Read Ebook: From Bondage to Liberty in Religion: A Spiritual Autobiography by Ashley George T George Thomas

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In the last year of my conference course of study, one of the books prescribed was "Harman's Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures." Dr. Harman was Professor of Greek and Hebrew in Dickinson College. I was told that in this book I would find "completely detailed, uncontrovertible proofs of the divine authenticity, inspiration, and infallible truth of the Bible." This was just what I had long been looking for, and just how I found it will soon appear.

APPROACHING THE CRISIS

Then follows a lengthy treatise on the Hebrew language, the original characters in which the Pentateuch was written, without vowels or punctuation marks; how it was preserved by copying from generation to generation; how errors crept into various copies; an account of the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint; how these all differ the one from the other in many details; of the ancient manuscripts that are still extant, and how these all differ more or less from each other,--not in anything fundamental, but in many minor details; and finally winds up with the statement that "the original text is uncertain"!

This was all new to me. I had naturally supposed that not only the original text was divinely inspired and infallibly correct, but that by some sort of divine supervision, it had been so preserved and kept down thru the ages. And now I was not only disappointed, but alarmed. I wondered what would come next. And I soon learned.

Before this I had never discovered, nor had any one pointed them out to me, the many discrepancies and contradictions in the early Biblical records,--the two stories of creation, the two accounts of the flood that are so intricately woven together, the changes in the law in Deuteronomy from those in Exodus and Leviticus; and others. My simple, blind faith had completely obscured all these until now. It is true the author pointed them out only to explain or reconcile them. But in practically every instance, the explanation failed to explain, or reconcile, and was only an apology or an excuse; and I was left with a clear vision of the discrepancy, and with no adequate explanation. The differences between some parts of the law, as recorded in Deuteronomy and in the earlier books, was explained as a "progressive development according to the changing conditions and needs of the Hebrews." From a purely human viewpoint, I considered this explanation satisfactory. But from that of "divine revelation," I wondered why God did not reveal it correctly at the first; or why he found it necessary to change his own law.

And in support of this view, he quotes the opinion of the Abb? Victor Ancessi! And I had always been taught that the tabernacle, the priesthood, and all that pertained to both, were divinely revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai! "According to the pattern shown thee in the mount."

Then on the question of interpolations, our author confesses that there are many of them in the Pentateuch, most of them showing that they belong to a much later age than Moses; yet he denies that any of them are material, or in any way change the original meaning or sense of the text.

Thus I went thru over 250 pages, devoted, not so much to the questions of divine inspiration and supernatural revelation, as these seemed to be very largely taken for granted; but to the defense of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch upon which seemed to hinge the whole question of its authenticity and infallible authority. As the author puts it, "If the Pentateuch was not written by Moses it is a forgery." To do this he quotes quite elaborately from the higher critics, Bauer, Davidson, Bleek, Ewald, Kuenen, Wellhausen, and others, for the ostensible purpose of answering and refuting them.

Now I had, up to this time, never read a line of such Biblical criticism, except that quoted by this author. Naturally, I not only had no sympathy with it, but was strongly prejudiced against it. But I could not fail to note that the refutations and explanations of my author very often failed to either refute or explain.

Ruth and Esther also belong to the class of the unknown. Nobody knows who wrote either, nor when, nor where. Ruth is placed "probably sometime during the reign of David." Esther is much later; in fact it is one of the latest books in the Old Testament Canon, from which it was long excluded because the name of God nowhere appears in it. The historical events narrated in it are admitted to be of very doubtful authenticity, as they are nowhere else mentioned in the Bible, and are wholly unknown to secular history; and such events, if they occurred at all, were of such transcendent importance to the Jewish nation, that mention of them in the Chronicles, or by some of the prophets, could hardly have been omitted. But our author gets around all these difficulties by the Feast of Purim. He insists that such a memorial as this, that has been and still is celebrated annually by the Jews in all parts of the world, "since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," could not possibly have originated in a mere fiction, and been perpetuated so long. Therefore, the Book of Esther must be true, and divinely inspired!

