Divisioa 3S500 
 
 on J)7^^ 
 
THE HIGHER CRITICISM 
 
THE HIGHER 
 CRITICISM 
 
 jFour Papers 
 
 y BY >^ 
 
 s. r.'driver, d.d. 
 
 Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of 
 Hebrew, Oxford. 
 
 AND 
 
 A. F. KIRKPATRICK, D.D. 
 
 DEAN OF ELY 
 
 (sometime Master of Selwyn College and Lady Margaret's 
 Professor of Divinity, Cambridge). 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 1912 
 
Printed in the City of London at the Edinburgh Press. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE first, third and fourth of the following papers 
 were originally reprinted six years ago, in 1905, 
 in the hope that they might help to remove some of 
 the misconceptions which, as various articles and 
 letters in the public papers had shewn at the time, 
 prevailed widely with regard to the nature and scope 
 of the "Higher Criticism." I had already decided to 
 reprint my own two papers with this view, when it 
 occurred to me that the paper read by my colleague, 
 Professor Kirkpatrick, of Cambridge, now Dean of 
 Ely, at the Northampton Church Congress in 1902, 
 would form a valuable addition to them; and I am 
 grateful to him for the ready assent which he gave 
 to my proposal that this paper should be included 
 with mine. It seemed to both of us that to reprint 
 what had been published before was preferable to 
 writing something new, in order to preclude its 
 being supposed that what we said was dictated, or 
 influenced, by the needs of the moment : the three 
 papers express not views framed hastily at the time, 
 but views which had been formed deliberately long 
 before, and held by each of us for many years. We 
 have reason to believe that the papers have been 
 
PREFACE 
 
 appreciated and found useful. Misunderstandings, 
 such as those alluded to, seem, however, unfor^ 
 tunately, to be still prevalent in many quarters; and 
 the three papers have been accordingly reprinted 
 again, — with the addition of a fourth, the second in 
 the present volume, which seemed to us to touch 
 upon some aspects of the subject which ought not to 
 be forgotten, — in the hope that they may still be 
 found useful in removing apprehensions, and in 
 bringing home to our readers both the necessity, 
 and the value, of the study in question. 
 
 Our aim in the present Preface is, firstly, to point 
 out a prevalent and serious misconception of the 
 scope of the "Higher Criticism." The word "critic" 
 means able to distinguish, and "criticism" means the 
 power or art of distinguishing. Both terms may, of 
 course, be used of many different kinds of "distin- 
 guishing"; but the "higher" criticism — the methods 
 of which are applicable to any ancient writing, and 
 are by no means restricted to the Bible — is so called 
 in contradistinction to the "lower" or textual criti- 
 cism. When the text of an ancient writing has been 
 settled, as accurately as possible, by the canons of 
 textual criticism, it becomes the province of the 
 "higher" criticism to determine its origin, date, and 
 (if it be composite) literary structure, by "distin- 
 guishing" between the data available for the purpose. 
 The adjective (the sense of which is often misunder- 
 stood) has reference simply to the higher and more 
 
 vi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 difficult class of problems, with which, as opposed 
 to textual criticism, the "higher" criticism has to 
 deal. The problems which form the subject of the 
 "Higher Criticism" are thus properly literary prob- 
 lems. When the date and historical setting of an 
 ancient writing have been determined, it is no doubt 
 natural to draw inferences as to its credibility and|j •^^'^'*- 
 the historical character of the events described in it : 7 *""**■ " 
 but these questions belong properly not to the 
 "higher" criticism, but to historical criticism; and to 
 extend the term "Higher Criticism," so as to make 
 it include not only the consideration of such histori- 
 cal problems, but even speculations, probable and 
 improbable alike, on subjects such as the origin of 
 the traditions or civilization of the ancient Hebrews, 
 and the influence of Babylonia upon them, is to 
 abuse it. The proper function of the "Higher Criti- 
 cism" is to determine the origin, date, and literary 
 structure of an ancient writing : it provides materials 
 for the historical critic, and is thus ancillary to his- 
 torical criticism, but is itself distinct from it. The 
 confusion is no doubt due to the fact that scholars 
 who are, amongst other things, "higher critics" have 
 also in their writings discussed, and expressed judg- 
 ments upon, historical problems such as those which 
 have been referred to : but in so far as they have 
 done this, they have done it, not as "higher critics," 
 but as historians or historical critics; and the fact 
 forms no justification for attributing to the "Higher 
 
 vii. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Criticism" judgments and conclusions with which it 
 has properly nothing to do. 
 
 So much in explanation of the true scope of the 
 "Higher Criticism." Upon other points the papers 
 which follow will speak for themselves. In the first 
 are stated some of the grounds which, as it seems to 
 both of us, make the "Higher Criticism" a necessity 
 at the present day, and give its generally accepted 
 conclusions a pressing claim upon the careful con- 
 sideration of Christian men. The second discusses 
 further the inevitableness and legitimacy of Criticism. 
 It is shown that the study of the Bible cannot be 
 isolated from the influence of contemporary methods 
 of study and modes of thought; and in particular 
 how modern methods of examining literary and his- 
 torical documents, and the doctrine of development, 
 compel us to revise many traditional ideas in regard 
 to the Old Testament. The arguments frequently 
 urged against the legitimacy of criticism on the 
 grounds of its novelty and the authority of the New 
 Testament are examined, and its value for the better 
 understanding of the Old Testament is pointed out. 
 In the third some account is given of the changed 
 views which the discoveries and researches of the last 
 half-century have obliged thoughtful men to adopt 
 with regard to the Old Testament, and of the help 
 afforded by the "Higher Criticism" in throwing its 
 different parts into their true historical perspective, 
 and thereby not only bringing out with great vivid- 
 
 viii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ness their historical significance, but also setting 
 before us far more clearly than appeared before the 
 course along which God guided His people Israel, 
 and gradually led them to a fuller knowledge of 
 Himself. In the fourth paper it is shown that the 
 application to the Old Testament of the methods 
 of the "Higher Criticism" implies no denial of its 
 inspiration or disparagement of its contents, but that 
 it must ever remain, in the estimation of Christian 
 men, a living source of moral and religious truth. 
 
 Mention has been made above of the "generally 
 accepted" conclusions of the "Higher Criticism"; and 
 a few words may not be out of place in explanation 
 of the expression. Naturally, in a subject covering a 
 wide area, and embracing many and varied details, 
 some conclusions have been drawn which, though 
 they approve themselves to individual critics, rest 
 upon fewer and slighter data than others, and are not 
 accepted by all critics; it also happens in this, as in 
 other branches of research, that suggestions and 
 hypotheses are not unfrequently put forth tenta- 
 tively, — and also usefully, as indicating the lines upon 
 which attention should be directed and investigation 
 carried on, — which do not ultimately receive the 
 approval of critics in general, but prove to be ill- 
 founded or arbitrary; and conclusions of this indi- 
 vidual or provisional character are sometimes in- 
 correctly spoken of as though they were the con- 
 clusions of higher critics generally. Of course, also, 
 
 ix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 the expression does not include the questionable his- 
 torical speculations which have been recently — 
 though, as has been shown above, unjustly — laid 
 somewhat freely to the charge of the "Higher Criti- 
 cism." There are also other cases in which it is 
 important to remember that the position of critics 
 is frequently misunderstood by their opponents, who 
 in consequence often urge objections which are, it 
 is true, conclusive against the misapprehended posi- 
 tion of critics, but are destitute of all cogency 
 against their real position.* It is, indeed, sometimes 
 
 *Thus, to take an example of one of the commonest of these 
 misunderstandings, within the last two months critics have been 
 credited, by writers who might have been supposed to be well 
 informed, with maintaining the post-exilic origin of the rites 
 and ceremonies of the priestly law, and even that of "the law" 
 in general, and objections have been urged which would undeni- 
 ably be fatal to these positions. But as, in point of fact, no 
 critic holds these positions, the real critical position remains 
 obviously unaffected by the objections. What critics really hold 
 is not that the priestly law ongi?tated, or was " devised," in or 
 after the exile (which would indeed be utterly inconsistent with 
 the known facts), but that, while the chief ceremonial institutions 
 of Israel were in their origin of great antiquity, the laws respect- 
 ing them were gradually developed and elaborated, and that 
 in the shape in which they are foj'mulated in the priestly sections 
 of the Pe7itateuch they belong to the exilic or early post-exilic 
 period. The institutions of the priestly law are thus the final 
 outcome of a long established Temple usage. This position is 
 very different from the belief that these institutions were the 
 *' invention " of the exilic or post-exilic period, and is perfectly 
 consistent with all the known facts, even including the injunction 
 to observe the Feast of Unleavened Cakes in 419 B.C., and the 
 mention of the burnt-offering, the meal-offering, and frankincense 
 in 409 B.C., in the papyri discovered recently at Elephantine in 
 Upper Egypt. See further the writer's Introduction to the Litera. 
 ture of the Old Testament^ p. 142, or his essay on the •' Critical 
 Study of the Old Testament," in the series called Essays for the 
 Ti?nes (Francis Griffiths), No. 21, pp. 30-33. 
 
 X 
 
PREFACE 
 
 asserted that even the most generally accepted con- 
 clusions of the "Higher Criticism" are contradicted 
 by archaeology : but our readers must rest assured 
 that this is not the case : such statements rest 
 uniformly upon some misapprehension either of the 
 grounds upon which critics rest their conclusions, 
 or of the bearing of the facts of archaeology upon 
 them.* It need only be added, lastly, that in what 
 has been said, both in this Preface and in the 
 papers which follow, — except in one or two places 
 where the contrary will be self-evident, — the Old 
 Testament alone has been held in view. With 
 regard to the New Testament, it may be sufficient 
 to observe that, as has been pointed out below 
 (p. 52), the very different conditions under which 
 the writings of the New Testament were produced, 
 and especially the relatively short interval of time 
 separating them from the period of our Lord's life 
 upon earth, make it to our minds impossible that 
 the application to it of the methods of the "Higher 
 Criticism" (in the legitimate sense of the expression), 
 though it may alter our view of the origin and struc- 
 ture of some of the documents concerned, should 
 ever affect appreciably the historical evidence for all 
 the leading facts of our Lord's life, or for the vital 
 truths of Christianity. S. R. D. 
 
 November 18, 191 1. 
 
 * See for illustrations an article by G. B. Gray, in the Expositor, 
 May, 1898, p. 337 ff. ; Hogarth's Authority and Arch(Eology (1899), 
 p. 143 ff. ; or Chapman's Introduction to the Pentateuch (uniform 
 with the volumes of the Cambridge Bible), 191 1, p. 305 ff. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I The Claims of Criticism upon the Clergy 
 
 AND Laity. By A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D. 3 
 
 II The Inevitableness and Legitimacy of 
 
 Criticism. By A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D. 17 
 
 III The Old Testament in the Light of To- 
 
 Day. By S. R. Driver, D.D. ... 37 
 
 IV The Permanent Religious Value of the 
 
 Old Testament. By S. R. Driver, D.D. 71 
 
 Select List of Books . . . .89 
 
The Claims of Criticism upon the 
 Clergy and Laity. 
 
I. 
 
 THE CLAIMS OF CRITICISM UPON 
 
 THE CLERGY AND LAITY.* 
 
 By A. F. KIRKPATRICK, D.D. 
 
 THE aim of the Christian student is truth; and 
 the aim of the Christian teacher is to bring 
 that truth to bear upon human character and Ufe. 
 The Old Testament forms an integral part of the 
 Bible. It was placed in the hands of the Christian 
 Church by its Founder and His Apostles as the re- 
 cord of God's revelation of Himself to His chosen 
 people and the manifold preparation for His own 
 coming; as the source from which instruction in con- 
 duct was to be derived and as the means by which 
 the spiritual life was to be fed. We cannot, there- 
 fore, treat it as any other book: it is sacred ground; 
 reverence is demanded of us as we approach it. 
 But it is no true reverence which would exempt 
 it from the fullest examination by all legitimate 
 methods of criticism. Inquiry into the origin, the 
 structure, the character, the meaning of the books 
 which compose it is not only permissible, but indis- 
 pensable. "To discover more clearly how anything 
 
 * A Paper read at the Church Congress, Northampton, Octo- 
 ber, 1902. 
 
 3 
 
THE CLAIMS OF CRITICISM 
 
 has grown may enable us more truly to estimate its 
 worth and to distinguish it more confidently from all 
 other things." God's revelation of Himself was pro- 
 gressive, and its interpretation must be progressive. 
 We may reasonably expect that "every increase of 
 knowledge will bring forth a deeper knowledge of 
 the truth committed to His Church." New modes 
 of thought, more searching methods of literary and 
 historical investigation, fresh discoveries of science 
 and archceology, must necessarily affect and modify 
 the interpretation of the Bible. It was once as 
 easy as it was natural to regard the first chapter of 
 Genesis as a literal account of the way in which the 
 universe was brought into being; now that we have 
 read the records of the rocks and learnt some frag- 
 ments of the mystery of the heavens, we know that 
 it cannot be regarded as literal history. But its 
 religious value remains unaltered. It teaches reli- 
 gious truths which geology aud astronomy could 
 never teach with authority — truths which are more 
 important for the mass of mankind than all the 
 results of the most elaborate scientific researches. 
 
 But truth is not to be won without effort and, it 
 may be, pain; and even, as it may seem, temporary 
 loss. Times of change must be times of trial. They 
 call for faith, courage, patience, sympathy : — for faith 
 that God is still teaching His Church, as He taught 
 it of old, TToXyjuLepcog Kul TroXvrpoTrioQ, "by divers portions 
 and in divers manners" (Heb. i. i); for courage to 
 
 4 
 
UPON THE CLERGY AND LAITY 
 
 go forward trustfully, following the light of the rea- 
 son which God has given us; for patience to "prove 
 all things" and "hold fast that which is good"; for 
 sympathy between those who cling to tradition and 
 those who are animated by the desire for progress. 
 
 Now, what is the position of students and teachers 
 of the Bible to-day ? They are face to face with a 
 treatment of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, 
 which half a century ago would have seemed utterly 
 irreverent, subversive of the foundations of the faith; 
 and which still seems to many (it is not to be 
 wondered at) irreverent and mischievous. Let me 
 try briefly to state what modern criticism is saying 
 with regard to the Old Testament. Pardon me if, 
 for the sake of brevity, my statement is somewhat 
 blunt and dogmatic. 
 
 (i) Textual criticism declares the text to be seri- 
 ously corrupt. The old theory of the perfection of 
 the Massoretic text — i.e., the "traditional" Hebrew 
 text, as fixed and handed down by the later Jewish 
 scribes — is no longer tenable in the face of a mass 
 of cumulative evidence to the contrary. 
 
 (2) Linguistic criticism throws doubt upon the 
 interpretation of not a few passages. The meaning 
 of words is disputed; grammatical constructions are 
 ambiguous; allusions are obscure; translation fails 
 adequately to convey the meaning of the original, 
 and honesty compels us to recognize an element of 
 uncertainty in a multitude of renderings. 
 
 5 
 
THE CLAIMS OF CRITICISM 
 
 (3) The so-called "higher,"* or literary, criticism 
 has investigated the origin of the various books, and 
 pronounces that some books once supposed to have 
 been written by single authors are compilations with 
 a long and complicated literary history, and that 
 some books cannot have been written by the authors 
 whose names they bear. Sometimes it goes further, 
 and asserts that some books have been revised and 
 interpolated in such a way that their original authors 
 would hardly be able to recognize them. 
 
 (4) Historical criticism affirms that much of the 
 history has been coloured by the beliefs' and practices 
 of the times in which the books were compiled, long 
 after the events, and must be regarded as rather an 
 ideal than an actual picture of the national life. It 
 requires us to a great extent to revolutionize our 
 views of the course of the history of Israel. 
 
 (5) The researches of archaeology and the com- 
 parative study of religions show that the religion of 
 Israel derived many elements from the primitive 
 religion of the Semites, possessed much in common 
 with the religions of surrounding nations, and was 
 largely influenced in its development by the faiths 
 with which it came in contact in the course of its 
 history. 
 
