ARTHUR TALBOT. MODERN LIGHT ON CHRISTIANITY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10974, 13 June 1903, Page 6

ARTHUR TALBOT. MODERN LIGHT ON CHRISTIANITY.

; 'V - -. * ! 'Zh>'"**tO THB IDITOR. '

Sit, — My clerical assailant has adopted cuttle-fish tactics. Tacitly admitting that the - critical arguments are .irrefutable, instead of trying to answer them he tries to hide -the real question by raising a cloud of dist about a' side ibsue of no earthly consequence. Even if I had been wrong in naming fifty years as the period during whifch - the change in religious thought had -Ttecome general, it would not have mattered one straw; since the value of an argument does not depend on its date, OT;.the, name of the -man who firßt uses it/But^n-' its soundness. As a matter of fact, however, Baur's works were not translated into English till some years after they ' were written, and a ' further period; 'elapsed before they became so known at Home as to influence religious thtfttgfitl ;!A.' great part of Mr' Compton's letter is based on misprints, owing to your compositor substituting "another" for "similar" and "letter", for title." If Mr Compton will take the trouble to correct these misprints, he will see that he has b&eo. beating tKe'wind; so that I need not ahswer v him» Papias| work could not. po's•ibly' refer ' to "the four Gospels," since the .fragment handed down to us never' mentions .Luke at all; and speaks of the apostle ' John in such a way as to prove clearly that he never wrote the Gospel called by his name. If he had written it, Papias,. whose diocese, was not far from wherje ' t {3t." John is said to. have ( spent the latter' part of his life, would certainly have mentioned the, fact, and would have probabhr Jbeen personally acquainted with the "writer." Again, the passage quoted by Mr Compton proves clearly that Matthew ai|d Mark. only, wrote de'taehell notes, not connected Gospels; and, as I said before, we now havq.si copy pf the actual memoranda of the former, and it does not represent the teaching of Jesus in the same way' as the Gospels do. In them Jesus is represented as attaching little importance to fasting and Sabbath-keep-ing';;y6t the actual document makes Him say that unless a man fasted and kept the' Sabbath' he could not enter the Kingdom of'Hfeaven or see the' Father. The decum'ent, ' in fact, agrees with the view expressed by Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century. The first three Gospels are - anonymous, and the ascriptions of aitthorship in the fourth are pronounced to.*be spurious. The very names of the Gospels indicate their late date. They are.iiotvcnlled -the Gospela of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; but "according" to. those' persons; i.e., according to what was, ages afterwards, reported to have

been their statements.. -Mr Compton cites a passage fr,om't\e'ist Corinthians as"evidence" of 4n% Ildsurrection, but it is not so^- It* merely ,,pr>)ves'-tnd^ the wHtotf-'tbe-licvcd '%h& the Resurrection" liadVetjially tak^ii pfae'e, but docs not in the/least frove thot the evcijt- really -occurred. As said before^'Hr Coi^jptoA not know what evidebce^s. Caft 4 be name -a single one of the 500 '•wW- s »re alleged to have seen Jesus after his resurrection, who, .on oath, or in writing asserted that he' knew Jesus personally before his crucifixion ; that he saw him taken^down from thp Cro3s, and carefully examined him,- -and was perfectly certain that the man was dead, as his body was cold and stiff, without sign- of. breath or pulsation ; lt( arid''thSt he afterwards" Raw this same Jesus alive with the wounds or dears on his person. If Mr Compton can produce such a reliable statement it would be evidence; but nothing short of this could justify the belief that a dead man had actually returned to life ; and, even theil, the question might arise whether the case was riot merely one of trance, an,d not of • actual death.- Such an improbable circumstancte as the Resurrection needs to be supposed by the dearest and most positive evidCTice — not by vague statements that certain persons, long afterwards, believed it to have occurred. Mr- Compton -says I blight to read the New Testament, and judge" it by its" internal evidence,' and the Christian writings of the first fot:r centuries. In my booklet I cited passages from the Testament which showed,- that the jGrospels were of the later 'date vfnicli >tli© ' critics assign to them ;• and I have a ; number of the reputed jvorks of the Christian writers whom he najnes: and they do not, so far as I can recollect, contain a single mention of the Gospels. What people like Mr Compton call "quotations" from them, or "references'"to them are not so. They are- merely phrases and expressions wni(6H would be generally in use among Christians> and so would naturally appear, in both sets of writings: and might just as well be taken lo prove that they were copied into the Gospels from the patriotic writings. In fact, Mr Comnton, like the bulk of the clergy of all denominations, is merely trying to mislead the ignorant and unwary ; nntl objects to tlie naked truth being told to them; for' which purpose, I need not choose between Baur and later writers. The only early Christian document which I know of, as' mentioning a Gospel, is^ the Didatchee,' which speaks,- of one, evidently as. the only one. The Didatchee is generally regarded* as a work of the seebnd century, but some late critics, and notably, Mr J. M. Robertson, regard only, the first • seven sections as being of that date, and the remainder, including the mention of "the Gospel," as a much later If Mr Compton read Mr Robertson's ,book "Christianity and MytholbgVy" he would probably c surprised at the number of passages regarded as interpolated forgeries; and the book was only .published thuee or four years ago ; so that , Mr .Compton's statement that modern criticism sets back the dates of tlie New.- Testament is incorrect. The fact is that early critics did not notice the interpolations, and judged the dates by thorn. Now that the intemolations have been recognised, the dates of the original documents have' been somewhat set back. Mr Compton overlboka the little fact that except Matthew, all 'the reputed Apostles, and eve_n Jesus, himself^ wetoignorarit fisKfermeii and " labourer s, wlip^ were not in the. least likely tp be able to read and write. Good ethical' and moral teaching can be convgyed just as well by fiction' as by actual history, and with equal effect; and I "discriminate," as Archbishop Ranson expressed it. "bfitweon that teaching of, the , Bible and, the fictitious and Exaggerated narrative in "which the teaching is conveyed." i Appreciation- of the teaching in the Bible does not necessitate belief of .its. statements as historical facts. — I am, etc.,