ABOUT THE HOLY BIBLE
A Lecture
By Robert G. Ingersoll
"In the nature of things there can be no evidence to establish the claim of Inspiration."
1894.
Contents
II. IS THE OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRED?
VIII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRIST
X. WHY SHOULD WE PLACE CHRIST AT THE TOP AND SUMMIT OF THE HUMAN RACE?
ABOUT THE HOLY BIBLE.
THERE are many millions of people who believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God—millions who think that this book is staff and guide, counselor and consoler; that it fills the present with peace and the future with hope—millions who believe that it is the fountain of law, justice and mercy, and that to its wise and benign teachings the world is indebted for its liberty, wealth and civilization—millions who imagine that this book is a revelation from the wisdom and love of God to the brain and heart of man—millions who regard this book as a torch that conquers the darkness of death, and pours its radiance on another world—a world without a tear. They forget its ignorance and savagery, its hatred of liberty, its religious persecution; they remember heaven, but they forget the dungeon of eternal pain.
I. THE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE.
A FEW wandering families—poor, wretched; without education, art or power; descendants of those who had been enslaved for four hundred years; ignorant as the inhabitants of Central Africa—had just escaped from their masters to the desert of Sinai.
Their leader was Moses, a man who had been raised in the family of Phar