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RICHARD LINDAMOOD
27
00 GLE:NWAY AVE.
ClNClNNA1 1 4, OHlO
The
undainentals
estimony
Volume IV
ompliments of
Two hristian Laymen
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RICHARD L tNOAMOOO
Gl.ENWAV
AVE
2700 · HlO
ClNClNN~TI ~ O
l
To the Law and to the Testlmony
Isaiah 8:20
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The undamentals
Testimony to the Truth
Volume IV
Compliments
o
Two Christian Laymea
TESTIMONY PUBLISHING COMPANY
• Not Inc.)
808 La Salle Ave ., Chicago, 111, U . S. A.
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FORE ORD
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The
Committee, to
V\
1
hom
the two
Christia11
laymen
entrusted
th e editing an d publishing
of
this
series
of ·books, have been great ly
encouraged
by
.the more th an 25 ,000 let ters of appre ciation , which
have come from all p ar ts of the world; and the ad-
verse
criticisms,
although fewer in numbe r, ha, re
be en almost equally encou rag ing , be cause they in~
dicate that the books have be en re ad by some 110
need the trutl1
they
contain, and th eir criticism ill
attract ·
the attentio11
of
others. Al l
we desire
is
t l1at
the truth shall be known, and we beli eve that the
God of Truth will bles
1
s
it.
•
This volume goes to about 250,000 pastors,
evangelists,
missionaries,
theolog ical professors,
theological students, Y.
M.
C. A.
secretaries,
Y. · .
C. A.
secretaries, college professors, Sunday
School superintendents, and religious editors in the
English speaking world; and we earne stly reque st
all whose ,f,.ith is in the G
1
od ,vh
1
0
1
answe rs p rayer, to
pray daily that
the truth
may run
and be glorified.
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(
See Pub lisher s N
1
otice , Page 127~)
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CONTENTS
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C li ..\PTR R
PA.GE
I. T I-IE TABERNACLE T
T 'HR
VVILDERNESS:
DID IT '
'
ExisT
?• . . . . . . . . • . .., .. , ... . . .. . . .. . . • , .. . . __
7
By Rev.
David
Heag le, P h . D., D. D . . ·
Professor of
Theology
arid Etl1ics, Ewing
1
Coll
1
ge,1
Ewing,
Ill .
•
• •
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II . . THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST TO THB OLD TESTA@f
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MENT ...••.. . . . . .. ._ .. . . .. . . . • I .......... iii • 46
t
'
By Rev~
Willian1
Caven, D. D·., LL. D.,
Late Pr incipal of Knox College,
Toro11to,
Canada.
III. .
TI-IE
BIBLE AND
1
MODERN CRI T lClSl\tl • • • F 'I • •
6
•
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- -
By
Rev.
F.
Bettex,
D. D.,
73 ·
.-
Pro
1
fessoi Em eritus, Stutt 2ar t,
Germa11y.
(Translate ,d from
the
original
German
by Da""id
Heagl .e,
D. D.)
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IV. SCIENCE
AND CHR[S i'"fIAN
FAIT 'fI ... .. .. ... " . . •
91
•
By R ev . Pro f. Ja ,mes
Orr,
D. D.,
United ·Free
Ch1urch
College,
G1asgovv,
Scotland. ,
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V.
A
PERS ONAL TES ''fI~l ,ONY , . . . .. . . . . •
•••• • ·• •••
105
n·y
Pl1ilip M ,au1·0, ·
Attorney -at -L aw,
New
York City.
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THE FUNDAMENTALS
VOLUME IV
CH APTER I
THE TABERNACLE IN THE WILDERNESS: DID
IT EXIST?
A QUESTION INVOLVING THE TRUTH CR FALSITY OF
THE ENTIRE HIGHER-CRITIC THEORY
BY DAVID HEAGLE, PH. D., D. D.,
PRO FESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND ETHICS, EWING COLLEGE; TRANS
LATOR BREMEN LECTURES ; AUTHOR OF KORAL
EDUCATIONt THAT BLESSEJ;:> HOPE, ETC.
INTRODUCTORY
The question as to whether or not the old Mosaic Taber
nacle ever existed is one of far greater consequence than most
people imagine. It is so, particularly because of the very. inti
mate connection existing between it and the truth or falsity of
the higher-critic theory in general. If that theory is all that
the critics claim for it, then of course the Tabernade had no
existence ; and this is the view held by at least most of the
critics. But if, on the other hand, the old Mosaic Tabernacle
did really exist, and the story .of it as given in the Bible is
not, as the critics assert, merely a fiction, then _he higher
critic scheme cannot be true.
The question, therefore, to be discussed in the following
pages, viz., whether the Mosaic Tabernacle really did or did
not exist, is certainly one of great and wide-reaching signi
ficance ; which significance will become more and more appar
ent as the discussion goes forward. With this brief intro-
7
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duction ,ve talce up the s.ubject; 1nerely prernis ,ing furthe1·, that
tl1is
article
was
originally
prepared
as
a booklet,
in
which
shape
it co11tain ed a considerab]e a1nount of matte1- not appearing
•
he1-e.
THE DISCUSSION
One peculiarity of the high
1
er criticisn1 is what may be
called its unbounded audacity in attacking and attempting to
clestroy 1nany of the most solidly established faCts of th e
Bible . No matter with
wl1at a1nount
of evid ,ence any partic-
. t1lar cripture fact n1ay ·be capable of demon st1at ion , if it
happens to oppose any of the more fund ,amental notions of
the critica1 hypothesis, away it mt1st go as unworthy ,of acc,ept
ance h,y so-calJed · science, 01 at all eve11ts, the entir ,e atm·ay
of critica] doubts and imagi11ings is b·ro
1
ught to beat .. in lorde ·r
to cast susp
1
icion upon it, or to get rid of it in some ,vay.
I. THE
BI,BLE SID
1
E
OF THE QUESTION
A stril<ing illustration of
st1ch
p,rocedure is furnished by
the pe,culiar tr eatn 1e11taccorded h) tl1e c1·itics to tl1.a.t. old relig
i1ous str uctt1r
1
e whicl1, being bt1ilt
b,y
l\lloses near Mt. Si11ai
is usual1y named the
·Tabe1·nacl
1
e,
01..
the
Tabernacl ,e
i11 tl1e
VVilderne ss. That sucl1 a structu1·e 11otonly existed,
bt1t
\Vas
for some
·five
hundred years
a
very
conspicuous
object in ·
ancient Isra ,elitish histo
1
ry, is a
f
a
1
ct to wh icl1 the Bible it self
lends no sma 11an,ount
0
1
f evidence~ For examp]e , there are
found in
tl1e
bool<
of
Exodus alone some th irtee11 chapte1.. ·
devoted to a minute descrip ·ti on
o,f
the plan
and
construction
of
t11at
building. Then, as explanato17
of
the Tabernacle
ervices, its dedicati ,on, means of
t1·a11sportation,
tl1e
work of
the
p,riest
and Le vites
to
s.ome
extent
1
·and
\rariotts
ot11er
1nat-
•
tei-s conn ected with the structure, the enti1 . book of Leviticus
witl1 son1 ten chapters in Numbet·s 1n.ay be cited. Besides,
scatte1·ed
a]l
t11rot1gl1
oth the Old and New Testaments there
•
are
many
allusions and notice s some of them 1nerely inci-
•
dental, bt1t others more hi storical in natur ,e all of which go
tov\rard
estab lishing the Tabernacle s historicity.
An,d
finally -
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which is per haps the mos t convincing tes tim ony of all v1e
have
~iven
tis
in the
N
e·\lv
T
1
esta111e11t,ne whole
book,
t.he
Epis
1
tle to
tl1,e
Hebre, tVs,
·\,rl1icl1
co11cern s,
especiall)r
exp lai11-
ing from a Chri stian l)oint of ,,ie¥.' , tl1e t)
1
pology a11dreligio11
significan ce of
tl1at
olcl
buildi 11g
•
.II. TH E HIGHE R-CRITIC VIEW
With so mucl1 evidence, therefore, to be adduced, even
f ro1n the Script11res, in support of the Taber11acle'i histor icit; r,
one wou ld thi~k that it requires at least some literary br ave ry,
11ot to say
presumptuous audacity,
for
any individual
or class
of 1nen,to assail, with the expecta tio11of
overthrowing,
a fact
so
solill ly
established as
vould
seem to be that of the
Taber
n,acle' s
real ex iste11ce. Nevertheless, difficult
as
sttcl1
task 1nay
appear, the critics have not hesitate d most · vigorous ly to
undertake
it.
According to
t l1eir
notion the whole story of
t11e Taber nacl e, as record ed in the Bibl~, is
simJJly
a fiction,
or , mor e
properly
speaking, a literary forgery a co11cocion
gotten up pe rhaps by sonie of those priestly scribes ,;vl10
retu rned with Ezra from the Babylonian -exile; thei1· spe cial
purpose
in
devising
sucl1
a
story
being
to h elp,
in the introduc·
tio n of a new temple ritt,al at
J
ert1salem , or perhaps it was
also to glorify the distant past in the
l1istory
of the Israelites .*
III. TI-IE QUESTION :htIOREFULLY S'TATED
Thus we have presented to
11 two
widely differe nt and
opposing views re spect ing the Tabernacle's
existence. One
of them, which is the view of .at least most higher critics, is
that this old structt tre never existed at all; whil ,e, on tl1e other
. hand, the orthodox
and
Biblica l conception is
that
not only
in the days of Mo ses bltt long afterwards this fabric had a
most interesting
and
important history. Whic h, then, of these
t\vo so
widely
different doctrines are we
plea sed
to accept?
•
*~,\sexp
1
lained
by N
1
odell{e, anothe r purp
1
ose of this forgery was ••to
give p1
1
e, 'x,istenc:e
to. th e
te111ple
an.d to the t1nity
of
,vor·shiptl''
Bt1t t.his
is
v:ir:tt1allt in
1
c1uded
in
tl,e t,v·o
p,11rpose:s above
11amed.
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10
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The Funda nentals
•
IV. IMPORT 'ANCE OF THIS
DISCUSS 1ON
•
•
· 1. Whichever on
1
e
is
accepted
by
us,
certain
it is
that
an
earnest discuss ,ion, su
1
ch as we hope to effe
1
ct, of the question
above
stated,
is a
n1att,er
1
of
no
little
consequ ,ence. Such
a
discussion is important, first o,f all, because of the light which
it will throw
upon
all
the history 0
1
f God' 's
first
chosen
people
the
Israelites. , It ,vil1 at lea.st tell
us
s,o·n1ething
about
the
kind
of civilization this
1
ancient people 1nust have h.ad; and more
particula1 .. y will
it
tell us whether that civilizatio
1
n was, as the
higher cri ·tics r
1
epresent,
1
on
1
e 10,v· d
1
own on th
1
e scale, or whether
' these
Is1·aelites
had
already
made
a
good degree of
progress
. \in all
the
arts, dis,ciplines, and branches of knowledge
which
u.sually
belong
to
a mod
1
erately
l1igh
st·ate of civili .zation. ·
•
•
S1urely, then, there is at least some benefit to be d·erived from
the study before us.
2. But
anothe1·
advantage whicl1 will ,c,ome
from this
same
study is that
it
will help , us to a solution of a somewhat
curious, but yet important, historical problem; viz., whether
as,
a
matter of
history
tl1e Ten1ple preceded
the
Tabernacl .e., as
the highe1· critics claim, and, ther ·e·fore,
that
·the
Tabe ,rnacle
n1us.t
be
regarded
as
O nly
''a
diminutive copy'' of the Temple;
or vice versa,
whether,
as is taught
by
the Bible,
th ie Taber
nacle we.nt first, .and hence that
tl1e
Temple was in. it .s Construc
tion patterned ,after the Tabernacle. To be sure, at firs t
sight
this does
n,ot appear to
be
a
ve1~ importan t
ques tion ;
yet
when
the his·torica .l,
literary
and
ot .her
connections
i11volved in it aire
•
cons ,idered, it doe,s after all
b,ecome
a question of no
litt le
sig-
•
nificance. .
•
3. But · the most ,determinative and the ref ore the m.o st s,i,g-
nificant i·nterest we
'hav·e
in a
discussio ·n
·of
the q·ues,tion as
proposed,
is the
bearing which it
has
upon the truth
or
falsity
of the higher cri ·ticism. As is known to p
1
ersons conversant
·with,
that peculiar method of
Bible
study,
one of its main ·
contentions
is that
the whol ,e
Levitical
or ceremonial law-
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that is,
tl1e law
of
wor ship as recorded especially in
Ex ?d us,
Leviticus and Nttmbe rs did not
ori,ginate ,
or at all events did
not make its appearance, unti l some,, rhere ne ar the close of
tJ 1e Baby·lon ian
ex.ile,
or
about
th e
time
wh
1
en
Ezra
first
appear s in
J ewish
hi sto ry. By
thus
ren1oving
all
that
part
of
th e ·P entateu cl1 down
the
ce,ntur i
1
es, f
ra m
the time
,of
M oses to
•
the t ime of Ezr a, the criti cs, are ab le not only· to deny tl1e ·
Mos aic
author ship
of
this Pentateuch al lit era tu re,
but
also
to
• •
construct a scheme of their o,vn
by
which all tl1e separ ate
documents , into wl1ich they are accu sto,med to divi de the
Pentateuch can be put together in a kind of whole; each par
ticular document being
singled
out and designated according
to its date,
author ship,
and other
peculiarities,
such as the
_critics suppose
belong
to
it. Moreover,
in thi s way th e P
1
enta
teuch is al.I toirn to piec ,es, and in stea ,d of its b,eing really a
•
co11lected, organic whole, such as the ortho ,dox world . has
always conceived
it
to be,
it
is
b y
thi s p,ecu.liar higher-critic
metl10,d
tran .sfo ·rmed int o
a
1nere patch-wor ·l< a dis,jointed
affair,
having no
more divine authority
or
inspiration
con
nected with it than any
other piece of human lit
1
erature
that
has come in·to being thr
1
ough
the law of evolution. ·
Such .,· however, is
exactly
what the critics would make
of
the Pentateuch, ,
and indeed
of
mucl1 else
in the Bible,
if
they
cou1d have their way.
But now suppose that
after all the old
Mosaic Tabernacle
did really exist, what effect would that have upon the suc
cess of the critical hypothe sis ? It would ab,solutely frustrate
all attempts to
carry this hypothe sis successfully
through.
SUch would necessarily be the re stllt, because, first of a.II,
if
that
portio ,n
of the Pentateuch which
contains the ceremonial
or Le.vitical law is tran ,sferred
down
to
Ezr .a·s tin1,e, the
old
Tabernacle, for
the services of
which this
law
was d.esigned,
must necessarily come with it. But then, in the
.second
place,
a really existing Tabernacle so far
down
the
centuries~
or
long
after the Temple at Jeru sale1n had been b
1
ttilt an ,d was regarded
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T lie
u1ida11ie11 tal.s
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by the Jews as their gr
1
eat central place
1
0£ ·wor,sl1ip, would have
been not only an arcl1itectu1·al
curiosity, but
an anachronism
such as e.ven
the critical
imaginati on
cottld
sca1 .
ely
be
,accuse ,d ·
eit]1er of devisring 01·
accepti11g.
rfhe only way, tl1eref ore, open for the critic s, if they are
still to hold fast their theory, is for them to , do precisely what
they b,ave undertaken; namely, t.o
blot
out or d.estroy the
Tabernacle as a real existence,
and
then to 1·econstruct the
e11ire·
story
of
it,
as
given in
tl1e
Bible,
in
tl1e form
of a
fiction.
1 his th
1
ey have
really · atte1np,ted .
•
B ttt by so doing tl1e
c·1~itics n1ust,
aftet·
all,
confe ss th at fl1e
foundation
upon
which tl1ey
build
is
very
insecu1·e,
because
it
is
sf111ly
an ,ass11mption .
If,
therefore, in
opposition
to st1ch
as:;un1ption,
this a1-ticle s11ll be able
t
1
0
demon strate that tl1e
old Mo .sai c Tabernacle actua lly e,xisted, th en the underp
1
inning
of the critical
h)rpothesis
is
at
011ce
removed, and the entire
e,(lifice·
with ,all
of
its
1n1ny sto1;oie 111l1st c 0
1
llap1e.
And if all
tl1is is , true, then it is not too much to
S
1
ay, as is affirmed
ir1
tl1e sub-title of tl1is
article,
tl1at the wl1ole t1·uth or fal sity
of tl1e critical sche1ne depe11ds upon what may he pt·oven
· t1~1e tespe ,cting tl1e Tabernacle s 11on-ex ist ence or existen .ce.
And thi.ts, moreover, . is made to appea1· the exceeding·
ih1portance of the discuss .ion ,ve have undertaken.
•
V. QUOTATIONS FROi\tl THE HIG ·HER
1
CRITICS
. But
wl1at
do the
higher
critics
tl1em,selves
say with regard
tio
t l1,s
111atter
of tl1e· Tabernacle s real existence? To quote
f
ro1n only a few of them, Well hau s
1
en, e.g., who is the great
corJrphreus of the
higl1er-critic
doctrine, vvrites as
follows: ,
TI 1e
Tetnple ·, whicl1
in
reality
wa,s no
1
t
bttilt until Solomon
ti111e, is
by
this ,docum ,ent :[ the
so-called Priest ,]y
C,ode] r
1
e
garded as so indispensable, even for the troubled days of the
•
,~ilderrtess before the s
1
ettlement, that
it
is made portable,
•
and in ·
tI1e
form of
a
taber11acle set up jn the
very begi,nning
•
•
of
tl1ings.
For the truth is that tl1e Tabernac]e is, a
copy,
not-
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Tab ernacle· iti the Wilderness
13
•
the prototype, of the temple at
J
ntsalem'' ( P roleg .1 Eng.
trans ., p. 37) . . So also Graf, wl10 preceded Wellhausen . in
l1igher-critic
work,
affirms
that
t l1e
' f
abernacle
is only
'a
dimintttive copy of the Ten11Jle,'' and that "al l that is said
,a.b,out this1 s·tru ctur e in the mid .dle bool{s of the Pe11tatet1cl1
is merely post-exi lic accretion.'' 011ce more, to l1ear from a
1nore recent autl1ority, Dr. A. R. S. I<ennedy, in Hastings'
Dictio1zary
of
the
Bible
has these words : "The
attitud e
of
n1odern Old Te sta1nent
scholar ship to
t l1e
priestly legislation
as
110\v
forn1:ulated in
the Pe11tateuc}1, and in particular to
thos ·e sectio ,ns of it which ,deal ,vith the
sanctuary
and it
wors hjp, is opposed to the hi storicity of P's [tl1at is, the old
viosaic] Tabernac le." The same or a similar representation
is given by Be~zinge ·r in the Encyclopaedia Bibli a; and in
fac t th is is, a11d 1nust necessarily be,
tl1e
attitude of all
con
sistent higher .critics toward the matte r unde r consideration.
For it would never clo for th
1
e adhere11ts. of the cr.i,tic theo1·y
to admit that away back in t11e old Mosaic
ti1nes
the Taber
nacle,
with
all its
elaborate ritual , a11d
with the
lofty mora1
and spir itual
ideas embod ied in
it,
could
have exi sted;
becau se
that
woit1Id
be equivalent to admitting tl1e falsi ty o,f
their oiv11
do,e:trine. /-\cco,r dingly
with
one
voice
the critics
a1], or
11early
all, stoutly proclaim tl1at no hi storiclty whatever must be
allo \ved ·to Moses' Tabernacle.
VI~ CERTAIN GREAT PRESUi\1PTIO NS
To come tl1en to
the
actual discu ssion of our
subject, it
111ig11t
e said, in
the first
place, that tl1ere are certain great
presu mptions
which
lie in the
way
of
our
accepting
the
high er-
c1itic t'l1eo1·yas true. .
1. One of these pre.sumptio,ns is, tl1at
this
whole
cr itic
hypothesis
goes
on
the
assumption
that
\vhat the Bible tel ls
us regarding the real exi stence
of
tl1e Tabernacle is not tr ue,
or, in other words, that in a large part of its teaching s the
Bible speaks false l)r. Can v:e belie, re
that?
Most assttr edly
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not, s~ lo11g as we l1ave
any
real apprecia ·tion oi
the
lo:fy
system of
moral truth
which
is
taught
in
this wonder£ ul book --
a book which, more than any
other
ever produced,
has
taugl1t
the entir
1
e worl .d com1non hones ,ty, whether in literary work
or
other acts. Therefo
1
re we say, regarding this whole matter
of the Bible's speaking falsely, Judaeus Apella credal) non ego
Let the hi.gher
c·ritics
h
1
elieve tha .t if they wi11, but s,urely
not we
1
· . .
~obert Burns has a
poen1,
iri'
hich he says of lying in
genera]: .
•
•
•
•
''Some books are lies. frae end to
1
end,
And some great lies were never penned;
E'
e·n minist ,ers,
they hae
been kenned,
In holy
1~apture, .
A rousing whid at times
to
vend,
An' nail
it wi'
.Scrip,ture ·.
I
•
•
•
•
S·urely ,
the. h~gher
critics
would not
·u,ndert .ake
to
.reduce
our
Christian Scriptures
to
the
level
of a book that
has
1
·in it
no
•
trµth from beginning t ·o end;
and
yet
it must
be confessed
'
that .on.e, serious te,ndency of their th
1
eory is greatly to les,sen
the .general credibility of this sacred volume.
. .
2. But
another presumption
lying
against the
truth£ ulnes ,s
of this hi.ghe~ c:ritici s,m is, th.at it
m.ake .s
all the
civilize
1
d.
agels
from Ezra down to the present time t ,o
be
so utterly lacking
both in
hist
1
oric
knowledge and literary sagacity, that,
except
ing .. f ~w higher crit ,ics, no o·ne eve1· sup,pos
1
ed the _whole wor]d
was l being
de,ceived
by
this
untrue story of
the Tabernacle's
1Jieal xistence ;
when, if the
facts were told, all these n1uner
ous age ,s have not only been thems ,elves deceived, but have
been a1so, i.nst ·rt1mental,
one a ·f
ter a.~oth.er~ in pr ,opaga ,ting
•
that same old falsel1ood down
the
centur ,ies Again we say:
Judaeus
Ape[lu, credat, non
·ego
The µ-igh,er-cr.itic preten
sions
to
1
·having a
greater
wisidom
and knowledge thlan is
pos
sessed by a11the
rest
of the world,
are very
w
1
ell kn ,own ; but
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Tabef ~ -iacte n tlie Wi .der11 eJs
15
•
this
ill·ustration
of tha .t peculiarity
.see1ns to
us 1·ather
to
1
cap
· the climax.
3.. An ·d here,
if'
we choo
1
se
to go ·fa1 .
ber,
it
might
be
sh
1
own that, ·i.£ this pe
1
culia1· doctrine is true, then .tl1e S
1
avior
a11d all of his Apostles were mistaken. For cer·tainly Christ
( see Matt .. 12 :3, 4.) and perhaps all the Apostles without
exception, did believe in the Tabernacle as. a real existence;
and one of the Apostles, or at least an aposto lic writer, went
so far
1
in the Book of Hebre,vs, as to ,compose what may be
termed an extensive and inspi1·ed commenta .ry on that sacred
structure s on its apartments, fut·niture, priesthood and serv-
ices; bringi11g out particularly, from a Christian point of view,
the rich typical significance of all th
1
ose matters. Now that
all tl1ese inspired 1nen
.a11d
the Savior I' 'limself should either
ha, re be.en themselves deceived or should try to deceive ot hers
with regard
to
an
important
matter of Old Te stam ,ent histot ·y
is surely incredible .. ·
• •
. VII. , EXTERN AL EVID
1
EN CE
1. Just beret however, we desire to introdt1ce soine con
s,i,derations of a
different 1iature.
There exists,
eve:n
1
ou·t.side
of the Bible, a sma ll amount of evidence in support of ·the
•
Tabernacle's
existence, arid although
we have
already alluded
to a part of ·this testimony, . under the head of favorin .g pre
stunptions , yet it will bear repetition or rather a fuller consid- .
eration. Now, as w
1
e co,nceive of this evidence, it cons ists,
in the first pla ,ce, of various notices or even of
ft111
descrip
tions o,f the Tabernac l,e as a real existence, which are found
in very ancient writings, some of these writings being quite
differe ·nt
from
Tur
Christian Scriptt1res.
To
be
sure,
a
]arge
•
part of this lit
1
rature is c
1
pied in one
way
an
1
another from
the Bible, and none of it dat
1
S1anything lil<e so
1
far back in
time as do at leas,t .tl1e ea1·lier bool<s of the Old Testa ·men·t ;T
an.d yet., .·as we shall see, .some of it is ve·ry old,, su·ffi~ientl,y
so to , giye it a ki11dof confirmatory force in suppo ,rt of what
the Bible has to say
concer11ing
th.e
m.atter in hand .
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The
undamentals
...,.- --- • ' rt
p zFot. • ....... .
1.:-t .
The first
testi111ony, tl1en,
of
this sort
to
whicl1
we
all\lde,
is a full descrip ,tion of tl1e
Tabernacle
in all its
parts,
services ,
.priesthood and
history,
very
nearly the same as
t11at wl1i
l1
is give,n in our n1odern B,ibles, vv
1i,ci1
clan be fottnd i11 tl1e
,earliest
translation eve·1· made
of the ·old Tes ,tan1e·nt that
is
the Sept uagin t.
This t1-anslatio11appea1·ed some
two
or
tl1ree ce11turies before the time of Cl1ri. t, and tl1erefo1~e it
I
ou,gl1t to be pretty go,0
1
d evidence of .at least .wl1at its cot1 ..
temporarie s, or tl1ose
far-off tin1es,
l1eld
to be trLte
,vith
regard t,o
tl1e
1natter t111der
co11sderation.
Th
1
en
a11otl1er
testimony of lilce cl1aracter comes
f
ro1n tl1e
Greel<: .
'\.pocrypl1a
to
·the
0
1
ld
Testatnent, la wo1·l{ wl1icl1 appear e
1
d, 01·
at
least
ffi0,St of it, bef
1
ore tl1e ti1ne of Cl1rist ;
i11
whi
1
ch productio n
there a1. found
vari ,ot1s
allu si,ons to tl1e Tabernacle, and all
1
of tl1em
to
it ,as a real
exist
1
e11ce;
as,
e. g., in Jud. 9 :8 ;
Wis .
of Sol. 9 :,8; E,ccl. 24 :10
1
, 15; and 2 Mac. 2 :5. Moreov er, in
l1is
Atitiqu ·it·ies
Jo sepl1us, wl10
wrot
1
e tov.r,ard the , end
of ..
l1e
first
ce11tury, gives anot 'her
full
description
of
tl1at old s,tt~uc~
.
· ture in
its
every part,
including
also so1netl1ing·of its his,to1·y.
( See
Antiq., Bk. III.,
CI1s.
VI.
to XII.;
also
Bk. V.. Ch. I.,
Sec, 19; Ch.
II., ,Sec.
9;
Cl1. X,,, Sec.
2;
Bk. VIII.,
Ch.
IV.,
Se·i. 1.) And finally, 'in that v,ast c
1
ollection of ancie,11tJew
i·sh traditions, connnents, laws,
speculations,
etc.,
which
goes
under tl1e name of the
Talmt1d,
there are no,t
infrequent 1·ef
ere11ces mac;le to
this sa,me ,old st1·ucture; and
one of tl1e·
tr
1
eatise :s
(part
of ' tl1e
Bereitha)*
in tl1at
collection 'is
devot ,ed
exclusively to a
c,0
1
nsideration of this buildi ,11g.
With
so
much
literature,
there£
01·e
of
one kind
and an
other,
all telling
us
something about
the Tabernacle,
and
all
or .at
least
n1os,t
1
0£ it going
back
f
o,r its
origin to,
ve,ry
near
· th
1
time
when
at
least th
1
last
part of the
Old Testament
wlas
bi1t i,t is
very
old, and
embodies about
the sa:me
quality of
t,raditio ,n
111
,g·eneral as ,does. the
compilati .on
made
by Je ,hu.dah
h,a,-Nasi, ,wl1ich
is 1.suaJly co,nside ,red the gent 1ine, Mish·n.a,, Or basis
1
of the Ta.mL1d.
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17
,v1·itten, we 'ha.v
1
e
in these various so
1
trces,1
considered
as a ·
,v11oe, if n
1
ot
an
in1dependent
or direct
·te,stimo,ny
to, tl1e
Tab,e1. acle's .
existenc e,
certainl) r ..on1etl1ing
tl1at
points
clearly
in that (lirectio
1
n. Or, in other
wo1·ds, inasmuc}1
as the se
0
1
ld
\\rr~itng s, co,n·taining the va1·ous
11otices
and descriptions ,vl1ich
we have m·ention ed, existed
away
back so near to Old Tes
tan1ent times, these 1nust l1ave been acquainted with
tl1e
best
t1,.aditions of
their day
1egarding
wl1at
is
taug ·ht in that part
of our
Bib·le;
and,
tl1erefore, they n1ust hav ,e known 1nore
about the truth of
thi11g~s
s
connect ,ed
,vith the Tabernacle
and its real exi stence than any authorities existing in these
late ti1nes of our s possibly could. Or, at all events, tl1ey
knew mo,re about th ose 1natte1·s than any of the me .re gtte ss
\\ro·rk
spec,ulations of
111odern
hig he 1~
c:ritic s p·ossibly
can, or
a i·e
i11
a
cond.ition
to k110\v.* ·
2.. Bttt
tl1e1·e s
anothe1..ki11d
of
evidenc
1
e, of this ,external
na·t·u1·e,
whic'h
is
1no1·e di1·ect ,a:11d
ind
1
epende11t,1land
t 'he1~ef
ore
n1or
1
e significa11t witl1. 1·egard to
the T .ab
1
e1·nacle's
exis ,tence l
Tl1at evid,ence is
what 111ay be called th
1
e ,a1·cl1reological
con~
tri bution to our argu1ne nt. Part of it will be
give11
ater ;t bttt
here ,ve
will simply call
attention,
first,
to
the fact
that
in
all
tl1e
region of Mt~
S,i·11ai
h ere
are t
1
0
be
s.een at
least
some
evidences , of
t11e
possible presence ther e, even as
is 1·eco
rded
•
*The value of this ·evidence is of course only tl1at which belo
1
ngs
to tradition;
still
it
should be re ·membered that this
tradition is a
\vrit ...
ten one,
dating
away back
to near
the times of th.e Old Testament.
Moreover, it could be shown th .at this same kind of written tradition
reaches back through the lat er books of the Old Testament. at least in a
negative
way,
even
to
the
time
of
Ezra;
who surely ought to
kr10,v
-:w:hether, a.s the crit ·ics say, th
1
e sto ry of the T 'abernacle as a fact of
history
was inv ente ,d in
his own day
and gen
1
ration ,. But inasmuch a1
Ez ra does not tell
us
anythi ·ng about that matter, it
stan ,ds
·to reason, that
as .
11as
~ince been reported by thi s long line of tradition, most
of
it
being O'f a ,po.sitive nature, no such invention ever took place, but that
this s,tory is simply a n,arrative of a,ctual fac·t. At all events, a,s sai ,d in
~ ~ text, it. is far more likely that th1s ,ol,d
a;nd
1ong-cont ,inued t.radition
1s c_orr
1
ect 1n w.hat
it
assert s, than · is an,y of the denials
1
0'f t,he higher
cr1t1cs ' .
· i' See
pp.
41-43. ·
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18
The -Fundanie ;itals
•
in
t
1
h
1
e
Bible~ of
tl1e
Isra.
1
eli,tes,
at the time whe11t11ey
bui]t
the Tabernacle.*
1
'.Ioreover, the1·e
l1ave rece11tly
been
1na<le
some discoveries in the Holy Land ,connected with
the
dif
fer1nt places wh
1
re the Bible locate s
the Taber 11acle
duri 11
the
1011g
period of its
history
in that
cou11try,
wl1icl1, to say
the least, are not contradictory, bt1t
ratl1e1·
confirmatory of
Bi-hlical statements.
t 011e sucl1
discovery,
as \Ve ·
will call it,
is connected with a fu ller exp loration recently made of · tl1at
old site
where
for
so1n e
365
years,
according to Jewish
tradi -
. tion , the old Mosaic
Tabernacle stood,
and whe1~eit u11der we11t
the most
i11teresti11g
of its
exper ience .s
in the Holy La nd .
