HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 





'T'HE origin, nature, and authority of the 

 J_ books which constitute the Scriptures of 

 the Old and New Testament, are questions of 

 paramount importance for all Christendom, we 

 may say for all the world. To these questions, 

 various and conflicting answers have been, and 

 continue to be given. What may be called the 

 traditional view, or that which has always been 

 held by nearly the whole Christian community, is 

 familiar enough ; but it may here be stated afresh, 

 in order to contrast it with that to which critical 

 inquiry has led an increasing number of scholars 

 in modern times. According to the prevailing 

 belief, then, the Bible is a miscellany made up of 

 66 tracts, written by about 40 different authors, the 

 latest of whom is divided from the earliest by an in- 

 terval of 2000 years; whilst there is a not less striking 

 diversity in their locality and general condition 

 Moses, whom Bacon calls 'God's first pen,' writing 

 in the Arabian desert, for the immediate benefit 

 of the Jews whom he had redeemed from Egypt, 

 and was leading into Palestine ; and John writing 

 in a rugged isle of the yEgean Sea, where he was 

 the captive of a potentate not less unjust and cruel 

 than any Pharaoh. The other sacred penmen 

 were placed in equally diverse circumstances, and 

 exhibited as great a disparity of rank and occu- 

 pation. Some portions of the Bible are composed 

 by David, the warrior-king, and by his magnificent 

 son and successor ; and others by men filling the 

 humblest spheres of life Amos the herdsman, 

 Peter the fisherman, and Matthew the despised 

 sub-collector of customs. And yet the forty 

 authors, so unlike each other in rank, education, 

 and quality of intellect, and living apart in the 

 wide intervals of which the two extremes embrace 

 a period of 2000 years, write poems, histories, 

 prophecies, and doctrinal and didactic pieces on 

 morality and religion, distinguished by a marvel- 

 lously perfect harmony in facts, views, sentiment, 

 and spirit. Dealing in the utmost variety of 

 manner, and for many different purposes, not 

 with the trite themes and the familiar notions of 

 contemporary literature, but with that vast and 

 previously unknown circle of truth which is 

 attached to a pure theology, and comprehends the 

 creation, the fall of man, Jehovah's manifestations 

 to, and covenant with, certain families, and then 

 with a peculiar people, to prepare for the whole 

 world's ransom and regeneration, there is a com- 

 plete agreement whenever the writers starting 

 from different points, and following their several 

 aims have entered within that circle ; the briefest 

 or most incidental allusion, in biographies or his- 

 tories, to the central verities, tallying perfectly 

 with their full development in any of the doctrinal 

 portions of Scripture. Moral and religious truth, 

 instead of being presented in the 66 sacred 

 tracts in a carefully articulated body, has not only 

 its members scattered over the whole field of 

 Scripture, but they are also exhibited in all the 

 different stages of development, in the Mosaic 

 embryo as well as in the Christian maturity and 

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energy ; yet they easily adjust themselves into a 

 harmonious scheme. The constituents of Chris- 

 tianity, and their relation to God and man, had 

 been expressly indicated by prophecy, and by a 

 complete system of prefiguration expanding over 

 and around Hebrew saints like a starry night 

 According to the view of the Bible, the past and 

 the present is time on the two sides of Christ; the 

 Jewish dispensation looking forward to his ' day,' 

 and its dial having gone backward ever since. All 

 the particulars of the Hebrew revelation were con- 

 sonant with, but preliminary and subordinate to, 

 the Gospel. 



The newer view held by many as resulting from 

 critical investigation will be set forth in the 

 course of the article. We are not, however, to be 

 understood as advocating this view ; we merely 

 wish to make our readers aware that such a view 

 has commended itself to a large number of learned 

 and serious men, whose lives have been spent in 

 the study of oriental literature. Modern scholar- 

 ship has come to the task of investigating the 

 history of the Scriptures, equipped with acquire- 

 ments that till of late were unattainable. Accurate 

 and copious acquaintance with the Phoenician, 

 Ethiopic, Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic languages, 

 and with the literature of these tongues, has 

 thrown new lights on the Hebrew language and 

 literary forms. The largely extended resources of 

 Greek scholarship have been brought to bear on 

 the interpretation and study of the New Testa- 

 ment. The laws of critical method, as developed 

 and applied with success to the profane literature, 

 have been applied to our sacred books with a 

 freedom formerly unknown. And the new study 

 of Biblical theology has made it possible to under- 

 stand in a new fashion the agreements and dif- 

 ferences of the Old and New Testaments, and of 

 the various books of each, one with another. Ac- 

 cordingly, discoveries have been made in regard 

 to the composition and character of the Hebrew 

 documents that were unknown to former ages. 

 Many have, in consequence, thought themselves 

 compelled to modify their original beliefs concern- 

 ing the nature and extent of the inspiration 

 claimed for the writers of the Old Testament ; but 

 while seeking to separate what is human and 

 changeable from what is divine and everlasting, 

 they may and do firmly believe that there is in 

 the Old Testament as well as the New a revela- 

 tion from God, divine in origin and absolutely 

 authoritative in character, a revelation of God's 

 will that can never perish, and must continue to 

 strengthen and establish faith in God as long as 

 the world endures. 



THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 



The word BIBLE is derived from the Greek 

 biblia (Lat. libelli), 'little books,' and was first 

 applied by Chrysostom in the 4th century to that 

 collection of sacred writings recognised gener- 

 ally by Christians as the documents of a divinely 



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