 In these and other ways modern criticism is de- 
 manding a new treatment of the Bible, which seems 
 
 * On the meaning of this expression, see the Preface to the 
 present pamphlet, pp. vi-viii. 
 
UPON THE CLERGY AND LAITY 
 
 to many incompatible with the reverence due to it; 
 it is offering a new view of the Bible which seems to 
 many to impair, if not to destroy its value. Is not 
 all this perplexing, disquieting, unsettling ? Yes ; 
 but the new movement cannot be ignored; it cannot 
 be crushed by denunciation; if it rests, as its advo- 
 cates claim that it does, upon the honest recognition 
 of facts, it must in the end be triumphant. Now 
 practically every one who has made any serious study 
 of the Old Testament has felt himself compelled to 
 admit that the traditional view of its character — 
 the view which was generally accepted fifty years 
 ago — can no longer be maintained without modifica- 
 tion. Many students of the Old Testament, probably 
 a majority of them, have found themselves compelled 
 to go further, to accept critical principles, and to 
 revise their views of its textual, literary, and histori- 
 cal character to a greater or less degree, in the 
 directions I have indicated. They have done so, not 
 in obedience to any d. priori philosophical or theo- 
 logical theories, but as the result of a careful and 
 unprejudiced examination of the facts in the light of 
 modern critical methods and enlarged knowledge. 
 But they have not abandoned their belief that the 
 Old Testament is the God-given record of God's 
 special revelation of Himself through Israel in pre- 
 paration for the Incarnation, and as such of per- 
 manent significance for the Christian Church. 
 
 This being the case, the clergy are in duty bound 
 7 
 
THE CLAIMS OF CRITICISM 
 
 to endeavour to understand the methods of criticism, 
 to estimate the validity of its results, and to consider 
 how those results, if true, must affect their teaching. 
 For if those methods are, generally speaking, sound; 
 if those results are, to any considerable extent, valid; 
 ?\readers of the Bible must be gently and gradually 
 jjprepared to accept them. The responsibiUty laid 
 upon the teachers of the present generation is to 
 guide those entrusted to their care safely through 
 the inevitable dangers of a time of change; to show- 
 that the Bible is not less the Word of God because 
 we are forced, in the light of modern research, to 
 acknowledge that it does not possess many char-' 
 acteristics which it was once believed to possess, and 
 which had come to be regarded as essential notes of 
 a record of divine revelation; to explain how its 
 religious value is not diminished, but increased, by 
 a courageous treatment of it in the light of fuller 
 knowledge. The clergy who are to teach must teach 
 themselves; they have promised to be diligent in 
 such studies as help to the knowledge of Holy Scrip- 
 ture; and some knowledge of modern criticism is 
 indispensable, partly that they may avoid basing the 
 truth of Christianity upon insecure foundations and 
 defending positions which they will presently be 
 forced to abandon; partly that they may not be 
 guilty of ignoring the new light upon the meaning of 
 Scripture which God intends should be thrown by 
 the progress of modern thought. For there is a grave 
 
 8 
 
( 
 
 UPON THE CLERGY AND LAITY 
 
 danger to faith in insisting upon views which the 
 majority of thinking men have found or will shortly 
 find to be untenable; and there is a serious loss 
 to the faith if the results of criticism are ignored, 
 supposing its claim to offer a larger and sounder 
 theology is to any extent well-grounded. I do not 
 plead that the processes or results of modern criti- 
 cism should often, if ever, be directly discussed in 
 the pulpit; in many churches they would be utterly 
 out of place and would only perplex and annoy; 
 but I do believe that they must be taken careful 
 account of in determining the way in which the Old 
 Testament is taught, if the faith of the next genera- 
 tion is to be spared an abrupt and perilous shock. 
 But here it is necessary, in view of certain recent 
 developments of criticism, to point out that it is 
 all-important to distinguish between sober criticism, 
 the results of which have been tested and are gener- 
 ally accepted, and speculative criticism, which is the 
 outcome of individual ingenuity, and is never hkely 
 to command a general approval. Sober criticism is 
 objective, it carefully collects facts, arranges them, 
 and endeavours to ascertain their meaning. It re- 
 cognizes its hmitations; it acknowledges that many 
 of its conclusions are only probable. Speculative 
 criticism is subjective; it often pretends to impossi- 
 bilities; it depends on the intuition of the critic; 
 and frequently it convinces no one but himself. 
 Thus, for example, it must be admitted that in a 
 
 9 
 
THE CLAIMS OF CRITICISM 
 
 large number of instances the text of the Old Testa- 
 ment is corrupt, and honesty requires us to acknow- 
 ledge it; but it is absurd to suppose that in more 
 than a few instances the original text can with cer- 
 tainty be restored by conjecture; and it is ridiculous 
 to imagine that history can be re-written by the aid 
 of a long series of unsupported guesses, however 
 ingenious. The results of literary criticism are at 
 best only probable, though in many cases the proba- 
 bility amounts to practical certainty; but literary 
 criticism has been pushed to the wildest extremes, as 
 for instance when we are told that we have no genu- 
 ine writings of the prophet Jeremiah except a few 
 lyric poems, and that only a dim remembrance of 
 the grand form of the prophet is to be discerned in 
 the poetic portions of the book. The results of his- 
 torical criticism, again, are only probable; it may 
 easily be mistaken in its attempts to reconstruct his- 
 tory from scanty details; it is often presumptuous 
 in presenting as certainties what are only tentative 
 theories. Every movement is sure to have its extra- 
 vagances; they misrepresent and injure it, for those 
 who dislike the movement are only too ready to judge 
 it by its extravagances, and to point to them as char- 
 acteristic, when they are mere excrescences; and at 
 the present time there are such extravagances of criti- 
 cism, which must not be regarded as normal and re- 
 presentative. Those on whom lies the responsibility 
 of teaching are bound to examine and discriminate. 
 
 10 
 
UPON THE CLERGY AND LAITY 
 
 But to return to our main subject. In what ways 
 does modern criticism affect theology, i.e., our whole 
 view of the content of God's revelation of Himself 
 and of the way in which it was given and recorded ? 
 Let me speak of three points — the mode of revelation, 
 the character of prophecy, the nature of inspiration. 
 
 (i) It leads us to regard God's revelation of Him- 
 self as a more gradual process than we had supposed 
 it to be; effected to a large extent by the action of 
 ordinary forces, developed in ways which we should 
 now call natural rather than supernatural. There is 
 an analogy between the process of revelation and the 
 process of creation as we now understand it. The 
 shaping of the universe, we now know, was the work 
 not of six literal days, but of immeasurable ages; yet 
 it was no whit the less the obedient response of mat- 
 ter to the fiat of Omnipotence. The lofty creed of 
 ethical Monotheism was not flashed into the heart of 
 the nation once for all amid the lightnings of Sinai, 
 but won through many a struggle and many a failure ; 
 yet none the less it was Jehovah's message to the 
 nation from the day when He brought it out of the 
 land of Egypt. 
 
 (2) Prophecy, that unique gift of ancient Israel, 
 was far more closely linked with the time and cir- 
 cumstances of its delivery than was formerly thought. 
 We should place its evidential value now far more in 
 its moral force than in its predictions, though this 
 element must not be denied or minimised. It was 
 
 11 
 
THE CLAIMS OF CRITICISM 
 
 the exposition of eternal principles in the language 
 of the time; rooted in the history and institutions of 
 the chosen people; conditioned by the temperaments 
 and fortunes and environments of individual pro- 
 phets; yet none the less surely a message from God, 
 and no mere fanciful aspiration of enthusiasts and 
 fanatics, or natural expression of moral ideals by the 
 best representatives of a naturally religious race. 
 
 (3) Criticism compels us to revise our doctrine of 
 the inspiration of Scripture. We must not ascribe 
 an equal value and authority to every part of the 
 Old Testament. We must no longer talk of its in- 
 fallibility and inerrancy. We must distinguish its 
 temporary, imperfect elements. Our Lord Himself 
 taught us to do so. While we hold fast to the belief 
 that the Old Testament contains the record — the 
 divinely-shaped record — of God's revelation of Him- 
 self to Israel and through Israel, we seem to be 
 forced to admit that the record was not given and 
 has not been preserved in such form as we might 
 antecedently have expected and as has generally 
 been believed. And surely, in this connexion, the 
 fact that for centuries the Old Testament was known 
 to the Church only through most imperfect versions 
 gives much matter for reflection. 
 
 What follows from these results of criticism ? Is 
 not our theology liberated, deepened, strengthened ? 
 
 (i) It is liberated. — We are relieved of a multitude 
 of difficulties in the study of the Old Testament 
 
 12 
 
UPON THE CLERGY AND LAITY 
 
 when we accept in general principle, if not in every 
 detail, the critical account of its origin and character. 
 We need no longer spend our time and energy in 
 attempting to reconcile every supposed discrepancy. 
 We can recognize most frankly that the immoralities 
 and barbarities and imprecations which shock us 
 belong to a lower stage of religious history. Unful- 
 filled prophecies need no longer perplex us. We can 
 look away from details to the great central truths 
 which were being slowly taught to an unwilling 
 nation, to the great divine purpose for the world 
 which was being patiently wrought out in and 
 through the vicissitudes of the nation's history and 
 the sufferings and triumphs of its individual mem- 
 bers. 
 
 (2) It is deepened. — For at the present moment, 
 through the instrumentaUty of this criticism, which 
 to many seems destructive and unsettling, God is 
 surely driving us back, lovingly if sternly, from the 
 letter to the spirit; from the word to the Speaker; 
 from external details to the great spiritual truths 
 which underlie them. We only follow our Lord's 
 example if we concentrate attention on the great 
 principles which sum up the teaching of the Old 
 Testament (Matt. vii. 12; xxii. 40). 
 
 (3) It is strengthened. — Criticism compels us to a 
 deeper and more careful study of the way in which 
 God wrought out His purposes in the world in his- 
 tory as well as in creation; and I cannot but believe 
 
 13 
 
THE CLAIMS OF CRITICISM 
 
 that it has a special message for our time, because 
 it presents to us a view of His action in past his- 
 tory which will confirm our faith and help us to 
 believe more confidently in His continued working 
 in the world. As we enter more and more sympath- 
 etically into the nature of the process of God's work- 
 ing in old time we begin to realize how hard it must 
 have been at the time to be sure that God was 
 guiding the destinies of Israel; yet as we survey the 
 completed history we cannot fail to trace His guid- 
 ance: and so we are encouraged to believe that, hard 
 as we may sometimes find it to recognize His guid- 
 ing hand in the tangled history of the present, all 
 is converging to the "one far-off divine event" — the 
 universal establishment of His eternal sovereignty. 
 
 14 
 
The Inevitableness and Legitimacy 
 OF Criticism. 
 
II. 
 
 THE INEVITABLENESS AND LEGITIMACY OF 
 CRITICISM.* 
 
 I.— Each age has its trials of faith which come to 
 it through the progress of thought and the advance 
 of knowledge. Upon each successive generation is 
 laid the task of adapting its interpretation of the 
 Bible to the growing knowledge of the time; and in 
 an age when new methods of investigation and new 
 modes of thought are affecting all our studies, 
 changes, and starthng changes, are inevitable in re- 
 gard to our conceptions of the character of the Bible. 
 Loyalty to fresh light is not less a duty than loyalty 
 to our inheritance from the past. The education of 
 the world goes on apace, and unless Theology can 
 keep in touch with it, it must renounce its claim to 
 be the Queen of Sciences. And then religion must 
 inevitably suffer. Forcible repression of freedom of 
 thought must foster superstition or scepticism, and 
 in the end it is compelled to acknowledge its defeat. 
 The study of the Bible cannot be isolated from the 
 influence of contemporary methods of study and 
 modes of thought. 
 
 * A Paper read at the St. Albans Diocesan Conference, October, 
 1904, and reprinted from the Interpreter for March, 1905, p. 201^ 
 
 17 
 
THE INEVITABLENESS AND 
 
 History abounds in warnings. "Luther denounced 
 Copernicus as an arrogant foe who wrote in defiance 
 of Scripture, and Melanchthon urged the suppression 
 of such mischievous doctrines by the secular power."* 
 The terrors of the Inquisition were invoked to silence 
 Galileo. But Astronomy triumphed. Not half a 
 century ago Geology was supposed to be antagon- 
 istic to religion, and it is only by slow degrees that 
 we have come to see that Scripture and Science can- 
 not be at variance, because Scripture was never in- 
 tended to teach Science, and must be interpreted 
 in accordance with the established results of Science. 
 We can now listen with equanimity to a science 
 which postulates enormous periods for the develop- 
 ment of the earth, and thinks that man may have 
 existed on it for 50,000 or even 100,000 years. 
 
 n. — There are two forces at work in the present 
 day, compelling us to revise many of our traditional 
 ideas with regard to the Old Testament : (a) the 
 modern methods of examining historical and literary 
 documents; (b) the doctrine of development. Shall 
 we attempt to crush them by denunciation ? If the 
 methods of investigation and the principles of 
 thought are sound and scientific, the attempt, as 
 experience shews, is foredoomed to failure. Let me 
 quote the opinion of an eminent historian in regard 
 to them, and first, in regard to the examination of 
 documents. In his inaugural lecture. Professor Bury, 
 * Chambers' Encyclopaedia, iii., 462. 
 18 
 
LEGITIMACY OF CRITICISM 
 
 Lord Acton's successor in the Chair of Modern 
 History at Cambridge, spoke of "the revolution 
 which is slowly and silently progressing" in historical 
 studies. Before the beginning of the last century 
 the study of history was, as a rule, not scientific. 
 But "erudition has now been supplanted by scientific 
 method." It was "not a historian but a philologist," 
 who "gave a powerful stimulus to the introduction 
 of critical methods which are now universally applied. 
 Six years before the eighteenth century closed a 
 modest book appeared at Halle, of which it is per- 
 haps hardly a grave exaggeration to say that it is 
 one of half a dozen which in the last three hundred 
 years have exercised most effective influence upon 
 thought. The work I mean is Wolf's Prolegomena 
 to Homer. It launched upon the world a new engine 
 — donum exitiale Minervae — which was soon to menace 
 the walls of many a secure citadel. It gave historians 
 the idea of a systematic and minute method of 
 analysing their sources, which soon developed into 
 the microscopic criticism, now recognised as in- 
 dispensable." 
 
 Let me call another witness in the same depart- 
 ment of study. In his excellent handbook on The 
 Study of Ecclesiastical History the late Bishop of Gib- 
 raltar, Dr. Collins, writes, (p. 33), "The next step 
 that the student must undertake is the examination 
 of the documents which he has obtained. He must 
 take them one by one and examine and appraise 
 
 19 
 
THE INEVITABLENESS AND 
 
 them as carefully as he can. Is this a faithful text 
 or is it corrupt ? is it really the work of the author 
 to whom it is ascribed ? was he a contemporary wit- 
 ness ? if not, when did he live ? when did he write ? 
 what were his opportunities of knowing the facts ? 
 was he biassed, and if so, in what direction ? did he 
 write with a purpose, and if so, with what purpose ? 
 What can be learned on these points from internal, 
 and what from external evidence ? and do the con- 
 clusions agree to which these two respectively lead ? 
 Such are the questions which must be asked with 
 regard to each document; and the answers to these 
 questions, so far as they can be ascertained, must 
 henceforward be borne constantly in mind in deal- 
 ing with the documents concerned." 
 
 These methods have been appUed to the books of 
 the Bible, and these questions have inevitably been 
 asked concerning them. We cannot isolate the study 
 of the Bible, and refuse to submit it to the processes 
 which are freely applied to all literature and all his- 
 torical documents. Its sacred character cannot ex- 
 empt it from such inquiries. We believe it to be in- 
 spired; but we have no right to assume a priori that 
 inspiration would render such investigations super- 
 fluous or profane : and the most elementary acquaint- 
 ance with a few simple facts shews the untenableness 
 of such an assumption. 
 
