The Difficulties Stated: The Causes of Discrepancies

The so-called ’ discrepancies’ of Holy Scripture may be classified as follows:

First, verbal, or such as concern the words or letters of Scripture;

Secondly, historical, or such as concern the names of persons and places, numbers, dates, and historical statements or events;

Thirdly, moral, or such as concern ethical precepts and principles, duties and relations; and,

Fourthly, doct7’inal, or such as concern the direct doctrinal teaching of the word, especially as to the higher class of spiritual truths. The bibliography of this subject is quite extensive. Some fifty or more volumes have been published, which treat, more or less exclusively, this theme, one of which, by Mr. Haley, covers over five hundred pages. There are probably not less than five hundred other works which contain extended reference to these discrepancies; so that, in the effort to condense what needs to be written upon such a subject into a very brief compass, we find no little additional difficulty. But, as a bulky treatise would defeat our object, we shall simply group all the ’ discrepancies ’ together, and offer general suggestions and principles, covering various particulars in each class.

We begin, very naturally, by inquiring whence these apparent discrepancies come. What Is their sotcrce?

The first general class are those which come from variations in the mere letter of Scripture.

I. Errors in Transcription.

In the absence of the printing press all copies of the Word of God were of course the product of the manual labor of scribes. Prof. Norton estimates that, by the end of the second century, there were sixty thousand manuscripts of the Gospel in existence; and, including manuscripts of the Old Testament, millions of copies of God’s Word have doubtless been made in the course of the ages. From seven hundred to one thousand Greek manuscripts are now extant, of which fifty are one thousand years old, and some few are one thousand five hundred years old, whereas the oldest existing classic manuscript is not nine hundred. Of course the original manuscripts of the Bible have all disappeared, and God meant that they should, to save us from a similar idolatry to that which lifted the Brazen Serpent and Gideon’s Ephod to divine honors.

In producing exact copies, perfect accuracy would be impossible without a perpetual miracle of divine supervision, as great as that of original Inspiration. Even in printed books it is found impraclO STUMBLING STONES REMOVED

ticable to secure entire freedom from errors; even when large rewards have been offered for their detection, new ones have been found after the two hundredth reading. How much more difficult to secure absolute accuracy when the first form is also the final form and there is no chance to correct “proof!”

In manual transcriptions mistakes are therefore inevitable.

1. Hebrew letters often closely resemble each other.

There are at least eight pairs of letters, so nearly alike as to be constantly mistaken for each other, like the English b and d, c and e, f and old-fashioned s, (f) 1 and t. Old manuscripts became faded and blurred, and this increased the liability of such errors, and mistakes in names and figures easily arose in this way, where the context and general sense furnished no guide.

2. It is probable that, both in the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, letters were anciently used for numerals.

Warrington thinks that the letters of the alphabet, taken in their order, represented numerical values, as follows, units, tens and hundreds up to 400; i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 200, 300, 400; that the five terminal letters supplied the numbers representing the even hundreds, from 500 to 900 inclusive; and that the thousands were represented by affixing marks or points to those representing units, etc.

Two sorts of mistakes might easily creep in; one letter might be mistaken for another of different value; or discrepancies might be introduced where the attempt was made to substitute the full word for the letter. There is scarcely a case in which copyists are believed to have made any intentional change in the original text. In one case, where the name Manasseh appears instead of Moses, some have thought that some officious scribe made the substitution to save the disgrace, to the great Jewish Lawgiver, of recording the idolatry of his grandson (Judges xviii. 30).

II. Errors in PuncHiation.

In the original manuscripts there were probably no punctuation marks. In fact some manuscripts were ctcrsive, i. e. the words were run together with no space between them. The translators have introduced punctuation marks, to make the

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sense obvious; and, for convenience, division into chapters and verses. Of course all this belongs to the human, uninspired, and therefore fallible element in the Modern Bible, and no objections, drawn from punctuation marks, or these arbitrary divisions, really lie against the Inspired Word of God, itself.

There are not a few instances in which this punctuation may have introduced at least a very doubtful sense or construction. A few examples may be given.

John xii. 27. “What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.” By substituting an interrogation point for the colon, after the word ’ hour,’ the sense is made much more clear.

Luke xiii. 24, 25. Omitting the period after the word * able,’ or substituting a comma, we are taught that the risk lies in seeking to enter when it is too late. Compare Matthew xxv.

I-IO.

