Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/265



is not possible to prove directly the divine and miraculous character of the Old Testament by showing that God miraculously revealed it to the writers thereof, for we do not know who were the writers of the greater part of the books; and when the authors are known, it is only by their own testimony, which we have no right to assume to be infallible. We have not the faintest direct evidence to show there was anything miraculous in their composition. The indirect evidence may be reduced to two branches:—first that which shows that all the statements of the Old Testament are true, and second that which shows it contains statements of things above human apprehension. From the nature of the case, the former proposition cannot be proved, since many things treated of in the Bible are known to us by that book alone. To say they are true, is to assume the fact at issue. Besides, a true statement is not necessarily miraculous; if it were, the multiplication table of Pythagoras would be a divine and miraculous composition. The latter proposition has also its difficulty. How do we know its statements are above human apprehension? But suppose they are, how do we know they are true? These difficulties are insuperable. To assume the divinity of the Old Testament is quite as absurd as to assume the same for the next book that shall be printed; to declare it miraculous on account of the beautiful piety in some parts of it is as foolish as to make the same claim for the Geometry of Euclid and the Poems of Homer, on account of their great excellence; to admit this claim because made by some of the Jews, is no more wise than to admit the claims of the Zoroastrian