'"i«^'" 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 f^';'<(V*.V; 
 
 
 
^ JUN 23 1897 ^ 
 ^ A^ 
 
 Di»ismn.:B.^480 
 Section /..L..^o 
 No._ 
 
PRINCETON LECTURES. 
 
 A series of volumes containing the notable lectures de- 
 livered on the occasion of the Sesquicentennial 
 celebration of Princeton Utiiversity. 
 
 The French Revolution and English Literature. Six Lectures. 
 
 By Prof Edward Dowden, Trinity College, Dublin. 
 Theism. Two Lectures. By 'Prof. Andrew Seth, University of 
 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 The Discharge of Electricity in Gases. Four Lectures. By Prof. 
 
 J. J. Thomson, University of Cambridge. 
 The Mathematical Theory of the Top. Four Lectures. By Prof. 
 
 Felix Klein, University of Gottingen. 
 The Descent of the Primates. By Prof. A. A. w. Hubrecht, 
 
 University oi Utrecht. 
 
 The Nature and Origin of the Noun Genders in the Indoger- 
 manic Languages. By Prof. Karl BRUriMANN, University of 
 Leipsic 
 
 The Claims of the Old Testament. Two Lectures By Prof. 
 Stanley Leathes, D.D., King's College, London. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF THE OLD 
 TESTAMENT 
 
T U E 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE OLD 
 TESTAMENT 
 
 LECTURES DELIVERED IN CONNECTION WITH 
 
 THE SESQUICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 
 
 OF I'RINCETON UNIVERSITY 
 
 UY 
 
 STANLEY LEATHES, D.I). 
 
 Professor op Old Testament Exeobsis 
 IN Kino's College, London 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1897 
 
Copj/rifjht, 1897, 
 By Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
 Santbcrsitg Press: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. 
 
THE CLAIMS OF THE OLD 
 TESTAMENT 
 
 LFXTUIJK T 
 
 Ix the two lectures 1 sliall liave the lioiior to 
 give iu response to your kind invitation, I shall 
 endeavor to investigate the reasons for which we 
 accept the Old Testament as the record of a reve- 
 lation possessed of Divine autliority, and in(juire 
 how far they are affected by recent theories and 
 speculations concerning it. There would seem 
 at first sight to he sonietliing of the nature of 
 surprise in the fact that a tradition whicli has 
 held its ground for at least two thousand years, 
 and is common alike to the antagonistic Jewish 
 and Christian churches, should he found at last 
 delusive and erroneous ostensibly on tlie ground 
 of scholarship, though accepted and handed down 
 by some of the greatest of scholars from the 
 first; and this with so nuich of confidence and 
 assurance that to oifVr any apology fnr a tradi- 
 tion so venerable is to incur hnthwitli the re- 
 1 
 
2 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 proach of being no scholar, and to be pronounced 
 disqualified for forming or uttering any opinion 
 on the matter; though at the same time it must 
 persistently be borne in mind that it was em- 
 phatically declared by the pioneers of the anti- 
 traditional views that the question raised was 
 not one of scholarship at all, but much rather 
 of ordinary judgment and common-sense, such 
 as any intelligent man might be supposed to pos- 
 sess. "The critic," we are told by Kuenen, "has 
 no other Bible than the public. He does not 
 profess to have any additional documents inac- 
 cessible to the laity, nor does he profess to find 
 anything in his Bible that the ordinary reader 
 cannot see." This is sufficiently precise and clear, 
 and it must not be forgotten in the course of 
 discussion. 
 
 There is, however, surely an element of weak- 
 ness betrayed by the fact that notwithstanding 
 the bar of common-sense is thus so frankly ap- 
 pealed to, no sooner does a layman, or a divine of 
 the traditional school, engage in the controversy 
 than he is at once silenced by the cry, " Oh, 
 but you are no scholar. Without the profound 
 grammatical and linguistic knowledge of an ex- 
 pert, and without having the visual ray purged 
 so as to be enabled to recognize the broad and 
 
CLAIMS OF THK OLD TESTAMENT 3 
 
 patent characteristics that distiii^miish the sc\'e- 
 ral contributions of J. and K. and I), and P. and 
 (}. and \l., you arn of course not capable of 
 appreciating' the irrefragultle character of the 
 verdict given by tliose wlio are, nor of seeing 
 how absolutely certain and conclusive it is." 
 Now, it is this initial inconsistency of which I 
 complain. Hither the Uible is an open book or 
 it is not. If it is, then my opinion, even as a 
 layman, if I can substantiate it, may be as good as 
 yours; and it is not I or you, l)ut tlie unlearned 
 public at large, who must judge. If the I>ible is 
 not an open book, then the matter must be left 
 to scholars; but in that case what becomes of the 
 boast of Kuenen, that the critic has no other 
 Bible than the public; and what becomes of the 
 court to which the appeal was so confidently and 
 magnanimously made ? There is a manifest in- 
 consistency here, and it -would seem as if the 
 patent vultc face which is so deftly executed 
 argued some uncertainty about the actual prem- 
 ises which might not improbably vitiate the 
 conclusions. 
 
 If there is really the manifest difTcrence be- 
 tween the several component parts of (Jenesis, 
 for example, declared to be visible to the critical 
 eye, how is it that they are not more readily 
 
4 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 discernible by the naked eye of the ordinary 
 reader ? But must we not allow that the ordi- 
 nary reader who will avail himself of Dr. Bis- 
 sell's " Genesis printed in Colors," will not only 
 be perplexed to distinguish the several sections, 
 but also receive the most demonstrative object- 
 lesson as to the worthlessness of the scholarship, 
 or at least the judgment, which can accept, as 
 valid, conclusions so preposterous ? Is it pos- 
 sible to show a more demonstrative rcductio ad 
 ahsurdum of the principles it is proposed to illus- 
 trate ? Surely, if criticism can accept this with- 
 out nausea, the taste of common-sense must be 
 fastidious indeed. 
 
 It is considerations such as these that lead us to 
 conclude that there must be some other principles 
 in operation that produce a result so clearly out 
 of harmony with the professions so loudly made. 
 If the Bible is the possession of every man, then 
 it has a message for every man, and every man is 
 capable of judging of the character and claims 
 of the message. But if the message of the Bible 
 is for the critic alone, then no one else needs to 
 trouble himself about it. But it is because the 
 Bible is largely felt to have a message for every 
 man, that we cannot calmly acquiesce in giving 
 it over to the critics. 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TKSTAMENT 5 
 
 Atrain, it must be borne in mind that it is 
 
 with the Bible as with every othi'v 1 k; tliat 
 
 the aspect it presents cannot but vary according , 
 as it is approached with tru.st or with sus}»icion. 
 There is no document and no composition that is 
 proof against unfavorable treatment; and if the 
 lUble is read with the intention of discrediting 
 it, there is no prerogative of immunity attaching 
 to it which will avert the consequences. 
 
 And moreover it would seem to be unfair to 
 allow the presence of the supernatural in the • 
 Old and New Testaments to prejudice the case 
 against either, inasmuch as it is this which is 
 the inherent and essential character of their • 
 message. They manifestly profess to come with 
 a special message from God, and it is not on ac- 
 count of this profession that they are at once to 
 be rejected ; but it is hard to see how the reality 
 of the message can be guaranteed except by the 
 credentials which accompany it. The fact and 
 signiticance of the supernatural in Scripture is 
 the matter in dispute, and to decide beforehand 
 that on this ground Scripture is to be rejected, is 
 to beg an initial question that we have no right 
 to grant. By all means let us treat Scripture 
 fairly and criticise it freely, but let us not shut 
 our eyes to those characteristics which difVeren- 
 
6 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 tiate it from all other literature, and which there- 
 fore constitute part of its inalienable endowment, 
 and consequently go a long way towards estab- 
 lishing its claim. To enter on the discussion 
 with a bias against the main position of Scrip- 
 ture is to render ourselves unfit to conduct it. 
 
 And having said thus much, I proceed to ask 
 what the Old Testament is, and what its claims 
 are upon our attention. Now, the Old Testa- 
 ment, or the Old Covenant, as it ought to be called, 
 in its name implies two things : first, that it is 
 the record of a covenant with (itod ; and secondly, 
 that it is old, with respect to one that is newer. 
 And these two points involve the whole case 
 with reference to the Old Testament. For they 
 imply that God was the author of the covenant 
 recorded, and that this covenant was after all 
 only preparatory to another ; that it was there- 
 fore incomplete and^mperfect^but nevertheless 
 possessed the virtual promise of another. And it 
 is here that very important issues are involved ; 
 because the very conception of God's making a 
 covenant with any person or people implies a 
 conception of God and His method of operation 
 entirely distinct from and contrary to anything 
 we can learn of God in nature. Nature and her 
 operations are indifferent and universal. She 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TFISTAMKNT 7 
 
 troats all alike. The very coneei»tioii of God's 
 making a covenant witli any person or people 
 implies selection, favoritism, exemiition ; the very 
 antithesis of the universal and the indiscrimi- 
 nate. And tliercfore here, apart altogether from 
 any supernatural exhibition of power or action, 
 there is involved a thought wiiich is antagonistic 
 to anything that nature as the administrator of 
 the universal has to teach us or can exhibit. It 
 is impossible to conceive of God's making a cove- 
 nant without supposing Him to come out of the 
 darkness and obscurity with which He commonly 
 shrouds Himself in order to enter into special 
 relations with those to whom He tlius exception- 
 ally draws nigh. And this of itself, apart from 
 anything else, involves the miraculous, the ex- 
 traordinary, and the supernatural. To maintain, 
 therefore, that on this account the record of such 
 action is to be rejected is fatal to the entire pro- 
 fessed revelation. AVe cannot deal with it with- 
 out belying its essential chara(;ter and credentials. 
 And any further action toward it on our ])art is 
 disingenuous and unfair. But then, secondly, if 
 the sacred writings of the Jews contain the record 
 of the old covenant of God, that of itself implies 
 the fact that He has made a new one, and that 
 the one was preparatory for the other. And as a 
 
8 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 matter of fact the actual relation subsisting be- 
 tween the Old Testament and the New, will be 
 for all time the conclusive evidence of the reality 
 of the claims of both. It is simply impossible 
 to account for this relation in all its essential 
 features as a merely natural phenomenon and 
 without postulating a presiding, directing, and 
 designing agent who, independently of the va- 
 rious elements co-operating in its production, has 
 brought it about. Consequently, the book of 
 the old covenant bears its claim upon its surface, 
 and we cannot disguise the fact that we have to 
 deal with something that is of no ordinary char- 
 acter, and that makes no ordinary pretensions. 
 The book of the old covenant is nothing if it is 
 not a record of the various ways in which God 
 was pleased to deal with a particular nation for 
 the instruction and benefit of all, and with special 
 reference to His action in the future. 
 
 What, then, are some of the chief reasons on 
 account of which we are disposed to acknowl- 
 edge the claims of the Old Testament upon our 
 regard ? In the first place, there is tlie apparent 
 antiquity of its historical record. Whether this 
 is trustworthy or not, there is nothing in all lit- 
 erature to compare with it. Here we have a 
 bird's-eye view of human history from the very 
 
CLAIMS OF TIIK OLD TFSTAMF;NT \> 
 
 first. Even if this is not as veracious as it si/enis 
 to be, it is at least iincoiitiadicted, original, and 
 uiii([iu'. There are no similar documents to call 
 in (juestion its statements, or to dispute its aceu- - 
 racy. We know absolutely nothing of the his- 
 tory of the race four thousand years ago, except 
 what the Old Testament has recorded. The 
 whole extent would be an absolute blank were 
 it not for the light, such as it is, that is thrown 
 upon it by the Old Testament. And against this 
 we have nothing whatever to set but conjecture 
 and uncertain inferences drawn from [)henomena 
 of uncertain import. 
 
