03.10. Chapter 10 - The Oldest Book in the World
Chapter 10 The Oldest Book in the World
We have seen in a previous chapter that the Bible is the best book in the world: it is also the oldest. No other book can compare with it in this respect. Herodotus, who is known as the "father of history," dates back only to 480 B.C., shortly before the closing book in our Old Testament was written. The ancient poets Homer and Hesiod are supposed to have flourished — for no one really knows — about the time of Hezekiah, King of Judah. But 75o years before that time Moses had written the five books which we know as the Pentateuch. So that the Bible presents to us the oldest authentic records of the history of the human race. Egyptian history cannot be traced farther back than 270o B.C. The Chinese records go nearly as far. Babylonish history begins about 2450 B.C. Greek history dates from the Trojan War — if that war ever was fought — I200 B.C. Rome was busy founding its capital about 758 B.C., and Persian history begins 200 years later still. But Bible history carries us back for 4,000 years before the Cross, and gives us in the words of Inspiration the history of the very beginning of our present ordered earth and all that it is necessary for us to know about the story of man’s creation to inhabit it. The oldest vestiges of human construction are the Pyramids of Egypt, and the oldest of these is supposed to have been built shortly after the Flood. A French engineer has estimated that there are materials in this vast erection to build a wall one foot thick and ten feet high right round France, or about 1,800 miles. For 2,500 years or thereby the world had no Bible — no written word of revelation from God. But it is remarkable that this long space of time was bridged by the lives of but three men. Methuselah, the oldest man that ever lived, is one of the links that connect with Adam on the one side and on the other with Noah, who passed through the Flood and lived for 300 years after it.
Adam lived for 965 years, and during that time he would be able to teach his descendants all the wonderful revelations which God had made to him both before and after sin came into the world. Generation after generation would hear from his lips the story of Eden, the fail, the promised Deliverer, and the way of approach to God.
If we turn back to 1 Chronicles 1:1-54, the opening three verses give us one of the wonderful sentences of Inspiration. It is a sentence containing ten proper names and not a single verb. The names are these: Adam, Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah. Dr Kitto has pointed out that these ten names literally translated in order form the following most remarkable sentence in English: Man, Appointed [or Replaced], Miserable, Lamenting, The God of Glory, Shall descend, To instruct, His death sends, To the afflicted, Consolation. Thus the very names of the antediluvian patriarchs would be a standing testimony to the world. Methuselah’s name in particular was a warning message to the sinners of old. The prophet Enoch, whose own name marked him out as one able "to instruct," named his son in words prophetic of coming judgment that would "descend" after his death. The very year in which Methuselah died, the Flood came. One cannot help noting that after the name of the oldest man this world ever saw, God wrote "and he died."
How interesting it would be for us now if any person was alive who had come over with William the Conqueror. Such a person would be able to tell us, for example, about the various dynasties who had ruled in England — the Normans, the Plantagenets, the Yorkists, the Tudors, the Stuarts, and the Hanoverians. We should also be able to provide much interesting information about the laws and customs during the various periods of his life, and to hear such an account from his lips would be as interesting as to read it from a book. So during Adam’s long life many people of the ancient world would learn from him all that God had been pleased to make known of Himself at that time.
Methuselah, the grandfather of Noah, lived with Adam for over 240 years and nearly boo with his grandson Noah. To Noah he would doubtless communicate all that he him- self had learned from his ancestors. Shem, the son of Noah, lived after the Flood for 500 years until the days of Abraham, who was called out from his country and kindred to become the father of the faithful and the repository of all the promises of grace to the nation of Israel.
Five hundred years later we come to Moses, the man of God, and the first of the illustrious men who were chosen by God to write for us the "Scripture of Truth." And so the good work went on; the various revelations extending over a period of some 1,600 years, until the Apostle John, in Patmos, wrote the last book in our New Testament, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ," telling us about the solemn events that will usher in the closing days of men in responsibility upon the earth and of the time when "time shall be no longer."
Kings and nobles, priests and prophets, physicians and fishermen, tentmakers and tax collectors are found among the writers (over forty in all, and all inspired by God Himself, so that "the law of the Lord is perfect").
We may well pause here and ask, How has this wonderful Book been received, and how have these sacred writings been treated by the men to whom they have been sent? And in trying to answer this question we shall see that the Bible, not unlike the Person of the Lord Himself when on earth, sharply divided men into two classes — those who loved the Book and those who hated it. In Deuteronomy 31:24-26 we read, "And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee." And, again (ver. 10), "And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law."
It is very clear from these words that God intended everybody to hear and understand His Word. Even the children are not left out, so that when Rome says that the Bible is for the priests only, she is flatly contradicting the words of God Himself. But let us follow the history of the Book. Placed in the side of the ark, as we have seen, it entered the land with the nation and was with them in all the wars of Canaan. It abode with the ark in Shiloh for 400 years, went with it on that strange pilgrimage when the ark was taken by the Philistines, and with the ark returned again to Kirjath-jearim, whence David removed it on his "new cart." Three years afterwards, when David had learned his lesson, the ark was brought into the tent prepared for it in the City of David.
