Am currently reading this book. Would like to share
some excerpts from same.
Take note Mr. Gladden is objective in his wrting.
See Wikipedia for Gladden bio.
EXCERPTS, printed by Waking Lion Press
THE aim of this volume is to put into compact
and popular form, for the benefit of intelligent
readers, the principal facts upon which scholars
are now generally agreed concerning the literary
history of the Bible. The doctrines taught in
the Bible will not be discussed ; its claims to a
supernatural origin will not be the principal mat
ter of inquiry ; the book will concern itself chiefly
with those purely natural and human agencies
which have been employed in writing, transcrib
ing, editing, preserving, transmitting, translating,
and publishing the Bible.
The writer of this book has no difficulty in be
lieving that the Bible contains supernatural ele
ments. He is ready to affirm that other than
natural forces have been employed in producing
it. It is to these superhuman elements in it that
reference and appeal are most frequently made.But the Bible has a natural history also.
It was written as other books are writ-
ten, and it was preserved and transmitted as
other books are preserved and transmitted. It
did not come into being in any such marvelous
way as that in which Joseph Smith's; Book of
Mormon...Concerning the books of the Bible no such aston-
ishing stories are told. Nevertheless some good
people seem inclined to think that if such stories
are not told, they might well be ; they imagine
that the Bible must have originated in a manner
purely miraculous ; and though they know very
little about its origin, they conceive of it as a book
that was written in heaven in the English tongue,
divided there into chapters and verses, with head
lines and reference marks, printed in small pica,
bound in calf, and sent down to earth by angels
in its present form. What I desire to show is,
that the work of putting the Bible into its pres-
ent form was not done in heaven, but on earth ;
that it was not done by angels, but by men ; that
it was not done all at once, but a little at a time,
the work of preparing and perfecting it extending
over several centuries, and employing the labors
of many men in different lands and long-divided
generations. And this history of the Bible as a
book, and of the natural and human agencies em-
ployed in producing it, will prove, I trust, of much
interest to those who care to study it......pg. 2-3