PART II

OF WHICH THE AIM IS TO SET FORTH THE PRINCIPAL DOCTRINES OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, AND TO SHOW THAT THEIR TEACHING IS IN CONFORMITY WITH THE CRITERIA OF THE TRUE REVELATION AS STATED IN THE INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I

A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE MAIN CONTENTS OF THE BIBLE

THE Bible consists of two parts, the Old Testament and the New. The former is often called the Torah and the latter the Injil, because the Law of Moses and the Gospel are the first books in these two volumes respectively.

It has been already stated¹ that the Jews divide the Old Testament into three main parts, the Law (Torah), the Prophets, and the Books (الّصُحُف). This third portion used more anciently to be called the Psalms (الزْبُور), because it begins with the Psalms. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, except a few chapters which are in Aramaic. The original language of the New Testament is Greek. The Jews have most carefully preserved the Old Testament in its original languages up to our own days. The Christians have accepted the Old Testament from the hands of the Jews on the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.² Our Canon of the Books of the Old

Testament is exactly the same as that of the Jews in Palestine was in Christ's time and is still in all lands.

The Old Testament contains the Divine Revelation which was written down by Prophets and other Divinely commissioned men before the coming of Christ. In most cases the various books bear their writers' names, but in some these are known only by tradition. Yet the fact that our Lord Jesus confirmed these books, as the Qur'an also states,¹ justifies us in accepting them on His authority. In ancient times the Old Testament was divided into twenty-two books,² corresponding with the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Having separated the Book of Ruth from Judges and the Lamentations of Jeremiah from his prophecies, the Jews now often count twenty-four Books. It is more usual to divide Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, into two books each, and the twelve Minor Prophets are counted as twelve books, and not as one. Hence we now number thirty-nine books in the Old Testament instead of twenty-two. Yet this does not imply any addition to the Sacred Text, as the ignorant might imagine.

The Torah of Moses consists of five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. These relate the history of the creation of the world and of man, and tell us how Adam, the Father of Mankind, disobeyed God, and thereby fell into sin and incurred death, but that the Most Merciful God then promised to send into the world a Saviour born of the seed of the woman (Gen. iii. 15). When men sank deeper into sin and were guilty of all kinds of cruelty, God sent the Flood upon the earth to destroy all mankind except Noah and his family. After the Flood, all the nations which sprang from Noah gradually fell away from the worship of the True God. But from among all men God selected one, Abraham, who worshipped the True and Only God. Because of his faith Abraham, the Friend of God, obtained the promise³ that the