An historian must assume that truth is sometimes told. He must, assuming that, argue from probabilities, and, keeping in view the social forces operating in his own time, ask himself what was likely to have occurred in the past. This is what we see done. There are histories of England, of Australia, of the Jews. Now the books of the Bible that relate history are few. And unless we are to believe that all the events recorded as historical are absolutely true, the history books do not seem to me of a very high order. There is a want of philosophical grasp and outlook. In many cases they are dry chronicles of kings and war, and of the efforts of priests and prophets. They lack all the most interesting parts of history the record of the rise and development of the morals, the intelligence, the industry, and the wealth of the nation. But, as it happens, it is only of late that it has been recognised that true history is not wholly concerned about kings and battles.
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The Bible was not written all at once. With it, as with other things, we behold a growth. It partakes, therefore, of the nature of other works. We do not find anything has happened like the fabled Minerva. Wisdom does not come all at once. The history of the Bible shows that it was only bit by bit compiled, and its history is the history of everything around us.
Quotation from: Address delivered by Robert Stout at the opening of the 1880 session of the Freethought Association.[Dunedin, New Zealand]
Otago Daily Times 21 February 1880