Biology versus Theology. The Bible: irreconcilable with Science, Experience, and even its own statements

by Julian

It is not our intention to dwell at any length upon what are termed the miracles of Scripture. Of course they are contrary to experience, but then they are acknowledged miracles, and those who believe such things possible satisfy their minds by the persuasion that He who made the laws of nature can suspend them at will, or can introduce some new factor at need to bring about preternatural results.

Thus, if any one were to object to the statement made in the Book of Numbers (xxii., 28.) respecting the ass of the Prophet of Pethor, which spoke like a man, and knew the will of Jehovah better than his master, the answer would be, the Lord, who made the ass, could make it talk also. Again, if any one were to say that Peter could no more walk on the sea than any other man, the reply would be, that Jesus was a divine being, and sustained his rash disciple by His omnipotent power. So, if anyone were to demur to the chariot and horses which fetched Elijah from the banks of the Jordan, and carried him through the air to that mysterious country called by the Hebrews “heaven,” he would be told—well, I hardly know what he would be told, but certainly the miracle was substantially repeated when the crucified but risen Christ mounted through the air without either chariot or horses, and followed Elijah to the same mysterious region.

Not a few of the “miracles” of the Bible appear quite purportless, mere exhibitions of super-human power; but, as they are miracles, nothing more can be said. What end could be answered by that miracle performed by the bones of Elisha, recorded in the Book of Kings? It is said that the Moabites were burying a man, and being disturbed, cast the dead body into the grave of Elisha; but when it touched the bones of the prophet, it “revived and stood upon its feet” (2 Kings, xiii., 21). In fact the restoration of life is certainly the commonest of all miracles. We have the widow’s son restored to life by Elijah; the son of the widow of Nain; the daughter of Jairus; Lazarus, Jesus, and the many saints which came out of their graves after the resurrection, and appeared unto many (Matthew xxvii., 52, 53). Shakespeare was quite mistaken when he spoke of the grave as “that bourne from which no traveller returns.” Many have returned, but what is passing strange is that none have left any record of the land of shadows, and no curiosity seems ever to have arisen in any living being to learn from these resuscitated ones the secrets of the dead. This certainly is contrary to human experience. If some now in their graves were to go to London and “appear unto many,” they would be beset with questions—questions of infinite interest, questions of untold influence; but of all the numerous dead who came to revisit the earth, not one has left behind a single item of information, and if we except Lazarus and Jesus, not even the name of anyone has escaped. Some are called “saints;” but were these saints taken from Paradise, and sent to live again in this “vale of tears?” One was a Moabite, was he snatched from the “burning lake” to live a new life and die a second time in battle? It is past finding out; and truly so contrary to experience, so altogether strange, so objectless, so incredible, that those who relate such things must bear the responsibility.

But if several of the scripture “miracles” are mere wanton exhibitions of super-human power, not a few others are puerile in the extreme. Witness that of Elijah beating the Jordan with his cloak to make himself a passage across the river (2 Kings, ii., 8), a “miracle” repeated by Elisha, after the ascent of the Tishbite (2 Kings, ii., 14). Witness the tale told of Elisha respecting the woodman’s axe: The woodman dropped his axe in the river, and Elisha attracted the iron head to the surface of the water, merely by “casting a stick into the river” (2 Kings, vi., 6). Witness the petty wrath of the Shunamite against the children of Bethel. These thoughtless children mocked him, saying, “Go up, bald-pate!” and the enraged prophet “cursed the children in the name of the Lord,” when, lo! “two she-bears out of the wood tare forty-and-two of them.” In regard to Elisha, however, it must be said that his miracles outnumber all the rest of the miracles of the Old Testament put together, and they are none of them free from serious objection.

The whole argument generally advanced in support of the miracles of Jesus is singularly weak. It is said that miracles were needful to show that Jesus was the “Sent of God;” that the working of miracles is the seal of the Almighty to the credentials of Christ, as Nicodemus pleaded (John iii., 2), “No one can do these miracles which thou doest, except God be with him,” and Christ himself endorsed the same plea when he said to the disbelieving Jews, “Believe me for my works’ sake” (John xiv., 11). It is notorious that false prophets, and even Satan himself, are said to be workers of miracles. It is said that miracles are performed to deceive and lead astray, as well as to convince and lead to God. In fact miracles prove nothing—neither mission from God, nor approval of God, nor the truth of a doctrine, nor the power of God working in the person who performs them. They are restricted to the Jews, and nobody knows anything of the historians who have avouched them. Thus the great miracle workers of the Old Testament were Elijah and Elisha; but no one knows who wrote the Books of Kings, which describe their wonderful works, nor whether those records were compiled before or after the Captivity. The miracles of Christ are recorded in four Gospels, and who were the authors of these memorials? Luke was no eye-witness—he himself acknowledges that his Gospel was compiled from several existing ones (i., 1–4); but we are nowhere told by what guiding power he made his selection, nor why his compilation is better or more worthy of credit than the originals. Mark, like Luke, was no apostle, and no one knows who he was, when he wrote, or where his Gospel was written. The very fact that he was the John Mark referred to in the Acts (xii., 25) is a mere conjecture, and even if admitted would not prove that he was one of those who “companied” with the apostles from the baptism to the resurrection. The Fourth Gospel, like the First Epistle of John, is notoriously doubtful, as Bretschneider has shown in his “Probabilia;” parts are certainly spurious, and the whole seems to belong to the latter half of the second century. [19] We are, therefore, reduced to one Gospel—that of Matthew—and even of this it may be said, that no one knows whether it was written in Greek or Hebrew, for no one has seen the original. It is certain that parts of our present text are interpolations, and although it would appear that Matthew wrote what is termed the “Logia” (or sayings of Christ), it is far from certain that the “Logia” is the same as our First Gospel. The fact seems to be this: that Matthew noted down the discourses and parables of Christ; and unknown authors from time to time added to the original work, till ultimately it assumed its present form and proportions.

