Mathematics.
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one” (1 John v, 7).
“The incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one and one is three!”—Thomas Jefferson.
Matthew concludes his genealogy of Jesus as follows:
“So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations” (Matt. i, 17).
This genealogy, including both Abraham and Jesus, contains but forty-one generations. Here we have an inspired scholar performing the mathematical solution of dividing forty-one generations by three and obtaining fourteen generations for a quotient.
“The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and three score” (Ezra ii, 64).
This number, 42,360, is given as the whole number of persons belonging to the families that returned from Babylon. Adding together the numbers given in the census register, of which the above is declared to be the sum total, we find the whole number to be only 29,818—a difference and a discrepancy of 12,542.
The foregoing are but three of three hundred mathematical errors to be found in the Bible.
It is not merely in a few unimportant scientific details, but in the fundamental principles of the most important sciences—of astronomy, of geology, of geography, and of man—that the Bible errs. Its writers evince no divine knowledge of the facts of nature. Their works exhibit the crude notions of the age in which they lived. Some of their teachings are in harmony with the accepted truths of Science; but these prove no more than a human origin. The wisest of mankind do not know all; the most ignorant know something. While there are phenomena too complex for the mind of a Newton or a Darwin to grasp, there are others regarding which the first impressions of a child are correct.
To assert that the Bible is in harmony with the teachings of Modern Science is to assert that no advancement has been made in Science for two thousand years, when all know that many of the most marvelous scientific discoveries are less than two hundred years old. The scientific attainments of Bible writers were not above those of the age and country in which they lived, and probably far below; for the Bible is largely the work of theologians, and theologians have ever been behind their age in scientific knowledge. The mission of theologians is not to advance, but to retard Science. They have waged a relentless but ineffective warfare against it. In the words of Huxley: “Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science, as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules.”
“The Hebrew Pentateuch,” says Gerald Massey, “has not only retarded the growth of science for eighteen centuries, but the ignorant believers in it as a book of revelation have tried to strangle every science at its birth. There could be and was but little or no progress in Astronomy, Geology, Biology, or Sociology until its teachings were repudiated by the more enlightened among men.”
Of the Bible and Science thus writes America’s eminent scientist and author, Dr. John W. Draper:
“It is to be regretted that the Christian church has burdened itself with the defense of these books, and voluntarily made itself answerable for their manifest contradictions and errors.... Still more, it is to be deeply regretted that the Pentateuch, a production so imperfect as to be unable to stand the touch of modern criticism, should be put forth as the arbiter of science” (Conflict Between Religion and Science, p. 225).
“The world is not to be discovered through the vain traditions that have brought down to us the opinions of men who lived in the morning of civilization, nor in the dreams of mystics who thought that they were inspired” (Ibid, p. 33).
“For her [Science] the volume of inspiration is the book of Nature, of which the open scroll is ever spread forth before the eyes of every man. Confronting all, it needs no societies for its dissemination. Infinite in extent, eternal in duration, human ambition and human fanaticism have never been able to tamper with it. On the earth it is illustrated by all that is magnificent and beautiful, on the heavens its letters are suns and worlds” (Ib., p. 227).
CHAPTER XXII.
PROPHECIES.
“Prophecy is a demonstration of divine knowledge; as miracles, in the restricted acceptation of the word, are a demonstration of divine power. Prophecies being true, revelation is established as a fact.”—Keith.
“The predictions respecting Christ are so clear, so detailed and circumstantial, as to constitute together one of the most important proofs of the inspiration of the Bible and of the truth of Christianity.”—Hitchcock.
A prophet, according to the orthodox and popular signification of the term, is one who predicts. A prophecy is a prediction, and the writings of the prophets are a collection of predictions regarding future events. Prophet and prophecy, as used in the Bible, have no such meaning. The prophet might make a prediction, just as any one may make a prediction, but this was not necessarily any part of his office. The functions of the prophet were those of preacher, poet, and musician. There were not merely a score of them, but thousands of them. The more talented prophets became authors—composed the poems, recorded the history, and wrote the religious works of the Hebrews. Some of these prophets were moral reformers—labored earnestly to reform their people. The wicked were exhorted to forsake their sins, and threatened with divine retribution if they did not. When their countrymen were in bondage they consoled them with the promise that God would liberate them. The oppressed and the captive longed for a deliverer. The prophet gave utterance to these longings, and this gave birth to the Messianic idea.
The more important of these so-called prophecies will now be examined.