rpolations as these, what may they have
done when no one had thought of a canon; when oral tradition
still unfixed, was regarded as more valuable than such
written records as may have existed in the latter portion
of the first century? Or, to take the other alternative,
if those who gradually settled the canon did not know of
the oldest codices which have come down to us; or, if knowing
them, they rejected their authority, what is to be thought
of their competency as critics of the text?

Since alterations have been made in the text of Scripture we can never
be certain that any particular text is genuine, and this circumstance
militates seriously against the value of the evidence for the
Resurrection.

CHRISTIANITY BEFORE CHRIST

If the story of Christ's life were true, we should not expect to
find that nearly all the principal events of that life had previously
happened in the lives of some earlier god or gods, long since
acknowledged to be mythical.

If the Gospel record were the _only_ record of a god coming upon earth,
of a god born of a virgin, of a god slain by men, that record would seem
to us more plausible than it will seem if we discover proof that other
and earlier gods have been fabled to have come on earth, to have been
born of virgins, to have lived and taught on earth, and to have been
slain by men.

Because, if the events related in the life of Christ have been
previously related as parts of the lives of earlier mythical gods, we
find ourselves confronted by the possibilities that what is mythical
in one narrative may be mythical in another; that if one god is a myth
another god may be a myth; that if 400,000,000 of Buddhists have been
deluded, 200,000,000 of Christians may be deluded; that if the events
of Christ's life were alleged to have happened before to another person,
they may have been adopted from the older story, and made features of
the new.

If Christ was God--the omnipotent, eternal, and _only_ God--come on
earth, He would not be likely to repeat acts, to re-act the adventures
of earlier and spurious gods; nor would His divine teachings be mere
shreds and patches made up of quotations, paraphrases, and repetitions
of earlier teachings, uttered by mere mortals, or mere myths.

What are we to think, then when we find that there are hardly any events
in the life of Christ which were not, before His birth, attributed to
mythical gods; t