Conclusion.
Of these fourteen Epistles ascribed to Paul, four, then, Romans, First and Second Corinthians, and Galatians, are pronounced genuine; three, Philippians, First Thessalonians, and Philemon, are of doubtful authenticity; while seven, Ephesians, Colossians, Second Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews, are spurious.
The genuine writings of Paul are probably the oldest Christian writings extant. Admitting the authenticity of these four books, of course, is not admitting the authenticity of Christianity. Paul was not a witness of the alleged events upon which historical Christianity rests. He was not a convert to Christianity until many years after Christ’s death. He did not see Christ (save in a vision); he did not listen to his teachings; he did not learn from his disciples. “The gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it” (Gal. i, 11, 12). Paul accepted only to a small extent the religion of Christ’s disciples. He professed to derive his knowledge from supernatural sources—from trances and visions. Regarding the value of such testimony, the author of “Supernatural Religion” says: “No one can deny, and medical and psychological annals prove, that many men have been subject to visions and hallucinations which have never been seriously attributed to supernatural causes. There is not one single valid reason removing the ecstatic visions and trances of the Apostle Paul from this class.”
We have now reviewed the books of the Bible and presented some of the historical and internal evidences bearing upon the question of their authenticity. The authenticity of the books of the New Testament, we have seen, is but little better attested than that of the Old. The authors of twenty books—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Ephesians, Colossians, Second Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, James, First and Second Peter, First, Second, and Third John, Jude, and Revelation—are unknown. Three books—Philippians, First Thessalonians, and Philemon—are of questionable authenticity. Four books only—Romans, First and Second Corinthians, and Galatians—are generally admitted to be authentic.
Of the sixty-six books of the Bible at least fifty are anonymous works or forgeries. To teach that these books are divine, and to accept them as such, denotes a degree of depravity on the one hand, and an amount of credulity on the other, that are not creditable to a moral and enlightened people.
Part II.
CREDIBILITY.
CHAPTER XII.
TEXTUAL CORRUPTIONS.
“The Bible does not contain the shadow of a shade of error from Genesis to Revelation”—Cheever.
“Every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High.”—Bunyan.
Such are the dogmatic assertions of Bibliolaters. So much confidence do they pretend to repose in the doctrine of the Bible’s inerrancy that they propose the most crucial tests for its submission.
The Rev. Jeremiah Jones, one of the highest orthodox authorities on the canon, lays down this rule in determining the right of a book to a place in the canon:
“That book is apocryphal which contains contradictions; or which contains histories, or proposes doctrines contrary to those which are known to be true; or which contains ludicrous trifling, fabulous, or silly relations; or which contains anachronisms; or wherein the style is clearly different from the known style of the author whose name it bears” (New Methods, Vol. I., p. 70).
The Rev. T. Hartwell Horne, a standard authority in the orthodox church, submits this test in determining the divinity of the Bible as a whole:
“If real contradictions exist in the Bible, it is sufficient proof that it is not divinely inspired, whatever pretenses it may make to such inspiration” (Introduction to the Scriptures, Vol. I., p. 581).
I challenge the verity of Cheever’s and Bunyan’s claims and proceed to apply to this book the tests of Jones and Horne. Instead of not containing the shadow of a shade of error, I shall show that it is so filled with the darkness of error that the truths existing in it are scarcely discernible. Instead of being the direct utterance of the Most High, I shall show that every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word of it, is the direct utterance of man. I shall impeach the authority of the Christian canon and show that all of its books are apocryphal; that they contain histories and propose doctrines that are contrary to what is known to be true; that they contain ludicrous, trifling, fabulous, and silly relations; that they abound with anachronisms. If I have not already shown that the style of these books is clearly different from the known style of the authors whose names they bear, it is because the “known style” of these authors is a myth. I shall adduce enough real contradictions from the Bible to not only refute the claim that it is divinely inspired, but to destroy its credibility even as a human authority.