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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

WHAT IS THE BIBLE?

SV THE SAME AUTHOR,

Elements of Physiological Psychology,
A treatise of the Activities and Nature of the
Mind, from the Physical and Experimental point
of view, 'With numerous illustrations. $4.50,
The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture. A
Critical, Historical, and Dogmatic Inquiry into
the Origin and Nature of the Old and New
Testaments, 2 vols,, Svo, $7,00,
The Principles of Church Polity. Crown
Svo, $2,50.

WHAT IS THE BIBLE?

AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN AND NATURE
OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS IN
THE LIGHT OF MODERN BIBLICAL
STUDY

BY
GEORGE T. LADD D.D.
Professor of Philosophy in Vale University,

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1888

COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

h'

^45

tut

PRESS OF
tDWARD O. JENKINS' SONS
NEW YORK.

g,ebuatcir

TO THAT GREAT MULTITUDE
OF READERS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE,
WHO REVERENTLY FOLLOW IT
AS THEIR GUIDE IN
CHRISTIAN FAITH AND
CHRISTIAN LIFE.

PREFACE.

The character and purpose of this book ean be most
clearly indicated to the reader by stating the relations
in whieh it stands to another book by the same author.
In the Fall of 1883 I embodied the results of several
years of study in a work on "The Doctrine of Sacred
Scripture." It was the design of that work to state in
full the answer which modem biblical study makes to
inquiry — critical, historical, and dogmatic — into the or
igin and nature of the Old and New Testaments. The
form of statement, however, was such as to adapt it to
the wants of patient, special students of the Bible ; the
entire ground was gone over in detail, the evidence
presented, and the authorities cited at every step in the
discussion. It has always been my intention at some time to put
the conclusions of this large treatise into a form better
adapted to the wants of the multitude of readers of the
English Bible. I am well aware that but few of these
readers have the time or previous training necessary
for studying a critical work in two large volumes, even
though it be upon a subject of so great moment
and absorbing interest as the Holy Scriptures. Yet
surely this multitude of readers ought to know, and
without doubt finally will know, what is the verdict of
scholarship concerning those more important points up-
(vii)

viii Preface.
on which modem biblical study has directed its inquiries.
Eot only a strictly scholarly but also a popular exposi
tion of these points is sought for and demanded. In re
sponse to this search and demand I have now employed
some raonths of comparative leisure from- more severe
studies in writing the following chapters. They con
tain a statement of the answer which critical investiga
tion gives to the question, What is the Bible ? — made
with (as I hope) due regard to that brevity, clearness,
and freedom from discussion of the more doubtful mat
ters, which the average reader rightly expects and re
quires. To secure these qualities it has been necessary,
of course, to omit almost altogether the presentation of
the details of evidence on which the separate conclu
sions are based. But a few references have been placed
at the foot of the page which indicate where, in, the
larger treatise, these details are fully presented.
Eeaders of the earlier book will not need to be told
that its conclusions are here substantially unchanged.
This certainly is not because the mind of the author
has been unwilling to receive and welcome new light,
to modify and even to reverse his opinions, although
they were originally formed after long-continued and
careful research. It is rather because all the evidence,
which is so rapidly accumulating, tends to confirm those
opinions. The discussions of the last five years have
shown with increasing clearness in what direction modern
biblical study is moving. The objections to the con
clusions have, almost without exception, been based on
other grounds than those of that evidence with which
biblical study properly deals.

rrejace. ix
The character of this book may then be indicated by
saying that it is a brief, popular answer to the question,
What is the Bible \ — a question which the author an
swered in a more full and elaborate form in his previous
work. The purpose of the book is apologetic. It is written
in the interest of faith. Its author heartily accepts
all the principles and tenets of biblical rehgion, in
cluding that Reformation view of the Bible itself, which
makes the Christian find in it his ouly authentic and
sufficient source of what is true for him to believe, and
right for him to do, in matters appertaining to salva
tion. Indeed, the chief purpose of the book is practi
cal, and has reference to vindicating this Christian use
of the Bible. In other words, I should he glad to
show clearly and convincingly that modern critical
study of the Bible has discovered nothing which need
disturb, much less can undermine and destroy, the in
telligent employment of Holy Scripture as the believ
er's rule of faith and life. Bat such a desirable result,
if gained at all, surely cannot be gained except at the
expense of examining what this critical study has to
disclose. It is not the suppression or the perversion of
critical conclusions which wiU aid in defending either
the Christian faith or the Christian sacred writings.
No other way is open to the devout and honest student
but to accept the assured results of modern biblical
science ; and then — when he finds this to be true — to
maintain all the more confidently the compatibility of
these results with the right practical use of the Bible.
And surely the need of such a discussion is shown by

X Preface.
the helpless attitude in which blind adherence to tradi
tional views places the student before the more scepti
cal theories. Is not the only alternative, then, either to
leave the Bible undefended against sceptical attack, or
else to make room in our doctrine for the facts to which
these theories appeal ?
The reader of this book will find that our verdict can
not be altogether so favorable as to the possibility of
reconciling the results of the modern scholar's study of
the biblical writings with certain opinions current about
the origin and nature of the Bible. But if he reads
with candor and care he will see that neither fidelity to
the teachings of the Bible itself, nor adherence to the
substance and spirit of the doctrine of the Church, re
quires him to hold these opinions ; and reading in this
way he can scarcely fail to see that the facts, as biblical
science presents them, do not permit him to hold them.
But this need occasion no alarm for the foundations of
faith or for the fate of the Bible.
Over and over again in the history of Christ's Church
has it been falsely and foolishly declared that faith
would totter and fall if certain scientific or critical con-
elusions, imagined to be antagonistic to the Bible, should
be established. So it was when the movement of the
earth around the sun was discovered; when geology
proposed its account of the long and slow development
of the earth ; when the existence among other nations
than the Hebrews of early traditions like those of Gen
esis was made known. But the right distinction be
tween the truth of the Bible and the truth of certain
theories about the Bible will, in all such cases, finally

Freface. xi
establish itself. Indeed, no other proof of the inspira
tion of Holy Scripture is on the whole more impressive
than just this wonderful power of adapting its import
ant claims to all the developments of human knowl
edge. The reader is invited, then, to the same confidence in
the essential truthfulness and stability of the Bible in
which the author has tried to write his discussion of its
origin aud nature. What, indeed, is the Bible ? It
may not be precisely what many of its sincere but mis
taken defenders have assumed it to be ; it may not be
precisely what the current theology is accustomed to
suppose. But it is more and better than any of those
theories, which modern biblical study has discredited,
have been wont to hold. There is nothing in such
study, when most thoroughly and scientifically conduct
ed, to injure our confidence that in the Bible the be
liever has a divinely given and trustworthy authority
for the true Christian faith, and the right form of
Christian life. In the name and behalf of the faith
which the Bible teaches, and of the conduct which it
commends, we enter upon our investigation.

CONTENTS

PASE
iNTBODrCTION  1-16

CHAPTEE I.
Jewish and Eably Chkistian Views  17-46
CHAPTER n.
From the Ebfoemation until Now  47-75
CHAPTER m.
The Views op the Biblical Weitbks  76-102
CHAPTER IV.
The Views of the Biblical 'Weitbeb (continued)  103-125
CHAPTER V.
The Bible akd the Sciences of Nature  126-152
CHAPTER VI.
The Mteacles op the Bible  153-184
CHAPTER vn.
The Histokiks of the Biblb  185-228
(xiii)

xiv Contents.
CHAPTER VIII. FAaK
The Pbophbcibs op the Bible  229-356
CHAPTER IX.
Thb Moral and Religious Teaching op the Bible, 257-289
CHAPTER X.
The AuTHOEsmp op the Biblical Books  390-330
CHAPTER XI.
The Bible as Litbeatuee  331-363
CHAPTER xn.
The Canon and the Text  363-405
CHAPTER XIII,
Biblical Revelation and Inspiration  406-431
CHAPTER XIV.
Biblical Revelation and Inspieation (continued),,. . 433-413
CHAPTER XV.
The Authoeitt op the BiblE;  443-475

476-483

CHAPTER XVr,
Conclusion  APPENDIX.
Recent coNSBEVATrvE views op the Oeigin op thb
Hexatbuch. . .  485-491

WHAT IS THE BIBLE?

INTEODUCTION.
The unlearned but devout Christian believer in this
day and land, cherishes a certain view of the English
Bible, into the reasons for whieh he rarely thinks it
necessary to inquire. If he be a constant reader of the
hook, he finds it a matter of frequent experience to
derive help from this practice in the conduct of the re
ligious life. Occasionally, really new comprehension of
important religious truth breaks into his mind while he
is occupied "with its familiar and beloved pages. In
times of unusual darkness the light of divine guidance
and counsel appears to him to shine forth from this or
that word of the Lord. When he is oppressed with
those sorrows and bereavements which are the lot of all,
the sentences poured forth by the suffering saints of
Scripture, or, perhaps, by that more than saintly sufferer,
the Saviour, meet his needs and greatly console him.
But when he is glad at receiving some earthly good, or
rejoices in the assured hopes of salvation, he can aa

Introductiot

readily find iu the same book those jubilant passages
which speak responsive to this new mood of the soul.
Again, he is roused to sorrow for sin by the searching
accusation which the Spirit of purity has administered
in Scripture through the experience of some fellow-
sinner ; or by the contemplation of the words and action
of Him who, though He was tempted as we are, was so
tempted -without sin. Perhaps, when cruelly wronged
by others, he essays the difficult task of appropriating
to his personal feeling a portion of some imprecatory
Psalm ; or, wishing to deal -with the gainsayer and
the immoral, he ventures upon the yet more difficult
task of confuting and reproving out of the very
mouth of Jehovah. All this use of the sacred writings
he makes as one persuaded of their perfect truthful
ness. If such a believer, however, is urged to justify his use
of Scripture at the bar of common human judgment,
or to commend it to others who do not have the same
experience with himself, he immediately finds the way
encompassed with unexpected difficulties. He may re
sort to the expedient of making his own experience,
chiefly in the form of religious emotion, the ultimate
test of the truth of the Bible. In a word, he may say,
" I know that this book is true, because I have found it
to be true in my own ease." But at once the question
will be raised: On what grounds that are reasonable
and communicable to other minds do you make your
own experience the test or guarantee of universal truth ?
And, furthermore, precisely what is the truth which
you think your experience csompetent to test and guar-

Introdzution,

antee ? In response to such inquiries, whether proposed
by others or by the believer to himself, what all men
agree to call good sense, and the fair mind, will certainly
compel the making of discriminations. But the work
of making discriminations belongs to the judgment ; and
when one begins to make discriminations one has already
abandoned the appeal to individual feeling and resorted
to some common standard of judgment.
But there are even more decisive reasons why the
Christian cannot rest solely in his own religions feel
ing for his view of the nature of the Bible. The ques
tion is inevitable, Whai, truth do you find immediately
verified by your experience ? To this question only one
answer is possible : the only truth immediatel/y verified
by experience is the truth that the individual is himself
affected thus and so. Everything lying outside of this
truth is, of course, a matter of inference. But it is judg
ment or reason that infers, and the inferences reached
are good and true only as the judgment is sound
judgment, only as the reasons alleged are valid rea
sons. A consideration like the foregoing may well lead to the
making of yet further distinctions. It is plain that the
experience of the believer in the use of the Bible is eompe-
tent to testify only in a guarded and limited way with
reference to the nature of the Bible. For example, the
believer may say out of his experience. This particular
Psalm moved me to gratitude or penitence; but he
cannot, in this way, declare it to have been written by
David. He may affirm that his moral nature has been
quickened and enlightened by the study of the Mosaic

Introduction,

law ; but he cannot, in this way, declare that any part
of that law came by Moses. He may lay his hand upon
his heart and praise the divine work there as the picture
of the Saviour is brought to him by Luke or by John,
but he cannot thus justify his confidence that any par
ticular report of our Lord's sayings by these Evangel
ists is authentic.
What has just been said shows that every devout be
liever is compelled to appeal in justification for his view
of the Bible to grounds lying beyond his own experi
ence of its effect upon himself. This appeal most easUy
and naturally follows one of two directions. On the one
hand, it may be taken to the statements of the Bible.
The effort is thus made to justify one's view of the
Bible chiefly or solely by the claims which the Bible
makes for itself. On the other hand, an appeal may be
taken to the consent of other believers. Both these
forms of appeal may be legitimate, but they have any
binding force only when they are properly limited and
intelligently conducted.
The seeker for a satisfactory answer to the question,
What is the Bible ? cannot too early learn that, strictly
speaking, no answer to this question can be gained
solely from the Bible itself. Why this is so, will appear
more in detail further on. It is enough at present to
say that, from the very nature of the case, the Bible
• does not itself undertake to tell us what the Bible is.
This book, indeed, appears before us as one ; but it
is really a collection of books separated by centuries
of time with respect to the date of their origin. More
over, it was centuries before the collection itself became

introauction.

'united into a whole by the action and usage of the
Cliristian Church. Even the writer of the latest of these
books had, therefore, no Bible as a whole before him
upon the nature of which he inight be inspired to give
ns a declaration from God.
It follows, therefore, that the task of appealing to
the Bible, to tell us what the Bible is, involves the con
sideration of a multitude of difficult and complicated'
inquiries of a critical and historical kind. It is a task
¦which the unlearned but devout believer cannot per
form for himself ; for it involves the making of many
discriminations which demand special information and
a special training.
But suppose that the same question be referred to
that consent of prevalent Christian opinion with which
all right-minded persons find it so pleasant, if possible,
to be in full agreement. The difficult problem at once
presents itself as to the means of ascertaining this
consent. The inquirer into this problem may resort to
his pastor, or to some other religious teacher, and
learn from such an one what it is right for him to think,
or "orthodox" to believe, regarding this important
matter. Plainly, the value of such teaching will de
pend upon the fitness of the teacher ; for even the dec
laration as to what is "orthodox" or not orthodox can
be fitly given only by one who has made special exam
ination of this particular question.
Let it be supposed, however, that the inquirer seeks
to have Ids general position defined for him iu the
creed of the commnmon to wliich he belongs, or in
some one of those most comprehensive and honorable

l7itroductio?i.

symbols of faith which have arisen out of the past dis
cussions and compromises of the Christian Church.
Eveiy phrase in such creed or symbol will need inter
pretation in the f uU light of the historical conditions
amidst which it originated. And this work of mter-
pretation requires a penetrating and scholariy acquaint
ance with the history of the development of Christian
doctrine. In these days other more perplexing tasks seem to
stand in the path of one who even begins to look about
him for reasons by whicb to justify his once unques
tioning faith in Holy Scripture. The mmors, at least,
of objections made by various sciences — sciences of
nature, of the mind, of the relations of man to God —
and of imperfections discovered by various kinds of
criticism— criticism of the text, of the history, of the
"lower" and of the "higher" order — are constantly
reaching his ears. In this age of making and reading
many books, such rumoi-s are sure, sooner or later,
to take definite shape and confront him in the black
and white outlines of the printed page. The very pa
pers and treatises to which he turns for help in the
interpretation of the Bible are full of arguments upon
both sides of this subject. The way behind him, the
way back to the unquestioning simplicity of an unrea
soning faith, seems now to be wholly closed. But
before him lies the to him unknown field of modem
science and criticism. This field is full of shapes which
are all the more threatening and repulsive because they
are only vaguely discerned. And, besides, if he enters

Introduction.

that field, who shall be his guide ? or where and in what
condition will he at the last issae from it \
There can be no doubt that some one or more of the
foregoing questionings has disturbed a great and in
creasing multitude of minds in the present generation
of Christian disciples. Such questionings are likely
to be taken the more seriously, and to prove the more
disturbing, in the case of those who set greater store
than others by their own experience in the practical
use of the Bible. These persons are easily inclined
to seize upon sorae theory of the nature of the Bible,
which will justify the experience, rather than to
derive from the experience, and as far only as the ex
perience will go, their own unprejudiced view of its
natnre. It is now time to call attention to the tmth that the
question. What is the Bible \ as at present proposed by
modem investigation, is much too lai^ and compli
cated to be answered by the adoption of any theory of
its inspiration. This question is primarily a question
of fact : or, rather, it is a series of qu^tions of fact that
call, each one, for diligent and difficult researches. It
is only in view of the results of these researches that,
finally, a general opinion as to the nature of the Bible
can be maintained at the bar of common judgment on
the ground of sufficient reasons. But this modem way
of i^arding the sacred writings involves a great change
from the point of view which was originally taken by
that theory of bibhcal inspiration under the influence
of which we are all now living. The ^sential natuij

8 Introduction.

of the earlier theory was such that it undertook to say
what the Bible must be, rather than to inquire what the
Bible is.
An excellent example of the difference between the
more modern way of approaching the Bible, and the
way adopted by the earlier theory of inspiration, may
be taken from the biblical text. The sacred Scriptures
having been originally written in the Hebrew and
Greek languages, the original text of these Scriptures
consisted of a certain form of Hebrew and Greek
words. What was that form of words? or — to ask the
same question in another way — what is the true text of
the Bible? Now, plainly, this question is strictly a
question of fact. It is so considered by modem biblical
study. But by the earlier theory of inspiration it was
rather considered as a question to be answered by the
demands of the theory itself. That is to say, whenever
the inquiry arose as to precisely what any writer of sa
cred Scripture said in a particular place, the tendency
of tha theory was to insist that he w.ust ham saM
thus and so, and to fix in this way whatever form
of the text seemed most favorable to the theory
itself. Moreover, it was at one time a part of the current
theory of inspiration that all the words and letters of
the traditional text of the Hebrew Scriptures— includ
ing every jot and tittle ot it— are important and infal
lible as the very Word of God. And when, after sev
eral generations of conflict among biblical scholars, it
was generally admitted that this could not be tme, it
was still contended that, although the claim might not

Introduction.

hold of the only Hebrew text we really have, it lyiust
hold of a text which, alas ! we have not, and can never
expect to have.
What is true of inquiry into the text of the Bible is true
of other inquiries into its nature. When, for example,
the question arises as to the meaning and fulfilment of
any prophecy of Holy Scripture, modern biblical scholar
ship of the most enlightened kind approaches the inquiry
as one of fact. But the before-mentioned theory tended
to decide rather, as an inference from its own neces
sities, what m,ust be trae as to the meaning and the
fulfilment of each prophecy. So, too, when an histor
ical statement of the Bible is in question, modem bib
lical scholarship considers the inquiry as one of fact.
But the before-mentioned theory settled every such in
quiry by affirming d priori, as it were, with the utmost
confidence, that no inquiry could properly be made
into the accuracy of any historical statement of the
Bible. It need scarcely be said that this method of modern
biblical scholarship is everywhere surely winning its
way. Even now there are few, who could be classed
among the scholars of Christendom, of whatever creed
or sect, that would venture openly and totally to reject
this method. All that literature which is ordinarily
called "apologetic," and whieh aims to vindicate in
any way the claims of the Bible to be the believer's
teacher and guide, is a virtual admission of the right
fulness of this method. For, on this ground, the same
thing is fair for the Christian scholar which is fair for
the unlearned believer. If one appeals to Csesar, one

IO mtroaucnon.
must go before C^sar. If one argues at all the theory
of the infallibility of Scripture, one argues on the only
basis of argument which the haman mind knows, or of
which it can even conceive ; one argues on the assump
tion that one can present " reasons " which will com
mend themselves to the "reason" of one's, fellow-
men. It is true that certain sound arguments for a right
view of the nature of the Bible may not be capable of
being urged with their full force upon men who have
not had a type of experience corresponding to that of
the reasoner himself. For example, a certain view
of sacred Scripture commends itself, -with peculiar
cogency, to those who have had a Christian ex
perience. But even in this case it is the common
experience and comm,on judgment of Christians to
which the appeal must be taken. And just as far cis
we separate the arguments for any view of the nature
ofthe Bible from those considerations which command
themselves to the judgment of all dlihe, just so far do
we Tcmove the advantages of ihe practical use of ihe
Bihle fro-m the reach of a large portion of mom-
Jcind. Modern biblical study raises an inquiry far nobler
and more comprehensive than any provided for by a
theory merely of biblical inspiration. This inquiry is
the one we have proposed to ourselves; it is the in
quiry, What is the Bible ?
The question as to that mode of operation by which
the Divine Spirit was formerly assumed to have placed
the history and doctrines of Scripture, in the precise lit-

introduction. 1 1

eral form in which we have them, within the minds
of its writers, may indeed be regarded as one that in
volves an inscrutable mystery. But the modern ques
tion, What is the Bible? is one which we may hope in
part to answer on the basis of solid and undeniable
facts. Further observation of the action of both unlearned
and scholarly believers respecting the fullest inquiry
into the nature of the Chi-istian Scriptures, shows that
they are alike influenced in their attitude toward the
inquiry by its practical religious aspects. Neither can
avoid asking, How will the constant use of the Bible
for ascertaining Christian truth and for shaping Chris
tian conduct be influenced by the answer arrived at as
the result of scientific inquiry ? !N"either ean avoid the
hope or the fear that the fi-eest investigation of the
facts will modify the practice of the Christian Church
in the acceptance of the Bible as its rule of faith and
practice. And at this point we seem to have returned
to the place whence we set out. That is to say, the
critical inquiry of the believer (whether leamed or un
learned) into the natm-e of the Bible, has a permanent
and influential reference to his practical use of the
Bible. And now we hasten to express our hearty sympathy
with this profound regard for the practical outcome of
scientific mquiry into the Bible. Surely no biblical
scholar, -with the heart of a Christian, could take pleas
ure in attacking Holy Scripture or in exposing any
weaknesses or mistakes which he might think himself
to have found therein. Far more than this is true.

1 2 Introduction.

The large practical outcome of the modern method of
investigating the sacred writings— of thoroughly and
courageously proposing to them all manner of questions
of fact— will be realized in the safer, wiser, and more
purifying use of these writings by all believers. It is
with the fullest confidence in this outcome that the
writer of this book pursues his task ; it was in the in
terest of contributing to this outcome that all its inves
tigations were originally undertaken.
Certain questions are, at this point, in need of at
least a preliminary answer ; among them are such as
follow. Can modern biblical science be trusted to tell
us the truth upon this matter ? In reply, we assert that
it can be trusted to do what its cautious and conscien
tious students claim that it can do. Modern biblical sci
ence does not profess to know all the facts, or even all
the facts important to some very desirable conclusions ;
it does not profess to have equal evidence for all the con
clusions which it thinks itself entitled to reach. Like
e,v&\'^ other historical or critical inquiry, biblical science
deals with probabilities of a higher or lower order. Not
withstanding this fact, its researches are now so far ad
vanced that many important statements can be made by
it respecting the origin and nature of the sacred writings ;
and these statements have the highest degree of proof
possible in eases of similar kind.
But do the separate conclusions of biblical science ad
mit of being so connected together and so harmonized
with each other and with the data derived from other
sources, as to give any consistent view of the Bible as a
whole? We believe that the affirmative answer to this

Introduction.

13

question may safely be made. Nothing, however, but
trying the experiment can serve to evince the tenable
or untenable character of either an affirmative or a nega
tive answer to such a question.
Does the view of the Bible authorized and com
mended by modern biblical science agree throughout
¦with the familiar and traditional theory of inspiration ?
It does not ; although it embodies all the elements of
truth and secures all the practical helpfulness which this
theory ever possessed. Does this view of the Bible
accord with the attitude of the Church Catholic toward
the Bible, as that attitude is taken in the historic sym
bols and in the writings of its great theologians and
practical leaders? The historic symbols of the Church
Catholic have not been so framed as to commit its faith
to any one theory of inspiration ; and the writings of
its great teachers and thinkers differ widely upon this
point as upon most others. Yet the vdew commended
by modern biblical study is in full agreement with the
essential faith of the Church Catholic and of its great
teachers and thinkers.
But, finally, will the view commended by modern
biblical science lower the Christian's esteem of Holy
Scripture, or detract from that use which he now makes
of such Scripture in strengthening and informing his
religious life, and in shaping his conduct according to
the principles of the Gospel ? By no means, unless per
versely wrested from its right tendencies and perversely
applied to wrong uses. Against such wresting and wrong
uses it is not in the power of any truth to guard itself.
How often, on the other hand, has the history of the

14 Introduction.

Christian Church shown the most sacred truths of its
religion, coupled with the strictest theory of the inspira
tion of its Scriptures, applied to most unreasonable and
even immoral uses !
It is our purpose, then, to examine the Bible in the full
light of recent historical and critical inquiries ; and to
show that these inquiries do not so modify the view to
be taken of its origin and nature as to prevent the most
helpful and Christian use of its histories and moral and
religious teachings. The examination will also confer
the incidental benefit of showing how one may accept
all the legitimate conclusions of modern biblical study,
and yet remain well within the boundaries of a truly
catholic faith. And since this is a matter about which
most persons are rightly somewhat sensitive, and about
which some persons are extremely sensitive, we shall
begin the entire examination by considering it in
particular. Such consideration is, of course, an his
torical affair. That is to say, the only way to know
what does accord with the faith of the Chi'istian
Church, is to appeal to history for an answer to the
question. After completing our historical survey, we shall take
the question. What is the Bible % to the Bible itself for
an answer. There are two ways of conducting this
branch of the inquiry. In the first place, the more di
rect claims of the sacred writers regarding the charac
teristics of their teaching and the nature of their in
spiration will be examined. In the next place, the
more indirect testimony of the facts concerning the
origin and nature of the biblical books, as these facts

Introduction,

15

are brought to light by modern biblical science, will be
passed in review. The result of this twofold examin
ation should be what is sometimes called an "in
ductive theory of inspiration." More correctly ex
pressed, the result should be such a view of the origin
and nature of the writings of sacred Scripture as is
gained by a scientific survey of its claims and its phe
nomena. Finally, attention must be given to those relations in
which every -view of the Bible stands to kindred views
of nearly connected Christian truths. Such most nearly
connected truths are those ordinarily summed up in
the doctrines of revelation, of inspiration, and of the au
thority and activity of the Christian Church. Here,
again, constant reference must be made to the import
ant part which the satisfaction of Christian experience,
and the practical uses of the Bible, bear in the general
discussion of its origin and nature.
It will be seen that the place of first consideration in
the entire discussion is given to the " facts." And the
fasts must, at all events, be frankly, fearlessly, and
constantly kept in view. Any opinion which contrar
diets them is necessarily false ; any opinion which does
not take them into the account is certainly erroneous ;
any opinion which neglects some classes of them is
'without doubt imperfect. It would be quite unneces
sary and wrong, however, to make any pretense of ex
amining these facts in complete indifference to the re
sult of the examination. On the contrary, we neither
profess the power nor indulge the wish to separate this
examination from the influence of our convictions re-

1 6 Introduction,

garding the nature of biblical religion, and regarding
the truthfulness of the great doctrines of the Christian
faith. It is as Christians that we begin this examina
tion ; as Christians, with faith confirmed, enlightened,
and enlarged, we expect to finish it.

CHAPTEE L
JEWISH AND EAELY CHEISTIAW "VIEWS.
Feom the necessities of the case, no general view of the
origin and nature of the Bible could precede the time
when the different separate writings of which it is com
posed had all been finished and collected into a canon of
sacred Scripture. A theory of the inspiration of the
Bible in the sense we are accustomed to attach to those
words, could not originate, therefore, until some time after
the Christian era. Nor have we any means of telling pre
cisely what the biblical writers themselves would have
thought, in answer to the modern question. What is the
Bible ? On the other hand, we can discover what was
the drift of their sentiment regarding the influence of
the Holy Spirit within the mind of man ; and regard
ing some of the characteristics of words spoken or writ
ten on sacred subjects by men under the influence of
this Spirit.
Substantially the same thing is true of the Jewish and
early Christian views as expressed by others than the
authors of the biblical books. These -views do not have
a direct reference to the entire circuit of canonical writ
ings, as we now have these writings gathered together
into one Bible. The most important apparent exception
to this statement is found in the attitude in which the
latest Jewish and early Christian writers stood toward
(17)

[8 Jewish and Early Christian Views,

the Old Testament. But our examination -svill show that
even this exception is only apparent.
There is a preliminary question, however, which can
not be avoided : How much consideration shall be given
to Jewish and early Christian writers, outside of the
Bible, upon the question of its origin and nature ? What
weight, in the judgment of a scholar of the nineteenth cen
tury, should be attached to the opinion of an uninspired
rabbi or Christian bishop, upon a matter such as this ?
A really judicious answer to this inquiry avoids both of
two extremes. The opinion of Jewish rabbi or Christian
bishop is in no case an authoritative opinion. In many
cases, such an opinion is so much the result of temporary
and local influences, of traditional and educated preju
dices, that it can be allowed only little if any weight.
Quite as often, also, when stripped of its rhetorical,
figurative, and emotional embellishments, such opinion
aj)pears as a vague sentiment rather than as a deliberate
judgment. On the other hand, the views of the uninspired Jew
ish and early Christian ¦writers should not be treated
with neglect or contempt. Thoroughly understood and
properly taken, they may prove of great value and help
fulness to us in the present day. Perhaps their chief
value consists in this, that the study of tliem shows what
influences operated upon the minds of the men who,
¦without being by any means fully aware of the meaning
of their action, were really engaged in fixing the canons of
the OH and New Testaments. Whatever view we may
take as to the origin of single books and parts of books,
the Bible as a coUection of selected books came into being

The Value of these Views. 19

through the body of believers. It cannot fail, then, to
be of great value to know what views of inspiration and
sacred Scripture were held by the men who may be called
the unconscious authors of the Bible, considered as an
entire circuit of sacred writings.
Moreover, we proclaim ourselves among those who
believe in the perpetual inspiration of the Church of
God. And, indeed, -without belie-ving heartily in this,
no one can intelligently beheve in Holy Scripture. For,
as has just been said, it was the Church which fixed the
circuit of -writings to be esteemed as constituting one
Holy Scripture. •
At this point it is also proper to raise and press an
other inquiry: Why should a Christian in the nine
teenth century have any regard for the ancient creeds
and symbols of Christendom ? Why should he be in
the least sensitive to the question, whether he himself is
to be classed among the " orthodox " or the " heretical " ?
In many cases, alas 1 the strongest motives to any such
regard or sensitiveness are the motives of indi-vidual and
social interest. But the Christian of right mind and
heart has other motives than these for his regard for
symbols, for his feehng of sensitiveness before the title
of " heretic." He sincerely desires to be united in opin
ion and affection with God's. people. To be separated
from other believers brings pain to any genuine Chris
tian heart. But this experience is reasonable only upon
the supposition that the Spirit of God abides in the
Church of God, instructing it what is true to think and
right to do.
On the other hand, to accept -with unquestioning

20 Jewish and Early Christian Views.

faith, or to refuse to reconsider any particular view held
by the Chui-ch in the past, is as unregisonable as it is un
safe. The faith of the Church is a progressive affair.
Its essentials are indeed fixed ; but the more fixed and
united upon any of its docti-ines the whole Christian
Church is seen to be, the simpler and fewer are the doc
trines upon which it appears thus fixed aud united.
This remark applies with peculiar force and appropriate
ness to the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible.
Upon only a few subjects, and those the most essential
as well as the broadest and dimmest in respect to fixed
scientific outline, is there a Consensus of the -dews of be
lievers in all ages. For in this matter of inquiry as in
others, the Spirit of God still leads His people into a
fuller knowledge and a -wiser and safer practice.
The earliest outside view, as it were, of the inspiration
of any of the Old-Testament Scriptures is to be found in
the Old-Testament Apocrypha. It Js one among many
proofs of the inferiority of apocryphal and Talmudic
¦writings to +he canonical -writings of the Old Testament
that the former, as compared with the latter, tend to
take more extravagant and untenable, and less distinct
ively moral and spiritual views of inspiration and of
sacred -writings.
There can be no doubt that the apocryphal books of
the Old Testament have a high esteem for the more
ancient Hebrew writings.* It is, however, "the Law"
(the law of Moses) which they praise in the highest terms,
and to which they attribute the first grade of inspira-
* For the doctrine of sacred Scripture held by the Apocrypha,
see D, S, S,, ii,, p, 30 f.

The Old- Testament Apocrypha. 2 1
tion. To it " the Prophets," although highly regarded
and also deemed sacred, are considered inferior ; while
the other writings of our Old Testament are compara
tively little mentioned. The military leader of the
time cheers and consoles the people out of " the Law and
the Prophets "; the same sacred -writings, in the life of
the devout family, are a source of domestic instruction.
The reason for their excellence is to be found in the di-
•vine wisdom, which has been given solely or chiefiy to
Israel, and the declarations and results of which are em
bodied in these -writings. But the product of divine
-wisdom in Moses far surpasses all others, even the other
books of the sacred Hebrew antiquity.
We cannot infer from statements like the foregoing
that the Jews regarded themselves as ha-ving a fixed
number of books which were aU alike produced by a
special gift of the divine Spirit to their authors. On the
contrary, they make declarations which plainly show
that such was not their ¦sdew. Some of the apocryphal
writings abound in ascriptions of di^vine inspiration to
the elders of the nation generally, to patriarchs, as well
as to Moses and the prophets. By its enkindling, Daniel
dehvered the innocent, and the worthies of the nation
became valorous in battle, or skilful in the councils of
state. Nothing is anywhere said or implied of any kind
of inspiration peculiar to the scribe, or of any work of
dictating either the substance or the words of what he
has ¦written.
Moreover, in one passage (2 Mace. ii. 13), " the letters
of kings (Persian monarchs) concerning votive offer
ings," simply because they contain the record of the

22

Jewish and Early Christian Views.

divine deahngs with Israel, are regarded as sacred Scrip
ture. The author of another apocryphal book (Sirach)
speaks of himself as undergoing a preparation, by study
of the Law and the Prophets, to " pour out doctrine as
prophecy," and leave it to all ages forever.
The view of the Talmudic writings is a more devel
oped form of the distinctively Je^wish opinion. But these
writings are such a sea of salt water and mire, that any
drag-net cast into it will bring forth many and strange
kinds of things. A great variety of opinions can, there
fore, be gathered from the Talmud, according to the
place where the opinions are found expressed, the date
of the composition of its different parts, etc. Never
theless, aU parties among the Jews considered Holy
Scripture as a book of life, and found in it the proofs
of their disputed opinions — each, after the fashion of
modern rehgious sects, asserting itself to be a true child
of the Bible.*
The same distinction of grades in the different parts
of Scripture, which is indicated in the Apocrypha of
the Old Testament, is made a matter of express teaching
in the Talmudic writings. The prophetic ¦writings are
frequently distinguished from the Law as inferior to it;
they are placed only in the second rank of revelation.
They are held to be of the nature of tradition. Accord
ingly, it is expressly forbidden by the Talmud to keep
the Law and the Books of the Prophets in the same
manuscript case, or to lay a roll of the Prophets on top
of a roU of the Law. The rabbis attributed to Moses a
different inspiration from that ascribed to any other of
*D. S. a, ii„p, 29f,

The Writings of the- Talmud. 23

the ¦writers of the Hebrew Scriptures. God either wrote
all the Law with His o^wn hand or else dictated it word
for word to Moses as His amanuensis. Whoever sup
poses that a single verse of it is spoken by Moses of him
self is to be regarded as a denier and despiser of the di
vine word.
The rabbinical doctrine of prophetic inspiration appHes
not only to those books which we call "the Prophets"
(from Isaiah to Malachi), but also to the historical books
(from Joshua to Kings). These are all ascribed by the
Talmud to men gifted with the prophetic spirit of in
spiration. But the inspiration of these books is re
garded as decidedly inferior to that of the Mosaic Law.
Whether the Talmudic writings place the other books
of the Old Testament (the so-called "Hagiographa")
on an equality, with respect to their inspiration, ¦with
tiie prophetic writings, is a disputed matter. Proba
bly the correct answer depends upon the particular one
of the Talmudic writings to which we refer the question.
Even after the time of Christ, we find the rabbis debat
ing whether Canticles and Ecclesiastes have the same
sanctity as the other bibhcal writings.
The rabbinical doctrine finally developed a tripartite
division of the sacred books, according to the grade of
inspiration which produced them. At the same time
its view of the nature of inspired ¦writings changed until
certain ¦wild fables gained currency, concerning the
manner in which these writings were produced. Such
a wild fable is the rabbinical story that God taught the
entire Bible, as weU as the Talmud, to Moses, and then
bade him teach it to Israel, although refusing to ahow

24 Jewish and Early Christian Views.

him to write it do-mi lest the Gentiles might steal it.
Tet the Talmud is, on the whole, less extravagant in its
theory of inspiration than is Philo, The Christian be
liever of to-day, however, -will find little to receive un
modified from the Je-wish rabbis as to the nature of his
Bible. Nor can he fail to regret that in some respects
these rabbis influenced so strongly the views of the early
Christian fathers.
It would not be worth the time required to consider
what PhUo and Josephus thought upon these subjects,
were it not that they may be regarded as representative,
in some sort, of views prevalent at about the Christian
era. The -view of the former as to the di-sdne origin and
authority of the Hebrew Scriptures in general is indicated
by the titles he applies to them. He frequently speaks of
them as " sacred writings," or of some portion of them
as a " sacred book," " sacred word," " sacred saying." Yet
he ob-viously favored the opinion which ascribed differ
ent grades of authority and excellence to different por
tions of the Old Testament. Accordingly, Philo quotes
the Law most frequently, and with most flourish of ap
proval, as it were. Ezekiel and Daniel he neglects ; and
does not cite Esther, Ecclesiastes, or Canticles as sacred
Scripture. In these respects his view seems in accord
¦with the prevalent doctrine among the Je-wish rabbis.
In spite of these distinctions, however, Philo regards
the Old Testament as a divine whole, penetrated with
the spirit of wisdom, and constituting one holy and
divine Word. It is -with reference to his more definite
theory of the nature of the inspired mental state that
Philo distinguishes himseK from the views already ex-

The Views of Philo. 25

amined. In order that the prophet may be prepared
for inspiration, it is necessary, he holds, for reason to
abandon the citadel of the soul.* When the divine
light is to shine, the human light must wholly set. It
appears that Philo considered the entu-e Old Testament
to have been composed by its authors when in this con
dition of unconscious ecstasy.
And yet Philo believed that the same inspiration and
di-vine gift of prophecy were not hmited to a few, but
extended to others than the writers of the Hebrew Scrip
tures. " The holy Word bestows the gift of prophecy
upon every notably -wise man "; and this -gift carries -with
it, in his judgment, the condition of unconscious ecstasy.
Philo also speaks of his own inspired states. Sometimes
when he has been writing he has himself been seized with
di^^ne inspiration and has then uttered oracles. He has
become altogether ignorant of place, of those present, of
himself, and of what was said and written. The inspira
tion of the translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek,
of the so-called " Seventy," was of this nature according
to Philo. They, too, were prophets, and made the
translation in a condition of prophetic ecstasy.
The peculiarities of Philo's view of inspiration are a
development of the Platonic philosophy. All antiquity/
ascribed the extraordinary faculties and virtues of gifted
men — whether they consisted of wisdom in conduct,
skill in art, or insight into truth ; or else took the form
of producing sacred literature — to the inbreathing of
the Divine Spirit. But it was the special "feature of the
Platonic theory to hold that a man cannot become a
* D. S. S., ii., p. 39 f.

26 Jewish and Early Christian Views.

poet, or utter an oracle, until he has been divested of
his own reason so that God may speak through him.
In Philo, as well as in the Talmud, we find little gen
uine wheat after much beating of straw.
The views which Josephus entertained conceming
the nature of the Hebrew Scriptures are chiefly derived
from one passage in his book " Contra Apionem " (i. 8).
In his opinion of the nature of inspiration and sacred
Scripture, Josephus is much less extravagant than
Philo. He clearly asserts the divine origin and charac
teristics of the Old Testament ; although he does not
clearly describe the manner of this origin, or the precise
nature of these characteristics. Like the Je-wish rabbis
in general, Josephus considered Moses a prophet in a
pre-eminent sense, such as belongs to no other Hebrew
writer. He not only distinguishes the prophets from
Moses, but also introduces a distinction into the ranks
of the prophets themselves. He further distinguishes
between a prophet as a receiver of revelation, and a
prophet as a scribe. With respect to the normal pro
phetic state, Josephus appears to agree with Philo in
holding that it is one of complete unconsciousness. But
the prophet, in writing do-wn his own prophecies, is rep
resented simply as taking pains to put on record accu
rately what he had pre-viously spoken prophetically.
Like all the writers upon this subject in this era, Jo.
sephus ascribes prophetic inspiration to others than the
authors of the Old Testament. John Hyrcanus, he
thinks, had the gift of prophecy, and was so conversant
-with Deity, that nothing in the future escaped him.

The Views of Josephus. 27
Josephus also regarded himself as an inspired prophet
of no mean order ; he considered that he had received
prophetic dreams divinely induced, and had fallen into
conditions of prophetic ecstasy.
It appears, then, that from the very first the ascrip
tion of prophetic inspiration was generously made ; no
one thought it necessary to restrict the divine gift 'to
certain writers of Scriptures alone deemed sacred. It
also appears that distinctions were allowed as to the rela
tive excellence and authority of these Scriptures and as
to the kind and grade of inspiration possessed by the
writers. It appears, further, that inspiration was at
tributed primarily to the persons regarded as divine
agents, in war and in the State, in respect to what was
wise to think and right to do ; and that the conception
of an inspiration peculiar to the scribe and consisting of
a divine dictation of his words, is an invention chiefly of
Jewish rabbis and of a Gentile philosophy.
On •turning to the fathers of the ancient Christian
Church, we find some rehef from certain crudities and
extravagances belonging to the views we have been con
sidering. It was a misfortune, however, for the develop
ment of the early Christian doctrine of sacred Scripture
that its expounders and advocates followed so closely the
fashion of Jewish rabbis and Greek philosophers rather
thau the indications given by the authors of the Bible .
itself. But this was inevitable ; for, hke all teachers of
rehgious tmth, the fathers of the ancient Church were
children of their own day.
These Church fathers belong to diverse schools of
learning, which had their seats at Antioch, Alexandria,

28 Jewish and Early Christian Views.
Athens, Rome, Lyons, and Carthage; it is to be ex
pected, therefore, that on many points, chiefly of minor
importance, their views will differ. At the same time,
they were all believers in Christianity, and in the
historical and doctrinal truths of those -writings -with
whose fate the development of Christianity was so
intimately connected. A certain unity of view accord
ingly prevails among them upon essential truths. As to
the nature of the Bible, however, no one well-developed
doctrine exists in the ancient Church, although a marked
uniformity of opinion on some essential points may be
everywhere traced.
In the earlier times of the Christian Church, both a
stricter and a freer view of inspiration may be detected ;
and from the time of Origen (185-254 a.d.) onward, two
contrary tendencies appear. One of these tendencies was
toward the legal and traditional way of regarding the Bible ;
the other toward a more critical and speculative way.
This divergence in tendencies appears very early. Tor ex
ample, the Epistle of Polycarp, although it contains many
words of Christ and the Aposties, nowhere cites the Old
Testament as sacred Scripture ; and the Ignatian Epistles
even warn us against resting our behef in the Gospel
upon our abihty to cite the Old Testament for all the
Christian doctrines. But the Epistie of Barnabas treats
tho Hebrew writings with the veneration of an orthodox
Je-wish rabbi.
To understand the views of eariy fathers of the
Christian Church, it is necessary to know something
of the historical position in which they were placed.
Even as far back as the days of the aposties James and

Differences among the Sects. 29
Paul, a difference of -view conceming the relations of
the Gospel to the rehgion of the Old Testament had
arisen -within the Church. Some Christian teachers laid
more emphasis on the unity of the Gospel -with the He
brew religion ; others laid more emphasis on the differ
ence of the two. The attitude of these two partiea to
ward the Hebrew writings was necessarily influenced by
their view of the nature of the Hebrew rehgion, and of
its relation to the Gospel.
Moreover, on the borders of the Church Cathohc,
sometimes just inside and sometimes outside, there ex
isted various sects. Some of them were Judaizing;
others were Gnostic. The latter separated Judaism and
Christianity, and alhed Christianity -with Gentile philoso
phy — in an extreme way. A hard and long straggle
with these sects took place. Some of the more influential
of the fathers sympathized with one sect, and others
sympathized rather -with an opposed sect. In the mean
time, the new rehgion had also to define its relation to
ward a variety of confficting views on ethical and rehg
ious subjects which had arisen and flourished on heathen
ground. Is it strange, then, that many shades of opin
ion are to be found, often expressed in a heated, over-
-wrought, and highly rhetorical way, -within the hterature
of ancient Christendom ? What is now understood as
bibhcal science did not exist ; the time for a comprehen
sive and well-estabhshed doctrine of the origin and na
ture of its sacred writings had not yet arrived in the
history of the Church.
On certain main matters of opinion, however, the an
cient Christian Church was in substantial unity ; aspe-

30 Jewish and Early Christian Views.

cially was its attitude of heart toward the truths of the
Gospel, and toward the holy -wi-itings which preserve
and convey these tmths, both warm and concordant.
Such unity of thought and feehng expressed itself,
though in a rather vague way, by speaking of these
-writings as "di-dne," "God-inspired," or "heavenly,"
It was generally held that there is a certain organic
oneness and perfection of parts in Scripture.* By the
"perfection" of Scripture, we are to understand that
quahty which belongs to a beautiful whole made up
of the right number of parts. To this beautiful and
concordant whole, not even the smallest of the parts
is insignificant. Irenseus, for example, thinks that
nothing in the Bible is vain, or -without significance, or
-without sorae argument in it. And Origen cannot
believe that the Evangelist would, -without some pre
cise purpose, represent the bhnd man as throwing off
his coat when he came to Jesus.
As to the unity and difference of the two Testaments,
there was among the fathers of the early Church consid
erable variation of -view; though the general doctrine
of the Church held to the essential unity of the Old and
the New. The principal point insisted upon was that
the Gospel is true Old-Testament religion, and that
Christians are the true Israel. The highest purpose of
the Law was found in the service it renders, by furnish
ing types and symbols which point to Christ. The early
Church laid the greatest emphasis on the Prophets, how
ever; and in this pre-eminent regard for them rather than
*D. S, S.,iL, p. 57 f.

The Infallibility of Scripture. 31

for the Law of Moses, it departed in the right direction
from the views of PhUo and the Je-wish rabbis.
As a matter of express doctrine, the early Church did
not question the " infallibUity " of Scripture ; but we
are not to understand this term in the precise sense
whieh has been most frequently attached to it since the
period after the Keformation. It would be -wrong and
audacious, they argued, to wish to amend the words of
the Spirit. The infallibUity of Scripture was then, in
their minds, a natural and naive deduction from their
conception of inspiration. And yet, in the work of
studying the Bible in detail, the fathers of the Church
met with biblical facts which forced them to occasional
explanations or admissions destructive of their main ar
gument. The use of the allegorical interpretation was,
however, their unfaihng resort in all such cases of diffi
culty. Thus, Origen could speak in the highest terms
of the inspiration of the Hebrew Bible, in every jot and
tittle of its contents, and yet, also, speak of " scandals
and offences and impossibihties " as cleaving to its let
ter. But such things were to be smoothed over by being
understood in a mystical way.
Some of the heretical writings of the age went so far
as to make a direct attack on the trustworthiness of the
Hebrew Scriptures. We find the " Clementine Homi
lies," for example, complaining of the prophecies of the
Old Testament as obscure, foohsh, inglorious ; the so-
caUed Mosaic laws are affirmed to have been written
five hundred years after Moses, (although it ought
not to be said va. public that these chapters were added
so late to the Bible, lest the unlearned multitudes be

32 Jewish and Early Christian Views.
disturbed). The intent of this depreciation of the
Old Testament was relatively to exalt the genuine
Christian teaching.
As to the nature of inspiration, the early Christian
writers held, as a rule, the same mechanical -view which
we have aheady found to have been held by Philo and
the Jewish rabbis. In this way must we interpret their
habitual use of such titles as "organs of the divine
voice," " mouth of God," etc., for apostles and proph
ets. They are also fond of representing the Spirit of
God as using its human instruments as the player does
his lyre or flute, or as the scribe uses the reed with which
he writes. It has been said, for example, that there
is only one passage in all the works of Justin Martyr
in which any due account is taken of the conscious
and free powers of a Hebrew writer. In spite of
this, however, the Church-fathers, as a rule, did not
follow the neo-Platonic phUosophy of Philo into its
worst excesses ; * they did not as a rule hold that the
state of inspiration is one of frenzy or unconscious ec
stasy. Indeed, a certain book seems to have been
-written in this age expressly to confute the opinion
that the prophet must be in a state of ecstasy.
It was the universal behef of the ancient Church that
the -writers of sacred Scripture were inspired men ; the
apostles and prophets, however, were pre-eminently
gifted with inspiration. Yet it is clear that the claim
of Scripture to special authority and significance could
not in this age have been based upon the special inspi
ration of its authors ; for the fathers of this age freely
*D, 8, S„ii„p. 71 f.

Inspiration of Apocryphal Books. 33
attributed inspiration in exactly the same terms to
many others besides the biblical -writers. ^Tiether gen
uine prophetic inspiration had been given to the Gentile
world was indeed a disputed question. Some of the
Christian fathers, like TertuUian, habitually express them
selves -with heat, contempt, and odium of Gentile phi
losophers and poets ; others, like Clement of Alexandria,
take a far different view. One ancient -writer speaks of
no fewer than thirty-five specially inspired prophets,
and regards himself ^s receiving divine prophetic reve
lations. Another, whUe professing his o-wn inferiority
to the apostles, stUl affirms his abihty to know the heav
enly mysteries by inspiration ; he declares himself not
to have written after the flesh, but after the judgment
of God.
From the foregoing -view of inspiration, it naturaUy
foUows that the claim to be considered as inspired pro
phetic -writing should not be confined to the canonical
Hebrew Scriptures alone. We actually find the fathers
of the ancient Church correlating historical statements
taken from the apocryphal -with those taken from the
canonical books of the Old Testament and co-ordinating
'prophecies from ^sei<^o-prophetic -writings with those
from the Hebrew prophets by applying the same sacred
formula of citation to both. One writer interweaves
words frora the apocryphal Fourth Ezra with those
from a canonical writing, and introduces them -with
a " thus saith the Lord " as words found in " another
prophet." Justin Martyr quotes the prophecies of the
Sibyl and Hystaspis as inspired and authoritative;
Athenagoras speaks of the Sibyl and ihe rest of the

34 Jewish and Early Cliristian Views.
prophets. Clement of Alexandria repeatedly quotes
apocryphal books -with the most sacred formula, as " di-
-vine wisdom," " divine Scripture," etc. Origen quotes
the "Wisdom of Solomon" as though it were canoni
cal, and speaks of Maccabees, Tobit, and Judith as in
spired writings. Cyprian of Carthage, too, regarded
Tobias, Baruch, Maccabees, and the Wisdom of Solomon
as inspired.*
Facts like those just mentioned show us how free
and even " loose," as some would say, were the notions
of the ancient Church regarding the writings called in
spired in the highest sense; and, at the same time,
how strict and even extravagant were their notions of
the nature of all inspiration and inspired Scripture.
These facts do not indicate that the Old Testament was
held by the Church-fathers in no special veneration;
but they do indicate that the special veneration which
these fathers gave it was not due to its being the product
of a special kind of inspiration. Their superior regard
for it was due chiefly to the fact that its prophecy and
history bore vritness in a special way to the Gospel and
to Christ.
It was a striking but necessary result of the historical
position of the early Christian Church that for some
time it did not regard the New-Testament writings as
on a par, so far as what is distinctive of sacred Scrip
ture is concerned, with the writings of the Old Tes-
tament. Nothing can be clearer than this fact is made
* For other examplea of the way in which the fathers of the
Church at this time correlated ss/w-hiblical writings with the
canonical, as alike inspired and sacred, see D. S. S ii p 86 f '

The Allegorical Interpretation. 35
by reading works like those of Clement of Eome,
Justin Martyr, Tatian, and Athenagoras. In these
works, the phrases " thus saith the Lord," etc. (with
which the Hebrew Scriptures are quoted), give way to
formulas, when quoting the New-Testament Scriptures,
that bring the personahty of the author more distinctly
to view.* .Clement of Bome, for example, exhorts
the Corinthians to receive the epistle of' the blessed
Paul the Apostle, and speaks of its injunctions as
"spirituaUy" given; but when quoting the words
of First Corinthians (ii. 9) . he uses the formula
" God saith," because the sentiment of this passage is
plainly taken from the ancient sacred Scripture of
Isaiah (Ixiv. 4).
In their interpretation of the Hebrew Bible the
fethers of the ancient Church almost without exception
foUowed the mischievous and misleading method of Jew
ish rabbis and the neo-Platonic Philo. They allegorized
without reason, stint, or good taste. The Hebrew text
becoming almost wholly unknown, and a Greek trans-
lab'on which abounds in errors and obscurities being
substituted for it, these very errors and obscurities
were made the subjects of new aUegories.
This sort of so-caUed " interpretation " has been the
bane of Christendom. The Christian reader of to-day
should understand that such a method of escaping the
force of the difficulties of the Bible, or of using it for
doctrine and edification, is more nearly alhed to what
is Jewish and even heathenish than to what is distinctive
ly Christian. The allegorical interpretation was thought
* D. S. S., i„ p, 81 f.

o

6 Jewish and Early Christian Views.

necessary in the times of the early Church, because
the Jewish and Judaizing opponents of Christianity
strove to wrest from it those proofs in the prophetic
Hebrew Scriptures upon whieh it so much relied.
One of their weapons for attacking the Christian faith
came at last to consist in a more strictly literal inter
pretation of ancient prophecy. It was, in part, under
the influence of such exigencies that a developed theory
of the relation between the letter and the higher mean
ing of the sacred writings was produced.
But as a modern scholar has remarked, the aUe
gorical interpretation is " a sword that cuts both ways."
By the allegorical interpretation the most extravagant
heresies justified their teaching ; and even gross immor
alities could thus appeal to the Bible for support.
The Church was obliged then to limit this arbitrary
fashion of reading any and all things into the Bible ;
but since it did not reject the whole principle as false
and dangerous, its very limitations had to be somewhat
arbitrarily fixed. The fact aided in gi-ving i-ise to
churchly and dogmatic control of Scripture.
We see, then, that the ancient Christian Chui-ch had
DO developed doctrine of sacred Scripture, no one self-
consistent view with respect to its detaUs. As to the
Old Testament, it derived its opinion of the nature of
inspiration and holy writings largely from the tra
ditional opinions of the preceding age. But it escaped
some of the worst extravagances of the views of tbe
Talmud and of PhUo. Of the New-Testament writings,
however, the Church took a more fresh, untrammelled,
and distinctively Christian view. It seems a pity that

The Theological Interpretation. 37
these early teachers did not come to regard the whole
Bible from the distinctively Christian point of view
rather than from that traditional point of -view which
was, at first, applied only to the Old Testament. More
over, it was largely the necessities of its position which
determined certain elements of the opinion of the
Church. It had to defend the Bible against Juda
izing and Gnostic heresies, and commend it to inquir
ing Jews and Gentiles. From this fact, however,
came certain genuine elements of the first growth in
the Christian doctrine of sacred Scripture.
The formative period whieh we have just considered,
was followed by a period in which all the Chi-istian doc
trines underwent a hardening process in preparation
for the Middle Ages. The time which lies between
250 a.d. and 600 a.d. shows in a more marked way the
same confiict, which we have already noted, between
the more dogmatic and the raore free and speculative
tendencies, in answer to the question. What is the Bible ?
But a certain crystallization of aU the elements which
influence the answer is also plainly observable. The
judgment of the Church concei-ning the extent of the
Bible becomes pronounced in the declarations of her
influential teachers, and in her councils and synods.
The canon of sacred Scripture is now more strictly de
fined. The theological use of the Bible also is made
more prominent. The Church undertakes to say how
the Bible must be interpreted in accordance -with a
churchly standard of faith.
During this period — and how often in this regard as
in others does histoi-y seem to repeat itself — it was at

o

8 Jewish and Early Christian Views.

the East, where more of learning and philosophical
culture existed, that the more truly hberal views of
sacred Scripture for a time prevaUed. But the Chris
tian Church was engaged in a tremendous straggle;
and practical and dogmatic considerations finally tri
umphed over those which had regard rather to truth
as ascertained by free and scholarly inquiry. Notwith
standing this fact, the influence of men like Origen
and the writers of the school of Antioch was very
powerful in the Eastern Church; the same influence
was considerable, although not so powerful, in the
Western Church.
Church-fathers like Athanasius and Eusebius mani
fest strongly the tendency to use the Old Testament as
a book of proof -texts for the establishment of theo
logical opinion. These proofs, however, require the
allegorical interpretation in order to be usable in this
way. Eusebius, for example, thinks that even the
superscriptions of the Psalms in the Greek translation
have a hidden theological meaning.
The inclination to find all raanner of raysteries and
types in the Old Testament spread widely in the Chris
tian Church of this period. Even in the Western
comraunion not a few pupils of Origen in this re
spect are found. When the practical use of Christians
brought the Psalms into that position of almost su
preme regard which they have maintained ever since,
the sam^e method of allegorical interpretation was
diligently applied to them. For example, the super-
scriptio-n of the eighth Psalm, " concerning the wine-
vats," was referred to the vessels prepared for new

Influence of Augustine. 39

fruits which the Spirit of God creates out of men.
Some went so far (for example, Ambrose of Milan,
\ 397), as to dispense with all fixed principles of lan
guage in interpreting the sacred Hebrew writings.
Eden is the soiU, man is the body ; Adam is the intel
lectual and Eve the sensuous principle. The queens in
Canticles are the souls of the patriarchs; the concu
bines are the souls of the ancient prophets. An oc
casional true note was struck, however, amid this med
ley of strange and intoxicating sounds. Here and
there a writer, like Basil, truly named " the Great,"
shows a disposition to abide by the verbal and gram
matical meaning of the Bible.
Two names stand pre-eminent for influence during
the latter part of this period, and even for centuries
afterward; they are Augustine and Jerome. The
former became a predominating authority in theology,
and a leader in the stricter organization of the disci
pline and dogmas of the Church. The latter was the
most leamed man in bibhcal matters to which the
ancient Church can refer.*
The influence of Augustine upon the development of
the doctrine of sacred Scripture was indeed deservedly
powerful ; but it was in many respects very bad. He
knew nothing of Hebrew, and had only a very limited
critical knowledge of Greek. He looked on the Bible,
not chiefly as a devout Christian scholar does, but rather
as does the dogmatist interested in using it to secure cer
tain practical ecclesiastical ends. He knew that the text
of the Greek translation of the Old Testament differed in
*D, 8. S., ii., p, UOf,

40 Jewish and Early Christian Views.

many places from the Hebrew ; but he tried to persuade
himself that these differences were due to a divine
dispensation. He regarded the attempt of Jerome to
translate the Hebrew directly into Latin as dangerous.
Much of his own interpretation of Scripture is a strange
mixture of allegorizing and rationalizing. To him
clouds are prophets and teachers; oxen are prophets
and apostles ; birds are spiritual proud men ; and bulls
are heretics. To what lower depths can the "spirit
ualizing" of Scripture descend than to regard the
drunkenness of Noah as a type of the passion of our
Lord? Augustine's view of the Bible was dominated by his
interest in dogmatic and practical expedients, by his
desire to tone up others in theological opinion and ec
clesiastical discipline. No error jnust be admitted to
have occurred in the canonical writers ; " faith will totter
if the authority of the divine Scriptures wavers." If
anything there seems untrue, Augustine is ready to
hold that the manuscript is corrupt, the version is false ;
or else he cannot understand the passage. And yet he
expressly declares that the whole dispensation of the
Bible is temporal, and he who is himself perfected by
faith, hope, and charity, will have no need of the
Bible, except for instructing and disciplining others !
The scholar, Jerome,* undertook the laudable but
then extremely difficult task of translating the Old
Testament into Latin from the original text, rather
than from the obscure and debased text of* the Greek
version. At the time when he began this task, the
* D, S. S„ ii., p. 115 f

The Views of Jerome. 41
condition of the Latin text in use was most pitiful.
The use of Greek in the West, which had been com
mon in the first centuries of the Christian Church, had
been nearly abandoned. Irresponsible persons had been
recklessly busy with the Latin text ; they had emended
and altered it until it had almost as many forms as
there were manuscripts containing it. The same preju
dice then existed against having traditional errors cor
rected, which has always existed, and which exists even
now. It is not strange, therefore, that the work of
Jerome was done in a timid and vacillating way. Yet,
on the whole, Jerome's translation was a great gift to
the Latin-speaking part of the Christian Church. It
was at the time little appreciated and much decried.
But his wrongs were finally avenged in history ; for this
very translation was in its turn pronounced inspired.
In his view of the nature of the Bible, and in his
interpretation of it, Jerome shared the notions of his
own time. He, too, held that the apparent historical
and moral blemishes of the Old Testament must be
covered over by the allegorical interpretation. The
geographical difficulties of the stations in the wilder
ness he would dispose of in this way : they are to be
interpreted spiritually. How otherwise are we to un
derstand the fact that, according to the chronology of
the Greek version, Methuselah must have lived for
fourteen years after the Flood, and yet did not enter
the ark with Noah ; or the fact that Hagar treats Ish-
niael like a suckling, and carries him on her back, al
though he was eighteen years of age ?
The existence of the so-caUed " school of Antioch,"

42 Jewish and Early Christian Views.
in this period, is a remarkable fact. This school was
noteworthy for the originality and truthfulness of its
methods of interpreting the Bible, and so for the com
parative justness of its view of the nature of the Bible.
Its founder, however, was condemned (although not
until after his death) as a heretic, in a truly infamous
fashion ; its influence upon the doctrine of sacred Scrip
ture in the subsequent history of the Christian Church
was, most unfortunately, of little account. The " school,"
so far as it can appropriately be designated by this title,
is to be referred to the work, in interpreting the Bible,
of Theodore of Mopsuestia (f 429). He was an open
and intelligent opponent of the mystical interpretation.
When he assumed that there are different grades of in
spiration and value in the Hebrew Scriptures,'h"e only
returned to the more ancient view, To all the writings
that go by Solomon's narae, he ascribed only the gift
of wisdom ; he was forced to view these writings in this
way as soon as he abandoned the mystical interpreta
tion. He anticipated the principle which was afterward
-widely adopted, viz., that the fulfilment and not the text
of a prophecy decides as to its Messianic character.
Several pupils in this so-called " school of Antioch,"
were by no means so consistent as its founder had been.
But if we class the great preacher Chrysostom, the
"golden-mouthed" pulpit orator, among their number,
we must assign him a high place indeed. His biblical
culture was genuine and thorough; but like every good
preacher, the practical work of building up Christian
character by use of the Bible was uppermost in his
thought and utterance. He was essentially faithful to

Preparing for the Reformation. 43
the historical meaning of the sacred Hebrew writings ;
his view of the nature of the witness of these writings
to Christ was, therefore, moderate and concessive. Al
though believing in and practicing a minute and rever
ential study of the Bible, Chrysostom thought it enough
to adhere to the general purpose of the writer. . Paul
he regarded as the teacher of the world and the harp
of the Spirit ; but he does not hesitate to say of some
of Paul's words that they were spoken humanly, and
that the apostle did not throughout enjoy grace.
By the close of this period the view of the Christian
Church as to the origin, nature, and right uses of the
Bible had taken that fixed shape in which it was to re
main, substantiaUy unchanged, until the time of more
immediate preparation for the Protestant Eeformation.
The principal characteristics of this view are, that dog
matic considerations determined the ends to be secured,
the opinions to be formed, by the Church's use of the
Bible; while the allegorical interpretation furnished
the means for securing these ends and forming these
opinions. Moreover, the means for limiting the use of
allegory were found in the dogma itself. And so tradi
tion — that is, what the Church had formerly held and
now taught against the sects and heretics — came to be
regarded as authoritative, and in time practically sub
ordinated even the Scriptures themselves.
Meanwhile, the current views as to the nature of in
spiration, and the relation of the two Testaments, un
derwent no essential change. But those portions of
the Old Testament that were found most available for
Christian worship, and for the building up of the re-

44 Jewish and. Early Christian Views.
ligious hfe, became relatively more prominent. These
are especially the Psalms and certain of tbe prophecies.
The ancient and important distinction between canon
ical Scripture and inspired Scripture gradually faded
away. The Church tradition was coming more and
more to take the place of a vital and constant faith
in the indwelling Spirit as teaching the heart of the be
liever through the truth of the dis'ine Word.
For the claims of sober grammatical and historical
interpretation, such as the present age demands of all
Christian scholars, only a few names can be cited in
all this period. But certain influences in the direction
of such an interpretation were left behind by the school
of Antioch, although this school, as a definite, recog
nized movement, had been suppressed. The more dili
gent study and enlarged use of the Bible for the prac
tical ends of the Christian life are the only encouraging
results reached by the growth of the Church's experi
ence during these centuries.
And for centuries after the close of this period, and
indeed until the dawning of the Heformation era ap
pears, the cause of biblical study made almost no prog
ress. It has been said that from the death of Gregory
the Great (604 a.d.) to the age called scholastic, not a
single writer arose who entered upon any independent
path of research. Almost without exception everything
taught about the Bible during these centuries was bor
rowed from the past— chiefly from the great authorities,
Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, etc.
"Interpretation" of the Bible came to consist in
stringing together bits of comment taken from the ear-

spread of Learning. 45
lier fathers, and etymological conceits which made it
possible to find sacred mysteries in scriptural passages
that otherwise have little significance. It is this that
Bede the Yenerable meant when he spoke of the " fer
tility" of Scripture as such that a single verse will often
" fill many pages with the sweetness of its spiritual and
inner meaning." '^ Occasional gleams of sober histor
ical sense, however, may be seen upon the pages of
some of these writers ; and, in rare instances, there ap
pears a token of an appreciation of the difficulties of
the prevalent view. Meanwhile the practical use of the
Bible had lamentably declined.
The value of this practical use of the Bible began some
what raore to be dwelt upon by writers of the twelfth
and succeeding centuries. Thus we are told in a beau
tiful way, by one author of this time, that "faith in Christ
shed abroad in the heart is the lamp and door for the
whole "Bible." The first faint and infrequent rays of
light expand into broader and brighter bands of light
during the two centuries just preceding the Eeforina-
tion. The love of learning was now increasing and
spreading abroad ; the knowledge of Greek and of the
Oriental languages was penetrating the universities, and
chairs for the teaching of this knowledge were being
founded in the great schools, hke those of Paris, Bo
logna, and Salamanca. But it was not the reading of
the Bible by the people which produced the Reforma
tion; it was the Reformation itself which procured the
reading of the Bible.
Two or three names only deserve mention in all these
*D. S. a, ii., p. 140.

46 Jewish and Early Christian Views.
centuries. The sources of scientific information then
being opened were applied to the study of Scripture in
a more noteworthy way by the celebrated work of Nic
olas Lyra (f 1340). It is he of whom a facetious couplet,
in Latin, declared that if this '¦'¦lyre'''' had not played,
Luther would not have danced. Wycliffe, too, has the
high honor of holding the great truth that " all things
necessary in Scripture are contained in its proper literal
and historical sense." He founded his regard for tbe
Old Testament on deference to the authority of Christ.
But even he indulged himself in mysteries and aUego
ries after the fashion of his time.
The influence of Holy Scri])ture was by no means
lost, however, during this age, not inappropriately re
garded as so " dark." Many monks and religious devo
tees saw Christ therein, although they looked through
its words as through a misty atmosphere of dogmatism,
legend, and fable. The people received and were helped
by the biblical truth as it sifted into their minds— mixed,
indeed, with much error— through the homilies of the
preachers of these times.

CHAPTEE II.
FEOM THE EEFOEMATION UNTIL NOW.
The bursting forth of the call to Reformation sent
abroad many new ideas as to the nature of the Bible.
These ideas are to be found permeating, as a kind of
-vital influence, the writings of those great men to whom
the modern age is so much indebted — such as Luther,
Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Calvin. In trying to under
stand the declarations of these raen, however, certain
facts need always to be bome in mind. The age was
one of great ferment of new opinion. The views taken
of the Bible were formed in the heat of the most in
tense partisan controversy. Both Protestants and Ro
man Catholics were pushed to extreraes of sentiraent
and utterance by their conflicts -with each other, and
by the exigencies of the times. The foremost leaders
among the Protestants expressed themselves -with great
strength of conviction rather than with the equable and
calm comprehensiveness which we require of the mod
ern bibhcal scholar.
It is most important to notice that the theological
teachers of the Reformation plainly distinguished be
tween canonical Scripture and the "Word of God"
which it contains. They did this because they desired
to rescue the Gospel from aU the entanghng bonds of
ecclesiastical tradition. This led them to recognize the
(47)

48 Since the Reformation.
Bible, rather than the authority of the Church with its
collection of dogmas and precedents, as giving the rule
of Christian faith and life. It was, therefore, the Bible
as conveying this word of God to every believer which
they wished to elevate to the supreme place of influ
ence and authority.
Luther says many things whieh are quite without
real meaning, unless we understand him as holding the
distinction between the biblical writings and God's
word. He declares that the doctrine of him who
preaches Christ is apostolic, although the preacher were
Judas or Herod. He ranks the books of the Bible ac
cording to the relation which they sustain to the essen
tial truth of the Gospel. The New Testament is to be
placed before the Old ; the Messianic contents of the
Old Testament are to be placed before its other con
tents.. He introduces broad distinctions, based upon
this principle, into the New Testament itself. Of the
Gospel and Epistle of John, the Epistles of Paul — espe
cially to the Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians — he
says: "These are the books which show thee Christ,
and which wUl teach everything which thou needest to
know, although thou never hearest or seest any other
book or doctrine," The truth of the Bible becomes a
" word of God " to us, only as we " consider to whom
the God's-word is spoken."
So, too, it is only in the most general and indefinite
way that Calvin * identifies the Bible with the Word of
God. And when Zwingli claims permanent authority
for the Scriptures, it is of their tmth, especiaUy touching
*D, S, a, u., p, 155,

Difference in the Testaments. 49
the Gospel, that he is speaking. The earlier great sym
bolic statements of the Eeforniation — including the
Augsburg Confession, and the Major Catechism — dis
tinguish between the written Bible and the divine mes
sage which it, as a vessel, holds. It was in view of this
distinction that these reformers regarded Scripture as
the source of authority, as a "fountain," a "judge," a
" test-stone " of Christian doctrine and practice.
The perspicuity of Scripture was also made promi
nent by the Swiss and German reformers of the six
teenth century. This doctrine, as it was held by Luther
and other teachers, before it hardened into a dogma,
was very closely related to the distinction between ca
nonical -writings and the Word of God. The Bible is
clear enough, Luther held, so far as the spiritual neces
sities of the behever are concerned. It interprets itself
by raeans of its central tmths.
On the difference of the two Testaments and the in
feriority of the Old, Luther is very emphatic* He
held fast by the undoubted truth that " the twofold
nature of the divine Word as law and gospel " corre
sponds to the historical process of salvation. The law
of Moses, as such, has no apphcabUity to Christians;
even the observance of the Ten Commandments is ob
ligatory siraply because they give "the natural moral
law which is nowhere else so well set forth and written
down as by Moses." His language upon this point is
sometimes coarse and offensive. " We will neither see
nor hear of Moses," he declares, " for Moses was given
only to the Jewish folk, and does not extend to us
*D, 8, 8,, ii., p, 160 f.

50 Since the Reformation.
heathens and Christians." " If any one brings up he
fore you Moses with his laws, and wiU compel you to
keep them, teU him, Go to the Jews with your Moses :
I am no Jew ; leave me unperplexed by Moses." The
view of Melanchthon was, however, that law and gospel
extend throughout the whole Bible, and are as insepa
rable as the two cherubim upon the ark. Zwingli held
the same ideal conception of the law. But Calvin held
both views in some sort. He regarded Old and New Tes
taments as alike constituting the Word of God ; yet he
taught that, for the rule of right living, nothing can be
derived from Moses beyond the Decalogue. A spirit
ual unity of the truth 'of the two Testaments was as
serted by all the reformers.
Eegarding the question, whether the Bible is infal
lible, the views of Luther are highly inconsistent with
each other, if we consider only the apparent meaning
of his words. In one place he vehemently affirms that
one letter of the Scripture is of more consequence than
heaven and earth ; and exclaims, "' God forbid that
there should be a single letter in Paul which the whole
Church should not foUow and keep." But he himself
rejects as faulty and raistaken, not only certain passages
of Scripture, but even entire books as respects their re
ligious doctrine. He declares that he cannot make out
that the book of Revelation is the product of the Holy
Ghost, and affirms that any one raay call him a "fool"
who can make James and Paul square ; while the epis
tle of the former is in his estimate a "right strawy"
one. He also made light of Jude. He regarded Ec
clesiastes as composed of several books which Sirach

Iiresence of Historical Errors. 5 1
found in the hbrary of Egypt and put together ; and
said of the author of Ezra and Nehemiah that " he
Estherizes and Mordecaizes in a wonderful fashion."
Irreconcilable contradictions in the historical and
other particulars of the Bible seemed to Luther of
httle importanee so long as there was no contradic
tion in the articles of faith. Zwingli admitted the ex
istence of historical eiTors, but considered them de
signed by God in His plan of educating the people.
The penetrating insight of Calvin was such as enabled
him to see that the nature of the Old-Testament
Scriptures is necessarily inferior and temporary because
they were designed to train the world for the coming
of Christ.
The faUing into disrepute of the aUegorical inter
pretation gave an opportunity for the greater exercise
of a sober historical sense ; at the same time it made
more obvious the difficulty of admitting that historical
and other discrepancies and erroi-s exist in the Bible.
For when pressed with this difficulty the ancient re
sort to spiritualizing and mystical meanings was taken
away. Thus did the eamest and strong spiritual movements
of the Reformation express themselves -with refer.enee
to the nature and origin of sacred Scripture. But we
shall soon see how, under the influence of practical
needs in the conflict whieh arose between Protestantism
and Roman Catholicism, the distinction between canon
ical writings and God's word was abandoned, and the
views of the early reformers modified and hardened
into the later dogmatic form. The truth is, that these

52 Since the Reformation.
views, proclaimed as they at first were, in conflict with
the Roman Cathohc principle of tradition, contained,
themselves, the elements of a yet fiercer, internal con
fiict. According to the Protestant position, ihe Bible
alone is authoritative and sufficient, concerning things
necessary to salvation, both as respects faith and as
respects morals. But, according to a Roman Catholic
authority (Bellarmine), and according to the decision
of the Council of Trent, "the whole doctrine which
is necessary, whether as respects faith or as respects
morals, is Tiot contained in the Scriptures." By the au
thority of Scripture the early reformers understood
themselves to be affirming that the truth of the Gospel
is authoritatively taught in Scripture. By the suffi
ciency of Scripture they understood that any believer,
without the aid of church or clergy, may find enough
of this truth clearly set forth in the Bible to ensure his
salvation and safely to form thereby his Christian life.
Such authority and sufficiency of the Word of God in
Holy Scripture, Protestantism affirmed and Roman
Catholicism denied.
Now, it is obvious that many very puzzling questions
may be proposed to this essentially true doctrine of the
early reformers. Who, for example, is to tell us what
writings really belong to Holy Scripture, and what do
not? Who, moreover, shall interpret the Bible au
thoritatively, and actuaUy derive from it correct state
ments of doctrine and rules for the Christian life?
Must every unlearned believer undertake this for him
self? If so, what becomes of the Bible's actual author
ity, not to say its infallibility ?

Protestant and Catholic Positions. 53
The careful student of the history of the Protestant
Reformation will observe that both parties in this great
controversy came finally to hold one common erroneous
and mischievous view. Both adopted the assumption
that God must have left some " infallible," that is er
rorless, guide for the Christian, to which he raay re
sort for detaUed and explicit instruction as to what is
true for him to think and right for him to do. The
extreme Protestant position was at last even more un
reasonable and untenable than the Roman Catholic
position had been. But the Protestant position had
this immeasurable advantage : that it was capable of
being abandoned without damage to the essential doc
trine or life of Protestantism.
It is not necessary to trace in detail the process by
which the "^os^-Ref ormation " view of the origin and
nature of the Bible was developed. It is enough to say
that once more in the history of the Christian Church the
prevalent dogma was hardened so as to serve as an effect
ive weapon in a conflict with those she regarded as her
enemies. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that
this dogmatic view of the Bible, though current among
Protestant theologians, was wholly undisputed. Doubts,
grumblings, and denials are to be found in every Chris
tian land and in every sect of Protestantism. Prevalent
as it was, the dogma did not secure acceptance in any
Protestant symbols of note, with one or two compara
tively unimportant exceptions.
Meantime some Christian scholars were engaged in
the study of the Bible ; they were learning the facts,
and were unwilling to refuse to recognize the meaning

54 Since the Reformation.
of the facts, for the sake of having a good fighting
weapon in the shape of a dogma of biblical infallibil
ity. Gradually at first, and then more rapidly, point
after point this ^os^Reform ation dogma was forced to
give way.
In their conflict with Roman Catholicism on the one
hand, and with unbelief on the other hand, the Protest
ant theologians, from about 1600 a.d. to 1T50 a.d., were
not content with the view of the Bible taken by the
early and great reformers. These theologians regarded
the absolute infallibility and equal inspiration of all
parts of the Bible as a necessary assumption of faith.
They held that the belief and life of the Christian are
related to a certain set of writings in such a way that,
if a single error of any kind whatever — even the slight
est grammatical blemish — were admitted to exist in
these writings, this belief would totter to its fall, this
life would surely go entirely astray.
The entire method of approach to the inquiry, What
is the Bible ? was thus cut off from all connection with
fact or experience touching God's ways of dealing with
men in other matters. No safe answer to the inquiry
could then be devised on the basis of an examination into
the facts of the Bible, or even of a free and fair examin
ation into the claims of the Bible. Nor could this
particular collection of writings be regarded as related in
any intelligible raanner to other writings of prophetic
and apostolic men. For the so-called canonical books,
and they alone, were to be considered, without the ex
ception of a single verse or word, as put into the minds
of the writers — ready-made, as it were. And if the in-

Factors of post- Reformation Dogma. 55
quiry were raised, " How do we know that such is the
origin and trae nature of the Bible ? " the only answer
to be given was, " It is a necessary assumption of faith."
The foregoing description applies to the most extreme
form of the j?os!^Reformation opinion regarding the
nature of the biblical writings. In some particulars cer
tain of its advocates showed more or less disposition to
soften this dogma, or occasionaUy to depart from it.
But in all essential characteristics the dogma was and
remained, until overthrown, the same as described above.
It so remained, we have said, until overthrown, for
although marks of its influence still abound everywhere,
as a compacted opinion it is now defended by no bibli
cal scholars, and by few theologians whose judgments are
entitled to respect.
The jJos^Eeformation dogma made the Bible include
— ^in the case of every book, passage, word, and letter —
the three following elements : * First. An impulse to
write. This impulse was invariably given in the form of a
divine command. All the canonical books must come
from God moving and impelling the sacred writers to
their work. Any other impulses, such as the occasion
to be met by a letter or prophecy, were of secondary
iraportance, and could not, of themselves, constitute the
call to write.
Second. Suggestion of subject-matter by the Holy
Ghost was necessary to the inspiration of every portion
of the Bible. AU things contained in Scripture— even
the facts immediately kno-wn to the writers in the nat
ural way, or acquirable from others by ordinary meth-
* D. 8. 8., ii„ p. 209.

56 Since the Reformation.
ods — were consigned to letters only through infallible,
divine direction, and by special suggestion, inspiration,
and dictation of the Holy Ghost. If it were admitted
that the contents of a single verse were produced other
wise — for example, the request of Paul to bring his
cloak, or the statement that " Tirana was a concubine"
— it would be easy for Satan to extend this omission
to a whole chapter or book, and so destroy the entire
authority of Scripture.
But especially was suggestion of the words held to be
necessary to the inspiration of the Bible. The identi
cal words, all and in particular, were supphed and dic
tated to the writers by the Holy Ghost. Verbal and
grammatical errors as well as all inelegancies of style,
must be denied as unworthy of the Divine Spirit, wbo
is throughout the primary author of the Bible. To
so great lengths was a section of the Christian Church
carried in its blind fear that God could not, as an ever-
living and indwelling Spirit, keep His Church from
fatal error in doctrine, or from swerving from the right
path in life !
Such a theory as has just been described could not
fail to influence greatly, and in a detrimental way,
the interpretation and practical uses of sacred Scrip-
ture. Substantially the same thing happened again
which had already happened in the earlier centuries
of the history of the Church. The theologians who
invented this dogma about the Bible sought to
determine, in accordance with the dogma, precisely
what truths every reader should find taught in the
Bible. They were not wilhng to leave the question,

The Bible and Proof- Texts. 5 7

What is the Bible? to the researches of Christian
scholars, who should thus give to it a better and better
answer as increased acquaintance was gained with the
facts. They even undertook to instruct the unlearned
believer that no discrimination must be made, with re
spect to their moral fallibility, between the doctrine of
Christ in the New Testament and things in the Old
Testament repugnant to his Christian consciousness.
Especially strong and dominating was the tendency
among those who held this dogma to regard the en
tire Bible as a kind of theological parade-ground for
proof -texts. A large portion of all its books thus be
came pre-empted, as it were, and appropriated for the
defense of the system of dogmatic statements which the
theology of the time deemed orthodox. It was the nurn-
ber of such proof-texts which was chiefly regarded. The
words of the Bible were not weighed and valued accord
ing to the source from which they came — whether from
Christ or from Paul, from Solomon or the author of
Chronicles or of Ezra. AU passages were to be regarded
as ahke weighty in arguing any doctrine or opinion
which they seemed to maintain.
But distrust and remonstrance existed even during
the century and a half of the prevalence of the posf-
Eeformation view of the Bible. Some of this oppo
sition came from scholars who through the progress of
a revived interest in ancient literature and its inteipre-
tation had learned how to study the Bible in the original
languages, and with the use of the few grammatical and
historical helps then existing. It was, from the very
nature of the case, the text of the Bible with reference

58 Since the Reformation.
to which the results of identifying the Word of God
'with the canonical writings had reached their most ex
travagant dimensions. Accordingly the gro'wing knowl
edge of the origin and condition of the biblical text be
came, from the first, a high and impassable tripping-
stone for the prevalent doctrine of biblical infallibility.
A work which appeared in Paris in 1633, by John
Morinus, attempted to show how " the original Hebrew
text has been so corrupted that it cannot serve as the
source and norm of Scripture." * Another work, fin
ished about the same time, but not pubhshed till later
(1650, by Cappellus), laid down certain rules for the
correction of the Hebrew text, while insisting that none
of the variations in it affect the important things of faith
and conduct. The impossibUity of establishing an in
fallible text of the Bible became raore clearly seen as
the -view, put forth and defended in the previous cen
tury by a German Jew (1538, by Elias Levita), was
demonstrated, viz. : that the current Hebrew vowels
belong to a tirae much later than that of the original
authors. To every statement of facts the theologians
replied with vehement denial and charges of heresy.
The inspiration even of the Hebrew vowel-points was
considered by them as a necessity of religious faith. It
was asserted by sorae theorists that the origin of these
written signs was as old as Adam. " It is impious and
profane audacity," says that bitter dogmatist Calovius,
" to change a single point in the Word of God, and to
substitute a smooth breathing for a rough one, or a
rough for a smooth." This same theologian is said to
*D, 8. S., ii., p. 187.

