Division £)SIZ'IS
Section
A , V)!"]
The Bible: ^^^^iS^
Its Structure and Purpose
JOHN URQUHART
Member of the Society of Biblical Archaeology
and Associate of the Victoria Institute.
AUTHOR OF
'The New Biblical Guide," "What are We to Believe?'
'The Inspiration and Accuracy of the Holy Scriptures.'
WITH
AN INTRODUCTION BY
Dr. ARTHUR T. PIERSON
VOLUME L
New York :
GOSPEL PUBLISHING HOUSB
D. T. Bass, Mgr.
54 West 22D Street
Copyright 1904 by
Gospel Pubushinq House,
NEW YORK.
Rights of Translation reserved.
INTRODUCTION.
A great conflict is now in progress, and many
think it is the last great decisive battle of the ages.
A gigantic foe, boastful and pretentious, under the
guise of the "higher criticism," wearing the showy-
armor of German rationalistic scholarship, is defying
the armies of the living God.
Many who ought to have proven champions
and defenders of the faith once delivered to the
Saints, and to the Covenant of Christ, are faint-
hearted and flee in dismay.
The author of this series we know ; he is a
man of strong convictions and of the courage of his
convictions, and he shows the spirit of David, and
with sling and smoath stones gathered from the
brook of the Word of God, he goes forth and
meets this Philistine boaster, challenging him to
battle in the name of Jehovah.
His writings, we feel, are what in our day
meet the needs of the great crisis. He is an
intelligent advocate of the truth, and he finds and
exposes the weak points of the foe that assails the
truth.
The value of his work is acknowledged every-
where by the friends of God's Word. We can
safely commend his books to the careful reading
of all believers, and we hope that they may have
a wide circulation, and may be called to the atten-
tion of many whose minds have been disturbed
as to the foundation of their faith.
^ 4rfL^^-
^^y-tf'^^u — '
CONTENTS.
THE BIBLE AND CRITICISM: IS THE BATTLE ENDED?
CHAP. PAGE.
I. The Present State of the Question 1
II. The Limits of Critical Ability 5
III. The Morality of Ancient Transcribers 10
Appendix: The Babylonians as Transmitters of Ancient
Documents. By Theophilus G. Pinches, LL.D 14
IV. The Higher Criticism based upon Impossible Assumptions ... 24
HOW DID WE GET THE BIBLE?
I. The Question stated 33
• II. The Councils and the New Testament. » 36
III. Is the Estimation, in which the Books of the New Testament
were held, a Developmeni ? 4.^
IV. Is the Estimation, in which the Books of the New Testament
were held, a Development ? ( Continued) 53
V. The Claims made by the New Testament Writers 65
VI. How the New Testament Canon was formed 75
VII. Have we the Original New Testament ? 79
VHI. The Jewish Stewardship of the Old Testament : How it was
Discharged 88
IX. What of the Apocrypha ? 98
X. Is the Apocrypha Quoted in the New Testament ? 108
XI. Have wo to-day the very Scriptures possessed by our Lord
and His Apostles? 120
XII. The Qne=tion as to the Old Testament settled by our Lord and
His Apostles 135
WHY HAS GOD GIVEN US THE BIBLE?
I. The Answer of the Old Testament 147
II. The New Testament Reply 160
III. The New Testament Reply. ( Continued) 167
THE BIBLE A PLANNED BOOK 178
THE HISTORICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT... 186
GENESIS TO NUMBERS : ISRAEL OUTSIDE THE LAND.
I. The Plan of Genesis 1P5
11. The Unity of Genesis 200.
III. The Divine Stamp upon Genesis 207
IV. The Higher Criticism and the New Testament in their Attitude
towards Genesis 221
V. The Antiquity of Genesis : The Samaritan Pentateuch 234
VI. The Antiquity of Genesis : The Witness of Language and of
Research 245
The Bible:
Its Structure and Purpose
THE BIBLE AND CRITICISM:
IS THE BATTLE ENDED?
CHAPTER I.
The Present State of the Question.
MUCH is said at the present time of the over
throw of traditional beliefs, and of the necessity
under which every intelligent man now lies of adapting
himself to the new condition of things. But has
criticism already and finally won the battle, and has
the time really come to divide the spoil ? That is a
question which should not fail to be asked by those
who are seeking to adjust their theological bearings.
If the last word has indeed been spoken, and if that
word has confirmed the critical verdicft, the outlook
is one which we can hardly contemplate with a light
heart. The Bible has made our country. The best
manhood and womanhood in it have been awed,
warned, changed, and cheered by its words. It has
repressed what we thought was baser in us, and
2 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
strengthened what we thought was nobler. It has
humanised us. It has laid upon us the bands of
brotherhood. It has done all this because it was
received as God's Book, and because we felt that
conviction of its sacred character deepened the more
we studied its pages. If it is to be to our children
all that it has been to us and to our ancestors, we
may count upon the same national strength and
honour, the same quiet reserve of power, the same
hatred of wrong, the same endurance for right. But,
if that belief in the Bible is to pass away like a dream,
there is little to re-assure us in the usual lofty talk.
The ancient world had its philosophies and its culture.
But the multitude was dropped as a weight which no
philosophy or culture was able to carry; and the best
efforts could not save the cultured classes themselves
from sinking down into pollution which placed
the civilisation of the time infinitely beneath its
barbarism.
I am quite aware that truth has its sacrifices, and
that no regard for consequences can make us keep on
believing that two and two make five. But regard
for consequences has its place. It enforces caution.
It commends sobriety and earnestness in judgment.
Is it really true that science has discredited Scripture ?
I know that this is confidently asserted, and that it is
still oftener assumed as being as much beyond argu-
ment as the Copernican theory. But I happen also
to know that the science which is supposed to have
discredited the Bible is the science of sixty years ago.
I know that its indiftment of the Creation history
7s the Battle Ended? . 3
in Genesis cannot be sustained by the science of to-
day ; that authoritative geology has recently brought
back the Flood and finds in it the great dividing line
between palaeolithic and neolithic man ; that, in the
brighter light shed by recent research, supposed
differences between Scripture and science have dis-
appeared, and left an agreement apparent which is
one of the marvels of our time. The man who begins
to settle his theological bearings under the belief that
science has hopelessly discredited the Bible will,
therefore, settle them under an unhappy delusion.
The higher criticism has worked along its own
lines and has had its conclusions summarised for the
reading public in a Bible Dicftionary, in a couple of
Encyclopaedias, and in the Polychrome Bible. In
this last, which is also the most important of the
critical publications, we are presented, not with the
results of a discussion, but with the demands of a
revolutionary junto. This thing of many colours and
shreds and patches, which is really the reductio ad
abstirdicm of critical methods, is the only Bible which
is now to be left to the Churches, the Sunday-schools,
the educational institutions, and the homes of our
country. And this is no empty threat. This ** Bible
in tatters " is being handed to ministers and teachers
all over the land as the new critical Revelation. It
is being presented and accepted as " the truth
about the Bible." It has even entered the Mission
field. It is easy enough to calculate the results of
this movement. When the teacher's place is taken,
and the pulpit is filled, by honest men who have no
4 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
longer faith in a God-given Bible, how long will that
faith linger among the people ?
An important decision is consequently forced upon
us as a nation. What is to be our attitude toward
the new propaganda ? Is it to be tame submission or
stri(5t inquiry ? It may be asked, however, whether
a choice is possible ? Have not these questions been
threshed out by scholars in every way competent to
deal with them ? Is not the discussion closed, and
does not the Polychrome Bible sim,ply gather up the
now unchallenged results of a prolonged contro-
versy? No representation could be more misleading
than that. There has been, properly speaking, no
controversy. The critics have evaded discussion.
There are works of undoubted scholarship which
have traversed their findings, exposed their unproved
assumptions, and triumphantly vindicated the uni-
versal convictions of the Christian Church with regard
to the Bible. But the critics have not replied to these
assailants : they have ignored them. What need is
there for argument when you can quench opposition
by applying the extinguisher of authority ?
The lay mind knows something of the Shakespeare
controversy, and has a lively sense of its inherent
absurdity. But ridicule has not killed that craze. It
has increased in boldness, and now questions the
reality of " William Shakespeare." " There is no
such historical man," says one, " no individual known
who bore that name." It is quite within the limits
of possibility that this craze may become fashionable,
and that the tradition of the Shakespearian authorship
7s the Battle Ended? 5
may be given to the winds. There is an infe(ftious
exhilaration in paradox ; and this is not without a
respectable show of literary research and seemingly
forcible arguments. Let us suppose that one professor
of English Literature after another is won over to
the new views : that, by well-diredted influence, those
chairs are all gradually captured: that the literary
class is impregnated with the new notions ; and that
by Editors and Reviewers the question is regarded as
closed. History would then have repeated itself.
For such has been the story of the critical movement.
It has won its supposed triumph, not by scholarship
or argument, but by sheer audacity and adroit
manoeuvring.
Yet a temporary success of that kindisnot a vicftory.
If the views maintained rest upon solid fa<5t, then
the triumph, however achieved, may be expefted to
endure ; but if its basis is only empty theory and
mere assumption, the triumph is but the illusion of a
moment. How much the imagined vidtors of to-day
have to fear the future the following pages will reveal
even to the lay mind.
CHAPTER II.
The Limits of Critical Ability.
THE^ critics assume that they are able to dissect
with accuracy manuscripts which are made up
of the work of various writers. This is in facft their
6 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
professed business ; and it is in the exercise of it
that they expecft to benefit mankind. They are so
conscious of their power in this matter that they
assume the name of " experts." By attention to the
subtleties of style, and to the peculiarities which
distinguish the writing of one age and of one author
from that of another, they tell us that they are able
to say where the words which flowed from the pen of
one writer stopped, and where the words of another
w.riter began. It is this power yvhich has enabled
them, they say, to separate Isaiah, not merely into
two, but into many, portions; to break up the Book
of Genesis — the first of their achievements ; and to
partition the Book of Revelation — among their last.
In short, they fully confess that, without this power
of what I may call literary divination, their work
would never have been done, and the higher criticism
could never have claimed the name of a science.
To see how unquestioningly they believe in this
ability of theirs, we have only to open their " Poly-
chrome Bible," Bacon's " Genesis of Genesis," or
Addis on " The Documents of the Hexateuch." Here
are some of the results gathered in this fierce light
which beats upon the Bible. In a single page of
"Joshua," by Professor Bennett, besides the main
divisions, I find the following instances of penetrating
insight. The words : " And all Israel stoned him "
(Joshua vii. 25) are separated from the text, and are
given to a writer who is supposed to have lived about
500 B.C. These three words : ** Then Jehovah re-
lented " (ver. 26) are similarly selecfled, and are said to
7s the Battle Ended? 7
be the work of an author who lived about fifty years
earlier. This, it will be confessed, is delicate work ; but
it is only an illustration of the sharp decisiveness and
the firm — I might call it the sublime — assurance which
marks all the produaions of this "expert" school.
Bacon's work is equally astonishing. The passage :
" In the day that the Lord — God made the earth and
the heavens" (see Genesis ii. 4) is dissecfted as follows.
A stop is made after the word Lord, thus dividing the
Divine name in two. The words : " In the day that
the Lord — " are assigned to a writer of 800 B.C. Those
which precede are said to have been written three
hundred and fifty years later ; and those which follow,
including the word " God," the second part of the
amputated Divine name, are alleged to be due to a
third writer, an editor, about whose exaa date there is
still some difference of opinion among the "experts."
But to stop even here would give the general public
no adequate conception of critical self-confidence.
They are not only able to judge of what they see, but
they can with equally imaginary infallibility divine
what they cannot see. We used to be told that, when
the Genesis narrative was separated, the critical
analysis justified itself to every unbiassed mind. The
two accounts were said to be so beautifully complete !
That superstition still lingers in many quarters ; but
everybody has not read Bacon's Genesis. It needs
some painful but pretty patching to make up "the
two narratives." There we find that "The Judean
Prophetic Narrative" opens thus: "When as yet there
was neither earth nor heaven but only the limitless
8 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
abyss, Yahweh set fast the foundations of the earth,
and raised up its pillars in the midst of the waters.
And over its surface He spread out the dome of the
heaven, establishing there the courses of the sun and
the moon and the stars ; but upon the surface of the
earth beneath there was neither motion nor hfe : all
was yet a solitude."
The reader rubs his eyes. He thought he knew
the opening chapters of Genesis. He casts his eye
down to the foot of the page and finds that the above
is a critical make-up ! Here is the note which meets
his glance : " Conjedturally restored from indications
in the earlier literature and by comparison
with the Babylonian cosmogonic myths." One is able
to comment upon many things. This is beyond me.
It must be left in its naked effrontery. Let ** Con-
JECTURALLY RESTORED" be its Only inscription and
its epitaph.
It will be clear, however, that everything is based
upon the assumed possession of this marvellous power
to say where one writer's work ends, and another's
begins. Without this there would have been no dis-
crimination of " sourc3S ; " no partition of documents ;
and, in a word, no higher criticism. Let this supposed
ability be successfully questioned, and the painfully
piled up edifice is not merely shaken to its foundations
— it lies in irremediable ruin. But it is already de-
monstrated that there are, and can be, no " experts "
of this sort. The assumed possession of this power has .
been put to the test again and again, and the results
have made these pretensions utterly incredible.
7s the Battle Ended? 9
There exists, for example, a confessedly composite
work in Finnish literature. Dr. Lonnrot, the collecftor
of the Finnic Folk-poetry, formed a great epic — the
Kalevala — by fusing together a large colleftion of
those ancient songs. He bequeathed his manuscripts
to the Society of Finnish Literature, so that what he
borrowed and what he added are made perfecftly clear.
This work afforded too good a test of this imaginary
critical power to be left unused. The critics were
set to work; and with lamentable results. "While
ignorant of the acftual facfts of the surviving songs,"
says Andrew Lang, " critical ingenuity could only
give us, at many hands and from many sides, its
usual widely discrepant results." And he adds :
*• We cannot trust it when the test of facTts, of docu-
ments, cannot be applied." Not very long ago, an
enthusiastic admirer of Thackeray (every charafter-
istic and trick of whose pen he believed he knew)
engaged in a search for papers which had not been
embraced in that writer's colledted works. He at last
discovered a number in some early volumes of Punch.
He had no doubt whatever as to the authorship.
The mark of the master-hand was everywhere ; and
he was certain that, to any man who knew Thackeray's
style, doubt was impossible. Arrangements were made
for the re-issue of the newly-discovered writings in
a leading literary organ in America. Some of the
papers had already appeared, when a communication
was received from the Punch Office, saying that the
treasurer's books made it plain that the articles were
not Thackeray's, The re-publication was immediately
lo The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
stopped, and the Editor retired from an ignominious
position with as much grace as the circumstances
permitted. The history of literature abounds with
such fadls. Critics, who can be trusted to divine the
authorship of documents, have never existed. They
do not exist now: and a "science" built upon that
assumption rests upon what is considerably less sub-
stantial than air. I say nothing of the professed
ability to furnish verbatim copies of manuscripts which
no man has ever seen. I believe that the records of
the higher criticism contain the only example of such
a pretension outside the annals of a lunatic asylum.
CHAPTER III.
The Morality of Ancient Transcribers.
A SECOND, and equally vital, assumption is that
concealed, composite authorship of this kind is
to be expefted in ancient documents. This is not
usually avowed as an axiom of criticism. For a
science, it frequently exhibits the haziest ideas regard-
ing its postulates. But the more logical minds see
something of the necessity, and they do their best to
meet it. For example, in the article *' Bible," in the
Encyclopedia Britannica, the late Prof. W. Robertson
Smith explains how this early Bible history was put
together. " It is," he says, " a stratification and not
an organism. This process was facilitated by the
habit of anonymous writing, and the accompanying
7s the Battle Ended? n
lack of all notion of copyright. If a man copied a
book, it was his to add and modify as he pleased, and
he was not in the least bound to distinguish the old
from the new. If he had two books before him to
which he attached equal worth, he took large extra^s
from both, and harmonised them by such additions
or modifications as he felt to be necessary."
That in Aberdeen and the surrounding districfls, as
in many a place besides, there was anciently a chronic
difficulty in distinguishing between meti,m and tiiiim,
we are not inclined to dispute. But we have not the
slightest hesitation in describing the above extracft as
an unworthy libel upon literary antiquity. There is
nothing to justify it. There is nothing even to
suggest it, apart from the necessities of the higher
criticism. For more than 2,000 years we know
that the Jew would have regarded such manipu-
lation of the sacred text as the most fearful of all
possible crimes. One of their greatest ancient books,
the Massorah, was anciently compiled to be " a fence
to the Law." It collefted the ancient traditions
concerning the sacred text ; and it enters into details
regarding the text, the sole objeft of which is to
prevent even accidental variation in the produftion
of copies. "The Massorah," says one who will not
be suspe(5led of exaggeration,* "indicates the
number of times that the same word is found in
the beginning, middle, or end of a verse. .... The
Massorah to the Pentateuch informs us which is the
middle htter of the Law ; and the Massorah at the
*J. Scott Porter.
12 The Bible: its Structure and Purpose.
end of the Bible is said to give the number of times
that each letter of the alphabet occurs from the
beginning to the end of the Old Testament. . . The
obje(ft of the Massorets," he adds, "in devoting so
much time and pains to these minutiae was doubtless
the very laudable one of forming a correft and standard
text of their religious code and of preserving it in
perpetuum pure from every corruption." A nation
does not change in a day. It does not change com-
pletely without leaving some trace or echo of the
revolution. But there is not the' slightest evidence
or hint to be found anywhere that the attitude of the
Jew towards the Scripture ever deviated from this
reverence and this scrupulous care that it should be
handed down to after times without the alteration of
a single letter. And yet this is the people whom the
critics credit with these huge alterations and inter-
polations; with cutting up, piecing together, and
issuing in such a shape that the authors, whose works
they are said to have handled, would not have known
their own produ(?tions !
But it may, and no doubt will, be suggested that
remoter times are not to be judged by what comes
within the view of even ancient history. Now, allow-
ing this suggestion for a moment, where could the Jew
have learned the art of falsifying documents ? We
have more than enough evidence to show that it was
not national ; but evil communications corrupt good
manners, and — let us say — the Jew may have picked
it up in Babylon. According to the critics, during the
captivity and the times which immediately followed
Is the Battle Ended ? 13
the captivity, the Jews were more than usually busy
in the manufacturing, and patching, and piecing
together of what we have so long looked upon as the
ancient Books of the Bible. Well, then, did this
literary contamination surround them in Babylonia ?
Was this the practice of the Babylonian scribes in
regard to ancient books ? To this question we have a
full reply ; and that is a most emphatic repudiation of
the charge. Transcription was in constant operation
in Babylonia, but it was carried out with scrupulous
fidelity. Every one who is acquainted with the in-
scriptions has been furnished with sufficient proof of
that. A closer study by those who are really " experts "
in Babylonian literature entirely confirms our first
impressions. In an elaborate, though brief, paper
upon this subject by Dr. Pinches, which the reader
will find further on,* he gives proofs of the care with
which the ancient texts were handed down ; while
Dr. Sayce, in a letter which I recently received from
him, writes : " The Assyrians were very exact in their
reproduction of ancient texts, reproducing them,
indeed, with Massoretic fidelity, a point which is of
im.portance when we remember their near relation-
ship to the Jews." It is plain, therefore, that even if
Israel had been already deep in those alleged pracftices
of literary theft and forgery which the critics credit
them with, their conscience must have been stirred
within them as they contemplated the nobler fidelity
of the heathen; But both Babylon and Israel repel
the charge. The praaice in the ancient East was
* See Appendix to this chapter.
14 The Bible: its Striichire and Purpose.
the pracflice of the West of to-day. The ancient scribe
kept as faithfully to the letter of the manuscript which
he transcribed as the modern printer keeps to his
copy.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.
The Babylonians as Transmitters of Ancient
Documents. By Theophilus G. Pinches, LL.D.*
THERE is but little doubt that the existence of such
a mass of literature as that of the Babylonians
and Assyrians, with its original inscriptions extending
from, say, 3000 b.c. to within a few decades of the
Christian era, is of considerable importance for estim-
ating the value of the documents produced by the
Semitic race in general, and the Babylonian and Hebrew
nations, who were so closely akin, in particular. Natur-
ally, scribes and copyists differ very much among
themselves in every nationality, and probably the
careless always greatly outnumber the careful. But
the carelessness of the careless may be, and probably
would be, modified by the nature of the text which he
was reproducing. If it were something which did not
interest him, we might expect his copy to be very bad.
If he was merely interested in it, we might expect the
correctness or incorrectness of his copy to vary in
accordance with the intensity of that interest. If, on
the other hand, it was something in which he was not
merely interested, but an inscription of a religious
nature, affecting, perhaps, his life and his prospects in
* Author of The Old Testament in the Light 0/ the Legends, &-c., &c.
Is the Battle Ended} 15
this world, and bearing upon the position of his soul
hereafter, we might expect his copy to be unsurpassable
in correctness; which, in fact, would, in its turn, be
limited only by the limit of his intelligence — for intelli-
gence enters largely into a question such as this.
But the variants in an inscription do not originate, as
a rule, in the mistakes which a scribe might make; they
arise also from other causes. Thus, where there is no
fixed spelling, two or more ways of writing a word may
exist — indeed, the ways of writing it are only bounded
by the limits of intelligibility. Another fruitful source
of variants is the substitution of a word of similar
sound for that which is in the text — due, probably, to its
having been dictated. Then, there is the substitution of
synonyms, which sometimes gives to an inscription a
value which it would not otherwise have,. To this
section, naturally, belongs the substitution of one form
of a root for another, caused by the peculiarities which
characterise all Sem.itic languages. Finally, there is the
substitution of one character for another, due either to
their great similarity (a frequent cause of confusion in
the case of the Phoenician. alphabet and the systems of
writing derived from it, Hebrew being one of those
most liable to this disadvantage), or to decay in the
document, which can work havoc with texts written even
in the clearest and best system of writing possible. The
individual peculiarities of a writer are also a fruitful
source of error, as every reader of modern handwriting
knows. Mistakes in consequence of not understanding
ancient forms of characters are exceedingly rare.
The variants in ancient inscriptions may, therefore,
arise from : —
I. Mistakes on the part of the copyist.
1 6 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
2. Different ways of writing a word.
3. Substitution of a word of similar sound.
4. Substitution of a word of similar meaning.
5. Similarities in characters.
6. Damage to the inscription.
7. Mannerisms in writing.
Naturally, it is difficult to bring clear examples of all
these, but quotations from the tablets will illustrate
many of them, and enable an estimate to be made of
the general accuracy of the scribes of Babylonia and
Assyria.
If we take a representative book of Assyrian and
Babylonian inscriptions — say the fourth volume of the
Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, second edition
— we shall see that, out of a total of seventy-three
plates, no less than forty-four have variants ; and where
these are absent, it is probably due to the nature of the
inscriptions, the originals being sometimes letters, of
which no duplicates are likely to be found, or copies of
boundary-stones, &c., which are in the same case.
To take a typical example, we may glance for a short
time at the tablet referring to the Flood. This inscrip-
tion has no less than 200 variants from the different
duplicates, divided almost equally between the obverse
and the reverse. The following list of a few of them
will give an idea of their nature : —
1. The addition of a phonetic complement to the
name of the Babylonian Noah, Ut-napistim.
2. Ya-a-ti (the full form) ior ya-ti (defective writing).
3. Ya-si (a variant form) ior ya-ti.
4. A-na, "to," spelled out in full.
5. -tani, the accusative ending (fem.) with " mimma-
tion," instead of the genitive -ti.
Is the Battle Ended? i?
6. E-li, instead of e-lu.
7. Tas-'-um for tas-u (a fuller and better spelling).
8. Ana written ideographically (the reverse of four).
9. -ta, the accusative (fern.) ending, for -ti (the former
is the more correct).
10. [Su] -u-ri-pak for Su-ri-ip-pak (the name of a city).
It will thus be seen that the variants in a Babylonian or
Assyrian text, though numerous, do not affect the sense,
and are often valuable as illustrations or aids to the
modern student.
Naturally, the ancient nations could not lay claim to
the critical acumen of modern science, nor to the painful
exactitude of the Hebrew scribes in later times, which
led the last-named to count the words and the letters
of their sacred Scriptures, and made them resort to
various devices to ensure their correct transmission,
even in cases which they themselves thought to be
doubtful- — indeed, reverence for the text had brought
about, with them, something like the critical faculty
which modern scholars now possess. How they made
up for this strictness by extravagant interpretations, and
exegetical comments, juggling with the words and the
phrases of the sacred text, every student knows. More-
over, they seem not to have taken the best text in every
case ; nor did they, to all appearance, attempt to make
up a standard text from the different manuscripts which
undoubtedly existed in ancient times (if they had done
this, our modern versions would have been far superior
to what they are) — they simply took a version which
they regarded as the right one, and accepted that to the
exclusion' of all others, for better or for worse.*
*This finds a simple explanation in the existence of the Temple copy of the
Old Testament Scripture. This was preserved in the Sanctuary, which, Josephus
tells us, was carried among the otherspoils in Vespasian's Roman triumph.— J. U.
B
i8 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
The Assyro-Babylonians, on the other hand, were far
from being exclusive to that extent. Whether they
would have ultimately become so or not is naturally
doubtful. They died out as a nationality, and their
religion died also — the former some centuries before, the
latter some centuries after, the Christian era, and their
literature ceased to exist. The result is, that no standard
texts were ever adopted by them.
But in one case at least they produced something far
better than this, namely, a bilingual glossary of the final
tablet of the Semitic story of the' Creation ; and the
remains of this, which are extant, not only prove that its
origin came from late Sumerian times, but also set the
signification of all the words of which it is composed
beyond a doubt — that is, as far as such fleeting things as
words and their meanings can be fixed. Line by line,
root by root, the words are taken, and explained in the
Semitic Babylonian language. The following specimen
will serve to show the system, and may probably
interest the reader. We will take the line :
" God of the good wind. Lord of hearing and
obedience."
This is explained, taking the root-words of the
Sumerian original
ned, taking the root-word
as follows :
Dimmer
God.
Tu
Wind.
Du
Good.
Dimmer
Lord.
Zi
To hear.
Zi
To obey.
To all appearance, the words "God" and "Lord"
were expressed by the same word in the Sumerian
7s the Battle Ended? 19
text, as were also "to hear" and "to obey." The
following is another example : —
*• Father Bel called his name ' lord of the lands.' "
En kurkura* His name.
Ma
Ma
A
En kurkura
Name.
To proclaim,
Father.
The god Bel.
In this we get something which goes beyond the state-
ment of the text ; for we see that, in naming Merodach
En-kurkura, ''lord of the lands," father Bel, as he is
called, was giving to Merodach his own name, which
agrees with the context. We have here, therefore, one
of the most remarkable documents bearing upon Baby-
lonian religious beliefs, showing, moreover, how they
ensured, in a most practical way, the integrity of the
text of their great epic of the Creation and their belief
in the doctrine that, though Merodach was not the
oldest of the gods, and was the son of Ae or £a, he was
nevertheless to be identified with the other deities,
regarded as the creator and the preserver of all things,
and the merciful one who was good to mankind.
Quoting from the same text, I give examples of the
differences which are to be found therein. After the
line, " G6d of the good wind," &c., quoted above (this
line has no variants), the text proceeds as follpws :—
"Creator of fairness and plenty, estabUsher of
abundance."
(In one text " and " is left out, and the last word has a
lengthening, showing that the non-Semitic equivalent
was used).
* This is transcribed in Sutuenan, like the other words in this columii, but a
variant in the legend itself suggests that it was read Bil matatt-th^t is, as a
Semitic phrase— with the same meaning, "lord of the lands.
20 The Bible : its Strtictiire and Purpose.
" He who turns to many whatever is few."
(The word for " few" has a different termination in one
copy, and that for " many " has a different spelling in
another).
" In (our) dire need we scented his sweet breath."
(The word for " dire " is omitted in one copy, that for
" breath " is spelled out instead of being represented by
an ideograph, that for " we scented " has a different
ending in one copy, and that for '* need " a different
ending in each of the two duplicates).
Such are the variants in this important text ; and
throughout the inscription, wherever there are duplicates,
similar changes in the words, either more or less pro-
nounced than here, are to be found. It is very rarely,
however, that there is a real change in the sense, even so
slight as the omission of the almost needless word which
I have translated " dire " (it really means " strong ").
It is needless to multiply examples of the variants in
Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions — they are of value
mainly to the student — sometimes of considerable value.
As has already been remarked, there are over 200
variants in the story of the Flood from the fragments
of duplicates known, but of all those referring to the
obverse — 100 odd — comparatively few, as far we are able
to judge, affect the sense : —
Text : " Istar spake like a mother."
Variant : " Istar spake with loud voice."
Text : *' Su'tu called out, making her voice resound."
Variant : " The lady of the gods called out," &c.
Other variants are, "in the assembly" for "in the
presence ; " " torrent, storm, and flood," instead of
"wind, flood, and storm," &c. : some of the variants
7s the Battle Ended? 21
apparently changing or modifying the sense of the whole
line.
The reason of the difference in the first line of the
two just quoted is the likeness in sound, " like a mother,"
being kirna alitti ; and, *' with loud voice," vialiti. This
naturally points to a certain amount of carelessness, and
which of the two readings is the more trustworthy time
alone will show. The scribe who gives kbna alitti,
however, has, at the end of the foregoing paragraph,
apparently a correction of the text. He has written in
the margin ina, "in;" but gives in the text ana, "to"
or " for," the sense of the whole being : —
" For the guiding of the ship, I gave the great house
[i.e., the vessel), with its goods, to Buzur-Kurgala,
the pilot."
