are. Many people imagine that there is only _one_ Greek and
Hebrew Bible, and that that one was written by Moses and the prophets,
and by the evangelists and the apostles. But this is not the case.
There are _several_ Greek and Hebrew Bibles, and all of them are the
compilations of fallible men. We have several Hebrew Old Testaments,
and quite a number of Greek New Testaments, all compiled by different
persons, but drawn, to some extent, from different sources. It should
be understood, that the oldest Greek and Hebrew Bibles are not printed
books, but written ones. They were written before the art of printing
was known among Jews or Christians. Those written or manuscript Bibles
are more numerous than the Greek and Hebrew printed Bibles. They are the
work of different men, in different countries, and different ages. And
no two of them are alike. They differ from each other almost endlessly.
Some contain more, some less. Some have passages in one form, others
have them in other forms. John Mills compared a number of those
manuscripts of the New Testament, and found that they differed from each
other in thirty thousand places. He marked and collated thirty thousand
various readings. Other men have compared the Greek manuscripts of the
New Testament, and discovered upwards of a hundred thousand various
readings--a hundred thousand places or particulars in which they differ
from each other. A similar diversity of readings is to be found in the
Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testaments. Now it is from these imperfect
and discordant manuscripts that men have to make their Greek and Hebrew
Bibles. They have nothing else from which to make them. And those Greek
and Hebrew Bible makers have no means of knowing which of the various
and contradictory manuscripts are the best.... You must understand
that the original writings from which the manuscripts now in existence
originated, have perished many ages ago. It is probable that the last of
them perished more than sixteen hundred years ago. We have, therefore,
no opportunity of comparing existing manuscripts with the original
writings, in order to and out which are the true, the original readings.
The discordant and contradictory manuscripts, therefore, can never be
corrected.... It is not only of the common English Bible, therefore,
that the words of the resolution are true, but of every Bible known,
whether printed or written, whether in Greek and Hebrew, or in modern
languages."