href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@47316@[email protected]#txtCHAPTERIfn12" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">12] method of treating the scriptures, still maintain the truthfulness of the Bible? And while they are speculating how they can make it appear that "the substantial truthfulness of the Bible" need not be inconsistent with the existence of "circumstantial errors;" and are indulging in subtle refinements to show that "none of the mistakes, discrepancies and errors which have been discovered disturb the religious lessons of Biblical history"^[13]—masses who come to hear of these doubts cast upon what they have hitherto been taught to regard as the infallible oracles of God, answer off-hand:—If so much doubt exists as to the authenticity, credibility, inspiration, and authoritativeness of so great a part of the Bible, how are we to determine that the few remaining things you urge upon us are of divine appointment, or reach to any higher level than human conception and human authority? This their question; and, ever glad to meet with any excuse that will lend the lightest shadow of justification for casting aside the restraints which religion imposes upon the indulgence of human passion, and human inclination to worldliness in general, they rid themselves of their faith in the word of God, and in the religion it teaches, and walk abroad in the earth unchecked in their selfish pursuit of whatsoever may attract the fancy, please the taste or gratify the passions. For whatever may be the effect of what is left of the Bible, on minds of peculiar structure, after Higher Criticism is done with it, it must be conceded that a Bible of doubtful authenticity, of questionable credibility as to the greater part of it; with its divine inspiration and its divine authenticity remaining open questions—neither such a Bible nor any religion formulated from it in harmony with such conceptions, can have much influence over the masses of humanity.

Again I find it necessary to say that it is foreign to my purpose to enter into a consideration of the merits or demerits of Higher Criticism, or even to point out how much of that criticism merely attacks an apostate Christianity's misconceptions and false interpretations of the Bible, and not the Bible itself. It is sufficient for my purpose, if I have made clear the results that must inevitably follow this attack upon the Scriptures under the guise of Higher Criticism.

I must notice briefly the other side of the question; that is, give some account of the materials which have been brought to light in the nineteenth century for the defense of the Bible; materials which tend to prove its authenticity, its credibility, its inspiration and its divine authority. And here I am but a compiler of a very few of the principal results of researches that have been made in Egypt, in the valley of the Euphrates and in Palestine. I make no pretentions to original investigations of these researches, but accept the statements of what I consider to be reliable authorities in relation to them.

In the year 1799 a French officer named Boussard discovered a large, black basalt stone at Fort St. Julian near Rosetta, in the delta of the Nile. From the circumstances of the discovery being near Rosetta it has always been known as the Rosetta Stone. It was inscribed in Greek, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and a third class of writing which is called Demotic. The last is the common writing of the people of Egypt as opposed to the hieroglyphic which was written by the priests. The Greek upon the stone was readily made out, and it was found to consist of a decree drawn up by the priests of Memphis in honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, who ruled about 198 B. C. It was at once evident that the Greek inscription on this stone was the translation of the hieroglyphics upon it, and hence afforded a key to the interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. By the fortunes of war the Rosetta Stone was surrendered by the French to General Hutchinson and subsequently presented to the British Museum where it is now preserved. Accurate copies of the three-fold text were made forthwith and distributed among the scholars of Europe with the result that through the combined, patient labors of Silvestre de Sacy, Akebald the Swede, Thomas Young, Champollion, Lepsius in Germany, Birch in England, and others, the hieroglyphics were deciphered and a system of translation constructed which enabled European scholars to read many of the inscriptions upon the monuments of Egypt, and bring to light much of the history of that country which hitherto had been a mystery. This gave an impetus to research. The political representatives of the great countries of Europe made collections of antiquities in Egypt, and travelers spent much time and money in opening tombs and digging out ruins. The tombs have given up not only their dead, but with them the books which the Egyptians read, the furniture which they used in their houses, the ornaments and articles of the toilet of the Egyptian lady, the weapons of the warrior, the tools of the handicraftsman and laborer, the dice of the gambler, the toys of the children, and the portraits, statutes and figures of the men and women for whom they were made. The many-lined inscriptions upon the tombs give us their ideas about the future world, the judgment of the dead, the paradise of the happy souls, the transmigration of souls, and they enable us to place a juster estimate upon the statements of those Greek writers who profess to understand and to describe with accuracy the difficult religion of the educated Egyptians. And the result of all this, as affecting the authenticity of the Bible? Simply this: the manners, customs, governments, arts, sciences, occupations and state of civilization of the Egyptians in general, are demonstrated by these monuments to be substantially what they are described to be in the book of Genesis. Also there is supposed to be the confirmation of special events in the scripture narrative. Professor A. H. Sayce, for instance, has the following upon the existence of such a line of kings ruling at Jerusalem as Melchizedek is described to be in Genesis:

"Among the cuneiform tablets found at Tel el-Amarna in Upper Egypt, are letters to the Pharaoh from Ebed-tob, king of Jerusalem, written a century before the time of Moses. In them he describes himself as appointed to the throne, not by inheritance from his father or mother (compare Heb. 7:3), but by the arm of 'the Mighty King,' i. e. of the god of whose temple stood on Mount Moriah. He must therefore have been a priest-king like Melchizedek. The name of Jerusalem is written Ura-Salim, 'the city of the god of peace,' and it was the capital of a territory which extended southward to Kellah. In the inscriptions of Rameses II and Rameses III, Salem is mentioned among the conquests of the Egyptian kings."

The same writer sees confirmation of the history of Joseph, son of Jacob, in the following circumstance:

The "Story of the Two Brothers," an Egyptian romance written for the son of the Pharaoh of the oppression, contains an episode very similar to the Biblical account of Joseph's treatment by Potiphar's wife. Potiphar and Potipherah are the Egyptian Pa-tu-pa-Ra, "the gift of the Sun-god." The name given to Joseph, Zaphnath-paaneah, (Gen. 41:45), is probably the Egyptian Zaf-nti-pa-ankh, "nourisher of the living one," i. e. of the Pharaoh. There are many instances in the inscriptions of foreigners in Egypt receiving Egyptian names, and rising to the highest offices of state.

The story of the Exodus as related in the Bible is supposed to find confirmation in the following:

"The cuneiform tablets found at Tel el-Amarna, in Upper Egypt, have shown that in the latter days of the