Whether the scribe's marginal reading indicates a
variant, or, in his opinion, an erroneous reading, is un-
certain ; but it indicates that he took pains to reproduce
his original as far as in him lay.
The Creation and the Deluge Legends are probably
the most important of the old hterary remains of
Babylonia and Assyria, and for that reason they have
been spoken of first. Another text of which the Baby-
lonians thought a great deal, however, is " the Story of
Ludlul, the Sage." This inscription, which is one of
extreme difficulty, speaks of the evil of the world and
the necessity of piety, and is of a more or less philosoph-
ical nature. On account of the deptti of its contents,
apparently, it was much thought of ; and duplicates of
four or five copies, both from Assyria and Babylonia, are
extant. The important thing about this inscription is,
that many of the words were obscure to the Babylonians,
22 The Bible : iis Structure and Purpose.
notwithstanding that it was written in their own language,
and it was necessary to have an explanation of them.
This being the case, a list of the lines containing the
obscure words was compiled, and translations of the
unusual words contained therein were given. In this
we have likewise an excellent example of an inscription
carefully preserved and handed down to posterity. For
the modern scholar, explanations of a few more words
to us obscure would have been highly appreciated, but
for the Babylonians there is no doubt that the explana-
tions given were all that was needed ; and for this,
we, too, have to be thankful. The variants in this
inscription and in the lines extracted for explanation are
few ; but when they occur, they are of great value for
the phrases which they explain.
It is probably in the non-Semitic or Sumero-Akkadian
inscriptions which the Semitic Babylonians translated,
however, that the most diversified variations occur. This
is due to the fact that that language had a great many
homophones, or words pronounced, or at least written,
in the same way, but varying greatly in meaning, and
the scribes differed as to the best way of reproducing
them, even when they agreed as to the sense. Another
cause of variants in these inscriptions lies in the fact,
that Sumero-Akkadian was an agglutinative tongue,
using, in its most analytical form, numerous prefixed,
infixed, and suffixed pronouns and postpositions ; the
omission of one or more of which was easy, as was also
the substitution of one synonymous or nearly synonymous
pronominal or prepositional particle for another. Unfor-
tunately, we have not enough non-Semitic inscriptions-
with duplicates to enable a decided opinion concerning
their accuracy to be formed, but to all appearance the
7s the Battle Ended? 23
scribes of old Kengi-Ura, or non-Semitic Shinar, were
less exact than those of the Semitic period, either in
Assyria or Babylonia.
Another interesting example of the care with which
an inscription was copied is exhibited by the explana-
tory word-list published on pi. 23 of the 2nd vol. of the
Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia. The obverse
of this text is almost entirely lost, but the reverse (about
185 lines) is fairly well preserved. It contains lists of
unusual and foreign synonyms of words for " sprout " or
"branch," "tree," various well-known trees, " forest,"
" door," ♦' lock," " bolt," " bed," " couch," &c., followed
by the colophon stating that the inscription belonged to
Assur-bani-apli, the " great and noble Asnapar " of the
Book of Ezra. Some of these words are described as
Elamite, and others as belonging to the language
designated by the character Su. The interesting thing
about this inscription, however, is that it bears clear
evidence of having been copied from a defective Baby-
lonian original, the principal word for this being one
meaning " seat," or " throne," and written kistin, or
kishi, it being only in the Babylonian style of writing
that the characters ^z« and hi could be confounded with
each other. In addition to this we have the variants
appahnm and appari, due to the likeness between hu and
ri ; huralbti and hurallum (the latter apparently the
more correct), due to the similarity between bii and
lum ; and seemingly also ikzit an4 ikstt, "door," due to
the likeness between zu and su. All these defects the
scribe has conscientiously recorded, and the whole in-
scription is a testimony to his honesty and impartiality.
In the three inscriptions which have been examined
above, namely, the Creation, the Flood, and the explana-
24 The Bible : its Structure a7id Purpose,
tory list, it may be taken that they exhibit in each case
a different motive. The glossary of the first was doubt-
less compiled to preserve the original text, which, as has
been already noted, was non-Semitic. As for the list,
the variants in that are such as ought to exist in a work
of a linguistic nature. There is no doubt, therefore, that
Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions in general show
considerable care in their transmission, and sometimes
even a critical mind.
It is not at all certain, however, that the glossary to
the last tablet of the Creation Legend was simply, as
above stated, to preserve the original text — it may have
nad a deeper motive, namely, to keep the legend in its
integrity, and get rid of the possibility of changes being
made in it. If this be the case, it is not at all improbable
that the Jews of the Captivity were in reality the pupils of
the Babylonians in the matter of the correct transmission
of manuscripts ; and having once realised the importance
of such things, development and improvements in the
system were easy.
CHAPTER IV.
The Higher Criticism Based upon Impossible
Assumptions.
THE reader will gather from the above how faith-
fully the Assyrian and Babylonian scribes kept
to the ancient texts which they handed down to
posterity. The allegation that our modern practice
of faithful adherence to " copy " is a consequence of
7s the Battle Ended? 25
clearer views as to the rights of authorship finds no
support in the .abounding Hterature of Babylonia,
nor in the literature of any other people. For the
Jews to have interpolated texts ; to have mingled
documents together; and, in a word, to have com-
mitted the forgeries and the pious frauds attributed
to them by the critics, would have been a crime
unparalleled, and as shocking to the national and
individual conscience of the East, from the sixth to
the second century B.C., as it would be to the national
and individual conscience in the Europe of to-day.
Nothing, indeed, can be less worthy of the name
of ** criticism " than this unfounded suspicion of
antiquity. Scholarship has already had some object
lessons as to the ultimate fate of capricious prejudice.
It is natural for suspicious ignorance to feel that,
since all the originalsof the classic works of antiquity
have perished, our confidence in the copies of them
which have come down to us has now no solid
ground to rest upon. "So impressed," says Dr.
William Forsyth, " was the Abbe Hardouin, born in
1646, with this difficulty, that he gravely propounded
the theory that the so-called works of the classic
writers of Greece and Rome were nothing but
forgeries of the monks. . . . The Abbe affected to
believe that the so-called ancient classics had been
composed in the thirteenth century, by the help of
the remains of Cicero and Pliny, the Georgics of
Virgil, and the Satires and Epistles of Horace, which
he declared were the only relics of antiquity in that
period. He attributed the /Eneid to a Benedidtine
26 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
monk, who wished to describe in an allegory the
journey of St. Peter to Rome. It is, indeed, difficult
to believe that this was not a literary joke ; but the
Abbe seems to have been thoroughly in earnest, and,
if so, it appears not to have struck him that there is
such a thing as internal evidence and moral impossi-
bihty. The idea of mediaeval monks being able to
compose the works of Homer and of Plato ; of Cicero
and of Virgil ; does not deserve repetition." *
It is well known that the transcribing of manu-
scripts was an art which was carefully cultivated in
ancient times. And recent discoveries are correcting
the theories even of sober criticism regarding the
suspected unreliability of the transcribers of manu-
scripts. The old dust heaps of Egypt have been
turned over in the search for ancient manuscripts,
and some astonishing discoveries have been made.
Among others some extracts from the Phaedo,
Plato's dialogue on the immortality of the soul, have
been found. This precious bit of papyrus was
written about a century after the death of Plato for a
soldier who apparently desired to carry it with him
while upon his campaigns. The circumstances were,
consequently, not such as demanded any great care
in copying ; and yet the comparison of this papyrus,
which goes back at least to 200 B.C., with one of the
later manuscripts of Plato's works, shows with what
striking fidelity the ancient copyists were accustomed
to do their work. It has also shown that the
carefully- weighed corrections which were suggested
* History of Ancient Manuscripts, William Forsyth, Q.C, LL.D., pp.2, 3.
7s the Battle Ended? 27
by Greek scholars, have, in eighteen out of nineteen
instances, been wide of the mark. Professor Lewis
Campbell, one of the foremost Greek scholars of the
time, deals at considerable length with this papyrus
and its lessons for textual criticism. After referring
to those eighteen instances of the powerlessness even
of the best-equipped Hterary conjecture, he says :
" Thus, in one instance only, out of nineteen selected
by Schanz, or in two at most, has any scholar
anticipated the readings here discovered ; and, in the
only certain instance — the excision of words supple-
menting an ellipsis — the conjecture was withdrawn
by the conjecturer in favour of another." * And he
concludes : " As compared with the hypothesis of
modern editors, the * accretions ' proved to have
accumulated in the interval of 1,200 years between
the papyrus and the Bodleian MS. are, so far, not
considerable. ... If time has gathered some dross,
time has also taken away some morsels of fine gold.
But the amount both of incrustation and of decay is
extremely small. Nor are the corrections of the MS.
readings which the papyrus supplies of a kind which
could be rismedied by conjecture, as the facts have
proved." t
With these decisive facts before us, the higher
criticism must be abandoned as a delusion. But
there are also other, and not less' cogent, reasons for
repudiating its "ascertained results." It began with
a huge blunder which can only be explained by
rationalistic haste to escape from the trammels of
• The Classical Review, vol. v., p. 365, + Page 435,
28 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Revelation. Astruc and Eichhorn, and all that
followed, declared that the hands of two distinct
writers could be traced in Genesis. One spoke of
God as Elohim, the other as Jehovah (I decline, on
stricftly philological grounds, to use the now fashion-
able reading "Jahweh"). This meant that these
words belonged to different periods, one being an
older name for the Divine Being, the other a later.
It implied also that the names were interchangeable ;
that the writer who used the name Jehovah could
have written Elohim instead, and vice versa. Both
these suppositions must now be abandoned. Assyri-
ology has proved that both names were in use from
the earliest times; and there are multitudes of places
in the Hebrew Bible in which the interchange of
these names is impossible. Throughout the whole
Old Testament period this law prevails, making the
interchange of the names impracticable. This fact is
in itself sufficient to wreck the critical theories. The
alleged "facts" by which they have justified their
conclusions are monuments of similar haste and
untrustworthiness. Nothing is more common than
the statement that there are two accounts of the
Creation in Genesis. To show this, the fourth verse
of the second chapter is divided, and its opening
words, "These are the generations (Tholedoth) of the
heavens and of the earth," are taken as the termi-
nation of the alleged "first account of the creation."
But in this way Tholedoth, "the generations," would
be used in the sense of "origin," a sense which the
word never has, and never can have had. " The
Is the Battle Ended? 29
Tholedoth of the heavens and of the earth" are the
things which came from these, and not those from
which the heavens and the earth have come. In
other words, every Hebrew scholar must admit that
Tholedoth refers, not to what has gone before, but to
what comes after— to those events, namely, for which
the material creation prepared the way. A third
example of the fatuity which has attended the higher
criticism will suffice. The two chief writers in
Genesis are distinguished, we are told, by another
charafteristic. One writer uses the name ** Padan-
Aram" for a certain district, the other calls it
"Aram-Naharaim." This so-called "fact" has had
an immense effect. But it is not, and never was, a
"fact." It is now what it was at first, a simple
hallucination. We now know from the inscriptions
that the names are those of entirely different places,
and were never marks of different writers. We have
only to take up seriatim the usual proofs advanced for
the critical hypothesis to add to this catalogue of
blunders; and these, let it be remembered, are still
actually paraded as the foundation of their "science " !
I shall conclude by briefly indicating two other
. important points. The legendary and apocryphal
character of the Old Testament history is assumed
as self-evident. But the discoveries made in Egypt,
Palestine, Assyria, and Babylonia "have steadily over-
thrown the critical conclusions. Daniel and Esther
have been shown to be so accurate in their references
to the customs, the men, the places, and the times on
which they touch, that no one acquainted with these
30 The Bible: its Structure and Purpose,
recent researches can continue to believe in the
alleged apocryphal character of these writings. The
Books of Chronicles have been re-instated as history.
Research has also so riddled Wellhausen's hypothesis
that archaeologists hke Sayce and Hommel have been
compelled to abandon his school. And the farther
we advance in the knowledge of the times with which
the Old Testament deals, the more deeply are we
convinced of its historical character, and of its Divine
uniqueness.
It is among the most fundamental assumptions
of the higher criticism that the supernatural origin
of the Old Testament is simply inadmissible. The
supernatural is ruled out. Revelation, in the honest,
old-fashioned sense of the word, is to the critic a
myth too self-evident to require even a passing notice.
I might ask whether an attitude of that kind is really
scientific. But I limit myself to pointing out that this
assumption, like the rest, cannot be sustained. I know
that a resolute attempt has been made to annihilate
prophecy. But the attempt has not succeeded. What
am I to make of the following undoubted fact ? The
whole of the Old Testament is alive with a unique
expectation. There are reminiscences of this in
the myths and legends of the nations — self-evident
wrecks of a primeval Revelation ; but in Israel it
becomes a hope round which gather the destinies of
the people. A Deliverer is to come, whose bruised
heel is to crush the serpent's head. He is to be of
the seed of Abraham, that is. He is to be a Jew ; and
in Him all nations of the earth are to be blessed.
Is the Battle Ended? 31
He is to be despised and rejected by the very people
who glory in the hope of His coming. He is to die
the death of a malefactor ; but His suffering is to be
an expiation for the sins of humanity. After His
death His career of blessing is to begin, and His
great and enduring triumph is to be won. These
are by no means all the features which are found
distinct and clear in this wonderful portraiture. But,
though our view be limited to these, is it possible to
explain how every one of these prophetic delineations
is an accurate description of what has become history
in the life of Christ, and in the career of the Christian
Church ? Where, outside the Bible, shall we find a
parallel to this constellation of predictions ? And if
they and their marvellous accomplishment do not
constitute a miracle, and demonstrate the interven-
tion in this world's affairs of a Mind that has read
the future — in other words, an Omniscient Mind —
what would do so? Professor Reuss, of Strasburg,
says that "the present generation, casting off more
and more its Voltairean^ prejudices, understands that
Christianity is the most momentous fact in the
history of mankind, that which for more than fifteen
centuries has determined the religious, moraly social,
and intellectual development of our race, and which
will still determine it in an ever-widening future."*
That is a sufficiently marvellous fact. If we ask
whence is this religion that has swept away the
hideous idolatries of the earth, purified the fountains
of human thought, and led the nations into light
and goodness, what answer has our fashionable
32 The Bible : its Structure ajid Purpose.
rationalism to give ? And when I add that this very
renewal of the world was undeniably predicted, are
we not once more face to face with miracle ?
These are problems which the higher criticism has
ignored, and has not solved ; but so long as they are
left without explanation, the basis of Christianity
remains.
* History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age. Preface.
HOW DID WE GET THE BIBLE?
CHAPTER I.
The Question Stated.
IN dealing with the Books of the Bible it is
impossible to overlook one important fadt. We
do not require to search for these Books and to pick
them up here and there as explorers may chance to
light upon them. They are presented in a well-known
and deeply venerated colle(5tion. There are various
and striking features in that collecftion wliich attradt
notice and excite inquiry. The Books are arranged
in a certain well-known order, and that order betrays
what seems to be a well-defined and completed plan.
The Books do not resemble stones that have simply
been thrown upon a heap. They are, on the contrary,
like stones which have been built into a well-planned
and completed stru(?ture ; and many, if not all, of the
stones have evidently been shaped for the places which
they occupy. To whom do we owe that plan, and
the collec5ling and the building of the stones ? This
question has seldom found so forcible a statement as
this which we owe to the pen of Professor Hitchcock.
" That so many books," he says, " of so many kinds,
historic, poetic, dogmatic, and prophetic, from the
pens of so many writers of such various culture and
34 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
so far apart in history, should yet be only One Book,
with a unity as perfect as that of any drama, is a
phenomenon which no infidel theory accounts for.
The Apocryphal books, whether of the Old or of tha
New Testament, do not trouble us. The more they
are studied, the more clear it becomes that they
deserve no place in the Canon. It is felt to have
been a sure instin(ft that ruled them out." To whose
" instin(?t," then, do we owe this unerring seledtion ?
A more learned statement of our question would be
— to whom do we owe "the Canon " of Scripture ? It
will be well not to encumber ourselves unnecessarily
with technical terms, but this has so long had a place
in the inquiry upon which we are entering that we
can hardly escape using the word. " Canon " is
simply a Greek word (KanOn) put into English letters.
It originally meant " a straight rod ; " then a rod used
in measuring, hke our "foot rule;" then "a rule"
of any kind. In this last sense it is used in the New
Testament. In Galatians vi. i6 we read : " As many
as walk according to this rule (Kanun), peace be on
them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." The
term, as used in ecclesiastical literature, points, there-
fore, to the Bible as the one law of the believer and
of the Church of Christ. It is our " rule " for belief
and condu(?t. Whatever is not contained therein has
no claim upon our faith or our obedience. This, it
may be remarked, plainly implies Divine origin.
That, which had proceeded from man only, would
never have been enthroned as the supreme law of the
Church of God.
How did we get the Bible? 35
But when the word " canon" has been explained and
adopted, it does not answer our question. On the
contrary, it makes a reply still more necessary. If
these Books have this high place assigned to them ;
if they supersede all others, and are alone to be the
rule of our thinking and the guide of our life, we wish
to know how they have come to us. We are, indeed,
aware that they claim this high place because they
have come from God. They carry with them, wher-
ever they go, the credentials of their great mission
and unchallengeable proofs of their Divine origin.
These are things whose marvellousness no eagerness
to receive the Books can increase, and which no
negledt of them can impair. But we nevertheless
desire to know whether any care was taken for their
preservation, and how it happened that they were
gathered together, kept separate from all other liter-
ature of their own and of after times, and set in this
seat of supreme authority.
To this important question we are happily able to
obtain a satisfactory, reply. For, one part of the
Canon has been formed in times to which we are
able to go back. We shall, therefore, put theories
aside, and acquaint ourselves with the facts. We
shall ask what history has to say regarding the
manner in which the New Testament Books were
received and collected together. Were they first of
all received as ordinary productions ; and then, as
time rolled on, was this estimate changed; and was
everything that had come from apostolic hands
regarded more and more as a sacred possession ? And
36 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
were the Books, under this deepening sense of their
value, sought out and set apart by themselves as the
priceless possession of the Christian Church ? If that
was the origin of our New Testament, history will
tell us; and we now proceed to ask what history has
to say regarding it. But if, on the other hand, there
was no such growth of reverence — if the Books were
received from the first, not as precious mementos of
revered men, but as Divine — history may be expected
to make this equally plain.
CHAPTER II.
The Councils and the New Testament.
AN idea that was largely entertained, and of which
much has been made in recent discussions, is
that we owe the collection of the New Testament
Books to the early Councils of the Christian Church.
This notion has been fostered by the Romish Church,
and, perhaps, also encouraged by Protestant appeals
to the early Councils and the Fathers. But it is quite
opposed to the plain testimony of history. Even
Professor Eduard Reuss, of Strasburg, virtually
admits, in his rationalistic book on " The History of
the Canon of the Holy Scriptures," that this belief
is without foundation. Speaking of the Council of
Trent, held in 1545, he says : " These preliminary
debates were long and interesting, and prove more
How did we get the Bible? 37
than anything else how much reason I had for saying
that never before had the Canon been officially
fixed." * The reason that he gives for this opinion
is conclusive. " If it had been fixed"— that is, fixed
by the decree of a Council — "the prelates and
Canonists assembled at Trent would not have failed
to make appeal purely and simply to the authority of
the former decision ; whereas we learn, not without
some agreeable surprise, that the question was treated
as if it were still untouched."
The striking fact that the early Councils had
nothing whatever to do with forming the Canon of
the New Testament, has been so emphasised by a
number of writers that one is astonished that it is not
more widely known. I give a few of these testimonies.
Dr. George Salmon, of Trinity College, Dublin, writes,
in dealing with the Gospels f : " It is a remarkable
fact that we have no early interference of Church
authority in the making of a Canon; no Council
discussed the subject; no formal decisions were made.
The Canon seems to have shaped itself; and if, when
we come further on, you are disposed to complain of
this because of the vagueness of the testimony of
antiquity to one or two disputed books, Jet us
remember that this non-interference of authority is
a valuable topic of evidence to the genuineness of
our Gospels; for it thus appears' that it was owing
to no adventitious authority, but by their own weight,
that they crushed all rivals out of existence. Whence
could they have had this weight except from its being
*Page 275. \ Introduction to the New Testament, p. 144,
38 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
known that the framers of these Gospels were men
of superior authority to the others, or with access to
fuller information ? "
There are other references to the formation of the
Canon in Dr. Salmon's work, which is one of the
most valuable books of its kind. The reader will
appreciate the following extract, long though it be.
"Some fifty years ago or more" (Dr. Salmon is
writing in 1885), "a Mr. Hone, who was at that
time an opponent of orthodoxy, if not of Christianity
(though I understand he afterwards regretted the
line he had taken), published what he called the
Apocryphal New Testament, which had considerable
sale at the time, and which may still be picked up on
stalls or at auctions. The object of the publication
clearly was to disparage the pre-eminent authority
which we ascribe to the Books of our New Testament,
by making it appear that those which we honour had
been picked out of a number of books with tolerably
equal claims to our acceptance, the selection having
been made by persons in whom we have no reason
to feel much confidence. The work professes to be an
answer to the question, 'After the writings contained in
the New Testament were selected from the numerous
Gospels and Epistles then in existence, what became
of the books that were rejected by the compilers?'
The epoch of the compilation is apparently assumed
to be that of the Council of Nicasa. The writer, at
least, quotes a mediaeval story, that the selection of
Canonical Books was then made by miracle, the right
Books having jumped up on the table, and the worng
how did we get the Bible ? 39
ones remained under it ; and it would seem as if,
though rejecting the miracle, he received the fact
that the Council settled the Canon. He proceeds to
quote some remarks from Jortin on the violence of
the proceedings at the Council, and we are given to
understand that if the selection was not made then,
it was made by people not more entitled to confidence.
He then gives a selection of Apocryphal Gospels,
Acts, and Epistles taken from works of orthodox
writers, but divided by himself into verses (and,
where that had not been done before, into chapters),
obviously with the intention of giving to these strange
Gospels, Epistles, and Acts as nearly as possible the
same appearance to the eye of the English reader as
that presented by the old ones with which he was
familiar.
" I need not tell you," Dr. Salmon continues, "that
the Council of Nicsea did not meddle with the subject
of the Canon, and so we need not trouble ourselves to
discuss the proofs that the members of that venerable
Synod were frail and fallible men like ourselves.
The fact is that, as I have already told you, authority
did not meddle with the question of the Canon until
that question had pretty well settled itself? and,
instead of that abstention weakening the authority
of our sacred Books, the result has been that the
great majority have far higher authority than if their
claims rested on the decision of any Council, however
venerable. They rest on the spontaneous consent of
the whole Christian world. Churches the most remote
agreeing independently to do honour to the same
40 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Books. Some of the books which Mr. Hone printed,
as left out by the compilers of the Canon, were not in
existence at the time when that Canon established
itself; and the best of the others is separated, in the
judgment of any sober man, by a very wide interval
from those which we account Canonical."*
This has been so long clearly seen and stated by
the best writers on this subject that one, I may repeat,
is astonished that there should be two opinions upon
the matter. Dr. William Lee, in his lecfture on " The
Immemorial Doctrine of the Church of God," says
that "even the most relu(5tant are forced to admit
that the reception of the different parts of the New
Testament as Scripture took place without external
concert — from an inward impulse, as it were — at the
same time and in the most different places ; and that,
with scarcely an exception, each writing which it
contains was all at once, and without a word of doubt,
placed on a level with the Old Testament, which had
hitherto been regarded as exclusively Divine. In
short, the authority conceded to this new component
of the Scriptures, seems to have grown up without
any one being able to place his finger upon the place,
or the moment, when adhesion to it was first yielded."t
So far from the Councils picking out a number of
books from a big collection of early Christian literature
and decreeing that these were thenceforth to be
regarded as sacred, the records of the Councils prove
most conclusively that the collection had been made
* Ibid., pp. 226-228.
t The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, its Nature and FrooJ, pp. 48, 40.
How did we get the Bible? 41
long before, and was universally accepted. The first
of the general Councils was summoned by Constan-
tine. In this Emperor Christianity had conquered
the enmity of Rome by the word of its testimony and
its Christlike endurance. He had declared himself a
Christian; and the power which had so long persecuted
the Churches became their defender and patron. The
Arian controversy had sprung up in Alexandria and
was now rolling its waves over all lands. Constantine
resolved to give peace to the Church. He called the
bishops of the Churches to assemble at Nicasa, in
Asia Minor, so that they might decide this controversy
regarding the deity of the Lord Jesus. The great
hall of the imperial palace was prepared for the
meetings of this first (Ecumenical, or "Universal,"
Council. Constantine, though the master of the
world, recognised his position as a disciple of these
masters in Israel. His seat, though of gold, was
placed lower than those of the venerable men who were
gathered round him. There was a lofty and gorgeous
throne, however, in the midst of the assembly ; but
it was a throne on which no man sat. The throne
was nevertheless occupied. The opened Gospels rested
on it. That was the Council's declaration of its
allegiance to God. They rejoiced in the presence
among them of the world's Master — the first Christian
Cassar; but that throne, which rose on high above
their seats and his, declared that he and they bowed
before One whose authority was immeasurably greater
than tHe Caesar's. It was God's Word that was to rule,
not man's. But all this meant that they had God's
42 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Word, and that the New Testament was universally
acknowledged as God's Word long before the first of
the Councils had been brought together. This faft
was dwelt upon by Constantine himself. In his
address to the Council, he said : we " have the do(5trine
of the Holy Spirit in writing, for the Books of the
Evangelists and Apostles, and the oracles of the
ancient Prophets teach us clearly and thoroughly
what we ought to believe concerning God. Where-
fore let us lay aside all hostile contention, and let us
decide our controversies from the Divinely Inspired
Books."*
There is also another Imperial witness that the
Churches possessed the New Testament before any
Council had been summoned. In the month of Feb-
ruary, 303, Diocletian, one of Constantine's immediate
predecessors, issued the following decree: "The as-
sembling of the Christians for the purpose of religious
worship is to be forbidden. The Christian churches
are to be pulled down and all copies of the Bible
burned. Those who hold places of honour and rank
must either abjure the faith or be degraded. In
judicial proceedings the torture may be used against
Christians, whatsoever their rank may be," etc. The
possession of the New Testament Books was seen to
be one reason, if not ihc reason, of the persistence of
the Christian Church. From all this it is abundantly
clear that we owe neither the collecting of the New
Testament Books, nor the definition of their authority,
to any Council. The Councils did not make the New
How did we get the Bible ? 43
Testament ; but, on the contrary, the New Testament
made the Councils. It was because the New Testa-
ment Books had been received, and because they
continued to be regarded, as the Word of God, that
Councils were summoned to enforce the Divine law
which the New Testament Books declared.
CHAPTER III.
Is THE Estimation, in which the Books of the
New Testament were held, a Development?
THE Council of Nicsea, or Nice, met in the year
325, or two centuries and a quarter after the
death of the Apostle John. The Gospel had been
preached, therefore, for nearly 300 years before the
first of the General Councils met. It must be admitted
that there was space enough in that long interval for
a development of belief, and even for the rise of
superstition. It may be supposed, therefore, that,
though the Christian men, who assembled at Nice to
judge the Arian heresy, acknowledged the New Testa-
ment as the Word of God ; and though they did not
make the Canon, yet the Canon may have been made
by some who preceded them. Leading men, in some
previous age, may have picked out those Books from
a multitude of others, and, having placed them
together, may have set the example of seeking in
them instru(5tion and consolation. This example may
have spread over the Churches. We all know how
veneration deepens as time rolls on. What, then,
44 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
could be more natural than that these Books should
finally be regarded as Divine, and should be enthroned
in the Nicaean assembly as the very Word of God ?
But the testimony of history is equally opposed to
that explanation. The reverence for the New Testa-
ment Books is not a development. These Books
were never regarded as ordinary productions. They
v^ere received, even at the first, as they were accepted
at Nice, and as they have been accepted in the ages
that followed that of the Council. Let me ask the
reader to accompany me in a rapid excursion into
that remote past, and to listen to the testimony of one
and of another in the early Church. We shall begin
with Pamphilus, a presbyter in the Church of Csesarea
who suffered martyrdom in the year 309. He was
one of the scholars of the early Church, and had a
long, useful, and distinguished career among the
Christians in Palestine. His testimony is that of the
latter half of the third century, and it is quite as
emphatic as that which meets us in the beginning of
the fourth century. Eusebius, the historian, so close
a friend of his that the two were said to form but one
soul, describes him as "a man of good understanding,
a philosopher in word and deed," " my dearest friend,"
and " on account of his eminent virtue, the most
renowned martyr of our age:" "he was especially
eminent and remarkable above all men of cur time,"
he continues, " for an unfeigned zeal for the Holy
Scriptures" In another passage, quoted by Jerome,
Eusebius says : " He not only lent out copies of the
sacred Scriptures to be read, but cheerfully gave them
How did we get the Bible ? 45
to be kept ; and that not only to men, but to women
likewise whom he found disposed to read. For which
reason he took care to have by him many copies of
the Scriptures that, when there should be occasion,
he might furnish those who were willing to make use
of them."*
Here we encounter the deepest reverence for the
New Testament, and the fullest convidlion of its value
for the Christian life. It is placed on a level with
the Old Testament, being plainly regarded as from
the same Divine Author. Another writer, Vicftorinus,
Bishop of Pettav in Germany, who lived a few years
earlier than Pamphilus, likens, in a prolonged com-
parison, the four Gospels to the four forms of the
cherubim described in the beginning of Ezekiel. In
concluding his account, he says : " All these, though
four, are but one, because they proceed from one
mouth." He explains some words in the Book of
Revelation, and adds : " They confute those who say
that one spake in the prophets and another in the
Gospel." In anotherpassage he writes :" The teaching
of the Old Testament is linked with that of the New
Testament." Here the two parts of the Scriptures
are declared to be one ; and the " one mouth ',' from
which the four Gospels proceed is, of course, that of
the Spirit of God.
