Facts and fallacies regarding the Bible

Preface

THIS work accepts without qualification the modern ascertained facts regarding Matter, -Life and Mind, and their genesis, as interpreted by our highest authorities ; and exhibits them, in relation to the Bible, as the natural bases of its own revealed facts and doctrines, which they illustrate, confirm, extend. This is accomplished, not by accommodating each to the other, but by accepting both systems of knowledge in their simplest and most manifest sense; in evidence of which, it is found that the plain and obvious interpretation of the Scriptures, in their original tongue, is the one most congruous with the principles which reign in the wide realm of Nature as revealed by modern research.

Inasmuch as a misapprehension of Modern Science in relation to the Bible and Biblical Criticism, with other foes, within and without the Church, are now making the Scriptures of none effect, and thereby annulling the power of Divine moral government for the human mind, it is hoped that the effect of the present work will be to restore the Bible to its high place of authority by restoring faith

PREFACE

in the subject-matter of its Divine relation. It is popular in form.

At places I have used matter from works of mine now out of print, but so altered and improved as not to rightly permit of being quoted; and the same applies sometimes to those still in print.

It is folly, inviting certain failure, to assail fallacies about the Bible, as the apologetic literature and efforts of our time continue to do, without offering facts in their place, appropriate to the advanced knowledge of our day. In this work, I have the privilege to essay an endeavor, not only to restore the Bible to its place of supreme authority, but to vastly magnify that authority, beyond all that has been hitherto known or understood.

Professor Harnack describes the critical science of our day, as being "a dance of death" and the Higher Critics, as "men who live for a time on the smell of an empty bottle."

w. w. s.

Maidstone, Kent.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. The Present Position 1

II. The Nature of Biblical Knowledge ... 9

Chapter I The Present Position

SO manifestly in evidence are the facts of which we are about to write, that the words of our Lord to the men of His generation, "Can ye not discern the signs of these times?" do not even apply to us, in ours. There are voices calling to us from every quarter, many kinds of voices, some of them mocking voices, proclaiming the decline of our Christian religion, the decay of ancient faiths, and the lapse of the authority of the Bible. In some churches the reading of the Old Testament lesson has been mostly dropped, and the reading of the Old Testament Scriptures discouraged. In a late new arrangement of books in the Reference Library of the British Museum, the Bible has been deposed from its time-honored position in the first place of books, and shunted down some six or eight rows of shelves, and ecclesiastical literature placed above it ! Of similar import, as regards decline, we are deploring the rapid increase of godless secularism, of worldiness, and Sunday desecration. And although the drink habit has declined, sins of the most ruinous character, which a sense of responsibility towards God alone can prevent, and called in the Church Litany "deadly sins," have advanced by leaps and bounds. Our evangelists show fewer conversions, and of a quality so indifferent that in a brief time they are difficult to find.

The Bampton Lecturer for 1907 (the Rev. J. H. F. Peile) said : "Not only the Church, but Christianity itself and all supernatural religion are called in question, or dismissed as not worth calling in question." Time has accelerated this downgrade movement.

There are two potent causes behind this religious decay of our time. Knowledge has much increased, while the old-time views of the Bible have been retained. These views, framed in times of ignorance, are untrue ; but, inasmuch as they have been bound up with the Bible, the Bible with them is being rejected. The second cause arises from the influence of the Higher Criticism. There are two classes of critics, one with views destructive of all supernatural religion; another class, fearing the influence of advancing information upon the Scriptures, sought to accommodate them to the materialistic views of the age by reducing to a minimum the supernatural revelation contained in the Bible, and in endeavouring largely to account for the Scriptures by the natural environment in which the writings arose. The object of these critics was to conserve, not to destroy; and the Church of God possesses, in Canon Driver and Professor George Adam Smith, men who, having come to believe in the sub-

THE PRESENT POSITION

stantial truth of the Higher Criticism, have zealously striven, after this manner, to preserve to the Church as they thought the permanent value of the Scriptures. However, the attempt has failed. Huxley, to whom it was offered by Professor Poulton, said : "It was hardly possible to conceive of anything more subversive of a Divine revelation." Legends and folk-lore are no aids to faith ; and it was only folly to endeavour to invest "vague and nebulous hypotheses with the value and with the veracity of scientific demonstration."