Growth of Natural Science. 59
have uttered the daily prayer : " Fill me, O God, with a
hatred of heretics." But in spite of all this, as we might
expect, the truth of the facts kept winning its way.
It had been an accepted principle with the early re
formers that an interpreter of the Bible must have a
knowledge of the languages in which it was written.
But the study of Hebrew by raeans of grammatical and
philological helps is incompatible with the view that He
brew is a divine language with its very dots and vowel-
points inspired and full of religious secrets. Scholars,
therefore, began to take the position that this language
is genuinely human and analogous to other Semitic lan
guages. The science now called "higher criticism," or
Biblical Introduction, began to be formed; and the
historical conditions under which the biblical writings
originated, and by which they were shaped, were more
taken into account.
Natural science also began to press its inquiries upon
the statements of the Bible. As the claims of science
to possess the truth about the phenomena and laws of
nature grew bolder and scientific information increased
in extent, the^o«^Eeforination theory either totally re
jected those clairas and scouted this information, or else
resorted to a kind of weak rationalizing. Such rational
izing resulted, in turn, in a defense of Scripture by
naturalistic explanations wholly foreign, as every candid
reader can see, to the thought of the writers of Scrip
ture theraselves. This habit of rationalizing is by no
means extinct even now. Thus we have recently seen
the raining of fire from heaven upon the wicked cities
of the plain defended as consisting of the firing and

6o Since the Reformation.
explosion of petroleum wells in the -vicinity of those
cities. The theory of an infallible " letter " also provoked
the opposition of certain sects of enthusiasts and mys
tics, such as the Pietists in Germany and the Quakers
in England. Some of these sects were therefore moved
to exaggerate greatly the distinction between the Word
of God and the written Bible, — a distinction which the
early reformers recognized, but which the j?05^Refor-
mation theory considered extremely heretical. Some
even called the orthodox theologians " slaves of the
letter." Others, more raoderate, diligently studied the
Bible with a view to find how all its parts, being spirit
ually understood, might be used for edification. Pie
tism in Germany thus produced a great glow of critical
zeal in the interpretation of the Bible.
English Deisra, of course, set itself against the view
of the Bible taken by the dogmatic theology of the
period. Its attitude was essentiaUy destructive. It
tended to regard the Hebrew religion as only one
among many; and some of its leaders (like. Morgan
and Chubb) utterly discredited both the supernatural
and the moral basis of the Old Testament as weU as
the supernatural basis of the New.
But nowhere else in all this tirae, probably, do we
find individual examples of opinion at once so faithful
to the spirit of biblical Christianity, and also so fair
^and hospitable toward the facts, as among the Dissent
ers in England. The pious and learned Richard Baxter,
whose memory may well be cherished hy English-speak
ing Christians to-day, is notable among these examples.

The Views of Baxter. 6i
Baxter rejected the view that all parts of the Bible are
alike infallible and important; some parts, he held,
may be compared to the naUs and the hair in the hu
man bodily organism. Only Christ is infallible; the
apostles were not inspired so as to be infallible in mat
ters not pertaining to their mission of promulgating
the Gospel as Christ himself had taught it. The Old
Testament originated in a lower form of revelation.
Men are not to be tempted to accept or reject as the
very word of God what they cannot in good reason or
good conscience hold to be true. The truth of Scrip
ture is the very Word of God.
Nor did Baxter appear to think that his opinions must
be concealed from unleai-ned Christians lest they might
be turned from their faith by hearing them expressed.
On the contrary, he appeared to think that the faith of
the unlearned will be strengthened by teaching them
to distinguish between the essential object of faith and
theological dogmas as to the nature and origin of the
writings which present this object. For in his work
called " Catechising of Families, or a Teacher of
Householders," among other similar truths, we find the
following: "And here I must tell you a great and
needful truth which, ignorant Christians fearing to
confess, by overdoing, tempt men to infidelity. The
Scripture is like a man's body, where some parts are
but for the preservation of the rest, and may be maimed
without death ; the sense is the soul of Scripture, and
the letter but the body or vehicle. The doctrine of the
Creed, Lord's Prayer and Decalogue, and baptism and
Lord's Supper, is the vital part and Christianity itself.

62 Since the Reformation.
The Old-Testament letter (written, as we have it, about
Ezra's time,) is that vehicle which is as imperfect as
the revelation of those times was, .... so that he
that doubts of the tmth of some words of the Old
Testament, or of some small circumstantials in the
New, hath no reason, therefore, to doubt of that
Christian religion of which these writings are but
the vehicle or body, sufficient to ascertain us of the
truth of the history and doctrine." * Would not far
fewer raen have been " tempted to infidelity," if Rich
ard Baxter's views and method of instruction had
been more widely followed in the pulpit and in the
family ?
PhUip Doddridge also did not consider that the in
spiration of the bibhcal books excluded all errors, un
less it were of the kind called "plenary"; and he did
not even consider that all the New Testament was
written under this " plenary " inspiration. Inspiration
is to be assumed to be plenary in the "case of the apos
tles ; but in their case only when there is no evidence
to the contrary. Scattered notices and hints occurring
in the writings of various Puritan authors, both in
England and in America — especiaUy after the begin
ning of the seventeenth century — show the ferment of
thought and the result of increasing biblical study in
undermining the untenable positions of the Jjos^-Refor-
mation dogma. These Puritan writers also exhibit a
marked tendency to exalt the Christian reason and con
science — that instrument of aU well-founded faith in
God aud Christ which is in these days dreaded and de-
*D. 8. 8., u., p. 212f.

Development of Rationalism. (53

cried by some under the term, " the Christian conscious
ness" — to the position of interpreter of the Bible.
Indeed, it can scarcely be denied that some of these
writers almost co-ordinate this Christian reason with the
Bible as a source of divine trath, in place of either the
consensus of the early Church or the " analogy of faith "
of the later Reformation theology.
It was not, however, until about the year 1Y50 a.d.
and afterward, that the theory which we have called
the "jJos^Reformation," began more obviously to go
to pieces under the blows dealt it by an advancing
science of biblical study.
A shallow, foaraing tide of rationalism had set in and
spread itself over England and the Continent. This tide
those who had most strenuously maintained the super
natural origin and character of biblical religion, found
themselves powerless to resist; and many theologians
really succumbed to it by falling in with its most essential
but most vicious tendencies. Then the work of restor
ing an ethical and spiritual character to biblical rehgion
was undertaken afresh. In accomplishing this work it
became necessary to have a raore complete and harmoni
ous union of effort on the part of all those who owned
a real allegiance to such ethical and spiritual character.
Quibbles about the infallibUity of the minutiae of the
text or of the geographical, geological, and historical
statements of the Bible, might well seem less important
as the greater necessity pressed upon all.
It finally became settled beyond dispute that the He
brew in which the Old-Testament writings have come
down to us has not been preserved from manifold cor-

64 Since the Reformation.
ruptions, either by supematural control or by extraordi
nary providential care through the pious Jews of ancient
time. But it also became clear that the " received He
brew text,"' so-called, is, on the whole, more accurate, and
has a higher value than the text of any of the other an
cient versions of the Old Testament. Now, the desire to
purify the text of sacred Scripture is a legitimate result
of the essential idea of Protestantism ; but the attempt
to repress and restrict the efforts arising from this de
sire is an equally legitimate result of the^os^Reforma-
tion theory of inspiration. It was, therefore, natural
and inevitable for the theory of infaUible verbal inspira
tion that it should seize upon the so-called " received
text " of the New Testament and make a stand to de
fend it against further attempts at improvement. But
that has happened in the case of the text of the New
Testament which has happened in the case of the Old.
The right of biblical study to purify the text has been
recognized. The progress of research into the real natnre of the
Hebrew and Greek texts of sacred Scripture could not
fail to discredit the j?os^Reformation theory of inspira
tion ; for textual criticisra raade it obvious that infalli
bUity and certainty in no respect belong to any text re
coverable by us. The following question is then inevi
table : If God did not intend to preserve a perfectly
certain and errorless verbal form of Holy Scripture for
the use of His Church, why should He create such a
form at the first ? Why should the Holy Spirit dictate
an exact set of words in which to state facts of history
or religious opinions and tenets, when careless copy-

jrrogress oj moizcal. Study. 65
ists and dim-eyed scribes and officious meddlers, and the
gnawing tooth of time and the power of human infirm
ities, were all to be allowed at once and through aU
the centuries to perform upon these words their work
of alteration and corruption ? Faith will totter, the
theory declares, if we do not assume that the original
biblical text was infaUible ; but faith does not totter,
when we find that the biblical text we have is not in
faUible. Meanwhile, the progress of biblical study was rapidly
undermining the same dogma of bibhcal infallibility
in other ways. The making of grammars and lexicons
of the Old- and New-Testament languages, and the use
of these helps in the study of the sacred writings, brought
to light all the various linguistic peculiarities of the
inspired authors. It became certain that these authors
were not mere "penmen" or " amanuenses," or "no
taries " of the Holy Ghost ; that they have not only in
dividual peculiarities of style, but also aU the obscm-ities
and frailties which everywhere cling to human speech.
The historical study of the canonical books, and the
development of what is known as the " higher criti
cism," served also to show the artificial and untenable
character of the prevalent theory. The individual
books of the Bible were subjected to the methods which
are employed to determine the authorship of other an
cient writings. The effort was made to regard these
books in the light of the time at which, and the circum
stances amidst which, they severally originated. It is
this, indeed, which the so-caUed "higher" criticism
avowedly aims to accomphsh. At the same time the

66 Since the Reformation.
history of the formation of the Canon became more
thoroughly understood. The result of all this historical
study was clearly to show that the writings of Holy
Scripture were composed and brought together into one
book in a manner quite irreconcUable with the post-
Reformation theory.
The result of more than a century of inquiry into the
authorship of the separate writings of sacred Scripture
has shown that a number of thera have undoubtedly
been ascribed by ancient usage to the wrong persons.
We have seen that the non-Mosaic authorship of the
Pentateuch, in its present form, was known by Richard
Baxter. " What difference does it make," asked Luther
in his Table-Talk, " if Moses did not himself write the
Pentateuch?" To this question the answer has been
correctly given by modern scholarship: It makes no
difference with the faith of the Christian, or -with his
use of the Bible as an authoritative source for things
necessary to salvation, both as respects faith and morals.
It does, however, make an important and essential dif
ference with the j?(>s^Reformation view of the origin
and nature of the Bible. The effect of scholarly opinion
as to the impossibility or improbability of connecting
various other books of the Bible — Isaiah, Ezra, Nehe
miah, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Canticles — -with
the persons whose names tradition has selected as their
authors, has been in the same direction.
The historical study of the formation of the Canon
has also caUed attention to the hesitating way in which
the Jewish Church came to establish its circuit of ac
knowledged sacred hterature. More influential, per-

Influence of Sernler and Herder. 61
haps, has been the growing knowledge of the fact that
certaiu books, which are now regarded as integral parts
of the Bible, were admitted to the Canon but doubt
fully, and were at first and for a long time regarded as
belonging decidedly in an inferior rank.
The growth of literary sense and literary criticism
has also not been without considerable influence npon
the fate of the ^os^Eef ormation theory. It was Semler
and Herder who did most at the beginning of the pres
ent century to develop regard for the Bible as liter
ature which should be studied and appreciated from the
literary point of view. Both of these scholars, as well
as all others who afterward studied it largely from the
sarae point of view, rejected the theory of its infallible
and verbal inspiration. Now, although neither Christian
theology nor Christian experience has accepted the view
that the writings of Holy Scripture are merely liter
ature, the consideration of them in their literary aspect,
and from the literary point of standing, has without
doubt greatly modified the accepted doctrine of their
origin and nature.
The spread of the methods and spirit of modern
physical science, and its greater recent triumphs, have
also exercised no little infiuence upon the opinion
prevalent as to the inspiration of the Bible. It is
no longer possible to demonstrate that the earth does
not move around the sun by simply appealing to the
narrative of the miracla in Joshua ; or to disprove the
conclusions of geology as to the antiquity of the earth,
and the slow process of its formation, by pointing out
that Moses teaches the creation of all things in six days

68 Since the Reformation.

of twenty-four hours. Indeed, the current theological
argument has becorae reversed in a way most astonish
ing when viewed in the light of the ^os^Ref orraation
theory. This theory held that geology cannot be right
if, in the slightest particular, it contradicts the infallible
dictation of the Holy Spirit to Moses. But the raodera
defense of Scripture admits -without a question that
geology is right, and then tries to show how the words
of Genesis may possibly be understood so as to accord
with the undoubted conclusions of physical science.
The complete reversal of stand-point shows a marked
change in current opinion as to the true and defensible
doctrine of sacred Scripture.
A largely increased knowledge of the history and
hterature of the ancient nations contemporaneous with
the times when the biblical writings arose, has operated
greatly to modify the opinions of men in respect to the
nature of these writings. The records of the peoples
which surrounded the Jews, and -with which they had
most frequent intercourse, have, in modern times, been
zealously explored. Many traditions of the earliest
things of the earth and of humanity — traditions of the
Creation, of the Fall, of the Flood, of the origin and
early growth of civilization — have now been brought to
hght. The remarkable simUarity of sorae of these tra
ditions to the narratives in the early chapters of Genesis
has suggested a common origin for both. Syria, Assyria,
and Egypt, as well as ancient _ Palestine itself, have
yielded up some of their hitherto concealed treasures of
ancient story. The general impression made by these
discoveries has been that of the trustworthiness, in the

New Views of Biblical Religion. 69
main, of the biblical historical books ; it has not beeft
such, however, as to confirra that dogmatic assumption
of biblical infallibility upon which the^os^-Eef or mation
theory rested.
New views of biblical religion and a change of pre
dominating interest and of the balance of power, so to
speak, among its doctrines, have also greatly modified
the opinions of Christian scholars and theologians con
ceming the origin and nature of the Bible. The use of
the Bible for the teaching and practical guidance of
Christians and for the dissemination of the truth of the
Gospel, has vastly increased. At the same time the
weight of emphasis has been slipping off from the dogma
of its inspiration. As a book of the Spirit, it has lost
none of its ancient power ; it will never lose this power
as long as the Spirit who dwells with believers speaks
through the Book to their reason and conscience, and
thus inspires them to new spiritual life. But it is no
longer held by the enUghtened scholar or theologian
that faith will totter if mistakes or faulty opinions are
anywhere discernible in the Bible. It is not true, as
the ^05^Reformation dogma disloyally asserted — that
Satan can enter into Holy Scripture and ravage it
utterly, through the gap of a single historical error.
Under such infiuences as those just mentioned, the
^ost Reformation theory has tottered and fallen — a ruin
complete so far as its own compacted and well-cemented
structure is concerned. But no equally elaborate and
self -consistent doctrine of sacred Scripture has arisen to
take its place. Certain impressions which entered into
the theory — impressions both trae and false — are still

70 Since the Reformation.
profoundly influential; they largely determine that
view of his Bible and its right uses whieh guides the
unlearned Christian of to-day. But what are the lessons
of the facts of history ? How shall we shape our answer
to the question, What is the Bible \ in view of the opin
ions held by the Church of Christ in all the centuries
of its experience with the Bible? We reply with the
following summary of conclusions.
1. No elaborate doctrine of the nature of sacred
Scripture has yet been constructed and adopted by the
Christian Church at large. This state of the case is, in
])art., due to the character of the question, in answer to
which any such doctrine would have to be constructed.
The question. What is the Bible ? is essentially a ques
tion of facts ; but the facts require for their exploration
the use of methods and resources which have only com
paratively recently been within the reach of Christian
scholars. 2. History shows that certain untenable opinions, for
eign to the essence of biblical religion and uncongenial
to the spirit of true Christianity, have repeatedly forced
their way into the doctrinal views of the Church regard
ing the Bible. The theory of the composition of in
spired writings in a condition of prophetic ecstasy, the
allegorical interpretation of the bibhcal histories and of
its moral maxims and wise sayings, the theory of a special
infallible inspiration operative within the minds of
a select few and directed toward the production of sacred
writings only, the theory of a divine suggestion of all
the particular contents and individual words of these
writings, the belief that faith is dependent upon the

Bible and Word of God. 71
errorless nature of those records of the process of reve
lation which discloses to us the true object of faith, — all
these are opinions of such untenable or foreign char
acter. No teaching of history is more important than
this legitimate negative conclusion ; none of these opin
ions can be enforced in the name of the Holy Church
catholic. 8. Nor can it be said that the Christian Church has
even agreed to identify, throughout, the circuit of
canonical writings and the " Word of God." In any
legitimate meaning of the terms, it is not truly catholic
doctrine that the ^^Bible is the word qf God." To
put the proclamation of the Gospel and the apostoUc
teaching of the person, inission, and work of Jesus
Christ npon a par with, the Song of Solomon, with the
traditions of the first chapters of Genesis, with the
worldly-wise maxims of Proverbs, or with the priestly
minutiae and genealogizings of Ezra, Nehemiah, and
Chronicles as being alike the " Word of God," is cer
tainly not required in fidehty to the consent of the body
of Christian witnesses. Such complete dogmatic identifi
cation of the Bible and the Word of God has never
been attempted except by the so-caUed^o«^Reformatiou
theory of biblical inspiration. It is contrary to the views
held by the ancient Church regarding the nature of
extra-canonical hooks, regarding the nature of some of
the canonical books as inferior to others, and so unfit to
be used for the estabUshment of doctrine, regarding the
nature of the apostolic witness, and regarding the natnre
of the inspiration of the Church. It is contrary not
only to' the expressed opinioas of some of the early and

72 Since the Reformation.

great reformers, but also to the principles upon which
the Reformation movement was based. That it is
directly contrary to the tendencies of that modern bibli
cal study under which the ^os^Ref orra ation theory has
itself broken into fragments, is beyond reasonable ques
tion. 4. An exceedingly unstable condition of opinion in
answer to the question. What is the Bible ? no doubt
still exists. A great variety of views upon various points
prevails among the community of most intelligent and
pious Christian scholars. This is the inevitable outcome
of the past course of the history of this doctrine. But
such variety of views does not signify either that the
Christian Church has maintained no consistent docti-ine
touching any of the qualities and offices of the
Bible, or that the attempt to forra a tenable theory of
the nature and origin of sacred Scripture cannot suc
ceed at the present time. Some things the body of
Christian students of the biblical writings, learned and
unlearned, have in all tiraes agreed upon as true. A
brief statement of these matters of common agreement
will therefore fitly terminate this branch of our in
quiry. 5. The Christian Church has always regarded it as the
most priceless and indispensable office of sacred Scrip
ture to be a witness to the person, doctrine, aud work
of Christ. So far as the Old Testament is concerned,
the precise nature of this witness has been much dis
puted. Sometimes it has been found to consist, in part,
in mystical meanings to the scarlet thread of Rahab, or
to the number of Abraham's servants. The naore en-

The Bible and Revelation. 73
lightened mind of to-day sees that it consists in the his
torical preparation for His coming, and in the historical
development which the Divine Spirit secured to that
idea of God as the Redeemer of men which Christ ful
filled. The New Testament has always been regarded
as containing the authentic and authoritative witness of
the apostles to Christ's person, doctrine, and work. In
spite of all the assaults of modern infidelity against the
idea of a self-revelation of God as the Redeemer of
man, and in spite of all the assaults of modern hostile
criticism against the genuineness and credibility of the
New-Testament writings, the view of the Church cath
olic remains unchanged.
6. Closely connected with the foregoing view of the
nature of the Bible, is that which regards it as contain
ing an authentic record of a special divine revelation.
It is this work of the Holy Spirit, in gradually making
God known to men as their Father and Redeemer,
I which has given us the Bible. The Bible is the authentic
record of this revelation. By the biblical writings we
kiiow that God has revealed Himself to man in a spe
cial manner ; we know also what He has revealed Him
self as being and doing for them in their great need
and sinfulness ; we further know the main stages and
the outlines of the progress of this revelation ; and we
know Mim as the Redeemer in Jesus Christ. But,
above all, is it true that Holy Scripture has always
been regarded by the Christian Church as giving an
authentic record of her own founding by Christ, through
the work of the apostles and apostolic men, upon faith
in Him as God's Son and our Saviour.

74 Since the Reformation.
1. It foUows, then, that the Bible has always been
regarded .as an authentic and authoritative source of
Christian doctrine. What is biblical religion, and what
the biblical standard of right living as respects both
God and man ? More especially : what is true Christi
anity, and what should a Christian believe and do that
he may be faithful to the divine standard ? The trust
worthy and authoritative answer to these questions is
to be obtained frora the sacred writings of the Old and
New Testaments. This answer is not found in these
writings in the form of a symbolic statement or system
of theological tenets ; it must be obtained from them.
Nor can it be obtained by any one, learned or un
learned, without the use of his enlightened reason and
conscience ; or with a completeness and certainty which
are independent of painstaking research and thought.
Moreover, the Protestant doctrine of sacred Scripture
insists upon the answer which comes to these questions
from the Bible as being alone fully trustworthy and
authoritative ; in this regard, then, it differs from the
view taken of sacred Scripture by the Roman-Catholic
Church. 8. Still further, the conviction of the profitableness
of the biblical writings for training and strengthening
the religious hfe, and for the uses of Christian worship
by the individual, and in the family and public assem
bly, raay be said to be a matter common to the different
ages and portions of the Christian Church. It is true,
however, that for centuries, and in considerable por
tions of the Church, this profit from the Bible has been
only very indirectly and meagrely secured. Preaching,

The Bible and Spiritual Life. 75
exhortation, and paraphrase have always very largely,
and sometimes almost exclusively, taken the place of
the believer's immediate intercourse with the Spirit
through sacred Scripture.
9. Finally, it is one permanent element of the view
taken of the Bible by the Christian Church, that its
constitution is due to a movement of divine spiritual
life, which has acted in a quickening and organizing
way within the body of believers. This is the essential
thing in every doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible.
The spirit which produced the sacred writings is the
same Holy Spirit which enlightens the mind of the be
lieving reader of these writings, and thus spirit answers
to spirit as he reads. At no time, except during the
dominance of the ^os^Reformation dogma over the
greater part of Protestantism, has the " inspiration " of
the authors of sacred Scripture been regarded as spe
cifically different in kind from that possessed by other
believers, or as given to them solely for the purpose of
fitting them to compose an Infallible Bible.

CHAPTER III.
THE VIEWS OF THE BIBLICAI. WEITEES.
That the writings of the New Testament furnish us
with no doctrine regarding the origin and nature of the
Bible, follows necessarily from the fact that the last of
these writings was finished some time before the canon,
as a whole, was settled. On the contrary, the canon
of the Old Testament was essentially fixed at the
time when the New-Testament writings arose. We
can therefore only inquire what view some of the New-
Testament writers took of sacred Scripture — ^its origin
and nature — such Scripture being exemplified in the
canonical books of the Hebrew Bible. As Christians we
shall, of course, attach supreme iraportance to the teach
ings of Christ and the apostles.
The view which the Christian Church takes of the
person of our Lord, defines our attitude toward Him as
a teacher upon the particular doctrine now under con
sideration. His word is authoritative and infallible re
garding aU the truths of salvation. But we cannot
safely overlook one very important caution.
We should be very careful not hastily to commit the
authority of Christ to trivialities now in dispute araong
biblical critics and commentators. Because He refers
to Jonah, for example, without apparently questioning
the historical nature of the narrative of the transactions
of this prophet, it does not follow that His authority
(76)

The Teaching of Christ. 77
may be pledged to one of several theories as to the na
ture of the book in which the narrative occurs. Be
cause, again. He refers to a certain prophetic declaration
as " fulfilled in Himself," it does not follow that His
authority may be pledged to one among several views
as to the wa/y in which the declaration was understood
by the prophet who made it, or the way in which it
was fulfiUed by Himself as Messiah.
There can be no doubt that our Lord looked upon
the canonical Hebrew Scriptures as sacred.* He ex
presses this view by His frequent use of the titles
whieh carry the idea of sacredness with them, and also
by His whole attitude toward those Scriptures. They
are regarded by Him as the (pre-eminently sacred)
" Scriptures " (see John v. 39, x. 35 ; Matt. xxvi. 54), the
" Scriptures of the prophets " (Matt. xxvi. 56). More
over, He apparently never makes any reference, as do
some of the fathers of the ancient Church, to items of
history or doctrine in Jewish books outside of the canon.
But in what way did Christ regard the Old Testa^
ment as pre-eminently sacred Scripture ? We find in
His teachings no discussion of the nature of inspiration
or revelation, and few- hints which can properly be
used by us to throw light on the discussion of these
subjects as now current among us. But He constantly
taught that it was His mission to fulfil or " accomplish "
certain legal and prophetic contents of the ancient
sacred writings. AU that is most important in Christ's
-view of the origin and nature of Scripture is, therefore,
gained when we answer the inquiry : In what sense
*D. 8. S., i„pp, 3411.

78 Views of Biblical Writers.
did He consider it His mission to accomplish the " la-wr
and the prophets " ?
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 17 ff.), we are
told that Christ did not come to destroy, but to ful
fil the ancient sacred Scriptures ; and not a jot or a
tittle is to pass away from them, " till all things be ac
complished." Now, it is true, we cannot regard Him
as making here the distinction, so familiar to us, be
tween the ceremonial and civil law, on the one hand,
and the moral law on the other hand. But He certainly
does distinguish between that ideal and moral truth
which is given in the letter of the Old Testament, and
which He is going to fulfil, and the jot and tittle of the
letter which wUl pass away after it is all accomplished.
Nothing could be farther removed than this from the
rabbinical devotion to the minutiae of the letter, and
from all rabbinizing theories of verbal or mechanical
inspiration. The same attitude toward the Old Testament, as
that taken in the Sermon on the Mount, is maintained
by our Lord in all His subsequent discourses. He else
where (Matt. xi. 13) teaches that "the prophets and
the law " (the Old-Testament Scriptures generally) are
going to pass away ; for they are only wntil John. A
higher order is to succeed thera. These two passages in
Matthew, taken together, plainly imply that the entire
economy of the Old Testament, as respects the author
ity and binding nature of its forra, will pass away,
while not an item of its moral and spiritual reality
wUl faU of fulfilment in Christ.*
*SeeD, S. S„ i„ p, 40f.

Ideal View of the Law. 79
Repeatedly does our Lord make clear for us the
truth that it is the ideal and higher moral meaning of
the Old Testament which gives J;o the book its value
for Christians, and which it is His mission to fulfil.
This same doctrine of God and righteousness, the an
cient prophets tried in vain to teach the Je-wish nation
(Matt, xxiii. 34^39) ; the commandments of the Hebrew
Scriptures are all summed up, as respects their ideal con
tents, in love to God and man (Mark xii. 28-31).
Therefore Jesus does not hesitate to speak of a puno-
tihons keeping of the Levitical law of tithes as of little
account compared with that justice, mercy, and humil
ity before God, which the more spiritual of the proph
ets enjoined. So, too, when He and His disciples were
accused of breaking the commandments as respecting
the Sabbath (in the eyes of the Jews one of the most
fundamental and holy of the entire ten), He does not
justify Himself by pointing out that the rabbinical in
terpretation of this law was wrong and forced: He
rather points out that Christianity introduces a new
code to raan : He falls back upon unchanging moral and
rehgious principles as authoritatively recognized and
tanght by Himself, the founder of Christianity. He
deals in a similar way with the Mosaic law of divorce
(see Mark x. 2-12), and the Levirate law of marriage.
They are ancient laws of sacred Scripture, bnt have
only an imperfect morahty and a temporary force.
The regulations of the law touching ceremonial wash
ings and forbidding certain foods (regulations so dear
and sacred from the priestly and Levitical point of view)
Jesus regarded hghtly ; He even seems to take a hos-

8o Views of Biblical Writers.
tile position toward the ceremonial laws of fasting (see
Matt. ix. 14-17, and parallel passages). All observances
of legal sort are of little worth, in his estimate, com
pared with principles of righteous conduct.
It seems, therefore, that Christ regarded the law of
Moses as containing two kinds of elements which are
widely different with respect to their character and
bearing upon the thought and life of His disciples; in
it there exists real and abiding divine truth, but it also
contains enactments which were concessions to the low
morality of the raen of its tirae, or were designed to
discipline them in cereraonial and external observances.
The shock which this manner of speaking of the law
and its scriptures must have given to the Jewish opin-
ion of that day, ean scarcely be imagined by us, who
are so familiar with the distinction between what is
binding and what not iu the legal portions of the Old-
Testament writings. For, the Jews regarded the
" Law " as pre-eminently inspired and sacred in every
jot of it.
Further, it is repeatedly implied in the words of
Christ that Moses was a chosen medium for revealing
the divine thought and will to Israel ; but no doctrine
of Moses' inspiration as a writer of sacred Scriptures is
anywhere taught or even suggested. Nor is it a vaHd
argument from Christ's use of the current phrase, "the
book of Moses," that He regarded this lawgiver as the
author of the entire Pentateuch in its present form.
That Christ believed in the inspiration of the Hebrew
prophets, aud in the reality of their predictions with
reference to Himself as the Messiah, there can be no

Christ's Doctrine of Prophecy. 8 1
doubt at all. Indeed, it was the existence of these in
spired predictions and anticipations, though often in
dim and shadowy lines, within the ancient Scriptures,
to which His own work of "fulfilling" was designed
to correspond.
The questions as to the more precise way in which
Christ understood the Messianic prophecies of the sa
cred Hebrew Scriptures to refer to Himself — as to the
clearness of the ancient prophetic vision of Messiah for
which He furnished the reality, and as to just how
far into details He wished it to be expected that His
o-wn fulfilment of prophecy should go — all these ques
tions it is difficult to answer by interpreting His
teachings with a scholarly candor. It does not appear,
however, that He considered it necessary for an ancient
prophecy to have been primarily written of Himself
(much less to have been understood by its writer as re
ferring to any one precisely like Jesus), in order that
such prophecy might be fulfilled m Himself. He
taught that everything which the ancient inspired seers
of the nation had said conceming the redemption of
the people by the servant of Jehovah — concerning the
character and work, the reign, sufferings, death, and
final triumph of the Lord's Redeemer for the nation —
was now to be completely fulfiUed.
If, then, sorae curious inquirer had questioned Jesus
in regard to the prophetic declaration, "He was led as
the sheep to the slaughter," etc., as the eunuch ques
tioned Philip : " I pray thee, of whom speaketh the
prophet this? of himself, or of some other?" it is
not at all likely that the great teacher would have

82 Views of Biblical Writers.
thought it best to debate the question whether the
reference to Himself was a primary or only a typical
reference. One rule suffices for all such passages:
" This which is written must be fulfilled m me ";
"for that which conoeeneth me hath fulfilment" (see
Luke xxii. 37).
This " typical " view of the fulfilment of all the an
cient prophetic Scriptures by Himself, Christ seems
to maintain in all of His teachings. He is " He that
cometh"; He is the "rejected stone" made head of
the corner; He is the good shepherd "smitten "and
"pierced" and scornfully appraised at the price of a
slave. Abraham rejoiced to see his day ; because that
patriarch may be represented as still connected by
interest and hope with the people sprung from his
loins, whom Messiah is to redeem and multiply in a
spiritual way. He is the one whom David in Psalm
ex., being in the Spirit, called Lord, and exalted to a
seat on the right hand of Jehovah.
It appears, then, that our Lord, unlike the writers of
the Old-Testaraent Apocrypha and their successors,
the rabbis of His day, regarded the prophetic contents
of the Hebrew Bible raore highly than its legal con
tents. Moses is no longer put forward as the one
unapproachable prophet, whose Scripture would be de
graded if it were treated as not superior to the other
kinds of Scripture, by being laid, for example, under
neath a raanuscript roll of the later Isaiah. Yet there
is not a trace in our Lord's utterances of what has been
caUed " typological concupiscence " in the intei-pretation
of prophecy. He seems content simply to repeat, from

Christ and Old- Testament History. 83
varying points of view, the principle : " To me, as the
Messiah of God, all these ancient prophetic expressions
and predictions point forward with their higher mean
ing; in me they all have their ideal significance met
and fully recognized."
The view which Christ held of the historical narra
tives of the Hebrew Scriptures appears to agree with
His view of their prophetic contents. The deeper
meaning of the history of Israel is made clear only
-when it is considered as preparatory for, and prophetic
of, the founding of Messiah's kingdom. To commit the'
word of our Lord to the infaUibility of historical de
taUs, or to any theory of the origin, authorship, or date
of any book, or to any particular view as to the species
of hterary composition to which any book belongs,
is both unwarrantable and dangerous to faith. This
remark apphes in a perfectly conclusive way to what
He says of Himself (Matt. xii. 39-41) with reference
to the prophecy of Jonah. It is only very indefinitely
and figuratively that Jesus here compares His stay,
for the same time, in the heart of the earth, and the
prophet's stay in the belly of the sea-monster.* Only
thus indefinitely and figm-atively, indeed, could He speak
at all of Himself as remaining after death " three days
and three nights in the heart of the earth," — ^whether
we understand the phrase "heart of the earth" to refer
to the grave or to Hades. Little can be claimed more
than this : the well-known story of Jonah serving as a
sign to Nineveh gave the form to His own obscure ref-
*D. aa.i., p. 65f.

84 Views of Biblical Writers.
erence to His resurrection as a sign to the sinners of
His own time.
Biblical students may, therefore, without the slight
est suspicion of disloyalty to our Lord, investigate the
character and authenticity of the ancient Hebrew book
of Jonah. Such investigation tends to contirm the
impression which a cursory examination of the narrative
excites. A narrative in which a man is represented as
composing a poetical prayer, surrounded -with water, his
head bound with seaweed, and drifting with marine cur
rents, while inside a monster of the sea, was surely never
intended by its author to be understood as literal his
tory. The book of Jonah was written as an allegory.
Will it be claimed, then, that Christ could not prop
erly refer to an allegorical book or passage of the Old
Testaraent, when speaking in the midst of a people
whose daily speech dealt in allegory ; or that He could
not do this without giving full notice of His opinion
as to the nature of such book or passage — lest, as we
will assume, some modem commentator or preacher
might be led astray in judgment through mistaken zeal
for his Master ?
An uncritical use of Old-Testaraent narrative — a
use which places the eraphasis simply upon the moral
and religious truth involved in the narrative — charac
terizes all the discourses of Jesus. Historical detaUs
are never dwelt upon bj' Him, after the fashion of the
rabbinical learning or of the mystical exegesis, as
though they were in themselves of great importance.
When speaking of the Flood (Matt. xxiv. 37 f., and
Luke xvii. 27), He even seems to follow a tradition

Christ and Old- Testament History. 85
which differs from that recorded in the Hebrew Scrip
tures ; * so, too, in speaking of the drought in the days
of Elijah (Luke iv. 25-27), Jesus apparently follows a
divergent Jewish tradition which lengthened its period
to three years and six months.
In general, it may be said that our Lord authenti
cates the history of the Old Testament as containing
important moral and religious truth regarding God's
method of dealing with men, and especially regarding
the nature of His own mission and kingdoni. Certain
occurrences in this history were plainly looked upon by
Him as typical of the transactions which gave such im
measurable significance to His own history — ^for ex
ample, the erection of the serpent on the pole by
Moses. But there is absolutely no sufficient warrant
for committing the authority of the infaUible teacher
to the details of Old-Testament history, or to any
theory of the inspiration of the writers of such history ;
while the very free and almost careless manner with
which He treats these details, as contrasted with His
reverent acceptance of the obligation to accomplish
every jot and tittle of the ideal and permaneut con
tents of the Old Testaraent, shows how relatively un
important He considered the former.
FinaUy, we find our Lord making the same use of
the Hebrew Bible which is made of the entire Bible
by the pious soul of the present time ; that is to say,
He appropriates its expressions of devotion, recognizes
the truth of its moral maxims, and holds Himself
bound in principle to the spiritual discipline which it
*D. a a,i„p, 69.

86 Views of Biblical Writers.
enjoins. He consecrates the Old Testament at the be
ginning of His ministry by answering the tempter in
its words ; and with His last breath He yields His soul
to God in the words of a suffering Hebrew saint.
The only, but sufficient, ground which onr Lord lays
for a doctrine of the inspiration of the New-Testament
writings is to be found in His promises to His dis
ciples. These promises assure both the apostles and
us that abundant divine inspiration will be given for
founding the Christian Church in the truth of its
Head and Redeemer. When making their defense
before hostile tribunals, the Spirit of the Father
would speak in these disciples of His (Matt. x. 20);
this Spirit would teach them in that very hour what
they ought to say (Luke xii. 12). Under His guid
ance they were to disciple the nations at large, and in
struct them in all the commands of Chi-ist (Matt, xxviii.
20). The promises of our Lord to the apostles find their
culminating expression, however, in the fourteenth and
following chapters of the Gospel according to John.
To understand the promises made in these chapters,
the following points should be kept constantly in view.
The source of the inspiration which is to be given to
the apostles is the Spirit of Christ himself. This Holy
Spirit, which is here represented as Christ's own visita
tion, self-disclosure, or indwelling, and also as one
sent by Him, far surpasses, in its power to reveal the
meaning of the Redeemer's work, all the inspirations
of the Old-Testament economy. This Spirit is to make
His followers know the truth intimately and profound-

The Promises of Christ. 87
ly, and to strengthen and comfort them in trials and
toils. This Spirit is the Spirit of the truth. But this
truth is ihe truth which Christ came to bring, and
which He really and fully is — comprehended and
clothed, as it were, in personal form. More and raore
completely are they to be guided into aU this truth ;
it is to be taught them more fuUy and completely than
Jesus himself had tanght it by His personal presence.
These promises apply, then, primaiily, not to the writ
ing of books, but to the personal work of the apostles
in founding the Church of Christ, and in bearing the
truth of the Gospel to the world.
It must also be observed that the realizing of all these
promises is made dependent upon certain conditions.
Indeed, God never makes an unconditional promise of
the gift of His Spirit ; and Christ promised like God,
in this regard, as weU as in respect of the munificence
of His promise. Of these conditions the principal are
moral and religious; they have to do with the obedi
ence and love, the docile, prayerful attitude of the
apostles. Any weakness or remissness here would cer
tainly be felt in diminishing the fullness of the realiza
tion of the promises of inspiration. For example, Paul
could claim, and doubtless actuaUy enjoyed, the special
promise of Jesus to His disciples when brought before
earthly tribunals, at the time that this apostle made his
defense before Ananias; yet Paul acknowledged that
he had unwittingly addressed the high-priest in an im
proper way. Peter, when in the exercise of his apos
tolic office at Antioch, and evfin when acting in regard
to a certain very important doctrine touching the essen-

88 Views of Biblical Writers.
tial nature of the Gospel, was, in the judgraent of Paul,
far frora morally faultless.
Moreover, the promises of Jesus to the apostles were
not all at once realized to their f uUest extent by any of
them. Neither the outpouring of the Spirit at Pente
cost, nor any subsequent gift of the Spirit, led them at
once into all the promised trath. What our Lord means,
as reported in John's Gospel, is simply this, that the
Holy Spirit will be, when He comes, and ever after, the
leader, progressively, of His chosen disciples into this
truth. This growth to the knowledge, under such divine
guidance, of the height and depth of the Redeemer's
being and work would, of course, be manifest in the
teaching of the apostles, whether this teaching was given
by thera in writing or by word of mouth.
It should never be forgotten, however, that without
critical studies of the Canon and of the authorship of
the books, we cannot connect the promises of Christ to
the apostles with any of the New-Testament writings.
Such studies have to decide the question whether any
particular writing is of apostolic origin or not, and
whether its relation to the apostolic teaching is direct
or indirect, complete or incomplete. Still further, they
must show us to what stage, as it were, of the apostoUc
advance in teaching the whole truth of Christ each par
ticular writing belongs ; and what is the relation of each
to the whole body of essential Christian doctrine. Now,
it is only a portion of the New Testament for which
direct apostolic authorship can be claimed ; accordingly,
it is to this portion only that the promises of apostohc in
spiration primarily apply.

Infallibility of Apostles. ' 89
It should be borne constantly in mind, finally, that
the promises of our Lord guarantee inspiration only in
respect to more and more apprehending the truth — the
truth pre-eminent, the truth which is the essence of
Christianity, and upon which the Church of Christ is
founded. That the apostles — much less other writers
of the New Testament — would be made infallible in aU
details of history or in judgment upon maxims of policy,
or in anticipation of the future fate of the Church, etc.,
is nowhere so much as hinted at ; it certainly is by no
means guaranteed or fairly to be inferred.
When we turn from the teaching of Christ to that of
His disciples, and consider what the writers of the New
Testament themselves believed concerning the origin
and nature of sacred Scripture, we have occasion at once
to refer to our interpretation of the foregoing promises.
The apostolic founders of Christianity were promised
that they should be spiritually led into a knowledge of
the whole truth of Christ. But no unimportant part of
this truth of Christ is given in the Old-Testaraent witness
to Him. Divine enlightenment as to the substantially
true knowledge of that moral and religious truth of the
Old Testament which Christ fulfilled, and of His fulfil
ment of that truth, would accordingly seem to be in
volved in the promises of Christ to His apostles.
It cannot be claimed, however, that the promises of
onr Lord to His apostles involve making them infallible
interpreters of the Old Testament, much less that they
involve this with respect to all the writers of the New
Testaraent. None of these -writers, whether apostohc or
not, had any equipment for achieving such interpreta-

90 Views of Biblical Writers.
tion, pro-vided even that infallible interpretation be re
garded as possible in any case. The text with which
they were farailiar, and which they ordinarily used in
referring to the Old Testaraent, was the inaccurate, and
in places badly corrupted, Greek version. The Hebrew
Scriptures cannot be infallibly interpreted through this
Greek version. A study of the New-Testament Scrip
tures plainly shows that by no means all of the authors
maintained our Lord's wonderful reserve toward the
current pharisaic and rabbinical views of the meaning
of the Old Testament.
In speaking of the Old Testament as a whole, the
writers of the New Testament use the terms current
before their day ; and these terms imply the sacred char
acter of the contents of the Old Testament. They call it
"the Scripture," or " Scriptures," with or without an ad
jective to designate this character. Their doctrine of the
relation in which these holy writings stood to Christ as
the founder of Christianity corresponded in its essential
features to that of Christ himself. In this regard they
realized the promise of the Lord, that the Spirit would
progressively lead them into the whole truth of Christ.
This, however, does not prevent a very considerable dif
ference of view among the different New-Testament
writers as to the exact nature of the relation ; but it
explains why they insisted upon the superiority of the
Gospel, and, oftentimes, upon the faulty and imperfect
character of the Old-Testament economy.*
It is not necessary to review in detail the minor dif
ferences of teaching whieh exist among the writers of
*D, a 8., i„ p. 167 f.

The Epistle of Jude. 91
the New-Testament books as to the precise relation of
the Old Tostameut to the new religion. It is sufficient
to say that the view of James is, perhaps, the most dis
tinctively Jewish, and that the Epistle of Jude and the
Gospel of Matthew agree in general with the view of
James ; that the writings which bear Peter's name
dwell chiefly upon the fulfilment by Christianity of
the ideal truth of Old-Testament prophecy ; and that
the writings of Paul and John represent a phase of
doctrine more advanced and farther removed from the
prevalent J ewish opinion concerning the entire Hebrew
Bible. It must not be overlooked in passing, that the Epistle
of Jude departs from the usual custom of the New
Testament by using as Scripture certain rabbinical and
apocryphal sources. .Ea?^a-biblical traditions of the
fall of the angels (see verse 6), of the strife of Michael
over the body of Moses (verse 9), are appealed to in the
same way as the biblical traditions of the destruction
of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the wickedness of Cain,
Balaam, and Korah, etc. The apocryphal bbok of
Enoch is also undoubtedly cited by Jude as sacred
Scripture. It has been truly said by a modem student of the
Bible, that " Paul recognized it as the problem of his
apostolic calling to exhibit Christianity in its divergence
from the old covenant "; this the apostle does in a way
which could not fail sometimes to be offensive to the
more Judaistically inclined Christians of his day — not
to speak of the prevalent rabbinical reverence for the
infaUible inspiration and absolute perfection of eveiy

92 Views of Biblical Writers.
minute part of the Mosaic law. Moreover, there is un
mistakable evidence that his insisting on the imperfect-
ness of Judaism and the independence of the Gospel
was, at least at first, a block of stumbling to some of the
other apostles. But the progress of Christian doctrine,
as the promise of Christ was realized and His Spirit led
the founders of Christianity into the fuller comprehen
sion of all His truth, finally justified most amply the
great apostle to the Gentiles.
Paul spoke of ritualistic Jewish precepts as "rudi
ments of the world," " weak and beggarly rudiments,"
and characterized those who adhere to them as " chil
dren " and " slaves " (see Gal. iv. 1, 3, 9, and Col. ii. 8,
20). The ministry of Moses, which took the form of the
decalogue (that most holy of all parts of the Pentateuch
to the Jew — handed from heaven, as it was, all graven
by the very finger of Jehovah) Paul calls a ministry of
the letter and of death, in contrast with the Gospel as a
ministry of the Spirit and of life (see 2 Cor. iii. 6-9).
It is as mere writing, ink, and stone tablets, compared
with the Gospel in men's hearts.
It would be very misleading, however, to conclude
from his manner of reference to the Old-Testament
Scriptures, that the attitude of Paul was essentially
irreverent toward them, or that he meant to proclaim an
impassable gulf between these Scriptures and the truth
of the Gospel. The inspiration of the apostle is shown
in the fact that he did not press his doctrine of the im-
perfectness of the Old Testament to that extreme which
the Christian Church soon came to consider heretical
The Mosaic law he called holy, just, and good, because,

The Old and New Economy. 93
although coming in by reason of transgressions, it
served as a discipline and leader of men to the real
teacher, Christ. Its enactments were, at best, only
the A B C of absolute rehgion ; but when we know
how to put the letters together and give them meaning
as rightly arranged, we can speU with them the name
of Christ.
The doctrine of the relation and relative value of the
old and the new economy, tanght by the writings which
bear the name of the apostle John, is essentially the
same as that of the apostle to the Gentiles. John
considers the law of Moses to be vastly inferior to the
revelation of Christ; it has not the "grace" and
"^rw^A" which belong to the incamate Logos. The
fullness of grace, the perfection of infallible truth,
belong to Christ alone. As said Doctor Martin Luther,
in his own rough but expressive way : " There is no
other doctor, master, nor preacher, but the one doctor,
Christ, who is interiorly -with the Godhead." Plainly,
the apostle John meant to keep his Lord's command,
and would have us keep it with reference even to him
self and to all the apostles : " Call no mom rabbi." In
the meaning of a teacher worthy of all submission of
judgment and to be deemed infalhble, there is no
" rabbi " among men.
Thus in a diverse but essentially concordant manner
do the writers of the New Testament exhibit the main
features of their answer to the question. What is the
Bible? but it is, of course, only of the circuit of writ
ings known to them in the Hebrew Scriptures that
'ley speak. This "Bible" they all recognize as con-

94 Views of Biblical Writers.
taining, fixed in written form, certain contents of abid
ing truth which, although mixed with what is faulty
and imperfect, are genuine oracles of God through
selected and inspired agents, and which testify to,
and prepare for, their own fulfilment in the Gospel of
Christ. How saturated, as it were, are the writings of the
New Testament with the spirit and words of the best
portions of the Old Testament, no diligent reader of
the Bible needs to be told. More than two hundred
and fifty formal quotations of the Hebrew Scriptures,
and more than four hundred somewhat express and
formal references to thera,. occur in the New Testament;
the number of less formal references is many hundreds
more. In almost aU these cases it is the moral and
prophetic truth contained in the quotation or reference
which is regarded ; rarely do we find any reference to
the Old Testament on the part of a writer in the New,
for the sake merely of illustrating or embellishing his
discourse. Quotations from, or references to, other
than biblical authors are also rare; although several
occur in the writings and speeches of Paul. Such
works are not, however, usually regarded as sacred
Scripture. The view which looks upon the inspiration of sacred
Scripture as the guaranty of an exact form of words in
which it resides, and which is important in respect to
every letter and syllable composing it, is inconsistent
with the manner in which the writers of the New Tes
tament quote from the Old. Every form of quotation
has been employed by some one of these writers. Go-

Their Manner of Quotation. 95
casionaUy they cite the Hebrew text with verbal ex
actness ; sometimes they employ the text of the Greek
translation in the same way. When using the latter
they sometimes follow it in its departures from the
Hebrew, and sometimes not. Often they quote the
ancient Scriptures in a very loose way, changing the
words without any easily assignable motive, in their
effort to bring out and enforce the truth which they
find in them. Again, at times they give only an inac
curate paraphrase. How different is all this from that
devotion to the very words, and that exaltation of the
office of the scribe, which aU theories of verbal inspira
tion require !
Nor is any doctrine at all resembling the dogma of
the ^s^Ref ormation theology, taught by that one pas
sage in the New Testament to which the appeal is some
times most confidently made — ^the passage is 2 Tim.
iii. 16. The main purpose of this passage is simply to
declare that inspired Scripture is morally useful in per
fecting a righteous character — a thing which all be
lievers in the Bible agree in holding, and which they
find amply justified by their own experience. As the
revised version correctly translates : " Every scripture
inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for re
proof," etc. Nothing can safely be concluded from
this passage alone, either as to the accuracy, perfection,
and authority of every book and part of the Hebrew
Bible, or as to the nature of sacred Scripture and its
Inspiration in general.
Some additional light is thrown upon the New-Tes
tament doctrine of the origin and natnre of sacred

96 Views of Biblical Writers.
Scripture by the claims which the New-Testament
writers make for themselves. In general it may be
said that these claims do not venture beyond the prom
ises of Christ to the apostles. It was as realizing those
promises that the apostles considered themselves to be
inspired, and to teach with the authority which such
inspiration both secures and guards.
Accordingly, no truth can be more important in the
consideration of this subject than the following : "/»
ihe new dispensation, as in the old, ihe true subject oj
divine revelation and inspiration is the community of
believing souls." * The Spirit as the revealer of the
truth, as the guide into all the truth of Christ, dwells
in every trusting, loving foUower of the Lord Jesus.
Every Christian is then inspired; but in the distri
bution of gifts frora one and the same Spirit, some are
stationed as apostles. In the long discussion of this
subject which Paul introduces, 1 Cor. xii.-xiv., every
essential element of the apostolic inspiration— eaicep^
the selectvoe act of Jesus and its accompanying com
mission — is distinctly attributed to the entire com
munity of believers.
What has just been said, however, -(vorks no injury
to the claim that the founding of the Church and the
producing of the New Testament rest upon the inspired
and authoritative work of the apostles. For this claim
itself rests upon two important facts. The apostles had
a special call and commission to found and build up in
its early stages the Christian Church. The call and
*D, a a, i,, pp. 117ff. and 185ft'.

Inspiration of the Apostles. 97
the commission were given by Jesus, personally, through
His own selective act and command. They had also
the intimate knowledge of the facts of Christ's per
son and work which was deemed necessary for an
apostle (see Acts i. 2f., and ii. 32; in. 15). They had
enjoyed the personal instruction of om- Lord; and
it was an essential part of His promise to them that
the Spirit, when sent, would bring aU ihose things to
their minds and impai-t an insight into the meaning of
them. But, in the second place, the apostles had a more
abundant endowment of the same revelation and in
spiration which belong to Christians in general. As
has been fitly said, they were "especiaUy active organs
of the Spirit." Being eye-witnesses of the facts, they
could tell, as no othei-s could, the true story of the Ufe,
death, and resurrection of their Lord ; with a vision
clarified for spiritual insight they could much better
than others interpret the meaning of what they knew,
and could see farther, more clearly, and more infallibly
into the mysteries of the Gospel.
The manner in which the apostles themselves under
stand and put forth their own claims accords with the
truths just stated. The earliest and then most import
ant application of the promised inspiration referred to
the preaching and oral teaching of the apostles rather
than to their writings. It cannot be denied, however,
that the same claims apply to those writings which have
an apostohc authorship, and concern the ti-uth of the Gos
pel, as truly as they do to the apostohc preaching. But
the apostles, too, corae under the general principle : Not

98 Views of Biblical Writers.
one word in the entire Bible can be fmmd to warrant
the theory of a peciiliar or peculiarly infallible inspi
ration given to amy one in order to fit him for theworTe
of writing,'^ Writing is only one way — and that a way
to which the apostles resorted with comparative infre-
quency — of teaching men the truth of the Gospel and
its application to the life of the Christian. All the
apostles, however, undoubtedly held that whether it was
by word of mouth or by -writing, when they taught the
truths of the Gospel, they taught as inspired messen
gers, and in an authoritative way.
It is their firm persuasion of the truth of the Gospel,
-with the facts of which they were familiar, and into
the meaning of which they had been divinely helped to
look, that gi\'es the apostles their tone of confidence in
teaching, advising, appealing, exhorting, and entreat
ing. But there should be no failure to notice that there
is a quickly descending scale in the tones of their con
fidence, as the matters they write about become less in
timately related to the central truths of redemption.
The claims of the apostles to be inspired and authorita
tive teachers of the truth of Christ can be appUed to the
entire circuit of the New-Testament writings only after
several questions have been raised and answered. These
questions are of the kind which can be answered only by
a devout and scholarly examination of the New Testa
raent itself. They cannot be answered by declamation,
or by appeal to passion and prejudice, or as dogmas of
theology simply, or according to the wishes of the un
learned reader or preacher. Among such questions are
*D, a a, i„ p, 218 f, and 767 f.

Contents of the New Testament. 99
the foUowing : What portions of the New Testament
really fall under the title of that " truth " into which
Christ promised that the apostles should be led, and
which they claim to be inspired authoritatively to set
forth? What portions of the New Testament were
written by others than apostles ; and how far can we
apply to these portions the same argument which ap
phes to the portions written by the apostles ? How did
the Christian Church come to gather all their writings
into one collection ; and did it regard them as all alike
the product of apostolic teaching and all alike authorita
tive? Did the inspiration of the writers extend to the
words which they employed ; and did it secure them
from all error on matters of fact or teaching, not a legit
imate part of this pre-eminent truth which they prima
rily designed to teach ? It will not be until the sequel
is reached that we shall find the correct answer to all
of these questions ; but one or two of them we proceed
at once briefly to consider.
The contents of the New Testament may be divided
into at least three classes, with respect to their relation
to the Gospel, to that truth of Christ into which the
Spirit led the writers. How the three classes are to be
distinguished,* we do not now inquire. Of these three
classes one comprises those fundamental facts and doc
trines which are plainly taught in the writings as neces
sary elements of the truth of Christ. Another covers
certain statements or opinions about facts of a historical,
archseologieal, or scientific kind, or about the meaning
of a passage in some other writing, which do not affect
*D. a 8„i„p, 198 f.

ic)0 Views of Biblical Writers.
the truthfulness of the facts and doctrines of the first
class. The third class includes matters of fact and in
ferences which appear to lie between the other two
classes. It is in the case of the matters of fact and infer
ences of the third class that our most serious difficulties
arise. For example, to consider the directions of Paul about
his temporal affairs, or his unkept promise to visit Rome
or to pass through Corinth, as uninspired, works no
harm whatever to the security of the apostolic doctrine of
the Gospel. Mistakes occurring in Stephen's speech do
not render the book of Acts a less trustworthy account
of the apostolic work in founding the Church ; the ap
parent contradictions in historical details of the first
three gospels do not impair the value of their consen
taneous witness to the life and work of Jesus. When
Paul's memory slips (1 Cor. x. 8), and he writes 23,000
instead of 24,000, or when it fails hira (1 Cor. i. 14 f,),
and he cannot tell how raany he baptized at Corinth;
in what way does this injure his apostolic authority con
cerning the truths of salvation ?
Indeed, the apostle hiraself plainly recognizes the dif
ference between his own opinion, even when given as
the opinion of an inspired apostle, and the infallible
word of Christ, with respect to the relations of the sexes
in married life (see 1 Cor. vii.). In this case, we notice
that the advice of Paul was governed by his erroneous
impression that the Second Coming of our Lord was then
just at hand. That Paul and the other apostles, during
at least the earlier years of their ministry, held this
erroneous impression, their writings most abundantly

Claim to Verbal Inspiration. loi
show. This erroneous impression raay be placed in the
third of the above-mentioned classes.
In common with all the previous authors of the Bible,
the authors of its latest books never give us a hint that
they regard themselves or one another as gifted with
any special form of infallible inspiration as writers of
sacred books. Nor does their language warrant the con
clusion that they would have held any dogma of verbal
inspiration as applying to these Christian writings.
There is, indeed, one passage in Paul's Epistles (1 Cor.
ii.), which contains words that have often been con
strued as a claim to verbal inspiration. But what Paul
here affirms is simply that his apostolic yo?-?ra of pre
senting the Gospel is adapted to the divine nature of
the Gospel ; for both the knowledge of the truth and
the disposition and power to use the appropriate forra for
presenting it, are the gift of the Spirit. The teachers
of human philosophy in that day made an excessive
show of logic and rhetoric. The preachers of the Gos
pel used simple and unpretentious speech. This was not
a rhetorical trick on their pai-t, but the result of the same
divine indwelling which revealed to thera the truth they
preached. In only one place in the New Testaraent are any
Christian writings even apparently referred to as being
on a par with those of the Old Testament — that is, as
being in the peculiar sense, " sacred " Scriptures. The
writer of Second Peter (in. 15 f .) refers to certain epis
tles of " our beloved brother Paul," as in some sort on
a par with the rest of " the Scriptures." The late dato
and doubtful canonicity of Second Peter, in the estimate

I02 Views of Biblical Writers.
of the earlj' Church, make the interpretation of this
passage very difficult. If it were to be understood as a
recognition by one apostle of the writings of another as
real parts of s.acred Scripture, it would only teach what
all Chi-isti'ans at present concur in holding.
From our advanced Christian point of view we now
turn back to take that assumed by the writers of the
Hebrew Scriptures themselves.

CHAPTEE IV.
THE -VIEWS OF THE BtBLICAL WiU'i'EES.
{Contintced.)
It can never be made an obligation of the Christian
faith to accept, without questioning, all the opinions of
the ancient Hebrew authors concerning the origin and
nature of the Hebrew Bible. When, then, we ask the
Old Testament itself for an answer to our inquiry.
What is the Bible ? we are to exercise that freedom
which belongs of right to the biblical scholar who is, at
the same time, a loyal Christian. It has already been
shown that the great and authoritative teachers of Chris
tianity recognized a fallible, temporary, and inferior
side to the Hebrew Scriptures. They did this even with
respect to the mattei-s upon which these Scriptures are
strongest — ^namely, moral and spiritual matters. But
-with respect to matters in themselves inferior, such as
the correctness of the language, the authorship of the
books, historical minutiae, etc., the writere of the New
Testament have nothing whatever to teach concerning
the authority of the Old Testament. It is as Ch7'is-
tians and not as Jewish rabbis of the era before the
birth of onr Lord that we consider the Old Testament.
An examination of the claims made for themselves by
tbe ancient Hebrew writers shows that the mere occur
rence of such claims, whether direct or indirect, is exceed
ingly rare. Indeed, inthe Old Testament as in the New,
(103)

I04 Views of Biblical Writers.
the consciousness of writing under inspiration is seldom
manifested. Instances of a divine commission to com
mit to writing certain revelations previously received by
inspiration are somewhat more numerous. But all such
claims cover, in the aggregate, only a small portion of
the Hebrew Bible.
The one most obvious and extensive claim which the
ancient Hebrew writings make to the title of sacred
Scripture arises indirectly from the nature of their con
tents. In the later writings of the Hebrew Bible,
however, a few notices of the earlier writings are found
which show the fruits of reflection to be already matured
or maturing. These notices apply, for the most part, to
the written " Torah," or law of the Lord, understood in
general to have been given to Israel by Moses. But
sometimes they contain indirect recognition of the " word
of the Lord " as it had come to earlier prophets and
obtained for itself a record in the manuscript-rolls as
cribed to the name of some of these prophets or to other
unknown authors. The bare fact that certain writings
somehow get for themselves a place in the canon is the
first claim of any kind which can be put forth in favor of
regarding them as in any sense sacred or inspired. The
Song of Songs, ascribed to Solomon, large portions of
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, First and Second Chronicles, and
the entire Book of Esther, belong to this very doubtful
class of sacred writings. It will be seen, theu, that no
theory as to what the Bible is, which will apply alike
to all of its parts, can possibly be constructed by fair in
ference from the Hebrew Scriptures alone. Accord
ingly, we must be content with inqmi-ing how the writers

Relations of Israel to God. 105
of these Scriptures regarded the law and its record,
the prophecies, whether written or oral, and the other
remnants of their national literature.
Certain silent assumptions regarding the relations of
Jehovah, the covenant God of the Hebrews, and this
one people among all others of the earth, pervade thri
books of the Old Testament — as, indeed, they pervade
the later and apocryphal writings of the nation. It is
assumed, in general, that the history,* laws, ceremonial,
and dominant national ideas of Israel, are in sorae special
sense the gift of Jehovah to the nation and the object
of His interest and care. It is assumed, in particular,
that a covenant or solemn compact was made at the very
earliest period of the national life between this people
and the one living and true God, and that all the na
tional history may properly be considered in the light
of the making, breaking, rene-wing, and fulfilling of this
covenant. It is also assumed, in particular, that the work
of Jehovah -with respect to the institution and executing
of this covenant involved a number of revelations of
Himself, or special self-disclosures that were made to
selected members of the nation who acted as media.
The foregoing assumptions are indeed denied by a
certain school of biblical critics, often and not unjustly
called " destructive." For ourselves we admit heartily
the truth of these assumptions, and find inconclusive
the arguments urged against them. But it does not
follow that even these " destructive " views of the Old
Testament, if established, would undermine, or in any
way seriously impair, our faith as Christians. The char-
*D. 8. a,i., p. 92f.

io6 Views of Biblical Writers.

acter of the Christian religion commends itself; and
no theory in explanation of the way in which the Old-
Testament writings arose ean long confuse the judg
ment of men as to what Christianity essentially is.
Whatever was the order in which its spiritual nature
manifested itself, the Christian religion is now in its
entirety an existing institution and can never be re
moved. And whatever may be concluded as to the
authorship of the Pentateuch, or as to the origin of the
Mosaic law, Jesus was right when He sumraed up its
best essential meaning iu love to God and love to man.
The direct claims of the writings of Mosaism* to
a place in sacred Scripture, so far as these claims are
found in the writings themselves, depend almost en
tirely upon the alleged nature of their contents. In
two or three cases, indeed, we fiud provision made
that certain parts of the law shall be taught to the
people ; either by constituting the priest as their inter
preter (Lev. X. 11 ; Deut. xxiii. 10) or by providing for
their being read at the end of every seven years (Deut.
xxxi. 11). In certain cases also, Moses is said to have
been divinely commissioned to record some event in
writing — as, for example, an account of the battle of
Rephidim (Exod. xvii. 14) and a list of the stations in
the desert (Num. xxxiii. 2). Apparently the object of
recording this particular battle was that the threat
against the Amalekites might be remembered ; and the
object of making out the list of stations was to furnish
a memorial of the fideUty of Jehovah.
It is otherwise, however, with the record described
* p. 8. 8., !., p, 98 f.

Origin of the Decalogue. 107
as the " Book of the Covenant " (Exod. xxiv. 7). This
is declared to be the fundamental theocratic law of the
nation. It is said to contain the words spoken by Je
hovah to Moses and accepted by the people as the basis
of the covenant between Jehovah and themselves. It
seems originally to have comprised the Decalogue
with its ten " covenant words," and the covenant con
stitution with its ordinances relating to divine worship,
and to the rights and duties of Israel (probably, Exod.
XX. 22 to xxiii. 33).
The Decalogue itself is elsewhere stated to have been
written with the " finger of God." Now, however we
may interpret the meaning of this statement ; and what
ever may be the reality corresponding to the figure of
speech involved in speaking of God as writing with His
finger upon stone tables ; two things are obviously true
concerning the Decalogue. Although it consists of a
series of fundamental ordinances divinely given to the
nation, we quote the authority of Paul for considering
it as mere writing, ink, and stone tablets, and greatly
inferior to the epistle which God writes in the heart of
every true Christian. Moreover, neither of the two
records whieh we have of the one Decalogue can by
any possibility be regarded as verbally and infallibly
inspired ; and this for the simple reason that they differ,
not only in slight particulars of words, but also in a
noteworthy way as to the reason for the Sabbath-law
and as to the command against covetuig.
Still further, a critical examination of the present
record of the covenant constitution (Exod. xx. 22 to
xxiii. 33) appears to show that it cannot be considered as

io8 Views of Biblical Writers.
accurately representing in its present forra what was on
any one occasion revealed by God to Moses. Some of its
laws and customs were probably established among the
Israelites previous to Moses, and some of them after
his time. Judged from a moral and religious point of
view, some of them are trivial and temporary — as the
arrangements for a compensation for asses fallen into
pits and for oxen of any owner that have been gored by
a neighbor's ox ; some of them are distinctly opposed
to the requirements of an advanced civilization (see
xxi. 20 ff.) ; aud yet these enactments are all joined
together and coupled with exhortations of the most
solemn and permanent value, in this covenant consti
tution. That is to say, what is confessedly (as viewed
from the Christian point of standing) imperfect and
transitory, and what is of eternal obligation ; what was
enacted previously to this time, and what was enacted
subsequently, is all given in one record of words, fig
uratively said to have been "spoken by Jehovah to
Moses." The noble ode of Deut. xxxii. 1-43 is said to have
been written by Moses at divine command, in order to
serve as a witness to the people ; it is also said to have
been taught to the people verbally by both Moses and
Joshua. The main legal part of Deuteronomy (chapters iv. 45
to xxvi. 15) also claims to be a Torah (or law) which was
not only given but written by Moses (see xxxi. 9). What
modern biblical study has to say with reference to this
latter claim, and how far the present Hebrew text can
be considered to represent, whether iu substance of

The Book of the Law, 109
teaching or in form of words, the writing said to have
been left by the great lawgiver himself, are questions
that must be treated in other connections. We note in
this connection, however, that at most the claims found
within the Pentateuch itself to an origin from Moses
in any written forra whatever, cover only a sraall part
of the whole. In none of these cases, raoreover, have
we any other than an indirect claim to inspiration for
the record as such.
Nor do those claims in behalf of the written law of
Moses which occur in the later books of the Hebrew
canon add, to any considerable extent, to our so defi
cient data for forming a biblical doctrine of the nature
of sacred Scripture. At most, such claims only indicate
that sorae collection of writings, known as the " Book
of the Law," came to be recognized as sacred ; and that
the reason for its being so recognized was because the
writings contained the ordinances and testimonies of a
legal kind on which the pecuhar relation of Jehovah to
the nation was instituted and maintained. The written
" Book of the Law," in the time of Josiah (2 Kings
xxii. 8 ff.), probably comprised nothing more than the
substance of Deuteronomy.
In the very latest books of the Hebrew Bible,* in
Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, and in some of the
prophetical writings (comp. Dan. ix. 11, 13, and Zech. vii.
12), the phrase "the law of Jehovah" repeatedly oc
curs. In these books, as a rule, the priestly and cere
monial ordinances of the law, as distinguished from the
civU and more purely ethical, are highly regarded. The
*D. aa, i„p. i08f.

IIO Views of Biblical Writers.
written Toi-ah is represented as publicly read for the
instruction and rebuke of the people ; its precepts are
coupled with those that were given by the prophets, and
the whole is considered as constituting a sort of recorded
body of divine enactments and revelations. Some of
the Psalms contain either certain obscure references to
a book of the law, or else a simple mention of it under
some one of several titles. Psalm xl. 7 refers to a "roll
of the book," which raay perhaps be best understood
as Deuteronomy, and which is to be used as a kind of
vade-mecum for the king. It is impossible to say with
confidence how much of the present Pentateuch is re
ferred to, and authenticated as a sacred written Torah
for Israel, by these latest books ; but it is not unlikely
that considerable portions of it, in addition to the main
part of Deuteronomy, are to be included.
We see, then, that the Old-Testament authority for
regarding the books now popularly ascribed to Moses
as inspired and sacred Scripture, is very different in
deed from what is ordinarily supposed. The claim
which the -n'ritings of Mosaism make upon our regard
is almost entirely indirect ; it arises from the nature of
-what they contain. A written law was indeed early
supposed to have been left to the nation by Moses, who
was, of course, himself considered as the chosen and
inspired servant of Jehovah. But it is neither claimed
nor implied that this written law covered more than a
minor portion of the present Pentateuch. Instead of
its being an essential tenet of the Old Testament itself
that ihe record of the laws of the nation is, in general,
inspired in a peculiar manner, and to a degree of infal-

Christ and the Mosaic Law. in
libiUty, no doctrine of its inspiration is anywhere incul
cated in the Old Testament. The " Law" came from-
God through Moses, — ^this is the substance of the Old-
Testaraent view.
Chi-ist and the apostles have taught us to look upon
even the most sacred portions of the ancient law of the
Hebrews from a higher point of view. That law, for
example, puts the right of retahation and the provisiot.s
for divorce, and for the lenient treatment of masters
who in anger mutUate their slaves, among the most
sacred commandments spoken by the mouth of Jehovah
to Moses. But our teachers, who stand far above even
that favored ancient servant of Jehovah, regard those
things as statutes necessitated by the low condition of
the people, imperfect, temporaiy, morally blameworthy
from the Gospel's higher point of view. For does not
our Lord himseK declare that the Mosaic ordinance
concerning divorce is no better than a vu-tual permis
sion of adultery ? And yet these authoritative teachers
see, what the Christian is .to learn from them to see,
that the law was given by God to serve as a " school
master " until Christ should come. This is its divine side
— the side on account of which we regard it as inspired,
and its record as worthy of a place in sacred Scripture.
But to hold that the -writings of Mosaism are infallible,
either in opinion as to thoir own origin and historical
development or as to moral quality, we raust listen to
other teachings than those that were promulgated by
Christ and His apostles.
The prophetical writings of the Old Testament have
a somewhat different and more precise claim to be re-

1 1 2 Views of Biblical Writers.
garded as, in themselves, sacred and inspired. To be
a true prophet is to be inspired; the words of the
prophet, who speaks prophetically, axe per se words of
the Lord, If, then, these words are faithfully record
ed, the record will naturally, it will almost necessarily,
be regarded as sacred and inspired. The character of
the prophetical writings, however, is entirely depend
ent upon the character of the prophet. We need, there
fore, to forra a true picture of what the Hebrews un
derstood by a prophet, and of how they regarded the
inspu-ation which every true prophet enjoyed.
The agent in prophetic inspiration is, of course, the
Spirit of Jehovah, who is the hving God. To His
Spirit the Hebrews rightly ascribed every good thing.
The subject of inspiration is primarily the entire faith
ful people of the covenant of Jehovah ; the gift of the
Spirit is " to thee, 0 Israel, and to thy seed, to such as
keep the covenant." The promise of Jehovah to Jacob
is that His Spirit is upon him and his seed forever. The
promise recorded in Deut. xviii. 9-22, although having
its highest fulfilment in the case of that greatest of
all the prophets (the Messiah^ refere primarily to the
whole class of prophets. Thus, too, we actuaUy find
the prophets, unlike the priests, not restricted as to
sex, or age, or rank, or tribal connections. Prophets
swarmed in Israel ; but their messages and recorded
utterances have been only in smaU measure preserved
to us.
The law which defines the call, the consciousness,
the office, the intent, and the end, of the Hebrew
prophet, is to be understood in connection with that

The Stages of Prophecy.

great idea which Israel emphasized for the entire world
— the idea of " righteousness." The sphere of Hebrew
prophetic activity is the sphere of righteousness. The
call whieh God uttered to the entire nation was a caU to
righteousness. The culture which He gave to them
was a discipline in righteousness.
Certain elements which at times entered into Hebrew
prophecy belong to what is merely sporadic in its char
acter and destined to pass away. Most of those ele
ments are connected with the so-caUed "schools"*
of prophets which at tiraes fiourished in Israel. The
contagiousness of prophetic impulse, the imitation
of the great prophets by their adrah-ing followers and
helpers, the tendency to physical excesses such as
characterize the prophecy of surrounding heathen
peoples, the use of prophecy for petty purposes and
private ends — these things belong to the ruder ages of
its development.
But Hebrew prophecy underwent a process of gro-wth
which resulted in bringing the great moral and spirit
ual factors and forces concerned in it raore prorainently
to view. Four or five stages raay be discovered in this
process. Preceding the time of Moses, it is patriarchal
in quality, and manifests itself in the personal guidance
of its recipient. Then, for a time, the manifestations
of prophetic inspiration are concentrated in Moses. In
the next period, Hebrew prophecy appears as en
veloped in surroundings of heathenism, and the proph
ets are seen as grouped about the pei-sons of Elijah and
Elisha. In the next age its full bloom is revealed ; this
*D, S, S., i„ p, 121 f.

114 Views of Biblical Writers.
is the age when the great ethical and especially the
Messianic ideas of Hebrew prophecy are coming to
their maturity ; this is the age which gives us those
.great prophetic works that are the real treasures of
Old-Testament Scripture. And, finally, the bloom
falls away : for the time of putting forth the choicest
flowers of prophecy is over, and the time has come for
gathering its fallen leaves and preparing them for
preservation in a canon of prophetical writings.
On inquiring raore particularly into the true concep
tion of the Hebrew prophet, we find that we must con
sider three elements — namely, revelation, inspiration,
and utterance. The thought and will of Jehovah are
inwardly disclosed to the pi-ophet ; in connection with
this disclosure, his soul is morally quickened and ele
vated ; but the truth cannot remain concealed, since it
is a message and is meant for the moral welfare of the
people. All these three elements are clearly implied
by certain terras* employed in the Old Testament.
The prophet is a "speaker" for God, a "messenger"
of Jehovah, a " seer." Upon him the Spirit of Jeho
vah is said to " fall," or " his hand is laid "; to him the
word of Jehovah is said to " come."
The nature of the prophetic consciousness is to be
understood by examining the claims made for the gen
uine Hebrew prophet, with respect to his vocation,
commission, and inspired mental state. Although the
subject of divine inspiration was primarily the entire
people of Jehovah, yet each one who set himself up as
a teacher sent from God to the people, felt the need of
*D, aa,i„p, 125f.

The Commission of the Prophet. 115
support from a particular divine summons to his office.
Under leadership, by imitation, and for a time, even
Saul might be deemed a prophet. But men hke Amos,
Isaiah, and Jeremiah came forward as prophets, by
individual vocation from the Lord (see Amos vii. 14;
Isa. vi.; Jer. i. 2). How the memory of this call from
the Lord was sometimes impressed upon the soul of
His servant, the prophet, we may judge by reading
thoughtfuUy the sixth chapter of Isaiah, or the first
three chapters of Ezekiel.
The Hebrew prophet also regarded himself as com
missioned to utt&r the " word of the Lord." Hence he
goes where there are hearers — to the temple as a place
of the gathering of crowds,* or to the gate of the city.
To keep back his message would be to sin against Je
hovah. He is an apostle of righteousness ; and woe to
him, if he speak not Jehovah's word ; and woe to the
people, if they heed not that word. Not only in respect
to speech, but in person, conduct, and life, he may become
Jehovah's commissioner. He preaches with his prophetic
girdle, or by wearing bonds and yokes, as did Jeremiah.
His own past history may appear to him as a part of
tlie truth imparted to him by Jehovah ; so to Hosea did
his sad experience with his unfaithful -wife appear.
Called and commissioned thus, the Hebrew prophet
must be divinely transformed in his moral and spiritual
heing. Even to accept his call he needs to have his
iniquity taken away, his sin purged (see Isa. vi. 5-8). It
is this purified and elevated moral consciousness which
* Jer. vii. 1 f., xix. 14, xxvi. 3; Hos. ix. 8 ; and comp. D. 8.
a, L, 131 f .

Ii6 Views of Biblical Writers.
constitutes the important part of the prophetic inspi
ration. It is true that a condition of ecstasy is in some
cases attributed to the prophet as a result of his pro
phetic inspiration ; but such cases are to be regarded
as belonging to that in the Hebrew prophecy which is
of a lower and temporary order, and most closely aUies
it with the heathen soothsaying.* Saul strips to the
tunic and lies prostrate on the ground. Balaam is rep
resented as falling into a trance. Ezekiel, indeed,
falls down overpowered by the divine vision, but stands
up again in order to receive the divine revelation (i. 28,
U. 1) ; and Daniel, although stunned at first and made
sick for several days, has to recover before he can be
intrusted with the entire divine self-disclosure. The
Old Testament nowhere represents the state of ecstasy
as an essential thing in prophetic inspiration.
In genuine Hebrew prophecy the Spirit of God is
to be regarded as arousing aud elevating the moral
and religious nature of the prophet; this includes the
illumining of his faculty of insight, the purifying of
his moral emotions, and the strengthening of his pur
pose to further the ends of righteousness. The pecuhar
insight, and the consequent foresight, of the Hebrew
prophet are therefore a result of his inspiration. Jeho
vah does not dictate to him in express terms what he
shall declare of the true significance of occurrences
around hira, or of the outcome in the future of the
present courses of conduct pursued by his contempo
raries; but Jehovah quickens the prophet so that he
can " see " these things. The prediction of the Hebrew
*D, a a, i., p, 134 f.

The Feeling of tlie Prophet. 117
prophet regarding the future, is, therefore, always de
signed as a message of righteousness and grace to the
men of his own time : " Because I will do this unto
thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel."
As to the nature of the prediction of the Hebrew
prophets, and as to the question of its errorlessness or
imperfection, we shall inquire in another place. It is
important now simply to emphasize the fact that the
inspiration of these messengers of Jehovah is essentially
moral and religious, and that whatever superior insight
or foresight it afforded is to be understood as the result
of its essential nature.
The moral feeling of the Hebrew prophet is excited
in sympathy with the feeling of God who has called
and commissioned him, and who has imparted to him
his insight and foresight regarding the nature and con
sequences of moral action. His heart burns against
sin, as does the heart of Jehovah ; it softens also with
pity and compassion toward those who suffer on account
of their sins. Yet he rejoices in Jehovah, though the
fig-tree shall not blossom (see Hab. iii. 17 f.) ; and,
again, sympathetically feels the woes advancing against
even Moab (see Isa. xvi. 9-11) and Babylon (see Isa.
xxi. 1-10), the oppressors of Israel. But especially does
a grand and pure joy stir his prophetic soul when, with
straining and tear-diramed eyes, he looks beyond the
present evil times and beholds the coming moral regen
eration of the nation. Theu he utters that prophetic
cry which more than any other glorifies his office ; he
speaks comfort, and tells of salvation to the righteous
and suffering remnant of the faithful.

1 1 8 Views of Biblical Writers.
Primarily, therefore, all the elements of this prophecy
are personal; they concern the intercourse of men by
speaking and hearing what God is going to do as de
pendent upon the conduct both of those who speak and
of those who hear. The work of comraitting his visions
to writing was, with a Hebrew prophet, an entirely
secondary affair. With the claims to inspiration of
mere scribes and compilers in their work of collecting
and editing the prophetic utterances of the earlier in
spired men, what has hitherto been said has no imme
diate connection. We must then examine further the
nature of the argument by which we pass from the claims
of the true Hebrew prophets to the claims for the pro
phetic writings of our present Hebrew Bible.
Only a few writings of Prophetisra, as writings,
present a direct claim to be the " word of the Lord "
to Israel. The entire contents of some books are,
indeed, thus designated, although they contain an epit
ome of prophecies extending over thi-ee or four reigns
of contemporaneous kings (see, for example, Mic. i. 1;
Hos. i. 1 ; Zeph. i. 1). In other instances (Amos aud
Jeremiah) the written prophecies are called "words"
of the prophet, but -with a qualifying phrase to show
that they are prophetic words. Such prophetic writ
ings as these are, therefore, to be regarded as inspired,
not because the record was made by a scribe who was
in an inspired and infallible condition of mind when
making it, bnt becanse they are the record (presumably
in the main faithful) of the prophetic utterances of
an inspired man. In certain other instances (for ex
ample, Isa, i. 1, and elsewhere) the oracle, originally

The Commission to Write. 119
delivered oraUy, is spoken of as a " -vision " when re
viewed for the pm-pose of committing it to writing.
The prophet when writing, is a prophet stiU.
Numerous instances are also found of a divine com
mission to prepare, in a pei-manent form of record,
the contents of revelations pre-viously made to sorae
prophet.* For example, in Isaiah viii. 1, the prophet is
directed to take a large tablet and engrave upon it ina
distinct character, " Conceming Maher-shalal-hash-baz,"
so as to set it up in some pubhc place and thus call atten
tion to it. An interesting narrative in Jeremiah (chap.
xxxvi.) teUs us how this prophet, at di-vine command,
dictated to his faithful scribp Baruch, the prophetic
oracles which Jehovah had given him conceming Israel
and Judah, and the nations generally. Other portions of
the prophetic writings of the Hebrew Bible are as
cribed to the activity of the prophets themselves, though
produced without any divine commission to write. It
is the prophetic truth which is of importanee; the
manner of its preservation is relatively unimportant.
GraduaUy, as the activity of the greater prophets in
the golden age of Hebrew prophecy continued and de
veloped, a certain body of recognized prophetic truth
was formed ; some of this was recorded in writing and
quoted by one prophet from another ; bnt some of it was
apparently preserved by oral tradition. Rarely, we find
one prophet expressly authenticating another ; as when
Micah (ui. 12) is quoted by Jeremiah (xxvi. 18), who
gives a summary of the earlier prophecies in a decla.-
ration which must have made a great impression upon
* D, a a, i, p. 144f.

I20 Views of Biblical Writers.
the contemporaries of Micah. In Isaiah (xxxiv. 16)
certain oracles concerning the fate of Edom, and in
cluding some predictions of Isaiah himself, are spoken
of as the " book of Jehovah," And in that very
late book, caUed by the narae of Daniel, reference
is raade to certain canonical Scriptures which must
have included the prophecies of Jeremiah (see Dan.
ix. 2).
The faithful record of prophetic utterances may then
be considered, in a secondary way, as worthy to he
called inspu-ed. But critical study must answer the
question whether any particular biblical book was really
composed by this or thai alleged author ; only thus can
we ascertain, often even doubtfully at best, whether
the name given to a particular collection of writings
really belongs to it. Nor can the belief of the Hebrew
scribe or editor as to the date and authorship of the
prophetic writings he copies or edits be regarded as an
inspired and infallible belief.
Those books of the Old Testament which do not
belong either to the writings of the law or to the pro
phetic literature raake few clairas for themselves to be
considered as " words of the Lord " through inspired
media. Indeed the valid reasons for assigning to these
books a place in sacred Scripture lie almost wholly out
side of such claiihs. Certain writings of this class have
been called the "Hokhmah," or wisdom of the Old
Testament; this title covers especiaUy the Books of
Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, and perhaps many of
the Psalms also. From the time of Solomon onward
we hear of men among the Hebrews who were styled

Claims of the Psalms. 121
pre-eminently "the wise."* Many of the reflections
of these raen on nature, on the practical ordering of
the world, and the course of human affaii-s, have been
preserved for us in the Old Testament. Such persons
caUed "the wise" seem to have been distinguished
from both the priests and the prophets, as late as Jere
miah, who apparently did not highly regard their ser
vices in his own time (see Jer. viii. 9 f .). It is only in
conformity with that comprehensive idea of inspiration
held by the Hebrews, which ascribed all human intel
ligence to the Divine Spirit, that the so-called " Hokh
mah " of the Old Testament can claim to be inspired.
The claims of the Psalms to a place in sacred and
inspired Scripture vary with the nature of their con
tents. Some of them obviously spring from the con
sciousness of the divine character of the Law, and deal
with God's discipline of the nation, with its dark rid
dles of providence, its temptations to distrast Him, or
its reasons for uttering His praises. The experiences of
the covenant people as predicted in the blessings and
curses of Deuteronomy, and as fulfiUed in its recorded
history, afford inspiring subjects for many of these
sacred songs. Others of them join -with the experience
of the nation, the more strictly personal affairs of the
author — his sins, sorrows, ti-ials, struggles -with his
enemies, blessings and hopes and expectations of tri
umph. It is chiefiy for this latter reason that so many of
these Psalms have become consecrated by centuries of
Christian usage, and are fitly considered among the
most precious portions of inspired and sacred Scripture.
* D. a 8,, i., p, 148 f.