 Again, there is the simplicity and comparative > 
 value of these early documents, when contrasted 
 with such documents as we have of a like kind 
 among other nations. Compare, for example, the 
 cosmosonies of Hesiod or of Manu with those of 
 Genesis, and we can but stand amazed at the sim- 
 plicity and sublimity of the one, and the mon- 
 strosity, puerility, and absurdity of the other. In 
 fact there is, and can be, no comparison. In the 
 one case, we are dealing with apparent fact; in 
 the other, with obvious conjecture and with })at- 
 ent falsehood. The first verse of the first chap- 
 ter of Genesis tells us that which is antecedent 
 to and independent of all science, which is rea- 
 
10 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 sonable and probable in itself, which furnishes a 
 basis for all science, but is contradicted and re- 
 placed by none. We may well ask, then, On 
 whose authority is this stated ? If it is false, can 
 we disprove it ? If it is true, how did it enter into 
 the mind of the writer to utter and affirm it ? If 
 it is true, how did it happen that he alone of all 
 men discovered its truth ? For we cannot be 
 persuaded of its truth, unless there is authority 
 for believing it to be true ; and the writer could 
 not give it any other authority than that on 
 which he, himself, received it. So that we may 
 state the matter thus. What is here told us is 
 either true or not true. If it is true we can only 
 hioiv it to be true if it was divinely imparted ; 
 otherwise it must be conjectural, and may or 
 may not be true. Now, as there is nothing to 
 contradict its truth, but very much to confirm it, 
 a strong presumption is created in favor of the 
 claim on its behalf ; and certainly here alone, 
 among all statements and speculations of the 
 kind in ancient or in modern times, do we find 
 anything which speaks to us with so much of 
 the majesty of truth ; which surely is no insig- 
 nificant reason for believing it to be true, and 
 which is the more inconsistent with the sup- 
 position of its being false. 
 
CLAIMS OF TlIK OLD TF.STAMKNT 11 
 
 It is, lio\v(n'or, only tli<' fi'W lirst cliaiitors of 
 Genesis whicli eoiiceni tin; rrico as a whole. As 
 early as the twelfth chapter the horizon becomes 
 contracted, and henceforth the fortnnes of a 
 single people only are related, great prominence 
 being given to the history of the first father of 
 the nation. It is here that we must determine 
 the essential character of the narrative, because 
 our decision about that will materially afl'ect the 
 judgment that we form of all that folhnvs. The 
 main question is whether it is myth or history ; 
 anil liow is this to be determined ? I am not 
 aware of any touchstone by which we can infalli- 
 bly discern the one from the other, simply on in- 
 ternal and a j^riori principles. How do we know 
 that Ciesar and Thucydides are true ? How do 
 we know that Hamlet and King Lear are not ? 
 Is it not a matter of evidence and traditional tes- 
 timony in every case ? And where there is room 
 for doubt, how can the doubt be resolved l)ut by 
 the weighing of the evidence for and against? 
 Now, there is absolutely no external evidence , 
 against the story of Abraham, — though we have 
 been told by Butler, but often forget it, that there 
 is a presumption of millions to one against the 
 story of Ciesar or of any other man, — and it is 
 only on internal prepossessions that this story can . 
 
12 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 be rejected. But inasmuch as it professes to be 
 the record of Divine manifestations, it is clearly 
 not to be rejected on the ground that it professes 
 to record them. And over and beyond this, the 
 story of Abraham has this fact conspicuously in 
 its favor, that it contains in germ the explanation 
 of the subsequent national history, and is mar- 
 vellously confirmed by the corroboration contin- 
 uously afforded by that history up to the present 
 day. Now, it is conceivable that a writer in the 
 palmy days of the monarchy might have sought 
 to illustrate the glory of the national throne by 
 inventing a narrative like that of Abraham, sur- 
 rounding it with an imaginary halo of romance 
 and myth ; but allowing the possibility of this, 
 we are still at a loss to conceive any period of 
 the national life at which the promise that all 
 nations should be blessed in Abraham could have 
 suggested itself to any mind or could have 
 derived any corroboration from the actual or 
 probable course of events. And yet here, on the 
 forefront of this mythical history, we find this 
 patent and daring challenge thrown down for 
 posterity to verify or to discredit. And we may 
 ask with confidence, What has the verdict been ? 
 And is not the marvellous correspondence be- 
 tween the promise and the facts of history some- 
 
CLAIMS OK TUK OLD TKSTAMENT 13 
 
 tlii::g which dclit's cxphuiation upon any nntural 
 principles? Ami it' so, is not tliis of itself the 
 highest testimony to the cliaracter of the original 
 narrative, and does it not create a distinct pre- 
 sumption in its favor ? I do not see how we are 
 to explain the fact of this promise, many times 
 repeated in the Genesis history and referred to in 
 the subsequent^ literature, but on the assump- 
 tion tliat it was given under the circumstances 
 recorded ; in which case we need hesitate no more 
 on account of any other supernatural incidents 
 by which it was accompanied. Indeed, any other 
 incidents of the kind can only be regarded as 
 tending to confirm the reality of the promise and 
 the facts of its divine origin. 
 
 And here perhaps it is right to say a word 
 about the much abused term " supernatural." 
 The Duke of Argyll, in his admirable l)ook on the 
 " Philosophy of Belief," dwells upon the error of 
 distinguishing between the natural and the super- 
 natural. But surely, however open to objection 
 scientifically this may be, confusion and miscon- 
 ception only can arise if we decline to distinguish 
 them. For instance, unless we use " nature " to 
 include not only the whole area of perceptive 
 knowledge and experience, but everything besides 
 
 1 Micali vii. 20. 
 
14 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 that is not " dreamt of in our philosophy," we 
 must admit the distinction, iiowever incorrect or 
 misleading in the scientific sense it may be. For 
 example, I suppose no one would affirm that the 
 birth of Isaac, under the circumstances recorded, 
 was a natural event or capable of natural ex- 
 planation any more than the fact of the Lord's 
 speaking to Abraham out of heaven was, however 
 much we may choose to include both events under 
 the term "natural," as embracing everything that 
 has ever occurred. If this can rightly be done 
 without impinging upon the historic truth of the 
 narrative, well and good ; but as I strongly sus- 
 pect it cannot, then we must be very careful to 
 contend for the facts recorded, whether we call 
 them natural or supernatural. What I want to 
 know is, did these two events ever take place ? 
 Does the narrative intend us to believe that they 
 did ? Is it right and true in that intention ? and 
 if it is, how far are we right in drawing the in- 
 ference that they were intended to establish the 
 reality of the divine communications given, and did 
 establish it? And is there any other legitimate 
 inference that we can draw ? And the question 
 herein involved is one that will perpetually con- 
 front us throughout the Scripture narrative, and 
 therefore, sooner or later, we must deal with it ; 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 15 
 
 for instance, if iuiwIutc else, at li-ast in the facts 
 of our Lord's life. If that can he rediKH'd to the 
 dimensions of the natural, without any forfeiture 
 of literal historic trutli, then I am willing to sur- 
 render the term " supernatural " ; but unless that 
 can be done, no good will ensue from the desire 
 to blink the necessity of using it, for we cannot 
 afford to do so. And with regard to the like nar- 
 ratives of the Old Testament, either their historic 
 veracity is a matter of no importance, or else their 
 liistoric truth is absolutely discredited by the 
 statements that involve the supernatural ; for 
 it is inconsistent to accept, for instance, the 
 reality of the promise to Abraham, and reject the 
 narrative concerning the birth of Isaac. 
 
 On the other hand, one is quite willing to 
 admit that the acceptance of the supernatural in 
 the narratives, for its own sake, is to stop short 
 of the purpose for which it is narrated, which 
 manifestly is with the intention of confirming the 
 reality of the spiritual facts with which these 
 narratives are associated, and which they illus- 
 trate. Take for example the narrative of the 
 passage of th<^ Jordan by the Israelites. I sup- 
 pose no one will deny that that is related, and was 
 always accepted, as a supernatural fact intended 
 to confirm the promise of God, and to show forth 
 
16 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 His special providence with regard to Israel. 
 Now, the Duke of Argyll says that the Jordan ran 
 dry in the thirteenth century of our era, owing 
 to the falling of rock (p. 215), and uses that fact as 
 an illustration of what may have taken place 
 at the passage of the Israelites. But surely this 
 is to deal unfairly with the Scripture narrative. 
 Let it be granted that purely natural causes 
 operated in both cases. Even then there are 
 many circumstances in the Scripture narrative 
 not explained : for instance, the statement of 
 Joshua that within three days the host should 
 pass over Jordan ; that when the priests' feet 
 touched the water the waters retreated and re- 
 mained divided till all the host had passed over; 
 and the like. If we accept the narrative at all, 
 we must accept these facts ; but if we accept 
 these facts, and even suppose them to be suscep- 
 tible of natural explanation, we have not ex- 
 plained the significance with which they were 
 supposed to be fraught, and without which they 
 were worthless in themselves, and productive only 
 of error and misconception alike in the mind of 
 the people and in that of the narrator. In short, 
 this would be to suppose that the Almighty 
 made use of delusion and deception, and that for 
 the purpose of confirming the truth of His own 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TKSTAMKNT 17 
 
 word. It seems to me, therefore, that, pare down 
 the supernatural as we may, and explain it as 
 only another phase of the natural, we nnist 
 eventually admit the reality of an essential dil'ler- 
 ence between them, unless we are prepared to 
 reject the narratives ; as, for example, in the ulti- 
 mate instance, witli the resurrection of Christ. 
 This either was or was not a literal fact ; if it 
 was a literal fact, then it was in no ordinary 
 sense a natural one ; if it was not a literal fact, 
 then we must reject the narrative, or are com- 
 mitted to the belief of a lie in accepting it. The 
 natural and the supernatural, therefore, as I take 
 it, are not synonymous. There may be a whole- 
 some dread of the marvellous for its own sake, 
 and a revulsion against supposing that, because 
 we do not stumble at the supernatural, there- 
 fore we are believers ; but at the same time that 
 belief is not worthy of the name which insists 
 upon expunging every miracle and wonder alike 
 from the Christian creed and the Scripture record. 
 I do not understand how belief in any sense can 
 avoid being committed to the acceptance of cer- 
 tain facts which defy all natural explanation, 
 whether we call them miraculous, or s[)iritual, or 
 what not. 
 
