . . . I shall be a
fugitive and a vagabond in the earth, and it shall come to
pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me.”
One would suppose from this that the world was populated
at the time, and not that Cain was the first-born of the
human race.
Gen., xlix., 10.

“The sceptre shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh
come.” We are told that Shiloh [the peaceful one] means
“the son of peace,” the Messiah, Jesus Christ. If so, how
thoroughly did facts contradict this prophecy. Judah had no
sceptre till David's time, 650 years after these words were
Contradictory Terts. 51
spoken; it held the sceptre 460 years, and it departed from

Judah 580 years before Shiloh came.
Exodus, xx.
The chapter contains the decalogue read in the Anglican
churches every Sunday morning. Moses broke the first pair
of stone tables, but having prepared two others Jehovah
“wrote upon them the words that were on the first tables.”
By comparing Exod. xxxiv. with Exod. xx., it will be found
that there is very little resemblance between the first and
second decalogue. Only three of the ten commandments
are at all alike, the other seven of the first pair of tables find
no counterpart in the second.
1 Sam., ix., 2.
Saul is called “a choice young man and a goodly,” yet had
he at the time a son in man’s estate.
1 Sam., xv., 7-20.

Saul positively affirms that he had “utterly destroyed all
the Amalekites, except Agag,” and him Samuel “hewed to
pieces.” Some twenty years after this extirpation, David is
appointed to destroy the very same people, and he also
“smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the
next day, and there escaped not a man of them, save 400
young men, which fled on camels.” (1 Sam. xxx., 17.) (See
also 1 Chron., iv., 41-48.)
1 Sam., xvi., 18.
When David was introduced to king Saul, he is described
as “a mighty valiant man, and a man of war;” but in the next
chapter he is called a “stripling unpracticed in arms,” and
unused to armour.
In the former of these two chapters (v. 21), he is repre
sented as Saul’s companion, who “stood before the king, and
Saul loved him greatly;” in the latter (xvii., 55, 56), he be
comes a stripling wholly unknown to the monarch and his
officers, for Saul asks Abner “whose son is this youth P and
Abner said, As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell. And
Saul said, Inquire whose son the stripling is.” Yet this strip
ling was a “mighty man of valour,” who had actually been
Saul’s “armour bearer” and beloved companion. He had
lived with Saul, had played to him in his moody fits, and
charmed away his ill-temper, had been a cause of jealousy to
the king, who had even tried to kill him, and yet neither Saul
nor Abner had ever seen him or known his name.
2 Sam., viii., 17.

The writer says there were two high priests during the
rebellion of David, one elected by Saul and the other by
David : they were, “Zadok son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech son
of Abiathar.”
If anyone will read the narrative with tolerable care he
will see that Ahimelech was dead, having been slain by Doeg
when he put the city of Nob to the sword (1 Sam. xxii., 18);
besides Ahimelech was not the son but the father of Abiathar,
(I Sam. xxii., 20; xxiii., 6), and the father of Ahimelech was
Ahitub, a “fact” repeated three times in as many verses, in
1 Sam. xxii., 9–12.
This blunder about Ahimelech has been copied into other
places, for example, 1 Sam. xx., 25; 1 Kings iv., 4; 1 Chron
icles xviii., 16, but there cannot be a shadow of doubt that
Abiathar, and not Ahimelech, was the high priest appointed
by David : first, because Abiathar fled to David for safety;
secondly, because he was the high priest during the entire
reign of David; and finally, because he was deposed by Solo
mon, who told him he would have put him to death if he
had not served before David. (1 Kings ii., 26.)
Jeremiah, xxii., 29, 30.
“O earth, earth, earth !” exclaims the prophet, “hear the
word of the Lord—Thus saith the Lord: Write ye this man
[Coniah] childless.”
According to 1 Chronicles, iii., 17, 18, Coniah, or Je-coniah
had eight sons, viz: Assir, Salathiel, Malchiram, Pedaiah,
Shenazar, Jecamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah.
Jeremiah, xxxvi., 30.
Jehovah told Jeremiah that Jehoiakim “should have none to
sit on the throne of David :” but we are told (2 Chronicles
xxxvi., 8) that his son succeeded him, and after his son his
brother.
Ezekiel, xxx., 13.

