This 181 page book was written for the American Sunday-School Union and revised by the Committee of Publication.
 Volume 3: Embracing the History of the Patriarchs  printed on title page.https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/jhabombergerlib/1007/thumbnail.jp

Union, American Sunday School

Ursinus College

Transcription of handwritten notes in J.H.A. Bomberger’s copy of the book “Union questions; or, Questions on select portions of scripture, from the Old and New Testaments.”[Notes before preface]:Introductory NotesAs we are about taking up the study of the 1st Book of the Bible, some remarks upon the general subject will be proper.I.The importance and interest of studying the sacred record of the origin of our Earth and of the human race. Its interest.  We are personally concerned in the history.Our curiosity is naturally awakened by the observation of things around us.  How natural for children to know whence all they see has come, and how. Its importance.  It is the best method of preventing or correcting erroneous views.  Such have abounded in all countries not blessed with the Bible.  The most absurd theories have been invented:  The eternity of matter; Strange and superstitious traditions; Chinese theory; The doctrine of other Asiatics.  Its importance will further appear in view of the sacred character with which it invests all created things as God’s handiwork.  Its tendency is to lead us to trace everything good and great and excellent to God.  It convinces us of our entire dependence upon God.  It thus lays the basis of all true religion.  For unless God is the Creator – of all – we have no object of worship.  In pursuing this study we shall gain fresh convictions of the reason for which the world were all created.Of all this – now – the Bible gives us the only true and reliable account.  The narrative, indeed, is brief.  But it is sufficient for edification.  What a mercy that when the knowledge of these things was nearly lost, God again revealed the truth.[Notes between p. IV and V of preface]:II.Evidences – proofs of the credibility of the sacred scripture – adapted to children and youth.  What reasons have our [?] scholars for believing the Bible to be the word of God? The fact that they have, for so many thousand years, been received as credible and of divine origin by all good people who have ever become acquainted with them.  This is generally considered to be satisfactory evidence upon all other important subjects. The fact that those who have thus handed them down to us have had the very best opportunity of knowing the truth in the case.  And they have also taken the best pains to inform themselves correctly.  There has been no reason for deception.  The present testimony – and unanimous testimony of Jews and Christians.  Especially the evidence of the Church.  Here are about 200 million intelligent people – including the best and most learned men – constituting that Church which is the best form of human life.  What an array of proof.The moral excellence of the Book.  Internal proofs.  Its lofty character.  The truths it reveals could only be known – and made known by God.  The doctrines it teaches are of the purest and loftiest kind.  The moral code it contains.  How divine its plan of salvation.[Notes between p. VI and p. 7]:III.For us the right study of the O. T. is with a Christian spirit – and in the light of the New Testament.  Why is the one called the O. T.  Why the other is called the N. T.  Both constitute a complete whole. The Christian possesses peculiar advantages for the study of the O. T.  The ancient Jew had less light.  Had the Bible only in part.  At first only the Books of Moses.  (The patriarchs had no Bible at all).  Christians have it entire.  They can compare the several parts. We can, especially, study the O. T. history and prophecies in the light of N. T. fulfillment.  The solution explains the problem.With what joy and gratitude, then, we should address ourselves to this interesting study.Why all are called Pentateuch?Genesis:Genesis means creation, origin.  Hence this name is applied to the first book of Moses.  Its general object may be said to be: to give a history of the origin of all things.  But there was, besides, a special and more important object: viz. to give us a history of the origin and development of the plan of redemption.  Moses was the human author.  This, and the other books bearing his name, were written during the journey through the wilderness.  They date from 1490-50 B.C.  Hence this is the oldest book in the world.  (Elijah a contemporary; Homer lived about 900 B.C.).  Some give an earlier date to the Book of Job – or at least to the incidents recorded in it.Moses wrote under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Thus he was enabled to make a proper use of the various traditions and accounts then existing.  (It was only about 900 years after the flood.  Noah lived 350 years after the flood.  Shem lived 502 years after the flood – i.e. he died 1847 B.C.  Shem was contemporary with Abraham 147 years.  Arphaxad lived from B.C. 2344 – 1906; contemporary of Abraham 94 years.  Salah lived from 2311 – 1878; contemporary of Abraham 122 years.  Eber lived from 2281 – 1817; outlived Abraham).  This shows how easy it would be to perpetuate the leading facts in the early history of the world.The figures refer to the small-type questions.1 – [What is the first book of the Bible called?]  