 There is also another point in which a good 
 2 
 
18 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 deal of loose thought appears to be current in the 
 present day, and that is the essential connection 
 between historic events and s]:)iritnal and moral 
 truth. For example, it is asked, " What do we 
 lose if Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were mythical 
 personages, with no historic existence ? Do not 
 the spiritual lessons remain which their narra- 
 tives illustrate ? The example of Abraham's faith 
 abides, whether he is imaginary or real, just as 
 the evil of marital jealousy remains whether 
 Othello was, or was not, merely the creation of 
 Shakespeare's brain." But this appears to me to 
 betray a very unsatisfactory and vague concep- 
 tion of the necessary conditions of the problem to 
 be solved. Let it be granted that the example of 
 faith is the essential element in the story of 
 Abraham ; but let us also suppose that Abraham 
 was a mythical personage, with no real existence. 
 Then clearly the command which he obeyed and 
 the promise which he believed were unreal too, 
 as also was his obedience and his belief. Our 
 position would then be this : " Had Abraham acted 
 under the conditions supposed, as he is said to 
 have acted, we have from the blessing promised 
 upon his faith the corresponding advantage that 
 may be expected to accrue to us from the like 
 obedience and belief. The teaching of the narra- 
 
CLAIMS OF TIIK OLD TKSTAMHNT TJ 
 
 tive is equally distinct and elociuent, whetluir 
 true or falso." Very well ; hut if the narrative is 
 imaginary, so also may be the lessons derived fmm 
 it. We do not care to know what conceivably 
 might be the case under certain circumstances ; 
 we want to know what actually was the case 
 under tliese circumstances as described. If God 
 did not act as He is said to have acted in the case 
 of Al)raham, how do we know that He will act in 
 the like manner in our own case ? What inoof 
 have we that He cares at all about how we do 
 act? Because it must be borne in mind that if 
 the history of Abraham is dissipated in this way, 
 there is no reason why any other like narrative 
 may not be in like manner dissipated and de- 
 stroyed, n the ground of faith is thus relegated 
 to the merely spiritual, impalpable, and intan- 
 gible, apart altogether from the concrete, visil)le 
 and substantial authority which vouches for it, 
 there ceases to be any valid foundation at all 
 for it, in the experimental and the real. Then 
 there is no necessity for God to confirm His word 
 with signs following, and in the great majority of 
 cases it is a mistake to suppose that He ever did. 
 Even in the time of Christ mankind had not 
 emerged from this pernicious and childish hal)it 
 of believing in signs, and in Old Testament times 
 
20 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 they were immersed in it. For us there has been 
 reserved the far higher calling to dispense alto- 
 gether with signs in the present, and to discredit 
 the reality of those which are said to have been 
 given in the past. Faith, if it is real, and in pro- 
 portion as it is, can dispense altogether with an 
 historic basis to rest on. There is no question 
 but that this is the direction in which men's 
 thoughts are largely moving. But is there not a 
 manifest and pernicious fallacy in the reasoning? 
 Because it is perfectly true that God would have 
 us be independent of signs, does He intend us to 
 believe that signs have never been given ? Does 
 He wish us to suppose that those which are 
 alleged to have been given were fallacious, and 
 that it matters nothing whether they were real 
 or not ? If so, surely not only the Old Testament, 
 but the New likewise must be written again 
 de novo. Then not only may we pass by the 
 miracles of Christ as of no moment, but we must 
 also believe that He never really wrought them, 
 and never actually appealed to them ; that in all 
 these cases there was nothing more than tempo- 
 rary and apparent concession to human weakness. 
 But then, in that case, we must likewise deal in 
 some intelligible way with His birth. His life. 
 His resurrection, and His ascension. 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 21 
 
 It sceins to me that the true point in ^vl^ic•h 
 the purely spiritual aiul the real aud actual 
 meet, is the death of Christ. The solid ground 
 on whicli faith rests as a sure foundation is the 
 death of Christ. That death, regarded merely in 
 its historic aspect in relation to the recorded acts 
 and words of Jesus, points us unmistakably to 
 something above and beyond nature, to some- 
 thing in the Divine, which speaks by it and yet 
 dill'ers from it, as Fatherhood differs from wor- 
 ship. And if this is so, then there is but one 
 way of interpreting the darkness and the earth- 
 quake ; namely, as the recognition by the God of 
 nature of the justice with which the sinless suf- 
 ferer claimed to be the Son of God. Here we 
 have most conspicuously the mingling of the nat- 
 ural and the supernatural; of tliat which was 
 purely and simply human and ordinary with 
 that which was essentially superhuman and 
 miraculous, supernatural and divine. 
 
 But if you recognize the two elements here, is 
 it only here that we may recognize them ? And 
 if it is, as I believe it to be, impossible not to 
 recognize them here, may not the same be said 
 with equal justice of many other events and 
 incidents recorded alike in the Old Testament 
 and the New ? When, however, we have estab- 
 
22 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 lislied a firm foothold on the mere historic feat- 
 ures and incidents of the death of Christ and 
 recognized that to which they unmistakably 
 point, it is not many steps further to lay equally 
 firm hold of the resurrection and ascension of 
 the Lord Jesus. When we have taken in the 
 full significance of the one, it is surely somewhat 
 less hard to see how naturally the one leads on 
 to the other, and the one is followed on and sup- 
 plemented by the other. 
 
 It is surely considerations such as these which 
 may serve to give us pause before we acquiesce 
 with too great facility in the opinion of those who 
 ask complacently, " What if, after all, it should 
 turn out that it has been part of God's plan in the 
 past to teach us by myth ? " To which I would 
 reply by two other questions: What if it should, 
 after all, not turn out that such has been his plan ? 
 And what about the death of Christ? Was 
 that a myth ? Or is it a certain fact that the 
 mere naked historic incidents of that tremendous 
 act do point us unmistakably to further truths, 
 which would, however, most undeniably cease 
 to be true if the actuality of those incidents 
 could be called in question, — if, that is, they 
 themselves were mythical ? So manifest is it 
 tliat those who recklessly use such language 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 23 
 
 with regard to tlio Old Tostimu'iit have not 
 counted the cost of their tno lilmid concessions, 
 and, what is more, liave not fairly estimated the 
 essential foundations on which their own i)ro- 
 fessed l)elief rests. Piofore we are asked to admit 
 that it may be part of the Divine plan to teach 
 by myth, even as Christ taught by i)arables, let 
 us inquire the more earnestly what evidence there 
 is that He has done so, and let us not at once as- 
 sume it, as a fact, merely because it falls in con- 
 veniently with certain theories which are abso- 
 lutely fatal to the historic validity of the Old Tes- 
 tament as a whole. Are we prepared to accept 
 the Old Testament as merely the story-book of 
 the Jewish race in its infancy, and to extract 
 from it only so much ethical wisdom as is con- 
 sistent with our own preconceived and advanced 
 notions of what is wise and true ; or are we will- 
 ing to regard it rather as the record of special 
 Divine dealing with a race favored and chosen 
 for the express purpose of thereby teaching the 
 whole human family, and as revealing the foun- 
 dations in history and literature upon which 
 God would afterwards erect the permanent edi- 
 fice of the Christian Church and Iniild up the 
 temple of the kingdom of heaven ? For then, 
 manifestly, in whatever degree the Old Testa- 
 
24 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 meiit is this, it must stand to reason that we 
 cannot with equanimity regard those hypotheses 
 which assume, without proving, that these foun- 
 dations are unstable and unsound, and would 
 thereby substitute a basis of lies for the substra- 
 tum of fact on which it claims to rest. 
 
 It seems to me that we cannot fairly under- 
 stand the essential questions that underlie the 
 acceptance of the narratives of the Old Testament 
 and the New Testament alike without determin- 
 ing these two points : first, whether the ordi- 
 nary laws of nature ever have historically been 
 infringed, violated, set aside, or what you will ; 
 and secondly, whether this has ever been done for 
 the express purpose of accrediting the Divine 
 word and promises in a way that otherwise it 
 would seem impossible that they should be ac- 
 credited. It is not the rejection of this or that 
 narrative in either volume of Scripture, but the 
 rejection of the whole tenor of Scripture through, 
 out from first to last, that alone is adequate, if 
 we are to answer these questions in the nega- 
 tive. Christ undovibtedly appealed to His mighty 
 works in their physical as well as their moral 
 aspect, in confirmation of the claims He advanced. 
 Was He justified in doing this or not ? If He was, 
 did He not thereby virtually set His seal to the 
 
CLAIMS OF TlIK OLD TESTAMENT 25 
 
 ]iriii(iiile that we arc not wroiif; in bclievinii tliat 
 (Jod's word may be conlirnied by si;,Mis following? 
 And with regard to the limits of the natural 
 and the supernatural, which it is so diihcult to 
 define, it must be borne in mind that a com- 
 bination of purely natural incidents occurring 
 naturally may be interpreted, and be meant to be 
 interpreted, as giving Divine corroboration of a 
 particular principle or course of action no less con- 
 vincing and conclusive than the direct apparent 
 suspension or infringement of known natural law 
 would do. The question really at issue is, Under 
 what conditions may we recognize the special 
 declaration of the Divine will as intentionally 
 communicated to us ? Is it ever legitimate to do 
 so, or is it mere superstition and self-deception in 
 every case ? If so, then it stands to reason that 
 we must tling away the IJible as a worthless 
 record ; but if otherwise, then it may chance 
 that there is no other record or collection of 
 records so calculated and designed to direct us 
 aright in this matter as are these. It is in that 
 belief that I accept the New Testament and try 
 to study the complex literature of the Old, as 
 the divinely designed preparation for the more 
 complete revelation which was to confirm and 
 fulfil its promises and hopes. 
 
26 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Now, if the Bible is a layman's book, as it is 
 alleged to be, it stands to reason that its defects 
 or fallacies must be as patent to the layman as 
 they are to the critic. But I, as a layman, want 
 to learn whether I may frankly accept the Old 
 Testament in its traditional character as a 
 Divinely authorized narrative of the events it 
 records, or must regard it as so modified and 
 conditioned by traditional error and human mis- 
 interpretation as to be utterly untrustworthy in 
 its narrative of these events. The critic tells me 
 explicitly that this is what he finds the Bible to 
 be, and gives sundry reasons for it, which he 
 says I, as a layman, am able to appreciate. But 
 it so happens that, in a multitude of cases, I 
 altogether dispute his conclusions and am 
 wholly unconvinced by the reasons assigned. 
 Of course neither he nor I am concerned to 
 maintain the absolute inerrancy of every his- 
 torical statement in the Old Testament, as, for 
 example, the number and names of Esau's wives, 
 and the like ; but I do very much want to know 
 whether, for example, the narrative of the first 
 ten chapters of Exodus gives a correct or incor- 
 rect account of the events recorded, whether the 
 part ascribed to the Divine action is imaginary 
 or real, whether the writer or the actor, wlioemr 
 
CLAIMS OF TIIK OLD TESTAMENT 27 
 
 he iciis, exceeded his coinniissiou in n])|)('aliiiff so 
 contidently to tlie iiatne of God. This is liy no 
 means a (question merely of age and anthdrsliip, 
 as regards the books, as Dr. Driver chooses to 
 represent it (cf. Int. p. xix) ; it is sini[tly a 
 question of truth or falsehood; and I, as an inter- 
 ested layman, am determined to accept no middle 
 position. Either it was God who brought Israel 
 out of Egypt (Num. xxiii. 22), or that deliv- 
 erance was an accidental escape with which the 
 finger of God had nothing whatever to do, and 
 which the historian therefore has entirely mis- 
 represented. Now I want to know whether 
 Moses and the Israelites had any more ground 
 for recognizing the hand of God in their deliv- 
 erance than Cromwell had in the battles of 
 Dunbar and Worcester, — that is to say, does 
 faith create its own basis of belief, or is there 
 an external and objective ground on which it 
 rests, whicli faith perceives and apprehends but 
 does not create, and may we recognize in the 
 Scripture narrative the voucher for such a 
 ground, and find such an instance of it as we 
 cannot find in the history of Cromwell ? If we 
 may, then have we in Scripture such a guaran- 
 teed objective ground of faith as we can rely on, 
 and that because this its ordained function is not 
 
28 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 of man, but of God. But has the Scripture this 
 function, and how do we know that it has it ? 
 Only because of its own inherent testimony to 
 that effect, and of the credentials which it is able 
 to present. But it stands to reason that unless 
 the narrative of the exodus is ultimately from 
 the chief personal actor in it, we cannot ascribe 
 to it the authority requisite for its being trust- 
 worthy ; and hence the inevitable consequence 
 that if the narrative is five or six centuries after 
 the period of the exodus, it cannot possibly serve 
 as a voucher for the correctness of the state- 
 ments it so daringly ascribes to God, but sinks 
 to the level of Cromwell's belief about Dunbar 
 and Worcester. It is to me a matter of simple 
 astonishment that people do not see that unless 
 we have an objective basis for faith, there is 
 nothing for faith to rest on, and in this case 
 such an objective basis cannot be given by an 
 unknown and unauthorized narrative such as a 
 work of the ninth century B.C. would necessarily 
 be, but only by a narrative sufhciently expressing 
 the declared word of God, and recording with 
 sufficient accuracy the veritable acts of God. 
 