About 282, Theonas, bishop of Alexandria, wrote
a letter to Lucian, chief chamberlain to the Roman
Emperor, in which he describes the Gospels and
Epistles'as "the Divine Oracles of Christians," and
* For these and further testimonies see Lardner, Works, vols, ii, and iii.
46 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
advises that no day be allowed to pass without reading
"the sacred Scriptures" and meditating upon them.
Commodian, a still earlier writer, in quoting a pas-
sage from one of Paul's epistles, writes : " Paul, or
rather God by him, says," etc. In referring to this
writer, Lardner writes : " It is pleasing to observe the
high respect for Scripture running through the writing
of all early Christians in general."* Another early
teacher of the same period, Dionysius, bishop of
Rome, refers to the New Testament and to the Old
in language whose reverence cannot be exceeded.
He says: "The true disciples of Christ know very
\^ ell that a Trinity is taught by the Divine Scriptures,
but that neither the Old Testament nor the New
teaches three Gods." For him, the Old Testament
and the New constitute *' the Divine Scripttires."
Going back another thirty or forty years, and coming
to Cyprian of Carthage (who died in 258 a.d.), we
can detect no change. He refers to Acts xiii. in the
following terms: "From Joshua the son of Nun to
Samuel the judge and priest of God, according to
the blessed apostle Paul, who has taught by the Spirit
0/ God, were filled four hundred and fifty years ; "
and again: "All things which are delivered by the
law and the prophets, the apostles and evangelists,
we receive, and know, and reverence ; but we enquire
not further : nothing beyond them." We find Cyprian
using also the same phrase which we have met with in
these later writers: "the holy and Divine Scriptures."
Ascending still higher along the stream of time,
* Works, vol. iii., p. 135.
How did we get the Bible ? 47
we come to Origen, the Egyptian Catechist, and one
of the greatest scholars of Christian antiquity. This
brings us to the opening years of the third centur}',
that is, to a period about a century after the death of
the Apostle John. He will tell us what his own con-
victions and the convictions of the Christians of his
time were regarding the Books of the New Testa-
ment. Speaking of the variations in the Gospels, he
describes it as the belief of the Christian Church
" that the Gospels were written exactly according to
truth, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and
that the writers had made no mistakes." In the
same discourse he asks, in reference to the statement
in Mark x. 50, that the blind man "cast away his
garment " : " Shall we say that the evangelist wrote
without thought, when he related the man's casting
away his garment and leaping and coming to Jesus ?
And shall we dare to say that these things were
inserted in the Gospels in vain ? For my part," he
adds, "1 believe that not one jot or tittle of the
Divine instructions is in vain."
Here are some other testimonies from the same
pen. ** We are never to say that there is anything
impertinent or superfluous in the Scriptures of the
Holy Spirit, though to some they may seem obscure :
but we are to turn the eyes of our mind to Him who
commanded these things to be written, and seek of
Him the interpretation of them." He speaks of the
Christians as persuaded " that the sacred books are
not the writings of men, but have been written and
delivered to us from the inspiration of the Holy
48 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Spirit, by the will of the Father of all, through Jesus
Christ." In a sermon on Jeremiah, he says : ** If
the oracles of God are contained in the law and the
prophets, and in the gospels and the apostles, it
becomes him who is instructed in the Divine oracles
to own God for his teacher." t He thus expresses
their unity of doctrine : "The same Spirit, proceeding
from the one God, teaches the like things in the
Scriptures written before the coming of Christ and
in the gospels and apostles."
No estimate of the Scripture has ever been higher
than that which finds its expression in those utter-
ances; and this is the unvarying estimate of the
ancient Church. Tertullian, who was born not later
than 160 A.D., and who laboured in Africa at the end
of the second and the beginning of the third centuries,
speaks in like fervent manner regarding the New
Testament. In a defence of the Christians, addressed
to their Roman persecutors, he says : " Whoever of
you . . . think that we have no concern for the
safety of emperors, look into the words of God, our
Scriptures, which we ourselves do not conceal, and
many accidents bring into the way of those who are
not of our religion. Know, then, that by these we
are commanded, in abundance of goodness, to pray
to God even for enemies, and to wish well to our
persecutors (Matthew v. 44). And who are more
enemies and persecutors of Christians than they
against whom we are accused of treasonable practices ?
But, beside this, it is expressly and plainly said :
*In Jerem. Homily x.
How did we get the Bible ? 49
* Pray for kings and for princes and powers that ye
may live a quiet life' (i Timothy ii. i, 2)."* Here
Tertullian appeals to a collection of writings, known
as the Christian Scriptures; and the inference seems
to be irresistible that these formed then one well-
known Book, and, in other words, that the New
Testament Canon was complete, with the exception
of Hebrews, about which there was then temporary
doubt in the West. This conclusion is powerfully
sustained by the following : " Let the faction of
Hermogenes," he writes, "show that this thing is
written. If it be not written, let him fear the woe
pronounced against them that add to or take from
Scripture."! The Scripture, therefore, had long been
complete. He quotes it, as we ourselves quote it
now ; and he used it as copiously as any modern
writer has done. R5nsch, a recent German scholar,
has collected Tertullian's Scripture quotations, and
the result is a goodly-sized volume.
In the third century, which we have surveyed from
its closing to its opening years, we have not found the
slightest trace of development in the estimation in
which the Scriptures of the New Testament are held.
The Divine origin of the New Testament ig as fer-
vently admitted at the commencement as at the
close. Let us now leave this age behind us and ask
what views prevail in the second century of our era.
Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, flourished about 181
A.D. Referring to i Tim. ii. i, 2, he writes : " The
Divine' word moreover commands us to be subject to
*Apol., c. 30. \ Contra Hermog., 22.
50 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
principalities and powers, and to pray for them, that
we may lead a quiet and peaceable life." He also
says : " Christians have for their law-giver the true
God, who teaches us to act righteously, godly, and
honestly; " and he paraphrases 2 Peter i. 20, 21 as
follows : " But men of God, filled with the Holy
Ghost, and becoming prophets, inspired by God Him-
self, and being enlightened, were taught of God, and
were holy and righteous. Wherefore they obtained
the honour to become the instruments of God."*
Irenasus, bishop of Lyons, a still earlier witness,
possesses the same Scriptures, and regards them with
the like veneration. In a remarkable passage he
emphasises the fact that in the New Testament
Books we have all the light we possess or require
regarding the way of life. He says : " We have not
received the knowledge of the way of our salvation
by any others than those by whom the gospel has
been brought to us ; which gospel they first preached,
and afterwards by the will of God committed to
writing, that it might be for time to come the
foundation and pillar of our faith. . . . For after
that our Lord rose from the dead, and they (the
Apostles) were endued from above with the power of
the Holy Ghost coming down upon them, they
received a perfect knowledge of all things."! Dealing
with some passages in Paul's epistle to the Romans,
he says : " For he, foreseeing by the Spirit, that
there would be divisions caused by evil teachers. . .
spake after this manner." Quoting Matthew i. 18,
♦See Lardner, WofU%, ii., pp. 211-214. t Aiv. Hat., iii , i.
How did we get the Bible ? 51
he argues : " But the Holy Spirit, foreseeing there
would be deceivers, and guarding beforehand against
their deceit, says by Matthew : 'Now the birth of
Christ was on this wise ; ' " and in another place :
" Well knowing that the Scriptures are perfect, as
being dictated by the Word of God and His Spirit."
And he adds : " A heavy punishment awaits those
who add to, or take from, the Scriptures."
Here also, then, we look in vain for any trace of
development in the estimate of the Books' of the
New Testament. They are viewed as a unity — as a
completed statement of the will of God ; and they
are received as God's own revelation of His will. A
comparatively recent discovery has shown how com-
pletely the New Testament was accepted before the
middle of the second century. It was known that
Tatian had compiled a harmony of the Gospels about
the year 160. Those who maintained that the
Gospel of John was not written by the Apostle, but
was a late production, endeavoured to explain away
this awkward fact. But the book, which had been
long lost, was recovered some years ago. Tatian's
Diatessaron (" one from four "), or Harmony, begins
with the opening words of John's Gospel. Within forty
years, therefore, after John's death, all four Gospels
had been received by the Churches scattered over at
least the eastern portion of the Roman empire ; and
Christians had been even then so fully and so long
acquainted with them that a book, which would blend
their testimony into one continuous narrative, was
felt to be desirable.
52 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
CHAPTER IV.
Is THE Estimation, in which the Books of the
New Testament were held, a Development ?
(Continued.)
SIMILAR indications of the early existence and
use of the New Testament Books are encoun-
tered as we approach still nearer the commencement
of the Christian era. Justin Martyr, a native of the
town of Sichem in Samaria, after having studied in
various schools of philosophy, became acquainted with
Christianity and embraced it as "the only certain
and useful philosophy." He was known as a writer
on Christianity as early as 140 a.d. He tells us that
the Gospels were read on the Lord's Day in the
Christian gatherings. These Gospels were at that
time not only in the hands of believers, but were
also read by unbelievers. In one of his works — A
Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew — Justin represents
Trypho as saying : " I am sensible that the precepts
in your Gospel, as it is called, are so great and
wonderful, that I think it impossible for any man to
keep them. For I have been at the pains to read
them." There are references in those of Justin's
genuine writings which have come down to us, to all
the four Gospels, to the Acts, to the Epistles,
including that to the Hebrews and 2 Peter, and to
the Book of Revelation.
How did we get the Bible ? 53
But we are able, in the providence of God, to
mount still higher along the line of historic testimony,
and to plant our feet on the very border line between
the iVpostolic age and after times. Eusebius states
that in his time five books were in existence, which
had been written by Papias, who flourished about the
year 113 a.d. Irenaeus tells us that Papias was a
hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp, to
whom I shall refer immediately. Papias himself
informs us that he had conversed with the daughters
of Philip the Evangelist. He not only had the four
Gospels, but even gives us his notions as to how these
originated. He refers also to i Peter, i John, and
Revelation. These references may be accepted as a
plain intimation that in his time there was already a
collection of the New Testament Books of which he
and his readers were diligent students. There is an
expression which he uses in speaking of the Gospel
of Matthew, which has been strangely misunderstood,
but which is an eloquent testimony to the place then
assigned to the New Testament Scripture by the'
Christian Church. He believed that this Gospel had
been origlhally written in Hebrew ; but, instead of
using the term " Gospel," so familiar to the Churches
afterwards, he speaks of it as the logia of Matthew. The
scholarship of our time shows a touching reverence
for "authorities," and even the blunders of a leading
scholar are accepted and repeated with unquestioning
confidence. In this way only is one able to explain
how the logia are now almost universally spoken of
as " the sayings," or " the discourses " of IMatthew.
54 The Bible : its Stricchire and Purpose.
The word has no such meaning, and has been con-
founded with a similar Greek term. The Logia of
Matthew are not "the discourses,*' but "the divine
oracles" of Matthew. The use of this term by
Papias is a confession that before the close of the
first century, the Gospels were universally accepted
by the Churches as " the Oracles of God."
Eusebius, speaking of the Christian Church during
the reign of the Emperor Trajan, and basing his
remarks upon documents which have not come down
to us, says : "Among those who were illustrious at
that time was Quadratus, who, together with the
daughters of Philip, is said to have enjoyed the gift
of prophecy. And, beside these, there were at that
time many other eminent persons, who had the first
rank in the succession of the Apostles ; who, being
the worthy disciples of such men, everywhere built up
the Churches, the foundations of which had been laid
by the Apostles ; extending likewise their preaching
yet farther, and scattering abroad the salutary seeds
of the Kingdom of Heaven all over the world. For
many of the disciples of that time, whose souls the
Divine Word had inspired with an ardent love of
philosophy, first fulfilled our Saviour's precept, dis-
tributing their substance to the necessitous; then,
travelling abroad, they performed the work of
evangelists, being ambitious to preach Christ, and
deliver the Scripture of the Divine Gospels."*
The reign of Trajan extended from g8 a.d. to
117 A.D. In this early period, therefore, theGosjiels
* Hiit. Eccl., iii. 37-
How did we get the Bible? 55
were in existence and were recognised as authoritative
and Divine. "I think it must be allowed," says
Lardner,* " that he (Eusebius) was fully persuaded
that before the end of the reign of Trajan, who died
in 117, the Gospels were well known, and collected
together ; and they who preached the doctrine of
Christ to those who had not heard it, carried the
Gospels with them and delivered them to their
converts. They must, therefore, have been before
this for some time in use, and in the highest esteem
in the Churches planted by the Apostles. It must
have been no difficult thing at that time to know the
genuineness of writings which were of so great
authority with them. And certainly they were well
assured of it, or they had not so highly esteemed
them."
Two others, whose labours and steadfastness as
martyrs left enduring memories behind them, have
shed precious Hght upon the time which followed
immediately upon the days of the Apostles. In a
letter which Irenaeus wrote to one Florinus, who had
turned aside from the truth, he makes the following
reference to Polycarp. " I saw you, when I was very
young," he says, " in the Lower Asia with Polycarp.
For I better remember the affairs of that time than
those which have lately happened ; the things which
we learn in our childhood growing up with the soul,
and uniting themselves to it. Insomuch that I can
tell the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and
taught,- and his going out and coming in, and the
* Vol. ii., p. 115.
56 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
manner of his life, and the form of his person, and
the discourses he made to the people ; and how he
related his conversation with John and others who
had seen the Lord ; and how he related their
sa3'ings, and what he had heard from them concern-
ing the Lord ; both concerning His miracles and His
doctrine, as he had received them from the eye-
witnesses of the Word of Life, all which Polycarp
related agreeably to the Scriptures. These things I
then, through the mercy of God toward me, diligently
heard and attended to, recording them not on paper,
but upon my heart. And through the grace of God
I continually renew the remembrance of them."
Polycarp's martyrdom is now believed to have
taken place in the year 155 a.d.* He declared before
the Roman Proconsul that he had served Christ
eighty and six years. Some have supposed that this
refers to the period during which he had been bishop
of Smyrna, others to the time which had elapsed
since his conversion, and others again to the entire
period of his natural life. The second interpretation
is no doubt to be preferred ; but even, if we adopt
the last, Polycarp's birth takes us back to the year
69 A.D. He was, therefore, at the lowest calculation
31 years old when the Apostle John died, and a
dozen years or more of his Christian life must have
been passed before the end of the first century. This
takes us right back into the Apostolic times. What,
then, have Polycarp and the age in which he lives to
say of the Scriptures of the New Testament ?
♦ Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part ii., vol. i., p. 653.
How did we get the Bible? 57
He refers to Books of the New Testament as
already well known. He asks in his letter to the
Church at Philippi : " Do we not know that the
saints shall judge the world, as Paul teaches?"
This is a reference to i Corinthians vi. 3, and the
manner in which it is referred to plainly implies that
this epistle was received as part of the Word of God.
And that the New Testament Books ivere received
and used as Scripture even then is abundantly clear
from the following passage in the same letter : " For
I trust that ye are well exercised in the Holy
Scriptures— As in these Scriptures it is said : * Be ye
angry and sin not.' And ' Let not the sun go down
upon your wrath.'" This is a quotation from
Ephesians iv. 26. He also distinctly sets the
Apostle Paul upon a level that is far above his own.
Writing still to the same Church, he says : " For
neither I, nor any one like me, can come up to the
wisdom of the blessed and renowned Paul, who, when
absent, wrote to you an epistle into which, if you
look, you will be able to edify yourselves in the faith
which has been delivered to you."
The other witness who takes us back into the
Apostolic times is Ignatius, who also sealed his
testimony with his blood. His martyrdom took
place about 110 a.d., and he was made bishop of
Antioch in the year 69, that is, within forty years
after the death of our Lord. In his letter to the
Philadelphians he writes, as he is on his way to die :
" I cling to the Gospel as the flesh of Christ, and to
the Apostles as the presbyters of the Church, Ye?,
53 The Bible : its Striidure and Purpose.
and we love the prophets also, because they foretold
the Gospel and awaited the coming of Christ."*
Here the New Testament is referred to as consisting
of two parts — the Gospel and the Apostles. Even
in the time of Ignatius, therefore, the New Testament
Books were received as Scripture, were collected
together, and were apparently classified as we have
them now.
According to Lightfoott there are references in
Polycarp's epistle to eighteen Book^ of the New Testa-
ment, including the Epistle to the Hebrews. In the
genuine letters of Ignatius, every Book of the New
Testament is referred to with the exception of
2 Thessalonians, 2 John, Jude, and Revelation. It
might well have been concluded, therefore, that the
acceptance of the New Testament as God's Word,
even in apostolic times, is fully demonstrated. Prof.
Rendel Harris, speaking of the totally unexpected
recovery of Tatian's Diatessaron, which I have already
mentioned, writes: "There are few people, as yet,
who realise how revolutionary this discovery has
been in the question of the genuineness and authen-
ticity of the New Testament records, and how many
idle criticisms it has silenced." | But, as if to meet
the confident gainsaying of our time, recent years
have furnished still ampler testimony. The same
writer says : " Some days since, as I was examining
a list of patristic authorities, which a modern scholar
had indicated as necessary ground to be worked over
♦ Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part ii., vol. ii., p. 259. + Ibid., pp. i, 107-1, lifl
I The Newly Recovered Gospel of St. Peter, p. 8
How did we get the Bible ? 59
in search of non-canonical parallels to the Christian
Gospels, my attention was caught by the large pro-
portion of the material cited which had become known
within the last three years ; for, while there were a
number of authorities referred to whose contents have
been known from very early times, it would be no
exaggeration to say that more than half the books in
question had seen the light, either wholly or in part,
within the last five-and-twenty years."*
For these results we are largely indebted to Prof.
Rendel Harris himself, and to his industrious fellow-
labourers. Eusebius and Jerome mention an Apology
for the Christians presented to the Emperor Adrian
by Aristides, an Athenian philosopher. Jerome adds
that Justin Martyr in his Apology had imitated that
of Aristides. This is important, as it fixes the high
antiquity of the latter work. But beyond these
references there was no further information regarding
it obtainable. The loss of this work was naturally
the subject of deep regret, as it carried us back to
sometime between 124 a.d. and 140 a.d. But, thanks
to the enterprise of the Professor, this precious rehc
has now been recovered. He found, in one of the
seldom-visited libraries of the Convent of St.
Catherine, at Mount Sinai, a translation of this long-
lost Apology. It has often been said that the doctrine
of the Deity of our Lord is a 'comparatively late
development. That will no longer be maintained by
any honest man who is acquainted with this new
evidence. " The Christians," says Aristides, "reckon
* Pages 3, 4.
6o The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
the beginning of their religion from Jesus Christ, who
is named the Son of God most High ; and it is said
that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew
virgin took and clad Himself with flesh, and in a
daughter of man there dwelt the Son of God. This
is taught," he adds, V from that Gospel which a
little while ago was spoken among them as being
preached ; wherein if ye also will read, ye will com-
prehend the power that is upon it."
The Gospels were accordingly in the possession
of Aristides and of the Christian Church, and they
could have been obtained by the Emperor. There are
other and similar references to the New Testament.
" Now the Christians, O king," he writes, " by going
about and seeking have found the truth ; and as we
have comprehended from their writings, they are
nearer to the truth and to exact knowledge than the
rest of the people." '"Truly," he says in another
place, " this is a new people, and there is something
Divine mingled with it. Take now their writings and
read in them; and lo ! ye will find that not of myself
have I brought these things forward, nor as their
advocate have I said them, but as I have read in their
writings, these things I firmly believe, and those
things which are to come." And again: "Let all
those then approach to the gateway of light who do
not know God, and let them receive incorruptible
words, those which are so always and from eternity ; let
them, therefore, anticipate the dread judgment which
is to come by Jesus the Messiah upon the whole race
of men." Here it is impossible not to see that the
How did we get the Bible ? 6i
New Testament was already in existence, was the
acknowledged source of enlightenment, and that its
words were then commended even to an Emperor as
*' incorruptible words, which are so always and from
eternity." That testimony takes us back to the very
commencement of the second century. It proves
that the canon of the New Testament had settled
itself, and that the belief in the absolute incorruptible-
ness and inspiration of the Scriptures is no develop-
ment, but was the doctrine of the Apostolic time.
That discovery was made in i88g. In 1892, Mrs.
Lewis and her sister, Mrs. Gibson, visited the same
convent, and made a further discovery. In examining
one of the manuscripts, she noticed that underneath
the writing there lay an earlier one in red ink. Some
monk in the eighth century had used this ancient
manuscript to write upon the vellum a history of
some female saints. The older writing, which was
still readable, proved to be an early — the earliest,
indeed, which we now possess — Syriac version of the
Gospels. Canon Cureton had previously discovered
fragments of a Syriac translation which corresponded
with Tatian's Harmony, and was consequently proved
to be not later than 120 a.d. But a closer study of
Mrs. Lewis's version shows that this was a translation
which had been set aside by the Ciiretonian. Cerinthus,
a heretic who lived in the Apostolic period, and who
denied the Incarnation, had founded a sect, which,
like every other, was eager to propagate its special
doctrines. It had sought to do this by corrupting
the Scripture. There is evidence that the Curetonian
62 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
version had this spurious translation in view. This
attempt to adulterate the Word of God must conse-
quently be older than 120 a.d., and the genuine
Gospels older again than it. This takes us right into
the first century. The New Testament Canon had
made itself even then, and was esteemed the rule of
faith and life.
A discovery made in Egypt by the French Arch^o-
logical Mission, and published also in 1892, has
yielded equally forcible testimony from another side.
There was another early sect, the Docetae, who
denied the Lord's true humanity, as the Cerinthians
denied His true Deity. They pursued similar tactics,
and published a Gospel which was represented as
being that of St. Peter. Among the manuscripts
discovered by the French Mission was a fragment
of this long-lost work. It embraces the latter part
of the Gospel History, from the washing of Pilate's
hands to the return of the disciples to Galilee after
the resurrection. It contains about 1,600 words.
It is really a harmony of the Gospels, with slight
alterations and additions to maintain the views of
the sect. It quotes from the Gospel of John and from
each of the other three. We know, from a state-
ment by Eusebius, that Serapion, Bishop of Antioch,
found copies of this work extant in 190 A.D. Its
composition must have taken place before — probably
long before — that time. Justin Martyr, the teacher
and friend of Tatian, quotes from it. This takes us
probably up to 120 a.d. The four Gospels were,
therefore, already in the possession of the Churches
How did we get the Bible? 6^
by the end of the first century. It is a striking fact
that all these discoveries, without exception, have
been directly opposed to the theories of rationalism,
and have confirmed more conclusively the correctness
of the constant belief of the Christian Church.
Harnack has openly acknow^ledged the defeat of his
party. *' There was," he says, "a time— the general
pubhc indeed have not got beyond it — in which
the oldest Christian hterature, including the New
Testament, was looked upon as a tissue of deceptions
and forgeries. That time is passed. For science it
was an episode in which it learned much, and after
which it has much to forget. . . The oldest hterature
of the Church in all main points and most details, is
genuine and trustworthy, from the standpoint of
literary criticism. . . . The chronological succession
in which tradition has arranged the original docu-
ments of Christianity is, in all essential points, from
the epistles of St. Paul to the writings of Irensus,
correct, and compels the historian to keep clear of all
hypotheses concerning' the course of events which
conflict with this succession."
Summing up now the results of our inquiry, what is
our finding ? We have seen that in the fourth century
the New Testament was enthroned in the midst of the
Council of Nic£ea as the authority to which emperor
and bishops had alike to bow. We have gone back
into the third century and have inquired whether
this collection of Books is regarded with less
reverence there ; and the reverence is as deep as in
;the fourth. We passed up into the second century
64 The Bible : Us Siricchire and Purpose.
and looked for traces of growth in this estimate of
the New Testament Scriptures ; and we have found
none. We have, last of all, gone right up into
Apostolic times and asked whether there, before the
collection is completed, and while the ink, so to say,
is scarcely dry upon the sacred page, there is any
lessened reverence. We have listened to the men
who knew the Apostles, and whose estimate is the
estimate of the time when the Books were written
and handed to the Churches. We have asked ihem
whether these Books as they are then received are
regarded as ordinary literature ; and the answer has
been an emphatic " No." These Books were never
placed on a level with the other books of their time.
They were received from the very first day of their
existence as a fountain of heavenly grace, a source
of Divine light. They were to the men of the
Apostolic times what they have been to Christian
men of after ages, and what they are to us now — the
Word of God. In other words, the notion that the
Books of the New Testament were first of all
regarded as ordinary literature, and then, as
advancing time encircled the memory of the
Apostles with a halo of glory, were reverenced as
sacred, is a dream. And, if we are to tell the whole
truth, we must go farther and say that it is worse
than a dream. It is a baseless slander upon that
which is the highest of all God's earthly gifts, save
the gift of His Son.
How did we get the Bible ? 65
CHAPTER V.
The Claims made by the New Testament
Writers.
IT is by this time perfectly clear that the veneration
of the New Testament as the Word of God is
not a late growth. It was the conviction of the
Apostolic Church. The Books were received from
the first as the Divine Oracles. But the question
which has occupied us throughout the last two
chapters is now exchanged for another. This
estimation in which these Books are held is not
a development. It was there unchanged, and un-
challenged, at the very beginning. How are we to
account for this ? If this position was claimed for
them by the writers, we should understand the
matter at once. If the Books were handed to the
Churches by Apostolic hands as gifts from God ; if
they were given over to them, not as men's words,
but as His, then the very faith begotten in those
behevers by the Spirit of God would have ensured
the devout reception of these writings as part of the
Sacred Scriptures. Was this declaration made ?
Were the Books thus handed as a sacred trust to
the Churches ?
It might be argued from the reverence with which
the New Testament writings were received in the
Apostolic times that this assurance must have been
56 The Bible : its Striccticrc and Purpose.
given. How else could it be there, and how else-
could it have been suffered to continue there without
being rebuked ? It might also have happened that
no other way than this of answering our question
was left to us. For the assurance might very well
have been given verbally and in the course of the
personal ministry of the Apostles. But Providentially
more was done than this. The claim is embedded in
the Books. Luke, for example, gives us an account
of the origin of his Gospel in a passage which suffers
from an unhappy rendering. His opening words are
these: " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to
set forth in order a declaration of those things which
are most surely believed among us, even as they
delivered them to us who from the beginning were
eye-witnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed
good^to me also, having had perfect understanding
of all things /row the. very first (anothen), to write unto
thee, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest
know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast
been instructed."
Reading the words hastily, we might conclude
that they imply that the third Gospel had a purely
natural origin. The thought, we might imagine,
occurred to Luke that he too, knowing so much,
might also write an account of the life and sayings of
the Lord Jesus. But that is an interpretation which
will not bear reflection. Why should he have entered
a field which was already so fully and so well occupied ?
The narratives already in existence, he tells us, were
numerous. And they were orderly histories — they
How did w^ get the Bible ? 67
had undertaken " to set forth in order a declaration
of those things which are most surely believed among
us." They were also accurate. They were faithful
reports of the Apostolic teaching— " even as they
delivered them unto us who from the first were eye-
witnesses and ministers of the Word."
There seems, therefore, to have been no reason for
disturbmg these accounts which had already occupied
the field unless Luke was charged to bring something
that was still better and that was authoritative. And
that this is what he brings, we shall be convinced if
we read on He has knowledge which none of these
unaided writers has possessed. He describes himself i
as " havmg h'd.d perfect understanding," and as "having |
had perfea understandmg of all things." This is
surely an immense claim 1 There is absolutely nothing
which Luke does not know, and there is nothing which
he does not know accurately! It is impossible to add
to his information, or to correft him in the smallest
matter ! Notice, too, what it is that he is going to
give to Theophilus, and through him to give to us in
common with all behevers. It is not that Theophilus
is to be made acquainted with new fa(5ts. No doubt
there would be some things in this Gospel new to him ;
but these are not referred to. Theophilus hks already
had information ; but there was one important question
which must have made itself heard from time to time.
Were those things certain ? Could the information
which he had received be absolutely depended upon ?
It is that question which Luke is now to answer.
** It seemed good to me," he says, " to write unto
68 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
thee, most excellent Theophilus, in order that thou
mightest know — with the intent that thou mightest
know — THE CERTAINTY of those things wherein
thou hast been instru6ted."
Let the reader once more mark the words. It is not
so much information which Luke is going to give. The
others had already given that. But he brings what the
others did not give, and could not give — assurance of
the absolute truth of the things already made known to
Theophilus. Now, if Luke is going to be the medium
through whom One shall speak that "cannot lie," and
to Whom no frailty of misapprehension clings — if he
is going to give the words of One whose every word is
truth — we can appreciate the value of the gift which
he brings; and we can understand why, at the very
commencement of his Gospel, he contrasts this record
of his with the uninspired accounts already in exist-
ence. And that this is the meaning of his words would
have been abundantly plain but for the translation to
which I have already referred. Luke is made to say
both in the Revised and in the Authorised Versions
that he has " had perfect understanding of all things
from the very first; " whereas what he does really say is
that he has " had perfe(5t understanding of all things
FROM ON HIGH." Dr. John Lightfoot, in his
" Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations upon St.
Luke," has, two and a-half centuries ago, shown the
superiority of the rendering given here. * The word
anothen, which is here rendered in our version, "from
the very first," is used in the sense of "from above"
* Collected IVorks (Pitman's Edition), vol. xii.
:
How did we get the Bible ? 69
again and again in the New Testament itself. *' Every
good gift and every perfecft gift," says James (i. 17),
" is anothen," that is, *' is from above." Twice again
he uses the word, and both times in the same sense.