It is placed first because it relates to the origin of all things.  This name was given by the [?].2 – [What is the meaning of the word Genesis?]  Genesis = origin, birth – creation.4 – [What other parts of the Bible were written by Moses?]  Some say the Book of Job also.6 – [From whence did Moses get his knowledge of all these things?]  Partly by tradition.  But he was enabled by the Spirit to discriminate between truth and falsehood.  Many things of course by direct revelation: as the secret purposes of God made known.7- [What is meant here by the beginning?]  The commencement of that period of which the writer is about to write.  The beginning of the present order of things for our world.  It is indeed true, that all things created had their beginning – and had it only in God.  But Moses evidently alludes here to what immediately concerns our Earth.  Thus all things must be traced back to God as the omnificent source.8 – [What is meant by the heaven?]  That which is above the Earth; the blue expanse, which we see studded with stars.  The distinction thus intimated between heaven and earth, symbolic of that between God and man, body and soul, flesh and spirit.  The earth is a vast globe; a star.  It floats in empty space.  Belongs to the solar system.9 – [How many years is it since the beginning of the world?]  1858 is A.M.  13 – [What is the meaning of created?]  To call into existence – produce.  To form and put in order.[Notes between p. 8 and 9]:1 – [What is the meaning of without form?]  The Earth was so; not the heavens.  Here, also, note a symbolical contrast.  The symmetry, order and beauty of the heavens from the first, prove how God could, at the beginning, have set the earth before us.  But as it is presented, it seems to have been subjected to some terribly disturbing process.  Like the ocean after a hurricane.  Like a city after an earthquake.  Did it, perhaps, exist antecedently in an orderly condition?  Was it the earlier abode of the now fallen spirits; who having lost, sought to destroy their inheritance, and who now rove restlessly in the air, under the Prince of the power of the air? (See: Kurtz, Astronomy and the Bible).2 – [What is the meaning of void?]  What transpires between “the beginning” and this period of voidness?  We are not told.  “Void” – desolate, without vegetable or animal life.  Like an empty desert.  Chaos.3 – [What is the face of the deep?]  It was one vast tumultuous sea, enveloped by much dense clouds and vapors as utterly excluded the light which illumined the heavens beyond it.  In this aspect the state of things differed from that in Noah’s flood.  It is no new theory to suppose that this state of things continued for a long period.4 – [How was light created?  Was not this a striking instance of the power of God?]  The nature of light (like that of electricity) is unknown.  It is independent of those luminaries with which it is usually associated.5 – [From what did God divide the light?]  This dividing may have been done by causing the diurnal revolution of the Earth.6 – [What is the firmament understood to be?]  Firmament = expansion, like a plate of gold beaten out.8 – [What is the blue sky that we see?]  How far into it can we see – or what is known to be its height and depth?  The nearest fixed star is 19 trillions of miles.  What an idea of unfathomable immensity.[Notes between p. 10 and 11]:1 – [What were these lights?]  The sun and moon may have existed before, nothing said to the contrary.  The word rendered masle is not the Hebrew for created.  It = constituted.  God now ordered that the Earth’s light should concentrate in the sun and moon.2 – [What are signs?]  For signs in several senses, perhaps: 1. The principal physical means which God shall from time to time employ, to give preternatural tokens.  Thus Psalms 65:8; Luke 21:25; Acts 2:19, 20; 2. As means for indicating the occurrence of certain natural phenomena, as tides, [?] storms, eclipses.  3. As most significant tokens to men of God’s goodness and power.3 – [How do they serve to mark out seasons, and days, and years?]  For “seasons” – by physically effecting the regular revolution of the seasons.  The sun chiefly does this.7 – [Of what use is the sun to us?]  The sun serves: 1. For light, and thus is the means of conveying to the Earth the blessings of light.  By this objects become visible.  Their beauty.  Danger seen.  Intelligence through reading.  Vegetation [?] in light.  [?]  2. For heat.  This operates on vegetable life; on animal life; on the atmosphere; produces wind, evaporation.  3. As the gravitating centre of our system.  It seems to stand there like a mighty giant.  The sun revolves in a very small orbit.  The diameter of the sun is 882,000 miles.  Its bulk is 1,384,472 times greater than the Earth.  Its weight 354, 936 times greater than the Earth.1 – [Of what use is the moon?]  The moon: 1. Influences the tides – the ocean, keeps its waters in purifying agitation.  2. Gives light, reflected, by night.  3. Affects vegetation.  4. The atmosphere influenced by it.  5. A sort of balance wheel to Earth.3 – [What are the stars supposed to be?]  The suns of other systems.  “Made them” = fixed the relation between them and the Earth.4 – [Can you tell anything of the manner in which they move in space?]  They are supposed, altogether, to form a grand system of systems, revolving around one common centre.  