# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1857_S258
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

258 Real-Encyclopedia for Protestant Theology and Church.

mere myths; it is now time at last to throw away the fable-book of the Old Testament.

Hitherto all Christendom has believed that the prophets spoke nothing but truth in the Spirit of God; against this Vol. I, p. 649, says: "It is altogether superfluous and can lead to nothing to try to bring the 70 years of the Babylonian captivity, taken as a really historical statement, into harmony with the events; just as afterwards a mysterious sense was sought in the same number, the 70 weeks (Daniel 9)." Accordingly, then, the prophets erred, or knowingly preached untruths, and so were false prophets. Did Prof. Dr. Herzog really not know that the Babylonian captivity lasted from 604 until Cyrus in 534, "full 70 years"?

From "well-tested researches" it has long been known that Christ was announced, born, baptized, crucified, and raised in exactly the same years and on the same days that the prophets foretold, the evangelists attested, and the apostolic churches handed down; that our Christian chronology is correct to the very year and day. Against this Vol. I, p. 162, teaches that "Christ was born 4 to 5 years" (a year more or less does not matter at all to Mr. Herzog) before the birth of Christ; and thus it puts into Mr. Straus's hands a weapon not to be despised for the assertion that the prophets and apostles erred and that the New Testament is a "myth."

Reliable rabbis, Josephus, Philo, the oldest churches and church fathers have handed down that the Jews reckoned by fixed solar months until the destruction of Jerusalem; according to which Christ died on the 19th of March (14 Nisan) and thus transformed the paschal lamb on the lawful day into the Holy Supper. Against this Vol. I, p. 22, teaches that Christ "anticipated" the Passover celebration by one day, and consequently, although made under the law, transgressed it.

It is well known that God is called in Genesis and throughout the Old Testament now Elohim, now Jehovah, only in particular and definite relations. Against this Vol. I, p. 116, teaches that Genesis is patched together out of two documents, the Elohim document and the "later Jehovah document." Indeed, it is said in the same place that the "creation in the day-works is best to be understood as original poetry."

Concerning the authenticity of the Old Testament one may read in Vol. II, p. 237: "Of Balaam's ass let only this be remarked, that — the composition of the passage must belong to a later time, when the historical fact, which remains undisputed, was no longer free of legendary conceptions."

Luther's glorious exposition of the Lord's Prayer is well known. Against this Vol. IV, p. 688, teaches for example that the kingdom in the second petition is "the kingdom which the Lord will set up at His return," that is, chiliasm.