In the language of Bishop Lightfoot, the critics were guilty of "reversing all the established rules of historic criticism, of deserting solid ground for artificial combinations and shadowy hypotheses." In the words of the Rev. George Ensor : "I charge the Higher Criticism with reducing revelation to a chaos of fables and contradictions, and bringing it thereby into conflict with the necessary and fundamental demands of reason respecting revelation." While a late article by Professor B. D. Erdmans (the present occupant of the chair of Kuenen), in Hibbert's Journal, supplies the best reasons for throwing overboard the whole farrago of documents labelled J, E, D, and P, as having misled scholars all along.

The influence of these views has contributed to the decline of faith and to the marked falling-off in Church membership. And on the mission field, from the evidence of Dr. Monro, late Director of the Ranaghbat Medical Mission, who repeats and endorses the words of Dr. St. Clair Tisdall, another medical missionary, when he says : "If Higher Criticism be victorious, it will bring missionary work to an inglorious close." 1 I respect the evidence of medical men; yet remember, religious decline is owing only in part to the Higher Criticism : views of the Bible formed in times of ignorance must also share the blame.

Another way in which the decline of religion arrfongst us is being recognized is the formation of prayer circles throughout the world. Prayer circles of the most devout and spiritually minded men and women of the several Churches, who have united to pray that God may pour out His Spirit and send us a great and world-wide revival. I have thought much, and prayed and written not a little, on the subject of revivals, but am thoroughly convinced that we can have no great revival movement so long as the Word of God, from whatever reason, is made of none effect. It is only by a restored Bible that we can have a genuine revival of religion. In defining the present position, and righly apportioning the blame for decay of the faith, we may present the facts as follows :

I. The views of the so-called orthodox section of the Church upon the Bible are no longer possible in the presence of our increased knowledge. 1 II. The influence of the Higher Criticism is responsible to a large extent for undermining confidence in the Scriptures.

III. Manifestly the Holy Spirit, because of these doubtful and doubt-creating views, cannot originate a great religious movement when permanency would be impossible. 1 From the Record. 4

THE PRESENT POSITION

Little wonder, then, that we are bemoaning religious decay. Turn where you will, it is equally hopeless to the Higher Critics, or to those who regard themselves as the special conservers of the integrity of the Scriptures of truth, both are unconsciously making the Word of God of none effect ! Some further words of Mr. Ensor's are here singularly in place. He says : "T can well foresee that under the strain of so great a pressure, feeble faiths will fall to the fold of Rome, robuster reasons range themselves under the banner of unbelief;" and tp which I may add, some also drift to a form of Christianity, falsely so called. Time has abundantly justified Mr. Ensor's prophetic vision. The greatest marvel of the present position is, that while the several Protestant denominations are by their criticism undermining the authority of the Bible, the Churcl of Rome has arisen to defend it !

Now it is manifest that it is useless to look tp God to pour out His Spirit, so that we may have a great revival, in the midst of antiquated, dishonoured, and mutually destructive views regarding His revealed will. We cannot expect fire to fall from heaven upon the altars of the Higher Critics ; np more, in these days, can we expect fire to fall from heaven upon the altars of the so-called orthodox Both block the way. Our "orthodox friends" may resent this finding; let them hear the following. The Rev. G. R. Chapman, in the Church Times, write 1 that "The wave of Victorian rationalism is only now beginning to make itself felt," and for this reason : "The body of professional scientists has enormously grown, till at the present hour the number of techn

FACTS AND FALACTES REGARDING THE BIBLE

cally trained men (and women too) represent a very marked fraction of the population. These rank-andfile Chemists, Engineers, and Science Teachers, trained in countless day and night polytechnics, are permeated almost through and through with the agnosticism of Spencer and Huxley — a standard which, in their turn, they tend, perhaps unconsciously, to impart to their less scientifically educated friends and associates in other walks of life."

