APPENDIX.

A.

FACTS SHOWING THE ANTIQUITY AND AUTHENTICITY

OF THE BIBLE.

IN the foregoing pages it has been shown that the authenticity and truth of the Holy Scriptures cannot be separated from their inspiration. If they are true, they must be inspired; because they lay claim to direct inspiration; and many of the facts stated are of a miraculous nature; so that if the Scriptures were not given by inspiration, it will follow that they are full of falsehood and imposture. Any facts, therefore, which go to prove the truth of the statements contained in the Bible, go just as far to prove its inspiration. I have, therefore, collected in this note a number of interesting facts of this nature, in a condensed form, which my plan did not admit of being brought into the body of the work. Some of these will be of use in the study of the introductory lesson of volume V, of my Scripture Questions." It is hoped, however, that these brief statements will not prevent a more extended examination of the subject, by such as have the means of making it; but the rather operate as an incitement to inquiry and research.

1. ANTIQUITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Among all the books in the world, not one is to be found that comes within the reach of the writings of Moses in point of anti

quity. They stand alone, without any record to cope or compare with them. The Bible may well be said to contain the only history of our race. There is no authentic profane history of higher antiquity than about the conclusion of the canon of the Old Testament. Nehemiah, the last of the sacred historians, was contemporary with Herodotus, the father of profane history. The high antiquity of these Scriptures is proved beyond question, by three facts (1) All the books of the Old Testament, except Job and those professedly written after the Babylonish captivity, were written in pure Hebrew, which ceased to be a spoken language after that period. These books, therefore, must have been written before the Babylonish captivity. Job is a mixture of Arabic and Hebrew; just what might have been expected from the scene having been laid in Arabia; the remainder are a mixture of Hebrew and Chaldee, which fixes their date in the generation of the captivity. (2.) It is an undeniable fact that the Old Testament was translated into Greek more than two centuries and a half before the Christian era, during the reign and by the order of Ptolymy Philadelphus, king of Egypt. (3.) The Old Testament was translated into Chaldee, and commented on by Jewish writers, before the Christian era. All these facts together show the Old Testament Scriptures to be books of high antiquity.

II. GENUINENESS OF THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTA

MENT.

The

The genuineness of the Penteteuch was acknowledged by Porphyry and Julian, two of the most bitter of Pagan writers. impossibility of the corruption of the text, within several centuries before the Christian era, will appear from the fact of its being in the possession both of the Jews and Samaritans, who were at bitter enmity against each other; and the Samaritan Penteteuch has come down to us, and is found to agree with the Hebrew. The same may be said, also, of the Greek and Chaldaic versions; which furnished a guard against interpolation. Nor could the text of the Old Testament have been corrupted since the Christian era ; because the original Hebrew has been in the hands of both Jews

and Christians, who would operate as a guard upon each other. And the impossibility of its interpolation before the period first spoken of, will appear from the extreme care taken to preserve the exact integrity of the text. "With a strictness the most punctilious, and a zeal the most persevering, it has in past ages been a practice among the Jews to number how often each Hebrew letter recurred in each and every book, or how often in the beginning, middle, and end of a word; and every varied mode was tried by which the fidelity of a manuscript could be ascertained. On the discovery of the slightest error, whatever the previous labor, the parchment was committed to the flames. A perfect copy of the Scriptures was often the work of years."

III. FACTS CORROBORATIVE

OF THE SCRIPTURE NAR

RATIVES.

"The heathens had a tradition among them, concerning the primeval chaos whence the world arose, and the production of all things by the efficiency of a Supreme Mind, which bears so close a resemblance to the Mosaic account of the creation, as proves that they all originated from one source; while the striking contrast between the unadorned simplicity of the one, and the allegorical turgidity of the other, accurately distinguishes the inspired narratives from the distorted tradition. This remark applies particularly to the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Hindoos, Chinese, Etruscans, Greeks, and Americans."*

The following extract from the learned Grotius, is invaluable : "The nations which most rigidly retained ancient customs reckoned time by nights, darkness having originally preceded light, as Thales taught from the ancients. The remembrance of the completion of the work of creation on the seventh day was preserved by the honor in which the seventh day was held, not only among the Greeks and Italians, as we learn from Josephus, Philo, Tibullus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Lucian (and, as is manifest, among the Hebrews,) but also among the Celts and Indians, by all of