122 Views of Biblical Writers.
Certain Psalms also partake of the characteristics of
genuine Hebrew prophecy.* It is true that, with one
exception, the Psalms do not employ the prophetic
formula. But a close connection exists between the
prophets and the psalmists ; for the earlier prophets
made use of rausic to gain inspiration for themselves,
and the language of prophecy is very like the language
of poetry — indeed, at times it becomes strictly poetic-
Only a few of the Psalms claim for themselves, either
as a whole or in part, a " thus-saith-the-Lord." But
among the number that raake this claim are the noble
odes of thanksgiving recorded in 2 Samuel, chapters
xxii. and xxiii. Chief among the Psalms, and ex
pressly recognized by the New Testament, are, of
course, those called Messianic. But the Messianic idea
takes various shapes and expresses itself with varying
degrees of clearness and fullness in the poetic as it
does in the other prophetic hterature of Israel.
The only historical notice found in the Old Testa
ment of any portion of the Psalter occurs in Nehemiah
(xii. 46). Here we are told that when there was a great
revival of the temple-service of song certain institu
tions were re-established as they had been originally
created by David and Solomon. So we are informed
that, in the days of David and Asaph of old, there
were leaders of singers and a singing of praises and
thanksgiving to God. But neither the authorship, the
inspiration, nor the canonical authority of any particular
Psalm or collection of Psalms is authenticated in this
way. *D. aa, i., p. i49f,

TAe Historical Writings. 123
•Our previous examination iUustrates the impossi
bility of making any appeal to the Bible itself to
authenticate the inspired and sacred nature of all its
different portions. The Bible itself teUs us little as
to what the Bible is ; on the contrary, it leaves us to
answer this question by bringing its writings to the test
of critical examination and of intelligent Christian
experience. Fortunately, the Bible is given to us not
to teach us about itself, but to teach us about God and
Christ and about the way of the Christian life. It is
far more efficient as a teacher because it hides itself
behind its truth and invites us to consider, not pri
marily what it is, but whether its statements of fact
and doctrine are not true.
The historical writings of the Old Testament, as of
the New, constitute a by no means unimportant part
of the whole ; but no claim is made for thera by the
biblical writers to a place in sacred Scripture beyond
that very indirect, inferred claim which arises from the
nature of their contents. The ancient historical writ
ings narrate the events of Israel's career as looked at
frora the theocratic or the priestly point of view.
They were sacred in the sight of Israel because they
contained a record of what Jehovah did to and for the
people in framing and executing His covenant with
them. They are sacred to us because of their con
nection with the legal and prophetic preparation of the
nation and the world for Christ's coming, and because
they show us how God revealed Himself in history as
the Eedeemer of mankind.
Iu concluding this subject it may be said that the

124 Views of Biblical Writers.
loftiest and raost con-vincing claim which a Christian
can raake for the writings of the Bible arises from the
relation in which they stand to the person and work of
Christ. Indeed, were it not for this relation they
would command little more of interest from us and
have little more of authority over us than do those
other religious writings of antiquity which, like the
Hebi-ew Bible, have been by many deemed sacred and
inspired. The biblical writings alone bring before us
Christ as the Eedeemer of man.
Ou the other hand, the broadest and most generally
applicable claim which the writings of the Bible them
selves make to the title of " sacred Scripture" arises
from the nature of their contents. These writings
hold, fixed as it were in scriptural form, the contents
of divine revelations of truth made to divinely en
lightened souls ; they also record the history of this
process of divine self-revealing untU the Christian
Church had been founded and instructed by Christ and
His apostles. The scriptural doctrine of sacred Scrip
ture depends, then, upon the scriptural view of the na
ture of revelation and of inspiration — a subject to which
we shall return at another time.
And now, negatively, it must be maintained that the
sarae origin, authority, and value cannot be ascribed,
on the basis of its own claims, to all portions of the
Bible alike. Moreover, although the revelation and
inspiration of which the Old and New Testaments
speak are not confined to any one age, sex, portion, set
of authoi-s, or manner of composition, there is not a
single word in the Bible from the first verse of Genesis

The Scribe and tfie Preacher. 125
to the last of Eevelation that warrants any theory
whatsoever of a special and infalhble inspiration given
to the writers of Scripture as such. Indeed, the
writers of sacred writings are rarely brought to our
notice in the Bible ; the scribe is rather relegated to
the bac^round. The preacher of righteousness, the
preacher of the Gospel, the proclaimer to the people of
the word of Jehovah and of the word of Jesus — these
are the personahties and this is the work in which
divine revelation and inspiration have their freest and
widest influence. The regard for the record of these
proclamations, and of the course and resuiis of these
sacred and inspired actions, was at fii-st a matter of
secondary and derived consequence. It was because of
the progressive and historical nature of the whole pro
cess of revelation, and of the Christianizing of the
world, that this record at last became of such incal
culable value.
It is gratifying to notice that the claims of the Bible
itself coincide so completely with the great and per
manent features of the doctrine of the Church cathohc
regarding the nature and origin of the Bible. No one
who accepts these claims can, in the name of the Bible
itself, be restricted from holding further as to its
natnre and origin, whatever the facts and legitimate
inferences of modern biblical study require. No one
who accepts the great and common elements of the
behef of the Church catholic upon this same subject
can justly be accused of infidehty to her teachings,
can fitly be deemed or styled heretical.

CHAPTEE Y.
THE BIBLE AND THE SCIENCES OE NATUEE.
OuK inquiry into the origin and natm*e of the Bible
must now be taken to the test of the facts ; these facts
are the phenomena of the biblical books, as well as the
history and antiquities of those past times and extinct
nations among which the books arose. The science -which
discerns and pronounces upon the bearings of these facts
is biblical criticism. Such criticism is sometimes distin
guished as either " lower " or " higher." When this dis
tinction is employed, by the "lower criticism" is meant
the study which has to do with the text of the bibhcal
writings — that is, with the form of words in which
the authors left these writings and -with its best pos.
sible reproduction as a basis for grammatical and lexical
interpretation. By the "higher criticisin" is meant
that study which tries to reproduce the influences and
circumstances out of which the biblical books arose,
and thus exhibit them as true children of their own
time. It is, therefore, the very laudable effort of this
"higher" criticism to live over again, as faithfully
and vividly as possible, the real life of the writers, and
to undei-stand what they wrote by understanding how,
and under what circumstances, they came to write as
they did.
The sciences known as physical or natm-al have in
(126)

Science and Interpretation. 127
the last century attained a rapid and extended growth,
New conceptions of nature at large, of her laws and
methods of action, of her inner meaning, and of
man's place in nature, have been the inevitable result.
The sciences of mind and of history have been subject
to scarcely less raarked and extensive changes. Even
the current views on certain ethical questions — such,
for example, as slavery, the relations of the sexes, the
obli^tions of the governing and governed classes, the
rights and duties of those at warfare -with each other,
etc. — have been greatly modified. This progress of
modern science in all these forms could not fail to
have its effect on the current views as to the character
of the biblical books.
In the next few chapters we shall investigate the
answer which the different modern sciences, when their
results are compared with the results of biblical criti
cism, require or encourage us to make to the question,
What is the Bible? This one question, however,
divides itself into a number of questions,, the first of
which may be stated in the foUowdug way : What do
the modem sciences of nature declare with reference
to the bibhcal view of those subjects -with which these
sciences deal ?
The inquiry just raised implies that the two kinds of
sciences concerned in its answer are both to have their
rights respected. The natural sciences, so called, do
not in themselves help us to understand what the
Bible means; ihat must be determined by biblical
study. For example, all the discoveries of modem
astronomy and geology do not of themselves throw

128 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.

oue ray of clearer light on the real thought of the
early chapters of Genesis. The science of bibhcal
interpretation alone can decide what these chapters
mean. This latter science involves a knowledge of
Hebrew and the aUied languages, of the Oriental and
ancient views of nature, and of the biblical way of
looking at God and the world. To be a good geologist
or astronomer fits one to describe the strata of the
earth and the development of species and to speculate
upon the nebular theory of the universe; but it is
likely to unfit one to enter into the siraple unscientific
mind of the Hebrew writer.
On the other hand, for biblical science to tell geology
or astronomy what it must discover the rocks or the
stars to be, because the bibhcal account of creation
means thus and so, is as impertinent as for those
natural sciences to teU the interpreter what he must
make the Bible mean.
We shall do most real honor both to Holy Scripture
and to God's record of creation in nature itself if we
bring no vain force to bear on either, in the effort to
make the two agree. Let us rather be content to see
what each party really testifies, and how far they
actually do accord.
In the strictest modern conception of "science"
the Bible teaches us little or nothing that can properly
be designated by this name. This fact is due to
several causes, chief among which are the follow
ing: The design of the biblical writings is directed
toward moral and religious ends, and its writers look
upon the phenomena of nature almost wholly from

Science and Interpretation. 129
the moral and religious rather than the scientific point
of view. Moreover, the Hebrews shared the same
ignorance of the methods, conceptions, and conclusions
of modern physical science which characterized all the
ancient Oriental peoples. Nevertheless, the Bible
constantfy has regard to nature and what happens in
her sphere from its own point of view.
It is almost inevitable, therefore, that if the authority
of the Bible is extended so as to cover matters dealt
with by the sciences of nature, these sciences and the
Bible will come into conffict. Such a conflict has in
fact been for a long tirae hotly waged. In it the com
batants have been led to so great lengths that one
party (the students of the natural sciences) has some
times been ready to reject the teachings of sacred
Scripture throughout on account of its irreconcilability
with their own conclusions concerning nature ; and the
other party (the theologians) has not hesitated to con
trovert the most certain of scientific conclusions in
the effort to save the authority, on these points, of the
biblical writers.
The study of few subjects is so instructive as the
study of the history of biblical interpretation. At
first, even the fundamental principles of the modern
theory of the solar system, even the movement of the
earth around the sun, the distance of the fixed stars,
etc., were stoutly denied in the supposed interests of
the inspiration of the Bible. Now, however, the
principal conclusions of natural science on all these
matters are accepted without hesitation. Yet the
effort is stiU made to show (alas ! how often with much

130 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.
-violence and excess of subtlety toward the sacred text)
that the inspired writings raay possibly be reconciled
with these conclusions. As though the question were,
whether these writings may -aoi possibly be made to ac
cord -«'ith geology, instead of how they arc actually to
be understood when studied in the light of the circum
stances amidst which they arose.
It must also be reraerabered that no claim of the Bible
itself can be urged in behalf of attributing infalli
bility, or indeed any unusual freedom from error, to
the views of the biblical writers upon matters of nat
ural science. We are not to expect from these writers
the accurate description and knowledge of nature as
modern science secures it — and this, not because God
could not have imparted this knowledge had He chosen
so to do, but because there is no good ground for hold
ing that He would have imparted it ; as well as also
because there are good grounds for knowing that He
did not impart it.
The doctrine of God as the creator of the universe
is a religious and a biblical doctrine. Physical science
furnishes no reasons for denying this doctrine ; on the
contrary, physical science leads up to and enriches it.
The metaphysical truth of an original di-vine creation
of the world out of nothing does uot, however, appear
in those writings which bear the name of Moses. In
dications of such a view are found here and there in
the Old Testament. It is not, indeed, expressly taught
by the words of Job (xxvi. 7), " He stretcheth out the
north over empty space, and hangeth the earth upon
nothing"; bnt it gives shape to the declaration in

Biblical View of Creation. 131
Hebrews (xi. 3), "By faith we understand that the
worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that
what is seen hath not been raade out of things which
do appear." Everywhere in the Bible the raore
positive and religious doctrine of creation, which de
rives all things from the wise and loving will of God,
is clearly implied. The " word," or manifested will of
God, rales and creates : He has only to speak, and it is
done ; to comraand, and His wish is executed.
But the Bible does not limit the creative acts of God
to the calling into original existence of the world's sub
stances, forces, and laws. Modem physical science
tries, of course, to understand the world and aU its
happenings and development as a mere mechanism, in
which the actors are the atoms where the so-caUed
forces or modifications of the one universally-diffused
energy reside. It has a right to persist in this effort,
for this is the business of physical science as such. But
the biblical view of God and nature is far different
from this : it regards God as the ever-present author
and indwelling life of all those structures and events
which we call natural. In this, we repeat, the Bible is
grandly right, profoundly wise and true.
In certain cases the biblical writers take the point of
¦view which our ordinary experience assumes, and thus
speak of nature as though she were a self-sustained
system of beings and forces. For example, the grass
is spoken of (2 Samuel xxiii. 4) as growing by sun
shine and rain ; the defeat or victory of armies is
ascribed to the relation of the armament to the ground
on which the battle is fought or to the strength of the

132 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.
contending forces. But the writers of the Bible almost
unifoi-mly tend to take the other and s-wj^ernatural
point of view. A man indeed begets and nourishes
his children, but God is the author and preserver of all
hfe. More particularly stiU, the Bible teaches that it is the
Holy Spirit of Jehovah which makes and makes alive,
and which informs the world of things and the world
of men.* This Sph-it, the moving force of God's own
life, is the inner spring of the being of all that hves.
In Job it is represented as adoi-ning the heavens with
stars (xxvi. 13) and as imparting breath to man (xxxiii.
4). In accordance with the sarae teaching, the bestowal
of children is regarded throughout the Old Testament
as due to a divine volition. Moreover, the removal of
this Spirit by the wiU of Jehovah is death ; for the
allotment to every soul of the tirae of its beginning
and end is an act of God. All natnre, but especiaUy
all Uving beings, are inspired by the One Divine Life.
In general, God is conceived of in the Old Testa
ment as wearing the physical world like a garment.
What modern science considers as the processes of
nature the Hebrew Bible regards as the actions of
Jehovah; the entire Psalm civ., -with its ~ beautiful
descriptions of physical phenomena, is composed from
this moral and religious — this supernaturalistic — ^point
of view. Wliat raodern science considers as the laws
of nature the ancient sacred writers regard as a direct
expression of the divine power and wisdora. The
world is all the imraediate and obvious display of
*D. aa, i p. 240f,

God in Natural Events. 133
God's omnipotence and freedora in justice and grace.
He supplies food to raan and beast, for He gives rain
and fruitful seasons ; nor are declarations like these to
be understood as merely poetic, for they occur in his
tory and prophecy. The same -view enters into the
ordinances of the law. For heaven and earth, the vis
ible and the invisible, the natural and the supernatural,
are not to be placed at opposite poles of being, with
God absent from one and present only in the other ;
they wiU together be made new under the action of
the same moral and religions forces and ideas. Hence
we find that the most intense monotheistic supemat-
uralism controls aU the biblical descriptions of nature.
The effects and influences of natural events upon
man are aU regarded by the Old Testament from the
same point of view. The plague, the locusts, the un-
successful battle, are visitations of Jehovah to affiict
the people for theu- sins. Heat, drought, cold, and
moisture are not merely physical events, but discipline
apphed by the Lord for accomplishing some moral and
religious purpose which lies near at hand. EspeciaUy
is it true that the whole world of natural occuirences, as
well as the developments of history, are to be regarded
in the light of the covenant which Jehovah has made
with Israel. Of this covenant sun, moon, and stars,
rain, frost, flood, and lightning, foreign kings and their
concubines, and generals with their warriors, are di
vinely made to be the servants and executors.
The foregoing elements of the biblical doctrine of
nature are distinctively moral and religious. In strong
contrast with their moral elevation and permanent

134 P^^ Bible and Sciences of Nature.
religious value stand the somewhat crude notions which
the earlier biblical writers display as to the facts of
external nature, and as to the existence and interaction
of natural causes. Throughout the Old Testament the
phenomena of the earth and sky are conceived of in
the raost primitive fashion ; to interpret the language
in which these conceptions are expressed in any mys
tical or evasive fashion is as unjustifiable iu the case of
the sacred writers as it would be in the case of other
contemporaneous writers among nations of no more
scientific culture than the Hebrews had. " Science,"
indeed, as we now understand the term, never had any
existence among the Hebrews in Old-Testament times.
The popular belief that the sky is a solid expanse was
embodied in the very narae for the sky ; this belief
among the Hebrews corresponded to that among the
Greeks as found expressed in Homer and Pindar.*
The sky was early supposed to be set upon the moun
tains as upon supporting pillars, and to contain open
ings like doors or windows. Above this "firmament"
was an inexhaustible supply of water. Yet in later
times the true state of the case as to the nature of the
rain, and as to the suspending of the earth without
visible support, was not unknown among the Hebrews.
The same primitive and unscientific character belongs
to those classifications of the animals and descriptions
of natural phenomena which are found in the Mosaic
cosmogony, in the narrative of the Deluge, and in the
Mosaic law. The pnrpose of the writers is to serve
certain ends of national morality and rehgion rather
*D, a 8„i„p, 2501

Fallibility of the Writers. 135
than of scientific development. There is not an atom
of evidence to show that they had any other informa
tion concerning the truths of nature than such as be
longed to aU their contemporaries.
Were the writers of the Bible divinely kept from
making mistakes upon matters of physical science?
Nothing but an examination of the writings theraselves
— an exaraination both thorough and unprejudiced — can
answer a question like this. Such an examination leads
to a negative conclusion. The biblical writers show no
signs of having been inspired so as to be errorless
when treating of physical matters; they raake the
mistakes incident to their times. Their inspiration,
that is to say, is not one which reaches to the details of
science and renders them infallible here. It imparts to
them no infaUible knowledge of the nature and order
of secondary causes, of the collocation and inner
sources and necessary consequences of physical phe
nomena — in brief, of all that outfit of mechanism with
which the modern sciences of nature deal. The biblical
-writei-s know no more than others of the order, laws,
and resultants of physical causes ; but they know that
Jehovah is the Creator and Lord of the world, and that
all things execute His will in righteousness and grace
toward Israel, the people of the covenant, and toward
the inhabitants of the whole earth.
The foregoing general statement of the relation be
tween the views of the biblical writers and the conclu
sions of modern physical science admits of varied iUus-
tration ; the best particular example of it is the so-called
Mosaic cosmogony, or narrative of the creation as

¦J

6 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.

given in Genesis i. 1— -ii. 3.* The discussion of this
cosmogony began as early as the attempt to establish
the Copernican theory of the solar system. It was at
first forced on through the effort of the current theology
to restrict or denounce the Copernican theory as de
structive of faith in the inspiration and infallibility of
sacred Scripture. It has now become a comparatively
mild debate as to how far geology and Genesis can be
reconcUed. In all such debate the main conclusions of
geology are usually not for a moment questioned by
the disputing parties ; the inquiry is simply raised and
argued as to how far Genesis may be interpreted so as
to accord with these conclusions. Recently, discussion
has been renewed from the more modern point of
'view, with Mr. Gladstone and a very few distinguished
students of natural science on one side and the great
majority of framed interpreters of the Old Testament
as well as of students of natural science upon the other
side. That the narrative of how God made the world, as
given by the writer of the first chapter of Genesis, is a
masterpiece of literature, ancient in origin and noble
in style, there can be no reasonable doubt. Its high
literary quality has been praised at length by writere
like Herder and Jean Paul Richter. Moreover, since
modern researches into the records of surrounding
nations have brought to light their corresponding nar
ratives of the process by which the world came into
being, the moral and religions, as well as the literary
and scientific, superiority of the Hebrew cosmogony to
*D. a a, i., p. 253 f.

The Mosaic Cosmogony. 137
the cosmogonies of other very ancient peoples has be
come even more obvious. Such superiority, however,
is entirely due to the purifying influence of those
views concerning the true relations of God and the
world to which reference has already been made. The
strictly scientific quality .of the narrative, however, is
wholly on a par with that of all the minds of the nation
which enjoyed this same raoral and spiritual illumining.
The narrative of the creation, in Genesis, is theocratic
literature: it is in no respect to be considered as an
errorless revelation of the scientific detaUs of natural
processes. The most important elements of moral and rehgious
teaching in the biblical account of creation are the
following: The world depends for its existence and
present order upon the wUl of God ; the divine power
and -wisdom are manifested in the divine work of pre
paring its physical substances, of making its Uving
creatures, and especially of forming man in the image
of the Maker of aU ; and these qualities of power and
wisdom penetrate every detail of creation. The doc
trine that all things, even the original materials out of
which the heavens and the earth are constructed, are
the product of the divine will is, indeed, implied
rather than expressed in the Mosaic cosmogony. But
it is unmistakably implied. The perfectness of God's
wisdom is also shown by the fact that every work of
creation, when inspected, is pronounced wholly " good."
It would be a mistake, then, to suppose that six en
tire days are taken for creation because God needs
time in order that His will and. 'wisdom may reach

138 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.
their result. To the Hebrew mind the majesty of
Jehovah consists in His having His will done without
any intervening time. Of the long geological periods,
and slow, involved processes, and patient, everlasting
evolution of results by building one stage upon the
preceding stage, which modern physical science em
phasizes, the Hebrew mind had not the least concep
tion as a necessity or fact of creation. It is divine to
speak and have the word at once accomplished. The
six days of creation are none of thera to be regarded as
in any scn&e filled up with the divine work. To think
of Jehovah as busy all day long in getting accom
plished the task appropriate to each period would
doubtless have seemed to the sacred writer degrading
to His majesty.
That creation is made bj' the author of Genesis to
extend through six days, or indeed through any length
of tirae, is the result of another religious doctrine —
namely, that of the divine institution of the Jewish
Sabbath. That creation, in itself considered, should
last precisely six days was not a tenet esteemed im
portant by the Jews themselves. We have, imme
diately following this account, another narrative of
creation which gives a very different order to the
divine procedure and which says nothing whatever of
any six days or periods of time. So in Job (xxxviU.
4-7) it is implied that the stars were made before
instead of (as here in Genesis) after the founding of
the earth.*
* Compare Proverbs -viii. 24 f,; Psalm xxiv. 2; Psalm civ.;
Job xxvi, 7-10 ; and see D. 8, 8., i,, p. 257 f.

Traditions of Creation. 139
It was ihe divine institution of the JHosaic Sdbbath
which gave its distinctive shape to the cosmogony of
Genesis. A careful study of the narrative in the hght of
the history and antiquities of the time at which it prob
ably originated proves the truth of this statement. The
division of time into weeks, or periods of seven days,
existed for an indefinitely long time before the narra
tive originated ; the division is based npon a universal
and natural order. A tradition of creation, more or
less like those possessed by other surrounding nations,
existed among the Hebrews long, previous to this
account. The chaos of which Genesis speaks, with its
mass of water and brooding darkness, has its counter
part in all these cosmogonies. Six days or creative
acts are found in several of them, from China in the
East to the Etruscans in the West ; and these creative
acts have essentiaUy the same order as that followed in
Genesis. Man is without exception rated as the last
creature; most of the traditions recognize his forma
tion from the soil, and some of them also recognize the
formation of woman from one of man's bodUy mem
bers. In no one of such features, then, can the He
brew narrative be said to be especially authentic or
inspired ; in none of them is it pecuhar.
The narrative of Genesis, in substantially its present
form but npon a basis of tradih"ons of long standing,
probably originated at about the same time -with, or
soon after, the institution of the Sabbath feast as a
national sacred ordinance. Eight or more great crea
tive acts appear to have been found by the writer
already existing in the current tradition; for at least

140 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.
eight creative acts are gathered up by him and put into
the six creative days. The entire nai-rative culminates
in the words, " And God blessed the seventh day and
haUowed it."
The coincidences of the biblical view of the order of
creation with the conclusions of modem science are the
direct result of the fact that the writer carried out the
moral and reUgious teaching, with which he had been
inspired, in accordance with the -views of nature current
in his own time. In other words, every act of creation
is placed by the Mosaic cosmogony in the order in
which it would naturally be placed by a devout Hebrew
of that age. The author regarded one God as the
creator of all, and man as His spiritual child, capable
of coming into covenant relations with Him on the
basis of certain divinely commanded institutions and
ordinances. Hence his narrative is also free from
those monstrous conceptions as to the divine procedure
in producing the world, and as to the relations in
which divinity stands to this world, that are found in
most other ancient cosmogonies.
Moreover, as a natural deduction from its religious
teaching. Genesis gives to man his trae position in the
universe, at the head of creation — last, indeed, in
time, but first in excellence, and sharing in both the
natural and the divine. In the same way is man
regarded as the centre of creation. Sun, moon, and
stars are created ^o;' him, to rule the day and night for
him, and to give hira light. From the point of view
which is held, properly enough for its own purposes,
by physical science, this estiraate of man is greatly

The Order of Creation. 141
exaggerated. But from the biblical point of view, and
-with the purposes which its teaching is designed to
secm-e, such an estimate is correct and indispensable.
It accords also with the conclusions of a sound philos
ophy which, like the Bible, lays emphasis upon what is
rational, spiritual, and divine in raan, rather than
chiefly upon his physical organism and connections.
The character of its religious teaching also explains
the fact that the narrative of Genesis agrees with
modern physical science in regarding the different sub
stances and beings of which the world is composed as
originating in an orderly and progressive way. The
Bible directly infers this truth from the wisdora of
God as accounting for the grades of existences with
which experience makes us acquainted. Physical sci
ence discovers the same truth in detail by the raost ex
tended and painstaking researches. But the biblical
account plainly involves no inforraation concerning that
costly and imraense conflict among the forms of animal
hfe, and concerning those -countless ages of growth
and increase, succeeded by ruin and comparative chaos,
which the modern science of geology has brought to
view. Under the influences of ti-ue religious belief com
bined with faulty scientific information the author of
this cosmogony obviously had some such picture of
creation as the foUowing before his mind : The forma
tion of the present constitution of things he, like his
contemporaries, thought of as beginning in a dark and
watery chaos. God then first of all summons hght
into being — light, which is regarded as something reaUy

142 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.
existing and the condition of all other existences, as
well as of the knowledge of what is afterward to go
on in the process of making the world ready for man.
The watery mass which was before undivided, after it
is illurained by the newly created light, is separated by
another word of God, and its two parts are fixed sep
arate by the firm and pellucid expanse of the sky. As
the heavens had been divided off frora the earth by a
divine act, so now by another divine act the earth is
divided frora the sea by coUecting together the waters
into one place ; and thus the dry land, or earth in the
more restricted meaning of the word, is prepared for
bringing forth every kind of vegetable life. And now
the light, which has hitherto been conceived of as a
substance everywhere equally diffused, is also col
lected and stationed in its centres of supply. God had
said, " Let there be light "; He now says, " Let there
be hghts."
The creation of the heavenly bodies on the fourth
day, and their separation in this manner from the
creation of the light, appears the only real surprise in
the order of the Mosaic cosmogony. But considering
the conceptions which the author had, and the material
which he had to handle, this order is after all not sur
prising. For how could the heavenly luminaries be
created until a firraaraent was raade in which to set
them ? Moreover, they are regarded as lights for the
earth and for the aniraals (especially man) that dwell
on the earth. They could not, therefore, be created
earlier than the third day. But since eight creative
works are to be accomplished in six days of creation (so

The Order of Creation. 143
that the Sabbatic week may be completed), the two
works of making the dry land and of causing it to
produce the plants are naturaUy allotted to the third
day. The gathering of the light into its places, ac
cordingly, falls upon the fourth daj^; and by its ar
rangement in this way the balance between the two
great halves of the creative works — those which a
theologian of the Middle Ages called the " works of
makiug a distinction " and the " works of adornment"
— is secured.
From the fourth day onward the narrative of Genesis
introduces the animal creation upon the earth in an order
corresponding to its general plan and to its conception
of the relation of the earth to man. Finally, the crown
ing divine work is reached ; in man's creation we have
the culmination of the narrative, and the way is, once
for all, made ready for all the subsequent history and
doctrine of the book in which the narrative occurs.
It is only what we should expect, after making the
fullest acknowledgment of the value of the moral and
religious teaching of the Mosaic cosmogony, to find that
the details of its arrangement differ in several import
ant respects from the conclusions of modern science.*
To admit this does not detract at all from the value of
this teaching. For example, the narrative of Genesis
introduces all the forms of plant-hfe together in verse
12 ; all the forms of fishes and birds in verse 20 ; all
the forms of land animals in verse 24 f. ; it makes these
creatures belong to different, separate periods of time,
and to different creative acts. But such a view is quite
*D. a a,i, p, 261f.

144 T^^ Bible and Sciences of Nature.
at variance with the conclusions of modem science.
Moreover, the condition in which the world is repre
sented as beginning is very different from that in which
science represents it. Genesis speaks of a mass of rag
ing waters ; modem science, of a gaseous fluid. How
impossible it is to understand by this watery chaos the
same state of things which the modern theory demands,
we may see by referring to the use made elsewhere of
the word with which the Hebrew describes it. Jonah
is represented (ii. 5) as being cast into — a " mass of rag
ing waters," and not a gaseous fluid ! The Psalmist
(xlii. '7) represents one such mass of water as calling to
another, when a storm is on the deep — not one gaseous
fluid as caUing to another !
Nor can modern science adrait that all the forms of
plant-life, famihar to the author of the Mosaic cosmog
ony and necessary to the sustenance of man and beast,
were created before the existence of sunlight, or that
the separation of all plant-life frora all animal life (with
an entire period or aeon thrown in between) represents
the real facts of tlje case.
The imraense antiquity of the heavenly bodies, far
surpassing that of the present distinction between the
sea and laud upon the earth's surface, is also one of the
firmest conclusions of raodern science. We cannot escape
this difficulty by considering that the work of the fourth
day consisted simply in making visible the heavenly
bodies which had before been in existence; for the
author plainly regards the work of this day as truly
creative of the heavenly bodies.
Of all the various theories which have been devised

Theories of Reconciliation. 145
to escape difficulties like the foregoing, not one is at all
satisfactory. The theory which clings to the strict lit
eral and historical interpretation of the text of Genesis
is, indeed, exegetically considered, satisfactory ; but it,
of course, leaves the real task of reconciliation un
touched. This makes it necessary to give some other
than the so-called literal interpretation to Genesis, if a
complete accord of its statements with accepted scien
tific truth is to be effected. Hence various hypotheses
of reconciliation. Into a detailed account of these hy
potheses we cannot enter. There are certain special
objections on which each one of them strikes and is
broken in pieces. But there is one insuperable objec
tion common to all such hypotheses, and concerning this
objection a brief discussion is appropriate at this point.
All the hypotheses of reconciliation require that some
provision shall be found in the biblical narrative for
those enormously long periods of time, and for that
slow and so-called natural evolution of one stage from
another under the action of physical causes, which raod
ern science deraonstrates and emphasizes. The biblical
narrative, however, speaks of all things as finished in six
days of work, followed by one day which is hallowed as
a day of divine rest. Every effort at reconciliation,
therefore, involves an understanding of these " days "
as though they were enormously long periods of time,
which may be filled up with the process of natural evo
lution. But can the Hebrew word for day be so inter
preted ? Candor compels us to say that it cannot.
The Hebrew word translated "day" in the cosmog
ony of Genesis never raeans, and cannot mean, an in-

146 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.
definitely long or enormous period of tirae, such as is
absolutely required to constitute one of the geological
eras.* For example, when we are told in Psalm xc.
(verse 4), that a thousand years are in Jehovah's eyes
like the one day of yesterday when it is past, the very
force of the comparison depends upon retaining the
customary meaning for the word " day." The word
is frequently used in Hebrew either to mean the ordi
nary day of twenty-four hours, with its succession of
light and darkness, or to denote indefinitely ihe time at
which anything occurs. That the writer of the Mosaic
cosmogony did not for a moment conceive of these days
as including imraense stretches of tirae filled up with
the ongoing evolution of nature, his whole mode of
speaking plainly shows. The seventh day, the use of
which as a Sabbath he wished to consecrate, is certainly
regarded by hira as an ordinary day. The formula,
" there was evening aud there was raorning, one day,"
corresponds to the Babylonian usage, and to the fact
that the first of the divine works was the creation of
light; the first whole day, therefore, began with the
light closed in by evening, and ended at the expiration
of the darkness closed in by raorning.
Moreover, what sort of geological periods can be de-
-vised that are part day and part night, as the ordinary
day is ? And if it be said, that tEere could have been
no days until the sun was made, and therefore the days
preceding the fifth could not have been ordinary days,
the reply is : The whole narrative, and all the informa
tion elsewhere derived, shows that the writer had no
*D, a a, i„p. 266f.

Narrative of the Deluge. 147
such conception, as we have, of the succession of day
and night being fixed by the movement of the earth in
relation to the sun. Until the " lights " were created to
rule the day and the night, Jehovah without the heav
enly bodies made the light come and go so as to round
off the days with successive evenings and mornings.
Essentially the same conclusions wdth regard to the
attitude of the early Hebrew writers toward phj'sical
facts and laws follow from a study of the narrative of
the Deluge in Noah's time.* In this case insuperable
difficulties arise only when we try to accept the obvious
-view of the writer — namely, that the whole earth was
submerged at that time, and every living being not
preserved in the ark destroyed. But the difficulties
in the main disappear when we regard the narrative
as the tradition of a -wide-spread but comparatively
local flood. Its wider interest arises frora the fact that
its occurrence and results are connected with Jehovah's
dealings with His covenant people for purposes of
moral and religious instruction. Everything about the
narrative shows that its author held only the prevalent
conceptions of his time as to the physical conditions
of such a deluge as he describes.
Jehovah, we are told in this narrative, opens the
windows of heaven and lets down the rain ; He also
breaks up the fouiltains of the great deep and lets the
flood burst forth from the earth. But, obviously, the
writer knew nothing of what would be involved in so
great a geologic change in the crust of the earth.
For the process of putting everything to rights, as he
*D, 8. a, i., p, 272f.

148 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.
conceives of it, requires only a few months ; and when
the earth dries off, the mountains and hills stand in
their accustomed places, and a freshly plucked olive-
leaf is found at no great distance from the ark. More
over, it takes less than twice the time required for the
water to subside fifteen cubits, for it further to subside
so as to leave the entire earth dry. Very high moun
tains, therefore, could not have been known to the
writer. To insist upon the scientific accuracy of the
views as to the construction and processes of nature
held by the narrative of the Deluge in the days of
Noah requires us to assume a series of the most stu
pendous miracles. Only miraculously could the ani-
mals have been collected by this patriarch ; only mirac
ulously could they have been accommodated and cared
for in the ark ; only miraculously could the damage to
the geological order have been repaired, etc., etc. And
these miracles are in the spheres of meteorology, phys
ical geography, biology, and even astronomy — in other
words, in just those spheres in which they are to be
admitted only when the evidence is of the highest
order. Nor are they contemplated by the bibhcal nar
rative itself.
The sarae course recoraraends itself, therefore, to the
devout biblical student, when he considers the narra
tive which Genesis gives of a universal deluge, as that
which we have seen he should foUow when considering
its narrative of creation. The raoral and religious
doctrine and bearings of the narrative should be recog
nized without the painful feeling that the trustworthi
ness and inspiration of the Hebrew Bible must be vin-

The Unity of the Race. 149
dicated by showing the scientific infallibUity of the
Hebrew writer.
It is obviously unnecessary to consider in detaU the
possibUity of reconciling the views of the Old Testa
ment regarding the origin, unity, and antiquity of the
huraan race with those so confidently held on these
subjects by many students of natural science.* But
upon these subjects, in general, one important observa
tion should be made. With aU its boasting and pai-ade,
natura] science has here, in fact, httle real and verifiable
— not to say conclusive — ^information to give. Natural
science cannot tell us how the huraan species originated ;
it is not likely that it wUl ever be able to do this in any
such way as to comraand the assent of all reasonable
students of the problem. All of its devotees should
be candid enough to admit what some of the -wisest of
them do not hesitate to say, when asked as to how man
came to be, as now, on the face of the earth ; — " We do
not know."
Nor can natural science tell us whether the different
races of men have sprung from one pair or not. As
to the genealogical unity of the human species, it can
not say. But anthropology and psychology alike
unite in teUing ns that, both in bodily and in mental
characteristics, aU men are now one species / nay, more,
that they are entitled to be set apart from all other
animals as separated by a great gulf from them ; and
are bound among themselves into the unity of a genus
incomparable, in certain respects, with the other genera
of the animal kingdom. * D. a a, i„ p. 275 f .

150 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.
As to the antiquity of raan, however, the natural
sciences, although they can as yet give no definite
opinion, are entitled to hold that neither the ordinary
chronology, nor any other chronology, as derived from
biblical data, gives sufficient room for that progress
which such sciences can show has actually been made
by man upon the earth.
In closing this chapter it is proper reverently to
weigh certain considerations which help to vindicate
the divine wisdora in not so inspiring the writers of
sacred Scripture as to free thera frora all erroneous
conceptions and mistaken statements on matters per
taining to physical and natural science. It would in
deed be far better if all students of the Bible would
approach it without having their minds prejudiced in
judgment as to what God must do in order to be
" wise " in His way of giving the Bible to mankind.
Who will undertake to say how God must make, or
cause to be made by His inspired servants, a circuit of
canonical writings like that contained in the Old and
New Testaments?
But, certainly, it is not difficult to find reasons why
God should not render the writers of sacred Scripture
infallible with respect to physical facts and laws. The
original design of the Mosaic cosmogony, for example,
was to found the Jewish Sabbath as a divine institution
connected with the covenant relations between Jehovah
and the nation. If its design had been to furnish a scien
tific theory of evolution, the construction of this cos-
raogony would have been entirely different. But how
inferior, in respect to all which the Bible airas to accom-

Biblical Teaching Religious. 151
plish, would the latter purpose have been as compared
with the former ; indeed, we raay say how difficult or
even impossible of accomplishraent ! By this we do not
raean simply that the ancient Hebrews did not need to
know, and could not have been raade to comprehend,
the facts and laws of nature as they are taken account
of by modern physical theories. We mean also to affirm
that if the form of their moral and religious teaching
had been raade such as to coraport with these modern
theories, it would have been robbed of much of its effect
iveness over the minds of that age. The very essence of
the modern theories is the principle that the world came
into its present condition as the result of the evolution
of natural causes working through enormously long
periods of tirae. The very essence of the biblical teach
ing is the doctrine that God is in the world with His
spiritual presence, and that He needs neither tirae nor
agencies existing outside Himself to bring to pass the
things that are. These two truths or sets of truths are
not, indeed, incompatible. But it has required centuries
of discussion and progress in scientific and philosophical
inquiry, as well as in biblical study, to see that they are
not incompatible. And even now, and after all, it is
only a few of the choicest and most devout spirits who
can keep the religious awe before the immediateness of
God's creative power and wisdom in close union with
the scientific knowledge that the world of existing sub
stances and forces has been evolved, through countless
ages of time, in accordance with natural laws.
Could it be expected, then, that the crude and un
trained mind of the Hebrews to whom God began long

152 The Bible and Sciences of Nature.
ago to make Himself known as their Eedeeraer (crude
and untrained then both in religion and in science)
could have received the religious doctrine if this doc
trine had been taught even in a form compatible with
the scientific theory ? God was then getting this tough
and low-minded people started in the most primitive
things of true religion. He took them as children ; He
bore with thera as with children ; He spake to them as
to chUdren. It is a small and insignificant thing from
the truly religious point of view that, while He made
thera alone of all ancient peoples, by a gradual revela
tion, to know Hira as the true God and to expect His
Messiah, He did not also provide thera with historians
and prophets who could, either cunningly or unwittingly,
guard theraselves against saying anything irreconcilable
with the most advanced modern theory of geological
and biological evolution.
Let this chapter close, then, -with the affirmation of
the same principles to which attention was called at the
beginning. As it was once -w-ittily said by a Cathohc
theologian : " The Bible is to teach us how to go to
heaven and not how the heavens go." It assumes the
great moral and religious truth that God, with His will
and wisdora and spiritual presence, is imraanent every
where in the nature which physical science regards as
a mechanisra of raeasurable forces acting on each other
under unchanging laws. This raoral and religious view
of nature is profoundly true. It needed to be brought
to raan at the first in the raost simple and childlike
forms of representation. This need was met by the He
brew Scriptures.

CHAPTEE VI.
THE MIEACLES OF THE BIBLE.
Theee is another class of claims for the biblical writ
ers with which many students of the modem sciences of
nature are often found in sharp and strenuous conffict.
Every candid reader of the Old and New Testaments
can see that many occurrences are recorded in them,
which are not merely supematural as implying the uni
versal divine presence in what we call natural events,
but which are supernatural as implying this presence in
sorae special and notable way. Such occurrences are
customarily called "miracles." Bnt modern physical
science strongly induces mauy of its devotees to disbe-
Ueve in miracles, while it cultivates in aU of them far
more of scepticism toward the evidence for miracles
than was prevalent in biblical times.
The devout Christian behever, however, cannot re
gard the modem conflict over tbe very existence of the
biblical miracles as an unimportant one. This conflict
is, indeed, much more important than any conflict over
the strict scientific accuracy of the Noachian Deluge or
the Mosaic cosmogony.
Indeed, the doctrine of miracles is a tenet over which
the most intelligent and liberal-minded defenders of the
Christian faith have alwaj^s felt it necessary to contend
— if need be, as in a life-and-death struggle. Nor does
this tenet appear any less essential now, in the face of
(153)

154 The Miracles of the Bible.
the raore modem scientific way of looking at nature as
a raechanisra of imperishable substances and energies
interacting under unchanging law, than it appeared two
thousand years ago.
Certain considerations of another order must, however,
at once be added in explanation of what has just been said.
There can be no doubt that the theology of two or more
centuries since greatly increased the difficulty felt by
candid minds in accepting the bibhcal miracles. This it
did by drawing fixed lines of separation between the
natural and the supernatural, by banishing God from the
world of ordinary experience, and by separating the con
ception of a miracle too much from the ordinary intent
and methods of the divine wisdom and grace. Now to
_^eny the justness of such a theological conception of the
biblical miracles is a very different thing from denying
the miracles themselves.
We need, then, first of aU, to inquire as to what is
the true conception of a miracle. And in beginning
our answer to this question we appeal to the Bible
itself. It must be remembered, however, that the
Bible is a large collection of originally separate books
which were composed by different authore, under dif
ferent circumstances, and at widely separated intervals
of time. It is, therefore, not unlikely that a develop
ment of view will be discovered in the biblical books,
upon this as upon other subjects. Certainly the Chris
tian point of standing will here be, in some important
respects, different from that of the Old-Testament
saints. To the Christian, Christ is Himself — in His
pereon, incarnation, hfe, resurrection, and spiritual

Their Record Historical. 155
presence — the one great and essential rairaculous reality.
All else which puts forth a claira to be of a rairaculous
character is to be regarded from the point of view fur
nished by faith in Christ.
In attempting a work of Christian apologetics, hke
that upon whieh we are to enter, several distinc
tions are important to be made. We must distinguish
between accepting the biblical doctrine of miracles and
of the place they have in true religion, and holding
that every narrative of a miraculous event is undoubt
edly true simply because it occurs in the biblical writ
ings. A narrative of a miraculous event is precisely
hke a narrative of any other event. A miracle, if it
occur, is something that men become aware of, as they
become aware of other events — either by the evidence
of their own senses or by the testimony of othere. The
record of every miracle is, therefore, an historical affair.
It must be tested by the rules by which we judge of
all history. If it should seera that any of the bibUcal
narratives of miracles — for example, of the miraculous
quenching of the thirst of Samson, or of the standing
still of the sun at Joshua's command — have not suffi
cient historical evidence to secure them against doubt
on such grounds, this would by no means overthrow or
necessarily weaken the biblical doctrine of miracles in
general. It would not even necessarily detract from
the value of the es-idence in favor of some other mir
acle — for example, the resurrection of our Lord, or
some one of His many miraculous acts.
Moreover, a distinction must be made among the
bibhcal miracles with respect to the relation in which

156 The Miracles of the Bible,
they stand to the traths of Christianity and of biblical
religion. Some of these miracles are, as such, integral
and almost (if not quite) vital parts of Christianity;
others of them are only remote!}' connected with the
truths of Christianity; others, still, are even wholly
unconnected with it, unless we regard the bare fact
that mention of them is made in some Old-Testament
writing as constituting such a connection. Each mir
acle may, therefore, properly be regarded as a special
case requiring a special examination ; such examination
wiU consider the connection of each miracle with the
truths of biblical religion, as well as the amount of
historical testiraony which it has in its favor.
What, then, is the true conception of the biblical
miracle as set forth by the biblical writers themselves ?
A rairacle is a species of the supernatural ; it is a par
ticular kind, or raode, of the raanifestation of Himself
which God raakes, in external nature, to the mind of
man. Such revelation implies, then, that something
takes place by the act of God, outside of the human
mind, which is designed and adapted to make the
divine nature and work known to man. But it also
implies that a spiritual process, of apprehending the
meaning of what thus takes place externally, goes on in
the mind itself. Thus much is true of all the divine
self-disclosure. "Eevelation" cannot be a mechanical
process; it cannot be a kind of carrying, over ready-
made the truths of one mind to the mind of another.
But the biblical miracles are designed to accomplish
a special kind of revelation. One characteristic of all
miracles is that they are events obvious to the senses.

The Theological View. 157
A miracle is therefore something that happens in the
sphere which we call "nature," in the sphere which we
regard from the modern point of view as under the
reign of physical laws. But the question now arises :
In what respect do miraculous events in nature differ
from ordinary events there; or from extraordinary
events, like flood, pestUence, storm, etc., for the occur
rence of which ignorant men find it difficult to assign
a so-called natural explanation ?
The view which the theologians of the ancient
Church took of the biblical miracles, so far as they
speculated upon the nature and method of the miracle
in general, was sirailar to that of the biblical writers.
One form at least of the doctrine of Augustine held
that aU events in nature are in a certain «ense miracu
lous, as all being alike the work of God ; * and, on the
other hand, all events are alike natural. According to
Thoraas Aquinas, too — the great theologian of the
Middle Ages — ^those things are called miracles whieh
are done by God beyond the order of nature, or beyond
the causes " known to us." But that same ^os^Eefor-
mation theology, which we found insisting on the most
unnatural theory of the inspiration of the Bible, was
satisfied neither with the biblical nor with the earUer
theological view of miracles. It thought to glorify
the occasional action of God in nature, for pui-poses of
revealing His wisdora and power, by calling every
biblical rairacle a " violation " of natural laws. Now,
no theory of a rairacle could well be more truly un-
phUosophical and even irreligious than this. For-
* D. a 8., 1., p. 293.

158 The Miracles of the Bible.
tunately, during the last half century, this conception
of the miracle has been alraost wholly abandoned.
The biblical rairacles are not to be regarded as viola
tions or even suspensions of the laws of nature. From
the biblical as well as from the truly philosophical point
of view, the " laws of nature " are themselves only the
orderly and wise modes of the operation of the divine
will. But God does not, of course, violate Himself or
the methods of His own rational and gracious behavior.
If in an emergency (as it were, and to speak humanly)
His raode of operation is different frora that ordinarily
foUowed, this is not a violation of nature. If He so
connects together a systera of extraordinary occurrences
in the realm of visible and tangible events as to make
them show forth His character — ^for example, as the
system of biblical rairacles shows God forth as the Re
deemer of mankind — this is not to be spoken of as
though the divine will did an occasional violence to the
world of physical substances, forces, and laws. The
truth is that this false theory of the miracle is itself a
product of the very same way of regarding the relation
between God and the world as that adopted by the
Deism which the theory tried to controvert.
Not a few of the biblical miracles merely represent
themselves as what we should now call extraordinary
combinations or exaggerations of ordinary physical
forces.* The Flood, the plagues of Egypt, the deliver
ance at the Eed Sea, and probably raany of the miracu
lous healings of the Bible belong to this class. These
events are regarded by the bibUcal writers as miracu-
* D. 8. S„ i,, p. 302.

The Biblical Conception. 159
lous, not because they must be regarded by us as -viola
tions or suspensions of nature's laws, but because they
are notable events, are to be ascribed to the divine free-
wUl, and are factors in the self-revelation of God.
Still further, the Bible never represents its miracu
lous occurrences as though they came about in an abso
lutely supernatural or wholly arbiti-ary way. Even
miracles are always Umited by conditions derived from
nature. Indeed, miracles, in order to be miracles at aU,
must be in nature and, to a certain extent, of nature.
For example, the bread with which our Lord feeds the
multitudes is represented as actual bread, and doubtless
had all the qualities and effects of such food ; the -wine
He made was actual wine, and is represented as having
its physical basis, so to speak, in the water that was
turned into the wine. Whatever happens in nature —
and it is of the very essence of a rairacle to happen in
the natural sphere and so make an appeal to the mind
through the senses — takes its place there in accordance
with the conditions furnished by the existing substances,
forces, and laws of nature ; and this is as true of that
which, like the miracle, cannot be conceived of as origi
nating wholly out of these substances, forces, and laws,
as it is of all ordinary so-called natural occurrences.
Now, if we examine the conception of the miracle
which seems to be required by the teaching of both the
Old and the New Testaments, we find that it includes
three elements.* It is implied, in the fii-st place, that
a miracle is not an event of ordinary experience ; sec
ondly, that it is the product of God's immediate pres-
*D. S. a, i., p. 301.

i6o T)ie Miracles of the Bible.
ence and activity ; thirdly, that it is a sign, proof, or re-
rainder to raen which has a moral and religious signifi
cance. The most important and raost strongly attested
of the biblical miracles are factors or parts, as it were,
in that systera of divine self-revelation which it is the
chief function of the Bible to record, perpetuate, ex
plain, and apply. It is largely for this reason that these
rairacles stand, in both character and evidence, so mudi
above all the alleged rairacles with which the history of
the ancient and mediaeval Church, as weU as the tales of
Oriental peoples generally, are filled.
The titles by which the biblical miracles are called in
the biblical writings do not, of themselves, signify much
more than that these events are unaccustomed and nota
ble or astonishing. The Old Testament has, in fact, no
name for a mu-acle that is not just as readily applicable
to events which all men would now call "natural,"
but whieh are, at the same time, capable of being re
garded by pious minds as providential occurrences.
For example, miracles are customarily called "signs."
But the ordinary processes of nature are themselves also
ascribed directly to God as great and marveUous things.
Syrabolical transactions and syrabolical persons are called
signs in apparently the sarae way as miracles. Even the
word "prodigy" or "wonder" is not restricted to the
miracle. The prophet Isaiah speaks of himself and the
children whom Jehovah had given hira as being " for
signs and portents " to Israel.*
The foregoing titles, therefore, do not emphasize any
* Deut. xxviii. 46 ; Isa. -vii, 14, viii. 18, xx. 3, xxxvii. 30, and
D. a a, i., p. 802 f.

The Product of Divine Free- Will. i6i
new relation in which the miracle stands to God as com
pared with those providential evpnts which He brings
about naturally in the administration of His kingdom —
hke plagues and fioods, and wars, for example. They
rather set the miracle apart from ordinary experience as
something extraordinary, separate, and distinguished, as
a great deed, an expression of unusual power, or as calcu
lated to inspire terror. One of the words used in the
New Testaraent for the miracle denotes the same charac
teristics. Thus we read in Mark vi. 2, of the astonish
ment of the people at the " mighty works " of Jesus ;
and in Matthew xxiv. 24, of the "great signs and won-
dei-s" which the false prophets -will show; and in Acts
V. 12, of the many " signs and wonders " -s\-rought araong
the people by the hands of the apostles.
The bibhcal teaching as to the nature and office of
its miracles, moreover, ascribes them to the divine free-
¦will. They are due to the power of God; they are
"works" of God. For example, in the miraculous
visitation with death by being swallowed up in the
ground, which Korah, Dathan, and Abiram suffered
(see Numbers xvi. 28 f.), Jehovah is represented as
" making a new thing " (or " creating a creation," see
margin of the new vereion) ; nor would the Old- Testa
ment point of view be in the least changed by the dis
covery that these seditious persons perished in an
earthquake. The really important truth upon which
the Bible insists is this, that these events happ&n by ihe
direct wiU of God. The New-Testament miracles,
too, are constantly represented as events dne to the
" power of God "; by this same power Jesos was raised

1 62 The Miracles of the Bible.
from the dead, and all believers will also be raised,
Christ himself teUs us (Luke xi. 20) that His own mir
acles are wrought by the "finger of God,"
Closely connected with the foregoing trath stands
another ; the Bible, as a rule, presents its most import
ant miracles, its divine wonders, in the connections
which they actually sustain to an historical process of
divine self-revelation. That is to say, throughout the
Scriptures God is represented as making Himself
known to men as their Eedeemer. That He is indeed
their redeemer, and how He will be their redeemer,
and what they are to do and be in order to be redeemed
by Him — all this becomes more and more evident as
age after age preceding the coming of Christ passes by.
But all this is finally brought into the clear light when
Christ is fully eome. Now, the biblical miracles are
factors or elements in this process of revelation — they
are so, at least, as a rule. That certain narratives of
wonders which seem to have uo connection with this
process of reveahng God as the Eedeeraer of mankind
do occur in the Old Testaraent, we are not prepared to
deny. Sorae rairacles are there narrated which appear
more like the raagic and " thaumaturgy " of which we
find so much in all ancient religions. Such miracles
can never claira the same evidence for themselves as
that which belongs to the miracles that appear as o?--
ga/nicall/y connected, so to speak, with the process of
divine revelation.
The biblical miracles have therefore a moral signifi
cance and sustain relations of the greatest interest and
value to the development of the kingdom of God.

Their Moral Influence. 163
They ^xefor an end, and that end is to raake the divine
holiness and grace known to all raen, in an effective
way. This is the so-called "teleology" of the mir
acle. This is the purpose indicated, as served, by the
title " sign " which the biblical writers so often apply
to the miracles they record. For this reason also
errors of faith and errors of hfe prevent men who in
dulge in them from being convinced by miracles ; and
they also detract from the convincing force of the won
ders sometimes wrought by evil teachers.* For the
same reason no one is to allow himself to be convinced
by wonders of whatever character against the true
teaching of the Gospel. For miracles are not " signs "
which prove that the raen who work them must be
listened to at all hazards ; they are signs of the divine
trath to such as know how to interpret them. Those
who claim to work miracles in the name of Christ
are not even to be listened to when they also work
iniquity. The New Testament plainly regards the office of the
miracle as unfulfilled unless it has some influence upon
human character. Faith in miracles is of little worth
unless it become faith in Christ. Miracles call upon
those who witness them to repent and give thanks to
God. The Pharisees committed a far grgater sin in
admitting that Jesus cast out devils miraculously, and
then ascribing this influence to the prince of devils,
than they would have comraitted in disbelieving the
evidence that He cast out devils at all. Jesus repeat
edly refuses to lend His power to produce miracles as
*D, a a, i„p. 30fif,

164 The Miracles of the Bible.
mere wonders or spectacles. His miracles are rather
all to be regarded as "tokens" or "symbols" from
which to draw conclusions as to the nature of His
Messianic work ; they may therefore be considered as
a witness to the divine character of that work.
The biblical miracles are, therefore, never to be re
garded as occasional violations or suspensions of an
order of nature whieh, during the period between
these violations or suspensions, goes on in comparative
independence of God by the play of its own forces under
its o-wn laws. God is as much and as truly in nature,
and over nature, at one time as at another ; when the
grain ripens in the sunshine, as well as when the water
becomes wine ; when the dead body falls into the decay
natural to it, as truly as when it is made to live again
at the word of the Lord of life. No laws or forces
have an existence outside of God, or apart from God,
that can be overturned when a biblical rairacle is
wrought. And now the question arises, whether events like
those which the Bible narrates araong its miracles can
actually occur. This question will probably be an
swered by each inquirer according to the attitude
which he assumes, in mind, heart, and will, toward
biblical religion. Suppose a thoughtful mind fully to
believe in God, not simply as a remote possibUity, or
merely as a creator who, countless ages ago, started
the first things of nature and has since left them alone,
— suppose God to be believed in as a living God, ever
manifest and imraanent in nature, as the Bible teaches
that He is. Suppose the faith also to be held that God

Their Historical Probability. 165
has made a revelation of Hiraself, in a special way, as
the Eedeemer and Saviour of man frora sin. Suppose
the conviction to be gained that the biblical religion is
such a revelation, and that the Christ of the New Tes
tament is the full and final manifestation of God in
this way. Then the mind belie-ving these things will
see a probability and fitness in the divine use of natural
events and objects to raake God thus known to raen.
Nay, more : then the mind will regard Christ himself,
His being, personality, work, death, and resurrection,
as the great and central miracle of this whole process
of divine self-revelation.
The historical probability and the scientific probabU
ity of the biblical miracles depend largely, therefore,
upon the general attitude of mind with which the ques
tion is approached. Even in times when the plentiful
existence of miracles was almost unquestioned, they
' could not of themselves produce faith. Nor was it
ever expected that the mere exciting of wonder should
bring men into the right apprehension of the truth.
Nor would the essential value of the biblical miracles
and the office they serve be destroyed if the time
should come when investigation should discover how
these miracles carae about. For the person in the right
attitude toward God, He is no farther away when His
presence and working are hidden; and no less near
when man gets sorae clearer glimpses of the methods
of this presence and working.
In considering the evidence for the biblical miracles
we should begin where it is fuUest and strongest. Let
it not be forgotten, however, that it is necessary to

1 66 The Miracles of the Bible.
establish the truthfulness of each of these narratives on
grounds that are valid for each, and according to the
rules of historical inquiry.
Did Jesus claim to work rairacles? It is to this
question that we need first of all briefly to attend, since
the moral integrity and freedora from self-deceit of
his divine Lord are fundamental tenets of knowledge
and faith with the Christian believer. For us, there
fore, the trustworthiness of His claims needs no ex
amination. The history of the Evangelists* represents the people
as attracted to Jesus by His abiding gift of working
miracles ; it represents Him also as accepting the view
which the people held concerning the Messianic office
He exercised. The argument, for example, which our
Lord holds with the Pharisees (Mark iii. 20-30, and
the parallel passages), when they accuse Hira of cast
ing out devils by the prince of the devils, shows that
He claimed to be a worker of miracles. His reply to
the disciples of John (Matt. xi. 2 f.) when they came
to inquire whether He were the Messiah or not, con
tains the same claim, and pledges His moral integrity to
this claim. And when word came to Hira that Herod
was seeking to kill Him, He would have "that fox"
told : " I cast out devils and perform cures " (see Luke
xiii. 32). There can be no doubt that Jesus claimed
to work miracles.
Nor can a truly miraculous character be denied to
those cures of the sick whieh our Lord performed al
most daily, and to which He referred as a marked token
*D, a a, i„p, 318 f.

Christ as a Healer. 167
of the truth that He was actually exercising the official
functions prophesied of God's Messiah. It is indeed
tme that modern physiological and medical science has
brought to light many wonderful facts concerning the
infiuence of mental conditions and mental excitement
over diseases of the body. But it is also true that we
know nothing, which can be called by the title of
" scientific truth," to account for the miraculous cures
ascribed to our Lord in the Gospels. Not only is He
represented as curing the maniacal, the paralytic pros
trate upon beds, and deaf-mutes, but also those bom
blind, those leprous, and mairaed with permanent and
organic changes. He is also represented as healing aU
diseases alike, and at once ; and this, not as a physician,
or even as a miracle-monger, but as the Messiah of
God. His will accomplishes cures at a distance, and
where neither the pereons to be cured, nor their friends,
know that the cure is to be effected.
The miraculous cures of our Lord, indeed, appear
" natural," in the higher sense of the word, as coming
from Him ; that is to say, they spring forth from His
spiritual pereonality as a fitting expression of what He
is, and of His relation to God, to the world, and to
men. Hence His power to walk the sea. His trans
figuration, and His several appearances after resurrec
tion up to His miraculous disappearance from the sight
of His disciples. Nor is the outreaching of this divine
Messianic power stopped by the barriers which external
things opposed to others. The sea is miraculously
stiUed ; the dead are raised to life ; the multitude are
fed with miraculously-created bread, or given to drink

1 68 The Miracles of the Bible.
of wine miraculously produced from water. It is the
Lord's Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of men,
who thus shows forth in physical nature, and by His
power over physical nature, the divine redeeming holi
ness and grace.
Now it is not unlikely that the miracles of our Lord
sustained an important relation to the development of
His own consciousness of His divine sonship and office
as Messiah. Just as all human beings have their men
tal and spiritual powers developed in the contact with
and control over physical things, so did this unique
being understand what raanner of one He was, and
what raanner of work He was called of God to perform,
more fully as His miraculous action continued and en
larged its sphere. That the miracles of Christ had an
incalculable effect upon the public manifestation and
recognition of His divine nature and mission there can
be no doubt.* They expressed to the people His claims
to be sent as the Messiah of God ; they expressed the
divinest qualities of compassion and grace which be
longed to His pereon ; they attracted men to Him ;
they demanded and cultivated faith, and so became a
raeans of grace.
The miracles which the Gospels record are, there
fore, such as Christ himself claimed that it was His
mission to perform. They are also such as most fit
tingly foUow from the very natnre of Christ's person
ality and of His work upon the earth. They " fittingly
follow," that is to say, in the judgment of those who
take the bibhcal and true view of the relation in which
• D. 8. a, 1., p. 39.

The Picture of Jesus. 169
God, the supernatural Presence and Power, stands to
aU that we call nature, and of the plan which He has
-wrought out in history for the redeniption of mankind.
As to the occurrence, in fact, of the miraculous deeds
ascribed to our Lord by the Gospels, we have enough
of trustworthy imraediate testiraony. The testimony
to the fact may well be regarded as trustworthy when
judged by those standards of judgment that apply to
the ascertaining of all historical truth. For it repre
sents the concurrent report of competent eye-witnesses.
It has certain featm-es which belong to no other tes
timony for any other worker of miracles.
A modern critic, by no means of too favorable an
attitude toward miracles, says traly that "the picture
of Jesus, the worker of miracles, as it is given in its
common features by the EvangeUsts, and so standing
in strong contrast with the pictm-e of John the Baptist,
belongs to the firet behevere in Christ, and is no inven
tion." Indeed, if we try to separate the miraculous
elements from the Gospel picture, it becomes quite un
recognizable as the picture of Jesus. The Gospel of
John, the only gospel written in its present form by
the hand of an apostle, represents onr Lord as being
seen and known by the writer to be a worker of mira
cles. The Gospel of Matthew, too, although not by
the apostle of that name in its present form, yet with
out doubt contains the view of Chi-ist's work and min
istry whieh was recorded by this apostohc eye-witness
of what Jesus did.
The whole evidence for the resurrection, moreover,
is evidence to the supernatural personality of Christ

170 The Miracles of the Bible.
and to the raost stupendous central rairacle of the
New-Testament revelation. Indeed, it raay be said, on
the one hand, that unless we know Jesus to have been
the supernatural person and the worker of miracles
which the Gospels agree in representing Him to be,
we know little or nothing about Him beyond the mere
fact that a man of that name lived and excited consid
erable interest at about that tirae araong the Jews.
All the evidence, then — both the doctrinal and the
historical — concurs in fixing this indestructible centre
of the Gospel rairacles in connection with the person
and work of Christ. We are to start frora this firm
central truth (both of doctrine and of history) in our
work of examining the evidence for the other biblical
miracles. The centre remains firm and indestructible
whatever may be concluded as to the sufficiency of the
evidence for certain miraculous events only very re
motely connected with this centre.
The wonderful occurrences narrated in the Old Tes
taraent are to be regarded in the light of the relation
whieh they sustain to the entire self-revelation of God
as the Redeeraer of man, as well as in the light of the
kind and amount of historical evidence for themselves
which they can usually present. Whatever may be
the fate of such Old-Testaraent narratives, the firra
centre of truth about the person and work of Jesus is
not in the least disturbed. For example, the questions
whether in reraote Old-Testament times an ax lost by
prophets was, or was not, made to swim ; and whether
a great hero like Samson did, or did not, possess mirac
ulous strength ; and whether the deliverance of Jonah

Their infrequent Occurrence. 171
was, or was not, a real miraculous occurrence — these
questions do not essentially concern our faith in Christ.
It may also be said that they do not even concern essen
tially our confidence in the Bible or our belief in its
general credibility.
The distinction raust now be made between a rair
acle and the record of a miracle.* To work a real
miracle implies sorae extraordinary relation of the per
son working it toward God. The genuine miracles of
Scripture are, as a rale, represented as wrought by
inspired prophets or messengers of God. The mir
acles in the Old Testament are represented as mainly
grouped about the two great personalities of Moses and
Elijah. In the New Testament they are, of course,
represented as centred in Christ, although also for a
time connected with the work of His apostles in found
ing His church upon the earth.
The case is sometimes represented by unfriendly
critics as though the Hebrew Scriptures " swarmed "
with tales of miraculous occurrences of the most irra^
tional kind, and on occasions when there was really no
call for them. This representation, however, is not
true to the facts. The Hebrew Scriptures do, indeed,
consider the presence of God, the supernatural, as con
stant and immediate in all their history. In this they
are highly rational instead of being at all irrational. It
is also true that these Scriptures do not draw a hard
and fixed line between what is merely supernatural and
what is miraculous in the strictest sense. The locusts
in Joel's time were as truly a divine visitation of the
*D. aa, i., p, 338 f.

I 72 The Miracles of the Bible.
nation for moral and spiritual ends as were the plagues
in the time of Moses in Egypt or in the Desert. Nev
ertheless, those occurrences in the history of Israel,
which even the ancient Hebrews could not have re
garded from the natural as well as the supernatural
point of view, with the exception of two or three great
epochs in that history, are occasional and sporadic.
Thus the miracles are raade to sustain a very close rela
tion to the w^ork of inspired prophets and raessengers of
Jehovah in the Old Testament. To work such rairacles,
then, the worker must be inspired.
But to record miracles, of itself, requires no inspira
tion. Indeed, we raight say that cool historical judg
ment and ability to sift evidence, etc., would the rather
be required for the work of making such a record. [Nor
does the presence of accounts of supernatural and
miraculous events and deeds, in the biblical writings, of
itself afford any argument that these writings are in
spired. Upon this point there is a large amount of
popular misapprehension. In reading the sacred his
tory of the Old Testament the devout mind feels that
God is brought near to it in a very extraordinary way.
Behold what deeds He wrought for the salvation and
chastisement of Israel! Or if this feeling is not al
ways vivid in the perusal of the Old Testament, it is
likely strongly to arise on reading the life of our Lord
in the Gospels. We say traly, never raan spake or did
as this man. Surely, the highest and raost authoritative
exhibition of the divine power, wisdora, and grace are
given in these words and deeds ! Such conclusions as
these are the legitiraate effect upon the huraan mind

The Resurrection of Jesus. 173
of coming into contact -with such an one as Jesus. But
frora such conclusions it is very natural to pass at once
to the conclusion that the book which holds the records
of such words and deeds must itself partake of the
same supernatural and inspired character. It is obvi
ous, however, that the conclusion in this form loses its
validity at once when we make and apply the very
clear distinction between the miracle and the record of
the miracle; or between doing a divinely inspired
deed and siraply telling about it.
And yet there is a valid arguraent for the inspiration
of the biblical writers to be derived from the very way
in which they write about the miracles. Let us briefly
consider this argument. The bibUcal conception of
what a miracle is, and the biblical view of the place
which miraculous occurrences have in God's self-
revelation, are quite unlike anything else which exists
in human history. Nowhere out of the Bible do we
find anything like that lofty ethical and religious con
ception of the natnre and meaning of miracles which
the biblical writers, as a rule, hold up to our view.
Whence did these writers derive the conception of God
as using nature in this way to make Himself known in
justice and grace as the Redeeraer of raan ? We raay
enforce this question by the central miracle, with which
the whole construction of the Christian Church is so
closely connected, — the rairacle of the resurrection of
Jesus. The only satisfactory explanation of the very
conception of Jesus as the risen and glorious Saviour is
to be found in the fact that He did so rise. How dif
ferent is this conception from any that could have been

1 74 The Miracles of the Bible.
framed by deceived and uninspired enthusiasts, on the
basis of such ancient apocryphal writings as the books
of Wisdom, of Enoch, and of Fourth Ezra 1 *
Moreover, the biblical doctrine of revelation and the
biblical view of miracles are very closely related. The
principal writers of the Bible represent the connection
with a profound insight, and yet with the greatest sim
plicity. This fact is as obvious as any fact can well be
on a thoughtful reading of the four Gospels. In speak
ing of the wonders which Christ wrought, there is no
apparent effort to multiply or magnify thera, or aira to
arrange the details for scenic effect ; no essay at display
or even in a fictitious way to advertise the divine power
and authority. Expressions of wonder or surprise on the
writer's part, that all this should have been so, are rare
and unaffected ; and when the wonder of the people at
His rairaculous deeds is referred to, there seems to be
no intention to heighten the natural result. On the
contrary, innumerable acts of rairaculous healing are
sometimes summed up in the few words that give the
siraple record of a single day. Jesus is represented as
performing a great many miracles ; He is tired out,
and withdraws for rest. As though, indeed, this were
what all would adrait that He actuaUy did, so many
were the instances of it, and so great the number of
the eye-witnesses. In less degree in the Old Testament,
and yet there in a reraarkable degree, the sarae natural
ness seems to attach itself to many of these wonderful
doings of God which serve to make men know and feel
that He is in the midst of thera in justice and in grace.
*D. a a,i„p. 32if.

Extra-biblical Miracles. 175
To convince one of this difference between the bib
hcal record of miracles and all other narratives of similar
wonderful occurrences, it is but necessary to read and
compare with the Scriptures the early ecclesiastical ac
counts of the Church miracles, or the stories told by
heathen writers, or the modei-n tales of spiritualistic
disclosures and performances. How different is the
character of the conception formed, and how different
the estimate held by the Bible of the supernatiiral oc
currences it records! We insist upon the following,
among other differences: In the biblical narratives
there is an almost complete lack of that disposition to
exaggerate which belongs to nearly all the other litera
ture of the supernatural. There is also, with a few ex
ceptions (as, for example, the narrative of the sun
standing still on command, etc.), a discretion, which is
for the age and audience remarkable, about passing the
limits fixed for miraculous events by the customary
divine order in nature. The fidehty of the biblical
writers, in adhering to conceptions of law and seemli-
ness, and in bringing even the miracles under the
spiritual order of a divine process of revealing God's
justice and grace, is a m.arked characteristic. And
nowhere else do we find the same " holy teleology,"
which makes the miracle much more than a medium of
display ; which makes it, indeed, a factor, in whose ex
istence and significance the whole world has an interest,
of the self-disclosure of Deity as the Redeemer of man.
We conclude, therefore, that ihe way in which the
biblical writers apprehend and represent the meaning
and intent of the biblical miracles is a proof of the in-

1 76 The Miracles of the Bible.
spiration of these writers. It shows that the same
spirit which discloses itself in the natural event
breathes within those who have such rare insight into
the siaruificance of the event. Without this divine in-
breathing, this inspiration of the narrator and recorder
of the event, we cannot understand his exaltation of
spiritual insight. This inspiration of the biblical writ
ere is not, however, to be regarded as an impulse that
came upon them spasmodically, as it were, or in a com
pulsory fashion, as though from -without. Nor is it to
be regarded as especially given to them for the act of
writing the narrative, or only while they are engaged
in such act. Nor, again, is it an inspiration unlike that
enjoyed by all their pious contemporaries. It is indeed
the genuine work of the Holy Spirit within their spir
its, — a work of informing them with spiritual insight
and sympathy with the divine purposes as viewed from
the higher and diviner points of view.
We should not be warranted in maintaining, how
ever, that the inspiration of the writers has secured the
miraculous contents of the Bible against all historical
error. The narrative of a miracle is always of an his
torical character. It is not itself miraculous ; it carries
in itself no claim to acceptance as an infallible history.
From Genesis to Revelation not one snch claim, direct
or indirect, is actually put forth by any biblical writer,
or can by good and necessary reasoning be deduced
frora what any biblical writer says.
Nor can it be claimed that the historical evidence
for all the mh-aculous events recorded in the Scriptures
is ahke convincing and indubitable. It is not import-

The Evidence for the-m. 177
ant that we should have evidence of this sort. The
Bible contains the record of certain miracles. It can
not, siraply as their record, authenticate all the raira
cles without being itself a kind of perpetual and uni
versal miracle. If the Bible were such a perpetual and
universal miracle, it could not be kno-wn to be such, ex
cept upon the gi-ounds of historical evidence ; that is to
say, it would have to be tested and showed to be such
by the canons of historical criticisra. But this is the
very test which we raay apply, one by one, to the bibli
cal narratives of the miracles. No theory of the infal
hble (and therefore miraculous) origin of the entire
bibhcal account of the miracles can ever be founded on
anything hke so good grounds as those on which we
found our confidence in the possibility of miracles, in
the truth that Christ possessed the power of working
them, and in the facts which constitute the great cen-
tj;al miracles of the Bible.
The historical evidence for the New-Testament mira
cles is also much stronger and more conclusive than that
for most of the Old-Testaraent miracles. The devout
Christian, as he reads the narratives of wonderful events
which occur in different pai-ts of the Bible, is called
upon to make distinctions in the interest both of faith
and of reason. He may make such distinctions with
safety. He may thus hold by the firm centre of faith
which surrounds his Redeemer. He may, without det
riment to this faith, regard the evidence for the mira
cles of the Old Testament as weaker, historically con
sidered, and yet as strengthened by the relations in
which, as a rule, they stand to that divine process of

1 78 The Miracles of the Bible.
revelation whieh culminates in the Eedeeraer. If he
discovers reason to believe that any of these remote
occurrences have, on account of the relative darkness
of the times, been only obscurely seen and apprehended,
and not perfectly reported by the Hebrew writer, he
need feel no alarm at this discovery. If he finds bibli
cal critics maintaining the opinion that this is so, he
need take no offence at it. The real cause of the Bible
is endangered only when we so link what is essential
and indubitable with what is unessential and doubt
ful, that the two in our thoughts stand or fall together.
To illustrate the truth of the position just taken to
ward the biblical accounts of rairacles, let us take a few
exaraples. In various places in the Pentateuch the
ability to work miracles and wonders is ascribed to
false di-vinities ; * in this way, these divinities seem to
be accorded an inherent power over God's universe
which it is difficult for our present views of the relation
of God to that universe to entertain. In the law of
Deuteronomy (xiii. 1-3) the sound advice is given, how
ever, that the coming to pass of dreams and wonders
should never be allowed by the believer in Jehovah to
lead him away after other gods. Exodus (see chap.
vii,, verse 11 f.) represents the sorcerers of Egypt as
matching, so to speak, the wonders which God wrought
by Moses, and thus persuading Pharaoh not to hearken
to Moses, The exhortation of Deuteronomy is one
which applies to us as truly, and perhaps as forcefully,
as it did to the children of Israel. But the point of
view which these ancient writers stiU held toward the
*D, a a, i., p, 331,

The Wonders in Judges. 179
divinities of the naljons by which they were surrounded
has.' long since been abandoned by the Christian re
hgion. In Judges, especiaUy, we find a number of stories of
wonders wrought by Samson which we may regard
from various points of view without any infidelity
whatever toward Christianity or sacred Scripture. The
writer of this book (see xvi. 16 f.) apparently regards
Samson's miraculous strength as lying in his unshorn
hair ; somewhat as the writer of 2 Kings (see ii. 8 and
14) apparently regards the power to divide the waters
as residing in the mantle of the prophet. To doubt
the truth of this view in no way affects our faith in
the rairaculous content of the Christian religion or in
the general credibility of the biblical accounts of mir
acles. Indeed, the entire circle of traditions about
Samson which Judges presents maybe exarained from
the critical and historical point of view, and the exam
ination may end in a conclusion favorable or unfavor
able to their historical credibility without altering at all
the faith and practice of the Christian believer. Of
course, then, it is not essential that we should credit the
statement (Judges xv. 19) that God opened a miracu
lous fountain for the refreshment of this hero — whether
we understand the Hebrew text to mean that this was
done by cleaving a hollow place at Lehi or by splitting
a tooth in the jaw-bone Samson had been using.
Surely, it would be going far beyond the warrant of
Christ and His Apostles to impose upon the believer
conditions as to the view he shall take of the origin
and credibility of such accounts as these.

i8o The Miracles of the Bible.
The same view of certain of the Old-Testament nar
ratives of miracles may be illustrated in detail by the
case of Joshua x. 12-14. We have here given in
poetical form the narrative of the military leader
of Israel's forces, who, when they were in battle with
the Amorites, in order to gain more time' for the
slaughter of their enemies, said in the sight of the
people : " Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon :
And thou, Moon, in the valley of Aijalon."
Then the song goes on to say :
" And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed,
tJntU the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies."
This song is quoted as "written in the Book of
Jashar," a work which was not completed, apparently,
until after the time of David.* To the quotation the
writer of Joshua adds his conception of the fact as
follows : " And the sun stayed in the midst of heaven,
and hasted not to go down about a whole day."
Now, although Jehovah is spoken of in other places
of the Old Testament as punishing the enemies of
Israel with haUstones, nothing at all resembling this
miracle of causing the sun to stand still for a whole
day for such a purpose, as regarded from the point of
view furnished by our present knowledge of the solar
system, occurs anywhere else in the Bible. In the
Greek classics, however, some pretty close analogies
are found. Thus Agamemnon prays that Zeiis wiU not
let the sun go down until he has destroyed Priam's
* 2 Samuel i. la

The Miracle of Joshua. i8i
dwelling. Events similar are narrated as actually oc
curring in the behalf of the Greek hero Ulysses. The
lengthening of the daylight by preventing the sun
from going down for a whole day was, of course, a
very different affair to the ancients from what it must
seem to us. The author of the apocryphal book of
Sirach, indeed, increases the time involved in thia
miracle so as to make two full days out of the one
spoken of in Joshua.
In view of the stupendous difficulties that encom
pass a literal interpretation of this narrative, many dif
ferent attempts have been made to soften it — all of
thera, of course, in the supposed behalf of the Bible.*
Some would understand the account to refer to an ex
traordinary refraction of hght ; others to a great shower
of meteors, with an accompanying disturbance of the
earth's course. One theologian, whose views of the
inspiration of sacred Scripture are intended to be of
the very strictest and loftiest kind, supposes that the
day was subjectively lengthened, becanse Joshua and
the Israelites were so busy killing their enemies that,
having no accurate timepieces, the work of this day
seemed like the work of two days. But what thor
oughly honest mind, on reading the biblical narrative,
does not feel disturbed and pained by all such efforts
to harmonize its plain statements with any of these
views of the case. The last attempt just spoken of
repels us as a rather dishonorable subterfuge ; it sacri-.
fices the intelligence and moral character of the writer
*D. a a, i„p, 337 f.

1 82 The Miracles of the Bible.
of this Scripture to a theory of the inspiration of
Scripture in general.
Plainly, only one of two courses is possible in the in
terpretation of this passage of Joshua. We must either
hold that at that time, in obedience to the command of
the mihtary leader of Israel, and in order to give the
Israelites more tirae to pursue and punish the Araorites,
the sun ceased to move (or, as we should say, the earth
ceased to rotate on its axis) for " about a whole day,"
or that the writer has made sorae raistake in the
matter. To take the first course undoubtedly leads us
against the most stupendous difficulties — difficulties so
immense that those of the narrative of the Noachian
Deluge dwindle in comparison. In taking the second
course one would naturally justify one's self in some
what like the following way : There existed before the
Book of Joshua was written a description of this an
cient battle in a " song " praising the great deeds of
that day ; and this song was preserved in a collection
called the Book of Jashar. The writer of Joshua
mistook the figurative statement of the ancient poetic
source which he employed for a literal statement of
historical fact. He had no conception, of course, of
the enormous difficulties which, as we view the whole
matter, stand in the way of such an interpretation. It
is not our purpose at present to argue for either one of
these two possible ways of understanding the miracle
of Joshua X. 12-14. We are simply illustrating the
important truth that all the biblical miracles are not
alike related to the Christian faith, or alike possessed
of satisfactory historical evidence ; and that the Chris-

The Miracle of Joshua. 183
tian reader who doubts the accuracy of any particular
narrative of a miracle (for example, of this rairacle of
the Old-Testament Book of Joshua) does not thereby
jeopardize in the least his Christian faith or general con
fidence in the credibihty of the biblical miracles. In
other words, in each case we may freely, but cautiously
and devoutly, examine the evidence.
The conclusions warranted on this important subject of
the nature and evidence of miracles may, then, be sum
med up as follows : The biblical doctrine of miracles is
very closely and even inseparably allied with the biblical
doctrine of revelation, as weU as with our Christian
view of the Bible as revealing God. It is quite impos
sible to remove the miraculous elements from the facts
and teachings of the Christian religion as these facts
and teachings are given to us by the writere of sacred
Scripture. But to regard all miracles as being, in their
very nature, violations or suspensions of the laws of na
ture, introduces distinctions which the Bible and a true
philosophy ahke refuse to recognize; it also gratui
tously multiplies the difficulties which modem science
finds -with miracles in general. The nature of the bib
lical miracle is to make obvious, by sorae extraordinary
occurrence, the presence and power of the supernatural
in the natural, of God in the world, for the purpose of
furthering His plans of justice and grace. It is an im
portant factor in the revelation of the Bible.
The special nature of the biblical revelation is to
make God known in history as the Redeemer of sinful
man. This revelation has its culminating and central
manifestation in Jesus Christ, the Lord and Redeemer.

184 The Miracles of the Bible.
His personality. His incarnation, His resurrection. His
spiritual exaltation and presence with His people, —
these are the chief of all miracles. Looking upon
Him as the chief and central miracle, and then view
ing the other miracles of the Bible in the Ught of the
divine meaning of this personality, we can see how
they are in general factors or parts in one great plan
of the divine self -revelation in redemption. There are
different stages and degrees of perfection in this revela
tion. For the revelation itself is in and through an his
torical process. But it is a continuous and increasingly
clearer manifestation of the justice and grace of God
the Redeeraer, until the full light of this disclosure
shines in the face of Christ upon the world. It is as
connected with this process of raaking God known that
the biblical miracles have such a great and important
office. But the record of a miracle is not itself necessarily a
miracle. Even the inspired writer, when recording a
miracle, may be subject to all the conditions which oc
casion mistakes in other historical writing ;^unless
there is evidence to show that his inspiration is of such
a nature as to keep hira from all raistakes. The Bible,
however, nowhere clairas for itself perfect freedom
from all historical error. We recognize the wonderful
and unique idea of a miracle, and the wonderful and
unique manner of speaking of rairacles, which belong
to the biblical writers, as proofs of their inspiration.
But we raaintain the right and duty of examining in
detail the evidence upon which each of the narratives
of these miracles rests.

