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The Holy Scriptures--Indestructible!
The Word of God “lives and abides.” Thus wrote Peter, the inspired
apostle of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:23). To buttress this claim regarding
the enduring nature of the sacred Word, the divine spokesman quoted
from the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah (40:6ff.), declaring: “All flesh
is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass
withereth, and the flower falleth: But the word of the Lord abideth for
ever” (1 Peter 1:24-25). Men come and go. Generations vanish. But the
Holy Scriptures march on triumphantly.
There is a saying: “Homer must be handled with care.” The allusion, of
course, is to the compositions of the blind poet of ancient Greece. The
implication in the proverb is this—Homer’s works have been treasured and
preserved cautiously for centuries. And yet, in spite of this
meticulous care, only scant copies of Homer’s writings survive. There is
no complete copy of the poet’s works prior to the thirteenth century A.D.—more
than 2,000 years after the Greek writer lived (Schrivener, 1883, p. 4).
By way of vivid contrast, the Bible, though viciously opposed and
oppressed across several millennia, is reflected in thousands of Hebrew
and Greek manuscripts, and even today continues to be the best-selling
publication in the world.
VIOLENT OPPOSITION
Biblical antagonists have a long and violent history as they have
sought, frequently by force, to eliminate the sacred Scriptures from
public access. Reflect upon the following examples of malevolence toward
the Creator and His Word.
When the noble Hebrew king, Josiah, was killed in battle, his son
Jehoahaz came to the throne. He reigned but three months before
Pharaoh-necoh of Egypt put him in chains and transported him to the land
of the Pyramids. A brother, Eliakim, was placed upon the throne; his
name was changed to Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim began to reign when he was
twenty-five years of age. He taxed the Jews heavily on behalf of
Pharaoh. He strayed from the Lord and immersed the nation in idolatry (2
Kings 23:28-37). The prophet Jeremiah was commissioned by Jehovah to
write a sacred scroll, which threatened divine destruction unless the
king and his people repented of their wickedness. Jehoiakim treated the
matter with absolute contempt. After briefly listening to the message
being read, he confiscated the scroll, cut up the leaves with a knife,
and cast them into a fire (Jeremiah 36). But the Holy Word was not to be
dismissed so easily.
After the death of Alexander the Great, the Greek empire was divided
into four segments (cf. Daniel 8:8), and the Jewish people fell under
the control of a remarkably evil ruler whose name was Antiochus
Epiphanes. Antiochus, known popularly as “the madman,” launched a bloody
persecution against the Hebrew people. One aspect of his vendetta was
an attempt to destroy copies of the Jewish Scriptures. An ancient
document records this episode:
And [the officials of Antiochus] rent in pieces the books of the law
which they found, and set them on fire. And wheresoever was found with
any a book of the covenant, and if any consented to the law, the king’s
sentence delivered him to death (The Apocrypha, I Maccabees 1:56-57).
The historian Josephus commented upon this event: “And if there were
any sacred book of the law found, it was destroyed, and those [Jews]
with whom they were found miserably perished also” (
Antiquities,
12.5.4). The heathen plan backfired, however, for it was this very
persecution that generated more intense examination of the divine
Writings. Out of this circumstance the genuine books of the Old
Testament canon were formally separated from contemporary spurious
documents that feigned inspiration (McClintock and Strong, 1968, 2:76).
Following the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead,
Christianity was introduced into the Roman world. It spread like
wildfire in the stifling environment of ancient paganism. Not many
decades passed before Rome came to view the Christian system, with its
New Testament Scriptures, as a threat to the security of the empire. And
so history repeated itself. A determined effort to eradicate the Bible
from antique society was initiated by the Roman ruler, Valerius
Diocletian.
Diocletian occupied the Imperial throne from A.D. 284-305. In A.D. 303, he inaugurated a series of merciless persecutions upon those who professed the religion of Christ. Hurst noted:
[A]ll assemblies of Christians were forbidden and churches were ordered
to be torn down. Four different edicts were issued, each excelling the
preceding in intensity. One edict ordered the burning of every copy of
the Bible—the first instance in [Christian] history when the Scriptures
were made an object of attack (1897, 1:175).
Of course, as every student of history knows, events changed radically when Constantine the Great came to the Roman throne in A.D. 306 at the age of thirty-two. He solidified the Western empire by the defeat of his rival, Maxentius, in A.D.
312. The following year Constantine (in concert with Licinius, emperor
in the East) issued a decree that granted legal protection to
Christians. A form of this document is found in Eusebius’
Ecclesiastical History
(Book X, Chapter V). Once more the sacred Scriptures could find their
way from places of seclusion and exert their benevolent influence.
PAGAN INTELLECTUAL ASSAULT
If one method of opposition fails, then another must be employed—so
surmised the apostles of paganism. Julian, a nephew of Constantine, came
to the Roman throne in A.D. 361. When Julian was
quite young, his family was murdered by wicked churchmen, into whose
hands he was thrust for care. This circumstance, together with his early
exposure to pagan philosophy, led him to renounce Christianity at the
age of twenty (though it is doubtful that he was ever sincerely disposed
toward the religion of Jesus). The year he assumed Roman rule, at the
age of thirty, he openly declared his hostility to the Bible (hence he
became known as “Julian, the Apostate”). Three centuries of bloodshed
had not enhanced the cause of heathenism. Persecution had merely
accelerated the spread of the Christian cause. Julian thus determined
that he, with logical argument, would destroy the influence of the
Scriptures.
