textfiles-politics/pythonCode/personTestingOutput/forg2.xml

<xml><p> 35 page printout, pages 56 to 88 of 322
CHAPTER II</p>

<p> HEBREW HOLY FORGERIES</p>

<p> "<ent type='GPE'>Hinneh</ent> lash-sheqer asah et <ent type='PERSON'>sheqer sepharim</ent> -- Behold, the
lying pen of the scribes hath wrought lies." <ent type='PERSON'>Jeremiah</ent>, viii. 8.</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>SUNDRY</ent> HOLY HEBREW men of old, we are told on the authority of
the name of the pseudo-first <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>-<ent type='PERSON'>Christian Pope</ent>, "spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 <ent type='PERSON'>Peter</ent>, i, 21). These literary
movings of the <ent type='ORG'>Spirit</ent> were sometime reduced to writing in "Sacred
<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s"; and again later <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> authority assures: "All
scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 <ent type='PERSON'>Tim</ent>. iii, 16), --
though this is a falsified rendition: the true reading is: "<ent type='PERSON'>Eve</ent>ry
scripture suitable for edification is divinely inspired," as the
original <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> text is quoted by Father <ent type='NORP'>Tertullian</ent>. (<ent type='ORG'>ANF</ent>. iv, 16.)</p>

<p> It is the popular supposition that the 66 -- (<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Bible
73) -- "little books" which comprise the Bible as we know it, are
the whole sum of Hebrew and <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> "sacred writings," which have
claimed and have been accorded the sanction of Divine inspiration
and "treated by the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> as canonical." The term "canonical" in
ecclesiastical parlance means <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> accepted as divinely inspired;
books which "were definitely canonized, or adjudged to have a
uniquely Divine or authoritative quality," as is the authorative
definition. (CE. iii, 267.) "Canonicity depends on inspiration."
(EB. i, 653.) The holy Hebrew "canon" was closed, or the last
inspired Book of the Old Testament written, according to <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>
"Tradition," by <ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent>, about 444 B.C. (Ib. i, 658, 662.) In truth,
however, several of the <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of the Old Testament were written
much later, and were never heard of by <ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent>; and "some found their
way in, others not, on grounds of taste -- the taste of the
period," says Wellhausen. (Einleitung, p. 652, 6th Ed.)</p>

<p> The popular idea is that when the "moving" of the above
inspired 66 sacred writings was ended, the moving <ent type='ORG'>Spirit</ent> retired
from the field of Hebrew, and later of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> literature, and
thus closed the "sacred canon" of the respective Hebrew and
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Testaments. This will be seen to be a mistake, in the
judgment of the True <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, according to which the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>
evidently did not know their own inspired writings, and curiously
omitted from their "canon" a number of divinely "moved" books and
scraps of books, which the better-instructed <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has
adopted as full of inspiration into its own present official Bible,
as we shall notice in its place. There is also a much greater
number of such books, of both Hebrew and <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> origin, which
the inspired <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> formerly and for ages regarded as inspired and
"canonical," but which it now repudiates as "apocryphal" and
acknowledges as forgeries; as we shall also duly note.</p>

<p> There is, indeed, an eminence mass of religious writings, the
work of <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> or <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> priests or professional religious
persons, or composite productions of both sets of forgers, which
are generally known as "apocrypha" or pious forgeries; but which
each and all have been held by the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> through many ages of
faith as of the highest inspired sanctity and accredited with the
full rank of "canonical" truth of God.</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
56
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FORGERY IN <ent type='NORP'>CHRISTIANITY</ent></p>

<p> The term apocryphal or forged "takes in those compositions
which profess to have been written either by Biblical personages or
men in intimate relation with them." (CE. i, 601.) "Since these
[apocryphal] books were forgeries, the epithet in common parlance
today denotes any story or document which is false or spurious, ...
apocryphal in the disparaging sense of bearing names to which they
have no right; all come under the definition above, for each of
then has at one tine or another been treated as canonical." (EB. i,
249-250.)</p>

<p> That the above 66 (or 73) <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of the accepted Bible of
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity come exactly, both as to manner of spurious origin and
matter of fictional content, within the above definition of
apocrypha or forgery, shall be made exceedingly evident. A brief
review of these acknowledged religious forgeries in the name of God
and of his inspired biographers, will afford a curious and
instructive study of the workings of the fervid, credulous and
contorted priestly mind, reckless of truth, and shed a floodlight
of understanding on the origins and incredibility of the so-called
"canonical" <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of the Bible, Hebrew and <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> alike.</p>

<p> While speaking here immediately of the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> Apocrypha or
pious forgeries, it is to be noted and borne in mind that it is the
Holy-Ghost-guided True <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> which alone has accepted
and cherished these spurious productions of <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> priestcraft --
(scornfully repudiated by the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>), has adulterated and re-forged
them to more definite deceptive purposes of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> propaganda,
and has outdone <ent type='ORG'>Jewry</ent> by adding innumerable like forgeries, -- "a
whole literature" of fabrications -- to its own spurious
hagiography, or sacred writings. There will thus occur some
necessary and unavoidable over-lappings of <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
forgeries in the course of our treatment.</p>

<p> "It must be confessed," admits the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Encyclopedia,
"that the early Fathers and the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, during the first three
centuries, were more indulgent towards <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> pseudograph [i.e.
forged writings] circulating under venerable Old Testament, names.
The Book of <ent type='GPE'>Henoch</ent> [<ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent>] and the Assumption of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> had been
cited by the canonical Epistle of Jude. Many Fathers admitted the
inspiration of <ent type='ORG'>Fourth Esdras</ent>. Not to mention the <ent type='PERSON'>Shepherd</ent> of
Hermas, the Acts of St. <ent type='PERSON'>Paul</ent> (at least in the <ent type='PERSON'>Thecla</ent> portion) and
the Apocalypse of St. <ent type='PERSON'>Peter</ent> were highly revered at this and later
periods. ... In the Middle Ages ... many pseudographic [i.e.
forged] writings enjoyed a high degree of favor among both clerics
and laity." (CE. i, 615.)</p>

<p> A curious and edifying side-light on the chronic clerical
flair for forgery is thrown by a sentence from the paragraph above
quoted from the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Encyclopedia. The earliest papal decree
condemning certain of these pious forgeries is itself a <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
forgery! "The so-called 'Decretum de recipiendis et non recipiendis
libris,' which contained a catalogue of some half-hundred works
condemned as apocryphal, was attributed to <ent type='PERSON'>Pope Gelasius</ent> (495),
but, in reality is a compilation dating from the beginning of the
Sixth century." (CE,. i, 615.)</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
57
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FORGERY IN <ent type='NORP'>CHRISTIANITY</ent></p>

<p> And, be it noted, these <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> forgeries were not at all
condemned by the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> as forgeries and pious lies, but simply
because they contained some dogmatic doctrines which were regarded
by the <ent type='NORP'>Orthodox</ent> as "heresies" they were condemned "always, however,
with a preoccupation against heresy." And again in the same
article: "Undoubtedly it was the large use heretical Circles,
especially the Gnostics made of this insinuating literature which
first called out the animadversions of the official guardians of
doctrinal purity." (lb. p. 615.)</p>

<p> The same authority cautiously and clerically explains, that
"ancient literature, especially in the <ent type='LOC'>Orient</ent>, used methods much
more free and clastic than those permitted by our modern and
occidetital culture. <ent type='PERSON'>Pseudographic</ent> [falsified] compositions was in
vogue among the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> in the two centuries before Christ and for
some time later. This holds good for the so-called 'Wisdom of
<ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent>,' written in and belonging to the Church's sacred cannon.
-- [This admits that this book of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Bible is spurious.]
In other cases, where the assumed name did not stand as a symbol of
a type of a certain kind of literature, the intention was not
without a degree of at least literary dishonesty." (Ib. p. 601.)</p>

<p> Apocryphal religious literature consists of several classes,
one of the most important subdivisions being that designated as
"apocalyptic," and which consists of "pretended prophecies and
revelations of both <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> authorship, and dating
from about 200 B.C. to about 150 A.D.," the latter being the
approximate date of the new "canonical" <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of <ent type='EVENT'>the New Testament</ent>,
Their general subject is the problem of the final triumph of what
is called <ent type='GPE'>the Kingdom</ent> of God. Speaking particularly of the
apocalypses, the best known of which are the Hebrew Book of <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>iel,
written about 165 B.C., and the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Book of Revelation
imputed to the Apostle <ent type='PERSON'>John</ent> of <ent type='PERSON'>Patmos</ent>, a recent secular authority
(corroborated at all points by clerical authorities) points out
that many if not all of the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> apocalypses are adulterated with
"alterations and interpolations by <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> hands, making the
alleged predictions, point more definitely to <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent>," which pious
tempering "gave certain of these <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> works a very wide
circulation in the early <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. ... The revelations and
predictions are set forth as though actually received and written
or spoken by ancient worthies, as <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>, etc. ... They were
once widely accepted as genuine prophecies, and found a warm
reception in <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> and early <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> circles." (The New
International, Encyclopedia, vol. i, p. 745.) This form of pious
fraud is admitted as quite the expected thing: "Naturally baaing
itself upon the <ent type='PERSON'>Pentateuch</ent> and the Prophets, it clothed itself
fictitiously with the authority of a patriarch or <ent type='PERSON'>prophet</ent> who was
made to reveal the transcendent future" (CE. i, 602), -- most
usually long ex post facto.</p>

<p> The vast and varied extent of <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> forgery of
religious books is shown by the groupings under which the several
kinds of apocrypha forgeries are quite exhaustively considered in
the technical works treating of them, such as the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Biblica, as well as the more
popular Britannica and <ent type='GPE'>New Int</ent>ernational Encyclopedias, where the
subject is fully discussed. "Speaking broadly," says the first, </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
58
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FORGERY IN <ent type='NORP'>CHRISTIANITY</ent></p>

<p>"The Apocrypha of <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> origin are coextensive with what are
styled of the Old Testament, and those of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> origin the
apocrypha of <ent type='EVENT'>the New Testament</ent>. The subject will be treated
["according to their origin"] -- as follows: (I) Apocrypha of
<ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> origin: (II) <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> Apocrypha with <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> accretions;
(III) apocrypha of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> origin, comprising (1) apocryphal
Gospels; (2) Pilate literature and other apocrypha concerning
Christ; (3) apocryphal Acts of <ent type='PERSON'>Apostles</ent>; (4) apocryphal doctrinal
works; (5) apocryphal Epistles; (6) apocryphal Apocalypses, (IV)
the apocrypha and the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>." (CE. i, 601.)</p>

<p> What a catalogue of confessed ecclesiastical forgers, and
fraud in the name of God, Christ and his <ent type='PERSON'>Apostles</ent>, and the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
of God, for the propaganda of priestly frauds as "our Most Holy
Faith"!</p>

<p> What will probably -- In view of the foregoing and what is yet
to come -- be appreciated by many as a peculiarly rare bit of
apocrypha (in its secondary sense) is the following, uttered
apparently with the due and usual ecclesiastical solemnity, in the
celebrated <ent type='ORG'>Dictatus</ent> of Pope <ent type='PERSON'>Gregory VII</ent> (1073-1085), stating the
presumptuous pretenses of the Papacy:</p>

<p> "The <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> has never erred, nor will it err to all
eternity. No one may be considered a <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> who
does not agree with the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. No book is
authoritative unless it has received the papal sanction. ... </p>

<p> The pope is the only person whose feet are to be kissed
by all princes"; "the Pope may depose emperors and absolve
subjects from allegiance to an unjust ruler." (Cited by
Robinson, 'The Ordeal of Civilization, pp. 126, 128; <ent type='ORG'>Library</ent>
of Original Sources, vol. iv, p. 126-321.)</p>

<p> This puts the stamp of canonical inspiration and verity on
some dozen <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> books and parts of books of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Bible
which the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> and the whole body of otherwise discordant sects of
Protestants hesitate not unanimously to pronounce apocryphal and
forged. These "apocrypha" are either entire rejected <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> books,
all doubtless with <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> "interpolations," or apocryphal
chapters or parts, interpolated probably by the same industry into
the equally apocryphal books of the accepted <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> canon. The
names of these books, original and interpolations, and which are
not included in <ent type='EVENT'>the Hebrew Old Testament</ent>, -- but are in the True
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> Bible, -- are: <ent type='PERSON'>Tobit</ent>, Judith, <ent type='PERSON'>Baruch</ent>, with the Epistle of
<ent type='PERSON'>Jeremiah</ent>, Wisdom of <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent>, Wisdom of <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> son of <ent type='PERSON'>Sirach</ent> (or
Ecclesiastics), I and II Maccabees, Prayer of <ent type='ORG'>Manasseh</ent>, Additions
to Esther, and Additions to the Book of <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>iel, consisting of the
Prayer of <ent type='PERSON'>Azarias</ent>, the Song of the Three Holy Children (in the
Fiery Furnace), the History of <ent type='PERSON'>Susanna</ent>h, the History of <ent type='PERSON'>Bel</ent> and the
Dragon, and sundry such precious fables. (See CE. iii, pp. 267,
270; iv, 624, passim.) These are all included in the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>
Septuagint and in the <ent type='NORP'><ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Vulgate</ent></ent>, were read as <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent> in
early <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, and were declared by <ent type='ORG'>the Council</ent> of Trent,
at its Fourth Session, in 1546, -- under the Curse of God on all
skeptical doubters, -- to be "inspired and canonical"; and they are
so held by the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>, and some of the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> and <ent type='LOC'>Orient</ent>al <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
59
.
FORGERY IN <ent type='NORP'>CHRISTIANITY</ent></p>

<p><ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es, but are declared "apocrypha" and forged by <ent type='ORG'>Jewry</ent> and all
the rest of <ent type='ORG'>Christendom</ent>. To several of these extra-revelations of
<ent type='ORG'>Judaism</ent> included in the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> True Bible, head-notes apologetic
for their inclusion are attached, of which that to the celebrated
Book of <ent type='PERSON'>Tobit</ent> or <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> is typical: "Protestants have left it out
of their modern Bibles, alleging that it is not in the canon of the
<ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>. But the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of Christ, which received the <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s not
from the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, but from the <ent type='PERSON'>Apostles</ent> of Christ, -- [who were all
<ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, to believe the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> record] -- by traditions from them,
has allowed this book a place in the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> [sic] Bible from the
beginning." (See Cath. Bible, <ent type='PERSON'>Tobit</ent>, et passim). We may admire in
synopsis the divine inspiration of</p>