 We can no longer approach the study of the Old 
 Testament with a belief in the absolute integrity of 
 
 20 
 
LEGITIMACY OF CRITICISM 
 
 the text. In the seventeenth century there were 
 scholars who went so far as to maintain the in- 
 spiration and absolute accuracy of even the vowel 
 points of the Massoretic Text, but the simplest 
 application of the principles of textual criticism 
 demonstrates the impossibility of such a hypothesis. 
 There are traditions of date and authorship received 
 from the Jewish Church and long regarded as auth- 
 oritative, which can no longer be upheld, when they 
 are tested by internal evidence. Books and groups 
 of books supposed to have been written by a single 
 author are seen to be compilations from sources 
 differing widely in character; and some books contain 
 the plainest indications of a date at variance with 
 the traditional attribution. If two accounts of the 
 same event are inconsistent, we are compelled to 
 endeavour to form a judgment which is the most 
 trustworthy, and to explain how the discrepancy is 
 to be accounted for. 
 
 Whatever difficulties may be raised, these ques- 
 tions must be investigated patiently, thoroughly, 
 dispassionately. We must not be alarmed if we 
 find the same phenomena meeting us in our sacred 
 documents which we find in secular writings. In so 
 far as the cases are parallel, they must be dealt 
 with in the same way. 
 
 III. — Let us take a simple illustration of the com- 
 pilatory character of the historical books. In chap- 
 ters vii. to xii. of the First Book of Samuel two in- 
 
 21 
 
THE INEVITABLENESS AND 
 
 dependent accounts of the election of Saul to be 
 king are combined. One is contained in chapters ix., 
 X. 1-16, xi. : the other in chapters vii., viii., x. 17-27, 
 xii. In the first, Samuel appears as a seer who may- 
 be consulted for advice in cases of difficulty, but 
 famous apparently only in his own neighbourhood. 
 In the second, Samuel is the Judge of Israel, who 
 goes on circuit from place to place over a consider- 
 able district. According to the first account, Israel 
 is oppressed by the Philistines; their cry has come 
 up to Jehovah, and He has determined to send them 
 a deliverer. According to the second, the Philistines 
 have been repulsed by the Israehtes under Samuel's 
 leadership; the demand for a king comes from the 
 people, who are discontented with the misgovern- 
 ment of Samuel's sons; and it is condemned as a 
 wicked rejection of Jehovah's sovereignty. Accord- 
 ing to the first account, Saul is brought to Samuel 
 by a chain of providential circumstances, privately 
 anointed by him, and directed to await his oppor- 
 tunity, which comes shortly afterwards when the men 
 of Jabesh send round to their countrymen in the 
 hope of finding allies to save them from the brutality 
 of Nahash. According to the second account, Saul is 
 chosen by lot in a public assembly of the nation at 
 Mizpah, and takes over the government when Samuel 
 lays down his office in a touching farewell address 
 to the people. 
 
 Now in the light of modern principles of discrim- 
 22 
 
LEGITIMACY OF CRITICISM 
 
 ination of sources, it is clear that we have here two 
 different accounts of the estabUshment of the mon- 
 archy, derived from different sources and pieced 
 together by a compiler, who, according to the method 
 of Oriental historiographers and mediaeval chron- 
 iclers, compiled his history by combining the docu- 
 ments or traditions to which he had access, instead 
 of digesting their contents, and writing an entirely 
 fresh narrative. He does not study logical consist- 
 ency, or attempt to remove the discrepancies, save 
 by some few editorial additions, which serve to 
 some extent to unite the narratives and to conceal 
 their mutual inconsistency. We may attempt to 
 reconcile the narratives; it is possible that if we had 
 all the facts before us we could do so : but is it not 
 better frankly to acknowledge that we have here two 
 accounts of the establishment of the monarchy, 
 written from different points of view ? The first 
 account gives an ancient tradition of the origin of 
 the monarchy in the urgent need of Israel for a 
 deliverer. From one point of view the monarchy 
 was necessary, in order to weld the tribes together 
 and enable them to shew a united front to their 
 enemies. In view of the actual circumstances of the 
 nation, it was God's will that Israel should have a 
 king. The second account contains a later prophetic 
 reflection on the estabUshment of the monarchy. 
 From another point of view it was wrong for Israel 
 to wish for a king. It was a declension from the 
 
 23 
 
THE INEVITABLENESS AND 
 
 ideal of theocracy, the direct government of the 
 nation by Jehovah. This reflection, instead of being 
 thrown into the form of an abstract discussion, was 
 expressed in the concrete form of a historical narra- 
 tive. The compiler combined the two narratives, 
 leaving his readers to draw the lessons. On the one 
 hand the establishment of the monarchy was an 
 evidence of God's care for his people. Saul was 
 divinely raised up and divinely appointed. On the 
 other hand the desire of the Israelites for a king 
 "that they might be like other nations" was an indi- 
 cation of distrust of God and failure to rise to the 
 height of their pecuhar position as a nation distinct 
 from the nations of the world. Each of the accounts 
 presents an idea which it is important we should 
 grasp in order to have a true view of the course and 
 meaning of the history of Israel. It may be that the 
 first and older narrative is true historically in the 
 narrower sense of agreement with the facts as they 
 actually happened; while the second and later narra- 
 tive is equally true historically in the wider sense of 
 a true comment on the facts in the light of the 
 ideal Divine purpose. That the ideal as well as the 
 actual should be expressed in the form of a narrative 
 is due to the "realising" genius of the Hebrew 
 mind, I mean its tendency to embody ideas in a 
 concrete historical form. 
 
 IV. — Literary traditions must be tested by internal 
 evidence, and if internal evidence clearly contradicts 
 
 24 
 
LEGITIMACY OF CRITICISM 
 
 the traditions of an uncritical age, they must give 
 way before it. The most obvious instance is the 
 later part of the Book of Isaiah. If Isaiah xl. to 
 xlviii. (I do not include chapters xlix. to Ixvi. because 
 they present greater difficulties) had come down to 
 us as a detached and anonymous prophecy, we could 
 have had no hesitation in dating it in the closing 
 years of the Babylonian Exile, when Cyrus had 
 already embarked on his career of conquest, but 
 before Babylon had opened its gates to him. In- 
 ternal evidence is often precarious and inconclusive, 
 but in this particular case the cumulative weight of 
 the arguments from historical allusions, Hterary style, 
 and theological contents, tells irresistibly against the 
 authorship and age of Isaiah, and in favour of the 
 age of the Exile. The significance of the prophecy 
 gains enormously by the transference, and our know- 
 ledge of the circumstances of the exiles is largely 
 extended. 
 
 V. — There are two arguments urged against the 
 legitimacy and the validity of criticism, about which I 
 wish to say a few words. They are the arguments of 
 (a) novelty, and (Z>) authority. 
 
 (a) It is not uncommonly urged that critical views 
 of the Old Testament are untrustworthy, because 
 they are new. They are spoken of as "unproved 
 hypotheses, resting on no further proof than was 
 available to all the scholars of the past nineteen 
 centuries." The argument is one which would con- 
 
 25 
 
THE INEVITABLENESS AND 
 
 demn all progress. Why was not the heliocentric 
 theory of the solar system discovered before Coper- 
 nicus ? Why had so many great discoveries and in- 
 ventions to wait till the nineteenth century ? Were 
 not human brains as fertile in earlier ages ? But 
 here is what a recognised authority on the study of 
 History tells us : — 
 
 "Many centuries and whole eras of brilliant civil- 
 isation had to pass away before the first dawn of 
 criticism was visible among the most intellectual 
 peoples in the world. Neither the Orientals nor the 
 Middle Ages ever formed a definite conception of it. 
 Up to our own day there have been enlightened men 
 who, in employing documents for the purpose of 
 writing history, have neglected the most elementary 
 precautions, and unconsciously assumed false gen- 
 eralisations . . . For criticism is antagonistic to the 
 normal bent of the mind."* The critical spirit is, 
 you see, a modern instrument even in its application 
 to history generally. But further it must be remem- 
 bered that until quite recent times the study of the 
 Bible has been pursued under the domination of a 
 rigid theory of verbal inspiration. It is only within 
 the last forty or fifty years that we have broken 
 loose from its trammels, and realised that it is 
 inconsistent with facts, and that the truth of the 
 Gospel is not dependent upon it. 
 
 * Langlois and Seignobos, Introduction to the Study of History^ 
 p. 68. 
 
 26 
 
LEGITIMACY OF CRITICISM 
 
 (b) A second and more serious argument against 
 the legitimacy of criticism is that of the authority of 
 the New Testament. Our Lord Himself, it is urged, 
 sanctioned what may be called the "traditional" 
 view of the Old Testament, and by implication at 
 any rate, condemned the critical view. I fully recog- 
 nise that here we enter on difficult and delicate 
 ground. I have the greatest respect for those who 
 shrink from anything which seems to detract from 
 our Lord's authority. But in condescending to be- 
 come incarnate as a Jew at a particular epoch in a 
 particular country our Lord necessarily accepted 
 conditions and limitations of time and place. Doubt- 
 less in virtue of the universality of His humanity He 
 transcended those conditions so that He is equally 
 in sympathy with every age and every race. But He 
 must speak and teach in Aramaic, the vernacular of 
 Palestine.* He must use the terminology of the time 
 in regard to physical phenomena. Must He not have 
 used it also in regard to the Old Testament ? The 
 questions which are raised by modern criticism were 
 not before Him, any more than the questions which 
 are raised by modern science. 
 
 I would ask anyone who feels the difficulty, to 
 examine very carefully what is the nature and extent 
 of the New Testament use and endorsement of the 
 Old Testament. What is it that our Lord and His 
 Apostles guarantee ? Our Lord certainly taught that 
 * See Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible ^ v., p. 5. 
 27 
 
THE INEVITABLENESS AND 
 
 the Old Testament Scriptures in their threefold 
 division of Law, Prophets, and Writings, testified of 
 Him. By their use of the Old Testament Scriptures, 
 not less than by actual statement, the Apostles 
 shewed that they believed them to be profitable for 
 doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness. 
 But the freedom with which they quoted them, and 
 the simple fact that they generally made use of the 
 Septuagint Version, shew that it is the general spirit 
 and drift of the teaching of the Old Testament which 
 is endorsed, and not every fact or statement therein 
 contained. No one would now maintain that because 
 Evangelists and Apostles for the most part use 
 the Septuagint they therefore endorse all the blun- 
 ders of that Version. While I believe most firmly 
 that the New Testament recognises the Old Testa- 
 ment as "an essential part of the Christian Bible," 
 I cannot believe that its interpretation is to be 
 limited by what was known or was possible in the 
 Apostolic age. 
 
 VI. I can only speak most briefly of the second 
 force which I mentioned as affecting our study of the 
 Old Testament, — the doctrine of development. "The 
 world is not yet alive," writes Prof. Bury in the In- 
 augural Lecture (p. 19) to which I have already re- 
 ferred, "to the full importance of the transformation 
 of history (as part of a wider transformation) which 
 is being brought about by the doctrine of develop- 
 ment." Nowhere, perhaps, has this idea of gradual, 
 
 28 
 
LEGITIMACY OF CRITICISM 
 
 orderly development, of continuous evolution, had 
 more influence than in remodelling our conceptions 
 of the course of Old Testament history and the 
 growth of Old Testament religion. But it may be 
 urged that the acknowledgment of evolution in the 
 history of the Old Testament leads to mere natural- 
 ism, and the denial of the reality of revelation. "Is 
 the ethical code of the Bible complete and final and 
 perfect ?" asks Blatchford in God and my Neighbour 
 (p. 19). "No. The ethical code of the Bible gradually 
 developes and improves. Had it been divine it would 
 have been perfect from the first. It is because it 
 is human that it developes. As the prophets and the 
 poets of the Jews grew wiser and gentler and more 
 enlightened, so the revelation of God grew wiser and 
 gentler with them. Now, God would know from the 
 beginning; but men would have to learn. Therefore 
 the Bible writings would appear to be human and 
 not divine." Such language sounds plausible perhaps 
 to the class to which it is addressed. I pass over the 
 astounding assumptions upon which it is based. But 
 when we look at the history of that evolution, and 
 mark how religion progressed by and in spite of a 
 constant conflict between the higher and lower ten- 
 dencies in the nation, we are compelled to ask. What 
 was the power that taught Israel ? What made Israel 
 differ from surrounding nations closely related to it, 
 and speaking almost an identical language ? What 
 kept Israel from being absorbed by the Canaanites, 
 
 29 
 
THE INEVITABLENESS AND 
 
 who were superior to them in strength, and more 
 advanced in civilisation ? The Christian answer is 
 the true one : — that the progress recorded in the Old 
 Testament is not merely an inevitable evolution of 
 human thought, a natural advance in knowledge and 
 morahty, but an evolution of human thought and an 
 advance in knowledge and morality under the con- 
 straint of a divine discipline and the education of a 
 progressive revelation. The claim of the leaders and 
 prophets of Israel to be representatives and spokes- 
 men of God was not baseless. It is attested by 
 the results which culminate in the Incarnation and 
 Christianity. 
 
 VII. Critical methods are a means, not an end. 
 Their object is to provide the material for rightly 
 understanding documents, for constructing history 
 and formulating theology. The restoration of texts, 
 the determination of their dates, and the analysis of 
 their sources, are not the final object of the student's 
 labour. It is useful work, it is attractive work, but 
 it is not the highest work. What we want to know 
 is by what steps and in what way God revealed His 
 will to ancient Israel, prepared the way for the Incar- 
 nation, laid deeply and surely the foundations upon 
 which the Catholic Church was to be built. The 
 more difficult task of synthesis and interpretation 
 is the real aim of the historian and the theologian. 
 
 Again, it is doubtless easy to exaggerate the appli- 
 cation of the principle of development. The late 
 
 30 
 
LEGITIMACY OF CRITICISM 
 
 Dr. A. B. Davidson was a master of Old Testament 
 Theology, and this is what his friend and editor, Dr. 
 Salmond, gives as his opinion: — 
 
 "He had an increasing distrust of ambitious at- 
 tempts to fix the date of every separate piece of 
 the Hebrew literature, and link the ideas in their 
 several measures of immaturity and maturity with 
 the writings as thus arranged. He became more and 
 more convinced that there was no solid basis for such 
 confident chronological dispositions of the writings 
 and juxtapositions of the beliefs. In his judgment 
 the only result of endeavours of this kind was to give 
 an entirely fictitious view of the ideas, in their rela- 
 tive degrees of definiteness, the times at which they 
 emerged or came to certainty, and the causes that 
 worked to their origin and development. The most 
 that we had scientific warrant to do, in view of the 
 materials available for the purpose, was, in his 
 opinion, to take the history in large tracts and 
 the literature in a few broad divisions, and study 
 the beliefs and the deliverances in connexion with 
 them."* 
 
 VIII. Dr. Davidson's words lead up to the 
 thoughts with which I wish to conclude. On the 
 one hand, it must never be forgotten that the Old 
 Testament as it stands was the Apostolic Bible, 
 
 * Preface to Professor Davidson's Theology of the Old Testa- 
 ment [\^o\), p. vi. It must, however, be remembered that Professor 
 Davidson fully accepted the main conclusions of criticism. See 
 pp. \^ ff. oi the same volume. 
 
 31 
 
THE INEVITABLENESS AND 
 
 which is commended to us for our study. I accept 
 it as "inspired," though I do not venture to define 
 the nature and hmits of inspiration. I am content 
 to believe that the composition, editing, and col- 
 lection of the books which it contains were divinely 
 controlled in order to adapt it for its purpose, to 
 shew us God working in the world, to furnish spir- 
 itual light and comfort to the Church for all time. 
 