This and the two following chapters speak of the conquest
of Egypt by Babylon. The writer says that the country
should be made desolate from north to south, and that there
should be “no more a prince of Egypt.”
Not one word of this corresponds with the known history

of Egypt. Herodotus does not give the slightest hint of such
a calamity. Merchants frequented the country without in
terruption long after that, and if the people had been scat
tered, the cities utterly wasted for 40 years, and “no king had
succeeded to the throne,” it must have been known. The
silence of historians on this point is a most conclusive proof
that the logic of fact did not accord with the word of pro
phecy.
The same may be said of the Pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea. No history
confirms this tale, and no king of Egypt can be made to tally with the catas
trophe. But Egypt was not an insignificant kingdom like Judah, which no one
knew about ; it was the foremost kingdom of the world, and if one of its kings
had been drowned in the sea with all his host, some mention must have been
made thereof.
GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST.
Take another example. Both Matthew and Luke labour

to prove the genealogy of Christ from David. Luke traces
Joseph to Adam, through David (iii., 23–36), and Matthew
gives the descendants of David down to “Joseph, the
husband of Mary.” The object of both is to show that Jesus,
through Joseph, came in the direct line, and was therefore of
the lineage of David.
The interpolated miraculous conception, abandoned by
biblical scholars,” utterly stultifies the purpose of these pedi
grees. Matthew and Luke “prove” that Jesus was of the
lineage of David because Joseph, the husband of Mary, was
in the direct line. The miraculous conception goes to show
that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, and consequently that
Jesus was not of the line of David at all. Here, then, is a
dilemma:-if Jesus was the son of Joseph his divinity must be
given up; if he was not the son of Joseph, he was not of the line
of David, and his Messiahship must be given up.
By casting an eye over the two genealogies, it will be seen
that they differ in all points except at certain nodes, and the
usual answer is, that Luke's is the pedigree of Joseph, and
Matthew's that of Mary. But there is not the slightest in
dication of this difference in the Gospel text; both profess
to give the genealogy of Joseph. Matthew says, “Jacob
begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was
born” (i., 16); there cannot be a shadow of doubt that this
is meant for the pedigree of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
If not, the genealogy was that of Rahab the harlot, for verse
5 tells us that Boaz was the husband of Rahab, of whom
* See No. IX. of this Series.
Obed was born. So again in verse 6, Bathsheba is given
as the wife of David, and mother of Solomon. Luke
says (iii., 23), Jesus was [as was supposed] the son of
Joseph, the son of Heli; and does not even mention Mary.
The three words in brackets are a mere gloss, and could not
have been written by Luke, as they would destroy the very
thing he was trying to prove: Jesus was the son of Joseph,
Joseph of Heli, and Heli was a descendant of David, Abraham,
and Seth. If Jesus was not really the son of Joseph, why
trouble himself to show that Joseph was in the line of David,
Abraham, and Seth P
But it is quite evident that Matthew and Luke supposed
Jesus to be the son of Joseph. So did the neighbours of
Joseph and Mary, for they said (Matt. xiii., 55), “Is not this
the carpenter's son?” It never oozed out in his native
village that Mary’s son was other than her son in the usual
course of nature. Even Mary herself says to Jesus “thy
father and I have sought thee sorrowing” (Luke ii., 48);
Mary calls Joseph the father, and not the reputed father, of
Jesus, and never seems to have had a shadow of doubt about
it. So was it with the disciples; their adherence to Jesus
had nothing to do with his divinity. They none of them
ever hint at such a notion. Philip said to Nathaniel “We
have found him of whom Moses spoke, Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph” (John i., 45); not Jesus of Nazareth, the
son of Jehovah, but Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
All were anxious to prove his lineage from David, and none
cared to set aside so very important a point. Of course they
spoke of him as “Christ,” but Christ was merely an accepted
title for “ King of the theocracy,” and in order that Jesus
might be the “Christ,” it was absolutely essential that he
should be a descendant of David.* The interpolated legend of
the miraculous conception is a fatal blunder, and if accepted
mould utterly destroy the claim of Jesus to the Messiahship.
Gen., ii., 17. Gen., iii., 17–19.
The Lord God said to Adam, “ of Unto Adam God said, “Because
the tree of the knowledge of good thou hast eaten of the tree of
and evil thou shalt not eat of it; which I commanded thee not
for in the day that thou eatest to eat [not thou shalt surely die,
thereof thou shalt surely die.” but] in the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground.”
* Ut apud Persas Arsaces, apud Romanos Caesar, apud Egyptios Pharao,
ita apud Judaeos Christus communi nomine rex appellatur. Ps. Clem. Recog.
i., 45, p. 497.
Two things strike us in reading the latter passage: (1) Adam did not “surely
die” on the day he eat of the forbidden fruit ; and (2) there is not the slightest
hint to justify the common dogma that death was the penalty incurred by Adam,
but simply toil—toil till he died. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread
till thou return unto the ground.” -
On the subject of death it may be here remarked that the scripture makes
mention of thousands and hundreds of thousands, who are not to die at all. We
have the case of Enoch (Gen., v., 24), the case of Elijah (2 Kings, ii., 11), and
all the inhabitants of the earth who will be alive “at the last day ' (1 Corinthians,
xv., 51). Either death is not “the wages of sin,” or these persons are not of the
race of Adam. The “curse ’’ is not transmitted to them ; if not to them, why to
others? And what becomes of the dogma of Adam and Christ as federal heads?
The whole theory is utterly overturned.
1 Kings viii., 9; 2 Chron. v. 10. Hebrews ix., 4.