Psalm cix. 6 to 19 inclusive. If these verses are put in quotation marks, as the * words of hatred,’ which, ‘with a lying tongue,’ the * adversaries ’ of David ‘speak against him,* this Psalm is made no longer his imprecation of curses on their heads, but his appeal to God in reply to their maledictions. Then the sudden change from the plural to the singular number, in verse 6 and following, is explained, and both the introductory and closing verses acquire a new and beautiful significance. Compare especially verses 28 to 31 with 1-3.

Examples of at least doubtful division, where the sense is very seriously interrupted or obscured, might be multiplied. A few will suffice.

I Corinthians xii. 31. There should here be no division of chapters. The ‘’ more excellent way,” which Paul shows, is the cultivation of Love; and a colon after the word ‘way,’ should be the only interruption to the sense. To introduce a new chapter breaks all continuity.

The connection between Chapters II. and III. of the Epistle to the Ephesians is similarly intimate; and the argument is perfect only as the break is avoided. ‘’ For this cause” refers back to the truth set forth in the previous Chapter. Compare also Hebrews iii. 14. The word ’ therefore,’ at the beginning of the fourth Chapter, depends tipon the sentiment immediately preceding. So xi., xii.

III. Errors in Amplificatio7i.

As translators have supplied punctuation points, so they have supplied words and phrases, to complete the sense or make the meaning obvious. As is well known, these supplied words are always indicated by the use of italics. The ignorant reader sometimes supposes that italicized words represent the emphatic words, and is perhaps betrayed into the error of the simple minded ‘Dunkerd’ preacher, who gravely read i Kings xiii. 27, thus: “And he spake unto his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him I”

As to these italicized words, it has been seriously questioned whether they are, in any case, needful, helpful ox jttstifiable. Where the original demands or implies them, they need not be italicized, since they are not really ‘supplied’ words; where the original does not so justify them, to introduce them may sometimes be to introduce 7iotions foreign to the mcaniiig of the Word and the mind of the Spirit; and may therefore be unwarrantable tampering with the Inspired Word of God. At the very least, we must remember that all italicised words belong, like punctuation points and chapter-and-verse divisions, to the fallible element, and therefore can never become the basis of objection to anything but the work of translators.

We append a few examples of supplied words. By reading the passages and omitting these itaHcized phrases, another meaning will often at once appear, and also a much clearer sense. In the examples given we omit the suppHed words.

Matthew xx. 23. “■ But to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but for whom it is prepared of my Father.” So read, Christ does not limit his own power to give the chief places, save that it must be exercised in union with the Father.

John iii. 34. ‘’ For God giveth not the Spirit by measure” — doling out the supply as if his resources were limited.

John viii. 6. ‘* But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground.” In Syria and the East, to this day, writing with the finger in the sand is a common method of teaching, as with us the slate and blackboard are used. It introduces a possiby unwarranted conception, to add, *’ as though he heard them notr

James i. 25. ‘’Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth.” The figure is that of a mirror, and the word ’ continucth ’ may refer to the looking. We must not simply glafice but gaze at ourselves as seen in that law, continue looking so that the impression may be permanent.

Psalm xxii. i, 3, u, etc. Bishop Alexander calls this prophetic poem of the Crucified, a ‘Psalm OV Sobs.’ It represents the vicarious sufferer as in dying agonies, able only to articulate a few words at a time: and the fragmentary character of the utterances is one of the most remarkable features of the plaint. To supply words, and so make every sentence complete, interferes with the impression which the Spirit would convey. How much more pathetically majestic if translated literally!

“My God! My God!
Why hast Thou forsaken me!
Far from helping me! — Words of my roaring!” — etc.

We have no space for multiplying examples; but refer the reader to a few additional cases where the omission of the supph’ed words will suggest a new and often higher sense.

Deut. xxxii. 35.

Psalm X. 4; xiv. i; 1. 8; li. 12.

Proverbs xxvii. 19.

Isaiah xxvi. 19.

Malachi iii. 10. ‘’ Until failure of enough,” 1. e. until the supply fails!

Mark xvi. 20.

John XX. II.

Hebrews xi. 21.

2 Peter iii. 17.

IV. Difficulties hicidentto Translation.

In all human language necessary imperfection inheres; and yet the Holy Spirit was compelled either to invent a new nomenclature which would have been unintelligible to man, or else to use that imperfect medium with which he is familiar. So far as language is merely the mould of thought, or thought is the mould of language, the two must correspond: and we shall find things, divine and spiritual, inadequately conveyed by human words, and in some cases absolutely no word will be found fit to be the vehicle or mould of a divine conception.