We know from 2 Chronicles 6:11 that the same autograph copy which Moses wrote was still in the ark in the palmy days of King Solomon, when he finished the first temple and put the ark in the holy of holies. And it is just possible that it is the same roll we hear of 400 years later in the darker days of Josiah. This pious King was one of those who loved the Book, for, after it had been found among the rubbish in the neglected temple, we read that, just as Moses commanded, he gathered the people together and "read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord." It is always good to read the Bible. God honours in His providence both men and nations who honour His Word. The history of our own country abundantly proves this. Compare England’s greatness under Cromwell with its abject condition under Charles II. Queen Victoria rightly called the Word of God "the secret of England’s greatness." Only comparatively few years have passed since the good Queen died, but we may well ask, Does the Bible hold the same place in the nation to-day as it did then? But succeeding Kings of Judah were not all so pious as the good King Josiah. We have a sharp contrast in the actions of his son Jehoiakim. Let us pay a visit, unasked, to this King’s palace. We find him in his "winterhouse" with a fire burning before him. Another portion of God’s Word is being read in his presence, but taking the roll out of the hands of the reader, "he cut it with the penknife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed" (Jeremiah 36:26). He was the first person we know of who ever dared to destroy any portion of God’s written Word, and short and sharp came his judgment. "God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Pagan Rome and papal Rome have only too well followed this wicked King’s example, but the Word of God is indestructible; it liveth and abideth for ever.
Soon Judah was carried captive to Babylon, but during the long years of captivity God watched over His Word, and provided men to preserve it. It was copied and re-copied with the most meticulous care. Jewish scribes knew the Scriptures so well that they could tell how many words were in each book. They reckoned up even the number of individual letters, so that they knew, for instance, that the letter Aleph occurred 42,377 times, the letter Beth 38,218 times, and so on, right through all the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. So God used this scrupulous care in order that His Word might be faithfully preserved through all time. The seventy years of the Babylonish Captivity came to an end at last. The pride of Babylon was humbled before the might of Persia. King Cyrus, who had been mentioned by name by the prophet Isaiah 176 years before he was born, issued a proclamation enjoining the Jews to go up to Jerusalem and rebuild the house of the Lord. We learn from the book of Ezra that "forty-two thousand three hundred and three score" (Ezra 2:34) led by Zerubbabel formed the first company of returning exiles that reached Jerusalem to set about the task of restoring the fortunes of their overthrown country. The first thing they did was to set up the altar and offer burnt offerings upon it. They thus declared their faith in the words, "God is our refuge and our strength"; and then, when the second modest temple was founded, very touching it is indeed to be present, in fancy, at the ceremony of laying the foundation stone. Old and grey-headed men are here who can remember Solomon’s temple with all its magnificent architecture and golden furniture, and the present building which they are so painfully rearing up in the midst of their poverty and distress seems to them so insignificant that they weep as they think of what once was and of what now is. On the other hand, the young men who had been born in exile, when they saw the work so far advanced, shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people. Twenty years afterwards this second temple was completed, and later, when the energetic Governor, Nehemiah, arrived at Jerusalem, the city wall was built and prosperity began again to smile upon the long-desolate land. But what concerns us most in our present inquiry is the work that Ezra the scribe did when he came. He was the Religious Reformer of the day, just as Nehemiah, who came after him, was the Righteous Ruler.
Passing over many of his drastic reforms, both among the priests and the people, let us hasten down to Watergate Street, on the east side of the temple, for Ezra is to hold a great open-air reading meeting there to-day. A great pulpit of wood "made for the purpose" has been erected here, and the "ready scribe in the law of Moses" climbs up into it, with six men on his right hand and seven at his left, and opens the BOOK in the sight of all the people. From the time that it was light until midday the reading went on, "and all the, people were attentive unto the book of the law" (Nehemiah 8:1-18).
We note with pleasure the attention of the people to the words of the Book, for dark days are coming soon both for it and them. They had returned to a land not yet recovered from the desolation of the great overthrow. Jerusalem, the "holy city" towards which their hearts had yearned with such intense longing during the weary years of the captivity, was a mass of ruins. Their old enemies the Philistines were pressing in from the west. The Edomites — foes of a thousand year feuds — had pushed north as far as Hebron, the ancient capital. Moab and Ammon, on the east, are again contracting alliances with the Arabians to the further hindrance of the work of restoration.
We cannot linger longer to hear Ezra, however much we should like to do so, for we have still a long way to travel before we come to the times of John Wycliffe. But one other thing it is interesting to notice before we pass on, and that is that Ezra is believed to have compiled and arranged all the books of our Old Testament as we have them to-day (including, we believe, even Malachi), so that those who came after him had a complete copy of "The Law," "The Psalms," and "The Prophets," according to the three great divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Leaving the Jews to meet and conquer their many foes as best they may, we must take a glance at the blank leaf between our Old Testament and the New.
