Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 128

Nevertheless, from their busy, enterprising habits, in which they emulate Europeans, they form an important section of the population of Bombay and Western India.

[452:3] Movers: Quoted in Dunlap's Spirit Hist., p. 261.

[452:4] Prolegomena, p. 417.

[452:5] Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 162.

[453:1] Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, p. 163.

[453:2] Ibid. p. 142, and King's Gnostics, p. 71.

[453:3] Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, pp. 135, 140, and 143.

[453:4] Quoted in Ibid. p. 186.

[453:5] Ibid.

[453:6] Renouf: Religion of Ancient Egypt, p. 81.

[454:1] That is, the Tri-murti Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, for he tells us that the three G.o.ds, Indra, Agni, and Surya, const.i.tute the _Vedic_ chief triad of G.o.ds. (Hinduism, p. 24.) Again he tells us that the idea of a Tri-murti was _first_ dimly shadowed forth in the Rig-Veda, where a triad of princ.i.p.al G.o.ds--Agni, Indra and Surya--is recognized. (Ibid. p.

88.) The wors.h.i.+p of the three members of the Tri-murti, Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, is to be found in the period of the epic poems, from 500 to 308 B. C. (Ibid. pp. 109, 110, 115.)

[454:2] Williams' Hinduism, p. 25.

[454:3] Monumental Christianity, p. 890.

[454:4] See Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi.

[454:5] See Appendix A.

[455:1] The genealogy which traces him back to _Adam_ (Luke iii.) makes his religion not only a Jewish, but a _Gentile_ one. According to this Gospel he is not only a Messiah sent to the Jews, but to all nations, sons of Adam.

[456:1] See The Bible of To-Day, under "_Matthew_."

[456:2] See Ibid. under "_Luke_."

[457:1] See the Bible of To-Day, under "_Mark_."

[457:2] "_Synoptics_;" the Gospels which contain accounts of the same events--"parallel pa.s.sages," as they are called--which can be written side by side, so as to enable us to make a general view or _synopsis_ of all the three, and at the same time compare them with each other. Bishop Marsh says: "The most eminent critics are at present decidedly of opinion that one of the two suppositions must necessarily be adopted, either that the three Evangelists copied from each other, or that all the three drew from a common source, and that the notion of an absolute independence, in respect to the composition of the three first Gospels, is no longer tenable."

[457:3] "On opening the New Testament and comparing the impression produced by the Gospel of Matthew or Mark with that by the Gospel of John, the observant eye is at once struck with as salient a contrast as that already indicated on turning from the _Macbeth_ or _Oth.e.l.lo_ of Shakespeare to the _Comus_ of Milton or to Spenser's _Faerie Queene_."

(Francis Tiffany.)

"To learn how far we may trust them (the Gospels) we must in the first place compare them with each other. The moment we do so we notice that the _fourth_ stands quite alone, while the _first three form a single group_, not only following the same general course, but sometimes even showing a verbal agreement which cannot possibly be accidental." (The Bible for Learners, vol. ii. p. 27.)

[458:1] "Irenaeus is the first person who mentions the four Gospels by name." (Bunsen: Keys of St. Peter, p. 328.)

"Irenaeus, in the second century, is the first of the fathers who, though he has nowhere given us a professed catalogue of the books of the New Testament, intimates that he had received four Gospels, as authentic Scriptures, the authors of which he describes." (Rev. R. Taylor: Syntagma, p. 109.)

"The authors.h.i.+p of the _fourth_ Gospel has been the subject of much learned and anxious controversy among theologians. _The earliest, and only very important external testimony we have is that of_ IRENaeUS (A.

D. 179.)" (W. R. Grey: _The Creed of Christendom_, p. 159.)

[458:2] Against Heresies, bk. ii. ch. xi. sec. 1.

[459:1] Against Heresies, bk. iii. ch. xi. sec. 8.

[459:2] Mosheim: vol. i. p. 109.

[459:3] Middleton's Works, vol. i. p. 59.

[460:1] Genuine Epist. Apost. Fathers, p. 98.

[460:2] See Chadwick's Bible of To-Day, pp. 191, 192.

[460:3] "Nec ab ipso scriptum constat, nec ab ejus apostolis sed longo post tempore a quibusdam incerti nominis viris, qui ne sibi non haberetur fides scribentibus quae nescirent, partim apostolorum, partim eorum qui apostolos secuti viderentur nomina scriptorum suorum frontibus indiderunt, a.s.severantes secundum eos, se scripsisse quae scripserunt."

(Faust, lib. 2. Quoted by Rev. R. Taylor: Diegesis, p. 114.)

[460:4] "Multa enim a majoribus vestris, eloquiis Domini nostri inserta verba sunt; quae nomine signata ipsius, c.u.m ejus fide non congruant, praesertim, quia, ut jam saepe probatum a n.o.bis est, nec ab ipso haec sunt, nec ab ejus apostolis scripta, sed multo post eorum a.s.sumptionem, a nescio quibus, et ipsis inter se non concordantibus SEMI-JUDaeIS, per famas opinionesque comperta sunt; qui tamen omnia eadem in apostolorum Domini conferentes nomina vel eorum qui secuti apostolos viderentur, errores ac mendacia sua secundum eos se scripsisse ment.i.ti sunt."

(Faust.: lib. 88. Quoted in Ibid. p. 66.)

[461:1] Taylor's Diegesis.

[463:1] Says Prof. Smith upon this point: "All the earliest external evidence points to the conclusion _that the synoptic gospels are non-apostolic digests of spoken and written_ apostolic tradition, and that the arrangement of the earlier material in orderly form took place only gradually and by many essays."

_Dr. Hooykaas_, speaking of the four "Gospels," and "Acts," says of them: "Not one of these five books was really written by the person whose name it bears, and they are all of more recent date than the heading would lead us to suppose."

"We cannot say that the "Gospels" and book of "Acts" are _unauthentic_, for not one of them professes to give the name of its author. _They appeared anonymously._ The t.i.tles placed above them in our Bibles owe their origin to a later ecclesiastical tradition which deserves no confidence whatever." (Bible for Learners, vol. iii. pp. 24, 25.)

These Gospels "can hardly be said to have had authors at all. _They had only editors or compilers._ What I mean is, that those who enriched the old Christian literature with these Gospels did not go to work as independent writers and compose their own narratives out of the accounts they had collected, but simply took up the different stories or sets of stories which they found current in the _oral_ tradition or already reduced to writing, _adding here_ and _expanding there_, and so sent out into the world a very artless kind of composition. These works were then, from time to time, somewhat enriched by _introductory matter or interpolations_ from the hands of later Christians, and perhaps were modified a little here and there. Our first two Gospels appear to have pa.s.sed through more than one such revision. The third, whose writer says in his preface, that 'many had undertaken to put together a narrative (Gospel),' before him, appears to proceed from a single collecting, arranging, and modifying hand." (Ibid. p. 29.)

[463:2] "Christiani doctores non in vulgus prodebant libros sacros, licet soleant plerique aliteropinari, erant tantum in manibus clericorum, priora per saecula." (Quoted in Taylor's Diegesis, p. 48.)

[463:3] Mosheim: vol. i. pt. 2, ch. ii.

[463:4] General Survey of the Canon, p. 459.

[464:1] Credibility of the Gospels.

[464:2] Marsh's Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 160. The Sinaitic MS. is believed by Tischendorf to belong to the fourth century.

[464:3] Ibid. p. 368.

[464:4] Eusebius: Ecclesiastical Hist. lib. 3, ch. xxii.

[465:1] The Science of Religion, pp. 30, 31.