The historic books of the Old The writer of this book affirms
Testament agree in the fact that besides the tables of the
that there was “nothing in the covenant, there were in the ark
ark Save the two tables which “ the golden pot that had
Moses put therein at Horeb.” manna, and Aaron's rod that
budded.”
The pot of manna and Aaron's rod ought to have been in the ark, inasmuch
as Moses was told to place them there (Exod. xvi., 33, 34.; Numbers xvii., 10);
but this is only another instance of the inconsistency complained of.
1 Kings, xxii., 48, 49. 2 Chron. xx., 35, 36.

The writer tells us that “Jeho In the Book of Kings we are told
shaphat made ships of Tar that Jehoshaphat would not
shish [i. e. Spanish galleons] allow Ahaziah to join in the
to go to Ophir for gold. . . adventure to Ophir. The chro
Then said Ahaziah to Jehosha nicler says that “Jehoshaphat
phat, let my servants go with joined Ahaziah"in making these
thy servants in the ships, but galleons.
he would not.”
2 Kings, ix., 11-13. Hosea, i., 4.

The royal historian distinctly says Hosea says: “The Lord said I
that Jehu was expressly raised will avenge the blood of Jezreel
by God to the throne of Israel upon the house of Jehu, and
to extirpate the wicked house (because he extirpated the
of Ahab, and “avenge the the house of Ahab) I will
blood of the prophets shed by cause to cease the kingdom of
Jezebel.” the house of Israel.”
2 Kings, ix., 27. 2 Chron., xxii., 9.