That
site
was, as
i well
l<nown,
the little
city
of
Shi loh,
located
11ear tl1e 1nain thoroughfare leading
up fro1n Beth
1
el
to Shechem. In the year 1873 the Englis h Palestine Exp lora -
1
tion Fund. through some of its
agents,
made a thorough
examination of this o]d site, and among · other of its very
interesting ruin s
was
found a place which
Co
1
lo,nel Cl1a·rles
Wilson think s is the
very
spot
where, once
and for so long
a time,
the
Tab ,et"nacle
stood. That
parti ,cular ·p
1
lace is
at
the
north of a rather
low
''tell ," or m
1
oun d,
upon
which the
ruins
are located; and, to copy from Colonel Wil son' s
descriptio11
this tell ''slopes down to a
broad sh,ottlder,
across
which
a
sort of local court,
f'eet
wide
and
412 feet Jong,
has
been
aut out. The rock is in places scarped to a height of five
feet, and along the sides are several excavations and a few
small
cisterns.'' '
This is
the
locality wher
1
e,
as
Co
1
lo,nel
W'ilson
thinks, the Mosaic Tabernacle once really
stood ;
and as con
firmato lry of his conclttsion he
farther
says that this
spot
is
Ji1eon]y one connected
with
the ruins which is
lalrge
enougl1
to receive a building of the dimensions of the Tabernacle.
Therefor
1
e his judgment
is
that it
is ''not
improbable'' that
t·his
place was originally ''p
1
repared'' as a site for
that
struc ,ture.
*See pp. 12().121.
t See
pp.
122, 125.
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r \
J ;
Tabe nacl 1 in tlie Wild.e·r·ness
19
f
•
Now whether th~ general judgment of men either at pres
ent o,r in the
f
utur 1 will
c.oincide with Colonel ·
Wilson as to
the matter in hand
We
do
not
kno ,w; bt1t we will
simp
1
ly
1·epeat
Colonel Wilson s w~rds, and say that
it
is
not improbable
that this site, as indicated, is a real discovery as to tl1e place
where the old Tabernacle once
stood.
We
ne·ed
not dwell
longer here on the matter, but ,vill only ob,serve that if the
,v
1
ery ruins of the old Tabernacle, S·O far as its site is con
cerned, can still be seen, that surely ought to be
pretty
good
eviden ,ce
tha:t
this building
once existed.
•
VIII. POSITIVE BIBLICAL EVIDENCES
But to co,me n
1
ow to the more positive and co·nclusive
evidences regarding ~he matter under conside ,ration, we may
. observe that these ,
consis .t
particularly of
various
his,to
1
·rical
niotices scatter
1
ed
throt1gho
1
ut the Old Tes ,tament;
a11d
1o
n·umerous and cl
1
ear
in
th .e:ir
t.estimo
1
ny ar ,e these
·no·tices
that ·
they wou]d seem t<J
,rove,.
beyond all
possibility
of doubt,.
that
·. he ol.d Mosai .c Tabernacle r~ally
1
existed.* H
1
owever, th
1
e
\critics claim
here that it is only the
earlier
hi,storica ·t books
9£ he 01~ Testament that can be legitimately Used for proving
· matter so
far
in the past · as was this -
structure.
j
1.. TESTIMONY OF FIRST KINGS
,Corriplying then with that requirement, at least in part,
we b;egin our investigation with the First Book of Kings.
Thi is a
piece
of literature against the antiquity and general
ere .ility of which the critics can raise no valid objection ;
hence it should
be considered
particularly good
ev.idence.
Moreover, it might be said of this book, that having probably
been
constructed out of ea·rly court-records as they
wer
1
e kept
*Acc
ording
to
Bishop
Hervey,
in his Lectures on
Chr
1
onicles (p.
171), mention is made of the Tabernacle some eighteen
times
in the
historical books following ·the Pentateuch that
is, in
Joshua, J·u(t,ges,
1
and 2
Samuel, 1
an1d
Kingst an4 1
and
2
Chronicles ;,
and
in
the
Pentateuch jtsetf. , which the high
1
r criti
1
cs, h.ave by no me1ns proven to
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20
by
the
different
kings of J11dal1and Israel, tl1ose original
doct1ments,
or
at
least some of
the1n,
take us
away back to
tl1e
very times
of
Solotnon and David,
or
to the period ·when,
as ,~e shall soon see, the J\tlosaic Tabe1·11acle vas still
stan
1
ding
at Gibeon.
Tl1is.
was
also,
it
may b,e obse1·vecl, the
general
p eriod during whicl1 tl1e Tab
1
e1. acle, having been taken do,vn,
was r ,emoved from Gibeon a11d stored a,v ,ay in · .S0lon1o11's
temple
at
Jerusalem; and
it
is
to tl1e
accottnt of
this trans
f eren .ce that our
at ·tention
is no,v, first of all,.
directed.
I n
1 King s, ,chap. ·8, v. 4, we 1·ead : ''An ,d they brought up tl1,e
ark of ' Jehovah, a11d tl1e tent of 1neeting, and .all tl1e . l10Iy
,ress,els tl1a.t were in the tent; even these did th
1
e prie ·sts and
J-Jevites bring u.p. A mere ct1rsory reading of the se words
• •
gives
one
the
impre ssion
that
the
('tent
of meeting,
1
which
''as brottght up from
so1newhere
by
the
pr iests
and Levites,
1
vas nothi11g else than the
old
Mosaic
Tabernacle; and
as to
the place from
·wl1ich it
was
b1 ot1ght,
hat i.s
not
told
u.s
in
the [Scriptures; but a
compari s
1
011
of texts (
see
2 .
Cl11·on.
1 :3 ;
l
l(ings, 3
:1, 4) woi1ld seem
to
indicate that the Tabernacle
,v·as .first
transported £1·01n
Gibeon
to
Mt.
Zion,
wl1ere
the
ark of the
co·vena .nt was at tl1is time, and tl1en afterwards it
,vas,
with
other
sacred
matte1·s,
carried
t.1p
to Mt.
Morial1,
,vl1ere it was put
away
in
tl1e temple~ ,
Al l
tl1is seems to
be sufficiently clear; only now the q·ues- ·
tion arises . w·hether, afte1~ al.l, tl1is was real ly the old Mosaic
stru .iture or some other tent, as, e.
,g.,
the ·on,e b
1
uilt
by
David
in J rt.lsalem, and
which
seems, at this time; to have been
stil1 in existence.* Most of the critics, including even Well
l1a11sen1 are agreed t'l1at the wo1·ds, ''tent of meeting''
orhel
moed), as used in tl1is and various other text s o,f Scripture,
do really signify the old Mosa·ic str u
1
cture; a11d one 1·eason
for ·their so holding is tl1at tho .se words for~ a lcind of t
1
ecl1-.
nical
exp ·ression
by
w11ic1
that old structure was c.onunon.ly,
*'Se1
2 Sam. 6
:.17
a11d
7
:2;
1
Cl1ron.
15 :1
and
1
6
:1. Cf~
1
Ki.ngs
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21
or at
least often,
de11oted in the
Biblei
*
Only
one other
te 1·m
is used
as f reqt1ently
as this is
to
indicate tha t str ucture; ·
this
other
ter111
being,
in
Hebre, -, 11iislil?a1i
l1ich is usua lly
translate d,
i11 our
English
versions,
''tabern ac1e,
a11d
mea n
dweJ ling -place .
Now
if
thi s
re11deri11g of
those
,vorcls
is
correct, ,ve ,vot 1ld see1n to
l1ave
al1·ead )' reac 11ed
the g·oal
o f
our e11deavor . ' fl1at is to say' ,
v\te l1av e
actually found tl1e
T.abernac le in e,~istence. It e:,i sted, as an t111deniable
reality
i 11 the
tin1es
of David
a11d
S0l,on1o11,or at least
in
th oce of
Solo1non ; arid a posit ive proof of tl at
1natter are
these
v.rc.1cls
we l1ave j t1st quoted fr om 1 Kings 8 :4. ·
B,ttt
tl1e
'higher
criti
1
cs.,
or
especially \N ·ltl1au,sen,
a re
110
1
t
so
easily
to b,, ca,t1gl1t ,:vith an
ad111issio11 as
to an interpr eta
tio n of
word s ;
fo r
eve11
t hot1gh
VVellhause11
does
concede
•
th,at
·tl1e ,:vo1ds
''te11t
of
1neet ia.g''
signi fy
as we
l1ave
stated;
.
nevertl1eless l1e u11dert akes to get
rid
of
tl1eir real
force by
asserting
that in
thi s pass age
they
are
a11 interpolation, or
•
tl1at they do not
belong
to the origina l Hebrew text.
How-
ever , neitl1er
l1e
nor a11yothe1- l1igl1er
critic
has
ever yet
be~n
able to give any textual auth ori ty
for
such an
assertio11
tllley
only
try
to arg ue
tl1e 1natter from internal evidenc e.
But inter ·11alevidence alone, and es,pecially such s1im evidence
of that
ki11d
as
the c·ritics
have
been
able to adduce in this
connection,
is
in sufficient
to establish tl1e end desired. B -
sides, those \1\,01·ds, ''tent of
1neeting,
are
certainly fot111cl
in
our
present
I-lebrew text, as also in
tl1e Septuagint version;
both of whicl1 items being ·so,
it is,·
not at all lil{ely
tl1~t
\ \ clll1at1sen's
ipse dixit
will
have the effect
of
changing
the111.
~tt cl1 be ing tl1e
case,
we
n1ay conclude that
tl1e strt1ct.. 1·c
*The words
ohel 111,oed
e,em
to
have been used fir.st
to designate
the
smaller tent
(see p .. 37
with
footnot e) ,which
Moses
used
as
:1
place of communion
betwe en Jehoval1
and l1is
people; hence
it v.:':1
called the
'·'tent
1
0£ meeti11g.''
But
afterwar
1
ds,
'lien
tl1e regular
taber
nacle
became
such a place, th,e
,11ord ·s w
1
ere applied
,also
to
tI1at
structure.
..
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,
The
Fundametital1S
•
•
which was caT riedby the priests a11d Levites up to Mt. Moriah
. and stored away in the temple, was really the old Mo ,saic
.Tabernacle. . .
•
We quote only one Other passage from this
First
Book
0£ Kings. It is a part of tl1,e accoun ·t ef Solomon,s going to
Gibeon, and of his offering saerific ·e tl1ere.
T11e
words are
found in v. 4, Chap~
3,
and read as follows: '' And the king
we11t to Gi'be,on,
to
1
sac1
ifice the1·e for
tl1at
·wa .s the great
High
place.''
Then
in the second ·werse
o,f
this
same
chapter
the king's conduct ·
in
thus
goi11g
to
·Gibeon
is farther ex
plained by tl1e statement
that
th
1
e p
1
e,ople sacrificed in
the
high
places, i>ecause ''there was no house ifiUilt for the name 0£
Jehovah
until
those days.'' The
''days ·' . here indicated are,
•
as is explained by the preceding verse, ·those in whicli ''S0lo -
mo11 made an end of building his ow~ , house a.nd th
1
e house
I
of Jehovah;''
and ythe
entire
p
1
assag
1
e tl=i~·n wou .l.d
.signify
that
at least one
r .eason why Solomon off
1
ere ,d
sacrifice in
Gibeon
• •
was
because this was
the
customary way
.among .
the peop
1
le .
~hey offered sacrifice ·s in the high places before the , temple
at
Jerusalei:n was built, but ·
not ordinarily,
or,· legitimately,
•
aJterw.ards. Then t11e1"e is another r·easo,n indicated why
•
·Solomon w·ent
particu]arly
to
Gibeon
because this
was
th
1
e
_great
high place.'' Why it was so called, mtlst have
~een
because of some
special fact
or
circumstance connected with
· t ;
and
among
tlie
explanation ,s
giveg
.none appears
so
natural
·or to accord so well with
othe1--tea.chings,A,
f ·Scripture
as
the .
suggestion
that this
distinction
was
applied to Gibeon ·
tiecause the old Mosaic Tabernacle,
witl1.
the .br.azen alta ,r, was
still there ~
Tka ·t
w
ould certainly
be .a
suffi·eient
r
1
eason
for
accrediti11g peculiar ·eminence to . this one, of all the many
•
high places
wl1ich
at that time
seem
to h~ve existed
in
the
Ho1yBand.
Accordi11gly,Solomon went
o-ver to
Gibeon, and
off er,ed
sa·crifice,
there ; and
then
we read that, in the night
following this devotional act, the
king had ·
a· dream in which:
l10,rah appeared unto him and made to
him
very
extraor-
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. dinary promises. Now this , epip hany of · Jehovah at Gibeon
is reall y another reason for one's believi11g that the Tabernacle
was
located
at
this place.
For it is 11t to
be
sttpposed that
any
J
ewisl1
author, " rriting
afte1-
the
temple
was built (
when
tl1is acco11nt
of Solomon's
dream
·,vas .
ritte n),
would
allow
it
to be said
that the great and idolatry-hating
God of the
I r,aelites had macle a gracious and
extraordinary
revel ,ation
•
of l1imself at any
of
the common high places in the
I-Ioly
Land, half-heathenish and largely devoted to the service of
idols, as these places
gene1·ally
were.
But if
it
must b,e acltnitted that the Tabernacle
,:vas r,eally
l,oc,ate
1
d at Gibe ,on, then all
becom,es
clear, both why Solomon
,vent there to offer sa,crifice, and
why
Jehovah made at this
p'lace a
gra ,ciot1s
revflation
of
himself; also why
tl1,is,
of all
the
l1igh
pl,aces in
tl1e
Holy Land ,
was
cal,led ·
,empl1atic,ally
''g1 eat~''
Then, moreo ,ver,
it
might be said, that we have
sttrel,y
demonstrated
tl1e
existence
of
the
Tabernacle, not
only
as taught by this passage
fro1n
Fir st Kings, bt1t a1so by 'the
,other on,e which we l1ave 11oticed. · ,
•
.
•
2. TESTIMONY OF CHRONI
1
CLES
,
•
. ...
But now turning ove1· to
tl1e
two
books of
Cl1ronicles,.
we
finld
here
quite a
number
of
passag ,es wl1ich teach
in
the
., clearest and most positive manne r that the Tabernacle existed
at Gibeon
not only
in
the
time of Solon1on,
but
also
be ore.
Tl1ese ·two
book ,s of · Ch1·onicles, it sl1ould be
remembered,
are really a
lcind
of commentary, or an
extensio11
made, up?n
Samuel and Kings.
Such
is the opinion of
many
competent
cholar$; and
one reason
for tl1eir
o holding, is that
very
,eviden,Jy the books of
Sa111uel
and Kings were
atnong the
p~incipaJ sources from which the
author of
Chronicles ,drew
his
info1·mation;
although it
must
be
acknowledged also that
he
used
still other
sources besides
those
named. Writing
•
then
at
a somewhat distant
date,
say
on
1
e ,or
two
hundred
years from the time of the final composition, or redaction, of
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24
Tlie Futidame,itals
•
Kings and Samuel,:,: and doub t1ess
l1aving
at his
con1mand
a
co
1
nside rab le an1ount of tradition, bes
1
ide,s his written sourc es,
tl1e Cl1ro11icler
n1us·t
l1ave
bee11
n
very good condition
'to write
,vl1at 111ay be co,11idered a 1,ind of interpre 'tiv
1
e con1mentary .
upon
not only ·
l1e
books
of Sa1nuel,
bttt also
upon
the
Fi1·st
Bo
1
ok of Kin ,gs, two pass ,ages f rom whicl1 we have j11st ·
no,tice.d., If tl1at was so, and the two. bool.cs of Chronicles are
'to
b
1
e
unde rsto
1
od. tl1e11 ,as giving u,s some
additional i.r1f
rma ...
tion as to ,,~I1at
is found in Kings,
th ,en
the
historical
notices
i11 First Kin ,gs which ,ve have exami11ed become as
it
were
i11un1ina ted
and m,ade stro nger a11d mo1·e positive in
tl1eir
nature tl1an wl1en co·nsidered alone. Fo r instance, in Fir st
4
l'{ings we we1·e told
tl1at
Solon10,11 vent to Gibeon and
Offered
sacr ifice there, because
1
'' tl1at was the great high ·p
1
lace ;'' bt1t
110w in
·1 Chron. 1 :3
,ve l1a
ve it all
exp·tained, ,
both ho,w 'G·ibeon
ca1ne ·to
be so· called,
a11d ,vl1at w,as
Solomon's special
reason
£0
1
1· going tl1e1·e
o offet·
sacrifice . It
VJ.as, a.s i.s
taught very
plain ly here i11
Cl1
ornicles, becau s,e ' '
t,he tei
1
it o.f
nieeting
of
G,01d
whi,ch Z.fose,s ,tl·ie .se1 v1a·n·t of Jeli,ovali had made in tlie
wilde1-11:ess w,a1 at
that
time in
Gibeon.
Tl1us
the
ratl1er
unce1·tain me11tion of matter s
at
1
Gibeon which
is
given in
Fi rst
Kings i,s n1ade cleat.. and positi ve by what is said
i 11
Chro11icles. s.o also in 1 Chron. 21 :29, which is a part of
the account given of David's
offe1·ing
sacrifice o~ the thres 'h-
j
ing-floor of Ornan, we hav ·e
agai11 t1-011ger
language used
than is found in Kings, telli11gus of tl1e )existence of the old
Mo,saie Tabernacle. For i11 e,cplaini·11gDavid' ',s c9,ndu
1
ct the
Chronic:le,r says as follows : '''F 0
1
1· the tabe,rnacl e of l elio
1
vaih
•
*It is claimed
by the crit ics that
a11 l1e l1istorical 1Jooks
0£
the
1
0ld
·Testam ient
u11derw
1
ent a
r1vision
du .ring
·tl1e
exile; and :acco ,rding
to
the b,est authorities, Chro
1
nicles was composed shor tly after the
Persia11
rule,
or
.about 330 B. ,c.
S,electing,
then, abo ,ut the mi ,ddle.
C?f the
exi1ic
period (586
to , .444 B~
C.)
1
as
the
d,at
1
e
for
th ,e final
rev1s1on
of
Kings and
Samuel, this w,ould. IJlake
the con1position oi Chronicles .·fall
near
200
years after tl1at . rev1s1on. But of co
1
u1·se Samuel and
Kings
we·re originall~ composed, o·r compiled ., at a
1nuch
e3:rlier date ;~ the
former
appearing
probably
abot1t
9CXJ,
nd the latte ·r about 600 B. C.
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•
l
Tabertiacle i1i
tJie i,Vildcr1tess
25
•
which .iv ses ttzade i1i tJie wilderness a,1d the altar of b~t1~nt
offering
we1"e
at that
tinie
i ·1i
t/1e
liigli place at Gibeon.
1
rv'hat
ever of u11certainty, therefore, o r lack o,f posit ive indication,
may exist as connected ,vith the passages we have · quoted
f ro·m l{ings,
there
is no sttch uncertainty
or
lack of positive-
•
ne ss .]·1ere in Cl1ronicles. ,on tl1e Contra1
4
y, tl1es
1
e t,¥0 books,
which give u.s quite an amou11t of informatio11 respectinP-tl1e
1 abernacle, are
al,1Vay,.
or at least g·enera lly, very clear
a11d
· pos iti, re ; and on
tl1is accot11t,
·it
111il1t
be
added,
tl1e
sta te
me11ts made in Chronicles ·h:ave some ·times bee11 taken as a
•
kind of
guide
to the study of tl1e Tabernacle l1istory in general . .
But l1ere agai11
tl1e
critics mal<:e tl1eir appearance, a11d are
''all ttp i11 arms'' against any use to be 1nade of tl1ese t,~-o
bool(s of Cl1ronicles for qetermin ing ,a n1atter of
ancie11t
history+ Of
all
tl1e
t1ntru st, ,vorthy hi storical
lite·rature to
be
found in tl1e Old Testament tl1ere is notl 1ing qu ite so bad, so
the cr .itics tell u s, as is in ge nera l Chro111icles; and W
1
ellhau sen
goe s so ,far as to say t·h,a't one specia 1 p·urpos
1
e serv
1
ed
·b,y
tl1ese
t ·,,o boo
1
ks, is tha t they
shovv horV
an au.thor , ·may
use l1.s
origin al sources with su
1
ch freed
1
0111 as to make them say
abou ·t wh,at h
1
e pleases, or anytl1ing ac
1
cording to hi s own
ideas. ( See Pro1eg., Eng. trans ., p. 49.)
So
also Graf, .
DeWette, and otl1ers, have very e11ergetically attacked the
credibili ty of the se
two
book s.
Bttt
over against all
that
is
said by the critics as to the
Chronic ler's lack
of
veracity and
his violent dealing with l1i,s sou rces, ,ve will simply, or first,
put the testimony of one of the l1igl1er criti ,cs the111selves.
It is what
Dill1nan,
who
i·n
{>oint
of learning and
reliab ,ility
is aclcnowledged to be among the very
f
o.ren1ost · of a]l the
critics,
says with regard to
tl1is
very matter
i11 l1and: · 'It
is
now reco,gnized,I' affirms that e.minent critic, '' 'that the Chron
icler has . worked according to soiurces; .and th ,ere can be no
talk,
witl1
regard
to
him, of fabrications
or
misrepresenta tions
of tl1e
history .'' So
also
Dr. Orr observes that
there
is no
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26
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·TJie F und amentals
•
-
.
Chronicles;
rand
Pr
1
of. J me,.
R
1
obertson, of
Glasgow Univer-
sity, farther
adds
that all
such
matters
.as
the
critics
have
urged ·
ag,a·i . .st th,e Chr
1
oni
1
c.l
1
er 's veracity or misusie and even inven ,
tion of sources, are ''superficial and unjust;'' and
that ''tl1e1e
•
is no reason to doubt the
ho,nesty
of the author .in the use of
such materia ls as lie has command of, nor is there any to
, question the e~istence of the writings to which 11e refers.''
t We take it, therefore, that
tl-iese
two books of Chro
1
nicles
embody
not
only
the best historical
know ledge,
but also the
best traditions still in existence at
tl1eir
date; and
.such
being
•
the: case, it is clearly in
1
c
1
ontrov ,ertibl
1
e that, . as is so unmis-
takably taught in these books, the old Mosaic Tabernacle
must have existe
1
d.. And so
lo,ng
as the critics . are unable to
· impeach the testim ,ony of these
books,
which would seem to .
•
·be
impossibl
1
e,
that te stim.ony
must
stand~* .
•
•
3.
TE 1STIMONY OF SAMUEL
ti •
••
· Now,
ho,wever,
let us give
attention
to
tl1e
books
of
Sam-
uel.. Here is c
1
ertainly a~other piece of lit.e~·ature against
the
general credibility of
which
tl1e
critics can l1ave but ljttle ,
to say. And what do th
1
es
1
e bool<stell tis resp
1
ecting the Taber-
* t
is,
cla ime
1
d by the critics, and especially by
w
ellhausen, that
during . the exile the
J
ew·is·11notio11s
·re~pect:i11g tE1epast
of their .na.t.ion.a1
and tribal .history underwent a radical change, so much so th .at nearly
al l the religious f e.atur ,es o,f that history were conc
1
eived of ,as h,aving
been very diff
1
erent
f r·o,m wha·t th ,ey really
were., Or
in ot·her . wordrs,
the J ewish writers of the exilic period were, so the critics te11 us,
a,ccusto ·med to project religious and priestly matters belonging to the ir
his·to·ry in a much ]at.er pe·rio
11
d away ba
1
ck
t,o
h ·e: earlie :st times.
Con.s.e
quenily the general ideas of the
te111ple
and of the temp]e service were
thus project~d back even to th e days of Mos ,es; and in this , way, it is
ex 'plained, . the notion of a Mosa .ic Ta .bernacl
1
e with an i]ab .0
1
rate ri·tua'J .
istic service came int ,o b,eing. But · really there is no evidence in all
the Ol1d Test .amen t writings, or at all events no evidence that the Jew.s
kne ·w anyt .h1~g
ab·o
1
u·t,
that
sttth a c'hange ever .too ·k place. Henc ·e
the
critics
are
decidedly wrong
when
they
represent
that the autho ,r of
Chroni
1
cles was only influenced by the spirit of his age when he under
took to misrep
1
res ,ent, a.s it is claimed he did, numerous matters con -
nected
with the
past
history
of
this people.
The
truth is tl1at
the
Ch.r1on.icler was either a base
falsifier,
or
what he
tells us in bis
history
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nacle 's history? Very n1uch, indeed; far more than we shall
have space here fully to
exa111ine.
In
the
first place,
these
books tell
us that
during
at least
part
0£ the .
times which
they
in g·ener ·al describe, tl1e Mosaic Tabe1·na,cle was loca·ted at
•
Sl1iloh, up in the Ep
1
hraimite district. Then next we leatLI
tl1at .at l
1
east one of the
gr·e·at
fes itivals connect ·ed with
the
Tab ,ernacle
s.ervice,s
tl1e ''y
1
ea·r·ty
sacrifice' '
it
is called w·as
still b·eing o,bserved. Also
1
w
1
e learn
that
this
is
t.he place
,vl1ere
Sam.uel' ,s
pare11ts,
Elk.anah
an
1
d
Hannah, . went
up
1
eTery
,yea1·, in or·der
t
1
0 take p,art in th .at sacrifi
1
ce. Moreover,
it
was
i11
th,e
sanctttary
at Sh.i .ol1, o,r in
son1e
Qn·e
of its apart .
ments, that Samuel slept at th ,e .time when lie had those ·
extraordinary revelations of Jehovah talking with him, a:Od
where also he cam,e into
st1ch.
inti111ate and important relations
with the aged Eli and
his,
house. . . .
. And among still otl1er items report .ed
ir1
those book,s the ,re
is one
that
invites
our
special attention.
In 1
Sam., Chap. 2,
v. 22,
111ention
s n1ade of certain ''women that did servic ,e at
the door of the tent 1neeting. ' ' And it was with
these
women,
•
.
as we farth ,er learn, that Eli's two sons, H ,ophni and PlUilehas,
comniitted at least a part of their ,vick ,edness, for
Y1hich
they
wer re so severely conde1nne,,d, a11d af ter ·ward punished
by
Jel1ovah.
Now whatever else this
p,assag ,e
may
signify,
it
ce1--tainly t1tends to teach, by it s use of the words ''tent of
tneeti .ng,'' that in the time of .Samuel
tl1e
1
old Mosaic
Taber
na .cle was in ,exi stence at Shi]o ,h.
For, as ,ve
h,a,re already
•
seen, th~s
1
e wor
1
ds, · 'tent
of 1ne,eting," forn1ed a characteri .stic
expres ,sion
by wl1icl1 in Q,d
Testament
times
the
Tabe
1
rria
1
cle
was, quite often at
1,east;
designated and
k11own,
·This
much,
as we have a .lready noticed, even
Wellh .ause .e.
is willing
to
admit. · · ·
However, the critic .s 1·aise
he1·e
two
ob
1
jections. On~
of
them is that
the
sanctt1ary at S,hiloh
w,as
not realJy a tent
or tabe.rnacle,
b,ut
rather
a
solid
structure, built
petl1aps
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The Fundamentals
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given
by
the critics
for this
view is
tl1at, in Samuel's
accottnt
of tl1e
.st1·uctur·e
at. Shilo·h, there
,are
''posts," '''doo1·s,''
a·nd
some other matters usually indicativ
1
e of .a solid struct11re
mentio11ed. But - tl1is, difficulty can be very easily explained
from a statement
1nade in
the Je"visl1 Mishna,* which is, ·tl1at
the lower part o·f tl1e sanctua ·ry at Sl1ilol1 ,,·was o,f stone,''
bt1t
that above
tl1is there
was
a tent. Or
a
1nore decisive
a11swer to
thi s
objection is
that
in various
Sc1·iptures (such
as
2
Sam. :6; Psa. 78
:60;
1 Kings
8
:4;
Josh .. 18 :1, and
still oth
1
ers .)
the
structure
under
consideration is positive]y
called ''a tent''
a11d
'a tabe1·nacl
1
e,''
Then the
otl1
er
1
b
1
j ection 1·aised
by t11ecritics is that these
words, ''te11t of 1neeting," as found i11 1 S.a1n. 2 :22, a1·e a11
interpol :atio11, or
that
the
whol
1
e passage
cont .aining
tho se
words . is spurious, The reason which they give fo
1
r such an
assertion
is
that this passag ,e·
is not
f
011nd i11
th
1
e Se·ptuagint ..
But in reply to
1
such o,bjecti
1
on
it may
be said,
first,
that this
is not t'he on1y pas.sa.ge
in
the
Bib le
in which mention is made
of thes .e women ''at tl1e.
door
of the tent of
meeting.''
In
\
Ex . .38 :8, li.ke 1nention is made; and, as Dr. Orr has obse-rv·ed,
it
is inconce ·~vable even on the supposition, which he d
1
oes
not
accept, of a po
1
.st-exilic .
origin of
the
last
indi ,cated
passage,
tl1at just t
1
his one mention of tl1e mat ·ter allu
1
de·d to sho·u]d
occur, unless ther ·e was behind
this matter
som.e
1
old and we11-
established tra ,d.ition; or, in
other words, the
genuineness
of
the
tex ·t
in Exodus argues
for the genuineness of
th
1
e text
i11
Samuel. B
1
esides,
as.
Dr .. Orr h,as again
Sltggested, tl1ere 1nay
have
bee11
son1e
special
1·eason
of
delicacy
or ·of rega ·1. for
the
good moral · repu ·tation
of the
Israelites, on the ac.count ,of
which the makers of the Septuagint versio11 threw out this
item respectin ,g the
Wickedness
of Hophni and Phinehas , as
co,nn·ected
with
these women.
Then, 1noreover,
as
an
offset
to tl1e Septt1agint's
authorit ,y wl1icl1,
owing to
t11e k·nown
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f
aultin
1
ess
of its pr
1
esent
text and
its gene1·al inexactness as
a tt anslation, is su,rely no
1
t great it can be urged that the
,entire clause
containing the
words ''tent of n1eeting''
i,s
fot.1nd
,alike in tl1e old Syriac or Peshito version, in the Vulgate,
and in the only ,extant Ta1·gt1m (that of Jonath an Be,n Uzziel)
•
on this pa ,rticular pas~age ; all of which very ,ancient
,autho1,.-, .
ities* 1e11der
it
as certain as, an ,ything of a
textual
natl1re
•
co,uld well be made, that the old original text in 1
S arn.
2 :22
\Vas
exact 'ly
as
it
is
now in ottr present-d .ay·
I-Ie,brew
Bible.
Ai1d,
finally,
as
pet:haps
tl1e
c1·o,vning f eat'tt,re
of
th is
a1·ray
of evi
1
dence
for the
ge11t1i11eness f
th ,e text
tinder
conside1-a
tio11, it can be affirm,ed that, for En.glisl1 r
1
eaders at least,
·t11ere exists on,e
authority, easy to be· consulted, w11ich_wo11ld
· seen1 to put beyond all reaso ,nab le doubt
tl1e genuiner1ess
of
this text~ That authority isl ottr R
1
vised Englisl1 Version of
the Scriptures a
literary
work that in poi11t
of
scholarship
. and general r~liability stands perl1aps second to none prodttced ·
i11 1~ecent
years. And now, if anybody wi'l'l take the ti.. ub'le
to
const1lt· tl1is Revisecl Versio
1
n, he wil'l see that this enti
1 .e
disput
1
ed pas,sa,ge is ret ,ainecl,, or
that , the many
,em,inent scho,1-
ars, both Englis h and An1er ican , who
wrought
on this
t1·ans
lation are agreed tl1at tl1e vords,
' 'te11t
of
n1e
etllJg,'' or
oli l
IJ'n Oed, as in Hebrew, are g
1
e1111i11e,nd p1·operly belong to
thi,s pa,ssage..
Sucl1 being
tl1e
case, the critics are pttt in bad
plig-11t;
and anyway it does not argtte much to the credit 0
1
f ·
heir
hypothes ,is when, in ordet· ' to car ,1~y it th1·ough, it becomes
ne,ce~s,a,ry so often to, 1nake the clain1
0
1
£ interpo
1
latio11. Of
co,urse,
a11yone
can make what l1e please
of any
pas,sage of
Scripture,
provi
1
ded he
0
1
nly
has the privilege o,f' doctoring it
•
_ *The Targum on Samuel, whi,ch is att ·ributed to Jonathan Ben
Dzziel, is commonly ·believed to hav 'e 'be
1
en pr ,odu,ced some t ime during
tl1e first century;
the Peshit ·o version
of
the Scriptures
i,s
thought
to
l1ave been made somewhat Jater, pr·o
1
bably in tl1e second century; while
tl1e Lati11,
Vulgate,
by Jerome, was complete ·d between
the
years
390
a11d
405
A D ·
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30 The Fundametitals
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sufficiently beforehand. And with regard to this particular
•
passage it
may
be, said ' that neithe .r
Wellhausen
nor
an ,y
other
higher critic ,can
do
anything
to
alter
it;
becaus
1
e
s9
Jo,i1g as
t11ose
wor ,ds
1
o,he,J
moed
or ''tent
o,f
meeting,
1·emain n1he
various textual
authorities wh ,ich we have
quoted~
so long
it will be impossible to expunge them from our present Hebrew
Bible ·; and 110 matte 1· wl1at authorities
the
critics may be ,able
to
quote
as omitting these
1
wo1 .
s, the preponde ·ran
1
ce of author
ity, as matters now s.tand, will always
be
in favor of their
retention.
