Does Ingersoll Know? by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 31, 1882

Does Ingersoll Know?

By Editor

THE committee who had charge of R. G. Ingersoll's lecturing tour in 1878-79 announced that his lecture on the "Mistakes of Moses," contained "the best results of modern scholarship." We have no "railing accusation" to bring against Mr. Ingersoll. We will notice a small item in that lecture, for sometimes the evidence for or against a point may be turned by a very small matter. In that lecture we find the following remark concerning the Pentateuch:-

"The Bible was originally written in the Hebrew language, and the Hebrew language at that time had no vowels in writing. It was written entirely with consonants, and without being divided into chapters or into verses, and there was no system of punctuation whatever. After you go home to-night write an English sentence or two with only consonants close together, and you will find it will take twice as much inspiration to read it as it did to write it."

Now if Mr. Ingersoll, or any other, thinks he has stated a difficult problem he can easily be undeceived if facts are what he wants. We will undertake to produce Hebrew books innumerable in the United States written with only consonants—not a vowel point in them. And then we will engage to find Hebrew youths—mere boys—who will read a page in those books as readily as Mr. Ingersoll can read a page of common English print. This is no conjecture with us, for we have seen it done many times. In Hebrew the vowel sounds are indicated by points and not by letters; the form of the word is the same without the vowels that it is with the vowels; and any one well versed in the Hebrew grammar, or raised to the use of these books, readily recognizes the form so as to understand the construction at sight. To any one who knows these facts it will not appear that any inspiration is needed to read unpointed Hebrew. But if Mr. Ingersoll does not know these simple facts which are within the reach of every one, and are known to thousands in every part of the country, how can we give him credit for scholarship? And where are his qualifications to criticise the Pentateuch? It takes no culture to ridicule, and this is Mr. Ingersoll's forte.