The higher criticism cross-examined; an appeal and a warning

Preface

This book is precisely what it purports to be — an appeal to ordinary Christians by one of them from their own standpoint, namely, that of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, and in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures as the only authoritative record of the revelation of God to men. The writer expressly disavows any pretensions to scholarship, or to the possession of any knowledge as an expert in any department of biblical criticism. He does not claim to meet the critics on their own ground ; nor does he hope to present any considerations which they will deem worthy of notice. His aim is a much more modest one — simply to call the attention of Christians of thoughtful mind to the results which, in his judgment, must necessarily follow the acceptance of critical theories as to the nature of the only account of the facts upon which our faith is based, and to the kind of reasons adduced by the critics in support of a position which seems to him absolutely to preclude the possibility of any revelation at all.

For a long time past he had been perplexed and

PREFACE

oppressed by the open skepticism and the confident tone of the " Christian critics " in their treatment of the foundations of the Christian faith. A year or two since, a serious accident confined him to his home for many months. This period of enforced inaction he occupied in a careful and painstaking examination of the critical case, so far as the same had been done into English. The following pages set forth the impressions thereby made upon his mind ; and as such he offers them for the consideration of those believers who are still willing to follow the light of revelation, rather than the ignis fatuus of speculative criticism.

The writer's thanks are due to several friends : To the Rev. G. H. Charles, of Philadelphia, Pa., the Rev. D. D. Munro, of East Orange, N. J., and the Rev. C. W. Skemp, of Eccles, Manchester, for many years secretary of Rawdon College, England, who have kindly read and commented on his manuscript ; and to Mr. B. H. Doane, of the New York bar, for much valuable assistance in the way of suggestion during the progress of the work.

He would especially express his obligations to his friend, the Rev. M. H. Pogson, d. d., of New York, a stalwart defender of the old faith, but for whose warm encouragement and dogged insistence this book, such as it is, would never have been completed. F D. S.

The Bronx, N. Y., June, 1905.

Table Of Contents

Chapter Page

I. Criticism and the Church n

II. Criticism in the Open 23

II

The Bible is in every one' s hands. The critic has no other Bible than the public. He does not profess to have any additional documents inaccessible to the laity. Nor does he profess to find anything in his Bible which the ordinary reader may not find. A. Kuenen.

Wellhausen* s "Prolegomena" gives the English reader for the first time an opportunity to form his own conclusions on questions which are within the scope of any one who reads the English Bible carefully, and is able to think clearly, and without prejudice, about its contents.

— Robertson Smith.

For which the "English reader" ought to be duly thankful, even though he may be of opinion that that same opportunity has been open to every one of the class named ever since the Bible was first translated into his mother tongue.

II

The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

— Isaiah.

There was a time, not many years since, when the battle of the books was being waged behind closed doors. The discussions of the pundits engaged in the conduct of the controversy in question were, perforce, had in executive session, and for a long period only faint and indistinct rumors of the conflict reached the ears of the outside Christian world. The position was taken that the nature of the problem was such that only adepts in Hebrew, Oriental archaeology, and kindred branches of learning had any right to be heard, either pro or contra, in regard to the processes and investigations to be pursued, or to the conclusions deducible therefrom ; and, indeed, that they alone were capable of understanding the problem when stated, the process when detailed, and the conclusion when reached. And, so far as the preliminary discussions were concerned, depending as they did upon technical questions, there was much force in this claim.

But in the heat of the dispute one important fact seems to have been lost sight of, wholly on the critical side and partly on the conservative, and that is that " the whole congregation of Christian people " are necessary parties, with vital and inalienable rights and interests in the subject-matter of the controversy, which can neither be waived by themselves nor overridden by others ; and that sooner or later it must be referred to them in such wise that no representative character on the part of the experts can either take from them the right or relieve them of the burden of rendering a decision upon the merits. • Not as to whether the Bible is the veritable word of God. That question is not an open one. It stands adjudged by the history of nineteen Christian centuries. But as to whether this long-adjudicated issue shall be reopened at the bidding of a band of German rationalists and their English and American echoes. To what end ? That this priceless heritage of immemorial ages may be broken to pieces, and the church of the living God be persuaded to accept in its place as salvage from the wreck a secular history of Israel, reconstructed along the lines of the Darwinian hypothesis and the evolutionary philosophy generally. Sane men do not ordinarily part with a valuable inheritance on such terms.