When I had read thus far, in spite of my former simple faith in the divine inspiration and infallible truth of the Bible, I found myself clearly on the toboggan; and I was deeply disturbed in mind. I was studying a thoroly orthodox author, a distinguished professor in one of our leading colleges, whose book was approved by the bishops of my church; a book clearly written for the purpose of defending the traditional position of the church concerning the Bible, on almost every page of which that I had thus far read, I found a series of apologetics rather than arguments; with constant admissions of the world's total ignorance of the origin, authorship and date of most of the books of the Bible thus far reviewed. I began to wonder, if this was what I was getting from such a source, inspired by such a motive, what might I expect from a Biblical scholar and critic who was in search only of abstract truth, with no preconceived opinions to support or defend? I felt an incipient revolution brewing in my mind. But I was yet to learn more.

Concerning the poetical books, I found that the Book of Job was not written by Job; that nobody knows who wrote it, nor when nor where. I found that conjecture by different scholars placed it all the way from "before Moses" to after the exile. Nobody knows whether it purports to record, in poetic form, a series of actual historic facts and events; or whether it is merely a dramatic allegory, entirely fictitious, or founded upon some substratum of fact. We do not know who Job was, whether a Hebrew, an Arab, or Chaldean;--nor just where "the land of Uz" was.

Concerning the Psalms, which I had always been taught were written by David, "the sweet singer of Israel," I found to be the Jewish hymn book, compiled by an unknown hand, or hands, at an unknown date; but in its present form, perhaps as late as the third century B.C.; that the authorship of very few of them is known; that David wrote but few of them, if any; but that they were written by various authors, mostly unknown, ranging all the way from the time of Moses to that of Ezra, or later; that collections and revisions were probably made from time to time as new compositions appeared; until its present form was attained.

I found that the "Book of Proverbs" was not written by Solomon, but that it was probably compiled in the time of King Hezekiah, by unknown persons. However, our author insists that most of the proverbs in the collection are Solomonic in origin; and therefore we may very correctly speak of the collection as the "Proverbs of Solomon."

Likewise I found that the "Song of Solomon" was not written by Solomon, nor by anyone else until centuries after his death; and nobody knows who wrote it, nor what its real meaning or purport is, whether fact or fiction, spiritual or sensual. It is admitted that its real meaning and purport is the most obscure and mysterious of any book in the Old Testament, yet, as it is in the Bible it must be the divinely inspired, infallible word of God! So our author thinks.

Coming now to the Prophetic Books, I learned from our author that the Book of Isaiah, as it now appears, is a collection and compilation of various writings of this great prophet, written piece-meal over a period of some fifty years, and after his death collected and arranged in its present form by some unknown hand; and that the present arrangement was made without any reference to the chronological order of the original writings, or the subject matter treated. He admits the radical difference in style, manner and subject matter of the two parts of this book, upon which modern critics have based their theory of two Isaiahs, one living before and the other during the captivity, and reconciles these discrepancies by asserting the power of God to miraculously change the literary style of his servants at will.

About the same thing is said of the Book of Jeremiah what was said of Isaiah; that it is a collection of the writings of the prophet, made after his death, by some unknown person, but more probably by Baruch; and that like Isaiah the contents of this book are arranged without reference to their chronological order. Great differences are admitted to exist between the Hebrew and Septuagint versions of this book, which our author does not try to explain or reconcile. He frankly admits that the last chapter of this book, which is identical with 2 Kings xxiv, 18, and xxv, was added by a later, and unknown hand.

The Book of Ezekiel is treated briefly and considered one of the most authentic and unquestioned of any book in the Canon. But the author devotes twenty-six pages to the Book of Daniel, almost entirely to prove that the book was written by the prophet of that name in Babylon, during the exile. He quotes elaborately from the critics who hold to a later date and a different author, and tries to refute them. About the only effect produced on my mind was that neither party knew anything definite about it; and of course my faith in the authenticity of the book was greatly weakened.

