Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1876-08-17
SOMETHING ABOUT THE GENUINENEss OF
THE RIBLE

We find the Bible as the inspired writers
left lt-as much as any ancient writings that
have come down to us from the distant past.
The present Bible is the same as the Bible
of the primitive church. This is an interesting
subject and ought to gain the attention OF
all. In the words of a great author, "The
integrity of the records of the Christian faith
is substantiated by evidence in a tenfold
proportion more various, copious and con
elusive than that which can be adduced
in support of any other ancient writings
There are more printed copies, and a
greater number Of manuscripts that have
come down the stream of time, and there are
more versions of the Scriptures than any
book in the world.
1t was a noble omen for the future pro
gress Of printing that the first book ever
issued from the press was the Bible. The
Vulgate Latin Bible was published in 1866,
and ifI mistake not it stands unsurpassed by
the latest efforts of Typography. The won
derful, useful, and honorable art of printing
e%ffectually prevents the corruption Of the
text. And the MSS. ofall ancient writings,
sacred and p%rofane, are now in the safe Gus
tody Of the press. Since the invention OF
printing about one hundred different edi-
tons of the Hebrew Bible and three hun
dred and fifty of the Greek Testament have
been published. and millions of copies in all
languages multiplied.
When the Bible was first printed there
were manuscript copies in most of the Pub
lie libraries of Europe. Nearly 1900 of these
MSS. have been collated in forming the text
of the Bible. In the case Of the Greek and
Latin classics ten or twenty MSS. are deemed
sufficient to form an accurate text. The
most ancient Ms. of "The Father Of His
tory,'' as Herodotus is called, dates back
only to the tenth century, and only fifteen
MSS. of this ancient author have been col
lated, and yet the genuineness of the writ
ings of Herodotus is established. Some
MSS. OF the Hebrew Bible dates back to the
eighth century. The Alexandrian MS. OF
the Old and New Testaments dates back to
the eighth century, and the Vatican MS. to
the fourth century also the Sianiticus to
the fourth century. The Coden Regius be-
longs to the fifth century. One MS. of Vir-
gil dates back to the fourth century. But
the MSS. of the ancient classics date from
the fifteenth to the tenth century, SO that
in antiquity as well as numbers they are
greatly inferior to the MSS. of the Bible.
When we reach the time of the earliest
MSS. we come up with the quotations from
the Bible by different writers, some friendly
to and some opposed to it. The quotations
are made in the very words of the Scrip
ture. And in one hundred and eighty writ
ers (whose works are still extant) we have
quotations from the New Testament SO nu-
merous that DR.. Bently has collected nearly
all the New Testament from authors who
f1ourished before the seventh century. The
Old Testament text in like nlanner can be
gathered out of the Targums {ten in NUM-
ber), running back to the first century.
These Targums are TRANSACTIONS of ancient
Hebrew into Chaldee-Hebrew, the original
Hebrew having ceased to be the spoken Ian
guage of the Jews after the Captivity OF
Babylon.
The ancient versions also establish the
genuineness of the Bible. A version of the
Bible was made into Slavonic or old Russian
in the ninth century. In the fourth CEN
tury into gothic, Ethiopic and Egyptian.
Also the Vulgate by Jerome between 1872
aud 4O5. The Perlicto Syriac version was