The appeal of the Bible to-day

Front matter

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Part II. New Testament Selections

Selected by Dr. THISELTON Mark.

Each volume, Cloth, 2/6 and 3/6 net. (See de/ow.) Published by THE PILGRIM PRESS.

(3) For Younger Children of 9 to 10 years of age. THE BIBLE FOR CHILDREN

Selections from the Old and New Testaments. Selected by Dr. THISELTON Mark.

With Pictures and Maps, 2/6 net ; with additional Pictures, 3/6 net.

Published by THE PILGRIM PREss.

OF ALL BOOKSELLERS

‘‘ There are certain possessions of ours, certain heirlooms, that we must accept from the past, or perish.” ALFRED NOYES.

*“ Nor is it at all incredible that a book, which has been so long in the possession of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undiscovered.” BISHOP BUTLER.

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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library

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APPEAL OF THE BIBLE. 30 TO-DAY

| BY

THISELTON ‘MARK, D.Lir., B.Sc.

(HONORARY LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER) EDITOR OF ‘‘THE BIBLE FOR CHILDREN” AND THE YOUNG PEOPLE’S BIBLE; AUTHOR OF ‘*STUDIES IN RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE,”

ETC.

‘© And the Voice went forth throughout the world... and each one heard it according to his capacity.”

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE PRESS OF THE PUBLISHERS

TO THE

RIGHT REVEREND DR. CHARLES GORE

(LATE BISHOP OF OXFORD)

WHOSE FORECAST OF THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO IS FINDING INCREASING FULFILMENT THAT

**it was with the more conservative among the recent critics, and not with the more extreme, that the victory would lie.’

vii

Foreword

By THE DEAN OF MANCHESTER (Late Editor of Zhe J/nterpreter)

I HAVE read this book with great appreciation. It is clear and concise, and yet clothed; it is no mere skeleton, though its range is so wide. It is just such a measured, succinct statement, luminous and picturesque withal, as we have long needed. It is precisely the kind of book I have often craved for, when asked by intelligent laymen what literature I could recommend on the subject. It does not assume too much.

The section on the group at Rome is suggestive. ‘There is hypothesis about it—but many facts are converging to show that it is a happy hypothesis: I fancy we are destined to hear more about it.

As I have already said in an anticipatory editorial Note in The Interpreter, after twice reading the greater part of the manuscript, it is long since I have seen so useful a book on the Bible written from the modern point of view to place in the hands of the average educated man. Its author brings a fine range of reading and a singular capacity for discrimination, coupled with powers of clear presentation and pleasant diction, to the completion of his task.

HEWLETT JOHNSON.

PRINCIPAL SELBIE, Of Mansfield College, Oxford, writes : “You have written an exceedingly useful and timely book. It seems to me to combine criticism with construction in just the right proportions, and it should be a very real help in the many perplexities which people are feeling just now. I hope it will have a large circulation.”

Preface

THE purpose of this little book is twofold. First, to show how largely the Bible speaks for itself, and on all the larger issues is its own interpreter; secondly, to show how well the Bible bears the fullest and clearest light that can be thrown upon it. New interpretations do not do away with the old values.

The book is a sequel to lectures given for several years to University students of education and others, and to University Extension audiences. A section on the ‘“‘ Progressiveness of the Law” appeared in Zhe Jnterpreter for April 1924.

The treatment is entirely popular. Yet, so far as the limitations of space permit, no difficulty is consciously shelved. The writer’s aim is to present with entire frankness, and in - purely untechnical language, the appeal of the Bible to the general reader to-day. Opinion is shown in the making, rather than recorded as made. A few points of detailed scholarship are dealt with in the notes, in the hope that for some readers what is written may serve as finger-posts, pointing the way of further study. In this way much important material is carried forward into note and appendix. The chronologies are made to serve to some extent the purposes of an Index; the Topical Index at the end being correspondingly shorter.

