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are found in such connections that often their origin is clearly traceable to the divine revelation recorded in the Bible. And by no mode of estimation can there be drawn a conclusion more unfavorable to the Bible than this, viz.: Some things found in the Hindû scriptures and Hindû religion had an origin in the revelation of the Bible. Others have come down from the earliest ages, in traditionary channels, parallel to the Bible; and where the facts related in the Hindû sacred writings conflict with the facts of the Christian scriptures, the former are easily shown to be unfounded.

When the literature of the Sanskrit language began to be made known in Europe, some three fourths of a century ago, the infidelity of that day raised a shout of triumph over the weapons it supposed it had derived from the East against Christianity. There were books written thousands, even millions, of years before the creation of man, according to the Mosaic account. There were astronomical tables which proved astronomical observations in India three thousand years before the Christian era. Infidelity was jubilant. The Bible was proved to be false, and Christianity must fall. But the shout of triumph was raised too soon. When a few years of patient investigation had brought out the actual facts, the case has a different aspect. The oldest Hindû writings, or the earliest astronomical observation or record, cannot be proved to have had an earlier date than the fourteenth or fifteenth century before Christ. And the oldest astronomical treatise which had been made so important a witness against the Bible, was proved, incontrovertibly, to have been composed some four or five centuries after Christ. And as the work of bringing to the light the ancient literature of the Brahmans proceeds, the tendency among European scholars, is to assign more and more modern limits to its ancient works. This tendency to modernize, is sometimes, doubtless, suffered to proceed too far. But however this may be, this fact may be regarded as established, viz., that the ancient literature of India affords no materials for disproving the truthfulness of the Bible; on the contrary, it contains much that corroborates the claims of the Sacred Volume to a divine authenticity.

The results of antiquarian researches in India, as affecting the truthfulness of the Bible, have been similar to those in Egypt; especially those connected with astronomical records. The case of the Egyptian zodiac of Denderah will ever be memorable in the annals of infidel assaults on the Bible. When the French savans, some sixty years ago, discovered that tablet of astronomical sculpture in an Egyptian temple, they thought it must have been made seventeen thousand years ago. Their opinions were put forth with the greatest confidence. A certain professor of a European university (Breslau) put forth a pamphlet, entitled "Invincible proof that the earth is at least ten times older than taught in the Bible." Says a writer respecting that event and those times in France: "This was a time of woe for a small band of Christians, and of great rejoicings for the infidels of all countries." They regarded it as proved, that there was never a creation or deluge, at least not at the time the Bible specifies. "The Old and New Testaments contain only a series of lies." But this triumph was not long. The next generation of learned men deciphered those hieroglyphics, and found that the origin of the temple was not to be placed earlier than the second century before the commencement of the Christian era. Some have placed it in the first century after. Thus vanished this invincible argument against the Bible chronology. Thus the strongholds of infidel argument have been taken, one after another; not only this, but the guns of all those fortresses have been turned against those who erected them.

What is to be the next point of attack? The antiquities of India have, to a good extent, been explored. And the result is, the very fables of mythology corroborate the history of the Bible; the elements of the earliest systems of philosophy harmonize with the doctrines of that holy book, and nothing authentic in that ancient literature has even the semblance of disproving the divine authenticity of the sacred Oracles. For those immense astronomical periods,

A writer in the New York Observer, June 1855.

those enormous claims to a high antiquity, are proved to have been forgeries.

In Egypt, the monuments on which infidels were most relying for arguments to set aside the history of the Bible, are shown to have had comparatively a modern origin. The testimony from the most ancient ruins of the lands, which were the scene of many of the important events of Bible history, is more direct and valuable. The monumental ruins of ancient Nineveh and Babylon, after lying buried three thousand years, are brought to light and found to have on them the very names of the Jewish kings, and fragments of Jewish history, recorded in the Bible.

Geological science, less than half a century ago, was reckoned as one of the strongholds of infidelity. It is now no longer so. The testimony of this science is unequivocally pointing the other way. The records of creation, as found in the solid rocks, without absolutely conflicting in any, harmonize in some important points with, and even directly corroborate, that given by Moses. In times of ignorance, or in the infancy of science, the haters of divine truth can falsify the records which God has left of himself, both in his word and works. Without saying that those times of ignorance and the infancy of science are past, one thing is certain: as the sphere of human knowledge widens, and that knowledge itself becomes more accurate, whether in relation to the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, the increase of light is only placing the authenticity and truth of the Bible on a more solid and immovable basis.

ARTICLE VIII.

NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

1.- BUTTMANN'S GREEK TESTAMENT.'