From this general source proceed a great variety of infelicities, inaccuracies, and even apparent contradictions, that are purely linguistic and verbal.

1. Material terms are necessarily employed to express immaterial things: the spiritual is cramped and confined by the carnal wrappings.

The word ’ spirit ’ from spiro, I breathe, means, in its Hebrew and Greek equivalents, hterally wind or breath. To infer that the spirit of man or of God is simply breath, would be to limit a divine conception by the narrow literalism of the best word that human language can furnish to convey the thought.

When Jewish writers speak of the “tongue of events,” meaning thereby God’s acts translated into the language of historical occurrences, no one misunderstands the phrase.

2. Figurative terms are also necessarily employed, but must not be literally construed.

The Oriental habit of mind is peculiarly luxuriant and imaginative. Eastern idioms abound in bold and striking metaphors and even hyperbole. “To construct dogmas out of such materials, would be like attempting to build a palace out of sunbeams and rainbows.” As Prof. Park says, there is manifestly a wide gap between oriental minstrelsy and occidental logic.

3. Much language, applied to God, is really applicable only to man, is Anthropovioj’p/nc, and Aiithropopathic, i. e., drawn from the human form and passions.

When we read of the ‘Fingers of God,’ with which He wrote on the Tables of Stone; the ‘Feet of God,’ which rest on the earth as His footstool; the ‘Eyes’ and ‘Eyelids of God,’ which ’ behold ’ and ’ try ’ the children of men; of the ‘Nostrils of God,’ into which the sweet incense of worship ascends, etc., these terms are Anthropomorphic and must be so understood.

Isa. iii. 13. The Lord standeth up to plead.

Joel iii. 12. There will I sit to judge all the heathen.

It would seem incredible that any one, even a caviller, could call such statements ‘discrepancies.’ This is an example of the uncandor and unfairness of much so-called * criticism.’ Such language is simply drawn from the habits of Oriental courts, where advocates stand up to plead and judges sit doivji to pronounce sentence. God is likewise said to “Come down,” when He interposes in human affairs, which belong to a subordinate sphere: and such terms as ‘* ascend “and “■ descend” are often used with reference to the comparative elevation of the subjects and objects to which the attention is turned.

Most words are tropes, concealing a figure. Contradictions frequently disappear, as soon as we cease to insist on an absurd literalism.

Invisible things may be clearly seeji; (Rom. i. 20) and we may look at what is unsee7i. (2 Cor. iv. 18.)

4. Metaphors are often mixedy because one figure does not suffice to express the full meaning.

Ps. xviii. I, 2. David calls the Lord, his “strength, rock, fortress, deliverer, buckler, horn and high tower.” Here are at least seven different metaphors. The inconsistency is rhetorical but not real: in fact there is sublimity in the very mixture. Peter says “stablish, strengthen, settle you,” and Paul says, ‘’ rooted and grounded in love.” One expression being inadequate, the writer leaps at once to another, that the combination may convey what neither would alone.

5. Lang7iagc of Appearance is close akin to figurative terms, and is always allowable.

When the sun is represented as ’ rising ’ or ‘setting;’ or the dew as ‘distilling’ and ‘descending from heaven,’ we are not warranted either in construing these terms literally, or in objecting to them because of scientific inaccuracy. In this scientific age we use such terms while conceding their inexactness, because they describe appearances and belong to the popular idiom.

6. Various renderings of the same original word, lead to inevitable confusion.

John XV. 4, 9, II, one Greek word (/ifvw) is variously translated, abide, remain, continue, etc.

I Cor. ii. 15, the same Greek word avaKfuvErat is translated discern, and judge.

7. Words are sometimes invested by
the reader with a wrong se?ise.

“God ls angry with the wicked.” Ps. vii. II.

He is the “A^’Oigrr” of evil, i Thess. iv. 6.

Wrath is ascribed even to the “Lamb.” Rev. vi. 16.

These and similar terms are to be used and understood in a higher sense than the ordinary one. Anger is not, in itself, a sin: in fact, without holy indignation, there is no perfectly holy character. The verbs, * avenge * and revenge’ and the corresponding nouns, ’ 7’^«- gemice and * revenge’ mean different things: the former verb and noun refer to a public governmental, judicial act, which is necessary to the upholding of law; [Jer. li. 56J while ’ revenge ’ refers generally to a private, personal act of retaliation. There is a manifest and broad distinction between a ruler calmly requiting or recompensing evil, for public good, and an injured party passionately returning evil for evil, for private gratification. God is never vindictive but always vindicative, i. e. He vindicates law. ‘’ Odit errores, amat errantesT When wrath is ascribed to Him, we are to remember it is holy wrath and so a part of His infinite perfections. A magnetic needle has polarity, and by the same law it attracts and repels at the same pole. Benevolence is an attribute whose two poles are. Love and Wrath. By the same principle, God both loves holiness and hates sin; and, because He is capable of holy complacence toward the good, must be capable of holy repulsion toward evil.