He speaks of " the wisdom which is anothen," " from
above." It occurs twice in John's Gospel with the
same meaning: "Hethatcomethawo^Aew — from above
— is above all " (iii. 31) ; and "Jesus answered. Thou
couldest have no power at all against Me, except it
were given thee anothen — from above" (xix. 11). It
is quite true that the word is used in the sense of " from
the beginning " in Aas xxvi. 5, but why should we
deny to it its more usual sense here— a sense which
is demanded by the plain intention of the words ?
But even apart from this necessary correction,
the reader will see that this Gospel is lianded to
Theophilus and to the Churches through him as
containing — what no mere human composition could
contain— absolute assurance as to the truth of the
Gospel history. It, therefore, took a position at once
as an authoritative record of the Lord's life and
words. It has surprised some that none of those
praiseworthy, but unaided, attempts to inform the
Churches regarding the Lord's life and ministry has
survived. But their disappearance is fully explained
by this preface to Luke's Gospel. When the Churches
were supplied with the inspired Gospels, the others
would at once be dispensed with. No believer would
think of putting man's book on a level with the gift
of the Spirit-" the oracles of God."
There are two significant statements in Paul's
yo The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
epistles regarding the character of the inspired
addresses which he and the other Apostles delivered
to the Churches. Writing to the Thessalonians >^
(i Thess. ii. 13) he says : " For this cause also thank
we God without ceasing, because, when ye received
the Word of God which ye heard of us, ye received
it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the ^
Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you '
who believe." Here the claim is made that the
word delivered to them was not '" the word of
men " — and, therefore, not the word of Paul or Peter
or John — but " as it is in truth — the Word of
God." The reader will also note that this was the
impression which Paul's communication made at the
very outset. The Christians at Thessalonica did
not require to be told that it was God's Word and
not man's word. They recognised and owned it as
God's own message to them.
How far the inspiration of God's Spirit extended,
and in how full a sense the message was God's word,
the Apostle shows when writing to the Corinthians.
** Now we have received," he says, " not the spirit
of the world, but the Spirit which is of God ; that we
might know the things which are freely given us of
God. Which things also we speak, not in the words
which man's wisdom teacheth, but (in the words)
which the Holy Ghost teacheth ; comparing spiritual
things with spiritual" (that is, interpreting spiritual
things with spiritual words) [i Cor. ii. 12, 13] . ■
Here the Apostle ascribes the things which he has
communicated, or, as we should say, the thoughts or
How did we gel the Bible ? 71
the ideas, directly to the inspiration of the Spirit of
God. But he also does more. He ascribes the very
forms of statement which he uses to the inspiration of
the Spirit. And he adds the reason for this extension
of the Spirit's influence. The Spirit's thoughts, he
says, have to be clothed with the Spirit's words. If
that were not done, man might err in their expression,
and the communication sent to us from God would
thus be marred. He, therefore, conveys the truth
given to him by the Spirit, he says, not in statements
fashioned by human wisdom, but in the statements
taught by the Spirit. He thus interprets, he adds,
the things of the Spirit by the words of the Spirit.
Is it conceivable, then, that writings placed in the
hands of believing men with such a description as
that — writings whose very language is Divine — could
ever have been placed upon the level of the ordinary
literature of the period ? They must necessarily
have been accepted as Scripture from the first.
We have besides two indications that the Books
of the New Testament were placed, as a matter of
course, by the side of the Books of the Old Testa-
ment. The term Scripture (gmphe) occurs about
fifty times in the New Testament, and in every case
it refers to the acknowledged oracles of God — the
Divinely inspired writings. Bearing this in mind,
the significance of the following passage will at once
be seen. Peter, in his second Epistle (iii. 15, 16),
thus exhorts us : " Account that the longsuft'ering
of our Lord is salvation ; even as our beloved brother
Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him.
72 TJlc Bible : its Sfruchtre ayid Purpose.
hath written unto you. As also in all his epistles,
speaking in them of these things ; in which are some
things hard to be understood, which they that are
unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the
OTHER Scriptures, to their own destruction." Here
the expression — " According to the wisdom given
unto him " will be noticed. It was wisdom which
was entrusted to him that he communicated to the
Churches. It will also be observed that, when Peter
penned these words, a large number of Epistles —
*' all his epistles " — had been written by Paul, and
were in the hands of the Christian community.
But the special point, to which I ask the reader's
attention, is the rank which Peter assigns to these
letters of the Apostle Paul. He classes them in that
expression, "as they do also the other Scriptures," with
the Sacred Oracles ; or, to speak more correctly, he
places the Oracles of God by the side of the letters
of Paul, his own contemporary ! The Books of the
Old Testament and such others of the New Testa-
ment as were then in existence — all these are " the
other Scriptures," having an equally lofty place, but
no higher place, than the Epistles of Paul.
This immediate recognition, and complete accept-
ance, of the New Testament Books is shown also in
a reference by Paul to a passage in the Gospel of
Luke. In i Tim. v. i8, after commanding that the
need of those who labour in word and doctrine
should be generously ministered to, he adds : " For
the Scripture saith. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox
that treadeth out the corn, and, The labourer is
How did we get the Bible? 73
worthy of his reward." Now, the only place in the
entire Bible in which these last words occur is in
Luke X. 7. That Gospel was, therefore, already in
use among the Churches ; and it was recognised by
them as no less Scripture than the Old Testament
from which the first quotation is made (Deut. xxv. 4).
Paul does not need to contend that the statement in
Luke is part of the Word of God. It is universally
admitted to be so. No one dreams that the sugges-
tion is possible that its position as Scripture requires
to be vindicated.
Quite in keeping with this high claim for the
Books which they handed to the Churches was the
care of the NewTestamentwriters that nothing should
enter into these writings that was not the Spirit's
distinct message. An illustration of this fidelity is
found in the seventh chapter of i Corinthians. The
Church at Corinth had written to the Apostle desiring
special directions in circumstances which they speci-
fied. It was not God's will that these directions
should be given by Divine authority. God gives great
guiding principles, but He does not multiply com-
mandments. These principles, easily grasped, and
increasingly understood and admired and loved as
they are obeyed, are an education to the spirit of
man. They are light in whose growing brightness
the heart rejoices. But a multiplicity of directions
would extinguish the light. An over-loaded memory
would be substituted for an enlightened and free
judgment.
These Corinthians were as yet, however, but babes
74 The Bible : its Sti'jicture and Purpose.
in Christ. They had just escaped from Greek pollution
and darkness, and they needed to be taken by the
hand and led along until their eyes should become
accustomed to the light. And so, while he has no
Divine command to give them, Paul is permitted to
guide them by his own judgment. Btd this is carefully
explained. Whatever is not God's Word is clearly
marked off from that which is the Word of God.
In verse 6 he writes : " But I speak this by per-
rnission and not of commandment"; verse lo :
"And unto the married I command, yet not I, but
the Lord " ; verse 12 : " But to the rest speak I, not
the Lord " ; again in verse 25 : " Now concerning
virgins I have no commandment of the Lord ; yet I
give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy
of the Lord to be faithful " ; and the whole concludes
(verse 40) with the following : " But she is happier
if she so abide, after my judgment : and I think also
that I have the Spirit of God." The reader will
observe how unusual this note of hesitancy is in the
Scripture. It stands alone. We may search through
Book after Book and not find a like passage. A
great deal is said to-day about " the human element "
in the Scripture ; and what the phrase is intended to
convey is not that man co-operated with God in
conveying to us a wholly Divine message ; but that
part of the Bible is man's word, and some other
portion of it is God's Word. Now, here is enough
to supply correction for that notion. For, while we
have an undoubted " human element," the human
j)ortion is carefully marked off from the other. It is
How did we get the Bible ? 75
limited and accurately defined. It is marked, too,
as human by hesitation and timidity, which tell us
that the Divine Spirit is temporarily withdrawn,
and that the human spirit fears and trembles as it
stands alone and forsaken for the moment in the
holy place. When the Spirit returns, the old, full
note is at once resumed, and every trace of tremb-
ling and of hesitation has vanished. The very }
confidence and decision which are so strongly
characteristic of the Scriptures are, therefore, another
claim to Divine authority; and it is one which per-
vades the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
CHAPTER VI.
How THE Canon was Formed.
IT will now be understood that the conclusion to
which those have come, who have investigated
the facts, namely, that the Canon made itself, is
abundantly justified. The notion that the adoption
of these Books was the result of ecclesiastical in-
trigue or compulsion cannot be entertained by any
competent investigator. Speaking of the latter part
of the second century. Dr. Theodore Zahn says :
" The expressions of the writers of this generation
render it impossible to hold that this collection of
books t>f public edification had only arisen in the life-
time of Irenseus, and put an end to some previous
76 The Bible: its Structure and Purpose.
state of chaos. The Church had no organs or modes
of administration at that time capable of dislodging
books introduced into Divine worship or replacing
them in the autonomous provincial congregations
with such uniform effect. Had all the various bishops
united in the conspiracy, such a coup d' Stat would,
nevertheless, have foundered on the stubborn rock of
provincial independence. In any case, a conflict would
have been kindled round the New Testament more
lasting, and leaving deeper traces on ecclesiastical
history, than any battles about Easter or the ' new
prophets.'" And, he adds, that "it is an assured fact
that, about the years 80 — no a.d., both the four-fold
Gospel and the body of thirteen Pauline Epistles were
in existence, and had been introduced into the Divine
worship of the congregations gathered out of heathen-
ism along the whole line from Antioch to Rome." *
The only tenable explanation of this wide-spread
and unquestoning acceptance of the New Testament
Scripture is, that the Churches treasured it from
the first as Divine. As the Books were given, they
were received, "not as the word of man, but, as
they are in truth, the Word of God." The New
Testament did not attain its high place because a
number of leading men among the early Christians
agreed to give it that place. The place was assumed
by each Book as it was handed to the Churches by
the inspired writer. "The primitive Church," says
Gaussen, "during her militant and triumphant march
through the first half century of her existence, saw
♦ Grutiilriss der Geschichte des N. T. Kanons (1901), pp. 26, 40.
How did we get the Bible ? 77
her New Testament Canon forming in her hand, as
a nosegay is formed in the hand of a lady walking
through plots of flowers, with the proprietor of the
garden by her side. As she advances, the latter
presents to her flower after flower, till she finds her-
self in possession of an entire bunch. And, just as
the nosegay attracts admiring attention before it is
filled up, and as soon as the first few flowers have
been put together, so the New Testament Canon
began to exist for the Christian Church from the
moment theearliest portions of the inspired Scriptures
had been put into her hands."*
A fact, which has been a source of trouble to some
minds, forms a striking testimony to the correctness
of what has just been said. The whole of the New
Testament seems to have been written within the last
sixty years of the first century. At the commencement
of this period the number of Churches and of believers
was comparatively small, and these opening years of
the Church's long and troubled life were, on the whole,
peaceful. But towards the end of the first century the
conditions were completely changed. The Churches
had been vastly multiplied, and they were being over-
whelmed with trouble. The Books written in the
earlier part of the period, when the Churches were
fewer and were in quietness, we should expect to have
been received at once and universally. Those written
in the latter part of the time would have greater
difiiculty in obtaining universal recognition, seeing
that the Churches were more widely spread abroad,
* The Canon of the Holy Scriptures, p. 15.
78 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
and that communication between them must have
been carried on with difficulty. Now this is just what
happened. The Books, which were written at the
beginning, were universally received. These were
the four Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles, the
thirteen Epistles of Paul, the First Epistle of Peter,
and the First Epistle of John. The Epistle to the
Hebrews and the Book of Revelation (which, though
written late, and probably last of all, came from the
last of the x\postles, on whom all eyes w^re fixed) were
universally received among the Eastern Churches at
the beginning, and were only questioned afterwards
in certain quarters, because of the use made of them
in opposition to views then generally entertained. The
other epistles — James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, and
3 John were questioned. That they were questioned
shows with what jealous care the sacred oracles were
guarded by the Churches. And it proves also, as
Zahn has pointed out, how impossible it is to believe
that any Council had settled the Canon. " Most
incomprehensible of all would it be," he says, " that
after some official proceedings had settled the matter,
the several Churches, without asking or knowing any-
thing about one another, should have, in some cases,
read James or Hebrews as Scripture, but in others
fully ignored them."* When, however, the represen-
tatives of the Churches met at Nicaea and elsewhere,
after the long storm through which the Churches had
passed, all questioning ceased. Those Churches, which
had received these letters from the hands of the
* Grundriss der Geschichte des N. T. Kanons, p. 27.
How did we get the Bible ? 79
Apostles, were then able to testify to their genuineness,
and thus every doubt was stilled.
CHAPTER VII.
Have we the Original New Testament?
WE have now noted how the Canon of the New
Testament was formed. We have seen that
the separation of these Books from all the other
literature of the time was due to the witness borne
to them at the first. They came as from God's own
hand. But when that question is answered, we are
confronted by another. Do we now possess the
Books as they were originally given ? We have not
a single autograph of evangelist or apostle. Every
letter sent to the Churches by Paul, and Peter, and
James, and Jude, and John, has perished: not a single
original Gospel has survived. We have only copies
of them — or rather copies of copies which themselves
had been transcribed from still older copies. In this
repeated copying, mistakes may have been, or rather
must have been, made and transmitted. What assur-
ance, then, have we that the New Testament of
to-day is the New Testament of the Apostolic age ?
However disquieting this question may be, it is per-
fectly natural and legitimate. But, like many another
fear, it owes its force to ignorance. We have already
seen how carefully even the ordinary classics have
been copied, and that the fears of scholars themselves,
8o The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
as to the corruptions which were supposed to have
crept in, have proved to be largely unfounded. How
exaggerated the fear has been, in the case of the New
Testament, has been shown long ago. There is no
other book in the world of which so many copies
have been written out. These belong to many ages
and to many countries. We have, in all, about 4,000
copies of gospels, epistles, &c., one of them as old as 350
A.D. ; others of the fifth and sixth centuries; and the
rest extending thence to the time when the printing-
press was substituted for the copyist's pen. Now,
this enormous number of manuscripts, made by so
many different hands, and in circumstances which
varied so greatly, has insured the safety of the
original text. This will be plain if I borrow an apt
illustration. Let me suppose that a merchant has
written a long and important letter. A number of
his correspondents are concerned in the transaction,
and the same letter has to be sent to each. As time
is short, one of his clerks reads the letter aloud in
the outer office, and a dozen of the others make each
a copy of the document.
The merchant sends his own letter to the post as
soon as the work of copying is finished. But before
sending off the others, he concludes that he had
better glance over them to see that they are correct.
His attention is arrested by a statement which he
finds in the first which he has taken up. A certain
class of goods is to be supplied, says this letter, at
seven pounds a ton. He had meant to say ten pounds
a ton, and he immediately asks himself whether the
How did we get the Bible ? 8i
mistake was his, or is it the blunder of one of the
copyists. His own letter is gone and he cannot
consult that. But he snatches up another copy. It
reads " ten pounds a ton." He takes up a third, it
also reads "ten pounds a ton." It is the reading, in
short, of all the rest. Can we wonder that he at once
concludes that he had made no mistake ? He knows
that any man may make a mistake ; but he is also
aware that it is improbable that two men will make
the same mistake, still more improbable that three,
and quite impossible that eleven, will unite in perpe-
trating the same blunder. Consequently, he is quite
at rest about the ten pounds a ton. He knows that
this must have been in the original letter, and that
the " seven pounds a ton" is the mistake of the clerk
who made that erroneous copy.
Such, then, is the security given to us by these
manuscripts, to which we have to add quotations
from the New Testament in early writers fr^m the
early years of the second century downwards, as well
as early translations of the New Testament from the
Greek into Latin, Syriac, and other tongues. There
have been thousands of copyists, and, as we shall see
immediately, there have been hosts of variations.
But, nevertheless, the safety of the original Scrip-
tures, which they all united to hand down to us, lies
in the very multitude of these manuscripts. Every
one of these copyists may have made — ^^we may
assuredly go farther and say, he has made — some
blunders. But they will be his own blunders, and
not the blunders of another copyist.
82 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
There is also another fact, a knowledge of which
at once allays apprehension. A huge proportion of
the 150,000 variations, presented by this array of
manuscripts, is so plainly the result of individual
mistakes that they are brushed aside without the
slightest misgiving. They are also, besides, of the
most trivial kind. Isaac Taylor, in his History oj
the Transmission of Ancient Books, says: "Out of a
hundred thousand various readings in the text of
the New Testament, it would be, hard to select 100
which an English reader would think important to
the sense of the passages where they occur. And in
that 100, there would not be more than one or two
which can in any way affect questions of fact, of
doctrine, or of practice." *
Such is the testimony which has been uniformly
given by those most fully acquainted with the facts;
and it is testimony which ought long since to have
swept away fear, and to have ended misrepresenta-
tion. Let me ask the reader's attention to the
assurances of other competent witnesses. I select
three. Speaking of the growing agreement of scholars,
with regard to the original text. Dr. Scrivener writes:
** But even were the progress of the science less
hopeful than we believe it to be, one great truth
is admitted on all hands — the almost complete
freedom of Holy Scripture from the bare suspicion
of wilful corruption, the absolute identity of every
known copy in respect to doctrine, and spirit, and
the main drift of every argument and every narrative
♦Page 246.
How did we get the Bible ? 83
through the entire volume of Inspiration. On a
point of such vital moment I am glad to cite the
well-known and powerful statement of the great
Bentley, at once the profoundest and the most
daring of English critics : * The real text of the
sacred writers does not now (since the originals have
been so long lost) lie in any single MS. or edition,
but is dispersed in them all. 'Tis competently exact,
indeed, in the worst MS. now extant; nor is one
article of faith or moral precept either perverted or
lost in them ; choose as awkwardly as you can,
choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump
of readings.' And again ; * Make your 30,000
[variations] as many more, if numbers of copies can
ever reach that sum ; all the better to a knowing
and serious reader, who is thereby rnore richly
furnished to select what he sees genuine. But even
put them into the hands of a knave or a fool, and,
yet with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he
shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, nor
so disguise Christianity, but that every feature of
it will still be the same.' * Thus," continues
Scrivener, " hath God's Providence kept from harm
the treasure of His written Word, so far as i? needful
for the quiet assurance of His Church and people." t
** It is not necessary, at the present day," he says
in another work, "to enter upon a prolix discussion
respecting the sources of the Textus Receptus [from
which our English Authorised Version was made].
* Remarks upon a Discourse of Freethinking, sect. 32.
\ A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (Fourth Edition),
vol.i., pp. 6, 7.
84 The Bible : its Struchire and Pur-pose.
It will now be admitted on all hands that the learned
persons who superintended the earlier editions of the
New Testament both possessed a very limited critical
apparatus, and did not always avail themselves as
they ought of the resources which were within their
reach. It is, therefore, most satisfactory to discover
that the text which they formed bears, in all proba-
bility, a closer resemblance to the sacred autographs
than that of some critics very much their superiors
in Biblical science; who, moreover, had access to
a vast treasure of materials, which was entirely
unknown to their predecessors. I hope it is no
presumptuous belief that the Providence of God
took such care of His Church in the vital matter of
maintaining His Word pure and uncorrupted, that
He guided the minds of the first editors in the
selection of the authorities on which they rested."*
Dr. Kenyon, of the British Museum, writes : " It
cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the
text of the Bible is certain. Especially is this the
case with the New Testament. The number of
manuscripts of the New Testament, of early transla-
tions from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest
writers in the Church is so large that it is practically
certain that the true reading of every doubtful
passage is preserved in some one or other of these
ancient authorities. This can be said of no other
ancient book in the world. Scholars are satisfied that
they possess substantially the true text of the principal
Greek and Roman writers whose works have come
"A Supplement to the Authoriied English Version of the New Testament, pp. 6,7-
How did we get the Bible ? 85
down to us, of Sophocles, of Thucydides, of Cicero,
of Virgil, yet our knowledge of their writings depends
on a mere handful of manuscripts ; whereas the
manuscripts of the New Testament are counted by
hundreds, and even thousands." *
Westcott and Hort present us with the like assur-
ance. " With regard," they say, " to the great bulk
of the words of the New Testament, as of most
other ancient writings, there is no variation or other
ground of doubt ; and, therefore, no room for textual
criticism." And they conclude their united statement
with these words : ** The amount of what can, in any
sense, be called substantial variation, is but a small
fraction of the residuary variation, and can hardly
form more than a thousandth part of the entire
text." t In other words, in every thousand words
there is practically no question about nine hundred
and ninety-nine. It is only over the thousandth
word that textual critics have, by laborious com-
parison of the manuscripts, to determine the reading
ol the original text.
Dr. Ezra Abbot impresses the same fact in the
following teUing fashion : " The number of the
'various readings' frightens some innocent people,
and figures largely in the writings of the more
ignorant disbelievers in Christianity. * One hundred
and fifty thousand various readings ' ! Must not
these render the text of the New Testament wholly
uncertain, and thus destroy the foundation of our
fafth ?
• Our Hible and the Ancient Manuscripts, pp. lo, ii.
ilVie New Testament in the Original Gr«ft, vol. ii.,p. 2.
86 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
" The true state of the case is something like
this. Of the 150,000 various readings, more or less,
of the text of the Greek Testament, we may, as
Mr. Norton has remarked, dismiss nineteen twen-
tieths from consideration at once as being obviously
of such a character, or supported by so little
authority, that no critic would regard them as
having any claim to reception. This leaves, we will
say, 7,500. But of these, again, it will appear, on
examination, that nineteen out of twenty are of no
sort of consequence as affecting the sense ; they relate
to questions of orthography or grammatical construc-
tion, or the order of words, or such other matters as
have been mentioned above, in speaking of unimpor-
tant variations. They concern only the form of
expression, not the essential meaning. This reduces
the number to perhaps 400 which involve a difference
of meaning, often very slight, or the omission or
addition of a few words sufficient to render them
objects of curiosity and interest ; while a few
exceptional cases among them may relatively be
called important. But our critical helps are now so
abundant that in a very large majority of these more
important questions of reading we are able to deter-
mine the true text with a good degree of confidence.
What remains doubtful we can afford to leave
doubtful." *
Thus, even though we should have had to leave the
whole of these 400 passages uncertain, we have the
most absolute assurance, through those very uncertain-
* Critical Essays, i>p.2oB,2og.
How did we get the Bible ? 87
ties, that all the rest of the New Testament has come
to us as it left the hands of the Evangelists and the
Apostles. If we had possessed only one manuscript,
we should have had no trouble about various readings ;
for various readings could not have existed where
there was no variety of copies. But how could we have
known that our one copy was correct ? Our small
uncertainties would have indeed disappeared, but in
their place we should have had one huge doubt.
That doubt, thank God, has been swept away.
Translations made in the second century — perhaps
in the end of the first century — into Syriac and into
Latin, tell us what they found in the first century
copies from which the translations were made. The
copies of the originals, which were rapidly multiplied
at the very first and carried all over the world, have
left some thousands of descendants. These, when
examined, tell us what they found in the originals
from which they were copied. These thousands of
witnesses are absolutely unanimous in their testimony
that these are the very words, and largely that this
is the very order of the words, penned by each sacred
writer. They are absolutely unanimous, except in
regard to these 400 places — a discord which proves
their independence ; and, therefore, their value as
witnesses. It will be seen, therefore, that, though
the questions raised by these 406 differences could
never be settled, they have infinitely enriched us, by
the unquestionable assurance which they convey that
evefy page of our New Testament, that every Book,
and chapter, and verse of it besides have come down
88 The Bible: its Striccture and Purpose.
CO us just as they left the pen of inspiration. There
is not one other ancient book, however prized, to
which the like testimony, or a tithe of it, can be
borne. The Bible is the one supremely-attested
Book in the whole world's literature ; and the devout
reader will not fail to trace here the hand of God
and to read His purpose, that " we might have a
strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay
hold upon the hope set before us" (Hebrews vi. i8).
CHAPTER VIII.
The Jewish Stewardship of the Old
Testament: How it was Discharged.
WE now enter upon the second, and final,
branch of our inquiry. We have seen how
the New Testament originated, and how it at once
assumed that place which it has held ever since in
the Christian Church. It is natural to conclude that
the Divine method, which was pursued in the bestowal
of the New Testament, was simply a continuation of
that which God had already followed in bestowing
the Old Testament. In other words, having marked
how the New Testament Canon was formed, we have
anticipated the question as to the formation of the
Canon of the Old Testament. That Canon must in •
the same way have formed itself. The Law was
given amid manifestations which wrote the name of
How did we get the Bible ? 8g
God in letters of fire upon that great foundation of
the Scripture. Each subsequent Book came with
its own special Divine attestation ; and, as it came,
it was added (just as the New Testament was added)
to the pre-existing Bible.
We shall find that this conclusion is fully justified
by the facts ; but our first duty is to inquire what the
facts of the case are. In the forefront of these we
have to recognise that the Jews have been, and still
are, the custodians of, and the witnesses to, the Old
Testament Scriptures. When the Scripture asks
the question : " What advantage, then, hath the
Jew ? " the answer is summed up in these words :
" Much every way : chiefly, because that unto them
were committed the Oracles of God " (Rom. iii. i, 2).
Divine arrangements are enduring ; and, though the
Jew has rejected the grace of God in Christ, this
custody of the Old Testament Scriptures has not
been taken away from him. Both our Authorised
and Revised Versions have been translated from the
Hebrew Bible ; that is, from the Bible of the Jew.
We have thus recognised that people as the cus-
todians of i-iC Old Testament; and, from the time
when Jerome made his Latin Version, in the fifth
century of our era, to the present hour, the Christian
Church has taken these " Oracles of God " from the
hands of the Israelite.
Have we done wisely in this ? Have the Jews
been faithful to the trust? Have they taken pains
to' hand down these Scriptures as they were origin-
ally committed to them, so that we can accept the
go The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
copies which they now possess as containing the
very words which the prophets placed upon the
sacred page? To that question modern research has
furnished an unexpected and highly gratifying reply.
More than a century ago, considerable attention
was attracted to the condition of the Old Testament
text. This new field was being then explored by
Oriental scholars. Manuscripts were searched for,
and were compared with one another. Anticipations
of startling revelations were aroused in the learned
World by the labours of Walton, of Kennicott, and of
De Rossi. It was confidently expected, in some
quarters, that reliance upon our present text would
be greatly shaken, and, indeed, possibly destroyed.
The various readings were collected and published ;
but when the list was scanned, the hopes of the
rationalists sank and died. From that death there
has till this hour been no resurrection. The labours
of these scholars, and of others who followed them,
have amply proved that no Book besides has ever
been handed down to posterity with such scrupulous
fidelity as has marked the transmission of this.
The following full admission of the effect of these
researches comes from the most noted leader of the
critical movement in Great Britain, the late Professor
W. Robertson Smith: " What is the state of things,"
he asks, " as regards the Old Testament ? All
manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible (and we have none
older than the ninth century after Christ) represent
one and the same text. There are slight variations,
9ut these are, almost without exception, such as
How did we get the Bible ? gi
might have been made by a careful copyist acting
under fixed rules, and do not affect the general state
of the text. But we can go farther. We may say
that the text of the Hebrew Old Testament which
we now have is the same as lay before Jerome
400 years after Christ ; the same as underlies certain
translations into Chaldee called Targums, which
were made in Babylonia in the third century after
Christ ; indeed the same text as was received by the
Jewish doctors of the second century, when the
Mishna was being formed, and when the Jewish
proselyte, Aquila, made his translation into Greek.
I do not affirm that there were no various readings
in the copies of the second, or even of the fourth
century; but the variations were slight and easily
controlled, and such as would have occurred in
manuscripts carefully transcribed from one standard
copy." *
In a note to this passage the author says : " In the
last century, great hopes were entertained of the
results to be derived from a collation of Hebrew
manuscripts. The collections of Kennicott (1776-
1780) and De Rossi (1784-1788) showed that all
manuscripts substantially represent one text, and, so
far as the consonants are concerned, recent discoveries
have not led to any new result." + The words which
immediately follow those quoted above form so
remarkable a confession of the strength of this part
of our case that I cannot refrain from transcribing
♦ W. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, pp. 69, 70.
t Page 397-
92 The Bible : its Stniciure and Purpose.
them at length. ** The Jews, in fact," he proceeds,
" from the time when their national life was ex-
tinguished, and their whole soul was concentrated
upon the preservation of the monuments of the past,
devoted the most strict and punctilious attention to
the exact transmission of the received text, down to
the smallest peculiarity of spelling, and even to
certain irregularities of writing. Let me explain this
last point. We find that when the standard manu-
script had a letter too big, or a letter too small, the
copies made from it imitated even this, so that letters
of an unusual size appear in the same place in every
Hebrew Bible. Nay, the scrupulousness of the
transcribers went still further. In old manuscripts,
when a copyist had omitted a letter — there was no
running hand, it was a sort of printing with the pen,
so that a letter might easily fall out — and, when the
error was detected, as the copy was revised, the
reviser inserted the missing letter above the line, as
we should now do, with a caret. If, on the other
hand, the reviser found that any superfluous letter
had been inserted, he cancelled it by pricking a dot
above it. Now, when such corrections occurred in
the standard manuscript from which our Hebrew
Bibles are all copied, the error and the correction
were copied together, so that you will find, even in
printed Bibles (for the system has been carried down
into the printed text), letters suspended above the
line to show that they had been inserted with a
caret, and letters * pointed ' with a dot over them to
show that they form no proper part of the text. This
How did we get the Bible ? 93
shows with what punctihous accuracy the one
standard copy was followed. In a few cases, how-
ever, it was thought necessary to suggest a correction
on the reading of the text. There were some words,
for example, which it was not thought decorous to
use in public reading in the synagogue, and for this
and other reasons, a few modifications were pre-
scribed in the reading of the text. But the rule was
laid down that you must not on that account change
the text itself. The reader simply learned to pro-
nounce, in reading certain passages, a different word
from that which he found written ; and in many
manuscripts a note to this effect was placed on the
margin. These notes are called iCms, the word Keri
being the imperative 'read!' while the expression
actually written in the text, but not uttered, is called
Kethib (written). Now, it is plain that such a system
of mechanical transmission could not have been
carried out with precision if copying had been left
to uninstructed persons. The work of preserving
and transmitting the received text became the
specialty of a guild of technically-trained scholars,
called the Massorets, or * possessors of tradition ; '
that is, of tradition as to the proper way of writing
the Bible. The Massorets laboured for centuries ;
their work was not completed till at least 800 years
after the time of Christ ; and they collected many
orthographical rules and great lists of peculiarities of
writing to be observed in passages where any error
was to be feared, which are still preserved either as
marginal notes or appendices to manuscripts of the
94
The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Bible, or in separate works. Besides this, the scholars
of the period after the close of the Talmud — that is,
after the sixth century, or thereby — devoted them-
selves to preserving not only the exact vi^riting, bit
the exact reading and pronunciation of the Bible,
according to the rules of the synagogal chanting.