We
,claim
then a
re,al.
victory here, in being able
t·O
substant ·ia,te so
conclttsively,
as
we
tl1ink we hav
1
e done, tl1e
genuine11ess of this text in Samuel. ·
But ,vhat now is the gener ,al
1·esult
0
1
£ ottr examinations
with regard to the testimony which
1S,amuel gives us?
If
our c,onclusio11 with regard to the, pas,sage just
examined
is
correct, and we are
fully persuaded that
it i,s,
then we
sure 'ly
have demonstrated in the clearest
wa,y
that not
only
in the
days
of S,amuel, . but
·p,robably
long befor ,e, the Tab 1rnac]e
did exis ·t, and was lo
1
cated at Shiloh.
4.
TE.S,TIM0
1
NY OF JEREMIAH AND PSALM
78
-
.
•
An,d
h
1
er
1
e,
if
we ,care to
go,
.still further in
this
investigation
of pass,ag,es,, we might find some very int1re
1
sting testimony
to the Tabernacle's historicity in Psa 'lm 78 and in tl1e prophecy
of Jeremiah. But since we ·wish to be as brief as possible,
•
while not neglec.ting the r
1
eal str
1
ength of
our
argument, we
will simply
indicate, or
quote,
the
Scriptur ,es re,· e1~red 'O, and
leave the discussion or jntelpr ,etation of' them
to
the
reader
himself. One of these
passages
is
found,
as said, in Psajl 78,
vs. 59 60, ,and reads ,as f,o,llow,s : ''When God heard this , he
was wr
1
oth, and gr·e,at1y· ,abhorred Israel; so that he forsook
the
tabernacle of Shiloh the tent
which he placed among
men~'' Ano.ther pa,ssage, from Je ,r., 7 ,:12-14, read,s thus: ''But
go )
e now unto
my
place
whi cli
Was i1tt
Shiloh
where l cau s.e d
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the wickedness of
my
people Israel. T.herefore will I do
unto
t·be house
wl1ich
is
called b.Y
my
nam
1
e,
where ·in
y·e
trust
1
[·tl1e
temple at Jerusalem], and unto tl1e place which I gave to you
and
t,o
your fathers, .
as
I have done to Shiloh~'' Still another
passage may be found in J r~ 26 :6
,
a11d reads : ''Then will
I make this house like Shiloh, and ,vill 1nake .this city [Jeru
salem] a c·urse ·to a.II natio ,ns
0£
the
earth~''*
All these p
1
assages, it should be observed, compare
th·e_
Temple at Jerusalem with the Tabe ·rnacle at Shiloh; and they
express
the thr ·eat,
that, unless the Israelites
r·epented, ·
God
W
1
oul~ destroy the Temple at
J
e·rusalem, as he had long before
1
destroyed, or remov
1
ed, the Tabernacle at
rSh.iloh.
•
5. TESTIM ,ONY 0 ,F JUDGES AND
JOSHUA
Yet once mor
1
e, in
0
1
rder to .make
1
our sto
1
ry
of the ·Taber
nacle comp
1
lete,
it
is necessary for us to go back somewhat
in history ; and SO· we n.ow qttote from th,e books of Judges
and Joshua. 111
Josh.
18 :1 we
·read: ''And the
whole
con
gregation
of
the children of Israel
as.sembled tl1emselves
•
together .at Shil
1
oh
and S
1
et up the
te11t of
meeting th ,ere.''
Then, turning over to Judg. 18 :3,1, we again read, about
the
. idolatrous
image ,s
set up in Dan,
that
the ·se continued
there
•'all the time that
th
1
e
house of God was . at ·
Shiloh.'' .
Fr ·om
these two
passages we learn not only how
the
''house
of
God''
1
c.ame to be
l.ocated
at
Shiloh
because the childr
1
en of Israel,
p
1
robably under the
·1eadership
of Joshua, set it up
th,er·...........
but
we
l
1
earn also that the two descriptive terms, ''tent of
tneeting't and
·'house:
of
God,''
signify t.he sam .e
tl1ing ;·
.£or it
*These passages in Jeremiah are very important as evidence in favor
of the Tabernacle's real existence, since even the higher critics must
.admit
that
the chapt~rs
1
containing
them
were
written
a con,s'iderable
time before
the
exile;
and
there£ore these passages
c·ou1d
not, exc .ept
upon the violent theory of redaction, have been
affected by
writings
appearing
ei·ther during or after
the exile. And
as to P.salm
78,
whic.h
is
even
more expli ,cit
a·bo
u·t
th.e s.t·ructu .re
at
S
hi1o1's
bein,g
the
c,ld .
Mosaic
Tabernacle. I it
is much easier to say, as
the critics
do.
that
this
P
1
salm
is
post-exiiic,
than it is to
prove such assertion.
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The
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is hardly possible tl1at the ''tent of meeting' ' erected at S11ilo
in the
da.ys
of
Joshua had been replaced in
tl1e
time o.f
the
Judge s
by
another structure , different in kind, and now called
the ''ho use of God.,, .
•
•
6. ARGUM ENT FRO?vI HISTORY 0 1F THE S1-\CRED ARK
•
•
But now yet, before we gi, re the entire story of _he
Tabernacle, we desire to notice another kind of ai gumenti
w.l1ich is drawn from the history of th
1
e sacred ark . Ther
1
e
, does not
see1n to
be
any
notice
of
tl1e Tabe1·11ac1e as a
struc
ture by it sel f in the book of Deuteronomy; but in the tenth
chapter of this book, verses 1 to 5, there is given an accottnt
of the constr ·uction, not of tl1e Tabernacle, but of wl1a·t must
be considered as its most i1nportant piece of furniture, that
is, the Ark of
tl1e
Covenant,
as it is
usua lly
called, or
as the
critics prefer to term it, the Ark o Jal1wel1 (Jehoval1). Now,
although the critics take a ve:ry different view regarding the
date
and
authority
of
Deuteronomy
from
that
wl1icl1
has
always been accepted by orthodox scholars, yet especially
upon the
ground
of
tl1e
passage ref erred
to,
they are
wiiling
t
1
0
admit that .at least so.me kind of a sacred ark wa .s con
st1·ucted ev
1
en
in tl1.e
,days of Moses ,.
Mo·1·eove,·,
if
cons,.ste11t
with tl1e facts as recorded in the Bible, the critics can11ot
deny ihat this same sacred ark, whatever was its form
or
pt1rpose, was not . only carried by the Isr ,aelitesl o,n aJ,l tl1eir
journeys through the wilderness, but was also finally located
by
them at Shi1o11;
whe11ce,after undergoing various f
ortu11e
j
it was deposited in the holy of holies of Solomon's T etnJ) c.
This the critics in genera l admit ; and they
are
compelled to
do so by their own accepted documents of ''], ''E,' ' etc.
· Now,
t11at
being the case, it iollows that if the history
of the sacred arl<:can be traced all the way through, or ratl1er
all the
way
back
fro1n
the days of Solomon's Temple to the
days
of Moses,
somewhat
the same tl1ing can
be done
also
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from what the critics call tl1e Priestly Document, ·was built,
among other purposes, for the housing · of this sacred ark;
and the same documentary evidence which establishes that
fact establishes also t11e farther fact that for a long period
such was really the case. · That
is to say,
the
sacred ark
and
tbe old Mosaic Tabernacle went together,
according
to Biblical .
history, down to tl1e times of Shiloh; and tl)ey were, after
some period of
separation,
even brought
together again at
th.e
dedicatory
services of Solomon's
Temple,
To, be
sure,,
not
all
of
this is
admitted
by the
critics;
but
they
cannot deny that
the same old ark, which,
according
to
Deut.
10 :1-5,
was built
by Moses, was finally deposited in Solomon's Temple.* W itl1
this n1uch conceded, all the rest that we have ·cla,imed m11st
necessarily follow; or, in other words, the admitted history
of the Ark
of
Jehovah establishes
also,
the historicity
of
tl1e
Mosaic T}1bernacle, or at least helps to do so.
IX. EN T IRE ST0RY
OF
THE TABERNACLE
•
Now then we are prep ,ared to give
the
entire stocy
o,f
that
0
1d structure which was built at Mt. Sinai; only one item
,
11
eing still lacking. This we can learn from I Sam., Chaps. 21
and 22;
and it is, that
for
a
brief
period
the Tabernacle
see111
t.o have been
lo,cated at Nob, some distance south of Shilo
11.
.
0
uched for by the different historic notices we haVebeen con
sidering, it is as fallows : .
Built by the Israelites near Mt. Sinai, it was afterward
carried by
that
people all through the wilderness. The11,
th -w~11hausen positively
states
that a~cording. to the Law,
that .
is,
a
e ark,u ~nd th.at "The two things neces.sa~1lybel_ong o each other. "
the also
admits,
o~
the
ground of other Bib.he.al evidence, that toward
~ ~ e.11d f
the
period oi Ju~ges there are d1st1nct
traces
o,f the ark
as
l)oi~tting?mor eover, that this same "ark of Jehovah'' was finally de-
81
ed
1n
Solomon' s
Temple.
(S ee
Pro eg., En g.
Trans .,
pp.
41, 42.) .
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And finally, there is still one class, or a single objection,
which makes bold to affirn1 that in all the earlier historic
books of the Old Te
tame11t,
even
f
ro1n
Judges to 2
Ki11g
there is no sure mention ma.de of the Tabernacle as a
real
•
existence. ·
Now, if we were to try to answer all these objections, it
might be · said of the last one, that it is already ans,verecl.
We have a11swered that objection by showing not only that
there is mention
made
in
those ea1·lier
historic books of
the
Old Testament of tl1e Tabernacle as a real existence, but al o
that this mention is both sure and abundant. The many
historical notices which we fuwe exami11ed, all telling about
the Tabernacle's constrttction and l1istory, is positive proof
to that eff cct.
•
Tl1en. furtl1ern1ore, with regard to tl1e alleged fact that i11
the earliest sources, . out of which according to the critic
theory the Pentatettch was constructed, there is mentio11
made of another or second te11t, different from the Mosaic
strt1cture, we have to say ,vit11. espect
to
this
objection, first
of all, that it is far from being proven that there are in
tl1e
Pentateuch arty such oldest sourcee as the critics allege.
That item is only a part of the still
unproven
theory of
tl1e
higher critics, in their interpretation of tl1e Old Testament.*
And tl1en, secondly, we might say, respecting this objectio11
. that it is a difficulty which orthodo scholars have often
noticed and which they have explained in various wa
1
~ .
Perhaps the best explanatiori is
to allow the reality of the
difficulty and to attribute it to so1ne obscurity or even seem
ing contradiction existing in the Pentateuchal notices. Bt1t
*The fact of the higher-critic theory being as yet in an unprove11
state might be urged as one important co11sideratio11 in favor of tl c
Tabernacle s real existence; and especially could such an
argume11t
be legitimately made, inasmuch as the proof of the ·correctness of that
theory does not all come from an assured non-existence of the 1'1osaic
tructure. But since an argument of that kind would be, to ome
extent at least, ''reasoning in a circle,'' we do 11ot make use of
it .
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Taber titJcle in .th,e Wilderness
•
,vi1atever the real difficulty may be,,
it
certainly is not insuper
al>e ; and
a very
good
expla11ation
of
it
is
that
there were
1
leallyW O tents, . but
one
of
them, ,
that is, the smaller tent, was
only a
kin,d of provisional structure, perhaps the dwelling
place of Moses, whi
1
cl1 w·as us
1
ed also
for r·eligious ,
purposes, .
While the .la.rger or ·
Sinaitic
Tabernacle w.a.s bei.ng
prepared.*
~'ith some al1owa11cefor on,e or two stat
1
ements made in the
Pentateuch which seem not fully
to
accord with this view,
it
will answer all the real exigencies of the case.
Or,
at all
events,
neari 'y any
explanation which preserves th
1
e integrity
of the Pent ,ateucl1al lite·ratu1·e, an
1
d tries to reconcile its seem- · ,
•
tng diff e,rences of state1nent,
on
the
ground
that
th·i.s literature
deals with f
ac.ts, and ·
is not in large
sha ·re
pure
fiction,
is
Vastly .Pref erab ,le to
any
of the the
1
ories which the critics
have
thus far advanced with regard to
this
matter.
There
remain
then
0
1
nly
two classes
of
ob.j e~ions
which
need still
to be answered. And
with
regard
to
one
of these
classes, that
is,
the first
in
our list,
it
may be stated that
although
the
objections p,ut forward under
this head
are
quite num
1
erous,
yet ·
a single illustr ·ation of t'hem will show
how
utterly
lacking
in
substantial
character
or reaso,nableness
N
*Noti~es
.of
~uch
sma11er
tent se.em
to
.be made in Ex.
33
:7~11;
urn. 11.16, 12 .4, 5, and Deut. 31.14, 15, and from these various
Passage,s t'he critics claim
·th.at th
1
ey
can
dis ,cover
at least
three
points
e·v1t1cal one. These
d1ff
rences are as
follows : (
1)
The smaller
tent 'wasalways pitch ,e:d
1
outside
th,e c·amp ,;
but
acco,rding to the
priestly
Levitical history the larger tent was located ,,within t~e
camp1 . (~)
:.1.he smaller tent wa
1
s only ,a place of
]
ehovah's revelat1011
1
or of hts
~o~muning with his people ; bu.t the ]a~f{er or priestly struct~r~ was,
es1des.,
a
place
of most
elaborate worship. (3) In the
Lev1t1cal
or
larger tent
the priests and Levites re,gularly served,
but i.n the
smaller
strttcturc it was only Joshua, the ''servant'' of Moses, who had
charge
of t he
b1uilding. · ·
. All these diff
er,ences,.
how
1
ever, are easily expl,ain,ed by th
1
e theor ,y,
t
1
ven above, of there having heen really two tents. Besides, it
sl1ould
.trtptures of this smaller structure; which fact would seem to be a
ittong
Pl <?Of
hat the smaller one of the two tents was, primarily at
east a
p.r.1vate
structttr ,e
ttse,d by
Mo,ses.
•
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38 · ·
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Tlie Funda nentals
•
ea,cl1
~11d all
,of
them real ly
are.
The illustration of whicl1
we will make use is
ta .k,en
f1·om Bi .shop Co,lens ,o s
fan10,11
at ·tack upo ,n· the
t ruthfulne ss
of the Pentateuch an~ the B,ool.;
of Joshu ,a. In tha t at·tacl< l1e puts £01 ..ward th·e s,ingu lar
objection that tl1e Tab ,ernacle was, in its dimensions ,· fa .r too
sma ll to accommoidate all the· vast ·host 0
1
f the Israe li·tes sta11d
ing before its door, as tl1e Scriptt1res seem to indicat~ was tl1e
•
case with the1n ori a f·ew occasions.* Th at vast l1ost 1nus t
•
.
have numbered, accordin g to th ,e data giv.en in the Pentateuch ,
a s many at least
as
so,me two
111il1ions
of people ; a11d n,ow
Cole11so
makes the ob,j
ection
that thi s
great
host, st an.ding
in ranlcs, as he would m,ake it, of nine, one rank behind
•
anoth .ir, in f ront of the Tabe1~11-a,cle d,oor, would have form e
1
d
a
proce ss·ion some sixty niles
long ;
whi
1
ch, sur ,ely, woul
1
d h,ave
been
11ot
only a practical
imp oss ibility
so far as their g?:th
e1-ing at the doo
1
r of the T ,aberna ,cle was c,oncerned, · but
,vou1d have been also a
1
Co1npete
d
1
emo11stration of the
·u11-
t1;5tl1fulne~ss or un·reliabili ty of
tl1is
P
1
entatet1cha l reco rd .
•
But ther e is one thing connect ed with this, record whicl1
Bishop Colenso seems
n,o·t
to
I1ave
under stood. It
is
t hat
,vhen the author of it was speaking of the whole congre gation
of Israel as
standing,
or
gatl1ered, in front of the Tabernacle
door, he wa~ speaking only in genera] terms . His langua ge
th en would imply, not that every individua l belonging to the
va .st Israelitish host stood at . the place menti .oned, but 011ly
that a large . an .d repre ,sentative multitude of these people
\,ras thus gathered. Or the words might signify that
eve11
the wl1ole congre ,gatio 1n of the Israelit ,es was, o.n a few occa ..
•
sions, gathered about the Tabernacle, as
it
had
been
gathered
around Mt. Sina~ when the law was given not all the peop]e
ne·ar ·the ·Tabernac]e door,
h Ut
only the leaders, while the
gr ,eat
b,ody
1
of
t~e
congregation
stood
behind them,
or
around
~Vi<t~ I ..
v.
·8:35;
Nttm.
10:3,
and 27:18-2.2.
Al.so
comp. Num.
16;
16~19.
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in such e.xt.reme poverty. The Bible tells us that when the
children ,of Israel left Egypt they went ou ·t ''every man
., a1·t11e
d ;·' and they carrie
1
d with them all their herds and flocks,
leaving ''not a hoof behind.'' Mor -eover,
by
means of the
many gifts, or exactions of ''jewels of silver'' and ''je\\
1
els
of '
go
1
ld
2
·which
they received
from the
Egyptians,
tl1ey ''utterly
· spoiled', that peopl .,. Such is
the
representatio
1
n given in
the Bible. And then, too, when
these Israelit ,es
came
to
Mt.
Sinai, here
also, according
to
the reports
of
modern travelers
and explorers, they
could have found various
mate rials 11eces
sary f·or constructing the
T'abernacle,
such as an
abundance
of copper existing in ~lines, var iou s kinds of preciotts stones ,
as
well as,
growing
in
this
regio11
in
considerable abundance.,
t·he shittim-wood or acaci .a tr ·ee, out of
wl1i
ch
tl1e
boards
and
pillars an.d most of ·the furn iture of tl1e Ta 'bernacle were
act ·ually· constructed. So far, tl1eref
or
1
e, as possessing,
9r
being able t
1
0 get, the 1neans necessary £01' a constrt1ction of
the Taberna
1
cle was concer·11ed, these
people would seem to
have been pret ·ty well sttpplied.
And then, with
regard
to the
other
mistake made
by the
critics, viz., that these Israelites were intellectually incompetent
to build
the
Tabernacle,
this a.ssertion
also is
not substantiated
by
f acts.
F 'or, in
th e fi.1·st
plac
1
e,
it shoul
1
d be remembered
that all these Hebrews had from their 'birth dwelt in Egyp t,
a
country
w'hich, of all
la11ds i.n
t 'he
world,
was
at that time
th
1
e most advance
1
d in all kinds of mechanical, architectural
•
and industrial
art Th is,
e.
g.,
was the
country
,vhere th
1
e
•
great pyramids ha
1
d been produced, and where
existed,
at
that time, at
least
most of the magnificent
temples., to1nbs,
obelisks,
statues
and palaces, the ruins of which still remain. · ·
Accordingly, wh
1
en
the
1
children of I srael came out
of·
Egypt,
they must have brought
with them
a
good
amount of the
archit
1
ectural
and mechanical wisdom peculiar
to
that
country.
Moreover, we are taugh ·t in the Bible that these people, while
in
Egypt,
dwelt
in
houses; \vl1ich, of
course, they
mt1st
have
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bu.iJt for thetnselves; also that, .as slaves, theic lives had been
rnade b,itter
by
'',all ,manner o,f
servi
1
ce
in
the
field,,-' and by
'
1
hard service in brick and :in mortar,'' and taat they ha:d
built ''store-cities,''
such
as Pithoin
and
Raamses.
Plltting,
therefore, all these experiences whicl1 the Israelites had in
l gypt together, ,it can be easily seen how tltey could have
leamed, even
from
the Egyptians,
sufficient wisdom
to con-
truct and tran ,sport the Tabernacle.
· But
if
we
are
required
yet
to name
any one
particular
achievement,
ever
accomplisl1ed by these
peop'le, that
was
gr
1
eat
,eniough t
1
0
warrant tl1e
belief
of
the ,ir
bei11g
abl
1
e to
tons
1
truct and carry with them all th,rough the wilder11ess the
Sinaitic Tabernacle, then, both with promptness
at1d
high .
appreciation, we point to that very extraordinary conquest
Which
they made of the Holy La11d, and also
to
the almost
e,qually
extraor ,dinarily long march made by them through
the
Widerness; and we wisl1 to say that any people wl10 could
•
accomplish two sucl1 prodigious deeds as were these cou·ld
easily·
have
accomplished
the
so much easier task of building
and
transporting
the old
Mosaic
''tent of meeting.'' ·
. Our conclusion, therefore, is that, all teachings of the
h
1
gher
critics to the
co11trary
notwithstanding,
those
Israelitish
People were
abundantly
competent , both in poi11tof
intellectual
ability and of
material
st1pplies, to accomplish each
and
all of
the works which are accredited them in the Bible.
•
XIII. MARICS OF EGYPT AND THE DESERT
.
Bt1t
tl1is line of argument is one that can ·be pursued to
a 111uc]1r1ater exten ,t,
a,nd
,it can
b
1
sl1own
'tl1at
instead
of
the conditions surrounding · the Israelites
at
Mt. Sinai and
While they
were
in
the
wilderness
being
against the tr.uthful·
l1essof the Biblical record appe,rtaining to those matters, such
co11ditionsare
really in
favor
of
that record's truthfulness,
as well as of the Tabernac1e',s real existence ,. For illustra
tion, we
are told in
the
Bible that the wood out of
which
a
..
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.
The Fundame itals
•
/
. large part of the Tabernacle was constructed,
was not
taken
from tl1e
lofty ceda1··s
gr
1
owing
in
Lebanon, nor fro
1
m
the
sycamores grbwing in the Palestinean valleys, but from the
.
l1ttmble acacia or shittin1-wood tree, which, as we have
•
alrea:dy seen,. flourishes quite pl
1
entifully in
the Sinaiti .c region;
all of which
particulars accord
fully
with
the topographical
facts in the case. So
also, . if
we are to believe
in
the ·
testi~
•
monies of ancient Egyptian monuments and the results of
mode:rn
Egyptian explo ,rations,
the1. is
many
a re,semblan
1
ce
Which
can b
1
e
found
to
exist between matters , conne
1
ct.
ed
w.ith
old Egyptian temples, their structure, furniture, prie sthood
•
and ser,,ices, and other lik
1
e matters ap,pertaining to the Taber ..
nacle. Indeed, some of these resemblanc
1
es go so far in their
minute
details
as to an ar _angement of
buildings
acco1·ding
to the
po,ints
o,f
1
c,ompas,s a p,eculiarity which was found both
in
Egypt an,d in co·nnection with the Tabernac]e; diffe1·ent
ap,a:rtmen,ts in
the, S1·1·uctl1t·e,
g:1·ad
ed
a,c
1
c
ording
t,o
sa,n~.tity; the
possession of a sacred ark or chest, peculiarly built . and
located;
strange
winged fig11res, w hich as existing i11 the
Tabernacle w,ere calle ,d cherubim; a gradation of the pr .iests;
priestly
dress and orna1nents ; the breast-plate and mitre
worn
by the .
l1igh-priest; different
animals offered
in
sacri ..
fice; the burning of incense·, etc., that tl1e impression left
ttp,on . the mind of a p·erson who knows a.bout these
thin.gs
as exi .sting
in
ancien·t Egypt and then
reads in
the Bible about
similar
matters
connected w.ith the Tab
1
ernacle is, tl1at
\\J·ho-
ever wrote this Biblical acc
1
ount mus ,t himself have
been
i11
Egypt and have
seen
the old
Egyptian
worship and
temples,
••
in order to make his reco,rd conform in so
many
respects
to
wh,at was found in that country.*
•
*P
1
rOf
• Sayce u.nd
1
erta .kes
to
show that the f
1
oreign inft·u.e·nces. ,affect-
.
-
i11g he structur
1
e of the Tabernacle and the nat ,ur ,e of its, services
came
rather from B,ab,yionia and Assyri .a than f ro
1
1n Eg)
1
pt, y.et, so far as
all the topogra ,phical items mentioned abov
1
e a·re concerned, ·they caJ1
at·t be
abundantly .substantiated by
f a,cts from
l1ist,ory
and archaeology .
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43
So also if ·we give attention to the pecllliar experience s hall
by
the Israelites
dttring thei1-
march
through th e wilderness ·,
we shal l see from what th ,e Bib]e tells us about tl1eir set ting
up . and taking
do1vvn
he Tabernacle;
about
the wagon fur
nishe,~ for its transportation; about the pillar of cloud going
before it or resting upon it, in c
1
onnection ,vith their long
march; also about the nec
1
essity of going outside of tl1e camp
in order t,o perform so1ne of the Tabernacle services, from
all these
and
various
other indication s given
in
the Bible, we
Can surely perceive that the conditions of these people were
such as to
war1-ant
tl1e belief that .they did indeed, a~ he
Bihl~ represe11t ,s,
journey
through a .wilderness, an
1
d
that
they
carried with them their · tent of worship.
In his book,
,entit 'led ''',Natur ·e
and the Supernatural, Di· .
•
Horace , Bus.lrineII teJJs of an important le,gaI case that ,onc ,e was.
gained b1y one of the J,awye,rs not .icing ., in the ,veb of a s,hee·t
of
p,aper
which h,e: hel
1
d in
his,
'hand,
certain .
water -marks
1
which h,a
1
d, been made in ·the , p
1
ap
1
er during the pro,cess of j,ts
ll1anuf ac,tttre.
The ,se water-ma ,rks
1
being
indelibl ,e, they
s,erved
as the best kind of ' proof o ·f ·Ce1§tainfacts which it was de.si,r,ed
to establish. And so we would chara .cterize all t11oe
1
evidences
coming
from a correspondence
1
of the
Bible
a,ccount . witl1
arc ,hreologica1
£acts, which
have
to do
with
the .Israelites being
in Egypt and their j o,urn .eying through the Sinaitic desert, as
so m.any
water-marks
left indelib,y,
not upon,
but
in the
very
,veb of the Bib lical record ; proving not only the undeniable
truthfulness of this record,
bt1t
a]so th e real existence of the
·Tabernacle.
•
XIV. SUM
~--y
OF
THE
ARGUMENT
To
su111
up tl1en the different points which we have
en
deavored to make in our argument, it will be · remembered
that, in the first pla
1
ce, a .fter having outlined ottr gener -al
Proposition, and after havi ,ng from vari
1
ous considerations
sl1own
th
1
e importance of
its
discttssion,
we
affii-n1ed
that
t
1
here
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· The und ·ment ls
•
are certain great
presumptions which
lie in the ·way of our
accepting the higher-critic theory as true. Next we intro- ·
duced S<.lme archreological and other
testimony
1
external to
the B
1
ible,
which we found
to
be
helpful
in
proving
the ·Taber
naclets historicity. And then, by quit
1
e an exten
1
ded examina -
•
tion of the many historical
notic
1
es
respecting
the ,
Tabernacle,
or respecting the sacred ark as connected with it, which
are
found
in the
Old
Testament, we established, we think, as a
matter
beyond
lall
r
1
easonable doubt, tl1e
actu ,al
historic ,ity
of this structur
1
e; showing how it was built n
1
ear
Mt. Si11ai
and then ,was known to exist
,conti,nuous :ly
for some five
hundred yea ,rs, or from the ti.me 0
1
f Moses unto the time of
Davi
1
d and
ISol,omon ,.
And then,
finally,
to
1
make our argument
as complete las
po,ssible,
we
n,ot.ice,d, s,omew'hat
bi'ie,fly
and
y
1
et
with
1
cons·:derab ,Je ·full :ness,,
the many
0
1
bjections
which the
h'igh
1
er· criti.cs h,ave
raised
aga,inst the
T.abe~acle's
exi.,,tence,
sh,ow,ing that none of .
these
1
obje
1
ctio,ns is
rea·11y vali
1
d,, and
turning the :a:st ·0
1
ne· i:nto a po
1
sitive proof on. 0
1
ur .side , 0£
1
t'he
4
question~
•
l
xv§ CONCLUSIO N
And
now,
if
t.l1ere
r
1
emai11.
yet anything wl1ich needs to
be
*
said,
:it seem·s,
to us
it is q·nly 'tl1e asse·rtion that,
w'hether the
highe ,r cri.tics
will
admit it or
·no,t,
the
old Mosai
1
c
Tabernacle
surely did exist.
Or
if there are persons who,
in
spite
of
all
the nttmerous important testimonies ,
\V
hich we l1ave adduced
front the Bib)e and other sources to
tl1e
Tabernacle's
1
histo
1
r-
•
icity, still persist in denyi ,ng such evidence, . and in saying
that the whole ma ,tter was
o,nly
a
p,riest1y
fiction, then what
th,e Savior
says,, with
respect
perhaps to som,e
of
the skeptics ·
Jiving in his day, is quite applicable: ''If
tl1ey
believe not
Mo,ses and the prophets, neither would they
believe
though
. one i:iosefrom the -dead.'' Or; to state the case a little differ
ently and somewhat humoro~1sly, it might be said that the
fact of any
pe,rson' s
denying
the
real exi stence of the Taber-
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Tabernacle in tJie
U ilderness
•
45
nacle, when
so
much
positive evidence ·
exists
in
favor of
·it,
reminds one of wh .at Lord
Byron says
with regard
to
Bishop
Be·rkeley s
p
1
hilosopl1ical denial
of ·the
exjstence of matter :
Whe11
Bishop
Berkeley
says
it is no matter.
Then tis no m,atter what
l1e says.
,.
But if
the
1~abernacJe
i11 tl1e wildernes ,s.
did
really exist,
•
then
what
becomes of th
1
e
peculia1· theo1·yof th ,e
higher
critics
? ·
Tha ·t necessarily
falls
to the ground,
or
is
proven to be
untrue ;
for, as was shown . i.n the earl .Y part of this
discussion, the . .
entire
critic
hypothe ,sis re·s·ts upo
1
n, o,r has for
o·ne
of
its,
main
pillars, the assumed non-existence of the Tabernacle, or what
amounts
to the same thing ,
the
alleged late
1
origin of ·
the
Mosaic ri·tua1istic law. Both of these
pr
1
emises b·eing now
demonstrated
to be unsound,
the
.Tabernacle
which Mose
1
s
•
rnade in
the
wilderness
will very
likely remain where
the
..
Bible puts
it
among the great
undeniable
facts of the
worldJs ·
history, and not,
as the critic s would
have it,
among fictions
or for ge·ries.
* · ·
:
11
For Ad de11da to thi s art jcle, see pp. 120-125.
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CHAPTE R I I .
THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST TO
THE ·
OLD TESTAMENT
•
•
BY
WILLIAM CAVEN., D.
D
1
.
LL.
D.J,
LATE P'R.INCIP ,AL o ,F KNOX
1
COLLE
1
GE, T'ORONT ,o,
CANADA
Both Jews an
1
d
1
Ch1·istians
receive
the
Old Te ,stament as
containing a revelation from God, while the latter regard it
as standing in close and vital relationship to the New Testa-
1nent. Everything co,nn
1
ected with th
1
e Olcl Testam ,ent has,
of recent years, been subjected to the closest scrutiny the
~uthoI ship of its several books, the time when they were
written, their style, their historical v3:lue, their religious and
ethical teachings . Apart
fron1
the veneration with which -we
regard the O]d Testament writings On tl1eir own account.
the intima ,te c,o,nnect·ion w'h.i,ch
they
hav,e with tl1,e
Chris ,tian
Scriptures necessarily gives us the deepest interest in the
•
conclt.1sions whicl1 may be reached by Old Testament criti-
cism. For us the New Testament Dispensation presupposes
and grows out of '
the,
Mo ,sa ic, ,so the
book,s
of
the
New
Tes,~
tament touch those of tl1e Old at every point: In vete-re tcs
ta ie ito no'i llm latet, et in novo vetus
patet.
1
(In the Old
Testament the New is concealed, and in the New the Old is
rev ealed.)
We p,ropose to take a summary view of the testimony o f
our
Lord
to
the Old
Te stament,
as it
is
recorded
by
the
Evangelists. The New Te stament writers themselves largely
quote and refer to tl1e Old Testament, and the views which
they express
regarding
tl1e old
economy
and its writings are
in harmony with the statements of
their
Master ; but , for
various reasons, we here confine ourselves to
1
wh ,at is relat ed
of the
Lord Himself. . . .
•
•
•
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•
•
•
Testimony
of
Clirist to the Old Te.stanie·1t
...
4,
•
. Let
11s
ref er, first, to what is contained or
necessarily
'lllplied in the Lord 's testin1ony to the Old Te stame11t Scrip ,
h.tres,
and, secondly, to the critical value of His te stimony.