Now as the knowledge of science is rapidly extending to the whole population, of what use is the Bible, as at present construed by the so-called "orthodox" people, to the cause of Christianity upon the earth? As showing the drift of the education of our time, I heard the other day of boys in a drawing-class in a national school being asked to draw a lake-dwelling of prehistoric man ! Now of what use is the popular view of the Bible as an authority on the origin of our race, or its present position or destiny, to those receiving a national training of this character?

Again, I repeat, both block the way to the advance of the Kingdom of God upon earth — the critics on the one hand, and the so-called orthodox on the other.

What, then, are we to do? We can never reach solid ground unless our theologians of both sides becomje willing to take instruction from a chief method of men of science; namely, in research to have no views, no opinions, no preconceived ideas of their own ; in short, to efface themselves and submit their minds to the influence of ascertained facts and the legitimate findings of right reasons — a method which the Bible itself urges upon us. The following

THE PRESENT POSITION

facts may illustrate the method to be pursued. The reader may have heard of the injury done to the Bible and the Christian faith by lectures delivered years ago in America by Robert Ingersoll. The baneful influence of these lectures reached such dimensions that the North American Review became temporarily controlled by Ingersoll, so as to shut out any further reply to him by Mr. J. S. Black, an American judge, "or any one else." This baneful crusade went to its evil mission, until Ingersoll was answered, and his lectures, we may say, annihilated, by the papers of the Rev. L. A. Lambert. His method of dealing with Ingersoll is instructive. Lambert held that the only way to defend the Bible was by pushing all information, all research and stern logical reasoning, to the uttermost possible The Bible will stand this, but no other writings or view r s adverse to the Bible w r ill bear this fierce quest. Xow unfortunately the two sections of the Church above mentioned refuse to adopt this method. Those who regard themselves as conservative and orthodox are afraid to put this method into practice; and, on the other hand, the critics conspicuously avoid doing so. How, then, is it possible a saving faith in the Bible can be preserved? how can we hope to see a revival coming, since ignorance, doubt, uncertainty; and critical questioning on every side are obtaining supreme sway, and render saving faith impossible? Ill-founded systems require numerous devices to give them the face of truth ; Dr. Valpy French has truly said of the critics that "their shifts, their resorts, their assumptions are endless." But we shall find that our conservative "orthodox friends" require to

FACTS AND FALAGIES REGARDING THE BIBLE

have recourse to the same oblique principles for the justification of their views— both sides do so quite innocently. Therefore, as far as lieth in us, let us adopt the method of uttermost research and rigorous rationalism.

Chapter II

COURTESY as well as reason demand that the claims which a given book makes on its own behalf should not be rudely cast aside. The Bible claims to be the "Word of God," to possess an inspiration and revelation from God. Reverence, as well as reason and courtesy, are therefore required at our hands. But what does this imply? In defining the sum-total of our knowledge under the heads of Science and Philosopy, Spencer says : ''Science is partially unified knowledge," and "Philosophy completely unified knowledge." Therefore, the claim of the Bible to Divine inspiration amounts to the claim that it is a system of most completely unified knowledge. It is therefore manifest that the Bible by its own claims cannot be in perfect agreement with any science as yet on its way to complete unification. Here lieth the stumbling-block over which both sections of the Christian Church have stumbled. "You must not look to the Bible for science," say our friends the critics. "You must not look to the Bible for science," say our so-called "orthodox" friends. Upon this point these two sections of theologians are in perfect accord. But observe, they do not say these things for the reason I have indicated above. Not at all ; they both hold the Bible to be erring, and to be presenting us with the views which prevailed in the age when it was written. Even Professor Orr is here at one with the critics, and says: "The writer here speaks of natural things as they lie open to the eye of the ordinary observer, and uses the language that would be understood by readers of his own time."