The final result of this labour v^'as a system of vowel
points and musical accents, which enable the trained
reader to give exactly the correct pronunciation, and
even the correct chanting tone, of every word in the
Hebrew Old Testament." *
To complete the story, so well told in the preceding
extract, it may be added that those Jewish scholars,
called Massoretes, owed their impulse to an outbreak
of what we may call Jewish Protestantism, if we are
to believe some Jewish writers. Reinach t says that
the sect of the Karaites, or Caraites, arose in the
middle of the seventh century. " The Karaites
reje(fted," he says, " in its entirety the oral tradition,
the Talmud which is its organ, and all the institutions
of recent origin, such as the Phyla(?leries, the per-
manent Calendar, the ritual prayers, &c. They
maintained that only the prescriptions of the written
law should be regarded, which they observed with the
most extreme rigour." He proceeds to show that
their attachment to the Law provoked the Talmudic
Jews to a closer study of the sacred text. " Karaites
and Rabbanites," he says, " rivalled each other from
that time in zeal in grammatical and critical study of
the sacred Books. To render them accessible to the
♦ Pages 70-72. \ Hiitoire des Israelites, p. 55.
11 on.' did we get the Bible? 95
■great majority of readers little versed in the study of
Hebrew, they fixed the traditional pronunciation by
■the aid of a system of vowel-points and of accents,
which from time to time were modified and improved.
Then they sought to preserve the sacred text from all
alteration by comparing the various readings, by
choosing between them, by counting the number of
the verses, of the words, and even of the letters in
each Book of the Bible ; this gigantic work, called
the Massorah, was mainly the work of the Karaite
doctors of the school of Tiberias." *
This account of the origin of the Karaites is repudi-
ated by the sect itself; and it is remarkable that they
do not bear the name of that founder whom Reinach
assigns to them, or of any other. Their name comes
from kara, " to read." Basnage,f following Buxtorf,
points out that the word kamh (" that which should
be read ") was applied to the Holy Scripture, and that
it is from this that the Karaites derive their name.
They were " Scripturists," and their name indicated
their position. They permitted nothing to stand
between them and the Word of God. The Karaite
writers claim that they are the most ancient of , all the
Hebrew sedts, and that they are the descendants of
Ezra. In proof of this alleged descent, they show a
long list of their leading teachers, from Ezra's time to
the present. Their opponents, the Rabbins, admit their
existence in the times of Alexander the Great ; "for,"
say, they, "when that prince entered Jerusalem,
Jaddus, the chief priest, was already the head of the
* Pa°es 57, 58. f Histoirf Hes Juifs, I. iii., ch. xvi.
95 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Rabbanists, and Ananus and Cascanatus maintained
with distinction the part of the Karaites. God
declared Himself in favour of the first ; for Jaddus
worked a miracle in the presence of Alexander ; but
Ananus and Cascanatus manifested their powerless-
ness The. mistake is evident," continues
Basnage, whose words I quote. " For," says he,
"Ananus, whom they make a contemporary of
Alexander the Great, lived only in the eighth century
of the Christian era." *
Reinach repeats the assertion, most indignantly
repudiated by the Karaites, that they are the repre-
sentatives of the ancient Sadducees. But this is
an accusation which the moderate Rabbins have
themselves given up. Basnage identifies them with
"the Doctors of the Law" who are mentioned in
the Gospels. In Luke v. 17 ("And it came to pass
on a certain day that there were Pharisees and
Do(ftors of the Law sitting by, who were come out of
every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem ")
these " Do(ftors " are spoken of as if they were
distindt from the Pharisees. And, as the suggestion
cannot be entertained that they were Sadducees, the
conclusion, though somewhat startling, seems to have
something in its favour that these were the Karaites,
who, as we have seen, were noted for their champion-
ship of the Scripture.
But, whatever may have been their origin, there
can be no doubt that, under the Providence of God,
we are largely indebted to their influence and work.
*Histoire des Jui/s, ii. 375 (Edition 1716).
How did we get the Bible? gj
These Karaites stemmed the tide of that worship of
the opinions of men which threatened to remove the
Scriptures entirely from the Jewish people. " The
labours of the Massorites maybe regarded," says Dr.
Ginsburg, " as a later development and continuation
of the earlier work which was carried on by the
SopJierim (the Scribes)— the do(5^ors and authorised
interpreters of the Law soon after the return of the
Jews from the Babylonish captivity."* They (as
well as their opponents, whom they stirred up) con-
tinued the work of the Jewish stewardship with what
seems to have been a consuming zeal. Not only did
they take every precaution to hand down the Old
Testament Scriptures without alteration : they also
devised means by which the purity of the text might
afterwards be tested. They counted the verses of
each book and section, and placed the number of
them at the end. They marked the middle verse of
each book. They pointed out the middle letter of
the Pentateuch, and the middle clause of each book
of it. They ascertained how often each letter of the
Hebrew alphabet occurred in the Old Testament.
They attempted no correcftion of the text, but, as we
have seen, they marked the letters which they sup-
posed to be superfluous and other features of the
text which have been preserved to our own day.
The same intense sohcitude is seen in their direc-
tions for copying the Scriptures. " The rules laid
down by the Jews with regard to their manuscripts,"
says Mr. Forsyth, ** are curious. They are to be
* Introduction to the Massotetico-Crilical Edition of the Hebrew Bible, p. 287.
F
98 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
written upon parchment, made from the skin of ^
clean animal, and tied together by strings of a similar
substance. Each skin is to contain a certain number
of columns of a precise length and breadth, with a
certain number of words. They are to be written
with the purest ink, and no word is to be written by
heart, or with points ; and they are first to be orally
pronounced by the copyist. Before he writes the
name of God, he is to wash his pen." *
On no other book in the whole, world's history has
such labour been expended, or such ingenuity and
care been lavished, to hand it on from generation to
generation as it was received. Whatever may be said
of the Jew, this enormous but ungrudged toil ought
to be perpetually remembered. As if prompted by a
Divinely-implanted instinrt, the nation has magnifi-
cently fulfilled the duties of its stewardship, and has
handed on to us the jealously-guarded " Oracles of
God." It has had to abandon much in the fires of
persecution, but these it has ever preserved unscathed.
CHAPTER IX.
What of the Apocrypha?
WE have just seen with what extraordinary care
and scrupulous fidelity the Jews have handed
down to us the Old Testament Books. This fact has
an important bearing upon present controversies ;
* History oj A ttcient Manuscripts, WiWizux Forsyth, p. 83.
How did we get the Bible ? gg
for, if we can show that the Old Testament of to-day
is the very Old Testament which was possessed by
our Lord and the apostles, we shall have ended for
believing men all discussion about the origin and
authority of the Old Testament Books. I do not
wish to anticipate our inquiry into what the New
Testament has said of the Old ; but it will be plain
to everyone that, if we are certain that our Hebrew
Bible is the very Hebrew Bible that lay under the
eyes of the Lord Jesus, of Peter, and John, and
James, and Paul, then we secure testimony of enor-
mous importance in the present discussion as to the
integrity and authenticity of the Old Testament.
To get a clear answer to this question is our objecft
in this chapter and in that which follows it. We have
marked the care which was taken by the Jews that
no error should enter into the text. One other
inquiry, however, has to be made. Have they handed
on to us all the Books of the Old Testament ? It is
well known that, while our own Authorised Version
agrees with the Hebrew Bible as to the number of
the Old Testament Books, the Bible accepted by the
Romjsh Church differs widely from both. It contains,
in addition to our own Books, "The Book of
Tobias," " The Book of Judith," certain additions to
the Book of Esther, " The Book of Wisdom," " The
Book of Ecclesiasticus," " The Prophecy of Baruch,"
a thirteenth chapter of Daniel (in the Douay Bible),
giving the story of Susannah, and a fourteenth,
. containing that of Bel and the Dragon — while "the
song of the three children " is inserted in the third
lOO The Bible : its St r lecture and Purpose.
chapter. There are also added the "First and Second
Books of the Maccabees." Those additions are found,
too, in copies of the early Greek translation of the
Old Testament called the Septuagint. In refusing
these " Apocryphal " books a place among the Scrip-
tures, have the Jews shut out part of the Oracles of
God ? Or, have they, on the contrary, proved, in
their rigorous exclusion of these books, their fidelity
to the trust committed to them ? That is the
question to which we have now to find' an answer.
The Greek word, "apocrypha," means " hidden."
When applied to books, it signifies that their origin is
unknown. When the Council of Trent assembled in
1545, the Romish Church found itself in a position
or great difficulty. The newly-recovered knowledge
of Hebrew and Greek, and the appeal which the
Reformers were making to the original Scriptures,
placed the monks, and priests, and bishops generally
in a position of great embarrassment. They knew
nothing of these languages. Augustine had said :
" Those who speak Latin require, in order to the
understanding of the Scriptures, to be acquainted
with two other languages, Hebrew and Greek, so
that they may have recourse to ancient copies when
the disagreement of Latin interpreters suggests any
doubt."* But the Orders of monks instituted for the
advancement of Christian knowledge left Greek and
Hebrew manuscripts in undisturbed slumber upon
their shelves, and they now attempted to beat down
the revival of learning with foolish clamour. One monk
* Christian Doctrine, B. ii.
How did we get the Bible ? loi
is reported to have declared from the pulpit that " a
new language " had been discovered, "which," said
he, ** is called the Greek. It must be carefully avoided.
This language is the mother of all heresies. I see in
the hands of many a book written in that tongue ; it
is called the New Testament. It is a book full of
briars and vipers. As for Hebrew, those who learn
it, immediately become Jews."*
These and similar ta(ftics were powerless, however,
to arrest the new movement, and some other remedy
was loudly called for. That which found favour with
the Council was to decree the inspiration and absolute
authority of the then current Latin Bible, the Vulgate,
a translation largely made by Jerome and by earlier
translators whose faulty renderings had by the fourth
century obtained too strong a hold to be easily dis-
placed. The Council ordained "that in all public
lessons, discussions, preachings, and expositions, this
ancient version shall be held as authentic, and that
no one shall dare, or shall presume, to reject it
under any pretext whatever." f
But the Council of Trent had to face another
difficulty. In this Vulgate Bible the above-named
apocryphal books were contained. These were not
in the Hebrew Bible. Scholars knew that they had
been allowed a place even in the Vulgate, not
because they were part of Scripture, but solely on
account of their suitableness for devotional reading.
But the multitude were not aware of this. " Many,"
* Sismondi, History of the French, xvi.
+ Bungener, History oj the Council of Trent, p. 97.
I02 The Bible : its Strttciure and Purpose.
says Pallavicini, the acknowledged Church historian-
of the Council of Trent, " lived in the most distress-
ing ignorance with regard to this; the same book
being adored by some as the expression of the Holy
Ghost, and execrated by others as the work of a
sacrilegious impostor." The Divines, those who were
really scholars, and who were acquainted with the
question, were asked to report. These were unanimous
in declaring the inferiority of the apocryphal books.
But to give effect to that opinion would be a surrender
to Protestantism which it was felt the Church could
not afford. They were therefore declared to be
canonical for the first time in the history of the
Christian Church. There were other additions in
copies of the Septuagint which were not in the
Vulgate, and which were, therefore, still left to rank
as apocryphal and uncanonical. These are the so-
called third and fourth books of Esdras, or Ezra,
the third book of Maccabees, the so-called 151st
Psalm, a professed appendix to Job, and a preface to
Lamentations.
It may be well to remind the reader that the books
which Rome thus canonised are quite unworthy of
the place given to them. They are, in fact, the kind
of books of which the Old Testament would have
been made up if critical theories were true. They
bear abundant marks of their spurious origin. We
find in them the crude imaginations of an ignorant
and superstitious time, and the chronological confu-
sion which follows a romancer like his shadow.
Tobit, the father of Tobias, loses his sight from the
How did we get the Bible? 103
droppings of a passing bird falling into his eyes as he
was gazing upward into heaven. Tobias sets out, like
Jacob, in search of a bride ; and, like him, has to
undertake a long journey eastward. He is joined by
an angel, who becomes his companion for about 300
miles, and whose notions of truthfulness cannot be
described as exact or commendable. Although he
afterwards discloses that he is the angel Raphael, he
introduces himself to Tobias at the beginning as
Azarias, a son of one of the acquaintances of Tobias's
father, which leads Tobias to reply, " Thou art of an
honest and good stock." The bride whom Tobias
goes to wed is unfortunate enough to be loved by a
demon, who kills every bridegroom (for the young
woman has already passed through the marriage
ceremony several times) on the marriage night. The
bridegroom enters the bridal chamber a living man,
and is carried out next morning a corpse.
But this prolonged angel's visit is to save Tobias
from a like fate, and that important purpose was
effe(fted in the following manner : " And as they
went on their journey they came to the river Tigris,
and they lodged there ; and when the young man
went down to wash himself, a fish leaped, out of the
river, and would have drowned him. Then the angel
said unto him, Take the fish. And the young man
laid hold of the fish and drew it to land. To whom
the angel said, Open the fish, and take the heart, and
the liver, and the gall, and put them up safely. So
.the young man did as the angel commanded him,
and when they had roasted the fish, they did eat it.
::cj. The Bible : its Sirncinre and Purpose.
Tlien the young man said unto the angel, Brother
Azarias, to what use is the heart, and the Hver, and
the gall of the fish ? And he said unto him, touching
the heart and the Hver, if a devil, or an evil spirit,
trouble any, we must make a smoke thereof before
the man or the woman, and the party shall be no
more vexed. As for the gall, it is good to anoint a
man who hath whiteness in his eyes ; he shall be
healed." * This gall is, of course, what is needed to
restore old Tobit's eyesight, while Tobias finds the
heart and the liver equally efficacious. Possessed of
these, he confidently passes through the hitherto fatal
ceremony, and enters the bridal chamber. There he
set the heart and liver on fire ; and, when the demon
caught the odour of that perfume, it proved to be
too much for him. He fled, we are told, " into the
uttermost parts of Egypt," and troubled Tobias's
bride no more.
The book is not less extraordinary in its chron-
ology and its geography. Tobit, the father of Tobias,
the hero of this story, is said to have been a youth
when the ten tribes revolted from Rehoboam. This
compels us to admit that he must have been 270
years old when the ten tribes were carried away to
Assyria. But he survives that event, and neverthe-
less dies at the age of 158 ! The reader will have
noticed that mention is made of the river Tigris.
This river is represented as being nearer to Palestine
than the Euphrates, thus exactly reversing the
positions of these two important streams.
♦Chapter vi.
How did we get the Bible ? 105
The book of Judith forms another illustration of
the Bible as it would have been had critical theories
of its origin been true. The events which it describes
are said to have taken place at " Bethulia," a place of
which neither ancient records nor modern discoveries
know anything. A like difficulty occurs with regard
to the name of the High Priest. It can be found
neither in the Scripture history nor in the list given
by Josephus. It is equally impossible to assign a time
to the events mentioned. According to the book,
the temple of Solomon is still standing, so that a
time must be found before the Jewish captivity. But
how shall we, then, explain the presence of Holo-
fernes, " a Prince of Persia," at the head of a mighty
army, at a time when the field was occupied either
by the Assyrian or by the Babylonian empire ?
Problems of the same kind are presented by that
general's ignorance of the Israelites, seeing that he
has to make the inquiry, " Tell me now, ye sons of
Canaan, who this people is that dwelleth in the hill
country, and what are the cities they inhabit." We
are similarly at a loss to find a place for the great
and lasting tranquiUty which resulted from Judith's
slaying of the Persian general. We are told that
" she waxed old in her husband's house, being 105
years old. And there was none that made the
children of Israel any more afraid in the days of
Judith ; nor a long time after her dea;th." She is
represented as a young woman when the alleged
deliverance of her people was effected. When this
is borne in mind, and it is remembered also that
io6 The Bible: its Structure and Purpose.
there was no troubler of Israel for " a long time after
her death," it is clear that this tranquility must have
endured for at least 120 years. As everyone is aware,
there was no such period of peace during those
troublous days of Israel's history. It may be added
that Nebuchadnezzar is said to have reigned at
Nineveh, in evident ignorance of the fa(5ls that in
Nebuchadnezzar's time Nineveh had been destroyed,
and that this great king dwelt in Babylon, the city
which he loved, and which he had re-buiit and adorned.
The only books for which a good word can be said
are those of i Maccabees, The Wisdom of Solomon,
and Ecclesiasticus. The first, notwithstanding some
errors, gives us reliable history. This, and the others,
•however, though they contain good counsel, are on a
much lower level than that of the Scriptures. But a
complete answer to the Trent Canon is its novelty.
The mere fadt that it was necessary in 1545 to decree
that those books should be received as part of the
Word of God, is eloquent. Through all those past
centuries, these books had in vain sought general
acceptance ; and they were canonized now only
through the stress and strain experienced by a Church
which was contending for its old pre-eminence, if
not for its existence.
The a(5t was done also in the face of the distinct
and persistent testimony of the Christian Church.
While these and other books were valued as helpful
religious literature, and were even occasionally added
to Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament, it was
distincftly confessed that they did not belong to the
How did we get the Bible ? 107
number of the Canonical Books. Eusebius, the
historian of the early Church who wrote in the
fourth century of our era, says : " After the return
from captivity until the advent of our Saviour there
is no book which can be esteemed sacred." And,
when speaking of the Maccabees, he says : " These
books are not received as Divine Scriptures." In
other words, the Old Testament Canon closed with
Malachi. Gregory Nazianzen, after giving a catalogue
of the Canonical Books, says : " Let no one add to
these Divine books, nor take away anything from
them. I think it necessary to add this, that there
are other books besides those which I have enumerated
as constituting the Canon, which, however, do not
belong to it, but were set forth by the early fathers,
to be read for the sake of the instrucftion which they
contain." Cyril of Jerusalem (348 a.d.) writes in
his Catechism : " Read nothing which is Apocryphal.
Read the Scriptures, namely, the twenty-two books
of the Old Testament, which were translated by the
seventy-two interpreters." Jeronie, in his general
preface to his translation of the Scriptures, says, after
mentioning the Books which he had rendered into
Latin from the Hebrew : " All besides them must be
placed among the Apocryphal." In his special preface
to the Books of Solomon, he refers to " Wisdom "
and " Ecclesiasticus," and remarks : " As the Church
reads the Books of Judith, Tobit, and the Maccabees,
but does not receive them among the Canonical
Scriptures, so also may she read these two books for
-the edification of the common people, but not as
io8 The Bible : Us StriicUire and Purpose.
authorily to confirm any of the doctrines of the
Church."
Other ancient testimonies are equally emphatic ;
and nothing could be more significant than the fadt
that the early Syriac Version of the Old Testament,
named the Peshitto, does not contain the apocryphal
books. This means either that the translators knew
nothing of them ; or that, though they knew of their
existence, they knew of no title they possessed to
rank with the Old Testament Scriptures.
CHAPiER X.
Is THE Apocrypha Quoted in the New
Testament ?
STRENUOUS attempts have been made to show
that an affirmative reply must be given to the
above question. Stier, in his zeal to uphold the
apocrypha, made a list of 102 passages in which, he
claimed, the New Testament writers either referred
to, or quoted from, the apocryphal books. No one
has been bold enough to adopt that list ; but a few
" proof passages " are occasionally produced. Karl
Budde says : " The New Testament writers show no
scruple in quoting extra-canonical books as sacred,
and we find ascribed to Jesus some expressions
quoted as Holy Writ (Luke xi. 49 ; John vii. 38)
which are not contained in the Old Testament.
What is more, examples of this form of Jewish
How did we get the Bible ? log
literature fused with Christian elements, or worked
over from the Christian point of view, have found
their way into the Canon of the Old Testament
itself — a fact which has only lately begun to receive
the attention it deserves." *
The unscholarly extravagance which marks that
statement is specially manifest in the opening sen-
tence, which informs us that the New Testament
writers " show no scruple in quoting extra-canonical
books as sacred." This, if true, would have been
one of the most extraordinary things in literature —
sacred or profane. For men, not unacquainted with
the apocrypha, have for eighteen centuries been
devoting their lives to the study of the New Testa-
ment, and are not only ignorant of this free reference
to, and sanction of, the apocrypha, but also repel
the suggestion of it with indignation. The second
statement, which assumes that our Lord quoted
apocryphal books as Holy Writ, is equally reckless.
The words : "Therefore also said the wisdom of
God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and
some of them they shall slay and persecute," &c.
(Lukexi. 49-51); and those other: "He that
believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water " (John
vii. 38), are confidently asserted to be from books
outside the Scriptures, though 'no one has ever been
able to find them in any apocryphal writing ! A
reference to the Old Testament, however, proves that
>^e do not require to travel outside the Scripture;
* Encyclop<edia Biblica, Art. " Canon."
no The Bible : its St7'ucture a7id Purpose.
for we discover the importance which is there
assigned to figures and promises embodying the very
imagery referred to by our Lord. This is specially
prominent in that silently-surrendered Book,
Solomon's Song. The Messiah says of the Church :
*'A garden enclosed is My sister, My spouse ; a
spring shut up, a fountain sealed ... A fountain of
gardens, a well of living waters [the very phrase
used by our Lord] , and streams from Lebanon."
That the Church, though loved, is shown as *' a
spring shut up," "a fountain sealed," tells her need
and her destiny. The description is an imphed
promise that the day will come when the fountain
will be unsealed and when the spring will be opened.
It may be safely said that had that passage been
found in any apocryphal book, the rationalistic camp
would have rung with rejoicing. The assertion
would have been loudly made that this was the very
passage which our Lord had in view. But it does
not stand alone. Not to mention the references
under this figure to the coming salvation ; the smitten
rock in the desert ; the promise that in the day of
Israel's redemption they shall "draw water with joy
from the wells of salvation " (Isa. xii. 3), and the words
in Isaiah xliv. 3, Iv. i,lviii. 11 ; we find two striking
predictions which explain our Lord's reference. The
first is Ezekiel xlvii. 1-12. The prophet sees waters
Streaming out of the temple. They are pouring out
from under " the threshold of the house eastward."
The flood covers the land deeper and deeper, until
it becomes "waters to swim in," By that East
How did we get the Bible ? in
Gate the Lord had entered ! He had passed in to
His Temple there, and this is the result. The
waters are also described as coming down from "the
right side of the house, at the south side of the
altar." The " right side of the house," and the
south side of the altar, was God's right hand, as
from the Holy of Holies He looked towards the
altar. It is the place of acceptance — of acceptance
at the altar — the place of pardon and reconciliation
and peace through sacrifice. It is thence the waters
flow. That word was now explained and applied by
the Lord Jesus. From the depths of that visited
temple, from within this acceptance with God, the
blessing would flow forth to refresh and fructify the
waiting earth.
The second passage is Zechariah xiv. 8, 9: "And
it shall be in that day, that living waters [here, again,
the very phrase used by our Lord] shall go out from
Jerusalem ; half of them toward the former sea, and
half of them toward the hinder sea ; in summer and
in winter shall it be." And the Lord shall be king
over all the earth : in that day shall there be one
Lord, and His name one." Recall for a moment
the occasion so carefully described in the Gospel, and
the whole will now be clear. We know from Jewish
sources that on each day of the feast of Tabernacles
a priest went down to the pool of Siloam, filled a
golden vessel with water, passed up with it to the
Temple amidst a joyous procession, took his place
by the altar and poured it out there together with
wine while the priests and the people sang the Hallel
112 The Bible: its Structure and Purpose.
(Psalms cxiii.-cxviii.) On the eighth day the Hallel
was sung, but the water was not brought. It was on
that day, " the last day, that great day of the feast,"
when the omission of the poured-out water had made
its impression, that the Lord, with a voice which
commanded the attention of one and all in that
immense throng, spoke the words of this promise.
The time will come when living waters shall not
only be poured out upon that Temple, but shall also
flow forth from it ; and the time had even then come
when believing men could receive and give forth
God's great salvation.
The quotation ifrom Luke (xi. 49-51) need not
detain us. The words: "Therefore also said the
WISDOM OF God," apparently furnish us with the
reference, and indicate how full the Old Testament
is of prophecy. We should not think of the Book
of Proverbs as one that told beforehand the fate of
the Gospel message and of the Jewish people. And
yet it is to it that this phrase directs us. There we
find these words : *' Wisdom crieth without ; she
uttereth her voice in the streets : she crieth in the
chief place of concourse . . in the city she uttereth
her words Turn ye at My reproof: behold, I
will pour out My spirit unto you, I will make known
My words unto you" (i. 20-23). And what will the
result be ? Rejection ; for these words follow im-
mediately: " Because I have called, and ye refused ;
I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded ;
but ye have set at nought all My counsel, and would
none of My reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity;
How did we get the Bible? 113
I will mock when your fear cometh ; when your fear
Cometh as a desolation, and your destruction cometh
as a whirlwind. . . . Therefore shall they eat of the
fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own
devices " (24-31). The words of our Lord not only
cite the prediction : they also interpret and apply it.
The passage in Proverbs indicates a time of mighty
prophetic activity : this, we are now taught, was ful-
filled in the sending forth of prophets and apostles.
The Spirit in the Proverbs intimates that the result
will be determined refusal ; and the Lord bids the Jews
note that this will be realised in their slaying some
and persecuting others of His messengers. The Spirit
testifies that the Divine wrath will be manifested in
God's withdrawal and in the abandonment of His
people to desolating terror and fearful destruction.
This, again, our Lord interprets. He discloses the
truth and leaves it sounding in the ears of the multi-
tude and inscribed upon the page of Scripture. It was
interpretation that was needed, and not mere repeti-
tion. That generation required to know that it was
itself that had stood before the omniscient eye of God.
There are passages, however, which are frequently
cited as distinct New Testament quotations from
apocryphal books. Speaking of these, Wildeboer
says : " The facft that New Testament writers quote
from Apocryphal books can only be denied by
dogmatic prejudice."* Let me say a word on the
^two strongest of these alleged instances. In 2 Tim.
iii. 8 the names are given of the two leading opponents
♦ The On/;in of the Cotton of the Old Testament, p. 51.
G
114 ^''^^ Bible : its S true hire and Purpose.
of Moses among the magicians at the Court of
Pharaoh. They are Jannes and Jambres. Origen tells
us of an apocryphal work, entitled Jannes and
Mambres. But it appears to have been one of the least
successful of these forgeries. It was condemned by
Pope Gelasius, and afterwards disappeared. There is
no proof whatever that it existed in the apostle's time;
and, even though it had existed then, the form Mambres
would have indicated that the names were not taken
from it. This apocryphal book, however, merely em-
bodied an ancient and widespread tradition. Pliny,
the Roman naturalist, mentions Jannes in connection
with Moses*; and the names appear in the Targums
and in the Talmud. The common opinion has been
that Paul refers to the old tradition. A more worthy
belief is that these names of the opposers of God's
ancient servant are here revealed to us by the Spirit.
Recent investigation proves that Jannes, at least, was
an Egyptian name of that very time; and, in any
case, the assertion that this is a quotation from an
apocryphal book is quite unproved.
The only instance which has even a semblance of
strength is the passage in Jude (verses 14, 15) :
"And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied
of these, saying. Behold, the Lord cometh with ten
thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon
all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them
of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly
committed, and of all their hard speeches which
ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." Some
* Bk. XXX. ch.ii.
How did we get the Bible? 115
even of our ablest apologists have yielded to learned
clamour, and have given way here. " This appears,"
writes the late Dr. Green, of Princeton, " to be taken
from the Book of Enoch, chapter ii."* But the
critics have built here upon the usual sandy founda-
tion. There is absolutely no proof that the apocryphal
Book of Enoch was in existence in the first century ;
and the ordinary reader will naturally ask how the
assertion that the book was quoted from could have
been ventured until it was certain that the book then
existed. The forgery which goes by this name is
marked by such an evident knowledge of Christian
docTtrine that the critics have been compelled to admit
that part of it at least is of late date. Some of them,
indeed, have contended that the book cannot be earlier
than 132 A.D. The reader, however, will be able to
form his own judgment when he notes the following
facts. A conspicuous feature of the work, and one
which must have been due to the original writer, is the
prominence given to the Messiah. He is spoken of as
"the Son of God," as He "whose name was named
before the sun was made." He is said also to have
"existed aforetime in the presence of God." He is
spoken of, too, as " the Son of woman," and " the
Son of Man." That this conception of Him who was
to come was possible to any uninspired writer before
the advent of Christ is simply incredible. We have in
Philo and Josephus a distin(5t revelation of the thought
even of our Lord's own time, and there is nothing
resembling this to be found anywhere. Who knew,
* General Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 148.