 On the other hand I cannot doubt that the Old 
 Testament must be interpreted in successive ages 
 by the help of all new light and knowledge which 
 God gives mankind. The great fundamental truths 
 remain the same: our comprehension of the stages 
 and methods by which God revealed them may 
 change. Criticism may enable us to understand the 
 stages of revelation better, to trace the growth of 
 religious thought more exactly, but the great truths 
 are the really important matter. The light and heat 
 and attraction of the sun are facts, independent of 
 theories as to the origin and composition of the sun 
 and the action of gravitation. Only the truths must 
 not be affirmed or expounded in such a way as to 
 contradict what criticism can demonstrate with a 
 reasonable degree of probability. 
 
 The critic no doubt often forgets the true purpose 
 of the Old Testament, and the authority by which 
 it has been accredited to us. The anti-critic on the 
 other hand too often assumes that the Bible is what 
 it never claims to be, infallibly accurate in all mat- 
 
 32 
 
LEGITIMACY OF CRITICISM 
 
 ters of fact and science. He will have all or nothing. 
 I tremble when I read such words as these: "If the 
 Gospels are not inspired in the strictest sense in 
 which theologians speak of inspiration, these records 
 [viz., of our Lord's discourses] are worthless;"* or 
 when I find defenders of the faith making the peril- 
 ous assumption that we must proceed on the old 
 traditional lines, or else abandon the foundations of 
 the Gospel and the sanction of its message for the 
 redemption of mankind. 
 
 Courage, not cowardice, is the true child of faith; 
 boldness, not bigotry, is the best bulwark of the 
 truth. 
 
 * Anderson, The Bible and Modern Criticism, p. i8. 
 33 
 
The Old Testament in the Light of 
 To-Day. 
 
III. 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE LIGHT OF 
 TO-DAY.* 
 
 THE subject on which I propose to speak to-night 
 is "The Old Testament in the Light of To-day." 
 The subject is a wide one, and there are aspects of 
 it on which naturally I can only touch in passing, or 
 which I may even have to pass by altogether; but 
 it seemed to me to be one that would embrace points 
 of view which might be suitably considered upon an 
 occasion which suggested rather naturally a compari- 
 son of the present with the past. We are standing 
 at the end of a century which has been marked, 
 almost more than any other, by a great intellectual 
 awakening, and which certainly more than any other 
 has been fruitful in great discoveries. Sciences which 
 a hundred years ago were practically non-existent 
 have now arrived at a vigorous and independent 
 manhood; the observation of nature in all its de- 
 partments has been pursued with indefatigable in- 
 dustry and skill, and lines of investigation, once un- 
 worked, have been opened up, and have been found 
 
 * An address delivered in connection with the Jubilee of the 
 New College, Hampstead, on Wednesday, November 7, 1900 ; 
 and reprinted here from the Expositor, January, 1901, p. 27 ff. 
 
 37 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 often to conduct to startling and unexpected results. 
 And the methods which in all these studies have been 
 productive of solid results have been these — the sys-» 
 tematic and all-sided observation of facts, the shrink- 
 ing from no labour or pains to solve a difficulty or 
 account for what was not fully understood, the bring- 
 ing to bear upon a new subject whatever light or 
 illustration might be available from other quarters, 
 the endeavour to correlate, and subsume under gen- 
 eral laws, the new facts discovered. Advance con- 
 ducted upon lines such as these has been most 
 marked throughout the century. It may have been 
 most conspicuous and brilliant in the physical 
 sciences and in the great mechanical arts based upon 
 them; but it has been not less real in many other 
 branches of knowledge, in language, in history, in 
 archaeology, in anthropology. How much, in all 
 these departments of knowledge, is known now, which 
 a century ago was unknown, and even unsuspected! 
 How much more familiar are we now, for instance, 
 not only with the languages, but also with the habits 
 and institutions, and art of the Greeks and Romans! 
 How many dark points in their history and anti- 
 quities have been cleared up by the numerous in- 
 scriptions that have been found and pubUshed during 
 recent years! Even since these last lines were writ- 
 ten* news has arrived of remarkable discoveries at 
 Cnossus, in Crete, which promise in some respects 
 * In 1900. 
 
 38 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 to revolutionize former ideas of the early character 
 and history of Greek civilization. On these and other 
 subjects we owe our enlarged knowledge, partly to 
 the discovery of new materials, partly to the appli- 
 cation to old materials of more exact and systematic 
 methods of inquiry. The facts of nature lay before 
 our forefathers as fully as they lie before ourselves; 
 yet how strangely they failed to elicit from them the 
 secrets hidden within them I The great master- 
 pieces of Greek literature were all familiar to the 
 scholars of the sixteenth century; and yet some of 
 the most serious blots on the Authorized Version 
 of the New Testament are due to the translators' 
 ignorance of some quite elementary principles of 
 Greek syntax!* But the same spirit of scientific 
 study and research which has inspired new life into 
 so many other departments of knowledge, and even 
 in some instances created them altogether, has also 
 pervaded Biblical and Oriental learning; and there 
 is hardly any branch of these subjects, whether lan- 
 guage^ or literature, or antiquities, or history, in 
 which the stimulus of the nineteenth century has not 
 made itself felt, and in which improved methods of 
 investigation have not conducted to new and im- 
 portant results. 
 
 I may assume on the part of those who hear me a 
 
 * See, for illustrations, Professor (afterwards Bishop) Light- 
 foot's illuminative volume On a Fresh Revision of the English 
 New Testament — a book which, though published in 1871, is still 
 full of instruction, and in no respect antiquated. 
 
 39 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 general familiarity with the new light in which, to 
 those who do not refuse to open their eyes, the Old 
 Testament appears to-day. The historical books 
 are now seen to be not, as was once supposed, the 
 works (for instance) of Moses, or Joshua, or Samuel. 
 They are seen to present a multiplicity of pheno- 
 mena which cannot be accounted for, or reasonably 
 explained, except upon the supposition that they 
 came into existence gradually; that they are com- 
 piled out of the writings of distinct and independ- 
 ent authors, characterized by different styles and 
 representing different points of view, which were 
 combined together and otherwise adjusted, till they 
 finally assumed their present form. The various 
 documents thus brought to light reveal, further, such 
 mutual differences that in many cases they can no 
 longer be held to be the work of contemporary wri- 
 ters, or to spring, as used to be thought, from a 
 single generation : in the Pentateuch, especially, the 
 groups of laws contained in the different strata of 
 narrative differ in such a way that they can only 
 be supposed to have been codified at widely differ- 
 ent periods of the national life, to the history and 
 literature of which they correspond, and the prin- 
 ciples dominant in which they accurately reflect. 
 Three well-defined stages in literature, legislation, 
 and history thus disclose themselves. Nor is this 
 all. Archaeology and anthropology, two sciences 
 which seventy years ago were completely in their in- 
 
 40 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 fancy, come to our aid, and cast upon the Biblical 
 history illuminative side-lights. Some progress had 
 indeed been made seventy years ago in unravelling 
 from the hieroglyphics the history and antiquities of 
 ancient Egypt ; but the cuneiform records of Baby- 
 lonia and Assyria refused still to yield up their 
 secrets. But Edward Hincks had already taken some 
 important steps towards their decipherment; and 
 Henry Layard's Nineveh and its Remains, which 
 appeared in 1849, ^^d excited at once the liveliest 
 interest, told eloquently of a magnificent and im- 
 posing civilization which, though as yet all but silent, 
 was destined before long to be again vocal. Major 
 (afterwards Sir Henry) Rawlinson's great discoveries 
 speedily followed; and from 1851 to the present day 
 the stream of light which has poured from the 
 mounds of Babylonia and Assyria upon the Eastern 
 world has flowed unintermittently. The history and 
 antiquities of two great civilizations, each, in a 
 different way, having interesting links of connexion 
 with Israel, are now revealed to us — not, certainly, 
 in their completeness; for that we must wait still for 
 many years to come — but, nevertheless, in sufficient 
 measure to enable us to estimate without serious 
 error their magnitude and character, and to under- 
 stand the nature of the influence exerted by them 
 upon Israel. If not, on the whole, so epoch-making 
 and surprising in their results as these two splendid 
 achievements of modern genius and industry, the dis- 
 
 41 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 covery and publication of inscriptions from Phoenicia, 
 Syria, Moab, and Arabia, and the observations of 
 travellers and explorers in the same regions, have 
 in many important details augmented our former 
 knowledge of the customs, and institutions, and 
 habits of thought of Israel's neighbours, helping us 
 thereby to realize more accurately the position taken 
 by Israel amongst them, and the affinities, mental 
 not less than physical and material, subsisting be- 
 tween them. The net result of these discoveries is 
 that the ancient Hebrews are taken out of the isola- 
 tion in which, as a nation, they formerly seemed to 
 stand; and it is seen now that many of their institu- 
 tions and beliefs were not pecuhar to themselves; 
 they existed in more or less similar form among their 
 neighbours; they were only in Israel developed in 
 special directions, subordinated to special ends, and 
 made the vehicle of special ideas.* 
 
 Archaeology has also often a more direct bearing 
 upon the Old Testament : it has made a series of 
 most valuable additions to our knowledge, some- 
 
 * In support of the statements in the preceding paragraph, the 
 writer may be permitted to refer to his essay, illustrative of the 
 light shed by archaeology upon the Old Testament, in Hogarth's 
 Authority and ArchcBology (1899), pp. 1-152. The code of 
 Hammurabi, king of Babylon,— most probably about 2 131-2088 
 B.C. — had not been discovered when this essay was written ; but 
 the general conclusions expressed in the essay are not affected 
 by it. On the early history of the decipherment of the cunei- 
 form inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria, see the present 
 writer's " Schweich Lectures " on Modern Reseaj'ch as illustrat- 
 ing the Bible (1909), pp. 4-7. Lectures II. and III. in this volume 
 
 42 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 times supporting, sometimes correcting, sometimes 
 supplementing, the Biblical data. What, for instance, 
 can be more stimulating and welcome to the student 
 than the Moabite king's own detailed account of 
 an event dismissed in a single verse in the Kings ? 
 or the Assyrian king's own narrative of the entire 
 campaign in which the Rabshakeh's mission to 
 Jerusalem forms, as we now understand, a single 
 episode ? or the particulars, recounted by a contem- 
 porary, if not by an eye-witness, of Cyrus' conquest 
 of Babylon ?* The importance to Biblical history of 
 newly-recovered facts such as these I cannot now 
 pause to develop : I will merely, before I pass on, 
 remind you of the very important light which has 
 been thrown by archaeology upon the early chapters 
 of Genesis. The monuments of Egypt and Babylon 
 combine to establish the presence of man upon 
 the earth, and the existence of entirely distinct 
 languages, at periods considerably more ancient 
 than is allowed for by the figures in the Book of 
 Genesis; and the tablets brought from the library of 
 Asshurbanipal have disclosed to us the source of the 
 
 contain an account of the light thrown upon Canaan by recent 
 excavations, especially those at Gezer. 
 
 On the code of Hammurabi, see, briedy, p. 20 f. in these 
 lectures ; more fully Johns, in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, 
 vol. v., pp. 584-612 (including a translation of the entire code); 
 also, in its bearing on early Hebrew law, the present writer's 
 Exodus (in the Ca?nb?'idge Bible for Schools a?id Colleges), 
 pp. 205, 418 ff. 
 
 *See Hogarth, op. cit., pp. 89-90, 105-107, 124-5, ^28. 
 
 43 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 material elements upon which the BibHcal narratives 
 of the Creation and the Deluge have been con-» 
 structed.* A clearer indication that in the early 
 chapters of Genesis we are not reading literal his- 
 tory could hardly be found; and we see archaeology 
 supporting criticism in pressing upon theologians 
 and apologists the urgent need of a revision of cur- 
 rent opinions respecting parts of the Old Testament 
 narrative. 
 
 If we turn to the prophets and poetical books, we 
 find, similarly, that they also have in many respects 
 received new light from the studies of the past cen- 
 tury. Prophecy is no longer defined, as it was once 
 by a celebrated and still justly honoured divine, as 
 "the history of events before they come to pass."t 
 
 * Cf. Dr. F. Watson, at the Church Congress, held in 1900 at 
 Newcastle : the material elements in the Creation-narrative 
 were derived from '• ancient traditions, not the peculiar treasure 
 of the chosen people, but traditions current amongst the 
 nations in that plain of Babylonia, which the Bible describes as 
 the aboriginal home of the human race " [Report of the Newcastle 
 Cong?-ess, p. 153). See for details the articles '• Cosmogony," by 
 Principal Whitehouse, and " Flood," by the Rev. F. H.Woods, in 
 H^LSixngs Dictionary of the Bible; Ball's Light from the East, 
 pp. 1-15, 34-41 ; Authority and Ai'chcBology, pp. g-27, 32-34 ; or the 
 present writer's Book of Genesis (ed. 8, 191 1). pp. 27 ff., 103 ff. 
 
 t Butler's Analogy, part ii., chap, vii., § 3, 6th paragraph. See 
 for the correction of this definition Kirkpatrick's Doctrine of the 
 Prophets, ch. i., esp. p. 15 f. There is often a large poetical, or 
 imaginative, element in the prophecy, to which nothing corre- 
 sponds in the fulfilment, the fulfilment being limited to the 
 substance of the prophecy, — whether, as the case may be, this is 
 spiritual {eg., Is. ii. 2, 3), or material [e.g., Is. x. 33, 34 ; xxx. 32, 
 33). See the writer's Isaiah, his Life a7id Titnes, in the "Men of 
 the Bible" series, pp. 61, 73, 94-5, 106, 111-14, 146 note, 167. 
 
 44 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 More careful and exact exegesis, a truer appreciation 
 of the aim and object set by the prophet to himself, 
 the study of his writings in the light of history, 
 especially with the help of the new materials afforded 
 by the inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia, have 
 shown what the prophets primarily were: they were 
 primarily the teachers of their own generation : they 
 spoke out of the circumstances of their own age; it 
 was the political mistakes, the social abuses, the 
 moral shortcomings of their own contemporaries 
 which it was their primary object to correct; their 
 predictions of national deliverance or disaster, their 
 broader ideal delineations of a future age of moral 
 and material blessedness, all start from their own 
 present, and are conditioned by the historical en- 
 vironment in which they moved. Nor does their 
 theological teaching stand all upon the same plane. 
 It is adapted to the spiritual capacities of those to 
 whom it is addressed; a progress is in many cases 
 discernible in it; and the rise and development of 
 new truths can be traced in their writings. 
 
 Mutatis mutandis, what has been said holds good 
 of the poetical books. Their connexion with the 
 names with which they are traditionally associated 
 must be almost uniformly abandoned; in some cases 
 language, in others contents and character, impera- 
 tively demand this. The poetical books are seen 
 now in fact to have a much wider significance than 
 they would have had, if they had been, as largely 
 
 45 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 AS tradition asserts, the work of David and Solomon 
 alone; they reflect in singularly striking and attract- 
 ive forms, springing out of the varied experiences 
 of many men and many ages, different phases of the 
 national religious life; in the Psalms we hear Israel's 
 religious meditations, in the Proverbs the maxims 
 of practical philosophy which its sages formulated, 
 in Job and Ecclesiastes ponderings on the problems 
 of life, in the Song of Songs an idyllic picture of 
 faithful Hebrew love. 
 
 In what I have said I have indicated in outline — 
 for details on an occasion such as the present are 
 obviously impossible — the general character of the 
 new light in which the Old Testament now appears; 
 and I propose to devote the remainder of my time 
 to considering three questions: (i) How do the facts 
 I have referred to bear upon the inspiration of the 
 Old Testament ? (2) How do they affect the estim- 
 ate which we form of its moral and doctrinal value ? 
 (3) What practical conclusions may be deduced 
 from them ? And the principle which, in answering 
 these questions, I desire to emphasize is the exist- 
 ence of a double element in Scripture, a human not 
 less than a Divine element, and the extreme import- 
 ance, in view of the new knowledge which the pre^ 
 sent day has brought to bear upon the Bible, of 
 recognizing both of these. An intelligible but mis- 
 taken reverence often prevents religious people from 
 recognising properly the human element in the Bible; 
 
 46 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 and I wish to show how it is that the interests both 
 of truth and of rehgion demand that the reahty of 
 this element should not be overlooked. 
 