Both schools of thought tell us that the Bible was given to teach religion only, to tell us of spiritual things and not of natural things. Now of course, if we are to use our reason we must ask, "When the Lord is revealing a^ religious truth which involves a natural fact, why should He go out of His way, when He is revealing a religious truth, to misrepresent a natural fact?" Huxley has shown the folly of this plea when he says : "If we cannot trust an inspired document where it states a simple physical fact, which we can test; by what principle are we called upon to believe a religious fact (so-called) which we cannot test?" The solution of our difficulties is reached when we admit that the Bible as a Divine revelation must be viewed as a system of most completely unified knowledge, and so long as the mind dwells upon the mere technicalities of incompleted science, and fail's to take a wide philosophic view of "things and their forces, and men and their ways," so long will the Bible appear to be erring in matter of science. It is not enough to know the circle of the sciences to understand that the Bible is inerring. We must so know them, and Nature also, as to perceive that they never represent things as they really are. That in regard to the facts of "things and their forces, and men and their ways," and the difficulties which they present, as Mr. A. J. Balfour has said in his Foundations of Belief, "Naturalism itself has to face them in a yet more embarrassing form;" true, and it is just here that the Bible has the advantage.

Shelly once said: "If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced?" Though coming from a sceptical poet, it is nevertheless a fair question. God, who has created heaven and earth, the sea and all things therein — a great fact of which the world, with a vanishing quantity of exception, is convinced; if He has also spoken to men, why is the world not convinced? A very fair question indeed. If the Scriptures are the Word of God, why is the world not convinced of the fact? By a ministry of a few simple insects the Lord has perfected and perfumed many flowers conspicuous for their glory and their beauty. Their mould of form, grace of fashion, and harmony of hue, startle us with their amazing beauty, enchantment, and charm. Now of these things the world is full convinced. Could not God by the ministry of man, His noblest creation, produce a Scripture of such commanding excellence, that all the world would be convinced? Certainly. But it must be a Scripture widely different from the conceptions which the so-called orthodox and the critics have of their Bible. In the fairyland of orchids the wandering savage was familiar with visions of the fairest flowers of which we have any knowledge. For him, however, these lovely flowers were destitute of interest. Is it not just possible that in regard to our vision of the Bible we have too much in common with this wandering savage? When the late Professor Seeley said, "Comparing any other book with the Bible was like comparing a mud-pie with the Peak of Teneriffe," he had a clearer vision than a good many of us.

In answering Shelley's question, let us inquire, What are the things about which the world is convinced? We have already mentioned two, namely, the existence of a Creator and the glory with which He has arrayed the flowers. Among enlightened nations, the world is convinced of the truthful reality of the science which teaches them to transport men and merchandise along the iron road or over the waste of waters by steam and electricity. The world is convinced of the truth of the chemical and mechanical sciences which have originated and which sustain and guide the great industries of the nations. The world is convinced that the ten thousand minutiae which science puts into the Nautical Almanac year by year, relating to all the host of heaven, to guide the mariner upon the pathless seas are all real and true. The world is convinced that the science which told the return of Halley's comet after so many years, and showed men where to hold the sensitised plate to that place in the firmament, from whence its first faint ray fell from the far depths of heaven upon this nether world — the world is convinced that this science is real and true.

The next point about which the world is convinced is the most remarkable of all. The world (entirely unconsciously) is convinced of the reality and truthfulness of the sanitary? laws given by Moses! The laws of "notification," "inspection," "isolation," and "aseption" by fire and water, and the "disposal of sewage," are all facts embodied in Mosaic legislation; and are all to-day the facts of legislative enactments in the legal codes of civilized nations. As a matter of fact, the camp of Israel under the sanitary laws of Moses surpassed for cleanliness every modern town upon all the earth. And had our old-time preachers attended somewhat to the interests of this present world and not so exclusively to the things of the world to come; and had they preached these laws of Moses, bearing in mind the word of St. Paul, that "The law is good if a man use it lawfully," not one of the awful plagues that decimated the people of Europe could ever have had any considerable number of victims !