The book of Kings informs us The chronicler says he was caught
that when Jehu fell on the by the agents of Jehu “hid in
race of Ahab, Ahaziah “fled Samaria,” and being taken
to Megiddo, and there died.” captive to Jehu, was then slain.
2 Kings, x., 17. 2 Kings, x., 11, 12.
Here the slaughter of the house Here it is placed in Jezreel, and
of Ahab is placed in Samaria. after Jehu had slain “all that
remained of the house of Ahab,
all his great men, and his
kinsfolk, and his priests . . . .
he arose and departed and came
to Samaria.”
This agrees with Hosea, i., 4, cited
above.
1 Chron., xi., 1-3. 2 Sam., ii., 1-11.

On the death of Saul we are here Here we are informed that David
told that “Then all Israel and his men went to Hebron at
gathered themselves to David the death of Saul, “and the
unto Hebron, saying, . . . . men of Judah came and an
thou shalt be ruler over . . ointed him king over the house
Israel . . . and David made a of Judah.”
covenant with them in Hebron But Abner took Ishbosheth, son
. . . and they anointed David of Saul, and made him king
king over Israel.” over all Israel. David was for
seven years and six months
king over the house of Judah
only.
2 Chron., xxiv., 22. 2 Chron., xxiv., 25.

Joash, it is said, “remembered Here we are told that Joash slew
not the kindness of Jehoiada not the son of Jehoiada, but
[his foster father], but slew his the sons; for the servants of
son,” i.e., Zechariah the High Joash conspired against him
Priest, see v. 20. not for the blood of Zechariah,
but “for the blood of the sons
of Jehoiada.”
2 Kings, xii., 13. 2 Chron., xxiv., 14.

When Jehoash repaired the The chronicler contradicts this
temple he placed a money" box assertion point blank, and af
beside the altar for voluntary firms that with the money so
contributions, but (says the collected “were made vessels
writer) there was not money for the house of the Lord, ves
enough collected to make sels to minister and to offer,
“bowls of silver, snuffers, and spoons, and vessels of gold
basins, trumpets, nor any ves and silver.”
sels of gold or silver.”
Contradictory Teacts. • 57
2 Chron., xxxiii., 15. 2 Kings, xxiii., 6.

Manasseh is represented as hav But in the reign of Manasseh’s
ing taken the strange gods and grandson, whose name was
idols out of the house of the Josiah, these strange gods and
Lord . . . and of having “cast idols were still in the temple,
them out of the city.” for Josiah “took them out of
the house of the Lord . . . .
and stamped them to powder.”
Psalm, lxxii., 20. 1 Chron., xvi., 7-36.
We read, here “the prayers [i.e., Here is given a psalm which the
the psalms] of David, the son chronicler says “David deli
of Jesse, are ended.” vered first.” From verse 8 to
22 is Psalm cv., 1-15; the next
11 verses are Psalm xcvi.; and
the remaining verses are Psalm
cvi., 1, 47, 48.
In the “headings” 18 of the psalms,
after the lxxii., are ascribed to David,
viz., ciii., cviii., ciz, cz, czzii., cxxiv.,
cxxxi., czzxiii., czzxviii., cKxxix.,
cxl.—cxlv.
Matt., i., 23. Matt., i., 16.

Matthew says the birth of Jesus The son of Mary was Jesus,
fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah called the Christ.
(vii., 14), “Behold a virgin
shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall call his name Em
manuel” [God with us.]
(1). The child referred to by Isaiah was to be still an infant when Rezin and
Pekah should be cut off. Isaiah says, “Before the child [Emmanuel] shall
know to refuse the evil and choose the good, [Syria and Israel] shall be [deprived]
of both her kings.” It required no great penetration to foretell that the league of
Ahaz with Tiglath-pileser the great king, would soon annihilate the petty princes
of Damascus and Israel.
(2). All scholars, both Jewish and Christian, agree that the child referred to
was the expected infant of Isaiah himself. . Within two years Pekah fell by the
hand of Hoshea, and Resin by the sword of the Assyrians.
(3). The Jews affirm that the word virgin [almah] does not of necessity mean
a maiden or unmarried woman. If Isaiah in the text referred to his wife, she
was already mother of at least one child two years old. Joel, i., 8, applies the
word to a nidon, advanced in life : “Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth
for the husband of her youth,” see Prov., xxx., 19.
Matthew, v., 1. Luke, vi., 17.