It is to be hoped that the day is not far distant 26 when the church will awake from its slumber and will pass upon the claims of the critics, not formally or simultaneously, perhaps, but none the less effectually and finally. Already the matter has passed beyond the limits of the esoteric and the recondite. Criticism has come out into the open, so that those who will may measure its dimensions, may see what it is with the light of publicity shining upon it, and may judge whether it is a living force with the elements of permanency in it, or only a simulacrum which the wind driveth away. And, as Doctor Johnston has shown with admirable clearness in the opening chapter of his recent work, 1 the average man is a most important factor in the solution of this problem. Sir Robert Anderson, indeed, argues with great force that the specialist, with his expert knowledge of one phase of the subject and his inevitable theory to support, is actually put at a disadvantage in reaching an impartial judgment upon the matter as an entirety. 2

But that is, of course, mere heresy. The idea that any one, other than an expert Hebraist, should venture to dissent from their conclusions, which are claimed to depend upon the date and analysis of ancient Hebrew documents, is one which the critics would view with lofty scorn.

1 "Bible Criticism and the Average Man," p. I f. * "Bible and Modern Criticism," "Pseudo-Criticism." 27

Would they admit that the non-expert is under any circumstances competent to agree with them ? If not, why would it not be advisable for them to avoid the vernacular altogether and conduct their discussions in the original tongues, and so effectually exclude the vulgar from meddling with matters too high for them ?

Be that as it may, it is deemed, the critics to the contrary notwithstanding, that one of the rank and file who claims to possess the ability of the ordinary man to follow a train of reasoning when it is put into intelligible English and to draw valid inferences therefrom, but who makes and can make no pretensions to scholarship of any sort, is nevertheless warranted in entertaining decided views on the invalid methods and the baneful tendencies of the higher criticism, and that he may without undue presumption, offer some comments thereon from the Christian standpoint in attempted application of those common-sense principles of reasoning which prudent men bring to bear on the hard facts of life, and on which they are willing to base their action and stake their material welfare.

At the outset it may not be out of place to make some preliminary observations.

i. It seems unfortunate, from the standpoint mentioned, that this study should have received the name it bears, and that its exponents, or at least those among them who still profess to be

Christians, should arrogate to themselves the title " critic." The term has such sinister connotations that its application to believers as descriptive of their dealings with and comments on the word of God might well be avoided, unless under the compulsion of absolute necessity, if for no other reason, in deference to universal Christian sentiment.

It may be objected that this is a mere quibble upon a word of well-understood meaning and longestablished usage. But words are things and names are powers, and phrases are arguments exerting an influence far weightier than their bare etymological significance would carry. Even in its primary meaning of " one who sits in judgment " the word denotes an attitude natural, it may be, in those who reject the authority of the Lord Jesus and spurn his claims to headship, but which ill befits a Christian teacher who, although a searcher and an interpreter, is surely not a judge. l Judges, whether of courts or of cattle shows, are usually chosen in a regular way by some competent authority, and in the case first mentioned the exercise of their judicial functions is hedged about by precise rule and precept in order that their decisions may be based on the principles of the law of which they are interpreters, and not on the mere arbitrary dictates of a wandering fancy. Outside the ranks of the higher criticism

1 Wace, "Bible and Modern Investigation," p. 73. 29 the only judge who elects himself and has an absolutely free hand is Lynch, J. And he, with his fine contempt for the rules of evidence, together with his preternatural sagacity in detecting a horse thief, presents quite a striking parallel to some latter-day critics who, bound by no principle of law or logic can, with like superhuman insight, identify six words of the Levitical forger imbedded in a narrative antedating by half a millennium the institution of the priesthood.

But it has come to pass that in general use its secondary meaning of " faultfinder " has overshadowed the etymology of the word "critic," and when one hears that some production or other is to be criticised, he expects that it is going to be picked to pieces. Usually he is not disappointed, and the higher the critics are the more likelihood is there that his expectations will be realized. As, witness their treatment of the Pentateuch, which they have literally "picked to pieces."

And that it is under this latter category that the critics themselves desire to come is evidenced plainly enough by their own declarations. No man, however profound his scholarship or keen his literary or historical insight may be, can lay claim to the title "critic," if he entertains the old views concerning the nature and authority of the Bible. ] And when the origin and history of the