Xow comes the question, Can we extend the knowledge of the facts of modern science throughout the Scriptures after this manner, so that the world may be convinced of their entire truth, and thereby become convinced that God has spoken? The answer is, Yes, most certainly; and this is just the object of this book. Let us not, like our fathers ; remain blind to great Biblical truths. The critics warn us not to look to the Bible for science ; our orthodox friends (so-called) warn us not to look to the Bible for science. Both resort to the very same shifts and assumptions, and of the two, the latter is becoming most harmful, and is hindering the day of God's revival. If the Bible is so erring in matters of science, where does a Divine inspiration upon which we can confidently rely come in?

Before showing how erroneous these reflections upon the Bible are, let me justify from the Scriptures the principles which underlie this mode of research, and at the same time reply to a current objection which is being voiced and freely circulated among the unwary in this country. It is vehemently and reiterately affirmed that science furnished no aid whatever to spiritual religion. Now we know it is still a current saying that "an undevout astronomer is mad." But we are told that even astronomy is no aid to religion. David thought otherwise, and said: "When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou has ordained; what is man, that Thou are mindful ot him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" We always thought that to exalt the Lord, to humble ourselves in His presence, to acknowledge the wonders of His care for us, and to believe that He visits us, were the very soul of all true religion. And so they are. Yet it was a very limited scientific vision of God's work which awoke all these spiritual states of mind in the heart of the Psalmist and led him to exclaim, "Thy heavens declare the glory of God." Science is simply knozvledge, and, to use a scriptural qualification, it is knowledge decently ordered. When in the light of modern science we consider the heavens to-day, and the moon and stars, the vision of God's exaltation is still more transcendent, the humbling a deeper depth ; that God should be mindful of us becomes a wonder of wonders, and that He should visit us at ali, a condescension unutterable. Not only is the view circulated in these books untrue, but in a marked degree it is most unscriptural. In the Book of Job all the very religious talk of Job and his friends is described as "words without knowledge, " while the Lord replies in a purely natural science discourse. See also Isa. xlv. 9-12, where certain religious speculations are forbidden and the study of science enjoined; while Ps. xcii. 5, 6 ought to end for ever the foolish notions of those who, being themselves ignorant of scientific knowledge, know not what they say or whereof they affirm. And moreover, as the Lord answered and solved Job's difficulties by a natural science discourse, we, following so exalted a precedent, hope to solve and settle present-day difficulties by a like method.

So far from the Bible being unreliable in matters of science, the sober truth is, that wherever the Bible touches upon questions of science it does so with a grace, an accuracy, and a philosophic perfection, which surpasses every text-book of science in existence. Take its opening words in Genesis, where it tells of an early condition of our world, when it was veiled in darkness. Science now recognises and speaks of this period, but how feeble are its words compared with the Scripture : "The earth was waste and empty; and darkness was upon the face of the raging deep." "When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it" (Job xxxviii. 9). Yet observe, no eye but God's and His angels' beheld the earth at this far distant era, and none but God could have compassed its being written for the children of men. Again, how perfectly the truth in the doctrine of Evolution regarding the influence of Environment is presented in the words, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature," especially as the verb is in the Causative voice, Hiphil.

