If the Bible had originally consisted of authentic and credible documents its credibility would have been greatly impaired by these wholesale corruptions of the transcribers and translators. But if we had the originals, it is doubtful whether their credibility would be much greater than these distorted copies. Enough remains to show the general character of them, and this is bad. They consist mostly of historical and biographical narratives, interwoven with legends, myths, and fables; crude poetical compositions; the ravings of diseased religious minds, called prophecies and revelations; and theological dissertations, no two of which agree in their doctrines. A few of the books possess genuine merit and deserve a place among the literary treasures of the world, but all of them are fallible. Remarkable, as coming from a theological professor, but fraught with truth and confirmatory of the statements made in this chapter, are these words of Professor Steele: "Evidently every letter of the English Bible has not been miraculously watched over. He who has neither eyes nor conscience may affirm it, but persons provided with these can not. If the affirmer hedges by saying he did not refer to translations but to the 'original,' we note that (1) translations are the only thing most people have to go to heaven on; and (2) that scholars of truth and conscience find equally as much fault with the 'original.'" "There are hundreds, if not thousands, of places in which the scholar finds conflicting testimony." In discussing the credibility of the Bible the question of authenticity will, for the most part, be waived. With Christians all of its books are genuine--the writings of those to whom they are ascribed--and for the sake of argument, as well as convenience, these ascribed authors will be recognized. CHAPTER XIII. TWO COSMOGONIES OF GENESIS. A stereotyped claim of Bible believers is this: "The account of creation given in Genesis is in harmony with the accepted teachings of science." But which account? In the opening chapters of Genesis are presented two ancient poems, written by different authors. The first comprises the first chapter and the first three verses of the second chapter; the second comprises the remainder of the second chapter. Each poem contains a cosmogony. But neither of them agrees with the demonstrated truths of science. Above all, they do not agree with each other. The points of disagreement are many, chief of which are the following: 1. In the first cosmogony the appellation of Deity is uniformly "Elohim" (the gods), translated "God." This term occurs thirty-five times. In the second, the appellation of Deity is uniformly "Jehovah (Yahweh) Elohim," translated "Lord God." This term occurs eleven times. The first belongs to the Priestly code, the second to the Jehovistic document. They represent different schools of Jewish thought and different periods of Jewish history. 2.