There had been earlier attempts to meet Christianity head-on in intellectual debate. Celsus (c. A.D.
178) had written a treatise called “True Discourse,” which was “the
first literary attack upon Christianity” (Cross, 1958, p. 256).
Similarly, Porphyry (c. A.D. 232-303) authored
several books against the Scriptures. These efforts, however, were
isolated, and largely stood in the shadow of the violent persecution of
those early centuries. Now, in a period of greater tranquility, Julian
would renew the assault. Shortly before his death, he wrote a bitter
attack against Christianity, the only remains of which are to be found
in a refutation produced by Cyril of Alexandria (c. A.D. 432). The
“Apostate” merely regurgitated the arguments of Celsus and Porphyry in a
modified form, expanded somewhat by his larger acquaintance with the
Bible (Schaff, 1981, 3:75). While this literary effort was doubtlessly
effective with some, a skeptical historian, Edward Gibbon (1737-1794),
penned this curious remark: “[T]he Pagans...derived, from the popular
work of their Imperial missionary [Julian], an inexhaustible supply of
fallacious objections”
(n.d., 1:766; emp. added). “Fallacious objections?” Strange but
powerful words from an infidel! Nathaniel Lardner (1684-1768), in his
renowned work,
The Credibility of the Gospel History has shown
that Julian, in his vitriolic narrative, actually provided a number of
incidental admissions that confirm the truth of most of the leading
facts of Gospel history (see Schaff, 1981, 3:77-79).
PAPAL OPPOSITION
The Bible has had to survive not only the persecution of its enemies,
but also has had to weather the opposition of its so-called “friends” as
well. Though some historical revisionists attempt to exonerate the
Roman Catholic system of efforts to suppress the Holy Scriptures, the
plain facts are undeniable. On numerous occasions in centuries past,
church authorities had committed the Bible to flames under the guise
that the translation was vulgar. The Fourth Rule of the Council of Trent
stated that the indiscriminate circulation of the Scriptures in the
common vernacular would generate “more harm than good.” Therefore, those
reading or possessing the Bible “without...permission may not receive
absolution from their sins till they have handed [copies of the
Scriptures] over to the ordinary” (Schroeder, 1950, p. 274).
“Persistent effort was made by the Romanizers to suppress the English
Bible. In 1543 an act was passed forbidding absolutely the use of
Tyndale’s version, and any reading of the Scriptures in assemblies
without royal license” (Newman, 1902, p. 262). Thousands of copies were
burned. “Of the estimated 18,000 copies printed between 1525-1528, only
two fragments are known to remain” (Thiessen, 1949, p. 84).
MODERN RATIONALISM
As a result of the tyrannical power of the Roman Catholic Church, the
Protestant Reformation was born. A by-product of the Reformation was an
emphasis upon the use of the individual mind for personal Bible
interpretation (as opposed to the dictums of the priesthood). While this
spirit was admirable, some took it beyond the bounds of legitimacy,
virtually deifying human reason. The movement was distinctly identified
when Johann Selmer (1725-1791) began to argue that biblical events must
be judged in the light of human reason/experience, and so, the reality
of Jesus’ miracles was called into question, Christ’s deity was denied,
etc. The rationalistic disposition grew rapidly in the fertile fields of
the German universities, and perhaps reached its culmination with the
publication of Friedrich Strauss’
Life of Jesus (1835), in which the author undertook to show that the Gospel accounts were mere “myths” (Hurlbut, 1954, pp. 178-179).
In France, Rationalism found a champion in Francois Marie
Arouer—popularly known by his pen-name, Voltaire—a deist who produced
several volumes brimming with hatred for the Bible. No one in Europe did
as much to destroy faith in the Word of God as Voltaire. France
rejected the Scriptures, tied a copy of the Bible to the tail of a
donkey, and dragged it though the streets to the city dump, where it was
ceremoniously burned. But, as Coffman notes, “since that time, the
government of France has fallen thirty-five times” (1968, pp. 343-344).
Voltaire predicted that within a hundred years of his death (1778)
Christianity would be swept from existence and pass into history
(Collett, n.d., p. 63), yet two centuries have come and gone, and today,
rare is the person who owns a copy of Voltaire’s writings, while almost
every home is adorned with a Bible. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica
notes that Voltaire was “inordinately vain, and totally unscrupulous in
gaining money, [and] in attacking an enemy” (1958, 23:250). Indeed! His
final days were spent in agony. As an ex-Catholic, he loathed the idea
of not having a “Christian burial.” He even signed a confession begging
God to forgive his sins—which his biographers claim was insincere
(Brandes, 1930, 2:328-329). When the composer Mozart heard of the
skeptic’s death, he wrote: “[T]he ungodly, arch-villain, Voltaire, has
died miserably, like a dog—just like a brute. That is his reward” (as
quoted in Parton, 1881, 2:617).