The author expresses sincere acknowledgments to the Dean of Manchester, Dr. Hewlett Johnson, by whose suggestions (based on a commanding knowledge of the literature of the subject, after editing for twenty years a theological quarterly) he has been greatly helped; to Principal Selbie, for kindly reading the proofs, and for the hospitality of Mansfield ix x PREFACE

College and Library during a period of special study at Oxford ; to Professor Peake and Dr. Grieve for valued suggestions; and to Dr. Rendel Harris of Rylands Library, as well as to heads of departments in the University of Manchester and in associated theological Colleges, for expert opinion on points of detail. To correspondence with Professor Burkitt and to the great helpfulness of his studies of the earliest Gospel sources, as also to holiday conversations with Professor

Duff, the writer is under obligation.

THISELTON Mark.

THE UNIVERSITY, MANCHESTER, April, 1925.

Contents

I. THE PLACE OF THE BIBLE IN THE THOUGHT OF To-Day: INTRODUCTORY

The Bible, unmoved by the growth of knowledge, gaining by research—The Bible, the friend of man’s advance,

II. A PROGRESSIVE LITERATURE . : . A

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTORY The Place of the Bible in the Thought of To-day

“We think of the Bible as a book that was inspired. But the wonder of the Bible is that it zs inspired. From the fardistant heights of time it comes sweeping into the hearts of men to-day.” Canon Dyson HacueE (of Toronto).?

““The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.”

WILLIAM H. SzEwarp.?

I. For the many who know that new light has been thrown upon the Bible by recent scholarship, but do not as yet know how reverent is the scholarship or how helpful is the new light in the reading and teaching of Scripture, this little book is written.

This is not to say that Biblical criticism has not at times been so severe as to appear well-nigh destructive. But to-day criticism is realising more nearly than ever before Matthew Arnold’s ideal: ‘‘ Its business is simply to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and, by in its turn making this known, to create a current of fresh and true ideas.” This in itself explains the widespread readiness to give the new light welcome.

The Bible has been aptly compared to one of our great English cathedrals, and historical criticism to the architect who, ‘‘ without disturbing a single stone, examines the pile and discovers the various styles of art and the various periods of time that it represents. . . . The cathedral is one, and the various parts blend. ... Yet the sharply differing styles inform us as plainly as by a handwriting on the wall concerning the different periods at which its several parts were built.”"5 To those who feel that in accepting this help they are wrenching themselves away from their old moorings, and who are tempted to ask, “What then is left?’ there is but one answer: “ We possess the same Bible word for word; the same Bible with the difficulties, many of which we have been quietly slurring over, or timorously skipping, now not skipped or. slurred over, but included and in many instances explained.”

By realising the setting of the various books of the Bible in the past, and taking them in their primary significance, we are at the same time bringing them into touch with the present and discovering their abiding significance. All we need to do is to let the Bible stand clear; to come toit with minds free from foregone conclusions, and to let it shine by its own light.

II. Much has been written regarding the conflict of science and religion, science and the Bible. The net result, especially in view of the modern reading of the Bible, is to show how wide of the mark is the idea of there being any conflict at all. For whilst science is ever more and more fully revealing the wonder of the universe, wonder is itself the mainspring of religion. When we read of suns being discovered, from which the light rays which now fall upon the telescope have been five thousand years on the way, though travelling at the flashing speed of eleven million miles a minute, the vastness of the universe moves the mind to awe. And if, in describing this vastness of space, we have to multiply millions by millions, we have, on the other hand, to divide the atom, which a few years ago was accounted indivisible, by millions of millions before (2,628)