The word, ’ hate ’ is often used of a lesser love. Compare Rom. ix. 13. Luke xiv. 26.

“God Jiardoicd Pharaoh’s heart.” Exod. ix. 12. This implies in God no compHcity with evil. He withdrew softening influences which were abused. Nay more: the same sun melts the wax, and bakes and cakes the clay; and so the same influences which soften and subdue the obedient, harden the rebellious. Pharaoh’s wilfulness naturally produced the same effect as did God’s judicial infliction. Compare Exod. viii. 15, 32.

In the narrative about David and the Ammonites, etc., in 2 Sam. xii. 31, it is said he ‘^ put them imdcr saws, harrows, axes,” and “made them pass through the brick-kiln.” Sceptics unwarrantably construe this subjection oftJie people to certain forms of labor as though it were meant that David cut them in pieces or burned them alive. In i Chron. xx. 3, the word” cut,’’ is probably a mistake. A Hebrew word, as much like the other as ’ cut ’ is like ‘put,’ and even more like it, is accidentally mistaken for it. {Vayyasdr for vayyasem

Paul says, “concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord.’’ I Cor. vii. 25. Are we to understand him as disclaiming inspired guidance in the case? or does he simply mean that whereas, in counsels to the married, he has referred them to an express recorded commandment of the Lord, Mai. ii. 14-16, Matt. xix. 6, 9; in this case there is

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no such ivriitoi coniinandDioit to Avliich to appeal? Compare i Cor. vii. 6, lo. When he says, ‘* I think also that I have the Spirit of God,” I Cor. vii. 40, it might be rendered, I think that I also have the Spirit (^ayw), i. e. as well as others who claim to be your teachers, and are not inspired apostles.* So understood, instead of disclaiming inspiration, he rather affirms with peculiar emphasis the apostolic warrant for his instruction.

The Israelites borrowed of the Egyptians, Exod. xii. 35. “Borrowed” probably means * demanded,’ as the price of departure.

“The bears tare forty and two of them,” 2 Kings ii. 24.

It is not said that they killed 2,ly of them.

Abraham was commanded to ‘’offer’’ Isaac for a burnt offering. Gen. xxii. 2.

It is not said, anywhere, that God commanded him to slay his son, though the father so interpreted it. God intended that he should prese7it Isaac as an offering, and that is what he did. It is probably part of the inspired perfection of the Scriptures that words are used with such discrimination; and it is therefore the duty of every reader to note exactly what is saidj lest he carelessly introduce a conception, foreign to the real narrative.

*J. H. Brookes, D. D.

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VI. Errors of Interpretation.

Where no fault can reasonably be found with either the original or the translation, the reader s viisappreJiension may cause difficulty. We must therefore learn to interpret the language of the Bible intelligently and correctly. Several facts arc to be borne in mind.

1. Words often cJiange vieaning, and
arc liable to be misunderstood.

* Prevent ’ means to go before, or anticipate.

1 Thess. iv. 15.

* Let ’ means not to let, i. e. to hinder.

2 Thess. ii. 7.

* Conversation ’ means course of life. Heb. xiii. 5.

2. The same worei is used in different senses.

Compare Exod. xxxi. 17, with Isa. xl. 28. Though God “fainteth not neither is weary,” yet “He rested and was refreshed.” ‘Rest’ sometimes means repose after fatiguing labor, or, as in this case, cessation from activity, the arresting of work.

Adam was said to ’ hide,’ and Jonah to ‘Jlee,’ from ‘the Presence of the Lord.* Yet we are taught that to flee or to hide from His presence is impossible. Ps. cxxxix. 7. There is an omni-prcscnce of God which equally pervades all space; but there is a manifested Presence, such as, in the Garden of Eden or in the Sanctuary of old, was often visible and audible. We are told that God “was not in the wind,” the ‘’ earthquake “or the ‘’fire;” but the meaning is that He was not specially and personally manifested in these forms, as He was in the “still small voice” which followed them. I Kings xix. 11, 12.

