Must the Bible go? : Some plain words about higher criticism

Table Of Contents

Chapter Page I. A Portentous Situation. Old and new methods of attack upon Revelation. How the way is prepared for the popular acceptance of the higher critical theories. Critical concessions 13

II. The Perversion of Sunday School Literature to the Service of Higher Criticism. An insidious propaganda. The "development" theory. The critical animus. Supposed proof of post-Mosaic authorship. Difficulties. Archaeology. Dr. Kuyper 25

III. Hostility to Revelation. Reason for the zeal of critics. False conception of the literature of the Bible. Proof of hostility. Supernatural inspiration denied. New Testament refutation. Hotbeds of the critical propaganda. Example. Forsyth. Christ assailed. Bearing of critical view of O. T. narratives on the New. Torrey on Smith 45

Introduction

A half century ago infidels sat in the back room of bar-rooms, cursing the Bible and blaspheming the Christ, over bottles of whiskey and mugs of beer. The coarseness and profanity of their attitude toward all things sacred, largely neutralized the danger of their teaching and influence. They were looked upon by thoughtful people as the enemies of everything that contributed to the uplift and betterment of society.

During the last few decades infidelity has changed its tactics, and undertakes to be conciliatory in its attitude toward the Bible and the Church of Christ. It no longer proposes a frontal attack upon the Word of God, but undertakes to make its home within the Church, and, while posing as friendly to the truth, to undermine the foundations of faith.

The most dangerous enemies to the Church of Christ and that evangelical faith which saves the souls of men, are to be found today in colleges and universities supposed to be Christian institutions, and worse still, not a few unbelievers whose teachings are not so brutal and blasphemous as

4 INTRODUCTION

that of Voltaire and Tom Paine, but are just as fatal to those who follow them, are found in our pulpits. In view of this condition of things, which has led to the deceiving and hurt of a great number of people, the present volume is most opportune. The author, Rev. Newton Wray, is thoroughly qualified for the task which he has undertaken. The following pages will reveal the fact that he has been a close student of the best critics of the Old and New Testaments, and has been able to enumerate a large number of devout and scholarly men, who after the most diligent research, are rooted and grounded in their faith in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.

Many of the destructive critics write as if they had sources of information, or opportunities for research exclusively their own. They also write as if all scholars were in harmony with their theories of unbelief. In considering the destructive critics, it is well for us to remember that spiritual things are spiritually discerned; that mere human intellect, befogged and blinded, with carnality, cannot discern, understand or interpret the things of God. Professor Wray has great advantage in this particular ; he has not only enjoyed the privileges of the schools, and the advantages of years of careful and discriminating research, but he is also a devout and earnest Christian,

INTRODUCTION 3

enjoying* that peculiar influence and illumination of the Holy Spirit which gives help and wisdom in the understanding of inspired truth, which cannot be obtained elsewhere.

We most heartily commend this book to Christians and thoughtful persons everywhere. We feel sure that its careful perusal will stimulate the faith and the better equip all believers to defend themselves successfully against the theories and fallacies of modern destructive criticism.

Rev. H. C. Morrison, D. D., President of Asbury College.

SUMMARY OF HIGHER CRITICISM

1. "Disputing the Mosaic origin and authenticity of the Pentateuch.

2. Advancing the Post-exile theory of the Levitical system.

3. Discrediting the Historical narrative and inventing the mythical theory.

4. Questioning the existence of any properly predictive element.

5. Advocating rationalistic views of Old Testament inspiration.

6. Attacking the authenticity and authority of the Fourth Gospel.

7. Denying New Testament unity of doctrine, and favoring schools, such as Pauline, Petrine, Johannean.

8. Modifying the previous views of the office and objects of Scripture.

9. Advancing the Kenosis theory of the self emptying of Christ ; and hence

10. Impugning His omniscience, infallibility and essential Deity.

n. Doubting if not denying his miraculous incarnation and resurrection.