I. TH E
L10
1
RD'S
T ESTIMONY TO
THE OLD TESTAl iE NT
Our Lor
1
d's authority tl1ougl1 tl1is
i
rather the arg 1-
11- .entitmilen tio niay be cited
in
favor of the Old
Te stament
canon as acce·pted by the Jew s in I-Iis day. He nev
1
er charge s
them
witl.t
adding to
or
taking from
the
Sci-iptures, or
in
any
Way
ampering wi.th the t
1
ext. Had they been guilty of so great
a sin it is hardly possible that amo,ng tl1e charges brought
against them,
this
matter should not even be alluded to. Tl1e ·
tures, and with making tl1e law void through their traditions,
but He never
l1ints
that they have foisted any book into
the
canon,
or rejected any which deserved
a
place
in
it. ·
Now,
the Old Testament canon of the first century is the
same as our
own.
The evide11ce for
·t·t1is is complete, and
~1~ fact is
hardly
questioned. Tl1e Ne w Te stan1ent contains,
1
ndeed , no catalogue of the Old Te stametlt books, but the
testimony of Josephu s, of 1'1elito of Sardi s, of Ori gen, of
Jerome, of the Talmud, decisiveiy sl1ows that tl1e Old Testa
tnent ca.non, a.nee fixed, has remained unaltered. Wl1ett1er
ntined by Ezra and the Great Synagogue is altogether correct
or not, it is certain ·that tl1e
Septuagint agrees with the Hebrew
as
to
the canon, thus showing that the subject Was not in
dispute two
1
centuries before Christ. Nor is the
testtm,ony
of the
Septuagint
weakened by the fact
tl1at
the common Old
as
hinted,
either
by the .author, or by any other Jewish writer,
that
it
was worthy of a place an1ong
the sacred
book s
llever quote s any of the aprocryplJal book s, nor refers to
the111.
•
•
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
48,
The F~ tndamentals ·
•
••
•
•
•
•
NO P~T ASSAILED
If our
Lord does not
na111e
l1e writers
of · the boo ,ks
of
tl1
· Old Testamerit in detail, it
may
at lea t be said that no worJ
of His calls in question the genuineness
of
any book, an~
· hat he distinctly assigns several parts of Scripture to tl1t
writers whose names they
pasS
under. The Law is ascribed
to Moses; David s name is connected with the Psalm s ; the
prophecies of Isaiah are attributed to Isaiah, and the proph·
ecies of Daniel to Daniel. We shall afterward inqQire whetber
these references are merely by way of accommodation,
ot
whether more importance sho uld be atta,ched to them ; ifl
the meantime, we note that the Lord does 11ot, n any instan ce,
express dissent from the comm.on
opi11ion,
and that, as ta
several parts of ,Scripture, He distinctly
endo1·ses
it.
The
references
to
Moses
as
legislator and
writer
are s1icl1
as these: To the clean sed leper He says, Go thy way,
sl1ev1
thyself to the priest, and offer tl1egift that Moses commanded
( Matt. 8 :4). He saith unto them, Moses because of tbf
hardness
of your hearts suffered you
to
put away your wive s
(Matt. 19 :8). Ii they hear not Moses and the prophets,
•
neitl 1er will they be persttaded, thougl1 one rose from
tl1c
dead ( Luke 16 :31). For
lf
oses
said, Honor thy f
at]1
er
and thy mother ; and, Whoso curseth f atl1er or motlier ~ let
him die the death (Mark 7 :10). And beginning at Moses
and all
tl1e
prophets ) he expounded unto them in .all
tJ1e
Scriptures the things co11cerning himself {Luke 24 :27). A11
things must be fulfilled
wl1icl1
were
written
in
the
law of
Moses, and in
the
propI1efs, and
in
the
psal1ns,
concerning me
. (Luke 24 :44). There is one that accuseth you, even Moses,
•
in·whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have
believed Me : For he wrote of Me. But
if
ye believed 11ot
his writings
1
how shall ye believe My
words?
(John 5 :45-47),
Did not Moses give
you
the law, and yet none
Qf
you keep~
· eth the 1aw? ~ (John 7:19). Moses therefore gave unto
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I
•
Testimony of Christ to
t/1e
Old Testan ent
49 ·
•
•
•
you circumcision.
* * *
If a n1an on th.e Sabbath
day
receive circumcision, 'tha 't
the
law of Moses
should
not be
broken,'' etc.
(John
7
:2.2,
23). The
omitted
parenthetical
,vords ''not because it is of Moses, but of
the fathers'' ~ -
seem clearly to
show, it
may be
remarked
in passing, that
the
Lord is no
1
t unobservant
1
of
l1istorical
exactness.
Th
1
e Psalms are qttoted
by
our Lord more tl1an once, but
only
once is a writer named. The 110th Psalm is ascribed
to David; and the
vadidity
of the Lord's argume ·nt depends
on its being Davidic. The reference,
tl1erefore,
so far ,as
it
goes, confi1~s
the inscr iptions of the Psalms in relation to
authorship. .
Isa. 6 :9
is
q·uoted thus ·:
''In
them is fulfil'led th,e prophecy
of Esaias,
whicJt
saith,
By
hearing
ye
shall
hear,
and
sl1ail
not understand''
(Matt,
13:14, 15). Again, chapter
29:13 of
Isaiah's ·prophecy is cited: ''Well hath Esaias prophesied
of
You l1ypocrites. ·*
*
*
This
people
hon
1
oreth
me
with
thei1··
lips, but their ·heart is far from me'' (Mark .
7
:6) . When,
in
the
beginning
of Hi
ministry,
the Lord came to Nazareth,
tliere was
delivered
unto
]ji1n
i11 the
synagogue
''the
book
of
tl1e
prophet
Esaias ,.
And
when
he
ha ,d
opened
the book,
he
found the place ''here it was
writte11,
The Spirit
of
the Lord
•
1
upon me, because
He
hath a11ointed me to
preach
the
Gospel
to
the poor,''
etc. (Luke 4 :17,
18).
The passage read by
our
Lord
is
from
the
61st
cl1apter
of Isaiah,
which
belongs
to th ,e section of
the
book very of
ten,
at
present,
ascribed to
the
second,
or
pseudo,
Isaiah ; hut we
do not
press
this
point,
as
it may
be
s,aid that .
the Evangelist,
rathe ,r than ,Christ,
a cribes
the words
·to
Isaiah. . ,
In His great
prophecy respecting the
down£ all
of the ·
Jewish stat
1
e the Lord refers to ''the a.bomination
of
d,esola-
•
tton, spoken
of
by
Daniel the
prophet:''
As in
Dan.
9
:Z l,
We
read that ''For the
over ·spreading of
abominations
he
shall
tllake
it
desolat ,e,'' and in chapter 12
:11,
that
''tl1e abomina 'tion
that maketh desolate ( hall ) 1 g t ttp.''
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,
•
•
50
•
The
undamentals
•
•
•
•
NARRATIVES AND RE CORDS AU THENTIC
•
When Christ
m.ake s
1i9fer ence to Old
Te stament
narrative s
and record s, He
accepts them
as auth entic,
as
histOrically
true. He
does
11ot give or sugges t in any case
a
mythical
or
allegorical
interpretatio n. The accounts
of the creation,
of the flood, of the
overthrow
of Sodom and Gomorrah, ·as
well as many incidents and ev·ents of lat
1
er occurrenc .e, a·re
taken as authentic. It may,, of ·course, be alleged that the
Lord 's reference s to
the
cr ,eation of man and \Voman, the
flood, the cities of the plain, etc., equally serve His .purpo se
of illustration whether He regar
1
ds them as historical
1
or not.
But on weighing His words it will be seen that they · ose mucH
•
of their force and appropriatenes s un .less the events alluded
'to had .a histori .cal char lacter.
•
•
•
Let us refer . more
particularl .Y
to this matter. When
tl1e
• •
Pharisees ask Christ w·hether it · is law£ul
£0
1
r a man to put
. away his wife for every cause, He answers them: ''Have ye
not read, that · He which made them in the beginning 11lade
•
them 111ale nd
f',emale,
and said, For thi.s
1
cause s·hall ·
a
n1a11
]eave father and 1nother, and shall cle.ave to his wife: and
they twain shall be one flesh?'' (Matt. 19:4, 5). Again:
•
"As the days of Noe were, so
shall
also the coming of the
Son
•of Man be. F
1
o·r ,as in the days . that were before the flood,
they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in mar
riage, until
the
day that Noe entered
into
the
ark,
and kne-w
•
.11ot,until the flood ~ame, and took them all away; so shall also
the coming of the Son of Man be'' (Matt. 24 :37, 39'). Again:
'' And thou, Capemaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt
be b,rought down to hell: for if the migh ty works, which have
been done in thee, had been d
1
one in
Sodom,
it
would have
remained until this day. · But I say unto you, That
it
shall
he··
mor ,e
t
1
olerahle
for
the lan
1
d
of Sod,om in the
day
1
0
1
f
jud.g-
.ment, than for
thee'~ (Matt .
11
:23,
2
1
4 ). These utterances,
every one feels, lose their weight and
solemnity,
if
there
was
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•
•
•
..
••
Testimo1iy
of Clirist to
the Old
Testame, ,it
51
•
no flood such as is described in Genesis, a11d
if
the destruc-
..
tion of w·icked ,Sod,om 1nay be,
o nly
a :myth .
Illustrations a11d
parallels
may,
f·or certain purposes, be
,adduced from
fictitious
literature, but wh ,en
the
Lo
1
rd would awaken the cons
1
cience
• •
of men and alar1n · their
fears by reference
to
the certainty
of divine judgment, He
will
not confirm His
teaChing
by
instances of
·punishn1ent which
are
onJy
fabulous.
His
argu
ment that tl1e
Holy
and J 1,st
God
will do as He has done ·
wil1
make
bare His
arni
as
i11
the
days
of old is
robb·ed,
in
this case, of ·all validity. ·
A view frequently
urged
in the present day is tt1at, as
with other natio1ls,
so witl1 the
]
ews,
the
mythical period
precedes the historic ,al, an ,d ·thus the ear]ier narr ,at .ives of ·; he
O ld Testa1nent . must be tal<:enaccording ·to tl1eir, true char ~
acte1·. In
later periods
of
the Old Testament
we
have
record ,s
which,
o,n
the whole,
are
historical;
but in the
very
earliest .
times ·we must not look for authentic history at
all.
·An ade-
•
1
qua ,te cxaminatio
1
n of this theory (whicl1 has, , of co
1
urse, .
111omentous exegetica ·l consequences) ca11nothere ·be
attempted~
We merely
remark that
our Lord s brief references
to early
Old
Testament
narrative would not
suggest
the distinction
so often
made between earlier and
later ·
01d
Testament
rec ....
•
01-d
on the sco1·e of
trustw ,orthiness 1, •
THE OLD TES.TAME .NT
FROl\f GOD
We advance to
1
s,ay that Christ accepts , the 01,d .Di.spensa~
tion and its
Scriptures
as, in
a
special sense, from
God ; as
having special, divine
authority.
Many who recognize 110
peculiar sacrednes 1S
or aut ·hority in
the
religi,on of
the
J
,vs
above other
religions
of the world, would readily admit
tl1at
it
is from God.
But
their contention
is
that all religions ( espe
cially what they are pleased to call the
great religions
have
elements of
truth in them,
that
they
all f
umish
media
through
\\thich devout
souls have
fell
ow
ship
with the
Power which
rules
the universe,
hut
t hat
none
of
than
should exa~t
its
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•
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52
The
Fundanientals
•
pretensi ons much above the others, .. far less claim exclusive
divin e sancti ion; ,all of them
being the
prodt1ct of man's spirit
ual naturet
a.s molded
by
his history and ' environment, in
different
nations
and ages ..
This is the
view
under
which
the
study .
0
1
f
comp ,arative religio
1
n is pros
1
ecuted
by many
eminen t seho
1
lars. A
la·rg,e
and generous
.s,tudy of
religions,..,....
their characteristics and
histor ,y
tends, it is
held,
to bring
~hem into closer
fellowship with
each
other;
and
only igno
rance or p,reju ,dice (
say
the,se u·nbiased
'thinkers)
c-an isolate
th,e
re]·igion
0
1
£
the
O·ld Te ,st,ament or of the
New,
and refus ,e
t.o .ackno1wled,ge
in other religions t.h
1
e
divine ,elements which
entitle them to take rank with Judaism or
Christianity -
The ut.terances of Jesus Christ on thi
question
of the
di·vinjty
of the
0
1
ld
Test ,ament r,eligi
1
o·n and
1
cults are unmis
takabl 1;
and
not les .s
clear
and decided is His language
respecting · he writings in which this religion is delivered.
God is the source in the
directest
sense, of both the religion
and the records ,
of
it. No man can
claim
Christ's authori ,ty
for c·tassing
Judaism
with
Confucian ·i,sm,
Hinduis,m,I Blud
dhism,
,and
Parse
1
eism. Tl1ere is
nothing,
indee,d, in
the
•
Lord's teaching
whicl1
for
bids
us to
recognize
anything
that
is good in ethnic religions any of
those elements
of spiritual
truth
which become the com·m 0
1
n
property
of
th
1
e
race and
which were not .
completely
l
1
ost
in
the
night of· heathenism;
b
1
ut, on the other hand, it is abundantly evident that the Jew
ish faith is, to our Lord, the one true
fait 'h,
and t'hat tI1e ·
Jewish Scripture ·s have a place of th
1
eir own a place whi
1
ch
cannot b,e
shared
with
the
sacred
books
of
othe·r
people:s.
Sam ,aritanism, even though it had appropriated so l.argely
from t.he religion of Israel, He
will
not rec,ognize. ''For sal-
vation is of the Jews.''
Almost any ref e:,ence of our Lord to the Old rf est.ament
will
support the
statement ·
hat He regards the
Dispensation
and its Scriptttres as from God,. He shows, e.g. that Old
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•
•
..
Te.stimo iy of Christ to the Old Testament 53
His
teaching
and His
claims
by Scripture, or
He
e11joins
obedience to
the
Jaw (as in
the
case of
the cleansed lepers) ·,
o,r He
asserts the inviolability of the law till its complete
fulfillment 0 1
He
accus.es a bli.nde·d and self·-righteous gener-
•
at1on of
superseding
and
vacating a law
which they
were
bound.
to
obs erve. A few instances of explicit recognit.ion
of the
Old
Testament
Scriptures
as proceedin .g from God
· and having divine authority, may be
here adduced. In Ii:is
Sermo n on the Mount the Lord mal<es this strong and co1n
prel1ensive
statement: ''Verily, I sa.y unto you, Till heaven
and earth pass, one jot or one ti
tt1e shall in
no
wise .pass
· from tl1e law, till all be fulfilled'' (Matt. :18).
In ·the context the law is
distinguisl1ed fro1n
the
prophets
and desigi1ates, the ref ore, the
Pen tateuch ;
and surely tl1e
divine
orjgin of this
part of Scripture is
unquestiona .bly
implied . No such inviolability could be claimed for any
tnerely. human institution or prodt1ction. When the hypocrit
ical and heartless son
prete11ded
to devote to
God what sl1ould
.have gone to sUpport his indigent parents, . he ''made the com
lllandn1ent of God of none effect,'' ''for God commanded,.
say
. ing, Honor thy
father
and
mother'' (
Matt. 15
:4).
In
purgi 11g
the temple the Lord justifies His
action
in these words : ''It
is written, My house shall be
called the house
of prayer
(Matt. 21 :13).
Again: .
''As
touching
the
resurrection
of
the dead,
have ye not read that which
was
spoken
u·nto
you
by God, saying, I am
the
God
of Abrah .am,
and the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob?'' (Matt. 22 :32).
Aga in:
''Lay
ing aside
the
commandment
0£
God,
ye
hold
the
tradition of
men, as the washing
of
pots and
cups :
and
many
other such
like things ye do'' (Mark 7 :8). So
many
passages of tl1e
Old Testament
are quoted or alluded to
by the
Lord
as
haV,ing
received, or
as
awaiting fulfillment, that
it
is scarcely neces-
ary to make citations of this
class.
These all most certainly
imply
the divinity
of Scripture;
for .
no man~
no
creat ure.
can
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•
•
Testimony of
Christ to the
Old
Testament
55
•
ta
regarding
the
Old
Testament
as
the
Word
of
God,
as
the
Bible of the
ages
before
the Advent, a~d
as
still part of the
Bible for the Christian Cl1urcl1. Not
unLil
the days of devel
oped rationalism was this position called in question, except
among unbelievers. But
it
is obvious that
tl1e
style
of
criti
cis1n
which
1
in our
own ti1ne, is freqtiently applied
to
the
Old
Testament (not to
say
anything
about the
New),
touch
ing its histories, its ·taws, its morality, is quite ·inconsistent
\~.rith the recognition ·of any special divine characteristics
or authority
as
belonging
to it. The
very
maxim
so
of
ten .
repeated, that criticism 1nust
deal
with
these writings
precisely .
as it deals with
other
writings is a refusal to Scripture, in
linii1ie of
the peculiar character which
it claims, and
which
the · Church has ever · recognized in
it.
If a special divine
authority can be
vindicated
for
these
books,. or
f
9r
any of
them, this fact, it is
clear,
ought to be
taken
into account
by tl1e
linguistic
and
historical critic. Logically,
we
should
begin our study of them by investigating their title ·to such
authority, and, should tl1eir claim prove well founded, it ·
should never be forgotten in the subsequent critical proc
esses.
The establishment
of this l1igh claim will
imply
in
these writings moral chara .cteristics ( not to mention
others)
~hich
should
exempt them
from a certain suspicion which the
• II • •
critic
may
not
unwarrantably allow
to
be
present
when he
begins to
examine
documents of an
ordinary
kind. It is
not, the ref ore, correct to say that criticism, in commencing
its
inquiries, should
know nothing
of the alleged
divine
origin
or
saCred
character
o·f
a
book. If
tl1e book has no good
\ ouchers for
its
claims to
possess a sacred character, criti-
•
cistn must proceed unhindered ; but correct conceptions of
critical
methods
demand
tha t
every important
fac t
already
ascertained as to any writings should be kept faithfully bef Olie
the mind in the examination oi them. Science must here ·
unite with reverential feeling in requiring right treatment of
•
•
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
56
•
to have
its
claims dt1ly
investigated.
The examination of a
witness
of establi shed veracity
and rectitude would 'not
be
conducted in precisely the same manner
,as
that of a
witness
wl1ose
cl1aracter
is
unknown orunder suspicion .
Welll1ausen s
style of treating the history
0£
Israel can have no justification
unless he
sh,oul-d first show
that the c1aim so often advanced
in ''Thus saith the Lord is entirely baseless. So far f ron1
•
admitting the validity of
the axiom
referred to, we distinctly
hold that it is unscien,tific. A just and t tUe criticism mttst
have r.espect to everything already know11and settled regard
ing the producti ons to which
_t is
applied, and assuredly so
momentous a clain1 as tl1at of divine authority demand s
care
ful preliminary exa1ninatior1,
But critici sm,
it
may
be urged, is the
very
instru1nent by
which we must
test t11e
preten sions
of
these
writings to
a
special divin
1
e origin and characte1· an
1
d, h
1
en
1
c
1
e,
it
cannot
stand
aside till
this question has been considered. In requiring
criticism
to
be silent till the verdict
has been
rendered, we
a.re putting it
under
restrictions inconsistent with
its
func-
tions and
prerogatives.
The
reply, however,
is that the prin -
cipal external and
internal
evidences for
the
divine
origin
of the Scripture s can be weighe<;lwith sufficient accuracy
to
detei 1nine the general character and authority of these writ
ings before critici sm, either higher or lower, requires to app ly
its hand. ''The heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the
doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts ,
the scope of the ·
whole (
which is to give
glory
to God)
1
tl1e
full
discovery
it makes of the
only way
of
man's
salvatio11
the many other incomparable excellences, and the entire per
fection
thereof,
are arguments
whereby it
doth abundan tly
evince
itself
to be the word of God'' ( Conf. of Faith I
:5).
Bt1t all of these considerations can, in alt that is materi al,
be weighed
and estimated
before technical
criticism
begi11:
its labors, as
they
have
been estimated
to
the entire
c
1
onvicti on
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Testimony
1
0/ Ch ist to the Old
Testamen t .
-·-
:JI
no acquaintance with crit ,icism.
Shoul,d t'he i 'air applicatio11
of criticism, when
its proper
time
comes, .·
end to b,eget
doubt
as to tl1e
general conclusion
already
reached
r
1
egarding the
. Bible, it
will
doubtless be right to review carefully the evi
dence on which ·our conclusion de,pends; but
the
substantive
and dire ,ct proofs of the Scri ,ptures being from God should first
be handled,
and.
the decision arrived at should be kept in
mind, ~while critici sm is oc,cupi
1
ed with its proper
task.
T'his
see
1
ms to
tt 'S
tl1e true ord ,er of the procedure.
•
•
•
GOD SPF..AKS
Our Lord certainly attributes to th
1
e 01d Tes ,tament a far ·
•
higher character than 1nany have supposed. God speaks ,
in it through
1
out; and
w.hile
He
will mor·e
per ,fectly reveal
Himself
in
His
Son, not · anything
Contained
in the
older
r
1
evelation shall fail of its end or 'be convicted of
erro1·.
Chris ·t
does no,t
use
the
term ''inspiratio ,n''
in speaking of
the
Qi]d Testament, but when we have adduced ·His , words re
garding the origin and auth
1
ority o·f these writings, it will
be evident that to
Him -
they are
God-given
in
every
part.
It
will
be
seen
that
His
testi1nony
falls
not
behi11d
that of
Ris Apostles who
say: ''Every .
Scripture inspired of God
(2 Tim. 3,:16), and The
p,rophecy
came not in old time
by
the
will
of man;
but holy
me11
of
God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost'' (2 Pet. 1 :21) . .
•
•
•
In
s,peaki,ng
of'
Christ as
teaching , that
the,
Old
Tes,tament
is from God we have referred to passages in which He says
that its
w,ords an ·d
comm,ands are
the
words and coinmands
of God; e. g., ~'God
1
comm ,and
1
ed, saying, HQn,or tl1y father
a,nd
thy
mothe ,r: and He that
cursleth f
ath ,er or mother, let
h.itn
die the death'' (Matt. 15 :4). Again: ''Have ye not read
that which was spoken
unto
you
by
God, saying, I am
tl1e
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58
Tlie utidamentals
'
•
t . .
In a comprehensive way the laws of the ·P-entateuch, or
of tl1e
Old Testall1ent,
are
called ''the comman ,dmeh ·ts of
•
·God.,, ''In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines
the
comn1andments
of m·en. For
laying
aside
the command
ment of God, ye hold the tradition of men. * · * * Full
well ye reject the comma11dment of God, that ye may keep
yoar own
tradition'' (Mark :8, 9); and in the
context
of
this
last quotation the
com1nandment
of God is
identified
with
what ''Moses
spake, showing
that the words of
Moses
are
also the words of God.
Passages like
these
do mor
1
e
than
prove that the Old
Testament Scriptures
express
on the whole
th
1
e mind of God,
and, therefore, possess very high auth
1
ority. If it can cer
'tainly
b,~ said that G,od
spake
c,ertain
words, or
that
certain
•
words and comm,andm
1
ent.s
are
the
w
1
ords and
comman
1
dm,ents
of Go1d, we have mor
1
e than a ge,ner ,al endor
1
sement ; as
when,
.
e. g., the edito,r .of a
periodical
states that he is respo,nsible
for the general character and
tendency
of articles
which he
admits, but not f:or, every se11timentor expressi
1
on of opinion
containe ,d
in the1n. · .
•
It
n
ee,ds,
1
0£
1
c,ourse,
no
proof tl,at
·the
words
quoted
i11
he
New
Testament as ·S
poken
by
God ar ,e
not
the only
parts
of the Old whi,ch, have direct
divine
authority. The same
thing
might evidently
be said of
other
parts
of
the book.
The
impression
left, we think, on every unprejudiced
mind
is that such quotations as the Lord made are only speci
mens of
a
book
in ·
which
God
speaks
throughout. There
is
not encouragement
certainly to attempt any analysis
of
Scrip,
ture into
its
divine and
its
human parts or
elements
to
apporp
tion the
authorship
between God and
the
human penman,
for,
•
as we
have seen, the same
words
are
ascribed
to
God and
to His servant Moses. The whole is spoken by God and by
•
•
Moses also. All i,s divine and at the s,ame time ·all is human .
•
The divine
and
thle
human
are so related
that separatio ·n
is
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t
Tes ,timony of
Ch.1ist
·to the Old Testament 59
-
ABSOLUTE INFALLIBILITY OF
SCRIPTURE
Attention
may
be special ly called to three passages in
whicl1 .
the Lord refers to the origin and the absolute in falli bility of
Scripture. Jesu s · asked the Phari sees, ' 'Wh at think ye of
Christ? Whose Son is He ? TI1ey say unto Him, The Son
of n ,avid,. He saith unt o the·m, Ho ,w the·n dotl1 David
in
spi·rit
call Him Lord?' '' The ref e1·en,ce is to Psalm 110, which
t~e
Lord says David spake or wrote ''in spirit;',
i.
e., David
Was
co1np1etely
under tl1e
Spi rit's
influence in the
production
o,f the Psalm, so that when he calls
tl1
e Mes,siah his ''Lord''
the word has absolute authority. Such is clearly the Lord's
.
meaning, and the Phari s,ees ha,ve no rep,ly to His a,r·gument.
l'he Lord does not say that the entire Old Testament Vt "as
•
Written '' in tI1e Spirit ,"' nor even
tl1at all the
Psalms were
so
Produced ; He make s no direct state111et of this nature ;
yet
·the
pla.in reader would certainly regard this as implied.
His
hearer s
understood their Scriptures to have been all written
by immediate
inspiration
of God, and to be tl1e word ·of ·God;
and He merely refers to Psalm 110 as having the character
Which
belonged to Scripture
at
large. ·
In Jol1n 10 :34-36, Christ vi11dicates Him self from the
charge of blasphemy in claiming to
be
the
Son.
of
God:
''Jesus answered them, Is it not writ ten in your Jaw, I said,
Ye are gods. If he called them gods
t1nto
whom the
word
of God came, and the Scripture cannot be b,roken ; say ye of
llirn
whom the Father ha th sanctifie d, and sent into the world,
1'bou
blasphemest ; becau se I said,
I
am
the Son
of
God?''
1 be
Scripture cannot be b,roken ou dunatai luthenai. ~he
'lerb signifies to loose, unbind, dissolve, and as applied to
Scripture means to subvert or deprive of authority. The
author ity of Scripture . is then so complete so pervasive---
as to extend to it s individual term s. Gods is the proper
Word
because it
is
used
to
designate the Jewish rulers.
If
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my, of course, allege that · the Lord s statement of inerrancy
implies only that the principal words of Scripture must be
ta,ken precisely as they
are,
but
that
He ,does not claim
th,e
like auth ,orit ,y for all its words. With ·ot1t ,arguing this point ,
we merely say that . it is, not cert ,ain
1
or obvious that the way
is left open for tl1is distinction.
In
face of
Christ s
utterances
it devo ,lves on tho se who hold that inspiration
e~tends
to the
thought ,of
[Scripture :
,only,
but
not to
t he
words,
1
or
to
the
leading words but not to ·the words in g,eneral, to adduce
~ery
cogent arguments in support of their position. The
•
onus proban
di~ it seems to
us,
i,s here
made to rest
on them.
rhe theory tha t inspiration
may
b
1
e affirmed only
of
the main
•
views or
p(?si·tions
of Sc,rip ,ture, but neither of
the
word,s nor
of
tl1e
development
of
the thoughts,
cannot, it
seems clear,
be harmonized with the Lord s teaching. Before adverting to
a third text we
may
be allowed
to set
down these words of
Augustine in
writing to
1
Jerome ::
For I ackno ,wle ,dge
with
•
,high
esteem for ,
thee, I
have
lea.rn,ed to ascribe
such
reverence
and honor to those books of the Scriptures alone, which are
.. . .
now called can.onical, that I
believe
most
firmly that
not
one
0
1
f
their
a,11thors
h,as
made
a
m,istake
in
writin ,g
them.
And
should I tight
upo,n
anything
in
th
1
ose writing s,
whi
cl1
may
.
seem opposed to trut h, I shall
cont ,end
for nothing else,
than
either that the manuscript was full
of
errors,
1
0r that the trans ...
lator ha,d not comprel1ended what was
said, or
th,at
I had not
•
understood it in the le,ast d
1
e,gr,ee. ·
In His s,ermon on the Mount our Lor
1
d thus ref
1
ers to
His own relation to the Old Testament economy .and its
S,criptures: Think not that I am come to destroy the law,
or the prophets : .I am not come to
destroy
b
1
ut
to fulfil. ,
For
verily I say unto you,I Till heave ,n and
earth pass, one jot
ot
one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till . all be fut,
filled (Matt. 5 :17, 18). No stronger words could be ettl
ployed
to affirm the divine authority of every part of the Old
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Testament Scriptures. If
t11is
d,eclaration cont
1
emplates
the
11zo1 al 1ement of' tl1ese ,Scriptures, it means
tl1at
no part of
tl1cm
sl11l]
be
set
aside by
tl1e
Ne\V
,Dispensati
1
on,
but
ful-
fill1d'' i.
e.,
fil]e,d
ttp and
comple,ted
by
Jesus
Christ
a,s a
sketch
is filled
t1p and con1pleted b
1
y the paint
1
er . .
If, as others
naturally interpret, the
typ·ic l f
ea tu res
of the
1
0ld 'Testament ·
•
. are incJu,ded in the state1nent,
tl1e
term
f
ul·filied,''' as
regards ·
t11is elemen,t,
will be taken in the
more
ttsual meaning, In
either case the inviolability and,
by implicat :ion,
the divine
origin of the
Old
T'estament could not be more impressively
declared. Mark how
comprel1e·nsive
and absolute the words
are: , ''On
1
e
jot .
or
on,e
tittle.
''Jot''
(iota) is
yod~
the
smallest
letter of the
J-I,ebre ·w
alphabet; ''tittle, ,'' lit
1
erall1y lit
tle horn or apex, designates
the little lines or projectio11s
by
\vhi,ch Hebrew · letters, similar i11 other respects, differ from
each
other. We
l1ave
here, one might say,
the
inspiration of
letiters of the Old Testament. Everythi .ng contained in it has .
divine authority, and must, therefore, be divine in origin; . for
it
is unneCessary to show that no
such authority
could be
ascribed to writings 1nerely human, or to writings in which
the di.vine and the human interests could
be separated an-
a.lytiical]y. ·
Sl1ould ·
it be said
that the
''law,''
every
jot and tittle of
•
,vl1ich.must be f
u'lfilled,
mea11s here the economy itself,
·the:
ordinances of Judai ,sm,
bt1t
not tl1e rec,ord of
tl1em
in writing,
the reply is that we k110,v notl1ing of th.ese ordinances ex- ·
cept tl1,r,ough the reco,rd, so that what is affirmed must 1pp,ly
to the .Scriptures as well as to, the Dispensa ·tion,
The only
qttestions
wl1ich can be well
1·ais
ed are, firs't,
\vhether th
1
e '')a ,w and the proph ,ets'' designate the entire Scr 'ip
tures
or two
great divisions of them only;
and,
secondly,
•
\\rhether
the Words
o,f Jesus can be taken at their full
mean--
.,
tng, or, for some reason or , other, must be disco,unted.
The
- .
first
question it is hardly worth
while to discuss,, for, if
•
neitl1er jot nor tittle of the ''law
and the
prophets,' shall
fail,
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62
•
•
•
it
will hardly be contended that the Psalms, or whateve1'
parts
of the Old Testa ment are ·11otinclu
1
ded, l1ave a less stable char
acter.
The
latter que stion, of
momentous
Import,
We
l1al1
co11sider presently. ··
•
•
17ULFILMENT
1
0F PROPI-IECY
•
•
•
•
. · T .he inspiration of th
1
e Old Te stament ,Scriptur
1
es is
clearJy
in1plied in the 1nany dec]aration s of ottr Lord respecting the
£111film.ent of
prophecies . contained
in·
th em. It i.s Godts
pre ,roga .tive to know,
and to
make
known,
the future. Hun1an
presag 'e cannot go beyond what ·is fo
1
reshado
1
we,d in eve11ts
which have transpired, or is wrapped up in
causes
which
we
plainly se
1
e in opera ·tion.. If, · ther
1
efore, the Old Testament
reveals, hundreds of years in advance, what is cdming to
pass, · omniscience
·mLtst
have direc .ted the pen of the writer ;
i.
e., these Scriptures, or at least their predictive parts, must
be insp
1
i·red.
•
The pa ·ssage a.ready quot .ed from the Sermon on the
i
ou nt may be noticed as regards its bearing on prophecy :
''I ·an1 not com·e t,o d,estroy the law or the prophets, but to
•
•
f
t1lfil.''
\Vl1il.e
.Plerosai
a.s
re.ferri11g
to tl1e
law~
has the
special 1neaning above poi11ted out; as
referring' to
tl1e
p1~opliets
t has its
mo1·e
common import. We
have
here,
•
then, a .general
Statement
as to the Old Testament
c.ontairi-
ing prophecies which
w
1
ere fu]filled
by
1
Christ
.and
iµ
Him .