The word ‘^ covet’’ is used in Exod. xx. 17, of unlawful desire after that which is another’s; in I Cor. xii. 31, of a holy yearning to possess that which will benefit another.

“Christ was made sin for us,” though He “knew no sin,” 2 Cor. v. 21, i. e. He was made a sin-offering, accounted judicially as a sinner.

‘’ Tempt’’ may mean to put to proof, to test: or to entice to sin. Compare Gen. xxii. I, Deut. vi. 16, and Jas. i. 13.

“Cleave” may mean, to cling to, or to part from, another. Rom. xii. 9. Zech. xiv. 4.

“Devoted” means consecrated to holy uses, or, sometimes, doomed, to destruction.

The verb ‘^ have” is used in Matt. xiii. 12, both of nominal and of real possession. Mr. Haley cites a couplet from Drydcn’s Jiivcfial, in illustration of a like usage:

“Tis true poor Codrus nothing had, to boast; And yet poor Codrus all that nothing lost.”

To ‘’seek early’’ may also mean to seek earnestly. Compare Prov. i. 28, viii. 17.

In one case the earnestness of the pious youth, and in the other of the despairing and hardened sinner, is referred to: a holy longing after God’s favor is contrasted with a desperate effort to evade sin’s penalty and God’s judgment.

The word “■ eviV may mean perverse, iniquitous, or merely adverse, calamitous.

‘’Jealousy’’’ sometimes represents “the rage of man” a mean, malicious suspicion; and, again, a holy affection which by its nature admits no rivalry. God is said to be “jealous” because He can allow no other object to share His people’s devotion, without sanctioning idolatry.

The phrase “the righteousness of saints” sometimes seems to refer to justification; at other times to sanctification; and at others to resurrection life. It is of great importance that we learn to discriminate between these three. Justification is a divine act, imputing to us a righteousness complete but ?iot inherent, Sanctification is a divine work, imparting to us a righteousness inherent but not complete. Resurrection life implies a finished work, when our righteousness is both inherent and complete.

3. Words are used both in an absolute, and in a relative sense.

God who” changes not,” is said to ‘’repent.” There is no contradiction. It is because He absokitely changes not, that He relatively changes. If a movable body revolves about a fixed object, their relative positions are constantly changing: if both were moving, their relative positions might remain the same. When a man who has been turned from God turns toward Him, God is in effect turned also toward the man, though in fact there has been in God Himself no change. The attitude of the sinner relatively affects the attitude of God. We say, “the sun shines “or “docs not shine,” when in fact it always shines; but the position of the earth, or the interposition of the clouds, intercepts its rays.

Christ says ‘* my Father is greater than I; “yet He also afifirms “I and my Father are one;” and Paul claims for Him such equality with God as that the claim implies no robbery of God. Compare Jno. xiv. 28, Phil. ii. 5, 6. In one case, Christ speaks of His relative position as a Son or as ATessiah, the Sent one: in the other His absolute, essential equality is

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referred to, as one member of a firm, where all members are equal in the property invested and the rights implied, might still disclaim all authority in a certain department of the business, which by mutual agreement is committed to another partner.

4. Words are used sometimes of the uitcnty and again of the effect, of an act or course.

“In so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.” Rom. xii. 20. Here not the design, but the resiilty of kindness to an enemy is indicated. The silversmith does not perfectly melt the metal until, in addition to the fire beneath the crucible, he heaps the hot coals on the top of the silver. When we heap kindness on an enemy’s head, we have him between two fires: the conscience of the man accuses him, and our tenderness combines with that to melt him.

‘* I came not to send peace but a sword.” Matt. X. 34, 36; i. e. though Christ’s desire and design are to give peace, the effect of his coming is to make division and separation between those who serve God and those who serve Him not. We must discriminate between the object and the effect of His mission.

When it is said that, at Nazareth, ‘’ He coiitd do no mighty work “(Meirk vi. 5), it is no contradiction of the fact that “All Power” is his. Matt, xxviii. 18. He chooses to be limited, in His beneficent activity, by human unbelief. He could do mighty works among those Nazarenes, only by disregarding the bounds which He had wisely adopted for moral ends.

Under this same subdivision we may include promises which are in some cases absolute, and in others conditional.

VI. Freedom in the Use of Names,

1. Multiplicity of names for the same person

Peter is also called Simon, Cephas, Simon Bar-Jona, Simeon, Simon Peter, Simon son of Jonas. Joseph is also called Barsabas and Justus. Jacob is also Israel. Edom is Esau, Gideon is Jerubbaal. Saul is Paul.