12. Eliminating all that is distinctly supernatural in prophecy and miracle.

Thus step by step criticism has advanced from the outposts to the very centre of the Christian system, as though satanic malice were behind the whole movement, deliberately planning to wreck all faith of disciples in the Bible as a Divine book, and the final arbiter of truth and duty." — Dr. A. T. Piers on.

Foreword

Some months ago the author of this volume discussed certain aspects of higher criticism in the periodical of which he was associate editor. Yielding to the request of friends who desired to see the discussion in a form suitable for wider circulation, he has consented to the publication of the original papers with such additional matter as might enhance the value of the publication.

That such a discussion is vital to the Christian :taith goes without saying. If our religion is founded upon a fallible Bible, we have nothing more than a human system of ethics. That which gives vitality and power to Christian ethics is the supernatural life which inheres only in a supernatural revelation. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." Our "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." But if the Sacred Record be historically disputable, and the Word of God be not divinely inspired, there is nothing to create and sustain a saving faith. Hence the necessity of heeding the apostolic injunction to "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints."

It may be said, it is enough to preach the Gospel ; get people saved and they will not be troubled with modern forms of unbelief. That is true. But people will get saved only by a miraculous religion and this will not survive the critical processes that question the validity of the Record and raise up a generation of higher critics in the Church. I am reminded of an old farmer's statement when told how to protect his fruit trees from rabbits. He said he had always found an excellent way to protect them was to "kill off the rabbits." It would avail nothing to have sound trees and condition a healthy flow of sap, if the rabbits barked them. Higher criticism destroys the bark through which the sap of Christianity flows.

I feel how incomplete and inadequate to the situation is this presentation of the subject; but it is hoped some suggestions have been offered that will convince readers of the importance of the issues at stake and of the need of the Church being awakened to what is going on under the name of scholarship in some of her institutions and pulpits. I cannot but regret the conspiracy of silence or lack of moral courage on the part of the editors of leading church papers who witness these assaults upon the integrity of the Holy Scriptures without a word of protest.

The author has been gratified by the assurance of brethren in the ministry that his effort has been helpful. One minister wrote : "I have been having glorious success in revival meetings and ascribe much to the help I have obtained from your able defence of the old faith." It is hoped that in this form it will accomplish further good.

THE AUTHOR.

Taylor University, January, 1916,

"There is no reason to believe that the Teutonic rebellion of this century against the Divine truths entrusted to the Semites will ultimately meet with more success than the Celtic insurrection of the preceding age. Both have been sustained by the highest intellectual gifts that human nature has ever displayed ; but when the tumult subsides the Divine truths are found to be not less prevalent than before, and simply because they are Divine. Man brings to the study of the oracles more learning and more criticism than of yore ; and it is well that it should be so. The documents will yet bear a greater amount both of erudition and examination than they have received, but the Word of God is eternal, and will survive the spheres." — Lord Beaconsfield.

"The supreme danger of the Christian religion comes not from outside, but from within. No attack of a merely unimaginative materialism could so undermine and totter this heavenly edifice as the inclination of those inside to sponge away from its interior walls the ancient testimony of a divine origin." — Harold Begbie.

Chapter I. A Portentous Situation

There was never a time when the encroachments of unbelief upon the domain of faith called for more serious attention than now. There have been times when unbelief was undisguised, when its attacks were coarse and brutal and those who were "set for the defence and confirmation of the truth" were forearmed by the very method of attack. Under such conditions, the foes of Bible truth could secure no solid advantage. The citadel of faith remained unshaken because its defenders recognized the character of these foes and repulsed them with the weapons of inspiration. The strength of its position lay in the fact that the common mind was uncorrupted by error in the guise of truth and was therefore strong in the consciousness of a supernatural Faith, while the unholy distinction of opposing that Faith belonged to a few open enemies of the Cross.