It must not be forgotten that our present canon of the New Testament was not established till the year 494; the canon recognised at the council of Laodicea (360–4) repudiated the Book of Revelations. The primitive Christians never refer to any book of the New Testament, and few quotations from it were made by the apostolic fathers. It is not till the close of the second century that we meet with any definite and distinct mention of New Testament Scriptures at all. Eusebius recognises as canonical books the four Gospels and Acts, the Epistles of Paul, and the first Epistles of John and Peter; but he considers the rest of the books as doubtful; and speaks of others as equally worthy of credit or rather discredit, such as the Acts of Paul, the Book of the Shepherd [Hermas], the Kerugma of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Clementine Epistles, the Doctrines of the Apostles, and the Gospel of the Hebrews; all these, except the first are mentioned by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, on whose authority our selection of Canonical New Testament Scriptures mainly depends.

It is not a little strange that none of the books cited by the authors of the Bible as their authority form any part of our canonical Scriptures. Thus Joshua (x., 13) and the prophet Samuel (2 bk., i., 18) refer to the “Book of Jasher;” Moses (Nos. xxi., 14) refers to the “Book of the Wars;” the Chronicles refer to the “Book of Nathan the Prophet,” the “Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite,” the “Vision of Isaiah,” the “Vision of Iddo the Seer,” the “Book of Shemaiah the Prophet,” the “Book of Iddo concerning Genealogies,” the “Lamentations of Jeremiah for king Josiah,” and the “Story [history] of Iddo” (2 Chron., ix., 29; xii., 15; xiii., 22; xxxii., 32; xxxv., 25); the writer of the first book of Kings (xiv., 19, 29) to the “Diary of the Kings of Judah,” and to another of the “Kings of Israel;” [20a] in 1 Kings iv., 29–33, we have mention of several works of Solomon unknown to us; in Acts, vii., 42, allusion is made to the “Book of the Prophets;” Paul refers more than once to his “own Gospel” (Rom., ii., 16; xvi., 25); [20b] and Jude (14) to the “Book of Enoch,” none of which form any part of our Bible.

In regard to the New Testament the number of books professing to set forth the words and deeds of Christ was very numerous, even when the Gospel of Luke was compiled, and when the canon was fixed by “uninspired” authority, the claimants were legion. The present selection was made by persons wholly incompetent to weigh evidence, and their only rule was what they arbitrarily judged to be orthodox, which, of course, means in agreement with their own religious opinions. This being the case, on what does the testimony of miracles rest? certainly not on eye-witnesses, not even on the authority of contemporaries. Paley says the men suffered persecution and even death in proof of their belief, but Paley has no ground for this assertion: first, because he knows nothing about any of the four Evangelists, and cannot tell whether they suffered persecution or not; and, secondly, he cannot know whether the names attached to these evangelists are real names or not. But allowing Paley’s assertion to be true, what is gained by it? It is by no means true that a willingness to suffer is a proof of truth. It may be a proof of obstinacy, of conviction, or even of cowardice, but can be no proof of truth. A boy who has stolen from a schoolfellow will often suffer greatly to maintain a lie; indeed the expression, “it was worthy a better cause,” is a proverbial proof that men suffer and labour for the wrong as well as for the right. Allowing, therefore, that the early disciples did suffer, it proves nothing, and certainly it will not prove the truth of the gospel narratives. It is now admitted by all biblical scholars that large parts of our Gospels are interpolations, some of the epistles are known to be spurious, and probably the only part of the New Testament at all worthy of credit is that taken from the “Logia,” or sayings of Christ. But we have run somewhat from our subject. In stating that Scripture contradicts experience, we would wholly set aside miracles, and limit our examples to matters more tangible. Our first observations shall be respecting the Mosaic account of prehistoric man.

(1.) The Biblical prehistoric man not reconcilable with historic experience.

The writer of the Book of Genesis represents Cain as a tiller of the ground. His son was Enoch, who built a city called Enoch; and during the lifetime of Adam lived Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain, all sons of Lamech. The first of these was the “father of such as dwell in tents,” the second the inventor of both “harp and organ,” and the third a forger of “every artifice in brass and iron.”