Ii6 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
for instance, that the Messiah was to be One who
had existed from all eternity ; in other words, was
God Himself? And yet we are asked by those men,
who themselves can believe so little, to believe that this
was a conception readily attainable before the coming
of Christ ! Here is the passage in this so-called Book
of Enoch : " In that hour was this Son of Man
invoked before the Lord of Spirits, and His name in
the presence of the Ancient of days. Before the sun
and the signs were created, before the stars of heaven
were formed. His name was invoked in the presence
of the Lord of Spirits. Therefore the Elect and the
Concealed One existed in His presence, before the
world was created and for ever " (xlviii. 2, 3, 5). That
there are predictions in the Old Testament which
quite bear out all this, we frankly admit. But these
were enigmas to the Jews then, and they have been
enigmas to them ever since. It was the most
unexpected of all revelations to the apostles them-
selves ; and it is simply incredible that any forger,
writing in the first century B.C., could have penetrated
a mystery that was hid from that generation as from
preceding generations.
Still more extraordinary, in their anticipation of
Christianity, would have been some other parts of
the book. The Messiah, it tells us, will be the objedl
of universal faith and worship. All the rulers of the
earth " shall fix their hopes on this Son of Man, shall
pray to Him, and petition Him for mercy " (Ixi. 10-13);
" All who dwell on earth shall fall down and worship
before Him, and sing praise to the name of the Lord
How did we get the Bible? 117
of Spirits " (xlviii. 4). Ttie Messiah is also to be the
Judge of men and angels : " O ye kings, O ye mighty
who inhabit the world, you shall behold My Eledl
One sitting upon the throne of My glory. And He
shall judge Azazeel, all his associates and all his
hosts, in the name of the Lord of Spirits " (liv. 5) ;
" They blessed, glorified, and exulted, because the
name of the Son of Man was revealed to them. He
sat upon the throne of His glory " — words which are
plainly taken from Matthew xxv. 31 — "and the
principal part of the judgment was assigned to Him,
the Son of Man " (Ixviii. 39). There are also distinct
allusions to the Trinity. We read of " all the angels
of the Lords, namely, of the Eledt One and of the
other Power who was upon the earth over the water
in that day" (Ix. 13, 14). The Ele(5t One is, as we
have seen, identified with the Messiah, and "the
other Power " is clearly the Spirit of God, spoken of
in Genesis i. 2 as moving "upon the face of the
waters." That the Jews before Christ believed in a
dodtrine which they have abhorred ever since His
coming, the critics will have difficulty in inducing
anyone to credit. But, if the book did not exist in
the time of Jude, it is clear that Jude could not have
quoted from it. The words are a precious revelation
to us of the ministry of this ancijent servant of God, and
of the fadt that the old world also had its prophets and
its witnesses. That Jude should be used to show us
this is nothing strange. Hosea conveys to us a fact,
for instance, regarding Jacob, of which we find no
account in Genesis. Jacob, he tells us, in his wrest-
ii8 The Bible: its Struchire and Purpose.
ling with the angel, "wept and made supplication unto
him " (xii. 4). Paul communicates a saying of Jesus
which is not found in any of the Gospels (Acts xx. 35).
These and other communications, like this regarding
Enoch's prophetic ministry, were given as they were
needed.
Reuss, who has cut himself loose from all Scriptural
authority, has no scruple in admitting that the attack
From this side has failed. " In all the New.Testament,"
he says, " no one has been able to point out a single
dogmatic passage taken from the Apocrypha and
quoted as proceeding from a sacred authority.
Hence, whatever may have been the practice followed
in the various Christian communities, it must be said
that the apostolic teaching, so far as we are acquainted
with it, adhered to the Hebrew canon." * But, if
there is no proof in the New Testament of any
acknowledgment of apocryphal books, there is
certainly not a shadow of justification for the state-
ment that they ever had a place in the Jewish Canon.
They were never at any time received as sacred by
the Jews. "The Apocrypha . . which were vvholly
foreign to the use of the Synagogue," says "Wildeboer,
" had never been thought of in authoritative Jewish
schools for reading in the Synagogue." t It appears
also that they were not included in copies of the
only early Greek translation, called the Septuagint,
down to 300 A.D. For Cyril of Jerusalem says •
" Read the Divine Scriptures, namely, the twenty-
♦ The Htstory of the Canon of Holy Scripture, pp. 8, 9.
+ The Origin of the Canon of the Old Testament, p. 92.
How did we get the Bible? iig
two books of the Old Testament, which the seventy-
two interpreters translated." Here the number of
the Books is the same as those (as we shall after-
wards see) which are contained in the present Hebrew
Bible. The Greek translator of the Book of Ecclesi-
asticus (who was also the grandson of the author)
makes no claim to have that work recognised as
canonical. His words plainly imply, on the contrary,
that the Scriptures stand entirely apart from his and
all other books. Josephus, too, a contemporary of
the apostles, speaks in the same way. He intimates
his knowledge of the existence of later books, written
after the closing of the Old Testament Canon; "but,"
he says, these have "not been deemed worthy of
like credit with what preceded, because the exaft
succession of the prophets ceased ;" and he adds
that, "though so long a time has now passed, no
one has dared either to add anything to them, or to
take anything from them, or to alter anything in
them."* Philo of Alexandria, a somewhat earlier
witness, gives the same testimony. Speaking of the
Jews and their sacred Scriptures, he says: "They
have not changed so much as a single word in them.
They would rather die a thousand deaths than detract
anything from these laws and statutes." t
* Cont. Apion. ,i.8. + Eusebius, DePrep. Evang., viii.
20 The Bible : its Strjidure and Purpose.
CHAPTER XI.
Have we To-day the very Scriptures
Possessed by our Lord and His Apostles?
'"r^HE importance of this question is evident, and
J- will be still plainer when we inquire into the
New Testament witness to the Old. Happily the
question admits of a clear and satisfactory reply.
Let us divide the inquiry into two parts, and ask,
first of all, whether our Old Testament contains the
same number of Books as the Jews possessed in their
Sacred Scriptures in the first century of the Christian
era. Have no Books been lost ? Have any been
added? Beginning with the fourth century of the
Christian era, we find the Christian Church then
possessed of the same Old Testament Scriptures
as have been handed down to us. Rufinus, who was
a contemporary and a friend of Jerome, and who
flourished about 390 a.d., gives the following enumera-
tion of them : " First of all," he writes, " five Books
of Moses have been handed down. After these,
Joshua and Judges, together with Ruth. After them,
four Books of Kings, which the Jews number as two;
Chronicles, which are called ' the Book of days ;' and
Ezra two Books . . . and Esther. Of the prophets
there are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel,
besides one Book of the twelve Prophets. Job also,
and the Psalms of David, and three of Solomon." *
* Expos, in Symbol. Apcst.
How did we get the Bible? 121
These three Books of Solomon are Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, and The Song of Songs. The twelve
Minor Prophets were reckoned as one Book. Here,
then, we have all the Books of the Old Testament.
There are none wanting, and there are no additions.
Indeed, this writer is careful to define the position of
the apocryphal books. After adding the New Testa-
ment Books to the above list, he says : " These are
the books which the fathers have included within
the Canon, by which they would establish the
tenets of our faith. One should know, however, that
there are other books, which are not canonical, but
which our ancestors called ecclesiastical ; for example,
the Wisdom of Solomon, [the book] of Sirach, called
by the Latins Ecclesiasticus. ... Of the same order
is the little book of Tohit and Jndith, and the books ot
the Maccabees.''
This, which is also the general testimony of the
fathers, is perfectly clear. It is specially noteworthy
also in regard to the order of the books, as we shall
have occasion to remark by-and-bye, when we come
to speak of the Historical Books of the Old Testa-
ment; Jerome, in his Prologus Galeattis, gives us
the arrangement which was favoured by his Jewish
teachers. The Jews divide the Books into three
sections. The first consists of the five Books of the
Law — Genesis to Deuteronomy. The second they
call " the Prophets," among which they reckon th-e
historical Books from Joshua to 2 Kings-. This also
'embraces all the prophetical Books with the exception
of Daniel. The third, and last, division, is named
122 The Bible : its Structure a7id Purpose
Kethnhim, " the writings," called in Greek the
Hagiographa, that is, the "holy writings." This
contains the Book of Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, and
the other Books which Jerome names. He first of all
explains the Rabbinical conceit which saw a striking
analogy between the number of letters in the Hebrew
alphabet and the number of Books in the Hebrew
Bible. This resemblance would not occur to us ; for,
while there are twenty-two letters in that alphabet,
there are really thirty-nine Books in the Old Testa-
ment. But the Jews, by putting a number of Books
together, managed to make the twenty-two ; and
when they had accomplished this, they noticed
another analogy. Five of the Hebrew letters have
each of them two distinct forms. The letter has one
form when it is written at the end of a word, and
another form when it occupies some other place in
a word. These are consequently named " double
letters." It seemed to the Jews, therefore, a remark-
able fa(ft that there should be five double Books in
their Bible just as there are five double letters in their
alphabet. These are Samuel (I. and II.), Kings (I.
and II.), Chronicles (I. and II.), Ezra (with which
they place Nehemiah), and Jeremiah (to which
Lamentations is added). But, like many other eager
theorists, they forgot some things. There was a
sixth double-Book, namely, Judges-Ruth ; and there
was a twelve-fold Book (the Minor Prophets) to
which, fortunately for the learner of their noble and
honoured tongue, their alphabet provides no analogy.
Jerome names each of the Books both by its
How did we get the Bible? 123
Hebrew name and by that b}' which it was known to
the Christian Churches. I give below the Books;
the names and the order of which he has thus placed
on record :
The Law
The Prophets
The Hagiographa
(5 Books).
(8 Books).
(9 Books).
(i) Genesis.
(i) Joshua.
(I) Job.
(2) Exodus.
(2) Judges (with Ruth).
(2) Psalms.
(3) Leviticus.
(3) Samuel
(ist and 2nd Books).
{3) Proverbs.
(4) Numbers.
(4) Kings
(ist and 2nd Books).
(4) Ecclesiastes.
(5) Deuteronomy.
(5) Isaiah.
(5) Song of Songs.
(6) Jeremiah
(6) Daniel.
(with Lamentations).
(7) Ezekiel.
(7) Chronicles.
(8) The 12 Minor
(8) Ezra (with
Prophets.
Nehemiah).
(9) Esther.
If we add together the numbers of the Books in
each division — five, eight, and nine — we find that
they amount to twenty-two, the number of letters in
the Hebrew alphabet.
He adds that some placed Rtith and Lamentations
among the Hagiographa, and thus make twenty-four
Books instead of twenty-two. Those who did this,
however, were probably desirous to make the number
of the Books agree with the number of letters in the
Greek alphabet, which is twenty-four.
The writing in which Jerome communicates the
above information he named Prologus Galeatus, that
is, "ahelmeted Preface." He explains the meaning
of the name. He says that the above list will be an
armed fence round about the Canonical Books of the
124 The Bible: its Striuhire and Purpose.
Old Testament; "so that," he adds, "we may be
sure that whatsoever is outside this must be placed
among the Apocrypha." This testimony is decisive.
Jerome, resident at that time in Palestine, took special
pains to inform himself as to what the Jews believed
concerning the sacred Books = We have, therefore,
in the catalogue given above, the Jewish Canon in
the year 380 of our era. It is, so far as the number
of the Books is concerned, in absolute agreement with
our English Old Testament. No Books have disap-
peared since 380 a.d. ; and no Books have been added.
Passing upward now to the second century, we find
Melito, who was Bishop of Sardis about 170 a.d.,
informing us what the Jewish Canon was at that
time. He writes to one Onesimus, a friend of his,
who is apparently deeply interested in this inquiry.
The letter runs as follows : " Melito, to Onesimus his
brother, greeting. Since you have often requested,
from the earnest desire which you cherish for the
Word, that you might have a selecftion made for you
from the Law and the Prophets, which has respe(ft
to our Saviour and the whole of our faith ; and since
moreover you have been desirous to obtain an accurate
account of the ancient Books, both as to their number
and their order, I have taken pains to accomplish
this, knowing your earnestness in respect to the faith,
and your desire for instrucftion in regard to the Word ;
and most of all, that you, while striving after eternal
salvation, through desires after God, give a preference
to these things. Making a journey therefore into the
East, and having arrived at the place where these
How did we get the Bible ? 125
things were proclaimed and transa(?ted, I there learned
accurately the Books of the Old Testament, which I
arrange and transmit to you. The names are as
follows : The five Books of Moses — Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Then Joshua
(son) of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four Books of Kings
[including two of Samuel and two of Kings] , two of
Chronicles, The Psalms of David, the Proverbs of
Solomon (also called Wisdom), Ecclesiastes, the
Song of Songs, Job. Prophets : Isaiah, Jeremiah,
the twelve in one Book, Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra. From
these I have made selections, distributing them into
six Books."
Melito is the earliest Christian writer who has left
us a list of the Old Testament Books. He was held
in the highest esteem by the early Church. TertuUian,
who was a contemporary of his, says that most
Christians called Melito " a Prophet." The very
fact, too, of his travelling to Palestine, and his taking
pains, as he says, to learn " accurately " (akritos)
the number and the order of the Books of the Old
Testament, invests the above testimony with peculiar
importance. Nehemiah is, as usual, included in the
name Ezra. But there is one Book apparently
omitted. This is Esther. This is almost certainly
due to a mistake made by Eusebius, in whose pages
alone the quotation from Melito has been preserved.
A similar slip was made by him in his account of the
testimony of. Origen in regard to the Old Testament
Books. Origen distinctly says that they number
twenty-two. But Eusebius, in copying Origen's Hst,
126 The Bible : Us Structure and Purpose.
only gives us twenty-one. In this instance, the Book
of the Minor Prophets is omitted, a Book which
Origen can by no possibihty have intended to
exclude. Turning to Melito's list, we find that the
Books, as named by him, number only twenty-one.
The twenty-second has been omitted, and the missinp
Book can only have been Esther.
This testimony of Mehto's brings us to the second
century of the Christian era. We have now to listen
to. another, not now from a Christian source, but
from a Jewish, which takes us back to the first
century, and to the very time of our Lord. Josephus
was born in the year 37 of our era ; and, as he tells
us how many Books formed the Holy Scriptures of
the Jews at that time, his testimony is decisive. The
Bible of Josephus was the Bible of his childhood,
the Bible of his parents, and of their contempor-
aries ; and, consequently, the Bible of our Lord. It
was the Bible of the Synagogues at Nazareth and
Capernaum, of all the Synagogues in Judea and in
Galilee. It was the Bible of the Temple, and the
Bible whose words the Lord quoted to His disciples
when He opened their minds that they might under-
stand its sayings. " We have not," says Josephus,
"a countless number of books, discordant and
arrayed against each other, but only two-and-twenty
books, containing the history of every age, which are
justly accredited as Divine; and of these, five belong
to Moses, which contain both the laws and the history
of the generations of men until his death. This
period lacks but little of 3,000 years. From the
How did we get the Bible? 127
<3eath of Moses, moreover, until the reign of Arta-
xerxes, king of the Persians after Xerxes, the prophets
who followed Moses have described the things that
were done during the age of each one respectively,
in thirteen books. The remaining /c>m>' contain hymns
to God, and rules of life for men. From the time of
Artaxerxes, moreover, until our present period, all
occurrences have been written down ; but they are
not regarded as entitled to the like credit with those
which precede them, because there was no certain
succession of prophets. Fact has shown what con-
fidence we place in our own writings. For, although
so many ages have passed away, no one has dared to
add to, nor to take anything from them, nor to make
alterations. In all Jews it is implanted, even from
their birth, to regard them as being the instructions
of God, and to abide steadfastly by them ; and, if it
be necessary, to die gladly for them." *
The numbers given in this extract enable us to
determine definitely the Books which formed the Bible
of Josephus and of our Lord. He indicates the three-
fold division in our present Hebrew Bibles — the Law,
the Pr6phets, and the Kethuhim — that is, the Hagio-
grapha, or " holy writings." The Books were
numbered then, as afterwards, in accordance with
the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
They were, in all, twenty-two — five of Moses, thirteen
of the Prophets, and four of the Hagiographa. Let
us arrange them, as they plainly stood before the
mmd of Josephus : —
128 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
The Books of The Prophets (13). Those containing
Moses (5). /jN Joshua. Hymns to God and
/t\ f;pne<;i<? , , rules of life for
(1) Genesis. ^^^ j^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^
(2) Exodus. ^^j ^^^ ^^j 2nd Samuel. (i) The Psalms.
(3) Leviticus. ^^j jgj ^j^^ 2nd Kings. (2) The Proverbs.
(4) Numbers. ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^nd Chronicles. (3) Ecclesiates.
(5) Deuteronomy. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ Nehemiah. (4) Song of Songs.
(7) Esther.
(8) Isaiah.
(9) Jeremiah and
Lamentations.
(10) Ezekiel.
(11) Daniel.
(12) The Minor Prophets.
(13) Job.
Job is here included among the historical Books,
aad we have in Josephus, Book for Book, the very
Bible which we have in our hands to-day. It con-
tained no fewer Books : it embraced no more. No
Book has been lost from the Old Testament Scrip-
tures since the days of our Lord ; and none has
been added to them. Attempts have been made to
show that the testimony of Josephus and of the rest
is not to be received. It will be seen that there is
not the slightest suggestion of uncertainty as to the
Divine origin and authority of a single Book in the
entire collection. They are all " accredited," says
Josephus, "as Divine;" and he further indicates
that they were so from the time when they were
given. He follows this up by showing that they have
a unique place in the literature of his people. They
have other histories, he tells us, but "they are not
entitled," he adds, "to the like credit with those
which precede them." All this, the critics tell us, is
How did we get the Bible? 129
unreliable. The Canon was not, they say, so firmly
established in Josephus' time. They maintain that
until the second century of our era some Books of
our present Old Testament were still under discussion,
and had not been finally received into the Canon.
" It is a matter of fact," writes Prof. W. Robertson
Smith, " that the position of several books was still
subject of controversy in the apostolic age, and was
not finally determined till after the fall of the Temple
and the Jewish State."* This grave assertion is
founded upon some references in the Talmud to
disputes in the Jewish Schools as to whether certain
Books " defiled the hands." These are understood to
imply a doubt in the minds of those who raised the
questions as to whether those Books were fully
inspired. But, granting that the critical view of this
matter is correct, the contention does not help their
case in the slightest degree. The questions were
raised because those Books were already in the Canon. It
was a criticism of the Canonical position of the
Books ; but in order to have that position criticised,
the position had, first of all, to be occupied.
These questions about certain Books defiling, or not
defiling, the hands were mere Rabbinical refinements,
and were expressive of neither national nor scholastic
doubt as to the Divine authority of the Books. "The
discussions," says Wildeboer, " make altogether the
impression, as Noldeke has justly remarked, that the
disputed books were in use, but that objections had
been raised against their use in the synagogue.
* The Old Testament in the J eit/ish Church (Second Edition), p. 187.
H
I30 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Accordingly the question was not, shall the books
be accepted ? but rather, should they not be with-
drawn ?"* This is fully borne out by the fact that
the Jews from the beginning have had only one
Canon. They have had different sects and schools,
but they have never had different collections of the
sacred Books. They have had but one Bible from
the days of our Lord to the present hour; and that,^
in respect of its Books, is the Old Testament which
we possess to-day.
After prolonged discussion, this is now admitted.
"Wildeboer, whose book on the Canon of the Old
Testament is very frequently marked by a refreshing
honesty, as well as learning, says : " It must be noted
that in the Talmud, both in the Gemara (about
500 A.D.), and in the Mishna (about 200 a.d.), the
existence of our Canon and its division into Tora,
Nebiim, and Kethubim are everywhere taken for
granted." t In an earlier passage, when referring to
the testimony of Josephus, he writes: "My im-
pression is that Josephus' view contains
important elements of historic truth. These elements
are: i. That the line between Canonical and un-
canonical coincides, in the thought of Josephus, and
the circle of which he is a representative, with the
cessation of prophecy; and 2. That a general settled
persuasion, in regard to canonicity, precedes the
decision of the schools. We shall see, in fact, that
n the days of Josephus the schools still had their
doubts about certain books of the third division.
♦Page 92. -l-PafeesS.
How did we get the Bible? 131
But among the people there existed in his days such
a reverence for precisely the books which still con-
stitute our Canon (as the number given by Josephus
proves) that ' if need be they would gladly die for
them.' "* But the critics will have to abandon this last
refuge as they have abandoned the rest. There could
not have been any conflict in the schools concerning
the Canon. Josephus belonged to the learned, and
he speaks for them as for the rest of the nation, when
he declares their clear, full, and reverent acceptance
of these and of no other Books.
Another question remains. We have seen that the
Books are the same ; and we now complete our
inquiry by asking whether the contents of these
Books are the same now as they were in the first
century. In other words, has the Old Testament
text been faithfully handed down to us ? The reply
is brief and satisfactory. We have already noted
the critical confession of the accuracy with which
the Hebrew text has been transmitted from the
tenth century of the Christian era to the present
hour. The most ancient manuscripts which we now
have are in similar striking agreement. This indicates
that the extreme and reverent care which has marked
the work of the more recent scribes also marked
that of more ancient times. No liberties whatever
were taken with the text. No additions were made
to it. Nothing was taken away from it. So thoroughly
was such dishonest, or even careless, treatment of the
'text opposed to the sentiments of the transcribers,
» Page 46.
132 The Bible: its Structure and Purpose.
that even a difference in size of the letters in the
more ancient manuscript, which they were copying,
was preserved. They did not know why the letter
should be different in size or in position from the
rest. But it was not theirs to reason : it was theirs
to transcribe, with absolute fidelity, the sacred Book.
The letters appeared in the copy just as they were in
the manuscript from which the copy was made.
Another remarkable fact has been discovered
through the comparison of the manuscripts and the
ancient versions of the Old Testament. It has been
made quite clear (as will be seen from the words
quoted on page go from W. Robertson Smith) that one
standard copy has been used, from which the others
have been transcribed. This has been a surprise to
scholars ; and the fact is one of the very greatest
significance. When a scribe took it in hand to write
out a copy of the Old Testament, he did not procure
an older copy from one place and several others from
several other places, compare them together, and,
where they might happen to differ from each other,
follow the readings of the majority of the manu-
scripts. On the contrary, the new manuscript was
made from, and corrected by, one standard copy. It is
plain, therefore, that the Jews had one standard
manuscript, which was regarded as settling every
question about the text.
Josephus helps us to understand how this peculiarity
originated. In referring to Moses' bringing water
from the rock in the wilderness, he says : " That
God had foretold this to Moses, the Scripture laid up
How did we get the Bible ? 133
in the temple shows." * Josephus was a priest, and
was fully acquainted with what the Temple contained.
We learn here, therefore, that there was a standard
copy of the Sacred Scriptures, containing no doubt
some at least of the original documents, preserved
in the Temple. He makes other references to the same
fact. Mentioning the prolonging of that day when
Joshua defeated the five kings who had come to fight
against the Gideonites, he makes a like appeal to the
Temple copy of the Scriptures. " This is shown,"
he says, " by the writings laid up in the Temple." t
This statement of Josephus is borne out by the
Talmud {Kelim xv. 6), which speaks of the " Temple
court copy," " from which the high priest read on
the great Day of Atonement." % This copy of the
Sacred Scriptures was taken away by the Romans
along with the other spoils of the Temple, and was
displayed in the triumphal procession of Vespasian
and Titus. In describing these objects, Josephus
writes : " Last among these spoils was borne the
Law of the Jews." He tells us also that the Emperor
Vespasian built a Temple of Peace, in which he
placed the Temple furniture ; but that " their Law
and the purple veil of the Temple were laid up in the
Emperor's Palace." § The place which was given to
the Sacred Books in the procession, as well as the
directions issued as to their custody, show that they
were the most prized of all the contents of the
Temple.
* Antiquities of the Jews, III., i. 7. +V., i. 17. : Wildeboer, pp.90, 91.
§ The Wars of thf Jews. VII., v. 5, 7.
134 '^^^ Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
There was, consequently, a standard copy of the
Old Testament. When this was carried away by
the Romans, the Jews would undoubtedly take
measures to have its place supplied by some authen-
ticated copy, which had been compared with, and
corrected by, that which was now removed to Rome.
The fact that our present Hebrew Bibles show still
one text, and one text only, may be taken as proof
that the Temple copy is therein preserved, and is
still in our hands. In this way we- possess the very
Old Testament which was in the hands of our Lord
and of His apostles.
The fact, too, of the existence of that Temple
copy indicates how the Canon of the Old Testament
was formed. For here also the Canon was made auto-
matically. The central place of worship — the Temple
at Jerusalem — took the place which was afterwards
occupied by the first Christian Churches ; and just
as evangelists and apostles handed the New Testa-
ment Books to the latter, so the prophets handed
the Books, which were given through them by the
Spirit of God, to the High Priest of the Time. The
foundation of the Temple copy was made by Moses
himself;* and, naturally, that course, begun with the
first of the Sacred Oracles committed to Israel, was
followed by all the rest. Ezra and the Jews, who
returned from the Babylonish captivity, had as little
to do with defining the Canon of the Old Testament
as the Church Councils had to do with the canon-
izing of the New Testament Scriptures.
* Deuteronomy xxsi. 26.
How did we get the Bible ? 135,,
CHAPTER XII.
The Question as to the Old Testament
Settled by our Lord and His Apostles.
IT IS a noteworthy facft that the critics are greatly
troubled lest any question should be raised
regarding the teaching of our Lord and His apostles
as to the nature and the claims of the Old Testament
Scriptures. They speak and write as if it were a
distin(5t grievance that such an inquiry should be
entered upon, or even suggested. This can only mean
that any investigation of the kind will show that the
higher criticism and our Lord are not at one on this
matter. That is a momentous admission. If to take
part with the higher criticism is to separate from the
Son of God, who will go with it that is not prepared
to abandon Him? There is surely urgent need for
this inquiry, lest such a fatal renunciation as that
should be made by anyone without knowing fully
what his a6tion means.
We have seen, in the preceding chapter, that the
Old Testament of to-day is essentially the Bible of
the Lord Jesus, and of every New Testament writer.
But that this Old Testament is accepted by the
New as the very Word of God will be admitted by
every candid reader of the latter. There are some
500 quotations from, or distin(5t allusions to, the Old
Testament in the New. Fifty-eight of these occur
136 The Bible : its Striuture and P^irpose.
in Matthew alone ; and among them are references to
every Book of the Pentateuch, to i Samuel and i
Kings, to the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Hosea,
Jonah, Micah, Zechariah, and Malachi.
We are carried beyond even this general impression
when we ponder the references themselves. Let us
first of all mark a few which define our Lord's
position. When we come to the Sermon on the
Mount — that new Law on the new Mount Sinai — we
encounter a passage which has a v&ry distinct bearing
upon our inquiry. " Think not," said our Lord,
"that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets.
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I
say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or
one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all
be fulfilled " (Matt. v. 17, 18). It was a not unnatural
thought that the New Law was to be henceforth
enough for the Church, and that the Old might be
safely negledled. But this, says our Lord, is not to
be imagined for a moment. The whole programme
of the Gospel era, and of its triumphant consumma-
tion, is embalmed in the Old Testament. It maps out
the Lord's work ; and He has come not to destroy,
but to fulfil, it. So fully is it God's Word that the
smallest letters, yea, the marks, which distinguish one
from another the letters which are otherwise alike,
shall not pass away till all shall be fulfilled. The
tiniest particle of that writing has its place in the ex-
pression of God's counsel and will, and it shall have
its accomplishment. No doctrine of inspiration has
ever been higher or more truly rational than that. To
How did we get the Bible ? 137
Christ every letter of those original Scriptures was
sacred, for each had its place in the revelation of the
Divine mind.
In John X. 35 we meet another statement which
carries us quite as far. Reasoning with the Jews, our
Lord reminds them of an expression in Psalm Ixxxii.
They had accused Him of blasphemy because He had
called Himself the Son of God. In Psa. Ixxxii., princes
and rulers are called "gods." The explanation seems to
be that they sat in God's seat. They were the arbiters
of the fate of their fellow-men. It is a great position ;
but it is an arrangement that is necessary for the
world's best interests, and so God calls them by this
name, for He has clothed them with His own
authority. Our Lord therefore asks why, seeing that
this mighty name is given to those "unto whom the
Word of God came," they can accuse Him of blas-
phemy, from whom that Word proceeds, because
He named Himself the Son of God? Now, that
expression might seem at the moment an awkward
one for the Jews. And, Hke other men in a similar
difficulty, they might be inclined to set it aside, or to
explain it away. Our Lord reminds them that the
expression stands — that it stands unalterable. "The
Scripture," He says, "cannot be broken." That is,
it cannot be " loosed." It cannot be taken down and
made up again. It cannot be remodelled, or re-
touched to suit men's changing tastes, or a Church's
changing position. It cannot be altered in any way.
'Thus even a phrase of the Scripture is sacred, and
must retain that form eternally which was given to it
138 The Bible: its Structure and Purpose.
at the first. From whose hand, then, did that phrase
come ? Can it be due to a cunning forger ? or to the
adapting touch of an equally dishonest editor? or
even to a perfedtly pure, but merely human, intention ?
There is only one reply possible. The Old Testament
of our Lord's day, which is the Old Testament that
is in our hands now, was, and is, to Him, in every
part of it, the Word of God. I am quite aware that
this so-called "high" doctrine of inspiration is sup-
posed to have been put out of court. We have been
told, on what is said to be "authority," that it is
now quite incredible to any "intelligent" man. But,
we are conducting an inquiry, and we must face the
facts. There we seem to have the view of inspiration,
handed down to us by the Authority of the Lord
Jesus, clearly defined.