The situation has completely changed. The evil that threatens the life of the Church is not, as aforetime, the bold, dastardly denial of Revelation but the subtle teaching that professes to be evangelical, yet, on the ground of harmonizing the Bible with modern thought, reconstructs it upon principles and by methods that take away an infallible guide and leaves us a religion of uncertainty. It is the tentative, homeopathic way in which higher critical suggestions are introduced into Sunday School literature or passed on by the concessions of the pulpit and the religious press, thus gradually weakening the conviction that the Scriptures are reliable and preparing the Church to modify its views regarding them. It is, in short, not the open repudiation of the doctrine that the Scriptures are inspired and constitute a revelation from God, attested by miracle, but the adoption and plausible setting forth by professed evangelicals, of views that logically tend to such a repudiation, which forms the gravest peril to the existence of a vital, powerful faith. It is the silent, steady intrusion of these views into the literature and teaching of the church through which they filter down into the common mind, dimming its vision of the spiritual and eternal, and threatening the extinction of a miracle-working religion in the church, that calls for vigorous, concerted resistance on the part of those who would have the church maintain its character as a Divine institution resting on a Supernatural Book and invested with superhuman power, instead of lapsing into the state of a mere human organization with Christian form and social functions.

As an instance of how the way is prepared for the acceptance of the higher critical theories concerning the Bible, take the assumption that the world's scholarship advocates these theories. If this were so, it would not be conclusive of their truth. It was Cicero who said that no theory is too absurd for some philosophers to support. The world by wisdom knew not God, and it is no more competent from the intellectual view-point to decide how He would reveal Himself to men. It is possible, therefore, that scholars reasoning from false premises, or partial premises, might reach an erroneous conclusion as to the form of a revelation, and the error would be none the less error, though it would be more potent for evil, because of unanimity of opinion.

But it is not true that the only scholarship deserving the name supports the hypotheses of higher criticism. There are a few men in great repute as scholars who advocate them ; and they are, with scarcely an exception, prejudiced against, if not bitterly hostile to, the claim of the Holy Scripture to be the product of Divine inspiration. There are a great many weak imitators of the few referred to — mere echoes of stronger voices, now filling the Church with their empty and misleading reverberations. Of this sort we may mention the case of the Rev. Dr. Geo. P. Mains, one of the publishing agents of the Methodist Episcopal Church who uses his official position to propagate higher criticism throughout the Church by means of a volume of which he is the author and the Methodist Book Concern, the publishers. In this volume occur the assertions, "It is clear, say our modern authorities, that he (Moses) could not have been the author of this book (Deuteronomy). For reasons equally convincing, it is evident that the book must be the product of a period or periods far later than that of Moses." Observe the echo-like character of these assertions (indicated by my italic type) which are calculated to produce the impression that nothing convincing can be said on the other side of this question. For calm, self-assuring dogmatism, for unblushing self-conceit, this assumption is without a parallel. By claiming everything, the higher critics evidently expect to save something. But the game will not succeed, except with those who are influenced by the shadow of a name and receive assumption as argument. How do Dr. Mains' assertions, which are common with higher critics, sound in the presence of such scholars as the Scotch giant, Prof. James Orr, whose book, The Problem of the Old Testament, conclusively refutes the critics ; Prof. James Robertson of whose work, The 'Religion of Israel, the German Dillman said that it hits the nail on the head, and which is valuable for its constructive character ; Prof. William Henry Green, one of the most learned scholars America ever produced, whose books The Unity of Genesis, and The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch meet and answer the critics at every turn ; Prof. Willis Beecher whose Reasonable Biblical Criticism is an example of its own title as well as an exposure of the unreasonable criticism we deplore. Space will not permit mention of all who have fully disproved the radical critical contention.

Special mention must be made of Wiener, the able, scholarly Jew of London, England, whose published works and articles occasionally appearing in the Bibliotheca Sacra Quarterly, make mincemeat of higher criticism, leaving nothing solid or substantial in its arguments. The appearance of this champion of Moses and the Prophets has smitten the critics with confusion. With him agree Troelstra, the Dutch successor of Kuenen at Leyden, Dahse of Germany, and others. The work of these scholars has put a new phase on Old Testament criticism and compelled the admission from certain critics that it has cast a cloud of uncertainty over their hypothesis. Has Dr. Mains ever heard of them ?

