The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-01-08
THE EVOLUTION of rae BIBLE


The Rev. DR.. Lyman Abbott was the
speaker, an orthodox Congregati onalst,
in the course of Sunday evening lectures
now being given at the Church of the
Covenant, Thilty-fifth street and Park
avenue, New York city, recently, on
THE Bible and Modern Thought" DR..
Abbott's theme was "The Evolution of
the Bible"
at used TO be the belief" said DR..
Abbott, that the Bible is perfect
book. think that few hold this opin-
ion now. They may think they hold it,
but do not believe that they do. Such
a man opens the Bible at Genesis. He
finds that the world was created in six
days, and to make it perfectly sure that
it means six days of twenty-four hours
each, it says: And the morning and
evening were the first day If he be-
lieves that the Bible is perfect book,
he is compelled to have two minds, one
which believes in creation from a scien-
tific standpoint, and the other from a
religious standpoint. He comes to the
laws of Moses and finds that slavery and
polygamy are permitted and he says:
Slavery is patrarchial institution, and
it is against the Bible to disturb them.
He finds that circumcision is there pre-
scribed, and that to be consistent he
ought to circumcise his boys. But bap-
tism has taken the place of circumcision,
and sacrifices have been dispensed with.
l listened in vain this evening in this
church for the lowing of csttle, the bleat-
ing of sheep, the cooling of doves. He
takes the ten commandments and places
them in the chancel. Yet he knows that
a man may keep every one of the ten
commandments, and not be admitted to
any decent society in New York. He
may obey every commandment, and yet
not come up to the Christian standard of
living-no, not even to the civilized
standard as it exists in New York to-
day, and we all know that that is none
too high.
There is another danger besides scep-
ticism. 1t is sham-pretending to be-
lieve what we do not believe. Let us be
honest with ourselves.
II do not wish to shock anyone, but l
do wish to say that for my part do not
believe that the Bible is an infallible
book. l believe that it is an inspired
book, but not infallble. There is no
such thing as infallibility. BY infalli-
bility we we would mean that the book
infallibly communicates to the man who
reads the infallible thought of the man
who writes. We cannot believe this. We
hive one infallible book-Euclid's
geometry. The value of the Bible is not |
that it is infallible, but that it brings
God nearer to the human heart. 1t is
the divine in the book and not the in
fallible that makes it sacred"
Here DR.. Abbott paused a moment,
and then said with shrug of the shout
ders: "On the whole, 1 believe that
Chronicles is better than a New York |
daily newspaper, for Chronicles are try
ing to find out God, and the New York
daily newspapers are not"
DR.. Abbott continued: "The ten COM
are not our ideal of moral
life; they were not Christ's ideal. Christ
took two principles from the old COM
love for God and love for
ones neighbor. That was not Christ's
law. That was the Jewish law.
Take down those ten commandments
from your chancel; they do not belong
there. They are Jewish. Put up in their
stead the new commandment of Christ,
that We love one another, for in that we
find the principle of self sacrifice.
The Bible is the product of 5000 years
growth. The truth has been growing
from Genesis to Revelation. l believe
that the new criticism and the new
will make us understand the
Bible better than we do now.-N. Y.
Sun.
"Can it be possibleP Are you entirely
sure of lt?'' Certainly am, and for
5he benefit of suffering humanity I'll re-