me doctrines concerning God, the purity of its moral precepts, and
from the wonderful fulfillment of its prophecies." When I read this I
confess I felt a little disappointed. I had understood this before. I
wanted something more specific, material, tangible.

Then follows a lengthy treatise on the Hebrew language, the original
characters in which the Pentateuch was written, without vowels or
punctuation marks; how it was preserved by copying from generation to
generation; how errors crept into various copies; an account of the
Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint; how these all differ the one
from the other in many details; of the ancient manuscripts that are
still extant, and how these all differ more or less from each
other,--not in anything fundamental, but in many minor details; and
finally winds up with the statement that "the original text is
uncertain"!

This was all new to me. I had naturally supposed that not only the
original text was divinely inspired and infallibly correct, but that by
some sort of divine supervision, it had been so preserved and kept down
thru the ages. And now I was not only disappointed, but alarmed. I
wondered what would come next. And I soon learned.

Before this I had never discovered, nor had any one pointed them out to
me, the many discrepancies and contradictions in the early Biblical
records,--the two stories of creation, the two accounts of the flood
that are so intricately woven together, the changes in the law in
Deuteronomy from those in Exodus and Leviticus; and others. My simple,
blind faith had completely obscured all these until now. It is true
the author pointed them out only to explain or reconcile them. But in
practically every instance, the explanation failed to explain, or
reconcile, and was only an apology or an excuse; and I was left with a
clear vision of the discrepancy, and with no adequate explanation. The
differences between some parts of the law, as recorded in Deuteronomy
and in the earlier books, was explained as a "progressive development
according to the changing conditions and needs of the Hebrews." From a
purely human viewpoint, I considered this explanation satisfactory.
But from that of "divine revelation," I wondered why God did not reveal
it correctly at the first; or why he found it necessary to change his
own law.

Concerning the ritual law of the tabernacle and the priesthood, the
author confesses that, in all probability, Moses