It is unnecessary to multiply proofs. The very
name by which the Lord refers to the Old Testament —
"The Scripture," "The Scriptures " — separates these
Books from all others. His recognition of the duty
to fulfil them also implies that they are the inspired
and faultless expression of the Father's will (Mark
xiv. 49, &c.) And the fact, that after the resurre(5tion
our Lord led the disciples back to the Old Testament,
and "opened their understanding that they might
understand the Scriptures" (Luke xxiv. 25), shows
what those Books were to Him ; and explains alike the
ancient Church's power, and that fatal bankruptcy
which the Church of to-day is being invited to incur.
All the light, which those Teachers of the future
required in order to enable them to understand the
How did we get the Bible? 139
things which had been done, and those things which
were yet to be done, was there, and is there now.
Whatever critics may say, or Theological Professors
teach, or Clergymen and Ministers think and suggest,
our Lord commits these Old Testament Books to us
as a sacred treasure, to be received as wholly the
Divine Word, the source to us of highest light upon
the mind and will of God.
Other New Testament witness is not less clear or
less emphatic. The apostle asks (Romans iii. i, 2) :
" What advantage then hath the Jew, or what profit
is there in circumcision ?" And he replies : " Much
every way : chiefly, because that unto them were
committed the Oracles of God." This very word,
'* committed," comes into forcible collision with every
theory of the origin of the Old Testament which
ascribes it wholly or in part to man. It distincftly
asserts that these Books were in no way a produdt of
Jewish thought. It affirms that they were a sacred
trust. For the statement is not that the Jew has
this advantage over other nationalities that he
produced the Old Testament. He has a greater
honour. He was selected by God to become its
custodian. We see why that word, " cornmitted,"
was used when we note the terms in which the Old
Testament Books are here referred to. They are
" THE Oracles (logia) of God." The word logion
had a well-known sense in the Greek of the time. It
was the term used for a Divine communication, or a
revelation from heaven. This is also the sense in
which it is used in the New Testament (see A6ts
I40 The Bible : its StrucUire and Purpose.
vii. 38: "Who received the living Oracles to give
unto us.") The plural, logia, therefore expresses in the
strongest possible way the assurance that these are
Divine revelations, and that the Old Testament
Scriptures are as direcft communications from God, as
the Delphian responses were supposed to be from
Apollo. Moses and the prophets, the intermediaries
through whom these Oracles were given, were highly
honoured men. But the Jews were also sharers in
that honour. They, too, were intermediaries, standing
between the original messengers and posterity. In
this way — and in this way alone — are we able to
understand the words of the apostle. Behind that
question, " What advantage, then, hath the Jew ?"
and its answer, " Much every way ; chiefly, because
that unto them were committed the Oracles of God,"
there lies the fad: that the Jew, alone of all mankind,
had been selected as the medium through whom God
had given these Books of the Old Testament.
That no shadow of mistake is made in this
interpretation of the words is abundantly plain from
other statements. The Apostle Peter, referring to
Judas, says : " Men and brethren, this Scripture must
needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by
the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas '''
(A(5ts i. 16). The words to which he refers are those
of Psalm xli. g : " Yea, Mine own familiar friend, in
whom I trusted, who did eat of My bread, hath lifted
up his heel against Me." Here a Psalm, which
multitudes have taken to be the expression — and
the merely human expression, too — of David's own
How did we get the Bible ? 141
experience, is declared to be the revelation of an
experience of that King who was to come — the Lord
Jesus Christ. We are told that, because it was a
revelation, it was impossible that it should fail to be
accomplished. The story of our Redeemer had to
read in that way. This had to be the Christ's cry :
*• Yea, Mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted,
who did eat of My bread, hath lifted up his heel against
Me." It does not surprise us, therefore, receiving this
assurance, to learn that David was not the autJior of
the statement. How could he have foreseen, and
have so clearly expressed, the experiences of One
removed from his own time by nearly eleven centuries ?
The statement that the Holy Ghost spoke the words
by the mouth of David explains this necessity for
fulfilment. The Psalm was an "Oracle," a Divine
revelation, a predidlion of what was yet to be, and
not a mere description of an experience of the
Psalmist himself.
An exadtly parallel statement is found in A(rts iv. 25.
The disciples, in their thanksgiving to God, say:
" Who by the mouth of Thy servant David hast said,
Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine
vain things ? " In this instance, the reference is to
Psalm ii., a still more evident predication of " The Son
of David," but the expression is the same. Psalm xli.
and Psalm ii. — the less evident 'predi(5lion, and the
prediction whose prophetic claims are stamped upon
its every sentence — are alike the Words of God.
The " mouth " is David's : the speaker is the Holy
Ghost.
142 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Some other testimonies will come before us in the
next se(5tion, and we therefore limit ourselves now to
2 Timothy iii. 15, 16. Here the Scripture takes up
the whole of the Old Testament Books, and describes
and commends them. " Continue thou in the things
which thou hast learned .... knowing," writes the
apostle to Timothy, "that from a child thou hast
known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee
wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God "
{theopneustos) . The reader will note the phrase, "the
Holy Scriptures" (ta htera grammata). Grammata
really means " letters," " written charadlers." One
can readily understand how the expression, "written
characters," came to be used in the sense of " docu-
ments," or " books," which were at that time, as in
every time before printing was invented, collections
of " written characters." The word is the very one
used in our Lord's question : " But if ye believe not
his (Moses') writings,h.ow shall ye believe My words?"
(John V. 47). It is plainly applied here to the whole
of the Old Testament acknowledged by the Jews in
the first century of the Christian era ; and these are
separated from all other documents, for they are ta
hiera grammata, " the holy writings." " The holy
of holies " in the temple was described as to hieron,
"the holy place"; and what that sacred building was
to the dwellings of Jerusalem, that were these Old
Testament Scriptures to all other writings in posses-
sion of the Jews or of the nations.
The position of high and unparalleled sacredness
How did we get the Bible? 143
assigned to the Scriptures by this expression, is not
diminished when we weigh the remainder of this
important statement. Timothy might have imagined
that, with the coming of the Gospel era, the use of the
Old Testament was at an end. The Old Testament
contained the shadow: he now possessed the sub-
stance. It set forth the coming salvation in figure :
he was now face to face with the reality. Why, then,
go back into the ancient dimness, instead of pressing
forward into the light ? Some have asked such
•questions, and, in after shipwreck, have presented a
sad revelation of the underlying fallacy. Some are
asking them to-day. "What does it matter," say
they, "whether the Old Testament be faa or fidlion ?
Let it go: we have Christ and the Gospel left."
But Timothy is not to be so led away. For him, to
study still, as a converted man, this same Old Testa-
ment, which he rejoiced in as a child in a Jewish
home, is not to go back into dimness : it is to press
forward into the light. These types, and shadows,
and references to a coming glory, are God's own ex-
position of the Gospel. The Old Testament can never
be left behind, for the sufficient reason that it deals
with the things which are around us and before us as
only the Word of God can. The Gospel has not
antiquated these words written for our learning: it
has furnished the key to their mysteries. These are
now, as they never were before, " the holy Scriptures
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation,
through faith which is in Christ Jesus." To let the
Old Testament go is to surrender that very light and
144 "^^^ Bible: its Stricchire a?id Purpose.
power, without which the Church of Christ upon the
earth would faint and die.
A word remains to be said on this distin(ft state-
ment as to the origin and nature of the Old
Testament Books. "All Scripture," or rather, "every
Scripture," that is, every Book, says the apostle,
"is inspired of God (theopneustos), and is profitable,"
etc. Another rendering of the words, which has
found favour with some, is, " Every Scripture,
inspired of God, is also profitable," etc. (see the
Revised Version). The adoption of this rendering
by the Revisers recalls an old controversy. The two
terms, "inspired" and "profitable," are connected
by " and," and even to an unlearned reader seem
plainly meant to go together, and not to be rent
asunder, as is done in the new translation. Bishop
Middleton, a high authority upon a matter of this
kind, says : " I do not recollect any passage in the
New Testament in which two adjectives, apparently
connected by the copulative, were intended by the
writer to be so unnaturally disjoined." * But there
is little necessity for discussing which of the render-
ings is the better. The latter does not weaken in
any way the New Testament witness to the Old ; for
the words — unless they are to be taken as a mere
platitude — would plainly mean: "every Scripture,
seeing that it is inspired of God, is also profitable,"
etc. The inspiration of the Scripture would in this
way be mentioned as the explanation of its profit-
ableness. The apostle has already defined the
* Dcctrtne cj the Grtck Article, p. 20'.
How did we get the Bible ? 145
''writings" to which he refers. They are the Old
Testament of the first century of the Christian era —
the Bible of the Jew then and now. Instead of
repeating the plural, " the Scriptures," he uses the
singular, " every Scripture," thus referring to these
writings individually ; and he tells us that every Book
is inspired of God. There is nothing superfluous in
the Scripture. Every portion of it has been given
because God's eye has rested upon some section of
the vast field of human need. He has placed there
the answer of Divine grace and wisdom ; and hence
every part of it is profitable for the discipline and the
equipment of the man who will live the Christ-like
life, who will give himself to God's service and take
his part in God's battle.
All this is driven home by the word theopneustos,
which is rendered "inspired of God." It means,
literally, " God-breathed." It is an unusual word,
and is evidently chosen to express the utterly unique
character of the Scripture. As God "breathed into
man's nostrils the breath of life, and man became a
living soul" (Genesis ii. 7), so God breathed into the
Scripture, and it became " the Word of God which
liveth and abideth for ever." Man cannot be con-
founded with the creation of which he forms part ;
and quite as little can this Book be confounded with
the literature by which it is surrounded. As man
became " a living soul " — became living intellect and
all that we indicate by mind and heart and will ;
became a human personality with wide outlook,
clear insight, and regal instincts — so this God-
146 The Bible : its Struchire and Purpose,
breathed Scripture assumed that place of unap-
proached spiritual purity, and grandeur, and power
which every age has acknowledged. Had man been
all that God made him at the first, the Scripture
would even then have been among books, what man
possessed of God's image would have been in the
midst of creation.
Such, then, is the decision of this great controversy.
The Old Testament of to-day is the very Old Testa-
ment of which our Lord and the inspired writers of
the New Testament have said these things. To him,
who accepts the New Testament, and trusts in the
Redeemer whom it reveals, there is but one side in
this struggle. He has no choice but to rank himself
with those who believe and maintain the genuineness
and Divine autbofitv of the entire Old T^-s^^ainent
Scrip ture.
WHY HAS GOD GIVEN US THE
BIBLE?
CHAPTER I.
The Answer of the Old Testament.
WHY has God given us the Bible ? This is the
question which meets us when we have marked
how, and from whom, the Bible has come to us. If
God has in very truth performed this miracle — if holy
men of God spake as they were borne along by the
Holy Spirit — then we may rest assured that the Bible
supplies a want which nothing else can satisfy.
The exact service which the Bible is intended to
render, and our consequent interest and duty to avail
ourselves of that service, will be best understood by
turning to what the Bible has itself said upon this
matter. It seems to me that the first hint of an
answer was given in the Divine directions regarding
that nucleus of revelation, the Decalogue written with
God's own finger upon the two tables of stone (Exodus
xxxi. i8). Moses was commanded to place these in
the ark : "And thou shalt put- into the ark the testi-
mony which I shall give thee " (Exodus xxv. i6).
That was spoken regarding the destination of the two
'first tables, which Moses destroyed when he was
confronted by the daring idolatry of his people. The
148 The Bible : its Strvcture and Purpose.
same directions were renewed, however, when the
new tables were written : "At that time the Lord said
unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the
first, and come up unto Me into the Mount, and make
thee an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables the
words that were in the first tables which thou brakest,
and thou shalt put them in the ark" (Deut. x. i, 2).
This repeated command, we are also informed, was
fulfilled; "And he took and put the testimony into
the ark " (Exodus xl. 20).
The research, which has shed so much light upon
the religion of ancient Egypt, has now helped us to
understand the message of this symbolism. The
Israelitish worship is so entirely apart from and above
the Egyptian that no Egyptologist can entertain the
notion for a moment that the former was borrowed
from the latter. But God spoke to the reflective
Israelite through these symbols of His Law. The
ark in the Egyptian Temple was the dwelling place
of the god. It was the place of its presence : the god
was enshrined in the ark. How far the religion of
Israel soared above the religion of Egypt is indicated
in the fact that God was not represented as enshrined
in the ark. The glory of the living God rested upon
it. But, nevertheless, the putting of the Law in this
sacred receptacle had its significance; for the act
signified to these Israelites, with their Egyptian
training, that here was the central glory of all their
sacred endowments. This was the link which con-
nected man with God. It proclaimed that, if man
would meet with God, here was the meeting place.
Why has God given tis the Bible? 149
For this Law, it seemed to say, was God expressed
and revealed. And let it be remembered that this
place of revealing is a Law. To meet with God is
to meet with One who speaks to our heart and
assumes control of our life — One whose "Thou shalt
not" and "Thou shalt" proclaim Him our Creator
and our Father. The place of converse becomes a
place of obedience— rather let us say a place of
fellowship, a taking of God's way, a walking with
Him in the path of His commandments.
That is the first indicated answer to our question as
to the use of the Bible. The expression of this truth
becomes fuller as we read on. In the concluding
chapters of Deuteronomy we find the words :
"And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto
the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of
the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of
Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying. At the
end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year
of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel
is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the
place which He shall choose, thou shalt read this law
before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people
together, men, and women, and children, and thy
stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear,
and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God,
and observe to do all the words of this law : and that
their children, which have not known anything, may
hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as
ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess
it " (Deuteronomy xxxi.9-13).
The reader will note the emphasis that is thrown
150 The Bible: its Structure and Purpose.
upon the great end which is to be attained in this
repeated public reading of the Law. It will conse-
crate God's people. It will fill them with that holy
fear of God which will keep the wayward heart per-
petually in God's presence. " Thou shalt read this
law before all Israel in their hearing . . . that they
may hear, and may learn, and fear the Lord your God,
and observe to do all the words of this law." And
their children, who had seen nothing of the marvels
of Sinai, would nevertheless meet God here: "And
that their children, who have not known anything,
may hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as
long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan
to possess it." This last intimation is specially note-
worthy. God (it seems to say) is revealed in His
Word as marvellously as at Sinai. Man's heart
recognises here the voice of his Creator, his Judge,
his Father — the God of unswerving righteousness,
yet also " the Father of mercies and the God of all
consolation." The Bible thus became to Israel the
cement of national life, and of all relationships. It
linked together parent and child, husband and wife,
master and servant, leaders and people. And it
did this by bringing each man, woman, and child
into immediate touch with God. The Israehtish
religion was full of elaborate ritual ; but this hearing
of the Law brings them in past all ceremonies. The
Israelite is brought in past the very priesthood, and
is set in the immediate presence of Jehovah. Cere-
monies and priests will afterwards minister to the
people ; but they will minister to them because the
Why has God given us the Bible? 151
people have, first of all, received that which neither
ceremony nor priest can bestow. The Israelite is to
hear God's voice : the Lord is to speak with him; and
this personal knowledge and fear of the Lord is to be
the light in which the Israelite walks, and the very air
which he breathes.
Men have laughed at a Book religion. They have
spoken of a revelation of God through a Book as one
of the vainest of imaginations. How did they happen
to forget the facft that the kmgs of literature exert their
influence and perpetuate their reign through their
books ? Still more strange was it that they failed to take
note of their own hope, that by means of a book they
would possess the hearts of others with the contempt
and the passion which filled their own ! God is in His
Word ; and He lives and rules in men as they acquaint
themselves with it. We have glimpses of this truth
again and again in Israel's history. We think of those
heroic men who crossed the Jordan — those " Iron-
sides " of the time. We remember Samuel and David,
and prophets and kings besides, whose record is only
an indication of many an unwritten page in the
nation's history. And here we learn from the words,
inscribed upon the very foundation of Revelation, that
all this was intended from the first. The Book was
given that its simple, but direct and living, ministry
might bind the ages together in the Divine fellowship.
In the very next Book of Scripture— that of Joshua
— we encounter a word concerning the Law which
carries us farther. At the close of the Divine in-
structions given him for his great enterprise are these :
152 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
"Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou
mayest observe to do according to all the law which
Moses My servant commanded thee : turn not from it
to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest
prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the
law shall not depart out of thy mouth : but thou
shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest
observe to do according to all that is written therein :
for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then
thou shalt have good success" (Joshua -i. 7, 8).
This conquest of the land, and the settlement of
Israel in it, was a mighty task. And here one is
selected for it, not from the great personalities of the
time, but, as we may say, from among the people. The
call awakes in Joshua a crushing sense of unfitness.
But, nevertheless, he stands at the commencement
of a career which is not to be marred by a single
failure. Next to Moses, his departed master, this
servant of his will be the greatest figure in Israelitish
history. And how is this marvel to be wrought ? What
is it that will transform this man, that will endow
him with unfailing wisdom, and clothe him with
unchallengeable pre-eminence? Here is the answer.
Joshua is not to take his own way. He is not to
devise and to follow his own methods. He is not to
meditate upon what will best serve the interests of
Israel and to seek its attainment. His is a humbler
but surer, and, in the end, grander, way. He is to be,
in very truth, what he is named — God's servant. The
Lord has cared for everything, and has already
laid down the way to its accomplishment. Joshua's
Why has Gud given us the Bible ? 153
one duty is to fall into line with God's require-
ments.
In other words, Joshua is to be possessed by the
Divine Law. But how will that be brought about ?
God's message has already provided the reply. The
Law is not to depart out of his mouth. This does
not mean that he is to be always speaking about it.
It means rather that he is to feed upon it perpetually.
It is to be the bread of his mind, and heart, and soul.
The next words explain this by saying : "Thou shalt
meditate therein day and night." And thus we are
Indebted for the Joshua we know to that Bible.
Without it everything would have been different.
There would have been nothing of the indwelling of
the Spirit of God which manifested itself in word
and act. Bereft of the felt presence of God, Joshua
might have given way to pleasure, or to covetousness,
or to the masterfulness and caprice so natural to the
consciousness of power. But this Book shut him in
with God. He fed upon it ; the Word was in his
mouth. He fed upon it night and day. When the
words lay no longer under his eye they were in his
thoughts. He clung to the Book, and the Book
gripped him. He strove to get into the heart of that
wondrous Law, and the light and power of it entered
into him ; and there lay the secret of that noble life,
and faithful service, and wide, enduring influence.
Joshua used the Bible, and the God of the Bible used
and ennobled him.
There are many other references to the Scripture in
the Old Testament ; but I confine myself to two which
J 54 ^^^^ Bible: its Structure ajid Purpose.
are found in the Psalms. In Psalm i. we have a
description of the man of God which recalls the word
to Joshua :
" His delight is in the law of the Lord ; and in His
law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall
be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that
bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall
not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper"
(verses 2, 3).
The picture is full of suggestion. The tree is
planted upon "the divisions of waters," that is, the
small rivulets with which the Eastern husbandmen
irrigate those portions of their ground which require
special care. The neighbouring river has been used
to give fruitfulness to this spot. Water has been led
to it from the higher part of the river's course. It is
dispersed through a number of channels; and, then,
having run through these, it flows gently along to
join the river again in a lower part of its course. As
you look upon the place you feel that the tree has
been cared for. Someone with knowledge and skill
has planned, and toiled, and done his best for it.
The fittest means have been taken to fill all its cells
with the needful sap. The soil is loosened, too, by
the moisture, so that the tender rootlets make their
way in the darkness beneath to the things from which
they drink in strength, sending it up into trunk, and
branch, and twig, and leaf above. The best of which
that tree is capable will thus be attained. The ideal
in the mind of its Creator — the purpose for which
it was made — will be fulfilled. And so the great
Why has God given us the Bible? 155
Husbandman has made provision for the trees of
His planting. He has supplied in the Scripture —
even in the Law — what is needed for ministering
sap to expanding spiritual life, and for extracting new
strength even from those dark and hard surroundings
in which that life is set. It is in this way that charac-
ter is built up, and that fitness is acquired to bear fruit
in its season — to say the fitting word and to do the
fitting deed.
But even the tree has to reach down to drink of
the ministered strength ; and the promise here is not
to the man who knows about the Word, or who
values it, and withstands its assailants, and is even
ready to die for it. Its ministry is for him who reads '
and who reads to purpose. The Scripture spurns any
merely liturgical use of it, private or other. The
promise is to him who has tasted and seen that this
Word is good, and who seeks to penetrate still more
deeply into its meaning. Over him heaven is break-
ing into joy even now. " Oh the blessednesses of the
man . . . whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates in His law day and night. He
shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf
also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall
prosper."
The other Old Testament suggestion of the purpose
for which God has given the Scripture, to which I
ask the reader's attention, is that in Psalm xix. One
of the most marvellous things in connection with these
indications is the intensely spiritual use which the
156 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Scripture is meant to serve. That characteristic is
specially conspicuous in this Psalm. The first part
(verses 1-6) speaks of the glory of God manifested in
the starry host, in the mighty expanse — the firmament
— in which they are placed, and specially in the sun,
the source of our earth's light, and heat, and vital
influences. The latter part of the Psalm (verses 7-11)
sets forth what we owe to that sun of the Spiritual
firmament — " The law of the Lord." A comparison
is here plainly intended between the realms of nature
and of grace ; but when we set the two parts of the
Psalm side by side, we are compelled to notice the
incompleteness of the parallel. In the second part
we have indeed the Sun of the spiritual firmament —
the Scripture ; but where are those things which
correspond with the starry host and the firmament ?
There is absolute silence regarding these in vers. 7-11.
This is one of those Scripture difficulties which
arrest thought and reward reflection. Will the reader
note that it is the eloquence of these stars which repeat
the sun's glory and of that firmament which it
illumines, to which our attention is directed ? "The
heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament
showeth his handywork." Their testimony is per-
sistent and eloquent. "Day unto day uttereth
speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge."
But the testimony, while effective, is also silent :
"There is no speech nor language, their voice is not
heard;" yet " their line is gone out through all the
earth, and their words to the end of the world." To
this there seems at first, as has just been said, to be
Why has God given us the Bible? 157
no parallel in the second division of the Psalm.
But what have we in its last three verses? There
is the soul's cry for hght~" Who can understand his
errors ? cleanse Thou me from secret faults. Keep
back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins ; let
them not have dominion over me : then shall I be
upright, and I shall be innocent from the great trans-
gression " (12, 13). And when weask what the outcome
of that fervent desire will be, who can fail to recall
these other words of the Old Testament : "And they
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the
firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousness
as the stars for ever and ever " (Daniel xii. 3) ? Is it
a strained interpretation which finds this missing
parallel in ourselves, and that we are the firmament
and the stars which are enlightened by this spiritual
Sun — the Bible ? If not, then it is ours to declare
God's glory and to show His handiwork, so that day
unto day will utter speech, and night unto night will
show forth knowledge. And when the earthly service
is over, our glory, unlike that of the material universe,
will abide. "They that be wise shall shine as the
brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many
to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.'"*
This analogy, however, though it is suggested,
does not disturb in any way the description of the
Law which follows. " The law of the Lord is per-
fect, converting the soul " (ver. 7). It is this absolute
perfectness of the Scripture which makes it the one
Book for humanity. It judges me. I see my im-
* Compare Proverbs iv. 18, and Matthew xiii. 43.
158 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
perfections, and my soul is smitten. My unconcern
vanishes. My frivolous indifference is at an end. I am
bowed down at God's feet, but with my face towards
the mercy-seat, and with the cry on my lips : "God
be merciful to me a sinner ! " That is the beginning
of the new life. I am separated from the careless,
unthinking crowd, and I am set in the presence of
God.
Whom the Word turns it also leads. " The testi-
mony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple "
(verse 7). Eduth, "testimony," comes from ild, "to
say again and again." It is the repetition of the counsels
of Scripture that is here emphasised. Pethi means
"simple;" but also "a simpleton, a fool." What
case to an instructor seems more hopeless than his ?
Touched for the moment, the impression vanishes
more swiftly than it was made. But the repeated
testimony of the Word will steady even him ; and
thus it changes the simpleton into a man of wisdom.
In that setting of a childlike spirit, the wisdom may
have more of the Divine glory about it than if it were
enshrined in intellectual greatness.
We need not now study the words minutely. It
is enough to note that this Word not only converts
and establishes : it also meets all our need :
«' The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the
heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, en-
lightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring for ever : the judgments of the Lord are
true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are
they than gold, yea, than much fine gold : sweeter
Why has God given us the Bible? 159
alijo than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by
them is Thy servant warned : and in keeping of them
there is great reward" (Psalm xix. 8-1 1).
There are those who have attempted to compare
"Hinduism with Christianity to the detriment of the
latter. There is one thing of which they may be
reminded. The Hindu Shasters and the Scripture
both inculcate meditation. The Brahmin who would
attain perfection must penetrate beyond the letter of
the Shasters and get to know their spiritual meaning.
He must, in particular, meditate long and devoutly on
** the sacred syllable OM in each of its three letters
and their meaning, as well as the combined meaning
of the whole." Here are the directions for the
aspirant after Hindu bliss — the annihilation of indi-
vidual existence : " Curbing the senses and appetites,
and breathing gently though the nostrils, while medi-
tating, the scholar should concentrate his thoughts.
On a clean, smooth spot, free from pebbles, from
gravel, or from scorching sand, where the mind is
tranquilised by pleasant sounds, by running water
and grateful shade, with nought to offend his eye, let
;him apply himself to his task."*
Of such mystical irrationality there is not a trace
in the Scripture. There meditation is simply the
pondering and the keeping in the heart of words
which we desire to yield their meaning and their
guidance. From them will spring light upon God's
nature, and counsels, and direction for the way. And
let 'it be remarked how fully the spiritual service of
* MuUeQS. Religious Aspects of Hindu Philosophy, pp. I20, I2i.
l6o The Bible : its Struchire and Purpose.
this Law of the Lord is grasped from the very begin-
ning. The Jew used, and uses still, its words as a
charm. With some of these sacred sentences written
out on parchment and worn about his person, he
imagines himself secure against misfortune. There
is not the faintest trace here of superstition of that,
or of any other, sort. How did the Scripture escape
a yoke under which every people of the time was
weighed heavily down, and whence had it this clear
insight into the spiritual blessings which it alone
can bestow ? How comes it that this is its one all-
engrossing theme throughout this magnificent des-
cription ? These are questions to which the higher
criticism, like every other form of unbelief, has no
answer. There is really only one reply — it is that to
which right reason and faith alike cordially assent —
that the Scripture is literally " the Word of God."
CHAPTER IL
The New Testament Reply.
WHEN we turn to the New Testament statement
of the purpose for which the Gospels are
given, we note a change, which is quite in keeping
with the altered circumstances. God had appeared
at Sinai to the entire Israelitish people, and not to
Moses only. The whole nation were, consequently,
God's witnesses. Hence the call to Israel is not so
much io believe, as to read, to meditate, and to obey.
Why has God given us the Bible? i6i
Those, however, who even in the first age of the
Gospel Dispensation had seen the Lord Jesus, and
still more those who had seen and heard the risen
Christ, formed a very small minority. When we add
to this that the Gospel calls us to receive not a law
merely, but a full salvation — a gift of everlasting life
we at once understand how the call to believe should
be added and emphasised. The stream of Gospel
blessing flows on now, as it flowed at the first, " from
faith to faith."
This helps us to appreciate the force of Luke's
words to Theophilus in the beginning of his Gospel,
The purpose of his writing is, he says, "that thou
mightest know the certainty of those things wherein
thou hast been instructed."* There were in existence,
as he has just before told us, a number of accurate,
and orderly, accounts of what the apostles had taught
about the sayings, the deeds, the death, and the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus. But something more
was needed to still questioning, to banish doubt, and
to inspire a reader with the strong, joyous, assurance
of faith. And so Luke, having been endowed " from
on high " with a "perfect understanding of all things,"
enters this field to give an absolutely certain testimony
— the testimony of God regarding His Son. Luke's
Gospel (and in this it is but the type of all of the
Gospels) exists, therefore, not to satisfy curiosity, but
to form a basis for our trust. The Book is not a
collection of human impressions about Jesus: it is a
revelation of Him. We actually company with Him
* See p. 66.
1 62 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
here. We see Him : we hear His voice. We behold'
Him die : we gaze on Him risen from the dead and
ahve for evermore.
The same note is struck in the last verse of the
twentieth chapter of John's Gospel. This is taken by
our critical friends as the original conclusion of the
fourth Gospel, and they insist upon this view of theirs
in spite of the distinct explanation (ver. 30) that the
evangelist is here dealing only with the things which
Jesus did " in the presence of His "disciples." These
belong to the record of the risen life of Jesus; for it
was only after His resurrection that the ministry of
Jesus was confined to the circle of the disciples. The
words (verse 31): "But these things are written,
that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God; and that, believing, ye might have life
through His name," are the climax of the chapter.
We have, first of all, Mary's grief changed to joy by the
manifestation of the Risen Lord (vers. 11-18). Then
we have the despair of the disciples turned into rejoic-
ing (19-23). Last of all, the loving, but incredulous,.
Thomas enters also into that gladness which swallows
up his unbelief for ever. " Then saith He to Thomas.
Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands ; and
reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side :
and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas
answered and said unto Him, My Lord, and my
God ! Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because
thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are
they that have not seen, and yet have believed"
(verses 24-29). And now come the words which
Why has God given us the Bible? 163
address us: "And many other signs truly did Jesus
in the presence of His disciples, which are not written
in this book: but these are written, that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and
that, believing, ye might have life through His name "
(verses 30, 31.) The joy is to flow on. It is to enter
into lis, as into Mary and into the disciples, and even
into unbelieving Thomas. For it is upon us that
the Lord's eye rested when He said : '* Blessed are
they that have not seen and yet have believed;" and,
as we are possessed by the conviction that this is
indeed the Messiah who came the first time to recon-
cile us unto God through His atonement for sin, and
who will by-and-bye fulfil the promise enshrined in
this fourth Gospel, and will come again and receive
us unto Himself, that where He is there we may be
also (xiv. 1-3), we have life through His name. To
minister that faith to us, who have not seen Jesus,
the Gospel was written. If it fail to impart this, the
Book has missed its end : its purpose is frustrated.