 And it has further to be borne in mind that 
 in whatever way we conceive of a revelation 
 being conveyed to man, such as that for example 
 
CLAIMS OV TllH (>LU TESTAMENT 29 
 
 of tlie Mosaic record of tl\e exodus, two con- 
 ditions would seem to be absolutely essential, — 
 nanioly, first, tlie accuracy of the recorded facts; 
 and, secondly, the attitude indispensable for 
 accepting them, which is one of faith. For sup- 
 pose a revelation of plenary Divine authority 
 imparted to man, it must either be so given as 
 to compel acceptance, or it must be dependent on 
 the faith of man to be accepted. Now, no one 
 pretends that the supposed revelation of God is 
 a matter of demonstration ; if it were, it wouUl 
 not 1)0 possible to reject it, in which case it 
 would fail as a moral test; consequently, in 
 whatever way the revelation was presented it 
 would necessarily appeal to faitli. Clearly, there- 
 fore, if the history of the exodus was intended 
 as a revelation of special Divine action and the 
 record of it, there would be the necessity not 
 only of its historic accuracy, but also for the 
 requisite disposition of mind to accept it. lUit if 
 its accuracy, not merely in detail, l)ut in its 
 special characteristic as revealing the will and 
 working of God, were called in question, it would 
 fail altogether of its professedly designed result 
 as a revelation. But it is exactly this that is 
 called in question, if the form of the record is 
 five or six centuries after the tinie ; and conse- 
 
30 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 quently the ground of our belief in the narrative 
 is absolutely destroyed, for we cannot be sure of 
 the facts, and more especially of that fact which 
 is the most important of all, namely, that the 
 events recorded truly represent the operation of 
 the Divine will. Not only are we uncertain as 
 to what God said unto Moses, but we do not even 
 know that He spake unto him at all, or that He 
 was in any way to be identified with, or held 
 responsible for, the course and tenor of the 
 events. It is therefore all moonshine to say 
 that if we destroy the " form " of the revelation, 
 the "fact" remains untouched;^ because no fact 
 at all remains, except so much as we choose to 
 concede to popular prejudice, resting as it does in 
 the mere word " revelation " without any specific 
 authority whatever. 
 
 It is absolutely necessary that the critics should 
 be " brought to book " in this respect, and be 
 compelled to tell us what it is they really mean 
 by revelation, and with what amount of belief in 
 Holy Scripture their conclusions are ultimately 
 compatible. They first of all dissipate in toto the 
 traditional authority of the canon, whether it be 
 in relation to the Pentateuch, Daniel, Joel, Jonah, 
 or any other book contained therein, and show that 
 1 See Driver, lut. p. xvi. 
 
CLAIMS OF TIIR OLD TESTAMENT 31 
 
 all such grounds of authority are purely imagi- 
 nary ; ami having therel)y demonstrated, as they 
 suppose, the entirely untrustworthy character of 
 the history and the external authority of the 
 prophets, they continue to talk about revelation 
 as if it were a thing that could lloat in the air 
 without any foundation whatever to rest on. 
 Having first entirely shattered the traditional 
 authority of the word of God, they continue 
 to speak of that word as though it could be 
 not only independent of all external testimony, 
 but was moreover a thing so evident and unques- 
 tionable in itself as to be able to laugh to scorn 
 every critical result which was fatal to its received 
 authority and to its traditional pretensions. 
 
 Let me make myself clearly understood. I 
 place no barrier against criticism the most 
 searching and impartial ; by all means let us 
 treat the Bible like any other book. I ask for 
 no reservation in its favor ; but, nevertheless, I 
 feel most deeply that it is not on grounds such 
 as those which the critics advance that the 
 established position of the Bible is to be sur- 
 rendered, even if it be that some of the tradi- 
 tional safeguards may be invalid, and that all 
 may need modification and readjustment. T 
 believe that many of the critical conclusions 
 
32 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 are unsound, and that many more are unproven ; 
 and I believe it to be wholly disingenuous and 
 unfair to affirm and reaffirm statements on the 
 authority of those conclusions which are in 
 themselves not only irreconcilable with Apos- 
 tolic affirmations, but also absolutely fatal to the 
 kind of substantial validity that is throughout 
 assumed for the Old Testament in the New. 
 And therefore it is wholly impossible to discuss 
 these questions as if nothing of any importance 
 depended on their issue ; because the faith and 
 authority of Christ is involved in them, and we 
 must either be prepared to let that faith go as a 
 thing of no value, or we must be prepared to 
 adopt the ground which many seem disposed to 
 -suggest; which is not "I believe what T believe 
 because it is tme and I believe it to be truc^' 
 but " I believe certain things though I see there 
 is ground to believe they, or many of them, are 
 not true, and I intend to continue to believe them 
 because in many ways it is expedient to do so, 
 even though they be not true, or there is ground 
 for questioning whether they are so. In short, 
 I hold my faith in solution, and am content 
 to do so." Critics and philosophers may be left 
 to decide whether this is critical or philosoph- 
 ical. I believe it to be absolutely opposed to 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 33 
 
 tlii3 mind and toaching of the New Testament, 
 and I am determined to seek some better basis 
 for my faith tliau thai which destructive criti- 
 cism can supply. 
 
 For example, it is impossible for a man to say 
 that he accepts tlie Apostles' Creed, and theoreti- 
 cally to disbelieve in the supernatural. Neither 
 do I see how it is })ossible for a man to acknowl- 
 edge the literal meaning of the word " Christ," 
 and reject that basis of Divine prophecy, promise, 
 and action in the Old Testament without which 
 that word has no real significance. Some minds 
 take delight in dissolving and analyzing these 
 elements. I confess that I prefer to rest on 
 the substantial constructive basis that they pre- 
 sent, and which, as it seems to me, they inevi- 
 tably indicate and point to, dissolve and analyze 
 them as we may. 
 
 It is symptomatic of much of the thought of 
 the present day that those miraculous elements 
 in the Gospels, for instance, which at the time 
 were doubtless given and received as confirma- 
 tory of its message, are now regarded as the 
 main obstacle in its reception. There must 
 surely be something wrong here. In the first 
 place we may well question how far the gospel 
 can be received apart from its miraculous setting, 
 3 
 
34 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 or what sort of a gospel that is that remains 
 after the miraculous has been rejected ; and 
 secondly, this important fact remains, that the 
 belief in the miraculous is not proposed as an 
 end in itself, but is intended to point and lead 
 up to something which is higher and beyond the 
 miracle itself, and which, if it is not grasped, the 
 miracle itself is worthless ; and there can be 
 no doubt that if this end is apprehended, the 
 miracle may be largely left to take care of itself. 
 It is more to believe in Christ than it is to 
 believe that He turned water into wine or fed 
 five thousand with a few loaves and fishes ; but 
 it is equally hard to determine what kind of 
 faith in Christ that would be, or whether it 
 could rightly be called faith at all, which pro- 
 fessed to believe in Him and yet stumbled at 
 the feeding of the five thousand or the miracle 
 of Cana in Galilee. If one believes in Christ 
 one believes in His mighty works. He himself 
 contemplates belief in His mighty works without 
 belief in Him. I hardly think it can be said that 
 He contemplates a belief in Him which would 
 reject His mighty works. " Believe me that I 
 am in the Father and the Father in me ; or else 
 believe me for the very works' sake." 
 
 And this, as it seems to me, is the true posi- 
 
CLAIMS OF TllH OLD THSTAMKXT 35 
 
 tiou with regard to the miracuhnis. It is 
 involved in sincere belief in Cliri.st, and though 
 that belief may not l)e based on the miraculous, 
 it can scarcely be said to be independent of it. 
 If we ask whether the miracles prove the Gospel 
 or the (Jospel proves the miracles we may decide 
 in favor of both ; and certainly if the Gospel 
 proves the miracles, as it surely does, we can- 
 not refuse to admit that the miracles confirm the 
 Gospel. They are mutually dependent, though 
 the order of them may be doubtful in point of 
 evidence. 
 
 It may seem that I have, to a certain extent, 
 wandered from the question I proposed to con- 
 sider, in thus mixing up the Old and New Tes- 
 taments in the discussion; but, in point of fact, 
 the ground is common to both. There is an 
 indestructible connection between the Old Tes- 
 tament and the New, which it is impossible to 
 disregard. And if one treats the Old Testament 
 in such a way as to make it inadequate as a 
 prime factor in the production of the New, we 
 do more than damage and depreciate the Old 
 Testament; because we stultify ourselves, inas- 
 much as we have left unaccounted-for a series 
 of literary and historical facts as an effect which 
 we have deprived of its only sullicient and pos- 
 
36 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 sible cause. For it is absolutely certain that 
 if the documents of the Old Testament actually 
 were of the character that the extreme criticism 
 assigns to them, they would have been impotent 
 to produce either the literature of the New Tes- 
 tament or the historic facts which it relates and 
 to which it testifies. Suppose, for example, that 
 we regard the whole book of Psalms as a product 
 of the second century before Christ, to what in- 
 extricable confusion do we not only reduce the 
 entire volume of the Old Testament, but how 
 preposterously ignorant must we presume both 
 Christ and His enemies to have been, who were 
 evidently most grossly mistaken as to their true 
 history and origin. In fact, it would not be diffi- 
 cult to show that the way the Old Testament is 
 referred to, and the use that is made of it in the 
 New, is incontrovertible proof that the various 
 documents were no modern production, but must 
 have required ages to build up and consolidate 
 in the form they had then assumed. Anything, 
 therefore, which ignores and disregards this fact, 
 is on that very ground self-condemi ed. There 
 are certain characteristics about the work of 
 time which it is impossible to counterfeit, and 
 it is contrary to all precedent that documents 
 in the second century of their existence should 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 37 
 
 have acquired the reputation for an antiiiuity 
 of ten or twelve. And here is one of those 
 broad features of evidence Nvhicli the layman 
 and the man in the street are as capable of ap- 
 preciating and apprehending as the most pro- 
 found scholar, and probably more so. 
 