2. Names of /’^r.f(?;2i’ are changed; and names of persons and places are often interchanged. E. g., Edom.

In the deficiency of other methods of recording and transmitting history, individual men and women became themselves marks, memorials or monuments of crises or turning points, or new departures.

Thus Abram’s name was changed to Abraham, and Sarai’s to Sarah. Gen. xvii. 5, 15.

Jacob’s name was changed for a similar reason to Israel. Gen. xxxii. 28.

Neander’s name before conversion was David iNIendel. The change marks his regeneration — the ’ new-man.’

VII. In luriting number s oriental
usage was often singular.

1. In the expression of aggregates.

Nordheimer says: Hebrew and Arabic allow peculiar latitude in the use and expression of numbers. Both languages allow one to write units, tens, hundreds, thousands, in succession or in reverse order. Much obscurity at times occurs, as if one should write, “five and twenty and two hundred and ten thousand.” This might be understood to mean an aggregate number as small as 10, 225, or as large as 210, 025.

2. Round numbers were used for convenience, or in symbolism. E. g., a week, called eight days. J no. xx. 26.

VIII. Difference of dates is sometimes the source of apparent discrepancy or discordance.

The disagreeing statements refer to different periods. What was once true ceases to be at a subsequent time.

Compare Gen. i. 31, and Rom. viii. 22. When God first made all things, he pronounced everything “very good.” After sin’s blight and curse came upon it, the whole creation groaned and travailed in pain together.

IX. Different modes of reckoning.

1. The civil and sacred years of the
Hebrews differed.

Abib, the first month of the sacred year, was the seventh month of the civil y2J. Compare the “old style “and the ‘’new style,” eleven days apart.

2. Fractio7ial days and years were
reckoned as whole ones.

With the Rabbins, the very first day of a year sometimes stood for the whole year. — Lightfoot. Parts of a day were reckoned for the whole: e. g., Christ’s ‘* three days” in the grave, though He appears to have been in the sepulchre a part of the sixth, the whole of the seventh and a part of the eighth.

X. History in Bible usage is often made stibordinaie to prophecy a7id symboll’s VI. In. other words the historical accuracy is of less account than the prophetical or symbolical or ethical teaching which the history expresses and embodies.

E. g., Israel’s history, as a nation, is not counted on the strict historical scale, but on the prophetic. When God’s ancient people relapsed into idolatry and virtual apostasy, and were given over into captivity, their normal and prophetic history stopped: they were not reckoned as having any history. Only when such a principle is understood and applied to the record, can we make out the biblical computations of time, as applied to this elect nation.

We notice various cycles of 490 years, or ten Jubilees, which seem to constitute a sort of unit ov measurement in the Old Testament. The 480 years of i Kings vi. i, between Israel’s going forth and Solomon’s temple building, do not count, as a recent writer has observed, the seven periods of servitude. The actual time is 611 years. Deducting for servitude 131 years, we have 480. Then add, for building and furnishing the temple, 10 years, and we have 490.

From that period to the return from Babylon, in the time of Nehemiah, is 560 years. Deduct for captivity, Jo years, and we have again 490.

So the 490 years in the seventy Hcptades of Dan. ix. cannot be made out accurately, unless we omit the periods of interrupted fellowship with God and disobedience to His will. In fact the crucifixion of Christ appears to have interrupted the last “week,” and at least half of it seems to be the prophetical ‘’ three and a half years,” ‘’forty and two months,” or 1260 days of the Apocalypse.

XI. One event or tricth or subject has different sides SiVid aspects. We must get the point of view, and even the plane of thought, occupied by the sacred writer or speaker.

I. Truth is many-sided.

Every truth or fact has at least two faces. To look at it from one direction or side, only, gives us only a half truth, which, if we consider it the whole, is a half error. Apposite truths are not opposites. There is no antagonism between them, but rather complementism: they are the hemispheres which together complete the sphere.

Hence truths that at first appear to conflict may have often the highest harmony and be necessary to each other.

Man is at the same time mortal and immortal. He may be buried, and yet it is equally true that he cannot be: or, as Socrates said, You may luiry vie if you can catcJi vic

2. Character has complex relations.

Christ is at once a lion and a lamb, Rev. v. 5, 6; a priest and victim, Heb. viii. i, ix. 26-28; a shepherd and sheep, Jno. x. 11, Acts. viii. 32; the door to the fold and the pastor to the flock, Jno. X. 7. II.