Jesus “seeing the multitude went Jesus came down with his disci
up into a mountain, and when ples, and stood in the plain, and
he was set, he opened his mouth said: &c. [Here follow the
and taught the people. [Here beatitudes.]
follow the beatitudes.]
Matt., viii., 28. Mark, v., 1, 2; Luke, viii., 26, 27.
“When [Jesus] was come to the “When they came over unto the
other side [of the lake] into other side of the sea into the
the country of the Gergesenes, country of the Gadarenes, there
there met him two possessed met him out of the tombs a
with devils, coming out of the certain man which had devils a
tombs.” long time.”
Matt., xx., 20, 21. Mark, x., 35-37.
“The mother of Zebedee's chil “James and John the sons of
dren . . . said unto [Jesus], Zebedee came unto [Jesus]
grant that these my two sons saying, grant unto us that we
may sit, the one on thy right may sit one on thy right hand
hand and the other on the left and the other on thy left in
in thy kingdom.” thy glory.”
Matt., xxii., 46. Mark, xii., 34.
Here we are told that Jesus Mark gives a different version.
puzzled the Pharisees with the He says a certain scribe asked
question, “How can Christ be Jesus, “Which is the first
David's son, seeing that David commandment of all?” And
calls him lord 2’” “And no when Jesus answered the scribe
man,” adds the writer, “from well, adds, “No man after that
that day forth, durst ask him durst ask him any question.”
any more questions.” Luke, xx, 40.
Luke agrees with neither of his
brother evangelists. He states
the matter thus: The Sad
ducees tell Jesus of a woman
who married seven times, and
ask whose wife of the seven she
would be in the resurrection.
After Jesus had replied, some
of the scribes remarked,
“Master, thou hast well said,”
and Luke adds, “after that
they durst not ask him any
question.” Which is right
would be hard to say. Only
one can be so.
Matt., xxvi., 6, &c.; Mark, xiv., John, xii., 1, &c.

3, &c.
Matthew and Mark say that Jesus John places this anointing in the
was banqueting in the house of house of Lazarus, and says the
Simon the Leper, when a wo— woman's name was Mary, who
man came and anointed him took a pound of spikenard for
with spikenard. . the purpose.
There cannot be a doubt that all the three refer to the same event or tradition.
It was just prior to the “entry into Jerusalem” which brought about the trial
and condemnation. It is wholly incredible that this anointing with spikenard
should have been done twice at about the same time.
Matt., xxvi., 34. Mark, xiv., 30.

Jesus said to Simon Peter: Jesus said: “Verily I say unto
“Werily I say unto thee that thee that this day, even in this
this night before the cock crow, night, before the cock crow
thou shalt deny me thrice.” twice, thou shalt deny me
See also Luke, xxii, 34; and John thrice.”
xiii., 38.
Matt., xxvi., 73. John, xviii., 26.

Matthew describes the third John says it was not “they that
“denial” thus: “After a while stood by,” but “one of the
came they that stood by and said servants of the High Priest,
to Peter, surely thou art one of whose ear Peter [had] cut off.”
them, for thy speech bewrayeth This servant said, “Did not I
thee.” see thee in the garden with
Mark and Luke give substantially him,” and not that “thy speech
the same account. *
bewrayeth thee.”
Matt. xxvi., 74. Mark xiv., 68-72.

Matthew, in accordance with his Mark has another tale to make
dictum, makes Simon Peter good, and says that Simon Peter
deny thrice any knowledge of denied once, and the cock crew
Jesus, and, having so done, once; after this Peter denied
“immediately the cock crew.” twice more, and then the cock
crew a second time.
Matt. xxvii., 5. Acts, i., 18.