1 Sinker, "Higher Criticism," pp. 2, 3, $3.

movement are considered, no good reason is apparent why any Christian should care to assert such a claim. Eichhorn, the originator of the phrase, as he was the pioneer in the study of the higher criticism, was, as Ewald says, one to whom the Bible, from the religious view-point, was throughout a sealed book. 1 His chief permanent contribution to the scheme seems to have been a determined effort to eliminate the supernatural from both the Old and New Testaments. 2 And the subsequent history of the school shows how completely it has fulfilled the promise of its youth ; for, amid all the kaleidoscopic forms and shifting phases which criticism has assumed during the last century, it has been consistently true to this central canon of interpretation, until to-day the question is not whether the Bible is divinely inspired and an authentic record of divine guidance and divine intervention, but whether it is worthy of credence at all, or is merely a mixture of myth and marvel, fraud and fable, with here and there a grain of historical wheat hidden in the vast heap of traditional chaff. Hostile it has been from the beginning and hostile it will remain to the end ; and when so-called Christian teachers range themselves under its banner, they raise presumptions against their own fealty which call for evidence

1 Urquhart, "Insp. and Accuracy of Scrip.," p. 207. 3 "Encycl. Brit.," Vol. VII., p. 789.

in rebuttal, and which one day the Christian world may require at their hands, and, if at all, accept their loyalty as demonstrated at the expense of their logic.

2. The assumption of the critic to act in so many diverse, not to say incompatible capacities, is one which is surely open to serious question, if not to absolute ridicule. He is, first of all, an expert, a specialist in his own line — usually a man with a theory to support. His place is the witness box, and it is his to testify to the facts ; and those who have been in any degree familiar with the course of legal procedure in recent years will know that of all classes of evidence expert testimony is regarded by the courts as least trustworthy, as most open to suspicion, and as calling for the severest scrutiny. 1 Indeed, the cases are rare in which standing alone the opinions of experts (and their testimony seldom amounts to more), would be regarded as a sufficient basis for judicial action. The critic is, then, a witness ; or, if you would stretch his functions to the utmost limit of legitimacy, he is also an advocate to press by argument his theory as to the facts upon the court. But he is not satisfied even with this double role. He must ascend the bench, and by his charge as judge throw the weight of the court's

1 Fitzjames Stephen, "Hist, of the Criminal Law," Vol. I., P- 575 f.

authority into the scale in his own favor ; then as jury render a verdict in accordance with his original testimony ; and finally, as sheriff, execute the sentence of dismemberment imposed by the court. l A most convenient, short-cut method this, and one calculated to discourage overmuch controversy. In the ordinary walks of life such all-embracing pretensions are rarely encountered, and when they are the pretender is naturally overwhelmed with deserved ridicule. To find an exact parallel one would have to resort to the pages of comic opera, where Pooh Bah was not only the Mikado's prime minister, but also held every other office in sight that was worth having.

3. Many Christians object, and strongly object, to both the phrase and the practice of the " study of the Bible as literature." Of course, from the necessities of the case it is couched in terms of human speech, and uses alphabetical symbols and grammatical forms as the servants of its purpose, and therefore in a restricted sense it may be called letters. But that for them exhausts its relation to the literature of men simply as such. In the highly improbable case of a modern critic admitting that certain ancient worthies wrote the books attached to their names, that would still be an incomplete and misleading statement unless he went further and said that these holy men of old spake

1 G. A. Smith, "Modern Criticism," pp. 72, 73. C 33 as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. If these books are to mean anything worth while to the Christian it must be because they are human utterances plus direct and explicit divine inspiration ; and the one constituent is as controlling of the category to which they belong as the other. When the critic assumes to ignore the latter element, and on that assumption to proceed with his dissections as though the whole fact were before him, and announces his final estimate as covering and accounting for all the phenomena of the case, and as constituting a complete determination of all the issues involved, then the plus becomes an excrescence and an impertinence. If, however, the divine agency is admitted, not as a mere empty phrase, but in any real and substantial sense, his examination becomes a futile attempt to solve a problem with an important factor absent, and the result reached is as valuable and as edifying as though one should undertake an exhaustive analysis of a complex chemical process or compound without regard to its base or its principal reaction ; or as though another should essay to give a complete account of the revolutionary conflict with the Declaration of Independence and the conditions which led to its proclamation left out of the reckoning ; or a third should write a life of George Washington dealing solely with his career as a land surveyor, and yet purporting to explain why he stood first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.

The study of the Bible as literature is a wellsounding phrase. It seems at first blush to be eminently fair and reasonable. But when its implications are taken into account, then its true character becomes at once apparent as an attempt to prejudge the whole case in a manner unfavorable to the unique authority of the Scriptures. Among the criteria to be applied in the study of human history would be surely these : (i) Miracles do not happen; and (2) Prophecy does not predict. Now, when the literary critic finds in the Bible instances of both kinds, i. e., miracles and predictive prophecy, what does he do ? Accept them as natural concomitants of a divinely ordered history and divinely revealed truth ? Not at all. He strikes the first out of the record as incredible, and condemns the second as made after the event.