<p> THE INSPIRED FABLE OF TOBIT</p>

<p> This Book of <ent type='PERSON'>Tobit</ent>, or <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>, scoffed both by <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> and
Protestants as a ridiculous fable, but held by all <ent type='ORG'>True Believers</ent>
as a precious revelation of God, to disbelieve which is to be
damned, is a veritable treasure-trove of exalted heavenly
inspiration, for the preservation of which <ent type='NORP'>Jew</ent> and Gentile alike
may be dubiously grateful to the pious "tradition" of the <ent type='PERSON'>Apostles</ent>
of Christ, as above said. This <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> was a very pious and stubborn
<ent type='NORP'>Israelite</ent> of the Captivity, who, before departing, had cached all
his available cash with his kinsman <ent type='PERSON'>Gabelus</ent>, of Rages, a city of
the <ent type='NORP'>Medes</ent>, "taking a note of his hand" for its repayment on demand.
While captive in a strange and pagan land, <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> wan visited by a
piteous calamity, for "as he was sleeping, hot dung out of a
swallows nest fell upon his eves, and he was made blind"; which
affliction <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> looked reverently to the Lord as visiting upon
him as "revenge for my sins"; as a result <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> became extremely
poor, and his wife took in work. At that time there lived in the
city of Rages another pious <ent type='NORP'>Israelite</ent> by name <ent type='PERSON'>Raguel</ent>, who had a
marriageable -- or rather muchly married daughter, <ent type='PERSON'>Sara</ent>, who was
under grave reproach and even imputation of murder, "Because she
had been given to seven husbands, and a devil named <ent type='PERSON'>Asmodeus</ent> had
killed them, at their first going in unto her," so that she
complained that though sevenfold a widow she remained yet a virgin.</p>

<p> At this juncture <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> bethought himself of the good money he
had left with <ent type='PERSON'>Gabelus</ent> of Rages, and after much palaver decided to
send his son, <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>, Jr., a comely youth, with the note of hand in
his pocket, and his dog (name unrevealed), on the long journey to
recoup the fortune of ten talents of silver. As <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>, Jr. started
on the journey, a beautiful young man, who was really the Archangel
Raphael, met him and introduced himself as <ent type='PERSON'>Azarias</ent>, son of <ent type='PERSON'>Ananias</ent>,
-- (<ent type='PERSON'>Ananias</ent> must have written the account) -- and offered to
accompany and guide him upon his journey, which offer was
gratefully accepted. As the two journeyed they came to the river
<ent type='ORG'>Tigris</ent>; <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> waded in to wash his feet, when, lo, "a monstrous
fish came up to devour him," whereat <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> called to his companion
for help. The <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> told him to take the monster fish by the gill
and haul him out, which <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> seems to have had no trouble in
doing. The <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> then directed <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> to open the yet live and
"panting" fish, "and lay up his heart, his gall, and his liver, for
thee; for these are necessary for useful medicines"; this done,
they cooked the fish and carried it all along for provisions for
the trip. As they journeyed, <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> asked the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> what these </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
60
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FORGERY IN <ent type='NORP'>CHRISTIANITY</ent></p>

<p>medicinal scraps were good for; "and the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> answering said, if
thou put a little piece of its heart upon coals, the smoke thereof
<ent type='GPE'>driveth</ent> away all kinds of devils, either from man or from woman, so
that they come no more to them. And the gull is good for anointing
the eyes, in which there is a white speck, and they shall be
cured."</p>

<p> So discoursing pleasantly and instructively, the twain arrived
at Rages, and the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> guided <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> straight to the house of
<ent type='PERSON'>Raguel</ent> and his daughter <ent type='PERSON'>Sara</ent>, his sole heiress, and told <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> to
ask for her in marriage. <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> said that he was afraid of <ent type='PERSON'>Sara</ent>,
for he had heard of what happened to those seven other men; but the
<ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> reassured him, that he would show him how to overcome the
devil <ent type='PERSON'>Asmodeus</ent>; that he should marry <ent type='PERSON'>Sara</ent> and go to bed with her
for three nights, but should continently confine his activities "to
nothing else but to prayers with her", and, assured the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent>, on
the first night "lay the liver of the fish on the fire, and the
devil shall be driven away," other holy marvels happening on the
succeeding nights; "and when the third night is past, thou shalt
take the virgin with the fear of the Lord, moved rather for love of
children than for lust." The affair was arranged according to these
prescriptions; with <ent type='PERSON'>Sara</ent> and her parents; after the wedding supper,
the newlyweds were left alone in their boudoir; <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> did nothing
but pray and put a part of the fish liver in the fire, whereupon
"the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> Raphael took the devil, and bound him in the desert of
<ent type='GPE'>Upper Egypt</ent>"; then both prayed some more, the fervid prayers being
repeated verbatim. In the morning, <ent type='PERSON'>Raguel</ent>, out of force of habit,
called his servants and ordered them to go into the garden and dig
an eighth grave for the reception of <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>; when the maidservant
went to the room to arrange for the removal of the corpse, she to
her great surprise "found them safe and sound, sleeping both
together." The empty grave was filled up, a big banquet prepared,
and the happy bridal couple spent two weeks with the bride's
family, while the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> took the note of hand, went to <ent type='PERSON'>Gabelus</ent>,
collected the money, and paid it over to <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>; <ent type='PERSON'>Raguel</ent> gave <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>
one-half of all his property, and executed a writing to give him
one-half of the remainder upon the death of <ent type='PERSON'>Raguel</ent> and wife. <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>
sent the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> back to <ent type='PERSON'>Gabelus</ent>, to invite him to his wedding, and
the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> made him Come.</p>

<p> To proceed swiftly to the climax of marvel, <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>; and the
<ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent>, leaving the hymeneal cortege to follow as best it could,
with such impedimenta of wealth, hastened back to the home of
<ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>, Sr., where blind father and the mother were in great grief
over the supposed loss of their son and the money with him. But at
the behest of the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>, Jr. ran into the house, though
"the dog, which had been with them in the way, ran before, and
coming as if he had brought the news, showed his joy by his fawning
and wagging his tail," an act which has since become habitual with
dogs which have enough tail to wag. After kissing his mother and
father, as the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> had suggested, <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>, Jr. took the remaining
fish gall out of his traveling bag, and anointed with it the eyes
of his father; "and he stayed about half an hour; and a white skin
began to come out of his eyes, like the skin of an egg. And <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>
took hold of it, and drew it from his eyes, and immediately he
recovered his sight. And they glorified God," and <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>, Sr.
dutifully said "I bless thee, Lord God of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent>, because thou hast</p>

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<p>chastised me, and thou hast saved me: and behold I see <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> my
son." Then, "after seven days <ent type='PERSON'>Sara</ent> his son's wife, and all the
family arrived safe, and the cattle, and the camels, and abundance
of money of his wife's, and that money also which he had received
of <ent type='PERSON'>Gabelus</ent>"; they all feasted for seven days "and rejoiced with all
great joy"; then, when <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>, Sr. suggested doing something
handsome for the "holy man" through whom all their good fortune had
come, the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> introduced himself as really not Azariah, son of
<ent type='PERSON'>Ananias</ent>, but "The <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> Raphael, one of the Seven, who stand before
the Lord"; and he explained, "I seemed indeed to eat, and to drink
with you, but I use an invisible meat and drink, which cannot be
seen by men"; thereupon in true angel style he dissipated into thin
air and they could see him no more. The whole <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent> family then,
"lying prostrate for three hours upon their face, blessed God: and
rising up they told all his wonderful works." Thus endeth happily
the reading of the lesson, dictated by the Holy Ghost to the pious
<ent type='PERSON'>Ananias</ent> who recorded it for the edification of <ent type='ORG'>True Believers</ent>. Let
us pray that it is true.</p>

<p> THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING</p>

<p> Until <ent type='ORG'>the Council</ent> of Trent, in 1546, there was no infallibly
defined sanction of inspiration of these <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> "apocrypha"; like
the "canon" sacred <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of the Hebrew Bible, all alike were more
or lest; eclectically accepted and used in the True <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>; but, as
said: "The <ent type='ORG'>Tridentine</ent> decree from which the above list is extracted
was the first infallible and effectually promulgated pronouncement
on the Canon, addressed to the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> universal. Being dogmatic in
its purport, it implies that the <ent type='PERSON'>Apostles</ent> bequeathed the same Canon
to the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> as a part of the depositum fidei. ... We should
search the pages of <ent type='ORG'>the New</ent>, Testament in vain for any trace of
such action. ... We affirm that such a status points to Apostolic
sanction, which in turn must have rested on revelation either by
Christ or the Holy <ent type='ORG'>Spirit</ent>." (CE. iii, 270.)</p>

<p> This is luminous clerical reasoning: a lot of anonymous <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>
fables, derided by <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> and all the rest of the world for want of
even common plausibility of fact or truth, and as to which the
"inspired" <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> books said to emanate from <ent type='PERSON'>Apostles</ent>, are
silent as the grave, are declared after 1500 years to have the ear-marks of Apostolic sanction, which "must have" been founded on
divine revelation to them "either by Christ or the Holy <ent type='ORG'>Spirit</ent>," --
which the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> claims are one and the same person; and it is
curious that the "infallible" <ent type='ORG'>Council</ent> couldn't say which was which,
but vaguely and uncertainly opined it must have been one or the
other. So much for infallible cock-suredness as to "inspiration" of
holy <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s. <ent type='PERSON'>Eve</ent>n the Old Testament itself, says our logician
of inspiration, "reveals no formal notion of inspiration," though,
again, "the later <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> must have possessed the idea." (Ib. p. 269.)
The cursory notice which we shall take of the Old Testament books
will serve to confirm that they reveal no notion at all of
inspiration; that the later <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> must have had the idea that they
were inspired, does not much help the case for them.</p>

<p> In addition to these rejected <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> books admitted into full
canonical fellowship by the inerrant True <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, there are several
other <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> apocrypha which are only semi-canonical and admitted </p>

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<p>into a sort of bar-sinister fellowship with the legitimates. They
have a place in the <ent type='NORP'>Orthodox</ent> Bible for the "edification" of the
Faithful, but are usually printed in the Appendix as suggestive to
the devout that they will not be damned for not fully believing
these particular forgeries,</p>

<p> Among these are two very celebrated books forged in the name
of the great Restorer of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent>, under the titles of Third
and <ent type='ORG'>Fourth Esdras</ent>, as the name is written in the True Bibles.
"<ent type='ORG'>Third Esdras</ent>," says the Encyclopedia, "Is, one of the three
uncanonical books appended to the official edition of the <ent type='ORG'>Vulgate</ent>.
... It enjoyed exceptional favor in the early ages of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>,
being quoted as <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent> with implicit faith by the leading <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>
and <ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent> Fathers." (CE,. i, 605.) In like errant faith was
regarded its companion forgery, <ent type='ORG'>Fourth Esdras</ent>, of which the same
ecclesiastical authority says: "The personage serving as the screen
of the author of this book is <ent type='PERSON'>Esdras</ent> (<ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent>). ... Both <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> and
<ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent> Fathers cite it as <ent type='PERSON'>prophet</ent>ical. ... Notwithstanding this
widespread reverence for it, in early times, it is a REMARKABLE
FACT that the book never got a foothold in the Canon or liturgy of
the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> ... and even after <ent type='ORG'>the Council</ent> of Trent, together with
<ent type='ORG'>Third Esdras</ent>. it was placed in the appendix to the official edition
of the <ent type='ORG'>Vulgate</ent>. ... The dominant critical dating assigns it to a
<ent type='NORP'>Jew</ent> writing in the reign of <ent type='NORP'>Domitian</ent>, A.D. 81-98," -- the "screen"
<ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent> being gathered to his fathers since about 444 B.C. (Ib. p.
603-604; v, 537-8; EB. i, 653, 1393.) It is curious that it is
regarded as "remarkable" that the Holy Ghost did not "fall" for
this particular forgery, when it did for so many others!</p>

<p> EZRA "RESTORES" THE LAW</p>

<p> A remarkable apocryphal tale relating to the Hebrew <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s
is enshrined by pseudo-inspiration in chapter 14 of this Fourth of
<ent type='PERSON'>Esdras</ent>, regarding the miraculous restoration of Hebrew Holy Writ
after its total perishment. In the calamity of the capture and
destruction of <ent type='GPE'>the Holy City</ent> by Nebuchadnezzar, 586 B.C., the
Temple of <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent> was destroyed, together with the entire
collection of the sacred Rolls of <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s, so that not a scratch
of inspired pen remained to tell the tale of theocratic Hebrew
history and its "revealed" religion. This inconsolable and
apparently irreparable loss affected the holy People all the time
of the of the <ent type='GPE'>Babylonian</ent> captivity. But upon their return to the
restored City of God, and over a century after their loss, God, we
are told in <ent type='ORG'>Fourth Esdras</ent>, inspired <ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent> and commissioned him to
reproduce the sacred lost <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent>, which, judging from the result, of
his inspired labors, were many more than the supposed twenty and
two of the supposed old Hebrew canon. Accordingly <ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent>, employing
five scribes, dictated to them (from inspired memory) the textual
contents of the lost sacred books, and in just forty days and
nights reproduced a total of 94 sacred books, of which he
designated 24 as the sacred canon, the remaining 70 being termed
esoteric and reserved fir the use of only the wisest. This inspired
fable was eagerly accepted for truth by the early <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> Fathers,
many of whom, from Irenaeus on, "admitted its inspiration"; and it
was frequently quoted and commented on as canonical by such <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>
luminaries as <ent type='NORP'>Tertullian</ent>, St. Ambrose, Clement Alexandrensis, </p>

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<p>Origen, <ent type='PERSON'>Eusebius</ent>, St. <ent type='PERSON'>Jerome</ent>, et als., and was prevalently accepted
as <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent> throughout the scholastic period. (EB. i, 654, 139 2-94; CE. i 537-8, 601-615.)</p>

<p> This legend, however, had, through a better understanding of
"the powers of ordinary human memory," quite faded out by the time
of the Reformation, but only to make way for a more modern and
rationalistic one, invented by the <ent type='NORP'>Jew</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Levita</ent>, who died in 1549.
According to his new fable <ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent> and the Talmudic "Men of Great
Synagogue" simply united into one volume the 24 books which until
that time had circulated separately, and divided them into the
three great divisions yet recognized, of the Law the Prophets, and
the Hagiography or holy writings. This fabulous statement of <ent type='ORG'>Levita</ent>
"became the authoritative doctrine of the orthodoxy of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." (EB. i, 654.) This new
legend is cited simply to show how prone is the credulous clerical
mind to accept as truth the most baseless fables; and how, when one
of their precious bubbles of faith is pricked by tardy exposure or
common sense, they eagerly catch at the next which comes floating
by.</p>