•
Here
are
examples.
Tl1e rejection of
Messiah
by
the Jewish
.
authorities, as well as the ultimate triumph of His cause, is
announced in the 118th Psalm,
in
words which Christ applies
•
to
Himself : ''The stone which
tl1e
builders rejected is be-
come the head of the comer. The desertion of ·Jesus
by
1
His disciples when He was apprehended fulfils the prediction
of Zechariah : ''I will smite the shepherd,
and
the sheep shall
all be scattered'' ( Matt. 26 :31).
Should
angelic interventiori
rescue Jesus
from
<leath, how
thea should
the S,criptures
be, ft1lfi]led,
tha.t
th·us it mu,st be?'' All
that related
to His
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Testimony of · h·rist to the Old
Testa ie it
63
betrayal, apprehellsion, and death took place, ''tl1at the ·Scrip
tures of the prophets might be fulfilled'' (Matt. 26
:56).
'Ha cl .
ye believed Moses,'' said our Lord,
''ye
would have believed
Me, for
he wrote
of Me'' (John S
:46). The 41st Psalm
pre
announces the treachery of Judas in these word s : He that
eateth bread with Me hath lifted up his heel against
Me;
and the defection
1
f the
son ·of · percli.tion takes place, ''that
the
Scriptures
may be
ft1lfilled''
(John 17 :12). The
persist
ent a11dmalignant opposition of His enemies ful fils that whiclt ·
is written:
''.They
hated Ivie withot1t a cause'' (John 15
~25).
Finally,
in
<Jiscoursing to the two disciples
011
the
way
to
Emtnatis, the Lord, ''beginning at Mo ses and all tl1e p·ropl1ets,
'
expounded unto
tl1enl in
all the Scriptures tl1e things con-
cerning Himself. ''And
He said
ttnto them:
Tl1ese are
the ·
words
wl1ich
I spal{e unto you,
,vhile
I wa~ yet with
you,
that
all things
must be
fulfilled which were written in the
law of Moses, and in the prophets, a11d in the Psalms, co11:.
•
eeming Me. Then opened He their understanding that
tl1ey
.might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them: · 'Thu s
it
is written, and thus it behooved Chri st to suffer and to
rise ft om
the d.ead
the ·third day''
(~ttke 24 :44-46). .
. It is not denied that in some instances the word ''ful fil
is used ·in
tl1e
New Testament merely as signifying that so1ne'
•
event or condition of tl1ings corresponds
with
or reali zes
something tl1at is written in the Old Testament; as when tl1e
words in Isaiah, By hearing ye sl1all hear a.nd sl1all not
understand, are said to be fulfilled in the
blind obduracy
of
the Pharisees.
NOr, again .,
is
it
denied that ''fulfil', has
tl1e
meaning of
fillini, or expanding,
or
c.ompleting.
But clearly
our Lord, in the passages here cited, employs the ter111
in
another acceptation. He means nothing
Jess
than tllls : that
the Scriptures
which I-Ie says were
''fulfilled''
were intended
by the ·Spirit of God to have the very application
whicl1
He
tnalces
of
tl1em; they were ·
predictions ·in
the
sense
ordinarily
rneant by that tei-m. If tJ1e_Messiah of the Old Testament
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The Fundamentals
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wer,e: merely an ideal pe.rso,n,ag·e,, ther ,e:
woul ,d be
little ,
f
o,rce
in saying that the Lord opened the understanding of the
disciples
that
they
might
see His
death
and
resurrectiOn ·
to
be set
forth
in
the p,rophecies. But
to
teach
that
the
Old
Testament contains authentic predictions
is
as we have said,
to teach
that
it is inspired. The challenge to heathen deities
i~ Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may
know that ye are gods (Isa. 41 :23). · ·
We
thus
find that our Lord recognizes the same Old Tes
tament canon as we have, that so far as He makes reference
to particular books of the canon He ascribes them to the writ
ers whose names they bear, that He regards the Jewish re
ligion and its sacred hooks
as
in
a
sp·ecia1 sense
a
sense not
to be affirmed of any other religion from God, that the
writers of Scripture, in His
view,
spake in the Spirit, that
their
words are
so
properly
chosen that an
argument may
rest on the exactness of a term, that no part of Scripture
shall
fail
of its
end or
be convicted of
error, and
that the
p,reclictions of Scripture are genuine predictions, which must
all in their
tin1e
receive fulfilment.
•
We
cannot here discuss the doctrine of inspiration ; but
on the ground of the Lord s
testimony to the
Old Testament,
as above summarized, , we may surely affirm that He claims
for it throughout all that is meant by inspiration when we
use that _ erm in the most definite sense.
No
higher author
ity
could well
he
ascribed to apostolic teaching,
or
to any
part of the New Testament Scrip ,tures, than the. Lord attrib
utes to the more ancient Scriptures when He declares that
jot
or
tittle
shall not
pass
from them till all he fulfilled;,,
and
that if men hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will
they be
persuaded though one rose from the.
dead (Luke
16 :31 -, . . -
•
II, THE VALUE .OF
CHRI1ST rS
TESTIMONY
It remains tbat we should briefly advert to the value, for
~e ~cientific
student
of the
Bible,,
of
Christ s
testimony to
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the
Old Testament. The very announcement
of such a topic
Illa
y
not be
h
1
eard without
pain, but
in
view o,f
theories
with
Which Biblical students
are .
familiar,
it
becomes necessary
to look
into
th .e
question. Can
we, then,
accept the
utter
ances of Christ on the matte1·s ref erred to as having , val·ue ..
as of authority in r·elation to the Biblical scholar ship? Can
W
e take
t11em
at the·ir face valu.e, or must they be discoun ,ted ?
Or again, are
these, w
1
or,ds
of Jesus
valid £or criticis ,m
1
0n so1ne
question s,
but
not on
others? .
The .1·e are two w,ays in
which it is sought
to
invalidate
Christ's testimony to tl1e
1
0ld Testament. ·
•
1.
IGNORANCE OF JES ,US ALLEG ·ED
•
It is
alleged
that Jesus had no knowledge beyond tl1at
of His contempor .aries as to the o.rigin and
literary
character
istics of the
Scriptures. The Jews
believed that Moses wrote
the Pentateuch,
that the
narratives of tl1e
Old Testamen .t .
ar e
all
authentic
history,
and
that the words of .Scripture
are all
inspired. Christ shared the opinions of His
countrymen
on
these
t
1
opics, even when they were i11 error. To holcl thi s
View,
it
is
maintained,
does not detract from
the
Lord's quali- ·
fications for His proper work,
which
was
religious
and
spirit
Ua], no·t
literary;
for in
relation
to he
religious
value
1
0£ th e .
Old Testament
and its spiritual
uses
.and applications
He
may
confidently
be
accepted
as
our guide. His
knowledge
wa s
adequate to the delivery of the doctrine s of His kingdom, but ·
did
not necessat·ily extend to
questions of scholarship
and
critici sm. or· these He spe,aks
as
any other man ;
and
to
seek
to arrest, or direct,
criticism by
appeal
to His authority,
•
1s procedure whicl1
can
only
recoil
upon
those
who
adopt
1t.
This view ·is
advanced,
not
only
by
critics
who reject the
divinity of Christ,
but
by
many
wh.o profess to believe
th at
,doctrine. In
tl1e
preface
to
his first volu1ne ·on the
Penta
teuch and Joshua, Colenso
thus
writes: ''It is
perfect ly
Co11istent ,i\i.th the ·tnos t e,ntire .and sincere belief . in 011r
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66
Tlie Fundame itals
•
Lord'
1
s divinity to l1old, as 1nany do, that wl1en He vouch ..
safed to become a 'Son of 1nan' I-Ie took our nature fully, and
vohJ,nta ,rily
entered
into
all
the
conditions of humanity,
and,
among others, into t11at ~rl1ich makes our growth in all
or din ,a:ry l{nowledge g1·adual an
1
d lin1ited. * * * ·It i,s not
sttpposed that, in His h·un1an nature, He : was acquainte ,d more
•
than any Jew of His age with th e myst eries ,of all
m.odern
scie,11ces.,nor * * * ca11 it
be
seriously maintaine d
tha .t,
•
as an
.infan ·t
or
young
child, He
pos sesse d
a
knowJe,dge
sUfi ..
· passing that of the most piou s and learned adults , of ' His
nation, up,on the subject of tJ1e authorsl1ip and age of
the
different portions of the Pe ·ntateuch.
At
what period, then,
of His life on earth, . is it to be supi,osed that He had granted
to Him as the Son of man , stt}le.rnatu1·ally, full and accurate
infO:rrn,ation on
tl1es
e
points?'' etc- (vol.
i.,
p. 32). ''lt
should also
b e
0
1
bserved,
says
Dr~ S. Davidson, ''that
l1istor...
ical and critical ques ,tions C
1
ou 'ld only belong to His
human
culture, a culture stamped with tl1e characteristics of Flis
age and country.' j
The doctrine of the Kenosis is invoked ·to explain the
ill1'
perfection of our Lord's knowledge
on
critical questions, as
evidenced
by
th ,e
way
in
,¥hich He speaks
0
1
f
the P'enta'
teuch and of various Old Testament problems. The general
subject of the Iim.itation of Cl1rist's knowledge during His
life on, earth
is,,
of
co
1
urse , a
very
difficult one,
but
we
do
not ne·e
1
l1ere to consider it. Tl1e G,os1pe,l of Mark d.oes
speak of the day and hour when tl1e heaven and earth shall
pass away as being known to tJ1e Fath
1
er · only; and· n ot to
the :Son; but
witho ·ut
v·enturin g
any opinion on a
subject
so
mysterious, we may, at
least,
affirm that th ·e Lor
1
d' s
l<nowledge
w1s entirely adequate to th ,e perfect discl1arge of
His
p
1
o-
phetical
office.
To impute imper fection to Him as the
Teac 'her
of the
1
Cht1rch were indeed
impiott S.
Now the case
stands
• •
tl1u:s: By a c
1
ertain class of critic s we are assured that, 111
tt1e,
inte ,re sts
of
truth,
in order to
an
ap ,ologetic
s,t1ch
as
the
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Testimonj 1 of
Clir ist
to the Old Testanietit
7
•
•
pre ,sent ti,me absolutely
requi1·es,
the traditional opinions
regarding the authorship of tl1e Old Testament books and
the degre ,e . of ' authority which attaches to several,
if
not all
of them, mttst be
r,evised.
In ordei·
to
save , the ship
1
,
we must
throw overboard , thi s cumbrou s
a11d
antiquated tackling.
Mu ,ch n1ore, we are assured, than points of scholarship are
involved; for int
1
ellige11t and truth-loving men cannot . retain
their confidenc ,e in the Bible and its religion, unless we dis
card the opinions
wl1ich
have prevailed
as
to
the OJd Testa
tnen ,t, ,ev
1
e,n th ,ough the se opinions can apparently plead 'in
their favor
tl1e
authority of ·J ,esus Christ.
Now mark
the
position in
wl1ich
the Lord,
as our
Teacher,
i
thus p'laced. We have f0Il0wed Him in holding opinions
•
which turn out to be unscientific, u,ntrue; and so necess
1
ary
i
it
to relinquish these opini ,ons that neither the
J
ewis11
nor
the Christian faith can be satisfactorily defended if
W
1
C
cling to
them. Is it not,
the1·efore, quite clear that the Lord's
teaching is, in something material, found in error that His
propl1etical office is as~ailed? For the allegation is that, in
hol
1
ding fast to what I-Ie is freely allo
1
wed to have taught,
we,
lare
imperiling the inter
1
sts of religion. The critics whom
We have in view must admit either that the points in ques-
•
tion are of no importance, or th,at the Lor.d was imperfectly
qualified for I-Iis
prophetical
w
1
ork. Those
who,
have rever
ence
£01·
tl1e
Bible will not admit either positio11.
i)r
why
.
shquld scholarship so magnify the necessity to apologetics ,of
corre ,cting the traditional o,pinion as to the age and author-
hip of the Pentateuch,
a11d
other questions of Old T,estament
criticism, unless it means to sl1ow that the Old Testament
require ,s more exact, more e,nlightened, handling than the
Lord gave it? Should it be replied that the
Lord .,
had He
been on earth now
1
would have spoken otherwise on ·the
t,opics conc
1
erned, the obviou s answer ·is, that the Lo~d's tea,ch
ing is for all ages, and that His word ''cannot he broken. ,"
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68
2. THEORY OF ACCOMMODATION
t
The theory of accommodation is brought forward
iJ1
explanation
o,f
those reference s of
Christ
to the Old Testa
ment which
1
endorse
wh,at
ar e regarded as
inaccuracie s 01~
•
popular errors. He spake,
it
is
said,
regarding the Old T e·sta~
ment, after the current opinion or belief. This belief would
be sometimes right and sometim es wrong; but where no in
terest of religion or moral ity was affected where spiritual
•
truth was
not
involv e·d He allowed
Himself,
even
where
the
co1nmon
be lief was
erro11eous, to
spea,k
in accor
1
dance
•
with it.
Some extend
the
pr inciple
of
accommodation
to
the
interpretation
of the Old Tes tament as well as to, questions
of canon and author ship ;. and in fallowing it the Loi-d is
•
declared to have acted prudently, for
no good
end
could
have bee:n
se,rve cl,
it is.,alleg,ed, by ,cr
1
oss,ing t he vulg,ar 0
1
pi,nion
upon matters of little importance, and thus awakening or
strengthening
suspicion ·
as to His
teaching
in general.
As
to the
,accommod ,ation thus supposed to
have
beeJl
practiced by our Lord , we observe that if it
implies, as
the
· propriety of the term requires, a more accurate
knowledge
on His part than His language reveal s,
it
becomes difficult,
in
many
ins,tances, to vindicate His per£
ect integrity .
In
some cases where
accommodation
is
a1leged, it
might, indeed,
be
innocent enough, but in
other s
it would be inconsistent
with due regard to truth ; and most of the statements of
the
Lord touching
the Q ]d T
1
estam,ent t
1
0
wl1ich attentio
1
n l1as
been directed in this d,iscu ssion s,eem to be of this latter
kind. Davidso n himself
says.:
tAgr
1
eeing as we do in
the
sentiment that our SaviOr and H is Apostles accommodated
their mode of rea soning to · the habitual notions , of tl1e
Jews, no authority . can be attribu ted to that reasoning e~:cept
when it takes the form of an independ ent declaration r
statement, and so r,ests on the :speaker s credit. Now
th,e
tateme nts of Chri st respecting tl1e Old Testament
Scriptt1r,es
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Testimotiy
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Old
Testament 69
I •
•
to which we desir ,e
speci,ally
to direct attention
are, p1·ecisely
of this nature. Are not tl1ese ''indepe ,ndent declarations''?
' One jot or one tittle shall not pass, etc. ; ''The
Scripture
cannot be b,roken ;'' ''David in spirit
calls him
Lord;•' ''All
tl1ings
must be fulfilled · ~hich
are
written in the Law of
lvioses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concern-
.,
1ng Me.'
1
Fttrther,
we
may say as
before ,,
tl1at if
our . Lord's
state-
111ents
His
obite r
dicta
if
you will
about
·the authorship
of
parts , of Scripture giv
1
e a measure of count
1
enance to opinions
wJ1ich ar
1
e ,standing in the
way
of both
genuine
scho]arship
and of faith, 'it is hard to see 11ow they can be regarded as
instances of .a justifiable accommodation. It seetns t
1
0 us
(may
we reverently use
tl1e
words) that in this case
you
canno .
vindicate
tl1e
Lord's absolute truthfulness except
by
imputing to Him a degree of ignorance which would unfit -
lii1n for His office as
pe1-n1anent
Tea ,cher of the Church.
l-Iere is the dilem1na
f
01· 'the radical critic
either he
is agi-
tating the
1
Church about trifles, or, if his views have the
apoiogetical · importance which he usually attributes to them,
he
is censuring the
Lord's dischat·ge of
His
prophet ·ic
office;
fat th~
allegation
is that Christ's w9 ,rds prove perplexing and
1nisleading in regard to weighty isstt ,es which th
1
e progre .s,s
of
knowledge
has
obli,ged
us to face.
St1rely we
should be
apprehensive of danger
if
we dis
1
cove1· that views
which
claim our adl1esi1on, on any grounds whatever, tend to depre
ciate the wisdom of Him who1n we call ''Lord and
Master_''
l1po11
whom the
Spirit ,vas bestowed '
1
'without measure,'' and
\Vho
''spake
as never
man spak
1
e.''
I_
is
.a
great
thing in
this
controversy to
l1ave
the Lord on our side.
-
Are, then, the
Lotd's
references to Moses
a,nd
the law
to be
regarded
as
e,videnc·e that
He believed
the Pentateuch
•
to be written
by
Moses,
or
should
they be
classed as
inst.ance.s
of
ac,commodation?
When we take in cumulo all the pas
sages in which the legis lation 0£ the Pentateuch and the
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,vriti .n,g of it ·are conne ,cted with Moses, ,a very str ,ong case
is made out against mere acco1nmodation. The obviou s ·accur-
acy of spe ,ech observed in some of tl1:ese ref er,ences
,canno,t b,e
•
overlooked; ,e" g., '' Mo ses, tl1erefore, gave you circumcision
(not because it is of Moses, but of
the
fathers) . · Again,
''There is one that accu seth you , even Moses in whom ye
trust; for had ye believed Moses ye would have believed
Me, for he wrote of Me; but
if
y,e believe no ·t his writings,
how shall ye believe
My
word s? '' This
is
not the style of
,one· who does not wish his word s to be taken st.rictly ·
•
•
•
TWO POSITI ONS c r..,EAR
•
Two positions may, I thinlc, be affirmed 1. The Iegis]a...-
tion
1
0£
the Pentateuc .h is actually ascri 'bed
to
Mo ,ses by the
Lord. If this legislation is, in the main, long sub~equent to
Moses, an
1
d a g
1
ood ·deal of it later than the ,exile, the Lor
1
d~s
language is positively misleading, and endorses an error which
vitiates the entire con structi .on of Old Testament history
and
the development of religion in Isr ,ael. .2.. Moses is to sucl1
extent tl1e writer of the law that it may, with propriety, be
poken of as ''his writings. ,' J\11ad ·mit that tl1er,e a1~epassag,es
in
the
Books of Moses which were
written
by another hand
or other han .ds, , a:nd shoul .d even
a.dd.i.tio,ns
,other
th,an
c
1
ertai11
b,rief explanatory interpolations and tl1e last chapter of Deu-
t ,eronomy have to be recognized ( which has n,ot yet been
.demonstrated) the Pe .ntateucl1 would remain Mosaic. Should
M,o.s,es have dictated ·much of his writings, as Paul did, they
would, it is unnecessary to s,ay, be not the less his. The wor ,ds
of Jesus we
consider ,
as evide·nce that H·e r,egar;·d,ed
Moses
as,
sttbstantially, the writer of the boo,ks which bear his namt.
Less than this robs several of · our Lord ·ts statemen .ts oi l their
point and propri ,ety.
It is hardly necessary to say that we have no desire to see
a true ,and re·verent
1
criticis .m of the Old
Te,,tame.nt,
and of
the N'ew as
wellt
arrested
in
its progress, or
in
the
least
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Testimony
of hrist to the Old
Testametit 71
dered.
Critici sm
must acc,ompli sh its task, and eve ry lover
of tttt th is
more ·
than willing that it
should
do
so·
Reluctance
to see truth fully investigated, fully ascertained a,nd estab
lished, in
any
department of thought
and inquiry, and
IDost
of 1ll
in
tl1ose
d
1
partme ,nts vvhich are
highest,
is
lamentab
1
e
evidence of
mora l
weakness,
of
imperfect confidence
in Him
Who is the God of
truth. But
criticism
mu,st proceed .
by
legitimate
methods and . in a
true spir it.
It
must
steadf~tly .
k:eep
before
it
all
the
£act s essential
to
be taken into
acef:>Unt.
In the case of its application to the Bible
and
religion,
it
is
•
lllost reasonable
to demand
that full
weight
should
he al'lowed
to all the teachings, all the word s of ~im who only ws
the
Father, and who
came
to reveal I.fim to the world,
and
Wl10
is Himself the Tru th . If
all
Scripture
be,ar ls testimony
to Christ, we cannot ref use to hear Him
when
H ,e speaks .of
its characteri stics. It is folly, it is unutterable impiety,
to
de
cide differently from tl1e Lord any que stion
regarding the
Bibl e
on which we have
His verdict; nor
do,es it improve the case
to say that we shall listen to Him when He speak~ of spiritual
truth, but sha ll
count
ottr selves f re e when
the
question
is
one
of scholar ship, Alas for our schol ar ship wh
1
en it brings , us
into
controve1·sy
with Him who
is tl1e
Prophet, as
He i·s
the
P'riest and King of
the
Church,
and
by whose Spirit both
Prophets and Apo stles spake I .
N Othing
has
be,en
said in
t .ti paper respecting
the
proper
method
of interpreting the
different
books and
parts of the
Old Testament, nor
the
way of dealing with specific difficulties.
Our object has been to show that
the
Lord
regar ,ds
the .
entire book, or
coll,ection
of book s, as divine,
authoritative,
•
Infallible. B,ut in the
wide variety
of ~th
1
ese writings there
are
many forms of compo sition, and every pa ·rt, it is obvious
to say, mus 't
be
understood and expla ·ined jn accordance with
the rules of interpretation which
apply to
·literature of its
kind. We have not been trying in advance to bind up the
•
tnterpreter to
,an unintelligent
literalism
in exegesis, wl1ich
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72
- The undamentals
•
should take no account of what is ·peculiar to d iff erent species
o·f writingJ treating .poetry and
pros ·e,
history and
at·tegory,
the symbolical and the literal, as if all were the same. T he
consideration of this most important subject of interpretation
with which a.pologetical int
1
erests are, indeed, closely connected,
has ·not been before us. But nothing
which
we could
be called
upon to,ad .van
1
ce re,garding the interpreta ·tion of
the:
0] ,d .Testa ...
ment ·cottld lriodif
y
the · re·sults here r
1
eached in relation
to
tl1e
subject of
which
we
1
h,av
1
,
S1pok
1
en.
Our
Lord s
testimony
to
th
1
e·
c·haracter of the 01
1
d Testament must rema ·in unimpaired .
•
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...
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C~IAPTE ,R III
THE , BIBL E AND MODERN CRITICISM
--
BY F. BE~fTEX, D. D.,
•
•
PROFESSOR EMERITU
1
S, STUTTGART, GERMANY
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINA .L GERMAN
:BY DAVID HEAGLE} D. D.
•
•
•
It is
undeniable
·that tl1e univ,ers
1
e, .including ourselves,
exists.
Whence comes it
all? For
any clear-thi ·nking,
,mind
th
1
ere are
only
three possibilities. Either th ,e univ
1
e·rs
1
e
has
existed alway .,
it
produced
it,self,
or
it
was created
by
a
Divii:ie a S,t1preme Being.
•
THE UNIVER :SE NOT ETERNAL
I
•
The eternity o,f the universe is
1nost
clearly disproved by
its
evol.ution ..
F,rom a scientific
point
1
0£
view
that h.ypothesis
is no
1
w
discredite ,d and virtua lly abandoned.
Astronomers,
physicists, biologists,
phi losoph ,ers,
are beginning to r
1
ecogniz,e
tno,re
an
1
d mo
1
re, an.d men like Secchi,
D·ubois-
Reymond,
Lo rd
l<elvin,J Dr.
I(lein
and
1
others,
unanim ou,sly affirm tha,t
creation
l1as
had
a
beginning. It always tend s towards
an
entropy,
.
tl1at is,
toward a
·perf
1
ect
equilibrium
of
its,
forces, a
complete
sta11dstill;
a.nd the
fact . that
it
l1as
not yet
reach,ed such a
condition is proof that
it has
not
1
always existed .. Should
cr
1
eation,
howe,v
1
er, _ver come
to
a standstill, it could never
agai11put
itself
in mo
1
tion.
It
has h
1
ad
a
beginning, and
it
will
have
an
end. That
is demonstrated most
1
clearly
b y its
still
U
nfinished
evolution. Sh
1
ould anyon
1
e sa.y to· us, of a g·rowing
tree or of a
young
child, that either
oi
these forms of life
has exi.s,tcd
forever,
Vtr e
would at·
once r
1
eply, Why
has it not
then long ago; in the past eternity, grown up so as to reach
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7
the
heaven of heaven .s? In like manner, reasons
that
great
astronomer, William H erschel, with regard to the Milky-Way,
that ju st
as
its
breaki11g
up
1
into
different
parts shows that
it
cannot
alwa,y,s,
endure, so we hav,e,, in this siame fact,
proof tl1at
· it has not
eternally
existed.
G0
1
D THE AUTHOR ,QF ALL THINGS
•
•
• •
The1·e rem.a1ns,
therefore,
o·nly
this alternative: either the
world produced itself,
or
it was created. That all thing s came
•
i,nto
existence
spontane .ously, and
therefore th a t
we 1nust
uppose an origination of
immeasurably
great
effects . with ...
out any cause, or believe that at some: tim,e.a ·nothing, . wi·thout
either willing or knowing it, and without the use of , means,
became a something this is the mo,st unreaso ,nable assumption
that could possibly be attributed to a
l1uman
being. How
could
anything
ac·t bef
1
ore ·
it
existed? or a thi ·ng not
ye·t
cr·eated
produce something
?
Th~re is nothing more unreas
1
onable
than
the creed
of
the
unb,eliever,
notwithstanding all
his
prat~
ing
about the excellence
0
1
f
rea son. ·
B.ut if this wo1·lddid· no,t
produce itself,
then
it-
must have
•
. been created by some
I-Iighe1·
Power, some Ca,use of all causes,
•
such as
was that First P rinciple upon whicl1
the
dying Cicero
called. Or, to use the
word s
of
Dr. Klein,
that originating
cause m,ust have · been a Suprem
1
e I11telligence th a·t has at its
command unlimited
creative
power Kosmologische Briefe,
p. 27)
1
;
Hence
w·hat
that
Inte ,Jligence
does is
both illimitable
and
unfathomable,
and
it
can
at·
any time either change this
world or n1ake a new one. It is
there£
ore prima facie silly
for
us,
with
our
prodigiously
narrow
experience, to
set
any
kind of ·
bounds
to
the
Supreme Being;
and
a God who works
no miracles and is the slave of his own laws implanted ~D
· nature, such a God as the New Theology p
1
reaches, is as
much
lacking in being a true Divinity as is the unconsc~ous, but
all-wise cosmic ether of Spiller, or the ·eternal stuff of
ether
1naterialis.ts . · · .
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C We concli1de, then, that the universe was created,. or that
God is the a11thor of all tl1,ings. .
•
•
REVELATI0
N IN NATURE
•
But
now
the question
ari ses whetl1er
God,
who
is both. the
Creator of all things and the Father of spirits, has revealed
li imself
to his
creatures, or to
I..Jis
own children, the
wor.k
of His l1ands. Such a question
might
surely
provoke
one s
laughter.
For what
is the ent: :-e
universe?
what
is
this created
na:ture of which we form a part? what is air? and water?
and fire?
what
are all organized beings,
tny
body with
its
ltlany parts put together in such a highly artistic and inscruta
ble fashion; my soul with its infinite capabilities so little
llnderstood
by myself ? Wl1at
are ·all these matters but a
Progressive revelation of God, given to us, as it were, in a
series of concentric circ]es rising one above another
toward
thei1oSource? Fo,r this purpose it was that God created the ·
visible,so,
that through it
we might perceive the invisible,
and
~or
tl1is
purpose
the whole creation was
made,
so
that
through
it might be tnanif
ested the
invisible things of
God,
even .
his
ttemal
power
and godhead (Rom.
1 :20).
Creation
is
orily
the
language
of
the
Word that was in the beginning, and
Was with God, and was God, and by Whom all things wer
tnade (John 1 :1-3). What does this
Word
declare? at
,Ise
but
the
great infinite name of God
the
Father, the
primal
source of all things, the name that must be hallowed ? There
Wasa time, however, even before the world was, w·hea ther e
t,cisted nothing but God
and
l1is name.
All the
different
works ·
of
creation are only
letters
in
tl1is
great
name. .
REVELATION IN THE BIBLE
•
But
there is
another revelation which
God
has given
of
liimself to men a more definite and persollal
one. · Thus,
t.
g.,
he cleclared Himse lf to Adam, and
through
Enoch
and
Noah
to
the antediluvians,
and
again after
the
flood to other
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The Fundarnentals
ge:nerations , thro ,ugh Noah and his ,sons. But becau,se at the
building of
the
tower of Babel men turned stubbornly away
f1·01n
God, He
gave
them
up to
the
th ,oughts
o,f
their
owD
heart, and selected ,one man, Ab,raham, t,o go out from h'iS
f ri,ends and kind1·ed, so that in his seed all the nations of the
,vor]d might be blessed. Then, first, out of Abr ,aham cam,e the
p
1
eople of Israel, 'to, Who,m w
1
ere ·committe ,d the oracl 1es of
God; and from tl1is period began the history of
the
written
Word. Moses narrates the beginning of things, also
records
the laW, and
holy
men of God speak and write
as .
they
are
moved by the Holy Spirit. That is inspiration-a ,divine
in breathing. ·
But her
1
e a distinctio11
n1,ust
be mad ,e. Th ,e
Bi'ble, reports
matters of history,
and
in doing,
so
includes many genealogies
vl1ich ,vere composed, first ,of
all,
not for
us, but ior
those
•
1nost
immediately concerne ,d,
an,d
for
the angels
1
(
1 C'o,r. 4 :9),,
Also
it
reports
many
sins and shameful deeds;
for
just
as
th,e su:ri
fi.r,s,t
illuminates
h,imself
,and
then
sheds
his
radiance
u,pon the ocean and 'tl1e p·uddl
1
e,, the eagle , and the worm, s,o
the Bible undertakes to represent to us
not
only God, but
also ·man just
a,s l1e
is. In
giving
us these narratives
it may
be
said, moreover, ·that
God,
wl10
numbers
the
v,ery, hairs of
our hea ·d, exercised
a
providential
control, so that
what was
reported
by
His cho~en
men should be the
real
facts,
and
nothing else. T ·o what extent He in ,spired those , men with
the very W0
1
rds used by
them,
it is not for US
to
know, but
.
p1·obably more fully than we
suspect.
But
when God, , after
having communicated the law · to
Moses
o,n
Mount
Sinai and in the Tabernacle, communes
with
· him as a friend with friend, ,and Moses : writes , ''all 'the \\ ord9
of this law in a book'' (Deut. 28 :58; ·31 :24), then
Moses
really becomes the pen of God. When God speaks to
tl1e
,pnophets, ''Behold, I put my wo,rds in thy mouth,,' ,and ''aJl
•
the words that, 'hou heare ,st thou shalt say to
this pe,op'le,'t tl~erl
these
prophets
become the
very
mo
1
uth of God.
When Christ
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•
appears to John on P 'atmos, and says, ''To the angel o,f
the
church w·rite these · ·things,',
this
is an instanc
1
e of
verbal
dictat·ion. · ·
But
just
here we are
amused at those
weak-minded critic s
•
Who, with
hackneyed phrases, talk so
glibly about ''mecl1a11
. -
teal
ins.truments''
and
''mere verbal dictation.'' Does then a
Self-revelatio11
o,f
th
1
e Almighty
and a m.akin.g known of
His
counsels,
a
gracious
act
which
exalts the
human
agent
t,)
be a c
1
0-worker
with .Jehovah,
annihilate personal
freedom?
Or
does it
not
rather
enlarge that freedom,
and 1ift it
up to
a
higher and more joyous
activity
? Am I
then
a ''mechanical
instrument'' whert
with deep devotion
and .
with
enthus .iasm
l repeat after Christ, word for word, the prayer Which He
taught his disciples? The Bible is, con sequently, a book which
originated
according to the
will and
with the
co-operation of
God; and as such
it
is
our
guide to
eternity,
conducting
man ,
seemingly
without
a plan
and
yet
with
absolute ·certainty,
all
the way
from
the first
creation
and f roin Paradise ·
on
tO
the .
second
or
higher
creation
and
to
the New Jerusalem
(Comp.
Gen.
2 :8-10 with Rev.
21 :
1,
2). · · ·
•
•
How does th.e Bible prove
itself
to be a
divinely
inspi1·ed,
heaven-given book, a communication from a Fatl1er to I-IiS
childre ·n, and thus a revela.ti
1
on ?
First, by
the
fact that,
as
does no other
sacred book ii~
the
world, it
condem ·ns
ma·n and all his, w
1
orks~ It doe.s not
pra ·ise eitl1er
his ,
wisdo1n,
his
reas .on,
his art,
or
any progres s
tha.t he has made;
b,ut
i·t
represents him as being
in the
sight
of
God,
a miserable sinner,
incapable
of doing anything good,
and
deserving
onJy death
and
endless
perditio11.