CHAPTER VII.
THE HISTOEIES OE THE BIBLE.
The thoughtful reader of the biblical history, from
its beginning with the narrative of the Creation and Fall
of raan, to its close in the founding and first propagation
of the Christian Church, cannot fail to be impressed
with its dignity of character. There are, indeed, raany
events recorded by these writers which, if considered
by theraselves and isolated frora their connection with
a divine plan that runs through the whole, might be
considered trivial. It is not even necessary to maintain
that frivolous or doubtful traditions have in no case
been preserved within the present limits of the sacred
literature. But it is certain that such historical ele
ments, if they exist at all, appear comparatively insig
nificant in number and influence when the raain scope
and trend and spirit of the bibhcal history are taken
into account.
This dignity of character which belongs to the bibli
cal histories is due, in part, to the nature of the mate
rials with which they deal. The chief purpose of these
histories is seen in the fact that they show how the
kingdom of God on earth grew in its preparation for
and realization of tlie advent of Jesus Christ ; as well
as how God by such historical growth, and in His per
sonal advent, has made Himself known and felt as the
Eedeemer of man. (185)

i86 The Histories of the Bible.
But the dignity of the biblical histories is also, in
part, due to the dignity of form in which the history is
given. If the writers of these histories show by the
very character of their writing that they worthily en
ter into the divine spirit and intent of the events they
record, this is of itself enough to warrant us in speak
ing of their inspiration. Now, as has been said, it is
the form of the history, in part, which gives to it such
wonderful moral and religious dignity. But this form
is due to the writere themselves. For the '¦form " is
that which the writer of every history imparts to his
materials. In this way, then, we may derive a general
argument for the inspiration of the writers of bibhcal
history. But the arguraent as just outlined was by no means
satisfactory to that theory of the inspiration of the Bi
ble which was held by the^os^-Reformation Protestant
theology. This theory demanded that the histories of
the Bible should be considered absoluteljf infallible with
respect to all statements of fact, without any exception
whatever. Not even a narae or a date, it argued, could
be given incorrectly by an inspired writer ; a single in
stance of historical error would vitiate the theory of
these theologians. And since it was not proposed to
undertake an exaraination of the facts, with a view to
test the truth of the theory by methods of investiga
tion recognized as applicable to all historical questions,
it was held that the writings must be free frora error in
order to save the theory.
There no doubt exists a very natural disinclination on
the part of raany devout readers of the Bible to admit

Infallibility of Details. 187
that any of its statements of historical fact are not
strictly accurate. That most of these statements are
made with honest intent, that they are not designed to
deceive, should indeed be patent to every reader. Now,
the unwillingness of many even to consider the possi
bUity of historical inaccuracies in the Bible arises from
several sources. It is partly the result of a hngering
hold which the former theory, that inspired writers
must be infallible in respect to all the particulars of
history, stUl has upon the mind of Christendom. It is
also, in part, an honorable recoil from every thought of
taking delight in finding fiaws in details of such venerar
ble and sacred narratives. For the scholar who pro
ceeds in the most conscientious and devout raanner to
his task, it is no agreeable thing to discover the exist
ence of historical discrepancies and raisstatements in sa
cred Scripture. To point thera ont often seeras like
pointing ont the few blemishes that exist in the coun
tenance or work of a most beloved and admirable friend.
But, in view of what has already been said, one may
fitly speak to one's self and to others a word of encourage
ment and of cheer in this very connection. The Bible
nowhere, either directly or indirectly, makes any claim
whatever to an historical infallibility, to a freedora from
all raistakes, for the writers of its histories. Not a
doctrine of the Christian faith, not even the true, use
ful, and sufficient doctrine of Holy Scripture, is in any
way dependent upon the historical infalUbility of the
Bible. Indeed, most of these questions of historical
details are — we may say, with the greatest affection and
reverence for the sacred writings — of little or no account

1 88 The Histories of the Bible.
whatever so far as our general view of the Bible is
concerned. It makes no difference whatever to our
faith as Christians, or in the usefulness of the biblical
authors for our education in doctrine and conduct,
whether the number of the forces engaged in some Old-
Testament battle is given correctly or not ; whether the
age of Sarai when she went with Abram to Egypt can
be calculated so as to accord with the narrative of
Genesis xii. 10 ff., or not ; etc., etc.
Even those apparent discrepancies, which a compara
tive study of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark,
and Luke) discloses in such great nurabers, have, as a
rule, little or no important bearing on our view of the
essential nature of Christ's deeds or teachings. Even
if all the apparent discrepancies of these Gospels were
at once admitted to be real and unreconcilable, a suf
ficiently broad historical foundation for our Christian
faith would remain undisturbed. It is of the very na
ture of all historical records to abound in discrepancies
with respect to details. For example, the present gen
eration is as yet scarcely a quarter of a century re
moved from the events of the great war of the Rebel
lion. Thonsands of men are still living who were
interested aud intelligent actors, and eye- and ear-wit
nesses in its impressive scenes. But it is already quite
impossible to secure perfect agreement concerning what
occurred during any single battle. This experience of
uncertainty as respects the precise details of what is
said and done accompanies our daily lives. Not one of
us can give an account of what happened to us no
longer ago than yesterday, or even no longer than an

Their Genuine Character. 189
hour since, without running great risk of being inaccu
rate in certain details.
That -view of the biblical histories which regards
them as necessarily infallible in details, because of the
character of the inspiration imparted to their writers,
is therefore scarcely less irrational and dangerous than
the view which rejects the histories, their inspiration
and truthfulness together, on account of their apparent
discrepancies. No course is then so wise, safe, and
really loyal to the Bible, as that which admits, without
hesitation, the possibility of historical error in the
sacred writings, and then proceeds without disturbance
of faith, and in the spirit of fairness, to determine to
what extent such errors actually exist.
The question whether the Bible is genuinely histor
ical or not is, however, far different from the question
whether the accuracy of ^all its historical details is com
plete and unimpeachable.* Did Jesus live, and was He
in character and work such an one as the Gospels repre
sent Him to be ? Were those doctrines, on which the
apostles are represented by the Acts and principal
Epistles of the New Testament as founding the Christian
Church, really and historically derived from chosen and
inspired followers of Christ ; or are these doctrines the
results of only partially reconciled conflicts of sects be
longing to the latter half of the first and first quarter of
the second centuries of the Christian era ? Did Moses
give a law to Israel ; and did Israel, from the time of
Moses onward, understand itself to be under a covenant
with Jehovah as a spiritual God who was to be their
*D. a a, i„ p. 3441

190 The Histories of the Bible.
Eedeemer ? How much of the early chapters of Gene
sis have a claim to be regarded as genuine history?
These and similar inquiries are far more important and
interesting than the comparatively petty questions that
arise over the possibility of reconciling details.
In considering the subject of this chapter we shall,
therefore, first examine the historical character of cer
tain important parts of the Bible, about which inquiry
is most interesting and fruitful. Only after we have
seen how far and on what grounds we raay regard these
parts as genuine and substantiaUy true histories, shall
we turn our attention briefly to the relatively unim
portant point of historical discrepancies.
The larger inquiry into the substantially historical
character and general credibility of the biblical histo
ries is closely connected with two other important in
quiries. These are the inquiry as to the historical nature
of the biblical accounts of rairacles, and the inquiry as
to the date and authorship of the different books of the
Bible. The first of these we have already answered in
a general way. The second, although it bears di
rectly upon the subject of this chapter, we shall separate
as far as possible and reserve for consideration later on.
One or two preliminary remarks need now to be made.
It has already been said that important and complex
events in history, especially after the lapse of some
time, are rarely or never described and recorded without
numerous departures in details from a strict and literal
accuracy. Where such events are witnessed, or their
history is given by several persons, discrepancies in the
several accounts are certain to appear. To reason from

The Method of Study. 191
this inevitable fact to the untrustworthiness of all hu
man testimony on the principle that what is false in one
particular is false in all, would lead us to utter scepti
cism regarding the past. Genuine history would thus
be rendered impossible. Scepticism has soraetiraes ap
plied this principle to the Gospels -with a view to dis
credit thera as corapletely as possible, because they ap
parently disagree in so raany details of the life of Jesus
Christ. So Strauss, on the ground of disagreement in
the different accounts of our Lord's resurrection, reached
the coarse and impious conclusion that we could only
render the verdict of " dead without particulars." But
not infrequently the same untrue and mischievous appli
cation of the principle, that what is false in one particu
lar is false in all, is held over the minds of uninformed
Christians to fill them with fear at the admission of so
much as a single historical error in any part of sacred
Scripture. The critical examination of thj historical trustworthi
ness of the biblical narratives requires a knowledge of
the methods of historical study, of the different kinds of
sources from whieh onr knowledge of the past comes,
and of the raethods of writing history employed by dif
ferent coraposers of historical works. In the case of the
sacred historians the sources of their information are
either their own eye- and ear-witness of the facts they
record, or tradition, or pre-viously-written records. In
the case of the Old-Testament narratives the sources of
inforraation are almost exclusively of the latter two
kinds. That no critical sifting of traditions was under
taken by the Hebrew writere is a fact which bears

192 The Histories of the Bible.
upon the character of the narratives they record.
The sarae thing is true of almost all narratives of very
ancient events. The sources of our information con
cerning these events go back to oral tradition, to ac
counts handed' down frora person to person, or even
from generation to generation by word of mouth.
The sacred writers also, like all the raore ancient
writers of history, where two or more different or dis
cordant traditions or written records came before them,
often followed the method of setting all their materials
down with little or no effort at harmonizing their state
ments. The modern historian gathers his raaterials from
all available sources, and then uses his skill and judg
ment in constructing from them one consistent account of
what the past occurrences were. But the sacred histori
ans of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament, do not
construpt their ac ounts in this way. We cannot fail to
see that it is a great gain and blessing to us, on the whole,
that these historians made little or no attempt to be criti
cal in the modern fashion. For they had no means aud
no experience such as could give them success in such
an attempt. Moreover, the critical attitude of mind
toward those venerable traditions and records wliich
carae to thera frora their fathers would have been almost
incompatible with their success as teachers of the moral
and religious truths which the historical events conveyed.
And surely we are infinitely better off, and have a much
firmer historical basis upon which to rest our faith in
these moral and reUgious truths, than we should have
had if they had attempted the critical course.
In cases hke that of the narrative of the Deluge in

Gospel Picture of Jesus. 193
the days of Noah — ^where two or more traditions are in
some sort pieced together — no attempt at concealment of
any apparent discrepancies has been raade by the bibh
cal writers. It is thus often possible to restore to very
nearly their original form the different traditions, and so
to avaU ourselves of aU the independent information
which they contain.
The Gospels — especiaUy the first three — repeatedly
present to us two or three different accounts of the same
event in the life of our Lord. In certain cases the same
Gospel shows traces of having used more than one
account of some particular event. The entire picture
of this hfe which each Gospel gives is a very different
affair from what would have been produced if the Evan
gelists had attempted in the modem critical fashion
to work over the different oral traditions and written
fragments in existence when they wrote, so as to make
a consistent and elaborate historical result. But how
much better off are we becanse of the gracious Provi
dence which forbade their attempting such a work!
For we have preserved for our contemplation and criti
cal consideration the very material which was at the dis
posal of the Evangelists themselves. We can well afford
to be ignorant, as to just what form of a noun or verb
onr Lord used in some particular instance of His teach
ing, or whether He healed on a certain occasion more
than one bhnd man, either before or after entering a
certain city ; if we can gain on the whole so vivid and
varied an apostohc picture of Jesus speaking and acting
as the Saviour of man.
One point more shoidd be insisted on in a pre-

194 The Histories of the Bible.
liminary way. There is no proof whatever that the
revelation which the writers of sacred Scripture re
ceived ever consisted in informing them of the mere
facts of the past. There is no proof that God ever
made any past event known in a supernatural way
to any scribe of the biblical accounts. The sources of
the histories of the Bible are only the ordinary historical
sources — such as the senses of contemporaries, or the
traditions and records that have corae down from pre
ceding generations.
The early chapters of Genesis, for example, are those
parts of the Old Testament which, as far as mere
knowledge of the facts is concerned, raake the most
obvious claim to an origin in divine revelation. But
the knowledge of these facts, too, can be shown to have
come to the author of Genesis solely in the ordinary
way of tradition or of written documents. How clear
does Luke make it in his prologue that he is simply in
tending to give the facts as he has learned them from
witnesses at first and second hand ! It is the office of
revelation to make known raoral and religions truth ;
revelation, therefore, sometimes concerns the meaning
of historical events. In the Bible, since its history is
sacred history, is the record of the divine process of self-
revealing, this history is itself worthy to be called a
revelation. So, too, the biblical inspiration has to do, not
primarily with the learning and stating of historical
facts, but with sympathetic raoral insight into the mean
ing of the facts.
The question to what extent, if at all, legendary and
mythical elements enter into any of the biblical narra-

The Existence of Legends. 195
tives demands a careful critical investigation. It can
not be settled by an off-hand appeal to a theory of in
spiration constructed previously to such iuvestigation.
For even sacred myths may, so far as we can see. be
made the medium of revealing moral and religions
trath. And traditions also may be made the medium
of revelation, even when they have been so far changed
by additions and subtractions, by being passed from
mouth to mouth, and frora age to age, as to lose nearly
all recognisable resemblance to the facts from whieh they
originaUy sprung. As a matter of fact, howevei-. the
attempt to apply the so-called mythical theorv to the
origin of the Gospels has signaUy failed. We cannot
account for the narratives of the events in Christ's hfe
as gro-wing out of the play of imagination over the
words and deeds of an ideal Messiah. And in the Old
Testament, considering the very ancient eharicter and
strong moral and religious motive of most of its history,
there is remarkably little which lends itself to such
treatment. At most, it is only -with respect to certain
of the narratives in the early chapters of Genesis that
the marks of the myth at all clearly appear.
Legends may perhaps be found to be somewhat fre
quent in the earher history of Israel. In Judges, as
connected with the persons of some of its heroes, hke
Samson, such forms of narrative are discovered. Tradi
tions that are of uncertain origin, and that represent an
original which cannot very definitely be recalled, are
perhaps more frequent stUl. Bnt after everj-thing of
this sort has been feirly considered by bibhcal criticism,
the great body of the bibUcal history is left snbstan-

196 The Histories of the Bible.
tially untouched; it is still possible to derive from it a
sufficiently faithful picture of the factors, eras, and
truths belonging to the development of biblical religion.
The firmest and clearest places of all the biblical hi.s-
tory are just those where the Christian needs to plant his
feet for the walk of faith with God revealed in Jesus
Christ. As long as this remains true, it really makes
but Uttle difference to either his faith or his practice,
just how far the narratives of the Patriarchs before the
Deluge, or of the heroes in Judges, are found to be
defensible at the bar of historical criticism.
It is, then, with a spirit of both courage and freedom
that we are to enter upon the examination of the his
torical character of the biblical histories. It is only
the mistaken application of the principle, " false in
one, then false in all," which compels the mind either
to feel alarm at finding uncertain traditions and his
torical inaccuracies in some parts of sacred Scripture,
or to feel a wicked pleasure in the effort to destroy the
historical foundations of faith by picking slight fiaws
in its superstructure.
We consider, first, the opening chapters of Genesis
from the third to the twelfth.* The sources of these
chapters are undoubtedly traditional. We are here able
to compare the biblical traditions with corresponding
ones which grew up on other grounds. The view
which the Bible takes of ^e first pair ?i'& formed frota.
the soil, or from clay, and as existing in an original
condition of happy innocency, was ¦widely disseminated
in antiquity. The most important feature of the bib-
»D, a a,i,, p, 347f,

Eden and the Fall. 197
heal history is the religious teaching that man comes
from a free act of the divine will, and existed orig
inally in the divine image. That is to say, the biblical
monotheism, when these chaptere were written, had
already exercised an ennobling and purifying infiuence
over the tradition of the creation and early life of the
firet pair.
The picture of the Garden of Eden, or place where
this life began, is also a traditional one, and seems not
to have originated on Palestinian soil. The tradition
of the Bundehesh, for example, represents the garden-
of Yima, in which Ahura-Mazda gave to Mithra a
dwelling-place, as a blessed spot free from night and
darkness, aud from hot and cold winds. The location
of this garden, which is fixed in Genesis by four rivers,
two of which seem undoubtedly to be the Euphrates
and the Tigris, has never yet been settled at any place
on the earth's surface in accordance with existing geo
graphical conditions. Eden has wandered over the
face of the earth from Scandinavia to the islands of the
South Sea, and has recently been relegated by an elab
orate arguraent to the North Pole. Even in the Old
Testament itself there appear traces of the tradition
which put this garden of the blessed in northern
mountains.* Wide-spread traditions of a temptation and fail also
existed in ancient times. The Bundehesh relates the faU
of man in a way which preserves some of the charac
teristic features of the narrative in Genesis. His first
sin, according to its account, consists in ascribing thin^
•Isaiah xiv, 13 ; Ezekiel xxviii. 13 f, ; and D, 8, 8., i., p. 3481

198 The Histdries of the Bible.
fair and good to the spirit of evil rather than to the
spirit of good. His second sin consists in taking and
eating fruits given to him by a lying Deva. Only after
his fall does man begin to take animal food and to be
clothed with the skins of beasts. Sorae of these tradi
tions show traces of the " tree of life." The seipent
plays a great part in that religious symbolism which
perhaps reaches back to the time before the ancestors
of the Egyptians, Hebrews, and ancient Persians had
separated. But Mazdeism appears to be the only an
cient religion in which the serpent never symbolizes
anything good. This religion represents the spirit of
evil as descending upon the earth in the form of a
serpent to corrupt it. But in respect to this tradition
of the temptation and fall also the great superiority of
the form of the story found in Genesis is not due
so much to its accuracy in historical details (if indeed
we are to speak of historical details here), but rather
to its immeasurably higher moral conception of the
nature of sin and of the way that sin originated.
Nowhere else in the entire Bible do we find nar
ratives the genuine historical character of which is
more doubtful, and the moral and religious value less
obvious, than those of the fourth, fifth, and early part
of the sixth chapters of Genesis. The genealogies of
the Cainites and Sethites seem originally to have been
given in separate documents. The genealogy of the
Sethites is dry and precise, is of " Elohist " origin, and
seems to be introduced in preparation for the narrative
of the Flood. The genealogy of the Cainites admits
various elements of outside traditions and probably, in

Early Cliapters of Genesis. 199
some cases, of myths — as, for example, where (iv. 23 f.)
Lamech is represented as singing a kind of war-song to
his wives Adah {beantty or light) and Zillah {shadow),
whose children are made the founders of different
trades, the female progeny Naamah becoraing, accord
ing to rabbinical tradition, " the mistress of mourners
and singers." Various analogies to the ten antedUuvian
patriarchs occur in antiquity ; for the tradition of ten
kings or patriarchs is widely reproduced. But even in
this part of the Hebrew narrative of the tiraes preced
ing Noah, a comparison with other most nearly allied
traditions shows the purifying influence of the Hebrew
religious ideas. The false religions of antiquity led
their devotees into the most wUd and enormous false
hoods with respect to the occurrences which accom
panied their founding.
No more difficult passage, in respect to its historical
foundation and moral import, exists anywhere in the
Old Testament than that given in Genesis vi. 1-4.
This passage is somewhat doubtful of interpretation.*
But the view of the Apocrypha, and apparently of
Jude (verse 6f.) and of 2 Peter (ii. 4) accords with
that of almost all modern critics. The angels are here
represented as being tempted by the beauty of the
daughter of men and so contracting marriages with
thera ; the fmit of these marriages was the heroes
whose renown filled the ancient traditions. Thus in-
tei-preted, no student of the Bible would seem war
ranted in regarding it as a truthful narrative of his
torical fact. But even in this case we note that,
*D. a a,i., p. 355f.

200 The Histories of the Bible.
whereas the myths of heathen nations trace the descent
of their demigods to a physical divine generation, in a
manner abhorrent to the Hebrew religious ideas, the
exaltation of these heroes is regarded by the narrative
of Genesis as one of violence and pride, that received
a merited divine punishment.
The traditions gathered up in the ethnographic table
of Genesis x,,* the legendary account of Nimrod, the
mighty hunter before Jehovah, in 8-11 of the same
chapter, and the tradition of the tower of Babel which
furnishes in the mind of the author an explanation for
the variety of languages that existed in his day, do not
require a separate examination.
There can be no doubt, then, that the first eleven
chapters of Genesis contain a large amount of material
the historical character of which it is difficult or im
possible to establish. This material is in raany partic
ulars strikingly like the traditions current araong sur
rounding nations. To say thus ranch is simply to state
the fact. To deny or explain it away involves the at
tempt to deny or explain away a fact. Some of these
traditions in Genesis are so similar to certain Chaldean
traditions that it seems not improbable that the first
ancestors of the Hebrews brought them along when
they migrated westward from their ancient ^at. The
more recent investigations in Assyriology bring to
light new points of resemblance between the Hebrew
traditions of the earliest history of men, and of the
origin and distribution of the different tribes and

'to*^

^D. a a, i„p, 356 f.

Early Chapters of Genesis. 201
nations, and the traditions of the peoples that remained
in the regions east of Palestine.
And now what shall be said as to the sacred char
acter and authority of these early chapters of Genesis ?
As to their historical character and validity it must be
said that this is to be determined solely by the inquiry
into the historical character and validity of the tradi
tions which the chapters preserve. A critical study
must be left to determine how ranch value any of these
traditions possess as representing exact matter of fact.
But as to the value of the same chapters for laying the
foundations of bibUcal religion we have a different
kind of judgment to render. When these traditions
are compared -with the traditions of other peoples,
which they most closely resemble, they appear to have
been subjected to the purifying influence of that
purer monotheistic religion which Israel alone enjoy
ed. It was Mosaism that put an end, in the Hebrew
nation, to those tendencies to wild and even iraraor-
al mythmaking in which the surrounding heathen
peoples so largely indulged. But, even before Mo
saism was estabUshed, it is likely that' these traditions
had been subjected among the Hebrews to the puri
fying influence of their rehgion. We must remem
ber, however, that the narratives of the first eleven
chapters of Genesis all antedate the time of Abraham,
who is represented by the Bible itself as being the
first ancestor of the nation to separate hiraself from
heathenism. And now let ns reverently raise the question as to
^hat God would probably do in carrying out His in-

202 The Histories of the Bible.
tention to reveal Hiraself as the Eedeemer of all man
kind, if such revelation involved an historical process
and the selection and training of one nation above all
others in the principles of true reUgion. It is conceiva
ble that God might impart by revelation, with the strict
est accuracy of details, a mass of ethnographic and geo
graphical and historical knowledge which should reach
immeasurably beyond any traditions of past events that
could possibly be preserved. But so far as any evidence
exists with regard to such a matter, God did not take
this course. Indeed, we may ask, Of what moral or
spiritual use would it have been to the men of those
ancient times (or, for that matter, to us of the present
times) to have accurate information on these points ?
What benefit to know precisely who was the father of
whom; and who invented this or that art; and what
was the age of each antedilu-yian patriarch at the time
of his decease ? But for tbe people of Israel at the time
when the material now gathered into Genesis was tak
ing shape, to seize upon the great truths of monotheistic
religion, as these truths had been taught to their ances
tors and were to be perpetuated and unfolded in their
own history and sacred writings — this was of great
raoral aud spiritual benefit. The divine spiritual work
with Israel and with the writer of Genesis does uot,
then, guarantee the truth of the popular traditions ; but
it does display itself in the m(n-al and spiritual ennobling
of those traditions as regarded from the point of view
to which this spiritual work raised Israel in general, and
the writer of Genesis in particular.
The bibUcal traditions which begin with Abraham

The Life of Abraham. 203
and include the three great patriarchs, the traditions of
Joseph and of Israel in Egypt, and those narratives whieh
come down to the time when the place of tradition was
raore largely taken by contemporaneous documents, are
subject to the foregoing considerations in only a limited
way. There are, indeed, several pairs of apparently
divergent traditions of events in the life of Abraham
which have beeu incorporated into the narrative of Gene
sis. But we have, on the whole, a clear, beautiful, life
like picture of the personality and history of this great
man. Nor is there any sufficient reason to doubt either
that he was " the immigrant and father of nations," or
that he was the "friend of God." Indeed, it could
probably be shown that we have more verifiable knowl
edge of the history and personahty of Abraham than of
any other character of a hke antiquity. There can be
no doubt that the picture of this patriarch as given by
Genesis is immeasurably superior with respect to its
moral and religious dignity and influence to any found
outside of the Bible that goes back to times at all so an
cient. So, too, the general historical credibility of the
traditions of the other patriarchs subsequent to Abra
ham may be successfully maintained.
In Judges and Numbers, however, certain traditional
material of more doubtful historical credibUity and of
inferior raoral value, is sometimes to be found. Such
is, for example, the narrative of the life and exploits of
Samson, and the narrative of Balaam. We may reject
the rather shallow theory which tries to account for the
case of Samson by pointing out resemblances between
the career of this hero and certain solar myths of a

204 The Histories of the Bible.
heathen origin.* Such reserablances are, for the most
part, fanciful, and the theory built upon them is a
fiction. That a raan like Sarason, of iramense brute strength
and lawless life, should distinguish hiraself in the defense
of his nation against the Philistines, by deeds similar to
those preserved in these biblical tradition.s, is by no means
incredible. The narrative of Judges is full of particulars
which seem historical in character. At the sarae time
the traditions of Sarason do not, by any raeans, stand in
the first rank of Old-Testaraent Scriptures either with
respect to their historical character or their raoral use
fulness. They have evidently been subjected to a pro
cess of exaggeration and poetizing; and there are
grounds for supposing that the general resistance of the
nation of the Philistines has, as Le'normant and others
think, been to sorae extent personified in Sarason. The
author of Judges seems not insensible to the drollery of
the stories he is telling, although the spirit of national
piety restrains his feeling. To assign any high moral
value to these exploits, or to the character of the hero
of them, results not so much in elevating our estiraate of
Samson as in bringing down the general moral tone of
the Old Testament, which is certainly much above that
of these traditions.
The account which Numbers gives of Balaam f ap
pears to contain the two traditions to which raay be
traced back the very dift'erent views of his person that
prevailed in later times. According to one tradition,
Balaam is a worshipper of the true God, who, in igno-
* D. 8. S., i„ p, 365. t D. 8, 8., i., p, 864,

The " Destructive " Views. 205
ranee of the fact that Israel also worshipped Him, would
have cursed the people whom he really obeyed God in
blessing. This tradition is followed in several places
in the Old Testament. The other tradition represented
Balaam as guilty of blasphemy and of attempts to se
duce the Israelites to fornication and idolatry. This
unfavorable view of Balaara is found more rarely in the
Old Testament, but was adopted by the legends of the
Talmud, and is found in the references to Balaam in
the New Testament (2 Pet. ii. 15 ; Jude 11 ; Eev. ii.
14). If to the above-mentioned portions of the Old-Testa
ment writings we add the Book of Jonah (which, in
deed, seems never to have been designed by its author
to be understood as throughout a narrative of fact) and
the Books of Daniel and Esther, we have comprised
almost all of those writings, to the general historical
credibUity of which it is especially difficult to answer
the objections.
Biblical scholars are now tolerably well agreed that it is
with the picture of the national condition as given by the
prophets of the eighth century before Christ that we reach
the firmer historical foundations laid by contemporaneous
records. But as regards the right way to draw and in
terpret this picture, two contradictory views are main
tained. One view is that of the so-called " destructive "
critics ; the other is that of the so-called " constructive "
or " conservative " critics. The former consider that the
picture of the religious condition of the people of Is
rael and of the nature of their religion, which appears
in the genuine writings of the oldest prophets, is utterly

2o6 The Histories of the Bible.
incompatible with the credibihty, even of the raost gen
eral sort, of those books which claim to narrate their
history previous to the eighth century. Especially do
such critics hold that almost all which the Old Testa
raent has to communicate regarding the person, history,
and law of Moses, is incredible. Of Moses' person aud
history, say they, we know little or nothing: of the
law which goes by his name, we cannot even admit
that the Decalogue was enacted by him; while it is
certain that all the elaborate ritual and code appertain
ing to the Levitical priesthood, to their ser-vice, etc.,
originated long after Moses, and even after the Exile.
We shall refer in other connections to some of the
arguments by which this so-caUed "' destructive " criti
cism seeks to justify its sweeping conclusions. At
present it is enough to say that the arguments are, in
our judgment, insufficient for their purpose. That
there are more or less uncertain traditions'in the early
historical writings of the Old Testament, and that the
authors of these writings foUowed, as a rule, the Sem
itic method of writing history, and so freely left con
flicting narratives standing side by side, we have al
ready seen to be true. It is doubtless also true that the
writer of Chronicles shows a strong priestly bias, and
generally reproduces the speech of the ancient proph
ets, without much attempt at exactness, but in his own
fashion and language. Nor can it be claimed that his
work has the same value and trustworthiness, as history,
which belong to the work of the writers of First and
Second Kings.
But after all necessary admissions are frankly made,

The " Destrtictive" Views. 207
in accordance with the evidence upon whieh they are
aU duly based, there is still sufficient ground left in his
tory for maintaining a different view of the origin and
early growth of the religion of Israel from that main
tained by these so-called destructive critics. The lan
guage of the prophets of the eighth century b,c. im
plies the existence among the people, for a long time
previously, of an historical revelation in its essential
features like that described as made to the Patriarchs
and to Moses. This language implies also the existence
of a covenant-relation -with Jehovah, and of a law in
cluding both moral and ritual enactments, upon the
keeping or breaking of which the fate of this relation
depended. Moreover, the bibhcal picture of the per
sonahty of Moses, and of the form of rehgion whieh
bears his name, is quite too vivid and concrete to be
easily resolved into fable and myth and results of
priestly craft and tendencies. Once more : the evidence
which is accumulating from sources outside of the Old
Testament, from the monuments and records of ancient
Assyiia, Syria, and Egypt, is, on the whole, such as to
answer many objections to the historical character of
some of the earliest Hebrew narratives, and even in
certain cases positively and directly to confirm these
narratives. The Christian reader of the Bible, who is unlearned
in bibhc-al historical criticism, wUl be obhged to leave
the details of this important and rather heated contro-
-yersy to the few expert students of such mattera. Many
of the questions which enter into the general contro-
verey -wUl remain for a long time trasettied ; some of

2o8 The Histories of the Bible.
thera will probably never reach a satisfactory conclu
sion. It is not likely that we shaU ever know pre
cisely what are the facts with respect to the first be
ginnings and early stages of Old-Testament religion;
or even to what extent some of the larger portions of
certain Old-Testament historical writings can have their
historical accuracy vindicated. Such a reader of the
Bible should, however, at once adjust his faith in its
truths, and his practical use of it to certain conclusions
made tenable by modern biblical study; that is, his
faith and usage should be made independent of the his
torical infallibility of all the historical writings of the
Old Testament. He should hold loosely by any opin
ion as to the perfect truthfulness of these writings, in
order that he raay hold the raore firmly to the essentials
of his faith in biblical religion and in Jesus Christ.
Faith in biblical religion and in Christ is in no respect
dependent upon the perfect accuracy of the narratives of
the Pentateuch, of Joshua or Judges, of Kings or of
Chronicles. At the same time, it may confidently be
affirraed that the foundations of fact upon whieh our
religion is based — whether in its preparatory Old-Tes
tament stages, or in its consummation in the person
and work of the Eedeemer — are in no wise shaken by
the assaults of criticism.
Eecent discoveries give to the student of the Bible
the means for illustrating the historical credibihty of
certain biblical traditions so ancient even as those of the
life of Abraham.* For example, the narrative of Gene
sis xiv. exhibits that patriarch in " the clear hght of his-
*D, a a, i,, p. 3881

The Story of Joseph. 209
tory." We know from sources outside of the Bible
that "Kudur" was the name of several Elamite Mnas
and "Laomer" the name of a divinity (hence, " Clie-
dor-laomer ") ; and that, at abont this time, Elam was
probably extending its campaignings over the West.
So do the sepai-ate incidents aud historical setting of
the narrative of Abrahara in Egypt (if we except the
calculated age of Sarah) appear tme to the facts of his
tory and show an accurate knowledge of Egyptian af
fairs. The whole story of Joseph has so many marks (some
of an obscure and subtle kind) of historical accuracy,
that it cannot have been the work merely of imagina
tion.* A careful student of Egyptian customs, Ebers,
declares that this story contains " nothing which does
not accurately correspond to a court of Pharaoh in the
best times of the kingdom." Certain particulars which
formerly, when our knowledge of affairs in ancient
Egypt was less accurate than at present, were made objec
tions to the credibility of the narrative, are now found
to be tme to hfe. For example, it was at one time
affirmed that Joseph could not have had snch free daUy
access, as he is represented as having, to the house and
wife of Potiphar. Bnt we now know that the inter
course of the sexes in Egypt was relatively very free ;
mixed company, even at feasts, was according to an
cient Egvptian custom. Even the work of imagination
in the nai-ratives of the dreams of Pharaoh and of Poti
phar is true to ancient life in Egypt.
That confirmation of the biblical narratives of Israel
*D. a a, i, p. 390 f.

2IO The Histories of the Bible.
in Egypt or of the biblical history from the Exodus to
the tirae of King David, which can be derived from
sources outside of the Bible, is, indeed, not very ex
tended. It concerns only a few particulars, and with
regard to these, is not, as yet, thoroughly perfected.
With the reigns of David and his successor the people
of Jehovah come into more numerous connections with
such surrounding nations as have left some record of
their own affairs. Certain Phoenician sources apparently
confirm the biblical narrative of the friendship of Hiram
and Solomon. A number of incidental illustrations of
the accuracy of the Old-Testaraent picture of the reign
of this " magnificent " monarch of Israel might be
brought forward. The biblical account of the fiight of
Jeroboam, the rebeUious subject of Solomon, into Egypt
and his stay with Shishak, also fits in well with the
history derived from the monuments.
From the beginning of the reign of Shalmaneser on
ward (placed by Lenormant between 905 b.c. and 865
B.C.), the monuments of Assyria become repeatedly con
nected with the biblical history.* The annals of this As
syrian monarch acquaint us with Ahab's dreaded enemy,
under the name of " Benhidri " of Damascus. " Ahab of
Israel" is himself mentioned among the forces confeder
ate against Assyria in the battle at Karkar. Hazael of
Damascus appears upon these annals; and Jehu, too,
under the title, " son of Orari." George Smith dis
covered iu the monuments of the reign of Tiglath-
Pileser no less than five names of Hebrew kings. One
fragment represents the terror caused by the advance of
*D. S. 8., i., p. 3941

Hezekiah and Sennacherib. 211
the Assyrian army, and even mentions Ahaz by name ;
the names of both Pekah and Ahaz (see 2 Kings xvi. 7 f .)
appear in the list of vassal kings who did homage to the
Assyrian monarch. The annals of Sennacherib make
us well acquainted with his doings ; they represent hitn
as capturing "forty-six walled towns and an infinite
number of villages," as carrying away 200,150 persons,
shutting up Hezekiah "like a bird in a cage," and
frightening him into giving a tribute of thirty talents
of gold and eight hundred of silver (see 2 Kings xviii.
13 f.). The monuraents raake eighteen years instead of
eight (as does the biblical account) between the carapaign
in which Sargon captured Samaria aud the one in which
Sennacherib besieged Hezekiah ; and they are probably
correct in their chronology. A cylinder of baked clay
informs us of Esarhaddon's reign. He attacked the
kingdom of Judah, and when Manasseh resisted, con
quered him, made him prisoner, and sent him to Baby
lon — as the statenient of 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 correctly
affirms. For Esarhaddon, unlike the preceding monarchs,
would naturally take his captives to this city instead of
to Assyria. His inscriptions also represent Manasseh as
a vassal king after having been restored to his throne.
The arguraent from these and other similar discover
ies to the historical credibility of certain of the historical
books of the Old Testament, in order to preserve its real
force, must not be overstrained. The argument is valid
only to show the general historical credibility of these
writings ; it does not, of itself, show their sacredness Or
their inspiration, or even their complete accuracy ih
historical details. The correspondence of the accounts

212 The Histories of the Bible.
given by the Hebrew writers with those given by the
ancient painted walls or cylinders of baked clay or
papyrus-rolls, does not, of itself, prove either source of
inforraation to be sacred or inspired. And in case of a
conflict between the two kinds of sources we are to de
cide which is probably correct, to the best of our ability,
and in accordance with rules familiar to all critical
students of history. For both the sacred history
and the so-called profane history are entitled to fair
treatment ; and if the latter can confirm the former in
so raany cases, there is no good reason why it should
not correct it in some particulars.
We turn now from the histories of the Old Testament
to those of the New. In doing this we advance several
centuries out of the mists of a far-off antiquity, the an
nals of which were often prepared by raen remotely
separated in place and tirae from the events themselves,
into tho ranch clearer light of the Christian era and of
Palestine in that era. Moreover, we have narratives
which, in their essential features, bring Jesus before us
as He appeared to the selected eye- and ear-witnesses,
His disciples.
One question concerning the Gospel history is alone
of suprerae importance, is vital to Christianity itself.
Do the four Evangelists enable us to construct such a
picture of the Ufe and doctrine of Jesus, a picture so
complete and historicaUy defensible, that it may be con
fidently appealed to as defining the object of our faith ?
Whether aU theu- discrepancies in details — or whether
any of thera — can be reconciled, is a raatter of compara
tively little account. It is not, in every sense of the

Credibility of the Gospels. 213
word, nece^ary to make ont that the writer of Matthew
or of Mark or of Luke was historicaUy • infalhble ""; or
to decide which one of the three writers is tu be trusted
in case they are found to disagree upon some matters of
detail. It is necessary, however, t^j consider whether
the picture of our Lord, in which aU th^ Gospels essen
tially agree, is a faithful picture : for it is to the person
ahty of itvat Lord, and not to any mythical or fictitious
character, that out faith is attached. We shall, then,
briefly examine the general historical credibUity of the
Gospels ;* for more of details the reader must resort to
the apologetic hterature in which Chrisrianity is so re
markably rich. For if the four histories of the Evangel
ists have been often and violently attacked, they have
been as often, with warm devotion and great wealth of
scholarship, defended. To say that they are not only
unharmed by all such attacks, bnt are more strongly
supported by facts and arguments to-day than ever be
fore, does not, by any means, overstate the truth.
It is undoubtedly those narratives of miracles which
the Gospels contain that have given the principal
grounds for denying the historic-al character and sub
stantial historical accuracy of the Gospels at lai^. Be
fore any genuine historical criticism had arisen, Deism
refused, on grounds of a general denial of the super
natural, to credit the miracles of the Gospels. The his
tory of bibUcal criticism since it arose shows us that the
critics are accustomed to divide over this question of
the supernatural into two schools : one of which tends
to destroy and the other to preserve the general histori-
* D. a S.,L, p. 3T51

214 The Histories of the Bible.
cal credil>ility of the picture of Jesus Christ presented
in the Gospels. As to which of these two schools is
justified in its position, we do not hesitate to pronounce.
The picture which the Evangelists give of our Lord is
not to be discredited because it represents Hira as a
worker of miracles. It is just this working of rairacles
which we should expect of Him as the revealer of the
Father, as the Lord of life, as the Saviour of man.
We have no sources other than the Gospels and col
lateral New-Testament writings themselves upon which
we can rely to any extent to supplement or to correct
the picture of Christ presented by these writings.*
What Josephus is made by the present copies of his
manuscript to" say about the founder of Christianity is
doubtless spurious. The apocryphal lives of Jesus have
no independent value; they do not contain a single
really valuable and trustworthy tradition which is not
found in the Gospels. But these apocryphal writings
do afford us a strong, indirect argument for the histori
cal trustworthiness and inspiration of the Gospels.
The apocryphal writings put into our Lord's mouth
various declarations about heathen deities, idolatry, His
mission to the under-world, etc. — questions which the
Christian Church was interested in having Him answer,
but about which the Gospels, in their fidelity to the
historical trath, have iiot a word to say.
The noble simplicity and lofty spiritual tone of the
writings of our Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and LukCj
when placed in contrast with the apocryphal Gospels,
make a marked impression upon the tboughtfid and sym-
*D. a a, i., p. 3771

Credibility of the Gospels. 215
pathetic reader. The general impression is undoubtedly
one of confidence that the writers, being men of the
Christian spirit in its higher manifestations, are narrat
ing the truth as they understood it upon the testimony
of the earlier eye- and ear-witnesses, the apostles them
selves. In considering the essential truthfulness and genuine
historical character of the Gospels, it is necessary to
consider also the nature of their construction and the
way they came to have the forra they now bear. Upon
this subject more will be said in another connection.
It is enough at present to call attention to the fact that
the very constitution of the first three Gospels is such
as to imply considerable previous sifting of materials
and a work of recording the different existing tradi
tions. The Gospels are not continuous and flowing narra
tives of the life of Jesus Christ; they are rather collee-
tions of those deeds and sayings which the first preach
ers of Christianity had often referred to in holding up
before their hearers the true picture of that Messiah
who invited their faith. Hence we find in thera cer
tain short written notices of the discourses of the Lord.
Sometimes these notices have attached, and sometimes
they have not, a narrative of the circumstances in which
the discourses were uttered. The Gospels also contain
the shorter or longer accounts of the deeds of Jesus, es
pecially of those miracles which had been grouped to
gether in reality or in the preaching of the apostles.
We find that all this niaterial was selected and used by
each Evangelist according to a plan of his own, and was

2i6 The Histories of the Bible.
shaped by that idea of the mission and work of Christ
which appeared prominent to the mind of each. All
the Evangelists agree, however, in giving with greater
detail and raore manifest interest the moraentous facts
and sayings connected with His death and resurrection.
It was these facts and sayings which the eye- and ear-
witnesses had of course raade prominent in their proc
lamation of the Gospel.
This picture of Jesus Christ, healing the sick, teach
ing the things of the kingdom as appertaining espe
cially to His own Messianic work, crucified of man, and
raised from the dead by the power of God so as to ap
pear, by infallible proofs, to raany witnesses, has, there
fore, aU the evidence that comes frora its being re
peatedly and accurately drawn by those who were, at
first hand, familiar with the historical facts.
It should also be raade obvious that the Epistles of
Paul and of tbe other apostles confirm the concur-
. rent testimony of the Gospels. The Epistles assume,
rather than rehearse, the history of Christ's life. Paul
raust have been minutely acquainted with the facts
and words of this life. His account of the last sup
per, and of the appearances of our Lord after the
resurrection, is in substantial accord with that of the
Evangelists; yet this account shows so much informa
tion independent of the sources they used as to
strengthen greatly their testimony. It is through
Paul — one niight think almost by a mere chance —
that we learn "to rejneraber the words of the Lord
Jesus, how He Hiraself said. It is more blessed to
give than to receive." What is true of the writings

Chief Fact of Christ's Life. 217
of Paul, is also true of all the other writings of the New
Testaraent; they all presuppose an extensive and well-
established knowledge of the great facts narrated in the
Gospels. The speeches of the early preachers of Chris
tianity, whieh the Book of Acts records, rehearse the
same facts. As to these facts, then, there is a complete
agreement of all the witnesses.
It is uot, indeed, all parts of even the first three Gos
pels which can summon to their support this entire
body of concurrent testimony. But the testimony is
strongest just where we should expect, from the very
nature of the case, that it would be so, and just
where in its relation to our faith we should desire to
have it so. As to the essential elements aud features
of His life,* — His preparation for His work. His earli
est miracles and teaching in Galilee, and especially the
events about the time of His death, — there is a marked
agreement. The narrative of His childhood, as given
by only two of the Evangelists, and not otherwise re
ferred to in the New-Testament writings, must, of
course, be placed on a somewhat different footing, so
far as the amount of historical evidence supporting it
is concerned. Yet the substantial truthfulness of the
traditions of the childhood of Jesus admits of proof.
The difference in the picture which the Evangelist
John draws of the person and work of our Lord, when
compared with the concurrent picture of the other three
Evangelists, has long been the occasion of doubt as to
the trustworthiness of our knowledge of His person and
work. This difference, it must be admitted, is remark-
*D. a S„i„p, 3811

2i8 The Histories of the Bible.
able and difficult to explain. But it is not such as to
warrant either the rejection of the Fourth Gospel as
the work of the apostle John, or the sceptical conclu
sion that we can form no true picture of Jesus in har
mony with the accounts of all four Gospels. On the
contrary, if the writer of the Fourth Gospel was the
apostle John (and that he was will be shown later on),
this Gospel is by an eye-witness and a most intimate
and beloved friend and follower of Christ. It was un
doubtedly written late in the life of the apostle. It
contains the results of his loving reflections for raany
years over the things he remembered concerning his
Lord. It gives an interior view, so to speak, of the
character of Jesus and of His imique relations to God
and to man.
It is not so strange, then, that the Gospel of John
contains in all only four particulars touching the entire
public ministry of Jesus in Galilee ; of these four, only
two (the feeding of the five thousand and the walking
on the sea) are given ui the first three Gospels. In
these two accounts there is nothing surprisingly differ
ent from the other narratives of His deeds, whether we
give most emphasis to the account of John or to that of
the other three. There are two points of history, how
ever, about which the Fourth and the other Gospels
seem to disagree : these are, the question whether our
Lord confined His activity to Jerusalem previous to the
last passover, and the question with respect to the date
of the last supper and of His death. If we should ad
mit that this disagreement is real and irreconcUable, it
is more likelj that the Fourth Gospel is m the right.

The Discourses of Christ. 219
It would not be strange were the other Evangelists ig
norant of the fact that Jesus visited Jerusalem repeat
edly at the feasts ; aud, with respect to the events just
preceding the ci-ucifixion, we should suppose that the
beloved disciple would know beyond doubt, since he
was present and took part in them.
It is with regard to the character of the discourses of
Christ that the difference between the Gospel of John
and the other Gospels is most sti-ongly marked. How
marked this difference is we shall consider when we
come to speak of the authorehip of this Gospel. But
there is every reason to supposa that Chi-ist held many
lengthy discourees with the people and with His dis
ciples which have not been even referred to in the col
lection of traditions used by the early preachers of
Christianity. The report which the apostle who heard
these discourses gives of them is undoubtedly his report
of the way he has remembered and understood the dis
courses ; it has, as we should say, a " Johannean " color
or cast. But it is for this very reason to be regarded
as the report of one who knew his Lord most intimately ;
and who, by long coraranningwith His spirit, was best
fitted to penetrate the inmost meaning of T\\-k words.
The Fourth Gospel does not, then, destroy or radi
cally change the historical picture of Jesus as given by
the other tlu-ee Evangelists ; it rather supplements that
picture with certain true and more ideal aspects of
both His life and His doctrine. We should not for a
moment think of maintaining that onr conception of
Him would be truer to the reahty if we had no account
of Him through the apostle John; on the contrary,

2 20 The Histories of the Bible.
much that is most essential to a true conception is most
beautifully and richly given by the loving hand of this
portrait-painter. The position that we have the picture of Jesus Christ
as an historical person given in a raost trustworthy way
by His sacred biographers is in no respect shaken by
recognizing the fact that many minute verbal and other
discrepancies exist in the Evangelists. Much interest
has been taken, and great debate held, over the proper
way of " reconciling " these discrepancies. No objec
tion is to be made to such an exercise in Christian
apologetics when it is undertaken and carried on in the
spirit of candor and with due regard for all the estab
lished laws of historical criticism. But we must con
fess that we have little taste for it. Moreover, we re
gard its results as of comparatively little iraportance.
Such so-called "reconcihations" do little toward light
ing up the true life and doctrine of Jesus, or toward
confirming our Christian faith. Nor is it necessary to
accomplish this work of reconciliation, or to admit that
it can be successfully accompUshed, in order to hold a
true -view of the inspiration and authority of the New-
Testament writings. On the contrary, it is quite
enough for such a -view that the Gospels should be
treated, with respect to the reconciliation of their dis
crepancies, just as we treat those honest and compe
tent witnesses who bring us information regarding
other historical matters.
We do not think it important that the witnesses
should agree perfectly in aU detaUs, in order either to
establish their reputation for thorough honesty and

The Verbal Discrepancies, 221
competency, or to convince us of the truthfulness of
what they narrate. Surely it should be considered a
great and intolerable burden for our beloved Evangel
ists to bear, that their credibility must be maintained
by forcing a complete agreement between them in
respect to historical minutiae. Is their inspiration to
be recognized only in case it secures perfect freedom
from all those mistakes to which every other writer of
history is constantly liable? The existence of discrep
ancies and of historical errors in the Gospels is, then,
to be acknowledged, in the most fearless and frank
manner, whenever it is pointed out. Such an acknowl
edgment does not, in the least, damage or obscure our
confidence in their general historical credibility and
accuracy, as well as in their inspiration.
That minute verbal and other discrepancies do exist
in the Evangelists can be shown in great detail ;* but
the task is not one in which a Christian student of the
Bible feels pleasure in engaging. What difference
does it make, for example, with the impression raade
or doctrine conveyed by that awful scene where Jesus
dies on the cross, if Mark tells us that the drink offered
to Hira was "wine raingled with rayrrh," and Matthew,
that it was wine " raingled with gall " ? What differ
ence, again, if we are unable to say which one of the
four forms in which the inscription over Him was writ
ten is verbally correct ? How is our confidence in the
inspiration of either of the three Evangelists affected
by noting that the first (Matt. x. 9 f.) makes Jesus in
struct the twelve on their trial journey to take " nor
*D. a a, i., p. 4001

2 22 The Histories of the Bible.
shoes, nor staff"; while the second makes Him instruct
them (Mark vi. 8 f.) to go " shod -uith sandals," but
take nothing " save a staff only "; and the third (Luke
ix. 3) makes Hira forbid the " staff" while not raen-
tioning the sandals ?
Nor does the existence of raore important historical
discrepancies and doubtful statements impair the claim
of the Gospels to inspiration ; for this claim does not
repose in, or serve as guarantee for, their historical in
fallibility. That it is perfectly impossible to construct
a chronology of the life of our Lord in harmony with
the accounts of all the Evangelists the whole course of
such efforts has made as clear as such a matter can be.
This stateraent applies to raany details in the life. For
example, in Luke (see v. 1-11) the sequence ean be dis
tinctly traced bacJcward from the call of the apostles to
the healing of Peter's wife's mother, and in Matthew
and Mark it can be traced just as A\s,tmc\iy forward
from this caU to the sarae act of healing.
Certain apparent errors in historical matters which
occur in the New Testament may doubtless be referred
to lapses of meraory in the writere. That Paul did not
for a moment consider a faulty meraory with regard to
some particulars inconsistent with inspired expression
his own confession shows (see 1 Cor. i. 14^16). Not
infrequently a defective memory exhibits itself in
quoting frora the Old Testament its facts or words.
For example, wc find Matthew in one place (xxvii. 9)
actually quoting from Zechariah, but by a lapse of
meraory ascribing the quotation to Jeremiah ; and in
another place (xxiu. 35), speaking of the murdered

Accuracy of Genealogies.

prophet as the " son of Bai-achiah," when he was, ac
cording to Chronicles, really the son of Jehoiada.
In the matter of genealogies, numbers, dates, and
sequence of time, it is particularly difficult and, in
deed, quite impossible to maintain the perfect accuracy
of the writings of the Old and New Testaments. The
genealogies of our Lord, given by Matthew and Luke,
have a claim to an historical character only on the sup
position that they were extracted from certain registere,
probably of a pubhc kind. The only other supposi
tion is that both genealogies were revealed to the Evan
gelists throughout. Now, there is not a particle of
proof that the inspiration of Matthew and Luke was
designed to such an end, or that it would actually
enable them to correct any inaccuracies which might
exist in these registers. Indeed, let us for a moraent
suppose them to have undertaken to correct the pubhc
registere. The effect would have been to bring upon
them the suspicion of having tampered with a record,
and to throw doubt over their entire claim that Jesus
was the son of Da-vid. As honest and inspired men it
would never have occurred to them to alter the record
of the registers.
The historical truthfulness of the genealogies of
Jesus given by tbe Evangelists is, therefore, dependent
upon the accuracy of the registere from which they got
the genealogies. But it is impossible to harmonise the
two genealogies throughout unless we adopt the absurd
assumption that all our Lord's ancestors from David
onwai-d had two names. It should be remembered,
however, that the only important tmth with which the

2 24 The Histories of the Bible.
genealogies are concerned — namely, His Davidic de
scent — is not dependent upon the accuracy of all the
details of the registers.
Many other illustrations might be given of the gen
eral truth that neither the historical trustworthiness nor
the inspiration of the biblical writers is impaired, in
any essential particular, by the discovery and admission
of historical discrepancies and errors in their writings ;
but we forbear, and pursue no farther such invidious
and comparatively unimportant considerations. By
calling such considerations " comparatively unimport
ant" it is not meant that students of the Bible should
desist from its most rainute and patient study, with
respect to historical as well as to all other details. But
the reconciliation of these discrepancies and the vindi
cation of the sacred writers against all errors in his
torical minutiae, are weighty matters only in the eyes
of one who, by a wrong and dangerous theory of in
spiration, makes them weighty. For the true view of
the Bible it is comparatively unimportant whether such
reconciliation and vindication can be effected, or not.
We do not believe that it can always be effected, or
that it should in any case be insisted upon. And, on
the whole, the history of biblical study clearly shows
that the confidence of men in the historical character
and inspiration of sacred Scripture has far. oftener been
impaired by the subterfuges to which the attempt at
" reconciliation " and " vindication " has driven them,
than it would have been by a frank and fearless con
fession of the exact state of the case.
On leaving this subject it is desirable briefly to pre-

Revelation is Historical. 225
sent the conclusions which the previous examination
supports. A most valuable and essential part of the
Bible is its historical contents. Christianity is an his
torical religion ; it centres in and grounds itself upon an
historical character, upon a person who lived and taught
and died here upon the earth, in the presence of men and
at a definite period of human history. Old-Testament
religion, considered in itself and also as preparatory for
Christianity, is an historical religion. Its revelation is
a progressive and historical affair; essential elements of
it are certain great events that happened and institu
tions that were founded in the history of Israel. The
Bible gives us the record of this history. If it did not
do this, it would not present to us the truth of our
religion, the truth of the Christian revelation in both
its preparatory and its crowning stages. What we as
Christians need is not, primarily and chiefly, talk about
Christ ; but Jesus Christ the person. Himself brought
to us as He was in His living and dying, that He may
be the object of our faith, and that His spiritual pres
ence may be realized in our thought and conduct.
Hence the supreme iraportance that we should have a
full and trustworthj^ historical picture of who Jesus
was ; of how God made the world ready for His com
ing and for the reception of His truth ; and of how
He actually manifested Hiraself to those selected and
inspired followers who knew Him best. History and
doctrine are joined in fact ancl in fate within the bib
lical narratives. God has joined thera together ; man
cannot put them asunder.
Moreover, we find that fair yet thorough criticism

2 26 The Histories of thte Bible.
leaves the historical basis of our religious faith unim
paired. Nay raore, it establishes this basis in a scien
tific manner and defends it against the assaults of its
foes. It shows that the picture which the Gospels pre
sent of the life and death, of the character and teach
ing, of Jesus Christ, is essentially trust-worthy. It also
shows that the picture presented in the Gospels is the
same as the picture assuraed and explained by the gen
uine writings of the apostles in the form of letters to
the early churches. This verifying work of historical
criticisin is raost satisfactory and complete just where
it is most essential to our faith to have it so ; that is, at
and about the central facts of the Gospel.
The genuine historical character of all the books and
passages of the Old Testaraent which apparently claira
to be historical cannot, in like manner, be established.
The earliest histories of sacred Scripture, like all other
most ancient historical composition, begin in traditions
which it is difficult to verify, and in which it is impos
sible always to separate the true from the false. The
earliest Hebrew traditions so closely resemble those of
certain other ancient nations as to show some common
root. The primitive method of composing history
among the Hebrews was not such as to guarantee that
care had been taken to a^i-ive at what we should now
consider strictly historical truth.
At intervals later in the course of Hebrew history,
examples of uncertain traditions not infrequently ap
pear. But in time -we come upon the more solid and
trustworthy basis of a literary record contempora
neous, or nearly so, with the events themselves. Yet
the admission of facts hke the foregoing does not en-

Claims to Infallibility. 227
danger the historical foundation npon which rests our
faith. It does not prevent the general confidence we
feel in the substantially tme historical record which the
Old Testament contains of the origin and growth of
bibhcal religion, and of the way in which God, in the
preparatory stages of His revelation, made Himself
known as the Eedeemer of man. Only it is necessary
for the student of Hebrew religion in its historical un
folding to make discriminations. All the historical ac
counts in the Bible are not alike certain. Trained and
well-equipped scholare -wUl have to do the best they
can, by use of aU the means at their disposal, to teU us
what was the exact order and what the characteristics
of the different stages of biblical revelation.
We have no claim to historical infaUibUity set up
-within the Bible, or even to unusual freedom from
errors of an historical kind. Neither does it appear
that God has ever revealed to men the exact char
acter and order of past events where no record of
the events themselves has been kept. For their facts
the sacred authors of the biblical histories appear
always to have been dependent upon the ordinary
resources. Some things of their own time they wit
nessed for themselves, or leamed from others who had
-witnessed them ; other things they accepted as cur
rently reported. There were traditions, oral and
written, which claimed to give an account of what had
taken place in the more remote past. The later writers
had for use the documents and books composed by the
earher ones. The bibhcal historians possessed, in brief,
just such kinds of sources of information with respect
to previous events as ancient historians generaUy poa-

228 The Histories of the Bible.
sessed. But they possessed an unusual wealth of these
resources, because the nation early began to have some
appreciation of the significance of the history it was
enacting, and of the relations in which it stood to God.
Moreover, the biblical writers show in general that fine
insight into, and sympathy with, the higher meaning
of events, which led them to purify frora debasing
moral and religious ideas the historical material they
employed, and to appreciate the value of what was
being enacted and recorded.
It is in such spiritual insight and sympathy that the
inspiration of the biblical historians chiefly consists.
There is an important truth involved in the fact that
the later Jews regarded their great historical books as
having been the work oi. prophets. And our choicest
and most authentic information concerning the history
of Israel before and after the E.xile comes from the
prophetic books, as we now caU thera.
The histories of the New Testament — pre-eminently
the Gospels, bnt also the Book of Acts — show by their
very nature that they were written by men who had the
gift of the Holy Ghost. So to enter into the spirit and
form of the Gospel, and of the hfe and doctrine of Him
who is thq Go.gpf^1, p.s_do the -writers of these histories.—
this is to jpe jnspired. In what their inspiration con
sisted, both the Prologue of Luke's Gospel and the clos- .
ing words of John's Gospel, suggest ; but that it was
not thought of by themselves as giving any guarantee
of historical accuracy without a dUigent search and care
ful handling of their historical material, the language of
Luke's Prologue plainly implies.

CHAPTEE vm.
the PEOPHECTES of the BIBI.E.
There can be no doubt that the prophets of the Old
Testament claimed, on the authority of divine revela
tions made to them, to predict future events. It is just
as obvious that the writers of the New Testament (fol
lowed iu this particular by all the early Church) claimed
that these Old-Testament prophets had indeed foreseen
and foretold the things of Christ. In this age of the
world it is not customary to rely so much upon any
proofs afforded to the reahty of the Christian religion,
and to the di-vine mission of its author, by the ancient
prophecies conceming Him. We are inclined rather to
rely upon the accordance of our rehgion with aU the
present mental life and rehgious needs of man. Bat
the one proof most frequently uiged in many of the
early Christian writings, whether of the New Testa
ment or of the Church Fathers, is the fulfilment of the
ancient prophecy by Chiist. Moreover, the Messia/nic
tmth of the Hebrew Bible is so essentiaUy predictive,
and the doctrine of the New Testament regarding the
person and work of Messiah is so involved in the pre
dictions, that it is impossible completely to separate the
two. The general fact just referred to does not, of itself,
enable us to settle any one of several puzzling questions
(¦239)

230 The Prophecies of the Bible.
which at once arise. In what sense and with what pre
cision and certainty, and. from what sources of inforraa
tion, did the genuine Hebrew prophet make his predic
tions ? The author of Isaiah xlii. 9, sang : "New things
do I declare ; before they spring forth I tell you of
thera." His " new song " was of the wonderful salva
tion whieh Jehovah would bring to Israel. But did the
prophet clearly foreknow what the nature of the divine
deliverance would be ? How did he foreknow what he
foreknew ? Was it because he sagaciously saw the
future as lying in the present ; or was it because his faith
led him to put implicit confidence in God as making his
redemption suitable to the particular circumstances of his
own time ; or was it because God had, in a wholly super
natural way, raised the vaU from before His servant's
eyes and allowed to him a forward glance into what was
hidden frora all others ? It is obvious that these and
other sirailar questions cannot be answered raerely by
affirming our general confidence in the scriptural view
of prophecy.
The nature of prediction as one element of genuine
prophecy raust be understood in accordance with our
conception of prophecy in general. Now there are two
extreme views upon this matter, one of whieh designs
to deprive biblical prophecy of all its supernatural char
acter, and the other of which aims at making it all, as
far as possible, strictly supernatural or even miraculous.
The former considers the so-called "predictions" of the
prophets as merely fortunate premonitions or shrewd
calculations, such as frequently occur in all ages of the
world. The other thinks it necessary, in order to vindi-

Character of the Prophet. 231
cate the inspired character of prophecy, that its predic
tions should all be regarded as direct divine revelations
of individual future events — definite and infallible as to
time, place, and concoraitant circumstances. Neither of
these views is correct ; neither accords with the view of
the biblical writers or with the facts and phenomena of
biblical prophecy. For the genuine Hebrew prophet is
neither, on the one hand, a shrewd calculator of politi
cal and social probabilities ; nor is he, on the other hand,
an announcer of definite future events on the occurrence
of which, precisely as foreseen, he stakes his prophetical
reputation, after the manner of the heathen soothsayer.*
The consideration of the character of the Old-Testa
ment prophecies is especially important, of course, when
ever such prophecies concern Messiah and the Messianic
kingdom. Indeed, it is the origin, growth, and applica
tion of the great Messianic ideas in Hebrew prophecy
which contribute to it its supreme interest and value.
Were it not for these the predictions of Hebrew seers
would not be distinguishable from those of heathen
soothsayers. But these ideas existing, developing, and
being fulfilled in Christ, as they are seen to have been,
the question as to whether the Hebrew prophets ever
miscalculated or not, becomes relatively unimportant.
And now let us consider how the predictions of the
genuine Hebrew prophet grew out of his very character
and mission as a prophet. It was of the very essence of
the prophet's character to think and feel for Jehovah
and with Jehovah, to enter into Jehovah's plans in
righteousness, truth, and grace. It was his mission to
*D. a a, i„ p. 4171

232 The Prophecies of the Bible.
tell the people what it concerned thera to know of the
divine plans, as bearing upon the punishraent of the
wrongdoer, the comfort and succor of the saint, and
the unfolding of the kingdom of rederaption. His pre
diction is not, then, a raere prognostication of individual
events ; it is a power of foreseeing the unfolding of the
divine plan. It may be said, then, to be a part of the
prophetic spiritual life. The prediction of the prophet
is also a divine work within the soul of the prophet — a
work of revelation that results from the planting and
growth within the soul of certain great moral and relig
ious ideas. These ideas necessarily limit and give di
rection to the predictions; they prevent the prophet
frora raaking certain raistakes to which he would other
wise be liable. He cannot predict blessing as the fruit
of sin ; he cannot proraise well to those whose unfaith
fulness to God and the principles of righteous conduct
calls for punishment. Only the false prophet on whom,
for this reason, the woe of Jehovah raust fall, can fore
teU blessings to corae as the wages of sin.
The faith of the Hebrew prophet was firm as to the
future stability of the great principles of the divine
government. Hence he threatened and promised in the
four following ways : he threatened Israel for its own
sins against the divine covenant ; he threatened other
nations for standing in the way of the divine kingdom,
which he regarded as centred in Israel; he promised
comfort and salvation tothe faithful remnant. Messianic
blessings to the redeemed nation ; he promised to other
nations a share in this blessing, and to all mankind the
fruition of the perfected, divine kingdom. His predic-

The Predictions Conditional. 233
tion is very different, therefore, from the utterance of
an inevitable and bhnd fate ; it is a declaration of the
wiU of a living and pereonal God.
That their predictions were conditional^ upon the
future conduct of men was weU understood by the He
brew prophets themselves. The repentance and prayere
of David, when Nathan predicted the death of his chUd,
assume the possibUity of a change in the purpose of
Jehovah respecting the outcome of the whole matter.
When the " word of the Lord " had threatened the most
awful punishment upon Ahab and npon aU that was his,
a subsequent prophetic message announced a change in
the divine plan because of the humbhng of the wicked
king under the former prediction (see 1 Kings xxi.
20 f.). The prophet Amos represents himself as having
tumed aside the expressly threatened judgment of God
by his own importunate prayere. Jeremiah expressly
states (xvUi. 7f.) that the predictions of divine retribu
tion made by the prophets are not unconditional ; while
Ezekiel treats the same truth in detaU throughout two
entire chapters of his book (xviU. and xxxUi.). Jonah
even complains of the Lord as though his own prophetic
utterances had been left in the lurch, as it were, on
account of the greatness of the divine mercy.
A very striking instance of this " conditional " char
acter of much of the Hebrew prophesying is found when
Micah (see iii. Vi) predicts that the approaching Assyrian
army wiU leave Zion " plowed as a field," and Jerusalem
in heaps ; but Isaiah (chajK. xxxvi. and xxxvii.) narrates
tiie secondary causes which prevented the fulfilment of
*D. a a,i, p. 4291

234 The Prophecies of the Bible.
the prediction, while Jeremiah (xxvi. 18) ascribes its
failure to the repentance of Hezekiah and to the divine
change of plan iu view of this. Now it is uot likely that
his experience in predicting w^hat did not turn out pre
cisely so, because the conditions -n-ere meantime changed,
caused any feeling of embarrassment to the prophet
Micah. And, indeed, why should it have this effect?
Who could be more glad than the prophet, to have the
repentance of the king defeat the exact fulfilment of
his own threat ? Doubtless the prophet well knew that,
in any event, it was his business io predict and not to
fiao what Jehovah would do; and that when the conse
quences of wrong- and right-doing are the subjects of
prediction, space for repentance and change of human
conduct, and for a corresponding change of the divine
procedure, can never be absolutely excluded.
We also find that biblical prediction is not such a
foretelling of the future as escapes all historical limita
tions, and would render real " history " impossible. A
great body of definite and absolute predictions, apply
ing to particular persons and circumstances at precise
dates, would prevent a course of history that is in any
degree dependent upon human freedora. But such
deflnite and absolute predictions are exceedingly rare
in Hebrew prophecy.* Precise dates for future events
are not often given ; the exact names of the agents in
events predicted, scarcely ever. Names like Immanuel,
Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi, El-gibbor, and other similar
names, are of a general and symbolic character, and
carry their own explanation with thera. Even the
*D. a a,i„p,4301

The Dates of Prophecy. 235
narae of " Cyrus," in Isaiah (xliv. 28 f.), is used as a
title of the Persian monarchs in general.
The dates of prophecy are usually given in indefinite
phrases or round numbers. We are told that the day
of Jehovah is " at hand," that the threatened event is
"near" or will happen in "a little while," or that the
trouble expected will last raany years. In the per
spective of prophetic -vision nothing is raore uncertain
than the exact tirae, as all students of prophecy are in
the habit of observing. Even in the case where the def
inite number of three years or of one year is mentioned
(as in Isaiah xvi. 14 and xxi. 16), it is at once rendered
indefiuite again by adding "as the years of a hireling"
— that is, scant measure. There is no more important
and apparently definite prediction of an exact period of
tirae to be found in Hebrew prophecy than that given
by Jeremiah for the length of the captivity ; it is to be
aeventy years. This prophecy is frequently spoken of
in the Bible as fulfilled with respect to the time pre
dicted. And yet the most exact calculation of the
actual length of the captivity cannot well make it more
than sixty-eight years; that is to say, the number
" seventy " is to be understood in a common-sense way
as a round number. The tirae of those great events,
such as the " day of Jehovah," the day of " salvation,"
the coraing and reign of Messiah, was always indefinite
and obscure in the mind of the Hebrew prophet. This
truth is recognized in the New Testament. The an
cient seers searched "what time or what raanner of
tirae the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point
unto " (see 1 Peter i. 10).

236 The Prophecies of the Bible.
It should be observed also that each prophet is in
fluenced, with respect to the particular form in which
he presents the great ideas common to all the prophets,
by his individual experiences and by the events of his
own time. His predictions were raade in concrete
form. The day of Jehovah's wrath was conceived of
as at hand in a different way according to the changes
occurring in the circumstances of the nation's history.
Thus Isaiah threatened with the Assyrians and Jere
miah with the Chaldeans. Joel connected the general
divine judgment with the repeated visitations of
locusts, and the general divine spiritual blessing with
the return of certain Jews who had been sold as slaves
by the Phcenicians. Each prophet saw the events of the
future as forecast in his experience of the present course
of Jehovah's dealings with the people. In this way the
predictions were adapted both to stir and to benefit the
men of their own immediate present.
It is therefore absolutely indispensable for a correct
understanding of Hebrew prophecy to remember that the
conception of Messianic salvation, and the promise of
divine redemption, did not come to the people or their
prophets all at once and as a finished product; it grew
with them, under abiding divine influences, as a living or
ganism. Every prophet came into the inheritance of a
store of religious ideas which belonged to the theo
cratic development of the nation. These ideas were in
large measure his raeans of inspiration. He dwelt
upon them ; he embraced them with devotion ; he lived
in their spiritual presence. And God's Spirit, moving
in his soul, gave to hira certain new and enlarged

Nature of Messianic Salvation. 237
glimpses of what God was going to do for Israel and
for the world by bringing in the Messianic salvation.
As we study the different prophets and prophecies
we find that this circle of great and inspiring ideas
changes its form.* Some of the early prophets
scarcely show by a single word that they ascribe any
religious significance and authority to the ceremonial
laws ; others of a later date raake ranch raore of the
ritualistic and priestly elements of the Jewish religion.
With Joel the conception of Messianic salvation is that
of a people, all prophetic and filled with Jehovah's
Spirit. With Amos it is the conception of the Davidic
kingdom restored to the prosperity of its best days.
Hosea includes in his picture the conversion of Ephraira
and the turning of its allegiance to the ancient royal
house. But Zechariah predicts a personal Messianic
king ; and this king is further exalted by Isaiah and
Micah. Jeremiah adds the priestly element to the
character of the Messiah.
In order to comprehend more fully the nature of
Hebrew prophecy, it is necessary to notice the answers
which the prophets give to the following three ques
tions : f In what does the Messianic salvation consist ?
Who shall share in this salvation ? Who will introduce
this salvation ? These questions are constantly being
raised and considered afresh by this remarkable succes
sion of inspired seers, the prophets of the Old Testament.
In the answers they give to these questions we find
certain elements that have a more spiritual character
* D, a S„ i„ p, 4341 t D- S. a, i„ p, 4351

238 The Prophecies of the Bible.
and reference to Christ blended with those that have
reference to a temporal reigu of Israel.
In the Hebrew prophetic view of the Messianic
kingdom material prosperity and spiritual blessings are
commonly united iu pne picture. When we read of the
extraordinary fruitfiilness of the soil during the preva
lence of this kingdom — how the waste places of Canaan
will becorae like a fertile garden — of the multiplica
tion of Israelites, and the lengthening of their lives so
that young and old together crowd the sacred gates
and streets, of the abounding peace, safety, and right
eousness, we are not to understand these words as raere
figures of _ speech. The prophets really supposed that
the coming of Messianic salvation would include all
this for the nation of Israel. In the minds of the
later prophets the time of this salvation was, of course,
connected with the deUverance of the nation from op
pression and exile under a foreign power. This state
of things must cease ; then just beyond lay the coming
of God's glorious kingdom. In its very nature, there
fore, the kingdom involved the triumph of the Jews
over their enemies or, at least, their deliverance from
them, their return from exile, and their dwelling yet
again as a nation on the hallowed soil of Canaan.
All the prophets of this great era construct then-
picture of the Messianic salvation in such a manner as
to include and make prominent the same features. In
how wonderfuUy beautiful and impressive language
does that prince among all Israel's prophets set forth
the triumphant and glorious return frora exile of his
nation (Isaiah xl.-lxvi.) ! But the brilliant expecta-

Sharers in Messianic Salvation. 239
tions which found expression in the earher pictures of
the condition of restored Israel were never reahzed.
This the prophecies of the late.;t books plainly acknowl
edge. Yet Zechariah, and Haggai, and Malachi, and
Daniel, stUl foresee the good time coming, and welcome
it as near at hand. And when it reaUy came, but not
with observation or in the precise form in which the
ancient seers had predicted it, many pious Jews were
stiU looking for its coming. Indeed, there are Chris
tians in the present time who are waiting to see prophe
cies fulfiUed strictly according to the earliest forms
which have already been more than accomphshed in a
far higher form.
The answer which Hebrew prophecy gave to the
question. Who shall share in the expected Messianic
salvation ? was also a varying one, as respects the pre
cise form given to it by different prophets. Some of
them, especially the earlier ones, took a less liberal view
than others of Messianic salvation as affecting the Gen
tUes. Joel considere that the awful day of divine retri
bution wiU fall upon Phoenicians, Philistines, Egvp-
tians, and Edomites, so that they can no more oppr^
Israel and the latter can dwell unmolested in the land.
But the view that the future salvation of Israel wiU
somehow include all nations constantly gained ground
in the Hebrew prophecies. Isaiah and Micah are
among the firet (perhaps the firetj to proclaim universal
salvation ; bnt Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, and
Zechariah, predict it as weU. Redeemed Israel, they
hold, is to bless aU the nations of the earth, to shine as
a light on aU the heathen. A wide and deep stream of

240 The rropnecies of the Bible.
healing is to flow from the temple of Jehovah. Egypt
is to be converted, Assyria numbered among the Lord's
host, and the wealth of Tyre consecrated to Hira. He
wiU give pure lips and docile hearts to the Gentiles and
take away the vail that covers the face of all peoples.
How does this wide, generous, and noble outlook over
the universe of men, lighting them aU up in the glow
ing imagery -with which the conception of the Messi
anic salvation is made to shine, put to shame the narrow
hopes and dogmas of many Christian teachers and
preachers of the present generation ! No service in holy
literature has ever been greater than that rendered by
the glowing heart and pen of the Hebrew prophet who
has administered unceasing cheer and comfort to all
believers by declaring the "servant of Jehovah" as
sunshine, righteousness, and salvation, alike for Jews
and Gentiles. "It is too light a thing that thou
shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of
Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel ; I will
also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou
mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth."
Who, then, shall introduce this glorious Messianic
salvation ? The answer given to this question by He
brew prophecy differed, in respect to its precise forra,
under the differing conditions and limitations of the
individual prophets. For the revelation which God
made of HimseK to this nation was a progressive reve
lation. It was only at a comparatively late period of
Hebrew prophecy that the answer to the question was
found in the form of a conception of a personal Mes
siah. Such a conception did, however, come finally to

The Conception of Messiah. 241
be formed and held in prophecy as a result of the
spiritual movement so peculiar among this people. It
is this conception that Christ proclaims Himself as an
swering to in all of its ideal features and elements ; it
is this Messianic prediction which He claims pre-emi
nently to make good and whoUy to fulfil.
But it cannot be held that any of these great ancient
seers foresaw the precise natm-e of the royal and priestly
personage who should be king of Israel and of aU na
tions, or understood clearly what would be the nature of
his reign. How the elements of each particular time,
with its accompanying circumstances, shaped each
prophecy, may be seen in a very instructive way by
studying the words of Isaiah in the seventh and immedi
ately following chapters. A dehvering king, called by
the general narae " Immanuel,'" is to be born. His birth
-wUI occur soon after Judah is dehvered by Jehovah
from the combined attacks of Israel and Syria (see Isa.
vii. 16). He wUl suffer, together with all the people,
the effects of the wasting of the land by the Egyptians
and Assyrians, and -wiU have to be nourished on the
natural products of milk and honey (vei-ses 17-25).
Yet he -\vUl hve to free the people from the Assyrian
yoke (ix. 3 f .). The two kingdoms of Israel and Judah
wUl be united under him, and -wUl then subjugate the
Philistines in the west and the Edomites, Moabites,
and Ammonites in the east (xi. 1—11). So this prophet
predicts. But the great Messianic king, Immanuel, did
not come and save the people exactly at the time and in
the manner which the Hebrew prophet predicted. He
did come, however, so as to make good the inspired

242 The Jr^ropnecies of tne isiote.
character of his prophetic declaration and fulfil all its
deeper meaning in a far higher and more effective way.
And now we must raise the difficult question as to
whether the Hebrew prophecies came true — that is, were
fulfilled — and in what sense they were fulfilled. It is
obvious that the answer to the question of the truth of
prophecy will depend upon what we understand by the
" fulfilraent " of prophecy. If we understand by it, in
general, what Christ and the apostles understood when
they held that He fulfilled every jot and tittle of Hebrew
Scripture — that is, raade good its higher significance
and showed in reality what God intended it all to point
forward to — then we may confidently answer this ques
tion affirmatively. But if hythe fulfilment of prophecy
we mean the exact happening in all its details of what
the prophets thought was going to happen, then we
must give another answer to the inquiry ; then we must
say that sorae of their predictions were only partially
fulfilled and others not at all.
The remark last made raay fitly be Ulustrated by
several exaraples. In chapter vii. of Isaiah, the prophet
predicts the do-wnfall of Israel and Syria within a period
of three or four years, the prediction being made at a
time when these nations were conspicuously strong in
their combined enterprises. Now, if we do not unwar
rantably press the word " forsaken " so as to make it re
fer to a raore coraplete desolation than really occurred,
we must admit that here is a raarked instance of a
specific prediction fulfilled within the period aUotted.
The same prophet also foretells (x. 12, 16-19, 24^34,
and elsewhere) a sudden and overwhelming disaster to

The Unfulfilled Predictions. 243
a particular Assyrian enterprise, and attributes the dis
aster to the particular cause of i-nmore of a revolt occur
ring in the land of Assyria. The event happened sub
stantially as it was foretold.
Jeremiah, too, apparently before the Chaldeans h.^d
made themselves independent of Assyiia, or could be
looked upon as a political power dangerous to Palestine,
threatened Judah with this enemy fi-om the North.*
He also subsequently announced the desolation of Jeru
salem, the temple, and all the land by the same force.
The same prophet predicted the deportation of the na
tion, their long captivity in Babylon, and their subse
quent retum from exile, in a manner that cannot well
be reconcUed with any theory of mere calculation.
The same thing is trae of the precise declaration of
Amos (i. 3-5), that " the people of Syria shall go into
captivity unto Kir." As one of the leading opponents
of the supematural in the rehgious history of Israel ad
mits, this last prediction must have been written at least
"abont half a century before the Syrian-Ephraimite
war." To resort to a theory of "remarkable coinci
dences" and '-shrewd calculation" is unwarrantable,
when everything shows that such examples of prophetic
foresight as the foregoing, were the direct effect in the
minds of the prophets, of those feelings and ideas re
garding Jehovah's plans -with which they were inspired.
On the other hand it cannot be claimed that the in
spiration of the prophet consisted in gi-ving him, ready-
made as it were, a picture of future events in correct
form as respects time, place, and circumstances ; or that
* See chapters i. 131, iv. of., -vi 1-5, and D. S. S, i, p. 421.

244 The fropfiectes of the Bible.
such inspiration guaranteed in all particulars the cor
rectness of this forra. Even in the case of the most
grand and complete Messianic prophecies, the inspira
tion of the prophet was not, as a rule, of such a kind.
Accordingly, we find faulty elements entering into the
conception which conveys the ideal truth. This fact is
virtually acknowledged over and over again by the New-
Testament writers. They are no more occupied in in
sisting upon the infallible form and literal fulfilraent of
the ancient Hebrew prophecies regarding Messiah than
upon the infallible form and literal accuracy of the
ancient Hebrew histories. They recognize the fact,
which we raust not fail to recognize, that the King, the
Priest, the Anointed of the Lord, the suffering servant
of Jehovah, the mighty Hero and Prince of Peace, was
not precisely such an one as the prophets had expected.
Nor was His kingdom, either in its nature or in the
method of its coming, precisely such as they had pre
dicted it. But to say this is equivalent to admitting the
mistake and failure of some of their particular predic
tions. In the sense in which Christ and the apostles under
stood these prophecies and their fulfilraent, they were
all fulfiUed. In the sense in which it has sometimes
been made a test of orthodoxy to understand the
prophecies and their fulfilment, it is not true that they
all were, or all ever will be, fulfilled. For example,
the New Testament clearly teaches * that the Christian
Church has taken the place of the Jews to receive in
different form the substance of the salvation they ex-
»D. a a,i., p. 442.