 (i) With regard to the first of these questions, it 
 is, I think, convenient to start with the formularies 
 of the Church to which we individually belong. I 
 naturally here speak primarily from the point of view 
 of my own communion; but I believe that what I 
 am about to say will be in accordance also with the 
 formularies of those whom I am addressing. The 
 formularies, both of the Church of England, and 
 (unless I am greatly mistaken) of the Congrega- 
 tional Churches as well,* permit, in regard to 
 inspiration, considerable freedom of individual 
 opinion: they affirm the Scriptures to be of supreme 
 authority in matters of faith; they specify certain 
 doctrines, which they declare to be contained in the 
 Scriptures, and to be the means of salvation; but 
 they include no definition of inspiration: and while 
 they define the books of which the Old Testament 
 consists, they express no theory respecting either 
 its literary structure, or the manner in which 
 the Divine Will was communicated to its writers, 
 or the stages by which, historically, revelation 
 advanced. 
 
 The term inspiration is derived, of course, from 
 the well-known passage in which St. Paul speaks of 
 
 * See the "Principles of Religion" of the Congregational 
 Churches, in Curteis' Ba?npto?i Lectures (end of Lect. II), 
 
 47 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 Scripture as OeoTrvevcTTog .* What, however, does this 
 term denote ? or, to limit the question to the point 
 which here concerns us, What are the necessary- 
 characteristics of a writing which is spoken of as 
 "inspired" ? The use of the word will not guide 
 us; for it occurs only in the passage referred to. 
 Clearly the only course open to us is to examine, 
 patiently and carefully, the book which is termed 
 inspired, and ascertain what characters attach to it. 
 Unhappily, a different course has often been followed. 
 Men have assumed that they knew, as it were in- 
 tuitively, what inspiration meant. They have framed 
 theories without basis, either in Scripture itself or 
 in the definitions of their Church, as to the notes, or 
 conditions which must attend it; they have applied 
 their theories forthwith to the Bible, and have 
 demanded that it should conform to them. The 
 theories of mechanical and verbal inspiration have 
 indeed been now largely abandoned, as it is seen 
 that they are too plainly inconsistent with the facts 
 presented by the Bible itself. But other theories 
 still prevalent are not less inconsistent with the 
 facts. It is often supposed, for instance, that an in- 
 spired writing must be absolutely consistent in all 
 its parts, and free from all discrepancy or error. But 
 the Bible does not satisfy these requirements. I 
 
 * 2 Tim. iii. 16-17 : "Every scripture inspired of God is also 
 profitable for teaching, for reproof, tor correction, for instruction 
 [or, discipline] which is in righteousness, that the man of God 
 may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work." 
 
 48 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 may quote here the words of a speaker at the recent 
 Church Congress : "I hope I shall not pain any one 
 when I express my own opinion that the Bible is not 
 free from imperfection, error, and mistake in mat- 
 ters of fact. Let me add that it is a conclusion to 
 which I have slowly and reluctantly come."* The 
 Bible, moreover, contains accommodations to an 
 immature stage of religious practice or belief; even 
 in the Psalms there are passages which cannot be 
 appropriated by the followers of Christ. The Bible 
 also exhibits other characteristics which we should 
 not antecedently have expected to find in it. It con- 
 tains double and divergent accounts of the same 
 events. The history has in some cases been com- 
 mitted to writing a considerable time after its 
 occurrence, and is thus probably presented to us 
 in the form in which it has been gradually shaped by 
 tradition. There are cogent reasons for believing 
 that in some parts of the Old Testament we are 
 not reading literal history, but history which has 
 been idealized or, as in many parts of the Chronicles, 
 transformed under the associations of a later age.f 
 Elsewhere, again, literary considerations show that 
 
 '*' Report of the Newcastle Church Congress (1900), p. 154. 
 
 t The reference is to those narratives of Chronicles which are 
 not, — like i Chr. x, i-io, 2 Chr. x., lor instance, — transcripts, 
 almost unaltered, from the Books of Samuel, or Kings, but are 
 the Chronicler's own composition, and reflect his own conception 
 of the history. See the article on Chronicles in Hastings' Dic- 
 tionary of the Bible ; or the present writer's Introduction to the 
 Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 493-502 (ed. 8, pp. 525-534)- 
 
 49 
 
 E 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 sayings and discourses are strongly coloured by the 
 individuality of the narrator; the writers themselves 
 also afford indications that they are subject to the 
 limitations of culture and knowledge imposed by 
 the age in which they lived. A priori, no doubt, we 
 might have expected these things to be otherwise; 
 but our d. priori conceptions of the works and ways 
 of God are apt to be exceedingly at fault. The facts 
 which I have referred to should not surprise us, or 
 tempt us to doubt the authority of Scripture. They 
 may help to refute a false theory of inspiration; 
 they will be embraced and allowed for in a true 
 theory. They belong to the human element in the 
 Bible. They show, that as inspiration does not 
 suppress the individuality of the Biblical writers, so 
 it does not altogether neutralize human infirmities, 
 or confer upon those who have been its instruments 
 immunity from error. As the writer whom I have 
 just quoted forcibly puts it, "Men argue that since 
 the Bible is God's Word it must be free from all 
 imperfection. The argument is equally valid that 
 since it is man's word it cannot be thus free." Too 
 often, it is to be feared, the explanations offered 
 of the discrepancies and other difficulties of the 
 Old Testament leave much to be desired, and are 
 adapted to silence doubt rather than to satisfy it. 
 But each time that this process is repeated the 
 doubt reasserts itself with fresh strength. What 
 wonder that there are men who, when they find that 
 
 50 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 their beliefs about the Bible cannot be sustained 
 without a succession of artificial and improbable 
 suppositions, cast off the entire system with which, 
 as they have been brought up to believe, these im- 
 probabilities are inseparably connected ? It is a 
 fatal mistake to approach the Bible with a precon- 
 ceived theory of inspiration, or a theory formed 
 irrespectively of the facts which it is called upon 
 to explain. A theory of inspiration, if it is to be 
 a sound one, ought to embrace and find room for 
 all the characteristics displayed by the book which 
 claims to be inspired. 
 
 The inerrancy of Scripture, as it is called,* is a 
 principle which is nowhere asserted or claimed in 
 Scripture itself. It is a principle which has been 
 framed by theologians, presumably from a fear lest, 
 if no such principle could be established, the author- 
 ity of Scripture in matters of doctrine could not be 
 sustained. The end is undoubtedly a sound one; 
 but the principle by which it is sought to secure it 
 is quite unable to support the weight which is laid 
 upon it. In the past, probably, this was not appar- 
 ent, but it is apparent now. We cannot honestly 
 close our eyes to the facts contradicting it.f It is 
 the facts which force upon us the necessity of a 
 
 * Though the expression is, perhaps, more famihar in America 
 than in this country. See Dr. Briggs* General Introdtcctio7i to 
 the Study of Holy Scripture (1^99), p. 615 ff. 
 
 t Comp. further on this subject Dr. F. Watson's volume^ 
 Iiispb'ation^ pubhshed by the S.P.C.K. in 1906, p, 234 ff. 
 
 51 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 revision of current theories of inspiration. It is true 
 that, whether we are theologians or ordinary Chris- 
 tian men, it is the doctrines of Scripture that are of 
 importance to us; it is the doctrines which are to 
 form our guide in life, and our lode-star to eternity. 
 But the truth of these doctrines will be best main- 
 tained if we judge Scripture by the canons of ordi- 
 nary historical evidence. It certainly will not be 
 maintained if we make it depend upon an arti- 
 ficial principle, which breaks down as soon as it is 
 seriously put to the test. As I shall hope to show 
 directly, the great theological verities taught in the 
 Old Testament are absolutely untouched by critical 
 investigation; while the documents on which the 
 specific doctrines of Christianity rest are so different 
 in their nature from those which are here concerned, 
 that criticism, though it may in some cases modify 
 the idea which we once held of their origin and struc- 
 ture, leaves the substance of them intact: in par- 
 ticular, the testimony to our blessed Lord's life and 
 work is so much more nearly contemporary with 
 the events recorded than can often be shown to be 
 the case in the Old Testament, and also so much 
 more varied and abundant, that, by an elementary 
 principle of historical criticism, it is of proportion- 
 ately higher value. It does not appear to me that 
 the foundations of our faith are endangered either 
 by the application of reasonable critical principles 
 to the Old Testament, or by the adoption of a 
 
 52 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 theory of inspiration which shall do justice to the 
 facts that have to be accounted for. 
 
 (2) I pass now to the second question, viz., How 
 do critical views of the Old Testament affect our 
 estimate of its moral and doctrinal value ? As I 
 have just observed, the vital truths declared in the 
 Bible appear to me to be wholly unaffected by criti- 
 cal inquiries, or critical conclusions, respecting its 
 structure : criticism deals with the external form, 
 or shell, in which these truths appear, the truths 
 themselves lie beyond its range, and are not touched 
 by it. It may be that individual critics reject some 
 or even many of those truths which Christians,, 
 speaking generally, regard as vital; but that is not 
 because they are critics, as such, but because they 
 approach the subject with some anterior philo- 
 sophical principles, and they would reject these 
 truths whether they were, in the technical sense of 
 the word, critics or not. The Christian critic starts 
 with the belief that the Bible contains a revelation 
 of God, and that its writers are inspired: his object 
 is not to deny the revelation or the inspiration, but 
 to ascertain, as far as possible, the conditions under 
 which the revelation was made, the stages through 
 which it passed, and the character and limits of the 
 inspiration which guided the human agents through 
 whom the revelation was made, or who recorded 
 its successive stages. By inspiration I suppose 
 we may understand a Divine afflatus which, with- 
 
 53 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 out superseding or suppressing the human faculties, 
 but rather using them as its instruments, and 
 so conferring upon Scripture its remarkable mani- 
 foldness and variety, enabled holy men of old to 
 apprehend, and declare in different degrees, and 
 in accordance with the needs and circumstances 
 of particular ages or occasions, the mind and pur- 
 pose of God. I say in different degrees, for it 
 must be evident that the Old Testament does not 
 in every part stand upon the same moral or spiritual 
 plane, and is not everywhere in the same measure 
 the expression of the Divine mind: inspiration did 
 not always, in precisely the same degree, lift those 
 who were its agents above the reach of human weak- 
 ness and human ignorance. The Bible is like a 
 lantern with many sides, some transparent, others 
 more or less opaque, and the flame burning within 
 does not shine through all with the same pure and 
 clear brilliancy.* Or, to change the figure, there 
 is room in the economy of revelation, as in the 
 economy of nature, for that which is less perfect as 
 well as for that which is more perfect, for vessels of 
 less honour as well as for vessels of greater h^onour.. 
 Certainly, in a sense, every true and noble thought 
 of man is inspired of God; the searchers after truth 
 who in a remote past and in distant climes sought 
 after God, in part also found Him; but with the 
 
 ■*The simile is that of an old Puritan divine, quoted by Dr 
 Briggs, The Bible, the Chtirch, and the Reaso?i (1892), p. 101. 
 
 54 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 Biblical writers, the purifying and illuminating Spirit 
 must have been present in some special and excep- 
 tional measure. Nevertheless, in the words of the 
 prophet, or other inspired writer, there is a human 
 element not less than a Divine element; it is a 
 mistake, and a serious mistake, to ignore either. We 
 may not, indeed, be able to analyse the physical con- 
 ditions under which a consciousness of Divine truth 
 was awakened in the prophets; but by whatever 
 means the consciousness was aroused, the Divine 
 element which it contained was assimilated by the 
 prophet, and thus appears blended with the ele- 
 ments that were the expression of his own character 
 and genius. 
 
 And so it is that the voice of God speaks to us from 
 the Old Testament in manifold tones.* Through 
 the history of Israel as a nation, through the lives 
 of its representative men, and through the varied 
 forms of its national literature, God has revealed] 
 Himself to the world. From the Old Testament we 
 learn how God awakened in His ancient people the 
 consciousness of Himself; and we hear one writer 
 after another unfolding different aspects of His 
 nature, and disclosing with increasing distinctness 
 His gracious purposes towards man. In the pages 
 of the prophets there shine forth, with ineffaceable 
 lustre, those sublime declarations of righteousness, 
 mercy, and judgment which have impressed all 
 
 * " By divers portions and in divers manners " (Heb. i. i). 
 55 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 readers, to whatever age, or clime, or creed, they 
 have belonged. In the Psalms we hear the devout 
 human soul pouring forth its emotions in converse 
 with God, declaring its penitence and contrition, its 
 confidence and faith, its love and devotion, its 
 thanksgiving and jubilation, its adoration and praise. 
 In the Law, viewed in its different parts, we hear 
 the voice of God accommodating itself to the needs 
 of different ages, and disciplining His people by- 
 ordinances, sometimes imperfect in themselves, till 
 they should be ready for the freedom to be con- 
 ferred by Christ. The historians set before us, from 
 different points of view, the successive stages in the 
 Divine education of the race. They do not, like the 
 prophets, claim to be delivering a message which 
 they have received immediately from God: their in- 
 spiration is shown in the spirit which they breathe 
 into the narrative and in their interpretation of the 
 history; they show how a providential purpose over- 
 rules it; and they bring out the spiritual and moral 
 lessons imphcit in it. Sometimes, especially in deal- 
 ing with the earlier period, to which no sure histori- 
 cal recollections reached back, they are dependent, 
 doubtless, upon popular oral tradition; but pene- 
 trated as they are by deep moral and religious ideas, 
 and possessing profound spiritual sensibilities, they 
 so fill in the outlines furnished by tradition, that the 
 events or personages of antiquity become spiritually 
 significant— embody spiritual lessons, or become 
 
 56 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 spiritual types, for the imitation or warning of 
 succeeding generations. And like all other writers 
 of the Old Testament, they declare very plainly 
 God's approval of righteousness and His displeasure 
 at sin. It is impossible not to believe that both the 
 literature and the religious history of Israel would 
 have been very different from what they were, had 
 not some special charisma of supernatural insight 
 into the ways of God been granted to its religious 
 teachers.* 
 
 (3) Thirdly, I should like, if I may be allowed to 
 do so, to offer some suggestions of a more or less 
 practical character. A large amount of new light 
 has been shed upon the Old Testament; our know- 
 ledge of the ways in which God of old time "spake 
 to the fathers by the prophets" has been variously 
 modified, corrected, or enlarged; and it is clearly 
 our duty to turn this knowledge to some practical 
 account. If, then, I may begin by addressing a few 
 words more particularly to those of my hearers who 
 may be regarded still as students and learners, I 
 
 *The subject of the preceding paragraphs has beeu developed 
 by the writer more fully in the 6th and 7th of his Sermons on 
 Subjects connected with the Old Testanie7it, on " The Voice of 
 God in the Old Testament," and " Inspiration," respectively. 
 See also the comprehensive and illuminative treatment of the 
 same subject in Prof. S^nddiy's Bampto?i Lectures on ^'lns^\r3.- 
 tion" (1893), esp. Lectures iii., iv., v. and viii. (A paragraph on 
 the permanent religious value of the Old Testament, which 
 originally followed here, has been omitted as no longer necessary, 
 in view of the fuller treatment of the same subject in the next 
 paper). 
 
 57 
 
i 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 would observe that the foundation of all true 
 Biblical study consists in a first-hand knowledge of 
 the Bible itself, to be obtained, wherever possible, 
 by a training in sound and scientific methods of 
 philology and exegesis. Nothing can supersede an 
 acquaintance, as intimate as it can be made, with 
 the original languages of the Bible; it is that know- 
 ledge which brings us as nearly face to face as is 
 possible with the original writers, and enables us 
 to perceive many links of connexion and shades of 
 meaning, which can with difficulty, if at all, be 
 brought home to us by a translation. But we live 
 in another world from that in which the Biblical 
 writers moved; and hence the associations sugges- 
 ted by a given word, which were obvious at once 
 to those who originally used it, or heard it used, are 
 often not apparent to us; and they have to be re- 
 covered painfully and slowly, by research of various 
 kinds, in geography, archaeology, Hfe and manners 
 in the East, or other subjects, if the Bible is to- 
 speak, even approximately, with the same distinct- 
 ness to us as it did to those to whom its various; 
 parts were originally addressed. 
 