3. Different experiences and conditions may pertain to the same person., at the same time.

Christ’s peace was the perfect peace of God, even while he sweat as it were great drops of blood.

Dr. Payson in dying was both in intensest agony and intensest ecstasy.

4. The same siibjcct may be treated from different points of approach and survey, for different ends.

Thus Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, each writing for a different class of readers, — Jews Romans, Greeks, and believers in general, will each emphasize a different aspect of the complex character of Jesus.

Matthew lays stress on Him as Messiah — King of the Jews. Mark lays stress on Him as mighty God, miracle worker. Luke lays stress on Him as the Son of man. John lays stress on Him as the Son of God. Compare the books of Kings and Chronicles; one being the annals of the Kingdom, the other the history of the Hierarchy.

For similar reasons, some authors may follow the chronological while others follow the logical, order; others, without regard to historical connection or sequence, may group ethical teachings together.

5. Consequently, to avoid partial and incomplete views, we must compare scripture with scriphtre until each half truth finds its complementary half.

The parable of the “Pounds” and of the ‘* Talents” must be taken together. Thus combined they present the whole law of God’s administration of gifts. Where gifts are equal, but unequally improved, the rewards are unqual: where gifts are unequal, but equally improved, the rewards are equal. Compare Luke xix.. Matt. xxv.

In Luke xv., we have not three parables, but one parable with three forms of presentation. The first and second emphasize God’s part in recovering the lost sinner; the third brings to the front mans part both in wandering and return.

Paul emphasizes/^r?///; / James, works. There is no conflict. Paul was rebuking Pharisaic dependence on self-righteous works. James was contending against antinomian dependence on a mere creed. James probably uses the word “justify” in the sense of manifesting or proving. Thus faith justifies the soul, works justify the faith.

XII. Condensation of narratives accounts for some incongruities.

1. For the sake of brevity, or because a specific purpose, which is controlling, demands only the salient points of a narrative, a few characteristic features are presented and the account is fragmentary. Were all the missing links furnished, no real difficulty would remain.

2. The Imagination or hasty inference of critics may often supply an incongruous link where God has left an unfilled vacancy.

Some professedly religious teachers have shocked the sensibilities of all true and reverent believers by using such phrases as the “errors,” ‘’ mistakes “and even ‘’ immoralities” of scripture.

For example, Exod. xxi. 24, “An eye for an eye,” etc., is adduced as a scriptural sanction, justifying private revenge and retaliation of injuries. But who is authorized to say that this authorizes the exaction of private and personal vengeance? May it not be the law by which the judges were guided in the judicial mfliction of penalty! The brief narrative leaves many gaps to be supplied. In Patriarchal times, with imperfect legislation and government, such penalties may have been the most salutary preventives of acts of violence, and especially of maiming.

XIII. Different events or persons may he confised on account of similar feahires.

On a larger or smaller scale, history is constantly repeating itself. Abram twice equivocated concerning Sarah; Isaac imitated his father’s example, in the case of Rebekah. David twice and in very similar circumstances spared Saul’s life, etc.

There were, in modern times, two Jonathan Edwards, father and son. Both were grandsons of clergymen and, themselves, clergymen. Both were pious and precocious youths, famous scholars, and tutors for equal periods in their respective colleges. Both succeeded, in their respective charges, their maternal grandfathers, were dismissed on account of peculiar religious opinions; were again settled over congregations singularly attached to them, and employed leisure hours in favorite studies, and in preparation, for publication, of works of value. Both left their parishes for college presidencies, and died shortly after inauguration, with but one year’s difference in their respective ages, one being fifty-six, the other fifty-seven; and both, on the first sabbath of the fatal year, preached from the same text, ‘’ This year thou shalt surely die.” (Haley, p. 27).

Modern critics who seek to prove that similar biblical narratives are a confusion of historical facts, and refer to the same person or event, can in no case adduce by comparison of scriptural accounts any parallel to the coincident features of these two remarkably similar lives and careers. And were the methods of the “Higher Criticism” adopted in this case, some may yet arise who will seek to prove that there was after all but one Jonathan Edwards!

XIV. Special laws or principles apply to the Interpretation of Prophecy.

Prophecy is the langzcage of the future.

It is a well known fact that as we look ahead, in a direct line, certain optical illusions are the result:

First, Perspective: objects at different distances are seen in one limited field of vision and lying within the same narrow arc.

Secondly, Fore short eating: objects, far separated from us and from each other, appear near and closely related; what is stretched out over vast length, is seen shortened — hence the term ‘’ foreshortening,” to express the apparent shortening from the fore-view. Only by experience does the mind learn to detect and correct the errors of the eye. Similar illusions pertain to the careless reading of prophecy.