Coming to the Minor Prophets, twelve in number, the author holds that Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, Haggai, Zephaniah and Zechariah were well known prophets, concerning the date and authorship of whose books there is no grave doubt. Yet, he admits that there are manifest interpolations and additions to the Book of Zechariah. Of Nahum, Habakkuk, Malachi and Obadiah he admits that we know absolutely nothing, except what is written in their respective books, and the dates they were written can only be conjectured from their contents. Obadiah is composed of but one chapter of twenty-one verses, and almost identically the same thing is contained in Jeremiah xlix, 7-22. The identity is so great that our author assumes that one of them copied from the other, but which, he does not say. Of the Book of Jonah, he admits that it was not written by the prophet of that name mentioned in 2 Kings xiv, 25, nor for at least three hundred years after his time, notwithstanding he is evidently the same as that in the book. He insists, however, that no matter who wrote it, or when, the book is authentic and the story true; and as one of the principal proofs of this fact, he quotes Matt, xii, 39, 40.

Thus I finished the Old Testament, considerably shaken in faith; but as the Old Testament belonged to a long past dispensation, I considered it of little value anyway, and approached the study of the New with the hope that all difficulties would be removed and all doubts made clear. If the New Testament was truly inspired of God and infallibly true, what difference did it make if the Old was doubtful and uncertain? It was "out of date" anyway.

NEARER THE CRISIS

As this work is designed, at least partly, to stimulate additional study in others it may be well to cite a few examples, as I learned them from this book, designed to prove conclusively the authenticity, divine inspiration and infallible truth of the Holy Scriptures.

The canon of Muratori, about A.D. 160, omits Hebrews, both epistles of Peter, James and Jude, as uncanonical, and expresses doubts as to the Revelation.

The Peshito Syriac, about A.D. 200, omits Second Peter, Jude, Second and Third John and Revelation.

The Latin Version Itala, about the middle of the second century, omits James and Second Peter.

The Version of Clemens, about A.D. 202, omits Second Peter, James, Second and Third John and Philemon.

That of Cyprian of Carthage, about A.D. 250, omits Hebrews, Second Peter, Second and Third John, and Jude.

Eusebius, the great church historian, about A.D. 340, disputes the authenticity of James, and omits Jude, Second Peter, second and Third John, and doubts the Revelation. He also gives a list of "Spurious writings" at that time, a number of which are still extant.

Ambrose of Milan, late in the fourth century, rejects Hebrews, Second and Third John, Jude, James, and Philemon.

Chrysostom, of Antioch, about A.D. 400, omits Second Peter, Jude, Second and Third John, and Revelation.

Jerome, about A.D. 420, rejects Hebrews, doubts James and Jude, and attributes Second and Third John to John, a Presbyter of Ephesus, and not the Apostle John.

It must however be said in all fairness, according to our author, that from about the close of the second or the beginning of the third century, there was practical unanimity in the church as to the authenticity of all the books in our present New Testament except these seven: Hebrews, Jude, Second Peter, Second and Third John, James and Revelation. Over these the controversy continued until the Roman Hierarchy overshadowed the Church and suppressed all liberty of thought or expression.

We now come to the detailed study of the origin, authorship, date and character of the different books of the New Testament.

The first shock I got was learning that "The Gospel According to Matthew," was not written in its present form by the Apostle of that name. Nor is the author or date definitely known. The substance of a long article on the subject is to the effect that Matthew the Apostle, about A.D. 68, wrote an account of the doings and sayings of Jesus, in the Syro-Chaldee language, the vernacular of Palestine at the time, for the benefit of the Hebrew Christians. From this basis some later hand, unknown, translated into Greek, and elaborated it into substantially our present version. The earliest known Hebrew, or Syro-Chaldee version was that used by the Ebionites, which materially differed from our present Greek version; but which is the original and which the recession has never been settled. The early Ebionite version did not contain the first two chapters, giving the account of the miraculous birth; but our author insists that these were cut off from the original, rather than added on, tho nobody knows which.