 Philology and exegesis, assisted by such ancillary 
 studies, form, then, the foundation of sound Biblical 
 knowledge; but the next aspect under which, if it 
 is to be intelligently understood, the Bible must be 
 studied, is the historical aspect. The Bible is the 
 embodiment of a historical revelation; and if the 
 
 58 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 significance of the successive stages of this is to be 
 adequately grasped, the different parts of the Bible 
 must be viewed in their true historical perspective, 
 in order that the correlation of the revelation to the 
 history may be properly perceived, and the aims, and 
 position, and influence of the different prophets, for 
 instance, may be properly understood. This work 
 can only be accomplished by criticism. And it is 
 here that criticism, by distinguishing — as its name 
 implies — what was once confused, has proved a most 
 helpful handmaid of theology. There is a principle, 
 the importance of which has long been recognized 
 by theologians, the progressiueness of revelation, its 
 adaptation, at different periods, to the moral and 
 spiritual capacities of those to whom it was primarily 
 addressed; and what is sometimes called the "higher 
 criticism" (see above, p. 6) of the Old Testament, 
 determining, as it does, at least approximately, the 
 stages by which the Old Testament gradually reached 
 its present form, enables the theologian to carry on 
 and develop this principle to its legitimate conse- 
 quences. A true historical view of the growth of the 
 Old Testament, and of the progress of revelation, 
 besides being important for its own sake, is valuable 
 also in another way; it removes, viz., many of the 
 difficulties, sometimes historical, sometimes moral, 
 which the Old Testament presents, and which fre- 
 quently form serious stumbling-blocks. The older 
 apologists, by the harmonistic and other methods at 
 
 59 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 their disposal, were quite unable to deal with these: 
 historical criticism shows that they belong to the 
 human element in the Bible, and that they are to be 
 explained by reference either to the historical posi- 
 tion of the writer, or to the imperfections incident 
 to a relatively immature stage in the spiritual edu- 
 cation of mankind.* 
 
 What conclusions reached by critics may, however, 
 be reasonably accepted ? I must here insist again 
 upon a distinction, to the importance of which I 
 have called attention elsewhere, because it appears 
 to me to be one which is not always sufficiently kept 
 in view. I mean the distinction between degrees of 
 probability. The value and probability of a con- 
 clusion depends upon the nature of the grounds upon 
 which it rests. Hence, I venture to think, it is a 
 sound practical rule to acquire early the habit of 
 classifying conclusions, of estimating them with 
 reference to the grounds alleged on their behalf, and 
 of asking ourselves, Is this practically certain ? or, Is 
 it only probable ? or. Is it more than just possible ? 
 I should apply this rule pretty freely to emendations, 
 to interpretations, to historical or archaeological 
 hypotheses, and to other similar subjects. Now, 
 some of the conclusions reached by critics rest upon 
 such a wide and varied induction of facts that they 
 may be accepted as practically certain, and as de- 
 
 * Comp. Kirkpatrick, T/ie Divine Library of the Old Testament 
 (1891), pp. 103-109. 
 
 60 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 serving to be called the assured results of criticism. 
 But beyond the limit of these assured results there 
 is a tolerably wide fringe, in which, from the nature 
 of the case, from the fact that the data are slight, or 
 uncertain, or conflicting, no indisputable conclusions 
 can be drawn; there is scope for more than one 
 possibility; clever and even illuminative hypotheses 
 may be suggested, but we cannot feel confident that 
 they are correct. We must not resent hypotheses of 
 this kind being propounded, even though in some 
 cases they should seem to us improbable; for such 
 hypotheses, in this as in other departments of know- 
 ledge, are one of the conditions on which progress 
 depends. They mark out the lines upon which atten- 
 tion should be concentrated and investigation carried 
 on, with the view, as the case may be, of either con- 
 firming or invalidating them. This fringe of uncer- 
 tainty, as it may be called, forms an attractive field 
 for speculation, and it frequently gives rise to rival 
 hypotheses; but it is essential that it should be dis- 
 tinguished carefully from the field within which we 
 may speak rightly of assured results being reached, 
 and that conclusions relating to it should be adopted 
 with caution and reserve. I may add that the differ- 
 ences between critics, which are sometimes laid in- 
 discriminately to their charge, and spoken of as if 
 they implied on their part the habitual use of false 
 methods, are in reality limited to this margin of 
 uncertainty, where their occurrence is simply a 
 
 61 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 natural consequence of the imperfection or ambiguity 
 of the data. 
 
 May I say, lastly, in what way, as it seems to me, 
 the critical view of the Old Testament should be in- 
 troduced into teaching ? As regards children, I do 
 not think that on this ground any change whatever 
 should be made in the manner in which they are 
 taught; they are not in a position to understand the 
 questions or distinctions involved. But they should 
 be familiarized early with the text of the Bible : if 
 I may speak from the experience of my own house- 
 hold, a text of the New Testament a day is learnt 
 without effort by a child of six, and if the process 
 is continued, a valuable selection of continuous pas- 
 sages from both Testaments may be known by heart 
 by the age of nine or ten. Gradually, as the child 
 grows older, it should be familiarized with the his- 
 torical parts of the Bible, the narratives of the 
 Gospels, the stories of the patriarchs, the Exodus, 
 the Judges and Samuel. Whatever is to be added 
 afterwards, a knowledge of the text is a primary 
 essential, and of course simple lessons suggested by 
 the narrative may be pointed out, for these lessons 
 are there, whatever the historical character of the 
 narrative should ultimately prove to be. But when 
 the children reach an age at which their powers are 
 maturing — and if they were boys in the upper classes 
 of a public school, their mental outlook would be 
 beginning to be enlarged, and they would be encour- 
 
 62 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 aged to inquire about many things which it would 
 not have occurred to them to inquire about before — 
 then I think that the principal conclusions reached 
 by scholars on the subject of the Old Testament 
 should be gradually and judiciously placed before 
 them. It does not seem to me to be right or just 
 that young men should be sent into the world with 
 antiquated and untenable ideas about the Bible, 
 which are no part of Christian doctrine, and are no 
 element in any creed, and so to run the risk of being 
 disillusioned, when the time comes, at unfriendly 
 hands, and of making shipwreck of their faith.* We 
 have our treasure in earthen vessels, and it is not 
 wise to imperil the treasure for the sake of the ves- 
 sel. The principal difficulties of the Bible do not, to 
 most minds, consist in the doctrines which it teaches, 
 but in the historical setting in which these doctrines 
 are often presented. This historical setting has, in 
 the cases I have in view, inherent improbabUities, 
 entirely irrespective of the miraculous element in it, 
 and arising out of the representation itself; they 
 may consist, for instance, in false science, they may 
 consist in historical or literary inconsistencies: but 
 whatever they are, they are due to the human ele- 
 ment in the Bible; and it is our duty to recognize 
 
 * On the disastrous effect of teaching the dogma — which, it is 
 to be observed, is entirely un-Bibhcal, — of the equal value and 
 validity of all parts of Scripture, without discrimination, comp. 
 the forcible remarks of G. A. Smith, and the testimony of Henry 
 Druramond, quoted by him, inhis Mode?-n Criticism and Preaching 
 of the Old Testament (1901), pp. 25-28. 
 
 63 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 this element, to discover its character and extent, 
 and to show clearly that it does not enter into the 
 creed of a Christian man in the same way in which 
 the fundamental doctrines of the Bible do. In the 
 Apostles' Creed, for instance, we confess our belief in 
 God as the Maker of heaven and earth; but we do 
 not affirm that He made it in the manner described 
 in the first chapter of Genesis. 
 
 The Bible can never suffer by having the truth 
 told about it. The Bible suffers, and religion suffers, 
 when claims are made on its behalf which it never 
 raises itself, and which, when examined impartially, 
 are seen to be in patent contradiction with the facts. 
 The undue exaltation of the human element in the 
 Bible finds then its Nemesis. It ought, then, to be 
 shown that the primary aim of the Bible is not to 
 anticipate the discoveries of science, or to teach cor- 
 rect ancient history, but to teach moral and spiritual 
 truths, and history only in so far as it is the vehicle 
 or exponent of these. It ought, further, to be shown 
 that the historical and literary character of the Old 
 Testament writings is just a natural consequence of 
 the conditions under which the authors wrote; those 
 who lived nearer the events described being natur- 
 ally, for instance, better informed than those who 
 lived at a distance from them. No historical writer 
 ever claims to derive the materials for his narrative 
 from a supernatural source (cf. St. Luke i. 1-4); 
 and so far as we are aware, it has not pleased God in 
 
 64 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 this respect to correct, where they existed, the im- 
 perfections attaching to the natural position of the 
 writer. Applying these principles, I should explain 
 how, in the opening chapters of Genesis, two writers 
 had told us how the Hebrews pictured to themselves 
 the beginnings of the world and the early history of 
 man; how, borrowing their materials in some cases 
 from popular tradition or behef, in others, directly or 
 indirectly, from the distant East, they had breathed 
 into them a new spirit, and constructed with their 
 aid narratives replete with noble and deep truths re- 
 specting God and man; how one writer had grafted 
 upon the false science of antiquity a dignified and 
 true picture of the relation of the world to God; how 
 another writer, in a striking symbolic narrative, 
 had described how man's moral capacity was awak- 
 ened, put to the test, and failed; how in the sequel, 
 by other symbolic narratives, the progress of civiliza- 
 tion, the growing power of sin, God's judgment upon 
 it. His purposes towards man, are successively set 
 forth.* Passing next to the patriarchal period, 
 where real historical recollections seem to begin, I 
 should show how the skeleton, which is all that we 
 can reasonably suppose to have been furnished by 
 tradition, was clothed by the narrators with a living 
 vesture of circumstance, expression, and character, — 
 
 * Comp., for details, the small but instructive volume of Prof. 
 Ryle, of Cambridge (afterwards Bishop of Winchester, and now 
 (191 1) Dean of VVestminster). called The Early Narratives of 
 Genesis (1892). 
 
 65 
 
 F 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN 
 
 being, no doubt, in the process coloured to some 
 extent by the beUefs and associations of the age in 
 which the narrators lived themselves, — ^and how in 
 this way the pattern-figures of the patriarchs were 
 created, and those idyllic narratives produced which 
 have at once fascinated and instructed so many gen- 
 erations of men.* I should proceed similarly through 
 the other parts of the Pentateuch, explaining, with- 
 out concealment or disguise, the grounds which pre- 
 clude us from accepting the narrative as uniformly 
 historical, but pointing out that it was the form in 
 which the Hebrews themselves told the story of the 
 Exodus and of their conquest of Canaan, and empha- 
 sizing especially what is really its most important 
 element, the religious teaching embodied in it, — for 
 example the lessons suggested by the beautifully 
 drawn character of Moses, and the many striking 
 declarations which it contains of the character and 
 purposes of God. I repeat it, the irreligious or un- 
 spiritual man may ignore all this; but no criticism 
 can eliminate it from the narrative. I should also 
 call attention to the three great codes of law con- 
 tained in the Pentateuch,t indicating the general 
 
 * Comp. the articles on the different patriarchs in Hastings' 
 Dictionary of the Bible ; or the present writer's Book of Genesis^ 
 pp. Ixi.-lxxiv. 
 
 fThe " Book of the Covenant" (Ex. xx. 23-xxiii,), Deuteronomy, 
 and the Priestly Law (chiefly Leviticus and the greater part of 
 Numbers). See, for further details, the article " Law in Old 
 Testament," in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. 
 
 66 
 
THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY 
 
 character and purpose of each, and dwelUng in par- 
 ticular upon the lofty spiritual teaching of Deuter- 
 onomy. I should then, as occasion offered, select 
 passages from the prophetical books, showing in 
 what way they had a meaning and a significance in 
 the circumstances, political or social, of the time at 
 which they were written, and pointing out the per- 
 manent moral and spiritual lessons contained in them. 
 I need hardly say that I should not meanwhile neg- 
 lect the New Testament; but I am not dealing with 
 that to-night. I do not understand that by teaching 
 such as this the religious value or authority of the 
 Old Testament would be depreciated or impaired: I 
 believe, on the contrary, that its contents would gain 
 very greatly in reality; it would be read with in- 
 creased interest and appreciation, and the Divine ele- 
 ment in it would be placed upon a far firmer and 
 securer foundation than is provided for it by the 
 ordinary view. The importance of improved methods 
 in the Religious Teaching in Secondary Schools has 
 been recently urged with much force, and, at the 
 same time, with reason and discrimination, in a vol- 
 ume bearing this title by Dr. Bell, the Headmaster 
 of Marlborough College. I am aware that, for the 
 purposes I have indicated, the helps in the shape of 
 commentaries and manuals which many teachers 
 might require are at present fewer than they should 
 be; but the claims of the Bible to be studied more 
 intelligently, though at the same time not less rever- 
 
 67 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 ently, than it used to be, have of late years been 
 widely recognised in this country, and it is reason- 
 able to expect that the deficiency in suitable books 
 may in due time be supphed.* 
 
 * Since these words were originally written (in 1900) the ex- 
 pectation here expressed has been fulfilled to a gratifying extent. 
 See the list of select books below, p. 89 ff. 
 
 68 
 
The Permanent Religious Value of 
 THE Old Testament. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE PERMANENT RELIGIOUS VALUE OF 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT.* 
 
 IN an article such as the present, it is hardly neces- 
 sary to say, it is impossible to treat a subject like 
 this with any approach to completeness. All that 
 I can do is to suggest briefly for the reader's con- 
 sideration some of its more salient aspects, leaving 
 him to fill in details, and supply omissions, from the 
 knowledge of the Old Testament which he possesses 
 himself. I shall, therefore, without further preface, 
 proceed to summarize the chief heads under which, 
 as it seems to me, the elements of permanent reli- 
 gious value in the Old Testament may be grouped, 
 and so indicate the grounds which, even while its 
 contents are judged by a critical standard, must ever, 
 I believe, secure for it a position and influence in the 
 Church, second only to those possessed by the New- 
 Testament itself. 
 