The Unfulfilled Predictions. 245
peeted for themselves. That is to say, the prophets
were mistaken as to the exact manner in which the
Messianic salvation was* to be realized. The prophecy
of it, the substance of the divine hope and prediction,
is fnlfiUed in the experience of the Christian Church.
For the Church is the true Israel, the seed of Abra
ham, the recipient of the prophecies, and the heir of
the promises. But fulfilment in this sense and way
involves the failure of fulfilment in the literal sense
and expected way.
If what is said above is true of the body of Mes
sianic prophecies, it need not affect our confidence in
the inspiration of the prophets or the value of the tes
timony to Christ which they offer, to find unfulfiUed
or mistaken predictions relating to the fate of Israel
and the surrounding nations in their fntm-e political
relations. For example, it must be admitted that"
Tyre was not, according to the prophecy of Isaiah (see
xxiii- 1, 15 f., and compare Ezekiel xxvL 1 to xxvUi. 10),
subjected to the Assyrians so as, after lying waste for a
long time, to resume its ancient commercial importance.
Babylon did not £iU into destruction before the attack
of Cyrus as the same prophet predicted. The Egyp
tians were not led away into exUe to Babylon as Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel aU threatened.
It might seem at firet sight to some readers of the
Bible as though this view of the nature of prophecy
and its fulfilment would diminish or destroy the rea-
sons for our confidence in the inspiration of the pro
phetic Scriptures, aud in the cogency of their witness
for Christ. On the contrary, however, this view greatly

246 The frophectes of the Bible.
expands and fortifies these reasons. Let it be supposed
that the claim of prophetic Scripture to bear inspired
testimony to the truth of the Gospel consisted chiefly
in the exactness and minuteness of the details with
which the prophets had succeeded in drawing a picture
of the Messianic future. • Such a rainute corrcsiiond-
ence of prediction and result would indeed be regarded
as a reraarkaljle and even an inexplicable thing. But a
diligent search into the history of the past would
doubtless show in soothsaying, clairvoyance, fortune-
telling, and shrewd business or political calculation,
many similar phenomena. Separated frora its great
raoral ideals, the mere prediction of Hebrew prophecy
would have to be regarded simply as allied to these phe
nomena. Each inquirer would then explain them from
his own point of view. The spiritualist would regard
them in one way ; the believer in occult psychic forces
— mind-reading, etc. — in another way ; the devotee of
historical and political studies, in yet another. Men
might then be excited to wonder ; but would not be
brought to accept the truths of the kingdom of God.
Moreover, if Jesus were to fulfil Hebrew prophecy ia
the most literal way. His figure and mission would have
to be so contracted as to fit closely in to the literal and
temporal elements of this prophecy. If He were and
did precisely what the prophets conceived of Messiah
as being and doing. He would lose His ideal vastness.
His world-historical significance. His inexhaustible and
imraeasurable character. Furthprraore, it is impossible
to see how each successive form of the Messianic idea
could be Uterally con-ect, and yet how the idea could

Prophecy not Soothsaying. 247
develop in history under progressive divine guidance
into the fair and large proportions which it finally at
tained. Great growths involve the imperfection of
their earlier stages.
But, on the other hand, when we consider the Hebrew
prophecy as the result of a great national spiritual im
pulse, that grew toward those wonderful ideals which the
central pereonahty of aU the world's history fulfilled in
their higher import, how absolutely unique in char
acter, how di\ine in origin, does this prophecy appear!
The general facts upon which our conception of the
prophetic Scriptures should be b.ased are sufficiently
indisputable. A certain people, in its reraote an
tiquity, became possessed of the thought that its future
was to fulfil a strange destiny among the other peoples
of the earth. This people regarded itself as under a
covenant with the only living and true God; they
were to be His people, and He was to be their God.
AU their history, its dark and bright places, its expe
riences and prospects, they interpreted as connected
with the divine dealings with the nation. Among
them arose and lived and worked, one after the other,
through several centuries, a succession of men called
" prophets.'' It was not the forecasting of the future,
as a matter of soothsaying or fortune-telhng, which
formed the chief concern of these prophets ; it was to
reraind the people of their covenant obUgations to Je
hovah, to threaten them with penalties for disobedience,
aud to comfort them with promises in case they would
penitently retum to Him. They had kings, but no
one of them all was a perfect vicegerent of the Lord ;

248 The Prophecies of the Bible.
on the contrary, raost of them led the nation farther
away from the true path. They had priests, but these
ministers of Jehovah were scarcely more adequate to
help on the day of salvation, or to keep the people in the
right way, than were their kings. Gradually, through
weary centuries of sin and suffering, the gi-eat concep
tions of a Messianic king and priest, and of a Messianic
kiufdora which should realize the ideal condition of a
nation faithful to God, formed theraselves in the rainds
of the prophets. They taught these conceptions to the
people ; they handed thera down to their successors in
the sacred prophetic office.
But the Messianic salvation did not corae in the form
in which its devoted servants expected that it would.
The nation returned indeed from exile, and thus the
prediction of some of the prophets was fulfilled. But the
reigns that followed this return did not correspond to the
picture of the Messianic reign ; the age was not like the
expected Messianic age. The ancient fire had burned out
in the order of the prophets. God had ceased to send
to the people by the months of holy men like those of
olden time. But, finally, a babe was born in Bethle
hem, and the child grew in favor with God and raan.
He was soon followed by many in the belief that He
was a new and greater prophet. He was accepted and
worshipped by His foUowers as the true Messianic
king. His death as a malefactor on the cross did not
finally quench this faith and devotion. Ou the con
trary. His death was foUowed by the proclamation tljat
He was risen from the dead and seated at the right hand
of the divine majesty ; thus He became the fulfiUer of

Christ in Prophecy. 249
all the prophecies in their true ideal import, the One of
whom the holy raen of old had spoken, though they
had but dimly foreseen the outlines of His form.
And now what account shall be given of the fore
going facts \ How shall we regard the prophetic utter
ances of the Hebrew seers, as well as the person and
work of Him who clairaed to fulfil them? To attempt
to account for such facts without recognizing the di-vine
agency- in them would be equivalent to the attempt to
banish God from all history. Nor can such utterances
be reasonably ascribed to any other source than the
Divine Spirit, who entered the souls of these ancient
seers as a spirit of raoral and religious insight; and
also as a spirit of foresight' of the consequences of
raoral and religious action under the divine plan of
salvation. But, eliiefly, raust the Christian beUever remember
that the Lord Jesus came into the midst of this or
ganism of ideas, as it were, and by His Ufe, doctrine,
death, and resurrection, gave to them a fresh and en
larged signiflcance. He is the central figure in the
world's historj' ; He is the central figure of biblical
prophecy as well. That the sacred race of Hebrew
prophets builded, with respect to their conceptions of
Messiah and the Messianic kingdom, so much better
than they knew, contributes not to the disparagement
but rather to the demonstration of their divine insight
and foresight. Next to the words of Chiist and the
apostles, in their claims to inspiration, stand the words
of the ancient seere of Israel. Next to Christ and the
apostles do we owe most to them for what they spoke

250 The frophecies of the Bible.
and wrote of the conditions, warnings, promises, ex
pectations, and conduct, that concern the divine salva
tion of man. Their right to this position among the
ranks of the greatest inspired teachers of humanity is
not in the slightest degree impaired by the facts that,
since they foretold the consequences of raoral conduct
and the issues of life and death as dependent upon
men's relations to Jehovah, their prediction was condi
tional ; that they relied upon an inheritance of moral
and religious conceptions derived from their predeces
sors in prophecy, and only slowly and somewhat irreg
ularly raade original contributions to these concep
tions; and that, not infrequently^ they did not ac
curately apprehend and predict the forra, tirae, or
accorapanying circumstances of the events in which
those grand ideals were to find their historical realiz
ation. We have already frequently referred to the fact that
the New-Testament writers emphasize the appearance
of Messianic truth in the prophetic Old-Testament
Scriptures. It is to the discovery and recognition of
such truth that they address theraselves when raaking
an appeal to the Old-Testaraent prophecies. In doing
this they not infrequently overlook, and soraetiraes
even mistake, the e.xact historical and grammatical in
terpretation of the authors. The Evangelist Matthew *
is especially fond of noting the fulfilment of ancient
predictions by the separate acts and occurrences in the
life of Jesus. In doing this he is by no raeans careful
always to guard against linguistic error, after the fashion
»P. a a, i,, p. 4451

Their New- Testament Use, 251
required of a modern student of the prophecies. For
example, he intei-prets Isaiah's language concerning the
divine rescue of the nation by one bom of woman
with a stricter meaning for the word -' virgin " than
Isaiah intended. In another place (Matt. ii. 15) the words
which Hosea (xi. 1) puts into the mouth of Jehovah
-with reference to au historical fact hi the experience
of the entire nation — " When Israel was a child, then I
loved Him, and caUed ray son out of Egypt " — are in
terpreted as a prediction of the retui-n of the holy
family from their sojourn in the south. .
It must be admitted that snch interpretations as the
foregoing overlook the plain grammatical meaning of
the prophet's words. At the sarae time they are to be
taken as instances of the far-reaching principle, that
aU biblical history and prophecy has a wonderful or
ganic unity ; thus a fact in the experience of Israel
may be considered as foreshado-wing one in the life of
Jesus Christ. Under the same principle there occur a
few instances of more serious misunderstanding of the
historical meaning of the words of an ancient prophetic
author. One such instance is where Matthew (xxvU.
9 f.) finds a minute correspondence between prophecy
and the incidents of our Lord's hfe, in that the price
of His betrayal was given "for the potter's field";
whereas the very words " unto the potter" (see Zecha
riah xi. 13) originated in a corruption of the Hebrew
text and should be translated, as the margin of the
revised vereion does, " into the treasury." But in aU
such cases it must be remembered that the writere of
the New Testament were compeUed to use the text of

252 The Prophecies of the Bible.
the Old Testament with which they were familiar.
This text was, for the most part, the inaccurate and, in
many places, corrupt Greek translation of the Hebrew.
It should also be remembered that they, as a rule, cite
from memory ; they show httle or no painstaking to
bring before their readers the exact words of either the
Hebrew text or its inaccurate Greek translation. Thus
Luke, when refen-ing to a passage frora Isaiah as read
by our Lord frora a raanuscript roll, instead of citing
the passage as it raust have been found in the Hebrew
text, not only gives the Greek translation freely and
frora memory, but even introduces by a slip of meraory
a clause that really belongs to another prophet, and not
to Isaiah at all.
.. Now, if the inspiration of the prophets is raade to
include the accurate foretelling of the particular events
in the life of our Lord, with a clear knowledge of the
nature of these events, and the inspiration of the
Evangelists is made to include an infallible knowledge
of the correct Hebrew text and of the historical mean
ing of the details of the prophetic language, then
there appears to be no way of escape from our difficul
ties. But the biblical doctrine of inspiration requires
us to make no such claim for the biblical writers. In
deed, such a claim is only an objectionable and rais
taken feature of a particular theory of inspiration
whieh is fast losing its hold on aU minds, and which
has ah-eady been pronounced deficient and harmful by
expert students of the Bible. The rejection of this
theory, however, in no respect impairs our confidence
in the divine origin, and value as testimony, of the

The prophetic Parables. 253
prophecies of the Old Testament. * For, as we have
ah-eady seen, this confidence rests on other and far
higher and broader grounds than such a theery.
The propheey of the New-Testament Scriptures is
essentially like that of the Hebrew Sciiptm-es. Com
paratively little of the New Testament, however, is
given to prophecy. History, and the unfolding and
practical application to the present Christian life of the
doctrines of the Gospel, form the subjects of most of
its books. But in certain parables of our Lord, in His
eschatological discourses, and in the Book of Eevela
tion, predictive elements are to be found. These are to
be understood after the analogy of biblical prophecy in
general. So far as Christ's utterances are concerned,
however, we note this important difference : there is in
them no proof that He, like the ancient Hebrew
prophets, had any mistaken expectations as to the form
in which, and times at which, the different stages of
the development of His kingdom in the future were to
arise. His parables, when they speak of the coming
fate of this kingdom, are couched in language of that
grand and yet indefinite type which best stimulates
hope and fidehty, without any attempt at imparting
the definite knowledge of things to come. This has
wisely been concealed fi-ora the Church. And if a care
ful interpretation of His discom-ses on the last things
shows that erroneous impressions as to the tirae to
which His predictions referred found entrance into the
record, we hold that this is due to His being misun
derstood, and not to His being mistaken. Christ is the
infalhble teacher of the traths of His own kingdom.

254 The Prophecies ofi the Bible.
But He expressly told His disciples that He did not
know the exact times when God would accomplish all
these last results of His own coming.
We see, then, that Hebrew prophecy was correctly
understood by the writers of the New Testament to
have its essential truth, and its true fulfilment, in the
relation in which it stood to Christ and to Chris
tianity. Thus regarded, it anticipates, prepares the
way for, and typically predicts, the Gospel as set forth
in the deeds and teachings of Jesus, and in the struc
ture and development- of the Church. This view of
Hebrew prophecy is true to the facts of history and to
the ideas of revelation. It springs from the con
sciousness of our Lord, who understood the prophets in
this manner ; and who understood His own mission to
be the fulfilraent of prophecy.
We raust reraember, however, the large and loose
meaning which, in imitation of the authority of Christ
and the apostles, the early Christian teachers were able
to give to the word "fulfilled." When we read that
any ancient prediction was " fulfiUed " in the life of
Jesus, we may always fitly inquire. In what sense are
we to understand these words ? The further question,
whether any particular prophecy was indeed thus ful
filled, will depend upon the answer which we give to
the previous question. It would credit the apostles
with less than ordinary intelligence to suppose that
they invariably claimed a literal and historical fulfil
ment of the predictions of the Hebrew writers. On
the day of Pentecost, for example, Peter stands up to
affirra that Joel's prophecj' concerning the outpouring

Their Historical Interpretation. 255
of the Spirit on the " great and notable day " of Je
hovah had come to pass ; this was not because the phys
ical wonders of darkened sky and blood-red moon had
then actually appeared as Joel presaged thera, but be
cause the promised effusion of the divine spiritual bless
ing had fallen on all classes of humankind.
The Christian student of the Bible loses nothing from
the reasonable grounds for his faith by strict fidelity to
the historical interpretation. What the prophets really
meant is only to be learned by a study of their words
as spoken in the historical setting necessary to explain
them. How the New-Testament writers underetood
the prophets is to be leamed only by the same kind of
study. But it is also one important — yes, chief — result
of such study, to recognize that the Hebrew prophet
regarded himself as an organ of God for bringing to his
nation the prospective results of the divine deahngs
with them, in justice and grace. It was the work of
these inspired men to give to Israel, and to the world,
those great conceptions whieh make up the bib
hcal doctrine of divine self-revelation in redemption,
and of a coming kingdom of redeemed souls. And it
is no less a result of historical study to show that Christ
and the apostles nnderstcod all these conceptions to be
realized in Him and in His Church ; and that, as a
matter of fact, they were then, and have since been,
most fully realized. As long as historical study and
Chi-isrian faith unite in confiu-ming these great truths, it
is a matter of comparatively little importance if, in cer
tain instances, we have to recognize mistaken predictions
on the part of the ancient prophets, or erroneous in-

256 The Prophecies of the Bible.
terpretation s of such predictions on the part of New-
Testament writers. We havo this treasure also in
earthen vessels.
But, finally, there is no raore coraprehensive and
conclusive proof of the inspiration of large portions of
sacred Scripture than the proof frora prophecy as thus
understood. We affirm again, that this proof is far
more convincing than any which could be derived from
remarkable minute correspondences between old-time
prognostications and new-tirae events. And surely, the
evidence for the Bible and Christianity would not be
strengthened if, instead of the far grander ideal which
-«'as actually furnished, the exact form of Messianic sal
vation as predicted had been ushered in. No stronger
bond unites the old dispensatiou and the new than this
bond of prophecy ; Hebrew prophecy looks forward to
its fulfilment in Christianity ; the events of Christian
ity look backward to the ideas and hopes which had
their birth in Hebrew prophecy. Who can doubt that
one divine and organizing Spirit runs through all ? If
any men who spoke in old time spoke as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost, surely the prophets are
among that sacred number.

CHAPTEE IX.
THE MOEAL AXD EELIGIOUS TEACHIXG OF THE BIBLE.
The preceding chaptere have been occupied in consider
ing the scientific, historical, and prophetical contents of
the Old and New Testaments. On beginning the con
sideration of their moral and rehgious teaching it is
plain that the discussion cannot be whoUy separated
fi-om the results arrived at in these chapters. The moral
and reUgious truth of biblical religion is, of course, the
very gist and core of aU its trath. For this reason we
can never contemplate the origin and development of
this rehgion from a purely historical and critical point
of view. But, on the other hand, the moral and re
ligious contents of the Bible cannot be separated and
dra-wn off, as it were, frora the other classes of its eon-
tents. We must not think to reach the essential truth
of our rehgion, as it is scripturally fixed in the canon
ical books of the Old and New Testaments, by a super
ficial analysis. It is possible to divide the truths taught
by these books into scientific, historical, miraculous,
moral and religious, etc., iu such a way as to rend truth
from trath, instead of bringing all the forms of the
one truth into their natural and divinely-ordered con
nections. The histories of the Bible are themselves
freighted with moral and religious lessons ; and many
of its choicest doctrines are given to us as embodied in
historical form. (257)

258 Moral and Religious Teaching.
At the same time — it may confidently be affirmed
again — our consideration of the moral and religious
truth of biblical religion cannot be a purely critical and
historical affair. We require another instrument than
historical criticism to tell us what is right in morals,
and what appeals to and satisfies our deepest, raost per
manent, religious needs. We may speak of this re
quired insti-ument as the " moral and religious con
sciousness." The nature of its witness to the Bible,
and the relation in which the witness stands to the ex
tent and authority of biblical truth, will be considered
in another place. It is enough now siraply to say that
the moral and religious truth of the Scriptures, of
necessity, appeals to the moral and religious nature of
man. If it did not do this, it would be of no service to
man, moraUy and religiously ; nor could it get any sup
port from huraan nature, or point of entrance into it,
on the moral and religious side.
But the " consciousness " so-called, to which these
higher truths of biblical morality and rehgion make
their appeal, is not to be regarded as the untrained,
natural judgment and feeling of men upon such matters.
It would be interesting, indeed, to know how any one
of the great Greek or Eoman morahsts — like Plato,
Deraocritus, or Seneca — would have regarded the
moral and religious teachings of the Old and New
Testaments. Doubtless they would have conderaned
much of the teaching of the Old Testament, and would
heartily have approved most of the ethical principles of
the New. We should recognize in this hearty approval
a certain real argument in favor of the Christian Scrip-

Its Historical Interpretation. 259
tures ; for it would tend to show how completely they
meet and satisfy the moral nature of man. But we
should not regard the disapproval, by these moralists,
of certain moi-al or rehgious tenets as at aU final or con
clusive; becanse we should remember that certain
tenets of the Bible make their chief appeal to a form
or type of consciousness that has been shaped and en
lightened by the truth of the Bible itself.
Two sets of considerations must, therefore, be con
stantly taken into account. An historical and critical
study of the Bible is necessary to the most intelligent
judgment regarding the real nature and authority of
its teachings npon moral and religions truths. Many
things are said and done in sacred Scripture, the moral
and religions bearing of which we cannot underetand
at all without an accurate knowledge of the circum
stances and characters of the ancient -writere. Historical
study also enables us to see the real nature of the bib
hcal revelation ; — how progressive it was, and how its
earher, and, in themselves, imperfect forms were neces
sary in the couree of the divine discipline of humanity.
On the other hand, we must, at all hazards, be faith
ful to our central Christian principles in respect to
what is tme to think and right to do. Christ and the
apostles themselves recognized the imperfect and faulty
character of certain elements of the Old-Testament re
ligion and morality. But they also taught the world
how to distinguish between the perfect and the im
perfect, between the trae and the false. In judging
the tenets of Scripture itself by the hght of our in
stmcted and iUuminated Christian consdonsness, we

26o Moral and Religious leaching.
are only foUowing them. That Scripture is to be in
terpreted by Scripture itself is iu sorae sort a principle
of the Eeformation theology. It is the raost important
part of this principle that all Scripture is to be judged,
and absolutely approved or relatively condemned, in
the clear light of those great raoral and religious truths
and facts in which the essence of Christianity consists.
To be disloyal to that Christian judgraent and con
science, for the gift of which we are obligated to the
Holy Spirit, and the training of which is received
through the raost precious uses of the Bible, is far more
dangerous to Christian faith than to recognize the
relatively low morality or raistaken opinion of sorae
ancient Hebrew general, author, or king.
The raoral and religious teaching of the Bible raust,
therefore, be regarded both frora the historical point of
-view and frora the point of -view taken by enlightened
Christian judgraent and feeUng. Its discussion re-
quu-es information derived from historical and critical
studies ; but it also requires deference to that moral and
religious nature which has been awakened, inforraed,
and elevated by the very Christian truth which the
Bible brings to us.
First of all, it should be made clear how the moral
and religious trath of the Bible stands related to its
different classes of contents. It is certainly to this
truth, and to this truth only, that the claims made by
its different -wviievs, primarily apply. It is to the raoral
and religious teachings of th-e Law and the Prophets, as
looking forward to Himself and as fulfilled by Himself,
that our Lord appeals in all His mention of the Hebrew

Its Historical Interpretation. 261
Scriptures. The aposties foUow His example in this
regard. Nor do we find that the claims whieh Mosaism
and Prophetism make for themselves, when considered
in their trae intention, extend further than the claims
which Christ and the disciples make for them. The
promises of Christ to His disciples did not guarantee
the help of the Spirit with respect to any other form
of trath than this — and, indeed, with respect to this
form of truth only in a limited way. And plainly it is
our interest in the fate of this form of truth, as it is sup
posed to be more or less involved in various ways with his
torical and critical inquiries, which sharpens and height
ens aU our interest in the answers to such inquiries.
It would seem desirable, then, to separate the moral
and rehgious truth of the Bible from the answers to be
given to aU historical and critical inquiries. But it has
already been said that the very natm-e of this trath,
and the form of its delivery to us in sacred Scripture,
are such as to render impossible a complete separation
of this kind. For example, the truth which the writer
of the Mosaic cosmogony wishes to inculcate is moral
and religious truth. It concerns the divine power,
wisdom, and goodness ; and, raore especiaUy, the divine
coramandment of the Sabbatic law, and the religious
foundation of the nation upon the covenant so closely
connected with that law. But the form which the
teaching of this raoral and rehgious truth here takes is
that of a narrative of creation; and this narrative
cannot be cleared of aU the faulty and mistaken
notions npon mattera of physical science which pre
vailed at that time.

262 Moral and Religious Teaching.
In the same way must we conceive of the relation
which exists between the histories of the Bible and its
moral and religious teaching. We cannot make a dis
tinction by drawing a line which shall completely sep
arate the two. Much of the Bible's most profound and
essential moral and religious truth is given in the form
of history ; its history is, as a rule, worthy of being
considered concrete doctrine. AU this is especially
true of that central personality of Christ, whose birth,
death, and life, whose acts and treatment at the hands
of raen, whose appearance and setting in huraan his
tory, are all of the widest and deepest significance. So,
then, the question, whether we have a substantially
true picture of this personality, becomes one of su
preme ethical and religious importance. It cannot be
considered merely as an historical question.
But, on the other hand, we find that the sacred his-
toi-y is not always infallible ; is not free from all mis
takes of fact, and date, and number; nor always com
posed upon a basis of authentic information as to what
actually occurred. No claim to this effect can be
found in the Bible itself from Genesis to Revelation ;
and no claim frora which this claim can be derived as a
legitimate consequence.
The fact that no hard and fixed line can be drawn
between the historical and the moral and religious con
tents of the bibUcal books, and the fact that these
books are not free from errors of an historical kind,
when taken together, are not in the least prejudicial to
the inspiration or authority of the Bible. For a critical
and historical examination confirms what the needs of

Its Degrees of Perfection. 263
a reasonable and truly biblical faith suggest—namely,
that all the historical errors of the bibhcal books do
not affect the genuine nature or extent of its moral and
rehgious teaching. We know whom we are trusting
when we trust Christ, and what He said and did so far
as concerns the doctrine of Christian salvation and the
principles and rules of Christian conduct. We know
this precisely as well and as certainly as we should if
the Gospels were historically infaUible, to the minutest
detaU. The discovery of its method of writing his
tory, and the criticism of its histories, may largely
alter our conception of the method in which God re
vealed to man the moral and reUgious truth which the
Old Testament contains. But, after this alteration has
taken place, all the moral and religious truth, which >
was ever conveyed by these writings, is conveyed by '
them StUl.
Furthermore, within the moral and reUgious teach
ings of the Bible, we learn to distinguish certain
degrees of value and of perfection. The revelation
which God made of Himself as the Redeemer of man
was a progressive one. Not aU at once, nor with its
most advanced and choicest truths thrust upon the
world before the world had been in sorae sort prepared
for them, did this revelation appear in history. It was
itself an historical affair. It began with a discipline of
the people of Israel, who were taken hold of when
upon a low plane, and were treated, as they could bear
it, to new and higher forms of moral conceptions and of
rules for moral conduct. Bnt the Bible is its own cor-
rector in this regard. Our authoritative instruction

264 Moral and Religious Teaching.
conceming the right estimate of the moral and relig
ious views of the Old Testament comes from Christ and
the apostles. They teach that these views have their
highest significance and proof in their correspondence
to the spirit of the Gospel. Thus there is in the Bible
what the men of old time taught to those of their genera
tion, and there is what Jesus says to us. The clear
and full light of ethical and religious truth shines only
in the latter ; the former has its dark, defective, and
temporary side, as well as its side of pure and per
manent heavenly radiance.
There is no reason, then, why a Christian student of
the Bible should hesitate to look calmly upon the im
perfect and passing elements of the Old-Testament
ethics and religion ; or why he should shrink frora
making the distinctions necessary to separate these ele
ments from the perfect and eternal Christian truth.
Christ has showed him how to make these distinctions.
In raaking them he is not setting up his judgment
against that of the holy men of old who spake of God
and His kingdom as the Spirit moved them ; he is only
using the very trath which the infallible teacher Him
self revealed in order to appreciate its vast superiority
to that taught by the teachers who lived in the inferior
and preparatory stages.
Thus regarded, we find various passages, and even
sorae entire books, of the Old Testaraent, whose raoral
and religious tone is greatly inferior to that of its
other passages and books — not to say, inferior to the
moral and religious tone of Christianity. We may
fitly apologize for these portions of sacred Scripture by

The Book of Esther. 265

considering the circumstances in which they were writ
ten. We must always penetrate to the real heart of
their teaching and try to judge its natnre, instead of
being repelled by an exterior that appears rough and
hard because its texture is so foreign to the modes of our
own time. We must seek for essential morality, and not
scruple overmuch at rude customs and mannera. But
we positively must not commend, through desire to
apologize for all the moral and religious views of the
Old Testament, anything that is essentially immoral or
of low morality as judged by the Christian standard.
Concerning the Book of Esther,* for example, the
judgment of a Christian scholar is pretty plainly war
ranted : " No other writing of the Old Testament is so
remote from the spirit of the gospel." It may be
pleaded in its favor that the fast by which Esther pre-
pai-ed herself for her heroic deed, and the question put
to her by Mordecai — " Who knoweth whether thou art
not come to the kingdom for such a time as this ? " im
ply some recognition of di-vine pro-vidence. But this
recognition is very uncertain and indirect. Contrary
to the whole tendency of all other sacred Hebrew writ
ing, no mention of the divine name is made in the
Book of Esther ; nor does the aira of it appear to be to
exalt this narae so much as to commend a wholly extra-
biblical feast, caUed the feast of Purim. It is not
strange, then — considering also its late origin — that
this book was so reluctantly received into the canon of
the Old Testaraent, and obtained no recognition or en-
doreement whatever frora the early Christian wntings.
*D. a a, i., p. 4641

266 Moral and Keligtous leaching.
Moreover, no other biblical book shows the same nar
row Jewish spirit of revenge and persecution. The
Christian reader is not, indeed, warranted in going so
far as Luther went, who heartUy wished that it were
out of existence. But he certainly is bound by fidelity
to the Christian spirit to recognize the relatively low
moral and religious tone of this writing.
The Books of Ruth and Jonah* are of a decidedly
higher order than Esther, when viewed from the
stand-point of Christian moral and religious truth. The
former has not, indeed, the same positive moral aud
religious character which most of the Hebrew Scriptures
possess ; but it is without blemishes, and is a beautiful
and important story. The Book of Jonah, although it
was never designed (so we believe) to be considered as
throughout an historical composition, conveys, upon a
certain historical basis, in the forra of allegory, a most
valuable truth. Indeed, this book is in certain re
gards one of the noblest and most truly inspired of all
the Old-Testament writings ; for it gives a lofty revela
tion of the divine love and forgiveness toward all suffer
ing and sinful nations, at a time when there was much
darkness and obscurity of vision on this point even
among the more advanced followers of Jehovah. And
— as has already been repeatedly said — ^the great pur
pose of the Bible is to make God known and felt as the
Redeemer of mankind.
The very natui-e of the Book of " Proverbs " is such
that it cannot easily be considered as a whole from the
moral and religious point of view. It is a collection of
* D. S. 8., i,, p. 465.

The Old-Testament Proverbs. 267
"wise sayings upon a great variety of subjects. Some of
the Hebrew proverbs g-athered into the canonical book
of that name show the impress of the great moral and
religious ideas which God revealed to the pious of the
nation. They are pervaded -with intense ethical senti
ment; they rebuke sin, exalt righteousness, exhort to
mercy, warn against gluttony, drunkenness, and lust.
Othere are true enough but commonplace, and fall be
low the average of Oriental proverbs. Still others ap
proach very near the limit of a shrewdness that en
courages wrong-doing; and so are quite unfit for a
Christian to govern his conduct by.
In general we may remind ooreelves that these -wise-i
sayings were not considered by the Jews themselves to-
have the highest kind of inspiration, and were never
designed to show those who have the rule of Christ,
how to conduct theraselves. For example, to be re
minded that "a gift is as a precious stone in the eyes
of him that hath it ; whithereoever it tnmeth, it pros-
pereth " (see xvii. 8), suggests the wide-spreading in
fluence of bribery in Oriental lands, but arouses the
Christian conscience against dwelling too much on the
" profitableness " of the proverb rather than in favor
of adopting it as a rule of conduct. The same thing is
true of the twin proverb : " A man's gift maketh room
for him, and bringeth him before great men "; or, "A
gift in secret pacifieth anger, and a present in the
bosom strong wrath."
The Song of Solomon (as we shall see in another
connection) found difficulty in gaining admittance to
the Hebrew canon; it was carried by the aUegorical

268 Moral and Religious Teaching.

interpretation into the place which it held among the
Christian sacred Scriptures. This interpretation under
stood its narrative of worldly love to be symbolic of
the relations of the divine and the human heart. Since
the decline of the allegorical interpretation, to which
in general the principles of the Protestant reformation
were opposed, this poem has been left in a unique posi
tion. Judged by the raoral standard, -with a fan- al
lowance for the raodes of behavior and language prev
alent in the East at that time, its substance and form
of expression are admirable in the portrayal of pure,
tender, and faithful affection between the sexes. Only
in one or two passages do the limits of moral purity
seem to a refined Christian sentiment to be transgressed.
From its very nature, however, when viewed in the
clear light of a discreet and sober science of bibhcal
exegesis, it can never appear as the result of revelation,
or of inspiration in the higher sense of this term.
A different class of cases calls for a somewhat differ
ent conclusion. There are many portions of the bib
hcal writings which ostensibly give a record or picture
of moral and reUgious experiences — some important
and some relatively unimportant, sorae morally unjus
tifiable and some righteous — through which various
saints and sinners of old time are said to have passed.
In such cases we have no right to require of the wiiter
of the record, the draughtsman of the picture, any
thing more than fidelity to truth, with sympathy, anger,
pity, and other moral emotions, moving in its behalf.
The saints, both of ancient and of modern tiraes, do
often doubt God's word, waver in their confidence in

As Record of Experience. 269
His justice and mercy, and wander in dark places of
rebeUion and despair. The story or picture of these
experiences belongs to the true history of the soul, to
the true history of the kingdom of redeemed souls as
well. And when the result of the story, or of the pic
ture, is a warning to othere to make them wise, or a
caU to praise the Lord for His goodness in finally leading
such persons out into the confidence of trust and the f uU
hght of moral -vision, then the terms of revelation and
inspiration in their highest sense may apply to this
artistic work.
Underetood in this way, and considered from the ad
vanced point of view where the Gospel of Christ places
ns. Job, Ecclesiastes, and many of the Psalms and of the
prophetical and historical passages of the Old Testaraent,
appear amply justified in claiming a place in sacred Scrip
ture. The same standards of judgment also apply to
much of what is told in the Bible conceming the sayings
and doings of both good and bad men. Only in these
cases an allowance must be made for the great changes
which have taken place (and this largely as a direct
result of Christian influences) in moral sentiments and
ideas, not of a fundamental and unchangeable kind.
There are raany things in the Hebrew Bible which may
have served at one ti'me the purpose of moral quicken
ing and purifying, that are now by a sort of Christian
instinct passed hastUy and cautiously by : or even, on
all ordinary occasions, entirely neglected.
Still different and much more difficult are the com
paratively few cases in which deeds, that the unpreju
diced and pure Christian judgment aud sentiment

270 Moral and Religious Teaching.
would unhesitatingly pronounce wrong, are narrated
-with the manifest approval of the writer; or where
wishes, that such judgment and sentiraent would deem
immoral, appear to spring from the heart of the writer
and impress themselves upon the sacred page. In aU
such cases, certain general considerations, like the fol
lowing, should be taken into account. The ancient
Jews, like aU the peoples of that day (and, in fact, like
all peoples of every time), were much disposed to
deceit, to cruelty, and to lust. Their condition, with
respect to internal civilization and surroundings, was
such that these kinds of -wickedness tended to assume a
gross and outbreaking expression.
; Moreover, the prevalent -views and sentiments on
matters of conduct were, judged by the pure Christian
standard, and even by that debased standard of Chris
tian ethics which still customarily prevails, exceedingly
low. The Jewish people were, as their own writers
assure us and as Christ plainly accuses them of being,
coarse and unyielding material in the divine hand. But
God undertook their moral and rehgious discipline. In
undertaking it. He received them just as they were —
deceitful, cruel, lustful. This discipline was conducted
in an historical fashion ; it was accomphshed by succes
sive stages in the disclosure of divine truth and the im
parting of divine hfe. It was while they were under
this discipline that they were both actors in the sacred
history which the Bible records, and also authors of its
sacred writings. AU this shows the wonderful conde
scension of God in carrying out His plan for making
Himself known as the Redeemer of man.

Its progressive Character. 271
This progressive di-vine disciphne, -with its successive
stages of revelation and inspiration, was, of couree,
largely carried on by human agents. Of these agents
certain choice and effective ones were selected to do a
special work for the whole people. In the deeds of
the sacred history some stand forth prominent as the
chosen and inspired rainisters of Jehovah — kin^, gen
erals, magistrates, etc. In its moral and religions train
ing under the disclosure and enforcement of trath,
the prophets, psalmists, and moralists of the nation are
prominent. These men are the authors of the Hebrew
sacred Scriptures. They stand for the best moral and
rehgious consciousness of the time ; but their ideas and
feehngs on moral and religions subjects were not by
any means necessarily true and faultless, when judged
by the Christian standard. Christ and the apostles
plainly teach that they were not. It does not follow
that, because such -views and sentiments find their
expression in the Hebrew sacred writings, they are
morally right, as tested by the highest moral truth. On
the other hand, it does not foUow because certain -views
and sentiments are not perfectly right, that therefore
the writings in which they are expressed have no claim
to be considered inspired, or to have a place in sacred
Scripture. We find on examination, however, that the force of
such considerations as the foregoing bears most heavily
upon those portions of the Hebrew Bible which are,
in general, lowest down in the moral scale as judged
by the standard of Old-Testament religion itself.
This statement may be amply Ulustrated by the

2^2 Moral ana Keligtous leaching.
case of Jael's deed,* the narrative of which occurs
in Judges iv. 17-22, The deed was a deed of base
cruelty and treachery, even when measured by the low
standards of morality that belong to the -svorld's dark
places and ancient times. All the efforts raade to ex
cuse it when regarded frora the point of view furnished
by enlightened principles of ethics and Christian senti-
raents of morality, are quite unavailing. They are un
availing because, in order to justify the deed at all, it is
necessary to assume the general principle that no kind
of private deceit and treachery is wrong in case it is
practiced against the enemy of one's people. But
this principle is inferior even to that adopted by
the Talmudic, or uninspired Jewish writings, and is
contrary to the best raoral teaching and spirit of the
Old Testament. Yet, in the beautiful patriotic song
ascribed to Deborah and Barak, which follows the nar
rative of Jael's deed, the fullest sympathy with this
deed is frankly expressed. What, then, shall we say
of the morahty of the sentiment thus incorporated, as
it were, into the sacred writings ?
We cannot justify the deed of Jael by assuming that
it accorded with an express divine cominand ; for there
is not the slightest hint in the narrative of such a com
mand, and, if there were, this^it has been well said —
" would only increase our difficulty." Neither do we
treat our moral nature fairly when we try to approve
the lie of Jael by speaking of it as " corporate and
sympathetic." Indeed, aU such ways of apologi^iing
for the conduct of this rude, ancient heroine only result
*D, 8, a, i., p. 4681

1 he Deed of Jael. 273
in doing harm to onr most precious possessions — to
sensitive Christian judgment and feehng on matters of
morals and rehgion. But no harm whatever is done
by saying at once and frankly : The song of Deborah
and Barak, although found within the Hebrew Bible,
must be taken for what it is morally worth. The deed
of Jael was a base deed. No commendation of its
baseness is justifiable. It is rebuked not only by aU
the teachings of the New Testament, but also by the
higher teachings of the Old. Both it and the com
mendation of it are to be judged in the hght of the
times when it occurred. Such cases of moral defective
ness appear in the judgment of the best aud most pious
of Israel. They show the inferiority of the old dis
pensation to the new. They do not by any means
overwhelm or drag down the divinity of the process of
divine self-revelation in which they occur : they rather
constitute instances whieh show us the necessary stages
and steps of that process.
Similar considerations must control our -views of the
exterminating wars of Israel, and of the spirit in which
those wars are conceived by the Old-Testament writere.
Stem and terrible war may come about of necessity in
accordance with the divine plan of discipline and sal
vation ; a divine command to undertake such war does
not necessarily contravene the absolute principles of
right. On the other hand, the conceptions, the modes,
the Ihnits, which even the pious Isi-aehtes ascribed to
snch commands, raight belong to an imperfect and low
stage of moral cnltnre. Of course, whatever hatred
and cruelty of spirit entered into them is unjustifiable,

274 Moral and Religious Teaching.
whether as measured by the higher bibUcal standard or
by the standard of the enlightened conscience. In the
history of Israel we behold much of what has finely
been called "the undisciplined passion of justice work
ing without the perception of the limit which man's
individuality imposed upon it." For it accords with
the ideas and habits of these ancient times to consider
men in " masses," as it were. The tribe, the family,
the people, was regarded as having a kind of corporate
responsibility ; even the animals and the products of
the soil seemed to share in the taint and need of puri
fying which the wickedness of the adult human beings
incurred. Thus, to exterminate, to destroy root and
branch utterly, seemed the only way to clear away the
accumulated moral corruption.
Then, too, it raust be remembered that Israel re
garded itself as especially beloved of Jehovah, as under
a particular covenant with Him, as destined through its
connection -with Hitn to experience immeasurable bless
ing and to bring such blessing to the world. Nor can
it be doubted that this view, in however distorted and
coldly hard forra it may sometimes have been held
even by pious Jews, was substantiaUy a true view.
That it was true is proved by what Israel has done for
the world. Those other peoples or individuals, therefore,
who seemed to the raen of greatest insight and fore
sight regarding the destiny and significance of the na
tion, to stand athwart the path of Jehovah's plans,
seeraed also justly to have incurred the charge of un
righteousness, and the punishraent due to the un
righteous.

The Imprrecatory Psalms. 275
But, on the contrary, the Bible is very generous in ite
use of the word " righteous." They are pre-eminently
caUed righteous whom its authore regard as standing
and fighting on the right side in the world's great
battle between those who love and serve the true God
and those who do not. It is not necessary, however,
to justify all the particular judgments and sentiments
of the writere of the Old Testament, in order to appre
ciate the moral worthiness and helpfulness of their
teaching, or to regard their work as sacred and inspired.
The moral ^timate whieh the Old Testament puts
upon its characters must always be considered from two
points of view. One of these is the historical point of
view; the other is that furnished by matured moral
and Christian truth. Those pious souls, even when
they were authore of sacred Scripture, did not them
selves stand upon the plane to which they have helped
to elevate us. It is not hard to comprehend why they
resided the low morality of a hero like Samson
or Jephthah so differentiy in some respects from the
judgment which we are compelled to pronounce from
our higher and Christian point of view. The times
were such as necessarily to induce a confusion of the
idea of authorized administration of justice with the
idea of unauthorized vengeance ; snch confusion lasted
among the Jews nntU Christ's day.
The so-called "imprecatory" Psalms have often
bome, as a heavy burden, upon the conscience of the
Christian believer. But there is no real need why this
should be so. These denunciations of their enemies
by the writers of snch Psalms are, as a rale, directed

276 Moral ana neiigious leaching.
against the enemies of the Lord and of true religion.
Thus understood, they may form a measure of the
passionate devotion which the person uttering them
had toward the cause of divine justice and divine
grace. But, after all, we can go only a little way in
corapany with the spirit of many of the imprecatory
Psalms ; from this point onward our path and theirs lie
On a different level and along different lines. Said the
good Thomas Fuller : " When I corae to such Psalms
wherein Da-vid curseth his enemies, oh ! then let me
bring ray soul down to a lower note, for these words
were made only to fit David's mouth." And Chalmers
said : " Let the spirit breathed forth by David in the
Psalras actuate us, save when he indulges in the vin
dictive strain." In the rare instances where a really " vin
dictive" strain does characterize a passage of the Old
Testament ,we are bound by every consideration of Chris
tian morality not to countenance it, whatever consid
erations may be urged in partial excuse of the expres
sion of such feeling.* It is a long and toilsome way
in the history of the huraan race to the dying prayer
of Jesus from such prayers against one's enemies as
that " strangers may raake spoil of his labor," and no
one exist " to have pity on his fatherless children "; that
" the iniquity of his fathers may be remembered with
the Lord," and the " sin of his raother not be blotted
out." The Spirit of God in the biblical revelation has
traversed the way. Our Lord expressly coramands us,
for exaraple, to do the very opposite of what is done by
* See especially Ps, vii,, xxxv,, Ixix,, cix,, and parts of Ivlii.,
cxxxvii., cxL, cxUx,, and compare D. S, 8,, i., p, 4711

Ethics of the Mosaic Law. 277
the author of the one-hundred-and-ninth Psalm. It is
the Holy Spirit which forbids us to believe that a state
of mind so deprecated by our Lord could accord with
the principles of absolute morahty.
We have already seen how the moral and rehgious
teaching of the Mosaic law was regarded by Christ
and the apostles. This law, they taught, contained a
revelation of absolute moral aud rehgious truth ; but it
also contained merely permissive and temporary enact
ments, as weU as certain concrete institutions of low or
imperfect morahty. The law of retaliation and of blood-
revenge are in place here.* Both these laws are ex
ceedingly ancient and wide-spread among Semitic and
Indo-European peoples. Homer, Hesiod, and the
Greek tragic poets bear witness to customs and . senti
ments which are simUar to those prevaUing in the
Israehtish community. The provisions of the Mosaic
code were doubtless, on the whole, as humane as the
time demanded or admitted. Bnt they were not snch
as comport with the spirit or mannere of a Christian
civilization. Our Lord himseK taught this when He
contrasted His own teachings with what had been said
by them of old time regarding " an eye for an eye,"
and " a tooth for a tooth." The injunction, " Thine
eye shall not pity," even when taken in connection
with a legal administration, partakes of a spirit in
ferior to that of the Gospel. So when our Lord speaks
of the ancient law as being to " hate thine enemy,"' as
weU as love thy neighbor, He rebukes a spirit which
*D. 8. a, i., p. 4731

278 Moral and Religious Teaching.
undoubtedly here and there breaks through the sacred
Hebrew history and legislation.
In legislating for the relations of the sexes the Mosaic
law shows the same mixed character which has just
been referred to in speaking of its enactments touching
the relations of friendship and enmity between men.
This fact our Lord distinctly teaches in His remarks
upon the legal provisions for divorce. The position of
woman in ancient Israel, as compared with other and
surrounding nations in the sarae era, was on the whole
an exalted one. Woraen are found araong the civil
magistrates and the religious teachers of the people.
The sacred code makes certain express merciful pro
visions for the protection of woman's rights of per
son. Although concubinage and polygamy were legally
recognized and permitted, the restrictive enactments
were, on the whole, favorable toward the more de
fenceless party. Certain legal provisions, however, —
for example, those for testing and punishing a wife
suspected of infidelity toward her husband (see Num.
V. 11-31) — show how low down in the moral scale and
how superstitious this people were. The law necessa
rily partook of the characteristics of the people to a
certain large extent. It could not well be too much
above thera if it was to raise thera up.
In considering all such cases as the foregoing it must
not be forgotten that there is another side to the law of
Israel, — the side of the progressive divine revelation of
public justice, mercy, and love. For the best contents
of the Old Testament, and especially the moral and re
ligious instructions and spirit of the New Testaraent,

Ethics of the Mosaic Law. 279
are so far above the more defective sentiments and
statutes that undue importance would seem to be at
tached to the latter by dweUing longer upon them. In
deed, the Christian student of the Bible always prefers
to dwell upon the lower side of the Mosaic code in an
apologetic way. But a candid scholarehip leads one to
see that the true apology does not consist in refusing to
admit the existence of its moral imperfections and blem
ishes. To do this, even in the supposed interest of the
Bible itself, involves one in a conffict with the real au
thority of the Holy Spirit on moral and religious mat-
tore. It may lead to a virtual denial of the teaching of
our Lord and His apostles. The trae spirit of Old-
Testament revelation is not in the law of retaliation and
of blood-revenge. It is rather in the mass of legislation,
designed for uplifti'ng the people. It is not only in the
negative commands, " Thou shalt not hate thy brother
in thy heart," and " Thou shalt not take vengeance ";
bnt also and chiefly in the positive injunction, " Thoa
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself " (see Lev. xix. 18).
In order to understand the legal and historical morals
of the Old Testament, the distinction between its dif
ferent stages, eras, and portions is indispensable. The
purer and higher moral and religious truths struggled
upward into the consciousness of the chosen people.
The divine revelation which made God known as the
Itedeeraer of the nation and of all mankind carae, in
deed, through selected and inspired servants of God
himself. Bnt it came also in an historical way, by
successive steps and in a process of history. The in
spired agents and actors in this process were themselves,

28o Moral and Religious Teaching.
of necessity, subjected to the conditions which governed
the entire process. When the law had served to lead
men to Christ, its own imperfections became exposed.
But the signal service and marked value of the law
also appear more clearly when considered in the his
torical way. It may indeed be said that, unless the
Old-Testament dispensation had been relatively imper
fect, it could never have served effectively in actual
and historical relations to the New-Testament dispensa
tion. God did not fear to mingle His most exalted
moral and religious truths -with certain crude concep
tions and mistaken practices of the people to whom He
reached down in order to save them, and through them
to save the world. The concrete enactraents of the
moral law of Israel were, indeed, not all in conformity
with the divine ideas of mercy and justice as revealed
in Christ ; but they served on the whole as the material
in which these ideas could embody themselves and so
get an entrance into the actual history of mankind.
The remark just made leads us to notice one great
practical excellence of much raoral and religious teach
ing in the Bible — especiaUy in the Old Testaraent. It
emphasizes the concrete divine word. In the earlier
stages of moral and religious training men are not ready
to be taught by abstract and general principles ; they
cannot safely be left to guide themselves by applying
these principles, for theraselves, to their daily conduct.
So the divine voice speaks to men with a definite com
mand ; it says, Thou shalt Twt do this, but Thou shalt
do that. The particular forms which the enactments
of this legal disciphne took in Israel are of much less

Ideal Side of Old Testament. 281
importanee than the general intention that by the en
actments mankind shaU be taught that there is a God
to be obeyed.
But moral and religious teaching by concrete enact
ments is, of itself, a very restricted way ; it is sure to
faU of fitly developing the moral and rehgious life.
Even the law of the Old Testament recognizes this
truth. EspeciaUy in its more spiritual version in
Deuteronomy, where less is made of what is priestly
and ritualistic, many divine words of rebuke, expostu
lation, warning, entreaty, encouragement, and promise,
are found. When the great prophets arose, they relied
comparatively little upon the value and force of con
crete enactments — ^particularly of a priestly and ritual
istic sort. Indeed, this fact is so plain that it leads us
to doubt how far they were aware even of the existence
of these enactments. The prophets show little or no
regard for the innumerable minute provisions of ritual
and ecelesiaitical life ; they rather exalt a relatively few
principles of veracity, justice, mercy, piety, and faith.
When the word of God came to men in the Gospel
it brought the realization, on their ideal side, of all the
words which '- the Law and the Prophets "' had pre
served. They were aU summed up in the one principle
of love to God and one's neighbor, with the under
standing that the Gentile, too, is the " neighbor " of
the Jew, t.iat there is indeed no more Jew and Gentile,
but all are one in Christ. The entire body of concrete
legal enactments, including the Decalogue itself, now
ceases as such to have any authority ; the moral and re
ligions principles that entered into these enactments

282 Moral and Religious Teaching.
are taken up into Christianity and so stand valid. But
even these stand valid, not because they are of the law
as it was ascribed to Moses ; nor because they are parts
of sacred Scripture; but because they are of the es
sence of Christianity itself.
The summary of those great moral and religious
truths of sacred Scripture which are eternally valid,
which constitute its body of revealed doctrine, and the
teaching of which forms the chief claim of this Scripture
to inspiration, would involve the description of Chris
tianity itself. This description we cannot, of course,
attempt. Yet a few considerations may be helpful here.
There is a wonderful unity in the moral and religious
teaching of the Scriptures, if we turn our attention away
from the faultiuess of certain parts of the Old Testa
ment, and catch the meaning of the whole as seen in
the light of biblical history when crowned by the truths
of the Gospel of Christ. One spirit runs the thread
through all the texture. One great system of truths,
concerning the manifestation of the divine love in the
redemption of sinful, needy, and helpless humanity,
everywhere appears. There is essentially the same truth
under varying forras of expression, and with different
degrees of energy and purity in raanifestation.
Moreover, the moral and the religious teachings and
truths of the Bible are never exhibited as divorced.
They are presented as bound together because of the
existence of one underlying principle : The foundation
of biblical (and of Christian) morality is in a raoral per
sonality, and the centre and source of human virtue is
allegiance to that personality.

The Principle of Love. 283
That " love " which is the spring of all right conduct
is directed first, toward a personal God, who loves raan
and holds communion with him in love ; and second,
toward one's fellow as, like one's self, the child of God.
The revelation of the Bible is the fellowship of gracious
and redeeming love. The personal self-communication
of God is made in such form that He can comraand and
teach the soul of raan, and can evoke its pereonal affec
tion ; the soul can pass over the dark barriere which sepa
rate it, in its natural, unbelieving condition, from God,
and can address God in terras of pereonal trust and love.
In the Old Testament, the choicest and foremost
teachere hold essentially this ethical view of God. In
the New Testament, the personality of Christ — God
manifested and with us — becomes the source of ethical
and religious Ufe and conduct. God comes near to
man, dweUs with man, in an historical personality. He
thus awakens the highest and most devoted affection,
and stu-s to their depths the springs of raoral endeavor
and action. Jesus is not, therefore, solely or chiefly an
example for our imitation ; He is also and rather a di
vine life entering as a motive into humanity. Faith
attaching itself to Him thus becomes the source of
Christian morals; the central element and essential
characteristic of all ethical impulse becomes fidelity to
His personality. Thus faith in Him is not an isolated
virtue, or oue among many vh-tnes; it is the saving
quality, the comprehensive and governing attitude of
the soul. Fidehty to Him eusm-es the crown of hfe
(see Rev. U. 10).
It is in the light of this great central moral and re-

284 Moral and Religious Teaching,
ligious truth that all the particular moral and reUgious
teachings of the biblical books are to be considered and
estimated. What an ethical power is Christian faith
in the Pauline sense of the word ! Paul had followed,
conscientiously, the requirements of the national Old-
Testament religion. He had conceived of the Mosaic
law as expressing the divine wUl, as being indeed the
law of God. His conscience pronounced him blameless
as touching the zeal and fidelity with which he had kept
this law. On becoraing a Christian he raade no marked
advance in fidelity to conscience ; nor did his estimate of
the divinity of the law he had followed so zealously be
corae enhanced, but rather changed frora the rabbinical
and traditional to the free, critical, and Christ-like
point of view. He gained the knowledge aud the ex
perience of new relations to God brought about by his
faith in Jesus. This the Mosaic code had been power
less to produce.
The many admirable and powerful quaUties of the
biblical ethics need not be- stated in detail. This ethics
reaches all around human nature on its many sides ; it
is free from that extreme asceticism which despises
the good things of the present life, and yet it forbids
and prevents the yielding of one's self-hood to the flesh
and the world. Under the influence of the expectation
of the immediate personal return of Jesus to establish a
kingdom on the earth, the New-Testament chni-ch held
certain views, and were impelled to certain eoui'ses of
conduct, which were adventitious and temporary in the
Christian life. These views may even at times seem
open to the charge of a passing fanaticism. Neverthe-

The Principle of Love. 285
less, the entire bibhcal view of life is eminently sober,
sensible, and practical. The Hebrew writings commend
the couree of the man who is grateful and rejoices in
length of yeare, in many chUdren, and bountiful fruits
of industry. The apostles, even under the impulse of
the expectations referred to above, and mider the
temptations of a corrupt and persecuting age, do not
forbid to marry ; they exhort aU men to remain faith
fully in their calling, to eam their hving by their labor,
to be loyal to the state, and loving and dutiful in do
mestic hfe.
And who shaU compute the immeasurable influences
for good — for light, hfe, and salvation — which the
greater truths of biblical revelation have brought to
the world ? Surely the carping critic, who cannot
overlook any examples of inferior and imperfect opin
ion which may seem to occur in the earlier prepara
tory stages of this revelation, and thus fix his admiring
gaze on its outcome in the gift of eternal truth and
eternal hfe, as well as the trembhng Christian who
feare the loss of this gift, if he ventures only once to
admit the occurrence of such examples, are ahke un
reasonable. Both are lacking in a true perspective.
The spirit, as well as the judgment, of the former are
foreign to that needed for the right appreciation and
estimate of biblical religion ; whUe the affection of the
latter for this rehgion, not being mixed with wisdom,
has warped his judgment.
The writings of the New Testament, however, are
so completely hke a pore stream burating directly forth
from one fountain that most of the foregoing consider-

286 Moral and Religious Teaching.
ations do not apply to them. In them no wishes or
prayers occur which have the appearance of personal
bitterness and the spirit of cureing. In thera are no
divine commands to exterminate, root and branch, men
and women and children and cattle, the enemies of Je
hovah and His people. The benevolent side of Mo
saism, and the tender, sympathetic side of Prophetism,
which saw a great light arising on the whole human
race through Israel's redemption, is here brought prom
inently forward ; it rather than whatever superstitions
may have been acknowledged in the legal code, or what
ever imprecations may have been uttered in certain
Psalras, is fulfilled in the prevalent morality and re
ligion of the Bible.
FuU acknowledgment of the clairas of divine justice,
and of organized and legally administered human justice,
is made in the New Testament; but tbe laws of retaha
tion and of private blood-revenge, with all the views and
practices which they perpetuated and encouraged, are
rebuked and done away. Most awful denunciations of
sin and threatenings of divine retribution are indeed
found in the Christian Scriptures. And if they were
not, the biblical truth would culminate in one-sided and
unreal conceptions, and in unworthy and enervating
sentiment. But these denunciations and threatenings,
in their intensest forra, come from the very One who
rebuked that part of the ancient religion which fostered
the love of the Jew alone, together with the spirit of
indifference or hatred toward the Gentile ; they come
from the Oue who brings the divine love to aU man
kind. They are notably directed against those sins of

Progress of Doctrine. 287
which, not the weak and lowly, but the leaders of busi
ness, fashion, and piety, are most conspicuously guilty
— against pride, avarice, and soul-destroying hypocrisy.
There is a progress of doctrine in the Old Testa
ment ; but the difficulty of recognizing its precise
factore and stages is increased by the fact that we do
not know the date and manner of origin of its different
books. There is also great, and even marvellous,
progress of doctrine between the Old Testament and the
New. This progres is so great that it is difficult to
say how far it is proper to regard the New-Testament
morals and religion as growing out of the morals and
religion of the Old Testament. The fact of such
progress is chiefly due to the pervasive and incalculably
great influence of the personahty of Jesus Christ. His
moral and rehgious teaching was manifestly in some
sort an outgrowth of that of the ancient Hebrew sa
cred writings. Yet how much more than this it was !
He astonishes and offends the rabbinical expositors of
these writings by the independent position whieh He
assumes toward them. He criticizes the ancient Scrip
tures, and yet announces that He is come to fulfil them
in every particular. He teaches, relying on His o-wn
authority and not as the scribes. Hence He imparts to
His followers for aU time the authority, the power, and
the right, to estimate these same ancient Scriptures, and
to pronounce upon them, from His own superior and
eternally trae jKiint of view.
There is also a progress of doctrine in the New Tes
tament. The truth of the Gospel, as given in its
primitive and .germinal form by Cnrist's own words

288 Moral and Religious Teaching.
and acts, by His life, death, resurrection, and total per
sonality, becomes subjected to the reflection of picas
and inspired rainds. The meaning of it all is only
more or less gradually comprehended. It is appre
hended in different aspects and on different sides by
different rainds. In sorae cases the forra of the appre
hension is colored by raistaken expectations connected
with the date and manner of the Lord's renewed mani
festation of His personal presence on the earth. But
it is not colored so as to affect or change its essential
nature. The Gospel although preached and practiced in
connection with mistaken mUleuarian expectations is the
Gospel still. And in the apostolic age these expecta
tions did not so injuriously affect the doctrine and life
of the Christian Church at large as they are likely to
do under the greatly changed conditions of the present
age. In their own age we find the apostles evincing their
inspiration by the warnings and rebukes they administer
in view of this very expectation of the speedy personal
retum of Christ. They can be held responsible for no
disorder, no forsaking of daUy avocations, no idleness
and raisuse of this age's opportunities through anticipa
tion of the immediate comiiig of another age. They
tolerate no whining and supineness, as though the Gos
pel were a failure, rather than the power of God to
salvation for every man, and for mankind at large. The
apostles do not teach the churches as though an unbe-
heving human soul could be threshed into the obedience
of love through the happening of great disasters to the
elements of this earthly sphere ; or as though a believing

The Truth of the Gospel. 289
soul co'uld be excused from the daily ministrations of
careful, lo-vinjr service toward others, while waiting for
the catastrophe that becomes the object of mocking
when it is predicted as surely about to come, and yet
does not fall. For these reasons, the inspiration of the
New Testament is not to be questioned, or its moral
and religions doctrine regarded as weakened in au
thority, becanse some of its writings undoubtedly show
the mistaken hope of the entire apostohc Church, that
Jesus would in that age retum to earth.
It is to the truth of the Gospel as tanght by Christ
and the apostles in the New Testament that we refer
for our final objective standard, in matters of Christian
faith and conduct. In the light of this reference aU
the moral and religious teachings of the Bible itself
are to be tested and understood. In this way also a
reconciliation of the demands of the enUghtened and
sensitive Christian conscience with the opinions and
sentiments of the bibhcal writers can be accomplished.
A conffict is thus prevented between what the Christian
thinks and feels and what the Bible teaches; and
the sacred Scriptures, considered in their entirety and
understood in the relations of part to part and of each
part to the central facts and traths of aU, become the
rule of faith and practice.
The argument for the inspiration of the Bible which
may be derived from the nature of its moral and re
ligious contents, we do not need to enter upon in de-
tafl. To present it thoroughly would require nothing less
than an exhibition of the whole circuit of bibhcal rehg
ion, in its strength and beanty, as a doctrine and as a hfe.

CHAPTEE X.
the authoeship oe the biblical books.
The questions. Who was the author of this ancient
writing? and, What was the date at which, and the
circumstances under which, it was composed? are or
dinarily regarded as purely critical questions. They
are certainly in all cases questions of historical fact ;
and it is only by historical criticisra that we can
arrive at a certified knowledge of this kind of fact.
But the question of the authorship of the bibli
cal books, and even of the date and circumstances of
their origin, has hitherto been regarded chiefly as a
theological or religious question. And yet such a ques
tion can never by any possibility really be other than
one of historical fact.
The reason for such an anomalous position of the
bibhcal books is not difficult to discover. Some of
thera either directly or irapliedly announce their own
authors. Others of them are referred to by subsequent
productions under names supposed to be those of the
coraposers of the books theraselves. For others of
thera the question of authorship has been held to be
settled by ancient tradition. Now, no position is
tenable except the one that, as regards the date, raan
ner, and human agent, of their composition, we are to
determine the case of the biblical books by precisely the
(290)

The Question Historical. 291
same rules as those which apply to other ancient writings.
Questions of this sort cannot be argued dogmatically or
speculatively ; they cannot be settled by inference from
moral and religious principles, or spiritually discerned.
They are simply questions of historical fact ; they can
be treated honestly and intelhgently in no other way.
Yet the answers we give to questions of the au
thorehip of the biblical books cannot fail to have an
influence on our conception of the origin and nature of
the Bible as a whole. If the author of any particular
part of Scripture is known to have been an inspired
organ of divine revelation, it follows that the work he
composed may also be considered to be inspired. But
in the case of most of the biblical books we are obliged
to reason in another way. We have the books, and
their possession is a fact of whieh we are sore. We
can test their spiritual quality by applying to them the
standards of the Gospel facts and traths, — the enlight
ened Christian consciousness making the application.
We can conclude that, when thus tested, they seem to
be the work of inspired minds. This conclusion may
be reached and adhered to without our attaining any
certain knowledge as to who were their particular
authors. Thus it may be asked with force and per
tinency. What difference does it make whether, or
not, the prophet Isaiah wrote the last part of the book
which beare his name? It is certainly a perfect
masterpiece of prophetic inspired writing, whoever its
author may have been. It may also be said that Can
ticles and Proverbs would be no woree than they are if
the tradition that Solomon was their author were found

292 Aut nor ship of the Ffooks.
to be true; and many of the Psalms could be no better
even if Da^id were known to be their author.
There are other classes of critical questions relating
to the authorship of the biblical books which cannot be
disposed of with the same indifference. Many of the
later writings, although they contain no critical judg
ment upon the question who \vrote the earlier writings,
nevertheless assume the traditional view and refer to
them under a certain title. In particular, much of the
Pentateuch is referred to Moses, — not, indeed, as hav
ing wiitten it, but as having been the mediura through
which its contents were brought to the people of Israel.
The question of the authorship of the Pentateuch
seems, therefore, to assume the aspect of an important
dogmatic and rehgious question. And yet — we affirm
again — the question who wrote any ancient writing can
never become anything other than a question of his
torical fact. It can never, in itself considered, be rightly
settled except by the application of the standards of
historical criticism. It is not a question of dogma, or
of moral sentiment, or of religious faith ; it can never
be made such by any amount of declaration to that
effect in creeds and symbols, or by the hopes and fears
of the individual believer.
By far the most difficult cases are those where the
conclusion that certain writings were not written by a
certain author would involve a charge of literary for
gery. The most important instance of this kind is the
Gospel of John. This Gospel obviously intends to be
understood as the work of the beloved apostle. It
aims to produce this irapression in indirect ways — in

Ihe tjuestzon Historical. 293
ways that seem artful and immoral when judged by a
Christian conscience, provided the impression does not
correspond to the fact. Now our conception of Christ
and true Christianity is so dependent upon this Gospel,
which seems to lay open the very "heart" of our
Lord's personality and instruction, and to give to Him
that unique position which is His due, not only in
human history, but in relation to the eternal Divine
Being, that we cannot regard the question of its author
ship otherwise than with the most intense rehgious
interest. Yet this, too, is, of course, primarily, a ques
tion of historical fact. Other instances of literary
forgery aUeged by some critics of the Bible are by no
means so important. But we can never regard such a
question otherwise than as a serious one.
Still it must be remembered that whenever the
daim to be the work of a certain author can be sho-wn
to have originated subsequently to the book itself, the
natnre of the case is entirely changed. We have no
longer, then, to decide whether being guUty of hterary
forgery is in any circumstances compatible with being
an inspired author of sacred Scripture ; we have rather
simply to decide whether any mistaken views as to the
authorehip of a writing bave been slipped into this
Scripture. Indeed, in some cases, it would seem that
such mistakes might be regarded as merely scribal, and
no more an integral part of the Bible than are the mis
taken insertions and explanations of the copyists of the
Greek New-Testament manuscripts.
StUI further, is it only fair to the facts of history to
remember — what a study of all ancient hterature shows

294 Authorship of the Books.
us — that the use of another's name to endorse, as it were,
a coraposition of one's own, was a very different affair
from what it is now, in the time when the biblical books
were written. Such a deed by no raeans involved any
such raoral obliquity as belongs to it in the present age.
Indeed, it was not infrequently resorted to, without in
tention of dishonesty, in the proraulgation of moral
and religious views.
The authorship and date of most of the Old.Testa-
ment writings, and of some of those of the New Testa
ment, will never be known with certainty. There is a
large part of sacred Scripture, therefore, the inspiration
of which we cannot prove by arguing, from other
sources than the nature of the -writing itself. Of that
part of the Bible, however, whose doctrinal and practi
cal importance is suprerae, the ease is somewhat differ
ent. The claim of the Gospels and principal Epistles
to come either directly frora apostles, or from apostolic
men who were familiar with the teaching of the apos
tles, can be established on historical grounds. These
considerations, on the whole, much relieve the pressure
which we should otherwise feel in critically considering
the authorship of the biblical books.
The biblical writings raay be divided, with reference
to the question of authorship, into two general classes.
One of these classes includes those books that are com
pilations or composite structures and growths ; and
that, therefore, iu the forra in which they now exist,
must be said to be the work of several authors. The
other class includes those books which are the work of
one person; of which, accordingly, one person is the

Compilers and. Authors. 295
author in the fullest sense of the word. Among the
books of the former class impoi-tant differences may
also arise, according as the work of one or more of the
hands laboring upon the product was a work of com
posing certain parts or a work of compilation merely.
Various examples under this general class might be
cited. The book which goes by the name of Isaiah is
probably the work of two great inspired men, — the
author of the last part not being the author of the first
part. The Book of Psalms is a compilation of poems,
including several minor divisions called " books," writ
ten hy an unknown number of authors. The nature of
the Book of Proverbs is somewhat similar. The Pen
tateuch is a most interesting and comphcated instance
under this same class.
Each of the first three Evangelists — ^to cite a some
what different instance from any of the foregoing —
must, in some sort, be regarded as a genuine author of
a Gospel; that is, the personality of each Evangelist
gives us the reason why his work has certain character
istics whieh pervade it, and which distinguish it from
the work of the other two. Bnt, on the other hand, in
some respects each of the first three Gospels must be re
garded as a compilation ; it consists of material which
the othera have iu common with it, and which was of a
traditional kind more or less prepared before the author
of the particular Gospel took it in hand to modify and
rearrange it.
Important conclusions with regard to the nature of
the inspiration of some of the biblical books foUow from
the facts just stated. Such facts are plainly incompatible

296 Authorship of the Books.
with any theory of the infallibihty or absolutely erroriesE
character of the books. Of course few persons would
maintain that the absolutely errorless text of sacred
Scripture corresponded precisely to the text of any of
the translations in which the great majority of Christian
people always have to find their Bible. Neither can it
be maintained that the quahty of infallibUity belongs
to the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts from wliich these
translations have been made. In the most favorable
case, infallibility could only be claimed for their lost
originals, as they came frora the hands of then- inspired
authors. But these we know the nature of only by
copies of copies, etc.
It is difficult — ^nay, impossible — even to conceive of
what could be meant by " infallible inspiration," in the
case of books that have a very composite authorship, or
are of the nature of hterary growths. How could it be
maintained that the scores of authors, compilers, and
scribes down to the one giving to it the last touches sub
sequent to the date of Ezra, who have produced by their
combined activity the finished original of the Penta
teuch, were all so inspired, that in their altering and
amending, their adding and connecting together, their
explaining and interpolating, etc., they have in no case
admitted the slightest error of fact or of opinion ? For
the Pentateuch is the record of a history and a legal
code that embody the results of the'divine discipline
and self-revelation for Israel, extending through hun
dreds of years.
The satisfactory answer to the question. What is the
Bible ? so far as it is dependent upon the results of critical

Ancient Views of the Pentateuch. 297
inquU-y into the authorship and date of the biblical books,
demands a careful survey of the whole field of so-called
" bibUcal introduction " or " biblical criticisra." Noth
ing hke this can, of couree, be atterapted at the present
time. We shall simply endeavor to iUustrate the sub
ject by remarks upon two or three selected examples.
And, in the firet place, we raise the inquiry as to the
authoi-ship of the Pentateuch or five books ascribed to
Moses. In reply, we briefly indicate the reasons which
have led modern bibUcal students to the remarkable
unanimity of opinion that exists upon certain points
in the inquiry, as well as those reasons which occasion
serious differences of opinion upon other points. It
should be remembered, however, that an inteUigent
judgment upon any of these points requires a special
and technical education, and often, even, a life-long
period of toil.
The traditions which are embodied in the title of the
" Pentateuch " or the " Books of Moses," for the first
five writings of the Old Testament, are undoubtedly
ancient.* The oldest translations of the Hebrew adopt
the division into five parts. The Church Fathei-s ascribe
these writings to Moses, and in doing this they follow
nnquesrioningly the Jewish tradition found also in PhUo
Judseus, Josephus, and the Talmud. Some exceptions
to this view of the authorehip of the Pentateuch are, in
deed, found very early — ^for the most part among hereti
cal Christian sects and without any basis in a knowledge
of critical reasons. Doubts as to whether Moses wrote
all of these five books occurred here and there araong
*D. a a, i., p. 5001

298 Aut nor ship of the Boo/ss.
learned Jews m the middle ages. After the Eeforraa-
tion, especially in the second half of the seventeenth
century, the traditional view was somewhat sharply at
tacked ; and then, dming almost the entire eighteenth
century, this view reigned undisturbed. It was about the
beginning of the present century that the later origin of
the Pentateuch was positivel}' maintained and defended
in detail by biblical scholars of great ability and learn
ing, — especially by Vater and De Wette.
The modern phase of the question. Who wrote the
first five books of the Old Testament, ascribed by the
tradition of the Jewish synagogue to Moses? is es
pecially characterized by two great discoveries. These
are the discovery that the Pentateuch is a composite
writing into which several important documents have
been incorporated ; and the discovery that the relation
between the law of Deuteronomy and the laws of the
middle books of the Pentateuch is not such as was for
merly supposed. As early as about the middle of the
last century, a French physician of the Eoman Catholic
confession, J. Astruc by name (f 1776), put forth the
conjecture that Moses compiled the Book of Genesis
from two principal, and as many as ten minor, docu
ments. The two principal documents were called,
from the Hebrew word for the divine name used
in them, an "Elohim-wYiimg" and a "Jehovah-
writing," Since his time, the most painstaking and
minute analysis has repeatedly been made of the
contents of the entire Pentateuch (including, also,
the Book of Joshna), and an alraost unaniraous agree-
went reached among Old-Testament scholare ^¦s to ihs

Modern Form of the Question. 299
existence of such different documents, and, within cer
tain comparatively narrow hmits, as to how they are to
be mai-ked off.
Again, certain writers eaUed in question the order of
the different codes which obviously exist in the books
of the Pentateuch, as that order is assumed to be de
fined by the very name Deuteronomy (or " second
law ") ; they insisted that the version of the law which
is recorded in the last book of the Pentateuch was
really the earliest, and that the laws of the preceding
books were actually the latest to be enacted. This re
versal of the order of the Deuteronomic law and the
laws of the middle books is also now almost univereally
accepted by Old-Testament scholars; although as to
many details, and especially as to the date and character
of many of the laws of the middle books, much dis
agreement still exists.
The complete change of view already accomplished
upon two such impoi-tant points hais secured an almost
equally complete change of view concerning the au
thorship of the Pentateuch. For it would plainly be
exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to maintain that
Moses wrote a work composed of several documents
bearing the marks of a different character, origin, and
date, and giving a record of laws as enacted by himself
in au order quite the reverse of that in which they were
actually enacted. The result has been — and to say this
is only to state a -matter of fact — that, with very few
exceptions anywhere, and with almost no exceptions in
those places where the Old Testament is studied with
most freedom and breadth of learning, the whole world

300 Authorship of the Books.
of scholars has abandoned the ancient tradition that the
Pentateuch, in any such forra as we now have it, was
the work of Moses.
It is, of course, impossible to give to the reader of
the Bible, who is not familiar with Hebrew and with
the facts and laws of historical criticism, a satisfactory
statement of the evidence upon which the tradition of
the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch has been aban
doned. Some of this e-vidence will, however, be briefly
presented. Certain matters should be mentioned at this
point, abont which many writers who raaintain the trar
ditional view seem to aim at spreading confusion rather
than clearness of knowledge and thought among the
people. And, first, the entire question is not one on
the settlement of which our Christian faith, or our
attitude as Christians toward the Bible, can properly
be made to depend; The nature of Christianity,
the nature of the religious doctrine and conduct en
forced by the sacred Scriptures, and even the essential
nature of the Old-Testament rehgion and writings in
their relation to the divine revelation of truth and the
inspiration of the human soul, do not in any way re
quire that we should hold Moses to have been the
author of the Pentateuch.
Secondly, it is unfair and injurious to the popular
confidence in the Bible, to represent the case as though
one were compelled either to hold with Kuenen and
Wellhauseu that these writings originated at a very late
date, largely in fraud, and that the religion they incul
cate is purely of natural origin ; or else hold with the
Jewish Eabbis, and a relatively few biblical students of

The Assent of Critics. 301
to-day, that Moses with his own hand, under divine in
fluence, wrote the entire five books called by his narae.
The alternative is not the rejection of Old-Testament
supernatural religion or else the synagogue theory of
the origin of the Pentateuch. When, then, authorities
are cited and objections offered to certain views of so-
called "destructive critics," it should not be underetood
that these authorities are cited and objections offered in
favor of the Mosaic authorehip of the Pentateuch.
Again, the nature of the question should always be
borne in mind. The question is one of simple his
torical fact ; it is a question about the origin and date
of a certain piece of writing. Evidence of a mathe-
maticaUy demonstrative character cannot possibly be
offered by either side. It would not be sh-ange, then,
but just the contrary, if there should be far from a
general agreement, not to say a complete uniformity, of
opinion upon many of the almost countless subordinate
questions connected with the main fnqniry. Such lack
of agi-eeraent would not necessarily prejudice the trust
worthiness of the general conclusion reached npon the
c[uestion, whether Moses is the author of the Pentateuch.
This fact, we insist, should be constantly borne in raind.
For the attempt is quite too often made to create the
impression that the critics are all out of harmony with
each other as to the number and nature of the docu
ments from which the Pentateuch is coraposed ; there
fore, the inference is suggested, we raay believe that
the Pentateuch is not coraposite at all, but was all
written by one hand, and that the hand of Moses.
Now, the reverae both of Tihese aUeged facts and of the

302 Authorship of the Books.
conclusion drawn from them is true. The agreement
among the critics as to the existence, characteristics,
and limits of the separate documents composing the
five books called after Moses is remarkable; for the
most important particulars it is quite complete ; ujjon
many minute features it is exceedingly impressive in
stead of being disappointing. It is all the while grow
ing more nearly unanimous against the traditional view
that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. This agreement is
the more remarkable because it is shared in by critics
of all manner of religious attitudes toward Old-Testa
ment revelation. It is also an agreement that has been
gradually ybrce^ by ihe evidence upon the minds of
many scholars who formerly controverted it.
The venerable tradition, more than two thousand years
old, which asserts the Mosaic authorship of the entire
Pentateuch, stands opposed to the almost unaniraous ver
dict of raodern biblical study. The tradition, although
it is so ancient, has absolutely no vahd claims that jus
tify its uncritical acceptance. Its claims are not war
ranted by the Bible itself; for the Bible nowhere
asserts that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, with the ex
ception of the so-called Book of the Covenant, the
body of Deuteronomy, and a few smaU fragments.
That the law of the Lord came by Moses, the writers
of the Bible, in comraon with the nation of Israel gen
eraUy, do indeed believe. And in spite of all the
really "destructive" work done by certain forms of
modern criticism, there are still good grounds left
upon which to establish this belief. The Pentateuch
also speaks throughout of this and that particular code

Tfce Pentateuch Composite. 303
being enacted by Moses at a particular tirae, and under
particular circurastances. If, however, the Pentateuch
really originated in the way in which raodern scholar
ship is nearly unaniraous in holding that it did, it can
at most only be said that the later workmen upon this
great collection of sacred laws, which was accumulating
through so many centuries, had no means other than
tradition or conjecture for knowing when and by whom
came any of its particular enactments.
What, then, are the proofs that the Pentateuch is a
composite hterary product ; and that critical examina
tion has succeeded in analyzing it into those documents
of which it is really composed \ In replying to this
inquiry it is pertinent to notice, in the first place, that
part of the Pentateuch (the Book of Genesis at least)
is plainly composite, even if the writing of the whole
work be attributed to Moses. For the history of sev
eral centuries previous to the era of Moses is given in
Genesis before the author begins to speak of events
even alleged to have occurred during the life of Moses.
The raaterials of this history, at least, certainly existed,
either in the forra of oral traditions or written records,
before the time of Moses. That the other books besides
Genesis are also composite is proved by considerations
like the foUowing.
The laws of the Pentateuch bear the marks of hav
ing been enacted at widely separated periods of timC*
Some of these laws are of great antiquity, for they are
such as would fit into the circumstances of the Mosaic
era alone, or they have references to a state of things
•D. aa, L,p. 5041

304 Autiior ship of the Books.
known to have been prevalent at the time of the
Mosaic era. Such are the laws referring to the dis
missal of the he-goat into the ic'dderness (Lev. xvi. 10,
21 f ), the reference to the camp in teUing how to treat
the victims of sacrifices (Lev. iv. 11 f. and vi.), the
command forbidding to slay animals elsewhere than
before the door of the tabernacle (Lev. xvii. 1 f.), etc.
On the contrary, other laws cannot be assigned to this
same era without very artificial and unlikely assump
tions, such as that Moses was inspired prophetically to
foresee and legislate for a state of things that did not
come about untU long after his own tirae. Instances
of such laws are the law for the Icings of Israel (Deut.
xvii. 14-20), the law against removing land-marks (xix.
14), the laws for selecting forces to go out to battle (xx.
5 f), for purifying houses (Lev. xiv. 33 f ), for manag
ing fields, vineyards, and olive-orchards, etc.
Moreover, repeated and apparently contradictory ver
sions of certain laws and ordinances indicate the com
posite structure of the Pentateuch. Legal enactments
recited in Deuteronomy are given again in Leviticus in
a form changed to suit the purpose of the latter. Such
are the comraand forbidding to marry the wife of one's
father (compare Deut. xxii. 30 and Lev. xviii. 8), the com
mand punishing adultery with death, and the provision
for the pay of the day-laborer. A number of laws found
in Exodus and Leviticus have supplementary additions
when they recur in Deuteronomy ; this makes it diffi
cult to regard them as the work of one author. Thus
the law of Exodus (xxii. 16) concerning seduction is
supplemented in Deuteronomy (xxii. 28 f .) by declaring

I he Pentateuch Cotnposife. 305
that seduction makes an indissoluble marriage-bond;
and the law against interest by declaring that it may be
received from strangers. Various other similar instances
occm-. Not infrequentiy contradictory or inconsistent
provisions appear when we try to reg-ard the entire hst
of laws as belonging to the, code of one author.
Especially is this ti-ue of the fact that in the middle
books of the Pentateuch the Levites appear as only
temple-servants, whUe the priests are " sons of Aaron ";
but in Deuteronomy the priests appear as "sons of
Levi " in general. Minute inconsistencies occur which
can best be explained by refening them to two versions
of one law, or to two laws enacted at one time upon one
subject-matter; for example, where in Numbere, in
sevei-al places (iv. 3, 22, 30, 47), the service of the
Le-vites extends fi-om thirty to fifty, but in another
place (viU. 23-26) from twenty-five to fifty.
Another proof of the composite nature of the Penta
teuch is found in the fact that many of its historical
notices and accounts bear the marks of having origi-
nated from different sources, and, in some instances, at
widely separated intervals of time. Thus in Genesis
alone we have two narratives of the creation, two of the
deluge in Noah's time (which are pieced together in
snch a way as to leave standing certain apparent dis
crepancies, especiaUy as to the number of clean beasts
taken into the ark), two accounts of the names of Bethel
and of Beereheba, chvergent traditions conceming the
names of Esau's wives, and of Israel, etc.*
Outside of Genesis, moreover, something simUar
*D, S. 8., i., p. 5071

3o6 Authorship of the Books.
occurs. For example, the giving of the quails with the
manna is twice recorded, once in Numbers (xi.) and once
in Exodus (xvi.). So does the language in which Moses
is told to appear before Pharaoh, and the reply he makes.
Exodus vi. 10-12, assume that this is to be his first
appearance, and yet three previous appearances have
already been narrated. In a history composed by one
author who is contemporaneous with most of the events
he narrates, all this seems extremely unlikely to occur.
But with an ancient book which has grown up as mod
ern biblical study conceives the Pentateuch to have
done, all this is what might be expected.
A careful reading of the Pentateuch reveals many
apparent discrepancies, especially in matters of numbere
and dates. The way proposed for reconciling these dis
crepancies is perpetually changing but never settled.
Now if the composite nature of the Pentateuch, as the
work of various authors and the result of a combination
of various traditions aud documents, be adraitted, the
character and the existence of such discrepancies are ex
plained. With the design to establish this critical con
clusion, and not to point out historical defects in sacred
Scripture, we call attention to a few such facts as follow.*
When Abrahara was a hundred years old his faith was
sorely tried in the effort to realize that at so advanced an
age he could hope for a son ; and yet another tradition
represents hira as taking a wife forty yeare later, and hav
ing by her six sons. When Isaac was a hundred years
old and ready to die, Jacob departed to find a wife ; but
*D. aa.i., p. 5081

The Pentateuch Cotnposite. 307
another tradition i-ep!es-;ats him as returning eighty
yeare later to bury his f.ither.
A single example in respect to numbere will suffice
to Ulustrate the entire class. In Numbere (i. 46 and ii.
32) the men fit for war in Israel are placed at 603,55p ;
but this is about twenty-seven times as many as the
number of the Levites, who took the place of all the
first-bom of Israel. Surely, whatever effort may be
made to reconcUe in fact this class of discrepancies,
their bare existence in snch form and abundance seenis
inconsistent with the theorv that a single contemporane
ous historian composed the writings in which they occur.
So, too, the atmosphere and tone of speech in various
places, as weU as certain indirect aUusions, indicate the
composite structure of the Pentateuch. The Book of
Deuteronomy everywhere impUes the actual occupation
of the promised land ; but Exodus and Leviticus make
frequent references to the joui-ney through the wilder
ness as still in progress, and " the land which I will
give to you " is the formula with which they speak of
Palestine. In one place in Genesis (xii. 6) we find the
author referring to the time when the Canaanite was
" in the land " as very remote from his own ; but this,
of coui-se, could not be true of iioses, who did not live
to see the Canaanite expelled from " the land." Surely
the plain historical statement prefixed to the list of
Edomite kings (Gen. xxxvi. 31) : " And these are the
kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there
lei^ned any king over the children of Israel," could
never have been written by a raan who died centuries
before Israel had p.ny king whatever. Similar expres-

3o8 Authors/lip of the Books.
sions quite unbefitting Moses or a contemporary of his
are such as these: "And when the Israelites were in
the wilderness they found a man "; " These are the
words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond Jor
dan "/ " Thou shalt not .remove the landmark which
thy ancestors established," etc. The name " Dan " is
found in Genesis (xiv. 14) as the name for a city ; and
yet we are elsewhere told in the Old Testament that
the city did not bear this name until the time of Judges.
The song of Balaam in Numbers (xxiv. 7) prophesies
that the king of Israel shall be greater than Agag ; and
yet Agag was a contemporary of Saul. So Og is desig
nated as the lust of the giants, and his " bedstead "
elaborately described ; although his death at the latest
occurred only a few months before Moses.
Still further, the 'way in which some portions of the
Pentateuch are actually referred to antecedent written
sources, and some few portions only to Moses himself
as the writer of them, shows that it virtually regards
itself as a composite literary structure. In Numbers
(xxi. 14), for exaraple, the " Book of the Wars of Jeho
vah " is ref erred to; but such a book could not have
had any material for its composition previous to Moses'
death. Why should the author of Deuteronomy, if it
were Moses himself, distinguish himself from Moses, as
he does in several places (compare i. 5 ; iv. 8)? "Why
should he put in antiquarian notices, which would have
no pertinency as addressed by Moses to men of his own
time?* Moreover, many indications show that ho is
handling freely and rhetorically a code of laws already
* For instances, see ii. 10-12, 20-23 ; iii. 11 ; iv. 41, 47.

The Unity of the Law. 309
in existence, instead of enacting one or copying one
from existing manuscripts.
But, more particularly, the way in which the contents
of the Hcxateuch (or Pentateuch, including the book
of Joshua, which is, on good ground, connected with the
preceding five books as belonging to tbe same literary
structure) have "been analyzed into several main compo
nent parts, with limits and characteristics that are in
many cases very plainly marked and thoroughly well
agreed upon by the great body of critical students, is
itself as near to a demonstration of the originally com
posite nature of these writings as anything iu the form
of literai-y criticism can weU be. A certain living and
spiritual unity, indeed, belongs to the history of Israel
and to the sacred law that was so influential in determin
ing the com-se of that history. We have no real warrant
for speaking, as has sometimes been done, of two an
tagonistic forms of law, a prophetic and a priestly, which
struggled against each other for supremacy ; although it
is true that the tone aud spirit of the law of Deuteronomy
diffei-s from that of the middle books of the Pentateuch —
the former being more ethical and democratic, and the
latter more theocratic and symbolical. But the unity
of the law of Israel is due to a unity of religious im
pulse arising from one Spirit of revelation running
through the whole, and not to a unity of authorehip in
respect to its record.
In a popular work like the present it is not feasible
to present in detail the evidence on which bibhcal study
relies to sustain the conclusion that several main docu
ments, with characteristics of their own and showing

3IO Authorship of the Books.
unmistakable signs of a different origin, may be traced
throughout the first six books of the Old Testament.
This evidence will doubtless continue to seem conclusive
to biblical scholars; indeed it will probably, within cer
tain limits, still further accumulate. It has already
produced a marked agreement among all the leading
critics with respect to the existence and Umits of these
documents. This agreement covers large portions of
some books and yet it extends to minute details.* It is
an agreeraent which reaches to exact verses and parts
of verses that are assigned by common consent to this
or that one araong the several docuraents. It covers
the foUowing main conclusions : There exist in the
Hexateuch two fundamental sources which, throughout
Genesis and the first six chapters of Exodus, are dis
tinguished by the use of different terms for the divine
name (Elohim and Jehovah), and which have therefore
been called "Elohistic" and " Jehovistlc." The dis-
tinction of these two sources is no longer dependent,
however, on this one particular, but is based upon a
great variety of characteristics ; so that It might be well
to abandon the terms "Elohistic" and "Jehovistlc"
were they not so firmly attached to these som-ces. A
further distinction of two groups of writings in the so-
called Elohistic portions Is made by alraost unanimous
consent of Old-Testament critics ; of these one group is
mainly historical and the other is mainly legal and
ritualistic. It is also matter of common agreement that the work
of two authors can easily be detected in Deuteronomy ;
* See ttie tables in D. S. S., i,, p, 517 f.

