The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1929-03-15
THE HOLY BIBlli
NEVER Was THE
" @ RD OF GOD
TIE True Majesty, Digni y and
Pe..raue-ce CT Peck o:
Ecoks Destroyed by Oh
thoCox View Point,
Th'1ks Pas'o- Saneieli

TIC first t;'n~!nt'On oil the oio'c'
mode in thc Fourth century by
Jc-omo VIII, was much closer to
the original sources than the King
James translatHrS of a much later
age. made a famous line in the
Twenty T;hrd Palm to read: My"
chalice which irNbriat >th me. how
good it is" The King James
trans,ators made il TO real: My
Gun runneth ever" which is more
acceptable to the W. c. T. L.
The foregoing and many anothe"
curious fact about the bible were
brought out in an informal lecture
en- How We Got Our Bible. by
DR.. Harry L. Canfield scholarly
Universalist Of Greensboro. N. c., in
the ball room of the Virginia Dare
Hotel Tuesday evening.
Few came out to hear DR.. Can
field. Not a minister Of any de-
nomination IL Elizabeth City heard
him. In fact not a single minister
net even Brother Eddie Sawyer
called on DR.. Garfield at his hCtel
Tuesday.
Rev. Geo. F. Hill, among all the
city pastors. heard D.. Garfield
Wednesday night.
Dr.. Garfield in his lecture did not
touch upon how the Jews got the
bible; he confined himself to dis
cussion of how we got cur bible
from the Jews. pointed out that
the. books of the Old Testament
were a Thousand years in the max
ing and were the products Of many
minds: that the Jewish fathers
wrangled for five centuries in select
ing those books that are handed
down to us to-day as holy; that
many books originally included in
the bible have been discarded o.
lost altogether
The literature of the Old TeSta-
ment was originally written in a
language that contained no vCWels,
There were no paragraph marks, no
punctuation; the queer little vowel
less words running one into another
and having to be separated and
translated by guess. There have
been many tranSlations Of the bible.
all of them necessarily different.
Where Cne version tells us that
Joseph was a goodly person and
we'll favoured." another version says
And Joseph was a lucky fellow"
There is no end of such variants.
The Catholics hold to the jerome
version. commonly known as the
Vulgate: Protestants generally hold
to the King James Version because
Of its classic English.
The bible can not by any stretch
of the imagination be regarded to-
day as the literal word Of God and
never was in fact the literal word
of God. Many of its books could be
discarded entirely with great profit
and much more of it ignored. The
value CT the literature Of the bible
to man is that it is monumental
record Of the passionate searching
of conSecrated men over a long
period Of time for an understand
ing of God: men Of contrite hearts
trying to work out their relationship
with the divine and define mans
and obligations to his
fellow men. In this perspective the
bible is indeed the book of books that
will forever live, uplift, inspire and
comfort the seeker after God and
Wednesday night DR.. Garfield
spoke on The Historical Back
ground of Liberal Christianity"
Again he spoke only to a small
group. He is a Universalist; Uni
versaliSts do not believe in the i'm
conception, the resurrec-
ton of the body, original sin, pre-
miracles, blood atone
ment. They believe in the Father
hood of Gcd, the brotherhood OF
man. the humanity and leadership
of Jesus. Many of the earliest
Christians shared their beliefs, but
a priestcraft growing up in Rome
built up a mystical theology on the
life and teachings of Jesus and pro-
ceeded to kill off everybody who dis
agreed with their theology. The
world has been fed up on the
phrases and formulas Of this the
ology until it just can't understand
the language of a liberal Christian.
One s,,rr,lus President Hoover will