<p> THE "FINDING OF THE LAW"</p>

<p> Another ancient priestly fiction, which to this day passes
current among the credulous as inspired truth of God, is the fabled
"finding of the Law" as recorded in the Word of God. We are all
familiar with the notable "finding" by the late lamented Prophet.
<ent type='PERSON'>Joseph Smith</ent> -- thereto led by the <ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> Moroni -- of the golden
plates containing the hieroglyphic text of Book of <ent type='NORP'>Mormon</ent>, near
<ent type='GPE'>Palmyra</ent> N.Y. in 1823-1827. (Book of <ent type='NORP'>Mormon</ent>, Introd.) History
repeated itself. A like remarkable discovery was made in the year
621 B.C., this time by a priest, with the help of a witch or lady
fortune-teller. As related in 2 <ent type='ORG'>Kings xxii</ent>, corroborated by 2
<ent type='PERSON'>Chronicles xxxiv</ent>, in the eighteenth year of the "good king" Josiah
of <ent type='GPE'>Judah</ent>, while some repair work was being done in <ent type='ORG'>the Temple</ent>,
<ent type='GPE'>Hilkiah</ent> the priest of a sudden "found the book of the law of <ent type='PERSON'>Yahweh</ent>
given by <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>," over 800 years before, and never heard of since.
<ent type='GPE'>Hilkiah</ent> called in <ent type='LOC'>Shaphan</ent> the scribe, and they took the great
"find" to <ent type='PERSON'>Josiah the King</ent>. To verify the veracity of the high-priest, Huldah the lady <ent type='PERSON'>prophet</ent> was consulted; being intimately
familiar with the sentiments of God, she at once declared that
<ent type='PERSON'>Yahweh</ent> was very angry about it, "because," as the <ent type='GPE'>King</ent> said, "our
fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do after
all that is written in this book"; and the <ent type='GPE'>King</ent> at once set about
to carry into effect the laws prescribed in Deuteronomy, -- just
then for the first time in the history of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent> ever heard of or
acted upon. This "book of the law given to <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>" 800 years before
was doubtless the priestly work of <ent type='GPE'>Hilkiah</ent>, palmed off under the
potent name of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> to force its very reluctant observance and
belief on the superstitious <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>. That this is the fact is the
consensus of the scholars, as summarized in the Encyclopedia
Biblies, and any modern work of O.T. criticism. An examination of
the Bible texts themselves, as made in my previous work,
demonstrates that this holy "law of Mosses" was totally unknown and
unobserved through all the History of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent> from its beginnings
until Josiah, and was composed by his priests and enlarged into the
present <ent type='PERSON'>Pentateuch</ent> during and after the captivity in <ent type='GPE'>Babylon</ent>.</p>

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<p> THE "SEPTUAGINT" TRANSLATION INTO GREEK</p>

<p> As priestly forged tales were fabricated to account for the
origin and preservation of the sacred Hebrew <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent>, so like pious
fraud was adopted to account for their very notable translation
into <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>, in what is known as the <ent type='PERSON'>Sepuagint</ent>, Version. After the
conquests by <ent type='PERSON'>Alexander the Great</ent> and his establishment of the city
of <ent type='GPE'>Alexandria</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>Egypt</ent>, immense numbers of <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> were settled in the
new city, which quickly became the commercial and intellectual
center of the ancient world, with <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> the universal language. The
holy Hebrew language had became a dead language to the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> of the
"Dispersion"; their synagogue services could not be conducted in
the mother tongue. The <ent type='GPE'>Alexandria</ent>n <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> were accordingly under
necessity to render the "Law" into <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> for their public use; and
this was gradually done by such of them as thought themselves able
to do such work. But this common-place mode of rendering the sacred
Hebrew into a Gentile speech did not satisfy the pious wonder-craving <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> mind. Accordingly, somewhere about 200 B.C., an
anonymous <ent type='NORP'>Jew</ent> invented a more satisfactory tale, which has had
incalculable influence on the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> faith and dogmas. This
pious <ent type='NORP'>Israelite</ent> had the customary recourse to religions forgery; he
forged a letter in the name of one <ent type='NORP'>Aristeas</ent>, an official of <ent type='NORP'>Ptolemy</ent>
II, <ent type='GPE'>Philadelphus</ent>, the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> king of <ent type='GPE'>Egypt</ent>, 285-247 B.C., purporting
to be addressed to his brother, <ent type='NORP'>Philocrates</ent>, and giving a marvelous
history of the Translation.</p>

<p> Here, in substance, is what we read of the first origin of the
Version, limited therein to the "law" of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>, as first related by
<ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent>. <ent type='NORP'>Ptolemy</ent> had recently established a library at <ent type='GPE'>Alexandria</ent>,
which he purposed should contain a copy of every obtainable
literary work extant. This <ent type='ORG'>Library</ent> became the most extensive and
celebrated of the ancient world, containing some 700000 manuscript
books at the time it was savagely destroyed, in 391 A.D., by the
benighted <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> zeal and fury of Bishop <ent type='PERSON'>Theophilus</ent> of
<ent type='GPE'>Alexandria</ent> and his crazy monks of <ent type='ORG'>Nitria</ent>, as related in Kingsley's
Hypatia or any history of the times. CE. xiv, 625.) At the
suggestion of <ent type='ORG'>Demetrius</ent>, his Librarian, fables the pseudo-<ent type='NORP'>Aristeas</ent>
through <ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent>, that he should enrich the <ent type='ORG'>Library</ent> with a copy of
the sacred law of the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Ptolemy</ent> wrote to <ent type='PERSON'>Eleazar</ent> the chief
priest at <ent type='GPE'>Jerusalem</ent>, sending the letter and magnificent presents
"to God" by the hand of a delegation including <ent type='NORP'>Aristeas</ent>, requesting
a copy of the Law and a number of learned <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> competent to
translate it into <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>. The embassy was successful; a richly
ornamented copy of the holy law, written in letters of gold, was
sent to the <ent type='GPE'>King</ent>, together with seventy-two Doctors of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent>,
deputed to deliver the Book and to carry out the wishes of the
<ent type='GPE'>King</ent>. They were received with great honor, says pseudo-<ent type='NORP'>Aristeas</ent>,
and duly feted for several days; they were then conducted across
the long causeway to <ent type='LOC'>the Island</ent> of <ent type='LOC'>Pharos</ent> to the place which was
prepared for them, "which was a house that was built near the
shore, and was a quiet place, and fit for their discoursing
together about their work, ... Accordingly they made an accurate
interpretation, with great zeal and great pains," working until the
ninth hour each day, and visiting <ent type='NORP'>Ptolemy</ent> every morning. "Now when
the Law was transcribed, and the labor of interpretation was over,
which came to its conclusion in seventy-two days," the work was
read over to the assembled <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, who rejoiced that "the </p>

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<p>interpretation was happily finished"; they were enjoined to report
any errors or emissions which they might discover, to the
"Seventy," who would make the necessary corrections in their work.
(<ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent>, Antiq. <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, Bk. XII, chap. 2; CE. xiii, 722.) Thus the
translation wag only of "The Law," the Five <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>; and it
was open team-work, all the Seventy-two working together, comparing
and discussing as they proceeded, and expressly enjoining the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>
to note and report for correction all errors of omission or
commission which they might discover.</p>

<p> Thus the pseudo-<ent type='NORP'>Aristeas</ent>, as cited by <ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent>; though, as a
matter of fact, this Septuagint Version, so-called because of the
legendary Seventy-(two), was in the grossest manner inaccurate, and
imported innumerable errors into the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> religion which was
based upon and propagated for several centuries only through the
Septuagint texts. Indeed, "the text of the Septuagint was regarded
as so unreliable, because of its freedom in rendering, and of the
alterations which had been introduced into it, etc., that, during
the second century of our era it was discarded by the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>." (CE.
iv, 625.) We shall notice the fearful error of Isaiah's "virgin-birth" text; for other well-known instances, it makes out <ent type='ORG'>Creation</ent>
1195 years earlier than the Hebrew and <ent type='ORG'>Vulgate</ent>, 4004 B.C., and the
venerable <ent type='ORG'>Methuselah</ent> is made to survive the Flood by fourteen
years.</p>

<p> Despite, however, its patently legendary character, the
pseudo-<ent type='NORP'>Aristeas</ent>' account, the forged letter and the story, were
eagerly accepted as genuine and authentic by Fathers, Popes and
ecclesiastic writers until the sixteenth century, when their
spurious character was revealed by the nascent modern criticism.
"The authenticity of the letter, called in question first by Louis
Vives (1492-1540), professor at <ent type='ORG'>Louvain</ent>, is now universally
denied." (CE. xiii, 722.)</p>

<p> The Fathers, however, could not rest content with this
unvarnished original fabrication in the name of <ent type='NORP'>Aristeas</ent>, of an
ordinary human and errant translation of the "Law"; they avidly set
about embellishing it in the accepted clerical style, adding
fanciful and lying details to emphasize the miraculous and inspired
origin of the Version. As this notable instance serves admirably to
illustrate the childish and uncritical credulity of the Fathers,
their reckless disregard of truth, their chronic zest for any
untruth or fable quotable to pander to the glory of God and enhance
the pious superstition of the Faithful, let us here watch the
growth of this simple human yarn of the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> aristeas-forger into
the wonderful and ever more embellished miracle as it passes from
Father to Father, -- exactly as the Gospel-fables grew from "<ent type='PERSON'>Mark</ent>"
to "<ent type='PERSON'>John</ent>." According to Fathers <ent type='NORP'>Tertullian</ent>, St. Augustine, St.
<ent type='PERSON'>Jerome</ent>, et als., the 72 were inspired by God each severally for the
entire work; in translating they did not consult with one another;
they had been shut up <ent type='ORG'>incomunicados</ent> in separate cells on <ent type='LOC'>Pharos</ent>,
either singly or in pairs, and their several translations, when
finished and compared, were found to agree entirely both as to
sense and the expressions employed, with the original Hebrew text
and with each other (St. Clement of <ent type='GPE'>Alexandria</ent>, St. Irenaeus,
<ent type='PERSON'>Justin Martyr</ent>). Finally, the 72 translated not only the Law, but
the entire Old Testament, -- several of whose <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> were not yet at
the time written.</p>

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<p> Father <ent type='PERSON'>Justin Martyr</ent> adds near-eye-witness verification to the
false and already embroidered history, saying that the "Seventy"
were, by order of the <ent type='GPE'>King</ent>, "shut up in as many separate cells, and
were obliged by him, each to translate the whole Bible apart, and
without any communication with each other, yet all their several
translations were found to agree verbatim from the beginning to the
end, and were by that means demonstrated to be of divine
inspiration"; and he adds, for confirmation of faith! -- like <ent type='PERSON'>Paul</ent>,
protesting he is not lying in anticipation of the accusation:
"These things, ye men of <ent type='GPE'>Greece</ent>, are no fable, nor do we narrate
fictions; but we ourselves having been in <ent type='GPE'>Alexandria</ent>, saw the
remains of the little [cells] at the <ent type='LOC'>Pharos</ent> still preserved." (Ad
Graec. ch. xiii; <ent type='ORG'>ANF</ent>. i, 278-9.) But in repeating the tale to the
<ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> Emperor, Father <ent type='PERSON'>Justin</ent> makes the unhappy blunder of saying,
that <ent type='NORP'>Ptolemy</ent> "sent to <ent type='PERSON'>Herod</ent>, who was at that time king of the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>,
requesting that the books of the <ent type='PERSON'>prophet</ent>s [pseudo-<ent type='NORP'>Aristeas</ent> said the
"Law"] be sent to him; and the king did indeed send them" (I Apol.
ch. xxxi; <ent type='ORG'>ANF</ent>. i, 173); whereas <ent type='PERSON'>Herod</ent> lived some 300 years after
<ent type='NORP'>Ptolemy</ent> died. This forged fable is time and again repeated as sober
truth. Bishop Saint Irenaeus emphasizes the miraculous nature of
the translation of all the <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent>, saying that when the 72 identical
translations were compared, "God was indeed glorified, and the
<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s were acknowledged an truly divine; ... even the <ent type='GPE'>Gentiles</ent>
present perceived that the <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s had been interpreted by the
inspiration of God. And there was nothing astonishing in God having
done this. ... He inspired <ent type='PERSON'>Esdras</ent> the priest (after the return from
captivity) to recast all the words of the former <ent type='PERSON'>prophet</ent>s, and to
reestablish with the people of God the Mosaic legislation." (Adv.
Haer. III, xxi, 2; <ent type='ORG'>ANF</ent>. i, 451-2.)</p>

<p> In the course of a century or two before the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Era,
the other Hebrew sacred books were likewise translated into <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>
for the use of the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>-speaking <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> of "the Dispersion,"
together with numbers of the forged <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> apocrypha, and all these
were added to the rolls of "<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s." This final and adulterated
form of the Septuagint "was the vehicle which conveyed these
additional <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s [i.e. the apocryphal <ent type='PERSON'>Tobias</ent>, etc.] into the
<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>." (CE. iii, 271.) This vagary of the Holy Ghost in
certifying the ill-translated and tempered Septuagint for the
foundations of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Faith, was very disastrous, as CE. points
out: "The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> had adopted the Septuagint as its own; this
differed from the Hebrew not only by the addition of several books
and passages but also by innumerable variations of text, due partly
to the ordinary process of corruption in the transcription of
ancient books, partly to the culpable temerity, as Origen called
it, of correctors who used not a little freedom in making
'corrections,' additions, and suppressions, partly to mistakes in
translation, and finally in great part to the fact that the
original Septuagint had been made from a Hebrew text quite
different from that fixed at <ent type='GPE'>Jamnia</ent> as the one standard by the
<ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> Rabbis." (CE. vii, 316.) So <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent> only knows what he
actually said and did in the 4004 years up to the time his Son came
to try to "redeem" his people from some of the tangles of his Holy
Law.</p>

<p> <ent type='PERSON'>Matt</ent>ers grew worse as time progressed: the ex-<ent type='NORP'>Pagan</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>
Fathers who founded <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity, propagated the new Faith for
several centuries only from the tortuous texts of this falsified </p>

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67
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<p>Septuagint, which was the only Old Testament "<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s" known to
and used by them as the source of the "prophecies fulfilled by
<ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> Christ" and the holy mysteries of the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Faith.
"Copies of the Septuagint." says CE., "were multiplied, and, as
might be expected, many changes, deliberate as well as involuntary,
crept in." (CE. xiii, 723.) Indeed, the itch for <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>-scribbling was so rife among such ex-<ent type='NORP'>Pagan</ent> <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s as could
write and get hold of a copy, that St. Augustine complains: "It is
possible to enumerate those who have translated the <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s from
Hebrew into <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>, but not those who have translated them into
<ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent>. In sooth, in the curly days of the faith whoso possessed a
<ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> manuscript and thought he had some knowledge of both tongues
was daring enough to undertake a translation." (De Doct. Christ.
II, xi; CE. ix, 20.) So the Faith was founded on befuddlement of
the Blessed Word of God as any nondescript scribbler palmed it off
to be.</p>