 As long, then, as the ordinary reader is pos- 
 sessed of his Bible in the vernacular, he will be 
 as capable of estimating not only its substantive 
 message, but certain broad features also of its 
 form and fabric as the expert and the scholar; 
 and so far as he is proof against theories which 
 are the offspring only of hypotheses, and unbi- 
 ased by them, it is quite possible that he may 
 form a sounder, more correct judgment than the 
 critic who, enamoured of his own theories, and 
 blinded by their apparent symmetry and sup- 
 posed exigencies, is, in order to save his own 
 credit, compelled to shut his eyes to facts that 
 may nevertheless be too solid and substantial 
 to be overthrown. 
 
38 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 In my former lecture I endeavored to form some 
 idea of what the Old Testament really is, and 
 what its claims are upon our attention. I showed 
 that it was impossible so to exhaust the Old Tes- 
 tament of the supernatural as to leave in it suffi- 
 cient vitality and motive power to be either 
 explicable in itself, or to serve as the immediate 
 parent and progenitor of the facts and literature 
 of the New Testament. Eor though it is very 
 evident that the supernatural facts of the Old 
 Testament are frequently alluded to in the litera- 
 ture, yet that literature has evidently not been 
 produced merely by the facts, but by the belief 
 in an almighty competent and favoring Power to 
 whom the facts bore witness. It was not the 
 thunders of Sinai which impressed themselves 
 permanently on the minds of the people, but the 
 personal being and presence of that God to whom 
 they bore such tremendous testimony. And so 
 the possession of Canaan, full as the history of it 
 was with the miraculous, served not so much to 
 recall those wonders as to witness to the promises 
 to the fathers of which it was the abiding proo£ 
 
CLAIMS OF Tin-: (iLO tkstamf-:nt 39 
 
 Thus even ill the Old TesLainciit, if ii<^liLly under- 
 stood, it is not the supernatural which is the pre- 
 eniini'nt and obtrusive feature, but the power and 
 presence, tlie majesty and holiness, of that (Jod 
 who made use of these features to awaken ia 
 men's minds the conception and consciousness of 
 His presence. When and where this was done, 
 the function of the miraculous might cease, and 
 the need for it pass away ; but it would by no 
 means follow that it had never been employed, or 
 had never been wanted. 
 
 I shall now draw attention to certain other 
 characteristics of the Old Testament which seem 
 to me to be almost as eloquent as the miraculous 
 itself in favor of the divine character and claims 
 of the Old Testament, and try to determine how 
 far they are affected by critical theories concerning 
 the various books. First, there is the oft repeated 
 promise to Abraham, for which there seems no 
 natural motive at any period, or in any event of 
 the history ; that is to say, not the promise of the 
 land, which is intelligible, but the promise of 
 blessing for all nations, which was in strong con- 
 trast to the national exclusiveness. No theory of 
 the higher criticism suffices to explain this, still 
 less the fact that ages afterwards it became a 
 germinal principle of immense vitality. 
 
40 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Then take the promise to Moses : " If ye will 
 obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, 
 then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me 
 above all the peoples ; for all the earth is mine, 
 and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and 
 a holy nation." This has been put on a level 
 with the claim of other nations to the protection 
 and favor of their deities ; but surely the differ- 
 ence is patent. In every other nation it is the 
 deity whom the nation chooses and worships, and 
 the protection of the deity is regarded as more or 
 less a thing which the deity is pledged to be- 
 stow ; but the conception of a kingdom of priests 
 and a holy nation finds no parallel elsewhere, any 
 more than the Scriptural idea of holiness itself 
 does. Here, again, we may point to a principle 
 which did not manifest the fulness of its inhe- 
 rent vitality till ages afterwards. Nor can we dis- 
 cover any period in the national history when 
 this sentiment is likely to have suggested itself 
 to any known historian ; but here we find it com- 
 municated to Moses in the secret visions of the 
 mount. I submit that it is not the form or cir- 
 cumstances of the narrative that require to be 
 accounted for or elucidated, but the substance of 
 the communication itself, which indeed is explica- 
 ble only on the supposition of its truth. The 
 
CLAIMS OF TIIK OLD TESTAMKNT 41 
 
 liiy;lier criticism gives us no explanation of this, 
 but only offers some trivial conjecture as to the 
 composition of the narrative. It is the same with 
 all the more striking and graphic incidents of the 
 history of the exodus and the wanderings, such 
 as the breaking of the tables of stone and the 
 prayer of Moses thereupon ; the promise " my 
 presence shall go with thee and I will give thee 
 rest ; " the proclamation of the name of the Lord 
 as merciful and gracious, which is continually 
 manifesting its influence in the subsequent lit- 
 erature ; the prescribed form of blessing fur the 
 children of Israel, with its mysterious triple artic- 
 ulation ; the promise often repeated afterwards, 
 " as truly as I live all the earth shall be filled 
 with the glory of the Lord ; " the forty years' 
 wanderings in consequence of rebellion and mur- 
 muring ; the marvellous history and the thwarted 
 endeavors of Balaam to curse the people. These 
 and a hundred other things are among the indeli- 
 ble features of the Mosaic narrative ; and I repeat 
 that the higher criticism offers not one fragment 
 of explanation to account for or exjjlain them as 
 they are, but only theorizes in a paltry and childish 
 way about their particular form and the profcnind 
 problem to which of the letters of the alpliabet 
 they are severally to be referred. But surely even 
 
42 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 ill a fictitious narrative it is the essential sub- 
 stance rather than the accidents of form that 
 demand our primary attention and regard, and the 
 question of questions in relation to these various 
 incidents is their inherent truth or falsehood. If 
 they are fictions then the form and incidents of 
 their composition are matters of the utmost triv- 
 iality ; but if there is in them the substance and 
 soul of truth, they then become matters of the 
 highest import, and the special feature of their form 
 may be left to take care of itself as a thing of 
 very small importance. The tendency which this 
 kind of treatment betrays has very much the ap- 
 , pearance of a covert attack upon the veritable 
 truth of the narrative under the pretence of a 
 minute examination of its form, which is after all 
 purely subjective and can lead to no tangible or 
 valid result. 
 
 When we come to the Book of Deuteronomy 
 the issue presented is very definite and unmis- 
 takable. For either from first to last the as- 
 sumed narrative is a fiction designed to represent 
 the imaginary action of Moses, or it is what it 
 manifestly pretends to be, the personal narrative 
 of the last days of the lawgiver. If it really is this, 
 its value is unquestionably incalculable ; if it is 
 not, it is equally impossible to determine what 
 
CLAIMS OF THK OLD TESTAMENT 43 
 
 its value is ; but one tiling is absolutely certain, 
 that historically its value is nil. And yet there 
 are sentiments and incidents in this bof)k of the 
 highest possible literary value ; but if their historic 
 reality is taken from them, it is not only ditticult 
 to gauge their true value, but also hard to con- 
 ceive how as mere inventions they can have 
 entered into the head of any man, and how, at 
 the time supposed, they should have been so 
 concocted by an unknown writer as to deceive 
 alike the king, the high priest, and the proph- 
 etess, who one and all accepted them as the per- 
 sonal narrative of Moses some seven centuries 
 before. 
 
 Not only is truth stranger than fiction, but in 
 certain cases fiction seems to gather itself together 
 to be more extravagant than truth, and for very 
 spite to outbid and to defy truth. And this case 
 of the production of Deuteronomy under the con- 
 ditions supposed would seem to be one of them. 
 Deuteronomy is precisely one of those composi- 
 tions of which on purely a priori and subjective 
 principles it is difficult to determine the character. 
 Did we know nothing of its history we might 
 hesitate to say whether it wns truth or fiction. 
 But can any one venture to say that we know 
 nothing of its history ? It comes ])efore us with 
 
44 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTxVMENT 
 
 a continuous pedigree of three thousand years 
 on the one side ; and on the other there is 
 nothing but conjecture. Surely the presump- 
 tion is enormously in favor of its truth, and 
 beyond all doubt the onus probandi rests and 
 must rest on the attempt to prove it fiction. 
 There is no need to bias the issue by the use 
 of the word " forgery." The question simply is 
 whether Deuteronomy is a true or fictitious nar- 
 rative. And this on purely abstract principles 
 it may be difficult, or even, for lack of data, im- 
 possible to decide. But is there, strictly speaking, 
 here any lack of data ? Undoubtedly not, unless 
 we summarily reject the data that do exist. 
 But that surely is a most unwarrantable proceed- 
 ing when there is nothing but conjecture on the 
 other side. It is beyond all doubt that, as far as 
 literary evidence goes, there is continuous and 
 unbroken testimony alike to the existence and to 
 the influence of Deuteronomy ; and unless we are 
 to assume that all this complex and apparently 
 undesigned evidence has been intentionally and 
 fraudulently fabricated and arranged for the pur- 
 pose of producing the effect as we perceive it, the 
 criteria in favor of Deuteronomy must be pre- 
 sumed complete and conclusive. Except on the 
 assumption of the most gigantic and systematic 
 
CL.VIMS OF TlIK OLD TKSTAMF.NT 45 
 
 imposture, or the most obstinate and elaborate 
 self-deception, it is impossible to set aside the 
 testimony of Deuteronomy. And if in tliis case 
 it is set aside, it is hard to know what literary 
 production can be regarded as secure. For there 
 is perhaps scarcely any one literary production 
 of antiquity so well attested as Deuteronomy. If 
 Deuteronomy, therefore, is not genuine, it is hard 
 to determine what literary production may not 
 be called in question. Deuteronomy, moreover, 
 funiislies an excellent test of tlie princiiile tliat 
 the ethical value of a narrative does not depend 
 on its historical truth. For surely no one could 
 maintain that the ethical value of Deuteronomy 
 would be the same whether it were fiction or a 
 narrative of fact. If the relation between the 
 Creator and the lawgiver 'were such as is repre- 
 sented in Deuteronomy, it stands to reason that 
 the ethical value of the narrative must be far 
 greater than if the narrative were a fiction. And 
 yet if the narrative was put together seven 
 hundred years after the time of Moses, it is 
 equally certain that it can have no value as 
 history, if only for the reason that it is alleged 
 to be at variance with the history in Exodus 
 and Numbers. So far, then, as this is the case 
 and if it ))e so, we must decide which is true, 
 
46 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 and shall probably come to the conclusion that 
 neither is.^ 
 
 In like manner when we pass to the historical 
 books, we surely must decide whether they are 
 to be received as history or regarded as myth. 
 Are they bona fide, or written with a bias ? and if 
 the bias can be detected, is it of such a nature 
 as to vitiate the substance of the narrative ? It 
 may be said that these are all questions inde- 
 pendent of the higher criticism, with which it 
 does not concern itself ; and so they may be, but 
 there is an antecedent question, to which I am 
 determined to find an answer ; and that is, What 
 is the substantive value of these historical docu- 
 ments ? — before we begin to subject them to 
 vivisection ; and possibly it may turn out that 
 they would be altogether undeserving of this 
 microscopic attention, were it not that they are 
 legitimately entitled to the claim which is de- 
 nied them. If they really are the tissue of 
 misrepresentation and deception they are alleged 
 to be, surely they would not be worthy of the 
 pains bestowed upon them. It is because of 
 their inherited claim, and practically for this 
 alone, that they are so vehemently attacked. 
 And yet there is so much of the stamp of the 
 
