Part 9

And after these books, or many of them, had been written, they were entirely lost, and are said to have been reproduced by Ezra.

Add to these facts that the original Hebrew had no vowels, that many of the sacred books were written without vowels, and that the vowels were added long after; and remember that, as Dr. Aked says, the oldest Hebrew Bible in existence belongs to the tenth century after Christ, and it will begin to appear that the claim for biblical infallibility is utterly absurd.

But I must not offer these statements on my own authority. Let us return to Dr. Gladden. On page 11 of Who Wrote the Bible? I find the following:

The first of these holy books of the Jews was, then, The Law, contained in the first five books of our Bible, known among us as the Pentateuch, and called by the Jews sometimes simply "The Law," and sometimes "The Law of Moses." This was supposed to be the oldest portion of their Scriptures, and was by them regarded as much more sacred and authoritative than any other portion. To Moses, they said, God spake face to face; to the other holy men much less distinctly. Consequently, their appeal is most often to the Law of Moses.

The sacredness of the five books of "The Law," then, rests upon the belief that they were written by Moses, who had spoken face to face with God.

So that if Moses did not write those books, their sacredness is a myth. Now, on page 42, Dr. Gladden says:

1. The Pentateuch could never have been written by any one man, inspired or otherwise.

2. It is a composite work, in which many hands have been engaged. The production of it extends over many centuries.

3. It contains writings which are as old as the time of Moses, and some that are much older. It is impossible to tell how much of it came from the hand of Moses; but there are considerable portions of it which, although they may have been somewhat modified by later editors, are substantially as he left them.

On page 45 Dr. Gladden, again speaking of the Pentateuch, says:

But the story of Genesis goes back to a remote antiquity. The last event related in that book occurred four hundred years before Moses was born; it was as distant from him as the discovery of America by Columbus is from us; and other portions of the narrative, such as the stories of the Flood and the Creation, stretch back into the shadows of the age which precedes history. Neither Moses nor any one living in his day could have given us these reports from his own knowledge. Whoever wrote this must have obtained his materials in one of three ways:

1. They might have been given to him by divine revelation from God.

2. He might have gathered them up from oral tradition, from stories, folklore, transmitted from mouth to mouth, and so preserved from generation to generation.

3. He might have found them in written documents existing at the time of his writing.

As many of the laws and incidents in the books of Moses were known to the Chaldeans, the "direct revelation of God" theory is not plausible. On this point Dr. Gladden's opinion supports mine. He says, on page 61:

That such is the fact with respect to the structure of these ancient writings is now beyond question. And our theory of inspiration must be adjusted to this fact. Evidently neither the theory of verbal inspiration, nor the theory of plenary inspiration, can be made to fit the facts, which a careful study of the writings themselves brings before us. These writings are not inspired in the sense which we have commonly given that word. The verbal theory of inspiration was only tenable while they were supposed to be the work of a single author. To such a composite literature no such theory will apply. "To make this claim," says Professor Ladd, "and yet accept the best ascertained results of criticism, would compel us to take such positions as the following: the original authors of each one of the writings which enter into the composite structure were infallibly inspired; every one who made any changes in any one of these fundamental writings was infallibly inspired; every compiler who put together two or more of these writings was infallibly inspired, both as to his selections and omissions, and as to any connecting or explanatory words which he might himself write; every redactor was infallibly inspired to correct and supplement, and omit that which was the product of previous infallible inspirations. Or, perhaps, it might seem more convenient to attach the claim of a plenary inspiration to the last redactor of all; but then we should probably have selected of all others the one least able to bear the weight of such a claim. Think of making the claim for a plenary inspiration of the Pentateuch in its present form on the ground of the infallibility of that one of the scribes who gave it its last touches some time subsequent to the death of Ezra."

Remember that Dr. Gladden declares, on page 5, that he shall state no conclusions as to the history of the sacred writings which will not be accepted by conservative critics.

On page 54 Dr. Gladden quotes the following from Dr. Perowne:

The first composition of the Pentateuch as a whole could not have taken place till after the Israelites entered Canaan.

The whole work did not finally assume its present shape till its revision was undertaken by Ezra after the return from the Babylonish captivity.

On page 25 Dr. Gladden himself speaks as follows:

The common argument by which Christ is made a witness to the authenticity and infallible authority of the Old Testament runs as follows:

Christ quotes Moses as the author of this legislation; therefore Moses must have written the whole Pentateuch. Moses was an inspired prophet; therefore all the teaching of the Pentateuch must be infallible.

The facts are that Jesus nowhere testifies that Moses wrote the whole of the Pentateuch; and that he nowhere guarantees the infallibility either of Moses or of the book. On the contrary, he set aside as inadequate or morally defective, certain laws which in this book are ascribed to Moses.

So much for the authorship and the inspiration of the first five books of the Bible.

As to the authorship of other books of the Bible, Dr. Gladden says of Judges and Samuel that we do not know the authors nor the dates.

Of Kings he says: "The name of the author is concealed from us." The origin and correctness of the Prophecies and Psalms, he tells us, are problematical.

Of the Books of Esther and Daniel, Dr. Gladden says: "That they are founded on fact I do not doubt; but it is, perhaps, safer to regard them both rather as historical fictions than as veritable histories."