What is the Bible?

J.A. Ruth

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429871382
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

First published in 1904, this volume questioned whether the Bible is in its entirety the literal Word of God. The author's strong background in evangelical Christianity led them to question numerous theological experts and ministers on the topic and conclude that the Bible is as purely and entirely a human production as any other work of literature. Ruth argues instead that humanity's knowledge of God has come about through developing the faculties with which God has endowed them and that the Bible is a history of humanity's discovery of God. First considering whether the Bible can be considered the Word of God, the author moves on to cover topics including the evolution of Hebrew monotheism, the Bible canon, contraditions and miracles.

EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY.

The central figure in all history is Jesus, called the Christ, the son of Joseph and Mary, “born and bred in Nazareth, a secluded mountain village in Galilee.” — The Bible for Learners. By his pure, sinless life he demonstrated what it is possible for man to be; and by his exalted conceptions of and intimate fellowship with God what it is possible for man to attain. Further, he proved that these characteristics are not those of weakness or passivity, but of strength and action — of fearless and aggressive warfare for truth, justice, and righteousness.

His life and teachings aroused the bitter hatred and enmity of the political bosses and officials of the Jews, and the unbounded admiration and approbation of the common people. By the former he was put to death; by the latter he was deified. Considering the age of the world in which he lived, his marvelous teachings, and the stories of miracles which gained currency after his death, it is not so much a wonder that the idea should have taken root that he was indeed very God, for truly, “no man ever spake as this man.”

While doubtless there are sayings attributed to Jesus which he never uttered, the great, fundamental, eternal truths recorded unquestionably came from his lips; and, together with similar utterances of other great religious teachers, among whom Jesus stands pre-eminent, are the basis of the progress in the knowledge of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man — of truth, mercy, justice, and righteousness. There is no evidence that any of the utterances of Jesus were recorded at the time they were made, and he himself placed absolutely nothing upon record. Nor is there any certainty as to the time the present canonical gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — were written, nor as to the authorship of the various gospels, either canonical or apocryphal. Says The Bible for Learners: —

“In dealing with these questions we must never forget that the majority of the writings of the New Testament were not really written or published by those whose names they bear. . . . In those days people saw no harm in such literary frauds, though they would now be considered highly culpable and even criminal. . . . Not one of these five books (the four Gospels and the book of Acts) was really written by the person whose name it bears, and they are all of more recent date than their headings would lead us to suppose. . . . Paul himself and this unknown companion of his journeys are the only eye-witnesses from whom we have any records in the New Testament that have not been disturbed by later traditions. And, alas! this later tradition is such a turbid fountain.”

One thing, however, is certain: the New Testament writings, like the Old, contain sublime, fundamental truths, intermixed with error, which it is the part of wisdom to separate, regardless of the antiquity of the writings or of their authorship; as the miner separates the gold from the rock in which it is imbedded, regardless of the age or quality of the rock in which it is found.

The truth contained in the teaching of Jesus, even mixed as it became with error, had the power and virility to work a wonderful transformation in the lives of men, and to make of Christianity one of the great religions of the world. While Christian partisans make the claims of Christianity much broader than the facts warrant — while they credit Christianity with all social, intellectual, scientific and moral progress, claims neither fair nor true, it yet remains a fact that Christianity contains more of the knowledge of the attributes of God and His relation to humanity, and more of the proper relation of man to his fellow man than any other religion.

Christianity, like all other religions, made its adherents enthusiastic, zealous, bold, and aggressive. They promulgated the new religion with intense vigor and earnestness. They naturally aroused the antagonism of the formalistic Jews, who persecuted them bitterly. Later they were persecuted by the Romans; but the new religion continued to spread, until the Roman emperor Constantine, more from political policy than from conviction, espoused its cause. From that time it became the state religion of the Roman empire.

The conquests of early Christianity were, however, not as complete as is generally supposed. Gibbon estimates the number of Christians in the Roman empire in the year 311 at one-twentieth of the population. The great body of the Jews rejected Christianity entirely, as they do to this day, and its Roman adherents were generally of the illiterate and plebeian classes. Among the Christians themselves there arose early controversies and dissensions — even among the immediate followers of Jesus; and that disaffections and so-called heresies date from the earliest history of the Christian religion is perfectly natural since error was promulgated as well as truth.

