DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE AS TESTED BY THE LAWS OF EVIDENCE.[1]

DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE AS TESTED BY THE LAWS OF EVIDENCE.[1]

One has to breathe but little of the atmosphere of popular thought to-day to find how full it is of religious doubt. Parental faiths count for little. The beliefs of childhood, the teachings of the sainted dead, the hopes that once brightened the darkness and mysteries and griefs of life with the light of a cloudless future, are to multitudes no more. "The eclipse of faith" has come, and souls are drifting out upon the starless, shoreless sea of unbelief. They see "the spring sun shining out of an empty heaven to light up a soulless earth." They take up the wail of despair: "We are all to be swept away in the final ruin of the earth." This is the deep, pathetic undertone of the sighing of a thousand hearts to-day.

Has life anything real? Is it worth living? When the little play is over, and the hour's music is ended, and the lights are out, and we go forth into the darkness of the final night—what then? Is it darkness for ever? or is there the light of an eternal day? Who knows? Is anything certain? Must nations and men and the evening-moth alike go down and perish for ever under the crush of an inexorable fate? Is there no rift in this cloud? Have we no anchor that will hold as the storm drives us on through the blinding mists and gloom to the eternal shore? Have we no sure word of promise to which we can cling when everything else around us and under our feet is giving way?

Is the Bible true? That is the simple but momentous question; it settles all other questions of most concern to men. To it, therefore, we find the most intense thought of thoughtful men converging. That from this there should emerge questions not easily solved is not to be wondered at: they emerge in every inquiry of human thought. The only thing to be asked is that these questions be dealt with candidly and fairly.

To many minds the Bible is still on trial; it is only just that in its trial those rules and principles shall be observed which men everywhere expect and demand shall be observed for themselves when they or their interests are to be tried.

This is the point of this essay. It is not, indeed, a discussion from the highest ground of inspiration; it does not claim to be. It simply deals with a certain class—a very large class, however—of alleged difficulties of the Bible, and it appeals to the candid reader to deal with them as fairly and by the same rules as he would have his fellow-men deal with him in a matter of life or death, or of any worldly interest.

For this object only a few of the common rules of evidence have been taken. It is believed, however, that their application will cover a very large portion of the popular objections to the alleged inconsistencies and contradictions of the Bible.

Undoubtedly, there are difficulties in the Bible; the question is whether these prove that it is not the work and word of God. On the other hand, it may be suggested whether they do not confirm it as the work of God, for they at once put it in harmony with all his other works. If the Bible were without difficulties, it would, for us, be out of the line with everything else that God has made or done. Nature and Providence are full of difficulties. There is nothing in the Bible harder of explanation and reconciliation than are the facts that meet us everywhere in God's creative and providential realms. If these difficulties do not prove that Nature and Providence are not, from beginning to end, the works of God, they do not on the face of them prove that the Bible is not such.

In dealing with the difficulties of the Scriptures, therefore, we have not the least idea that they will all be removed: difficulties will remain. The Lord of hosts himself is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence upon which many stumble and fall and are broken. Isa. viii. 14, 15. If a man is determined to commit suicide, he can do it by the very means that God has created to preserve life—by fire or by water. Spiritual self-destruction is quite possible through the word of life itself. At the same time, no man has a right to put needless difficulties in the Bible or to make difficulties where none exist. More than this, every man is bound to deal as fairly at least with the Bible as he deals with his fellow-men in the ordinary relations of life. That which would give him no trouble as a judge upon the bench or a juror in the box ought not to be urged as a fatal objection to the Scriptures.

In testing at this time some of the difficulties of the Bible by the accepted rules of evidence, hardly more can be done than to present a few of these rules as applicable to these difficulties. But the rules are of the widest application; the solution of one difficulty by them is the solution of a hundred.