THE FRIEND OF MAN’S ADVANCE 3 we reach the smallest thing at present known. In this marvellous way we arrive at units of energy or matter or electricity—the ultimate something out of which, physically speaking, everything is made.* Yet the Bible, rightly read, is nowhere put out of countenance by the most modern thought in these and other directions. More truly it might be said that by maintaining man’s power to wonder, the deep reservoir of his assimilating power, the Bible holds open the way for the growth of knowledge. The first condition of continuing progress is that we shall wonder as well as learn. And for this the whole spirit of the Bible as a literature stands. It is one of its chief functions, to keep alive the flame that feeds the flame. Intellect alone, as the decay of civilisations shows, burns itself out. Materialism swamps the very being who vaunts himself upon material progress. Let us recall this truth that where inspirations fail the mind wearies in its quest : let us read the story which exploration is unfolding of “ buried civilisations ’’ ; and then ask, What is to prevent our own civilisation from being buried too? And there is but one answer: Keep my commandments and live. . . Wisdom 1s the principal thing. . . . Exalt her, and she shall promote thee. . . . She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her. ‘This is the message of psalm and proverb and prophecy. It is the meaning of the whole Life and Ministry of Him who said: ‘‘ I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”’ The Bible is the friend of man’s advance. Progress and discovery do not becloud with any uncertainty our reading of its pages. Supposing, though it is well-nigh inconceivable, some one in his laboratory at last succeeds in preparing the conditions under which dead matter becomes living ! This will no more dispel man’s wonder, or disprove God, than did the discovery that the earth moves round the sun, or that the atom is divisible. Science is neither wonder-dispelling, nor is it atheistic. By tracking out the paths of the Universal Energy in building up the ordered (2,628) 2 universe, it no more undoes the spiritual marvel than to see an artist at work upon his canvas detracts from the wonder of his masterpieces. Nature alters not with the progress of research and man’s new discoveries of her laws. Nor does the Bible move from its place with the movements of our knowledge.

III. It is by its possession of one essential quality that the Bible holds its place unmoved in the presence of the movements of modern thought. It has elasticity. Because, speaking in a general way, it keeps to its own high themes, the Bible has the capacity of adapting itself to man’s evervarying point of view. —

(a) So far as the details of science are concerned, the Bible stands aloof. Supposing, for instance, the first chapter in Genesis had, by some miracle, addressed its earliest readers in the language of the theory of evolution. It would not have lived two generations. For critical purposes, the contents of that chapter have no more to do with science than a resplendent sunset has to do with the electric lighting of our streets. De Quincey even argued that, if the Bible had taught man any of the arts or sciences, “ capital doubts ’’ would have arisen in our minds regarding its authority.? It would have been abandoning a Divine mission for a human; and would have “intercepted ’’ problems, the solution of which is for man’s intellectual benefit. Moreover, may it not be asked, what science should we expect the Bible to teach ? The science of the nineteenth century, or of the twentieth, or of a thousand years hence ?

(0) Historical research and study of languages, so far from unsettling, have tended to establish the place of the Bible in modern thought. Invaluable aid in the understanding of its contents has come to us through the remarkable progress in our knowledge of Bible lands and Eastern languages within the last hundred years. Dead languages, brought back to life, speak to us on matters of Bible lore. Buried civilisations have been given a voice, and throw

FRESH LIGHT FROM RECENT SCHOLARSHIP 5 light on Bible story. The varied and romantic history of research during the last seventy or eighty years has given fresh impetus and fullness to the study of text and context ; of literary style and methods ; of purpose in writing; of order of writing; and of the actual character of the literature embodied in the various “ books.” The way has been thrown open, also, as never before, to the study of other religions and of their influence on Hebrew thought and belief ; to the study of ancient life and customs in the East generally, and in Palestine, Egypt, and Babylonia especially —all, from first to last, contributing their quota to the completeness and accuracy of our knowledge and understanding of the Bible.

(c) In matters of detail, emendations of text and translation distinguish, say, the Revised Version from the Authorised Version. As a sufficiently striking example, we may take Isaiah Ix. 3, where the 1611 translation— “not increased the joy ”—which brought a contradictory note into the passage, is changed by the Revisers to “increased to it the joy.’ The explanation is that (using the nearest equivalents in our alphabet) LO means “ not,”’ and L’O means “ to it,” and that the latter is the true reading.®

IV. In these differing ways the Bible is found to be capable of interpretation and re-interpretation. Indeed it illustrates convincingly the progressiveness which we shall see in the next chapter to be one of its characteristic features as a literature, that the Bible does not hesitate to criticise itself. There is criticism of the Old Testament in the Old Testament; criticism of the Old Testament in the New ; criticism of the New Testament in the New Testament.