To take another instance from the New Testament in the Book of St. Jude the impenitent sinners

* are likened to "Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the black of darkness for even" A very fewyears ago our leading astronomers did not possess sufficient information to understand this Scripture; indeed, their views were diametrically opposed to the thoughts it presents. Lately, however, the depths of the stellar universe have been sounded, and it is known that there is a surrounding realm of night. We know also, to quote the late Miss Agnes M. Gierke, that "the fact accordingly confronts us that not a few of the stars possess velocities transcending the power of the government of the visible sidereal system." One of these (1830, Groomsbridge Catalogue), has a velocity of 200 miles a second. Miss Clerke, speaking in her charming style, unequalled by any of our astronomers, says of this star: "It will pursue its course right across the starry stratum it entered ages ago on its unknown errand, and will quit ages hence to be swallowed up in the dark void beyond." However beautifully said, yet it falls short of the simple Scripture : "Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." Like the Scriptures, "He hangeth the earth upon nothing." "Who comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance." We have presented to us in a few brief words the profoundest depths of astronomical and geological sciences. And as we proceed, the great fact here recognised will be found to pervade the whole Bible. The thought uttered by St. Jude could not have originated from beholding comets or shooting stars because the heavens he was accustomed to behold presented a perfect blaze of stellar light. Besides all this, no knowledge of science and no language possessed by men could possibly picture so perfectly the weird event itself; thus proving the Scripture to have come by inspiration and not by observation.

The inerrancy of the Bible must be rationally understood. Inspiration, verbal inspiration, and mechanical inspiration, are used in ways which are only confusing. With man, a moral agent, as the instrument, mechanical inspiration is absurb. With human agency, human language, and copyists, absolute verbal inspiration is impossible. But, inasmuch as the Prophets must have given to us the messages which they received, and not something else, our reason compels us to believe in a rationally qualified verbal inspiration. Verbal, because the Prophets have given us what they received; qualified, because of the infirmities of human agency, language, writing, and copying. But, as the human agents were Divinely selected, the authenticity and genuineness are superlatively satisfactory. To this let me add there is an inspiration also in the form of simply stimulating the mind of the seer; he or she being permitted to express their own thoughts and feelings, which for utilitarian reasons were needful Gn account of the hardness of men's hearts. as were certain legislative measures of the Mosaic Code. The song of Deborah and portions of the Psalms are of this order of inspiration. There are also historic records and narratives which, being based on the knowledge of the writers, were inspired only in the sense of being selected.

Chapter III The Bible Scriptural Revelation And Modern

RESEARCH

UPON one occasion the father of the Brontes asked his daughters, "Which is the greatest book in the world?" Charlotte Bronte replied, "The Bible." Her father then asked, "Which is the next greatest book?" and Charlotte replied, "The Book of Nature." Let us now turn to the consideration of these two great Books. "The Bible presents to us a revelation from beyond our bourne of time and place." It includes also a series of historic, prophetic, and poetic books, with various epistles and records regarding the influence through long ages of these Scriptures upon the minds and hearts of those to whom they came.

The Bible opens with a sketch in brief of the genesis of the Universe and of the Earth, of Life in numerous forms, and of Man. Next, in unbroken continuity in dealing with the race of men, it embraces great principles of Nature (which had reigned throughout that genesis) in the higher intellectual form of language for man's further guidance, well-being, and development. The Bible is therefore (as we shall see in due course) Nature translated into language, to suit man when his intelligence was awakened, in order to preserve his being and well-being, and to continue his advancement through his intellect and moral nature.

The sacred Scriptures open with the simple yet majestic words, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The Hebrew here omits the article before "beginning," therefore we are to understand an indefinite beginning lost in eternity. In modern research, men have also discovered a beginning of the earth and heavens, and after the manner of the Bible; they tell us that it is a beginning lost in unfathomable mystery. "Alike in the external and internal worlds, the man of science sees himself in the midst of perpetual changes of which he can neither discover beginning nor end. If, tracing back the evolution of things, he allows himself to entertain the hypothesis that the Universe once existed in a diffused form, he finds it utterly impossible to conceive how this came to be ; and equally, if he speculates on the future, he can assign no limits to the grand succession of phenomena ever unfolding themselves before him." 1