Truly,
a
boo'k which is able thus to ·speak,
and
in con.sequenc.e causes
llli)lions of men,
troubled
in conscience, to prostrate
them-
]
. h d ..
1
"'God b .f l . "'
e
ves
1n t .
e ust ·, crying, ·
I
e
merct
u
t
1
0 n1e a s1nnc1.
·must
contait1 more
than
n1ere
ordinary
trt1th .
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Secon<lly, the Bible exalt s itself far above all merely
human books by its announcement of the great incomprehetl'
sible mystery that, "God so loved the world that He gave I-Iis
on. , begotten Son; that whosover beiieveth in Him .should
not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3
:16). Where
is there a god among all the heathen nations, be he Osiris,
Brahma, Baal, Jupiter or Odin, that would have promised
those people that, by taking upon .himself the sin of the world
and suffering its puni shment, he would thus become a savior
and redeemer to them?
Thirdly, the Bible sets the seal of its divine origin upoll
itself by means of the prophecie s. Very appropriately does
God inquire, through the prophet Isaiah, "Who, as I, shatl
call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for Me since
I
established the ancient people? and the things that are coming
and shall come to pass, let them declare" ( Ch. 44 :7).
Or
says
again, "I am God, declaring the end from the beginning, and
from ancient times, things not yet done, saying, My counsel
shall stand, and I w~ll do all My pleasure; calling a ravenous
bird from the east, and the man of My counsel from a far
country. Yea, I have spoke~, I will also bring it to pass;
I
have purposed, I will also do it" ( Ch. 46: 10, 11). Or,
addressing Pharaoh, "vVhere are
thy
wise men, and let theI1l
tell thee, and let then1 know what the Lord of Hosts hath
purposed upon Egypt" (Ch.
19 :12) . .
Again we say, where
is there a god, or gods, a founder of religion, such as Con-
fucius, Buddha, or Mohammed, who coµld, with such cer,
tainty, have predicted the future of evetl his own people?
Or where is there a statesman who in these times can foretell
what will be the condition of things in Europe one hundred
or even ten years from -now
?
Nevertheless the prophecie s
of Moses and his threatened judgm .ents upon the Israelites
have been literally fulfilled. Literally also have been fulfilled,
( although who at the time would have believed it?) the proph
ecies respecting the destn1ction of those great ancient cities,
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Babylon,, Ni ,neveh and Men1phis. Who in these times woul ,d
believe a like prophecy res,pecting London, Paris, or
New
Yorl<:? Moreover, in a literal way
has
been fulfilled what th .e
p1·0phets David and Isaial1 f'oresaw
Concerning
the last suffer -
,
ings of Christ His death on the cross, H ·is drinking of
vinegar, and the casting of lots for His , garments. And there
are other prophecies which will stil l he most 1iterally fulfilled,
such as the promises made
to Israel,
the final judgment, and ·.
the end
of the world.
''For,''
as Habakkuk
says,
''the
vision
is yet for an appointed time, and will not lie. Though it tarry
wait for it; it will surely come'' ' ( Ch. 2 ,:3).
Furtl1ermore, the Bible has demonstrated it,s peculiar
power by its influence with the martyrs. Think of the hun
dreds of thousands who, at different times and a1nong different
peoples, have sacrificed their all, their wives, their children, ·
all their poss ,essions, and final]y life itself, on account
of
this ·
•
boo,k
Think of how they have,
on
tl1e rack
and at the
stake,
confessed the truth of the Bible, and borne testimony to its
power. However, 0 ye critics and despisers of God's Word, ·
if you will only write such a book and then die for it,
we
•
will believe you.
· Lastly,
tl1e
Bible shows itself every day to be
a
divinely
given book by
it ,s beneficent influence among all kinds of
people.
It
converts
to
a
better _
life the
ignorant
and the
learned, the beggar on the street and the l{ing upon his throne,
yond
1
er poor woman dwelling in an atti ,c, th
1
e greatest poet
and the profoundest thinker, civilized Europeans and uncul
tured savages. Despite all the scoffing
and
derisiOn of:
its
enemies, it ·has been translated into hundred s of language s,
and has been preached by tl1ousands of missionaries to mil
lions o,f people. It makes the proud 'humble and tl1e dissolute
virtuous; it consoles the ui:ifortunate, . and teaches man how
to live patiently and die triumphantly. No other book or col-
lection of books accomplisl1es for man the exceeding great
benefits a
1
ccomplished
by·
tl1is book of trt1tl1.
•
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The undanientals
MODERN
C,RITICI .SM
AND ITS RATIONA .LISTiI€
METH:UD
•
In
these
times there
has
appeared a criticism
which,
c
1
on-
•
stantly ,growing bolder in its
attacks
upon this sacred
book,
•
n.ow decrees, w,i'th all
S
elf-as ,suran .c
1
e
a11d
confidenc,e, th,at
it
is. simply a
human production.
Beside~ other
faults
found,
with
it,
it is declared to
be full
of errors,
many
of
its
books
to be spurious, writt .en ·by unknown 1nen at late·r· dates tl1aP
tho se assigned, etc.,. etc. But we asl{, upon what fundamental
principl
1
e,
what
axiom, is this verdict of
the critics
based?
It is ·upon the id
1
ea that, as Renan exp,r·essed it, reason is
capable of judging all things, but is. itself judged by notl1ing
That is
surely
.a proud dictum, but an empty one if its char-
a,cter is really· n
1
otice ·d. T
1
0
be su·re,
G
1
od has given r
1
easoh
·to
man, so that ·, in l1is
cu,sto1nary way
of
planting .a·nd
building,
buying
and
selling,
l1e
may
make a
pra .ctical
use of
created
•
nature by which he,
is, su·r1-0
unded. But is reason,
even
as
respect ls matters
of
this life,, in accord with
itself?
By no
means. For,
if
that were so, whence comes, all the strife and
contention of men at home and ·
abroad,
in
their places
of
business and , their pu.blic asse1nblies, in .art and science, in
legislation, religion and philosophy
? Does
it not a'll proceed
from
th
1
e
co
nflicts
of
reason
?
The
e11tire history oi'
ou,,
ra.ce
is the history of
milli
1
ons
of
n1en gifted with reason
who hav~
been in perpetual conflict one wi·th another. Is it with such
reason,
th
1
en, ·that
senten ,ce·
is t·o b
1
e pr
1
onou
1
nced
upon a divin,ely
given book? A pure1y rational revelation would certainly be
a contradiction of terms; besides, it would be
wholly
super ...
fluou.s.
But
-Whe11
reaso
1
n
undertakes to speak
of.
th·i·ngs
entirely supe1·naturaJ, invisible and ete1·nal, it talks as a bli,nd
man does about colors,
discoursing
of matters concerning
which it neithe ·r knows , nor , can l<11owanything; and thus
it
•
ma·kes
itself
ridiculous. It
has
not ascend ,ed up to heaven ,
· neither has
it descended i'nto
the deep; and therefore a
purely
rati
1
onal
religion
·i,s
no re1igion a,t a1J~ ·
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INCOMP
1
ETENCY OF REASON F
1
0R SPIRITUAL TRUTH
•
•
Reason
aJone
has
never inspired
men
with
great
sublime
conceptions
of spiritual truth, whether
in
the
way
of
discovery
or
invention;
but usually
it
has at first
rejected and
ridiculed
such matters. And
just
so it is with these. rationaJistic critics,
they have no appreciation or understanding of the high and
sttblime
in God s Word.
They understand
neither
the maj
esty of Isaiah,
the pathos
of
David .s repentance, the
aud.acity
of Moses prayers, the philosophic depth of Ecclesiastes, nor
the wisdom of Solomon which uttereth her voice jn the
stre
1
ets. According to them ambitious priests, at a later date
than is commonly assigned,
compi1ed all those books
fro which
we l1ave al luded; also the·y wrote the Sinai ·tic law, and in- ·
vented tl1e whol .e story o·f Moses life. ( A magnificent fic
tion
·SO
1
one of·
the critics
calls,
that
s·to·ry.)
But
if
all
this
is so, then we must believe that cunning falsifiers, who were,
however,
so
the
critics
say,
devo1,1t
men, genuine products of
tl1eir
1
day (,alt.h,ough
it calls
for
notice th.at
the age in which
those devout men Jived, should, as was
done
to Christ, have
•
persecuted and killed them, when usually an ·,age loves its
own children); that
is
to say,
we must
believe
not
only
that
•
shallo ,w-minded m.en have· uncovered for us
eterna l
·truths
and th~ most
distant
future, but a1so that
vulgar,
interested
•
liars, ]1ave declared to us the inexorable righteousness 0£ a
holy
God Of course, all
that
is nonsense ;
no
one can
be-
liev1 it.. ·
But if
these critics disco11rse,
as
sometimes they do, with
great self-assurance upon topics such as the history of Israel,
the peculiar work of the prophets, revelation, inspiration,
the es,sence
1
of Christianity, the difference betw
1
een the teach
ings of Christ and those of Paul, anyone who intelligently
reads
what they say
is
impressed with the idea
that,
although
they display much ingenuity in
their
efforts,
after
all
they do
not
really
ur.tderstand the
matters concerning
whicn
th
1
E y
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The undamentals
speak. In like manner they talk with much ingenuity and
show of learning about men with whom they have only a
far-off acquaintance; and they discuss events in the realm of
the Spirit where they have had no per sonal experience. Thus
. hey both illustrate and prove the truth of the Scripture
teaching that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God." . These critics say that God, not being a man,
cannot speak; consequently there is no word of God Also,
God cannot manifest Himself in visible form; therefore all
the accounts of such epiphanies are mythical tales Inspira
tion, they tell us, is unthinkable ; hence all representations of
such acts are diseased imagination t Of ·prophecy there is
none; what purports to be such ·was w~itten after the events
Miracles are impossible; there£ ore all the reports of them, as
given in the Bible, are mere fictions Men always seek, thus
it is explained, their own advantage and personal glory, an<l
just so it was with those "prophets of Israel."
Such is what they call "impartial science," "unprejudtced
research," "objective demonstration."
NOTHING NEVV IN THESE "NEW" VIEWS
Moreover, these critics claim for their peculiar views that
they are "new theology," and the "latest investigation." But
that also is untrue. Even in the ti1nes of Christ the famous
rabbi I-Iillel and liis disciple Gamaliel substituted for the
Mosaic law all manner of "traditions" (Matt.
15
:2-9;
23 :16-22). Since then other learned rabbis, such as Ben
Akiba, Maimonides and others, have engaged in Bible criti
cism; not only casting doubts upon the genuineness of various
books of the Old Testament, but also denying the .miracles
and talking learnedly about "myths." Even eighteen hundred
years ago Celsus brought forward the same objections as
those now raised
by
modern criticism ; and in his weak and
bungling production, the "Life of Jesus," David Strauss has
•
in part repeated them·. Also there have been other noted
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83 ·
heretics, such as Arius (317 A. D.), who ·denied the .divinity
of Christ, and Pelagius in the fifth century, who reje cted
the doctrine of original sin. Indeed this exceedin gly new
theology adopts even the unbelief of those old Sadducees ·who
said "ther e is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit" (Act s
23 :8), and whom Christ reproved with the words, "Ye do ·
err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God" (Matt.
22 :29). It cert~inly does not argue for the spiritual progre ss
of our race, that such a threadbare and outworµ unbelieving
kind of science. should again, in these days, deceive and even
stultify thousands of people.
NO
AGREEMENT
AMONG
THE
CRITICS
Do these critic s then, to ask the least of them, agree with
o~e another? Far from it. To be sure, they unanimously
deny the inspiration of the Bible, the divinity of Chris~ and
of the Holy Spirit, the fall of man and the forgiven~ of ·
sins through Christ; ·also prophecy and miracles, the resurrec
tion of the dead, the final judg1nent, heaven and hell.. But ·
when it com~s to their pretendedly sure results, not any two
of them affirm the same things ; and their numerous publica
tions create a flood of disputable, self-contradictory and
mutually destructive hypothe ses. For example, the Jehovah of
the Old Testament is made to be some heathen god, either a
non1adic or steppe god, the weather -god Jahu, or the god of
West-Semitism. It was David who first introduced this divin
ity; and according to some authors the peculiar worship of
thi s god was, with its human sacrifices ( ),only a continuation
of the Baal-Moloch worship Of Abraham it is sometimes
affirmed that he never existed, but at other times that he
was a Canaanite chief, dwelling at Hebron. Nol he is .the ·
lllyth of the Aurora; and Sarah, or Scharrat~, is the wife
of the moon-god Sin, and so on. The twelve sons of Jacob
are very probably the twelve months of the year. As to
Moses, some teach there never was such a man, also that
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84
The undanientals
the ten commandments were composed in the time of Manas-
eh. No I the more moderate writers say that Moses is a
historical character.
It
was in Midian that he learned about
Jah, the tribal god of the Kenites; and he determin~d with
this divinity to liberate his people. Elijah is simply a myth;
or he was some unfortunate prophet who had perhaps been
struck by lightning. And so, too, this modern criticism knows
for sure that it was not Solomon, but a wholly unknown king,
living after the time
of
Ezra, who wrote Ecclesiastes; also
that there never was a Daniel, but that again some unknown
author wrote the book bearing that name. Moreover, Kautsch
tells us that this book first made its appearance in January,
164 B. C., while other critics are positive that it was in 165.
Query: Why could not that unknown author have been named
Daniel? ·
So also Wellhausen knows of twenty-two different au
thors-alJ of them, to be sure, unknown-£ or the books of
Moses, while Kuenen is satisfied with sixteen. The noted
English critic, Canon Cheyne, is said to have taken great
pains to
tear
the book of Isaiah's prophecies into one hundred
and sixty pieces, all by unknown writers ; which pieces were
scattered through ten different epochs including four and a
half centuries ( Modern Puritan, 1907, p. 400). Likewise
this critic knows that the fjrst chapter of Samuel originated
with an unknown writer living some five hundred years after
the time of that prophet; also that Hannah's glory-song, as
found in 2 Kings, was written by some other ''unknown.
That Eli ruled over Israel for forty years is, in all likeli
hood, the unauthentic statement of a later day (Hastings'
Bible Dictionary). Why so? we may ask.-The
book
of
Deuteronomy was written, we are told,
in 561 B. C., and
Ecclesiastes in 264
:a.
.; and a German critic, Budde, is
certain that the book of Job has somehow lost its last chapter,
and that fifty-nine verses of this book should be wholly ex
punged.
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•
•
The Bib
,le and Modern Criticism
Such are a, f'ew illu ,strations of the way in w·hich
lfol y
Scripture is treated
by
the criticism we a.re considering.
But, surely,
it would
not require much
Sagacity and intel
ligence for one, by applying such peculiar
methods,
say, to
Goethe's
works, to demonstrate
,critic ,ally that a. good sha1-e
•
of those productions, such as Erlkonig, Iphigenia,
GOtz
van
Berlichingen,
the
Wahlverwandschaften, Faust
(Parts
I.
and
II.), belong, if judged of by their style of composition and
their 'historical
and p
1
hilosophi ,cal views,
to
wholly different
epochs, and that
they
originated
with many different author s.
Mo1·eover, it
co~d
easily
be
sl1own
that
no,ne ·Of tl1ose
author s
. Jived in the times wl1en N apoleo11 Bon .aparte revolutioniz ·ed
Europ ·e, since his name is not mentioned in any o,f the produ c-
tions specified.
CRITICISM AS,
APP LIED T0
1
THE
NEW
TEST
AMENT
Of ,course this , modern Critici sm doe s not stop short of ·
the New Testament. Thi s part 0£ the Bible, H arnack say s,
•
narrat
1
es f or us incredible stori,es re specti ,ng tl1e
bi,rth
1
and
•
childhood of Christ.
''Nevermore, .'
he goes ,on
to
as,sert .,
''sh .all we believe that he walked upon the s
1
ea and com1nanded
the storm.''
It
st,and,s to reason that He did
not
rise fr 'om
t·h,e dead. The Fourth Gos,pel is spurious, an ,d so also is
according to late critical authority) the Epi stle
to
tl1e
Roma11s.
The Book of
Revelation is only · the occasion·
for
derisive laughter on the part of the se skeptical critics : and
because
it
is so, the cur se mentioned in its last · chapter is
made applicable to them (vs. 18, 19). Nev ertheless, these men
sin
most
; erio ,usly again st Cl1rist.
In ·
their
view
the
very
Son o,f God,
the Word
that
was in the
beginning
with
.God,
and that w,as God, and without Who1n nothing exi sts, is only
a fanatical young rabbi; entangled in the peculiar views and
superstition s of his people; and he died upon the cross only
because he. misconceived of the cl1aracter of l1is own missio n
a11d
the
natur ·e of
his
times. Je sus '''is not
indispe11sable
to
•
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86
The FundamentaJs
·Now all this is what is denominated Biblical criticism.
It
is a jumble ·of ·mere hypotheses, imaginings and ass·ertions,
brought forward often without even the shadow of proof,
and
with no
real certainty. Still, in the se times it r~presents
itself to thousands of nominal Christians and to hundreds
of
·miserably deceived theological students who are to become
preachers of God's word , as being the assured results of
the late st
scientific
research. May God have mercy,
if
such
is .the case
WHAT ARE THE FRUITS OF THIS CRITICISM?
Now, if the se people were of the 'truth, and
if
they would
only believe Him who says, I am the way, the truth and the
life, they would not be under the necessity of · ediou sly .
working their way through the numerous publications ( statis
tics show that there appear in Europe and America annually
some eight hundred of these works)
;
but they would find in
I-Iis teaching a simple and sure means for testing the character
of these critical doctrines. Ye shall know them by thei(
fruits, is what Christ says of the false teachers who came
in His name. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of
thistles? (Matt.
:16).
Are the fruits of modern criticism
good? Where are the grapes or figs that grow ·on this thorn
bush? Has · not this critici sm already robbed, and perhaps
forever, thousands of people of their first love, their un
doubting faith, .and their joyou s hope? Has it not sowed
dissension, fostered pride and self-conce it, and injured before
all . the world the authority of both the church and its minis
ters? Has
it
not offended Christ's little ones? (Matt.
18 :6,
7).
And does it not every day
f
urnis.h the enemie s of
God with opportunities for deriding and scorning the truth?
Where are the souls that it has led to God- · com£orting,
strengthening , purifying and sanctifying them? Where are
the individuals who even in the hour of death have continued
to rejoice in the benefits of this criticism?
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•
•
•
•
•
•
The B ible and Modern Criticism
87
In the
Study-room
it ensnares, in
l,ectur
1
e-h~lls
it make ,s
great
pretenses ,,
for
n1ere
popular lectures it is still service
able; : but when
tl1e
tl1under~ ,of God's power break in upon
the soul, wh,en despair at the loss of al1 one has loved takes
possession of the mind, when remembrance of a
miserable
lost
life , or ,of past ,misdeeds is felt and realized,
wl1en
one is on a
'
sick-bed and ,death approaches, ,and the soul, appi:eciating
that it
is
now on the brink of eternity, calls , for a Savior~ .
just
at
this
thne
when
its
help
is most
needed,
tllis modern ·
religion
utterly
fails. In the year 1864, in Geneva, one
of
those modern theo
1
logians was summoned
to prepare
f'or exe
cution a young man who had committed murder and robbery.
· But he candidly
exclaimed, ''Call
some one else, I have noth
ing to say to him.'' This incompetent criticism did not know
of any consolation for
the sin-burdened soul ;
therefore
an
orthodox
clergyman
was
obtained, and the wretched man,
murderer though he was, died
reconciled
to God thr~ugh the
•
blood of
Christ. . ~·
But supl),o~e that all the teachings of this criticism were
true, wl1at would it avail us? It would put us in a sad eon
di 'tion indeed.
For ·
then,
sitting besid.e
ruined temples
a~nd
broken-d ,own . altars, with no joy as respects . the hereafter,
no
hope of
ever]asting life, no
God
to
help
us, no
forgiveness
of
sins, feeling miserable, all desolate
in our hearts
and
chaotic in our minds, we should be utterly una,b]e either to
know or be.lieve anything more. Can sucl1 a view of the
world, such a religion, which, . as was
said of
Professor .
Harnack' ,s,
lectur 'e,s
in
America,
,o.nly destro ,ys,,
removes
and
tears downt be true? Not If this modem
criticism
is ti-ue,
tl1en away with all
so-called
Christianity,
which
only deceives ·
us 'With idle tales t A way with a religion · whi
1
ch ha.s nothing
to offe ,r· us but the commonplace teachit1gs of morality I Away
\\r,ith
faith
Away with h
1
ope t Let us e·at and drink, for
tomorrow we die
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88
The undamentals
THESE TEACHINGS IN THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURE
But let us hear
what
God' s word
has
to say regarding
this topic:
2 Pet. 1 :21.-· For no prophecy ever came by the ·will of
man ; but holy men of God spake as they were moved
by
the
Holy Ghost.
2
Tim.
3 :16, 17.- All
Scriptu re given by inspiration of
God is profitable for doctrin e, for reproof, for correction ,
for
instruction in righteou sness ; that the man of God may
be perfect, thoroughly furni shed unto all good works.
Gal. 1 :11, 12.- I certi fy you, brethren, that the Gospel
which was preached by me is not after man, neither was I
taught it, but
by
the revelation of Je sus Christ.
Rom. 1 :16.- I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Chri st;
for
it is the power of God unto salvation
to
every one
that
believeth.
Acts 20 :30.-But of your own selves shall men
ari se,
speaki ng perverse thing s, to draw away disciples after them.
2 Pet. 2 :1.- There were false prophets also among the
people, who privily shall bring in damnable her e
sies, even denying the Lord that bought them.
1 Cor. 1 :20, 21.- Where is the wise ? where
fa
the scribe?
where is the disputer of
this
world? Hath not
God
made
foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that
in the
wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it plea sed
God by the foolishne ss of preaching to save them that
believe.''
Col.
2 :4-8.- This I
say,
lest
any man should beguile y
u
with enticing word s, or spoil you through philosophy and
vain deceit, after the rudiment s of the world, and not after
Christ.''
1 Cor. 3 :19.- '' For the wisdom of this wprld is foolish
ness with God.
1 Cor. 2 :5.- That your faith should not stand in the
wisdom of n1en, but in the power of God.
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•
Th.e Bi.ble
and
JII
odern Cri ti c-ism
1 Cor. 2 :4. '' And my speech and rn.y P,reaching was not
with enti .cing words of man's
wisdom,
but in
demonstration
of the Spirit and of
power.'' . -
1 Cor. 2
:12,
13.
''Now w
1
e hav
1
e rec
1
eive,d, not
the .
spi.r.it
of the
world,
but the spirit
which
is
of
God, that we might
know
the things that
ar ·e
freely
.given
to
us
of
God.
Whjch
things also we speak, not in the words which man~s wisdo·m
teacbe ·th,
b·ut ,
which
the
Holy
1
Gh.ost ·teachet h ;
ic.omparing
spiri .tual
t.hings with spiritual. ~'
Col,. 1 :21 and 2 Cor. 10 :5. Therefo ,re
''you
tha 't were
sometime
al·i,enated
and
e·nemies
in your
minds by
wicked
wor ·ks,' ' now ''bring into captivity every thought to the obedi-
e,nce o,f·Chri ,st.'' .
Ga·I, 1 :9'. ''As we said bef,01·e, so say I no·w again, , I ·£
any
man p,reach _any
other gos,pel
un ·to
you
than that
ye
have received, let him be a,c,cur .sed.'' . ,
1
C,or. 15 .:17.
''Whosoev ,er
says that Chrjst is ~ot risen, ·
'his
faith
i.s vain,
he
is
yet
in his sins. . ·
. 2
John,
vs.
7,
9, 10, 11.
''Fo r
many deceivers
are
entered
into, the world, who confess n ot that Jesus Christ is come in
th,e flesh. T'his is a deceiver and an
antichris ·t. * * *
Who
soever
tr ,ansgresseth
and abideth
no·t in
the doctrine
of
Christ,
hath
no·t
God. He
that
abideth
in
the
doc.trine .of ·Christ, he
hath bo·th th,e Fa .ther and the Son. If . the:re come, any unt .o
you, and bring not
this doctrine,
receive him
not
into your
house, neither bid him
1
God speed ; for he that bidde,th 'him
God speed ·is partaker of his evil deeds.''
Luke 11 :52. ''Woe unt ,o, you lawyers
f
fo
1
r ye
have taken
away the key of knowled.ge ; ye entered not in yourselves,
and
them .·hat
were entering in
ye l1inde1·ed.''
•
•
,CONCLUSION
Let us then, by
r,epudiating this modern criticism, show
1
our condemnation .of
it.
at
does
·it off
er us? '
Nothing.
What
does
it
take
away? Everything.
Do we have any
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90
The Fundamentals
use for it? No It neither -helps us in life nor comforts us in
death; it will not judge us in the world to come. For our
Biblical faith we do not need either the encomiums of men,
nor the approbation of a few poor sinners. We ~ill
not
attempt to improve the Scriptures and adapt them to our
liking, but we will believe them. We will not criticize them,
but we will ourselves be directed by them. We will not exer
cise authority over them, but we will obey them. We will
trust Him who is the way, the truth, and the life. His word
shall
make
us
free.
Respice
fineni
"consider the end"-that is what even the
old .Romans said. True rationalism adjudges all things from
the standpoint of eternity; and it asks of every religion,
What can you do for me with regard to the great beyond?
What does this Biblical criticism offer us here? Only fog
and ·mist, or, at best, an endless state of indecision, soxpe
thing impersonal and inactive, just like its god, whose very
nature is inconceivable. "Eternal life," writes one of these
modernists, "is only the infinitely weak vestige of the present
life." ( ) Here also the maxim proves itself true, "By
their fruits ye shall know them." Just as for our present
life this criticism offers us no consolation, no forgiveness of
sins, no deliverance from "the fear of death, through which
we are all our iifetime subject to bondage," so also it knows
nothing respecting the great beyond-nothing with regard to
that new heaven and new earth wherein righteousness shall
dwell, nothing with regard to that golden city which shines
with eternal light, nothing with regard to a God who wipes
away all tears from our -eyes. It is utterly ignorant of the
glory of God, and on that account it stands condemned.
"Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life. And we believe and are sure that Thou art that
Christ, the Son of the living God" (John
6 :68,
69). And
He answered, "Behold, I eome quickly: hold that fast which
thou hast; that no man take thy crown" ( Rev. 3 : 11).
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•
•
•
•
•
•
I
\
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
CHAPTER IV
SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN FAITH
BY REV.
PROF.
JAMES ORR,
Di.
D.,
•
UNITED
FREE
CHURCH COLLEGE,
GLASGOW, scO ,TL AND
•
•
,
•
In man ,y quarters
tl1e
be lief is industriou sly circulated tha ,t
l
d
f · ,, .
b
thi
h
11
fl
h h ..
1
1e a
vance
o S
c1ence,,
meaning
y
,s c
r
1e
y
t
e p
ys1ca
scien ces as ,tronomy, g·eology, bio,logy, anq the like -has
l)rov ·ed da1naging,
if no,t
1
des·tructive , to the claims of the
Brble,
and ·the
truth
o,f Chri .,tianity.
Science and Christianity
are
pitted
against
each other.
Their
int ·erests .
are helcl
to be
antagonistic. Books are written, like
Draper s
Cenflict
Between Religion and Science , White s
Warf are
of Science
with Theo·logy
in Christendom,
and
Foster s
Finality
o,f
the Chri .stian Re1igion, to
sl1ow
that thi s warfar ·e b.etween
science a nd religi ,on has ev
1
er been going
on, , an .d
can never
i·n the ·nature of things cease ti11 theology is
destroyed, and
s,cierice holds so le swa,y
·in
m
1
en s minds.
This
wa·s not the .attitu ,de of the ol
1
der
i.nves ,tigators of
sciencie.
.Most
o
th,as,e were
devout
Christi ,an men.
Na
ville,
in his book, Modern Physics, has shown that the great dis
covere rs in sc,i
1
ence
1
in past times were nearly always devout
men, This v.ras tr ue of Galileo,, Kepler, Ba.con, a.nd Newton;
it was true of m
1
en like
Faraday,
Brewster,
Kelvin, ·
and
a
host of others in more recent tim es. The ·
late
Prof
ess,or Tait,
0
1
£
Ed inb
1
urgh,
writing in The I nternationaI Revi.ew,
said,:
The assumed in,compatibility of religion and science has been
so of ·ten and confidently
ass,ert red
in recent times
tl1at it
Mas
coine * *
*
to
1
be
taken
for
granted
by
the writers
0£ .
leading articles,
etc., and it
is of course, perpetually
thrust
hef ore their too trusting readers. But
the whole thing
is a
mistal<e, an ·d a mistake . so
grave that
no
truly
scientific
•
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92
The undamentals
man runs, in Britain, at least, the smallest risk
of making
it.
With a few, and these very singular
exceptions, the truly scientific men and true theologians of
the present day have not found themselves under the . neces
sity of quarrelling. The late Professor G. J. Romanes has,
in his ~hough ts on Religion, left the testimony that one
thing which largely influenced him in his return to faith was
the fact that in his own university of Cambridge nearly all
the men of n1ost eminent scientific attainments were avowed
Christians. The curious thing, he says, is that all the most
illustrious names were ranged on the side of orthodoxy. Sir
W. Manson, Sir George Stokes, Professors Tait, Adan1s, Clerk
Maxwell, and Bayley-not to mention a number of lesser
lights, such as Routte, Todhunter, Ferrers, etc.,-were all
avowed Christians (page 137).
It 1nay be held that things
are now changed. To so1ne extent this is perhaps true, but
anyone who knows the opinions of our leading scientific
men is aware that to accuse the majority of being men of
unchristian or unbelieving sentiment is to utter a gross libel.
If by a conflict of science and religion is meant that
grievous mistakes have often been made, and unhappy mis.
understandings have arisen, on one side and the other, in the .
course of the progress of science,-that new theories and dis
coveries, as in astronomy and geology, have been looked on
with distrust by those who thought that the truth of the ~ible
was being affected by them,-that in son1e cases the dominant
church sought to stifle the advance of truth by persecution,
this is not to be denied. It is an unhappy illustration of how
the best of men can at times err in matters which they
imperfectly understand, or where their prejudices and tradi
tional ideas are affected. But it proves nothing against the
value of the discoveries themselves, or the deeper insight
into the ways of God of the men who made them, or of real
contradiction between the new truth and the essential teaching
of the Scriptures. On the contrary, as a minority generatlJ
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i
Science
and hristian Faith
93
perceived from the first ., the su·pposed disharmony with the ·
t1·uths of
the 'Bible
was
an unreal one,
earl.Y
giving
way
to
· better under ,standing on botl1
sides, and
finally o·pening · up
new vistas
in the
cont
1
emplation of
the Creator's
power, wis
' dom, and majesty.
It
is never to
be forgotten, also, that
the error was seldom all on o·ne side ; tha~
science, too,
has,
in number1.ess cases put
f·orth
its hasty
and
unwarrantable
,
theories and
has
of
ten had
to retra
1
ct eve·n its ·truer
specula,.,
tions . within
limits which brought them
into more perfect
harmony with r,eveal.e
1
d tntth. If theology
has resisted novel
ties of science,
it
has
o,f te.n
had
good
reason
for
so
doing~
It is well in
any
case that
thi.sl
alleged
C
1
onflict
of
Chris•
tianity
with science
should be carefully probed,
and
that
it
shou ld
·b,e
seen where exactly the ·
truth lies
·in regard
to it.
•
•
I. SCIENCE
AND ·
LAW MIRACLE
•
•
It is perhap s
more in its
general outlook on the
world
than
in. its
specific
results
that
scie11ce
s alleged to
be
in
conflict
wit 'h the Bible and Christianityi The Bib]e is a
record
of
rev
1
elation ,. Chri stianity is a supernatur .al syst·em. Miracle,
i11
. the
s,ense ·of a direct
entrance of God in word and
1
deed
into
human history
for
gracious
ends, is .of .the
essence
of
it.
On
the ether ha·nd, tl1e advance of science h.as done much to
deepen
the impre ssion of the
ttniversal
reign
of
natural
law
-
.
The
effect has
been to lead multitudes
,vl1os
e faith
is not
·g rounded
in
direct
spir itual exp ,erience
to
look aslcance on the
,vhol
1
e idea of
the
supernatural.
Go,d, it is assumed,
has
His
own
mode
of
worlcing,
and
tha 't is
by
means
of
secondary
agencies operati11g
in
a.bsolutely
uniform
ways; miracles, . ·
therefor
1
e,. cannot be
admitte .d. And,
since miracles are
found
•
in Scripture, since the entire Book rests on the idea of a ·
sttpernatural economy of grace, the who
1
Je must b,e dilsmissed
as in
conflict with
the
moder11min
1
d.
Professor G. B .
Foster.
goes so far as to d,ecl,are tha ·t a man can
hardly
be
intellectually
..