We find in the Old Testament many examples of revisions by later writers, and of the substituting of new views for old. One illustration may be given here. In Exodus xx. 24, not merely permission but instruction is given to carry on the great patriarchal tradition of altar-building. This

Exodus instruction is found in one of the earliest of the writings of which any extensive use can be traced in the Bible. But in Deuteronomy xi. 4-7 and 13-14, a later writing embodying later teaching, the practice is forbidden. An idolatrous use of heathen altars had evidently crept in under cover of the earlier command (verses 2 and 3). In future, altars were not to be built to Jehovah; there was to be one centre only for altar-worship.

New points of view in the New Testament, as compared with the Old, will be seen as we proceed.

The criticism of the New Testament within its own covers lies less on the surface. But it is practically certain that St. Mark’s Gospel, though the first to be written, was little used, being for some time scarcely acknowledged as an Official Gospel. St. Matthew, though largely based upon St. Mark, was used, rather than it, for reading in public worship. Probably it was felt that St. Mark did not do justice to the Ministry of Christ as a whole, in that it omitted so much of His teachings. Or, the preference may have arisen on more general grounds. A modern writer says: “‘ Till our eyes become accustomed to the atmosphere, it is difficult to recognise the conventional Saviour, with the gentle unindividualised face, in the stormy and mysterious Personage portrayed by the second Gospel.’ ® [A point in favour of this portraiture, as will be shown later.] St. Luke’s preface (I. I-4), again, has been read by some as denoting a want of complete satisfaction with earlier narratives. And practically all agree that St. John was written as a supplementary Gospel, to make clear certain great essentials, which, though implied, were not made prominent in the first three Gospels.

V. Yet, neither when the Bible is read in the light of recent knowledge, nor when its text and literature are studied, nor by its self-criticism, is its message impaired or its influence weakened. ‘“ The doubtful matters are things immaterial, like the débris of the mine, while the precious ore gleams and sparkles in every boulder.”’ 1°

THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE 1)

VI. After having been almost eclipsed during the Middle Ages between mysticism, on one hand, and, on the other hand, a Church tradition which culminated in the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope, the Bible was again brought to light by the Reformation. ‘‘ By degrees,’”’ as Westcott says, ‘““men began to attribute to the Bible the same mechanical infallibility which the Romanists had claimed for the Church.’”’ But inspiration does not imply infallibility. It is gain, not loss, to give up this comparatively recent doctrine of the word-for-word infallibility of the Scriptures, in order to win back our hold upon the abiding reality of their Inspiration.

Of the Inspiration of the Scriptures there can be no question. Had not Israel’s prophets proclaimed their visions, Israel’s lawgivers their laws, and Israel’s thinkers their thoughts, the world would have lost, outside of Christianity, its highest exemplars, the literature and art of the world their master-influence. Of the earliest of the writer-prophets of the Bible, Amos, it has been said that he was the pioneer of a process of evolution from which a new epoch of humanity dates: of the Book of Psalms—that it contains the whole music of the heart of man, swept by the hand of his Maker. ‘‘ Sunrise and sunset, birth and death, promise and fulfilment—the whole drama of humanity ”’ are here. So long as the world owes its best life,* its highest thought, its noblest visions, its purest utterances, whether in language or music or art, to the Bible, there can be no doubt concerning its Inspiration. Turning expressly to the New Testament, we find in the few pages of St. Matthew what has been spoken of as the most influential book ever written; St. Luke has been described as the most beautiful. St. Mark is, for its size, the most picturesque and arresting piece of writing ever penned; St#. John the most comforting and the most

* So Huxley—‘“‘ For three centuries this book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history.”—Critiques and Addresses, page 51.

revealing. Is there any doubt that the Bible is inspired, when human story is transfigured by its teaching, human nature transformed by its touch? It is a book in which the Unseen is visioned from the plane of the seen ; which casts the light of the Eternal upon the affairs of time ; a book which moves men; and is “re-inspired”’ again and again wherever it is read.