<p> We shall more than abundantly see that Holy <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> never
possessed or used a single book of "<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>" or other document of
importance, to the glory of God and the glorification of the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, which was not a rank original forgery and bristled besides
with "many deliberate changes" or forged interpolations.</p>

<p> THE SEPTUAGINT AND THE "VIRGIN-BIRTH" FRAUD</p>

<p> The most colossal of the blunders of the Septuagint
translators, supplemented by the most insidious, persistent and
purposeful falsification of text, is instanced in the false
translation of the notoriously false pretended "prophecy" of <ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent>
vii, 14, -- frauds which have had the most disastrous and fatal
consequences for <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity, and to humanity under its blight;
the present exposure of which should instanter destroy the false
Faith built on these frauds.</p>

<p> The <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> priest who forged the "Gospel according to St.
<ent type='PERSON'>Matt</ent>hew," having before him the false Septuagint translation of
<ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent>, fables the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Mary</ent> yielding to the embraces of the
<ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Gabriel</ent> to engender <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent>, and backs it up by appeal to the
Septuagint translation of <ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent> vii, 14:</p>

<p> "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth
a son, and they shall call his name <ent type='PERSON'>Emmanuel</ent>." (<ent type='PERSON'>Matt</ent>. i, 23.)</p>

<p> Isaiah's original Hebrew, with the mistranslated words
underscored, reads: "<ent type='GPE'>Hinneh</ent> ha-almah <ent type='PERSON'>harah</ent> ve-<ent type='PERSON'>yeldeth ben</ent> ve-karath
shem-o immanuel"; -- which, falsely translated by the false pen of
the pious translators, runs thus in the English: "Behold, a virgin
shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name <ent type='PERSON'>Immanuel</ent>"
(Isa. vii, 14.) The Hebrew words ha-almah mean simply the young
woman; and <ent type='PERSON'>harah</ent> is the Hebrew past or perfect tense, "conceived,"
which in Hebrew, as in English, represents past and completed
action. Honestly translated, the verse reads: "Behold, the young
woman has conceived -- [is with child) -- and beareth a son and
calleth his name <ent type='PERSON'>Immanuel</ent>."</p>

<p> Almah means simply a young woman, of marriageable age, whether
married or not, or a virgin or not; in a broad general sense
exactly like girl or maid in English, when we say shop-girl, </p>

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<p>parlor-maid, bar-maid, without reference to or vouching for her
technical virginity, which, in Hebrew, is always expressed by the
word bethulah. But in the Septuagint translation into <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>, the
Hebrew almah was erroneously rendered into the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> parthenos,
virgin, with the definite article 'ha' in Hebrew, and e in <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>,
(the), rendered into the indefinite "a" by later falsifying
translators. (See Is It God's Word? pp. 277-279; EB. ii, 2162; New
Commentary on the Holy <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>, Pt. I, p. 439.) And St. <ent type='PERSON'>Jerome</ent>
falsely used the <ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent> word virgo.</p>

<p> "As early as the second century B.C.," says the distinguished
Hebrew scholar and critic, <ent type='ORG'>Salomon Reinach</ent>, "the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> perceived the
error and pointed it out to the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent>s; but the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> knowingly
persisted in the false reading, and for over fifteen centuries she
has clung to her error." (Orpheus, p, 197.) The truth of this
accusation of conscious persistence in known error through the
centuries is proved by confession of St. <ent type='PERSON'>Jerome</ent>, who made the
celebrated <ent type='ORG'>Vulgate</ent> translation from the Hebrew into <ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent>, and
intentionally "clung to the error," though <ent type='PERSON'>Jerome</ent> well knew that it
was an error and false; and thus he perpetuated through fifteen
hundred years the myth of the "<ent type='PERSON'>prophet</ent>ic virgin birth" of <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent>
called Christ.</p>

<p> Being criticized by many for this falsification, St. <ent type='PERSON'>Jerome</ent>
thus replies to one of his critics, <ent type='ORG'>Juvianus</ent>: "I know that the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>
are accustomed to meet us with the objection that in Hebrew the
word Almah does not mean a virgin, but a young woman. And, to speak
truth, a virgin is properly called <ent type='ORG'>Bethulah</ent>, but a young woman, or
a girl, is not Almah, but <ent type='PERSON'>Naarah</ent>"! (<ent type='PERSON'>Jerome</ent>, Adv. Javianum I, 32;
N&amp;PNF, vi, 370.) So insistent was the criticism, that he was driven
to write a book on the subject, in which he makes a very notable
confession of the inherent incredibility of the Holy Ghost
paternity-story "For who at that time would have believed the
Virgin's word that she had conceived of the Holy Ghost, and that
the angel <ent type='PERSON'>Gabriel</ent> had come and announced the purpose of God? and
would not all have given their opinion against her as an
adulteress, like <ent type='PERSON'>Susanna</ent>? For at the present day, now that the
whole world has embraced the faith, the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> argue, that when
<ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent> says, 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,' the
Hebrew the Hebrew word denotes a young woman, not a virgin, that is
to say, the word is ALMAH, not <ent type='ORG'>BETHULAH</ent>"! (<ent type='PERSON'>Jerome</ent>, The Perpetual
Virginity of Blessed <ent type='PERSON'>Mary</ent>, N&amp;PNF, vi, 336.)</p>

<p> So the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> Father or priest who forged the false "virgin-birth" interpolation into the manuscript of "<ent type='PERSON'>Matt</ent>hew," drags in
maybe ignorantly the false Septuagint translation of <ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent> vii,
14, which the <ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent> Father St. <ent type='PERSON'>Jerome</ent> purposely perpetuated as a
pious "lie to the glory of God." The <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>King</ent> James
Versions purposely retain this false translation; the Revised
Version keeps it in, but with a gesture of honesty, which is itself
a fraud, sticks into the margin in fine type, after the words "a
virgin" and "shall conceive," the words, "Or, the maiden is with
child and beareth," -- which not one in thousands would ever see or
understand the significance of. So it is not some indefinite "a
virgin" who 750 years in the future "shall conceive" and "shall
bear" a son whose name she "shall call" <ent type='PERSON'>Immanuel</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent>; but it was
some known and definite young female, married or un-married -- but </p>

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<p>not a "virgin" -- who had already conceived and was already
pregnant, and who beareth a son and calleth his name <ent type='PERSON'>Immanuel</ent>, ...
who should be the "sign" which "my lord" should give to <ent type='PERSON'>Ahaz</ent> of the
truth of Isaiah's false prophecy regarding the pending war with
<ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Syria</ent>, as related in <ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent> vii, and of which the total
falsity is proven in 2 <ent type='PERSON'>Chronicles xxviii</ent>, as all may read.</p>

<p> Although <ent type='PERSON'>Papal Infallibility</ent> has declared that "it will never
be lawful to grant ... that the sacred writers could have made a
mistake" (<ent type='PERSON'>Leo XIII</ent>, Eneyc. Provid. Deus; CE. ii, 543), yet, the
fraud being notorious and exposed to the scorn of the world, and
being driven by force of modern criticism, CE. definitely and
positively -- though with the usual clerical soft-soaping,
confesses this age-long clerical fraud and falsification of Holy
Writ, and relegates it to the junk-heap of discredited -- but not
discarded -- dogmatic myth:</p>

<p> "<ent type='NORP'>Modern</ent> theology does not grant that <ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent> vii, 14, contains
a real prophecy fulfilled in the virgin birth of Christ; it must
maintain, therefore, that St. <ent type='PERSON'>Matt</ent>hew misunderstood the passage
when he said: 'Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled
which the Lord spoke by the <ent type='PERSON'>prophet</ent>, saying, Behold, a virgin shall
be with child, and bring forth a son, etc."! (CE. xv, 451.)</p>

<p> Thus is apparent, and confessed, the dishonesty of "<ent type='PERSON'>Matt</ent>hew"
and of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> of Christ in perverting this idle, false and
falsified text of <ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent> into a "prophecy of the virgin birth of
<ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> Christ," and in persisting in retaining this falsity in their
dishonest Bibles as the basis of their own bogus theology unto this
day of the Twentieth Century. The <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, full knowing its falsity,
yet, clings to this precious lie of <ent type='ORG'>Virgin Birth</ent> and all the
concatenated consequences. Thus it declares its own condemnation as
false. Some other viciously false translations of sacred <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>
will be duly noticed in their place.</p>

<p> As <ent type='PERSON'>Thomas Jefferson</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>prophet</ent>ically wrote, -- as is being
verified:</p>

<p> "The day will come when the mystical generation of <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> by
the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be
classed with the fable of the generation of <ent type='PERSON'>Minerva</ent> in the brain of
<ent type='LOC'>Jupiter</ent>"!</p>

<p> OTHER HEBREW SACRED FORGERIES</p>

<p> The marvels of the canonical apocrypha of the Hebrew sacred
<ent type='ORG'>Books</ent>, or of the whole 94 miraculously "restored" by <ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent>, could
not slake the thirst of the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> intellect for such edifying
histories, and their priests were very industrious in supplying the
demands of piety and marvel-craving. Making use, as above admitted,
of the most "venerable Old Testament names," they forged a
voluminous literature of fanciful and fantastic fairy-tales in the
guise of sacred history, revelations, oracles or predictions, all
solemnly "set forth as thought actually received, and written or
spoken by ancient worthies, as <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>, etc., which were
widely accepted as genuine, and found a warm reception in <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>
and early <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> circles." Scarcely is there a Biblical notable </p>

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<p>of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent> in whose name these pious false writings were not forged,
including <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Eve</ent> and most of the ante-and post-Diuvian
<ent type='ORG'>Patriarchs</ent>. It is impossible here to much more than mention the
names of some of the principal ones of these extra-canonical
apocrypha and forgeries of the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, as listed in the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Biblica, most of them worked over
with surcharge of added <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> forgeries, to adapt them to their
pious propaganda.</p>

<p> The names of these "intriguing" volumes of forgotten lore,
listed somewhat after the order of their distinguished pretended
authors and times, are: Life of <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Eve</ent>; Testament of <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>;
The Book of <ent type='ORG'>Creation</ent>; the <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of Seth (son of <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>); Book of
<ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent> (grandson of <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>); Secrets of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent>; Parables of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent>; Book
of Lamech; Book of <ent type='PERSON'>Noah</ent>; Book of <ent type='NORP'>Zoroaster</ent> (identified with Ham,
son of <ent type='PERSON'>Noah</ent>); Apocalypse of <ent type='PERSON'>Noah</ent>; Apocalypse of <ent type='PERSON'>Abraham</ent>; Testament
of <ent type='PERSON'>Abraham</ent>; Testament of <ent type='PERSON'>Isaac</ent>; Testament of <ent type='PERSON'>Jacob</ent>; The Testaments
of the Twelve <ent type='ORG'>Patriarchs</ent>; Testament of the Three <ent type='ORG'>Patriarchs</ent>;
Testament of <ent type='PERSON'>Naphthali</ent>; The Prayer of Menassch; The Prayer of
<ent type='PERSON'>Joseph</ent>; The Story of <ent type='PERSON'>Asenath</ent> (wife of <ent type='PERSON'>Joseph</ent>); Prayer of <ent type='PERSON'>Asenath</ent>;
The Marriage of <ent type='PERSON'>Asenath</ent>; The Assumption of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>; The Testament of
<ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>; Book of Jannes and <ent type='PERSON'>Mambres</ent> (the <ent type='GPE'>Egypt</ent>ian magicians with whom
<ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> contended); Penitence of Jannes and <ent type='PERSON'>Mambres</ent>; The Magical
<ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>; The Book of Jubilees. or <ent type='ORG'>Little Genesis</ent>; Book of Og
the Giant, Treatise of the <ent type='ORG'>Giants</ent>, Josippon; Book of Jasher; The
Liber <ent type='PERSON'>Antiquitatem Bibliarum</ent>, ascribed to <ent type='NORP'>Philo</ent>; The Chronicles of
Jerameel; Testament of Job; Psalm CLI of <ent type='PERSON'>David</ent>, "when he fought
with <ent type='PERSON'>Goliath</ent>"; Testament of <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent>; The Contradictio Salomonis (a
contest in wisdom between <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Hiram</ent>); The Psalms of
<ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent>; Apocalypse of Elijah; Apocalypse of <ent type='PERSON'>Baruch</ent>; The Rest of
the Words of <ent type='PERSON'>Baruch</ent>; History of <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>iel; Apocalypse of <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>iel;
Visions of <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>iel; Additions to <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>iel, viz.: The History of
Susanne (Chap. 13), the Song of the Three Children, Story of <ent type='PERSON'>Bel</ent>
and the Dragon (Chap. 14); <ent type='PERSON'>Tobit</ent>; Judith; Additions to Esther; The
Martyrdom of <ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent>; The Ascension of <ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent>; III and IV <ent type='PERSON'>Esdras</ent>;
Apocalypse of <ent type='PERSON'>Esdras</ent>; Story of the Three <ent type='NORP'>Pagan</ent>s, in I <ent type='PERSON'>Esdras</ent>; I,
II, III, and IV Mitceabee"; The Prophecy of <ent type='PERSON'>Eldad</ent> and Medad;
Apocalypse of Zephaniah, Stories of Artaphanus; <ent type='ORG'>Eupolemus</ent>; Story of
<ent type='NORP'>Aphikia</ent>, wife of <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Sirach</ent>; The Letter of <ent type='NORP'>Aristeas</ent> to
<ent type='NORP'>Philocrates</ent>; The Sibylline Oracles.</p>

<p> Quite half of the above <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> false-writings, separately
listed under the grouping of "<ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> with <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Accretions,"
the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent> Encyclopedia describes with comments such as "recast
or freely interpolated by <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s," "many <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
interpolations," etc., "presenting in their ensemble a fairly full
Christology" (CE. i, 606). If the pious <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s, <ent type='ORG'>confessedly</ent>,
committed so many and so extensive forgeries and frauds to adapt
these popular <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> fairy-tales of their God and holy Worthies to
the new <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> and his <ent type='PERSON'>Apostles</ent>, we need feel no surprise
when we discover these same <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s forging outright new wonder-tales of their Christ under the fiction of the most noted <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
names and in the guise of inspired Gospels, Epistles, Acts and
Apocalypses.</p>

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<p> THE "INSPIRED" HEBREW SCRIPTURES</p>