Matthew says that Judas, after Simon Peter says, “This man
he had betrayed his master, [Judas] purchased a field with
“went and hanged himself.” the reward of iniquity, and fall
ing headlong, he burst asunder,
and all his bowels gushed out.”
Simon Peter says that Judas bought a field with the money he received from
the priests. The evangelist says he flung the money down in the temple, and the
priests bought with it the potter's field to bury strangers in. What is meant by
“falling headlong "is very difficult to make out.
Matt. xxviii., 2-5. Mark xvi., 4, 5.
Matthew tells us that an angel Mark says the stone was rolled
“rolled back the stone from away, and the visitors on “en
the door of the sepulchre, and tering into the sepulchre saw
sat upon it; and the angel [the angel] sitting on the right
said, “Fear not . . .” side. And he said,” &c. Luke
John xxi., 1. We are told that Mary
[xxiv., 4) says there were two
saw two angels sitting ; one at the men who stood. They had
head and the other at the feet. “shining garments,” and they
said, “Why seek ye the living
among the dead?”
Mark x., 46; Matt. xx., 29. Luke xviii., 35.

Mark says, and Matthew agrees "Luke says it was not on leaving
with him, that Jesus met with Jericho, but as he was about to
Bartimeus, the blind beggar, enter the city.
on leaving Jericho.
Mark xiv., 69. Luke xxii., 58.
In regard to the second denial of Luke tells us the person was not a
Simon Peter, Mark says “A woman, but a man; and Peter
maid saw him again, and said answered “Man, I am not,”
to them that stood by, this is one i.e., not one of the disciples.
of them.”
Luke, ix., 1. Luke, ix., 38–40.

Here we read that Jesus “called We are hardly prepared in the
his twelve disciples together, same chapter to hear that the
and gave them power and disciples had not power to cast
authority over all devils, and out devils, and cure diseases,
to cure [all] diseases.” for a man says to Jesus,
“Master, a spirit taketh my son
and teareth him; and Ibrought
him to thy disciples to cast it
out, but they could not.”
John xix., 6. John xviii., 31.

When Jesus was brought before This is very strange, seeing the
the Roman procurator, Pilate Jews had just said to Pilate,
said to the Jews, “Takeye him, “It is not lawful for us to put
and crucify him.” any man to death.”
Would any Roman procurator have told the Jews to crucify a criminal, know
ing that it was strictly forbidden by the Roman senate?
Conclusion. 61
CONCLUSION.
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 Radi
cal 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 ap
plies 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 dif
ference, but no substantial variety; there may be shades of
variety, and different incidents may strike different eye-witnes
ses, but there can be no positive contradiction, and the same in
cident 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 say
ing 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 by
62 Conclusion.
Jehoash, 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 crow twice thou shalt
deny me thrice. If the writers were eye and ear witnesses,
and if the guiding Spirit of God brought to their remem
brance 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 con
sistent with the advanced knowledge of science, the general
scope of experience, and the harmony of history.
SUBJECTS OF TWELVE OF THE SERIES,
—-a-QºS& eos
No. .—“On the Identity of the Vital and Cosmical Principle.” By

R. LEwins, M.D., Staff Surgeon-Major to Her Majesty's
Forces.
. 2.-" The Physical Theory of Animal Life.” A Review by

JULIAN.
. 3.-‘The Nature of Man Identical with that of other Animals.”
By JULIAN.
. 4.—BioLogy versus THEology; or “Christ and the Christian
Idea, viewed from a Biological standpoint.” By JULIAN.
. 5.—BioLogy versus THEoLogy ; or “The Mosaic and Christian
Ideas wholly without Originality.” By JULIAN.
. 6.—BIOLOGY versus THEOLOGY; or “Life on the Basis of
Hylozoism.” By JULIAN.
. 7.-BioLogy versus THEOLogy; or “Identity of the Vital and
Cosmical Principle, according to DR. LEwins.” By
JULIAN.
. 8.—BIoLogy versus THEology—“The Mission of Moses,” from