 ^ Driver's Deuterouoniy, p. xxxv ct seq. 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TKSTAMKNT 47 
 
 supernatural upon tlieui as nii^'lit sulHcc to [,'ive 
 us pause before rejecting tlieni out nf hand. For 
 take the books of Samuel and Kings in their 
 broadest and most every-day aspect, do they 
 not record the longing of the nation for a king, 
 the unsuccessful issue of tlie first attempt, the 
 choice of an insignificant person to l)e tlie 
 anointed king to whom the perpetual posses- 
 sion of the thrcme was promised ? And is it not 
 a fact that after this man's line had been set 
 aside, and the monarchy cleft in two, tlie rival 
 line turned out to be little better than a succes- 
 sion of usurpers, while the lineal descendant of 
 the chosen king was still in possession of his 
 fathers' throne, when four hundred years after- 
 wards the nation and monarchy were finally dis- 
 solved and broken up ? I do not see how at any 
 period after Solomon the fiction of perpetuity in 
 David's line is likely to have been attributed to 
 him or his time if it was really a later inven- 
 tion, because in that case there was so much to 
 contradict it in notorious facts ; and yet as an un- 
 doubted truth the last King of Judah was the 
 lineal descendant of David. Now, I do not know 
 that there is any point in this chain of circum- 
 stances that is open to dispute, unless it be the 
 original promise to David, -which, if a fact, ad- 
 
48 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 mits of no natural explanation ; and yet it is 
 this very promise to which, as we have seen, it 
 is so difficult to assign a late origin. Nor do I 
 know of any way in w^hich it can be dealt with 
 other than that of Ewald and Dean Stanley, who 
 deliberately disregarded it and chose to represent 
 the line of Israel as the legitimate and natural 
 line in wliich the monarchy was perpetuated, in 
 manifest defiance, however, of all the facts. 
 
 But theu how full are these books tliemselves 
 of graphic and life-like portraits and incidents 
 wliich must forever entitle them to a unique 
 and unrivalled position in the historical litera- 
 ture of the world. Take the characters of Sam- 
 uel, Saul, David, Elijah, Elisha, Ahab, Jehu, and 
 the rest, and the various incidents connected 
 with them, and are there not stamped upon 
 them the indelible features of a God-given his- 
 tory ? And if the footprints of God are to be 
 traced anywhere in human history, is it not 
 here, in a history claiming to be guided by 
 Him, that we may trace them most plainly 
 and unmistakably ? 
 
 Then, again, take the Psalms, which occupy an 
 absolutely unique position in the literature of the 
 world ; to which there is no true analogy, and 
 most undoubtedly no rival. The question may 
 
CLAIMS OF TlIK OLD TP:STAMENT 49 
 
 wvW 1)0 asked, "What lias the hit^fhcr critirism done 
 for the Psalms? And the answer is, To refer them 
 all to the second century before Christ. lUit with 
 what result ? And the answer is, To make them 
 alisolutely unintelligiltle, inconsistent, and im})os- 
 sihle. What elucidation does the 110th Psalm, 
 so clearly referred to in Zech. vi. 13, in the sixth 
 century n. c, and with which Zechariah was mani- 
 festly familiar, gain by being thus assigned to 
 the second century ? Whatever light it had 
 before becomes gross darkness ; and if the wit- 
 ness of language is of any weight at all, how 
 are we to account for its archaic character here ? 
 and what possible connection has the allusion to 
 Melchisedec here? Take, again, the 51st Psalm, 
 which all tradition has associated with David's 
 repentance; does it become more intelligible or 
 more appropriate by being assigned to a writer 
 and occasion utterly unknown, and seven or eight 
 centuries later ? Instead of elucidating the liter- 
 ature, criticism of this kind effectually obscures 
 and darkens it. On the other hand, accepting 
 the 51st Psalm as David's, the words " Purge me 
 with hyssop and I shall be clean" furnish unde- 
 signed but conclusive evidence of the writer's 
 ae([uaintance with the Levitieal oidiiianees, in- 
 asmuch as hyssop is mentioned only here, and 
 1 
 
50 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 once in relation to the physical knowledge of 
 Solomon, besides its sevenfold mention in con- 
 nection with those ordinances. I am at a loss 
 to know what is gained by affirming, contrary to 
 all testimony, and without the slightest positive 
 ground, that the superscription to the 51st Psalm 
 is not genuine, confirmed as it is by the Septuagint 
 and Syriac ; whereas if we trust it, as we surely 
 may, the Psalm at once receives an accession 
 of illumination from the known history of the 
 writer. Is it not a fact that our own hymnology 
 is heightened in interest and significance when 
 we can associate the several hymns with the per- 
 sonal recollections of Toplady, Cowper, or Lyte ? 
 Should we gain or lose by being told by some 
 critic of the twentieth century that " Rock of 
 Ages cleft for me," had been wrongly ascribed 
 to its traditional author, and was an unknown 
 composition of an unknown date ; or that " God 
 moves in a mysterious way," was not written by 
 Cowper; or "Abide with Me," by Lyte? The 
 unlearned public is disposed to attach an undue 
 importance to the assertions of those who arro- 
 gate to themselves the appellation of critics, which 
 in a large number of cases have about as much 
 ground to rest on as the instances now suggested 
 would have. In nearly all cases subjective by- 
 
CLAIMS OF THK OLD TESTAMENT 51 
 
 potlicsis iisur[is tlio place; of objective evidence; 
 and every one knows tliat the same object as- 
 sumes an entirely different aspect according to 
 the position of the person regarding it. 
 
 Take, again, the 80th Tsalni, ■which is ascribed 
 to Asaph. The second verse of that I'salm is 
 absolutely unintelligible unless it refers to an ob- 
 scure passage in the so-called Priestly Code of the 
 Pentateuch. The appeal is, " ]>efore Ephraim and 
 Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and 
 come and save us," — those being the very tribes 
 which followed the ark during the march in the 
 desert. Now, this Psalm is ascribed to Asaph, 
 the contemporary of David, and the Priestly 
 Code is assigned to the fifth century before 
 Christ. Consequently, we must infer that Asajih 
 was acquainted with the order of march in the 
 wilderness, which, as there is no other record of 
 it, he must have learned from the Priestly Code, 
 which therefore must have existed in his time ; or, 
 accepting the hypothetical date of the critics for 
 that supposititious documnit, we must infer that 
 a still later writer seized ujion this casual state- 
 ment of the newly invented code, and made it 
 the basis of his appeal to the Shepherd of Israel 
 at a time when Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manas- 
 seh had all been dispersed in captivity and had 
 
52 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 no longer any independent tribal existence. Is 
 this in the remotest degree probable ? But unless 
 it is, the other inference, which points to a time 
 before the division of the monarchy, and to the 
 knowledge at that time of the order of the march 
 in the desert, must be allowed its full weight ; 
 and, accepting the authorship of the Psalm, it 
 must rank as evidence of the existence of the 
 Pentateuch in the time of David. Two inciden- 
 tal references such as these in the 51st and 80th 
 Psalms, it must be confessed, carry us not a lit- 
 tle way towards a decision as to the date of the 
 records of the Pentateuch. 
 
 The book of Psalms, moreover, is a treasury of 
 devotion of the broadest possible character; for 
 it is the fullest and freest expression of the per- 
 sonal relation of the soul to God. In this re- 
 spect it is unrivalled and invaluable. And its 
 association with some of the well-known ser- 
 vants of God must be held to add enormously 
 to its authority and value ; but if we put aside 
 all the inscriptions, and refer its authorship to 
 obscure and unknown writers of the second 
 century B. c, and that upon simply baseless hy- 
 pothetical considerations, we may indeed have 
 achieved a triumph of criticism, but we have no 
 less certainly succeeded in depreciating and ren- 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TF.KTAMF.XT 53 
 
 (Icring worthless tlio value of tin' IV alms as an 
 authorized treasury of devotion. JMched, this is 
 the very point, it seems to me, that we liave to 
 determine: Ifow far is the ])ook of I'salms an 
 authorized treasury of devotion, and on what 
 docs that authority depend ? Is the authority of 
 the Book of Psalms something it derives from its 
 place in the canon, or is its place in the canon 
 merely a witness to its authority ? and if so, 
 from what is that authority derived ? Now, the 
 authority of the Psalms is to a large extent de- 
 pendent upon the truth and reality of the state- 
 ments therein contained. For example : " The 
 Lord hath said unto me. Thou art my son ; this 
 day have I begotten thee." " I will instruct 
 thee, and teach thee in the way which thou shalt 
 go : I will guide thee with mine eye." " Hear, 
 
 my people, and I will speak ; Israel, and 
 
 1 will testify against thee ; I am God, even thy 
 G(k1." "Call upon me in the time of trouble : I 
 will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." 
 " God hath spoken in his holiness ; I will rejoice, 
 I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of 
 Succoth." These and a hundred other statements 
 throw us back upon the question, Have they 
 merely subjective assurance, or do they rest upon 
 objective certainty ? If they are merely the sub- 
 
54 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 jective assertion of confidence, then they are more 
 or less untrue and unauthorized in their asser- 
 tion ; but if they are true, then their truth is not 
 one that we must look for in the lieart of the 
 writer, but one that rests on the objective dec- 
 laration of the professed speaker ; that is, on the 
 actual revelation and promise of God. This of 
 course presupposes the fact of revelation, but it 
 is a very serious question whether it is possible 
 to account for the confident language of the 
 Psalms except on the supposition of a positive 
 revelation of God. If all the statements in the 
 Psalms are resolved into subjective expressions 
 of assurance, then there is an end to everything 
 like authority unless it can be shown that they 
 are otherwise authoritative ; and how is this to 
 be shown apart from the objective facts upon 
 which they are supposed to rest ? Either it is a 
 fact that God spoke to David, or it is not. If it is 
 not, then all the assertions in the Psalms to that 
 effect are false and delusive. If it is, then these 
 assertions are the proof of it; but in that case 
 there is a reality for them to rest on, and we have 
 something to which we can appeal as the veritable 
 word of God ; and the place of the Psalms in the 
 canon is a witness to this word of God, but by no 
 means the cause of its being the word of God. 
 
CLAIMS OK THE OLD TESTAMENT i):> 
 
 And this, 1 take it, is a very signilicaut dill'er- 
 cuee which the higher criticism does not face and 
 cannot ex])lain, hut can only try to ex}dain away, 
 to tlie absohite destruction of anything like faith. 
 The Psalms, therefore, must be regarded as a 
 storehouse of unwarrantable assurance, having 
 no foundation in itself, and supplying none to 
 any one else ; or, on the contrary, they are the 
 expression of hopes and confidences which were 
 breathed into the hearts of the writers by the 
 spirit of the living (lod, and whicli for that rea- 
 son have the power for all time of awakening the 
 like confidence and assurance in every one who 
 will trust in like manner in the same living and 
 eternal God, who is ever ready to establish and 
 confirm His word. 
 
