(To the Editor of the "Witness" Montreal.)
Sir,-Your correspondent, Mr. T.,asks that I give proof that my statement of what the "higher critics" teach is correct. I therefore give again the summary (by no means exhaustive) contained in my previous letter together with quotations from men of recognized prominence.
But it is rather late in the day to raise the question of fact. It is a matter of common notoriety that these teachings have spread like leaven. I am asked to name professors who teach these things. Is it necessary to do so? Who will deny that many prominent professors and clergymen have openly given up "the traditional view of inspiration"? From an expression of Mr. T. as to relegating Daniel to its own age, I judge that he, too, has accepted in part, at least, some of the teachings of higher criticism.
But I will not be drawn into side issues or personalities. When the truth of God is in question, we have to deal with principles, not men, save as they come into conflict with those principles. My one object is to show that the higher critics are in direct opposition to the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them are honest enough to admit this and to enunciate the blasphemous doctrine that, "Both Christ and the apostles or writers of the New Testament held the current Jewish notions respecting the divine authority and revelation of the Old Testament."(Hastings' Bible Dictionary, article, "Old Testament," p.601.)It is these "notions" which modern criticism claims to have exploded. Others would put the matter in a more reverent tone, but with the same insult to our Lord's omniscience." I should be loth to believe that our Lord accommodated His language to current notions, knowing them to be false. I prefer to think, as it has been happily worded, that He ' condescended not to know.'The error of statement would belong in someway to the humanity, not to the Divinity." (Dr. Sanday, "The Oracles of God," p. 10.)
This is the issue-let us not be turned from it. Did Christ endorse, ignorantly or intentionally, myths, legends, errors, false statements as to authorship, etc.?Did He declare Moses wrote of Him when he did not? Did He ascribe words to David which David never wrote? Did He refer to Jonah in the belly of the whale, when such a thing never occurred? It is to Him that I would refer all who deny the absolute inspiration of the Old Testament. Their controversy is with Him, not with man. Oh, may our hearts be drawn absolutely to Him in truest subjection!
I now add the quotations:-
1. As to the narrative of the creation-that it was a myth. Prof. George Adam Smith, Glasgow Theological College, "Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament."The early chapters of Genesis, '' in their framework were woven from raw material of myth and legend" (p. 92), "Critics are now generally agreed that the traditions reached Israel at an early age, and that along with other elements of Babylonian legend and mythology, they underwent considerable modification, and gradually became, when, perhaps, all memory of their true origin was lost, part of the folk lore of Canaan." (ibid. pp. 91, 92.)
2. As to the Fall,-that it was not historical.
Gen. 3:is a "prose poem of the Fall, composed by one who was the acute and faithful reader of his own heart." (ibid. pp. 93, 95-)
3. As to the Flood,-that it did not occur, but was a legend. "We are ignorant of the time at which the Hebrews received these stories," (ibid. p. 62.) (See also Delitzsch, "Babel and Bible," pp. 42-46,)
4.As to Abraham-that he may not have existed.
By no one, "has it yet been made probable that there was a historical individual among the ancestors of Israel, called Abram." (T. K. Cheyne, Oxford, "Founders of Old Testament Criticism," p. 239.) In the "Nineteenth Century" for Jan., 1902, he quotes Winckler, who calls Abraham " a lunar hero." See also Driver, "Book of Genesis," p. 61.; G. A. Smith, "Modern Criticism," p. 106; Pamphlet to General Assembly, p. 13.
5.As to Moses-that he did not give the law. G. A. Smith, "Modern Criticism," etc.,p. 139. "We are uncertain whether any written law has reached us from Moses himself."And yet our Lord said, "He wrote of Me.""If we cannot suppose that the Pentateuch is correct history, then we do not know precisely what Moses did for his people. . . From all that we do know we are led to believe that what Moses did was rather to organize the people and give them an impulse in religion, than to frame any code of laws, or make any great change in their institutions." (Dr. Armstrong, "Nature and Revelation.")
As to the Books of the Law-that they were many centuries after the time stated on their '' The written law of Israel in the three forms in which we possess it, cannot have been the work of Moses, or of the Mosaic, or immediately post-Mosaic age, but must be assigned to a much later date." (G. A. Smith, "Modern Criticism," etc., p. 52.)
7. As to David-that he did not write the Psalms he is said by our Lord to have written.
" Present criticism has tended to confirm the impossibility of proving any given psalm in our psalter to have been by David." (G. A. Smith, "Modern Criticism," etc., p. 87.)"It may be questioned whether David could have dreamed of church-hymns such as those contained in the psalter.""The only two indubitably David compositions are … in 2 Sam. 1:, 19-27; the other in 2 Sam. 3:33, 34." (T. K. Cheyne, "Bampton Lectures," pp. 191, 192). Yet our Lord says, "David in the Psalms saith,"
etc., (Luke 20:42).
8. As to Isaiah-that he did not write the latter half of his book.
"These chaps., 40:-66:, nowhere claim to be by Isaiah, and do not present a single reflection of his time. But they plainly set forth, as having already taken place, certain events which happened from a century to a century and a half after Isaiah had passed away; the Babylonian exile and captivity, the ruin of Jerusalem, and the devastation of the Holy Land." (G. A. Smith, "Modern Criticism," etc., p. 53.)And yet this part is quoted from as Isaiah's thirteen or more times in the New Testament. (Luke 3:4; 4:17; John 12:38, etc.)
9. As to Jonah-that the whole story is a fabrication.
It "is not real history, but a sermon in the form of a parable upon the great evangelical truth that God hath granted to the Gentiles also repentance unto life." (G. A. Smith, "Modern Criticism," etc., p. 89.) "It cannot have been written till long after the time of Jonah." (Driver,)
10.As to Daniel-that his book is no prophecy but a forgery.
"The Greek words demand, the Hebrew supports, and the Aramaic permits, a date after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great." (Driver, "Book of Daniel," p. 63. " Introduction," p. 476.) "The Book of Daniel is not the work of a prophet in the exile." (Dean Farrar, "The Book of Daniel.") A book that was not written for 200 years after the time purported (see Dan. 8:i; 9:i; 10:i; 11:i, etc.) is a forgery.
There are doubtless various classes of men among higher critics-from the open rationalist to the earnest evangelical. But they all have this in common- the denial of Christ's absolute and perfect knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures. Some have let this canker eat into all the Scriptures; others have only let in the entering wedge of suspicion as to a few points. So far as the danger is concerned, the earnest evangelical who holds error is in more danger of defiling others than the avowed atheist; for all shrink with horror from the latter, while they are loth to suspect the former. May we give heed to the words of the apostle, "And now, brethren, I com-mend you to God, and to the Word of His grace which is also able to build you up " (Acts 20:32). 'Thou hast kept My word, and hast not denied My name" (Rev. iii 8). S. R.