Composition of Deuteronomy. 311
indeed this fact, at least, is tolerably patent to the un
learned but intelligent and careful reader. To one of
these two authors Is due the substance of those legal
contents which constitute the body of the book ; to the
other the work of revising and re-editing these con
tents with the addition of considerable new material.
The hand of the same later workman Is apparent
throughout Joshua as well, and perhaps, as a redactor,
throughout all the Hexateuch. Other smaUer docu
ments, and also oral traditions — ancient songs, scraps of
history, groups of laws, separate legal enactraents —
have been woven in with the three raain written docu
ments. The whole had already been much worked
over by many scribes, before the Hebrew manuscripts
of the first six books reached the form in which they
served as the basis for our present text of the Hex
ateuch. It has been said by a conservative Old-Testament
critic that the fact of the existence of these character
istically separate sources in the Pentateuch and in
Joshua is inconsistent with their being the work of
Moses. To us it seems quite incredible that the corapo
sition of one man, most of which deals with contem
poraneous laws and history, should be capable of being
thus separated into well-marked constituent parts with
a practical u/na/nimity among so many different schol
ars. The only satisfactory explanation of the possi
bility of accomplishing snch a work of analysis is the
fact that the analysis is substantially correct. And
when we find that these different pai-ts, on being united,
actually make three great documents, each of which has

Atithorship of the Books.

its marked characteristics with respect to contents, pur
pose, and way of looking at religious history and law
(and probably also style), the evidence comes as near a
demonstration as the nature of such evidence admits.
Undoubtedly the first six books of the Bible are a com
posite literary structure, the sources and materials of
which came frora different times and authors ; they
could not, therefore, ha/ae been all the worTc of Moses.
But when the further questions are raised as to when,
by whom, and how, these sources were originated and
the different parts put together to constitute the whole.
as we now have it, no satisfactory answers can be given.
Upon these points, Instead of great agreement among
the critics, we find the beginning of indefinite disagree- '
ment. Here also two other important questions arise :
the first of these Is the question, When and by whom
was Deuteronomy written ? The second question may
be expressed in the foUowing somewhat roundabout
manner : Did the bodj' of the ritualistic laws, and the
history pertaining to them, which are contained in the
middle books of the Pentateuch, originate as a growth
during the period of the growth of the Deuteronomic
law, or to any extent as genuine Mosaic legislation ; or
did it originate about the time of the Exile, in an effort
of the priests to enact a ritual that should govern the
Jews on their return, and for this purpose have the
precedent and sanction of the name of Moses?
To answer either of the questions just raised Implies
an immense amount of technical work for which only
a few trained scholars are prepared. Indeed, nothing
equal to a perfect confidence can be attained with ref-

/ he urigin of ueuieronomy. 313
erence to many points Involved In these two main in
quiries. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with a
brief statement of our opinion, and of certain reasons for
holding such opinion. With that changed view of the
relation existing between the Old-Testament law and
the Gospel, for which the teaching of the New Testa
ment has prepared us, the question of the exact order
of the so-called Mosaic legislation loses its supreme
and decisive importance.
Deuteronomy was not, in its present form, through
out the work of Moses. Its author plainly distin
guishes himself from Moses; and both ancient and
more recent elements of legislation can be detected in
it.* But the great body of its laws correspond to those
of that section of the Torah which Is found in Exodus
XX.— xxiii., xxxiv., and Leviticus xvU.-xxvi. These ai-e
the very most ancient parts of the entire Mosaic law.
Traces of great antiquity are found in the fact that the
command not to let the body of one hanged remain aU
night on the tree (Deut. xxi. 23) corresponds to the
treatment given to the corpse of the king of Ai (Josh.
viii. 29) ; that the " testimony " laid before the king at
the crowning of Joash refers to the law of Deut. xvii.
19, etc. All the references and allusions to the " law,"
in general, which occur throughout the earlier prophet
ical and historical writings, appear to accord best with
tbis Deuteronomic version ; iadeed, it is difficult to show
the existence, at the time when these earlier writings
were composed, of an elaborate ritualistic service and
code, such as the middle books of the Pentateuch
*D. a a, L, p. 5271

314 A ui hor ship of the Books.
record. At the sarae time, however, there exist many
touches Iu Deuteronomy which seem plainly to imply
the work of a later hand.
In 2 Kings (xxii. 8 f., and compare 2 Chron. .xxxiv.
30 f.i there is an exceeJingly interesting account of the
" discovery " of a written book of the law. The event
was in the reign of Josiah. This king appears not to
have kno'wn of the existence of a written law, — to say
nothing of his not being aware of the nature of its
contents. Now, the reforms which followed in Joslah's
reign are such as to Imply his new acquaintance with
certain special provisions of Deuteronomy. And it is
much the most probable view that this law-book, theu
newly discovered, was the one incorporated into the
present Book of Deuteronomy and nearly identical with
the substance of its legal contents. That a large part of
this body of legal contents did actually go back to
Moses for its origin, there is no satisfactory reason for
denying; and this view seems to ns far preferable, not
only in the light of moral and religions but also of
critical considerations, to the view which would regard
almost the entire work as the result of pious fraud.
Out of this ancient law-book of Mosaic and other old-
time enactraents, a pious Jew of the reign of Josiah com
posed the Book of Deuteronomy 111 substantially its pres
ent form. He handled his material in free and fine rhetor
ical style. He made Moses address ancient Israel with this
law of Jehovah ; and in using this rhetorical style he
did no violence to the suhst^mtl;)! truth, whUe he succeed
ed in giving (as the event proved) the '" law " as a living
force, as a voice of the Lord, to the people of his own day.

The Age of Ezra. 315
The rumor has already been somewhat widely spread
abroad that certain Old-Testament critics, increasing in
numbere and influence, consider ranch the greater part
of the legislation and history in the middle books of the
Pei'trtteuch, to have originated about the time of the
Exile. In its most extreme forin this opinion -wUl scarcely
allow that any of Israel's elaborate ceremonial existed
during the period of the early kings, or could have been
known to the greater and earher prophets. On the con
trary, these critics regai-d this ceremonial and the writings
which record it, as the result of an attempt of the Jewish
priesthood to establish the later Judaism upon a basis
of Mosaic authority. The names connected most promi
nently with this view are those of Kuenen and WeU-
hausen. Such an opinion we cannot accept ; and to It
the foUowing, among other considerations, may be
opposed.* All that we really know of the age of 'E.-Lxa. and his
successors induces us to look upon them as scribes, col
lectors, aud revlsere, not as authore of the sacred legal,
and lustorical writing of Israel. They did, indeed, pro
duce some of the later works of the Old Testament, but
these works bear throughout, in their claims and char
acter, the marks of this later age, whereas the books of
the Hexateuch bear the marks of successive earlier ages.
The work of scribes and re-visers of legal literature pre
supposes that such. literature exists ready to be revised.
The theory of Weilharisen is also opposed by a right
conception of the nature and history of Old-Testament
revealed religion. There is. indeed, much which is dark
*D. S. S., i., p. ,3;301

o

1 6 Authorship of tlie Books.

as respects its origin, and low as respects its moral tone,
in the early religious history of Israel, as that history Is
recorded in the Hebrew writings. But the Avork of the
prophets in the eighth century before Christ — and, there
fore, long before Ezra's time — implies a previous course
of tbe development of religious conceptions and of na
tional experience under divine law. Everything iu the
character of the prophecy of the age shows a great de
generacy and corruption of the people of Israel in this
century, a falling away under the influence of surround
ing nations from the monotheism of Moses. Nor does
this theory of Wellhauseu do justice to the immense in
fluence of that great general and prophet, Moses, who
stands at the beginning of the national development,
and by his leadership, teaching, -and legislation, gives
character and direction to It all. The conviction that
the very name by which God was known as the Ee
deemer of Israel Is of distinctively Mosaic origin, was
wrought Into the national self-consciousness.
A critical examination of that large and fundamental
law-book whieh the theory we are discussing would re
fer to the period of the Exile shows that considerable
portions of it are of very ancient, and probably of Mosaic
origin.* According to one of the most prominent of
these so-called " destructive " critics the principal part
of this law-book comprises Exodus xxv.-xl. (except
xxxii.-xxxiv.). Numbers i.-x., xv.-xix., xxv.-xxxvl.,
and Leviticus I.-xxvil. But to suppose that such a body
of laws and history as this could be fabricated and foisted
upon the community of Israel as genuinely Mosaic legis-
*D, a a, i., p. 5341

The ancient Ceremonial. 317
lation seems to us absolutely incredible. Bnt that this
great law-book Is to be recognized as only one part of the
Hexateuch having an independent origin, that it was not
all written by the hand of Moses, that it is a growth
comprising many legal enactments which had at various
times been adraitted into the one great law called by
the name of Israel's firet great legislator, the " law of
Moses," — all this we have admitted as established by
modern biblical study. But this is a very different
conclusion from the one reached by the theory of
Kuenen and Wellhauseu.
Moreover, there is a certain amount of evidence that
a somewhat elaborate cereraonial, and a somewhat ex
tended written ritualistic law, goes back to the Mosaic era.
It is true that the earlier history and the earlier prophetic
writings are almost completely sUent about such a cultus.
Bnt we can conjecture, from the nature of the case and
from the history of similar religious institutions in other
nations, how this silence might come about. The people
of Israel through all this dark period had little or
nothing to do with keeping to the letter of the -written
law. The very existence of such a law was often wholly
unknown to them, and was only very imperfectly known
to the great body of the priests. There is nothing impos
sible or even pecuhar about such ignorance. There are
lands to-day where the great body of Chiistian priests
know little or nothing about the Christian Scriptures.
During this period in Israel laws were often enacted that
never went into execution, or did not stay in force for
any length of time. In almost evei-y land to-day there
are many laws on the statute-books of which the people

3i8 Atithorship of the Books.
know nothing ; and even the law-makers and lawyers are
Ignorant of their very existence. Laws tend to become
dead' letters. The release of clairas upon the Hebrew
servant In the seventh year is an instance of such an
Old-Testament law. Many laws, too, when In later
times they became enacted or recorded in writing, only
expressed common and unwritten law which had been
for a long time previous in vogue as popular customs.
Finally, the laws of Israel, like the legal enactments
of every other nation, were subject to changes ; and so,
of course, was the codification of thera. It was peculiar
to Israel, however, that its pious raen justly regarded
its laws as all falling under those great moral and re
ligious principles that ruled the relations of the nation
to Jehovah ; and, therefore, as heing true parts of the
" law of Moses," since the law was one law and went
back for Its origin to the great prophet who had founded
the national history in these principles.
We conclude, then, that both the ancient tradition
which assigned the entire Pentateuch, -with its legal
and historical contents, to the great law-giver and
prophet, Moses, and also the modem critical theory
which regards this law and history, with Its record, as
in large measure the work of pious fraud accomplished
at the time of the Exile, are unwarrantable. The en
actment and the recording of these laws, as weU as the
incorporating of them iu their historical setting, were
by no means the work of Moses alone. Precisely how
much of this work Moses did accomplish cannot be told
with confidence. There is doubtless a large body of
the legislation, both civU and cereraonial, both that which

The Law of the Lord. 319
arranges a cultus and that which defines and protects
rights, which is genuinely Mosaic. But the " hiw of
the Lard" was a progressive revelation. Moses, as the
inspired sen'ant of God, furnished its guiding ideas and
great principles. Through all the centuries after his
work was ended, under the impress and leading of the
thought that they were in covenant with Jehovah as
their Eedeemer, the people of Israel kept receiving the
law in many concrete provisions and enactments. Law
books, or collections of these enactments, with or -with
out historical notices, began to be formed. The Book of
Denteronoray gives us the great body of this legislation
as It existed, upon its Mosaic basis, in the reign of
Josiah. And, finaUy, the Hexateuch gives the law and
the early history of the nation as they were understood
by the later workmen in Israel, and put into final shape
at and soon after the age of Ezra.
The evidence upon which the present critical view of
the origin of the firet six books of the Bible rests is not
hkely to be shaken, as respects the principal features of
that view. Such a -view is indeed inconsistent with
that theory of the origin and nature of sacred Scripture
which prevaUed so widely in the^os^Reforination era.
Bat it is not at all inconsistent with the doctrine of
sacred .Scripture as it is tanght indirectly by the lan
guage of onr Lord and His apostles ; nor does it dis
credit the claim to revelation and inspiration made by
the writere of either the Old Testament or the New.
We have dwelt at such length upon the ease of the
Hexateuch, becanse of the great interest which the
problem of Its authorehip Is creating at the present

320 Authors/lip of the Books.
time. Other questions concerning the authorehip of
the Old-Testament writings are just now relatively un
interesting and unimportant. We shall probably never
be able to tell who wrote most of the Hebrew Bible, or
at what date most of its books came into existence.
But the relations in which they stand, as a whole or in
particular, to the Gospel and to the writings of the New
Testament, as weU as our estimate of their character
and value, are not greatly altered, are in no respect es
sentially changed, on that account.
The origin of the Synoptic (or firet three) Gospels is
the most wonderful of all hterary problems. Certainly,
in view of the relations whieh these writings sustain to
the picture we have of the pereonality of Christ, no
other literary problem is so important. These books
exhibit many remarkable simUarities and many no less
remarkable differences. The differences are of such a
nature, and so far plainly marked, that the writere of
these books must be pronounced authors in a real sense
of that term. Matthew, Mark, and Luke differ in the
selection and arrangement of their material, in the
general aspect of our Lord which they most prominently
hold up to view, in the order and style of their com-
]iosItion, in the very minutice of their choice aud
sequence of words. They cannot, therefore, be regarded
merely or mainly as copyists or compilers, or as penmen
dictated to, as it were, without regard to their personal
ity, by the Holy Spirit.
But these same writere also agree with each other In
a very remarkable manner. They agree, as we should
expect from the truthfulness and accuracy of their com-

The First three Gospels. 321

mon picture of Christ, in having the same general
progress and raain divisions of theu- history. But they
also tie, or couple, together certain groups of incidents
which are not always connected in reahty, in such a
way as to show that this connection or grouping had
ijeen done before they composed their works, — either by
previous WTitten compositions from which they take
common material, or by a uniform oral tradition. But
more surprising is their frequent agreement, exact and
extended, In the use of the same words and sentences,
sometimes -when the words used, or terms of expression
employed, are very rare or even unique. These facts
can be detected by a careful comparative study of the
English New Testaraent. In certain cases, moi-eover,
they agree verbally, when quoting from the Old Testa
ment, in departing from both the original Hebrew and
its Greek translation, the Septuagint.*
Such agreement and difference as the foregoing can
be accounted for only by supposing that each one of
the fii-st three Gospels contains the following classes of
elements : (1) Material which comes frora oral tradition
that has either been fixed hythe early preaching of the
apostles and other eye- and ear-witnesses, or has been
Iraparted to the author by verbal communication of
s >me informant ; (2) material from previously-written
documents, either our canonical Go-spels or some one or
raore of the written son! ces which they have incor
porated ; and (3) m.^terial that comes from personal
*For a deuaed staterriCnt of the-e phenomena, see articles by
the author in the Bibliothoa Sacra, Jau-oarr and April, 1869, and
compare D, S. S., i., p. 547 1

322 Authorship of the Books.
reflection, or is due to the linguistic and other peculiari
ties of the author. In other words, the contents of
these Gospels are the result of a previous process of
preaching, writing, hearing, and reflecting; and they
are dependent upon each other, and upon common oral
and written sources, to a degree which it is difficult to
determine. The order in which the first three Gospels arose is
uncertain. But two things raay be regarded as pretty
well established : The Gospel of Mark in its present
form is the oldest of the existing Greek Gospels ; and
an Ar-amaic original lies back of one or more Greek
documents made use of by Matthew and Luke. How
much work in the way of writing narratives of the life
of our Lord had previously been accomplished is clearly
implied by the prologue of the Third Gospel. As In
the case of the Hexateuch, so in the case of these
priceless memoirs of Christ, we shall probably never be
able to reconstruct In theory the exact process of oral
and written composition which has entered into each.
But, unlike the case of the Hexateuch, the process of
the formation of these memoirs was a brief one and
speedUy connects each one of them yvith the trusted
eye- and ear-witnesses who knew the facts of the life of
wbich they treat. Moreover, the tradition which con
nects the authorehip of the First Gospel, though only
Indirectly, and that of the Second and Third, directly,
with the names by which we know thera, is able to
justify itself against all the attacks of hostile criticism.
The proofs of the inspiration of the Synoptic Gos
pels are obsiously to be found in the appreciative, pen-

Tlie Gospel of John. 323
etrating, and holy spirit, in which these wonderful
biographies apprehend and narrate the deeds and say
ings of Jesus Christ, and teach the true significance of
His pereonality, of His life and His death.
No other question concerning the authorship of a
biblical writing compares for a moment in importance
-with that conceming the authorship of the Gospel
ascribed to John. Our estimate of the inspiration and
historical and doctrinal value of the firet three Gospels
would not be affected by finding that we must interpret
the phrases "according to Matthew," "according to
Mark,'' "according to Luke," as raeaning only a loose
connection between the contents of the books as we
have them and the pereons known by these names.
The Gospel of Matthew, for example, does not an
nounce itself as written by Matthew ; it is only an
nounced by an ancient tradition as being acGordi/ng to
Matthew. But we cannot regard the critical inquiry, Who
wrote the Fourth Gospel ? as a comparatively unim
portant one.* For if the Apostle John did not write
this book, then the book itself must be regarded as a
forgery, and a forgery that is all the more odious be
cause it is in many places concealed and sly. There
can be no doubt that the disciple repeatedly referred
to as the one " whom Jesus loved " is meant .to be
designated as the author of the Gospel (see xxi. 24).
There are subtle indications, too, — such as the implied
acquaintance of the author vrith the high-priest Annas,
and the fact t'tiat he does not find it necessary to distin-
*D. a a,i., p. 5611

324 Authorship of the Books.
gulsh the John whom he does name (the Baptist) from
the unnamed disciple — which, on account of their sub
tlety, emphasize all the more the claim of the writer to
be the beloved apostle. But it would surely require
very clear and strong evidence to convince one who
properly feels the purity and loftiness of the Christian
character of this writer, that he could be guilty of an
artful literary forgery. In saying- this, we are not
shrinking in the least from the position that the ques
tion of the authorship of a biblical book Is a question
of fact, and that such a question must be settled ac
cording to historical and critical principles. The im
pression we have as to the character of any writer Is
also a fact; and when the question becomes one be
tween the justness of that impression and a theory of
forgery, the impression may be a very important and
even decisive fact.
We cannot consider, even briefly, the grounds of
attack and defence which have been gone over in recent
times, touching the authorship of the Fourth Gospel.
It is enough to say that the evidence cited by the con
tending parties is both external and internal,— that Is, it
has to do with tho witnesses which can be summoned
from the early history of the Christian Church, and
with the character of the work itself as showing the
probability or improbability that the Apostle John was
Its author.
It has been clearly established by the modern contest
over this .New-Testament writing that Justin Martyr
was acquainted with the Fourth Gospel, made use of
it, and developed his own doctrine from It. But the

External Evidence for John. 325
" First Apology " of this Church Father cannot well be
placed later than about 145 a. d. It would seem demon
strated, then, that no sufficient time for the success of
snch a forgery as this would be, exists between the date
of Justin's First Apology and the death of the Apostle
John. Indeed, the citation of this Gospel in certain
very ancient heretical writings enables us to carry the
date of its origin back into the first quarter of the second
century. Moreover, the New Testament Itself contains
two notices confirmatory of the genuineness of the Gos
pel of John. One of these is the notice of that writer
who added the twenty-first chapter to the Gospel, and
who distinguishes himself from its author (see verse 24) ;
the other is the recognition given in Second Peter (i.
14) to the tradition referred to in the Gospel itself
(John xxi. 18 f.). The external evidence is then, on
the whole, as complete as could reasonably be expected.
The principal objection which has been urged by
modern criticism against the genuineness of the Gos
pel of John, on grounds of internal evidence. Is taken
from the mai-ked difference between the picture of
Jesus which It gives and that given by the other Gos
pels. The other Gospels all unite In one substantially
harmonious view of His personality. But the Fourth
Gospel is thought by some critics so strongly to ex
hibit certain tendencies prevalent In the early part of
the second century, -with reference to the nature of our
Lord's character and work, as to raake it evident that
these tendencies, and not the knowledge of an eye- and
ear-witness like the apostle, have been its source.
Now it raust be adraitted that the first three Gospels

326 Authorship of the Books.
stand together in one group, and in many particulars
contrast strongly with the Gospel ascribed to John.
The former are more simple narratives, and were com
posed by putting together the material, consisting of
oral tradition and written documents, which was acces
sible to their authors. Butthe Gospel of John is much
more a work of reflection ; it is shaped by ideas. A
certain lofty conception of the personality of Chiist,
which Is introduced in the very first sentences of the
book, has evidently moulded and fused and glorified
the historical facts. Its picture of the Eedeemer is uot,
then, exactly like that which was held up by the early
preachers of the Gospel, by those who at first proclaimed
Jesus as the Messiah, crucified once but now risen and
glorified at the right hand of God. Saint John's pic
ture of Jesus is an outgrowth of much inspired medita
tion and aff'ectionate care. And doubtless the Ideas of
the author have shaped his view and statement of all
the historical facts and of the discourses of Jesus, much
more than It has been customary to admit. It is for
this reason that these discourses resemble the style and
wording of the First Epistle of John. So true is this
that sometimes it seems difficult to tell whether we are
listening to what our Lord actually says, or rather to
what His beloved disciple saw to be the hidden mean
ing and most far-reaching import of His words. But
all these facts, rightly considered, are unfavorable rather
than favorable to the theory that the book is a forgery.
It is the work of Christian, apologetics, as appUed to
this remarkable New-Testament writing, to show how
we may harmonize the admitted difference in the two

Internal Evidence for John. 327
pictures of our Lord with the genuineness of the Fourth
Gospel. The work has been done with great pains
taking and minuteness by many scholars. On the whole
it beai's out our unshaken confidence that the Fourth
Gospel is by the hand of the Apostle John.
The positive Internal evidence In favor of the gen
uineness of the Fourth Gospel is, when carefully
wrought out and candidly regarded, exceedingly strong.
Some of this evidence consists In those broad outlines
which It Is so difficult for the literary forger to draw
with a close fidelityto truth; some of it consists In
many delicate and. subtile Indications of that historical
accuracy which belongs to the eye- and ear-witness who
has observed and remembered with a loving care. The
writer — for example — remembers how the next day
after, about the tenth hour, John the Baptist was stand
ing with two of his disciples (see i. 35 f.) ; the name of
the servant whose ear was struck off by Peter still lin
gers in his meraory ; and he hears again the sharp ring
of the master's command, " Put up thy sword."
On the whole, therefore, fi-om the point of view
reached In the progress of historical and critical study,
it can truthfully be claimed that the vigorous and de
termined assaults made upon the genuineness of the
Fourth Gospel have greatly increased instead of impair
ing our confidence In the traditional view. In this re
gard there is a marked difference between it and the
Hexateuch. The unlearned Christian believer raay still
read meditatively this charming tribute of the love of
a disciple to his Lord. He may do this believing that
he is receiving, as he reads, the Inspired instructions of

328 Authorship of the Books.
the apostle who intimately knew and profoundly under
stood this Lord. Nor can he well fail to believe that,
when he hiraself understands what he reads, he draws
near to the very heart of Christ.
Oui- discussion of the authorship of the biblical books
must be confined to the two cases of the Hexateuch
and the Gospel of John. Some of the more doubtful
writings, like Daniel and Second Peter, and Jude, w III
be referred to when the question of the oi-igin and
growth of the biblical canon is raised. The two cases
whieh have already been discussed will suffice, however,
to show in general what are the relations in which the
results of modern historical criticisra of the authorship
of the biblical books stand to the doctrine of sacred
Scripture. These relations are certainly intiraate, and,
in some cases, perhaps controlling. But of most of the
biblical books it may be said that it makes no difference
to whom their authorehip is due. Of many of them we
do not know, and never shaU know, the authors. Each
tradition, which attaches a particular name to a particu
lar writing, must be fully tested by the recognized
canons of historical study; each must be taken for what
it Is worth when tested in this way. The result of the
process of testing, In the case of the Old Testament,
is by no means confirmatory, in most instances, of the
ancient tradition.
We shall have to admit, indeed, that the standing of
some books in both the Old and the New Testaments Is
relatively insecure. But this is precisely what the early
Church very weU knew and freely admitted. And if we
can trust divine Providence to give us the Canon of

Cases of Inspired Growths. 329
Scripture as a whole, by inspiration of the body of be
lievers, we can surely tmst the same Pro\idence not to
mislead us into dangerous error when, in the name of
modern criticism, we discover that the early Church di.s-
tingulshed between books of the first and books of the
second rank, between books which might be read with
a certain spiritual profit and books on. the doctrine of
which the Church grounds its doctrinal faith.
The results of the modern critical study of the Bible
with respect to the authorship, date, and manner of
composition of its separate books, re-enforce some of
the lessons to which our attention has already been re
peatedly called. In forming a view of the nature of
biblical inspiration, the distinction between books which
are by single authors and books of a composite oiigiu,
indicating a literary growth, is by no raeans unimportant.
To regard a woi-k hke the Hexateuch as aU alike the
result of infalUble divine dictation or of verbal sugges
tion, requires a series of assumptions very different from
anvthing we can leam conceming inspiration and revela
tion from the bibhcal writers themselves. The Hexa
teuch certainly can only be considered as a sort of i'n-
spired growth, — a collection of legal and histoi'ic-al docu
ments originated, gathered, and welded toirether under
the impulse of those theocratic and other relij^ious IJeas
which the Holy Ghost planted and kept alive in the
nation of Israel. But the inspu-ation of the Gospel of
John is the fruit of the indwelhng of the same divine
Spirit iu the mind of one who had seen, Dulerstood,
and loved Jesus pre-eminently, — the Sp-lrit uuioiding
continually more and more of the hidden meaning of

330 Authorship of the Books.
that unique pereonality, and setting imagination and
feeling aglow in the flames of purifying love.
Sacred Scriptm-e, as judged by the source and inanner
of its production, contains various portions that differ
widely as to their value both for founding the doctrine
and guiding the practice of the Christian Chai-ch. A
spirit of revelation mo-ving in history with varying de
grees of illumining and purifying, as well as working
and dwelling in the mind of chosen disciples, Is tUe
source of the Bible's inspiration. Sorae portions of it
are the resultants, as It were, of the spiritual Impulses
and ideas of the entire pious coramnnity; others are
due to the outpouring of the Spirit In the choicest, most
signally blessed, and highly spiritual of the Individuals
comprising the community. The Hexateuch Is inspired ;
the Gospel of John likewise. But God has spoken iu
divere raanners at different times.

CHAPTEE XI.

THE BIBLE AS LITEEATUEE.

The Bible is literature, — this is a claim which has given
much of its impulse and guidance to the researches of
modern biblical study. From it the inference Is Immedi
ately made, that the -writings which compose the Bible
should be subjected to all the rules of literarv criticism,
should be treated as literature In determining their value,
their origin, their raeaning, and their use. Now, the
Bible is, indeed, literature, aud no intelligent student of
its history can fail to see that the acceptance of this
view has greatly quickened aiidiraproved biblical studies.
But because the Bible is literature, it by no means fol
lows that It is precisely like any other existing literature,
or even that it is not unlike aU other literature in many
important respects. Indeed, one of the firet conclusions
to bedrawm from the statement is that, as hterature, the
Bihle Is always to be considered with an intelligent aud
sympathetic appreciation of its rahng ideas.
To underetand and interpret any great literary prod-
u -t to the best advantage, some sort of special prepara
tion is invariably required ; and the nature of the prep
aration Is, to a certain extent, dependent upon the nature
of the literary product. In addition to that distinctively
Ilno-nlstic and historical equipment which the highest
kni.iw ledge of the Old and New Testaments requires,
(331)

The Bible as Literature.

there is also an imp3rative demand made npon the raoral
and religions nature of the student of these writings.
The writings themselves are obviously shaped by certain
moral and religious ideas. Although they are many la
number, and have arisen at many widely-separate. 1
times, they have a certain unity besides the physical
unity given to them by being published together under
one cover, and read by mUlions as though they were in
deed one book. This other unity Is a unity in the source,
character, and development of these moral and religious
ideas. Now, to say that no other coUecti'on of ancient
or modern literary works has any such unity, is but to
state a remarkable fact in literature. This fact renders
it impossible not to regard the Bible as, in some re
spects, a pecuhar species of literature.
The truth just stated will appaar all the more clearly
after the brief examination which we propose to raake
of the language and style of the biblical books.* The
study of the language and style of the biblical books is
necessary to appreciate the " forra " taken by sacred
Scripture, Now it may be said with much obvious
truthfulness that, if revelation furnishes to men certain
portions of the material found in the Bible, inspiration
raust raake itself manifest in the form In whieh thii
material is communicated. To IUustrate: Some one
wiser than myself may make known to me some su!;-
stantial moral and religious truth w-liIch I should other
wise never know ; this truth, barely as snch, may be
recorded in memory- or in some external manner, and 1
raay state it afterward in an accurate way without any
*D. a a, i., p. 5811

Inspiration and Language. 333
inner movement of spirit corresponding to the truth.
But if I thus state what has been revealed to me. the
form I give to it -will not fail to show that I ara declar
ing the truth without any appropriate spiritual stii- (.r
movement accompanying the declaration. If, how
ever, the truth inspires me as I communicate it. the
effect of the inspiration wUl surely be felt in the form
which I give to the truth.
We look, then, to the form which the Bible gives to
Irs ti-utli for proof of the '-inspiration " of Its authors,
as distinguished frora proof that any of this truth has
come to them, or to their colleagues or predecessors, by
'¦ revelation " from God. The same Holy Spirit, who
by revelation gave to the world the content of re
vealed truth in the Bible, gave it in the form which
shows the inspu-ation of those through whom It was
given. . But how different this is from any infalhble
divine dictation of woi-ds, a study of the form — ^that
is, of the language and style — of the bibhcal books
clearly shows.
A study of the Bible as llferature convinces the care
ful and appreciative student of two cardinal facts. The
biblical Hebrew and the Greek of the New Testament
are somewhat peculiar forras of language; they have
been influenced and raoulded by those raoral and re
ligious ideas and spiritual impulses which wrought In
the commanity of pious souls who made use of thera as
forms of langnatre. Moreover, the stvle of both main
parts of tbe Bilile regarded as wholes, and of each book
in particular (any possible exceptions being for the
present disregarded), shows the effect of revelation and

334 The Bible as Literature.
inspiration in the mind of the authors. This effect
differs greatly in character and degree ; in some In
stances It may not be appreciable at all. But, as a rule
frora which there are few exceptions, the Bible Is not
written as other books of the same age, or of the most
nearly contemporaneous ages, are written. As the
observing reader can scarcely fail to notice, It has a
style of Its own.
In the effort to estimate the literary peculiarities of
the Old Testament, however, we are met by a difficulty
which arises from our having almost no other contem
poraneous specimens of literature in the same language.
Indeed, it has been held by some critics that the fram
ers of the Old-Testament Canon gathered and regarded
as sacred everything which reraained of the ancient
national literature. The references to other -nrit-
ings, that are raet with in those writings which have
been preserved, show us that there once existed a con
siderable literature in the ancient Hebrew language
which has not been preseryed. Much of this literature
was what we should now call "secular" as distin
guished from the " sacred " literature of the Hebrew
Scriptures. It Is doubtful, however, whether the pious Jews of
about Ezra's time, to whose work the gathering and
revision of the books in the Old Testament is due,
wo;ild have made the same distinction between secular
and sacred literature. For they did receive into the
Collection of sacred writings, although only to an In
ferior rank, certain productions which are no more re
hgious in character than were, in all probability, most

Its theocratic Character. 335
of the lost writings. For example, the Song of Solo
mon, Proverbs, Esther, and parts of Ecclesiastes, are
no less secular, in our sense of the term, than were
many of the three thousand parables and proverbs, and
the one thousand and five lyric songs, attributed to
Solomon by the writer of First Kings (iv. 29 f,). Cer
tain lost botanical and zoological works are also re
ferred to In the Old Testament. Moreover, some frag
ments actually found in existing bibhcal books appear
to have had their origin outside of the circle of literary
products which the Spirit of revelation and inspiration
chiefly moulded. Such are the ancient (and somewhat
savage) Song of Lamech, the enumeration of the sons
of Japheth, the snatches of popular ditties upon the
taking of Heshbon, the ancient Song of the Well,*
etc. Fables about plants and trees, only a few of which
are found in the Bible, are mentioned as common
enough araong the Hebrews.
The literature of the Old Testament Is theocratic lit-
eratm-e; it is, as a rule, written from the point of view
from which Jehovah was regai-ded as standing in par
ticular- relations to Israel. — they pledged to serve Him
according to the Mosaic law and He pledged to be their
King and Eedeeraer. But under the influence of the
theocratic idea, especially after the Exile, everything
done and wiitten in the history of the nation by its
ancient prophets, lawgivers, and psalmists, was rendered
sacred to the pious remnant of Israel. Still — as the
history of the Canon of the Old Testament abundantly
shows — ^the men who collected this literature did not
« D. S. 8., i., p. 589 1

336 The Bible as Literature.
theraselves regard It as all alike the work of revelation
and Inspiration ; nor do the principles wliich guided them
in raaking the selection at all warrant the blbliolatry
which afterward extended itself even over books like
the Song of Solomon aud the history of Esther.
Our knowledge of ancient Hebrew as a language is,
of necessity, derived almost entirely from a study of
the Old Testament. We do not know when and where
this language originated. But a comparison of Hebrew
with the Aramaic and Arabic shows that it belongs,
with thera, to that one of the three great groups of
languages which have, for about a century, been known
as " Semitic," The Canaanites, on the Invasion of the
Hebrews, spoke a language analogous to that of their
invaders. Indeed, there are some fragments in the Old
Testaraent which seem to have been inserted from the
archives of the neighboring peoples, — such as, perhaps,
the genealogy of the Edomites (Gen. xxxvi.).
The origin of written characters among the Hebrews
is involved in the sarae obscurity which envelops tbe
origin of the language. The raost ancient centre of
the use of the Hebrew alphabet was in Babylon or
in Egypt ; but in which one of these two cannot be
affirmed confidently. What reraalns of the very oldest
lilerature of the nation shows no essential difference
of language when compared with the literature that
grew up about the time of the Exile. The art of
writing was a growth of centuries ; It raust have been
possessed by certain persons among the Israelites even
before the sojourn of the people in Egypt. The an
cient written Hebrew stands, therefore, in the same

Hebrew a Semitic Language. 337
relation to the languages of the Semitic race as that in
which the Sanscrit stands to those of the Indo-European
race. It Is " the purest and most complete type of the
faniily, and the depository of Its historic, linguistic, and
religious secrets."
Accordingly, it Is impossible to show the effect of
revelation and Inspiration upon the biblical language
by dh-ect comparison of the biblical literature with
other contemporaneous literature. We know little or
nothing directly of Hebrew except as the Old-Testa
ment language. Certain valuable facts are brought to
¦ light, however, by comparing the different books of the
Old Testament with one another. Such a comparison
shows the existence of Chaldaic passages in some of
the later writings, — as, for example. In Daniel (Ii. 4 to
vii. 28), Ezra (iv. 8 to vi. 18), and Jeremiah (x. 11).
The absence of all Greek words, except In the Chal
daic passages of Daniel and Ezra, shows how far aloof
from Greek culture stood the authors of the Old-Testa
ment books. Certain Indian, Egyptian, and Persian
words,* however, show a liraited intercourse with these
nations. Comparison of the two also shows how much
superior in clearness, simplicity, purity, and grandeur
of language, the writings of the golden age of sacred
Hebrew Uterature are to the later writings in the age
of scribes and ritualists.
The influence of religious ideas and feelings upon
the ancient Hebrew language is shown by its exclusive-
ness. In respect to such religious influence the Semitic
peoples form a class by themselves. But the Hebrews
«D. S. S.,i., p, 088,

338 The Bible as Literature.
were especially exclusive. The conceptions and terms
which are found in the speculative pantheism of India,
or In the mythology of ancient Greece and Rome, are
unknown to the biblical language. " The word goJ-
dess," savs an eminent Semitic scholar, ''would be in
Hebrew the most horrible barbarism." This sacred
national literature can, of course, contain no poems
which recite the genealogies of the gods, or epics tell
ing of their ware. Scarcely any scientific and philo
sophical terms occur in biblical Hebrew. Certain styles
of expression are, for similar reasons, rarely or never
found in it. Punning, sarcasm, and various forms of
wit fi-equently appear; but It is only in the narrative of
the rude and sometimes ludicrous exploits of Samson
that Instances of humor are found. The language of
discussion and argument is seldom used. It is prob
ably only in the Song of Solomon and In Job that dra
matic elements can be detected to any extent.
The bibhcal Hebrew has a wonderful quality of fix
edness or immobility.* This quality is indeed marked
in all the Semitic group of languages. They all have
comparatively little flexibility and power of growth.
This quality of fixedness Is, In part, dependent upon
the strength of the consonants, and upon the persi.'?t-
ency with whieh given sounds, with their meanings,
are connected with a fixed number of invariable char-
acters. It is also due to the type of mind, and habits
of life, belonging to the people using those languages.
Closely connected with this quality is the remarkable
unity and uniqueness of the biblical Hebrew. From
»D. S, 8,, i,, p, 591 1

Simplicity of the Hebrew. 339
the time of Moses to the time of the Exile, the only
development which the language underwent concerned
pecuUarities of expression. The Exile itself had com
paratively little effect upon this language. The aris
tocracy of the nation, who took the national archives
with them and dwelt araong strangere in Babylon, were
really less Aramaized in language, as well as in views
and customs, than the lower ordere of the people who
remained at home to be corrupted by Syrian influences.
The simplicity of the bibUcal Hebrew is wonderful.
This trait is native with all the Semitic languages ; but
in the biblical Hebrew, it is also largely the result of
the simplicity of the biblical ideas. Only a few ideas
are dwelt upon in the Old-Testament writings, and these
considered from only a few of the most direct points
of view. There is little calm reflection, or research
into causes, or deUberate process of reasoning, in the
Hebrew classics. The sentences are never woven to
gether into those subtle and complicated relations which
characterize the ancient Greek, or the modern German
or Enghsh. Subject and predicate are set down to
gether and their relation left largely undefined ; the
sentences are strung loosely together with a connective
" and " or " but." There are few particles ; there is no
neuter gender; the mood of the verb is not charac-
teiized precisely ; there is no nice distinction of tenses.
One cannot interpret the Old-Testament language with
great precision ; its few large conceptions can be
caught and felt, but its details of .truth cannot be de
fined and systemati'zed. To derive from it an elaborate
system of dogmatic theology — to find there the distinc-

340 The Bible as Literature.
tions of the Trinity, the true theory of huraan psy
chology, the nicely-adjusted framework of ethical ideas
and general rules for conduct — Is to presume iraprop-
erly upon Its chUdlikeness, It is the language for
prophecv and a certain kind of poetry ; but it is a lan
guage in which one cannot express any forra of truth
-with such accuracy and definiteness of detail as science,
strictly speaking, reqiures.
This language is also sensuous and passionate. The
verb, and the eleraents of the sentence derived from
the verb, or connected with it, predominate in snch a
way as to give great lifehkeness to the sentence itself.
Anger, for example, is depicted by its physical accom
paniments, by the hard breathing, by the heat, by the
tumult of boiling, by the noise of breaking, by trem
bling, etc. The idea of "the true" is taken from
solidity or stability ; the idea of " the beauti-ful '" from
hght. The very substance of a thing is its " bone."
All tlirough its literature the Hebrew language con
tinues to remark that a raan opens his raouth when he
speaks, and that, when he Is angry, his countenance
faUs. Little regard for " style," in the ordinary literary ac
ceptation of the terra, Is shown by the writere of the
Old Testaraent. Their language is everywhere marked
by an absence of grararaatical and linguistic culture. The
reader of these writings must not be put out or thrown
off by such trifles as changes of gender, or unfinished,
suspended, and inconsequential phrases. Modern schol
arship finds it hard to make "rules" for the Hebrew;
the Hebrew gramraare have either to leave the student

Wealth of the Language. 341
to find ont all the detaUs of construction for himself or
else burden themselves with a prolix statement of facts.
To read the bibhcal Hebrew intelhgently one must not
question and argue ; one must rather hve over again the
passionate, compressed, abrupt, and unreflecting mental
experience of the authore themselves.
The number of words in this hterature is small com
pared with the number used in our modern hterature of
aU the different kinds.* The Hebrew language is, how
ever, sufficiently rich in those images and conceptions
which have to do -with the simpler mattera of the re
ligious and practical life. It is miserably poor in terms
for abstract conceptions and definite grammatical rela
tions. It has no scientific, philosophical, or aesthetic
nomenclature. For the principal matters with which it
deals it has often a considerable number of different
names ; but it is generally unsafe to argue from a dif
ference in names to a fixed distinction in ideas, or in
the aspects of the subject to which they are attributed.
One may appreciate this fact on reading the one-hnn-
dred-and-nineteenth Psalm, with its 176 verses and
great divereity of terms for the one " law." Fourteen
synonyms have been counted in Hebrew for the Idea of
trust in God, nine for the pardon of sin, twenty-five
for the keeping of the Torah. Tet no elaborate doctrine
of the nature of faith, or of the grounds of the divine
forgiveness, or of the office of obedience iu securing
salvation, can be derived from this variety.
Besides prose and poetry, the Old-Testament htera
ture has a third class in which prosaic, poetical, and
•D. a 8.,i.,p. 5951

342 The Bible as Literature.
semi-poetical elements are all cfirabined. The influ
ence of revelation and inspiration is little, if at all,
apparent in the ease of the prose language of the He
brew Scriptures. During the golden age of the lan
guage, the Hebre^v style of writing prose was not
essentially different from the popular manner of speak
ing. But it is in its poetry, and in its prophecy so far
as this Is wholly or partially poetical, that the divine
infiuence is most clearly manifest. A brief notice of
the characteristics of Hebrew poetry is therefore neces
sary in this place.
There is Uttle variety of forras in the poetry of the
Old Testament ; it Is usuaUy lyric* The lyric some
times approaches the epic ; or — as it has been said by
one scholar — contains the "stuff" and germ of epic.
This is trae of the Song of Moses (Ex. xv.) and of the
Song of Deborah (Judg. v.). It has already been said
that only a few compositions approaching the character
of dramatic Uterature occur in the Old Testament.
The so-called " gnomic" poetry of the Hebrews belongs
to the later age of their literature. But various forms
of the lyric are found in the sacred Hebrew writings.
Such are snatches of old songs embedded in the narra
tive, hyrans of thanksgiving aud praises or of contri
tion and inoumlng, etc. Songs in laraentation for the
dead and wedding-songs appear to have been abundant.
Of the latter, one is preserved in the Psalter (xiv.).
There were also songs for the teraple-service, and spe
cial songs for celebrating a -victory, or for the birthday
of a king, or for special offerings. Specimens of these
*D. a a,i., p, 5971

Biblical Figures of Speech. 343
different kinds of lyric poetry are retained in the sacred
literature because, as a rule, they share in the pre
dominating character of aU such poetical literature
among the Hebrews, — it was strongly theocratic. Most
of these lyrics are free and unpremeditated outburets
of the moral and rehgions thoughts and feelings of the
human soul, under a variety of circumstances, but always
with the con-viction that Jehovah is interested in the
matter about which the song is sung.
The figures of speech which occur in the -wiitings of
the Old Testaraent, especially in such as have a poetic
character, serve to exhibit both the native quality of the
language and mental hfe of the people, and also the
modifying infiuence of revelation and inspiration. The
figures of speech in the sacred hterature, as is the case
necessarily in all Uterature, are derived from experience.
The titles under which God is known and worehipped
iUustrate this truth. " In the tent of the shepherd," said
an appreciative student of these writings, " God Is a
shepherd." Among those peoples where the family life
is greatly prized, He is known as Father. And so aU
mankind wUl speak of the Infinite One in the language
of the twenty-third Psalm, " The Lord is my Shepherd,"
and pray to Him in the words of Jesus, " Our Father,
who art in heaven."
But the Hebrew prophet or poet also represents the
Almighty as hke to a man in other respects. God is a
husbandman going through the various processes of a
husbandman's hfe. He threshes the mountains, and re
duces the hiUs to chaff ; He scattera the enemies of Israel
with a winnowing fan or beats them with a flail, or rides

344 The Bible as Literature,
over and crushes thera with a corn-drag or a threshing-
wain. More terrible still, He treads thera under foot ; and
then He appears stained with their blood as one who has
trodden the bright-red juice from the grapes in the wine-
vat. Many of these figures of speech reveal the rela
tively low conception of God, His motives and methods,
which — as Christ and the apostles teach us — character
izes the older and temporary dispensation. Others of
thera are quite too coarse, as judged by the standard of
modern refinement, to be employed longer for the free
and public communication of raoral and religious ideas.
But raost of this inaptness is explicable upon the general
principle that the divine discipline and self-revelation
were progressive and historical. God stooped to lift up
the people, taking them in His arras to raise them frora
the level at which He found thera.
With reference to raatters of which polite literature
hesitates to treat In these raodern tiraes, the license of
certain bibhcal books is one of metaphors rather than
of morality. This is true, for the most part, of Solomon's
Song ; although it cannot be denied that a few passages
occur in this writing which approach close to, if they
do not transgress, those limits of purity of speech and
imagination which are fixed for every age. This fact,
in part, explains why the book found such difficulty in
obtaining for itself a place in the Old-Testament canon.
Of that sublime and Impressive imagery to express
the nature and deeds of Jehovah, In which the Hebrew
literature abounds, it is scarcely necessary to speak.
Especially quickening and penetrating is the view that
the Hebrew writers take of the relations which God

Parallelism of Hebrew Poetry. 345
sustains to nature and to the soul of man. The thunder
is Jehovah's voice ; the light is His garment ; the winds
are His messengers ; heaven is His tent, palace, or tem
ple ; and all events and things are the product of His
" word." By words as well as natural signs, God com
municates with man. The Old-Testament personifica
tion of the divine " word," at first a poetic and pro
phetic figure of speech, has entered as a vitalizing
thought into all Christian doctrine regarding the very
being of God. Indeed, all our Christian language, and
much of the subUmest modern poetry, represents similar
moral and religious conceptions by repeating the ancient
figures of speech.
The chief technical characteristic of the poetic struc
ture of the sacred Hebrew poetic compositions is known
as "parallelism." * The rapid accumulation of thought
and feeling, as it were, results In the repetition of short
sentences which are disposed in distichs. It has been
observed that the statements of these poems are like
what Sirach says of the works of God, — " two and two,
one against the other." We find in the Hebrew poet
ical writings none of the beauty and grace of diction and
versification which the other best ancient and modern
literature shows. Indeed, they are marred and spoiled
by any attempt to smooth them down or to put them
into rhyme. The straightforward unpoetized transla
tion of the Hebrew words is the most truly poetical
way of rendering these peculiarities appreciable. To
read and feel the beauty, the spirit of the reader must
follow close after the spirit of the writer ; — and, f ortun-
* D. S, 8., i., p. 600 1

346 The Bible as Literature.
ately, there is rarely anything so profound or obscure
in thought that this cannot easily be done. Thus, in the
words of a Psalm can one let his soul spring forward
suddenly a little way and as suddenly check itself, rise
here and fall there, utter its sorrows in short-lived sob
bing, or its joys in brief outbursts of exultation. But
this requires the reader to be animated by the same
ethical and spiritual impulse as that felt by the writer.
On the other hand, the spiritual effect of the writer's
words is thus to animate and inspire the reader.
The language of Hebrew prophecy — as has already
been said — lies between the language of poetry and that
of prose. Hymns and odes appear in the midst of dif
ferent prophetic coraposltions. This does not appear
strange when we recall the facts that rausic was used by
the earlier prophets to stir up inspiration, and that the
moveraents of the soul In poetry and prophecy are so
extremely similar. There are not wanting prophecies
that are themselves songs (Deut. xxxiii. ; 2 Sara, xxiii. ;
Nura. xxiv.). When the spirit of the prophet Is exalted
by Inspiration, he naturally rises also to the higher form
of poetic or semi-poetic speech ; but he descends to
prose immediately In making his announcements of
fact. Yarious kinds of parallelism appear In the pro
phetic writings ; more doubtful Instances of strophe of
various kinds have also been pointed out.
In general It may be said that whatever the soul ap
prehends raost vividly and fesls most strongly is apt to
assume for its expression a poetical form. It was tbe
great theocratic Ideas and feelings which most occupied
the rainds and swayed the hearts of the chief producers

Early and Late Compositions. 347
of the ancient sacred Hebrew literature. The Old-
Testament form of impassioned, figurative expres.sion
is, therefore, pre-eminently ethical and religious ; it
shows throughout the influence of ideas communicated
in the di-vine process of self-revelation to inspired souls.
WhUe it is trae that the general characteristics of the
Hebrew poetic and prophetic hterature are such as have
been described above, it is also true that very great dif
ferences and inequahtles become apparent when we com
pare the works of different writere and different epochs,
Hebrew sacred hterature has Its chief works, its golden
age, Its flood-tide of glory. It grew, in accordance
largely with the kinds and stages of raoral and rehg
ious impulse which the nation of Israel received, to a
full bloom ; it then underwent a process of deterioration
ending in decay. In general, the inferiority, both liter
ary and also moral and rehgious, of the latest compo
sitions of the Hebrew Scriptures cannot be denied.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Jonah, Chronicles, Haggai,
Zechariah, Malachi, Daniel, Ecclesiastes, and the post-
ExUian Psalms, are in raany respects not of the same high
order with the earher works.* The Spirit now no longer
moves in the nation to produce its theocratic hterature
as it moved in the former days. In the chapter in which
the history of the time following upon the formation of
the canon was sketched (chap, i., p. 20 f.) it was made
apparent that the Jews themselves recognized this fact.
And the relatively low rank whieh the framere of the
Old-Testament canon gave to the later writings, even

•D.S. a, i, p, 6041

348 The Bible as Literature,
when they admitted thera to the canon at all, is testimony
to the sarae fact.
The impulse which the deliverance from Egypt gave
to the national literature of Israel has been compared
to that received by the Greek literature from the defeat
of the invading Persians. Then the " law of tiie Lord "
began to be recognized as fitted to give a pattern and
rule to the national life and national development. The
influence of this law upon the poetic and prophetic
literature was by no means small In any subsequent
period of the history of Israel. With the beginning of
the prophets who wrote their prophecies — that is, just
before and after 800 b.c. — there begins a new epoch in
Hebrew Uterature ; the more ancient impersonal writ
ings of a legal and historical 'character are replaced by
the personal authorship of the inspired messenger of
Jehovah. For this reason considerations of " style," in
the raore definite meaning of the word, enter more
largely into our estimate of the origin and nature of the
hterary products belonging to this class.
As Jerome long ago noticed, each of the prophets has
his peculiar style. The work of Isaiah presents the most
finished literary style attained by the ancient Hebrew ;
this Is true as respects " taste, proportion, and perfection
of form." The style of this prophet Is elegant, majestic,
elevated, versatile, and yet possessed of a dignified sim
plicity. Amos came from the ranks of the people ; he
employs such Aramaic forras as belonged to the speech
of comraon life in distinction frora the language of
books. His figures of speech are rustic, as was natural-
to a shepherd and gardener. Hosea and Micah are forci-

The Style of Different Books. 349
ble and concise, but the former is obscure on account of
his brevity, and his tone is local. Nahum Is bold, ar
dent, sublime. The "Pindaric ode" of Habakkuk
(chap, in.) Is unrivaUed in majesty of thought and dic-
-tion. Objections to Jeremiah for his rusticity and
grararaatical ignorance are very ancient; and, indeed,
he has neither the dignity of movement nor purity of
diction which belongs to the earher prophets. Neither
he nor Zephaniah has the literary or the moral loftiness
of the -writere mentioned above. Ezekiel has justly and
uniformly been regarded as inferior to all the other
prophets from a hterary point of view. Neither his
truth nor the language in which he expresses himself has
much originality ; both are borrowed largely from earlier
writere. "His imagery," says Lowth, "is crowded,
magnificent, terrific, sometimes almost to disgust; his
language is porapous, solemn, austere, rough." These
pecuharities of style are in part to be explained by cer
tain changes which the language was undergoing ; but
they are chiefly due to the inferior character of the per
sonality of this prophet and of the spiritual influences
under whieh he -wrote.
On passing from the study of the Old Testament as
hterature to the study of the New Testaraent in the
same way, we become aware of an enlarged opportunity
for making a comparative estimate of the language in
which the books are written, and so of arriving at cer
tain definite results. The Greek of the New Testament
can be contrasted with the classic Greek and also with
the later hterary Greek, the so-caUed "hnne." To
some extent it can also be compared with that form of

350 The Bible as Literature.
the later Greek which prevailed in comraon speech.
Moreover, the history of those changes and growths of
ideas and words which are embodied In the Christian
Scriptures can be traced in the Greek translation of the
Old Testament (the Septuagint), in the apocryphal
writings of the Old Testament, and in certain other
Jewish writings of a religious and philosophical sort.
Thus the Influence of Christian ideas and spiritual im
pulses upon the language of the New Testament can be
sho-wn with a comparatively great clearness and minute
ness. In order to reach such a result it Is necessary
briefly, at least, to consider three things : (1) the nature
of the hoine, or later hterary Greek, which acted as a
kind of linguistic solvent for the other eleraents of the
New-Testaraent language ; (2) the terras and phrases
which had already resulted from the attempts of the
Jews to set forth the Old-Testaraent religion in a Greek
dress ; (3) the moditications of the Greek which are the
raore direct result of the influence of Christian ideas
and feelings.
Three raost ancient forras of the Greek language —
the JEolic, the Doric, and the Ionic dialects — are raade
kno-wn to us by Its literature. The Ionic was the
favorite forra for epic poetry ; the Doric, for lyric In
the war-songs, religious hymns, and the choruses ; the
^ollc, for the peculiar kind of lyric in which Alcaeus
and Sappho sung. But the Attic, which originated
chiefly from the Ionic, became afterward the prevalent
language of literature after Athens had taken its place
as the great literary centre of the Greek world. It was
in drama, the oration, history, and philosophy that the

The Later Spoken Greek. 351
Attic writere excelled. The Macedonian conquest,
which broke do-wn almost all the ancient barriers and
distinctions, mixed together and corrupted all these
dialects, so that the organic and living development of
genuine Greek as a language almost ceased soon after
the time of Alexander. A certain kind of Greek, how
ever, spread itself over the whole of the ancient civU
ized world, aud even among the barbarians. In Athens
the language remained for a time relatively pure ; but
the Attic, which was spoken in the Macedonian court
and by the Macedonian soldiery^ extended, not only
over aU the lands inhabited by the ancient Greek race,
but also into Syria and Egypt. Merchants, soldiere,
StroUing playere, and escaped or freed slaves, carried
this debased Greek with them. Not only were the
different ancient dialects mixed together and with
foreign languages, but rural and uncouth forms of
speech were mingled with those peculiar to the centres
of trade.*
WhUe the spoken Greek was undergoing these vari
ous stages of corruption in the intercourse of the mot
ley crowds that employed it, the language, considered
as a hterary language, was also undergoing changes
closely related to those described above. Some of the
later writers, even when not hving at Athens, made
strenuous efforts "to write in Greek as nearly pure and
classical as possible. Among the Jews, PhUo and
Josephus famish instances of a style approximating
litera/ry Greek. Bnt scholars have no difficulty in
*D. 8. a, i., p. 609 f.

352 The Bible as Literature.
recognizing marked differences between this later liter
ary language and the pure classic form of Greek.
It was at one time held by certain dogmatists to be
blasphemous to assert that the New-Testament Greek
is not faultlessly correct, when judged by the ancient
classic raodels. But it Is now known that the language
of the inspired teachers of Christianity is based upon
this later and inferior Greek, and that the Spirit who
inspired them took no pains to work the perpetual
rairacle necessary to guard thera against aU raistakes in
etymology and syntax. The New-Testament language
fundamentally considered is neither pure and classic
Greek nor the wretched jargon which resulted from
the debasement of classic Greek and its mixture with
barbaric tongues. It Is about such Greek as was spoken
by the Jews in their daily intercourse at the centres of
civilization. Probably the New-Testament diction is
itself the best example extant of the spoken koine.
Many peculiarities of the New-Testament manuscripts
are explained by the essential nature of the language In
which they were written. Among these is the great
uncertaint}'^ of the spelling which they share in common
with all the written and spoken koine. The spelling of
the original manuscripts from the hands of the authors
was probably not uniform. A frequent confusion of
short and long vowels and of single vowels and diph
thongs appears. Soraetiraes we have a failure to ob
serve an augraent, soraetiraes a false augment, some
times a repetition of the augment. Confusions of
gender and changes in the inflection of nouns and verbs
also occur. Words from different dialects have become

The New- Testament Greek. 353
absorbed into the common speech. New significations
of old words are met with and also newly-compounded
words. Sorae words which would have been considered
vulgar by the classic Greek are taken into the New-
Testaraent language, because of the popular use they
had attained ; they are then employed for the expres
sion of more elevated conceptions. For example, the
word which we find in the later comedy as a low word
to express the stuffing of one's self with food like a
beast (to " fodder ") is used by the Gospel of Matthew
(v. 6) in the ideal sense of satisfying the hunger of the
soul. A kind of seething sea of language — ancient dia
lects, old poetic forms, newer constructions of popular,
and even -vulgar, speech — was waiting to be brooded
over by the Spirit of God. The language for the
promulgation of the ideas of Christianity must be
Gre-ek ', for no other ancient language possessed any
thing hke the same capacity for figurative construction,
the same manifoldness, versatUity, and wealth of words
and ideas. But if the New Testaraent had been written
in classic, pure, and grammatical Greek, it would have
required a perpetual miracle of divine guidance and of
dictation to produce it, and it would not have addressed
itself to the multitudes in a language which they could
underetand. As a modei-n scholar has said : " It is the
sacred prerogative of the Gospel never to be preached
otherwise than in the language of humanity and to the
poor." And this view of its hterary characteristics
does it far more real honor than did the foolish post>-
Reformation dogma which aigued that no grammatical

354 The Bible as Literature.
or other linguistic blemishes can exist in the New Tes
tament, because it is all virtually written by the Holy
Ghost, and the Holy Ghost cannot write bad Greek !
In the second place, it must be reraerabered that the
irapress of revelation and inspiration had already made
itself strongly felt upon that form of Greek which the
New- Testament writers used ; this was the case with
the Septuagint translation and the Old-Testament
Apocrypha. Upon the basis of the koine, especially
as spoken in Alexandria, a technical religious language
of the Jews had already arisen. For multitudes of
these people the Greek translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures was the only form of Greek literature which
they knew. This translation, therefore, exercised a
great influence over the forra of Greek as written and
spoken araong the Jews, both of Judaea and of the dis
persion. Now, the language of the Septuagint is of a
peculiar kind ; it is Greek of about the grade of purity
of that spoken at Alexandria, — poor as compared with
the written Greek of Philo and Josephus, but free
from the worst of the jargon that raust have prevailed
in the speech of the surrounding regions.
What are known as " Hebraisms," in the widest sense
of the word, abound in the Septuagint. These are of
different orders. Sometimes a Hebrew-Aramaic word
is simply carried over into Greek letters ; sometimes
the secondary meaning of a Hebrew word is given to
a Greek word which corresponds to the Hebrew word
oidy in respect to the primary meaning ; sometimes
derivative words are formed, after the analogy of the
Greek vernacular, to fit Hebrew conceptions; some-

The Greek of the Septuagint. 355
times peculiarly Hebrew figures of speech are carried
over into the Greek, when unknown to the classic f oi-m
of the latter language ; sometimes phrases quite foreign
to the Greek are constructed by a verbal translation of
the Hebrew vernacular. And then there Is everywhere
to be noticed the presence of technical religious terms
and phrases.
The chief service, which the Greek of the Septua
gint rendered in preparing a diction for the New Tes
tament, took the form of certain technical Greek words
and phrases that represent the ideas of Old-Testament
religion. Since the ideas of Christianity are so grounded
in the more ancient religion, the language of the Greek
version of Old-Testament Scriptures sustains important
relations to the Greek of the New Testament. Indeed,
most of the words and phrases which the Christian
writere use to express its technical religious facts and
ideas are the gift of the Septuagint. It is nevertheless
true that the spirit of Christianity has greatly changed
and expanded the import of many wqrds and phrases.
Examples of this sort may be found in the phrase
" kingdom of God," and in the word for " holiness,"
For this latter conception neither of the four words
comraon in classic Greek is employed. But the Sep
tuagint had already adopted another word of kindred
signification (a word rarely used in the Attic Greek or
tbe hterary koine), and had regularly employed it to
express its religions idea of holiness. This same word
the New-Testament writers use to designate their ex
panded conception of the same reality. In another
instance, the opposition which exists between the pres-

356 The Bible as Literature.
ent fieeting and sensual order of affairs and the moral
worth of the divine kingdom leads to an habitual use
of the word " world " in the very opposite of its devel
oped Greek meaning. Instead of being thought of as
a divine, orderly, and beautiful whole, as the classic
Greek regards it, the world is regarded by the bibhcal
writers as debased and separated frora the true divine
order. The Old Testaraent set forth this opposition as
it existed between the people of Jehovah and the Gen
tiles ; Paul and John exhort the followers of Jesus not
to love the " world,"
It is scarcely possible to overestiraate the new wealth
of meaning which Christianity imparted to the tech
nical religious terms of Judaism.* It has been said of
Paul's use of the word " righteousness," that every
Jewish reader of Paul would have been obliged to say :
" This man uses our word iu a different sense from
ours." The Christian religion gave a new raeaning to
such words as "love," "faith," and "hope." The
New-Testaraent conception of love as the fruit of the
Spirit is a creation of Christianity. The word which
its writers employ for this conception is not found In
unbibUcal Greek to signify a pure spiritual affection. It
is rarely employed at aU In the Septuagint outside of
the Song of Soloraon. But the Christian doctrine
regards the origin of love as from God,— the very
reverse of Aristotle's view, that Deity exists to be
loved and not to love. The meaning of the word em
ployed by the New Testament for "faith " raore nearly
corresponds to the classic usage. For even in classic
* D, 8. 8., i„ p, 618 1

Particular New- Testament Phrases. 357
Greek yae'^A Is persuasion based on confidence iu a per
son or thing, rather than mere behef or knowledge.
This idea, and the word for It, was a priceless gift from
the classic Greek to the New-Testament writers. But
only the Christian reUgion could evolve the full signifi
cance of that religious idea which is now attached to
the word " faith." The word for " hope " was origi
nally used of the expectation of future things, sometimes
evil but usuaUy good. In the New Testament it is
always employed in a good sense, but more especiaUy
for that expectation of eternal salvation, -with its joyful
and firm confidence, which the Christian religion im
parts to men. This expectation of future good is alone
worthy of being called hope.
Modern linguistic researches have shown in detail the
wonderful manner in which the Spirit of Christ, work
ing iu the minds of His disciples, dealt with certain
words in the vocabulary of the Greek psychology. A
marked example of this is shown in the fact that the
highest self-conscious principle of the psychical life of
man is not called " reason " by the New-Testament
writers after the fashion of the Greek thought. It is
rather called " spirit," — a word which, in this raeaning,
is foreign to classic Greek. The divine principle of the
new life of raan In Christ, and the principle of God's
own life, can accordingly be spoken of under this terra.
The New-Testament phrase for the " Spirit of God "
would have been unintelligible to Aristotle and Plato.
"Various instances might also be given where the spiritual
ideas and Impulses of Christianity are shown in the
omission of words or meanings of words that are com-

358 The Bible as Literature.
mon in classic Greek to express certain ethical and
sesthetic conceptions.
We cannot affirm confidently that the inspiration of
the spirit of Christianity furnished tbe world with any
absolutely new words or compounds of words; for we
have no such acquaintance with pre-vious and contem
poraneous Greek literature as would be necessary to
warrant this statement. But there are many cases where
it is highly probable that the compound words which
most manifestly serve as vehicles for purely Cliristian
thought, were originated in this way. It is not easy to
describe the impression which the Christian student of
the Greek Testament receives as to the marveUously
intense and comprehensive, formative power over Its
language which may be ascribed to the influence of the
Holy Ghost in the minds of its writers.*
That different varieties of style exist in the writings
of the New Testament is a fact whieh the observing
reader of the English Bible can clearly enough distin
guish for himself. The personal peculiarities of the au
thors are much raore plainly marked here than In the
case of the Old-Testament writings. There are two
principal reasons for this fact. The Greek language Is
a much raore flexible and subtile expression of the raind
than Is the Hebrew language ; and Christian inspiration
was far freer and less liraited by conventionalities than
the inspiration of the Old-Testament authore. Thus
in the first three Gospels we have a narrative of Christ's
hfe and sayings which Is determined, with respect to
language and style, by the characteristics of the Gospel
*r), 8, S.,i.,p, 622,

Language of John and Paul. 359
message as it was spoken to and by Jews in their pecu
liar form of the koine.
The pereonalities of John and Paul have, of couree, a
pre-eminent importance and value for the diction of the
New Testament, and so for the expression of Christian
ideas and Christian experience to the end of time. How
much do all readere of the Bible speak of their own ex
perience after the style of these inspired men ! Nor is
it difficult to point out the more raarked characteristics
of each of these two writere. There is a vocabulary of
words in use in Christian sermons, conversation, and
literature which are to be taken in the peculiar " Johan
nean " sense. Among such terms are the following :.
"word," "Ught," "truth," "life," "bread of hfe,"
"flesh," etc.
As for the Apostie Paul, there is scarcely any other
way so effective for becoming intimately acquainted
¦with his pereonality as a thorough, scholarly study of
the pecuUarities of his language and style. Who shall
estimate at their full value the contributions not only to
the rehgious ideas of the world, but also to its means for
expressing such ideas, which have been made by this
man l A whole group of words from one root (the
word for " tightness "), which Paul filled with new life
and import, has had an incalculable Infiuence over the
theological beliefs and speculations of the entire Chris
tian world. What a mighty but impulsive and tem
pestuous nature this apostie had, and how mightily the
Spirit carried him along, — at times, apparently quite
regardless of precisely what he might be saying, — ^his use
of words makes very plain. Mark his effort — sometimes

360 The Bible as Literature.
ineffective — to bring the larger raembers of his sen
fences into an organic movement and make them traly
periodic ! See how he rushes forward with his utterance
and then takes a sudden turn, as it wfere, in some side
direction, and slips in here and there new thoughts and
interjections of questions and remarlis 1 He is fond of
starting off at a word of his own. In certain places he
piles up eorapounds as though he could not, even in this
way, find raeans for sufficient utterance. He rises into
the language of speculation with the tentative struggle
to put his formative thoughts and flowing feeling into
some firra shape; and, when the building up of the
iramedlate and pressing interests of the daily Christian
life is before hira, he readily falls back upon the lan
guage of experience.
This brief review of certain literary characteristics of
the Bible affords an argument In favor of its general
claim to be regarded as sacred Scriptra-e. It appears
that two kinds of human speech have had a providential
preparation to fit them for becoraing the vehicles of the
ideas and spirit of revelation. One of these Is a Semitic
language, the Hebrew ; one an Indo-European language,
the Greek. Each of these has, in itself considered and
apart from all influence frora these religious ideas and
this religious spirit, certain definite peculiarities. The
ancient Hebrew was the fit raedlum of the Old-Testa
ment revelation ; that forra of the Greek which arose
on the basis of the classic language as subjected to raany
corrupting influences as well as also to the impress of
Jewish religious Ideas, was the fit vehicle for conveying
the Christiaii revelation. The work of the Pivine Spirit

Suggestion of Words. 361
in providentiaUy selecting and shaping these languages
to the self-revelation of God as the Redeemer of men
in Christ Jesus is manifested In history to the devout
student of this subject. Moreover, ranch of the hnguis-
tic form of the Bible itself shows a direct and power
ful influence frora the ideas of this divine self -revelation.
The ideas have themselves been given to men in the
process of revelation ; they are ideas pecuhar to biblical
religion ; they have been lodged in language which they
have largely moulded to themselves.
Still fm-ther, the individual writers of this sacred
literature not infrequently show in their language and
literary style, the influence of the new ideas which they
theraselves are receiving by revelation, and of the new
impulses of the Spirit which are moving in their souls.
There are, however, some entire books, and many shorter
passages of the biblical writings, for which no proofs of
such influence of inspiration upon the language can be
clairaed. This is especially trae of the historical writ
ings of the Old Testaraent. Most of the sacred writera
also appear to aet under the influence of these inspiring
ideas so far as their language and style are concerned,
only in an indirect way ; that is to say, they share in the
general inheritance of a language and style prepared by
divine spiritual influences which all the pious of the na
tion possess.
But in the case of other writere, and in the case of
sorae writera very frequently, strong and irapressive
evidence appeare of that special spiritual movement
needed to lift the writer into the creative sphere. Then
new meanings to old words, and new verbal compounds

362 The Bible as Literature.
and phrases constructed in such a way as to enrich the
means of religious expression for all tirae, arise as the
more immediate result of inspiration. Nor Avould we
deny, but rather claira and defend, the possibUity of a
" suggestion of words " by the Holy Ghost. For the
words of a writer under a strong spiritual impulse are
born of that impulse as truly as they are the product of
his own previous education and of the culture of the
race to which he belongs. And the source of such an
impulse is fitly regarded as the source also of the lan
guage in which the impulse finds its expression.

CHAPTER xn.

THE OAJJOS' AND THE TEXT.

Of all the subordinate questions connected with the
main inquiry. What is the Bible ? no othere are so im
portant as those that concern the formation of the Canon.
Little inforraation or reflection Is necessary to confirm
this remark. For the Bible, although we are wont to
regard it as one book, is in reahty a collection of writ
ing of a widely diveree origin, with very different
characteristics and degrees of value. "What pereons or
powere regulated the hmits fixed to this coUection, and
upon what principles of selection was the coUection
made ? The separate writings, considered by themselves
and apart from the relations which they sustain to each
other within the canon of sacred Scripture, do not con
stitute the Bible at aU. The existence of a larger or
smaller number of compositions by insphed pei-sons
does not, of itself, explain the existence of the
Bible. For it is not one writing, but many, — a coUec-
tityn of writings. As a coUection it can claira no infalli
bility or authority which is not dependent upon the
authority by which the coUection came to be made.
The very term " a canon of sacred Scripture " imphcs
that some selection has been made upon grounds of fit
ness, and that certain writings are fit and others not fit
to enter into the collection. The question therefore
(363)

364 The Canon and the Text.
arises as to what authority shall determine this fitness.
In order to have an infallible Bible, this authority must
be Infallible.
There is no escape frora the arguraent which con
nects the Inspiration of the Church with the inspiration
of the Bible. If the Church was not Inspired In the
making and llraiting of the collection of sacred wiitings,
then we have no sufficient guarantee for the inspiration
of the collection. Indeed, the fallacy of the position
assumed by that forra of dogmatism which we have
characterized as ^os^Reformatlon is most patent and
distressing. After denying the infaUibility of the in
spiration of the Church catholic, even when acting In
that organic way which was believed to have the prom
ise of divine guidance, these dogmatists had recourse
to the theory of an infalUble Bible. This infallibility
of the Bible they understood very differently from the
earlier and greater theologians of the Reformation. It
seeraed to them insufficient that the Word of God —
meaning the trath of the Gospel as brought to men by
Christ and His apostles — should be regarded as the sure
and unfailing type and test of right Christian doctrine
and practice. The ^os^-Ref or mation theory demanded
an infallibility of the letter of the entire canon through
out. Not a wrong jot or tittle, not a single error in his
tory, geography, date, genealogy, or even gramraar and
spelling, was to be adraitted within the awful precincts
of words dictated by the Holy Ghost.
But who originally detected the qualities of infal
lible inspiration in the particular circle of religious
writings which constitutes the Bible, so that Esther,

The Church Inspired. 365
and not Firat Maccabees, the Epistle of Jude and not
the Epistle of Clement, were received within this circle 1
The only possible answ-er to such a question is the
foUo-wing : this work was accomplished by the Church
of God, by the Jewish Church under the old dispensa
tion and the Christian Church under the new, through
the providential guidance and direction of the Divine
Spirit. But If aU the writings within the Bible, and no
others, are regarded as Infallibly inspired, what escape
is there from the conclusion that the authority which
constituted the Bible is itself InfalUbly inspired i Now,
this is to say that the Church is infallibly inspired. In
this way did the ^os^Reformation theory of sacred
Scripture lead men into the same error which it under
took to supplant.
No one, therefore, can intelligently believe in the in
spiration of the Bible who does not also beheve in the
inspiration of the Church. In fact, it is the inspiration
of the Church which tests and guarantees the inspiration
of the Bible. It is vain to attempt to deny this. The
plain historical fact remains unshaken. That collection
of sacred writings which we call the Bible came into ex
istence, as a whole composed of many parts, in no other
way than through the action of the hving Church of
God, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost.
The question of the biblical canon is for us, un
doubtedly, a question of historical criticism. To be
sure, we can never absolutely deny the right of the
Christian Church, on new evidence or on a better un
derstanding of old evidence, to revise the canon.
Nevertheless, the primary inqmiies are historical and

366 The Canon and the Text.
critical. Such of them as we shaU now consider may be
put In the following form : What was originally meant
by a " Canon of sacred Scriptures," and what are we to
understand by the terra % ¦ How did the Church come to
form the canon in the shape In which it is now cus
tomarily regarded as being fixed and closed ? What
light do the answers to the preceding two questions
throw upon our main inquiry as to the origin and
nature of the Bible ?
The question, what was meant by a " Canon of sa
cred Scripture," is, of course, an historical question.
It is impossible to answer it in any other way than
by an exaraination of history. But even in this way
its answer is not easy. If is certain, however, that
neither the Jewish nor the Christian Church ever in
tended to set apart a definite circle of writings as totally
unlike all others, with respect to their relation to the
divine work of revelation or inspiration. Nor did
they intend to teach, by " canonizing " certain books,
that these books were all of like inspiration, authority,
or value. In other words, whatever conception of a
" Canon " raay have been reached by the early Church,
in the midst of whose life and experience the accepted
canon received its shaping, this conception was very
different frora that prevalent araong uninformed Chris
tians in the present day.
The original and literal meaning of the word
" Canon " is, that which, being itself straight, serves to
measure or keep straight something else. From this
meaning It is but an easy and natural step to the meta
phorical meaning, — that winch furnishes a norm, rule,

Meaning of the terin "Canon." 367
or model of proportion or excellence.* The words
" canonized " and " canonical," as applied to the Scrip
tures, are repeatedly found in the Latin translation of
the wi-Itings of Origen. Similar terms, such as " the
Rule of the Church," the •' Rule of Trath," the " Rule
of Faith," occur in the works of the Chureh Fathere
from the time of Irenaeus onward, especially in their
controversies with the heretics. But the earhest known
use of the word " canonical," in opposition to uncanon-
ical or apocryphal, probably occure in the Festal Epistle
of Athanasius (365 a.d.).
It is only in the fifth century that we reach the more
strictly dogmatic conception of the Bible as itself con
stituting a measure of Christian truth ; and this is in a
way very different from that employed by the theory to
which we have referred with disapprobation so often.
For in this early usage, the words " canon," " canon
ical," and " canonized," as applied to Scripture, are
almost always, if not quite without exception, employed
in the passive meaning. That is to say, the canonical
writings are not regarded as those which give the law
to the teaching of the Church, but as those which have
themselves been ratified by the teaching of the Church.
" The Canon " is that collection of writings which has
actuaUy been canonized by the decision of the living
and inspired body of believera.
We obtain further information regarding the early
conception of the Canon by considering the term
"Apocrypha," with which the canonical writings came
*D. a S., i.,p, 6361

368 The Canon and the Text.

to be contrasted,* This term, when applied to literary
compositions, signified either those which contain some
thing hidden and raysterlous or those whose origin Is
itself hidden. The public use of such writings might
be forbidden, either because they were not highly
enough esteemed, or because their contents were re
garded as too sacred on account of their esoteric char
acter. It was the attempt to dress over the thoughts
and facts of the Old Testament in the philosophy and
language of Greece, which gave rise to the apocryphal
literature of the Alexandrine Jews.
But our attention has already been called to the fact
that the Chureh Fathers theraselves regarded at least
sorae of these apocryphal writings as inspired, fre
quently cited them as sacred Scripture, and on some
occasions placed them quite on a level in this regard
with certain of the Old-Testaraent canonical books.
How indefinite for some centuries was the limit around
the so-called " Canon," we shall see later on. Indeed,
there was a divided tradition among the Jews them
selves as to the Umits of canonical Hebrew Scripture,
and the Christian Church inherited this divided tradi
tion. One canon of a stricter sort was favored by the
connection of the Church with Hebrew sources and
with the Palestinian Jews, another by the looser usage
of the Alexandrine Jews and the common use of the
Septuagint version.
Accordingly, the appeal was raade to tradition when
the inquiry arose as to what are the canonical Scriptures
of the Old Testament ; but the answer given to the ap-
»D. 8, 8,, i., p. 6381

The Early Views Diverge-nt. 369
peal became itself a new element in the growing tra
dition. In the case of the New Testament also the ap
peal was made to the same principle of tradition. This
appeal, in its earhest form, was taken to the custom of
the apostolic churches ; it was afterward submitted to
the declarations of the bishops as possessore of the trae
Christian consciousness ; still later it was made to the de
cision of councils. But the result of all these appeals
did not establish, and indeed it has not to this day
established, a perfect uniformity of judgment, either as
to the limits of the canon as a whole, or as to what are
the vahd and useful distinctions to be made araong the
different books.
On the first of these two points (the Hmits of the
canon) the West and the East reached somewhat diver
gent points of view. The West, largely through Augus
tine's influence, obtained a synodal recognition of aU the
hooks read publicly in the churches, — that is, of the
" Canon " in the wider sense ; but the East was more
inehned to exclude altogether the books now called
apocryphal, although Jerome and Athanasius stood on
middle ground. On the second point the result of the
whole appeal to tradition was to establish a distinction
of classes even among the books admitted to the canon ;
some books were to be regarded as chief sources for
establishing doctrine, othere as only useful for the Chris
tian life.
This, then, is what the Christian Church came to un
derstand by the " Canon of sacred Scripture " (the Bible) :
A coUection of writings {presumably authentic and
inspired) which ihe body of believers in paM Ume have

370 The Canon and the Text.
judged to be of authority in teaching Christian doc
trine and useful in building up ihe Christian life.
But that all these writings are of like authority in de-
terrainlng doctrine or of like usefulness in guiding the
life, is precisely what the Church did not hold and
teach. The history of the process of the formation of the
canon is a long one, and many points in it are still ob
scure; nor will the obscure points ever, in all proba
bility, be cleared up. A very brief sketch of some of
the principal features of this history is all that can now
be attempted. It is especially true of the Old Testa
ment that no amount of critical and historical study will
ever enable the world of scholars to tell In detail how
its canon carae to be forraed. The traditions of the
Jews on this subject are raade up of untrustworthy
stories and rayths. For example, the statement that
Ezra and the men of the so-called " great synagogue "
constituted' the canon is an hypothesis found in a Jew
ish writing as late as the sixteenth century after Chiist,
which rests on a misunderstanding of certain earlier
rabbinical writings. One of the apocryphal writings
of the Old Testament (4 Ezra xiv.) tells how Ezra was
so inspired that he could restore the sacred writings
which had perished at the burning of the temple by the
Chaldseans ; the story is of interest only as a legend.
There are, however, certain scattered indications in
the Old Testament itself which may be put together as.
an aid to sorae understanding of the process by which
the work of collecting its writings went on. The be
ginning of the formation of a canon of sacred Hebrew

Earliest Canonical Writings. 371
Scriptures seems to have been raade when the record of
the covenant between Jehovah and the people of Israel
was preserved. As -writings laid away before Jehovah
we find mentioned the Book of the Covenant,* the nar
rative written by Joshua of the renewal of the covenant
at Shechem,t and the writing by Samuel containing the
fundamental law of the kingdom. :|: But we do not
reach any full recognition of any writing as a canonical
Scripture untU the institution of Deuteronomy, accord
ing to the narrative of 2 Kings (xxii., xxiii.). This
event took place in the eighteenth year of Josiah, 621
B.C. The codifying of the Law contained in this writ
ing has fitly been called " the decisive step by which
Scripture came into the place of oral tradition, and the
people of the spoken word became a people of the
book." The -writings of the Old Testaraent theraselves bear
-witness to the fact that other Hebrew writings had been
highly esteemed, and had therefore been preserved be
fore the canonization of any of the Old-Testament books
took place.§ For example, in the Pentateuch we find
reference to the " Book of Origins," the '• Book of the
Wars of Jehovah," and the " Book of Jashar.'' Out
side of the Pentateuch we also find notices of ancient
works ; such are this same Book of Jashar (see 2 Sam.
i. 13), and cei-tain works of the royal historiographers,
like the Book of the History of Solomon, the Book of
the Kings of Judah and of the Kings of Israel. If the
question is raised, Why did the later Jews so esteem
*Deut. xxxi. 9, 26, and xviL 18. \ Josh. xxiv. 25, 26.
% 1 Sam. X. 25. § D. S. S., L, p. 6451

372 The Cation and the \ Text.
these earlier writings ? the general reply must be, that
they regarded them as theocratic literature. It Is on
this ground, too, that the writings of the Old Testament,
as a whole, were regarded sacred ; they were the records
of the messages of the Lord to, and the dealings of
the Lord with, the nation Israel, under the covenant
which He had made with their ancestors. But the claim
to a place in this theocratic literature differed very
greatly for the different writings. Indeed, it was (as
we shall see) for a long time doubtful whether certain
of the later writings, now found in the Llebrew Bible,
could have their claim admitted at all.
The Pentateuch, as a whole, cannot be spoken of as
canonized until it was made the sacred book of the na
tion for public religious reading by the action recorded
in Nehemiah (viii.-x.). According to Ezra (vll. 6, 10 f.),
it had first been brought to Jerusalem in the seventh
year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, 458 B.C. Thus the
writings of Mosaism became the sacred and authoritative
source of the national law. It was this canonizing of
the written Law which had been so raany centuries in
reaching the shape it then had, after the return from
the Exile, that formed the nucleus for the entire
" Canon of the Old-Testament Scriptures." It Is for this
reason that we find the entire collection of the sacred
writings of Israel early called by the term, " the Law." *
Before the Exile, however, there existed a somewhat
indefinite collection of prophetic writings that had
precisely the same value which would have been at
tached to the oral utterances of any one regarded as a
* In the apocryphal -writing, 4 Ezra xiv; 31, D, S. 8,, i,, p, 645,

The Law and the Prophets. 373
true prophet. But it was only after the Exile, and by
a process of spreading the canonizing of the Law over
the Prophets (as it were), that the more precise estimate
of these writings as canonical arose. The different
steps of the process cannot be accurately traced. But
the activity of canonizing the ancient theocratic litera
ture did not close with Ezra ; on the contrary, it went
on for several centuries. The first direct witness to
its having ah-eady taken place is found In the later time
of the Greek wiitings among the Jews. The decay of
Hebrew, and its tendency to faU Into the position of an
occult sacred language, and the consequent cessation of
the production of theocratic literature In that language,
undoubtedly helped on this process. But the freshness
and productive activity of the earlier theocratic spirit
were also gone ; the days of the great inspired civil and
religious leaders and authors of the nation were over.
The fact that the term, " the Law and the Prophets,"
was regularly used to designate, the entire Hebrew
Bible- shows how late was the canonizing of those writ
ings (not legal o.r early prophetic) which are called the
" Hagiographa." We have already seen that this third
portion of the canon was considered by the Jews them
selves far inferior, in respect to its inspiration and au
thority, to the other two portions. But the Psalms
constituted the earliest and most firmly fixed writings
of this third portion. It seems. Indeed, to be indicated
by 1 Chron. xvi. 36, that the Psalter, as divided into five
parts, was thus early used by the people in religious
worship. A canon of the Psalms may have been in
existence before the canon of the Old Testament as a

374 The Canon and the Text,
whole was even begun. But the canon of the Psalms
was not definitely closed until much later ; it was ap
parently opened repeatedly, even as late as the Macca-
bean era to receive new psalras. Inspired hymns, that
raight be profitably used in the worship of Jehovah,
were thus araong the first and the last of the canonical
theocratic literature of Israel.
The last step in completing the canon of sacred
Hebrew writings consisted in selecting, frora a ralscel-
laneous group of works — poetic, prophetic, historical,
didactic — certain individual compositions which are now
coraprlsed in the Old Testaraent. These coraposltions
were justly considered inferior to the earlier works;
yet they were thought worthy of preservation in Is
rael's theocratic literature. They were called " the
writings "; and the very name shows how Indefinite
was the nature of their contents. Philo speaks of this
third part of the Hebrew Bible as " Praises to God
(psalms) and other writings^ In it were included
Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Ruth, -VEhich,
on account of their late origin and inferior character,
could not be placed with the earlier historical books
araong the so-caUed " former Prophets." For the same
reason these collectors of the canon gave Daniel the
position It has instead of placing it among the " Proph
ets" in the most special sense of the word.
There was a particularly long dispute over the canon
izing of Esther, the Song of Solomon, and Eccle
siastes. The Je\vish rabbis felt objections to these
writings sImUar to those felt by many in the present
day. This dispute was not wholly settled even at the

Doubtful Old-Testament Books. 375
beginning of the third century after Christ. At that
time some teachere rejected Ecclesiastes as a profane
writing, and some questioned Its canonical position.
Othere wished also to exclude Esther from the canon.
The influence of this decision is apparent in the Chris
tian Church : Athanasius the Great denies the canon
icity of Esther, and Melito of Sardis does not enumer
ate it among the books deemed canonical. One school
of rabbis refused to put Solomon's Song on a level
¦with other Scriptures ; " it defileth not the hands," said
they, — that is, it is not holy writing.
It is very difficult to teU why certain writings now
classed among the apocryphal books of the Old Tes
tament were not also canonized. Indeed, it is probable
that no one rule governed the selection made among
these later writings. Probably the existence of an
original Hebrew text of any composition operated as
strongly as any consideration. The Apocrypha were,
for the most part, excluded from the canon by the
Palestinian Jews, not because they were not deemed
equaUy inspired with such later writings as were ad
mitted, but because no copies of them existed in the
sacred language of the genuine theocratic hterature of
the nation.
The " Canon of the Old Testament," therefore, was not
fijsed and declared at any one time or by any one man or
association of men, or npon any well-defined grounds of
judgment. It grew up under providential influences,
which left it at the very last moment, when it came
into the hands of the Christian Church, stiU somewhat
indefinite and without exact hmits. Israel had acquired.