 Another function, however, which the, I'salms 
 fulfil is in the testimony that they give to the 
 main facts of the national history ; and this is 
 independent and spontaneous testimony that it 
 is not possible to rebut. We have the history of 
 the exodus and the wanderings, the wonders of 
 the conc^uest and the struggle of the Judges, 
 no less than the promise to David and the for- 
 tunes of the tabernacle, borne witness to in the 
 national poetry of the Psalms. So that they are 
 to the history of Israel what the historical plays 
 
56 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 of Shakespeare are to that of England. That 
 is to say, they presuppose a framework of events, 
 and that in this case of a supernatural character, 
 apart from which they could have had no exist- 
 ence ; and though in each case it may be possible 
 to minimize the supernatural element, it is not 
 possible to deny that the net result is such as 
 to leave, as it is clearly intended to leave, no doubt 
 in the reader's mind that God dealt with Israel 
 as He did not deal with any other nation. The 
 national history is the unmistakable witness to 
 this fact, and the national poetry confirms it. 
 
 There are three institutions cliaracteristic of 
 Israel which are highly significant and important, 
 the rare mention of which in certain parts of the 
 Old Testament may lielji us to estimate the value 
 of the argument from silence so often appealed 
 to: these are, the tabernacle, the Sabbath, and 
 circumcision. It is one of the achievements of 
 the higher criticism to have demolished the tab- 
 ernacle and to have proved, or rather shown 
 (which, be it remembered, is not the same thing), 
 that it never had any existence whatever except 
 on paper and in the imagination of Babylonian 
 priests. But, of course, this can only be done by 
 setting aside not only the prescriptions of the 
 Pentateuch, but also by disregarding the evidence 
 
CLAIMS OF TIIK OLD TKSTAMEXT 57 
 
 of the books of Josliua and Samuel, to say noth- 
 ing of the testimony of the TStli T-sahii, "So that 
 he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent, 
 which he placed among men," confirmed as this is 
 by the prophet Jeremiah, vii. 12, 14, and xxvi. 9. 
 Surely it is not all at once that the people of 
 England or of this country are likely to be per- 
 suaded to accept a theory so monstrous in the face 
 of direct and positive evidence to the contrary, 
 merely because a few German critics have sug- 
 gested the notion, and a few English scholars 
 have adopted it to the infinite discredit of their 
 own judgment. Does it not seem to surpass the 
 limits of possibility that a body of exiled priests 
 in liabylon should amuse themselves with sketch- 
 ing out in minute and laborious detail the plan 
 and measurements of an imaginary tabernacle 
 created only by their own conception. The very 
 idea seems to court rejection ; and yet, strange 
 to say, there are those to whom it seems more 
 probable than that the pattern shown to Moses 
 in the mount should be preserved in Exodus. 
 
 Again, with regard to the Sabbath, often as 
 it is mentioned in the last four books of the 
 Pentateuch, the word does not occur in Genesis, 
 though there are slight indications of acquaint- 
 ance with the institution ; but it is not so much 
 
58 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 as named in any historical book before 2 Kings, 
 and only once in the title of one of the Psalms. 
 Five only of the fifteen prophets make any allu- 
 sion to it ; so that were it not for its constant 
 occurrence in the Pentateuch and the later his- 
 torical books, one might almost question the 
 knowledge, or at least the observance of it. 
 
 Still more remarkable is the case of circum- 
 cision. The original charter of it is given in 
 Genesis xvii., which is assigned by the critics 
 to the fifth century B. c. ; after the Book of 
 Joshua, there is but one solitary allusion to cir- 
 cumcision in Jeremiah (ix. 25), and yet I suppose 
 no one would question the fact that this rite was 
 practised by the Israelites from the very first ; 
 and the fact that the Arabs still practiso it in 
 the thirteenth year, that being the age at which 
 Ishmael was circumcised, is a strong confirma- 
 tion thereof. But how is all this consistent 
 with the theory that the 17th chapter of Gene- 
 sis was written in the fifth century B. c, and 
 that, without any written precept, the nation 
 had universally practised it for fifteen centu- 
 ries before ? Is this conceivable ? Is it possible ? 
 Are not the practical difficulties involved in 
 the theory far greater than they would be on 
 the supposition that the original command was 
 
CLAIMS OF TIIK OLD TESTAMKNT 59 
 
 given to Abraham as recorded in (Jenesis ? If 
 otliorwise, what evidence is there that circum- 
 cision had any ground to be regarded as the 
 veritable sign of God's covenant ? 
 
 To take the parallel case of baptism. Suj)pose 
 that it could be shown that all uur Lord's com- 
 mands respecting baptism were thirteen centu- 
 ries later than his time; how would it be possible 
 to maintain that baptism was anything more 
 than an ecclesiastical rite resting upon no divine 
 authority and proving no divine sanction ? And 
 yet this is what would inevitably follow in the 
 case of Israel with regard to circumcision, if it 
 were admitted that Genesis xvii. were of the 
 fifth century u. c. In short, the one question 
 we have to settle is. What constitutes the author- 
 ity of the Old Testament, and who gave it that 
 authority? Now, to put it broadly, if Moses is 
 the ultimate author of the Pentateuch, then the 
 authority of the Pentateuch is the authority of 
 Moses. He was the mediator of the covenant 
 therein contained. It was by and through him 
 that God dealt with Israel after the manner 
 therein narrated. But I fail to see where this 
 authority is to come from, or how it is to be 
 communicated to a series of documents written 
 by nobody knows who, and not committed to 
 
60 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 writing till seven hundred or eight hundred 
 years afterwards, it being at the same time af- 
 firmed that Moses was to a large extent a myth- 
 ical personage, and that the greatest uncertainty 
 hangs over all his history. This surely would 
 be to postulate a theory of revelation without 
 any credentials, and to accept it merely because 
 it had been traditionally regarded as a revela- 
 tion, though the reasons wlien investigated were 
 by no means apparent. And yet this is the 
 alternative to which we are committed if we 
 reject the substantial historic truth of the Mo- 
 saic narrative. If it is not of Moses, to whom 
 can we ascribe it whose name would carry with 
 it one tithe of the like authority? Nay, how could 
 we be sure that it would possess any authority 
 at all ? I suppose that it is admitted generally 
 that any document to be authoritative must be 
 able to furnish credentials which shall authen- 
 ticate it. If Deuteronomy was written in the 
 age of Manasseh or Josiah, what are its creden- 
 tials ? They are manifestly nil, except so far 
 as its adoption by the king, high priest, propli- 
 etess, and people supplied them, — credentials 
 which, however, they were unable to supply if 
 they did not exist. In like manner, if Moses 
 is the ultimate author of the Exodus narrative, 
 
CLAIMS OF TIIK OLD TKSTAMKNT 61 
 
 its cruduuUals arc supplied by LliuL fucL; if it 
 was seven hundred or eight hundred years later 
 it can possess no credentials at all, and can "only 
 in a hare nucleus he Mosaic;" that is, nnist he 
 mure mythical than true. What I want to 
 know is, whether this is the way in which we 
 are ])rcpared to accept the Old Testament nar- 
 rative at the bidding of self-styled critics ; be- 
 cause in that case we must entirely remodify 
 all our trailitional belief, even as that is adopted 
 and expressed in tlie New Testament. 
 
 I come now to the Prophets, about which criti- 
 cism has been unusually busy with regard to 
 date. In the Hebrew canon there are fifteen 
 prophets, — three greater and twelve lesser proph- 
 ets. With regard to the general date of Isaiah, 
 Jeremiah, and Ezekiel there is no reasonable 
 doubt. With regard to the minor prophets, 
 their arrangement in the Hebrew canon is 
 manifestly that of ante and post-captivity proi)h- 
 ets ; and in the former case, the division is into 
 those of the Assyrian and Babylonian periods. 
 The general correctness of this arrangement is 
 admitted, but with regard to one of the earlier 
 prophets, namely Joel, it has been rashly con- 
 jectured that he belonged to the post-captivity 
 period. Now, as the canonical arrangement is 
 
62 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 undoubtedly in the main correct, it seems haz- 
 ardous to interfere with it in the case of Joel, 
 unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. But 
 the main reason advanced is because the evi- 
 dence borne by Joel to the early acquaintance 
 with the Levitical ritual is so strong as to be 
 absolutely fatal to the supposed late origin of the 
 law. This, however, is setting aside evidence 
 rather than being guided by it, and consequently 
 Joel may be allowed to retain his place until 
 stronger reasons can be given for removing him 
 from it. 
 
 The book of the prophet Isaiah, however, has 
 been the battlefield of controversy ; though in this 
 case also the positive and external testimony is 
 distinctly in favor of its integrity, and is only to 
 be rebutted by subjective interpretation of in- 
 ternal phenomena. We have this fact to deal 
 with, that at the time of Christ all the writings 
 ascribed to Isaiah were acknowledged and quoted 
 as his ; there is no vestige of any other belief. 
 Therefore the guardians of the canon must have 
 been guilty of extreme and culpable carelessness 
 if they joined on to the writings of Isaiah the work 
 of an unknown man who lived a century and a 
 half later, and preserved no record of his work or 
 personality. This on the face of it appears to be 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT C,3 
 
 highly iiiipn)l)a])le ; and, moreover, several chap- 
 ters are expressly assigned to Isaiah, as the 2d, 
 13th, etc. Of tliese, the l.'>th could never have 
 been so assigned ])ut on the l)elief that there was 
 nothing inliorently improbable in its l)eing his, 
 whereas it is precisely on this ground that it is 
 now tlenied to liim. The conception, therefore, of 
 the function of the prophet in the two cases 
 differs, and the one is inconsistent with the 
 other ; but it is this inconsistency which is the 
 basis of the criticism. Tliose who were responsi- 
 ble for the canon assumed that the prophet could 
 have written every chapter in the book ; it is 
 because the critics assume that he could not that 
 they reject his authorsliip. The prophet, we are 
 told, speaks from the standpoint of his own time. 
 That may be so, but the horizon of his visipn ex- 
 tends far beyond his own time. A prophet who 
 could have written the first or sixth chapters of 
 Isaiah was certainly not limited by the horizon 
 of his own time, and if there is no foreknowledge 
 in either it is hard to say where it may be found, 
 in the la.st twenty-seven chapters or elsewhere. 
 For assuredly it is not only in the writings of 
 the prophets that we may discover it, but many 
 times over in every book of the Pentateuch, as 
 Well as in the (ttlier historical books. In short, 
 
64 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 it is this feature of anticipation and foreknowl- 
 edge which stamps the Old Testament as a 
 whole, and it is impossible to get rid of it by- 
 assigning a later date to this or that passage 
 ascribed to an earlier prophet. For example, 
 even allowing that the standpoint of the last 
 twenty-seven chapters is that of the captivity, 
 which, however, I by no means allow, this in no 
 degree accounts for their most characteristic phe- 
 nomena. The fact that Cyrus is twice mentioned 
 by name, and Babylon and the Chaldeans some 
 four or five times in these chapters, by no means 
 proves that that is their chief subject-matter. 
 On the contrary, there is a vast amount of 
 matter with which they have nothing whatever 
 to do, and which is equally inexplicable whether 
 it is referred to the sixth or to the eighth century 
 before Christ. And so with the notorious 53d 
 chapter. Let it be assigned to any one per- 
 son on whom the critics can agree, so that it 
 be not Jesus Christ, it nevertheless remains, and 
 will remain a fact to all time, that there is no 
 conceivable character in all history to whom it 
 has so close an apparent reference, no one whom 
 it so vividly portrays, and no one to whom it so 
 naturally belongs, as to the suffering Saviour. 
 Whether the writer lived five hundred or seven 
 