 I. The first and primary claim, then, to permanent 
 religious value which the Old Testament possesses 
 consists in the surprisingly lofty and elevated con- 
 ceptions of God which prevail in it — conceptions, 
 
 * Reprinted from the Interpreter ior January, 1905, p. 10 ff. 
 71 
 
THE PERMANENT RELIGIOUS 
 
 moreover, which appeal more strongly, and are more 
 satisfying, to the rehgious instincts of mankind than 
 those which are to be found in any other literature, 
 save only in that of the New Testament. Of course, 
 when this is said, it must be remembered that the 
 revelation of God contained in the Old Testament 
 advanced by stages and was gradual; and this being 
 the case, it must at once be frankly admitted that in 
 parts of the Old Testament there is an accommoda- 
 tion to the immature stage of religious belief which 
 the people had reached, and that sometimes the 
 narratives, and even occasionally the prophecies, are 
 coloured by the specifically national, or, as they are 
 sometimes called "particularistic" features, which 
 were the result of the often hostile and antagonistic 
 relations in which Israel stood to the heathen nations 
 around it. But when every deduction has been made 
 on these accounts, it remains that the general con- 
 ception of God presented by the Old Testament is 
 singularly dignified, lofty and spiritual. To take but 
 one or two examples. The science of the first chap- 
 ter of Genesis is the science of the age in which the 
 chapter was written; but upon this imperfect, and 
 in many respects false science, its author, under 
 the influence of the Divine Spirit, has grafted a won- 
 derfully sublime and spiritual representation of the 
 Sovereign Author of nature, conceiving and present- 
 ing Him as a purely spiritual Being, who, moulding 
 the material substance of the universe to His will, 
 
 72 
 
VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 adapts the world gradually, by successive stages, to 
 become the abode of lower and higher forms of life, 
 and (ultimately) of beings endowed with reason, and 
 who assigns to every living species upon it its proper 
 office and function. The science of this chapter is 
 antiquated: but the representation of the Divine 
 action contained in it is not, and can never become, 
 antiquated; it must ever remain as one of the price- 
 less heirlooms which the people of Israel have be- 
 queathed to the world. And so when we pass to the 
 second and third chapters of the same book, though, 
 it is true, we can hardly, any more than in the first 
 chapter, be reading a literal history, we have brought 
 before us, in a pictorial or symbolical form, adapted 
 to the comprehension of the men for whose spiritual 
 instruction the narrative was first written, deep 
 thoughts about God and man — how man was created 
 by God, and placed by Him in a position designed 
 to develop his capabilities, and test his character; 
 how he was at first innocent; how he became — as 
 man must have become, whether in "Eden" or else- 
 where, at some period of his existence — conscious of 
 a moral law, but how temptation fell upon him, and 
 he broke it. The fall of man, the great and terrible 
 truth, the reality of which is evidenced both by his- 
 tory and by individual experience, is thus vividly and 
 impressively brought home to each one of us. Man, 
 however, the sequel teaches us, though punished by 
 God, is not forsaken by Him, nor left, in his long 
 
 73 
 
THE PERMANENT RELIGIOUS 
 
 conflict with evil, without hope of victory. The re- 
 presentation of God in these chapters is much more 
 anthropomorphic than that in ch. i., and is evidently 
 the expression of a more primitive stage of reUgious 
 thought : a series of sensible acts is attributed to 
 Him; He plants, takes, sets, etc., and the sound of His 
 footsteps is heard as He walks in the garden; but 
 even the reader of the present age does not feel that 
 the fact at all materially detracts from the essen- 
 tially spiritual character of the fundamental teaching 
 which the narrative contains. 
 
 But we must leave the historical books and pass 
 on to consider briefly what some of the prophets 
 teach on the same subject. Amos, the earliest of the 
 canonical prophets, proclaims that Jehovah, though 
 He is in a special sense the God of Israel, is at the 
 same time the God of all the families of the earth, 
 under whose providence the PhiHstines migrated 
 from Caphtor just as Israel migrated out of Egypt, 
 who views all nations with an impartial eye, and 
 visits Edom or Moab for its sin not less than Israel, 
 and Israel, in spite of His choice of it, not less than 
 Edom and Moab. Hosea is the prophet of religious 
 emotion: his own nature is one of love; and Jeho- 
 vah is to him pre-eminently the God of love, who 
 has cherished His "son" with tenderness and affec- 
 tion, who is grieved by the coldness with which His 
 love is requited, but who still loves His nation even 
 while He finds Himself obliged to cast it from Him. 
 
 74 
 
VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Isaiah dwells upon the holiness and majesty of Jeho- 
 vah; and in imposing imagery, such as he alone 
 among the prophets can command, depicts Him as 
 manifesting Himself against all that is "proud and 
 lofty" in Judah, as controlling from His throne in 
 heaven the movements of the nations, or as striking 
 down in storm and tempest the serried hosts of 
 Assyria. And the great prophet of the Exile, the 
 author of the discourses which now form chapters 
 xl.-lxvi. of the book of Isaiah, preaches in language 
 more exalted and impressive than is to be found in 
 any other part of the Bible, the transcendence, the 
 omnipotence, the infinitude of Israel's God, the 
 First and the Last, the sole Creator and Sustainer of 
 the Universe, whose throne is indeed in the height 
 of heaven, but who stands, nevertheless, in intimate 
 relation with the earth, who is the high and lofty 
 one that inhabiteth eternity, but who dwells also 
 with the humble and contrite heart, and who has, 
 moreover. His purposes of grace, which, though they 
 are directed with special affection towards Israel, 
 comprehend within their ultimate scope all the kin- 
 dreds of the earth. 
 
 The idea of God presented in these and other 
 passages of the Old Testament is not arrived at by 
 a process of philosophic abstraction; it is the result, 
 we can only suppose, of a Divinely quickened intui- 
 tion, which enabled the inspired thinkers and seers 
 of Israel gradually to elevate and purify their con- 
 
 75 
 
THE PERMANENT RELIGIOUS 
 
 ception of Him, and to discern, as history moved 
 on, and their own spiritual perceptions were enlarged, 
 new aspects of His being. To sum up, in very general 
 terms, the teaching of the Old Testament on the 
 nature and attributes of God, we may say that it 
 represents Him as a personal Being, who, though 
 depicted under the most anthropomorphic imagery, 
 is nevertheless considered always as purely spiritual; 
 who possesses a definite moral character, and is 
 all-holy, all-just, and all-wise; who condescends to 
 enter into relations of grace with His intelligent 
 creatures; who loves man, and will in turn be loved 
 by him; whose anger is aroused by sin, but who is 
 gracious towards the repentant sinner; who mani- 
 fests Himself in His redemptive purpose to Israel, 
 and teaches His nation ever gradually to know Him 
 better, and who deigns in the end to make known 
 His salvation to the nations of the world at large. 
 
 II. Secondly, the Old Testament is of permanent 
 value on account of the clearness and emphasis 
 with which it proclaims the duty of man, both 
 towards God and towards his fellow-men. Love and 
 reverence, obedience and gratitude, penitence for sin 
 and humility — these are, in brief, to be the deter- 
 mining principles of man's attitude towards God. 
 Passages illustrating what has been said will occur 
 to every reader of these pages. For our present 
 purpose it will suffice to ask whether the whole duty. 
 
 76 
 
VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 of man can be more forcibly summed up than in the 
 two well-known passages of Deuteronomy : — 
 
 "The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with 
 all thy soul, and with all thy might" (vi. 4, 5). 
 
 And (x. 12, 13) — 
 
 "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God re- 
 quire of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk 
 in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
 soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and 
 his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy 
 good ?" 
 
 Deuteronomy is a great book: as has been justly 
 said, it is a book of national religion, and, accord- 
 ingly, has some of the limitations of age and place 
 stamped upon it; but it is at the same time a book 
 of personal religion, and so of universal religion: 
 and in these two passages one of the most funda- 
 mental principles of the writer is impressively pro- 
 pounded. Love to God, i.e., an all-absorbing sense 
 of personal devotion to Him, is to be the primary 
 spring of human action, the presiding genius of the 
 Israelite's life. Jehovah, the author is ever eloquently 
 insisting, is the only God, a pure and spiritual 
 Being, who has loved Israel, and is worthy to re- 
 ceive Israel's undivided love in return. Israel is to 
 be a nation holy to Him; its members are never to 
 forget that they are the servants of a holy and lov- 
 
 77 
 
THE PERMANENT RELIGIOUS 
 
 ing God; and love is to be the guiding principle of 
 their conduct, whether towards God or man. And 
 thus Deuteronomy teaches the great truth that re- 
 ligion is concerned not only with the intellect and 
 the will, but that it involves equally the exercise and 
 right direction of the affections. 
 
 III. The duties of man to his fellow-men are not 
 in the Old Testament referred to any principle of 
 ethics, as such: they are justified by religious sanc- 
 tions; and the manner in which they are treated in 
 it may thus be fitly noticed here. The paramount 
 importance, not only of what may be termed the 
 more private or personal virtues, but also of the 
 great domestic and civil virtues, upon which the 
 happiness of the family and the welfare of the com- 
 munity depend, is throughout insisted on in the Old 
 Testament. Truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, justice, 
 humanity, philanthropy, disinterestedness, neigh- 
 bourly regard, sympathy with the unfortunate or 
 the oppressed, the refusal to injure another by word 
 or deed, cleanness of hands, purity of thought and 
 action, elevation of motive, singleness of purpose, — 
 these, and such as these, are the virtues which pro- 
 phets, legislators, and psalmists are alike, in different 
 ways, ever inculcating or commending. And corres- 
 ponding to this high appreciation of moral qualities 
 there is its correlative, — a hatred of wrong-doing 
 and a profound sense of sin, — which is stamped, if 
 possible, yet more conspicuously upon the literature 
 
 78 
 
VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 of ancient Israel. A single quotation must suffice 
 as an illustration: it shall be from the first of the 
 prophets, Amos (viii. 4-7), whose righteous indigna- 
 tion is aroused by the avarice and injustice rampant 
 about him: — 
 
 "Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy. 
 
 And cause the poor of the land to fail, 
 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that 
 we may sell corn ? 
 
 And the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat ? 
 Making the ephah small, and the shekel great, 
 
 And dealing falsely with balances of deceit; 
 That we may buy the poor for silver, 
 
 And the needy for a pair of shoes. 
 
 And sell the refuse of the wheat. 
 The Lord hath sworn by the majesty of Jacob, 
 
 Surely I will never forget any of their works." 
 
 Till the grinding down of the poor and commercial 
 dishonesty are things of the past — a consummation, 
 it is to be feared, still far distant — these words of the 
 herdman of Tekoa will not be antiquated or out of 
 date. More examples could readily be found (e.g., 
 Is. i., v.). The prophets devote some of their finest 
 and most impressive utterances to declaring, upon 
 religious grounds, the claims of the moral law upon 
 the obedience of mankind, and to the rebuke of vice 
 and sin. 
 
 IV. The Old Testament is of permanent value in 
 setting before us examples of characters, determined 
 and moulded by the influence of their religion, which 
 
 79 
 
THE PERMANENT RELIGIOUS 
 
 we may in different ways adopt as our models and 
 strive to imitate. Of course, it is not pretended 
 that the characters of the Old Testament are devoid 
 of faults, or blameless. Some, for instance, are 
 limited by the moral and spiritual conditions of the 
 age in which they lived, others exhibit personal short- 
 comings peculiar to themselves : but these faults are 
 generally discoverable as such by the light of the 
 principles laid down in the Old Testament itself, and 
 none can certainly fail to be perceived by those who 
 live under the higher light shed upon them by the 
 Gospel. But it is impossible not to see how differ- 
 ently most of the Old Testament characters would 
 have felt and acted had they not been softened and 
 refined by the mellowing influences of the religion of 
 Jehovah. The leading Old Testament characters 
 display in a word not virtues merely, but graces. In 
 the historical books, for instance, such qualities as 
 kindness and fidelity, modesty and simplicity, do- 
 mestic affection and friendship, the discipline and 
 repression of self, are abundantly exemplified: in the 
 case of Moses, to take but a single example, what 
 reader can fail to be impressed by the nobility and 
 dignity, the disinterestedness and love for his people 
 which he habitually displays ? No doubt, in the case 
 of those narratives which were committed to writing 
 long after the personages lived whose doings they 
 purport to describe, the details are not all strictly 
 historical; and the picture not unfrequently reflects 
 
 80 
 
VALUE OP^ THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 the narrator's ideal rather than the actual facts : but 
 this circumstance does not detract from their didactic 
 value : the characters thus drawn still possess a 
 great typical significance; they are ideals of faith 
 and virtue, highmindedness and goodness, as these 
 and other similar virtues might display themselves in 
 many different situations of life; they are spiritual 
 types, delineated by the piety of an age which looked 
 back upon, and idealized, the distant and heroic 
 figures of the past. But they are not the less pro- 
 ducts of the religion of Israel, and they are not the 
 less to be reckoned among the inestimable heirlooms 
 by which the religion of Israel has enriched the world. 
 The nucleus of fact contained in the Chronicler's 
 picture of David's removal of the Ark to Zion, and 
 his preparations for a Temple (i Chron. xv., xvi., 
 xxii.-xxix.), except in the few verses excerpted with- 
 out material change from 2 Sam. vi. 12-20, must be 
 exceedingly small;* but nevertheless these chapters 
 present an impressive ideal of a godly king, intent 
 upon organizing worthily the public worship of his 
 God, and expressing to Him the due homage of a 
 devout and thankful heart. And in the biographies 
 of the patriarchs, as told in the Book of Genesis — 
 though here also it is difficult to escape the conclu- 
 sion that the actual facts have been more or less 
 idealized, — the lessons which they teach are none the 
 less valuable. Truths and duties, especially those be- 
 * See the note above, p. 49. 
 
 81 
 
 G 
 
THE PERMANENT RELIGIOUS 
 
 longing to the "daily round and common task," 
 such as we all need to learn, and continually through 
 our lives have occasion to practise, are illustrated 
 and enforced by anecdotes and narratives, which 
 even the youngest can understand, and which can 
 never cease to fascinate and enthral those who have 
 once yielded themselves to their spell.* 
 
 V. The Old Testament is of unsurpassed value 
 for devotional use and suggestiveness. And here 
 our attention is attracted naturally, in the first in- 
 stance, by the Book of Psalms, in which the ripest 
 fruits of Israel's spiritual experience are gathered to- 
 gether, and the religious affections find their richest 
 and completest expression. In the Psalms the soul 
 is displayed in converse with God, disclosing to Him, 
 in melodious accents, its manifold emotions, its 
 hopes and fears, its desires and aspirations : we hear 
 in them, for instance, the voices of despair and dis- 
 tress, of confession and supplication, of confidence 
 and faith, of yearning for God's presence and spiri- 
 tual communion with Him, of thanksgiving and 
 exultation, of adoration and praise; we hear medita- 
 tions on the great attributes of the Creator, on His 
 hand as seen in nature and history, on the problems 
 of human life, and on the pathos of human existence; 
 and we hear all these notes uttered with a depth and 
 an intensity, and withal with a chastened beauty of 
 
 * The Book of Genesis, by the present writer, p. Ixxiv. See, 
 further, ibid., pp. Ixi. ff., Ixviii.-Ixxiii. 
 
 82 
 
VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 diction and rhythm, which secure for the Psalter a 
 unique position in religious Uterature. It is the char- 
 acteristic of the Psalms that love, and reverence, and 
 trust, and such-like sacred affections, are not, as in 
 most other parts of the Old Testament, commanded 
 or enjoined as a duty from without; they are set 
 before us as exercised, as the practical response 
 offered by the believing soul to the claims laid upon 
 it by its Maker, as the spontaneous outcome of a 
 heart stirred by devout emotions. There are sound 
 and valid reasons for doubting whether the Psalms 
 are as largely as is commonly supposed a product of 
 the earlier period of Israel's history : but the spiritual 
 power and originality of a particular Psalm is not 
 dependent upon the date at which it was composed, 
 or the author who wrote it; and there can be no 
 doubt that, whatever may be the dates of individual 
 Psalms, the Psalter, as a devotional manual, rightly 
 enjoys the pre-eminence which has ever been at- 
 tached to it, and that it can never lose the place 
 which it has continuously held in the affections and 
 devotions of the Church. 
 
 But though the devotional spirit finds its fullest 
 and most familiar expression in the Psalter, it must 
 not be supposed that it is confined to this part of 
 the Old Testament. Many passages of Deuteronomy, 
 of the prophets, and the Book of Job, for instance, 
 are also naturally adapted to kindle religious emo- 
 tion, and stir the devotional instincts. It will be 
 
 83 
 
THE PERMANENT RELIGIOUS 
 
 sufficient here to refer to the motives of gratitude 
 and devotion so often persuasively appealed to in 
 the discourses of Deuteronomy, to the hymns in 
 Isa. xxiv. — xxvii., so beautifully expressive of the joy, 
 and hope, and trust, of the redeemed community of 
 the future, to the eloquent and moving strain of 
 thanksgiving, confession, and supplication, in which 
 the prophet leads the devotions of his people in 
 Is. Ixiii. 7-lxiv. 12, and to many passages in the Book 
 of Job, which express, with great poetical beauty, 
 sometimes the sense of the Creator's omnipresence 
 and vastness, sometimes deep truths respecting the 
 scope and methods of God's providence, sometimes 
 the pathetic longing of the patriarch for a removal 
 of the barrier which seems to separate him from 
 God. The freshness, the force, and the completeness 
 with which the devotional side of religion finds ex- 
 pression in the Old Testament must, as long as man 
 continues possessed of religious instincts, ensure for 
 it a first place in the affections of all who know it, 
 and effectually prevent it from ever losing its value 
 in their eyes. 
 
