Transcriber's Notes:
Greek words that may not display correctly in all browsers aretransliterated in the text using popups like this:βιβλος.Position your mouse over the line to see the transliteration.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in theoriginal. A few typographical errors have been corrected. They have beenmarked in the text with popups.Hover your mouse over the line to see the correction. A complete list ofcorrections follows the text.
Ellipses match the original. The List of Illustrations was added bythe transcriber. Other notes follow the text.
"He who knows only one religion knows none."—Prof. MaxMuller.
"The same thing which is now called Christian Religion existedamong the Ancients. They have begun to call Christian the truereligion which existed before."—St. Augustine.
"Our love for what is old, our reverence for what our fathersused, makes us keep still in the church, and on the very altarcloths, symbols which would excite the smile of an Oriental,and lead him to wonder why we send missionaries to his land,while cherishing his faith in ours."—James Bonwick.
The idea of publishing the work here presented did not suggest itselfuntil a large portion of the material it contains had been accumulatedfor the private use and personal gratification of the author. Inpursuing the study of the Bible Myths, facts pertaining thereto, in acondensed form, seemed to be greatly needed, and nowhere to be found.Widely scattered through hundreds of ancient and modern volumes, most ofthe contents of this book may indeed be found; but any previous attemptto trace exclusively the myths and legends of the Old and New Testamentto their origin, published as a separate work, is not known to thewriter of this. Many able writers have shown our so-called SacredScriptures to be unhistorical, and have pronounced them largelylegendary, but have there left the matter, evidently aware of the greatextent of the subject lying beyond. As Thomas Scott remarks, in hisEnglish Life of Jesus: "How these narratives (i. e., the NewTestament narratives), unhistorical as they have been shown to be, cameinto existence, it is not our business to explain; and once again, atthe end of the task, as at the beginning and throughout, we mustemphatically disclaim the obligation." To pursue the subject from thepoint at which it is abandoned by this and many other distinguishedwriters, has been the labor of the author of this volume for a number of[Pg iv]years. The re