CLAIMS OF Till-; I ILK TKSTAMKNT G5 
 
 hundred years befure Clni.st it matters not; for 
 liistory presents us with no conceivable subject 
 fur his canvas; and if he unconsciously produced 
 an ieleal portrait of Cluist, that is an achievement 
 as far beyond the natural powers of a post-cap- 
 tivity writer as it was beyond the natural powers 
 of Isaiah, and therefore exegesis gains nothing by 
 putting this composition a century and a half or 
 two centuries later than the prophet's time. 
 Anyhow we are confronted with a phenomenon 
 for which there is no natural or sufficient expla- 
 nation, and every attempt to explain it sinks into 
 nothing before that which was given by Philip 
 the Evangelist to the Ethiopian eunuch. And on 
 the supposition that that is in any sense inten- 
 tional and correct, it defies all ingenuity to 
 account for its existence or its creation at any 
 period l)etween the time of Isaiah and the closing 
 of the canon. The critics, therefore, are only 
 throwing dust in our eyes when they think to 
 persuade us that they can eviscerate the super- 
 human and divine elements inherent in the Old 
 Testament, or can reduce it to the level of a 
 merely human production by shifting the date of 
 some of its documents, and interpreting its utter- 
 ances of the barren and the commoni>lace. " If 
 not a line of Hebrew prophecy had been written 
 5 
 
66 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 till after the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, 
 there is a mass of matter remaining which must 
 have been as purely predictive in substance as it 
 is in form." ^ 
 
 It is here, in the interests of truth and faith, 
 that criticism compels us to take our stand, be- 
 cause it is on the Divine authority and the Divine 
 character of these books that we depend ; and if 
 this is destroyed the ground is taken away from 
 under our feet, for the Old Testament is worth 
 nothing if it can be proved to be only from man, 
 and of the earth earthy. And therefore it is im- 
 possible for us, as believing men, to regard with 
 equanimity conclusions and hypotheses which, 
 though baseless, nevertheless assume trium- 
 phantly that their position is established, and 
 their results unassailable; for if this be so, 
 most unquestionably faith is made void, and the 
 promises made of none effect. 
 
 The last nine chapters of Ezekiel are unique 
 not only among the writings of the prophets, 
 but also among the books of the Bible. They 
 present a strong contrast to the rest of his own 
 book, for they give an ideal picture of the restored 
 polity and ritual of the emancipated nation ; 
 and yet there is no evidence of their ever having 
 1 Duke of Argyll, " Philosophy of Belief," p. 267. 
 
CLAIMS OF TIIF, OLD TESTAMKNT 07 
 
 had the .slightest iiilhience on the coiuhict and his- 
 tory of the returning captives. Nor is it even pos- 
 sible that they can have been written with that 
 intent ; for many of the features and conditions 
 supposed are physically impossible and can never 
 have been meant to be realized. On the supposi- 
 tion, however, that what is called the Priestly Code 
 was the product of the priests of the exile, it is the 
 more remarkable that it should have varied so 
 widely from the prophetic ideal. For here, it may 
 be presumed, was a precedent of high authority in 
 e.xistence, put forth by a recognized prophet in the 
 most solemn manner ; and yet, witliout any refer- 
 ence to this, the unknown and unauthorized priests 
 of the exile are supposed to have sketched out pre- 
 cepts aiul have prescribed rites of their own, which 
 they had the audacity to represent as given by 
 God to Moses a thousand years before. Is it at all 
 within the limits of possibility that the returning 
 exiles should have at once hailed these fabrications 
 as the prescriptions of Moses and have consented 
 to adopt them ? Is there any parallel case within 
 the annals of history ? I greatly doubt it, and am 
 persuaded that the thing in itself is impossible; 
 and yet this is the theory which is advanced for 
 the purpose of displacing the traditional authen- 
 ticity and antiquity of the Mosaic law. 
 
68 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 There is another feature with regard to the 
 prophet Ezekiel which does not seem to have 
 been fully recognized. It is forgotten that he 
 was one of the captives and passed his life in 
 captivity, and yet on several occasions he speaks of 
 and describes events in the home of his fathers as 
 though he were present in Jerusalem. So that 
 the spirit of prophecy, it would seem, revealed to 
 him things distant in space of which otherwise he 
 could have had no knowledge. We must deter- 
 mine whether or not this was so, as it certainly 
 seems to have been ; but if it was, it presents a 
 remarkable analogy to the more common function 
 of prophecy, which is to depict things distant in 
 time. Now as prediction pure and simple is 
 denied to be one of the functions of prophecy, we 
 may also ask whether the vision of things dis- 
 tant in space is likewise beyond the power of the 
 spirit of God, and whether the evidence of its not 
 being so, in Ezekiel for example, is also to be 
 set aside ; for if not, there would seem to be no 
 reason for denying the analogous power of depict- 
 ing things distant in time as a legitimate function 
 of prophecy. 
 
 There is one other book of the Old Testament 
 which demands independent notice, and that is the 
 book of Daniel, which from the times of Porphyry 
 
CLAIMS OF TlIK OLD TKSTAMKNT HO 
 
 onwards has been the favorite butt of unljeliev- 
 in<:j criticism. Now, liere it must be borne in 
 mind that the liook of Daniel is besi't willi dilli- 
 culties, in consequence mainly of our own lack of 
 knowlediite. For example, the identification of 
 Darius the ]\Iede and the history of r>elshazzar 
 present questions that are not ca})alde of final 
 solution. r>ut it is so often forgotten that the 
 impossibility of obtaining absolute certainty is no 
 reason for rejecting the balance of probability. 
 If probability is the guide of life we ought not to 
 reject its indications when certain knowledge is 
 unattainaljle. Now let us supi)ose that Daniel is 
 the romance of an unknown writer in the second 
 century. It is admitted on all hands that he had 
 a very considerable minute knowledge of the 
 times and manners which he depicts. That he may 
 have made some mistakes is of course possible. 
 Ihit how much probability is there in his going 
 out of the way, as he clearly has, to perpetrate 
 such a blunder as to speak of Darius the Mede 
 and to mention his age ? It is hardly conceivable 
 tliat he did not know how grossly he was expos- 
 ing himself to the charge of ignorance and in- 
 accuracy ; and this is certainly some reason for 
 crediting him with the possession of knowledge 
 that we lack ourselves. To confound Darius the 
 
70 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Medewith Darius Hystaspes,m the second century 
 before Christ, is surely more improbable than that 
 the true Daniel three centuries and a half before 
 should have possessed knowledge that has passed 
 away. The very fact of a presumed blot like 
 this on a document in many other respects exact, 
 may be taken with more probability as evi- 
 dence of special acquaintance than as betokening 
 unpardonable ignorance and error. 
 
 Then, with regard to the supposed Greek 
 words in Daniel, I take it we know too little of 
 the conditions of intercourse between Greece and 
 Babylonia in the sixth century before Christ to 
 pronounce with certainty on a definite point of 
 detail like this. It is known, however, that An- 
 timenidas, a brother of the poet Alcteus, served 
 as a soldier in the army of Nebuchadnezzar. 
 Now, one fact of this kind is sufficient to out- 
 weigh much conjectural hypothesis based on 
 philological inference. If Daniel is genuine, 
 then the use of these words speaks for itself. 
 On the other hand, any inference drawn from 
 their occurrence is hardly sufficient to disprove 
 its genuineness, though it readily serves as one 
 item in the indictment to the contrary. 
 
 The question of the genuineness of Daniel, 
 however, is too large to be discussed here; but 
 
CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 71 
 
 Olio or two coiisiilenitiuiis of weight may be 
 tliiowii out l>y the way. ¥ot instance, we learn 
 from Kzekiel that Daniel was a well-known ))ei- 
 sonage cf the captivity; that he had a iei>utati(in 
 for righteousness and wisdom ; and this is all tiiat 
 we know. Is it at all likely that three centuries 
 and a half afterwards a romance should have 
 lieen made out of these slender materials hy an 
 unknown writer, and should have been developed 
 into our existing book of Daniel ? For in addition 
 to this, there is no question but that the romance 
 so concocted rapidly made its way as an authentic 
 history, as we see from the allusion to it in the 
 first book of Maccabees, and the position assigned 
 to it in the Gospels. 
 
 In short, it seems to me that the balance of 
 probability is largely on the side of the genuine- 
 ness of Daniel ; though here, as elsewhere, abso- 
 lute certainty may be unattainable, or rather it 
 is impossible to foreclose every avenue of doubt ; 
 and, what must never be forgotten, its genuine- 
 ness and authenticity are so heavily weighted 
 with the miraculous and the incredible. After 
 all, the prophecy of the fifth empire, which fore- 
 shadows the kingdom of heaven, and that of the 
 seventy weeks, which will fit into the death of 
 Christ as it will fit into nothing else, are vir- 
 
72 CLAIMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 tual challenges in favor of its genuineness ; for 
 neither prophecy was more within the range of 
 the vision of an unknown and unauthorized 
 writer in the second century B. c. than it was 
 within that of the "man greatly beloved," who 
 declared himself so highly favored with tlie 
 visions of God. Here, as elsewhere, the substan- 
 tive truth of the narrative has a direct bearing 
 upon its genuineness; for, if it is not genuine, 
 then it is impossible to regard the personal 
 details otherwise recorded than as audacious 
 falsehoods simply thrown into the narrative as 
 garniture, and to commend the book as minister- 
 ing to an unhealthy appetite for the marvellous. 
 
 On the other hand, it seems to me impossible 
 to read the book of Daniel and not feel that there 
 is that in it which is more incongruous with its 
 supposed fiction than the wonders related, how- 
 ever explained, would be under the circumstances 
 as recorded, with its truth. If Daniel really was 
 the " man greatly beloved," the chosen and 
 lionored representative of his nation at the court 
 of his captors, it does not seem out of harmony 
 with the recorded action of God in other ages, if 
 we believe the record, that his career should be 
 specially marked by special interposition. Here, 
 again, we are thrown back upon the old question 
 
CLAIMS OF TIIF, OLD TFSTAMKNT 73 
 
 of miracles and a supernatural revelation. We 
 are reminded over and over a^Min that " mirack's 
 do not happen." For my own part I very strongly 
 demur to this statement ; but if we once accept 
 it, then the next ([uestion must surely he, " Did 
 they ever happen?" And so far as this springs 
 out of tlie. other dictum, it may, nay, must, in 
 like manner be decided; but of tliis il wouM 
 seem we may be absolutely certain : that it is 
 equally impossil)le to read the Old Testament 
 or the New and not find ourselves confronted 
 with miracle, which we must either ])ut aside 
 at once, as of no account, or accept; but which, 
 whatever its relation to the substance of the 
 record, it is wholly impossible to account for, 
 and which therefore must either be taken as in- 
 tended, in the providence of God, to confirm the 
 narrative and commend its acceptance, or must 
 be regarded as vitiating and discrediting the nar- 
 rative, and as for that reason to be rejected 
 together with the narrative so discredited. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 F>e«*?fi 
 
 »f 
 
 
 
 UTT. ;>8 1' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED JN U.S.A. 
 

 BS480 .L43 
 
 The claims of the Old Testament; 
 
 Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00052 1817 
 
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