It was a period of stirring times for the land of Israel. Systematic and diabolical persecution, such as perhaps no other nation could have survived, occupied part of this period. Remarkable victories, gained by a few patriotic men over multiplied enemies, followed. Finally, corruption and decay set in, until all that was good and noble disappeared; and we open our New Testament to find Herod, an Idumean usurper, reigning in the Lord’s land: the "sceptre has departed from Judah." But to return. It is the year 277 B.C. Alexander the Great has met and overthrown the might of Persia more than fifty years before, only to be himself overthrown soon after by his own passions. But in the great city of Alexandria, which he built to keep his memory green, and colonised with many races, there is now a population of 100,000 Jews. We pause here to take a glimpse at some seventy learned Rabbis engaged upon the first complete translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into another tongue. This translation into Greek is known as the Septuagint Version, and was the Bible read in the time of our Lord and the Apostles. Many of the quotations from the Old Testament found in the New are from this version; hence the slight textual differences which sometimes appear. There are 275 Old Testament passages quoted in the New Testament, and about forty are from the Septuagint. The Apostle Paul quotes from the earlier Scriptures about one hundred and twenty times.
Another step of about one hundred years and we find that the domination of Babylon, of Persia, and of Greece is a thing of the past, and Palestine finds itself in the power of a more bitter foe than any of these had been. Antiochus Epiphanes (the Illustrious), or some would call him Epimanes (the Madman), is ruler of Syria, and Judea lies at his mercy. He has determined that he will destroy the race of the Jews and banish the name of the God of Israel from the earth. To do so, Antiochus saw that he must first get rid of the "Law of Moses." Perhaps never, either before or since, has the BOOK passed through such an extreme crisis. Copies of it, laboriously written by hand, could be but few. Those who possessed them were weak and their enemies were strong, but God was over all.
We read that "Antiochus went up to Jerusalem with a great multitude and proudly entered into the sanctuary, and took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light, and all the vessels thereof . . . and there was great mourning in Israel. And he commanded the holy place to be profaned . . . and he set up the abominable idol before the altar of God, and cut in pieces and burned with fire the books of the Law of God. And every one with whom the books of the Testament of the Lord was found, and whosoever observed the Law of the Lord, they put to death according to the Edict of the King . . . and there was great wrath upon the people."
Just let us take a glance at one of the dreadful things which were frequently taking place in Jerusalem under the rule of this wicked King. We shall not linger, neither shall we return, for the sight is too appalling to witness. If we were to linger, many such dreadful spectacles of suffering should we encounter. A mother and seven sons are led, bound, before the King, accused of "faithfulness to the law of God." One by one they are scourged, the woman being no exception. Then they are commanded to eat swine’s flesh and sacrifice to idols. When all refuse to obey, the eldest son is first brought forward to the torture. A sharp knife is drawn round his head, cutting in to the bone, and skin and hair are torn from the living scalp. Again he is ordered to sacrifice in order to save his life. Still refusing, his tongue is cut out, part of his hands and feet are chopped off, and, while still alive, he is cast into a red-hot brazen cauldron to be slowly roasted to death.
One by one the heroic little band of witnesses passes through the same dreadful ordeal till only the youngest is left. Then the King promises with an oath that he will make him a rich and happy man if he will only disobey the law and sacrifice to idols. But he, refusing, as the others did, "the King rages against him more cruelly than all the rest." Last of all the woman dies also. "And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection." And Antiochus, what of him?
"The murderer and blasphemer, being grievously struck, died a miserable death, being eaten up of worms, in a strange country" (2Ma 9:1-29). A dark day this indeed for the ancient people of God, but man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, and the very wickedness of the King brought to the front a hero and a man.
Judas Maccabees, the chief of five brethren, was used by God to punish many of the proud oppressors of the land, recover possession of the temple, and restore the worship of Jehovah. The Feast of the Dedication, instituted by Judas in 165 B.C., which we read of in John 10:1-42, was intended to keep in remembrance this great national event. The feast began on the twenty-fifth of the month Chesleu (our December). The nations around them were celebrating the heathen Festival of the Sun. The Jews were joining in praise to Jehovah, the only true God.
Just 196 years afterwards we read, "And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And JESUS walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch" ( John 10:22-23). This brings us to the central point of all the revelation of the ways of God in grace. In the Old Testament we read what men ought to be. In the New we find out what God is, and what God is to men. Two sentences in the first Epistle of John convey to us in the fewest possible words the two grandest truths of Scripture "God is light" and "God is love" (1 John 1:5 and 1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:16). This love has so wrought for His own that every stain of sin that light could detect love has found means to put away. "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." In our next chapter we shall follow the fortunes of the Book during the early Christian centuries.