* Horne.

whom time was divided by weeks, as Philostratus, Dion Cassius, and Justin Martyr inform us, and as the most ancient names of the days do show. From the Egyptians we learn that man's life at the beginning was simple or innocent, and that his body was naked; hence the golden age of the poets, which, according to Strabo, was celebrated by the Indians. Maimonides remarked that the history of Adam, of Eve, of the tree, and of the serpent, existed in his time among the idolatrous Indians; and witnesses likewise of our own age testify that the same tradition exists among the inhabitants of Peru and of the Philippine islands, who derived their origin from India; that the name of Adam is found among the Brahmins, and that the Siamese reckon 6000 years since the creation of the world. Berosus, in his history of the Chaldeans, Manetho, in that of the Egyptians, Hæstiæus, Hecatæus, Halbanicus in their histories of Greece, and Hesiod among the poets, havə related that the life of those who were descended of the first men extended to nearly a thousand years, which is the less incredible, as the histories of a great many nations, and especially Pausanias and Philostratos among the Greeks, and Pliny among the Romans, relate that the bodies of men in ancient times were much larger, as was found by opening the tombs. Catullus, following many the Greek writers, relates that divine visions appeared to man before the frequency and enormity of his offences secluded him from converse with the Deity and his angels. The savage life of the giants, mentioned by Moses, is almost every where spoken of by the Greek writers, and some of the Roman. Concerning the deluge, it is to be remarked, that the traditions of all nations, even of those which were long unknown, and have been recently discovered, terminate in its history; whence also all that time was called unknown by Varro. And what we read in the poets, mystified by the license of fable, the most ancient writers had related truly, i. e., agreeably to Moses, viz., Berosus among the Chaldeans, Abydinus among the Assyrians, who, like Plutarch among the Greeks, mentions the sending forth of the dove, and Lucian, who says that at Hierapolis of Syria there existed a very ancient history both of the ark, and of chosen men and other living creatures having thereby been preserved. At Molo, also, and at Nicholaus Damascenus, the same account prevailed, the latter of which had

of

the name of ark, as Apollodorus also relates in the history of Deucalion. Many Spaniards likewise testify that in parts of America, Cuba, Mechoana, Nicaragua, the remembrance of the deluge, of the preservation of animals, and of the crow and pigeon, is still preserved; and of the deluge itself, in that part now called Golden Castile, and Pliny's remark that Joppa was built before the flood, informs us of a part of the world which was then inhabited. The place where the ark rested after the flood, on the Gordyæan mountains, is pointed to by the constant tradition of the Armenians, from age to age, till the present day. Japhet, primogenitor of the Europeans, and from him Ior, or, as it was formerly pronounced, Javon of the Greeks, also Hammon of the Africans, are names to be found in the writings of Moses, and others are traced by Josephus and other writers in the names of nations and places. Which of the poets does not mention the attempt to climb the heavens? The burning of Sodom is recorded by Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Tacitus, Pliny, and Solenius. Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, and Philo Biblius bear testimony to the very ancient custom of circumcision, which was practised among the descendants of Abraham ; not the Hebrews only, but also the Idumeans, Ishmaelites, and others. The history of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, in accordance with that of Moses, formerly existed in Philo Biblius, taken from Sanchoniathon in Berosus, Hecatæus, Damascenus, Artaphanus, Eupolimus, Demetrius, and partly in the very ancient writers of the Orphic sor gs, and something is still extant in Justin, taken from Trogus Pompeius. In almost all these there is also a history of Moses and his actions. For the Orphic songs expressly mention that he was drawn out of the water, and the two tables were given him from God. To these we may add Polemon, and not a few things relating to the departure out of Egypt, from the Egyptian writers Manetho, Lysimachus, and Chæremon. Nor can appear credible to any prudent man, that Moses, to whom both the Egyptians and many other nations, as the Idumeans, Arabians, and Phoenicians, were hostile, would have dared to speak openly of the origin of the world and of the most ancient events, which could be refuted either by former writings, or was opposed to the ancient and popular belief, or that he would have published what happened in his own time, which many alive could have disproved.

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