It is true one critic says that " criticism in the hands of Christian scholars does not banish or destroy the inspiration of the Old Testament ; it presupposes it." 1 But this is an affront upon common intelligence. It means nothing and com-

1 Driver, "Introd. to the Literature of the O. T.," 10th ed., p. xiii. Some trenchant and well-merited comments on the uncritical character of this dexterous evasion are made, and the fallacies of the plea exposed by Rev. John Thomas, M. A., of Liverpool, in his recent work, ' '• The Organic Unity of the Pentateuch ' ' ; a book well worth the careful consideration of those who think the last word has been said upon Pentateuchal criticism.

mits to nothing. For the writer evidently finds this presupposed divine inspiration to be no bar in the way of reaching conclusions which can have no other meaning than, as justly stated by Chancellor Lias, that "the Scriptures in their present form are not merely tinged with inaccuracy, but are plainly and distinctly false, and to a considerable degree intentionally false from one end to the other." !

In what condition this leaves the inspiration "presupposed " by the critics it is needless to state.

1 Lias, " Principles of Biblical Criticism," p. 91.

Ill

In the severe discipline that followed the Fall ; in the choice of a single family to be the depositary of the belief in the One True God; in the establishment of the laws which were necessary for a community organized on that belief; in the moral education of the people of Israel by blessings and by chastisements; in the development of the inward spirit of the law by means of the prophetic writings until the purpose of God stood revealed in all its clearness in the person and life of Jesus Christ — we see One Mind manifest throughout, using means natural and supernatural as it seemed best, but in all working to one end — the manifestation of God as infinite Power, infinite Wisdom, and infinite Love. — J. J. Lias.

None is like Jeshurun' s God,

So great, so strong, so high, Lo, he spreads his wings abroad,

He rides upon the sky.

Israel is his first-born son,

God, the almighty God is thine, See him to thy help come down,

The excellence divine.

Thee the great Jehovah deigns

To succor and defend; Thee the eternal God sustains,

Thy Maker and thy Friend.

He is Israel's sure defense,

Israel all his care shall prove, Kept by watchful providence

And ever-waking love.

— C. Wesley.

Ill

The faith which was once delivered to the saints.

— Jude.

The declaration of those things which were once most surely believed by Christians of a generation not yet wholly departed, would seem to-day like echoes of a far-off and half-forgotten time. An attempt at their restatement, not with the systematic precision or in the technical terms of the professional theologian, but after the simple and inartificial fashion in which they presented themselves to the devout and uncritical believer in those earlier and happier days, will show to what lengths the church has traveled during the past thirty years. Advocates of progress at any cost will say, in the direction of elevation and breadth of view ; others, that those phrases merely stand for vagueness and indifference, stages on the road to the desired goal of quasi-religious rationalism, a church without dogma, which to them is the same thing as a body without a soul.

These older Christians believed that the human race sprang from the loins of Adam, who came complete and perfect from the hands of God, in some way they knew not how, fashioned after the image and likeness of his Creator. From this first estate Adam, by transgression, fell, losing the image, as he had forfeited the favor of his Maker and bringing upon himself and upon his race the condemnation of death. But even while sentence was being passed the infinite mercy of God coupled with the doom the hope of a Deliverer. This hope, gathering clearness with each succeeding age, renewed in the prophecy of Noah that God should dwell in the tents of Shem, was solemnly confirmed in the covenant with Abraham, the historic starting-point of definite revelation, and further limited in the line of Isaac and of Israel, his son and his son's son, in whose seed all nations of the earth were to be blessed.

From that time forward, to quote the succinct and yet comprehensive summary of Professor Robertson :