<p> The processes of the formation of <ent type='EVENT'>the Hebrew Old Testament</ent>
<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s are, however, interesting and intriguing, if sacred
tradition is true. According to priestly lore, the man <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>,
"learned in all the wisdom of the <ent type='GPE'>Egypt</ent>ians" (another <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
assurance; Acts vii, 22), sat down in <ent type='LOC'>the Wilderness</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>Sinai</ent> and
under divine inspiration wrote his Five <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of prehistorical
history, codes of post-exilic divine Law, and chronicles of
contemporary and future notable events, including four different
names of his father-in-law -- (Wz.: Jethro, Ex. iii, 1; <ent type='PERSON'>Reuel</ent>, Ex.
ii, 18; Jether, Ex. iv, 18, and <ent type='PERSON'>Raguel</ent>, Num. x, 29, while a fifth
name, <ent type='ORG'>Hobab</ent>, is awarded him in Judges iv, II), together with a
graphic account of his own death and burial, and of the whole month
afterwards spent by all <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent> mourning his death. He also records
the death of his brother <ent type='PERSON'>Aaron</ent> at Mt. Hor (Num. xx, 28; xxxiii,
38), just six months before his own death; though, in amazing
contradiction, he elsewhere records <ent type='PERSON'>Aaron</ent> as having died at <ent type='ORG'>Mosera</ent>,
just after leaving <ent type='GPE'>Sinai</ent> (Deut. x, 6), thirty-nine years previously
-- and thus nullifies the entire history of the wonderful career
and deeds of <ent type='PERSON'>Aaron</ent> as high priest during the whole 40 years of
wandering in <ent type='LOC'>the Wilderness</ent>, of which the <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of Exodus,
Leviticus and Numbers are largely filled; as also many other
matters and things occurring for some centuries after his death,
and known as "post-<ent type='PERSON'>Mosaica</ent>" to the scholars.</p>

<p> <ent type='PERSON'>Joshua</ent>, the successor of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>, next wrote the history of his
life and times, working in, too, a sketch of his own death and
funeral obsequies (Josh. xxiv, 29-30), and quoting the celebrated
miracle of the nun standing still, of which he says, "Is it not
written in the Book of Jasher?" -- which Book of Jasher was not
itself written until several hundred years later, at least in or
after the time of <ent type='PERSON'>David</ent>; for it is recorded: "And he [<ent type='PERSON'>David</ent>] bade
them teach the children of <ent type='GPE'>Judah</ent> the use of the bow; behold, it is
written in the Book of Jasher." (2 Sam. i, 18.)</p>

<p> The Book of Judges was written by nobody knows whom, nor when,
except that it was long "post-exilic." It relates that, "Now the
children of <ent type='GPE'>Judah</ent> had fought against <ent type='GPE'>Jerusalem</ent>, and had taken it"
(Jud. i, 18); whereas it was not until <ent type='PERSON'>David</ent> had reigned seven
years and six months in <ent type='GPE'>Hebron</ent>, that "the <ent type='GPE'>King</ent> and his men went to
<ent type='GPE'>Jerusalem</ent>" and failed to capture it, "nevertheless, <ent type='PERSON'>David</ent> took the
stronghold of Zion, and called it <ent type='GPE'>the City</ent> of <ent type='PERSON'>David</ent>." (2 Sam. v,
5-9.) It is further recorded in Judges that the tribe of <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent> made
a silver idol of the Hebrew God and hired a grandson of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> to
serve it, and "he and his sons were priests to the tribe of <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>
until the captivity of the land" (Jud. xviii, 30) -- about a
thousand years later.</p>

<p> The gifted Samuel. Prophet of the heathen High Places of Baal
worship, gives his name and inspiration to two books of mythical
history written piecemeal until the "return from captivity," as
above indicated, and early in his work he records the historic
episode of the calling up of his own ghost from the dead by the
famous Witch of En-dor. (I Sam. xviii, 1, 7-19.)</p>

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<p> The ex-bandit <ent type='PERSON'>David</ent>, "man after God's own heart" -- after
murdering a man to get his adulterous wife, and engendering of her
his all-wise son and hero, <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent>, wrote the 150 songs of the
Hebrew Hymn Book, many of his psalms singing of the long posthumous
<ent type='GPE'>Babylonian</ent> Captivity.</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent> himself, who was son-in-law to nearly everybody in the
heathen nations round about who had eligible daughters, wrote the
wisdom of the ages into his Book of Proverbs, though not one of
them is by <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent>, and in his lighter (headed or hearted) spells
penned his erotic Canticles, which for realistic lubricity quite
outdo <ent type='PERSON'>Boccaccio</ent>, and would be really unmailable under the <ent type='ORG'>Postal</ent>
laws if they weren't in the Holy Bible and clerically captioned
"The Church's Love unto Christ." These are indeed but one
collection out of the great many pornographic stories of The Holy
Ghost's <ent type='PERSON'>Decameron</ent>, enshrined in God's Holy Word for delectation of
the Puritans of Faith.</p>

<p> Other divinely inspired and anonymous writers, falsely
entitling their effusions under the names of this or that Prophet
or other wholly fictitious personage, as Job, Esther, Ruth, <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>iel,
gave forth yet other inspired histories, books of oracles or
prophecies, apocalypses or high powered visions into <ent type='ORG'>Futurity</ent>, and
a miscellany of sacred novels, love-stories and nondescript musings
or ravings known collectively as the hagiographa or holy writings
of the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>. All these together, now thirty-nine in number,
comprise the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It being out of
question to review each of these here, it may be stated with
assurance that not one of them bears the name of its true author;
that every one of them is a composite work of many hands
"interpolating" the most anachronistic and contradictory matters
into the original writings, and often reciting as accomplished
facts things which occurred many centuries after the time of the
supposed writer, as Psalms, isaiah, <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>iel, and the so-called
"historical" books. For scientific detailed demonstration of this
the Encyclopedia Biblica digests the most competent authorities; my
own Is It God's Word? makes the proofs from the sacred texts
themselves. See the recent "Religions Book of the Month Club's"
notable Unraveling the Book of <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent>, by <ent type='ORG'>Trattner</ent>. (1929.)</p>

<p> But as the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> religion depends more vitally on <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent>
and <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> than on all the other sacred writings and writers, we may
appeal to the admissions of CE., thereto driven by force of modern
criticism, for the destruction and abandonment of the <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> Myths.</p>

<p> "It is true that the <ent type='PERSON'>Pentateuch</ent>, so long attributed to <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>,
is now held by the vast majority of non-<ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, and by an
increasing number of <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>, scholars to be a compilation of four
independent sources put together in final shape soon after the
Captivity." (CE. i, 622.)</p>

<p> This scores strongly for Hebrew-<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> forgery and fraud in
attributing this primitive system of Bible "science" and barbarous
law to a <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent> as a pretext for priestly domination of the
superstitious people. That God-given forged law thus prescribes for
priestcraft: "The man that will do presumptuously, and will not
hearken unto the priest, ... even that man shall die." (Deut. xvii,</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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73
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FORGERY IN <ent type='NORP'>CHRISTIANITY</ent></p>

<p>12.) The whole Five <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> are thus a confessed forgery in
the names of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> and of God; every one of the Thus saith the Lord
a thousand times repeated, with speeches and laws put into the
mouth of the God, are false and forged. Speaking of the
"difficulty, in the present condition of Old Testament criticism,
of recognizing more than a small portion of the <ent type='PERSON'>Peritateuch</ent> as
documentary evidence contemporary with <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>," -- who, if he ever
lived, which may be confidently denied, -- never wrote a line of
it, CE. further confesses to the natural evolution -- not the
"divine revelation" -- of the Hebrew mythology into a (no less
mythological) monotheistic religion: "The <ent type='NORP'>Hegelian</ent> principle of
evolution ... applied to religion, has powerfully helped to beget
a tendency to regard the religion of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent> as evolved by processes
not transcending nature, from a polytheistic worship of the
elements to a spiritual and ethical monotheism." (CE. i, 493.) But
this finally and very late evolved monotheism is neither a tardy
divine revelation to the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, nor a novel invention by them; it
was a thousand years antedated by Amenhotep IV and Tut-ankh-amen in
<ent type='GPE'>Egypt</ent>, -- nor were even they the pioneers. We have seen the
admission that the <ent type='NORP'>Zoroastrian</ent> Mithra religion was "a divinely
revealed Monotheism" (CE., ii, 156). But the <ent type='ORG'>Hebrews</ent> were confessed
and notorious idolaters and polytheists until after the Captivity;
that fact is a thousand times alleged throughout the <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s as
the sole reason for their troubles and captivity. As above
suggested, and as thoroughly demonstrated by the texts in my other
book, the Hebrew God <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent> was but one of the many <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s worshipped
by the <ent type='ORG'>Hebrews</ent>; and <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent> never claimed more than to be a "God
above all <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s," to be preferred before them all; -- as at <ent type='GPE'>Sinai</ent> he
enacted: "Thou shalt have no other <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s before [in preference to]
me," -- thus admitting the other <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s.</p>

<p> FORGERY BY CONTRADICTIONS</p>

<p> Contradictions throughout the Bible, Old and New Testaments
alike, abound by the many thousands, and in virtually every book of
both Testaments, -- as every one knows who has read the Bible even
casually. See some thousand and more of the most notorious and
vital ones as cited in "deadly parallel" in my Is It God's Word? as
one of the most conclusive proofs of uninspired human origin and of
confusion worse confounded of tinkering, "interpolation" and
forgery outright, by the pious priests of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Judah</ent>, and the
<ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent> "school" of forgers of the "Law and the Prophets."</p>

<p> OUR "PHONY" <ent type='PERSON'>CHRISTIAN ERA</ent></p>

<p> "It was a monk of the 6th century, named <ent type='PERSON'>Dionysiug Exiguus</ent>
(Dennis the Little), who fixed our present <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> era, laying
down that <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> Christ was born on the 25th of December, A.U.C.
753, and commencing the new era from the following year, 754. That
date, as we shall see, cannot be correct and, instead of being an
improvement on, is farther from the truth than the dates assigned
by the early Fathers, St. Irenaeus and <ent type='NORP'>Tertullian</ent>, who fixed the
date of the Nativity in the 41st year of <ent type='PERSON'>Augustus</ent>, that is to say,
3 years B.C., or A.U.C, 751 ... All this points to the fact that
<ent type='PERSON'>Herod</ent> died in the year 4 B.C., and that our Savior must have been
born before that date ... Our Savior was born some time before
Herod's death, probably two years or more. So that, if <ent type='PERSON'>Herod</ent> died </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<p>in the year 4 B.C., we should be taken to 6 or 7 B.C. as the year
of the Nativity" (CE. 735-6).</p>

<p> This, of course, discredits the date given by the inspiration
of [71] <ent type='PERSON'>Luke</ent>, and demonstrates that both he and <ent type='PERSON'>Matt</ent>hew merely
alleged fictitious dates for what in all human probability was a
purely fictitious event. The new Era of Christ was, however, very
slow in gaining recognition; the first official secular document
dating by it was a charter of <ent type='ORG'>Charlemagne</ent>, after 800 A.D., and it
did not come into general use until about 1000 A.D. I may mention
a fiery sermon I once heard, in which the expounder of truth
vindicated the glory of God by declaiming that every <ent type='NORP'>Jew</ent> and
Infidel confessed to <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> Christ every time he dated a letter or
mentioned the year of an event. Being simply a hearer of the Word,
I could not rise to suggest, that by the same token we confess more
to the <ent type='NORP'>Pagan</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s than to the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>, -- for more than half the
months and every day of the week are named for <ent type='NORP'>Pagan</ent> deities, and
we name them much more often than we do the years of grace and
salvation of Christ. After this bad start from Gospel error and
contradiction, we now turn to further evidences of "Gospel truth"
in contradictions and forgery.</p>

<p> Among the most signal of these incessant contradictions and
scientific impossibilities of Divine Inspiration, are those
relating to the capital matter, -- for the credit of the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
Religion, of the time and manner of <ent type='ORG'>Creation</ent> of earth and Man,
based on Holy Writ and on the "chronology" worked out, with several
hundred disparate results, from the inspired pedigrees of the ante-<ent type='PERSON'>Diluvian Patriarchs</ent>. So fatally important is this to <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity,
that the 'True <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> -- "which never deceived anyone" and "has
never erred," -- speaking through CE., thus admits that
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity stands or falls with -- "the literal, historical sense
of the first three chapters of <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> in as far as they bear on
the facts touching the foundations of the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> religion, e.g.,
the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time, the
especial creation of man, the formation of the first woman from the
first man, the unity of the human race"! (Papal Biblical
Commission, June 30, 1909; CE. vii, 313). Thus: No <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Eve</ent>, no
Garden of <ent type='LOC'>Eden</ent> and Talking Snake, no "Fall" and Curse -- therefore:
No Savior <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> Christ, no Plan of Salvation, no truth in the
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Religion! The fatal point is elucidated with inexorable
logic and dogmatic truth by the "Reformed" ex-Father <ent type='PERSON'>Peter</ent> Martyr:
"So important is it to comprehend the work of creation that we see
the creed of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> take this as its starting point. Were this
Article taken away, there would be no original sin; the promise of
Christ would become void, and all the vital force of our religion
would be destroyed"! Father <ent type='PERSON'>Luther</ent> inherited the same faith and
bequeathed it to his dissident following: "<ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> spoke properly and
plainly, and neither allegorically nor figuratively; and therefore
the world with all creatures was created in six days." <ent type='PERSON'>Calvin</ent>, in
his "Commentary on <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent>," argues that the <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> account of
<ent type='ORG'>Creation</ent> is literally true, and warns those who dare to believe
otherwise, and thus "basely insult the Creator, to expect a Judge
who will annihilate them." Again he says: "We know on the authority
of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>, that longer ago than 6000 years the world did not exist."
So too, the <ent type='GPE'>Westminster</ent> Confession of Faith, in full Protestant
force and effect today -- specially lays it down as "necessary to </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<p>salvation to believe that all things visible and invisible were
created not only out of nothing but exactly in six days." And the
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>es have murdered countless thousands to impress this
beautiful impossible truth.</p>

<p> Notwithstanding the crushing disproofs of those primitive
forged "Fables of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>," by every fact of astronomy, geology,
anthropology, biology, and <ent type='ORG'>kindred sciences</ent>, known to schoolboys
today, Faith clings fatuously to its fetches: <ent type='GPE'>Arkansas</ent> ("Now
laugh!"), <ent type='GPE'>Mississippi</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Tennessee</ent>, three States of the Twentieth
Century United States, have made it crime by Law to teach the
sciences which discredit the <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> Myths, upon which <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
Superstition utterly depends;, and like medieval laws are sought to
be imposed in all our States. The True <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, like all the others,
still founds its "Faith and Morals" upon these old Hebrew forgeries
of <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> and peddles them to its Faithful; but it knows better.
Thus the whole True Faith is shipwrecked by these heretical
confessions of CE., forced from it by the truths of heretical
<ent type='NORP'>Modern</ent>ism, in full face of the fierce inspired fulminations of the
Syllabus of Errors: "In an article on Bible chronology it is hardly
necessary in these days to discuss the date of the <ent type='ORG'>Creation</ent>. At
least two hundred dates have been suggested, varying from 3483 to
6934 year B.C. all based on the supposition that the Bible enables
us to settle the point. But it does nothing of the kind. ... The
literal interpretation has now been entirely abandoned; and the
world is admitted to be of immense antiquity"! (CE. iii, 731.)
Again the "sacred science" of <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> and of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity is
further admitted to be false, and the fabulous "Septuagint" Bible
on which <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity was founded before the era of the second
century forgeries of Gospels and Epistles, to be a holy fraud, in
these further excerpts accrediting the true revelations of modern
Science as against those of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>:</p>