In the Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1914, Dahse, writing on "Is the Documentary Theory Tenable ?" refers to three important admissions. He says : "In Germany, in England and America, leading members of the prevailing school have either abandoned important positions held by the higher critics or adopted the methods of the textual critics." It was by these methods that Wiener and Dahse showed the untenableness of the Documentary Theory.

The first admission cited is by Hugo Gressman. Dahse says : "In Germany Hugo Gressman has published his work 'Mose und seine Zeit.' According to this Moses is the founder of the Israelitish religion; out of the organic development of his work sprung the works of the great prophets ; they are heirs of Moses, without whom they could not have accomplished what they did ; the Red Sea incident is an historical event which was an occular demonstration to the Israelites of the absolute supremacy of Jahweh over the gods of the Egyptians. The religion of Jahweh, which Moses introduced, is a thoroughly moral religion. Through the services of Moses the sphere of justice was for the first time embodied in the domain of religion on Israelitish soil, thus creating the firm foundation for the future nature of the state. The stories of Genesis emanate, in their original form, from pre-Mosaic times; those of the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, extend in their oldest parts in the time of Moses ; indeed they rare, perhaps, in part, still older. Concerning the Decalogue, Gressman not only considers a Mosaic conception of it possible, but even asserts that the Decalogue of Exodus XX was the catechism of the Hebrews in Mosaic times." Gressman is also shown to admit the force of the textual argument against the Documentary Theory.

The second admission cited by Dahse is by Dr. S. Skinner, an advanced higher critic, whose long discussion of Dahse's book in the Expositor "shows that nevertheless it has gradually become clear to the representatives of higher criticism that they must, nolens volens, right themselves in regard to the materials for textual criticism offered by Mr. H. M. Wiener, myself, and others." Dr. Skinner "finds himself compelled to emphasize the fact that he is 'far from thinking that the last word has been said about the problem of the LXX and its bearing on the history of the Hebrew text. Dahse's work has made it impossible for critics to treat that problem lightly, and has set a high standard of accuracy and thoroughness to those who shall attempt it ;' 'that confidence in the results of critical analysis must be seriously shaken ;' and 'we must frankly acknowledge that the trustworthiness of the Hebrew text in its transmission of the divine names calls for more thorough investigation than it has yet received at the hands of critical scholars/ "

The third admission is that of Professor Julius A. Bewer, who, in his article, "The Composition of the Judges, Chaps. 17, 18," published in the American Journal of Semitic Languages (July, 1913), "employs in reference to the book of Judges, the same rules which the textual critics would like to see employed with regard to the Pentateuch. There he states : 'Now it may be set down as a working principle of literary criticism, or, if not as a principle, at least as a reasonable demand, that the theory of a compilation of two parallel versions in a given story should be resorted to only when the other theory fails which tries to overcome the difficulties by means of textual criticism, by the discovery and excision of glosses and interpolations, and by the emendation of corruptions, and when there are clear and convincing evidences of two originally distinct versions/ " The conclusion reached from dealing with this portion of scripture according to the principle stated, is : "Through the severest process of literary criticism these chapters have come, various critical theories have proved inadequate, and now at the end of the process we may confidently regard them as a unity."

Well does Dahse say, regarding Prof. Bewer's reasoning: "Would not the same investigator arrive at the same conclusions if he investigated the Pentateuch in the same manner, just as independently and without prejudice ? At any rate, he has, with this extremely praiseworthy article on The Composition of Judges, chaps. 17, 18/ made from within the first breach in the fortress of higher criticism."