As early as 67 A.D. Cerinthus, a Christian writer, opposed the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus, and most serious defections among the early Christians arose through the Arians, who denied the divinity of Jesus. They became very numerous, and for a time threatened to become the ruling power in Christianity. Their doctrine was for a time favored by Constantine, but it was condemned by the Council of Nice in 325 A.D.

Christianity throughout its history has been fruitful of persecutions. The Jews persecuted the early Christians because they regarded them as blasphemous dissenters from the Jewish faith and traditions. The Romans persecuted the Christians because they could not induce them to worship the Roman gods and because they regarded them as a menace to the Roman government, while no sooner are the Christians free from persecution than they themselves become persecutors.

The Council of Nice having decreed the divinity of Jesus, this dogma became the “orthodox” Christian religion, and woe to those who did not accept it. A bitter feud arose between the orthodox and Arian Christians in which there were excommunications and counter-excommunications; prelates deposed and prelates set up at the point of the sword; intrigues, banishment, spoliation, rapine, and murder, until the emperor Julian, disgusted with the whole matter, as well he might be, took both factions in hand in an effort to establish a religion composed of the best elements of Christianity and paganism combined.

But the orthodox faction finally triumphed. Arianism was for the time suppressed, and the victorious Christians next turned their attention to the pagans. “Once it had been paganism against Christianity; now it was Christianity against paganism.” — Blackburn, History of the Christian Church. Heathen sacrifices were forbidden, “soothsayers” were ordered burned and “sophists” banished. Schools of philosophy were broken up and their books burned. Temple property was confiscated, their images and furniture destroyed, their wealth confiscated and their doors shut forever against the “idolaters.” In this war “the monks enlisted as if Providence had reared them for this purpose.” — Ibid.

About this time began what gradually developed into the fierce struggle of Christianity for control of the temporal power, perhaps the most dramatic incident of which occurred when Pope Gregory seventh compelled Henry fourth, emperor of Germany, to stand three days barefooted in the depth of winter at his palace gate to ask his forgiveness. The basis of the claim for temporal control was perfectly natural and logical, being nothing less than that all just power is derived from God; that as there is but one ruler in heaven so there should be but one on earth; that the Christians being God’s vicegerents it naturally followed that they by right should control in all things temporal as well as spiritual. This position would have been perfectly tenable if Christianity contained the whole truth and nothing but the truth respecting God’s relation to man and man’s relation to his fellow man and to God. But unfortunately the ethical teachings of Jesus and the fundamental principles of true religion were forgotten or had never been fully apprehended, and the history of Christianity since that time is not a subject for vaunting adulation.

“The success of the church was its source of spiritual danger. A worldly spirit was tempting it. Presbyters had grown into prelates, and these high bishops were not all free from the love of wealth and power. Idle ceremonies and false ideas had been thrown about the sacraments, such as the sign of the cross and exorcism in baptism; the notion that it secured the remission of sins; and that certain sins committed after baptism were unpardonable, and hence a delay of the rite,” etc. — Ibid.

Christianity had now become the popular religion. Many became Christians to gratify their ambition and self interest — to curry favor with the prelates and with the emperor. Others, more honest and sincere, became hermits, living alone in desert caves, making a virtue of their shabby clothing, coarse fare, humiliations, and afflictions. Others founded monasteries which bred image, saint, and relic worship, superstition, and corruption. Throughout the public worship were mingled pagan rites and ceremonies.

Some there were who saw the trend of events and protested earnestly but unsuccessfully against them. Pelagius taught that Adam was by nature mortal and would have died even if he had not sinned; that the consequences of his sin were confined to himself; that new-born infants are in the same condition as Adam before his fall; that the resurrection of Jesus is no proof of the general resurrection — all of which was, of course, regarded as rank heresy, and Pelagius and his followers were accordingly anathematized and banished. Mr. Blackburn naively remarks: “Their system never became a sect It simply formed a school of opinion.”