Concerning the Gospel of Mark, he insists that it was also written as was the original of Matthew, before the destruction of Jerusalem, but after Matthew; that the material in it was learned from Peter, whose companion Mark was as Mark was not an apostle and could not have known these facts at first hand. He admits the last twelve verses to be spurious and added by a later hand.

Concerning Luke he says that he derived his information from Paul , admits the date and place he wrote are unknown; admits the discrepancies between him and Matthew, in regard to the circumstances of the miraculous birth and the genealogy of Jesus--something I had never noticed before!--and undertakes to reconcile them. When I turned to the records and read them in this new light, his attempted reconciliation, to my mind, was an utter failure. Like every attempted reconciliation I have ever read since, it was done by "reading into the record," not only what was not there, but what was wholly inconsistent with the record that is there. If any candid reader will first read carefully the first two chapters of Matthew, noting all the details, and then likewise the first two chapters of Luke, he will see that they are wholly irreconcilable in their details. They agree in but two points: That Jesus was miraculously begotten, and born at Bethlehem. But in every detail of what went before and after, they are wholly at variance.

My belief in divine and infallible inspiration was here materially weakened. How could the Holy Spirit "inspire" in two different men, writing upon the same subject, such varying and irreconcilable accounts of the same event? Besides, our author had practically abandoned the idea of inspiration by attributing Mark's knowledge of the life of Jesus to Peter and Luke's to Paul. But, on the other hand, as I learned a little later, in all the writings attributed to Paul, there is not a single reference, even most remotely, to the miraculous birth of Jesus; but on the other hand there is much evidence in his writings to lead to the conclusion that he knew nothing about it. Then where did Luke get this information?

Concerning the Gospel according to John, our author devotes forty-eight pages to an effort to support its authorship in the Apostle John, and to try to reconcile it with the other Gospels. Like the differences between Matthew and Luke concerning the birth of Jesus, this was the first knowledge I had that there were any discrepancies between them, or that there was any doubt about its authorship. He quotes elaborately from the Church Fathers in its favor, as well as from the modern critics both for and against. He admits that chapter xxi is a later addition to the book, but insists that John wrote it himself, except the last two verses, which were "added by the church at Ephesus." He also admits that v, 2, 3, and viii, 1-11, are both spurious and added by a later and unknown hand.

When I had read it all I knew less about the authorship of the book than when I began. But the discrepancies between it and the synoptics loomed large and menacing. I will not go into details concerning these. The reader can easily see them for himself. But on the question of inspiration I was about at my wits' end. Here I was at the very vital part of the Christian religion, as I had been taught it and was trying to teach it to others. I have already told how I passed up the matter of the inspiration of the Old Testament as being of little importance under the Christian dispensation. And now every prop was falling from under me in regard to the inspiration of the New. If the very records of the life and teachings of the Christ himself, upon which the whole fabric of Christianity rested, were now shown to be discordant and irreconcilable in their contents, and some of them very doubtful in their authorship; with it the whole doctrine of a divine and infallible revelation would have to go.

But we will hurry on thru this subject. The authorship of the Acts of the Apostles was attributed without serious question to Luke. All the Epistles usually attributed to Paul are conceded to him by our author, except that to the Hebrews, while some critics reject the Pauline authorship of any of the Pastoral Epistles,--those to Timothy, Titus and Philemon. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is admitted to be unknown, and its date uncertain, tho it existed in the church quite early.

The Epistle of James is admitted to be doubtful; and especially as to which of several men of this name might have written it. It is admitted that it could not have been written by the Apostle James, as he was put to death at Jerusalem long before the epistle was known. As has already been seen, it was rejected by many of the Fathers; and even Martin Luther dubbed it "an epistle of straw."

First Peter is considered genuine, and written by the Apostle; but Second Peter is admitted to have been unknown in the church before the third century, and consequently spurious.