The decline of the speculative Old Testament criticism in Europe is apparent to unprejudiced observers. Professor Orr told the author several years ago that a strong reaction against the higher criticism was under way. Eerdmans, a pupil of Kuenen, in the preface to his Die Komposition der Genesis, writes: "I renounce the Graf-Kuenen- Wellhausen school and altogether oppose the so-called Newer Documentary Hypothesis." And Moller, at one time an adherent of Wellhausen, says: "After my studies which reach back over more than a decade, I am strongly of the impression that it is more correct to inquire what single passages are not from Moses than to give back to him a broken fragment here and there/'

M Musi the Bible Go

"It is surprising that the modern critics should not realize that the theory they are asserting is absolutely destructive of the whole Jewish religion. . . . The critical hypothesis, as it at present stands, assumes that the Jewish national consciousness was deliberately and successfully falsified, and that what the Jews have always believed to be the beginning of their religious life was really the end of it. I believe that this is both incredible and impossible." — Dean of Canterbury (Dr. Wace).

"A revelation of God that contains all kinds of error is an absurdity." — Prof. Bettex, The Bible, God's Word.

"The more I investigate Semitic antiquity, the more I am impressed with the utter baselessness of the view of Wellhausen." — (Fr. Hommel).

Chapter II The Perversion Of Sunday School

LITERATURE TO THE SERVICE

OF HIGHER CRITICISM

I have referred to the subtle manner in which the advocates of higher criticism are seeking to inculcate and spread throughout the church its radical theories, and adduced the assumption that "modern authorities'' have established the truth of these theories, thus virtually stigmatizing the contrary or traditional view as a mark of ignorance or of inability to reason correctly in a discussion of this kind. If we questioned the sincerity of the assumption, we should use the language of the day and call it a "bluff;" but we make no such charge and content ourselves with the statement that men who make this claim think the new views should be taught and prepare the way for a hearing by creating the impression that the best scholarship is on that side of the question. We feel that this claim, though made in good faith by some, is unfair to the opposing view and absolutely groundless, and I mentioned certain names that stand for the high water-mark of scholarship in support of the conservative position. This list could have been extended had it been considered necessary.

I now direct attention to how the Sunday Schools are being doped with the poison of higher criticism. When Prof. George Adam Smith was in this country he said in a minister's meeting: "Well, now, we have learned how to preach from the pulpit according to the new criticism ; we must wait for some genius to arise to teach us how to impart it to the children." I do not know of any genius who has arisen to the task, but a number of editors and writers of Sunday School lesson helps have undertaken to supply this deficiency. In some instances the method of doing this is very cautious and guarded, the most plausible statements making the new viewpoint appear entirely reasonable, while the logical end of the teaching does not appear. An article in the Sunday School Journal discussing the Divine Human Character of the Bible and Moses and the Pentateuch will illustrate this remark. Speaking of the formation of a national literature from popular beliefs and traditions, the writer says : "To this rule of gradual development the literature of the Hebrew people, preserved for us in the Old Testament, while in a very definite and exalted sense inspired of God, will be found to form no exception."

The theory of "gradual development" is a favorite one with higher critics, but as understood by the founders and leading exponents of the system it does not consist with a just and adequate interpretation of the Scriptures as the inspired and authoritative revelation of God. As Professor Orr says: "The guiding idea of the critical school is no longer revelation, but evolution." Development in the sense of a progressive revelation is true to fact, for God revealed Himself with ever-increasing clearness from Moses to the prophets, until, with His manifestation in the flesh, was poured forth the fulness of grace and truth. But this is very different from the theory that denies to the Scriptures the unique distinction they claim for themselves as a system of revealed truth with a historical setting framed by special supernatural interpositions. The animus of higher criticism is positively anti-supernatural. It reduces the history of Israel to the level of a development from mythical fancies and crude attempts to solve the mystery of existence and does not hesitate to characterize the Old Testament narrative as misleading and so jumbled as to need entire reconstruction. Witness the following declaration from Prof. Cornill's "Prophets of Israel:" 'The Israelitish narrative, as it lies before us in the books of the Old Testament gives a thoroughly one-sided, and, in many respects, incorrect, picture of the profane history, and on the other hand an absolutely false representation of the religious history of the people, and has thus made the discovery of the truth well-nigh impossible." Observe, to reproduce Prof. Willis J. Beecher's comment on this statement, "Dr. Cornill does not say that the Old Testament writers may here and there have inadvertently made a mistake or that there may be elements of fiction or of figure of speech in the Scriptures, which men have mistaken for literal fact. What he says is that the secular history is exceedingly untrustworthy, while the religious history is utterly false."

