Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon.

  • Nott, Josiah C. (Josiah Clark), 1804-1873.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    680/800 (page 624)
    “ That the Hebrew Text of the Bible, tried and condemned by the Holy Tribunal, burned as an act of faith at Seville, and in the Square of St. Stephen at Salamanca, proscribed during the sixteenth century, prohibited in the pulpits of Catholic preachers, declared dangerous, infected with Judaism, and causing those Christians who read it to Judaize likewise, finds itself—owing to this solemn condemnation from which it cannot be purged save through the adoption of a new translation — finds itself, I repeat, does this Text, to have lost the character and authority that, in the spirit of Christianity, the Fathers [only Origen and Jerome] attributed to it. One may, therefore, after all, study this Text in a new point of view, purely philosophical and philologic; and seek in it a new interpretation, without being scared at the sense which such interpretation may produce. The anathema with which it has been stricken has abandoned it to criticism and to the investigations of the world; tradidit disputalione: its testimony is no longer anything but mere human testi- mony, liable to error like all things that proceed from man.” (199) Conceding his premises, and allowing for his peculiarly catholic point of view, the deduc- tion is logical; but they who deny Papal infallibility may continue to reverence the Hebrew Text just as if excommunication had never been pronounced upon it; notwithstanding the avowal of those manifold corruptions which, owing to these Inquisitorial holocausts of ancient manuscripts, it seems now humanly impossible to expunge. To persecutions and to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, after 1491, the extinction of the most precious Hebrew exemplars may be, in part, attributed; for Muslim intolerance had never know- ingly laid the hand of sacrilege upon documents which Christian charity has for ever destroyed. (200) Mohammed had built up his Kur'dn upon the monotheistic foundations of Moses; (201) and his faithful disciples have been always too consistent, whatever barbarities they may have inflicted upon the Jews, to injure that chosen people’s sacred books, and thereby stultify themselves. With reference to textual corruptions, says Ken- nicott (202 : — “ Hoec denique sunt verba eruditissimi Trofessoris J. A. Starck — ‘ cum negari prorsus nequeat (si quidem luminibus uti, et antiquos libros ab omnibus praejudicatis opinionibus liberi inter se conferre velimus) multa et ingentia <q&aA/iara inisse sacris libris; qualia sunt, gravissimi in chronologicis errores; in liistoricis manifest® contradictiones; numerorum exaggerationes ; literarum, nominarum, sententiarum, omissiones, additiones, transposi- tiones: quaestio jure orietur — Unde tot tamque graves immutationes originem suam ha- beant? Et si gravissimis argumentis, quibus solis permota ita sentio, tides babenda est; prorsus omni caret dubio, Judseorum imprimis fallaciam et malevolam mentem accusandam esse, post librariorum inertiam et negligentiam.’ ” To avoid mistakes we have given the Latin text, and now offer its straightforward signi- fication in English: — “ Since it cannot altogether be denied (if indeed we free ourselves from all prejudiced opinions, and wish to compare ancient books with each other and to avail ourselves of the instructions of the learned,) that many and enormous oil>a\paTa [lapsi, mistakes] exist in the sacred books; such as, most, grave errors in chronological (matters); manifest contra- dictions in historical; exaggerations in numbers; omissions, additions, transpositions of letters, of names, of sentences:—the question will naturally arise. Whence have such and so many serious mutations their origin ? And if faith is to be placed in most weighty arguments, by which alone I am influenced, every doubt is altogether wanting, (that) first one must accuse the fallacious and malevolent mind of the Jews, (and) afterwards the inertness and negligence of librarians.” Such are the published facts. Yet one marvels at the ways of theology: on seeing the Rev. Prof. Stuart skip nimbly over that “immense desert” with his “gun, man, and dog,” [Arina virumqve cano,) and the ddgagS air of a juvenile Nimrod, without finding “game enough to be worth the hunting;” and then asserting with equal frivolity, that the Jewish “ Bible has remained inviolate ” ! How can the unlettered distinguish truth from error, when their Teachers mystify the plainest results that scholarship the most exalted, hon- esty the most unbending, and science the most profound, have striven to make public to ali men for the last hundred years ? (199) Lacour : Op. tit.; i. p. 33. (200) Sismondi, not now before me, gives many other examples of literary destructions in Italy, Portugal, and Spain. (201) Compare Lane: Selections; pp. 183-225, 270, 271. 1202) Op. til.; p. 33; note to g 76.