Saint Patrick, the Celt, a sincere, devout man, impelled by an earnest desire to benefit humanity, performed his marvelous missionary labors in Ireland. Columba founded his Ionian mission which stood like a beacon light in a night of Cimmerian darkness, but it was extinguished by “orthodox” Christianity. Some still regarded the ethical teachings and practice of Jesus and of the apostolic church in succoring the sick and needy; but the licentious, the avaricious, the crafty, the intolerant predominated in church and state.

The atrocities committed are simply appalling. Hypatia, the brilliant lecturer on Neoplatonic philosophy at Alexandria, was barbarously murdered; then her body was torn to pieces and burned. Controversies multiplied. The most virulent concerned the dual nature of Jesus — whether each nature was personal, whether God and Jesus were of one substance and two persons, and so on — questions which, by the way, are still unsettled, but which are no longer causes of bitter controversy and persecution. One ray of light appeared in the dark picture when Augustine, although he was a strict disciplinarian and thoroughly orthodox, teaching the doctrines of predestination, original sin, total depravity, and the damnation of unbaptized infants, succeeded in reviving for a time a spirit of tolerance towards “heretics” in his diocese.

An interruption in the internecine strife of Christian factions came with the invasion of the “barbarian” Goths, who, though eminently humane in comparison, were Arian, and therefore “heretics.” At the battle of Chalons, all the warring Christian factions were for once united against Attila, “the scourge of God.”

The movement to form, what Professor Bryce styles “The Holy Roman Empire,” began to assume shape with Pope Innocent first — A.D. 402-417 — who claimed for the Roman bishop (him-self at this time) the apostolic succession. Pope Leo, the great,— 440-461 — “condemned the whole race of heretics, who, he thought, did not deserve any benefit of law, gospel or charity. Assuming that his was the chair of St. Peter, he wrote: ‘In this chair dwelleth the everliving power, the superabounding authority. Let the brethren, therefore, acknowledge that he is the primate of all bishops, and that Christ imparts his gifts to none except through him.’” — Blackburn, History of the Christian Church — p. 148.

Contrast with this the utterance of the “barbarian” king Theodoric, who is quoted by the same author — p. 156 — as writing: “To pretend to a dominion over the conscience is to usurp the prerogative of God. By the nature of things the power of sovereigns is confined to political government. They have no rights over any except the disturbers of the public peace. The most dangerous heresy is that of a sovereign who separates himself from a part of his subjects because they believe not as he believes.” Noble words, these, but not received by the professed followers of the Prince of Peace because their minds and hearts were dwarfed and perverted by the fallacies held in the orthodox view.

Under the humane rule of Theodoric, law and order were restored, exiles returned, civilization advanced, and human rights conserved. But the orthodox Christians of Gaul, under the leadership of the notorious Clovis, “converted” the Frank-ish Arians at the point of the sword, and Clovis “was by the pope honored with the titles of ‘Most Christian King and Eldest Son of the Church.’” — Blackburn. The same writer says: — p. 169 — “Clovis was now regarded as the new Caesar restoring the old empire, and the new Constantine, defending the Nicene (orthodox) faith. By no little fraud and violence he carved out a wide kingdom. . . . His zeal for the church was the veil over the murder of his Frankish rivals. The excellent Gregory of Tours, with perfect coolness and without censure, wrote of Clovis, ‘Thus God daily cut down his enemies under his hand because he walked before Him with an upright heart, and did that which was well pleasing in His eyes.’” This sounds not unlike some things we read in the Bible!

The author just quoted continues: — p. 170 — “Bishops rode about like feudal lords, counts and dukes; pastors did little good preaching or visiting; the monasteries grew dissolute; the priests were grossly ignorant and many of them licentious; and, like priest, like people.”

The invasion of the Saracens and the rule of Charlemagne caused another diversion in the evolution of Christianity, and one to its advantage and progress — temporarily, at least. The Mahometans exposed the folly of Christian saint and image worship. Arabian culture and Nestorian doctrine gained a footing in Spain. “Claudius, a native of Spain,— A.D. 812 — removed the pictures and images from the churches of his diocese, disapproved of pilgrimages, denied the virtue of the sign and form of the cross, questioned the supremacy of the pope and held that originally bishops and presbyters were of equal rank.” — Blackburn, History Christian Church, p. 226. There arose at this time — about A.D. 869 — even a freethinker, John Scotus, an Irishman, who boldly taught that: “Authority springs from reason and not reason from authority.” —Ibid., p. 227. He advocated logic as a means of discovering truth. Marvelous as it seems he was not persecuted, but in A.D. 1209 the omission was rectified as far as possible by burning his books and his followers.