I. In prophecy we often see two or more events of a similar character outlined by a common profile. One outline properly portrays two events, one on a smaller, and the other on a larger scale; one nearer, the other more remote.

E. g., Matt. xxiv. where the destruction of Jerusalem is the type of the End of the Age, and prophecies concerning both are closely intertwined because one general profile answers for both.

2. Events may appear in a common field of vision, all of which are future, which and, as they occur, will be seen to be marked by many distinct and distino-uishinor features.

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3. Future events, far separated in point of time, may be so mingled on the horizon of prophecy, as to appear, like mountains in a range, near to each other.

4. History may be communicated prophetically, i. e. by a backward instead of a forward vision.

Hugh Miller believed that the six days of creation were revealed to Moses after some such manner, as a series of spectacular or dramatic scenes, to be interpreted after the manner of prophecy.

XV. There Is a Progress in Rev elation y from Genesis to the Apocalypse.

I. Things, veiled at first, even when revealed in form, were afterward fully unveiled as revelation became clearer.

This is the force of the word, “mystery,” in the New Testament.

And here we may possibly find the key to many so-called discrepancies.

E. g., quotations from the Old Testament Hebrew or the Septuagint, or Greek Alexandrian version, are found in the New Testament in a modified form. Sometimes the New Testament writers, and even our Lord, have been charged with “inaccuracies.”

These verbal changes have been explained by some, on the theory that the inspiration of the Bible extends not to the ‘’ words, but to the concept,” or thought; or that New Testament writers take liberties with scripture and modify their quotations as modern authors might, inciting passages from Shakespeare or Milton. Such ’ explanations ’ are too loose and only increase our embarrassment. We venture to suggest a more reverent method of accounting for such changes, viz.: that, where New Testaament authors, in quoting, adopt the Septuagint version or change the exact language of the original Hebrew, the Spirit guided them so to do, in order to bring more clearly to view the inspired meaning of sacred words.

Oftentimes a reason may be discovered for such modification. In Heb. xi. 40, i Pet. i. II, 12, etc., we are taught that Old Testament writers themselves wrote much that they did not themselves understand, and that was left on record for after ages to interpret. May it not be that, when New Testament writers are led by the Spirit of God to quote these words, they are also led in some cases to modify them so as to throw upon the original quotation the new light of a more perfect day? Compare Ps. xl. 7-8, with Heb. x. 5-10. Only after our Lord became incarnate, could it be understood Jiozu He came to do God’s will “in a body prepared.”

Compare Isa. lxi. i, 2, with Luke iv. 18, 19. Mai. iii. I, with Mark i. 2, ‘’ before Thy face.”

2. There is likewise a progressive revelation of 7norality.

The ethical standard of the gospel age is far in advance of the Levitical: and the rule of conduct must be graduated and estimated by the fuller, clearer revelation of duty and of love.

“To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Jas. iv. 17. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” Jno. xiii. 17.

“The times of this ignorance God winked at.” Acts xvii. 30.

Such texts as these teach us that:

The object of knowledge is practice; and The scope of practice is knowledge.

The rule of duty is relative: ‘* To whom much is given, of him will much be required;” more light demands better life.

Patriarchs, in practising polygamy, deception, human servitude; in inflicting penalty without legal process, etc., are not to be judged by the New Testament principles not in their day clearly revealed. Things but dimly seen if at all at dawn, are clearly and boldly revealed at noon-day.

3. There Is particularly a Progressive Revelation as to mzsszo?is, or the duty of believers to the unsaved about them.

It is true that the Bible is throughout a missionary book. Missions are taught in the Old Testament, but it is as in a mirror, darkly, dimly, enigmatically, as truth is taught in parables. Practically the old time saints did not conceive of God’s people as having an aggressive mission to “make disciples of all nations,” nor did they conceive of other nations as subjects of converting grace. To them, the heathen were simply obstacles to the prosperity, progress and even existence, of the one God-fearing, elect people; and even Peter the apostle had to Icarn, by a thrice repeated vision on the housetop, that the old exclusivcness must be broken down before the inclusiveness of the christian spirit.

Much of the so called ’ vindictive spirit ’ of the “Imprecatory” Psalms and prophetic utterances should be interpreted as the breathing of a holy jealousy for God, and a devout desire to have all foes of the true faith destroyed, or at least dispersed. Compare Ps. lix. ii.