RELIABILITIES OF BIBLE RECORDS.
By Hepworth
It is the peculiarity of the Bible, of the Old Testament especially, to be exceedingly minute in its details. It speaks very frequently of the topography of the countries to which it refers. It also speaks, with great carefulness apparently, concerning certain kingdoms and dynasties, certain emperors, and courts, and peoples. Now it has been impossible, up to within a few years, to verify these statements, and they have been of such an extraordinary nature that even scholars have looked upon them askance, and felt that some apology was possibly due in explaining them. Nineveh and Babylon are referred to again and again in the Old Testament, but Nineveh and Babylon are buried, and have been for ages. Those old dynasties have been blotted out by the on-coming armies from whose battle-spears the flag of victory floated. The dusts of time have settled down on the banks of the Euphrates, and buried its palaces out of sight. Since that time, the world has been very busy. The old Roman empire cracked, fell, crumbled, and was almost forgotten. Modern times, with the power of a mill-stream, came rushing on, its events flowing in inconceivable rapidity, and men cared nothing for the past, but everything for the future. Then the crusades filled men's minds and hearts, and millions left their homes in Western Europe on a pilgrimage in which they carried the spear and the sword, and the result of which was victory in battle. They marched league after league, from country to country, until at last they stood on the hill-top that overlooked Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre. Then, next, came the printing-press, and our minds were so stirred and inspired by it, that nothing engaged attention except the immense advantages of every new day, and the golden possibilities that were within reach. So, for the last two thousand years and more, the world has been so busy in thinking of to-morrow, that it has forgotten all about yesterday. But, thirty years ago, a scholar traveled along the banks of the Euphrates, and seeing these mounds, determined to unearth their secrets. At immense expense, and great pains, the work was partially achieved, and in this vast cemetery of history was found a palace. The excavations went on, until it was possible to enter the palace. It was sadly broken, to be sure, but yet enough remained to make us all glad and happy. The “Chamber of Records” was discovered, spoken of in the Old Testament, and in it were thousands of tablets, on which, as in so many volumes, the history of the past had been inscribed. They were written in an unknown tongue, but modern scholarship attacked the problem and solved it, and to-day the secret is being told. More and more is being discovered every year. Tablet after tablet, recording events hitherto unattainable, has been read, and, curiously enough, the Record Chamber found under those sands, corroborates the old story of Genesis, and in such a minute way that our confidence in the book, as a historical record, is put beyond a peradventure. For instance, in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, we have an account of the invasion of Palestine in the time of Abraham. Of course it has been until now impossible to verify the statements of the writer of this book, but within thirty years tablets have been found which have told the same story. Genesis has been vindicated by the inscriptions on the sandstone and marble which have been found in the Chamber of Records by the banks of the Euphrates. Is it not a curious fact that while science, with its strong hand, is trying to tear down, these researches are building up, the Bible, and that while philosophy is calling in question some of the doctrines of the New Testament, these researches are corroborating even the details of the Old? It makes the book still dearer to us, and I have no doubt that when all the tablets are found, and when they shall be read, one after another, we shall find such irresistible corroboration of Holy Writ that the Old Testament will blaze with a new light. We shall enjoy an increased faith in that Jehovah who guided and guarded the Israelites, and who was revealed as the world's Father, by the life and the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.—Hepworth.