Looking upon the Bible as a whole, we may refer for a moment to the familiar precept that every man is to be presumed innocent until he is proved guilty. This is emphatically true of a man of good general reputation. The rule would seem as applicable to a book as to a man. Now, the Bible is not a new book; it has been before the world for ages. It has a character. That it is on the whole a good book the bitterest opposers of its plenary inspiration not only admit, but assert. It is conceded that it is entitled to its name—the Bible, the Book. It claims to be a truthful book; by every fair principle this claim must be allowed until it is shown to be false. Bancroft's History of the United States claims to be a reliable work; the claim is generally admitted. If a man now comes forward and asserts that it is false in whole or in details, by universal judgment he must prove his assertion, and obviously his proofs must be stronger than the evidences of the truth of the history. If this is so in reference to a book that has not stood the test of half a century, emphatically is it true of a book whose character has been established through the searching scrutiny of friends and foes for fifteen centuries—ay, for twice fifteen centuries. If a man now affirms the Bible to be false, wholly or in part, it rests upon him in all fairness to prove his position, and his evidence must be stronger than that which supports the book. For three thousand years a growing mass of testimony to the truth of the Bible has been rolling up in the face of every objection that ingenuity, learning and the bitterest hostility could present. Account for it as we may, that is the fact. There is, therefore, a reasonable presumption in its favor, and in favor of any specific statement that it makes. If, then, we find in it a positive statement in regard to any fact, and that statement is now confronted by another and a contradictory one, the two do not stand on the same level. The new claimant must prove his position, and to prove it he must disprove the truth of the Scripture record. It is not enough to show that his proposition might be true if we had no other information on the subject: he must show that the Scripture, with its mass of supporting and cumulative evidence, is false; and he must support his new proposition by a body of evidence stronger than this manifold evidence of ages by which the Scriptures are sustained.

The application of this principle is obvious, yet nothing is more common than its violation. An hypothesis with certain analogies perhaps in its favor, but admittedly without a solitary positive proof to sustain it, is put forward as an established truth without regard to the fact that the Bible, with its general character of veracity behind it, gives another and an entirely different account of the matter. We will not say this is irreverent: it is unfair and unreasonable.

The character of the Bible may justly claim to sustain its record till it is proved false. Deal with it as fairly as you deal with the red-handed anarchist: let the book be innocent till proved guilty; and if innocent, the written word, like the incarnate Word, stands a true witness in all things for ever. Condemned, crucified, buried, it will rise again. It is a perilous thing to condemn the guiltless.

Let us pass to another rule of law; it is this: "The testimony of a single witness, where there is no ground for suspecting either his ability or integrity, is a sufficient legal ground for belief" (Starkie on Ev., i. 550). The mere silence of one witness or of many witnesses cannot set aside the clear, positive testimony of a single trustworthy witness. That Josephus does not mention events which Moses records does not affect the truth of the Mosaic record, and his silence as to the Bethlehem massacre—even if no reason could be suggested for it, as there can be—cannot, under this rule of law, affect the positive testimony of Matthew that there was such a massacre.

The courts go farther than this. They say, "If a witness swear positively that he saw or heard a fact, and another who was present that he did not see or hear it, and the witnesses are equally faithworthy, the affirmative witness is to be believed" (Decisions of the Supreme Court of Errors of the State of Connecticut, vol. vi. p. 188). In the case referred to in that decision the court set aside a verdict that had been rendered by the lower court on the negative testimony of eleven witnesses against the positive testimony of three. The principle recognized by that decision, and which is universally accepted as law, is that the negative testimony of witnesses present at any given transaction cannot set aside the positive testimony of a far less number of witnesses, or even of a single reliable witness.

The silence of any of the evangelists in reference to an incident or event at which they may have been present, but which possibly they may not have noticed or which they do not record, does not contradict in the least the testimony of one who says such an incident occurred. The fact of the marriage in Cana is not at all disturbed because John is the only witness who testifies to it. So if one writer states a part of an incident or of a discourse which another writer omits, while the latter gives a part which the first omits, there is no contradiction. Matthew (xx. 20) says the mother of Zebedee's children made a certain request which Mark (x. 35) says the children themselves made. But this is not inconsistent: the children united with the mother in the request. Matthew calls attention to one party; Mark, to another. Nothing can be more unreasonable than the cavil that stumbles at such difficulties.

