Scholars now everywhere admit that the copyists made many changes, pieced out fragments, and made additions, interpolations, and meaningless repetitions. It is now generally conceded that the speeches of Elihu, in Job, were interpolated, and most of the prophecies were made by persons whose names even are not known. The manuscripts of the Old Testament were not alike. The Greek version differed from the Hebrew, and there was no generally received text of the Old Testament until after the beginning of the Christian era. Marks and points to denote vowels were in- vented probably in the seventh century after Christ; and whether these marks and points were put in the proper places, is still an open question. The Alex- andrian version, or what is known as the Septuagint, translated by seventy-two learned Jews assisted by 252 miraculous power, about two hundred years before Christ, could not, it is now said, have been translated from the Hebrew text that we now have. This can only be accounted for by supposing that we have a different Hebrew text. The early Christians adopted the Septuagint and were satisfied for a time; but so many errors were found, and so many were scanning every word in search of something to assist their peculiar views, that new versions were produced, and the new versions all differed somewhat from the Septuagint as well as from each other. These ver- sions were mostly in Greek. The first Latin Bible was produced in Africa, and no one has ever found out which Latin manuscript was original. Many were produced, and all differed from each other. These Latin versions were compared with each other and with the Hebrew, and a new Latin version was made in the fifth century, and the old ones held their own for about four hundred years, and no one knows which version was right. Besides, there were Ethi- opie, Egyptian, Armenian and several other ver- sions, all differing from each other as well as from all others. It was not until the fourteenth century that the Bible was translated into German, and not until the fifteenth that Bibles were printed in the principal 253 languages of Europe; and most of these Bibles differed from each other, and gave rise to endless disputes and to almost numberless crimes. No man in the world is learned enough, nor has he time enough, even if he could live a thousand years, to find what books belonged to and consti- tuted the Old Testament. He could not ascertain the authors of the books, nor when they were written, nor what they mean. Until a man has sufficient time to do all this, no one can tell whether he be- lieves the Bible or not. It is sufficient, however, to say that the Old Testament is filled with contradic- tions as to the number of men slain in battle, as to the number of years certain kings reigned, as to the number of a woman's children, as to dates of events, and as to locations of towns and cities.