The people of Israel stood in a peculiar relation to God, and received from him special intimations of his will and character, and were by him peculiarly guided and directed in their growth into a nation, and in their existence as a State. By a signal display of divine power they were delivered from the bondage of Egypt and led into the desert of Sinai, where the covenant made with Abraham was renewed with awful sanctions. Upon the covenant was reared the law, ordaining holiness on God' s people, fencing round their daily life with ceremonial prescriptions, and educating their spiritual life so that they might be in deed as in ideal a kingdom of priests, an holy nation. Up to this ideal, however, they never came. On the contrary, they sinned under the very shadow of Sinai ; and throughout the course of their journey in the wilderness, marked as it was by constant tokens of divine guidance, they exhibited continual backsliding and fell into one corruption after another. Even when, by signal displays of divine favor, they were brought into the promised land and made victorious over its inhabitants, they sinned against the God who had favored them, and conformed to the practices of their neighbors. Nevertheless they were not rejected, nor was their education interrupted. A series of prophets, from Samuel's time onwards, arose to testify against them and to plead for a higher life. These men, with one voice, whether in the northern or the southern kingdom, tell the same tale of God's great doings for his people in the past; they reprove, rebuke, exhort; they confront kings and people, and denounce priests and false prophets alike — the burden of their message being the same from age to age. Nor do they lose faith in God's promise. As troubles gather about the nation, their reproof of sin becomes more stern, their enforcement of God's righteousness more emphatic, but their trust in his faithfulness remains unshaken. As the fabric of the nation falls to pieces, their views become only the more spiritual, and hope lives on even in captivity. It was indeed the voice of prophecy and the belief in its fulfillment that sustained the captives in Babylon and stimulated the pious under Ezra and Nehemiah to return to their native land, and there, cured finally of idolatry, to set up the worship of God with punctilious regard to the precepts of the old law, which, during their prosperity, had been slighted. 1

1 "Early Religion of Israel, " Vol. I., p. 31 f. 41

To Christians of the time mentioned this law was not only precept but prophecy, and while it had primary relation to the life and conduct of Israel under the old covenant, it had also a forward look, and was big with the promise of a new and better covenant and the unfolding of a larger and fuller revelation of God, not only to Israel, but to the whole world. It was to them the shadow of things to come, of which the substance was Christ.

They saw, moreover, in certain characters of the Bible — Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and others — partial and incomplete, but none the less divinely ordained types of Him who was to come. More particularly the Mosaic history and institutions, law, ritual, observances, tabernacle, and priesthood, indeed everything that was basal in the life and history of the chosen race, pointed with unerring precision to the same event, and were prophecies in act and fact of some aspect in the life and mission of our divine Lord, or were illustrative of cardinal elements of gospel truth. The paschal lamb with its sheltering blood sprinkled on lintel and doorpost spoke to them of " Christ our passover who was sacrificed for us." * The great day of atonement with its interceding priest, bringing within the veil the blood of the sin offering, became transparent, and they saw through it the form of One greater than Aaron, who, being both sacrifice and priest, by his own blood entered in once into the holy place not made with hands, even into heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God for them, having obtained eternal redemption for all who should believe. 1

And so on through all the details of the sacrificial system of the Levitical law, and all the salient features of the history of Israel — the deliverance from Egypt, the passage through the Red Sea, the manna in the wilderness, the water from the smitten rock, the guiding pillar of cloud, the brazen serpent, the entrance into the promised land — all headed up in Christ and found in him their final and complete fulfillment.

In like manner to him gave all the prophets witness. He was the burden of their message, and his Spirit being with them, they testified beforehand of the manner and place of his birth, of the time of his appearing, of his lineage according to the flesh, of his relation to the Father, of his absolute submission to the divine will, of his anointing by the Spirit, of the nature of his redeeming work, of his vicarious sufferings and death, and of the glory that should follow. They saw too that these minute and intimate correspondences were not confined to any one period, nor exhibited solely in any one class of Old Testament writings, but ran through the whole course of

1 Heb. 9 : 10. Moorehead : "Studies in Mosaic Inst." 43 sacred history, and were manifested alike in law, annal, psalmody, prophecy, and apocalypse. This, in their view, negatived any assumption that they were vague, chance coincidences, or such undesigned sequences as might be traced through any given series of events, and evinced a unity of plan and a continuity of purpose which stamped upon them the sign-manual of Deity, and referred them unmistakably to the determinate counsel and foreknowlege of God.

And when in the fullness of time the Only Begotten of the Father came on his saving mission to this world, their faith was that he lived, suffered, died, and rose again " according to the Scriptures." To them the Christian revelation was no isolated and unrelated phenomenon, new-sprung out of nothing, but was rooted and grounded in an older covenant, which in turn was confirmed by two immutable things wherein it was impossible for God to lie, that they might have strong consolation who had fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them.

This gospel of the Son of God they regarded as the perfect and final revelation of the love of God to man. It was the faith once for all delivered to the saints, full-orbed and complete, as to which naught could be added nor aught taken away ; admitting of no change and susceptible of no improvement. It was no mere intermediate link in a chain of natural evolutionary processes, no germ containing simply the potentiality of development to larger and finer issues. It was the topmost apex of revealed truth, beyond which there could be no ascent. As such it was theirs to reject or to accept, and their conviction was that upon an unfeigned and hearty reception of this truth, applied and vitalized by the power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, there was wrought in them that change which was to make them meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, to deliver them from the power of darkness and translate them into the kingdom of God's dear Son.