Such is the position of men who sound the keynote for the whole orchestra of higher criticism;

and I charge that articles like the one under review exert an unwholesome influence in training people to join in the chorus. When the writer says of Moses, 'To him must be traced the origin and formulation of many customs and institutions from which the later national system of worship and ritual developed," he encourages belief in the critical reconstruction of the narrative which Prof. Cornill declares is wholly unreliable, a reconstruction which implies, if it does not positively state, that "the national system of worship and ritual" is an invention of later times imposed on the credulity of people who revered the memory of Moses. To say nothing of the inconsistency of such an idea with a true definition of development, it is destructive of confidence in the trustworthiness of the Bible narratives. "These teach Abraham was a monotheist ; that he became possessed with the idea that he and his descendants were to be Jehovah's own people, chosen that all mankind might be blessed in them ; that Moses gave form to the institutions of the Abrahamic people, including civil laws and the ten commandments and an elaborate ritual ; that God trained them afterward for centuries, giving them a succession of prophets to interpret to them His dealings ; that as a part of their training He scattered them among the nations ; that the great movement culminated and took a new departure in Jesus. One who substitutes for this an outline which is inconsistent with it at every point should be honest enough not to claim that he accepts the Scriptures as truthful/' —(Prof. Willis J. Beecher.)

Dr. John Lord has truly remarked: "It follows necessarily (from a denial that the Mosaic code and the various deliverances of the Israelites were due to the direct agency of Jehovah) that all the miracles by which the divine legation of Moses is supported and credited, have no firm foundation, and a belief in them is superstitious — as indeed it is in all other miracles recorded in the Scriptures, since they rest on testimony no more firmly believed than that believed by Christ and the apostles respecting Moses. Sweep away his authority as an inspiration, and you undermine the whole authority of the Bible; you bring it down to the level of all other books; you make it valuable only as a thesaurus of interesting stories and impressive moral truths, which we accept as we do all other kinds of knowledge, leaving us free to reject what we cannot understand or appreciate, or even what we dislike." — Jewish Heroes and Prophets.

Observe how this Sunday School writer seeks to cloud the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. He refers to the fact that Moses is spoken of in the third person. This is not conclusive of another hand in the composition of these writings, since the habit of concealing their identity is common with the sacred historians.

In point of fact Moses often spoke in the first person, as when he remonstrated with the people for their murmuring (Ex. 16:8) and when he rehearsed the law in the plain of Moab. The very book (Deuteronomy) which is with the critics "the firm foundation on which they build their superstructure/' is almost wholly in the first person, as naturally it should be. In other books, where God Himself gives the Law and prescribes the ritual, Moses might well refer to himself in the third person. "All through the story," says Prof. W. H. Griffith Thomas, "God comes first with Aaron as the spokesman, Jethro as the adviser, and Joshua as the military leader ; the humility of the record concerning Moses is essentially true to life."

Expressions and statements are mentioned as "clearly belonging to a later period than do the events which they describe." Thus the statement in Gen. 12:6 and 13:7 that "the Canaanite was then in the land," "could be made only in retrospect by an author writing at a time when the Canaanites were no longer in possession." Another explanation is possible. It was doubtless the design of the writer of that passage to show that the Canaanite was "then in the land" as well as now; that the settlement of Canaan by these nations took place before Abraham's migration.

Gen. 36:31 is cited as an instance of a writer speaking of a time long past when he says : "And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." The implication is not necessary. Kings, according to promise were to descend from Abraham and Sarah and Israel, and are, in Deuteronomy, anticipated (Gen. 17:6, 16; 35:11. Deut. 17:14, 15; 28:16). "If the author was a contemporary of Moses he would be interested in the fact that the fulfilling of this part of the promise had already begun in the Edomite branch of Abraham's family, although it had not yet begun in the Israelite branch; and he would use language accordingly/ '