The aim of the following chapters is very briefly to study the Bible from its own point of view, to the better understanding of which we are helped by the thought and knowledge of to-day: noting, incidentally in treatment but centrally in fact, the pre-eminence of the Bible as a world-literature and its sustained, if not indeed enriched, personal and devotional appeal.

CHAPTER Il

A Progressive Literature

“‘ God shows all things in the slow victory of their ripening.’ DEAN FARRAR.”

THE Bible is something more than a single book. It is a collection of books of various dates; a literature, or, as is often said, a library. We expect a single book to maintain the same point of view throughout. But a library, even of books on the same subject, naturally presents different points of view. When its writings cover, as in the case of the Old and New Testaments, some forty or fifty generations, and contain a story of promise and fulfilment, of emerging ideals and splendid realisations, progressiveness will naturally be one of its characteristics.

The very groundwork of the Old Testament revelation is in a nation’s history, and in individual experience as part of that history. The unity of the Bible, therefore, is a historical unity ; a unity of growth, of progress. “It is the unity of a definite journey towards a definite goal in which the lower stages are gradually left behind.” ®

We are now to note some of the signs of progressive development in this variously-dated literature. Owing to its longer span and its close connection with a nation’s history over some twelve hundred years, the bulk of our illustrations will naturally be drawn from the Old Testament ; or from Old and New taken together.

I. Few will find any difficulty in seeing that the Eden 9

IO THE APPEAL OF THE BIBLE TO-DAY story, which centres wholly in the earth and man, is simpler in its picturing and in its whole conception than the Creation poem of Genesis I., which is written from the point of view of the cosmos—the creation of the heaven and the earth. The story in which God makes man, and plants a garden and places man in it, with certain commandments concerning the trees—sublime as it is in its very simplicity, inspiring poet and painter and preacher, and “awing us with a sense of the Divine ’’—is evidently on a more primitive plane than the series of visions which make up the Creation poem: light, evening and morning—the first day ; the uplifting of the firmament ; the seas rolling aside that grass and trees may grow ; the sun and moon to rule the day and night ; and so on, up to man created in the image of God. The writer of this poem makes no attempt to agree in detail with the earlier-written story which in our Bible immediately follows. The harmony of the two is a harmony of spirit ; of teaching ; of subduing, quickening wonder. Different names are used for God ; yet, when we lift our eyes from either page it is one and the same God about Whom we have read.

II. When we turn to the Bible story of the Flood, the same facts appear, unity of impression upon the mind in spite of disunity in detail. And the want of harmony in detail is found on examination to be due to the presence of earlier and later versions of the story which are woven together.

On the most casual reading, it is almost self-evident that we have here a blending of two stories. For in Genesis VI. Ig we read: “ Of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark ;”’ but in Genesis VII. 2, a few lines lower down: “‘ Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, the male and his female.’’ These two verses cannot conceivably be parts of one and the same original story.* For the same reason,

* As in the case of the two Creation stories, some clue is given to the different sources in the Divine names that are used. Genesis vit. 2 is

THE STORY OF THE FLOOD II it is impossible to arrive at any clear notion of the duration of the Flood by working from the numbers that are given. This 1s because there are really two sets of numbers—those of the earlier version being “‘ forty ”’ in Genesis vil. 12 and vill. 6, and three “ sevens’ (two implied in virr. Io, the third in vit. 12), making a total duration of sixty-one days. All the other numbers belong to the later version, and are included within the three hundred and seventy-five days between the seventeenth day of the second month in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life (vi. rr) and the twenty-seventh day of the second month in the six hundred and first year of Noah’s life (vir. 13, 14).