Most recent investigations show that this centre is in the star Orion, in the constellation Pleiades.  See Job.6 – [Was God satisfied with this work of his hand?]  Pause here, and reflect upon the exceeding greatness of God’s works.  It reached from the Earth, as our historical central point, in every direction for millions of miles.7 – [What is meant by the moving creature that hath life?]  Creative power now ascends to the production of a higher order of works.  We saw 1st inorganic, or lifeless matter; 2nd animated, organized vegetable matter; now 3rd we see matter in living motion, animal life, and this, as vegetable, in every grade of perfection, from the almost vegetating bug in the seed, to the soaring eagle and prattling sparrow.  “Fowl,” including also flying insects.  “Fowl that may fly.”  Lit. “And let the fowl fly.”  S. 2:19.  The passage merely specifies their respective elements.  They are named together from the similarity of the elements in which they move.[Notes between p. 12 and 13]:1 – [What is meant by the expression, God saw that it was good?]  “Whales,” rather monsters or reptiles.2 – [In what several ways are these creatures useful to man?]  1. By contributing to man’s bodily comfort.  2. By indirectly serving his convenience.  Flies.  [?] animals.  3. By affording scope for intellectual improvement, and religious edification.5 – [Are there many kinds of animals?]  Vertebrates.  1. Mammalia 1500.  2. Birds.  3. Reptiles 1500.  Fishes 8000.  10, 500.  Articulated 54,300.  Inarticulated 28,000.  82,300.6 – [Have they continued to increase and move in the same manner ever since they were first created?]  Flocks of migrating birds – pigeons – numbering hundreds of thousands passing every year.  Locusts.  “Beast” = wild.  “Cattle” = tame.  These preserve their original characteristics.  No beasts have as yet been tamed.9 – [Were there any human beings to inhabit the earth?]  Man the crowning act.  Combines the perfections of all that preceded.  Mere material vegetable and animal life.  To these are added human, spiritual life.10 – [In whose image and likeness?]  “In an image like ourselves.”  Note the special importance attached to the Divine purpose to create man.  “Dominion” = man to be God’s vice-regent on Earth.  Consequently all inferior creatures to be represented before God by man.  Man to be their mediator – their prophet, priest-king.  Through man the creation should praise and worship the Creator.11 – [What is it to have dominion?]  It is not probable that all animals were essentially different in their natures at first from what they are now.  But the temper of even lions, tigers was not so fierce but that the stern eye of man made them quail.1 – [Did the Creator give man a right to abuse the animals, and treat them cruelly?]  It is no abuse to kill what may be needed for food.  Noah was allowed to do this.  Abel slew the firstlings of the flock in sacrifice.  We need, however, to guard against a sickly, one-sided sentimentalism.  Sometimes the owner fares worse than his wretched horse.  And many horses, especially, are pampered, are better cared for than thousands of poor.  Altogether civilization is a blessing to brutes.  Tame horses and cattle are better provided for than wild herds.  As a rule they probably live longer.3 – [Are there then three Gods?]  We know of nothing with which God’s trinity can be fitly compared.  But we have some very simple illustrations of it.  Body – soul – spirit.  4 – [What is meant then by the image and likeness of God in which man was made?]  Mainly two things:  1. His intelligence.  Man possesses conscious knowledge and will.  His rationality.  This covers every sphere of knowledge.  He can know God at first rightly.  Can act accordingly.  Anselm says: “It is the highest duty of a rational being to express that image which God impressed upon him.”  This point of resemblance can never be wholly effaced.  2. Holiness, moral rectitude.  Full moral harmony with God, as God with himself.[Notes between pages 16 and 17]:1 – [From the names of the rivers afterwards mentioned (ver. 10-14), where is this garden supposed to have been?]  Eden locates possibly S.W. Armenia between 33 and 37 N. latitude.  The wonderful adaptation of Eden to man’s temporal wants.2 – [Where did the Lord put the man?  For what purpose did the Lord place him in the garden?]  The goodness of God is thus beautifully providing for man.  But man was not to be idle.  Note: man was not in the garden when first created.  Man’s physical constitution requires exercise.  (How much exercise the instincts of birds and beasts lead them to take above what is needful for procuring food).  This labor nothing painful, but really conducive to comfort.  How quiet and peaceable a life.  What then is the oldest trade?3 – [What permission did God give the man respecting the fruit of the garden?]  How large a grant.  How fully contented man should have been.4 – [Is it known certainly why this tree was called so?]  Yes – with as much certainty as we know most other things.There was nothing so singular in the Serpent speaking to Adam and Eve.  It would not strike them as it does us.  For ought they knew of the nature of language, animals might speak.  To them, therefore, it wore the appearance of a perfectly natural phenomenon.

Union Questions, on Select Portions of Scripture From the Old and New Testaments

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