•
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•
•
•
,·
•
•
94
The Fundamenta .ls
•
•
l1onest who
i:µ
these days professes to believe in the miracles
of the Bible .
•
•
It is overstating the case to speak of this repugnance to ·
miracle and rejection of it in the Bible, as if it were really
new. It
is
as 9ld as rationalism itself. You find it in
S]?inoza,
in
Reimarus ,
in Strauss ,, in
numb ,erless
others. DeWette and
Vatke, an1ong e,arlier Old Testam ,e·n·t ,cri·tics,, ·manife .sted. it as
strongly as their followers do now, and made it a pivot of
their
criticism.
It governed
the
attacks
on Christianity.
made
in the age of the deists. David Hume wrote an essay against
miracles which · he thought had settled the question forever.
· But, seriously considered, can this attack on the idea of mi1·
acle, derived £rom our experience of the uniformity of nature s
laws, be defended?
Does
it not :in itself involve a huge
assumption, and run counter to experience ·and eomt11onsense ?
The question is one well worth asking.
First, what
is
a miracle? Various definitions rnight be .
· given,
btlt it
will be enough
to
speak of
it here
as any
effect
in natu re or deviation from its ordinary course due to tlie
interposition of
a supernatural
caitse. It is no necessary part,
it should be observed, of the
Biblical idea
of miracle, that
natt~ral
agencies should not
be
employed as far as they wi ll go.
If the drying of the Red Sea to let the Israelites pass over
was
1
due in part to a
gre,at,
wind that bl
1
ew, thi
1
s was n,one the
less of
God s
or ,dering, and did not detract from the, super-
•
. natural cl1aracter of the event as a whole. It was still at
--~ s
cdmmand
that
the waters
were parted,
and
that
a
way
was
ma.de
at that particular time and place
for
the
people
to go through. These are what theologians call provi ,dential
mirac les, in which, so far as one can see, natural agencies,
.
,
under divine direction, suffice to , produce the res ,ult. There is,
however, another and more conspicuous class, the in,stanta
oeous cleansing
of
the leper, e.g., or the raising of the d~d,
in which natural
.agencies
are obvious.ly
altogether
transce11ded .
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Sc ·ietice and Christian Pai.th
95
•
•
•
It i~ this class about which t'he chief · discussion
goe.s
on. They
are .z:niracles in ·the stricter sense of a complete trans .cendence
of nature's
law.s. ·
•
What, in · the next ,place, i~ meant by the uni/ o~mity of
nature f Tb .ere
a.re,
of cour·se.,
laws of
nature no one dis ,-
•
pt1tes that. It
is
quite a mistake to
suppo ,se tl1at
the Bible,
tl1ougl1
not writte ·n in th
1
e
twentieth c.entury, ..knows notl1ing
o,f a regular o·rder and system of
nature . The
wor 'ld is
God's
W
1
orld;
it
i.s established
by
His d
1
ecree; He has given
to every
cr ,eature its natur
1
e,. its bounds, its Jirnits; all thi~gs , continue
.
according to 'His ordinances (Psa. 119:91). Only, law in the
Bible isl never viewed a.s having an
i·n,dependent
existence.
It is always regarded as an expression ·of the power or wisdom
of God.
A-nd
this gives the
right point
of
view for . c.onsider
ing
the relation of
law
to
miracle.
What, to ·begin
with,
do we mean by a ''law'' of nature ? It is, as sc.ience will
concede, only our ·r-eg:istered observation of the order in
•
which we find causes and events
linked
·tog,ether
in
our
experi-
e11ce.
That
they are so
linked
no
one questions.
If they were
·not., · 'resl1o·uld have
no world
in
which
we. could live lat all~
BLtt
then, next ,, what
do
we
m,ean
by ''uniformity'' in
this
conn
1
ection? We mean no more than thi .s that, given like
causes, operating under like conditions, like ~ffects will
follow.
Quite true; n.o one ~enies this either. ...... . ·· · , , , . . ,:\
But then,
as J.S. Mi,11,n hi·s Logic, , pointed out long' ago,
a miracle in the ·
strict
sen ,se
is nolt
a denial of ei.th
1
r of
thes,e
truths. A miracle ·isl 'll0
t
the , as,sertion that, th ·e :same causes
operating, a different result is produced. It is, on
the contrary,
the asse ·rtion th .at a
new
cause has intervened, and this a
caus,e .
which tl1e theists cannot deny to be a vera causa-the will
an d
power
of God.
Just as, when I
lift my arm,
or
throw
a
stone
high in the air, I do not abolish the law of gravitation but
counteract or
0
1
verrule its purely
natural
action
by
the intro~
•
duct ,ion
of a new
spiritual force ,; so, but
in
an infinitely
hilgher
t.
I
4. •
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The Fundamentals
way, is a miracle due to the interposition of the First Cause
of all, God Himself. What the scientific man needs to prove
to establish his objection to miracle
is
not simply that natural
causes operate uniformly, but that no other than natural causes
exist; that natural causes exhaust all the causation 'in the
universe. And that, we hold, he can never do.
It is obvious from what has now been said that the real
question at issue in miracle is not natural law, but
Theisrn.
It is to be recognized at once that miracle
CcKl
only pr.ofitably
be discussed on the basis of a theistic view of the univer se.
It is not disputed that there are views of the universe which
exclude miracle. The atheist cannot admit miracle, for he
has no God to work miracle s. The pantheist ca,nnot admit
miracle, for to him God and nature are one. The deist cannot
admit miracle, for he has separ ated God and the universe so
far that he can never bring them together ·again. The question
is not, Is miracle possible on an atheistic, a materialistic, a
pantheistic, view of the world, but, Is it possible on a thei stic
view-on the view of God as at once immanent in His world,
and in infinite ways transcending it? I say nothing of intel
lectual honesty, but I do marvel, as I have often said,
at the
assurance
of any one who presumes to say that, for
the highest and holiest ends i.n His personal relations with
His creatures, God can work only within ·the limits which
nature imposes; that He cannot act without and above nature 's
order
i
it pleases I-Iim to do so. Miracles stand or ·fall by
their evidence, but the attempt to rule them out by any
a priori dictum as to the uniformity of natural law must
inevitably fail. The same applies to the denial of provide.nee
or ·of answers to prayer on the ground of the uniformity of
natural law. Here no breach of nature's order is affirmed,
but only a goverRance or .direction of nature of which man's
own use of natural laws, without breach of them, for special
ends, affords daily examples.
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Science and/ Christian Faith
•
II. SCRIPTURE AND
THE SPECIAL
SCIENCES
•
• •
Appr ,oaching more
nearly
tl1e alleg~d
con.flict
0
1
£
th
1
e
Bible
·or
Christi ·anity wit l1
the
special.
sciences, a
first que·stion
of
.importance is,
Wl1at is
the
general r·e·l·a tion of
the Bible
to
sc.ience? How
does
it
claim
to rel.ate .itself to
·the
advan
1
ces
of natu ·ral lrnowl,edge? Here, it is to be fea ,r,ed, mistakes
,are of ·ten made
0
1
n bo,th sides 011 the side of science in
affirn1-
•
ing contrariety
of
the Bible ,vith
sc·ie·ntific
results where
n.one .
r eally exists ,; on t he side. of believe1·s in dema·ndin:g that the ·
B,ible be taken as a
text -book
of
the 11ewes t
scientific dis
coveries, ,and trying by forced n1etl1ods to read thes·e into
the.m. The trttth o,n this point lies really on the sarface. Tl1e
Bibl
1
e clearly does not
profe ss
to anticipate t he scientific dis-
coveries of the nineteenth and twentiet11 centuries. Its ,des1gn
is ver,y different;
namely, ,
to
reveal God
and Hi .s
\Vill and:
His
purpo ses · of gr:ace to men, and, as
involved
in this, ,
Hi.s
gerieral relation to
the
creative wor ld, its
dep.endence
in
all
its p,arts on
Him, .
and H is
,orderly government
of
.it
in Provi
dence for His wise and good
1
ends. Natural tl1ings are taken
as
they arre
given,
a11
1
d
spol{en of in
sin1ple, popular language,
as we ourselves
every
da.y
.speak of
t l1em.
The
wor.Id
it
de,
s.cribes
is
the
world men
know and live in,. an
1
d .it is described
as i t appears, no,t as, in its 1,.econdite resea1·ches, s
1
cience
revea]s
its inner constitut ,ion to us.
Wise
expositors of the Scrip
tures, older and young er,
have · always ,recognized
·this, an(l
h.ave not attempt
1
ed to force its
language
further.. To take
only
one example, John Calvin,. wl10 ·wr·ote before the Copei-
nican
system
of astronon1y
had
obta.ined common
ac:ceptance,
in
hi-s
commentary on the ·fir.st cl1apter of
Genesis penne
1
d tl1ese
wise
words:
H ,e ,vho wottld lea1·n
astronomy and other
recondite
arts, he
said,
·let
him go
elsewhere,
Moses
wrot ,e
in ·a
popular styJe things wl1icl1,
without instructi ·on, all ordi
nar y persons it1dued ,vith
co1nmon sen.se are
able to under
stand.
*
*
*
He
do
1
es
not
call us up to heaven , he on·ty
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propose s things that lie open before our eyes. To this ·hour,
with all the light of modern science around us, we speak of
sun, moon and stars rising and 's etting , and nobody mis
und erstand s or affirms contradiction with science. There is
no doubt another side to this , for it is ju st as true 'th~t .in
depicting natural thing s, the Bible, thr ough the Spirit qf reve
lation that animates it, seizes thing in so just a light-still
with reference to its own ptirposes-that the n1ind is prevented
from being led astray from the great truths intended to be
conveyed.
will serve to illustrate these positions as to the rela
tion of the Bible to science if we look at them briefly in
their application to the two sciences of
astrono ·my
and geology
in regard to which conflict has often been alleged.
1. The change from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican sys
te1n of
astronomy - £
om the view which regarded the earth
as the center of the ·univer se to the modern and undoubtedly
true view of the earth as moving round the sun, itself, with
its planets, but one of innu111erableorbs in the starry heavens
of necessity creat ed great searching s of heart atnong those
who thought that the language of the Bible committed the111
to th e older system. For a time there was strong opposi
tion on the part of n1any theologians , as well as of students
of science, to the new discoveries of the telescope. Galileo
was imprisoned by the church. But truth prevailed, and it
was soon perceived that the Bible, using the language of
appearances, was no more committed to the literal moving
of the sun round the earth than are our modern ·almanacs,
which employ the same forms of speech. One would have to
travel far in these days to find a Christian who feels his faith
in the least affected by the discovery of the true doctrine of
the solar system. He rejoices that he understands nature
better , and reads his Bible without the slightest sense of con
tradicti~n. ·Yet Strauss was cJ nfident that the Copernican
system had given it s death-blow to Christianity; as Yoltaire
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Science and hristia n Fa£th
99
before him had affirmed that Christianity would be over thrown
by the discovery of the law of gravitation and would not
survive a century. Newton, the hun1ble-minded Christian
discoverer of the law of gravitation, had no such fear, and
tin1e has sh9wn that it was he, not
\
oltaire, who was right.
These are specimens of the conflicts of Christianity with
.
science.
The so-called astronomical objection to Christianity
more specially takes the form of enlarging on the
illimitable -
ness
.of the universe disclosed by science in contrast with the
peculiar interest
of God in man displayed in the Christian
Gospel. What is .man that thou art mindful of him? (Psa.
8 :4). Is it credible that this small speck in an infinity
of worlds should be singled out as the scene of so tre1nendous
an exhibition of God's love and grace as is implied in the
Incarnation of the Son of God, the Sacrifice of the Cross,
the Redemption of Man? The day is well-nigh past when
even this objection is felt to carry much weight. Apart from
the strange fact that up to this hour no evidence seems to
exi st of other worlds inhabited by rational intelligences like
man- no planets, no known systems ( on this point A. R.
Wallace's Man and the Universe may be consulted)
thoughtful people have come to realize that quantitative big~
ness is no measure of God's love and care; that the value of
a soul is not to be estimated in terms of stars and planets;
that sin is not less awful a fact even if it were proved that
thi s is the only spot in the universe in which it has emerged.
It is of the essence of God's infinity that He cares for the
little as well as for the great; not a blade of grass could wave,
or the inse<::tof a day live its brief Ii£e upon the wing,
if
God were not actually present, and 1ninutely careful of
it.
Man's position in the universe remains, by consent, or rather
by proof, of science, an altogether peculiar one. Link between
the material and the spiritual, he is the one-bei~g that seems
fitted, as Scripture affirms he is, ·to be the bond of unity in
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The Fundamen tals
the creation .(Heb. 2 :6-9). This is the hope held out to us
in Christ (Eph.
1 :10).
One should reflect also that, while
the expanse of the
physical
universe is a mbdern thought,
there has never been a time in the Christian Church ·when
God-Himself infinit~was not conceived of as adored and
served by
countless hosts
of ministering spirits. Man was
never thought of as the only intelligence in cr,eation. The
1nystery of the divine love to our world ·was in reality as
great before as after the stellar expanses were discovered.
The sense of conflict, therefore, though not the sense of
wonder, awakened by the exceeding riches of God's grace
to man in Christ Jesus, vanishes with increasing realization
of the depths and heights of God's love which passeth knowl
edge;, (Eph. 3
:19).
Astronomy's splendid demonstration
of the majesty of God's wisdom and power is undiminished
by any feeling of disharmony with the Gospel.
2. As it is with astronomy, so it has been with the reve
lations .of
geology
of the age and gradual formation of the
earth. Here also doubt and suspicion were-naturally enough
in the circt1m tances-at first awakened. The gentle Cowper
could write in his Task of tho se
*
who drill and bore
The solid earth and from the strata there
Extract a regi ster, by which we learn
Th?-t I-le who made it, and revealed its date
To Moses, was mistaken in its age.
If the intention of the first chapter of Genesis was really to
give us the date of the creation of the ·earth and heavens,
the objection would be unanswerable. But thirtgs, as in the
case of astronomy, are
how
better understood, and few are
disquieted in reading their Bibles because it is made certain
that the world is immensely older than the 6 000 yeats which
the older chronology gave it. Geology is felt only to have
expanded our i<eas
f
the vastne s. and marvel of the Creator's
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•
Scie ice and Christian Faith
•
• •
operations through the reons of time during wl1ich the world,
with
its
teeming
populations of
fishes,
birds,
reptiles, mammals,
was
preparing
for
man s
abod ,e
when
th
1
e
mo,untains were
being up h
1
eaved, the valley ,s being scooped out, and veins of
precious metals being , inlaid into the crust of th ,e earth~
Does science, then,
re,ally,
contra ,dic t Genesis I. Not
surely if what has been above said of the essentially popularc
cl1aracter of the allusio11s to n,atur .al things in the B,ible be
rem
1
ember
1
ed.
Here celrtainly
is no detailed desc ,riptio11 of
the
process
.Of
the formation of the eartlri in terms
anticipative
of modern sciience t
1
ertns which would ,have been unintelli
gible to
the origin,al reade ,rs but a sublime picture
1
true
to
the
order
of nature, as
it.
is
to
the broad
facts
even of
geolog
ical succe,ssion,.
,J, it tells how
Go,d
called h
1
eaven and earth into
being,
s,eparat ,ed light f
r·om
darkne ss,
sea
from 1and,
clothed
the world
with
veget .ation, g
1
ave
su,n and n1oon tl1eir appointed
ru ,Je o.f day and
night,
made fowl to
fly, and sea-monsters t,o
plow the deep, create,d th
1
e catt]e and beasts of the fie],d,. and
finally m.ade man, male and female, in His own image, and
established him
as ruler over all God s
creati on,
this orderly
rise of create id f
1
orm s, 1n an crowning the wh ole, these deep
idea ,s of the narrative, setting the world at th ,e v,ery beginning
in its
right
r
1
elation
to God, and
laying
the foundations of
an enduring philosophy o,,
religion, are tn1ths
which scirence
does nothing to subve ,rt, but in .n1yriad ways
confi1ms.
The
•
six days may remain as difficulty , to some, but, if this is
not part of the
symbolic
setting of the picture a great ·divine
week of work one may well ask, as was done by
A_ugu stine
long before
geology
was thought of,
what
kind of days
these were
wl1ich
ro,Jled their cot1rse before the sun
1
witl1 its
twenty-£ our hours of diurnal measurement, was appoint~d to
that
end? Tl1ere is
no Violence done
to
the
narrative
i11 st1b-
•
•
stituting in th9ught reonic days va.st cosn1ic periods for
days
1
'' on
our
narfower,
SUn-measur.ed
scale:
Then
the
last
trace of app
1
arent con:fli,ct disapp
1
ears.
•
•
•
•
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•
•
•
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The Fundament als
III. EVOLUTIO N A~D
MAN
In recent year s the point in which conflict between Scrip
ture and science is most frequently urg ed is the appar ent
contrariety of the theory of evolution to the Bible story of
the direct creation of the ani1nals and man. This might be
· met, and of ten ·is, as happened in the previou s cases, by
denying the reality of any evolutionary proce.ss in nature.
Here also, however, while it must be conceded that evolution
is l}Ot yet proved, there seems a growing appreciation of the
strength of the evidence for the fact of some form of evolu.,
tionary origin of species-that is, of some genetic connection
of higher with lower form s. Together with this, at the sarne
time, there is manifest an increa sing disposition to limit the
scope of evolution, and to modify the theory in very essential
points-those very points in which an apparent conflict with
cripture arose.
, Much of the difficulty on thi s subject has arisen from the
unwarrantable confu sion or identification of evolution with
Darwinism. Darwini sm is a theory of the process of evolu
tion, and both on account of the skill with which it was pre-
ented, and of the singular eminence of its propounder,
. obtained for a ti1ne a very remarkable prestige. In these
later days, as may be seen by consulting
a
book like R. Otto's
Naturalism and Religion, published in The Crown Library,''
that prestige has greatly declined. A newer evolution has
arisen which breaks with Darwin on the three points most
essential to his theory:
1
The
fortuitous character of · the
variations on which natural selection works. Variations are
now felt to be along definite lines, and to be guided to definite
ends. 2. The insufnency of natural selection (on which
Darwin almost wholly relied) to accomplish the tasks Darwin
assigned to it. 3. The slow and insensible rate of the changes
by which new species were supposed to be produced. Instead
of this the newer tendency is to seek the origin of new species
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•
•
•
103
•
in rapid and .sudden c~ang ·es, the cause s of which li·e within
the organism in ''1nutatio
1
ns, ~s they are coming to be
ca.lled . so t.l1at tl1e pro ·c·ess
may
be .as brief as
fonnerly
it was
s·up·posed to be long. ''Evolution, i11 short, is coming to be
recognizep. as b,ut a new na1ne £01· 'creation,
1
only that ·the
creative
·power
now works from witliin in~tead of ·, as in the
old conception,
in
an
external
pla.stic
fa .shion. It is,
how-
.
ever, c·reation none t·he less. · · ·
In tru 'th, no conception of evolution can b
1
e· f.ormed, com
patible with al.I the facts . o,f scie11ce, which
1
does not .
takel
account, at . lea ,st at certain great cfitical point ,s, of the entrance .
of new factors into the process we call creation. 1. One such
point is tl1e transition from inorganic
to ·
organic existe ·nce·~·
th
1
e entrance of t·he ne,v
powe1·
of .lif e. It is hopele ss to
1
seel(
to a
1
ccount for life by purel.Y m
1
ecl1anical and chemical agencie s,
and science . has well-nigh given ttp
t.l1e
att
1
empt. 2. A second
point
is
in
the
t1pansition fro1n purely organic development to
conscioiisne.ss. A sens,ati ,on i,s a n1ental fact different in kind
from
any
n1
e1ely
organ .c change, a~d inexplicable
by
it. Her ,e,
accordingly, is a new rise, revealing previously unknown spit
itual powers.
3 . The third point
is
in
the
transition
to ratio1t~
ality
personality
and
moral life
in
1na·n.
This,
as
1na11 '
.capacity f
1
or self-consciou .s, self-directed, progre ·ssive
life
evinces, is something different fr
1
om the purely animal co11-
sciousn1ss, and n1arks the begi .iming ·of a new kingdom. Here,
a.gai.n, the Bihl·e and science are felt to be in har1nony· lvlan
·is the
last
of
1
God's
create ·d
works the
crown
and
explana
tion of the whole - and he is made in God's image. To account
for him, a
sp,eci.al
a ct
of
the Creator, constituting him
w11at
he i.s,
must
be presuppos
1
ed. This , creative
a.ct
does
n ot
relate
to the sou.I only, for high
1
er spir ·itual powers cottld not be put
into a
merely
animal
brain.
There must be a rise on
the phys
icaJ side as well, corres ·ponding with the m,ental advan ce.
111
bod,y, as in spi .rit, man come
1
s from his Creator' 's hand ..
If
this new
evo,Jutionary
conception is
accepte·d,
most of
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•
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•
•
•
•
,
104
•
•
•
•
•
th:e
difficulties which beset the Darwinian tl1.eory fall away.
1. For one
tlung, man need no
1
long,er be thought
of as a s ow
development
from the anim,al stage
an
ascent through
brµt-
. isl1ness and savagery
f
ram an ape-like form. H is origin
may
b,e a,s sudden as Gen esis rrepres ,ents. 2'~ The nee
1
d £or
as.s.umin,g
an enormou s a ntiquity of' ma11 to a:llow·
·£
Or the .slow de·velo~
ment
is
no tonger felt. And (3 )
1
, the n
1
eed of assumi ·ng
man' ·s
origitial condition to have bee~
one
of brutal passion and
subjection · to natural impulse disappears. Man may have
come from his Cr ,eator' s hand in as morally pure
a
state ·, and
las
c.a.pable
of
sir1less
d·evelopment, as Genesis
1
and Paul
affi1'11.
T his also its ttJe most worthy vi·ew ·to take of 1:nan's ori,gin.
It is
a
view born
1
e out
by
the absence
of all re ,Jiable
evidence
of those ape-like intermediate forms which, on · the other
hypothe sis, must have intervened between the
animal -proge11-
ito1·s
and the finish
ed
l1uma.n
being.
It
is
a view not contra-
·dicted by th
1
e alle
1
g
1
e·d evid ,ences of man' 's very ,great .antiq,uity-
100,000,
200,000,
or
5,00,000
ye
1
a·r·s· f
re·que·ntl,y·
·relied on.; f.or
1nos t o f th
1
ese and the extrav .ag.ant mea surements of time con
nected with them, are precariot ts in the extreme..
The
writer;s
book, ''God's Image in Man and It s Defacement,'' may
be
consulted on these point s.
T l1e conclu sion from th
1
e whole is,
th_at
t1p
to the present
l1ot1r,
s,cien,ce and
the Biblical views of
God..
man, and
the
.worl d, do not stand in any
re,al .
relation of conflict. Each
book of God's writing reflects light upon the pages -,f the
other, but neither , contradicts the other's essential testimony ·.
Science itself seems now
d·isposed
to take a less
1
material i~)·ic
vie·w
of
the
origin and
natu1·e of
·things ·than
it.
did
a
detcade
or
tw10
ago, and to in,terpret · ·he
creatio ,n
more
i11
th
1
e
light
of
the spiritual. · The experience of the Christian
belie:ver, with
the work of missions in
heathen
lands,
furnishes a testimony
tl1at cannot be disregarded to the reality of this spiritual
world, and of the regeneratin ,g, transforming forctes pr-0ceed-
ing from it. To God be ~11
heglory · . ·
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
. CHAPTER V
•
:A PERSONA L TESTIMONY
•
•
BY P FIILIP :h(AU RO,
•
ATTORN EY-AT-LA W) NE W YORK CITY
[ came to a slavi.ng knowledg e of · the Lord .Jesus Christ
on Maf 24th, 1903, being t ben i11 my forty-fifth year. I
did not at . that ti,me fully
understand
~hat had
happened
to
me, and only learned subsequentl y, th rough the study of
tl1e
Scri .ptures ., that, by the grace of God t hrough faith i11 His
Son
J
esu,s. C.hri.st,
I
had bee·n
quickened ( Eph.
2 :5),
and ha,d
passed ~r·om ,death unto life (John 5 :24).
t
FORMAL PROFESSION NOT AN ANCHO R FOR THE S0
1
UL
•
For m.any· years previou s to that time I had beeln drifting
steadily
away from even ·a formal profession
of
Christ.
There ·was no
aspiration in
1ny
sot1l
b,eyond
the gratification
of self ·; and all the exertion which I was putt ing forth had
for its s,ole obj
1
ect
the
acqui sition and .ac
1
cumulation of means
for ministering to that gra tificat ·ion .tl1rough life. I do
no·t .
exc.ept from
this category
the
consideration bestowed
upon
1ny
f
amity ( who would d.oubtl es,s give
me
a g·ood character
as an indulgent hu
1
sban
1
d
and
father), for I
count t11ese a.s
•
within
the
definition of self.
•
The things which I valued, such as 1~eputation, the good
opinion .of men,, success , in busine ss ,e11terprises and the like,
1
engrossed my
time and
thought ,, and
beyond these ,
whicl1
were
all of a temporal
nature,
there was no object in view.
I
can
sow clearly see that I had unconsciously made mo·ne
1
y a god
to trust in and to
bestow my affections , .u.pon, and can there
£
ore
comprehend
the
statemen.t of
Scriptur
1
e
that
covetous.ness
is idolatry. . ·
•
105
•
•
•
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106
Tlie F
u idamentals
· Whethe r
or not
there was an
existence beyond the grave
was a matter abo
1
ut wl1ich
I
l1ad
sp,ecula ted much but
had
dis
misse d
it from
my thou ght . Having become a
thorough
going ra tional ist (and being no more irrational than the gener ~
ality
of tho se
who assume that ·
self -flattering
title )
1 took
. the ground
that
it was
possible
to
believe only
what
could
be made evident to th~ physical senses, and
having rejected
the
witness of God, and so made Him a
liar (
1 John
5
:9, 10)
and hav ing
disregarded
''the evidence of things
not seen''
( Heb.
11 :1) , I
was perishing for
lack of
know ledge while
passing,
in n1y o,wn estimation and tl1at of others , as a. ' ' very
. wel l-inf ,o,rmed ma,n. ''
I had
become a
.church-1nember
and
commun .icant at the
age of sixteen ; had been for many years thereafter quite a
regular attendant o·n chu .rcl1 servic
1
es, and had heard innun1er-
•
· able
sermons ; yet
I
was
as
ign .orant
as
any
Hottentot
con-
cerning
God'
1
s 0
1
n
1
e and onl.y ·way
of
salvation. , Such is ·the
wretch .eel condition of million s -o,f excellent people in this
'' Christian''
land and
in this ''e nlightened' ' century.
~he
·Gospel is hid · from the ,m because ''the god
of
this age' ' h.atb
blinded their minds
' 'lest
tbe light of the
glorious Gospel
of
#'
Christ, who is the image of God, should shine
unto
them''
( 2
Cor.
.4 :4
)1
W'ORLDLY PRO,SPERITY U'NSATISPYING
•
.
•
~{Whosoever
drinketh of
thi s
water
shall
thirst
again''
(J ohn 4 :13). Let me
add briefly,
as touching my material
circumstances, that
in
the practice
of my chosen profession
( law) I was sµffi.ciently successful to
gratify
my own ambi
ti.on ,and
to excite the
envy
of
others; that I was
bless ,ed with
. ~xcellent
physical
health; and that
my domesti
1
c
relations
were
all
that
could
be
desired. Nothing seemed
to
be
lacking that
could ·insure or contribute t,o happiness and contentment.
But peace of
mind
and
r·est of conscience
are not
to be
found
in
what
the
world calls
''easy
circutns ltance s.''
Not-
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1 Perso~ial
Test 11 01·y
withsta ndi11g
tha t I
had appare ntly every
reaso11
to be V. ~11
satisfied with
my lot,
and
every opport11nity
to
enjoy
the
good
things of
tl1is
world, my mental condition
was
anything but
•
satisfactory. It is hard to picture the state of a mind sub-
ject ·to increa singly
frequent
and protracted spells of
depres
sion, for which there seemed to
be
no reason
or
exp la11aio11
Certainly I
was
thoroughly
discontented, desperately
un l1appy ,
and
becoming
moie and more an easy prey to
gloomy
thoughts
and
vague, undefinable apprehensions. No longer could I
fi.nd ' mental sa tisfaction and diversion in the places and things
which once supplied them. My grat ifications had been largely
of an intellectt tal order, and my mind had be
1
en much
OCCt1pieu
. in 'efforts to pierce
the
veil
of the material universe, and
to dis
cover what, if anything,
Jay
concealed behind it. This quest had
carri .ed me into the domains of science, phil0
1
iOphy,
occultism,
theosophy, etc .. etc. All this pursuit had
yielded
nothing
111ore
1·eliable than conj ~.cture,
a11dhad
1eft
the inquirer after
the
truth
wear ·jed, baffle,d and
inteilect .ttal.ly
starved.
Life
had
no mea11ing, advantage, purpose or ju stification ;
and
the
powers of the much-vaunted hun1an i11te]1ectseemed unequal
to
the sol.tttion of
the simp
1
lest
my steries.
The
prospect 'before
n1e 'Was
Unsp
1
eakab 'ly
dark and
for
bidding,
•
'''vVR El?E IS THE WISE?'' ( 1 Co·r. 1 :20) ·.
But some
remedy against sett le.cl
desp,air must be
found.
So 1· followed others in the attemp
1
t to find
1
distraction in the
gaieties, a1nusements and excitements of a godless, pleasure
seeking
wo1·ld, a'tnong
whom I was
a.s
godless·
as
anyt
Some
good
p,eople
who were interested in me, and who had an
i11kling
of my condition, assured me
that
what I needed
v.ias n10
1
re ''div ·ersion'
1
and ''relaxati ,on,'' and that I was '''work-
•
•
ing too hard,'' etc. This
view
of
the matter was urged
by ·
church members. No one told me the simp,le truth;
na.mely,
that I ne
1
eded Christ and His salvation. 0, the ·innumerabJ,e
mi1lions who are
stumbling
through life , vaguely conscious of
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108
The Fundamentals
a great need, but ignorant of its nature, and having no one
to
tell them
I
have given this description
of
my unhappy state at
some lent,h in the belief t~at a·mong those who may read
it,
many will recognize
it
as a description of the main features
of their own condition.
To such I can say with the utmost assurance that the e
is deliverance for you, full and complete, and that it is not far
off, but it is close by. The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth
and in thy heart, that is, the word of faith which we preach;
that
if
thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and
shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved (Rom. 10 :8, 9).
So completely has that old condition of mental distress and
unrest passed away that I would riot now be able to even
recall and describe it, but for a record which I made within
six months of my conversion.
"Who shall deliver me I thank God through Jesus Christ,
oitr Lor<f'
(Rom.
7
:24, 25). One never-to-be-forgotten evening
in New York City I strolled out in my usual unhappy frame of
mind, intending to seek diver sion at the theater. This purpose
carried me as far as the lobby of a theater on Broadway, and
caused me to take my place in the line of ticket purchasers. But
an unseen hand turned me aside, and the next thing that
I
remember I had wandered far from the theater and my atten
tion was arrested by a very faint sound of singing which
came to my ears amid the noi ses on Eighth A venue, near
For ty-fourth Street. There is no natural explanation of
my
being attracted by, and of my following up, that sound.
Neve rtheless,
I
pushed my way into the building (a very
plaint unattractive affair, _bearing the sign Gospel Taber
nacle, ) wherrce the sound emanated, and found myself in a
prayer meeting. I was not much impre ssed by the · exercise s,
and
in fact
was not
at
all in sympathy with what transpired.
What
did, however, make an impre ssion upon me was th e
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I
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A Piersonal 1 .estimoiiy
·109
circu_mstancethat, as I was
makin .g
my way to the door afte r
the meeting, several persons greeted me with a
pleasant word
and a
shake
of
the
'hand,
and one inquired abo
1
ut
my spiritual
.~ate. I went
away
fr
1
om that meeting still in complete igno-
1an1,e of
th
1
e
.simple trut ·h t·hat
my wretchedness was
a1·1
d11e
to the fact th,at I was an unreconciled and unpardon ,ed sin11er,
a11d of
the greater truth
tl1at
there was One wh,o had died
for ·my sins, who fl:ad reconciled me to
God
by His
blood,
and through whom
I could . obtai ,n for ,giveness
of sins and
eternal life . . Again I
Say
that no ' natural explanati ,on will
account for the
fact that I was constraine ,d
to
return t,o a
place so utterly
devoid
of attractions
and
so foreign to all
· my natural tastes
and inclina ·tions.
The people
wer le not in
t ·he social grade to
which
I had been
acc·ust
1
ome,d,
.and I would
have found no
1
thi11gat all
congenial
in
their
society.