What remains upon our minds, however, is not the intellectual difficulty arising from two accounts being interwoven without being harmonised, nor even the moral questionings to which the ethical references (such as in vI. 6, 7, 13; VII. 21-23) give rise. The primitive setting and atmosphere of the story enable us to disregard the moral difficulties ; and on the other hand, its magnificence has been more than sufficient to lift most of us over the arithmetical stumbling-blocks and the discrepancies in detail. The abiding impression is of the deep and solemn interest of the story, crowned, as it is, by the appealing finale of the bow in the cloud, interpreted as a signal in the heavens of the promise—already Nature’s promise, if you will, but only so because Nature, too, is a revealer of the Divine,—‘‘ While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.’”’ This higher note belongs to the later of the two blended versions. Thus the progressiveness of the literature is again illustrated even in from a version of the story which uses the name Jehovah or *‘ The Lorp.”’ (Yahveh is a more correct spelling than Jehovah; but the latter, being more familiar, will be retained here. Genesis vi. I9 is from a later version using the name ‘‘ God ”’ (Hebrew, Elohim) ).

The name Elohim, like the name Jehovah, is used in writings of different dates. In the present instances, the Elohist writing belongs to somewhere about the beginning of the fifth century before Christ.

the telling of the same story. And our being able to trace it sets us free from any obligation to think of the combined, or of either of the separate, versions as intended for exact history.

III. The story of Balaam will be spoken of again in the next chapter. As we have it, it, too, is the product of a twice-told tale, hailing from two sources—one Southern, one Northern—of different dates. The southern (or Jehovist) story, containing the incident of the ass speaking, makes Balaam’s going an act of disobedience ; the northern and later story (more consistently in the light of the narrative as a whole, and as offering a prelude to the actual prophecies put on Balaam’s lips) tells of his being permitted, even bidden, to go, but under strict instructions to say only what he was inspired by God tosay. The later version is less primitive than the earlier, though both have value.

IV. There is a further example of clashing expressions, regarding which also the difficulty is largely removed by allowing for differences of date, in the story of the numbering of the people by David towards the end of his reign. In 2 Samuel xxIv. I we read that “ The anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them saying, Go, number Israel and Judah.”’ In r Chronicles XXI. I we read, “‘ And Satan (R.V. an adversary) stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.”’ Difference in the dates of writing again helps to explain the different wording, and the difference in the underlying thought. Substantially, the whole of Samuel, though like other books undergoing later editings, is believed to have been compiled before 700 B.c.; whereas the Book of Chronicles is dated from the early part of the third century before Christ.1# During these four or five hundred years, as the stories of Job and Jonah will further show us in the next chapter, great changes of view were taking place with regard to the Divine part in human experience. The apparent clashing between the quoted passages is an evidence of one such change of view, for which the inter-

A PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY 13 vening centuries, with their rich literary output and their rapidly moving history, are more than sufficient to account. New theologies were far from being unknown in Israel. The Chronicles version of the incident marks the passing from an older theology, according to which Jehovah was the one unseen force behind all that happened within the nation’s life (hence we read in r Samuel xv1., “‘ An evil spirit from Jehovah troubled Saul’’), to a newer view according to which not everything happens at Jehovah’s behest.

V. Other examples of the progressive revelation of spiritual truth will be found as we proceed.

Of the progressiveness of prophecy, one writer says: “What an interval separates Samuel (rt Samuel Xv. 26) or Elijah (1 Kings xvitt. 40) from Jeremiah! The one executes official punishment, the other does not even announce it !”’ 15 Another example is that of the advance in spirit between the references to Nineveh in the Books of Nahum and Jonah. In Nahum’s prophecy (about 625 B.c.) is a fiery denunciation of Nineveh, a rushing anger, and exultation over her impending fall. In the story of Jonah, some three hundred years later, are appealing utterances of the compassion of Jehovah towards Nineveh. From the fury of “* Jehovah of hosts ” we pass to the pity of ‘‘ Jehovah, the God of heaven.”’ 16