The rule before us applies to that extraordinary doubt of modern criticism—whether the Israelites were ever in Egypt, because, as affirmed, the monuments do not record their presence nor their flight nor the destruction of the Egyptian host at the Red Sea. Now, leaving out of the argument the strong probability that the monuments do refer to their presence in Egypt, and the further probability that the Egyptians would not be likely to preserve on their monuments the record of their own ignominy and overthrow, the objection could not stand for a moment in any court of justice in the presence of the positive testimony of the record to the history in Egypt—all the more as this testimony is sustained by an extraordinary weight of incidental corroborative evidence, and is involved in the whole subsequent history of the nation.

Grant, if you will, that there are improbabilities in parts of the history; still, the courts rule that "mere improbability can rarely supply a sufficient ground for disbelieving direct and unexceptionable witnesses of the fact where there was no room for mistake" (Starkie, i. 558; see also Greenleaf on Ev., i. 1, 14, 15). That canon, fairly applied, sweeps away no inconsiderable portion of the objections to the Scripture histories. Take the great decisive fact of the resurrection of Christ—a fact that carries with it the whole Christian system and the verity of the whole Christian revelation. It is a fact of testimony—of the testimony of many witnesses, under a great variety of circumstances, at many times and places, and extending through so long a period as to preclude all reasonable or admissible supposition of "mistake." No fact of ancient history can be proved by testimony if the resurrection of Christ cannot be. The proof stands by itself, positive, direct, unexceptionable as to the character and capacity of the witnesses. It is proof that the law declares cannot be set aside by "mere improbability;" and if this fact is established, everything essential to Christianity is established. The seal of the risen Christ is on the Old Testament; his blood is on the New Testament. It is, throughout, the living book of the slain and living Lord.

Another very important rule of law is this: "In cases of conflicting evidence, the first step in the process of inquiry must naturally and obviously be to ascertain whether the apparent inconsistencies and incongruities which it presents may not without violence be reconciled" (Starkie, i. 578). "Where there is an apparent inconsistency or contradiction in the testimony of witnesses, such construction shall be put upon it as to make it agree if possible, for perjury is not to be presumed" (6 Conn. 189). Nothing is more remarkable than the constant violation of this rule by many of the critics of the Bible; their effort is to see, not if the testimony can be made to agree, but if by any possibility it can be forced to appear contradictory. It is hardly putting it too strongly to say that many of these efforts would not be considered respectable, and would not be tolerated by the critics themselves, if they concerned any other book than the Bible and any other subject than Christianity.

The courts take even stronger ground on the obligation of harmonizing apparently conflicting evidence. If the elements of reconciliation are not found in the evidence itself, they insist on the admission of any reasonable supposition that will explain the difficulty.

"Where doubt arises," says Starkie (Ev. i. 586), "from circumstances of an apparently opposite and conflicting tendency, the first step in the natural order of inquiry is to ascertain whether they be not in reality reconcilable, especially when circumstances cannot be rejected without imputing perjury to a witness; for perjury is not to be presumed, and in the absence of all suspicion that hypothesis is to be adopted which consists with and reconciles all the circumstances which the case supplies." (See also Starkie, i. 578, 582.)

Take the familiar case of the taxing when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. Luke ii. 2. Everybody knows how confidently it was asserted that Luke was in error because Cyrenius' government of Syria was several years later than Luke makes it; equally, every one knows how that difficulty was met by the supposition, made almost a certainty, that Cyrenius was twice governor of Syria—once at the time in question, and once later. Even if the supposition were not as probable as it is, if there were no other way of solving the difficulty, we should be justified by the principle of law in assuming it rather than to assume that a witness as intelligent as Luke, and with his opportunities of knowledge and with no motive for misstatement, should either wilfully or carelessly have made so gross an error. Here the rule fits perfectly: "In the absence of all suspicion, that hypothesis is to be adopted which consists with and reconciles all the circumstances which the case supplies."