But the night of the dark ages was not yet spent. New controversies arose regarding predestination and the eucharist. Then came the Norse invasion and the reforms under Alfred the Great; William the Conqueror followed, whose invasion was sanctioned by Pope Alexander second, and who received from the pope the banner of the church and in turn placed the English church under the rule of the pope.

In A.D. 1041 the “truce of God” was declared. This provided that there should be no fighting from Wednesday evening till the following Monday morning of each week — the time held sacred by the death and resurrection of Jesus — and during the seasons of Advent and Lent. Some endeavored to observe this truce. Others fought to enforce it. It never was generally observed.

Meanwhile the popes, each of whom claimed to be the Vicar of Christ, a holy father to the entire church, the one supreme administrator of God’s visible kingdom, the mediator between God and man, the sole representative of Christ on earth were committing the grossest crimes and misdemeanors. Infamy, simony, intrigue, conspiracy, murder, lust, and avarice were rampant when again there came a temporary check to the foul stream as several times before, this time at the intervention of the “barbarian” Otho first, the Great, assisted by the scientific labors of Gerbert of France.

Next, Pope Leo ninth, through the medium of the monk Hildebrand, endeavored to effect some reforms among the clergy, and incidentally strengthened the hold of the papacy on the temporal power, a hold which Hildebrand, on becoming pope as Gregory sixth, endeavored to make complete by the aid of the forged decretals. Pilgrimages to Palestine, ostensibly as a penance, in reality too often to gratify the love of adventure and license, were the prevailing mania, and the sacrament was made the instrument of inspiring awe and terror in the minds of the ignorant and superstitious for the purpose of enforcing the demands of the prelates.

An interesting figure in the evolution of Medieval Christianity was Anselm, born at Aosta, A. D. 1033, who, while holding that faith does not depend upon knowledge or reason, and insisting that the object of faith be held tenaciously whether it can be held intelligently or not, yet allowed searching for the grounds of the truth of such belief and admitted an advantage to a faith based upon reasonable grounds. As a thinker and a sincere seeker after truth he was far in advance of his age, and though far short of the whole truth his teaching still made an impression which can be traced down to the present time, and was a severe rebuke to the superstitious formalism of his day.

Peter Abelard took a long step in advance in teaching that reason is the foundation for faith, “Since without a rational understanding of truth faith is not sure of its principles.” This was, of course, heresy, and was condemned as such, though Abelard was permitted to die a natural death, for his teaching made a profound impression and was eagerly heard.

The writings of Plato and of Aristotle were brought to the west by the crusaders, especially through the Arabian schools in Spain. Albertus Magnus — born A. D. 1193—was the first to reproduce the whole philosophy of Aristotle and to adapt it to the theology of the church. Roger Bacon denounced slavish deference to human authority and urged the study of the Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek. He placed a high estimate on the old Greek philosophers and regarded education as a knowledge of facts.

The Albigenses, of Arabian descent, were refined, learned, and moral; in civilization far in advance of other European nations. They inhabited the mountainous district of southern France, and with other sects had refused to come under the rule of the papacy. They were now placed under the ecclesiastical ban, and Peter DeBruys, a suspended priest, who had become their leader, was burnt. But “heresy” which, being interpreted, is the right to think and protest against the infamous demands of the prelates, would not down, in spite of the most violent and atrocious persecutions which were now inaugurated against all dissenters.

This era of fresh persecution became most virulent under the infamous pope Innocent III., who, as if in irony of his name, waged a war of extermi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Is the Bible the Word of God?
• Circumstantial
• The Creation and “Fall”
• The Exodus
• Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments
• The Evolution of Hebrew Monotheism
• Prophecies
• Miracles
• Contradictions
• The Bible Canon
• Evolution of Christianity
• What Then?