376 The Canon and the Text.
as a result of the process of divine self-revelation and
inspiration which continued through the centuries of
its history, a large body of theocratic literature. By the
sarae Spirit who had given this literature the nation was
led to collect and preserve a certain circle of its ancient
writings. Some of the writings, especially those of the
Law and of the earlier prophets, had, from the firet, a
relatively clear claim to a place within this circle. The
reasons why other writings were admitted within It are
not so clear ; but it is certain that the framers of the
Old-Testament Canon never intended to place the later
and more doubtful wiitings on a par with the earlier
works. The foregoing view of the formation of the Old-
Testament Canon is confirmed by the notices of the
subject derived frora three Jewish writers before Chiist.
These are Jesus Sirach, the unkno-wn author of Second
Maccabees, and Josephus,* The first of these three
makes pretensions to prophetic and canonical signifi
cance for his own work ; the second speaks of Nehemiah
as having " founded a library and collected the writings
of the kings and prophets, and those of David, and let
ters of kings concerning votive offerings.'^ The phrase,
" letters concerning votive offerings," seeras to refer to
those missives of the Persian kings, which gave permis
sion to build the temple, as though they were sacred aud
canonical Scripture ; that is, these letters belong to the
theocratic literatm-e of Israel.
Josephus' testimony is only valuable as that of a
learned Jew of the first century after Christ; it cer-
*D, a a, i., p, 651.

The Canon of Josephus. 2i77
tainly would not have commanded the assent of all the
leamed Jews of Palestine, much less of the Alexandrine
teachers. He gives the number of books at twenty-two
— the number of lettere in the sacred Hebrew alphabet.
He adopts, of course, the customary three-fold division.
These are the five books of Moses, the thirteen Prophets,
and the four Hagiographa. It Is doubtful what writ
ings he would include in the last four; whether he
would number (1) Psalms, (2) Proverbs, (3) Solomon's
Song, (4) Ecclesiastes ; or, (1) Psalms, (2) Job, (3) Prov
erbs and Solomon's Song, (4) Ecclesiastes.
On turning from the Old Testament to the New, we
are able to employ a somewhat different method of in-
vesti'gation for determining the nature of that historical
process which resulted in forming its collection of
canonical writings. In the case of the Old Testament
the evidence is almost entirely derived fi-om internal
criticism : the Jewish tradition as to the formation of
the Old-Testament Canon Is composed of myth and
legend. But in the case of the New Testament, although
there is little direct evidence which reaches back into
the first century, we are able to trace the larger and
more distinct outlines of the path by which the Church
reached in the foUowing centuries a substantial unan
imity iu its decision.
It is obvious that the fixing of the New-Testament
Canon did not take place through the independent criti
cism of individual scholare. The opinions of influential
individuals like Jerome and Augustine, for example,
greatiy helped on the settlement of the debated ques
tions; but these opinions thenaselves were often only

378 The Canon and, the Text.
the results of judgments previously reached by the un
critical moral and religious instinct of the churches at
large. Providence decided the matter by a verdict
gradually formed under the spiritual guidance promised
to the body of believers. At first the voice of this body
was declared through the large central churches ; after
ward, what the bishops thought and said was of great
account ; still later, acts of council' undertook to settle
the matter. But after all it was generally understood
that these affirmations were only of the nature of wit
nesses to what the Church had already come to hold
about the canonical Christian writings — how, and on
what grounds, it was neither necessary to inquire nor
easy to determine.
Three tolerably well-marked steps in the historical
process of forming the New-Testament Canon need to
be distinguished, and three periods during which the
Church was advancing by these steps. The firat of these
periods carae to a close soon after the ralddle of the
second century. This period was occupied in grasping
the idea that Christian believers had a body of sacred
writings from apostolic sources which were to be placed
in sorae sort upon the same plane for purposes of pub
lic religious instruction 'with the Scriptures of the Old
Testament. By the close of the period this idea was
applied by common consent of the churches to ail but
seven of the New-Testament books. The question
in debate during this time was not the canonicity but
the genuineness of the separate writings.
The second period of the forraatlon of the New-
Testaraent Canon extends from toward the close of the

The Books of Second Rajtk. 379
second until toward the close of the fourth centui-y.
During this period the Chureh catholic was taking its
position over against the various sects and heresies with
which it had to contend. This made it essential that
the Uiults of its sacred Scriptures should be more defi
nitely fixed than they had hitherto been. The question
of the canon became practically determined by receiv
ing into it all the books of the present New Testament.
Tet it was underetood that the seven doubtful books
were not received into the canon as being of the same
rank with the othera, and that they were not to be used
as authoritative sources of apostolic doctrine. To this
class of books holding the second rank belong Second
Peter, Second and Third John, James, Jude, and, with
less unanimity of testimony, Hebrews and the Apoca
lypse. During the third period from the close of the
fourth century onward, no change in the limits of the
New-Testament Canon appeara ; but the distinction of
its books into two classes becomes, in a large degree,
practically lost.
From the very nature of the case, we cannot expect
to find any distinct recognition of the canonical au
thority of the New-Testament wiitings In the earliest
of the three periods. The very idea of a New-Testa
ment Canon was itself in process of formation. At
first the consciousness of a vital connection with the
instruction and practice of the Apostles of our Lord
satisfied the churches which had listened to their preach
ing or that of their helpere, or which had received
epistles from them. These epistles were doubtless read
pubhcly to the Christian congregations to whom they

380 The Canon and the Text.
were addressed ; but such reading was probably uot at
all regular. There was no thought of putting them on
a level with the sacred Hebrew Scriptures, the public
reading of which the Christian congregations seem to
have transferred from the Jewish synagogues to their
own asserablies.
The way in which Clement of Rome and the Igna
tian Epistles speak of these letters* from the apostles
to the churches shows that they were originally received
by the churches as they were indited by their authors,
— that is, simply as affectionate addresses from those
whom the Lord hiraself had deeraed raost worthy of
this work. Since these letters were in sorae instances
designed for more than one church, and were in aU
cases adapted for the building-up of the common
Christian faith, and since they were coraposed by
teachers so revered and trusted, copies of them were
multipUed and spread among the early Christian com
munities. In the meantirae, certain other writings
that carae either directly or indirectly from the same
apostolic sources were slowly making their way accord
ing to the customary raethods of the time.
Before the middle of the second century we find
scattered traces of the existence of the separate New-
Testaraent writings, and of the esteem in which they
were held as fit for public reading in the churches.
But this is far from proving the existence of anything
like a New-Testament Canon. For the writings that
were regarded as inspired and profitable .for public
reading did not all by any means attain a place in the
*D. 8. a, i., p. 6551

Canonizing of the Gospels. 381
Canon.* For example, the " Shepherd of Hennas "
was used somewhat -widely for public reading in the
churches ; the " Epistle of Clement " is declared to have
been read of old in most of the churches; it is re
ported of the " Epistle of Soter " that it was read by
the Corinthians on the holy Lord's day as they had
read the earher epistle written to them by Clement;
the same distinction was in some places given to the
" Apocalypse of Peter."
During all this period, then, the principal work of
Christian scholarehip consists in showing that these
New-Testament -^^ritings were in existence as separate
writings, and that they were written by the persons to
whose names they are assigned ; or else that they have
other marks of being authentic apostohc instraction
(at first or second hand) regarding the nature of true
Christianity and the practice of the true Christian life.
Intothe evidence for the existence and authenticity of
the New-Testament writings daring this earhest period
we cannot enter in detaU. Let it suffice to state the
foUowing conclusions : At the close of the second cen
tury the present four Gospels were received as the
genuine and sole canonical Gospels, — ^aU other claim
ants to a similar position having ceased to be regarded
as rivals of th^e four, by common consent of the
churches ; their pubhc reading was widely and firmly
established ; and many copies of them were distributed
throaghout the entire Christian world. They were
continually quoted and appealed to as authoritative
Scripture for the instraction of behevere regarding the
* D. 8. 8., i, p. 656 1

382 The Cation and the Text.
true history of our Lord's teachings and life. The
judgment of the churches was also concordant with re
spect to the Acts, thu-teen epistles of Paul, one epistle
of Peter and one of John, and the Book of Revelation ;
these writings were all regarded as canonical. From
this point onward we are able to consider these undis
puted books of the New Testament as united with the
canonical Hebrew Scriptures to constitute one Bible ac
cepted by the body of Christian believers.
But the unsatisfactory nature of oral tradition and
the need of written sources was, of course, becoming
more apparent as the Church drew faa-ther away in his
tory from Christ and the Apostles. Moreover, the
Chureh was threatened in doctrine and life by many
and troublesome heretical sects. There was increasing
need that the question. What is true Christianity and
what is true for a Christian to believe and right for
him to do ? should receive sorae authoritative answer.
But if the need of an answer to this question was in
creasing, the difficulty of it was increasing also. During
this second period, then, the key to a knowledge of the
historical process by which the canon of the New Tes
taraent was forraed is to be found in this fact: The
process is referable to the overcoming, by the Church
catholic, of an original opposition between Jewish
Christianity and Paulinisra.
It was the union of the two principal tendencies, —
the Jewish-Christian and the Gentile-Christian, which
had earlier run along somewhat separate, — in the one
current of "thought and feeling within a Christian
Church catholic, that raade it possible to establish a

The Books of Second Rank. 3^3
canon of sacred Scripture. The Jewish-Christian tend
ency had softened the sharp contrast which Panl found
it necessaiy to draw between the spirit and the letter ;
the writere of this period, therefore, give more em
phasis to the perfect and permanent character of the
Old-Testament revelation. But this tendency had also
itself so far been softened in its opposition to the GentUe
form of Christianity as to permit the writings of Paul
to be placed upon a level with those of the Old Testa
ment. Thus the recognition of one Bible with two
classes of books, those of the Old Covenant and those
of the New, became possible. This formation of one
biblical canon, to be called by the title of " the Scrip
ture " or " the Scriptures," was in fact completed abont
the close of the second century. Bat at this time there
were stiU certain writings whose position remained
doabtful, and a very plain distinction between those of
the first rank and those of the second rank, among the
New-Testament writings, was stiU observed.
In support of the position that the early Church re
ceived some seven of the New-Testament writings into
the Canon, only on the nnderatanding that they were
inferior in rank to the othere, and were not to be nsed
for the estabUshment of doctrine with the authority of
the apostohc teaching, a large number of witnesses
might be cited throaghout the entire second period.
Of this number we need mention only two or three.
Origen found the Epistie to the Hebrews to be a mat
ter of strife in his day ; Second Peter and Second and
Third John he looked upon as disputed. The ancient
canon of the Syrian tr^islation, the Feshito, does not

384 The Canon and the Text.
contain the Apocalypse, Jude, Second Peter, and
Second and Third John ; but the earliest form of the Old
Latin version probably contained all the present books
except Hebrews, Second Peter, and Jaraes. Eusebius
(t 340) enumerates araong the " Antilegoraena," or
doubtful and disputed books, Jaraes, Jude, Second
Peter, Second and Third John. The Apocalypse he
puts, only with hesitation, araong the books generaUy
recognized ; elsewhere he places Hebrews with certain
spurious and uncanonical writings like the Acts of Paul,
the Shepherd of Hermas, etc.
All through this period there was a similar vacillation
of views as to the way in which the Old-Testament
Apocrypha should be regarded. Toward Its close one
Church Father (Epiphanius, f 403) raentions twenty-
seven books of canonical Hebrew Scriptures, although
enuraerating them as twenty-two. Jeremiah appears as
including, not Lamentations, bnt the apocryphal epistle
bearing that name, and the apocryphal Book of Baruch.
The list of Hebrew sacred books preceding the " Alex
andrine manuscript" Includes Judith, Tobit, Maccabees,
Sirach, the Wisdora of Solomon, and First and Second
Ezra. The two names which had most weight in this process
of fixing the canon during this period, aud so for sub
sequent ages, were undoubtedly Jerome and Augustine.
The view of the former as to the Old Testament is
neither independent nor consistent with Itself. In one
place he utters a lively warning against the Apocry
pha; in another he seeras to concede the benefit of
reading certain of these books, in deference to their

Influence of Augustine. 385
wide-spread existence and to the fact that he had found
some of them in Hebrew. He Is also inconsistent as to
the doubtful books of the New Testament. He says
of Hebrews that it is placed by many outside of the
PauUne Epistles, and even that the custom of the Latin
churches does not receive it as canonical. Some of the
churches of the Greeks take the same hberty with the
Apocalypse. Jade, he says, is stIU rejected by many ;
Second and Third John have been ascribed to a. pres
byter of that name. Some reject the Second Epistle of
Peter. The influence of Augustine was probably greater
than that of any other one man in pattuig to rest the
agitated questions of the Canon of sacred Scripture.
This influence was, on the whole, pernicious. Augus
tine * would have everything settled by the principle
of the authority of tradition ; but the fa-aditi'on was not
uniform, and could not honestly be made so to appear.
It was the necessities of a more strictly theological use
of the Bible in the fight of the Church against her
enemies which decided all questions of the Canon with
this Church Father. In this way he took into the Canon
a number of spurious and relatively worthless books. In
his opinion the two apocryphal Books of Wisdom de
served to be considered as genuine prophetic and au
thoritative writings. His infiuence was very strong at
the Synod of Hippo (393 a.d.). This synod enumerates
as canonical ^e Books of Solomon, two of Maccabees,
two of Ezra, and Tobit, and Judith.
From about this time onward for centuries an nnhis
*D. a a, i., p. 6741

386 The Canon and the Text.
torical and unscrupulous spirit held almost unbroken
sway. The question of the Canon and the question what
is true biblical teaching, carae to be determined by an
irrational appeal to the dogmas of the Cliurcb Fathera,
'without any sincere and thorough attempt to Investi
gate the grounds of a trae answer to either of these
questions. Yet occasional signs of raore critical and
discriminating views are not wholly wanting; for the
influence of the great Church Father Jerome was rather
favorable to sorae critical insight. The distinction be
tween the raost strictly canonical books of the Old
Testament and the Old-Testament Apocrypha is not in
frequently met with ; and so is the sentiraent that the
latter are not to be used to establish doctrine. One
author of the sixth century proposes the remarkable
division of the Scriptures into three classes, — books of
perfect authority, books of medium authority, and books
of no authority. In the latter class he places the Song
of Solomon. Indeed, it must be said of this writing
that it would never have attained a place in the Canon
at all, had it not been for the help of a fanciful and
unwarrantable allegorical interpretation. The doubts
as to the New-Testament Antilegoraena are also some
times referred to during this long period.
It was the indirect influence of the study of the
classics which largely aided in reviving an interest in
the study of the canon of sacred Scripture. The prin
ciple of the Reformation, which looked to the Bible as
the sole authoritative source of teaching concerning
what is true Christianity, operated' powerfully in the
same direction. It is well known how free were Lu-

Views of the Reformation. 387
ther's views on this subject.* We have seen how con-
temptaoosly even he sometimes treated certain of the
canonical writings. He placed Hebrews, James, Jude,
and Revelation at the end of the New Testament, and
spoke of them as entitled to a lower consideration
than " the right genuine and chief books." The firet
of these four he esteemed as the work of a worthy and
learned man, a disciple of Paul ; it has wood, hay, and
straw in it,' as weU as gold and silver. Jade is a kind
of transcript of Peter's epistle and is not needed to lay
the foundations of faith. Luther did not consider the
Book of Eevelation to be the work of an apostle, and
placed it in the lowest rank of prophetic writing, on a
par with dreams and other such means of knowing the
future. Melanchthon's judgment was 'rimilar to Lu
ther's, but taore mUdly expressed. Carlstadt divided
tiie writing of the Bible into three grades.
Calvin did not recognize grades in canonicity. He
did not, however, consider Hebrews to be the work of
Paul, nor Second Peter to be the work of the apostle ;
he passed over in silence the questions of the canonic
ity of the Apocalypse and Second and Third John.
The Reformere generally considered the Apocrypha
nsefal, bnt not of authority in doctrine ; this is the posi
tion of various great reformed Creeds and Confessions
of faith. It is the only position in whieh the view of
the Eeformation made any improvement npon the view
of Roman Cathohcism with respect to the canon of
sacred Scripture. Or rather, in this view the Protest
ants succeeded to the view of the Church inthe past ;
*D. a a, I, p. 6781

388 The Canon and the Text'.
while Roman Cathohcism went on to take a new and
false position. For the Council of Trent anathema
tized aU who did not receive aU the books contained in
the Latin translation of the Bible, in the same form
and the same contents in which they existed therein.
It thus contradicted the voice of the Church itself by
placing the Apocrypha upon a par with the other books
of the Bible.*
During the period which we have characterized as
^os^Reformation, when the reign of an irrational and
unscriptural theological dogmatism was most nearly
supreme in the Protestant churches, the principle of
tradition in its worst form again controlled the ques
tion, of the Canon. But now, alas 1 the tradition was
divided. The Protestant view, formed -with an utter
disregard of all the history of early Christianity and of
the clearly expressed opinions of raany of the great
Reformers, levelled up all the biblical books to meet the
lofty demands of complete fidelity to dogma. It thus
-\-irtually contradicted an important trath of Protestant
ism, which requires that aU parts of sacred Scripture
shall be considered in the hght of the central doctrines
of faith ; or, in other words, that the canon shall be
forraed, and the different books assigned their place
and degree of value and authority, " Christo-c&nt/rio-
aOy:' The Eoman Catholics, with an equal disregard of
the meaning of history and the real trath in the case,
decreed that all should be levelled down, so as to throw
around them the wall of a churchly infaUibihty. Both
* D. a a, i., p. 680.

In the Eighteenth Century. 389
parties deified as '' infalUble " somewhat else than Christ,
who is alone the infaUible source of our Christian
knowledge of God as the Redeemer of mankind. For
Him alone should the title " Word of God," in the
highest sense, be reserved. But this ^si-RefOrmation
dogma attempted to identify the Word of God and the
canonical writings of the Old and New Testaments
throaghout. During the sixteenth century occasional prominent
advocates of a truer and more historical and scriptaral
view appear. Such dissenting views were almost en
tirely repressed, however, in the seventeenth century ;
and the question of the canon .was made a question,
not of historical truth, but of dogmatic opinion. Then
to distingoish grades in the sacred writings (as the Bible
itself virtually does, and as the Jewish and Christian
Church had done in forming the canon) became a
deadly heresy. Finally, the regiiant theology did not
hesitate to make the false and mischievous statement,
that history shows no dispute as to the equal authorily
of the bibhcal books !
The sceptical spirit of the eighteenth century, often
in a coarse, and almost always in an ignorant and nn-
critieal, way, attacked with bold assertion the orthodox
view of the canon. Some of the Enghsh Deists re
garded almost the entire Old Testament as nngenuine ;
othera were ready indefinitely to enlarge the circle of
canonical writings. Truer views of history and more
candid recognition of the real facts of the case began to
spread abroad toward the close of the last century. The
researches of the present centdry have much enlaiged

390 The Canon and the Text.
the number of interests and of inquiries concerned in
any well-considered view of the canon. For those who
believe in the truths of Christianity, and who examine
with thorough critical zeal and yet with devout candor,
the history of that process by whieh the total coUection
of writings deeraed sacred by the Christian Church has
corae to its present form, the results of these researches
may be stated some-^^hat as follows.
1. The history of that process through which the Chris
tian Church has obtained its present collection of sacred
writings — the Bible as we now have it — warrants a
belief in the guidance of the Church by the Holy
Spirit. With certain plain limitations of our meaning,
we may speak of the " Canon of the Old and New Tes
taments " as inspired. Such a stateraent, however, does
not iraply the infaUibility of the details of the process
of selecting and combining the separate books. For
here, as everywhere else, and once for all (if that were
possible), raust we raake the distinction between "in
spiration " and " infallibUity." The process of forraing
the canon of sacred Scripture has been sirailar to that
in which God's Spirit has brought about all great moral
and spiritual growths in the body of believers. The
general result has been that the Church has a perfectly
unique collection of religious books which have come
to be united as one into a volume caUed the Book, the
Bible. 2. But all canonical Scripture has not the same
value, degree, and kind of inspiration, degree and kind
of usefulness, doctrinal authority, or even claim to the
titie of canonicity. The history of the canon not only

The Witness of Experience. 391
permits, but it requires, that we shonld make distinc
tions among the books of sacred Scripture. The actual
process of forming the canon, both of the Old Testa
ment by the Jewish Church and of the New Testaraent
by the Christian Church, was based upon such making
of distinctions. It was only as confessedly of a lower
grade and without authority ii^ determining what is
essential to Christian doctrine, that certain of the^ew-
Testament writings even fonnd their way into the
circuit of canonical Scripture. The claim of the great
body of writings in both Testaments to a place in
canonical Scripture, to a place in the Bible, has indeed
been almost uniformly recognized by the Church. Bnt,
in both Testaments, some writings have been aUowed
to enter only after a contest; and then to a position
which was not of an acknowledged first rank.
It does not follow, however, that the Christian
Church of to-day mast make exactly the same distinc
tions as those made, for example, by the Jewish rabbis
in the days of Ezra and afterward. Those rabbis may
have thought the books ascribed to Moses so much
more sacred than the Psalms that the manuscript-rolls
of the two should not be aUowed to come into contact.
But Christian experience relatively exalts the Psalms.
The rabbis refused to place Daniel on a par with Eze
kiel ; but we,_ without caring so mnch for the grounds
of their decision, do not forget that the former is he
who has that vision of the coming "Son of man,"
which Christ appropriates to Himself. In the rela
tively low estimate which they took of the later writ
ings of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Ruth, we find

392 The Canon and the Text,
good grounds for sympathizing with them. We can
see why they hesitated about receiving Esther, the Song
of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes, to the canon ; and spoke
disparagingly of them after they were received.
When we understand thoroughly the attitude in
which the early Church found itself in the third and
fourth centuries toward its own sacred hterature of
a Christian origin, we' can but adraire the spiritual in
sight which this attitude implies, although such insight
was not mixed with critical skill. Indeed, we can say,
alraost without any qualifications whatever, that we
receive the holy Scriptures of the New Testament as
the Christian Church which stood nearest to Christ and
to the aposties received these same Scriptures. Our
assent to the doctrine of sacred Scripture is thus catho
lic, in the best sense of the word.
But from the narrow, polemical, and ignorant dog
matism of that view to which the ^o«^Eeformation
Protestant sects came, when they had departed from
the spirit of early Christianity and of the earlier and
great reformers, we dissent most emphaticaUy. We
find its doctrine of the canon contrary to Scripture,
contrary to the teaching of Christ and the apostles,
contrary to the voice of the early Church, and contrary
to the witness of the Holy Ghost in the minds and con
sciences of aU believers. And so far as the remnants
and dregs of this dogma are stiU to be found in the tra
ditional way of answering the question, "Wliat is the
Bible ? we appeal from this traditional way to Chiist,
to the Church catholic, and to enlightened Christian
judgment and feeling.

The Bible as a Whole. 393
3. We are, therefore, compeUed to recognize the
varied uses of the different parts of the Bible, and
their different degrees of value in these uses ; but aU
this is an argument for, rather than against, the divine
origin and nature of the Bible. The Chureh of God
has a varied life, and various needs to be supported in
the development of that life. It is a valuable exercise
for the Church to be caUed upon to criticise and test
the daims of various writings to a position in its canon
of sacred Scripture, and to discriminate the various
uses and values which the different parts of this Scrip-
tare possess. Behevere are not called to the acceptance
once for aU of traditional forms of opinion, but to the
work of discrimination and to growth in maturity of
judgment. 4. The Bible, as a whole, has a cMm to a divine
ori^n and nature which is in a manner beyond the
claims of any of its separate books. "What one member
of the organism leaves nndone, another member may
do. The means for correcting sneh errore of any kind
as lie within the Bible are chiefly furnished by the
Bible itself. The histories of the New Testament, for
example, supplement and correct each other; it is as
taken together and studied in their relations that they
give us the more complete and trae picture of what was
the life and work of the divine pereonahty of whom
they teU.
5. FinaUy, if we seek for some permanent standard
by which to measure aU these parts of sacred Scripture
and so assign them to their place, as respects the valae
and authority of their declarations and teachings, we

394 The Canon and the Text.
may find such a standard in the Bible itself. The
canon of sacred Scripture, like that scheme of divine
revelation of which it furnishes the authentic record, is
Christo-ceniric. Its historical writings are to be con
sidered in relation to that personality who is the centre
of the historical self-revelation of God as the Eedeemer
of man. Its moral and religious teachings are all to be
regarded in the light In which they stand to Him who
is the trath of the redeemed and eternal life among
men. This is as true of all the writings within the
biblical canon as it is of those -without. To be a part
of the Bible does not discharge any book frora its ob
ligations to conform to this standard.
The Text of the Bible was the last and most desper
ate resort of the^os^Eeformation dogma of the infalli
bihty of sacred Scripture. For this dogma necessarily
requires a perfect certainty as to the biblical text. But
an examination of the ancient manuscripts showed that
no infallible text exists. Yet it is plain that, if the
perfect infaUibility of the Bible — ^that is, its absolute
freedom from every.kind of error — is to be of any prac
tical use whatever, this quaUty of infaUibility must be
lodged In some existing text. But the present existence
of such a text being disproved beyond doubt, the dogma
had recourse to the supposition that only the original
manuscripts, as they came frora the hands of their
authors, need be free from every manner of error, in
order that faith may be secure. Now it cannot escape
notice what a strange and perverse form of argument is
here mamtained. It is first said that there can be no

Oldest Hebrew Manuscripts. 395
error in the Bible without endangering the very fonnda-
tions of faith. But at once the question arises, Where
is this Bible which is in every letter and syllable free
from error, and which is God's Word throughout in the
strictest sense of the term ? Surely it does not consist
of either of the existing English translations of the
Bible. If the older English vereion w^as infallible, why
should a new one be proposed % If the revised vereion
is infaUible, why do the so-caUed friends of the Bible
object so vehemently to the changes it has introduced 1
Is it, then, any one of the existing Greek and Hebrew
manuscripts whieh gives to us the infallible Word of
God ? The oldest Hebrew manuscripts are much more
than a thousand yeare distant from their originals, and
demonstrably depart from those originals in many par-
ticulare. And not one of the Greek manuscripts of the
New Testament, since they differ among themselves in
thousands of instances, can claim to stand as the infal
Uble, the perfectly errorless text. It is necessary, then,
to admit that we do not possess and can never recover
the text of this infaUible Bible. It must have been, if
it ever existed at aU, the text of the original Greek and
Hebrew manuscripts. Bat these original texts have
long since perished ; we can never know precisely what
their readings were in respect to innumerable disputed
points. And yet Christian faith stands secure. We are, after
all, then, obliged and able to maintain our faith with
out such a Bible as the ^st-Eeformation dogma states
we are c^Uged to have, in order that faith may be
maintained. K, says the dogma, error be admitted in

396 The Canon and the Text.
Scripture, then our faith, being based on Scripture, will
totter. But the faith we have cannot be based on such
Scripture, since such Scripture has perished once for all
with the original manuscripts. We must, then, build
our faith on a Bible which is confessedly not what the
dogma insists upon as necessary to any secure faith;
and what the dogma insists we must have, we cannot
by any possibility ever obtain.
There is no room for doubt as to the general fact
that numerous variations and corruptions exist in the
present text of the Bible. Holy Scripture has not been
given to raen in the form of diplomatic certainty and in
fallibility. As far back as we can go in the history of
God's Church, it has ever been the same. In giving
some account of the bibUcal text we shall simply men
tion a few points of general interest regarding the
origin and nature of the existing Greek and Hebrew
manuscripts. Hlustration of the subject must be almost
entirely omitted; for illustration implies a critical
knowledge of the minutiae of the Hebrew and Greek
languages. The oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament are, in
part, " Torah-roUs," which were prepared upon parch
ment (and earlier stUl upon leather) ; and which contain
the so-called " Kethib," or standard text of the Penta
teuch, written without vowel-points ; they are also, in
part, codices in book-form, which contain either the
whole or some part of the Old Testament written with
the so-caUed Masoretic punctuation.* Of these manu
scripts the oldest extant are not older than the thirteenth
*D. a a, i, p. 6941

The Masoretic Text. 397

and twelfth centuries after Christ. In the Middle Ages
there were certain copies of the Hebrew Bible which
served as samples of a classic text. This classic text is
one which has been "fixed," not by critical examina
tion and comparis(m of the many variant manuscripts
which it superseded, but by ^ving written expression
to oral tradition and by indulging in much leamed con
jecture. The process of " fixing the text " began after
the completion of the Talmud, in the sixth century of
the Christian era. Hence the condition of the manu
scripts of the Old Testament is unlike that of the manu
scripts of the New Testament. The latter show a great
diversity in detaUs. The former are all made conform
able to one type, which is known to us as the " Mas
oretic." This type was selected by the leamed Jewish
rabbis who "fixed" the text; as a type, it does not go
back farther than the second and subseqaent centuries
after Christ.
The Hebrew manuscripts earher than the Masoretic
text were not panctnated or accented ; that is, the con
sonants were -written down alone and in close connection
with each other. The prononciation of the word% and
in many cases their meaning, so far as dependent upon
the vowels, was a matter of oral tradition. "When this
consonantal text was punctuated in writing, — that is,
when the points whieh indicated the vowels were writ
ten in, — the punctuation had the force of a kind of
traditional commentary. The present or Masoretic
text may be said, then, to reproduce that construction
of the sense of a passage which has prevaUed since the
Christian era. It is not onchangeable, much less infal-

398 The Canon and the Text.
lible. It is plainly fallible in its nature, on account of
the character of its origin ; it is demonstrably wrong in
certain particulars. But it is by far the most valuable
help which we have to an underetanding of what was
the real meaning of the earlier and unpunctuated manu
scripts. We see, then, that our present complete text of the
Old Testament consists of two elements, — namely, the
traditional way of writing the consonants ; and the tra
ditional way of pronouncing the words indicated hy
these consonants, or of reading what was written. To
help him appreciate this difference, the person unlearned
in Hebrew may select a passage from some English
author, print it in capital letters, but without vowels or
punctuation or separation between the words, and then
read it aloud -with the attempt to render its exact mean
ing. We see, also, that the written expression for the
traditional way of reading the vowels into the text was
the result of a complex process which went on during
several centuries, beginning after the close of the Tal
mudic era.
The manuscript authority for our present Hebrew
text, as combined of the two elements described above,
does not go back of the tweKth century after Christ.
The trustworthiness of this text as a whole depends,
therefore, upon the trustworthiness of certain manu
scripts which had only the consonants written, and the
trustworthiness of that oral tradition as to the correct
way of reading these consonants which prevailed In the
Talmudic era.
The difficulties which encompass the effort to get

Translations from the Hebrew. 399
back to the original manuscripts of the sacred writere
of the Old Testament, are as yet only just entered upon
when we have reached the beginning of the Talmudic
era. Scholare can speak very highly of the care which
the rabbis took during this era to secure and propagate
a pure text ; although the rabbis were neither able nor
desirous to accomphsh their task by the employment of
the best critical methods. But between the time of
Ezra and the beginning of the Talmudic era it does not
appear that anything like the same careful zeal for a
pure text prevailed.
The farther back inquiry goes into the obscurity o£
the pre-Christian times, the greater becomes the dif
ficulty and the uncertainty. The witnesses are far from
being in accord. The oldest of these witnesses are the
Septaagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch; but these
vary most from the Masoretic text. The three Greek
translations of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus,
are not concordant. The Syriac, when independent of
the Septuagint, differe in places so widely that it seems
to be a translation of another form of tiie Hebrew.* It
is calculated that the Septaagint differe from the
Hebrew and accords -with the Samaritan Pentateuch in
about one thousand places ; that about the same num
ber of reverse cases occur ; whUe in certain other cases
the Septaagint stands entirely alone. Yet among the
Hellenistic Jews in Christ's time, this variant and im
perfect Greek translation had taken the place of the
Hebrew text, both for public and for private reading ;
many of the New-Testament writera quote from it for
*D. 8. 8., i., p. 7001

400 The Canon and the Text.
the raost part, — especially so do Mark and Paul. How
can the dogma of the infallibUity of the biblical text
maintain itself for an instant in the face of this fact ?
It appears, then, that very great and irremovable un
certainty exists as to the correct text of the Old Testa
ment, even so far as concerns the manuscripts that were
in existence when the canon of the Old Testament was
being closed. But if we try to go back of the Masd-
retic, the Talmudic, and the ^osif-ExUian eras, back to
those centuries when the older books of the Hebrew
Scriptures were in process of formation, we have abso
lutely no means, except the very uncertain conjectures
of intelrnal criticism, for teUing what was the condition
of thei/r text. The Pentateuch in its present form — it
has already been shown — was centuries in the process
of formation ; many hands labored upon it ; its written
laws were enacted at different periods and lay neglected
and alraost unknown through long peiiods of time;
and their text was freely handled by the scribes who
amended and reproduced it. And yet it was this por
tion of the Hebrew Bible whieh the framers of its
canon regarded most highly and esteemed most especially
inspired. When we turn our attention from the case of the
Old Testament to that of the New, we find ranch more
abundant opportunity for the exercise of Christian
scholarship in determining which is probably the best
text of its different books. Practically, what has to be
done is to fix upon that form of words which seems to
have the raost evidence in its favor as correctly repre
senting the best manuscripts of the fourth century

Original N&w-Testament Writings. 401
after Christ. Eespecting the condition of the text of
the New-Testament books at this date, almost all the
important matters can be decided by direct inspectiouj
and there is little need to resort to conjecture. There
are three classes of witnesses to be consulted in the
effort to fix this conjectural original text ; , these are the
manuscripts, the ancient translationsy and the citations
of the earlier Church Fathers. The chief reliance
must be placed, of course, upon the manuscripts.
The autograph copies of the New-Testaraent writ
ings had perished, so that no trace of them appears,
before the individual books had come to be received as
of canonical value. It is not likely that either their
authors or their readers regarded thera with anything
approaching the interest we should bestow upon them.
Their authore, or the amanuenses who wrote for thera,
were liable to any of the mistakes which occur in the
construction of all ancient manuscripts ; the makers of
the first copies from these originals could not be sure
of copying thera with a perfect accuracy.
The very nature, as weU as the fate, of these original
manuscripts was such as to rebuke any undue attach
ment to what is literal or outward and perishable. At'
that time manuscripts were of parchment only occa
sionaUy; usually, they were of a cheaper and less
durable material made from the papyrus of Egypt.*
Later on parchment was more used; paper made of
cotton appears in the ninth century a.d., and in the
thirteenth, linen paper. How perishable these ancient
books were, we may judge from the statement of
*D. 8, 8„i., p, 709f,

402 The Canon and the Text.
Jerome, who tells us that in a single century the library
at Csesarea had fallen into decay. The divine Word of
salvation, as respects its written record and promulga
tion, was committed of God to the ordinary and rapidly
corrupting means available at that time. It was to live
by being propagated, not in perfection of letter but in
substance of spiritual trath, from hand to hand and
mind to mind.
The text of the New Testament was doubtless origi
nally written without punctuation or divisions. Some
of the oldest extant manuscripts of it, like the Vatican
codex, make use of scarcely any such means for de
termining the sensa Accordingly many disputes occur
among the early Church Fathers as to the right reading
when it is dependent upon the punctuation. Thus
some of them, in John i. 3, connect the clauses so as to
make them read, " What has been made was in him
life"; or, "What -has been made in him was life."
This connection of the clauses was subsequently re
jected, not on hnguistic but on theolpglcal grounds.
In the fifth century, and afterward, a number of the
New-Testament writings were arranged by being di
vided into lines of such length that they could be read
somewhat rhythmically in a single breath. To save
room, the separation of the Unes was subsequently made
by a point or an enlarged letter. Other means of
punctuation were also resorted to ; and about the be
ginning of the sixteenth century the present forra of
punctuation came into use. It is not known whether
the writers themselves employed sections or chapters
in the New-Testament text. Very smaU divisions

Variations of Greek Text. 403
(Matthew containing 355, Mark 234, Luke 342, John
231) were in wide use very early. About the fifth
centuiy a division of the Gospels into larger sections
originated ; and the present division into chaptere is
ascribed to Stephen Langton, archbishop of Oanterbuiy
(t 1228).
It is of little real value to count the mere number of
the existing manuscripts of the New Testament in
Greek. They are of two kinds, uncials and cureives.
Of the former, which are almost entirely onr rehance
in fixing the text, there are said to be sixty-one of
the Gospels, fifteen of the Acts, seven of the Catholic,
and twenty of the Paoline Epistles. The chief ones
are named j^, A, B, C ; and, for its suggestive though
strange variations, the manuscript D. There are many
more (airsive manuscripts ; but these are aU of little or
no authority, except as indirect -witnesses.
The variations and corruptions of the text of the
New Testament are as many in number, and such in
kind, as we shouM expect from the nature of the case.
The Divine Spirit in Providence has used no extraor
dinary means to preserve the accurate and uncorrupted
transmission of this sacred text. The variations to
which we are introduced by consulting aU the manu
scripts are probably more than a hundred thousand;
most of them are triffing in importance and affect only
the minuUce of the verbal form ; bat many of them
are more serious, and a few are very important. The
essential teachings of the New Testament as to what
the Christianity of Christ and the apostles is, and
therefore as to what is true for a Christian to think and

404 The Canon and the Text.
right for him to do, are, however, not affected by these
variations. It would be tedious for the general reader were we
to enumerate and illustrate the nature and probable
origin of all the different kinds of corruption and
variation to which the text of the New Testament has
been subjected. Marginal notes have crept into the
text through either the intentional manipulation or the
carelessness of scribes. Words have been omitted, or in
serted, or their order varied ; and changes in spelling are
numerous. Some errors are due to the fact that the eye
of the scribe wandered from the end of one to the end
of another of two clauses ending with the same words,
in such a way as to cause the omission of the intervene :
ing words. Vowels and diphthongs having similar
sounds are confused, where the writing has apparently
been from dictation ; and, according td the nature of
the Greek language, such changes sometimes make an
important change in the raeaning.
The custoraary abbreviation of certain words — by
which the first and last letters, for example, of the names,
"God," "Lord," "Jesus," "Christ," were put for the
entire word — has in some instances led to a con'uption>
of the text. The most important case of this kind oc
curs in 1 Tim. iii. 16, where the Greek word for " who "
has been corrupted in some manuscripts into the ab
breviation for the word " God." The officious amend
ing of the text by scribes, whieh has entered so largely
into the Old Testament, has done relatively little to
corrupt the New Testament. It has not, however,T)een
wholly wanting even here. In some places the text ofi

No infallible form of Word^s. 405
one Evangelist has been changed in order to assimUate
it more nearly to that of some other Evangelist. The
influenceof dogmatic considerations has sometimes been
influential and even decisive. Jerome foresaw that he
would be caUed "false" and "sacrilegious" for his
critical work upon the Latin translation.
In general, then, it must be admitted that no form
of words at all approaching a standard of infaUible ac
curacy has been preserved to clothe for ns the eternal
trath of that one Divine Word, which is the truth of
redemption bronght to men in the historical process of
God's self-revelation, calminating in Jesus Christ.
Within certain hmits there is wide-spread and irre
movable uncertainty concerning the text of the Old and
New Testaments. The words which have come down
to as in the extinct Hebrew and Greek manuscripts
cannot be regarded as, all and severaUy, the very words
of God. But the Word of God, the tmth of the Gos
pel in the largest and loftiest sense of this phrase, neveF»
theless remains sure. Its sufficient, authentic, and
authoritative record is the sacred Scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments. This record has not been pre
served free from those fraUties, changes, and errors
which belong to aU human works ; but it has been so
preserved that we know what biblical rehgion Is, and
especially what true Christianity is, — what is true for a
Christian to think and right for a Christian to do. How
and in what sense this declaration is justified, we shaU
consider in sabseq^nent chaptere.

CHAPTEE XIII.
BIBLIC^ EEVELATION AUTO INSPIEATIOlir.
Ik that answer to the question. What is the Bible?
which is at once the more modem and more ancient,
the idea of " revelation " as applied to the sacred writ
ings, is more important than the idea of inspiration.
In determining the natnre and origin of these writings,
the idea of revelation is reaUy much the more primary,
comprehensive, and controlhng. It is indispensable at
this point, then, that we should gain clear notions as to
the character of biblical revelation; and this can be
done only by the study of the Bible itself.
The possibiUty that God wUl reveal Himself cannot
be denied without denying the reahty and personality
of God. To reject all divine self-revelation is to reject
all divine personal Being. For all religion, aU knowl
edge of God and all faith in Him, rests on revelation ;
and without such revelation there can be no religion at
all. In order that God may be known hy man, it is
necessary that God should make Hiraself known in
man ; and this making of Himself known is the result
of His own self-revealing activity. The Bible never
once imphes that there can be any trae religion without
divine self-revelation. True religion implies the com
munion of God and man ; but in all such communion
God himself takes the initiative.
(406)

Characteristics of Revelation. 407
It requires only one additional thought to convey the
tmth that aU the biblical teachings also imply the ne
cessity of divine self-revelation. Man cannot find God
unless God make Himself known to man. If man
had never sinned it would stiU have been necessary for'
God to have revealed Himself to man and within man,'
since aU knowledge and love of divine and spiritual ;
realities originates in and comes from the Infinite One .
himself. Bat man's sin, and his ignorance and degrada- 1
tion resulting from sin, create the special need of reve
lation of a particular kind. The revelation which sirh-
ftH man needs is the revelation of God as the Re
deemer of man. If God do not make Himself known
to man as his redeemer from sin, then no redemption
from sin can take place.
Now, aU true divine self-revelation, every making of
Himself known by God, has the following character
istics : It is traly saperaatoral and heavenly, bat it is
also based upon and limited by historical conditions. It
is cf God, in history. Let as briefly consider what is
involved in this. Any knowledge of God and divine
things, in order to be entitled to the name of a " reve
lation," mast have in it an element of originality. It
is this characteristic of originality which emphasizes
the sapernatoral or peculiarly divine quality of all reve
lation. There must be something " creative " in reve
lation. If, for example, old and famihar thoughls of
God and divine things recur to the mind, we do not
speak of their recurrence as a revelation in the more
restricted and suggestive nse of the word ; bnt when
the Divine Spirit makes known to ns something new

4o8 Revelatio7i and Inspiration.
and original on these matters, we say that this new
truth has been "revealed" to us. As with the indi-
¦vidaal, so it is -with the race. We recognize the new
traths, or largely new views of old traths, which com
paratively few men receive, as "revelations" in the
more real and noble meaning of the word.
But all revelation, and particularly all bibUcal revela
tion, has the characteristic of continuonsncss. The new
trath always comes into a world that is old. The world
is always growing older as every successive disclosure of
new divine trath is made within the world. Now, the
truth cannot be revealed to man respecting God as the
Eedeemer unless the revelation complies with his
torical conditions. To u}hom is the truth to be made
known ? Under what circumstances, in what stages of
cultivation, with what rapidity and degrees of progress,
can the truth be disclosed ? — ^these and similar questions
must always concern the nature of God's revelation of
Himself to raan. To the childhood of the race comes
the moral and rehgious truth adapted for the state
of chUdhood ; to the later stages, that which is fitted to
each stage. The truth disclosed by revelation is, there
fore, " first the blade, then the ear, then the full com
in the ear."
Thus every part of a true process of revelation will
be related, according to a steadfast divine plan, to every
other part. The old-fashioned deists (like Tindal and
Eeimarus) used ffippantly to ask — " Why did not reve
lation at once follow the fall of man?" — and "How
can God be good who waited so long to make His
grace known in the redemption of mankind ? " In the

Positive Nature of Revelation. 409
light of all onr experience of the methods of the divine
procedure such questions as these ai-e absurd. We
might as weU ask, Why should there be any time at
aU ? Why any degrees and stages of perfection ? God
does everything in an historical way ; the conditions of .
history are not imposed on Him, they are only His own 1
divine and glorious mode of action in the world. The
bibhcal revelation has pre-eminently this character of
historical and continuous development.
Moreover, every trae and powerful form of divine
revelation is in need of a positive character ; it fixes
itself among men in some definite form of manifesta
tion and so becomes, an institutiou of which the history
of the race takes note. In this way alone is it able to
influence the shaping of the race. History requires
positive institutions; it is these of which men take
most account ; it is by them that men are largely dis
ciplined and moulded ; it is in them that the choicest
results of human thought and feehng are embodied.
Thus the Mosaic Law, with its concrete enactments and
requirements, and the order of the prophet^ with its
periods of schools, and common stock of ideas and
oanon of prophetic writings, had a positive character as
divine revelations. From time to time God brought
before the nation of Israel, through its great geniuses of a
moral and religions kind, the more abstract statement of
truths regarding His own mysterious Being and mode
of action. He revealed to them " I Aii that I am "; I
love righteousness and hate iniquity. But He also,
and more frequently, made Himself known as an om-
aipresent and ever-living spiritual force, by constantiy

4IO Revelation and Inspiration.'
bidding them through their priests and lawgivers
behold Him in the definite and positive form of ritual
istic and civil ordinances. So, too, Christianity is not
alone nor chiefly revealed as a body of abstract prin
ciples. God raakes Himself known as the Eedeemer
of man in the positive institution of the Christian
Church. Eevealed moral and religions trath is not
left by the Spirit hanging in raid-air, as it were.
For similar reasons is all revelation a gradual affair.
It has stages, degrees of progress and of perfection ; it
does not reach its culmination all at once. This is true
in a marked way of biblical revelation. The Old-Tes
tament order has a gradual unfolding, in which, how
ever, several notable stages and epochs are to be traced.
But this preparatory order gives way to, or rather is
taken up into and realized in, a higher and Christian
order of revelation. The latter also has its grades, de
grees, and stages of progress ; for there is a develop
ment of doctrine, discipline, and life, to be traced in the
New-Testament writings.
Now the incomparable superiority of the biblical
revelation to all other forms of the divine self-disclosure
does not consist in its being totally unlike all these other
forras with respect to the characteristics just men
tioned. On the contrary, it consists in its realizing
these characteristics most fully and grandly. More
over, it is the only revelation which makes God known
as the promised and actual Eedeemer of man, in Jesus
Christ, His Son, our Lord. All religion, ancient and
modem, implies the fact that God makes HimseK
known to man ; this is revelation. No other than bib-

Biblical Revelation peculiar. 411
lical reli^on shows God to man as his righteous and
gracious Redeemer from sin in an historical way. Other
ancient religions are, therefore, seen to be devoid, of
divine progressive quality.
We may farther classify our conceptions of the jie-^
cuhar natnre of biblical revelation by considering how it
answere the following questions : Who is the revealer?
To whom is the revelation made ? What is it that is re
vealed ? and, What is the form of the revelation? The
agent, the one who reveals, in aU revelation, is God. In
the Bible, the agent of revelation is God as the inspiring
and sanctifying Spirit, the energizing source of aU moral
and spiritual Ulumination and life ; or it is God as the
Logos, the Revealer, the Etei-nal Word. This revela
tion is made to man, whom the Bible regards as, not
simply in his physical but also in his moral and spiritual
natnre, a chUd of God. That which is revealed in aU
revelation is God, — as He stands related to the world, to
the soul of man, and to the couree of history. But that
which is especiaUy revealed in the Bible is God as the
Redeemer of man, and the doings of God in the his
torical process of human redemption. The form of
bibhcal revelation is manifold ; it is by history, miracle,
law, prediction, and doctrine ; bat is pre-eminently in
and by the God-man Jesus Christ.
Let as now consider somewhat more fully the last of
the questions just mentioned. It has already been said
that the form or method of bibhcal revelation is mani
fold. The bibhcal history is one of the factore or
forms of the bibhcal revelation. By this it is not meant
that the facts of this history were aU, or any of them,

412 Revelation and Inspiration.
infallibly made known as facts {revealed) by the Divine
Spirit to the men who recorded them. There is no proof
whatever that God ever operated in this way upon the
saered historians. Nor, if this had been done, would it
of itself constitute the biblical writings a true revelation
in the better and higher meaning of the word.
The bibUcal history is plainly the record of an histor
ical process of divine self-revelation.
But the biblical history is not simply a record of reve
lation. This history itself, considered -with respect to
what its events in their order and signiflcance reaUy were
(that is, " objectively " considered), was a main factor in
revelation. God revealed Himself m the history ; He
made men know Him as their Redeemer by what He
actually brought to pass in history. And just so far as
the writers of the history appreciate the meaning of
what they record, their record becomes something more
than a mere record of the history of revelation ; it be
comes itself a revelation, a making of God known to
others. Even now Christians read the Old-Testament
history and find the divine justice and grace in redemp
tion revealed to them there in a special way. The
death of Jesus, with aU its preparation and attendant
circumstances, is an historical fact ; but what a mighty
revelation of God is this fact !
That the biblical revelation carae by miracles and
prediction we do not need to argue. The former of
these methods sets the revealed truth before the mind
as embodied in soraething extraordinary which happens
within external nature ; the latter gives it in the form
in which it is breathed by divine inspiration within

The Bible a-nd Dogmas. 413
the prophetic soxd. Law, too, forms an important
element in biblical revelation. This fact renders the
biblical revelation in some regards special and unique.
The idea of the divine righteousness is an idea which
demands a position of pre-eminence in any system of
divine revelation. God must make Himself known to
man as an object of obedience ; the divine seK-revela-
tion must result in man's rendering a loving obedience
to God. Bnt precisely what shaU man do in order to
obey God ? The Mosaic law answered this question in
a positive thongh only temporary way. It thus re
vealed God to Israel as righteous. When the pattern
of perfect obedience has been given to the world in
Jesus Christ, then God may say to the world, " FoUow
Him and yon obey me." When the motive in aU men's
hearts has become that of a loving loyalty to Christ,
then the painstaking and fearful foUowing of concrete
legal enactments may safely cease.
In claiming that doctrine is an important mode of
the bibhcal revelation, we must take pains not to faU
again into an old mischievous error. The^stEeforma-
tion theory of the Bible considered the principal office
of the Bible to be that of imparting a ready-made
system of religions dogmas. This theory assumed that
religion consists chiefly, if not almost exclusively, in
knowledge, and that advance in religion consists in
the enlargement of our religious conceptions and intui
tions. The theory proved itself a vicious one. But,
on the other hand, knowledge is an inseparable ele
ment of religion ; and whenever God makes any reve
lation of Himself, this revelation 'necessarily consists, in

414 Revelation and Inspiration.
part, in the stirring up of some thought in human
minds. The undoubted result of the biblical revelation
has been that the human race knows vastly more than It
would otherwise have done, about God and His grace,
as it goes out toward raan for his redemption fi-om sin.
But the one chief way of making God known as the
divine Eedeemer of man, to which all the other factors
of biblical revelation point, and in which their essence
and influence are most fully realized, is the pereon of
the God-man Jesus Christ. He is the revelation of
God as Eedeemer, rather than the chief factor of such
revelation. In Him God is, and is made known; in
Christ, God is made known to man as man. His moral
personality and activities in man's behalf set before the
world the justice and grace of God as exercised In re
deeming raan.
What — we now inquire — ^is the final purpose of tbe
bibUcal revelation ? The final purpose of revelation in
general may be differently defined according to the
point of view from which it is regarded. The divine
quality which receives a special emphasis, which is pre
eminently brought forward in the biblical revelation, is
the divine grace. The purpose of its revelation has
then been said to be " the self-manifestation of God as
the God of grace "; but it is not the raanifestation of any
one divine attribute, however glorious, which gives the
ground and final purpose of the biblical revelation;
this must be sought in something more comprehensive.
It is the rederaption of the race which foi-ras the prom
ised corapletion of the process of revelation. A per
fected kingdom of redemption is finaUy to be estab-

The Proofs of Revelation. 415
lished ; the goal and end of the biblical revelation is to
be found in this kingdom.
When considering the tests of biblical revelation, we
must distingnish between those which are satisfactory
to the individual as showing him that he is indeed the
recipient of a genuine divine revelation, and those
proofs which are vahd to show that the Bible contains
and is a revelation of God to the race. For the indi-
'iMwal prophet or aposUe hi-mself no test of the gen
uineness of the revelations made to him could be
superior to his own pure and clear conviction of such
communion with God. When God speaks to a soul
there is, for that soul, no other evidence that the voice
is indeed divine so convincing as the evidence brought
into the soul with the voice itself.
But how shall new tmth, when communicated
through the inspired prophet or apostie, make good in
the community of behevere at large its claim to be a
genuine divine revelation ? No other answer can be
defended than this : The community of behevere is the
ultimate authority, its moral and religious conscious
ness the last appeal. The ever-hving Chureh of God
is, in a most important and valid meaning of these
words, both before and over the Bible itself. The
Bible comes from this commnnify of believers as al
ready existing by \Trtue of their immediate spiritual
relations to God. The Church in the past has brought
the Bible into being ; the Church tests the revelations
made to the individual prophets and aposties, who are
no less membera and servants of the Church, because
they are divinely appointed as its inspired leadere.

41 6 Revelation and Inspiration.
Hence the Old-Testament prophet made his appeal to
the general moral consciousness of beUeving Israel.
The New-Testament apostle addresses, in the name of
God who is the Eedeemer of the world through Jesus
Christ, his spiritual brethren in the faith. What both
prophet and apostle have spoken and written is passed
upon by the Christian conscience and judgment of the
comraunity, before it can become a part of those Scrip
tures which the Christian Church recognizes as pre
senting before herself the authoritative sources of her
doctrine and hfe.
Biblical revelation is also divided into two great his
torical divisions, each of which has several stages. The
earUer form of that revelation in which God makes
Hiraself known as the Eedeemer is all preparatory and
pedagogic ; it makes ready for the later form ; it trains
the world so that it may the better understand and
receive this later form. Such is the Old-Testament
office and significance. This form of revelation has
three clearly-marked stages of revelation, — namely, the
patriarchal, the legal, and the prophetic. The division
holds good even if we find ourselves unable to accept
the ordinary chronological arrangement of the Old-
Testament books, and the ordinary view of the chron
ological order of the development of these stages.
In the firat of these three stages God is represented by
the Bible as graciously making Himself known to a
few heads of the nation whom He calls out from the
surrounding peoples for this very purpose.* In the
'* See Heb. xi. 8 ; compare Gen. xii. 1 ; and see D. 8. 8., ii., p.
337,

The New-Testament Form: 417
next stage the same divine grace makes itseK manifest
in concrete institutions, and deals with the lawless wiU
of man by binding it in obedience to definite com
mands, which are to be recognized as having a divine
origin. In the third stage of Old-Testament revela
tion the inward prophetic word is exalted. God puta
His Spirit upon and within certain pious individuals,
and makes known to them the applications of His jus
tice and love to the conduct of the nation, and to His
own plan of saving the nation and,throngh it, the race.
The New-Testament form of revelation is the realiz
ation of all the permanent and ideal elements of the
earUer form. The source of the new form is the same
as that of the old ; it is grace, abounding graca For
grace is to " ieign through righteousness unto eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord "; it abounds " ex
ceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus."
This later form of bibUcal revelation also has its stages ;
but it runs through them all with such rapidity, and
they are so closely connected with the development of
the Christian consciousness of the aposties that the
entire resnlt is much more a unity of thought and time
than is the Old-Testament revelation.
Are we then to say that the Bible eontame a revela
tion or that the Bible is a revelation ? This question
is often discussed so that it degenerates into a compara
tively unimportant and fiivoloas one. Yet the ques
tion itself is not unimportant, mnch less frivolous. To
answer it satisfactorily we must refer again to distinc-
tions which have already been made.
The bare and abstract possibUity of a so-caUed " book-

41 8 Revelation and Inspiration.
revelation " cannot be denied. It is conceivable that
God should have made known the entire Bible, at some
definite time or times, to the writers of its books. The
¦wild dream of rabbinical theorists was that the scribe
Ezra wrote down, as it was divinely revealed and dic
tated to him, the whole canon of the lost Hebrew
Scriptures. But the modem scholar knows that the
Bible is not a " book-revelation," in any such sense of
the word.
It may be claimed, in some sort, that God's great
self-disclosure raust take the forra of a book-revelation,
if it is to accomplish the fuU purpose of such a dis
closure being made at all. For why does God make
Himself known to man as man's Redeemer ? Is it not
in order that God may actually accomplish the redemp
tion of man ? But this redemption, thus actually to be
accomplished, is an historical affair. One generation
must tell to another the truths revealed, and the re-^
demptlve deeds accomplished, by God. This successive
communication of revelation would seem to involve
the necessity of fixing, at each stage, the main results
of the revelation aheady completed. Nor is there any
way of satisfactorily bringing this about without the
institution of " sacred Scriptures."
The Bible cannot, therefore, be regarded as m&rdy a
"record" of revelation. The trath which the Bible
contains and records would not itself have been revealed
as it has been, if no Bible had corae into existence.
For example, the greatest prophets of Israel were in
fluenced, to some extent at least, by their possession of
written accounts of the law, and of the previous history

The Bible a Record. 419

and propheey of the nation. Upon the religious devel
opment of the people in the time which elapsed be
tween the substantial completion of the Old-Testament
books and the rise of New-Testament rehgion the
sacred Hebrew Scriptures had a very profound effect.
And it is impossible to say what the Christian doctrine
and history would have been if the principal teachers
and actora in primitive Christianity (including its
founder, Jesas) had not been in the possession and use
of the ancient sacred writings of this nation. Biblical
revelation is not spasmodic; it is historical. Memory
is as necessary to the growth of the race as of the in
dividual. It belongs to the very idea of an historical
revelation that there should be an accumulated store of
divine communications. It is necessary, then, to regard
the Bible as some'thing more than a " record " of bib
lical revelation ; the Bible is, at least, the bearer or
" vehicle " of a unique and incomparable form of rev
elation. But more than has just been said must be admitted
as true. In some sort we must speak of the Bible, the
circuit of sacred writings accepted by the Church as
canonical, as being itself a revelation of God, the Ee
deemer of mankind. In so far as any book is a product
of the divine process of making God known to human
minds, it may itself be said to be a "revelation," — that
is, it is a result reached by giving written form to the
truth which has been revealed to the mind of its author.
In so far, also, as any book serves to make God known
to the reader of it, snch book becomes, and may be
spoken of as being, a revelation to the reader. Now

420 Revelation and Inspiration.
the Bible is pre-eminently a revelation of God as the
Eedeeraer of man, in both these senses of the word
revelation. That is to say, the Bible generally — or
large and commanding portions of it — is the product of
that special process of revelation in which God actually
made Hiraself known, to Israel and to the world, as the
Eedeemer of the world frora sin. The history of the
process is in large measure given in the Bible, not only
in the form of historical facts that were ascertained In
the ordinary way of becoming acquainted with such
facts, but also as having a di-vine significance which was
revealed, or made known by inspiration, to the writers
themselves. This is especiaUy true of the New-Testa
ment writings, which all show that the significance of
the facts of Christ's pereonality and career npon the
earth was disclosed by the Holy Spirit to the authore of
these writings.
Moreover, there can be no doubt that the Bible gen
erally — or large and commanding portions of it — has
actually been a revelation of God the Eedeemer to those
who have resorted to it to find what manner of Being
God is. This is a matter which every Christian may
test in his own experience. Every Christian may know,
what no constructive or destrnctive school of criticism
can impart or destroy, that his divine Lord and Saviour
is indeed revealed to him in and by the sacred Scrip
tures. This truth, that God is the Eedeemer, and the
many implications and applications of it which the Bible
reaUy contains and legitimately conveys, is properly
called the " Word of God " which is contained in the
Bible. With this "Word of God"— as we shall see

The Vehicle of Revelation. 42 1
subseqnentiy — the entire circuit of canonical writings
can by no means be identified throughout. But the
real Word of God, as it is contained in sacred Scrip
ture, is ever freshly revealed to the mind of the thought
ful and devout reader. That this is indeed so, e^erj
reader may make known in his o-wn experience.
Once more in the same line of argument as the last
point : The Bible serves as a revelation of God the Re
deemer to the race. The Bible — ^osing this term for
those contents of moral and religious trath in the differ
ent forms of history, law, miracle, prediction, and doe-
trine, which the biblical books contain — performs the
office of a sel&Gommanication of God in the process of
Redemption. To many Christian communions, in cer
tain eras of the hfe of the Christian Church, this service
has been comparatively limited and only indirect. The
Bible has often reached the people only through the
priest or the preacher; it has often filtered down to
them more indirectly still, throngh uncertain tradition
or mistaken dogmatic form. StiU if the Church in any
age requires to know afresh. What are the facts and
doctrines of genuine bibhcal religion? What is true
Christianity? What is the right view of God and man
as related in the process of redemption? — then the
Church may resort to the Bible for the true answer to
these questions; for it is the Bible that reveals this
sort of truths to men, as no other books have done or
can do.

CHAPTER XIV.
BIBLICAL EEVELATION AND INSPIEATIOU'.
{Continued.)
In considering tne Inspiration of the Bible it is indis
pensable to begin with some knowledge of what the
Bible itself teaches as to that Divine Spirit who, in the
loftiest sense of the word, alone inspires. We must
start, that is, from the biblical, rather than from any
merely speculative or theological, conception of the
Holy Ghost. Now the very use of the word " inspired,"
as applied to the biblical writings, seeras to refer these
writings to the Spirit of God rather than to God re
garded either as the Father, or as the Logos or Son.
The word "Inspired" eraphasizes the great truth of an
omnipresent, personal, and self-communicating divine
energy. It is an interesting fact that the biblical con
ception of " spirit," whether as applied to God or to
man, is foreign to Greek thought, and came into the
world with biblical religion. There are two important
characteristics of this biblical conception of the Divine
Spirit which must be noticed ; these are the sensuous-
ness and the manifoldness of the conception.
So bloodless and pale and useless for all purposes of
practical morals and religion have been raany of the
conceptions of the Spirit formed by theologians and
philosophers, that one writer has been led to declare
he would prefer to them the notions abont God of a
(422)

Manifold Works of the Spirit. 423
North American Indian. But the biblical conception
of the Spirit is characteiized by concreteuess, sensuous-
ness, passion. This divine potency is not thought of
as degraded by entering into nature, history, and the
human soul. God, the Spirit, does not stand aloof in
the Bible from the world or from man. His free and
boundless spiritual energy entere ceaselessly into the
commonest things of life. The Spirit is in natnre, in
flowere and grass, sun and moon and star, and in all
cattie. The Spirit breathes hfe into the body He has
moulded, walks and talks ¦with man, moves npon and
dwells in the human soul -with a work of intellectual
and moral quickening and purifying.
The work of the Spirit is exceedingly mam'fold ; so
the Bible teaches. Artistic skdU, mental quickening,
prophetic insight and foresight, poetic genius, sense for
the supemataral. in nature and history, as well as moral
purifying, and that knowledge of the hidden mystery
which Christ conveys and is, together with the gift to
expound authoritatively the mind of Christ, and to show
the inner relations and the applications of His Gospel, —
all these and many more ai-e the fruits of one and the
self-same Spirit.
We can form no rational or tenable conception of in
spiration except that of a transaction between persons.
Biblical inspiration is to be understood as a transaction
between a pereonal Holy Spirit, on the one side, and,
on the other, man as a finite spirit made in the image
of the Infinite Spirit. Its nature and results will de
pend, therefore, npon the nature of both the parties to
the great transaction. The author of inspiration, the

424 Revelation and Inspiration.
one who inspires, and the subject of insph'ation, the
one who is inspired, must both furnish the conditions
of what really takes place between them. Just as. In
all cases of spiritual comraunion of confidants and
friends, the characters of both those communing are
involved in the comraunion betnaeen them.
The constitution of man as a subject of revelation
and inspiration raust now be' briefiy considered. Ac
cording to the true and ennobling conception of man,
which the Bible teaches, he is a " spirit," created as
snch after the image of God.* The use which the
New Testament makes of the word spirit, as applied
to man, emphasizes his " personal life in its relations
to God "; the spirit in man is " the organ for the Inter
course of man with God.'* The Bible regards man as
the subject of divine revelation and inspiration, because
man is in fact, and by his divinely derived constitution,
a spiritual being. Therefore God can put His Spirit
in and upon him, can dwell with him in the Spirit, as
cannot be done with material things or with the lower
animals. According to the teaching of the New Testament,
also, Christianity is the imparting of spiritual life, the
inspiration, of every believer. All Christians are in
spired. Not to have the Holy Spirit dweUing in the
human spirit is to be in the natural (" psychical ")
state; it is to be non-spiritual and not a Christian.f
The nature of the Christian's soul determines, there
fore, the character of the revelation and inspiration
which he must have in order that he may be a " spif-
* D. 8, a, li„ p. 379£E. t D- S. 8., ii., p, 3831

The Law of Inspiration. 425
itual," as distinguished from a merely natural, man.
With respect to that revelation of Christ which every
Christian has by virtue of his Christian experience, the
one law is this : there can be no revelation aecomplished
except as ihe contents of the revelation become the can^
'tents of human consciousness. Inspiration is a spir
itual effect within the human spuitj a quickening and
elevating and informing of this spirit; it must aU
necessarily take place in accordance with the constitution
of the being in whora the effect takes place.
It follows from what has just been said that all the
different faculties of human nature, as- they are em
ployed in the service of divine self-revelation and in
spiration, must remain true to- the fundamental laws of
their being. Indeed, senses, sensibUities, inteUect, and
moral and religious powere, can be occupied in the
process of revelation and inspiration only as they con
form to these laws. The laws themselves are only the
constitutional and indestructible modes of the behavior
of the mind.
For example, it would he quite unwarrantable to
claim that man's senses cannot be so quickened by
di-vine inspiration as to become cognizant of realities that
he beyond the range of their every-day activities. There
are certain rare experiences of almost all men which
strongly suggest, if they do not prove, that the possi-
bUities of intuition thi-ough the quickened and elevated
operation of sense are by no means exhausted in these
every-day experiences. But if the senses aet at all in
revelation, if the revelation be through a vision, for
example, they mast act ae senses ; they must act under

426 ' Revelation and Inspiration.
aU those conditions of Umitation which belong to the
very constitution of sense. Now, all that the senses
can make us aware of Is, primarily, certain changes In
our state which give to our rainds the tokens that
certain changes are going on in what we call material
reality. To " see " God in a prophetic vision could
never mean anything more than to have an experience
in whieh some material shape was presented before the
mind under such circumstances that the mind rightly
inferred from it the di-vine spiritual presence and action.
To " hear " God speak could never mean anything
more than to have certain impressions as of a voice in
the ear, which the mind could rightly attribute to a
divine origin and to the intent of conveying some divine
truth. We note, further, that in the realizing of divine revela
tion and inspiration the faculties of man act together as a
Uving unity. Revelation and inspiration do not result in
the separation of certain powere, called "higher," from aU
the other powers, in such a way that the latter have no
influence over the former. The inspired man is always
a raan with a brain and a body, with a characteristic
experience and so a characteristic memoiy, with a cer
tain attainment of inteUect and range and quality of
judgment. All the various so-called faculties or powere
act and react upon each other in the living unity of the
mind. Inspiration receives the whole man as its sub
ject ; it affects the whole man by the quickening and
elevating influences which It introduces into the soul.
Yet the same two-fold nature which belongs to our
consciousness of the world of sense belongs to the oon-

The Effect in Memory. 427
sdonsness which the presence of the reveahng and in
spiring Divine Spirit develops in the human souL The
world of sense is for every man his world; it is in
his mind ; it is a perpetual reconstruction and achieve
ment of his mental activity. All the modem study of
the mind emphasizes this tmth. Nothing wbich one
sees or handles exists, as one sees or feels it, outside of
the mind and in independence of the mind's conscious
exercise of its powere. But for every one, on the other
hand, the world of sense exists as a reality " exirOr-
mental," outside of and set over against one's self.
Somewhat simUar is the case -with that conscionsness of
God and of divine objects which the Bible represents
revelation and inspiration as bringing to the soul.* So
Christ represents the witness of His disciples to Himself
as a two-fold witness : " The Spirit of truth .... he
shall bear witness of me; and ye also bear witness"
(John XV. 26 f.). Paul represents the spirits of the
prophets as in the prophets, of course, but also subject
to the control of the prophets, very much in the way in
which some outside compelling power must be kept
under or back (1 Cor. xiv. 32). In various places in
the Bible the prophet is referred to as in conversation,
by question and answer, with the dAvine presence vn his
soul. The memory of man, too, is influenced by, and em
ployed in, the work of revelation and inspiration, — ^bnt
always according to its fundamental laws. The historical
character of biblical revelation is dependent upou this
truth; it is because men are capable of memory that
•D. 8. a, iL, p. 4011

428 Revelation and Inspiration.
this revelation has its organic character. The unre-
membered portion of revelation is lost.
It has already been sho-wn that the inspiration
promised to the disciples of our Lord consisted largely
in a divine influence upon their memories. The work
of the " Comforter " was to bring the sayings and deeds
of Chiist to remembrance, and to teach the significance
of what was thus reraerabered. All those higher and
more glorious views which the inspired apostles had of
Jesus and His work, after His death, arose in their
minds upon the basis of what was reraerabered. That
the Holy Spirit should exercise a purifying and quick
ening effect upon the memory of these men is as reason
able an exercise of His di-vine activity as any that ean
be imagined. And no effect could possibly be more
important. The highest and holiest of revealed truths
cannot be based upon a treacherous or falsified memory.
But, on the other hand, the memory of inspired
prophets and apostles was only human memory ; it was
therefore subject to those limitations which belong to
memory as such.
The powers of reflection are also influenced by the
work of inspiration, — and yet they too are infltienced
in accordance with their constitution as powere of the
human soul. In all ages of the world, and among all
peoples, wherever the Divine Spirit has given Insight
into the meaning of human experience, to certain se
lected and inspired soiUs, this gift has been made in
connection with meditation, and with the painstaking
exercise of the reflective powers. We have already
seen how true this was in the case of the Old-Testa-

The Place of Conscience. 429
ment prophets. They apphed certain principles re
garding the divine jnstice and grace to the circum
stances and condact of the men of their own time. In
this way they had visions of what God wonld do in
time to come in the carrying out of the same principles.
Bat especiaUy hke those fortnnateindnctions of great
principles in which the geninses of aU ages have been
so prominent, are the revelations of truth that come to
the inspired mind. The flash of tmth which breaks
inward, when a great moral or religious truth stands,
for the firet time, clearly before the soul, is always
worthy of being ascribed to a divine origin. The new
tmth that comes in this way is no mere summing-up
of past experience ; it is a birth -within the thinker's
mind ; it is a newly-created star, set in the firmament of
thought. Indeed, so close is the relation which exists
between the revelation and inspiration of the bibUcal
writere and the revelation and inspiration of the dis-
coverere of poetic or scientific truth, that the differ
ences between the two coneehi chiefly the nature of the
trath divinely imparted.
The important place of conscience in aU revelation
and inspiration admits of no debate. Inspiration is,
more than anything else, the qnickeniiig and elevating
of the moral conseioasness. Conscience belongs, in
deed, with its rasential nature nndestroyed by sin, to
the natural man ; it is the most impre^ve remainder
and reminder of his divine spiritual nature. It forms
the point of attachment, as it were, for the imparting
of all moral and religions truth. All religions revela
tion is made to, and within, the moral consciousness.

430 Revelation and Inspiration.
But to regard the moral consciousness of man as a
source of truth independent of God is utterly to mis
take the nature of conscience, and the nature of reve
lation as well. For conscience is God's organ of revela
tion in man. It is impossible that conscience should
act in isolation from the Divine Spirit ; should it thus
act, it would cease to be conscience at aU.
We see, then, that the trae subject of aU inspiration,
the producer of the bibhcal literature as sacred and in
spired, is man. Nor is man made most flt for this
office when rendered passive, like a pen to write, or a
tablet on which to -write, the dictated message from
God. It is as a free spirit, a moral personality set over
against the Divine Spirit, and yet exercising the sub
mission of faith, that man becomes the subject of in
spiration. His passivity is moral receptivity, the sub
mission of faith. But faith is the highest and noblest
form of activity which man can exercise toward God.
Revelation does not consist in patting a truth, ready-
made, as it were, and in itself out of aU relation to the
norraal action of the faculties, within the human soul. It
consists in comrauning -with the soul so that the disclos
ure of the trath shall take place within it, in accordance
with the proper and normal action of aU its powers.
Therefore, revelation involves inspiration ; for inspirar
tion is the quickening and elevating of the activity of
these powers by the action of God's Spirit, present in
the soul.
Therefore, the revelation and inspiration of each
prophet and apostle will have its peculiar character
istics ; and these characteristics wUl depend both upon

Influence on Individuals. 431
the circumstances amidst which each prophet and apos
tle lives, and also upon the personal character of each.
The Old-Testament revelation and inspiration are char
acterized by the natnre of the Hebrew mind. The
revelation to, and inspiration of, the race, did not do
away but accorded with the characteristics of the race.
The Old-Testament writings are, therefore, just as
traly Hebrew writings as they are inspired writings.
But, on the other hand, those Scriptures, with aU that
they are and have done for the race, would never have
existed at aU, had it not been that God took in hand the
native religious sense and religioas sensitiveness of this
people, and purified and elevated it by the influences
of His Holy Spirit. For the same reason, the New-
Testament writings have mnch the more universal and
permanent character, as respects aU their moral and
religioas traths and maxims. For the peculiar form of
revelation which finds its sufficient record and vehicle
in these writings is the pereonal manifestation of God,
the Redeemer, in Jesns Christ.
Connected with the truths just stated is the indi
viduality of biblical inspiration. Paul inspired is Panl
stiU ; and John is not by inspiration made more like
Paul. For inspiration heightens rather than depresses
the individuality of the pereon inspired. Now, it is
mainly through these two pereons, John and Paul, that
the Ghrisfa'an Church has received its most mature
views of the pereon of Christ himself. The Johan
nean view of Christ comes throngh John ; the PauUne,
through Panl. A consideration of the Bible as litera
ture has already shown us that all its books, in their

432 Revelation and Inspiration.
style of composition, show the individual characteristics
of their authore.
The comraon Christian thought of the time has
summed up a great variety of characteristics, peculiar
to the coUection of sacred writings known as the Bible,
under the general term " inspired." The authority of
the Bible in raatters of Christian faith and conduct is
thus, in common Christian thought, made dependent on
its inspiration. Its use as a raeans of grace in daily
living is connected with its quality of inspiration in
soraewhat the sarae way. Thus it comes about that
what is most valuable in the Bible is in some sort made
to rest upon the belief that it is an inspired book.
Now, this close relation between the contents of onr
Christian faith and the conduct of our Christian Ufe,
on the one hand, and the inspired character of the
canonical writings of the Old and New Testaments on
the other hand, is a vahd relation. The question,
What is the Bible ? is indeed far more comprehensive
than the question. What is the nature of the inspiration
of the Bible ? And if the Bible were shown to be in
no special manner inspired, it would still retain its
unique importance and value in the reli^ous develop
ment of the race. But the inquiry into the nature of
biblical inspiration is of so much importance in under
standing the nature of the Bible that it requires at thia
point the following summary of points aheady estab
lished. 1. Inspiration, in the primary and only strictiy ap
propriate meaning of the word, appUes to persons, and
to pereons only. It is in a secondary and somewhat

Their Ethical Nctture. 433
loose meaning of the word that it can be appUed to a
-writing, or to a collection of writings into one or more
volumes. Books and writings are, in themselves, mere
paper and ink ; they can no more be inspired than can
stocks and stones. But by a legitimate figure of speech
we may regard as inspired the expression of those truths
which are uttered by inspired men. Now truths de
signed for communication to othere must'be expressed,
either oraUy or in written form.* Hence, in a more re
mote and loose yet legitimate way, we may speak of
writings as inspired. An inspired writing is, accord
ingly, a writing that records and expresses the truth
which has been made kno-wn to some person when in
spired. Bat here it is necessary to state again a fact which
cannot be too often repeated. The Bible itself, from
the firat verse in Genesis to the last verse in Revelation,
does not contain a single word to encourage the opinion
that any special kind of inspiration was given to its
-writera, in the act of writing, or to qualify them for
writing. On the contrary, everything which the Bible
actually does say discoarages such an opinion. Sacred
Scripture is inspired, in the spedfic meaning of the
term, so far as — and only so far as — it is the product of
the men of revelation.
2. Inspiration is an ethical affair. The insight which
belongs to it is, in its highest form, the benediction
which Jesus pronounced upon the pure In heart : " They
shaU see God." There are, to be sure, other conditions
which control the distribution of the divine gift, be-
*D. 8. 8.,ii„p. 466ff,

434 Revelation and Inspiration.
sides the moral character of the pereon to whom the
gift of inspiration is made. But the gift requires a
moral preparation of heart; and it is realized in a
quickening, elevating, and expanding of the raoral in
tuitions and feelings.
3. Inspiration raay be said to be "dynamical," as
distinguished .from what is mechanical, or from any
merely constructive or regulative influence. Its gen
eral conception is that of a divine influence coming
hke breath or wind into the soul of man and producing
a transformation there. But this is not to be inter
preted as though the inspiration which produced the
Bible ever became merely mechanical. Its authore are
not to be spoken of as "notaries," "secretaries,"
" amanuenses," " pens," " reeds," " harps," or " writing-
tablets," of the Holy Ghost. The influence is dynam
ical, — a divine force dwelling and working in the human
soul. It therefore involves the highest activity of aU
the normal powers.
4. Ecstasy is not the principal, much less is it the
sole, form of biblical inspiration. There are cases nar
rated in the Bible where the inspired state took the
form of ecstasy. We are told, for example, of Peter:
" He saw a vision in an ecstasy." * " But this is not the
univeraal form of the inspiration enjoyed by the men
of biblical revelation ; indeed, it is not the ordinary or
typical form. Nor is ecstasy itself by any means con
fined to the devotees of bibhcal religion. It is rather a
state which occura with religioas devotees everywhere
and in all ages. Genuine inspiration may not be in-
* See Acts xi. 5, and comp, D. 8. 8., ii., p. 4721

Inspiration not verbal. 435
compatible with the state of ecstasy. Bnt this state
certainly is very unfavorable to snch inspiration as is
needed to shape the contents of revelation so that they
may be fixed in the form of writings. It is not, then,
ihe inspiration of sacred Scnrvptni/re,
5. The inspiration which prodnced. the canonical
-writings of the Old and New Testaments displayed a
great variety. There is variety of its modes and de
grees, variety due to the historical circumstances in the
midst of which it was imparted, and variety in the
amount and proportion of the mental faculties iuvolved.
It is not aU alike infeUible dictation of revealed fact
and truth, as the barren and foolish fable of the po«t-
Eeformation dogmatics held that it was. Some writ
ings of sacred Scripture are adapted for laying the
foundations of doctrine, and some are not snitable or
wholly trustworthy for this nse. The Gospel of John
and the Book of Ecclesiastes are not alike in this r^ard.
There are d^rees of the divine insight which the bib
lical writere display, grades of the completeness and of
the imperfection of the moral tenets which they con
vey. The Bible is a great organism of iaa-Xs and truths.
And— to employ a figure of speech used for this very
pnrpose by the saintiy Richard Baxter — the parings of
the finger naUs, or the clippings of the hair, are not
alike worthy and valuable with the interior vital parts
of the organism.
6. Inspiration has a marked effect upon the powere
of utterance, bat it is not " verbal " in the technical
sense of the term ; — ^that is, it does not consist in, or
involve, the selection and dictation, by the Holy Ghost

436 Revelation and Inspiration.
hiraself, of all the words employed by the writers.
That the inspired thought will manifest itself in the form
of expression, we can have no doubt. The inspiration
is, primarily, of the person, an effect divinely produced
in the mind. But in order that the result of such di
vine Inbreathing may be preserved and communicated,
it must take the forra of words. The character of the
thought will, of course, infiuence the words in which it
is itself expressed ; and so, more particularly, wiU the
state of feeUng into which the raind is thrown by the
inner coraraunication from God of the thought.
The effect of inspiration is most naturally and certainly
felt in the style of utterance employed by the inspired
mind. The constitution and condition of all a man's
faculties are concerned in the language which he em
ploys. But the indwelling Spirit of God awakens,
vivifies, broadens, and elevates the operation of all the
faculties. Of necessity, therefore, the expression of
what occurs in the life of the soul is correspondingly
modified. Nor can it be denied that the indwelling Divine
Spirit may often suggest to the minds under its influ
ence a new combination of terms, or a new use of a word,
the better thus to give to future generations the ideas
of God's revelation of Himself as the Redeemer of
raan. Thus the Apostle John, in the Prologue of his
Gospel, raay well be regarded as under the influence
of Inspiration in the meaning which he gives to the
word " Logos " for the pre-existent Christ. And there
are places In Paul's writings where he is obviously car
ried along on the fuU tide of his inspiration to utter

No warratit of Infallibility. 437
things that had a meaning much grander than he had
himself ever clearly conceived.
7. Inspiration is not infallibihty ; and the claim that
it guarantees infalUbiUty of any kind must be most
distinetiy denied. Not a single claim to the ability to
write errorless Scripture, whether with respect to his
torical, linguistic, geographical, or ethical contents of
truth, exists in all the Bible from Genesis to Reve
lation. Nor ean it be argned that the biblical writings must
be infalUble because they are inspired. For inspiration
is no guarantee of perfect freedom from every kind of
error. It is not the design of inspiration to produce such
infaUibiUty ; its design is reaUy far nobler and higher
than this. Its design is so to quicken and elevate the
powere of certain selected men of revelation that they
may apprehend, in their length and breadth, in their
height and depth, the traths of the divine rederaption
of man through Jesus Christ, our Lord. These truths
are in no sense dependent upon, or jeoparded by, the
fate of a tittle or a letter or a number or a word, or
even by the trathfulness of a geographical or scientific
statement made in accordance with popular belief.
8. Ia aU inspiration, the exact place where the divine
meets the human and is limited by it, as well as the
precise mode of the operation of the Spirit, remains
concealed and mysterious. But this does not render
inspiration irrational, mnch less incredible. We have
no means for telUng in our ordinary Chiistian expe
rience just where we are to draw a line in the working
of our thoughts and emotions, and so say, " This is of

438 Revelation and Inspiration.
God, and this other is my own." It is not by the
attempt to draw any such hard and fixed line that we
best understand our relations with each other as human
souls under divine spiritual infiuences. We know that
our Christian thoughts and feelings are all our own, in
the sense that they are all thoughts and feelings of our
minds. Yet we firmly believe that every really true and
good thought and feeling of ours is to be ascribed to
God as the gift of His Holy Spirit dwelling in our
souls. Neither can we draw with confidence a mental pic
ture of the precise way in which God operates spu-It-
nally upon and within the raind of raan. We comuiu-
nicate truth to each other by visible and audible signs,
such as the written or spoken word, the gesture, the
look, the soft pressure or chnching of the hand, the
embrace or lifting of the arms. But God's Spirit does
not communicate truth to man simply as one standing
outside of the finite spirit and putting the symbols of
truth into their several physical forms, by bodily exer
tions of his own.
The supernatural Is always vailed and concealed
within the natural. Jesus compared it to the breathing
of a wind that coraes upon us, we know not whence, or
as raoving in what precise direction. We know only
that we are being raoved, and we believe that God Is
in the raoveinent. So it is with all spiritual infiuences.
To inquire too curiously into the exact mode of their
operation is not wise ; to discover this mode is not pos
sible. But neither can we discover how it is that God
has interiorly bound star to star by so-caUed force of

As a spiritual movement. 439
gravitation ; or how by the mysterious impulses of liglit
we are connected with the remotest of aU the stars.
9. The inspiration which produced the biblical books
is, speeificdlly considered, the same iUumining, quick
ening, elevating, and pmifying work which goes on in
the entire coramnnity of beUeving souls. That the
Bible represents the case in this way, we have already
seen to be an nndonbted trath (see p. 96 ff.).
But the bibhcal inspiration is certainly, in important
respects, unlike that which we may ascribe to the dis-
coverere of truth, to the poets, geniuses, and great moral
teachere of mankind, whose works lie wholly outside of
the biblical circle. AU inspiration is, indeed, from one
and the same source ; it is only the Spirit of God that
" inspires " man, as we are now using the term. But
the type of that spiritual inflnenee which produced the
bibUcal books has certain special characteristics. The
special revelation which accounts for the biblical books
was a historical process of the self-disclosure of God as
the Redeemer of sinful man ; and this process culmi
nated in Jesas Christ. The special inspiration which
accounts for these books was that inward spiritual
movement which corresponded to the revelation, and
which consisted in iUnmining, purifying, and elevating
the thoughts and emotions of the rehgious community
in which the revelation was made. The quickened
sphit of the men of revelation came from the visitation
and indwelling of God's Spirit ; it was this inspiration
which fitted them for their work.
There is abundant reason to believe that many other
books were written by the authore of the canonical writ-

440 Revelation and Inspiration.
ings, and by other authors than they, which were as truly
inspired as are the canonical writflngs themselves. Cer
tain lost writings referred to In the Old Testament — for
example, the Book of Jashar, the Book of the Wars of the
kings of Israel and Judah — were as truly inspired as are
the Book of Esther or the Books of Chronicles. There Is
no reason to believe that all the proverbs which are pre
served in the writing of that narae are Inspired in a
raanner different from raany proverbs not thus pre
served. The lost epistles of Paul were as truly the
result of the work of the Holy Ghost in their author
as the epistles which have corae down to us. The
oral presentation of Christ and the Gospel by the
apostles was as certainly shaped by divine influences as
was their written presentation of the sarae truth. Other
wise the promise of Christ would not have been ful
filled ; for this promise had its primary reference to the
oral presentation of the Gospel.
The inspiration which produced the biblical books is,
then, peculiar in this regard ; the Bible as a whole is the
result of that great spiritual moveraent which God began
araong the ancient Jews, as a belie-ving community,
and which He continued, in a higher degree and on a
grander scale, in the early founders and teachers of the
Christian Church. One grand spiritual movement
sweeps, during the centuries of its history, through tbe
whole organism of sacred literature. This movement
is a decidedly peculiar affair ; nothing like it is to be
found elsewhere In aU human history. Accordingly, no
other book like the Bible, which results from this
movement, is to be found in all literature.