the German of Schiller. Annotated by JULIAN.
. 9.—BIOLOGY versus THEoLogy—“Christ not divine nor his death
vicarious.” By JULIAN.
. 10.—BIology versus THEoLogy—“The Curé Meslier and his
Will,” from the German of Strauss, with Preliminary
Remarks by JULIAN.
No. 11.-BIOLOGY versus THEoLogy—“The Bible irreconcilable with
science, experience, and even its own statements.” By
JULIAN.
. 12.-BIOLOGY versus THEoLogy.—“The Dinner of the Count de

Boulainvilliers from Voltaire,” with an Introduction by
JULIAN (in the press).

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THE BIBLE IRRECONCILABLE

IRRECONCILABLE WITH SCIENCE, EXPERIENCE,

“Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas

“If it be possible to perfect mankind, the means of doing so will

PART II.-SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

PART III.--THE BIBLE IRRECONCILABLE WITH ITSELF.

(a) Historic Errors 31

PART III.-SECOND DIVISION.—SCRIPTURE CONTRADICTs SCRIPTURE.

“THE myths of paganism,” says Professor Huxley,” “are as

SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH SCIENCE.

(1.) The Mosaic Cosmogony.

The earth is represented by these writers as immovable in

gist, no one would have understood him. Apply this to

Once more. It is said that the object of the Bible is to teach

likeness of God?” We are told over and over again

future must of necessity be finite, limited, and imperfect. If

(2) The Fall.

Again, it is well known that carnivorous beasts and birds

(3) The Noachian Flood.

and there dipping into the valleys, so that a uniform

SCRIPTURE IRRECONCILABLE WITH HUMAN

It is not our intention to dwell at any length upon what

or more worthy of credit than the originals. Mark, like Luke,

lists are real names or not. But allowing Paley's assertion to

(1.) The Biblical prehistoric man not reconcilable nºith historic

human beings as Moses describes; none even in the next

Judges, iii., 31.

1 Kings, xx., 30.

The prophet Jonah is said to have been swallowed by a

sterling in gold. Truly the principality of Wales could

THE BIBLE IRRECONCILABLE WITH ITSELF.

We shall subdivide this head into two parts. Under the

And again, 2 Chron. xxviii., 27, we have the sam

the purchase of a field to bury strangers in, and the Evan

Acts, vii., 15, 16.

(b.) Erroneous figures.

Joshua, xv., 21-32.

fact? The Bible writers agree neither respecting his father's

was then succeeded by Jehoiakim, an elder brother, who was

In this passage Ezra gives the number of gold and silver

to Samaria “all the vessels” both of silver and of gold; Ahaz

Exod. xvii., 8-13.

1 Kings, xxii., 19–23; 2 Chron. xviii., 22.

- John, i., 18.

many, from Adam to John, talked to them familiarly, and they

John, xxi., 25.

Prov. vi., 6-8; xxx., 25.

Here, again, critics have come forward to prove that the

1 Chron. iv., 17; and 1 Chron. vii., 14.

PART III.-SECOND DIVISION.

SCRIPTURE CONTRADICTS SCRIPTURE.

In the former part of this division numerous examples

Gen. vi., 19, 20. Gen. vii., 2.

Gen. xlvi., 27; Deut. x., 22. Acts, vii., 14.

1 Sam., xxx., 1-10, 17. 1 Chron., xii., 20–22.

2 Sam., ii., 10. 2 Sam., ii., 11.

2 Sam., viii., 4, 5. 1 Chron., xviii., 4.

2 Sam., xxiv., 13. 1 Chron., xxi., 12.

2 Kgs., viii., 26. 2 Chron., xxii., 2.

1 Chron., xxii., 14. 1 Chron., xxix., 4.