 VI. The Old Testament possesses a peculiar value 
 of its own on account of the great ideals of human 
 life and society which it holds up before its readers. 
 These ideals, delineated usually in brilliant colours, 
 are a characteristic feature in the writings of the 
 prophets, who love to picture to themselves the age 
 in which, after the troubles of the present are ended, 
 
 84 
 
VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 the Kingdom of God will be established upon earth; 
 when human nature, freed from all sin and imperfec- 
 tion, and inspired by an innate devotion to God and 
 right, is to be renovated and transformed; when 
 human society, no longer harassed by the strife of 
 opposing interests, or honey-combed by oppressions 
 and abuses, is to be held together by the bonds of 
 mutual friendship and regard; and when the nations 
 of the world, laying aside their weapons of war, are 
 to be united in a federation of peace under the 
 suzerainty of the God of Israel (see, for instance, 
 Hos. xiv. ; Is. ii. 2-4, iv. 2-4, xi. i-io, xix. 18-25, 
 xxxii. 1-8, Ix.; Jer. xxxi. 33-34; Zeph. iii. 11-17, 
 etc.). It is only too true, alas I that these ideals 
 remain still unfulfilled: the passions and wilfulness 
 of human nature have proved in too many cases 
 obstacles insuperable even by the influences of Chris- 
 tianity: but the world, since the advent of Christ, 
 has at least made some advance; and meanwhile 
 these ideals remain as inspiring visions, ever holding 
 up before us the consummation which human en- 
 deavour should exert itself to realize, and which 
 human society may one day hope to attain. 
 
 VII. We may notice, lastly, the great stress laid 
 in the Old Testament upon a pure and spiritual reli- 
 gion. Mankind have in all ages shown a readiness to 
 conform with the external offices of religion, while 
 heedless of its spiritual precepts and of the claim 
 which it makes to regulate their conduct and their 
 
 85 
 
c 
 
 THE PERMANENT RELIGIOUS 
 
 life. The Jews, in whose law, taken as a whole, sacri- 
 fice and other ceremonial observances bulked largely, 
 were prompt and even punctilious in the performance 
 of such external rites : they thought that if they were 
 sufficiently regular in their attendance at the Temple, 
 and in keeping up the ceremonial observances of 
 their religion, it was of little moment what their con- 
 duct in other respects might be; they were secure of 
 Jehovah's favour (Jer. vii. 1-15). The prophets, on 
 the other hand, insist emphatically that God requires 
 the service of the heart; and that ritual observances, 
 however scrupulously maintained, are of no value in 
 His eyes, except as the expression of a right heart, 
 and accompanied by integrity of life. It may suffice 
 to quote one of the memorable utterances of the pro- 
 phets on this subject. Amos (v. 21-24) speaking in 
 Jehovah's name exclaims : 
 "I hate, I despise your feasts. 
 
 And I take no delight in your solemn 
 assemblies. 
 Yea, though ye offer me your burnt-offerings and 
 meal-offerings, I will not accept them; 
 Neither will I regard the peace-offerings of 
 your fat beasts. 
 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; 
 
 For I will not hear the melody of thy lyres. 
 But let judgement roll down as waters. 
 
 And righteousness as an ever-flowing stream." 
 A religion of the heart, a religion influencing mor- 
 ally the direction of men's thoughts and lives and 
 * See also Hos. vi. 6, Is. i. 10-17, Mic. vi. 6-8, Ps. 1. 16-23. 
 86 
 
VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 actions, is also evidently the ideal which the Psalm- 
 ists placed before themselves, as it is also the ideal 
 presented in the beautiful portrait of a godly and 
 noble-minded Israelite depicted in the thirty-first 
 chapter of the Book of Job. The time can never 
 come when the pure and elevated teaching of the 
 prophets and psalmists will not form a moral and 
 spiritual standard, recalhng to men the real demands 
 which God makes of His worshippers, and exempli- 
 fying, in letters which all can read, the character 
 and conduct in which He truly delights. 
 
 And so there can surely be but one answer to the 
 question of the permanent religious value of the Old 
 Testament. The Old Testament Scriptures enshrine 
 truths of permanent and universal validity. They 
 depict, under majestic and vivid anthropomorphic 
 imagery, the spiritual character and attributes of 
 God. They contain a wonderful manifestation of His 
 grace and love, and of the working of His Spirit upon 
 the soul of man. They form a great and indispen- 
 sable preparation for the coming of Christ. They 
 exhibit the earlier stages of a great redemptive pro- 
 cess, the consummation of which is recorded in the 
 New Testament. They fix and exemplify all the car- 
 dinal qualities of the righteous and God-fearing man. 
 They insist upon the paramount claims of the moral 
 law on the obedience of mankind. They inculcate 
 with impressive eloquence the great domestic and 
 civic virtues on which the welfare of the community 
 
 87 
 
THE VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 depends; they denounce fearlessly vice and sin. The 
 Old Testament Scriptures present examples of faith 
 and conduct, of character and principle, in many 
 varied circumstances of life, which we ourselves may 
 adopt as our models, and strive to emulate. They 
 propound, in opposition to all formalism, a standard 
 of pure and spiritual religion. They lift us into an 
 atmosphere of religious thought and feehng, which 
 is the highest that man has ever reached, save in 
 the pages of the New Testament. They hold up to 
 us, in those pictures of a renovated human nature 
 and transformed social state, which the prophets 
 love to delineate, high and ennobling ideals of human 
 life and society, upon which we linger with wonder 
 and delight, as they open out before us the un-^ 
 bounded possibilities of the future. And all these 
 great themes are set forth with a classic beauty and 
 felicity of diction, and with a choice variety of liter- 
 ary form, which are no unimportant factors in the 
 secret of their power over mankind. 
 
SELECT LIST OF BOOKS 
 
 BEARING ON THE 
 
 HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 AND EXPLAINING OR ILLUSTRATING ITS 
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS, 
 
 The ■prices affixed will afford an indication of the size and scope 
 of the works mentioned. 
 
 Alford. B. H. Old Testament History a7td Literature (1911) 5.?. 
 Box, G. H. A short Introduction to the Literature of the Old 
 
 Testament (is.). 
 Bradley. G. (late Dean of Westminster). Lectures on Ecclesiastes 
 
 (explanatory paraphrase), 5s. 6d. ; Lectures on Job (of similar 
 
 character) 75. 6d. 
 Briggs, C. a., D.D. General Introduction to the Study of Holy 
 
 Scripture (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York), 12s. A large 
 
 and comprehensive work. Pages 24-7, 92-109, and chaps, xi. 
 
 and xii. deal with the ' Higher Criticism of the Bible.' 
 
 Bruce, A. B. Apologetics : or, Christianity Defensively Stated 
 (105. 6d.). Pages 165-336 (' The Historical Preparation for 
 Christianity ') relate to the Old Testament. 
 
 Burney, C. F. Outlines of Old Testament Theology (is.). 
 
 Carpenter, W. Boyd (late Bishop of Ripon). An Introduction to 
 
 the Study of the Scriptures (Dent & Co.) is. 
 Chapman, A. T. An Introdttctioit to the Pentateuch (191 1) 
 
 3s. 6d. Uniform with the ' Cambridge Bible for Schools and 
 
 Colleges.' 
 Cheyne, T, K. Aids to the Devout Study of Criticism, 6s. A 
 
 critical study of the narratives about David, followed by a 
 
 series of sermons on selected Psalms. 
 
 Commentaries : — 
 
 The ' Century Bible.' Volumes on the Old Testament 
 
 (2s. 6d. each) — 
 
 Genesis znd Exodus, by W. H. Bennett ; Leviticus and Numbers, 
 
 by A. R. S. Kennedy ; Deuteronomy and Joshua, by H. W. 
 
 Robinson ; Judges and Ruth, by G. W. Thatcher ; Samuel^ 
 
 89 
 
SELECT LIST OF BOOKS 
 
 by A. R. S. Kennedy ; Kin^s, by J. Skinner; Job, by A. S. 
 Peake ; Psalms, vol i. (Ps. i.-lxxii.), by W. T. Davison ; vol. ii. 
 (Ps. Ixxiii.-cl.), by T. W. Davies ; Isaiah (2 vols.), by O. C. 
 Wiiitehouse ; Jeremiah and Lamentations (2 vols.), by A. S. 
 Peake ; Minor Prophets, vol. i. (Hosea — Micah), by R. F. 
 Horton, vol. ii. {Nahum — Malachi), by S. K. Driver. 
 
 Barnes, W. E. Kin<is (3s. 6d. and Chronicles {2s. 6d.) in the 
 'Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges.' 
 
 Bennett, W. H. Cnronicles (in the 'Expositor's Bible'), 
 7s. 6d. 
 
 Curtis, E. L. Chronicles (in the ' International Critical 
 Commentary') 125-. 
 
 Davidson, A. B. Job (3s ), Ezekicl (3s.), Nahum, Habakkuk, 
 and Zephaniah (is. 6d.), all in the 'Cambridge Bible.' 
 
 Driver, S. R. Genesis (in the ' Westminster Commen- 
 taries '), IDS. 6d. ; Deuteronomy (in the ' International Critical 
 Commentary'), 12s. ; Exodus (35, 6d.) ; Joel and Amos (2s.6d.), 
 and Daniel (2s. 6d.), all in the ' Cambridge Bible.' 
 
 Gibson, E. C. S. Job (in the 'Westminster Commentaries'), 6s. 
 
 Kirkpatrick, A. F. The Psalms (6s.), in the * Cambridge 
 Bible.' 
 
 McNeile, A. H. Exodus (in the 'Westminster Commen- 
 taries ') ; Numbers (in the ' Cambridge Bible '), 2S. 6d. 
 
 Skinner, J. Gd«^s/s (m the ' International Critical Commen- 
 tary '), I2S. bd. ; Isaiah (in the ' Cambridge Bible '), vol. i. 
 (chaps, i.-xxxix.), vol. ii. (chaps, xl.-lxvi.), each 2s. td. 
 
 Smith, George Adam. Isaiah (2 vols., ys. 6d. each) ; and 
 The Minor Prophets (2 vols., ys.6d. each) ; both in the ' Ex- 
 positor's Bible.' 
 
 Wade, G. W. Isaiah (in the ' Westminster Commentaries '). 
 
 Woods, F. H., and Powell, F. E. The Hebrew Prophets for 
 English Readers (R.V., with introductions, headings, and short 
 explanatory notes). In 4 vols., each 2s. 6d. 
 Cooke, Canon G. A. The Progress of Revelation, 1910 ^Sermons 
 
 on the Old Testament), 4s. 6d. 
 DoDS, Marcus. The Bible ; its Origin and Nature (1905), 4s. 6d. 
 
 Driver, S. R. Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, 
 
 (ed. 8, 1909), I2S. 
 Sermons on Subjects connected with the Old Testament 
 
 (1892), 6s. 
 
 Isaiah ; His Life and Times (2s. 6rf.). 
 
 The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, a revised translation. 
 
 with introduction and short explanations (1909), 6s. 
 90 
 
SELECT LIST OF BOOKS 
 
 The Book of Job in R.V., with introduction and brief 
 
 explanatory notes [is. 6d.). 
 
 Essay in Hogarth's Authority and Archceology ; Sacred 
 
 and Profane (i6s.), pp. 1-152 (on the light thrown by archaeo- 
 logy upon the Old Testament). 
 
 Edghill, E. a. An Enquiry into the Evidential Value of Prophecy 
 (1906), 6s. 
 
 Farrar, F. W. The Minor Prophets (2s. 6d.). 
 
 Fry, Rev. T. C, D.D. The Growth of the Old Testament and 
 How to Read the Old Testament (Brown, Langham & Co.), 
 each 3^. 
 
 Gibson, E. C. S. (now Bishop of Gloucester). Messages from the 
 Old Testament (3s. 6rf.). Sermons on the Old Testament, from 
 a critical standpoint. 
 
 Gray, G. B. The Divine Discipline of Israel (2s. bd.). On the 
 growth of moral ideas in the Old Testament, 
 
 Hastings, J. A Dictionary of the Bible. In 4 vols, (discount 
 price 2 IS. each). Also an extra volume (with articles on 
 special subjects, such as Hammurabi's Code, and Indexes), 21s. 
 
 A Dictionary of the Bible (in one vol.), 20s. 
 
 Jordan, Prof. W. G. Biblical Criticism and Modern Thought 
 (discussions on the place of the Old Testament in the life of 
 to-day), 7s. 6d. 
 
 Kent, C. F. The Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testa- 
 ment (1906) 6s. 
 
 KiRKPATRiCK. A. F. The Divine Library of the Old Testament ; its 
 Origin, Preservation, Inspiration, and Permanent Value (3s.). 
 Five lectures delivered at St. Asaph. 
 
 The Doctrine of the Prophets (6s.). An account of 
 
 the times and writings of the prophets, and of their charac- 
 teristic teaching. 
 
 McFadyen, J. E. Old Testament Criticism and the Christian 
 Church {6s.). 
 
 Nairne, Rev. A. (Professor of Hebrew at King's College, London). 
 Modem Biblical Criticism in reference to the Old Testament 
 (S.P.C.K.), 2d. 
 
 MooRHOUSE, Rev. A. The Inspiration of the Old Testament 
 (C. H. Kelly), id. 
 
 Ottley, R. L. The Hebrew Prophets (is.) 
 
 History of the Hebrews (5s.). 
 
 The Religion of Israel (4s.). 
 
 91 
 
SELECT LIST OF BOOKS. 
 
 ' What is the Higher Criticism ? ' (An Essay in Practical 
 
 Questions (published by Brown, Langham & Co.), 6s. 
 Ragg, Lonsdale. The Book of Books (igio). 
 Robinson, J. Armitage (late Dean of Westminster, now Dean of 
 
 Wells). Some Thoughts on Inspiration (Longmans, 1905), 6d. 
 Ryle, H. E. (late Bishop of Winchester, now Dean of Westmin- 
 ster). The Early Narratives of Genesis (3s.) 
 On Holy Scripture and Criticism (4s. 6d.). A collection of 
 
 Addresses. 
 Sanday, W. The Oracles of God; Nine Lectures on the Nature 
 
 and Extent of Biblical Inspiration, and the special significance 
 
 of the Old Testament Scriptures at the present time (4s.). 
 Inspiration (the ' Bampton Lectures ' for 1893), 7s. 6rf. 
 
 Lectures ii.-v. deal specially with the Old Testament. 
 Smith, George Adam. Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the 
 
 Old Testament {6s.). 
 Smith, W. Robertson. The Old Testament in the Jewish Churchy 
 
 (ed. 2, 1892) IDS. 6d. A course of Lectures on Biblical 
 
 Criticism. 
 
 The Prophets of Israel (ed. 2, 1895). 
 
 Streatfeild, G. S. a Parish Clergyman' s Thoughts about the 
 
 Higher Criticism (Birmingham : The Midland Educational 
 
 Co.), 6d. 
 New Knowledge and Old Methods (London : Bemrose & 
 
 Sons, 4, Snow Hill, E.C.), 2rf. 
 Wade, G. W. Old Testament History (6s.). 
 Watson, Dr. F. Inspiration (S.P.C.K., 1906), 45. 
 Woods, F. H. The Hope of Israel (3 s. 6d.) A course of Lectures 
 
 on the Contents and Character of the Prophecies of the Old 
 
 Testament, with especial reference to the predictions contained 
 
 in them. 
 
 On the general principles of the examination of documents, 
 which forms the necessary foundation of all historical studjy, 
 reference may be made to Langlois and Seignobos, Introduction 
 to the Study of History (transl. by G. G. Berry : 7s. 6d.) ; and to 
 Prof. W. E. Collins (afterwards Bishop of Gibraltar), The Study of 
 Ecclesiastical History (2s. 6d.) 
 
 92 
 

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