In regard to certain objections to the Mosaic record—for example, the improbability of the desert sustaining the host of the Israelites: we select this as an example of a mass of like objections—Dean Stanley, while holding in general to the historic fact, says the recorded miracles do not meet the difficulty and we have no right to add to them; for "if we have no warrant to take away, we have no warrant to add." If by this he meant we have no right to add to the inspired word as a part of it what is not in it, he is quite correct; but if he meant, as he evidently did, that we have no right to make a reasonable supposition to explain an apparent difficulty of the word, no utterance can be more groundless. He might as well object that Moses could not possibly have led the Israelites through the desert forty years because no man could do that without sleeping, and the record does not say that Moses slept during all that time, and "we have no warrant to add" to the record.

The same difficulty is urged by others from the present barrenness of the desert, which it is contended is substantially as it was in the time of the Exodus. This is to be met not so much by hypothesis as by the facts—(1) that the condition of the desert was very different then from its condition now. Because the country around Philadelphia cannot now support a tribe of Indians by hunting and fishing, it does not follow that it could not do this two hundred years ago. (2) God had undertaken to bring the nation out. If every miracle necessary to accomplish this end is not recorded, it does not prove that it was not wrought. As in the life of our Lord, so in the deliverance of Israel, many miracles may have been wrought of which no account has come down to us.

This suggests an obvious and a very important consideration: facts may now be missing which were perfectly well known at the time of the event, but the record of which has not been preserved. Hence, if a difficulty can be removed by a reasonable supposition, or even by any admissible supposition, of a missing fact, we are entitled to make that supposition.

Webster (Works, vol. vi. p. 64) in his address to the jury on the celebrated trial of the Knapps for the murder of Captain White of Salem, Massachusetts, says: "In explaining circumstances of evidence which are apparently irreconcilable or unaccountable, if a fact be suggested which at once accounts for all and reconciles all, by whomsoever it may be stated, it is still difficult not to believe that such fact is the true fact belonging to the case." The missing fact that was wanted in this case to show a motive for the murder was the stealing of a will, or the purpose to steal a will, and this proved the true hypothesis.

To illustrate by a familiar incident of the Old Testament history. The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel foretell the fate of the last king of Judah, Zedekiah. Jer. xxxii.; Ezek. xii. They declare that he shall be taken captive by the king of Babylon, that he shall go to Babylon and that he shall die in Babylon; yet Ezekiel expressly says that he shall not see Babylon. Now, here is apparently as gross a contradiction as there can be; and if our information stopped here, it would be impossible to reconcile it. Fortunately, however, the explanation is given in the history. From 2 Kings xxv. we learn that the king of Babylon, when Zedekiah was brought into his presence at Riblah, ordered his eyes to be put out and sent him blind to Babylon; so that he saw the king of Babylon, he went to Babylon, he died in Babylon, and yet he never saw Babylon. But—and this is the point of this familiar case—if this unexpected and extraordinary fact had not been stated, how absolutely impossible it would have been to give any satisfactory solution of the difficulty! It may be doubted whether any supposition as violent as this needs to be made to reconcile every alleged contradiction of the Bible.

