Thus we see that the Old Testament is a _growth_ produced by, and recording the historic development of the Jewish race, nation and religion. It is simply the _literature_ of a people. Its various parts were written by representatives of the people themselves, many of whose names are unknown, at various times covering a period of a thousand years, under many varying conditions and circumstances. It records in part their history, traditions, legends, myths, their beliefs, superstitions, hopes, fears, ideals and aspirations; and the legendary deeds of their national heroes, just as we find them in the literature of ancient Greece, Rome, England or Scandinavia. It contains books of law, ritual, maxims, hymns, poetry, drama, letters, sermons, denunciations, rebukes, warnings, arguments, anecdotes and biography. No literature on earth is more multifarious in its contents. That it contains many contradictions, errors, inconsistencies and incredible statements is nothing to its discredit from this viewpoint of its origin. The wonder is that there are not more. But that it contains only what the various writers of its different parts, at the time they wrote, honestly thought and _believed_ to be true, may be freely admitted without in the least derogating from its true value, or adding supernatural sanctity to it. The Old Testament considered simply as a collection of ancient Jewish literature, reveals to us to-day many of the stages in the national, racial and religious evolution of ancient Israel, just as the literature of any nation or people reveals the same thing concerning them,--no more and no less. Turning now for a moment to the New Testament: Is it the source and authority for Christianity? Or just the reverse? Which was first of the two? That which goes before is the cause of that which comes after,--not the reverse. If Christianity is to be considered as a separate and distinct system of religion, based upon divine authority, the system was finished, full and complete with the resurrection and ascension of Christ--for the argument's sake, admitting these to be facts. Hence Christianity would have existed as a fact just the same, whether a line of the New Testament had ever been written or not. As a matter of fact, not a line of it was written for twenty-five or thirty years after these events, and it was not completed for a hundred years thereafter. Therefore the New Testament did not produce Christianity; nor is it the authority upon which it is based, but just the opposite. Christianity produced the New Testament and is the authority upon which it is based.