<p> "The church ... does not attach decisive influence to the
chronology of the <ent type='ORG'>Vulgate</ent>, the official version of the Western
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>, since in the Martyrology for Christmas day, the creation of
<ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent> is put down in the year 5199 B.C., which is the reading of the
Septuagint. It is, however, certain that we cannot confine the
years of man's sojourn on earth to that usually set down. ...
Various explanations have been given of chapter v (<ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent>) to
explain the short time it seems to allow between the <ent type='ORG'>Creation</ent> and
the Flood. ... The total number of years in the Hebrew, <ent type='ORG'>Samaritan</ent>,
and Septuagint differs, in the Hebrew it being 1656, in the
<ent type='ORG'>Samaritan</ent> 1307, and in the Septuagint 2242. ... According to
Science the length of this period was much greater than appears
from the genealogical table. ... In any case, whether we follow the
traditional or critical view, the numbers obtained from the
genealogy of the <ent type='ORG'>Patriarchs</ent> in chapter xi must be greatly
augmented, in order to allow time for such a development of
civilization, language, and race type as had been reached by the
time of <ent type='PERSON'>Abraham</ent>." (CE. iii, 731-3.)</p>

<p> FORGERY BY FALSE TRANSLATIONS</p>

<p> We have noted the capital forgery wrought by the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> in
consciously and unconscionably adopting and perpetuating the false
translation in the Septuagint, of the "virgin shall conceive" </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<p>pretended prophecy of <ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent> vii, 14. Indisputably the whole forged
fabric of supernatural <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity is based on, and depends upon,
this one monumental forgery falsely used to give credit to the
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> forgery of "the Gospel according to <ent type='PERSON'>Matt</ent>hew" as to the
Divine and miraculous "Virgin birth of <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> Christ." Out of scores
of other notoriously falsified translations of the sacred Old
Testament texts, attention is here called only to several of the
most signal ones which vitally affect and destroy the validity of
the most essential pretensions of truth of the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> religion.
These frauds of translation and others, have been thoroughly
examined and supported by numerous texts from the original Hebrew,
and falsified verses of the English versions, in my 'Is It God's
Word?,' to which references must be made for a more complete
treatment than is here pertinent. Those now cited in summary are
all of them deliberate falsifications and forgeries in translation
which go to the vitals of the <ent type='GPE'>Hebrao</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> system of holy
imposture.</p>

<p> If the Hebrew originals had been truthfully translated, we
should have no such false pretenses for faith as the Hebrew One God
anciently revealed to <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>, and to <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>, no <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>, no man "but
little lower than the angels" because of his immortal soul, no
unique "revelation' of the "Ineffable Name" Jehovah to <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>; all
that we would have, -- all that the Hebrew texts reveal -- is a
primitive polytheistic idolatry of the crudest and most
superstitious order. Let us see.</p>

<p> (a) The "God" Forgery</p>

<p> The first sentence of the translated Bibles is a falsification
and forgery of the highest importance. We read with awed solemnity
of faith: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth"
(Gen. i, 1). The Hebrew word for God is el; the plural is elohim,
<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s. The Hebrew text of <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> i, 1, reads: "Bereshith bara
elohim," etc., -- "In-beginning created <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s the-heavens and-the-earth." And, in the same chapter we read in Hebrew honestly
translated, -- thirty times the word "elohim" <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s, to whom are
attributed all the works of creation in the six peculiar "days" of
<ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent>. This is plainly evident from the Hebrew texts of <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent>
i, which even false intention could not hide in the translation,
"And-said elohim (<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s), let-US-make man (<ent type='PERSON'>adam</ent>) in-image-OUR,
after-likeness-OUR" (i, 26). And when "<ent type='PERSON'>adam</ent>" had eaten of the
forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, "the Lord God" said,
"Behold, the-man has become like one of US, to know good and evil"
(iii, 27). And when <ent type='ORG'>the Tower</ent> of Babel was abuilding, "The Lord
[Heb. <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent>] said ... Come, let US go down," etc. And thus, some
2570 times the plural, elohim, <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s, is used in the Hebrew texts,
but is always falsely translated "God" in the false singular, when
speaking of the Hebrew deity, <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent>.</p>

<p> In the three <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> verses above quoted, we have three
different designations of the Hebrew deity or deities: elohim,
<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s, falsely translated "God"; "Lord God" (Heb. <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent>-elohim);
and "Lord" (Heb. <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent>). <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent> is the proper name of the Hebrew
God, in English rendered Jehovah: <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent>-elohim is a Hebrew
"construct-form" honestly meaning "<ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent>-of-the-<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s." Invariably
(with rare exceptions to be noted), these personal names are </p>

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<p>falsely rendered "Lord" and "Lord God," respectively, for purposes
of pious fraud which we shall now expose to the shame of a theology
of imposture. We will return to this after noting a pair of others.</p>

<p> (b) The "<ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>" Forgery</p>

<p> There was no first man "<ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>," according to the Hebrew texts
of the story. The word <ent type='PERSON'>adam</ent> in Hebrew is a common noun, meaning man
in a generic sense; in <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> i, 26, we have read: "And elohim
(<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s) said, Let us make <ent type='PERSON'>adam</ent> (man)"; and so "elohim created <ent type='PERSON'>haadam</ent> (the-man); ... male and female created he them" (i. 27). And
in the second story, where man is first made alone: "<ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent> formed
ha-adan (the-man) out of the dust of ha-<ent type='GPE'>adamah</ent>-the ground" (ii, 7).
Man is called in Hebrew <ent type='PERSON'>adam</ent> because formed out of <ent type='GPE'>adamah</ent>, the
ground; just as in <ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent> man is called homo because formed from
humus, the ground, -- homo ex humo, in the epigram of Father
<ent type='PERSON'>Lactantius</ent>. (Lact., Divine Institutes, ii, 58; <ent type='ORG'>ANF</ent>. vii, 58.) The
forging by the common noun <ent type='PERSON'>adam</ent> into a mythical proper name <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>,
was a post-exilic fraud in the forging of fictitious genealogies
from "in the beginning" to Father <ent type='PERSON'>Abraham</ent>.</p>

<p> (c) The "Soul" Forgery</p>

<p> In <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> i is the account of the creation of elohim -- <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s
-- on the fifth day, of "<ent type='GPE'>nephesh hayyah</ent> -- the moving creature that
hath life," and of "<ent type='GPE'>nephesh hayyah</ent> -- every living creature" -- out
of the waters (i, 20, 21); and on the sixth day of "<ent type='GPE'>nephesh hayyah</ent>
-- the living creature" out of the ground (i, 24); and he gave to
ha-<ent type='PERSON'>adam</ent> -- the-man dominion over "kol nephesh hagyah, -- everything
wherein there is life," (i, 30.) So reads the Hebrew text -- all
these dumb animal living creatures are by God called "nephesh
hayyah," "literally "living soul," as will be found stuck into the
margins of the Authorized Version. In chapter ii we have the
history of ha-<ent type='PERSON'>adam</ent> made from ha-<ent type='GPE'>adamah</ent>; and, in wonderful contrast
to these lowly "living creatures" (<ent type='GPE'>nephesh hayyah</ent>), <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent>-clohim
"breathed into his nostrils <ent type='PERSON'>nishmath hayyim</ent> -- (living breaths),
and ha-<ent type='PERSON'>adam</ent> became <ent type='GPE'>nephesh hayyah</ent> -- a living soul"! (ii, 7.) In
Hebrew nephesh everywhere and simply means soul, and hayyah
(living) is the feminine singular adjective from hai, life. Man,
therefore, was created exactly the same as the other animals; all
had or were <ent type='GPE'>nephesh hayyah</ent> -- living souls, indistinctly. The
"false pen of the scribes," who in translation made the dumb
animals merely living creatures, and "Creation's micro-cosmical
masterpiece, Man," a "living soul," falsely altered these plain
words so as to deceive into a belief of a special God-breathed soul
in man, far different from the brute animal that perisheth.</p>

<p> (d) The "Mosaic Revelation" Forgery</p>

<p> When <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent> appeared to <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> in the Burning <ent type='PERSON'>Bush</ent>, and
announced himself as "the God of thy fathers," he was a total
stranger to <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>; <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> did not at all know him, had never heard
of him; so that he asked, "What is thy name?" -- so that he could
report it to the people back home in <ent type='GPE'>Egypt</ent>, who had never heard it.
After some intermission, the God came directly to the point, and
declared -- l quote the exact words -- one of the most notorious
falsities in Holy Writ:</p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
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<p> "And elohim spake unto <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>, and said unto him., anoki <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent>
-- I am the Lord!</p>

<p> "And I appeared unto <ent type='PERSON'>Abraham</ent>, unto <ent type='PERSON'>Isaac</ent>, and unto <ent type='PERSON'>Jacob</ent>, by
the name of el-<ent type='ORG'>shaddai</ent>, but by my name <ent type='PERSON'>Yahvch</ent> (<ent type='ORG'>JEHOVAH</ent>) was I not
known to them." (Ex. vi, 2, 8.)</p>

<p> Here we have the positive averment of the Hebrew God himself
to the effect that here, for the first time since the world began,
is "revealed" to mankind the "ineffable name" of <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent>, here first
appearing in the Bible translations, and there printed as <ent type='ORG'>JEHOVAH</ent>
in capital letters; for more vivid and awe-inspiring impression.
But this is a capital Lie of the Lord, or of his biographer who
imputed it to him. In verse 4 of <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> ii, the name <ent type='PERSON'>YAHVEH</ent> first
appears; "in the day that <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent>-elohim made the earth and the
heavens." Its first recorded use in the mouth of a mystical
personage, was when Mother <ent type='PERSON'>Eve</ent> "conceived, and bare <ent type='PERSON'>Cain</ent>, and said,
I have gotten a man from <ent type='PERSON'>Yahveh</ent> -- the Lord." (Gen. iv, 1.) One
hundred and fifty-six times the personal name <ent type='PERSON'>YAHVEH</ent> occurs in the
Book of <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> alone; and scores of times in the mouths of
<ent type='PERSON'>Abraham</ent>, of <ent type='PERSON'>Isaac</ent>, and of <ent type='PERSON'>Jacob</ent>, as any one may read in <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent>,
with the assurance that every single time that the title "the Lord"
and "the Lord God" appears, it is a false translation by the
priests for the Hebrew personal name <ent type='PERSON'>YAHVEH</ent>. Throughout the Hebrew
"<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s" the Divine Name thousands of times occurs: "The sacred
name occurs in <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent> about 156 times; ... in round numbers it is
found in the Old Testament 6000 times, either alone or in
conjunction with another Divine name." (CE. viii, 829, 331.) More
exactly, "What is called the Tetragrammaton, YHVH, appears in the
Old Testament 6823 times as the proper name of God as the God of
<ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent>. As such it serves to distinguish him from the <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s of the
other nations." (EB. iii, 3320.) Thus was the Hebrew tribal <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>
<ent type='PERSON'>YAHVEH</ent> distinguished from <ent type='PERSON'>Bel</ent>, and <ent type='ORG'>Chemosh</ent>, and <ent type='ORG'>Dagon</ent>, and <ent type='PERSON'>Shamash</ent>,
and the scores of "<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s of the nations"; just as <ent type='PERSON'>Bill</ent> distinguishes
its bearer from <ent type='PERSON'>Tom</ent>, Dick, and <ent type='PERSON'>Harry</ent>. This was precisely the Hebrew
usage -- to distinguish one heathen <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent> from another. And this the
false translators sought to hide, giving names to all the "other
<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s," but suppressing a name for the Hebrew deity, who as "the
Lord," or "the Lord God," was high and unique, "a <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent> above all
<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s," -- the one and only true God.</p>

<p> But yet more malicious and evil-intentioned of deception: 6828
times is the name of the Hebrew God concealed by false rendition
for the deliberate purpose of forging the whole Hebrew Bible, as
translated, into semblance of harmony with the false avowal of
Exodus vi, 3, that "by my name <ent type='PERSON'>YAHVEH</ent> was I not know unto them."
<ent type='ORG'>Search</ent> as one may, outside Exodus vi, 3, the <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>-name <ent type='PERSON'>YAHVEH</ent>
(Jehovah) is never to be found in the translations in a single
instance, except in Psalm lxxxiii, 18, and <ent type='PERSON'>Isaiah</ent> xii, 2 and xxvi,
4. The false translations thus "make truth to be a liar," the lie
of Exodus vi, 3 to seem the truth; and a barbarous heathen tribal
<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent> among a hundred neighbor and competitive <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s to be the
nameless One Lord God of the <ent type='ORG'>Universe</ent>. The Hebrew-<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> One God
is a patent Forgery and Myth; a mycological Father-<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent> can have no
"only begotten Son"; <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> Christ is a myths even before he is
mythically born in the fancies of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> Fathers, as we shall
soon have ample evidence to prove.</p>

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<p> With respect to the mythical Hebrew-<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> God or <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s, we
may safely say, as says Father <ent type='PERSON'>Justin Martyr</ent> apropos of the other
mythic <ent type='NORP'>Pagan</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s: "And we confess that we are atheists, so far as
<ent type='PERSON'>god</ent>s of this sort are concerned." (First Apology, ch. vi; <ent type='ORG'>ANF</ent>. i,
169.)</p>

<p> THE ANCIENT IDEA OF "HISTORY"</p>

<p> We may pause a moment to catch a vitutable view which will be
of great aid to understanding the mental processes of the ancient
writers in their portrayal of events, real or fanciful, which they
set about to record as "history." These pioneers of historical
literature lived in an age of simple-minded credulity, and
everything which they saw recorded or heard related, however
extravagant and seemingly incredible or impossible, passed all as
perfectly good history in their receptive and uncritical minds.
Speaking of the legendary, the traditional, the supernatural
stories, myths, folk-lore and fables, -- "in short, everything
which seemed to testify to the past," -- which formed the raw
material of the early historians, the Encyclopedia Biblica gives a
graphic picture of primitive history-writing, not only <ent type='NORP'>Hebraic</ent> but
<ent type='PERSON'>Gentilic</ent>:</p>

