Christianity PDF

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But there is another class of evidence relied upon by Chris tians, wherewith they seek to build up an impassable barrier between their sacred books and the dangerous uncanonical Scriptures, namely, the intrinsic difference between them, the dignity of the one, and the puerility of the other.

Of the uncanonical Gospels Dr. Ellicott writes Their real demerits, their mendacities, their absurdities, their coarse ness, the barbarities of their style, and the inconsequence of their narratives, have never been excused or condoned Cambridge Essays, for 1856, p. 153, as quoted in introduction of The Apocryphal Gospels, by B.

H. Cowper, p. X. Ed. We know before we read them that they are weak, silly, and profitless - that they are despic able monuments even of religious fiction (ibid, p.

Xlvii). How far are such harsh expressions consonant with fact?

It is true that many of the tales related are absurd, but are they more absurd than the tales related in the canonical Gospels One story, repeated with variations, runs as follows: This child Jesus, being five years old, was play ing at the crossing of a stream, and he collected the running waters into pools, and immediately made them pure and by his word alone he commanded them. And having made some soft clay, he fashioned out of it twelve sparrows; and 1t was the Sabbath when he did these things. And there were also many other children playing with him. And a certain Jew, seeing what Jesus did, playing on the Sabbath, went immediately and said to Joseph, his father.