What have the worldly done?
They have investigated the religions of the world—have read the sacred books, the prophecies, the commandments, the rules of conduct. They have studied the symbols, the ceremonies, the prayers and sacrifices. And they have shown that all religions are substantially the same—produced by the same causes—that all rest on a misconception of the facts in nature—that all are founded on ignorance and fear, on mistake and mystery.
They have found that Christianity is like the rest—that it was not a revelation, but a natural growth—that its gods and devils, its heavens and hells, were borrowed—that its ceremonies and sacraments were souvenirs of other religions—that no part of it came from heaven, but that it was all made by savage man. They found that Jehovah was a tribal god and that his ancestors had lived on the banks of the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Ganges and the Nile, and these ancestors were traced back to still more savage forms.
They found that all the sacred books were filled with inspired mistake and sacred absurdity.
But, say the Christians, we have the only inspired book. We have the Old Testament and the New. Where did you get the Old Testament? From the Jews?—Yes.
Let me tell you about it.
After the Jews returned from Babylon, about 400 years before Christ, Ezra commenced making the Bible. You will find an account of this in the Bible.
We know that Genesis was written after the Captivity—because it was from the Babylonians that the Jews got the story of the creation—of Adam and Eve, of the Garden—of the serpent, and the tree of life—of the flood—and from them they learned about the Sabbath.
You find nothing about that holy day in Judges, Joshua, Samuel, Kings or Chronicles—nothing in Job, the Psalms, in Esther, Solomon's Song or Ecclesiastes. Only in books written by Ezra after the return from Babylon.
When Ezra finished the inspired book, he placed it in the temple. It was written on the skins of beasts, and, so far as we know, there was but one.