The First Epistle of John is believed by our author to have been written by the same hand that wrote the Fourth Gospel, the Apostle John. Second and Third John are admitted to be doubtful, probably written by some other John, and by later tradition, because of the identity of the names, attributed to the Apostle. Third John was unknown in the church before the third century.

The Epistle of Jude is admitted to be a mystery. Nobody knows even who Jude was, or what he was, or when the epistle was written. It was known to exist early in the second century. It was generally rejected by the early church, but somehow got into the canon.

My study of "Harman's Introduction of the Study of the Holy Scriptures" was here finished. I have elaborated somewhat on these studies for two reasons: First, because the results that these studies produced in me, that I shall presently sum up, were the results of the whole, rather than any particular part of it, except those portions which I have already specially noted. Second, I desire to arouse a similar spirit of study and investigation in my readers; and I thus give this outline of study in detail, as a sort of basis from or upon which to work.

I have already indicated in part my feelings at this time. I summed the whole thing up briefly. The one great question around which it all hinged was this: If the authorship of the books of the greater portion of the Old Testament are wholly unknown, as well as the dates when they were written, and the same is true of several of the books of the New Testament, how are we to know these same books are divinely inspired, the infallible truth, the word of God? This is a fair question and a reasonable one.

I had set out in earnest and good faith to find the proofs of inspiration, in which I had always believed, and only found them wanting. Add to this the manifold discrepancies and direct contradictions which I now began to discover running thru the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and I found them wholly irreconcilable with any idea of divine revelation and infallible truth.

THE CRISIS

Since the whole purpose of religion, and Christianity in particular, was to save mankind from hell hereafter, I first directed my inquiries to the question of hell. Who made hell? and whence came the devil? The Bible is silent as to their origin, except the vague reference in the Book of Revelation to the war in heaven and the casting out of Lucifer with a third part of the angels with him into the bottomless pit so graphically portrayed by Milton in Paradise Lost. But this only carried me back farther. Who created the angels, or were they co-eternal with God? If they are co-eternal with God then there are other eternal beings in the universe over whom God has little or no control. If so God is not omnipotent. The devil is his rival in the spiritual world and, according to the current doctrine, his equal in omniscience and omnipresence, and a close and terrible antagonist in the contest for omnipotence.

Take the other horn of the dilemma. Then angels and the devil are created beings, creatures of God, and not eternal. Then God must have made the devil. If He created him a holy angel, yea, an archangel, as is claimed, God certainly knew in advance that this archangel would sometime lead a rebellion in heaven and lead one-third of the angels into the conspiracy! Would an all-wise, a just and good God create such beings, knowing in advance what they would do and what the consequences of it would be? This forced God to create a hell in which to put and punish these rebellious angels whom He knew before He created them would rebel against him and thus have to be punished. If God needed angels to glorify him was it not just as easy to create good ones, that would not rebel against him! He created some that way, why not all? And if rebellious angels had to be punished why not do it by annihilation instead of making this burning hell for them? If annihilation be considered too merciful and this hell the only adequate punishment, all very well for rebellious and sinful angels; but why should this yawning gulf of eternal woe open its throat to receive the future being to be made in God's own image and called man?

We are told that hell was not created for man, but for the devil and his angels. Nevertheless, if the story of Eden and the doctrines of modern orthodoxy be true, it is now and will ultimately become the eternal abode of about ninety-eight per cent of the entire human race. I could never again reconcile the old views of hell with any rational conception of a just and merciful God. The story of Eden itself I took up for analysis. Man was alleged to have been framed up out of dust, yet made "in the image and likeness" of God,--and consequently perfect. At least this is the universal teaching. He was alone. A companion was made for him from a rib. They are happy in a garden. God walks and talks with them like a man. Everything is going smoothly until one day God comes in and points out a certain tree, hitherto unnoticed and unknown, and informs Adam that he must not eat of the fruit of this particular tree on penalty of death. Then comes the serpent, talking like a man, and tells the woman that what God said was not true; but if they would eat of the fruit of that tree they would "be as Gods, knowing good and evil." "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." Gen. iii, 6.

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