DISCREPANCIES, BIBLICAL sz) I. Bible IVritten at Different Times, Etc. The Bible is a book which was written during a space of twelve or fourteen hundred years by scribes, the first of whom preceded by cen turie5 the most ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome. The writers varied in position, attain ments, and locality. The pen was held by the lawgiver in the wilderness and the tax-gatherer amidst the multitude; by the king on his throne and the shepherd in his tent; by the sage in the desert and the fisherman by the sea ; it was held by accomplished scholars and by men who had been taught but little save by nature and by God. And yet it is evidently the work of the same great Author, for its plan and its purpose are one.
We can only imagine the discords which would obtain in a scientific or historical work which had been prepared under such circumstances; but with stately step and perfect unity of design the Bible marches from the creation to the consummation —from Eden lost to Eden restored. With broken crowns and crumbling thrones on every side, it pursues the even tenor of its way. With nothing to fear and nothing to hide, it tells of the faults of its writers as unflinchingly as it tells of their virtues. Only one faultless character is de scribed upon its pages and that is He who "was in all points tempted like as we are, and yet with out sin" (Heb. iv :t5).
The books of the Bible lived for hundreds of years in manuscript only, and the copyist is never infallible. What wonder, then, that there should be clerical errors, the occasional variation of a vowel or a numeral? These old manuscripts were copied by reverent hands. Kiel, Bleck, and other scholars assert that so great was the care be stowed upon the Hebrew text "that it was the practice to count, not only the number of verses, but also of the words, and even of the letters of the various books, in order to ascertain the middle verse, middle word, and even the middle letter of each book." (Bleck's Introduction to the Old Testament, ii :451.) But at a certain period numbers were expressed by letters of the alphabet, and some of the lie brew letters are so nearly alike that when written with a pen, unless perfectly formed, it is almost impossible to distinguish them from each other.
No wonder, then, that this and other causes have led to slight errors which have caused the "vari ous readings" so often spoken of by Biblical scholars.
"But at the same time," says Professor Stuart. "it is equally true that all these, taken together, do not change or materially affect any important point of doctrine, precept, or even history." A great proportion, indeed the mass of variations in Hebrew manuscripts, when minutely scanned, amount to nothing more than the differences in spelling of a multitude of English %voids. What matters it as to the meaning, whether one writes linnnur or honor, whether he writes centre or center ?" (Hist. Old Testament Conon, p. 178, Revised Ed.) In relation to the Greek text, Professor Norton claims that as early as the close of the second century os many as sixty thousand manuscript copies of the Gospels were extant," (Genuine ness of the Gospels, p 50.) There was no possibility of corrupting so vast a number of copies in the interest of any sect or people. And even now, after these hooks have been circulated by the art of printing for hun dreds of years, we still have about five hundred manuscripts of the Gospels which have been found in various portions of the globe, and under cir cumstances which would make any radical changes impossible, even the slightest clerical being manifest by comparison with many of the others. Some of these manuscripts are more than fourteen hundred years old (one of them, a portion of which has been recently dis covered, is thought to be more than seventeen hundred years old) and may have been prepared by those who had access to the originals written by the apostles'themselves. And here, too, as in the Hebrew books, it is safe to say that no im portant doctrine or fact has been imperiled by the slight variations in the text.