THIS edition of the Greek Testament forms a part of the popular collection of ancient Greek and Latin authors published by Teubner of Leipsic. Like the other volumes in the series, it is neatly printed, and sold at a moderate price. Its editor, Philip Buttmann, the son of the distinguished philologist of the same name, was associated with Lachmann in the preparation of his larger edition of the Greek Testament: he arranged the authorities for the various readings of the Greek text. The edition which he now presents to the public purports to be based on the celebrated Codex Vaticanus No. 1209, except in the latter part of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, and the Apocalypse, in which portions of the New Testament that manuscript is unfortunately mutilated. Here its place is supplied by the Alexandrine. Buttmann professes to give, in the margin, all the variations from his own text which are found in the Vatican manuscript, the Elzevir edition of 1624, or the "Received Text," Griesbach's larger edition (Vol. I. ed. Schulz, 1827; Vol. II, 1806), Lachmann's larger edition (1842-50), and Tischendorf's edition of 1854, included in his "Novum Testamentum Triglottum," but also issued separately.

One serious defect in the present work, considered as a manual for common use, is the absence of all references to the quotations from the Old Testament, or to parallel passages in the New. Some may also regret that it has no analysis of the contents of the different books, in the form of running titles or headings of chapters. But if the promises of the title-page and preface were fulfilled, it would still be a convenient and useful book, supplying an important desideratum. No other edition gives a complete view of the critical results arrived at in respect to the text by Griesbach, Lachmann, and Tischendorf, the three editors whose judgment is now most highly respected by scholars.

The editions of Hahn (1840) and Theile (stereotyped in 1844), and the edition of the New Testament in Stier and Theile's " Polyglotten-Bibel" (stereotyped in 1846), profess, indeed, to exhibit the various readings of the principal recent editors of the Greek Testament; but they do this very imperfectly. In giving the readings of Griesbach, they take no notice of

1 Novvm Testamentvm Graece. Ad fidem potissimvm Codicis Vaticani B recensvit, varias lectiones Codicis B, Textvs Recepti, Editionvm Griesbachii Lachmanni Tischendorfii integras adiecit PHILIPPVS BVTTMANN. Lipsiae svmptibus et typis B. J. Tevbneri. 1856. Small 8vo. pp. viii., 543.

those which he marks as probably spurious, or of those which he designates as equal in authority to the reading of the text. Hahn preceded Tischendorf; and he professedly exhibits a selection only from the readings of Lachmann, taken of course from his first edition of 1831. He is, moreover, inaccurate, incorrectly representing the critical judgment of Knapp alone in more than one hundred and thirty instances. Theile intentionally passes over the minuter variations; and both his Greek Testament and the PolyglottenBibel were published too soon to enable him to use the second volume of Lachmann's larger edition, or the second Leipsic edition of Tischendorf (1849), the most important, so far as the criticism of the text is concerned, since the time of Griesbach. (The first edition of Tischendorf, published in 1841, is comparatively of little value.) The Greek portion of Theile's "Novum Testamentum Tetraglotton" (1855), is merely taken from the stereotype plates of the Polyglotten-Bibel. Tischendorf's edition of 1849 gives the various readings of Griesbach, Scholz, and Lachmann, with those of the Elzevir edition of 1624 and Stephens's of 1550; but he neglects the readings which Lachmann places in the margin as equal in value to those of the text; and Griesbach's are taken from his larger edition, instead of the manual edition of 1805, which generally represents his later conclusions. Bagster's "Large-print Greek Testament" (London, 1851), contains only "selected various readings from Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, and Tischendorf," though the selection is copious, and made with care and judgment.

Buttmann speaks in his preface of the difficulty of making a selection of this kind, and thinks it better to let the student decide for himself as to the comparative importance of particular differences in the text. He accordingly professes to give all the various readings of the authorities named in his title-page," even the most trivial" (et levissimas). Where Griesbach and Lachmann regard two readings of the same passage as possessing equal claims to reception, he indicates the fact by citing their authority for both. Such are his promises; and the value of his work must chiefly depend on the fidelity with which they are performed. Few critics will doubt that he over-estimates the authority of the Vatican manuscript, regarding it as equal if not superior to that of all the rest of our manuscripts of the New Testament united. He even ventures, in one instance (2 Pet. 3: 10), to alter the text by conjecture, changing rá into ä, because, otherwise, the reading of this manuscript would be without meaning. Still the Vatican manuscript is undoubtedly the oldest and best which has come down to us; and if Buttmann has relied upon it too exclusively, the error is not of much consequence, if he sets before us the text of Griesbach, Lachmann, and Tischendorf in connection with his own.

Such being the case, we regret to say that all which would give value to this edition is wanting. No reliance can be placed on Buttmann's account of the various readings of any one of the authorities cited. His carelessness is extraordinary. We have gone over the Gospel of Matthew, comparing the representations of Buttmann with the authorities to which he refers;

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