A remarkable illustration of the power of a missing fact occurs in the history of the overthrow of Babylon itself. The Scripture account (Dan. v.) says that Belshazzar was king of Babylon, that he was in the city, engaged in a feast, at the time of its capture, and that he was slain. Reliable secular historians give the name of the king as Nabonnedus or Labynetus, and state that he was not in the city when it was captured, that he was not killed, but taken prisoner, kindly treated and allowed to retire to private life. These different accounts were not only eagerly seized upon by skeptics as proofs of the error of the Scriptures, but even biblical scholars admitted them to be incapable of reconciliation. No longer ago than when the writer was in the theological seminary that prince of biblical students, Addison Alexander, said that no solution of the difficulty was known; he was too wise a man to say that no solution was possible. Kitto, in his Cyclopedia, declared that no hypothesis could harmonize the accounts. Yet the reconciliation was perfectly simple. A cylinder of historic records discovered by Sir Henry Rawlinson in the ruins of Lower Babylon showed that there were at this time two kings of Babylon, a father and a son. One was occupying a stronghold near the city, the other was defending the city itself; the latter was taken and slain, the former was spared. Thus, by the providential bringing to light of a fact buried for centuries, that which had seemed to be, and which had repeatedly and triumphantly been proclaimed to be, and which had been given up as being, an irreconcilable contradiction, was shown to be perfectly harmonious. Yet if the hypothesis of two kings had been suggested as an explanation before the discovery of the fact, it would have been hissed out of court by the whole skeptical school.

The two accounts of the death of Judas have not passed out of the field of popular objection. Matthew (xxvii. 5) says he committed suicide; Luke (Acts i. 18) says he fell headlong and burst asunder. He does not say where he fell from or what were the circumstances of the fall, and it is certainly not impossible, or even improbable, that both accounts are true. The traitor hung himself, possibly, on the verge of a precipice—the supposed spot furnishes all the conditions for this—and afterward (how long is not said) the rope or the limb of the tree gave way, and he fell, striking first on the rocks at the foot of the tree and then plunging over the precipice with the result described by Luke.

The case is not without a parallel. A few weeks since the papers noticed the death of a gentleman in one of our Western States. According to one account, he perished in a railroad disaster; according to another, he committed suicide—a contradiction almost exactly like that in the case of Judas. Yet there was no real discrepancy. With his wife and child he was on the fatal train that met its doom at Chatsworth. His child was killed; he and his wife were taken from the ruins terribly injured. The wife soon died; in despair, and with no hope of his own life, he drew his pistol and sent the ball through his own head. He perished in the Chatsworth disaster, and he committed suicide.

The application of these principles of law—the admission of any reasonable hypothesis, or of an hypothesis that may seem improbable, if it removes the difficulty, the supposition of missing facts known at the time, but now lost—principles of constant application in our courts of justice,—releases at once the pressure from a large part of the objections to the inspired record. The accounts of the healing of the blind men at Jericho and the resurrection of Christ—two of the most difficult of full explanation in the New Testament—require no more than this. It is not hard to present reasonable hypotheses to meet the cases as they stand; and if all the facts were known to us we believe the harmony would be as complete and as simple as that of the histories of the siege and capture of Babylon.

We draw the discussion to a close with the words of the eminent American jurist and legal authority, Professor Greenleaf: "All that Christianity [or the Bible] asks of men on this subject is that they would be consistent with themselves, that they would treat its evidence as they treat the evidence of other things, and that they would try and judge its actors and witnesses as they deal with their fellow-men when testifying to human affairs and actions in human tribunals."

This, as we have said, is not the highest claim that we can make for the Bible; but if men will go as far as this, and deal with the alleged contradictions of the book honestly by the common rules of evidence, the vast majority of all the difficulties to which these rules apply will disappear. In the mean time, if there are those that do not yield to present knowledge, we can afford to wait. Many objections once supposed to be unanswerable have been answered, and the process is going on. God is very patient, but we may be assured that He who just as the occasion has demanded has summoned up the silent witnesses to his word from the valley of the Nile, from the stormy cliffs of Sinai, from the plains of Mesopotamia and from the sullen shores of the Dead Sea, will not fail in the future to give all the confirmation of his truth that the faith of his Church may need.

Washington, D. C., 1888.

THE END.

FOOTNOTE:

Transcriber's note:

Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error.

Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the original text.

The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

The Table of Contests was created by the transcriber.