In America, the battle against the Bible was led by men like Thomas
Paine and Robert Ingersoll. Paine (1737-1809) came out of a Quaker
background, and gained considerable prominence as a result of his
writings (e.g.,
Common Sense) advocating America’s independence
from Britain. Eventually he went to France. There he yielded to the
influence of French deism, and so composed his infamous tome,
The Age of Reason,
which was a passionate attack against the Bible. His qualification for
such a task may be illustrated by the following admission. In discussing
a passage in the book of Job, Paine says: “I recollect not enough of
the passages in Job to insert them correctly...for I keep no Bible”
(n.d., p. 33). Again: “[When] I began the former part of
The Age of Reason,
I had, besides, neither Bible nor Testament to refer to, though I was
writing against both...” (n.d., p. 71). So much for “scholarship.” Paine
died a bitter and lonely old man, having lost most of his friends due
to his political views and his hostility towards Christianity (Cross,
1958, p. 1005). His trifling little volume is mostly ignored today. In
this writer’s city (Stockton, California) of more than a
quarter-of-a-million people, the public library’s only copy of
The Age of Reason has been checked out sixteen times in the past ten years!
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) was a politician who gained his real
fame as an agnostic lecturer. He toured the country blasting the Bible.
Quite the eloquent speaker, he was paid as much as $5,000 for some of
his speeches, and thousands thronged to hear him rail against things
holy. His “Mistakes of Moses” was a popular presentation. William
Jennings Bryan once quipped that it would be much more interesting to
hear Moses on the “Mistakes of Ingersoll.” Ingersoll had been greatly
influenced by the writings of Voltaire and Paine (as well as others),
and initially was a deist. Eventually, he evolved into a full-blown
agnostic (Larson, 1962, pp. 76-77). Ingersoll was enamored with Charles
Darwin’s theory of evolution, and argued that Darwin’s discoveries,
“carried to their legitimate conclusion,” destroy the Scriptures (as
quoted in Larson, 1962, p. 223). Ingersoll’s influence pretty much died
when he did. I phoned a major Barnes & Noble distribution center and
inquired regarding Ingersoll’s books. Not a solitary volume was carried
in their inventory! It is a fact, though, that the views of Voltaire,
Ingersoll, etc., have influenced some religionists of our era. Modern
theological liberalism is so doctrinally nebulous that now even skeptics
are warmly regarded. A few decades ago, Dean Shaller Mathews of the
theological department of the University of Chicago asserted that the
days are gone when men like Robert Ingersoll would be regarded as
anti-Christ (Horsch, 1938, p. 7).
Yes, its critics wax and wane, but the Bible abides. It will outlast them all. In the words of John Clifford:
Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
When looking in, I saw upon the floor,
Old hammers worn with beating years of time.
“How may anvils have you had,” said I,
“To wear and batter all these hammers so?”
“Just one,” said he; then said with twinkling eye,
“The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.”
And so, I thought, the anvil of God’s word
For ages skeptics’ blows have beat upon;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed—the hammers gone!
REFERENCES
Apocrypha, The (1894), (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons) revised edition.
Brandes, Georg (1930),
Voltaire (New York: Frederick Ungar).
Coffman, Burton (1968),
Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Austin, TX: Firm Foundation Publishing House).
Collett, Sidney (no date),
All About the Bible (London: Revell).
Cross, F.L. (1958),
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London: Oxford University Press).
Encyclopaedia Britannica (1958), “Voltaire,” (London: Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Eusebius (1955 reprint),
Ecclesiastical History (Grand Rapids,MI: Baker).
Gibbon, Edward (no date),
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (New York: Random House).
Horsch, John (1938),
Modern Religious Liberalism (Chicago, IL: Bible Institute Colportage Association).
Hurlbut, J.L. (1954),
The Story of the Christian Church (Philadelphia, PA: John C. Winston).
Hurst, John F. (1897),
History of the Christian Church (New York: Eaton & Mains).
Josephus, Flavius (1957),
The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus (Philadelphia, PA: John C. Winston).
Larson, Orvin (1962),
American Infidel: Robert G. Ingersoll (New York: Citadel Press).
McClintock, John and James Strong (1968, reprint),
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
Newman, A.H. (1902),
A Manual of Church History (Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society), Vol. II.
Paine, Thomas (no date),
The Age of Reason (Baltimore, MD: Ottenheimer).
Parton, James (1881),
Life of Voltaire (Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin).
Schaff, Phillip (1981 reprint),
History of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, reprint).
Schrivener, F.H.A. (1883),
Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (Cambridge, England: Deighton, Bell & Co.).
Schroeder, H.J. (1950),
Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder).
Thiessen, H.C. (1949),
Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).
[EDITOR’S NOTE:
A.P. auxiliary writer Robert Veil, Jr. formerly served as a district
attorney for the Washington County State’s Attorney’s Office, and
previously maintained an active private law practice. He graduated from
the University of Maryland School of Law, and currently preaches in
Martinsburg, West Virginia.]