<p> "Their sources, like those of the <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> logographers with whom
it is natural to compare them, were poems, genealogies, often
representing clan-groupings, tribal and local traditions of diverse
kinds, such as furnish the materials for most of the Book of
Judges; the historical traditions of sanctuaries; the sacred
legends of holy places, relating theophanies and other revelations,
the erection of the altar or sacred stone, the. origin of popular
usages -- e.g. Bethel; laws; myths of foreign or native origin;
folk-lore and fable, -- in short, everything which seemed to
testify of the past.</p>

<p> "To us the greater part of this material is not in any proper
sense historical at all; but for the early <ent type='NORP'>Israelite</ent> as for the
early <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> historian it was otherwise; our distinctions between
authentic history, legendary history, pure legend, and myth, he
made as little as he recognized our distinction of natural and
supernatural. It was all history to him; and if one part of it had
a better attestation than another, it was certainly the sacred
history as it was told at the ancient sanctuaries of the land.</p>

<p> The early Hebrew historians did not affix their names to their
works; they had, indeed, no idea of authorship. The traditions and
legends which they collected were common property, and did not
cease to be so when they were committed to writing; the written
book was in every sense the property of the scribe or the possessor
of the roll. Only a part of the great volume of tradition was
included in the first books. <ent type='ORG'>Transcribers</ent> freely added new matter
from the same sources on which the original authors had drawn, the
traditions of their own locality or sanctuary, variants of
historical traditions or legend. <ent type='PERSON'>Eve</ent>ry new copy was thus in some
measure a fresh rescension. ... Scribes compared different copies,
and combined their contents according to their own judgment or
interests. ... Of records or monuments there are but a few traces,
and these for the most part doubtful." (EB. ii, 2075-76.)</p>

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<p> To say nothing now of the Old or New Testament "canonical" and
"apocryphal" literature, countless examples of this imaginative
method of history-writing abound in all the ancient writers, as all
who are familiar with such classics as <ent type='PERSON'>Herod</ent>otus, Thucydides,
Xenophon, <ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent>, <ent type='PERSON'>Livy</ent>, will readily recall. One of the most
inveterate forms of imaginative creation on the part of the old
historiographers was the invention of sayings and whole speeches
which, just as do the fiction-writers of today, they put entire
into the mouths of the personages of whom they were writing, which
discourses they not only invented whole, but always wrought them in
the style and manner of the writer and his epoch, and not in those
of their ancient subjects. All are familiar with such instances in
Homer, <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>te, <ent type='PERSON'>Shakespeare</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Milton</ent>, and which we all known are
pure inventions of those writers. Naming several of the ancient
historians above mentioned, and others, a distinguished philosopher
of history thus describes the art:</p>

<p> "Such speeches as we find in Thucydides (for example), of
which we can positively assert that they are not bona-fide
records. ... Thus <ent type='PERSON'>Livy</ent> puts into the mouths of the old <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent>
<ent type='GPE'>King</ent>s, Consuls, and generals, such orations as would be
delivered by an accomplished advocate of the <ent type='PERSON'>Livian</ent> era... In
the same way he gives us descriptions of battles, as if he had
been an actual spectator; but whose features would serve well
enough for battles in any period." (Hegel, The <ent type='NORP'>Philo</ent>sophy of
History, i). 2.)</p>

<p> Speaking of much later times, and of a different class, but
like type, of writers, Hegel again says: "In the Middle Ages, we
except the Bishops, who were placed in the very center of the
political world, the <ent type='NORP'>Monks</ent> monopolized this category as maine
chroniclers." (Ib. p. 3.)</p>

<p> As typical illustration of the principles and practices above
described of the best of the ancient writers, but more especially
as an example of the kind of "history" written by the most learned
and illustrious historian of <ent type='ORG'>Jewry</ent>, fellow-countryman and
contemporary of the supposed Apostolic writers of <ent type='EVENT'>the New Testament</ent>
books, it is of the highest significance to cite some of the solemn
historical recordation of <ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent>, from two of his most famous
works; they will make more appreciated at their real value some of
the inspired historical recitals of contemporaneous sacred
history.'</p>

<p> In his Antiquities of the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent> follows closely the
subject matter and order of narration of the early Old Testament,
books, beginning with the <ent type='ORG'>Creation</ent>, giving the full substance of
those histories, and adding quaint comments all his own and
expansions and embellishments unknown to or unrecorded by <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>. In
<ent type='LOC'>Eden</ent>, not only the Talking Snake could speak, but all the now dumb
animals: "All living creatures had one language, at that time" (I,
i, 4). After our parents had eaten of <ent type='ORG'>the Fruit</ent> of Knowledge and,
discovering themselves naked, hid themselves from the Creator,
"This behavior surprised God," who delivers a lengthy speech of
reprieval not recorded by <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> (Ib.); and such orations are
plentiful and detailed between God and all the other notables who
came into personal contact with him; a gem is his oration to <ent type='PERSON'>Noah</ent>. </p>

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<p>He relates the wars waged by the wicked posterity of <ent type='PERSON'>Cain</ent>, to the
great distress of <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>, who predicted the two-fold destruction of
the earth, once by water and again by fire. As the <ent type='NORP'>Sethites</ent> were
good people and intelligent, and had made great discoveries in
astronomy, which they wished preserved for such posterity as might
survive the yet future Flood, "they made two pillars, the one of
brick, the other of stone; they inscribed their discoveries on them
both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the
Flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit these
discoveries to mankind; and also inform them that there was another
pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the land of
<ent type='PERSON'>Siriad</ent> to this day." (lb., I, ii, 2.) He relates with naive and
realistic garnishment the tale of Sodom, and <ent type='PERSON'>Lot</ent> and his daughters,
and of Lot's wife turned to a pillar of salt, which is Gospel
truth, "for I have seen it, and it remains at this day"! (Ib. 1,
xi, 4.) These historical drolleries might be quoted ad <ent type='ORG'>infinitum</ent>
from Jewry's greatest historian.</p>

<p> The name of <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent> was most potent conjure in the <ent type='LOC'>Orient</ent>
through all the succeeding centuries; the spells and charms,
amulets and fetishes inscribed with his mystic symbol and
pronounced in his name, were the terror of all the devils who so
populated the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> mind, and the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>. A noted instance of
the potency of this Name, exhibited before the <ent type='NORP'>Roman</ent> Emperor
<ent type='PERSON'>Vespasian</ent> and his court and army, and witnessed by <ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent>
himself, so circumstantial, so faith-compelling, so artless and
childishly fabling, that I am constrained to quote it for the
<ent type='ORG'>lightit</ent> sheds on the "historical" methods of the "age of apocryphal
literature":</p>

<p> "God also enabled him [<ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent>] to learn that skill which
expels demons, which is a science useful and sensitive to men.
He composed such incantations also by which distempers are
alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using
exorcisms, by which they drive away demons, so that they never
return, and this method of cure is of great force unto this
day; for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose
name was <ent type='PERSON'>Eleazar</ent>, relieving people that were demoniacs in the
presence of <ent type='PERSON'>Vespasian</ent>, and his sons, and his captains, and the
whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was
this: he put a ring, that had a root of one of the sorts
mentioned by <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent>, to the nostrils of the demoniac, after
which he drew out the demon through his nostrils; and when the
man fell down immediately, he abjured him to return into him
no more, making still mention of <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent>, and reciting the
incantation which he composed. And when <ent type='PERSON'>Eleazar</ent> would persuade
and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, he
set a little way off a cup or basin full of water, and
commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to overturn
it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left
the man; and when this was done, the skill and wisdom of
<ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent> was shown very manifestly; for which reason it is,
that all men may know the vastness of Solomon's abilities, and
how he was beloved of God, and that the extraordinary virtues
of every kind with which this king was endowed, may not be
unknown to any people under the sun; for this reason, I say,
it is that we have proceeded to speak so largely of these
matters." (<ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent>, Antiq. <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, Bk. VIII, Ch. ii, 5;
Whiston's trans.)
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This is followed by the full text of the autograph letters
between <ent type='ORG'>Solomon</ent> and <ent type='GPE'>Hiram</ent> regarding the building of <ent type='ORG'>the Temple</ent>.</p>

<p> Whether the same kind of root of Solomon's magical powers just
above used by <ent type='PERSON'>Eleazar</ent>, or one of another species of like power, it
was very difficult to obtain and the quest was attended with many
dangers, which of course enhanced the value and potency of its
magic; but here is Josephus's solemn description of the plant and
account of the eerie and risky manner of securing this treasure,
known locally as <ent type='GPE'>Baaras</ent> root:</p>

<p> "Its color is like that of flame, and toward evening it
sends out a certain ray like lightning: it is not easily taken
by such as would do it, but recedes from their hands, nor will
yield itself to be taken quietly, until either the urine of a
woman, or blood, be poured upon it; nay, even then it is
certain death to those that touch it, unless anyone take and
hang the root itself down from his hand, and so carry it away.
It may also be taken another way, without danger, which is
this: they dig a trench quite round about it, till the hidden
part of the root be very small, then they tie a dog to it,
and, when the dog tries hard to follow him that tied him, this
root is easily plucked up, but the dog dies immediately, as if
it were instead of the man that would take the plant away nor
after this need anyone be afraid of taking it into their
hands. Yet, after all this pains in getting, it is only
valuable on account of one virtue it hath, that if it be only
brought to sick persons, it quickly drives away those called
demons, which are no other than the spirits of the wicked,
that enter into any men that are alive and kill them, unless
they can obtain some help against them." (<ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent>, Wars of
the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, Book VII. Chap. iv, 3.)</p>

<p> Instead of artful mendacity, some readers, in view of this,
may charitably impute artless simplicity of wit to some of the
devil-exorcising fable-mongers of <ent type='EVENT'>the New Testament</ent>, the pious
Fathers who forged its <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent>.</p>

<p> If such examples are abounding in the most brilliant of <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>
historians, distinguished for nobility of lineage, for
statesmanship and for literary ability, what may be expected from
the admittedly "ignorant and unlearned men" such as traditionally
wrote those Gospels and Epistles of the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s? We may now
appreciate the full significance of the admission of the <ent type='NORP'>Catholic</ent>
Encyclopedia, speaking of the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> Fathers and writers through
all the Ages of Faith "before the eighteenth century," of whom it
says:</p>

<p> The early ecclesiastical writers were unconscious of
nearly all the problems to which criticism has given rise. ...
Looking at the Divine side, they deemed as of trifling account
questions of authorship, date, composition, accepting
unreservedly for these points such traditions as the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>
<ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> had handed down. ... The Fathers saw in every sentence
of the scripture a pregnant oracle of God. Apparent
contradictions and other difficulties were solved without
taking possible human imperfections into view. Except in </p>

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<p> regard to the preservation of the sacred text there was
nothing to elicit a critical view of the Bible in the age of
the Fathers, and this applies also to the <ent type='NORP'>Scholastic</ent> period."
(CE. iv, 492.)</p>

<p> CHRISTIAN "REVELATIONS" IN JEWISH FORGERIES</p>

<p> <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s no doubt believe in simple faith that the wonderful
inspired truths of their New Testament were original pronouncements
of <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> Christ or directly revealed by him to his holy apostles,
who in turn revealed them to the populace for the first time as the
"good news" of the new religion for the salvation of sinful man.
<ent type='PERSON'>Eve</ent>n a brief glance at a few of the most, notable of the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>
forgeries of the "age of apocryphal literature" will dispel that
pious belief, and show the most characteristic and essential
doctrines and dogmas of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity to be but refurbished vagaries
of the fanciful and fabulous tpectulations of already existing
<ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> apocryphal writings of the times just preceding and within
the new <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> era. These writings were put forth falsely as the
utterances of long since dead or wholly legendary Old Testament
notables, and were neither inspired nor revealed heavenly truth,
but simply vain and forged speculations of their fantastic writers.
We shall see the cardinal tenets of "revealed" <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity in a
glance at a few of these <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> pseudographs, and let the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
apologist explain.</p>

<p> This literature is of the highest value today because of the
light it throws on the growth of esehatological and <ent type='ORG'>Messianic</ent>
doctrines among the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> people just previous to the rise of
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity, especially since these doctrines have, in a purified
form, found a permanete place in the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> system." (<ent type='GPE'>New Int</ent>.
Enyc. i, 745.)</p>

<p> The Book of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent>, forged in the name of the grandson of <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>,
is the fragmentary remains of a whole literature which circulated
under the pretended authorship of that mythical Patriarch. In its
present form, the work, of 104 chapters, is composed of five <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent>,
with the following titles, of which those of <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent> 3 and 4 are of
particular significance, namely: 1. The Rape of Women by Fallen
<ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent>s, and the <ent type='ORG'>Giants</ent> that were Begotten of Them; 2. The Visions
of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent> begun; 3. The Visions continued, with Views of the
essiah's <ent type='GPE'>King</ent>dom; 4. Man's Destiny revealed in Dreams from the
beginning to the End of the <ent type='ORG'>Messianic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>King</ent>dom; 5. The Warnings of
<ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent> to his own Family and to Mankind. This work is a composite of
at least five unknown <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> writers, and was composed during the
last two centuries B.C. The forged Book of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent> is quoted as
genuine and inspired in the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Epistle of Jude (14, ef
seq.), and as "<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>" in the near canonical Epistle of
<ent type='PERSON'>Barnabas</ent>; with the early <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> Fathers and Apologists, among whom
<ent type='PERSON'>Justin Martyr</ent>, Irenaeus, <ent type='GPE'>Athenagoras</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Tertullian</ent>, Clement of
<ent type='GPE'>Alexandria</ent>, <ent type='NORP'>Anatolius</ent>, Origen, St, Augustine, etc., "it, had all
the wright of a canonical book," but was finally condemned as a
forgery by the forged Apostolic Constitutions, -- an instance of
the very dubious divine guidance of the inspired <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> against all
error. Father <ent type='NORP'>Tertullian</ent> devotes an entire chapter "Concerning the
Genuineness of the Prophecy of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent>." in which he gives fantastic
patristic reasons as to how the Book survived Noah's Flood, either </p>

