What is the Bible?

I take up the Bible, then, and what do I find? I find that really, in the ordinary sense of the word, it is not a book at all, but a collection of books or fragments of books of an extremely composite character. The only unity I find in the volume is the unity that is given to it by its nationality, and by its unbroken reference to a national Deity. In every other respect, it is altogether unlike the production of one mind, saying one thing, and seeking one end. Least of all is it like the production of an infallible and divine authority. To tell the plain truth, it is manifestly the most unequal and the most contradictory volume in the world, whose blemishes are as strongly marked as its beauties, whose deformities are as repulsive as its graces are attractive,—a volume reflecting all the lights and shadows of poor humanity, and not the changeless splendour of the mind of God.