I cannot refrain from again quoting Professor Huxley in summing up my own conclusions in regard to this matter:
“I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one for a moment can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history. The identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. If the covenant with Abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifices were not ordained by Jehovah; if the ‘ten words’ were not written by God’s hand on the stone tables; if Abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus; the story of the deluge a fiction; that of the fall a legend; that of the creation the dream of a seer,—if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than the stories of the regal period of Rome, what is to be said of the Messianic doctrine which is so much less clearly enunciated? And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who on this theory have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legends and quicksands?
“The antagonism between natural knowledge and the Pentateuch would be as great if the speculations of our time had never been heard of. It arises out of contradictions upon matters of fact. The books of ecclesiastical authority declare that certain events happened in a certain fashion; the books of scientific authority say they did not.”
“What we are pleased to call religion now-a-days is for the most part Hellenized Judaism; and, not un-frequently, the Hellenic element carries with it a mighty remnant of old-world paganism and a great infusion of the worst and weakest products of Greek scientific speculation; while fragments of Persian and Babylonian—or rather Accadian—mythology burden the Judaic contribution to the common stock. The antagonism of Science is not to Religion, but to the heathen survivals and the bad philosophy under which Religion herself is wellnigh crushed. Now, for my part, I trust this antagonism will never cease, but that to the end of time true Science will continue to fulfil one of her most beneficent functions, that of relieving men from the burden of false Science which is imposed upon them in the name of Religion.”
The fact that well-dressed congregations do not laugh sacerdotalists to scorn shows how safe it is to rely upon the credulity and indifference of those who have been taught mere myths as real history from early childhood. The day will come when even children will laugh in the faces of priests when they seriously speak of the fall of Adam and Eve as a matter of actual occurrence. The great curse of true religion to-day is literalism, enforced by priestcraft, in regard to what relates to our most sacred concerns.
It is no part of our design to here explain the development theory as to how man did originate from the lower forms of animal existence, but must refer those who are willing to learn to such works as Darwin's Origin of Species and Descent of Man, Huxley's Man's Place in Nature, and to scores of other books accessible to all. Perhaps ninety-nine-hundredths of living working scientists repudiate the Adam-and-Eve story, and regard it as a fable intended to illustrate what man's attainments at the time would not enable him to account for on natural principles.
[CHAPTER VIII. SEARCH FOR THE “LAST ADAM”]
“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”...
“And so it is written, the first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.”—1 Cob. 15: 22-45.
THE claim of sacerdotalism is substantially as follows: Adam was the first man and the sole progenitor of the entire human race. When he fell, all his progeny “sinned in him and fell with him in the first transgression.” Death was first introduced in the world by Adam’s sin, and life is restored by Christ. Adam and Christ are the two great representatives of death and life, of the fell and the restoration. The Creator permitted this great calamity to happen, having purposed from all eternity to redeem this degenerate race, or at least a portion of it, from the terrible curse caused by Adam’s sin. In due time he did incarnate himself, became man, human flesh and blood, by impregnating, or “overshadowing,” a Jewish virgin, and so was born, by ordinary generation, a human babe in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who was called the Christ. After about thirty years this human-born God died to make it possible to restore our race to its original moral status. This is called the “redemptive scheme,” and is the sum and substance of Christianity, and is fully set forth in what is very improperly called the “Apostles’ Creed,” which is publicly recited in thousands of churches every Sunday as an epitome of their belief.