As fitness for Moral Teachi-n.g. 441
But when we speak of the biblical inspiration, con
sidered as a whole, as a special kind of unity, we do
not mean to affirm tha* this inspiration has no degrees
of excellence in its products, no varieties within the
one kind. On the contrary, some of the biblical writ
ings are inspired as others are not — as respects both
degree and variety In the divine distribution of the one
gift of the Holy Spirit. It is of little practical avail
to tell the inteUigent Christian that Ecclesiastes is as
traly and infallibly inspired to teach hi/m moral a/nd re
ligious truth as is the Gospel of John ; or that the Ira-
precations of sorae of the Psalms are as much the gen
uine fruits of the eternal Spirit as are the declarations
of the divine justice and mercy to be found in Isaiah
or in Romans. Whatever theory the Christian reader
may be induced to hold, practically he wUl assume a
vast difference in the value and authority of the dif
ferent biblical writings. The early Church, although it
quieted its Christian reason and conscience by resorting
to the allegorical interpretation in a way impossible for
us, nevertheless boldly made the required distinctions.
Some of the New-Testaraent writings, being traceable
to apostolic sources, were regarded as valid for estab
lishing doctrine ; others of these writings were not.
That general spiritual raovement which resulted in
producing an extensive class of inspired literature in
volved many kinds of minds, and employed these minds
in various offices iu the general work of forwarding the
divine kingdom. Some were influenced to sing sacred
songs ; sorae to enact or record laws which presented
the principles of divine justice and raercy in a concrete

442 Revelation and Inspiration.
form and in a manner suited to the needs of the age;
some busied themselves with history. But some greater
souls, filled by the Spirit with longings for the full sal
vation of the people of Jehovah, in their yearning
hope looked forward into the future, and saw how this
salvation would realize itself when the divine Messla!h
should appear to set np and extend the divine kingdom.
In the very centre of the whole Orga-nism of revelation
and inspiration stand the apostles of our Lord. These
are the men selected by the personal call of Jesus him
self, inforraed and trained by their familiarity with His
person and history, and so gifted with the sarae Spirit
which moves in the entire coraraunity that they above
all others have an Insight into the significance of God's
revelation of Hiraself as the Redeeraer of raan by
Christ. When, then, we call the Bible "inspired," or
use it as an inspired book, we haVe no need to disregard
these plain differences in Its pai-ts, but rather plainly to
distinguish them.

CHAPTEE XV.
THE ATJTHOEITT OF THE BIBLE.
It is chiefly with regard to the power of the biblical
books to teach us authoritatively what is true to think
and right to do, that raost inquirers feel an interest in
the nature and extent of their inspiration. The ques
tion of the authority of the Bible must, therefore, be
regarded as a question of suprerae importance. In the
face of historical facts and of the course of historical
development, it cannot be claimed that either the estab-
llshraent of Christian faith and character, or the foun
dation and life of the Christian Church, is dependent
absol/utel/y upon the authority of the Bible. For true
Christian faith and character existed before the Bible ;
indeed the Bible is rather the product than the
producer of such faith and character. Moreover, the
Church was founded, and had proved its power to live
and overcome the world, before the canon of the New
Testament was formed.
The question of the authority of the Bible is, how
ever, a most important question, — although not in pre
cisely the way which is sometimes supposed. For its
authority is not to be thought of as though it w^ere
chiefly directed toward the formation of an unim
peachable system of theological opinions. We are,
indeed, soraetiraes told that theology should aU be bib-
(443)

444 Authority of the Bible.
Ileal, all based upon the authority of the Bible. And
it would have been well for the cause of theology and
of the Christian Church, if the Bible had been more
diligently and intelligently consulted by systematic
theology. But If, by " the authority of the Bible," ,we
mean its right to be raade the undisputed basis of a
system of Christian theology, we cannot claim that the
most important thing to be done for the Bible is to es
tablish this, its so-called " authority." In the highest
sense of the word, ihe " authority " qf the Bible is its
right to hold, up before ihe soul the true picture of
Christ, and the true conception of GhrisUanity ; the
authority of the Bible is also its right to command every
man to repent and beUeve when he thus sees Christ,
and to conform his life to the principles exemphfied in
this picture.
In order to understand the trae doctrine of the au
thority of the Bible, it is necessary, firat, to consider
the relations In which the Bible stands to the Word of
God and to the Church of God. Except as related to
these, the Bible has no authority or efficiency.
What, then, we inquire, are the relations in which
the Bible stands to the Word of God, so far as Its
authority depends upon these relations ? It is only In so
far as the canonical writings constitute or contain the
" Word of God " that they have any authority. But all
our investigation thus far has resulted in showing us
most clearly that the canonical writings cannot be iden
tified throughout — every chapter, verse, and word of
them — with the Word of God. If, then, we say that
the Bible is the Word of God, we can only speak thus

Bible and Word of God. 445
in a rather loose and figurative way, — in expression of a
truth which may be better expressed by saying that the
Bible contains the Word of God, or is the vehicle or
communicator of the Word of God. By the " Word
of God " must here be underetood aU those truths and
facts of morals and religion which, when taken in their
organic unity and regarded in their historical relations,'
give us the true history and essential ideas and princi
ples of the divine self-revelation of redemption.*
Now, the propriety of making a distinction between
the Bible and the Word of God has always been vir
tually admitted by the Christian Church. To chaige
this distinction with heresy, or r^ard it with suspicion,
can only be due, in the case of honest inqnirers, to ig
norance of history as weU as of the facts of the case.
Even the Helvetic confession, which identifies the
canonical Scriptures and the Word of God, declares :
" At the present day this Word of God is proclaimed
in the Chareh by those preachera who are legitimatdy
called." That is to say, the proclaimed truth of the
Gospel is the Word of God. Many of the greater con
fessions, however, expressly insist npon this distinction,
as did Lather himself and the other great reformere.
These all speak rather of the Bible as " containing," or
"embracing," or "conveying" the Word of God.
It has been objected to the above-mentioned distinc
tion that the difficulty of making it is very great. Let
it be granted that, as a matter of course, it is difficult
to distinguish thronghoat between the Word of God
and the canonical Scriptures as embracing or contain-
* D. 8. a, i, p. 379. and iL, p. 496 1

446 Authority of the Bible.
ing it, and that any devout and wise student would hes
itate long before offering to go throngh these Scriptures
aud separate off from them just so much and no more
as belongs to the true Divine Word ; still it remains
true that God has never seen fit to relieve men from
the necessity, duty, and peril of making difficult dis-
tinctions ; — true also, as has just been said, that the
Christian Church has never really failed in some sort to
make just this distinction. No reader ofthe Bible can
make safe practical use of it without virtually intro
ducing the sarae distinction.
Moreover, it can be demonstrated that any theory
which identifies the very words of the canonical Scrip
tures, from beginning to end, with the eternal and in
faUible Word of God, itself requires the making of many
difficult, and even impossible, distinctions. The reader
who attaches extreme iraportance to the exact letter of
every canonical writing, as being one and the same-with
the very Word of God, is in peculiar and constant
peril ; for he can never make with any certainty those
very distinctions which (according to his own theory)
are necessary for him in order to attain this Word of
God. Let the charge just made be verified in view of the
following considerations. In the firat place, the canon
ical Scriptures, in which the Word of God must be
found, if at all, by every unlearned reader, consist of aa
English or other translation. How shall such a reader
distinguish between the true and the false in the trans
lation which he Is reading? A single mistake in the
work of the scholare who rendered the original He-

Bible and Word of God. 447
brew and Greek into the words of the English Bible
will render the latter no longer available as, through-
ont, the infallible Word of God. Somebody, then,
must make for this unlearned reader a large number
of extremely difficnlt distinctions between accurate and
false translations of a Hebrew or Greek text.
In the next place, the Hebrew or Greek text of the
Bible does not itself exist in any one infalhble form.
Accordingly, in order that any snch Bible may exist, as
ean be completely identified with the errorless Divine
Word, somebody must infalhbly make distinctions be
tween the true original text and the :^se and corrapt
texts that are prevalent. To make these distinctions
without error is simply impossible ; to make them at
aU is an extremely delicate and difficult task, which
can be only measurably well accomplished by those
very few persons who have cultivated a particular kind
of scholarship. Moreover, th^e are distinctions, the
making of whieh involves the whole textare of the
biblical words, — every verse and sentence fi-om Genesis
to Revelation.
Snppose, however, that the pious bnt unlearned
reader, who demands that his Bible shall save him the
trouble and danger of making the distinction between
it and the Word of God which it contains, has at last
recdved from scholare his infalhble English translation ;
how shall he use that translati'on so as to be of any
service to him either in framing his faith or in guiding
his coiidaet? Only by making a third kind of distinc
tions, — difficult and perilous distinctions. He mast
interpret this Bible. Bnt interpretation imphes the

448 Authority of the Bible.
making of raaiiy distinctions. Indeed it is far more
difficult to tell precisely what is the raeaning of every
word and sentence of the canonical Scriptures than to
distinguish, in a way quite sufficient to secure the purity
of our Christian faith and practice, between these Scrip
tures and the Word of God which they contain. And
it is an actual fact that those Christian persons who re
gard the Bible as identical throughout with the Infallible
Word of God, and who study it with that irapression,
as a rule make far raore mistakes In the articles of
faith they derive from it, and in the kind of conduct
they support by it, than do those pereons who . do not
hesitate to use their Christian freedom in distinguishing
between the Bible and the Word of God. It is far
more dangerous not to make the distinction between
the Bible and the Word of God than to make it. It
leads far oftener to 'heresy not to make this distinction
than to make it. Indeed, nothing can be wider of tbe
mark than the stinging arrows of accusation which
those shoot out who think to guard the faith and
escape difficulties simply by affirming that the Bible is
rather than contains the Word of God.
It should also be said, in passing, that the Bible
Itself warrants and requires the making of this distinc
tion. It never identifies that circuit of writings In
which the facts and traths of God's revelation of Him
self aa the Redeemer are scripturally fixed, with tbe
Word of God, which is the sura-total of those facts
and truths regarded as revealing God. In the New
Testaraent Christ himself is pre-eminently the " Word
of God." The announcement of salvation through

Bible and Word of God. 449
Him, the Gospel of redemption, is also spoken of as
being the Word of God. It is a word of " hearing,"
liecause originally delivered orally by the apostles as
preachere of the word. It is a divine energy which
acts like a seed in the human soul. It produces faith.
Inasranch as God spoke in old times, in sundry ways,
to men by the mouths of His prophets, their messages
are also called the "Word of God" to those to whom
they were sent. And inasmnch as these messages convey
the truth of the old covenant as preparatory for, and
anticipatory of, the coming and kingdom of Christ, they
may stUl be words of God to us and to all mankind.
Bat the inquiry is now raised and anxiously made :
Who or what rale wiU teach me to distinguish between
the Bible and that Divine Word which the Bible em
braces and contains bnt is not identical with i If this in
quiry means. Who or what rale shall make me infaUible
in making this distinction ? then the reply must be : No
such pereon or rule exists. It is not given to man
to be infallible in making any distinctions of this
sort. Bat, then, the possibUity of error is even greater
for the reader who holds the theoiy that the Bible is
throughout the infaUible Word of God. God has not
attached the contents of Christian faith and the possi
bUity of right Christian condact to the infalhble inter
pretation of an infallibly accurate set of lettere and
words. But if the inquiry mean. How shaU I shape
my faith and conduct so as more and more to conform
it to that true Word of God to man which the Bible
brings ? then the answer to the inquiry Is not a difficult
one at aU.

450 Authority of the Bible.
That the Bible does embrace and bring to men the
Word of God as their Redeemer is one of those large
general truths which have their evidence in the accu
mulated experience of hundreds of yeara and of mil
lions of huraan beings. The history of the race, in Its
experience of the effects of the Bible, is a witness to
this truth. Especially does the experience of the Chris
tian Church in the use of the Bible establish the same
truth. Every individual Christian may then go to the
Bible in the conviction that he will find the Word of
God as the Redeemer of man revealed there; every
individual who actuaUy does go there finds his own
experience establishing more firmly this same truth.
No truth of large general experience is better confirmed
or more easily tested than this.
Yet again : How may the believer, who approaches
the Bible with the conviction that it does indeed con
tain the Word of God, actuaUy discern and appropriate
this Divine Word ? This is a question which the Bible
itself is so constituted as to answer in the most satlsfaC'
tory way possible. The canonical Scriptures, when
studied as a whole in the light of the history and nature
of each, but especially in the Ught of a Christian judg
ment illumined by the Holy Ghost, themselves show
clearly what are their diviner parts. The Word of God
which they embrace is Christo-oentric. This our Lord
and His apostles most clearly tanght. The believer
must begin to get his impression of what is the trae
Divine Word by sitting at the feet of Jesus Christ and
of His apostles. They teach us that while " the Law and
the^ Prophets " — that is, the entire Old-Testament dig.

The Bible and the Church. 451
pensation with its Scriptores — ^are only until John,
there is not a jot or tittie of them which shaU not be
fulfilled ; that the Mosaic enactments are as the A, B, C
of religion, and some of them are b^garly elements,
in themselves considered, but that they were given to
the world to enable men to find their way to God in
Jesus Christ. Aboat this firm centre of distinctively
Christian truth, the Word of God in Scripture organ
izes itself according as the diligent and inteUigent
study of the reader of the Bible is rewarded by the
Spirit who teaches hira through this Word.
It is also necessary, in order rightiy to conceive of
the authority of the Bible, that we shonld underetand
the relations in which it stands to the Christian Chnrch.
These relations are most intimate and important ; some
of them are relations of mutual dependency. The
Bible and the Chnrch; the Bible cf the Chnrch, and
for the Chuich, and to the Chareh ; and the Chnrch
using the Bible in the construction of its system of
faith and in the building np of its rehgions life, — these
are themes that closely concern our answer to the ques
tion, What is the Bible? The Church of which we
must now speak is, of coarse, pre-eminently the Chris
tian Church.
There is one great truth whieh nnderhes aU the rela
tions between the Bible and the Christian Church. The
same Divine Spirit who, by His workings in history,
gave to the world that Word of God as the Redeemer
of men through Chiist which the Bible contains, is the
spiritual life of the Church which has Christ for its
L<jrd and Head. Now, there is a sense in which the

452 Authority of the Bible.
Church is dependent upon the Word of God for its
very existence. If by the Word of God we under
stand all those facts and truths whicb raake God known
as the Eedeeraer of raan, and which work as a spiritual
energy within raan so as actuaUy to redeem him, then
we raay say that, without this Word of God, there
would never have been any Christian Church.
On the other hand, there is a sense In which the
Word of God is dependent for its very existence upon
the Church. It is through the inspired comraunity of
believers that God has made His Word of Eedeinptlou
known, and their enlightened moral and religious con
sciousness is the only conceivable final test of the right
of any alleged truth to be called by this sacred name.
This relation of mutual dependency can exist between
Church and Word, because one and the same Divine
Spirit is the creator and life of both. Neither of these
can be subordinated, absolutely, to the other. If the
Bible were to testify to anything contrary to the deep,
underlying experience of the Christian Church, re
garded as constantly tanght by the Spirit, the Bible
could not be accepted as an authority for the construc
tion of faith or the guidance of conduct. On the other
hand, the moral and religious consciousness of the
Church feeds npon, and shapes itself by, the Word
of God as it is contained in the sacred Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments.
The illurained conscience and reason of the body of
believers discerns, appropriates, tests, and applies tbe
Word of God. When considering the history of the
canon we discovered that It was, in part, through the

The use of Christian reason. 453
discernment of this conscience and reason that the circuit
of canonical writings was made what it now is. This
is especially trae, of couree, of the particular Christian
-writings which, by the instinctive working of the con
sciousness of the early Church, were selected from the
great body of similar writings existing at that time.
In the same way was the distinction arrived at between
books that are fit for the estabhshment of doctrine and
books that are not. The Christian consciousness, the
consciousness of the Church, discerns the Word of
God. In and through it comes that " witness of the
Holy Spirit " which Calvin and the other great reform
ere considered the chief testiraony to the truth and au
thority of the Word of God in sacred Scripture.
The position just taken is to be very clearly distin
guished from that which subordinates the Word of
God to the moral and religious consciousness of the in
dividual, or which issues in rationalism. The " reason "
of which we now speak is not man's intelhgence, his argu
ing or feeling faculty, regarded as independent of God
and thus acting as a judge or critic of the Divine Word.
The very existence as well as the exercise of the
moral and religioas conscionsness implies the work of
the Holy Spirit within the behoving soul. The object
of faith which stands before snch a soul is the same
object as that whose picture is objectively held up in
the Bible. Our doctrine is, in substance, the old-time
doctrine of Protestantism, the doctrine of the "tes
timony of the Holy Spirit" {testimonvum Spvritua
Sancii), with which the authority of churchly tradition
was met and overcome. " It is certain," said Martin

454 Authority of the Bible..
Luther, " that the reason is of all possessions the pre
eminent, and of all things in this life the best." But,
as he elsewhere also says : " Eeason acts and serves the
things of faith, not before but after faith. Reason,
after it is enUghtened by the Holy Spirit, serves faith ;
but without faith it blasphemes God."
What has just been determined about the relations
existing between the Word of God and the Church
applies to the Bible, because, and in so far as, the Bible
embraces and contains this Word of God. The unity
of the testimony from the moral and rehgious con
sciousness of the Christian Church and the testimony
of the Word of God in the Bible constitutes the high
est possible proof of the truth of Christianity. But
in considering the actual, practical relations which
exist between the Bible and the visible organized body
of Christian believers, we have to remember that we
are no longer dealing with ideals. The Bible, as we
have it, is not the perfect and infaUible Divine Word
without adriiixture of faulty and temporary elements ;
nor is the Church the perfect and infaUible organ of
that Holy Spirit -which was, nevertheless, promised to
it and does actually dweUand work within it.
Now, it is a matter of undoubted fact: that the Bible
was dependent upon the Church for its existence; and
that, in the order of history, the Church existed before
the Bible. AU the separate books of the Bible are the
products of the activity of members of the believing
coraraunity. TheSe books are also the product of the
spirit of the Church ; the coramon spiritual life which
animatefs the community has produced • these books.

Church Dependent on Bible. 455

So, also, is the Bible dependent upon the Chureh for
fixing its limits as a coUection of canonical Scriptures.
But, on the other hand, the Chureh is dependent, for
its development, npon the Bible. The facts and troths
of Christianity in their purity, freshness, and power, —
while as yet they were uncorrupted by bishops, synods,
and later authorities, and unmixed with the weak at
tempts at wisdom which characterized the writings of
the Chureh Fathers, — became fixed in the writings of
the New Testaraent. The great body of these writings
came by apostles and apostolic men. It is as though
the apostles were, by their pens and the pens of their
disciples and helpere, proclaiming the Gospel to us.
When, then, the Church wishes to know what true
Christianity is, whether as respects its great facts, or as
respects the ideas and principles which Christ taught in
pereon, or by His selected and commissioned foUowera,
the Church must resort to the New-Testament writings.
Here it finds the pattern and norm to which it must
conform its own doctrine and hfe; because here it
finds the faithful picture of original Chrisfa'anity, the
Christianity of Christ and the inspired, apostles. These
writings are also the onl/y sources of snch a pattern and
norm. Thus it is through the Scriptures only, in a
fixed and historical way, that Christ and the apostles
become the permanent sources of truth and influence
for the Christian Chareh. For the end of the Bible is
never to be found in itself ; its end is to be found in
continuaUy bnilding np the Church of Christ.
Thus it is, also, that the Church is dependent upon
the Bible for the purity of its doctrine aud life, and for

456 Authority of the Bible.
its power of reform when it has departed from the
original type of purity. If we look over the centuries
since the Chnrch was founded upon the apostolic word,
and upon the faith in Christ, we find that the doctrine
and life of the Church have largely varied according to
its intelligent and faithful use of the Bible. The New-
Testament writings have acted to steady the Church, as
it were, and to give a fixed and definite form to its
development, after the original and apostolic type.
Many and wide have been the departures of the various
sects, in certain places and ages, from this true apos
tolic type of Christian faith and life. For centuries,
during which the Bible has been unused except by a
few persons, or has been wholly unused, great corrup
tions and prevalent darkness have endangered the
Christian life. But the power of reforra, and the pos
sibiUty of a return to the trae type of Christianity,
have existed in the appeal to that Word of God
which the Bible contains and presents.
Once more, the Church is dependent upon the Bible
for the developraent of its doctrine into the systematic
exposition of its rule of faith and life. Many evil aud
perverted dogmas have built themselves up upon the
assuraed authority of sacred Scripture; but more and
worse dogmas have been foisted In from without by
neglect or violation of the truth of Scripture. The
wrong ideas which have been derived frora the Bible
by an honest but mistaken interpretation of it are few
in number compared with those which, arising from out
side in the soU of philosophy or in practical tendencies
or traditional authority, have tried to accommodate tbe

The true Object of Faith. 457
Bible to their ends. Moreover, as the science and art
of interpretation are improved, and thereby students of
the Bible come to know more accurately what its teach
ings reaUy are, many of the confficts which have arisen
between the moral and rehgious consciousness of man
kind and the alleged teachings of the Bible, cease to
take place at all. The more critical and historical ex
amination brings to light the alleged deficiencies of the
Old and New Testaraents, the more conspicuous become
the splendor and the peerless value of that real and
spiritual trath which it is their mission to present and
maintain. And now, in view of those relations in which the
Bible stands to the Word of God and to the Church of
God, we are prepared the better to deal with the ques
tion of the nature, sources, and Umits of its authority.
The nature and sources of the Bible's authority are best
shown in the service which it renders by holding up
before men the trae object of faith. All faith and
knowledge require an object ; so-called fa;ith, that has
no ground in objective reality, is credulity or super
stition. AU religious faith and knowledge require some
presentation of God as a pereon, standing in personal
relations, and ready to hold personal communication
with the human souL It is true that reUgion has one
of its roots in obscure feeling,— the sense of want aris
ing from weakness, of dependence, of need bom of sin.
But in order that religious faith raay affirm itself in
accordance with man's rational nature, it must define its
object. On what manner of One do I depend ? Who
is it that wiU meet my wants and needs ? What shall I

458 Authority of the Bible.
raake, not only the undlscerned end of ray blind grop
ing, but the object of intelligent and loving trust?
These questions are, if possible, especially pjrtinent in
the case of the Christian religion as compared with
other forms of religion. For Christianity is especially
an historical religion, — a religion that impUes an his
torical self-disclosure of God. Moreover, this process
of divine self-disclosure culminates in an actual person,
whose existence and words and deeds are matters of
verifiable fact. So, then, the Christian faith must
ground itself In a person actually and objectively pre
sented to men at the end of a course of history which
prepared the way for hira, and as himself having a
history terminating in his death and resurrection.
Now no other claira to authority which the Bible can
present at all equals in strength and persuasiveness the
claim that comes from its being the only source from
which we may derive the true picture of the object of
Christian faith. As it holds up before me this object,
it says to me, with all the authority of the Christ him
self: " This is he whom God has offered to you as the
Eedeemer and teacher and Lord of your soul. Hear
him." The authority of the Bible thus becomes the
authority of that which brings to me my Eedeemer and
Lord. It is the Bible which — to borrow a word from
philosophy — gives " objectivity " to faith. It grounds
faith in the objective presentation of Christ as He was
actually present upon the earth, the divinely commis
sioned and authoritative redeemer of mankind.
The nature of the authority of the Bible will also be
the clearer if we consider the nature of all authority,

Nature of this Authority. 459
and especially of such an authority as the Bible is fitted
to exercise. There is an authority of compulsion, such
as the earth exercises over the bodies suspended near its
surface to draw them down when their supports are
taken away. Bnt this is, more properly speaking, blind
physical necessity and not authority at all, as the term
applies to rational and free human beings; neither is it
as the master exercises authority over his horse or his
slave that the Bible has authority over us. Its author
ity expresses the right which the higher moral and re-
ligiovs truth has to satisfy the reason and to bind the
conscience qf num. For the Bible, like the Lord whom
it presents to us, desires an inteUigent and willing
service. The time when the word of the Lord came
to men in a system of legal and ceremonial ordinances
was finished with the old dispensation. Bat now men
are commanded to repent, believe, and accept the Gos
peL It is as presenting this trae and authoritative
message, offering God as the Redeemer of man in
Christ on condition of repentance, faith, and the obedi
ence of Him, that the Bible is an authority for as.
Bat the very nature of revelation, and of aU religion
as based npon revelation, is sach, that a strictly de
monstrative form cannot be given to its traths. We
cannot prove the authority of the Bible as we prove the
propositions of geometry or the laws of physics. It is
a mistake, also, to snppose that the chief support to
tbis authority comes from any evidence — such as the
miracles or the remarkable predictions of the prophets —
which Ues apart from the truths themselves, and from the
experience of men in accepting and applying them. The

460 . Authority of the Bible.
trath that Christ is actually the Redeemer of mankind,
which He is presented as being in the Bible, and there
fore the conclusion that the biblical presentation of
Hira, and its accompanying commands, are indeed au
thoritative, is a truth which must be evinced, as accord
ant with reason and conscience, in a certain kind of ex
perience. The Bible, as presenting and enforcing this
truth, is a book of authority. Its authority is shown
in the appeal which it makes to reason and to con
science, and in the experience which follows hearken
ing to the appeal, with all which this involves.
All that we have hitherto learned in answer to the
inquiry. What is the Bible ? proves, however, that dif
ferent parts of the Bible possess entirely different claims
to authority over us. This fact does not admit of de
nial. However it raay be denied in theory. It is always
affirmed and acted upon iu practice. Practically, —
that is, for the purpose of forming his faith or shaping
the religious Ufe, — ^no one puts an authentic teaching of
Christ concerning the truth of salvation on a level with
the legends about Samson or the trivialities of Nunibers
and Chronicles. Everybody now admits that the ritu
alistic ordinances of the Mosaic law, with its minute
provisions about garments and washings, etc., have no
authority over us. Even those who will not admit tbat
there is any moral imperfection in the most violent
of the imprecatory Psalms, or in the exterminating
ware of Israel, do not hesitate to exhort us to bless God
and our feUows and our own souls in the words of the
Psalter, while refraining from an appeal to these im
precatory Psalms or exterminating wars, as authorizing

In an Historical Way. 461
ns minutely and awfnUy to curse and exterminate onr
enemies, together with aU belonging to them, — even
their chUdren and their cattle.
The principle that the authority of different parts 01
sacred Scripture is different, both in kind and in de
gree, admits of a striking and clear illastratioa in the
case of the biblical histories. We may speak of the
" authority " of the historical contents of the Bible in
two meanings of the word. In one sense of the word,
we must say that the authority of the biblical history
is precisely such as belongs to all authenticated history.
Some of this history can claim a position of firet rank
as respects its authority, in this sense of the word, bnt
some of it occupies a less exalted position of authority.
Even the Evangelists teach the history of our Lord
with somewhat different d^rees of authority. The
authority of John, as an apostle and eye-witness, is
higher than that of Lake, who, as he frankly informs
ns, got some of his material at second hand, and under
a certain risk of mistake arising from this fact. Bat
the historical authority of each of the Evangelists is
mnch above that of the writera of the narratives of
early Genesis, or of Numbere, Judges, aud Chronicles.
In general, the history of the New Testament is more
aathoritative, because more obviously authentic, than
much of the Old-Testament history. The New Testa
ment has the high historical authority of a primitive
document composed by honest and competent witnesses.
In a more important meaning of the word " author
ity," not all of the historical writings of the Bible have
a perfectly eqnal authority. For nothing is more cer-

462 Authority of the Bible.
tain than that the biblical revelation Is an historical
revelation. Much of the biblical history is, therefore,
an essential or Important part of the biblical revelation.
For example, the death of Jesus is an historical fact ;
and so is His resurrection. But both these facts are
also immensely important and even essential factors in
the biblical self-disclosure of God as the Redeemer of
raan through our Lord Jesus Christ. They have, there
fore, an authority in the appeal which they make to the
Christian reason and the Christian conscience with re
spect to their moral significance and value as facts.
Contrast, for exaraple, the " authority " of the resurree-
tlon of our Lord with that of the alleged resurrection
of the unknown raan in 2 Kings xUi. 21, by touching
the bones of the prophet Elisha. The Ufe of the
Church is built upon the fact of Christ's triumph, as
the Risen One, over death, corruption, and Hades.
The consciousness of the Church testifies to a constant
comraunion with Christ as the Risen One, the ever-
living Saviour, Judge, and Advocate of His people, and
of the world. It is quite impossible by any theory of
the Inspiration of the Bible to give to the resurrection
of the unknown prophet in 2 Kings any authority at
all approaching this. Any theory which does not ree-
oj^nize the wide difference in the two cases is an ai-ti-
ficial and untenable theory.
For the Christian of to-day we may say, therefore,
tbat it is the Word of God which Christ spoke, and is,
which gives authority to the Bible, according to the re
lation in which Its different parts stand to that word.
It has, accordingly, been truly said by a modem theo-

Christ the chief Authority. 463
logian,* that " the certainty of the authority of sacred
Scripture we derive from Christ ; .... it is not true,
on the other hand, that Christ possesses for us a divine
and truly certain authority by reason of sacred Scrip
ture." Indeed, as we have already seen, we may in
certain cases oppose the authority of Christ to that of
sorae parts of the Bible itself. So Luther said : " If
the Scripture is urged againstChrist, then I urge Christ
against the Scripture." And no Christian can ever
afford to contradict or suppress the plain teaching of
the indweUing Spirit of our iord, in His effort to jus
tify the infallibility of sorae passage in the Old-Testa
ment law or history. What Christ says, for example,
abont the forgiveness of enemies cannot be lowered in
order to save the authority of an iraprecatory Psalm.
Where, then, shall we find sorae fixed and central
place of authority, to which we may bring aU the other
teachings of the Bible itself, as well as by it frame our
conceptions of what a Christian ought to believe, or
think, aud strive to do ? Such a place is the word of
Jesus Christ in the gospel. We are both able and ob
ligated to receive all the Word of God in the Bible as
having an authority relative to Him. This word, how
ever, does not simply comprise what He himself said ; It
comprises also what He himself did, and what He him
self was, in aU the significance of His personality and
His mission.
Bnt in the New Testament we have also the apostohc
word expanding and explainmg and applying the
word of Christ. The aposties were the ones selected,
* D. B. a, ii, p. 577.

464 Authority of the Bible.
commissioned, and inspired for the very purpose of
giving to the Church, in such form as that the Church
conld be founded for all ages upon it, the Word of God
that our Lord both taught and is. This apostolic word,
therefore, is an authentic and authoritative exposition
of who Chiist is ; and of what He has done and will do
for men ; and of what He requires of men in order to
be saved, and to become His true foUowere.
The non-apostolic authors of the New Testament
have an authority which is more indirectly derived, and
which is always relative to, and tested by, the authority
of Christ and the apostles. And of the entire Old
Testaraent we raust say, that its authority is relative.
The authority to be assigned to its different parts de
pends chiefiy upon the relation in which they stand to
the teaching of Christ and the apostles. The Old
Testament, as a whole, has authority for the Christian
only as a substantially authentic record of that prepar
atory history, and as a store-house of those religious
ideas, which all looked forward to Christ.
The opposite of the view just given, touching the ori^n
and limits of the authority of the Bible, leads to the
orizing which is inconsistent with the facts, and to
practices that are inconsistent with the highest and saf
est religious life. Let the theory once be held and
acted upon, that the Bible is a collection of infallible
writings all alike authoritative over belief and conduct ;
and what foUows ? Either there must be evasion and dis-
ingenuousness in working out the theory, and applying
it to particular cases, or else there raust be wide depart
ure from the pure Christian standard of faith and life.

Its unalterable Standard. 465
We are not, however, required to be first Jews and
then Christians. Practically, tme Christians agree that
the worldly-wise maxims of Proverbs, the cruel and
vengeful wishes and acts of Old-Testament saints,
whether commended or not by those who recorded
them, the principles which underlie some of tbe Mosaic
ordinances conceming the relations of the sexes, and
conceming the treatment of private and public enemies,
are not authoritative for ns. They are done away, su
perseded, as we say, by the Christian maxims and prin-
dples. Bnt to admit this, is to admit the imperfection,
judged by the moral standard, of the earher and cruder
portions of sacred Scripture, and the existence of kinds
and degrees of authority possessed by the different
thoughts of Scripture. Where then shall we find a
gtcmdard which we may safely apply to all of sacred
Scripture, as weU as to our own faith and hfe ? We
shaU find it in the objective word of Christ and the
apostles as reveahng to us Crod, the Eedeemer of sinful
and needy man.
But it will at once be seen that the construction
and application of this standard for aU the authority
of the Bible requires the activity of Christian minds,
of the reason and conscience belonging to living, self-
eonscious, and free huraan beings. For, as has already
been said, the authority of the bibhcal moral and re
ligioas principles is not like the reign of physical law
over material things. The spiritually illumined Chris
tian reason and conscience is the so-called " Christian
conscionsness." This Christian consciousness has an au
thority of its own ; its authority cannot be contravened

466 Authority of the Bible.
by the authority of the Bible; but the authority of
Christian consciousness Is the chief witness for the
authority of the Bible in all matters of Christian fnitli
and conduct. To consider the so-called " Christian con
sciousness " as capable or desirous of setting itself np
as an independent judge or critic of that word of Christ
and the apostles on which it is itself founded, is ut
terly to mistake its nature. But when it criticises
certain opinions, and maxims, and actions, relating
to matters of morals and reUgion, which appear to
have the credit of certain Old-Testament writers in
their favor, it may be doing precisely what it is de
signed and fitted to do. We recognize Moses, for ex
ample, as an inspired prophet and lawgiver of Israel ;
we exalt his mission In his own nation, and in respect
to the entire revelation of biblical religion, to a high
and conspicuous place. But if we point out that some
of the Mosaic ordinances testify to relatively low moral
and reUgious conceptions, on the part of both people
and lawgiver, we only do what the revelation of the
higher ideal law in Christ has empowered us to do.
And we have the authority of Christ to warrant us In
regarding the authority of Moses ae not absolute, as
not like Christ's authority.
The work of the Christian consciousness in survey
ing the biblical writings is not, however, distinctively
or chiefiy a critical work; it is rather a work of receiv
ing, approbating, and applying the truths of Scripture,
the Word of God in the Bible. Hence the Reforma
tion doctrine of the " witaiess of the Spirit " to Scrip
ture,— a doctrine already more than once referred to.

Tfie Witness of the Spirit. 467
" The Holy Spirit," sjys one writer, " is to-day testify
ing in us concerning the divine authority of Scrip
ture." SubstantiaUy the same view of the relation of
the believer's inner experience to external authority is
expi-essed in the writings of Luther and Melanchthon,
of ZwingU and (Ecolampadins. Calvin, also, regarded
the Christian conscionsuess as affording the one chief
witness to the truth of the Bible. It was to it — to this
spiritually Ulumined reason and conscience of the be
hever — ^that the apostles appealed for the testing and
approbating of the word they preached.
it is one of those strange facts which the history of
the Christian Church discloses that the denial of the
power and authority of the Spirit in the believer has
frequentiy arisen, alike from unchristian rationalism,
on the one hand, and from A^^per-orthodoxy, on the
other hand. Rationalism makes light of the authority
of the redeemed consciousness. It refuses to recog
nize the supernatural principle which abides — ^the gift
ot the Holy Ghost — ^in the Church, the commanity of
beUeving souls, as the possession of every true believer.
It is deaf to the promise of our Lord that this gift
should certainly be made, — that He wonld send the
Spirit, if He went away from the earth. In the sup
posed interests of a reason that shuts itself up agaiust
the promised diviue illumination, rationalism opposes
the testimony of an enlightened and expanded reason.
Bnt repeatedly in the coarse of history has a certain
type of " orthodoxy " — which is, indeed, when judged
by the Bible itself and by the faith of the Chnrch
catholic, not orthodox^reached the same conclusion.

468 Authority of the Bible.

There is a blind and Indisciiminating worship of the
letter of the canonical wiitings. Its controversy is
bora in fear and feeds on fears. It cannot trust the
Spirit of God to teach the behever in Christ, even
when the beUever foUows the exaraple of his Lord and
the apostles, as to what in these writings is the truth of
God's Word.
But he who lays the foundations of the authority of
Scripture in the infaUibility of the letter of Scripture,
lays them in the most insecure of all positions. For he
must at once answer the question : How are we to
guarantee the infallibility of this letter? And if he
undertakes to answer this question by the assumption
that the letter of Scripture must be infallible (a leap
of faith so-called), he finds that this assumption has no
sure basis either in the claims of Scripture or In the
facts of Scripture. But if, on the other hand, he un
dertakes to show by historical and critical researches
that the letter of Scripture is infallible, he has not
secured faith in the authority of Scripture, whether he
succeeds in his undertaking to his own satisfaction, or
not. For if he succeeds, he has only succeeded In lay
ing the foundations of faith in an historical and critical
contest about probabilities. He has opposed to the
witness of the Spirit the eonelnslons of his own petty
historical and critical studies.
How, then, shall we conceive of the authority of Ihe
Bible ? We answer : This authority Is objectively
founded in the fact that the Bible gives to us the true
picture of Christ and the authentic presentation of Eis
personality and doctrine, as the divine Redeemer. It

The Early Rule of Faith. 469
also gives us the apostolic exposition and application of
this word of Christ. It also gives as the history of
those facts, and of the development of those ideas,
Avhich in times preceding Christ prepared for, and an
ticipated His coming. To this Word of God the Spirit
of God in the believing commanity witnesses. In other
words, the truth of salvation, as it is brought to the
redeemed mind in that objective Divine Word which
the Bible contains, is discerned and approbated by the
redeemed mind. It is in these fects of history and
of experience that the authority of the Bible is
grounded. And now we may inquire into the relations in which
the Bible stands to the so-called Christian "rule of
faith." Upon this point we must listen to the voice of
history. This voice teaches us, in the firet place, how
it was that the Christian Church came to regard the
Bible as containing or famishing the " rule of faith"
Of course, since the Christian Chareh preceded the
New-Testament Scriptures, it could not have been
originaUy dependent on those Scriptures for its norm,
or rule, as to what it is light for a Christian to believe.
Nor, in so fer as its faith was distinctively Christian
and not Jewish, could it rely, for its rule, upon the
writings of the Old Testament.
Moreover, for several centuries after the New Testa
ment was written, the " rule of faith " for Christians was
not considered to consist simply of the writings of the
New Testament. For the early Chnrch the rule of faith
was the apostolic word, whether deUvered in writing or
by tradition. As an historian of the Church has tralj

47° Authority of the Bible.
said : * " A wide-spread agreement over the principal
tenets of this faith (that is, the faith of the Church as
indicated in its rule of faith) appears much earlier than
over the canon and contents of sacred Scripture." It "
would scarcely be overstating the truth to say that the
Church's rule of faith had originaUy raore to do with fix
ing the canon of the New Testaraent than the New Tes
tament had to do with fixing the Church's rule of faith.
It is not to be supposed, however, that the early
Church thought of, much less discovered, any contradic
tion between the teachings of the New^ Testament and
its own rule of faith. On the contrary, the rule of the
faith of the Church, the " tradition of the Church,"
and "the Divine Scripture," were thought of as two
ways of arriving at oue and the same authority of reve
lation. The early Church, however, did not iu theory
or in fact derive its rule of faith solely, or chiefly, from
the Bible. And, indeed, it did not need to do so. The
apostolic word had been proclaimed in the ears of raen
stUl living, or only a little while ago dead ; there was
as yet no time for its substantial corruption.
But it is perfectly plain that the relations In which
the Christian Church stood to the Bible, with respect
to the Church's rule of faith, could not remain un
changed as the centuries of its life went on. As the
certainty of other forms of delivering the uncorrupted
and coraplete word of Chiist and the apostles became
less and less, the Bible becarae raore and more the
only trustworthy source • of that word. Thus history
went on to fix certain relations between the Church and
*Hase; compare D. 8. S,, ii,, p. 5911

Construction of the Rule of Faith. 471

the Bible. When these relations became obscured and
perverted, as happened during the ages preceding the
Reformation, the deliverances of the Church, through
her officers or her councils and synods, came to be
m.ade of like authority, or even in fact of superior au
thority, to that of the Bible itself. It was in opposi
tion to this view that Protestantism proclaimed its fun
damental tenet, — the Bible gives us, as respects raatters
of Christian faith and conduct, the onl/y rule of faith.
This amounts to answering the question of the inquirer
into, or believer in, Christianity, — " Where shall I go to
find out what I ought to believe and do as a Christian ? "
— rby saying : " Go to the Bible for your rule of faith
and conduct ; for it is ihe rule, and there is no other."
No rule of faith lies ready-made in the Scriptures, as
it were, but every rule of faith 'must be constructed
from the Scriptures by the exercise of an enlightened
Christian reason and conscience. The different formulas
and symbols of the different sects of Christendom, as
well as the few great historical creeds which alraost all
of these sects unite in holding, are ready^nade rales of
faith. They are constructions of what is sometimes
called the " Christian consciousness."
In the Bible itself, however, there exists no set of
statements summing up in a systematic way, with any
atterapt at completeness, all that it is essential or im
portant for a Christian to beUeve and do. It follows,
then, that the rule of faith must be made up frora the
Bible instead of being taken ready-raade frora the
Bible. For it does not exist ready-made in the Bible,
that it may be taken from It. But how shall this rule

472 Authority of the Bible.
of faith be constructed ? Its construction involves the
activity of the " Christian consciousness." In other
words, the enlightened reason and conscience of be
lievera must discera, and harmonize, and mould, each to
the other, those traths, taught in historical fact or doc
trinal statement, which the Bible contains, and which
constitute the Word of God.
On the other hand, we have already seen abundant
reason for holding that, in the Bible, God has given, to
the Church and to the world, the permanent and au
thoritative " norm," or type, for constructing the sure
rule of faith. The rale of faith is indeed here given
in the historical connection of revelation itself; its
form is not dogmatic. The Bible presents Jesns
Christ as an historical personahty in His true set
ting of historical circumstances; it does not provide
a systematic statement of all the doctrines that are in
volved in this personality. But the New Testament
also gives us the results of apostoUc reflection npon the
meaning of His pereonahty and of His history. And,
furthermore, the Old Testament gives as the history of
those facts and ideas in which God made Himself
known to Israel as their Redeemer, and as the Re
deemer of mankind through them. Inasmuch as, and
in so far as, the Bible contains the word of our Lord,
of His aposties, and of other inspired servants of God,
respecting the divine self-revelation in redemption, the
Bible is the rule of faith.
It is also true, that the truths of the Bible in some
sort organize themselves into a kind of system of fact
and truth— "a rule of faith "—as soon as we put our-

Construction of the Rule of Faith. 473

selves into the right cenfa-al position from which to re
gard them. This central position is to be found in the
pereon, and word, and work of Christ. The biblical
pattern of the rule of faith ref ere everything to Him,
as the bearer to man of God the Redeemer. But this
rule of faith, thus given in the Bible, is given only as a
norm, — a conditioning germ, a fixed standard, type, or
pattern, of what the Christian must beUeve and do. It
is designed and adapted for development. The Church
uses aU her experience, as guided, eneoaraged, rebuked,
chastened, and enlightened by the Divine Spirit, in
building up her system of doctrines, in constructing the
mle of faith. But the Church builds soundly, buUds
what will stand, only as she buUds in accordance with
this indestructible norm, or type. To discern what this
is, and the better to conf orra to it, and the more to de
velop her faith and life in accord with it, she resorts
ever afresh to the Bible, and to the unchangeable Word
of God whieh is fonnd therein.
Once more, we see that only a secondary and subor
dinate, and yet a real, authority may be claimed for the
work of Christian reason and conscience in constructing
the rule of faith. The individual believer, and the en
tire Christian Church, stand in an attitude of faith and
receptivity toward the word of Christ and of the apostles.
The Lord himself is the only teacher of absolute au
thority, and He has bidden His foUowera "call no man
rabbi." Bnt the same Lord also selected the apostles,
commissioned them, and inspired them by the Spirit sent
from the Father, to be the preachere of the Gospel in
its purity and power, and the foundera of the Christian

474 Authority of the Bible.
Church. He called and equipped them ; and He so
placed thera in history, that they raight hold a perfectly
unique position In the developraent of the doctrine and
Ufe of all believers In Hira. Therefore, we receive also
the apostolic word i:i mattera of Christian faith and
practice, — remembering the promise of Christ to lead
them (progressively) into the trath {fhe truth, pre-emi
nently, which He himself taught, and was). The
whole Christian Church learns of Christ and the apos
tles as the authoritative exponents of the fact and truths
of the divine self-revelation of rederaption. *
Now, it is not as Jews and Jewish Uterallsts or ritu
alists, but as taught of Christ and the apostles, and as
led by the Holy Spirit to the higher Christian point of
view, that the comraunion of believers receives and es
timates the entire body of canonical writings, especially
the writings of the Old Testament. It receives, for
exaraple, as its authoritative rule of Ufe, different prin
ciples and maxims frora those contained in the Mosaic
law with respect to marriage and divorce, with respect
to raeats and tithes, the keeping of cereraonial enact
ments, and the observance of the Sabbath. It holds,
on the authority of Jesus Christ himseK, the power to
criticise and test the views which the Old-Testament
saints held regarding the nature and development of the
divine kingdom ; and it, therefore, knows in what re
spect certain expectations of the prophets, touching
what Messiah would be and do, were fragmentary and
mistaken. It relies upon the same authority for its be
Uef that the grounds and conditions of salvation are
such as they are given in the Christian religion, and

The Development of Doctrine. 475
not in aU respects such as they appeared to be to the
Jewish reUgion.
A development of Christian doctrine is also possible for
the Christian Church, because the Church has a grow
ing experience of the truth of Christ under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit^ — although always in dependence
npon, and submission to, the indestructible type of
Christian faith and life given to it in the word of
the Lord Jesus and His apostles. For the same reason
the Church is capable of self-purification. It has the
law of its faith and hfe set for it in this Word of
God ; and to this law it may retum, and conform
itseK anew so often as it has wandered. Thus, the
teaching by which it has most steadfastly held, in all
the centnries and places of its growth, represents its
most tme and real thought and life. The individual
believer can always appeal, not only from the dogma of
a particular sect to the word of Christ and of the apos
ties, but also from the dogma of a sect, held daring
this or that section of time, to the doctiine of the
Church cathohc as learned from a study of the unfold
ing of the Chnrch's experience in history.
The Bible, therefore, addresses the reason and con
science of men with the highest authority which belongs
to the kind of truth which its writings present. It
thus becomes a divine voice, or Word of God, to man.
And he who heara the divine voice, who accepts the
divine word, thus brought before him, has an experi
ence awakened thereby, which forras for him the high
est proof that the authority to which he has hstened
has a right to be accepted and obeyed.

CHAPTER XVL

CONCLUSION.

We are now in a position to give an answer, founded
upon both critical researches and Christian conscious
ness, to the question which was proposed at the begin
ning of this book, — the question, namely, What is the
Bible ? In reply we have told the story of how these
writings carae to exist in literature, and of what are
the Uterary and other raore obvious characteristics'
which distinguish them from differing kinds of litera
ture. We have described that process by which the
Church of God gathered these writings together and
gave to the collection, as a whole, the peculiai- signifi
cance which it has as pre-erainentiy sacred and inspired.
Thus the question, What is the Bible ? has been an
swered in the plain, historical, or — as it is sometimes
said — the "inductive" way.
But the experience of the Church of God, especially
both the historical and the present experience of the
Christian Church, enables us to add yet other even more
iraportant elements to our description. The Church
finds in the Bible — and the individual believer finds Id
it — ihe book, pre-eminently, of the true faith and hfe.
The Cliristian faith is grounded upon those great facts
and traths which present God as the Redeemer of man
through Jesus Christ. The Bible is the book, the only
(476)

Conclusion. 477
book, which presents these facts and tmths in an an-
thentie, original, and authoritative way. This is so
especially because it alone brings to ns the word of
Christ and the apostles, telling to us and to all men
what is true for the Christian to beUeve, and right for
him to do. That is to say, the Bible is the book whieh
brings to the Church, and to tJie world, ihe true word
of God in. redemption from sim,.
We retum t^en, in closing our inquiry, to the same
point of -view -with which the investigation began.
The unlearned but devout believer dearly prizes the
practical use which he makes of the Bible in enlarging
and confirming within himself the tme Christian faith,
and in buUding up the true Christian life. He wishes
to have the question. What is the Bible ? answered in
such manner as to work no harm to the effidency of
this use. It is for this reason that he shrinks from
those inquiries which modem bibUcal study suggests,
and from those conclusions to which it seems to compel
its devotees. But the veiy inquiry, which has just been
finished, into tbe origin and nature of the biblical writ
ings, has led ns to place the emphasis almost whoUy on
the service which these writings render in bringing
the historical revelation of God, as Redeemer, before
men in an anljientic, scriptural form. It has been seen
that no discovery of modem bibhcal criticism detracts
from or diminishes the power of the Bible to perform
this service.
What then is the highest final purpose of Holy
Scripture in its relations to the individual behever?
It is to serve as a helpful means of his actual redemp-

478 Conclusion.

tion. The most important part of the general inquiry.
What is the Bible ? is therefore left for every man to
answer for himself in a practical way. What is the
Blble/br- me f It is chiefly what I make it to bb by an
intelligent, devout, and consistent use, in the shaping
of my Christian faith and conduct. The biblical writ
ers themselves are, to all appearance, interested in the
very same practical use of the Divine Word which in
terests the believer of to-day. They are interested In
having the truth which they present accomplish a real
and essential spiritual work in the human soul. They
and we together are seeking to nse the biblical expres
sions of truth as a means of faith, hope, and love.
The raatter of main import for all inquirers is, ac
cordingly, that the Bible should be in fact so used as
to begin and educate the redeemed life of the soul.
The only way to secure this raost important aim of the
Bible's use is actually to govern and shape the life of
the soul by that pattern of the redeemed life which
the Bible presents. Would you have the canonical
writings prove themselves to you as being, in reahty,
what they claim to be ? Then make use of them as
your counsellor and guide. In other words, the Bible
fulfils its suprerae purpose when it becomes a means of
grace ; and it is in the service which it renders as a
raeans of grace that it most convincingly justifies its
claira to be regarded as the work of the Spirit of God.
But the Bible is not a fetich to be worshipped, or a
despot to be slavishly obeyed. Through it we learn of
God and are the raore induced to give God the glory.
From it we learn those maxims of right hving, and that

Conclusion. ^yg

picture of God, Christ, and duty, whieh the freedom of
faith rejoices to accept. The Bible as a means of grace
does not fetter reason, but informs and guides it ; does
not bind its loyal reader to an unhesitating assent t;i
its letter. It tells us that, if the letter kiUeth, the
spirit maketh alive. It bids us keep with regard to
itself its own maxim, to prove all things and hold fast
that which is gOod. But it also furnishes us -with the
means of discerning and testing the supreme good by
bringing all that it itself contains, and aU other religious
teachings, to the standard of the infalhble trath which
Christ teaches, and is.
The highest nse of the Bible ; s a means of grace,
however, does not belong to any one pereon as though
he were merely an individual isolated from the common
spiritual hfe of the religious coraraunity. We have
seen that the Bible is of the Chnrch and for the Church.
Its use is a churchly affair. As its words are recited by
the appointed officer of Christian assemblies, or by the
assembled company of aU beUevere themselves, they
show the power of the Divine Word which is in them
to comfort and nourish and inform the spiritual life.
Moreover, the interpretation of the Bible, and the
formation of the rule of faith upon the basis of those
facts and traths which are divinely taught in the Bible,
is a function of the Church.
Bat, furthermore, the experience which the Christian
reader has in the use of his Bible reflects more light
npon its nature and oiigin as divine. This is an ex
perience of being met and blessed by the Holy Sphit
in the use of the Bible. Such an experience is, doubt-

480 Conclusion.

less, one of the raost convincing and effectual of all the
reasons found for beUeving Holy Scripture to be from
God. Inevitably, every one will judge of the book
very largely by what it does for him. The Bible Is for
a raan what it is to him. And yet this thought must
not be pressed in snch a way as to destroy or weaken
the force of the thought just preceding. This experi
ence of raine with the Bible is indeed' my experience;
but it is also an experience in which the great multitude
who compose the invisible body of behevere are in com
plete aecord with me.
If any beUever wUl intelUgentiy and faithfully use
the Bible as a raeans of grace, he may grow by this nse
in the manifold graces of the Christian life. In the
Bible he raay find, in every eraergency, a serviceable
portion for his soul. When he knows hiraself to be In
danger from cowardice and effeminacy, he may sound
its call to the soldierly courage and endurance which so
befit the true Christian life. When downcast, he may
Uft himself up in the hght of its pages; and when ex
ultant, he may find in them both sympathy and chas
tening for his joy. When he has sinned, it summons
hira anew to repentance and to the forsaking of sin.
When sorrow and death are his lot, as they are the lot
of all, he can use the words of raingled grief and con
solation which were left on record by the inspired
sufferere of other days. For here are the sword and the
hammer, the cup of water and. of medicine, the flower
to cheer with Its beauty, the bath to refresh, the whip
to chasten and excite, .made ready for the Christian's
use.

Conclusion. 481

There are even nobler uses of the biblical writings,
which the inteUigent and beUeving student of thera
may make, than any that are confined simply to the
apphcation of the words and traths to his own daily
life. By the scholarly and comprehensive study of these
pages he may rise to the highest and divinest points of
view from which to behold the history and the destiny
of the human race. For the Bible is the book of re
demption, and its truths open before the mind the
vistas that lead into the perfected divine kingdom.
Prophets and apostles, but especially Jesus Christ him
self, have rejoiced in their day to labor and suffer for
the coming of that kingdom. They have foreseen the
time of its fuUest glory and power; and this vision
has blessed them with the most benevolent and sym
pathetic joy of expectation. We, too, may seethe new
Jemsalem coming down from on high ; bnt it is by en
tering in to the meaning of the highest ideas of the
biblical writere that we are raised to this point of view.
For in this book is foretold and promised the redemp
tion of the race, the triumph of the kingdom that is
to cover and possess the earth.
It was one of the many grand results of the Protest
ant Reformation, in its wide influence over literature,
politics, and popular Ufe, that it brought the Bible near
to, and opened it before, mankind at large. The Bible
then began to be, what it is destined more and more to
become, the book of tbe race. It ceased to be buried
in manuscript editions of the palaces and doistere.
The discovery of printing made it possible — aud this in
no indefinitely long period — to place a copy of it in the

482 Conclusion.

hands of every raan. In this wonderful era a strong
spirit of unrest agitated the people. They craved
light ; they longed for change ; they demanded help,
touching their relations to their rulers, to one another,
and to God. This wonderful book, now brought ont
of the dead languages in which it was originally given
to mankind, and translated into the vernacular of
every people, and multiplied a thousand fold by the
printing-presses, promised knowledge, relief, and peace.
The Bible, indeed, contains that truth which is best
fitted to stimulate, guide, and satisfy the growth of
raan in intellectual vigor, and in the moral and re
ligious emotions. The biblical presentations of moral
and religious objects are wonderfully adapted to meet
the needs of" human reflection and feeling. The writers
of sacred Scripture speak from God to the human
raind and heart. Their language is indeed of a special
kind, with the peculiarities of phrase, figures of speech,
etc., which belong to a foreign land and a remote age.
And yet it has universal elements in it; and it ad
dresses the comraon raind and heart, the natnre in
which we all share. .
For these and other reasons, the Bible ¦wiU continue
to becorae raore and raore the book of the race, — more
and raore a choice means of inciting, guiding, and In
forming the redeemed life of humanity. Many of Its
writings will indeed cease to be used in the future as they
have been used in the past. The Old Testament will
no longer be employed to feed the feeling of vlndie-
tiveness, to prove the rightfulness of slavery, polygamy,
and the subordination of woman. The cosmogony of

Conclusion. 483

Genesis wUl not always be taken as a description of the
actual process of world-building in accord with all the
details of modem scientific evolution; nor will the
Song of Solomon be made, by a mystical interpreta
tion, to stimulate and praise the love of Christ and the
Church. AU attempts will be surrendered to frame a
theory inconsistent with, or independent of, the facts,
and then to employ the Bible in accordance with the
demands of the theoiy rather than with either the na
ture of the Bible or the more refined needs of the re
deemed soul. But the Bible wiU thereby lose nothing
of its efficiency or honor as the means employed by
the Spirit in the distribution of grace to. the individual
beUever and to all mankind. For its efficiency and
honor as a medium of divine spiritual gifts do not de
pend upon its infallibility or its perfectness in all regards.
They depend chiefly upon a very few siraple but un-
chimgeable facts and tmths.
Man is in need of redemption, and either obscurely
or more clearly recognizes his need. The Bible is the
book whieh presents the facts and truths of redemp
tion. It is destined, therefore, to become the book of
the world ; for it is the book divmely prepared and
adapted as the instrument of redeeming the world
through Christ. It is its supreme office, its crowning
glory, to minister to the Holy Spirit in conforming
man to the muid and life of man's Saviour and Lord.

APPENDIX.

RECENT CONSERVATIVE VIEWS OF THE ORIGIN
OP THE HEXATEUCH.
Ir is a notable and instruddve fact that httie or nothing
is being done by the advocates of the traditional theory
to famish a substitute for the exixeme and so-caUed " de
structive " views of the Hexateuch and of the origin of
Old-Testament religion. When, for example, a work like
that recently pablished by Renan appears, its exaggerated
statements are met ¦with mmply a blank and ineffectual
protest from those few scholare who stiU beUeve that
Moses was the author of the five books ordinarily caUed
by his name. The contest between the old and the new
opinions on this question of bibhcal criticism seems likely
to f oUow a course hke that taken by the contest over the
adoption of modem -views in astronomy. When the daim
was first put forth that the sun is the centre of the solar
system, and that the earth instead of the sun is in motion, it
was treated by the " orthodox " theologians of the time -with
indignant denial as contrary to the obvious truth of revela
tion. To make such a claim was then considered a dreadful
heresy, — a heresy, indeed, which the Church was bound to
visit with aU the penalties in her power. But the new
scientific truth won its way ; and in time the theologians
who at first denied it, relapsed into enforced sUence even
(485)

486 Appendix.

against the atheistic or naturalistic conclusions whicb
some of its advocates ¦wished to draw from it. Their zeal
to maintain the existing orthodoxy in spite of new truth,
had taken away their power to defend the real and im
portant matters of faith, in consistency ¦with this new
truth. But other more reasonable and truth-loving theo
logians found out a way both to accept the truth of rev
elation and also to admit the fact that the earth moves. In
hke manner, at the present time, the advocates of the view
that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch are rapidly
being forced into the condition where they have nothing
wha,tever to say to the facts which modern scholarship
is disclosing ; or if they say anything, they can only reit
erate the opinion that the traditional view is alone ortho
dox and safe for the shaping of Christian conduct. Yet, in
this case- too, other bibhcal scholars are arising who are
using their critical study to good effect in showing how
the admission that Moses is not the author of the Penta
teuch in no ¦wise damages the foundations of faith.
In several places in this book the claun has been
made that Christian scholars are almost unanimous
in the opinion that the Hexateuch is a composite com
position, an historical development, and therefore can
not have been the work of Moses. This claim of schol
arly unanimity is sometimes disputed in the presence of
the Christian multitude. I wish, therefore, to enforce it
by quoting the words of Prof. C. A. Briggs (in the Pres-
}ygterian B^iew for April, 1887, p. 340). "The critical
analysis of the Hexateuch," says this Christian scholar,
« is the result of more than a century of profound study
of the documents by the greatest critics of the age.
There has been a steady advance untU the present position
of agreement has been reached m which Jew and CJhrifl-

Appendix. 487

tian, Roman Cathohc and Protestant, Rationalistic and
Evangehc^ scholars. Reformed and Lutheran, Presby
terian and Episcopal, UnitariaiL, Methodist and Baptist aU
concur. The analysis of the Hexateuch into several dis--
tinct original documents is a purely hterary question in
which no article of faith is involved. Whoever in these
times, in the discussion of the Uterary phenomena of the
Hexateuch, appeals to the ignorance and prejudices of the
muUitade as if there were any peril to the faith in these
processes of the Higher Criticism risks his reputation for
scholarship by so doing. There are no Hebrew prof ea-
sore on the continent of Europe, so far as I know, who
would deny the Hterary analysis of the Pentateuch into
the four great documents. The professors of Hebrew in
the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh,
and tutore in a large number of theological colleges, hold
¦to the same opinion. A very considerable nomber of the
Hebrew professors of America are in accord -with them.
There are, indeed, a few professional scholare who hold to
the tradition^ opinion, but these are in a hopeless minor
ity. I doubt whether there is any question of scholar
ship whatever in whieh there is greater agreement among
scholare than in this question of the Hterary analysis of
the Hexateuch."
Prof. Briggs also correctly states the points on which
the critics are in concord respecting the four great docu
ments, as foUows : The document of the Deuteronomist (D)
may be easUy distinguished, becanse it is chiefly in one
soHd mass. With the exception of a few passages, in
which the editor has combined the priestly narrative with
the prophetic story, the large work of the priestiy narra
tor (A or the "Priests' Code") may also be readUy distin
guished. The separation in all cases of the theocratic

488 Appendix.

narrator (B) from the prophetic narrator (C) is more dif
ficult ; but as to the existence and principal characteris
tics of these documents there is a substantial agreement.
The later editore of these four ancient inspired documents
preserved the very words of the originals, as far as possi
ble, and put them together into a whole, "at the ex
pense of diffuseness, dupHcate narratives, and even trip-
Hcates." The two principal authorities who have recently pub
hshed their mature conclusions, and who stand in the
conservative ranks (that is, they are incUned to assign to
an ancient and even a substantially Mosaic origin as much
as possible of Pentateuchal legislation) are Dillmann and
Dehtzsch. The former of these may safely be called
the prince of H-ving Old-Testament scholare and commen-
tatore. The conclusions of DUhnann's analysis of the Hexateuch
are, in brief, as follows : The priests' narrative (A) was
written in the kingdom of Judah in the ninth century b.c.
The work of the theocratic narrator (B) was -written in
the northern kingdom in the first half of the same cen
tury ; that of the prophetic narrator (C) in the southern
kingdom not earher than the middle of the eighth cen
tury. These three independent documents were compacted
at one editing just before the Exile, and during the Exile
were attached to Deuteronomy. There is one section of
the Priests' Code which Dillmann caUs the " Sinai Code."
This includes the so-called " sanctity " legislation of Le-rit-
icus and other parts of the priestly legislation which
share its pecuharities. It is later than the main body of
A although it contains many laws of great antiquity.
These laws had been handed down in the circle of priests,
and were codified not long before the Exile. Other short

Ap>pendix. 489
codes of la-ws were collected during the ExHe. These, all
t(^ether with the Sinai Code, were incorporated with the
four great documents called A B, C, D, by an editor of
the priestly circle among the exiles.
The -view of DQlmann confirms what was said in the
chapter on "the Authorship of the Bibhcal Books," where
it was sho-wn that while critidsm can be trusted to have
proved, beyond doubt, the composite nature of the Pen
tateuch, and therefore its non-Mosaic origin, it has not
yet solved satisfactorily all the minor problems coimected
with the subject. It does not seem likely to us tiiat we
shall ev%r be able to reproduce in much detail the histoiy
of the one thousand yeara of legislative and Hterary activ
ity which produced the present form of the first six books
of the Old Testament.
The name of Prof. DeiUtzsch has las yeare been con
nected -with the conception of a devout Christian scholar-
EMp used in the defence of the faith againt attacks upon
the supemataral character of the Old-Testament reHgion
and of the -writings which record its development. The first
edition of his Commentary on Genesis was issued thirty-
five yeare ago ; the last has but recently appeared. Stead
Uy has this Christian scholar been led by his researches,
and love for truth, farther and farther away from the tra
ditional view as to the origin <rf the Hexateuch. We give
below a brief summary of his present position.
In the opinion of Prof. Dehtzsch only the 6osis of the
several codes (Ex. xx.— xxiiL, Deuteronomy, and the Priests'
Code) incorporated in the Pentateuch is Mosaic ; the form
in which these codes (at least, Deuteronomy and the
Priests' Code) are presented in the Pentateuch is of an
origin much later than the time of Moses. The Decalogue
and the laws forming "The Book of the Covenant" are

490 Appendix.

the most ancient portions ; they preserve the Mosaic type
" in its relatively oldest and purest form." Of thia type
Deuteronomy is a development. The statement that
Moses " -wrdte " the Deuteronomic law (Deut, xxxi, 9, 24)
does not refer to the present book of Deuteronomy, but
to the code of laws which underUes it. Thus the suh-
stance of the book is ancient, but it owes its present form
to a writer of prophetical spirit, who lived in the time of
Hezekiah, As we have pointed out in the chapter on this
subject, the writer of Deuteronomy does not claim to be
Moses, for he introduces Moses as speaking (i, 1-5 ; iv.
44r-49), and incorporates into his speeches antiquarian
notices of his own (u. 10-12, 20-23, etc.).
The Priests' Code, which embodies the more distinct
ively rituahstic and ceremonial legislation, is the result of
a long and progressive development. Certain of its prin
ciples originated with Moses, but its form, which is utterly
unlike that of the other parts of the Pentateuch, was re
ceived at the hands of the priests of the nation. Prob
ably some particular priest, at a much later date indeed
than the time of Moses, but prior to the composition of
Deuteronomy, was espeelaUy influential in shaping it.
But the last stages of its development may belong to the
period after the ExUe.
The historical traditions which are incorporated into the
Hexateuch were committed to -writing at different times
and by different hands. The narratives of them are
superimposed, as it were, stratum upon stratum, in the
Pentateuch and Book of Joshua. For the Book of Joshua
is connected intimately with the Pentateuch, and when
analyzed, shows the same composite structm-e. The dif
ferences which the several codes exhibit are due to modifi
cations which they received in the course of history, as

Appendix. 491

they were variously coUected, revised, and passed on from
generation to generation.
One thing Prof. Dehtzsch rightly insists upon as of su
preme importance. "Torah and Pentateuch are not
identical ideas. Only in late post-exUic times, after the
three-fold di-vision of the canon into law, prophets and
hagiographa was established, did they come to be identi
fied  If it be true that the Pentateuch contains the
Torah, but is not itself the Torah, it is self-evident that the
'Book of the Law' which Moses, according to Deut.
xxxi. 9, -wrote, cannot be the Pentateuch, or even Deuter
onomy in its present shape ; and there is the less diffi
culty in holding that the Pentateuch, Hke all the other
lustorical books of the Bible, is composed of documentary
sources differing alike in character and age, which critical
analysis may stUl be able, vrith greater or less certainty,
to distinguish and separate from one another."
We do not know how better to close this brief presenta
tion of the facts regarding the authorship of the books
ascribed by tradition to Moses, as weU as our whole
attempt ta answer the question. What is the Bible ? than
by reiterating our firm persuasion that the faith of the
Christian cannot suffer from a knowledge of the truth. For,
as says the venerable and pious scholar. Prof. Dehtzsch :
" God is a God of trath ! The love of trath, submission
to the yoke of truth, abandonment of traditional views
which wUl not endure the test of truth, is a sacred duty,
an element of the genuine fear of God. 'Will ye be
God's partisans? ' exclainis Job indignantly to his friends,
who assume toward him the part of advocates for God,
whUe they distort the facts on which the issue rests -m
major em Dei glormtn."

INDEX.

ABRAHAif, traditions of, 202 f.,
208 f.
AsutKiOMKNA, the, 379, 383 f.
AimocH, ScHOOi. OF, 41 f .
AP0CAI.TPSB, 384.
Apocrypha of the Old Testa
ment, their views of Scriptnre,
20 f. ; inspiration of, 33 f.,
367 f., 375, 384; excluded
from canon, 375, 384.
AuGTJsnsB, his -view of the
Bible, 39 f. ; canon of, 384,
385 f.
¦Rat.* ATM-, two traditions of, 204 f.
Baxter, his views of the Bible,
60 f.
BiELB, the, practical use of, 1 f,,
lot, 13f., 74, 280f.; criti
cism of, 6f., 59, 105, 126,
329 ; Jewish views of, 17 f. ;
apocryphal -witness to, 20 f. ;
Talmudic view of , 22 f. ; view
of the Church-Fathers con
cerning, 27 f.; infaUibility of ,
31 f., 50, 651. 135, 221 f., 227.
296, 448 f. ; view of, m Mid
dle Ages, 37 f.; Reformation
view of, 47 f., 52; authority
of, 52f., 74 434f., 458 f.;
dogmatic use of, 57, 465 f..

468 f., 472 f.; inspiration of,
75, 861, 96 f., 97, 101, 289,
330, 3331, 3611, 4221, 4321;
general claims of, 124 ; motal
and religions teaching of,
2571, 2631, 2681. 2711,
282 1 ; authorship of its books.
2901, 2941, 3281; as Utera
ture, 3331, 3371, 3431,
3581 ; imagery of, 3431 ;
lost books in, 3711 ; text of,
3941; manuscripts of, 3971;
as record of revelation, 412.
4171; relatioDS of, to the
Caiurch, 4511, 4541, 4561
BmucAL SciENCB, tmstwoithi-
nessof, 121, 1271
BuKDEHESH, its eariy traditions,
1971

CALvnr, views of, 48. 387.
Cahoh. the. how established.
181. 370, 373 f.. 3781; mean
ing of the term, 3631, 3661,
3691 ; divided view ol 368.
376. 383; grounds of. 3751,
383. 3851. 3901 ; Boman
CathoUc view of. 3871
Chetbostom. views of. 421
Church, inspiration of, 181.
(493)

494

Index.

96 f,, 364 f,: its early view of
the Bible, 291, 341, 36; its
doctrine of sacred Scripture
summarized, 70 f.
Ghueoh-Fathebs, their view of
the Bible, 27 f.; of the Apoc
rypha, 33 f .
CosMOGONT, the Mosaic, 185 f.,
1391, 1441, 1501
Gkiticism, the "higher," 59, 136;
the " destructive," 105 f„ 205;
of the biblical histories, 189 f,,
300 ; of the Pentateuch, 300 f .
Daniel, Book of, its language,
3371
Dbcaloghb, origin of, 107,
DEtuQE, the narrative of, 147 f ,,
193,
Deutbbonomt, origin of,,108f,,
2991, 304, 307, 3101, 313,
314 ; discovery of, 314,
DoDDHiDGE, his views of the
Bible, 62,
Eden, Garden of, 197.
Esther, Book of, morality of,
365 f,, 374 f,; canonizing of,
8741
Genealogies of Genesis, 198 f,;
of the Evangelists, 338,
Genesis, eariy chapters of, 127 f,,
194, 1961, 200 f,; cosmogony
ol 137 f„ 1401; composite
structure of, 303,
Gqspels, historical character of,
1981, 3121, 2151, 321; as
biographies of Jesus, 215 f,,
331, 335 f. ; discrepancies in,
331 f , ; authorship of, 395,

330 f, ; order of the origin of,
822.
Greek, the biblical, 3331, 849f ,
860.
Hagiographa, Talmudic -view
of, 28, 373; canonizing of,
8731
Hebrew as a language, 883 f.,
3881, 3461, 860; origin ol
3361
Histories, the Old-Testament,
claims of, 128 f„ 300 f, ; of
the biblical miracles, 160 f,,
1711, 1771; of the Bible in
general, 185 f,, 334 f, ; dis
crepancies in, 188 f,, 3311,
306 f , ; as revelation, 411 f .
Hokhmah, the writings of the,
1201
Holt Spirit, tbe, BibUcal vie-w
of, 183 f.
Inspiration, earlier theory of,
8 f., 13 ; apocryphal view of,
21 ; Philo's theory ol 24f,;
of apocryphal writings, 33 f,;
early Christian view of, 32 f,;
^o«i-Refonnation theory of,
58 f,, 65, 1861; Christ's view
of, 801; -promised to the
apostles, 861, 97; of the be
Ueving community, 961; not
special to biblical -writers,
971; verbal, 101, 435 f,; bib
lical view ol 113 f„ 1161,
176, 422 f,; subject of, 434,
4261; law ol 425; general
nature of, 426 f„ 4281; the
bibUcal summarized, 4331,
4391; not ecstasy, 434; not
infalUbility, 4371

Index.

495

Ihtebpeetation, the allegor
ical, 35 f ., 38 f . ; in the Middle
Ages, 441; Reformation view
of, 511; Christ's view of,
821; histoiy ol 1291; of
prophecy, in the New Testa
ment. 2501
Isaiah, ihe call of. 119; style
of. 348.
Jashar, Book op, 182, 371.
Jerome, his translation of the
Old Testament, 40 1 ; view of
the canon, 384 1
Jesus Sirach, his view of the
canon, 376.
John, Gospel of, its view of
Old Testament. 93; picture
of Jesus. 2171; authoiship
ol 2921, 323. 3251; la»-
guage of, 359.
Jonah, Christ's view of, 831;
history of. 205 ; morality of,
266.
Joseph, traditions of, 209.
Josephus, his -view of the Bible,
251 ; aUeged testimony to
Jesus, 214 ; view of the can
on, 3761
Joshua, Book of, miracle in,
180 1 ; authorship ol 309, 311.
Jude, Epistle of, its extra-hib-
Ucal traditions, 91.
Judges. Book op, miracles in.
179 ; history ol 195 1, 2031
Justin Maetyb, his view of in
spiration, 321
Law, the Mosaic, apocryphal
view of. 20 f.; Talmudic view
of. 221; early heretical view

of, 31 1 ; Christ's view of.
79 1 ; references to in the Old
Testament, 104, 1061, 109;
the "Book of." 109, 3031, 316,
371 ; moraUty ol 277 f.. 281 ;
ideal side of. 2811. 309 ; de
velopment ol 3031, 3101.
319, 3701; codifymg ol 371 ;
canonizing of, 371, 373.
Luther, views of, 48. 49, 93.
3851
Miracles, objections to, 1531.
170; conception of. 1541.
1591; theological views of.
1571; titles ol 1601; of
Christ, 161, 1661, 1731; sig
nificance of the biblical, 1621;
influence of, 1631; of the
Old Testament. 1701. 1771.
180 1 ; record ol 171 1. 175 1.
184.
MosES. personaUty of. 2051;
books of. 2971, 299.
NewTestament, the inspiration
of. 86 1, 99 1, 285 1 ; histories
ol 1891. 2121, 2281; moral
and reUgious teaching of.
2831; progress of doctrine
in, 2871; language ol 3491.
3531, 3561; manuscripts of,
352, 4011; canon ol 3781.
3811, 3841, 388; text ol
4001,4021.404.
Old Testament, Christ's -view
of, 77 1 ; New-Teslament view
of, 901, 94 ; Paul's view of.
91 1 ; ite view of itself, 104 1 ;
miracles of, 1701, 177 1; his
tories of, 1891, 2061; moral

496

Index.

ity ol 2641, 2781, 2801,
287 ; progress of doctrine in,
287 ; as theocratic Uterature,
3341, 343; poetiy ol 8421,
345 f. ; canonizing of, 375 ;
manuscripts of, 3971; trans
lations ol 3991
Origen, -dew of the Bible, 80,
38.
Paul, his view of Sacred Scrip
ture, 91 1 ; inspiration of,
1001, 3561; teaching ol
2841; style of, 356, 3591
Pentateuch, Luther's view of,
491, 66 f. ; the authorship
ol 292, 2961, 8021, 3061,
8091, 312, 8151; laws ol
303 f,, 3711; its composite
character, 3031, 305, 310;
discrepancies ia, 3061; can
onization of, 372.
Philo, his view of the Bible,
241, 32.
Post-Reformation Dogma of
the Bible, 531, 1861, 364,
388, 4131; distrust ol 571,
631; faU 01691; its view of
the text, 3941
Prophecv, the fulfllment of,
781, 81, 2331, 241, 2421,
252 f. ; growrth of the He
brew, 1131, 2371; golden
age of, 119 f,; nature of the
bibUcal, 2291. 2471; the
Messianic, 3291, 287 f., 245,
248 f.; conditional, 283 f,, 252;
dates of, 285 ; in the New
Testament, 353 1
Prophets, the Old-Testament,
apocryphal view of, 211;
Talmudic view rf, 32 f, ;

Christ's -view of, 781; daim
of, 111 1 ; inspiration of,
1121,1161,2361,243,251;
conception of, 1141,2311;
consciousness of, 1141, 232 ;
vmtings of the, 1181, 8461,
3721; style ol 3461; canon
ization ol 3731
Proverbs, Book of, its moral
ity, 2661
Psalms, the claims of, 1211,
3731; the prophetic. 133;
the imprecatory. 275 f , ; as
Uterature, 341 1 ; poetry of,
3421, 3451; canonizing of.
3781
Psalter, notice of, 138.
Be-velation, the bibUcal, nature
011831.4061,4111; con
tinuous, 408; stages of, 4101,
4161; purpose of, 4141
Ruth. Book of, the morality of,
266.
Sabbath, institution of the Mo
saic, 1391, 150.
Samson, traditions of, 179.
Science of Nature, relation of,
to the Bible, 59 f., 67, 1261,
1371, 150, 1581; among the
Hebrews, 129, 130, 134 f.,
1881. 1411, 151.
Sennacherib, annals of, 211 1
Septuagint, Greek of, 350, 355 ;
Hebraisms in. 3541
Song of Solomon, moraUty of,
2671, 875; Ucense ol 844;
canonizing of, 8741
Talmud, its view of the Bible,
221

Index.

497

Text. infalUbility of the bibUcal.
81. 3941; in Jerome's time.
401; modem view of, 581,
631 ; preservation of, 3961;
the Masoretic, 397 1
Theodobb of Mofsuestia,
vierwsof, 421

Word op God. the Reformation
-view of, 471. 52, 445 ; as dis
tinguished from the Bible.
711, 4301. 4441, 4521,
4541; Ohristocentric. 4501;
relation of. to Christian con-
sciousness, 4521, 4651

THE DOCTRINE

SACRED SCRIPTURE,
A Critical, Historical, and Dogmatic Inquiry into the Origin
and Nature of the
OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
By GEORGE T. LADD, D.D.,
PROFESSOR OF HENTAL AND HORAI. PHILOSOPHY IN YALE COLLEGE.
2 VOLUMES, Svo. ----- $7.00.

BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW.—" It is reaUy a cyclopedia in the
form of a coimected treatise of all the great qnestions that have been
raised — we inight almost say of all the qnestions that can he raised— con
ceming the character, authority, and relations to religions thought and
life of the Old Testament. We ean only say, concerning this immense and
diversified mass of discussion, tbat the author's stand-point is tbat of lib
eral orthodoxy. .... He depends npon no dogmatic or infallible dicta ;
evidence is foUy adduced, and argument fairly conducted."
J. HENRY THAYER, D.D., laidy Frofessor of Saered IJitertUure in t!ie
Thedogieal Seminary at Aiidover.:—" It is tbe most elaborate, erudite, judi
cious discnssion of the doctrine of Scripture, in ita various aspects, with
-which I am acquainted  I have no hesitation in sayiDg that, for en
abling a young minister to present views alike wise and reverent respect
ing the nature and use of Sacred Scripture, nay, for giving him in general, n
Bitiiedl ontiook upon Christian theology, hotb in its theoretical and its prac
tical relations, the faithfol study of tbis thorough, candid, scholarly work
wiU be worth to him as mnch as half the studies of tiis seminary course."'
REFORMED QUARTERLY REVIEW.— "No other work on the sub
ject in the English langnage, so fer as we know, is so complete aud satis
factory."

THE DOCTRINE OF SACRED SCRIPTURE.
CHICAGO INTER-OCEAN.— "We doubt whether darmg the age
there has been a more scholarly and masterly argument added to the liter
ature of Christianity than this critical review of the doctrine of Sacred
Scripture by Professor Ladd,"
THE LITERARY WORLD, BOSTON.— "The appearance of this
work is occasion for profound and general congratulation. Within the
lines of purely theological literature, we recall no single book of our own
land and times which deserves comparison with it for breadth, strength,
and thoroughness. Beyond the narrow circle of specialists, also, "so noble
an achievement of American thought and scholarship demands a wide
recognition in the held of letters, and even makes appeal to our patriotic
interest and pride,"
CHRISTIAN UNION,— "-^'e do not know where else to look in the
ological literature for a work which, pursuing an inductive method, and
possessing an impartial spirit, endeavors, not to prove the Bible to be this
or that, but to find out what the Bible is, -We do not know where else to
look for a book which has even attempted to ascertain, by a careful and
a candid examination of the Bible itself, what it claims for itself. The
work is a necessity to the minister and the theological student who desires
to get a doctrine of the Bihle combining ripe scholarship and spiritual
perception ,"
GEORGE P, FISHER, D,D,, LL.D., Professor of Bcdesiastical Eis'ory
in Tale College. — " Professor Ladd's work is fiom the pen of an able and
trained scholar, candid in spirit and thorough in his researches. It is so
comprehensive in its plan, so complete in the presentation of facts, and so
closely related to ' the burning qnestions ' of the day, that it cannot fail to
enlist the attention of aU eamest students of theology."
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers,
743-745 Broadway, New York.

YALE UNIVERSITY UWARY

3 9002 08844 4519

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