•
A·nd here I. wish ·to call particular
attentio11
to a striki1rig
ins,tanc
1
e of the fact that God's ways are no
1
t as out· ways, and
that the 'Wisdom of matt is foolishness with G
1
od. I
should
hav
1
e supposed that, in order to convihce m
1
e of t'he truth .of ·
the 'Bible and of C11ristianity it wottld 'be necessary to em·ploy
the best efforts
of
a
faculty of
the p1·ofo,un,de,st th,eologians,,
vetsed in all
the argu ll
1
ent,s
of skep tical
ph.ilos
ophy,,
,and
able · ·
to
f urnisl1
plausible rep lies
to
t.hem. But
God, in His wisdom,
sent me to learn the wa,y of ever lasting life ftom a
cotnpai1y
of .exceedingly p
1
lain, humble
p
1
eopl
1
e, of
little
1
education,1 to
whom I re,gar ,ded
myself as immeasur .ably superior i.n all the
high
1
er branches of knowledge. It is
true
that tl1ese
people
knew very little of
w·hat
is tattght
in colleges
and
seminaries;
but
the,y
did
have ·that k11owledge which is
th
1
e
highe,st
a11d
most
excellent ,of.
ali, that kn
1
owled.ge
for which ,one
of the 111ot
scl1olar ly of men of
his
day was wil]ing to
sacrifice all
his
advantages, counting them but refuse, and to cast away all
. his brilliant prospects, saying,
''I
count all
things but loss,
for
t11
exc,ellency
of
the kno luledge of'
Christ
Je .sus
my Lord''
( Pl-1i .
3
1
:1). · · .
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The F wn damentals
So that my estimate of my own attain1nen ts was alto
gether wrong; and the actual truth was that, in comparison
with the simplest of those who had knowledge
oi
Jesus Christ
as Savior and who confessed Him as Lord, was but an
ignoramu s.
do not rem ember how many ti1nes went to these meet~
ings
before I yielded to the Spirit's influence, and I do- not
remember that was conscious of any benefit from attending
the meetings, which, from the ordinary standpoint, would
have been pronounced decidedly dull. The crisis in my life
came on the evening of May 24th, 1903, when, yielding to
an inward prompting which, gentle as it was, yet overpowered
all my natural reluctance and repugnance to such an act, I
went forward and
knelt
with a few others at the front of the
meeting roon1. I took the sinner's place, and confessed myself
in need of the grace of God.
A
Christian man (the same who
at
first asked
me
about n1y soul) kneeleq by me and called .on
the Lord
Jesus to
save me. Of course, the act of publicly
kneeling and calling on the natne
of
the Lord is not a neces
sary part of the process
of
conversion. There is
no
specified
place or manner in which the gift of eternal life is received.
What
is
necessary, however, is that one should believe God,
first as to the fact that ~e is a sinner and can do .nothing for
himsel_; and second, that Jesus Christ, risen from the dead,
the
Etern .al
Son of
God,
is the Sin-Bearer
for
all who believe
on Hin1- Who was delivered for our offenses, and raised
again for our justification (Rom.
4 :25).
did not know the nature of what was happening, for
did not believe in sudden conversions. supposed that a
change of nature, if it occurred at
all,
qiust be very gradual
an evolution, in fact. But my ignorance of the process did
not stand in the way of the mighty power of God, acting
in grace,
to
quicken me into new life (Eph.
1 :19;
2:5). I ·
called upon the name of the Lord, with a deep conviction of
in in
my
heart ; and that was enough.
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111
''IF ANY MAN BE IN CHRIST, I-lE IS l NEW CREATU RE''
In
the years
that
have elapsed I have come to
a bet~
ter understanding o·f the tre111endous change which
took
-
place that night though onJy in eternity will I fully com-
prehend
it.
Certainly it was
life from tl1e
dead.
Spiritual
things £rom
tl1at moment became
realities, and took a .
place
in
my thou .ght and consciousness. Th,e
things that
once
had
a l1old upon me began to lose their attraction. ·1 soon learned
by a happy
experie11ce
tl1at
if
a man be in
Cl1rist,
there is
a new creation an entirely new environment that old
thi11gs
l1ave
passed away, and all things have
become new; and
that
a]l things
are
of
God
(2
Cor. 5
:17, 18). In
a
very short
time the habits
of my
life , as well
as
the occupations
of my
·heart
and mind, underwent
a great change.
The
habit of
daily
Bible
reading, · and
of 1norning
and evening prayer,
wa
i1nmediately established. Of ten previot1sly I had tried to
pray, as I felt the pressure of misery and distress of mind; ..
and innumerable
time s
both publicly
and privately, I had ,
''sa id
my
prayers; but it was not praying, for I was in
u,nbelief. I did not believe
tl1e
Word of God, but criticized
and rejected it. I did not believe in the virgin . birth 0£ our
Lord, nor in .His vicarious death, nor in His physical resur- ·
•
rection.
The
doctrine
of His blood-shedding for the sins of ·
others, and of His being made sin for us, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5 :21) I
rega rded as
unphilosophical and unworthy of belief.
T'he
only
God
I knew
was the god
of
mate rialism, a creature
of
1nan's vain imagination.
I had
no
knowledge
0£
the
God
and Father of our Lord Je sus
1
Cl1rist.
DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES S,WEPT AWAY
•
•
•
Perhaps the most
wonderful
change
which was
1nanif est
to my ·consciousness, when my 1nind b·eg~n to
resume its
norm .a) activity and to inquire into ,vhat had happened, v.ras ·
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The undamentals
this, that all my doubts, questionings, skepticism and crit i
cism concerning God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, con
cerning the
full
insp irati on, accuracy and authority of ...._he
Holy Scriptures as the incorruptible Word of God, concerning
the sufficiency of Chri st's atonement to settle the que~tion of
sin, and to provide a ground upon which God could, in per
fect righteousness, forgi ve and justify a sinner, and concerning
an assured salvation and per fect acceptance in Christ, were
swept away completely. Fron1 that day to this I have nev er
been troubled
by
doubt s of God and His Word.
IF THOU SI:L LT RE LIE VE IN THINE HEARTu
This experience is to me, and will be to any one
who
refl~cts upon it, .ver~ wonderful
~ ~
i~pressive. ~ad. no
notion at all that intelle ctual difficulties and questioning s
could be removed in any way except by being answered, one
by one, to the intellectual satisfaction of the person in whose
mind they existed. But my doubts and difficulties were not
met in that way. They were simply removed when believed
on the Crucified One, and accepted Him as the Christ of God,
and as my personal Savior.
The explanation of this
is
that
the
seat
of
unbelief
is
not in the head, but in the heart (Rom. 10 :9) . It is th e
will
that is wrong; and the bristling array of doubts and
difficulties which spring up in the mind are mere disguises and
pretexts supplied by th e enemy of souls, behind which the
unbelieving heart tries to shelter itself and to justify
it
unbelief.
This
is
the exp lanat ion of those words of our Lord, who
knew what was in man, ' Ye
w ll
not
come to
Me
that ye might
have life (John 5 :40).
It is man's unbroken and unyielded will that prevents him
from coming to the Fountain
of
eternal life and receiving
that unspeakab~e gift of God. And this, too, is why it is
,vritten, For with th e heart ma n believeth unto righteous-
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•
113
•
•
ness'' (Rom. 10 :9). The natural 1nind is the conge11ialbreed
ing place of doubts and questionings, and (as
it
deems these
to
b
1
e of
g1·eat
importan ,c
1
e)
i·t
s·ttpp,oses,
that
these
m U,st
be dealt
vvith seriati1n. The ·natural man kn,ows nothing about being
rtransformed by
the
renewing of tl1e n1ind'' (R .om. 12 :2),
a.11dhe ''receives . not the thin .gs of
tl1e.
Spirit of God; , for th,ey
ar
1
e fool ·ishness unto him; neither can
he
know them, because
•
they are
spiritually
disc·er~ed'' ( 1 Cor. 2: 14). Bu·t when the
heart , the
cente,r
of man's being,
th ,at
i11most
place
to
whicl1
God alone has
acc,ess,,
is p·ersuaded, tl1,e whole
n1an
is chang
1
ed,
•
a11d tl1e mind lil<:ewise re11ewed
and purged
of its
·pestilential
brood
of
d
1
oubts
and reasonin .gs.
Therefore, what 11ad previously held me back from ac.cept-
1n,g the salva ·tion
tl1at
is freely offered tr1rough
Cl1r,ist
Jesus
was not tl1e
brood of
doubts and re·asonings
with
which my
l1ead
teemed.,
I .n
S1uppo sing~
that th
1
clifficulty
lay
there
I
was miser,ah1y d
1
ece,ived, as are
111yriad
of others '''in wl1om
t.11egod of· this world hath h
1
linded
the
minds
of them tl1at
be:lieve not,
le,st, the light of the Gospel of the glory of Chri.st,
who is the image of God, sl1011ld dawn upon them'' (2 Cor.
4
:4, R. V.). God took no notice
at
all of the questionings
of
my
puny mind, which s,eemed to me
very
formidable and
worthy
of the
most
respe ,ctf u,l
cons ·ideration. He d1,alt witl1
them
according
to
His , ·OWn sovereign will
and
r,emo·ved them
in a moment. This was not difficult at a11 o H .m who ''taketl1
up the isles as a
very
little thin ,g_''
Hence the stupendous change, whereby
one , dead
in
t1·es
passes and sins is quickened tog~ther with Christ ( Eph.
:
5) ,
is ·not a,ccomplished through
,any
process
1
0£
reasoning,
nor
i,s
it the OUtcome of
any ·p
1
ro
1
cess
1
0·f
develop iment.
It . is
t&e
im1nediate
and mighty
worlc
0£
God 'ithe working of · His
mighty
pow
1
er which He wrought i11 Christ
when
He raised
Him from the dead and s,et Him at His own rigl1t hand in
tl~eheaven ·t.Yplaces'' {Eph. 1 :19, 20
1
) ;
and it is a wo·r,k which is
done instantly in tpem that believe
on ·
th e 'Lord
Jest1s
Chriist
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I should, of course, be wholly at a loss_ o interpret this
experience but for the Scriptures; and thereby the Divine
- authorship of these is further confirmed. In the light of
the Scriptures .it is easy to see that what had occurrep. wa
an inwrought conviction produced by the Holy Spirit, the
One now ministering in the world, testifying of a risen,
ascended and glorified Christ, at the right hand of God, and
convicting of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is st yed
on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee
(Isa. 26:3). Another
n1arked result of believing the witness
of
God which He
hath testified of His Son ( 1 John 5 :9) has been the com
plete deliverance from the spells of mental depression, which
were rapidly developing into a state of settled melancholia,
or
what is called nervous prostration, from which so many
are suffering in these times
of
high pressure, and concerning
~he cause of which they are totally ignorant. The mind cannot
be kept in perfect peace that is stayed upon material and
perishing thirtgs. It is manifestly a satisfactory and sufficient
explanation of peace of mind that it is stayed'' upon the
unchangeable God. This deliverance from mental depression
was not immediate, for did not learn at once to stay my
mind on Him ; but the change
began
immediately and pro
gressed until settled peace became the normal mental con
dition.
I have learned, in a word, that the redemption that is_ n
Christ Jesus covers and meets all the consequences of. sin
whether manifested in soul, or mind, or body. Our salvation is
of the Lord and is for the whole man, spirit, soul and
body.
uBelieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,
and thy house
(Acts 16:31). Within two months from the
eyent related above ( which, by the way, through timidity and
fear of comment and ridicule I tried to keep as much as
possible to myself) I was put in a position where I was com-
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A Personal T estirno11y
'115
pelled to open my lips to a beloved member of my own fam ily,
suffering as I could plainly
see,
from what had formerly
oppre ·ssed me, and to preach Christ for the first time. · W hat
effort the delivery of this sermon cost me cannot be described.
It
consisted of these words : What you need is the · Lord
Jesus Christ; and after their utterance the preacher had not
another ·word to say, and the only visible result was a very
awkward and constrain ed silence. Yet this simple, clumsily
given testimony, together with some verses of Scriptu re read
at random, were used by the Spirit of
od
to quicken another
dead soul. There were yet two more of the hou sehold to be
brought to a knowledge -of Christ, but it was not long before
these likewise, and without any pre ssure from us, accepted
Christ, and were tran slated out of darkness .into His n1ar
velous light.
T he path of the righ teous is as the daivning light, that
shineth 'more and more unto the perfe ct day (P rov. 4 :18
R. V.). It
was a great and wonderful surprise to
us to
find
that there was such a thing as an assurance of -salvation,
with im1nediate and unmi stakable blessings given. to believer s
as an earnest and first-fruits of the inherita nce of the saints.
f\11
our previous theological instruction had been to th e
effect
that if one lived Ha good Christian life ( which many -deluded
souls are trying .to do before they have got it) he might
possibly be save d hereafter, but that there was no certainty
for anybody until the day of jud g1nent.''
But even greater surpri ses awaited us. Blessed
as it is
to know upon the evidence of Chri st's own statement , prefaced
by His Verily, verily ,
I
say unto you, that He who hears
His Word and believes on Him who sent Hhn has everlasting
life and shall not come into jud gment, but
is
passed from
death unto life ·(John 5 :24), there ·was much more to follow.
God's goodness toward us did not stop at revealing the truth
as to our acceptance in Christ and our consequent eternal
security. He led us to see that it was our duty ·and privilege
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116
The F und a1nenta /s
to take at once the place of rejection with Christ, who has
been cast out o this age and all of its affairs and enterprises ,
the rulers ( or leader s) of this age having crucified
the Lord
of Glory (
1
Cor~
:8).
He showed us tha.t Christ had ,given
Himself o.r
our
sins for the express purpose that He might
deliv.er us. from this present evil age ( Gal. 1 :4) ; ~nd that
His will for the redeemed of this age is that they should
go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach
(Heb. 13 :13).
The camp is, superficially at least, an attractive place, full
of gaiety and revelry, with every possible device to delight
the eye and gratify the mind of the flesh. By keeping the
bright things as · much as possib le in evidence, and pushing
the wretchedness, suffering and misery into the background ,
the camp manages to keep up appearances, particularly as its ·
oc~upants are quite willing to be deceived, and are pretty well
agreed that it is the duty of every dwell er therein to be an
optimist. Having led the Chri st of God outside the gate,
and put Him to death , the leaders of thi s · present evil age''
have devoted their gr eat talents and energie s, under the superb
dire ction and management of the god of this age, to the one
object of making such progress,'' and developing such a glori-
ous civilization, as will demonstrate that the world has no
need of Christ . In carrying out this great undertaking the
leaders of this age are sufficiently astute to provide a place
inside the camp even for those who profess and call them-
selves Chri stians, making them welcome in the world, a.hd
even giying them positions of prominence therein, upon the
. single easy condition that they will accept the age's gospel of
progress, an.d. subscribe heartily to the doctrine that the world
is getting better every day. This condition the aforesaid
Christians are for the greater part quite rea~y, not only
to accept, but
even
to ·make it an article of religion, chang -
ing the Scriptures so far as neces sary to that end.
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117
A PeYisonalTe stiwiony
•
The L,ord h1a s further
shown
us
that,
so far from finding
. it a deprivation to withdraw ourselves from the pursuits and
amusements of
the
cam ,p
1
and froJn
its
1
godless mirth,
which
•
is as the crackling of dry thorns under a pot, ~we have in fact
gained unspeakably thereb ,y. The new interests which now
occupy
us (having to do with Him in
whose
presence is full
ness
of
joy, and at whose
right
hand
are
pleasu'tes for .ever
more,)
are far
more
satisfying, and contribute
far more
real
gratification than a11
the things
in
which,
for want
of
knowl~
edge of something better, we
used
to be interested, and in
the pursuit of which we spent our time and money. It seems,
humanly
speaking,
impossible
to
n1ake our frie11ds
and
asso-
ciates
in the old 1ife under stand
that
we have not
suffered
· any deprivations whatever. ''Having the understanding Car.k~
ened,'' they can only see the worthless things which we ha.Ve
cast aside, and can take no cognizance of the riches of grace
and glory which
the
believer in Christ has,
''in
whom it hath
pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell'' (Col. 1 :19).
It is as if a beggar were given, through
kingly
munificence,
a suit of rich apparel, and should hasten to put it on, joyfully
casting
aside the rags with wl1ich he was previously clad,
and some onlooker s, lilcewise
1
cla,d in dingy ,garments should
•
be
able to see only the discarded rags, and should thCreupon
hasten
away clasping
their own rags
tightly
around them for
fear a li1{e experie ·nce might befall ·them.
•
''IF I GO, 1 WILL COME AGAIN'' {John 14:3)
•
The L
1
ord has
also
enabled us to look
bey
1
btid ''t 'his
ptese11t ·
evil age," of Which Satan is the god., to the
age
that is soon
to come, in which Christ will return to earth, and all His
redeemed with Him, as prophesied since Enoch's time
(Jude
14; Rev. 19:11-16, etc.), and ''to the times of
restitution
of
•
all things ,vhich God hath spoken
by
the mouth of
ll
His
holy
prop ,hcts since th e ,vorld began" ( Acts 3
:21). .
•
•
•
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The Fundamentals
But, n1ore than that, we have been led .to look, not for
ear thly happiness or for bliss af ter death , but for th at event ,
which is nearer still, and which it is the privil ege of the
believer to expect at any mo1nent, when th e Lo rd I-Iimself shall'
call upon His own to meet H im in th e air ( 1 Th ess. 4 :16, 17;
1 Cor. 15 :51, 52) . And so th e grac e of God, which bring s
salvation, hath appea red, teaching us that, denying µngod
liness and worldly lusts, we should live so9erly, righteously ,
and godly in this present world; lookin g for that blessed hope
and the glorio us app earing of our great God and Savior
Jesus Chr ist, who gave H imself for us (Titu s 2 :11-14).
This is not the teaching of the wisdom of this age, nor of
the leaders of thi s age ; nor is it the teaching of tho se professed
mini sters of Chr ist who have accepted the gospel of this age
the gospel of its pro gress and betterment; but it is the teach
ing of the grace of God and of the Word of God, and we
have accepted and rejoice in
it. .
Y ea, and all that w oitld live godly in Christ Jesus shall
suffer persecution. It would not be a truthful represen tation
of the matt er to n1ake it appear that therP have been no
unpleasant experience s attending and resulting from this
departur e from our old way s and ent ering upon the one
true and living way. There ha s been, of course, much
adverse comment, much irritation, much hostility aroused ,
we have heard many referenc es· to self-righteousnes s,''
fa natici s1n, and the like. To desert the ways of the world
is, of cour se, to conde1nn tho se ways; and they who are walk
ing in them cannot be expected to take it kindly. They turn
away exclaiming, 'Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
Damascu s, bett er than all the wa ters of Israel?' (2 King s
5 :12). Then why this narrow-mindedness and bigotry?
And, as might also be expected, the greate st resentment of our
conduct ha s been arou sed in those who, while ·professing to
belong to Christ, are casting their lot indi scrimin ·ately with
th e1n
who openly reject Him.
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I
•
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119
\
•
This, of
course,
we can
endure patiently;
because He said,
<'If
the
world
hate you,
ye
l<now tha 't
it
hated 11e
before
it
hated you'' (Jahn 15 :18); a11d the more so, because we know
tl1at those Who cheris 'h and
display
su,ch feelings do 'it in
ignorance
of the truth.
We remember
that
we were, and
not
so
very long ago,
in
precisely 'the san1e
1
darkne ,ss,
and tl1at it
required th ,e power and grace of God to let the light into
ot1r darkene d minds.
We
know, too, that we can
help
the se
· preci ,ous souls
for whom Christ died, only
by
maintaining oui~
separated
path,
and
by prayin ,g
that the
scales ,
m.ay fall fro1I1
· tl1eir
eye,s
also, that they may see what is the true
''coUt 'se
of tl1is wo,rld'' (Eph. 2 :2), of which it s, leaders ,are so bo,ast
ful, and where it will inevitably carry them who
pu1' sue
i·t
to
the
end; and abov ,e all
may
see th ,at
there i,s
eternal life
only
in Christ
and through faith
in His
atoning sacrifice and
in
His
resurr
1
ection fr
1
om ,among
the
1
de,ad (Ro ,m. 10 :9; Acts
•
•
•
17:3;
Rom. 4:24,
25;
1
Cor.
15:1-4 and 13,,
19, etc .). .
'.He that
believeth
on
the
S011
hath ~verlasting _ ife;
and
he tl1at believeth not the Son shall not see life ,; but the wr ,ath
1
of God abideth on.him'' (John 3,;36), .
•
•
•
•
•
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•
•
•
-
•
•
;
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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ADDENDA TO CHAPTER I
VARIOUS FACTS RESPECTING PLA CES W H ERE THE TABERNACL E
WAS BUILT OR LOCAT£D
I. MOU NT SI NAI
I TS LOCATIO N AN D PRESENT APPEARANCE
Dr.
J.
W. Dawson, in his Modern Science irt Bible Lands /'
gives the fall owing facts with r ega rd to the location and prese nt
appearance of the mountain near wh ich the Tabernacle was built.
The actual positi on of Mount Sinai has been a subject
0£
keen
controversy, which may be reduced to two questions: 1st, Was Moun t
Sinai in the peninsula of that name or elsewhere? 2d, Which of th e
mountains of the peninsula was th e Mount of the Law?
Aso th e
.first of these questions, the claims of the peninsula are supported
by
an overwhelming mass of tradition and of authority~ ancient an d
modern~
If this question be considered as settled, then it remains to inqui re
which of the mountain summits of that group of .hil1s in the southern
end of the peninsul a, which seems to be designated in the Bible by
the general name of Horeb, should be regarded as the ve.ritabl e
'Mount of the Law?' Five of the mountain summits of this re gion
have laid claim to this distinction; and their relative merits the
explorers [those of the English Ordnance Survey] test by seven
criteria which must be fulfilled by the actual mountain. These ar e:
( 1) A mountain overlooking a plain on which the millions of Isra el
could be assembl ed. (2) Spac e for the people to 'remove and stand
a far off' when th e voice of the Lord was heard, and yet to hear that
voice. (3) A defined peak distinctly visible from the plain. ( 4) .A mon-
tain so predpitous that the people might be said to stand und er it
and to touch its base. (5) A mountain capable of being isolat ed
by
boundaries. (6) A mountain with sprin gs and streams of water in
its
vicinity. 7) Pa stur age to ma intain the flocks of the peopl e for
a year.
By th ese cri teria th e survey ors rejec t two of the mounta ins,
Jebel el E jme h and J ebel Umm aJawi, a s destitute of sufficient water
120
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ddenda
121
and pasturage. Jebel Katharina, whose claims arise from a statement
of
Josephus that Sinai was the highest mountain of the district, which
this peak actually is, with the exception
of
neighboring summit
twenty-five feet higher, they reject because of the fact that it is not
visible from any plain suitable for the encampment of the Is rae lites.
Mount Serbal has in modern times
had
some advocates; but the
st1r
veyors allege in opposition to these that they do not find, as has been
stated, the Sinaitic inscriptions more plentiful there than elsewhere,
that the traces of early Christian occupancy do not point to it any
more than early tradition, and that it does not meet the topographical
requirements in presenting a defined peak, convenient camping-ground,
or a sufficient amount of pasturage.
There only remains the long-established and venerated JebeJ
Musa-the orthodox Sinai ; and this, in a remarkable and conspicu
ous manner, fulfils the required conditions, and, besides, illustrates
the narrative itself in unexpected ways. This mountain has, how
ever, two dominant peaks, that of Jebel Musa proper, 7,363 feet in
height,
and that of Ras Sufsaf~h,
6,937
feet high;
and
of these the
explorers do not hesitate at once to pref er the latter. This peak or
ridge is del?cribed as almost isolat ed, as descending precipitously to the
great plain oi the district, Er Rahah, which is capable of accommo
dating two millions of persons in full view of the peak,
and
has
ample camping ground for the whole host in its tributary valleys.
Further, it is so completely separated from the neighboring mountains
that a short an.d quite intelligible description would define its limits,
which could be easily marked out.
Anothe r remarkable feature is, that we have here the brook
descending out of the mount referred to in Exodus (Ch. 32 :20),
and, besides this, five other perennial streams in addition to many
good springs. The country is by no means desert, but supplies much
pasturage; and when irrigated an<l attended to, forms good gardens,
and is indeed one of the best and most fertile spots of the whole
peninsula. The explorers show that the statements of some hasty
travelers who have given. a different view are quite incorrect, and
also that there is reaso n to believe that there was greater rainfall and
more verdure in ancient times than at present in this part of the
country. They further indicate the Wady Shreick, · in which is the
stream descending from the mount, as the probable place of the
making and destruction of the golden calf, and a hill known as
J
ebel
Moneijeh, the mount of conference, as the probable site of the Taber
nacle. They think it not improbable that while Ras Sufsafeh was
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122
The Fundamentals
the Mount of the Law , the retirem ent of Moses during his soJourn
on the mount may have been beh ind the peak,
in
the recesses of
Jebel Musa, which thus might properly bear his name ."
II. SHILOH
ITS RUINS AS REC ENTLY INVESTIGATED
Colonel Sir Charles Wilson thus describes the present ruins of
Shiloh, in "Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement" for 1873, pp.
37, 38:
"The rui ns of Seilun (Shiloh) cover the surface of a 'tell,' or
mound, on a spur which lies between two valleys, that unite about
a quarter of a mile above Khan Lubban, and thence run to the sea.
The existing remains are those of a fellahin village, with few earlier
foundations
1
possibly of the date of the Crusades. The walls are
built with old materials, but none of the fragments of columns men
tioned by some travelers can now be seen. On the summit are a
few heavy foundations, perhaps those of a keep, and on the southern
side is a building with a 4eavy sloping buttress. The rock is exposed
over nearly the whole surface, so that littl e can be expected from .
excavation. Northwards, the 'tell' slopes down to a broad shoulder
across which
a
sort of level court, 77 feet wide
and 412
feet .long, has
been cut out. The rock is in places scarped to a height of five feet ,
and along the sides are several excavations and
a
few small cisterns.
The level portion of the rock is covered by a few inches o.f soil.
It is
not
improbable that the place was thus prepared to receive the
Tabernacle, which, according to Rabbinical traditions, was a structure
of
low stone walls, with the tent stretched over the top. At any rate,
there is no other level space on the 'tell' sufficiently large to
rece>t·e
a tent of the dimensions of the Tab erµa cle.
I '"The spring of Seilf.m is in a small valley which joins the main
one
a
short distance northeast of the ruins. The supply, which
k
small. after running a few yards through a subterranean channe\>
was formerly led into
a
rock -hewn reservoir, but now runs to waste '
T.o ·the above items Major Claude R. Conder, R. E., in his "Tent
Life in Palestine," Vol I, pp. 81, 82, adds as follows :
"There is no site in the country fixed with greater certainty .than .
that of Shiloh. The modern name Seilf.m preserves the most archaic
form, which is found in th e Bible in the ethnic Shilonite ( 1 Kings
11 ;29). The position of the ruins ~grees exactly with the very defi
nite description given
in
the Old Tes .tam ent of the position of Shiloh,
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Addenda
123
as 'on the north side of Bethel (now Beitin) , on the east side of the
highway that goeth up from Bethel to Sbechem,. and on the south of
Lebona h' (Lubbin) (Judg. 21 :19).
It
is just here that Shiloh still
stands in ruins. The scenery of th e wild mountains · is finer than that
in Judea; the red .color of the cliffs, which are of great height, is
fa r more picturesque than the shapeless chalk mountains near Jeru
salem; the
fig gardens and oli;e groves arc more luxuriant,
but
the
crops are poor compared with the plain and round Bethlehem. A deep
valley runs behind the town on the north, and
in
its sides ar e many
rock-cut sepulchers. .
The vineyards of Shiloh ha ve disappeare d, though very possibly
once surrounding the spring, and perhaps extending down the valley
westwards, where water is also found. With the
destruction of the
village, desolation has spread over the barren hills around.
III. NOB
SITE OF THE VILLAGE IDENTIFIED
So thin ks Rev. W. Sh aw Caldecott. See his treatise on ''The
Tabernacle,
Its
History and Structure, pp. 53, 54 :
Four miles to th e north of J erusalem, and at the distance of a
quarter
o f
a.
mile to the east of the main road, is
a
curiously kn6bbed
and double-topped hill, named
by
the Arabs
Tell
(
or Tuleil)
el Full.
The crown of this hill is thirt y feet higher than Mount Zion, and
]
eru salem can be plainly seen from it. On its top is a large pyramidal
mound of unhewn stones, which Robinson supposes to have been
originally a square tower of 40 or 50 feet, and to have been violently
thrown down. No other foundations are to be seen. At the foot
of the
hill
are ancient substructi011s,
built
of large unhewn stones
in
low, massive walts. These are on the south side, and adjoin the
great road.
If we take th e Scriptural indications . as to the site of Nob
(heig ht·), this hill and these ruins fulfill all th e conditions of the case.
(a) Nob was so far regarded as belonging to Jerusalem, as one
of its villages ( thus involving its proximity), that David's bringing
Goliath's head and sword to the Tabernacle at Nob was regarded as
bringing th em to Jerusalem
(1
Sam .
17
54).
''( b) A clearer indication as to its situation is, however, gained
by the record of the restorat ion to wns and villages in which Nob
is mentioned, the name occurring between those of Anathoth and
Ananiah (N eh. 11 :32). Th ese two places still bear practically the
' .
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124 - The Fundamentals
satne names, and theit sites are well known. In the narrow space
between Anata and Hanina stands the hill Tell el-Full, which we
take to be andeht Nob.
( c) Another indication is contained in saiah's account of Sen
nacherib's march on Jerusalem, ,the pictures que climax of which is,
'This very day shall he halt at Nob; he shaketh his hand at th
mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem' ( Isa. 10 :28 32).
Th ere are only two hills on the north from which the city can be
seen, so
as
to give reality to
the
poet's words .
One of these
i
Neby Sam1.r.ti,
and the other is
Tell el-Full.
IV. GIBEON
IDENTITY OF ANCIENT CITY WITH EL-JIB, ALSO 1,'HE G REAT
HlGH PLACE, OF
1
KINGS
3 :4,
INDICATED
In Hastings'
Dictionary of the Bibl e,
Art . Gibeon, J. F. Stenni ng
says as follows :
The identity of Gibeon with th e village of El-Jib, which lies some
six or seven miles northwest of J eru salem, is practi cally beyond disput e.
The modern village still pr eserve s the first part of the older nam e,
while its situation agrees in every respec t with the requirements of
the history of the Old Testament. Ju st beyond Tell el-Full (Gibeah) ,
the main road north from Jerusalem to Beitin (Bethel) is joined by
a branch road leading up from the coast The latter forms the · con
tinuation of the most southerly of three routes which connect th e
Jordan valley with the Maritime Plains. * * * Now just befor e
this road ( coming up from the Jordan valley) leaves the high er
groun d and · descends to the Shephel eh, it divides into two, the one
branch leading down to the Wady Suleim an, the other running in a
more southerly direction by way of the Bethhorons. Here, on thi s
fertile, open plateau, slightly to the south of the main road, rises
the hill on which the modern village of El-Jib is bu'ilt, right on th
frontier line which traver ses the central range to the south of Bethel.
It was the natural pass acro ss Palestine, which in ear ly time s served
as. the political bord r r between Nor th and South Israel, and
it
was
owing to its position that Gibeon acquired so much prominence in the
reigns of David and Solomo l).. A short distance to the east of
t h P
viJlage, at the foot of the hill, th ere is, further, a stone tank o.
reservoir of considerable size, supplied by a spring which ris es in a
h
. h .
cave 1g er up.
Tl1is spring, the exp lorers tell us, was probably the ancient pool
of Gibeon mentioned
in
2 Sam. 2 :13.
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ddenda
125
Also, respecting the great high place, Smith's
Dictionary
has
the following:
The most natural position for the high place of Gibeon is the
twin mountain immediately south of El-Jib, so close as to be all but
a part of the town, and yet quite separate and distinct. The testi
mony of Et1iphanius, viz., that the 'Mount of Gibeon' was the highest
round Jerusalem, by which Dean Stanley supports his conjecture
(that the present Neby Samwil was the great high place), should
be
received with caution, standing, as it does, quite alone and belonging
to an age which, though early, was marked by ignorance and by the ·
most improbable conclusions.
Some additional facts, as given by Rev. W. Shaw Caldecott (ibid.
pp. 60-62), are as f o1lows :
El-Jib is built upori an isolated oblong hill standin g in a plain or
basin of great fertility. The northern end of the hill is covered over
with old massive ruins, which have fallen down in every direction, and
in which the villagers now live. Across the plain to the south is the
lofty range of Neby Samwil. * Gibeon was one of the four
towns
in the
division of Benjamin given as residences for the sons
of Aaron (Josh. 21 :17).
It
was thus already inhabited by priests, and
this, added to its other advantages, made it, humanly speaking, a not
unsuitable place for the capital of the new kingdom . No remains of
( very ancient) buildings have been discovered, such as those o·f er
Ramah and Tell el-Full.
,
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