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<p>by the providence of <ent type='PERSON'>Noah</ent> himself or by the Providence of God as in
the mythical case of <ent type='PERSON'>Esdras</ent>. In answer to the scoffing objections
that the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> rejected the Book, "I suppose," he seriously argues,
"that they do not think that, having been published before the
Deluge, it could have safely survived that world-wide calamity, the
abolisher of all things." But, he urges, "let them recall to their
memory that <ent type='PERSON'>Noah</ent>, the survivor of the deluge, was the great-grandson of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent> himself," and that <ent type='PERSON'>Noah</ent> probably preserved it at the
behest of <ent type='ORG'>Methuselah</ent>. But, again, "If <ent type='PERSON'>Noah</ent> had not preserved it in
this way, there would still be this consideration to warrant our
assertion of the genuineness of this <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>: he could equally
renewed it, under the Spirit's inspiration, after it, had been
destroyed by the violence of the Deluge, as, after the destruction
of <ent type='GPE'>Jerusalem</ent> by the <ent type='GPE'>Babylonian</ent> storming of it, every document of
the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> literature is generally agreed to have been restored
through <ent type='PERSON'>Ezra</ent>." But the good Father had other and equally cogent
clerical reasons for accepting the Book as inspired <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>: "But
since <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent> in the same <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent> has preached likewise concerning
the Lord, nothing at all must be rejected by us which pertains to
us; and we read that 'every <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent> suitable for edification is
divinely inspired.' ... To these considerations is added the fact
that <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent> possesses a testimony in the <ent type='PERSON'>Apostle Jude</ent>." (On the
Apparel of Women, II, ii; <ent type='ORG'>ANF</ent>. iv, 15-16.) By this excerpt from the
pious Father may be judged the value of the "testimony" of <ent type='PERSON'>Apostles</ent>
and <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent> Fathers as to the inspiration, truth and authenticity of
holy "<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s," -- which is nil.</p>

<p> Of the immense significance of these forged <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> "sacred
writings" in general upon <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> "revelation," and of the
fabulous Book of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent> in particular, with its elaborated myth of
<ent type='PERSON'>the Messiah</ent>, CE. thus confesses: "<ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> Apocalyptic is an attempt
to supply the place of prophecy, which had been dead for centuries,
and has its roots in the sacred oracles of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent>. ... Naturally
basing itself upon the <ent type='PERSON'>Pentateuch</ent> and the Prophets, it clothed
itself fictitiously with the authority of a patriarch or <ent type='PERSON'>prophet</ent>
who was made to reveal the transcendent future. ... Messianism of
Course plays an important part in apocalyptic eschatology, and the
idea of <ent type='PERSON'>the Messiah</ent>s in certain books received a very high
development. ... The parables of <ent type='GPE'>Henoch</ent>, with their pre-existent
Messiahs, mark the highest point of development -- (hence not
Divine Revelation) -- of the <ent type='ORG'>Messianic</ent> concept to be found in the
whole range of Hebrew literature." (CE. i, 601, 602.) From these
uninspired ravings of <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> forgers came thus the "divine
revelation" of the co-eternal "Son of God" worked up instead of the
old "revealed" human <ent type='GPE'>King</ent> "of the seed of <ent type='PERSON'>David</ent>."</p>

<p> The forged Book of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent>, thus vouched for, is notable for
being "the earliest appearance of <ent type='PERSON'>the Messiah</ent> in non-canonical
literature." It is of the greatest importance for its doctrine of
the <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> Messiah, who here appears as wholly an earthly human
deliverer and <ent type='GPE'>King</ent> over <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent> forever, and for the origin of the
exalted titles applied to <ent type='PERSON'>the Messiah</ent> in <ent type='EVENT'>the New Testament</ent> <ent type='ORG'>Books</ent>,
as well as of a number of supposedly distinctive <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
doctrines, first "revealed" by <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> the Christ. In this Book we
first find the lofty titles: "Christ" or "the Anointed One," "Son
of Man," "the Righteous One," "the Elect One," -- all of which were
boldly plagiarized by the later <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s and bestowed on <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> of</p>

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<p>Nazareth The Messiah, just as in <ent type='EVENT'>the New Testament</ent> of later times,
exists from the beginning (48, 2); he sits on the throne of God
(453); and all judgment is committed unto him (69, 27). The
acceptance of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent> as a <ent type='ORG'>Messianic</ent> <ent type='PERSON'>prophet</ent> by the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s led to
his rejection by the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>. Here is the earliest invention of the
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Hell of fire and brimstone for eternal torture: "The
wicked shall go down into the <ent type='PERSON'>Sheol</ent> of darkness and fire and dwell
there forever"; this being "one of the earliest mentions of <ent type='PERSON'>Sheol</ent>
as a hell of torment" (CE. i, 602-3; EB. i, 223-5). It is the
oldest piece of <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> literature which teaches the general
resurrection of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent>, a doctrine expanded to include <ent type='GPE'>Gentiles</ent> in
later "interpolations" into New Testament books. It abounds in such
"<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>" doctrines as the <ent type='ORG'>Messianic</ent> <ent type='GPE'>King</ent>dom, Hell, the
Resurrection, and Demonology, the Seven Heavens, and the
<ent type='ORG'>Millennium</ent>, all of which have here their apocryphal <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>
promulgation, after being plagiarized bodily from the <ent type='NORP'>Persian</ent> and
<ent type='GPE'>Babylonian</ent> myths superstitions, as we have seen confessed. There
are numerous quotations, phrases, clauses, or thoughts derived from
<ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent>, or of closest kin with it, in several of <ent type='EVENT'>the New Testament</ent>
Gospels and Epistles, which may be readily found and compared as
catalogued in the authorities below cited; -- <ent type='NORP'>Pagan</ent>-<ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> myths
and doctrines which shared in molding the analogous New Testament
"revelations" or formed the necessary link in the development of
doctrines from the Old to <ent type='EVENT'>the New Testament</ent>. The CE. says of the
Book of <ent type='PERSON'>Enoch</ent>:</p>

<p> "It had left its imprint on <ent type='EVENT'>the New Testament</ent> and the
works of the early Fathers. ... Clement of <ent type='GPE'>Alexandria</ent>,
<ent type='NORP'>Tertullian</ent>, Origen, and even St. Augustine suppose the work to
be a genuine one of the patriarch. ... The work is a
compilation, and its component parts were written in <ent type='GPE'>Palestine</ent>
by <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> of the orthodox school ... in the latter part of the.
second century before Christ. (See CE. i, 602. passim; EB. v,
220-224.)</p>

<p> In <ent type='ORG'>Fourth Esdras</ent>, as in the Apocalypse of <ent type='PERSON'>Baruch</ent>, we find for
the first time, the fatal phrase and doctrine, "all mankind sinned
with <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>" (CE. i, 604), whence <ent type='PERSON'>Paul</ent> forged his fearful and
accursed dogma of original sin and eternal damnation. Fourth
Marcabees, erroneously ascribed by <ent type='PERSON'>Eusebius</ent> and others to <ent type='PERSON'>Josephus</ent>,
dates from about 4 B.C., just after the death of <ent type='PERSON'>Harod</ent>. It is
strongly indoctrinated with the <ent type='NORP'>Stoic</ent> philosophy, from which the
author "derived his four cardinal virtues, <ent type='ORG'>Prudence</ent>, Justice,
Fortitude, Temperance; and it was through Fourth Maccabees that
this category was appropriated by early <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> ascetical
writers" (CE. i, 605-6), and later "canonized" by the <ent type='ORG'>Church</ent>. (CE.
xi, 391.)</p>

<p> The Assumption of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> was forged in the name of that worthy
as its genuine author, about the beginning of, or early in the
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> era, with the ostensible purpose of confirming the Mosaic
Laws in Deuteronomy. It gives the parting communications of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>
to his successor, <ent type='PERSON'>Joshua</ent>, and unfolds, in a series of oretended
predictions, delivered in written from, the course of Israel's
history down to Herold's time. Here is found the legend of the
dispute between <ent type='PERSON'>Michael Archangel</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Satan</ent> over the body of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>,
which the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> Epistle of Jude (v. 9) cites as God-inspired </p>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
86
.
FORGERY IN <ent type='NORP'>CHRISTIANITY</ent></p>

<p>truth. (CE. i, 602-3.) The book of Jubilees, or little <ent type='ORG'>Geneses</ent>, is
a fabricated embellishment of the Old Testament <ent type='ORG'>Genesis</ent>, written in
the name of <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> somewhere between 135 B.C., or 60 A.D., and
purports to be a revelation made to <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent> by the '<ent type='PERSON'>Angel</ent> of the
Face' of events from <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent> to <ent type='PERSON'>Moses</ent>' own day; the <ent type='ORG'>Patriarchs</ent> are
made the exponents of the writer's own <ent type='NORP'>Pharisaic</ent> views and hopes.
It is quoted as good "<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>" by <ent type='NORP'>Greek</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Latin</ent> Fathers down to
the twelfth century, when its forged character was discovered.</p>

<p> One of the most important of apocryphal forgeries is the
Apocalypse of <ent type='PERSON'>Baruch</ent>, "a pseudograph with evident <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>
interpolations" (CE. i, 604), written by a <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> Pharisee about
50-90 A.D., who speaks in the first person in the name of <ent type='PERSON'>Baruch</ent>,
secretary of the Prophet <ent type='PERSON'>Jeremiah</ent>. The book begins by declaring
that the word of the Lord came to him in the 25th year of <ent type='GPE'>King</ent>
Jeconiah, -- who reigned only three months, and was carried away
captive to <ent type='GPE'>Babylon</ent> eleven years before the fall of <ent type='GPE'>Jerusalem</ent>, 586
B.C., which event the forgery bewails; it is filled with the
<ent type='ORG'>Messianic</ent> hopes of <ent type='ORG'>Jewry</ent> at the time of the fall of <ent type='GPE'>Jerusalem</ent> in 70
A.D. The book furnishes a setting and background of many
distinctive New Testament doctrines and problems, treating of
Original Sin, which it traces to the sin of <ent type='PERSON'>Adam</ent>, Forgiveness,
Works, Justification, Free Will, etc., and this enables us to
estimate the contributions made in this respect by <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> forgeries
to inspired <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> thought as developed in the so-called <ent type='PERSON'>Paul</ent>ine
Epistles, -- which <ent type='PERSON'>Paul</ent> never wrote. Some notable Fathers, such as
<ent type='GPE'>Athenagoras</ent>, St. <ent type='PERSON'>Justin Martyr</ent>, and St. Irenaeus, cite <ent type='GPE'>Beruch</ent> as a
Prophet, and vouch for him as on the same footing as <ent type='PERSON'>Jeremiah</ent>, just
as Irenaeus vouches for <ent type='PERSON'>Susanna</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Bel</ent> and the Dragon as the
inspired work of <ent type='PERSON'>Dan</ent>iel. (CE. i, 604; iii, 271; EB. i 220.)</p>

<p> Father <ent type='PERSON'>Justin</ent>, in several chapters, accuse the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> of having
"removed from <ent type='PERSON'>Esdras</ent> and <ent type='PERSON'>Jeremiah</ent> passages clearly mentioning the
Savior," as also from Psalms; he says: "they have altogether taken
away many <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s from the translation affected by those Seventy
elders who were with <ent type='NORP'>Ptolemy</ent>, and by which this very man was
crucified is proved to have been set forth expressly as God, and
man, and as having been crucified, and as dying." (Dial. <ent type='NORP'>Trypho</ent>,
chs. lxxi-lxxiv; <ent type='ORG'>ANF</ent>. i, 234-235.) But these passages, says
<ent type='PERSON'>Middleton</ent>, were never in the Hebrew <ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s; "they were not
erased by the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, but added [to their copies] by the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s,
or forged by <ent type='PERSON'>Justin</ent>." (Op. cit., 41, 42.)</p>

<p> To which extent these pious <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> forgeries formed the
background and basis of the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> doctrines and dogmas of
pretended direct "revelation," and informed the thought and
utterance of <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> Christ -- the raw material and working tools of
the <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> propagandist, may be realized from this
acknowledgement:</p>

<p> "The most important and valuable of the extant <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent>
apocrypha are those which contain the visions and revelations of
the unseen world and the <ent type='ORG'>Messianic</ent> future. <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> apocryphal
literature is a theme which deserves the attention of all
interested in the development of the religion of <ent type='GPE'>Israel</ent>, that body
of concepts and tendencies in which are fixed the roots of the
great doctrinal principles of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity itself, just as its
Divine Founder took his temporal generation from the stock of
orthodox <ent type='ORG'>Judaism</ent>.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
87
.
FORGERY IN <ent type='NORP'>CHRISTIANITY</ent></p>

<p> The <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> apocryphas furnish the completing links in the
progress of <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> theology and fill what would otherwise be a gap,
though a small one, between the advanced stage marked by the
deutero-canonical -- [i.e. long doubted but finally accepted] --
books and its full maturity so relatively perfect that <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> could
suppose as existing in the popular consciousness, without teaching
de novo, the doctrines of Future Retribution, the Resurrection of
the body, and the existence, nature and office of angels." (CE. i,
601.)</p>

<p> All these divine and "revealed" doctrines of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> faith
we have seen to be originally heathen <ent type='NORP'>Zoroastrian</ent> mythology, taken
over first by the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>, then boldly plagiarized by the ex-<ent type='NORP'>Pagan</ent>
<ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s. <ent type='PERSON'>Dean Milman</ent>, of St. Paul's, thus describes the
universality of these notions among the heathens and the borrowing
by the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent> and <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>s of what were originally <ent type='NORP'>Pagan</ent>
superstitions -- now become articles of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> revelation:</p>

<p> "<ent type='PERSON'>Satan</ent>, angels, immortality, resurrection -- all <ent type='NORP'>Persian</ent>
and <ent type='NORP'>Zoroastrian</ent> doctrines imbibed by the <ent type='NORP'>Jews</ent>. ... During the
whole life of Christ, and the early propagation of the
religion, it must be borne in mind, that they took place in an
age, and among a people, which superstition had made so
familiar with what were supposed to be preternatural events,
that the wonders awakened no emotion, or were speedily
superseded by some new demand on the every-ready belief."
(<ent type='PERSON'>Milman</ent>, History of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent>ity, I, 93.)</p>

<p> Thus, again, the most precious <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> truths, of supposed
divine "revelation" through God, Christ and apostles -- were
plagiarizations from forged <ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> pseudo-<ent type='PERSON'>Scripture</ent>s, taken over
into them from long contact with the <ent type='NORP'>Zoroastrian</ent> Pensions. These
myths and superstitions <ent type='PERSON'>Jesus</ent> the Son of God found ready at hand
"in the popular consciousness" of the ignorant wonder-craving
<ent type='NORP'>Jewish</ent> peasantry; and, Lo, our "revealed" <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> religion! We
may begin to suspect the later "inspired" books of the "<ent type='PERSON'>Apostles</ent>"
as not beyond the taint of <ent type='NORP'>Pagan</ent> superstition and of the suspicion
of <ent type='NORP'>Christian</ent> forgery.</p>

<div> **** ****</div>

<p> Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.</p>

<p> <ent type='GPE'>The UNITED STATES</ent> of <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>
must again become
The Free <ent type='PERSON'>Mark</ent>et-Place of Ideas.</p>

<p> The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
us, we need to give them back to <ent type='GPE'>America</ent>.</p>

<div> **** ****</div>

<p> Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, <ent type='GPE'>Louisville</ent>, KY 40201
88
</p></xml>