The use of the New Testament is to beget the assur-
ance of faith, and to evoke that triumphant joy
which- lifts its praise to heaven, which treads the
daily path with firm assurance, and which looks on
with eyes aflame with the heaven-lit fire of hope.
But there is a hint in this fourth gospel which
takes us farther. The Lord Jesus is spoken of in its
commencement as " The Word." This striking ex-
pression has had less attention drawn to it because of
'the discussions which its use has aroused in the
learned world. Both preachers and other students of
164 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Scripture have felt themselves to be here on the edge
of an abyss into which it would be madness for them
to venture. But it is now largely admitted that the
use of this word in John has nothing whatever to do
with the speculations of Philo. And the Scripture
itself, indeed, gives us all the light we require. In
the opening of Luke's Gospel the term is used in
the same way. That evangehst speaks of those (the
apostles) "who from the beginning were eye-witnesses
and ministers of the Word " (i. 2). Here the term
is plainly used to denote a Person ; for, though the
apostles could easily be, and were, the servants or
ministers of the Scripture or the Gospel message,
they could not be spoken of as ** eye-witnesses " of
either. When the Lord returns to execute the long-
delayed judgment upon the nations, we read that He
assumes this name : " And He was clothed with a
vesture dipped in blood : and His name is called the
Word of God" (Revelation xix. 13). This evidently
indicates that in some way ]e%us is identified with the
Scripture. Coming to fulfil the Scripture, the Lord
displays it invested with a Divinity that even the best
have only dimly perceived. The Scripture is so filled
with Christ, and is so much His instrument in Hi
revealing, redeeming, sanctifying, work that its name
becomes His own.
Startling as this thought is, it seems marvellous
that it should be new to any reader of the Bible. Is
it not in these words of the Apostle Peter : " Of which
salvation the prophets have inquired and searched dili-
eentlv, who orophesied of the grace that should come
Why has God given tts the Bible? 165
unto you : searching what, or what manner of time
THE Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify,
when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ,
and the glory that should follow " (i Peter i. 10, 11)?
It was the Spirit of Christ that inspired the prophets.
The Spirit of God was communicating to them
Christ's message. This truth removes a difficulty in
the same Epistle over which many have stumbled to
the injury of themselves and others : " For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins . . . being put to
death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit : by
w\^ich also He went and preached . . . when once
the long-suffering of God waited in the days of
Noah" (iii. 18-20). The Lord Jesus spoI<e through
His servant Noah. It was Christ who, by. His Spirit,
was pleading in mercy with men then, just as, by
His Spirit, He is pleading now with men rushing
madly upon a like judgment.
There are yet other passages which have the
closest bearing upon this matter. Those which we
have just looked at identify Christ with the substance
of the Scripture, but not necessarily perhaps with its
present form. But in the Book of Revelation our
Lord describes Himself as "Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the ending" (i. 8 ; see also ver. 11; also
xxi. 6, and xxii. 13). It has been supposed that, as
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and
Omega the last letter of it, the phrase simply means
" the first and the last." But this it can hardly mean,
seeing that we have these very words added, as in
xxii. 13 : " I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and
i66 The Bible : lis Struchire and Purpose.
the end, and the first and the last." These letters of
the Alphabet have to do with writing. Is it going too
far to suggest that our Lord here underlines, as it
were, and invests with startling majesty this unheeded
and despised written Word which He will yet descend
from heaven to fulfil? But whatever may be our
interpretation of the words, " I am Alpha and
Omega," it cannot be denied that Christ's presence
in, and perpetual ministry through, the Scripture is
the teaching of the New Testament.
When John speaks, therefore, in the beginning of
his Gospel, of everything with which Christ has had,
and has now, to do, how could he omit mention of
the Scripture ? That glorious gift of God, that fount
of light, and blessing, and spiritual strength, could not
be left unnoticed. Yes, the Word could not be passed
over; but while Christ made all other things, this is
bound up with Himself, and so He is named by it. That
thought was grasped by the men of the early Church.
We find it still illuminating the days of Ambrose. He
says : " Holy Scripture edifies everyone ! We speak
to Christ when we pray ; we listen to Him when we
read the Scripture." * That, then, is the message
hid in this name of Jesus. It explains that mysterious,
unique, influence which the lightest word of the Bible
has upon our spirits. And so, when we ask why God
has given us the Bible, this is part of the answer.
The Scripture has been given that we might have
fellowship with Christ — even fellowship like theirs
who heard Him, and beheld Him with their eyes, and
* On the office of the ministry. B.I.
Why has God given us the Bible? 1G7
whose hands handled Him (i John i, i). Dost thou
wish to see Jesus? — to sit hke Mary at His feet,
hearing His Word? — to lean like John upon His
breast ? It is not impossible : it is not even hard of
attainment. " The Word is nigh thee." Here is the
door : here is the presence chamber. It is in thine
opened Bible !
CHAPTER III.
The New Testament Reply.
(Coiiiiniied.)
THERE are statements of the Scriptures which
give a startling significance to that surrender of
the Bible which is so marked a feature of our time.
We have already noted the words of Psalm xix. :
** The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the
soul." The New Testament emphasises this truth,
indicating repeatedly that the Scripture plays a vital
part in the very commencement of the Christian
life. " For though ye have ten thousand instructers
in Christ," says Paul to the Corinthian Church,.
" yet have ye not many fathers : for in Christ Jesus
I have begotten you through the gospel" (i Cor.
iv. 15). In James we read : " Of His own will begat
He us WITH the word of truth" (i. 18); and in
I Peter the same truth is set before us in the familiar
words : " Being born again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which
1 68 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
liveth and abideth for ever " (i. 23). It would appear
as if the Churches were placid spectators of a con-
spiracy against the majesty of Divine truth. They
witness the progress of the attempt to substitute
corruptible seed for the incorruptible, and make no
sign that they apprehend the gravity of the experi-
ment. These Scriptures tell us that their action
means consent to the abandonment of the Church's
service in the work of regeneration. It is this despised
and surrendered word of the Bible that is the seed of
the new life. If that seed is not cast into the field
of humanity, whence shall we expect the harvest for
which God and the world wait ?
The part played by the Scripture in the regeneration
of mankind is further described in the exhortation :
" Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and
hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as
new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word,
that ye may grow thereby " (i Peter ii. i, 2). The
Scripture is, consequently, as necessary for the growth
of the higher life as for its beginning. The apostle
names the things which had previously been the
daily food of the mind and of the heart, and which
had been turned into the man's life-blood, as it were,
and been built into his character and being. These
are to be put aside. Turning away from all badness,
and all cunning, and hypocrisies — the acting of a
part, the pretending to be w^hat he is not — and from
envies, and every kind of evilspeaking — a vice which
seeks to cling to the new man as it has lorded it over
the old man — he is to take the food specially pre-
Why has God given us the Bible ? 1G9
pared for the infancy of the new life — the undiluted,
uncontaminated "Word-milk." This will impart
satisfaction and strength to the babes in Christ. We
think out and we adopt many schemes to interest
and attract the young, to attach them to the Church,
and to prepare them to take their part by-and-bye in
church service. Will anything prove more attractive
than the food which the all-wise Creator has furnished ?
Can anything appeal to them more strongly than that
which meets the deepest need of the new nature ?
And can anything be devised which will form nobler
or more Christlike character ? Let the Churches
loyally give themselves to the simple ministration
of the Word for a generation, and the result will be
such an army as the world has not seen for seventeen
centuries.
When we look forward to the maturer days of the
Christian life, and ask what will prepare for active
work, the Scripture has but one reply. It is still —
** the Word." This has not only milk for babes : it has
also strong meat for men. We recall the counsel
given to Timothy: "All Scripture is given by inspira-
tion of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
for correction, for instruction in righteousness : that
the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished
unto all good works" (2 Timothy iii. 16, 17). Here
the Scriptures are commended to us in their totality.
"All Scripture is inspired of God." We have oui
likings and our preferences in regard to the Scriptures
as in regard to everything besides. Some are attracted
to the Psalms ; some delight in the Gospels. But
1 70 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
God leads us past our limitations; and so He has
provided what will awaken our slumbering powers,
and endow us with new aptitudes. Those parts of
Scripture which are dark and unattractive to us are
charged to convey something which no other part can
supply ; and it is a something without which we shall
•be poorer than God desires we should be.
Glance now at what comes to us through this use
•of " all Scripture." It is profitable first for " doc-
trine " — that is, for instruction. There is much that
we need to know. We want right thought about God.
We desire that He, in whom we live and move and
have our being, shall be more than a name to us. We
want to know what shall make us unable to forget
Him, a joy to remember Him, a delight to serve Him,
an impossibility not to trust Him. We want to know
man, to see in him a being made for eternity. We
seek to realise his peril, to feel the grandeur of his
possibilities. We need to know the past, and to see
the issue of that long and wide experiment in living
to which man everywhere has given himself. Do I
ask how I shall attain all this, and serve myself heir
to the ages ? Here is the reply — all I want is in the
Scripture: it is "profitable for instruction."
But many things instruct which carry me no
farther. I require more than instruction if the lesson
imparted is to come home to me, if the truth mani-
fested is to abide with me and to rule over me.
But this need also is met by the Bible as I find it
.met nowhere besides. " The Scripture is profitable
... for reproof;" that is, for conviction. It grips
Why has God given us the Bible? lyi
■us. When it has caught and riveted our attention
— when it has uttered its parable — it has one word
more to add. It has so far been bending its bow;
and now the arrow is shot home. The startled soul
hears the word : " Thou art the man;" and it has no
reply but instant submission and bitter entreaty.
But even now, when we are instructed and convicted,
we have not reached the end of our necessity. The
penitent does not seek pardon only : he must have
guidance and help. But for this he must still have
recourse to the Scripture. It " is profitable . . for
correction." The word means "making-straight,"
and the statement is that the Scripture is profitable
for amendment, for rectification. It is impossible for
the man, who has been convicted of sin by the Word
of God, to retain that sin and still be a reader of the
Scripture. He will be compelled to choose between
the two masters. If he keeps to the Bible, the sin
must go ; if he retains the sin, the Bible must be sur-
rendered. Its instruction and conviction have had
this very thing in view. It cuts us out from the old
that it may establish us in the new.
To this it is added that " the Scripture is profit-
able .... for instruction (or rather, discipline) in
righteousness." We are in God's school ; we are sons
and daughters in God's Home. And what son is he
whom the Father chasteneth not ? As we read these
Books of the Bible, the chastisement of Him who,
like the compassionate and skilful surgeon, wounds
that He may heal, will be felt on this side and on
that. But blessed are those strokes; for this is
172 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
* discipline in righteousness." Our failure is disclosed
and we are smitten that we may be perfected — " that
the man of God " — the man who will e.^ist for Him,
who will bear His message, who will live to assist in
His work — " may be perfect, throughly furnished
unto all good works." Where will the Churches
find a substitute for the Bible, when their "experts"
have broken the faith of the ministry in it, and when
it is no longer expounded and enforced as the Word
of the living God ?
But there is another aspect of the Christian life.
We have entered upon a campaign. We are com-
batants in a war in which blows have to be received
and given. The reward is the conquest of that
enduring possession which God has given us. What
will arm us, then, for this warfare ? In Hebrews iv.
we have an answer to our question. In the former
half of the chapter the Scripture proceeds upon an
implied parallel between us and the Israelites, who
were led out of Egypt by Moses. They were delivered
from bondage and wretchedness, but not to be sent
adrift outside the borders of Egypt. They had a
special destination distinctly in view from the first —
the land promised of old to the Fathers. But Canaan
was even then only a type of what the believer in
God attained — namely, God's salvation. For as
Israel received " great and goodly cities " which it
had not built, " and houses full of all good things "
which it did not fill, and wells digged, and vineyards,
and olive-trees, in the preparation of which it had
taken no part, so we enter into a perfect righteousness
Why has God given us the Bible ? 173
for which we have not worked, and into pardon of
sins for which no sufferings of ours have presented
an atonement. And the parallel holds throughout.
Through the possession of the land with the revela-
tion which it brought of God's faithfulness, and
omnipotence, and abundant graciousness, they were
enabled to enter into God's rest, that joy in attained
purpose, that full satisfaction in good to which
nothing has to be added. But, to attain this rest,
Israel had to conquer the land. Step by step they
took possession by overcoming and extirpating those
who held the land against them ; and we, too, have foes
to meet and slay in order that we may enter upon our
possession and that this rest in God may be ours.
Our question recurs, therefore — with what weapon
shall we be armed that we may triumph in this
warfare ? The Scripture replies :
" The Word of God is quick and powerful, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature
that i^ not manifest in His sight : but all things are
naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom
we have to do" (verses 12, 13).
We require but one weapon. It was that used by the
Lord in the wilderness, on the mountain, and on the
Temple pinnacle. The instant it flashed forth there
was victory. When the Word of God is grasped, it
is discovered to be "quick," that is, "alive." The
warrior's sword is a dead thing. His strength and
174 "^he Bible : its Structure and Pzirpose.
skill have to impart life to it. But this sword lives ;
and it is not only " living," it is " powerful," or
rather, " energising." If we but grasp this sure and
trusty weapon, it will put life into «s. We shall join
the battle-line, and this blade will flash and smite.
And it is resistless. " It is sharper than any two-
edged sword." Whichever side falls it cuts, and cuts
with a keenness that is a new revelation of power.
The possessor of a mighty weapon of old became the
hero of story and of song ; and this sword makes
grander heroes. It pierces " to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit." The spirit-life which, like
Lazarus, has made answer to the voice of the Son of
God and come forth from the tomb, is caught, and
hampered, and hindered, by the lusts of the flesh and
of the mind — the soul. And, like Lazarus, it has to
be loosed and set free. What will sever its bonds ?
The Word of God— the Sword of the Spirit. The
next words, which speak of the separating of the
joints and the marrow, seem to have had light shed
upon them by recent research. Muelos, the word
rendered " marrow," and which has also that meaning
in Greek, has a special sense besides. It was
applied to the brain substance and the spinal chord.
These are the nerve centres. The joints are " the
joinings," by means of which these nerve centres
communicate with the mind and will. As the electric
bell keeps ringing while the connection holds between
the current and the bell, but ceases instantly when
the connection is interrupted ; so desire and passion
keep ringing in the soul, urging us to surrender. We
Why has God given us the Bible ? 175
know that surrender is wrq;ig; is deadly. We argue;
we resolve; we intrench ourselves behind our deter-
mination. But we are plied with fresh representations.
Compliance, we are assured, is justifiable; is as
innocent as it is pleasant. We waver; our resolution
melts away. What will save us ? One sweep of this
all-conquering sword, and the connection is cut. It
pierces to the dividing asunder of the joinings and
the nerve centres. The urgent solicitation, the
driving force of sin, ceases instantly, and the soul is
delivered like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
Let the tempted one but open his Bible, or recall the
Scripture, and the heart, but the moment before fired
with passion, becomes as cold to the temptation as
the dead.
The remaining words complete the marvellous
picture of the achievements of the Scripture in this
warfare with sin. It is a " critic "—a discerner— of
the thoughts and intents of the heart. When it has
saved from the assault of the foe, it will cleanse the
habitation within. It will deal now with the well-
springs of our thought, and separate between the good
and the bad. It will winnow our very thoughts. And
nothing can escape from its condemnation. " ^leither
is there any created thing that is not manifest in His
sight, but all things are naked and with outstretched
neck to His eyes with whom we have to do." The
figure is that of a sacrifice at the altar. The cord
attached to the horns was pulled back; the ani-
maVs neck, stretched tight, was severed at the first
touch of the sharp priestly knife, and the life stream
176 The Bible: its Siriuture and Purpose.
was poured out before the altar. So the disguise of
every wrong and base thing vanishes away as this
Word of God confronts it. And not only so, but
it also stands with outstretched neck ready for the
death-stroke. This marvellous deliverance has been,
is, and will be, the portion of those who hide this
word in their heart that they offend not against Him,
who has called them out of darkness into His mar-
vellous hght.
Two other passages will complete our survey. We
find in 2 Peter i. 19, that the Word is needed for the
daily pathway. "We have also a more sure word of
prophecy, unto which ye do well that ye take heed, as
unto a light which shineth in a dark place, until the
day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts." The
"dark" place is "squalid" or "filthy," as well as
" dark." We are passing through a country abounding
in pollutions. On every hand of us, and right in front
of us, there lie abominations. One unwary step and
we shall put our foot upon them, and their stench
will cling to us. We need a light that we may pick
our steps ; and here it is : "Thy Word is a lamp unto
my feet, and a light unto my path " (Psa. cxix. 105).
The other is Ephesians v. 25, 26 : " Husbands, love
your wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and
gave Himself for it ; that He might sanctify it and
cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word "
literally — "that He might cleanse it, having
washed it in the laver of water in the Word." The
mention of "the laver" takes us back to the Taber-
nacle. There the laver stood between the altar and
Why has God given tis the Bible ? 177
the Holy Place ; and in that laver the priest had to
wash that he die not (Exodus xxx. 20). When we
recall the Scripture which tells us that the Church is
the Lord's body, the meaning of the figure is clear.
As the priest washed his flesh in the laver, so the
Lord cleanses us, His flesh, for service in the Taber-
nacle, and that He may at last present us in the
presence of the Father's glory without blemish and
without spot. The water in this laver is "the Word."
It is by opening our understanding to perceive the
meaning of the Scripture, and by applying it, thus un-
derstood, to heart and conscience that we are purged
from spot and stain. The Lord takes us thither:
He brings us to the Word; and with His own hand
the water is cast upon the things that offend, until
spot and stain diminish and disappear. Without this
Word, as we have seen, the appointed means of re-
generation is wanting to the world ; and if the
Church's faith in it be destroyed, then the means are
also lacking which God has appointed for the per-
fecting of His saints'.
THE BIBLE A PLANNED BOOK.
AS we take up the Bible and open its pages, with
a view to its more thorough study, we are
arrested by one striking and suggestive fact. The
greatest pains are being taken by the higher critics to
break down the old conception of the Scriptures,
and especially to make an end of the notion that
the Scriptures form a unity. The very title, " The
Bible," is strongly objected to, on the ground that it
suggests that these sixty-six Books of the Old and
the New Testaments are really one Book, containing
the beginning, the middle, and the end, of a con-
tinuous and completed story. How vital it is for them
to abolish that notion of the Scriptures is plain to
every one. A Book of that kind, to which so many
pens and so many ages have contributed, could only
be a unity because of the control and guidance of a
Mind which retained its vigour, and steadily pursued
its purpose, over the enormous space of 1600 years,
and, even according to critical reckoning, for more
than 800 years ! In other words, the unity of the
Bible would still prove its full Divine inspiration after
criticism had done its worst.
We are accordingly told that the Bible is a collec-
tion of books, but not, in any proper sense of the
term, a book. In that work of Dr. Driver's, to the
seeming moderation of which we owe so much of the
The Bible a Planned Book. jjg
present declension, the new conception is quietly
insinuated. His book, instead of being named, as
has hitherto been customary even in Germany : "An
Introduction to the Old Testament," bears the title:
An Introduction to THE LITERATURE of the Old
Testament. But this attempt to sink the Bible to the
level of other books is confronted by enormous diffi-
culties. For one thing, if there existed other Hebrew
literature, the question must be faced why this
particular portion of it was selected-, why it remained
separate from all the rest ; and why it was elevated
unchallenged to this lofty place. And that other
literature did exist it would be vain to deny. The
second Book of the Maccabees is a confessed
abridgement of an older and more voluminous work.
After a reference to the nature of the events which
he is about to record, the author says : " All such
things, as have been comprised in five books by Jason
of Cyrene, we will attempt to abridge in one book "
(2 Maccabees ii. 23).
There is a similar hint of the existence of other
" Hebrew literature" given by the earlier writer to
whom we owe the Book of i Maccabees. It closes
with these words : "And the rest of the acts of John,
and of his wars, and of his valiant deeds which he did,
and of the building of the walls which he built, and
of his doings, behold they are written in the chronicles
of his high-priesthood, from the time that he was
made high priest after his father " (i Maccabees xvi.
23, 24). We have a still earlier writer in the Greek
translator of the apocryphal work, Ecclesiasticus. He
i8o The Bible : its Structicre and Purpose.
Indicates that many pens were busy in the time of his
grandfather, the author of that work. " Since," he
says, " they that love learning must be able to profit
them who are without, both by speaking and writing,
my grandfather Jesus, having much given himself to
the reading of the Law, and the prophets, and the
other books of our fathers, and having gained great
familiarity therewith, was drawn on also himself
to write somewhat pertaining to instruction and
wisdom."
\Ve discover similar indications of a literary ac-
tivity all thiough Israel's recorded history. It appears
to have been the custom in the ancient Eastern
courts to keep chronicles of the events of each king's
reign. It was so in Persia. We are told that it was
the reading of " the book of records of the chronicles"
before Xerxes, which led to the honouring of Mordecai
(Esther vi. i). The custom prevailed also at the
court of the northern kingdom of the ten tribes and
at that of Judah. We read in 2 Kings xiv. 28 : "Now
the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he
DID, and his might, how he warred, and how he
recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged
to Judah, for Israel, are they not written in the books
of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?" We meet
like references to the Judean records, as in 2 Kings
XV. 36 : " Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all
that he did, are they not written in the book of the
chronicles of the kings of Judah ?" These were,
plainly, records which were accessible to the people,
and which did not belong to the secret archives of the
The Bible a Planned Book. i8i
palace ; for otherwise the reader could hardly have
been referred to them in this fashion. They must also
have been of a very copious kind, since they contained
an account of " all " that a king did from the day of
his accession till the day of his death. We might
imagine that the statement, "all that he did," was a
figure of speech, and that it must not be taken liter-
ally. But a reference to an omission made in the
chronicles of David's reign is sufficient to make us
doubt the wisdom of dismissing the words in that
way. In the record in i Chronicles xxvii, of David's
unhappy census, we read : " Joab the son of Zeruiah
began to number, but he finished not, because there
fell wrath for it against Israel ; neither was the number
put in the account of the chronicles of king David "
(verse 24). The suppression of the number was,
therefore, an extraordinary exception : everything
else was recorded, and this also would have been
entered but for the wrath which fell on Israel on
account of the numbering.
One can understand how abundant that historic
literature must have become in the course of ages.
And it was not the only provision made for the infor-
mation of the people. It was impossible, indeed,
that in Israel of all lands, where so much was felt to
depend upon the proper instruction of the people,
these means of information and appeal should not
have been utilised. Isaiah seems to have made the
history of Uzziah, the great statesman-king of
Judah, the subject of a special book : " Now the rest
of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the
i82 The Bible: its Structure and Purpose.
prophet, the son of Amoz, write " (2 Chron. xxvi. 22),
It will be noted that this is not spoken of as belonging
to " the chronicles " of the kings of Judah, so that it
appears to have been a separate work. Three prophets
had performed a like service for Israel in recording
the eventful life of David. " Now the acts of David
the king, first and last, behold, they are written
in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book
of Nalhan the prophet, and in the book of Gad
-the seer " (i Chronicles xxix. 29). Here, again, we
miss the phrase, " the chronicles of king David," so
that these also appear to have been independent
narratives. The Book of Jashar, or " of the upright '*
(Joshua X. 13, &c.), which seems to have been a
collection enlarging from age to age — an uninspired
but accurate chronicle of instances of Divine inter-
vention and of heroic deeds, and ** the book of the
wars of the Lord" (Numbers xxi. 14) show that a
like literary activity prevailed in a still earlier time.
It is quite clear, then, that the Scriptures existed,
from the first, in the midst of a contemporaneous
literature, just as the Bible exists still as a Book
among books ; and it is also certain that the Scrip-
tures were never confounded with the other books of
the time. We read of Moses placing the Law by the
side of the Ark ; but nothing is said of a like treatment
of "the book of the wars of the Lord." When the
translators of the Septuagint Version set to work
some time about 300 B.C., they experienced no diffi-
culty in ascertaining what books they were to translate
from Hebrew into Greek. The distinction between
The Bible a Planned Book. 183
the Scriptures and other Hebrew literature was broad
and deep. The Old Testament was translated into
Greek for the sole reason that it occupied this unique
and sacred position among the Jewish people. When
Jesus, the son of Sirah, wrote Ecclesiasticus, within
a century afterwards, he had been familiar with this
very Jewish Bible from his childhood upwards. It
was then to him as sacred and as separate from all
other literature as it now is to us. The Psalms,
many of which the critics declare did not come into
existence till long after Ben-Sirah's time, were in his
Bible. And we have already seen that in the time of
Josephus, as is equally plain from the New Testa-
ment records, there was no trace whatever of doubt
as to what was, and what was not, Scripture.
This leaves us face to face with the great problem
of the Bible. Those Books of the Old Testament,
as they were given, were set apart by themselves.
The collection was put together slowly from about
1500 B.C. to 400 B.C.— from Genesis to Malachi. It
then stopped. From about 40 to 100 a.d. the Books of
the New Testament were given to the Christian
Church. Book after Bookwas put intothe hands of the
Christian community, each with a Divine authe'ntica
tion. When the Book of Revelation was written and
handed over, at the very close of the first century,
those gifts ceased. Nothing has been added since.
And when we mark what it is that was thus placed in
the world's hands, we discover that the Scripture was
not 'only ended : it was also completed. Everyone
will admit that the Old Testament is a preparation
1 84 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
for the New. That in itself is marvellous ; for who
could have made such preparation for a thing which
no man saw, or knew, or was able to imagine ? But
it is also evident that the Old Testament is a steady
advance, a skilful progress, towards what is presented
in the New. We are briefly informed in Genesis of
man's creation and fall : of the fearful judgment
which swept away a sinful race ; of the lapse of the
new humanity which proceeded from the house of
Noah; and of the choice of one, man who shall be
the founder of a new people, and to whom the promise
is given that in him and in his seed all the nations of
the earth shall be blessed.
We have next the story of God's training of that
people ; of God's long conflict with their idolatry ;
and of the judgments and the mercy which ended in
the final emancipation of the people from that form of
sin. The Old Testament ends there; and it ends
with an emphatic re-statement of the hope given to
Abraham, and which had flamed out with more and
more splendour as the ages rolled on. The hope of
the Messiah brought brightness to every Jewish heart,
Malachi iii. i, 2 reads : " Behold, I will send My
messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me :
and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to
His temple, even the messenger of the covenant,
whom ye delight in: behold, He shall come, saith the
Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of His
coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth ?"
And the Old Testament concludes apparently in full
and clear consciousness of how the work which then
The Bible a Planned Book, 1S5
stopped was to be resumed in the labours of John the
Baptist. These are its last words : " Behold, I will
send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of
that great and dreadful day of the Lord : and he shall
tirn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the
h ;art of the children to the fathers, lest I come and
smite the earth with a curse " (Malachi iv. 5, 6).
We might dwell upon the unity of purpose which
runs throughout the Scripture ; upon its prophecies ;
and upon the Old Testament types which shed such
light upon the facts and the doctrines of the New
Testament. But enough has been said to demonstrate
that the Bible is a planned Book, and that, in opening
its pages now, and studying its individual Books, we
are dealing with a Divine unity.
THE HISTORICAL BOOKS OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT.
THE Old Testament is largely history. The
Historical Books form nearly three-fifths of the
■whole, and the other Books two-fifths. But the
history is history written with a prophetic purpose.
This was fully recognised by the Jews, who named
the Historical Books " the Former Prophets."
These Books, which tell, as we have just seen, one
continuous story, have, from the first, been divided
into groups in a manner not hitherto noticed. This
has been done by the use of the smallest word in the
Hebrew language. It consists of only one letter, and
that, next to the letter yod — the proverbial "jot'' —
the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. This
letter-word vav answers to our conjunction " and."
The simple rendering of it has not been constantly
observed in our Authorised Version ; and the Revised
Version, though much more consistent in this matter,
has also failed to give a uniform rendering. The
word is occasionally translated "now," and some-
times " then."
Before pointing out the divisions, apparently so
carefully marked, an important question presents
itself. It is well known that the order of these Books
in the Hebrew Bible differs from our own. Both
agree, down to 2 Kings, with one exception. The
The Historical Books of the Old Testament. 187
Book of Ruth, in the Hebrew Bible, is not found
immediately after the Book of Judges, as in our
Bible, but is removed from " the Former Prophets,"
and placed in the Hagiographa, between the Song of
Songs and the Book of Lamentations. Five more of
the Historical Books are treated in a similar fashion.
Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, i Chronicles, and 2 Chron-
icles are put also among the Hagiographa, the Books
of Chronicles closing the Hebrew printed Bible.
Though otherwise possibly of small importance,
the question as to which of these is the ancient and
primal order is not immaterial, in view of the divisions
which I have just indicated. Fortunately, we are
able to settle this matter by the evidence which Jewish
records afford of the changes made in the order of
the Books of the Old Testament. The Rabbis seem
to have busied themselves with the re-arrange-
ment of them, though the most daring hand left
their contents untouched. The earliest Rabbinical
arrangement is given in the Babylonian Talmud, but
this was, apparently, not regarded as authoritative ;
for, in the earliest dated Hebrew manuscript at present
known (916 a.d.), that order is not observed. There
are other marks that the traditional order had been
departed from, and that there was difficulty in coming
to an agreement as to the order which should replace
it. Nine manuscripts, now in the British Museum,
place five Books immediately after the Pentateuch,
which are now set among the Hagiographa in our
printed Hebrew Bibles. And, what is even more
■significant, these manuscripts vary the order even of
i88 The Bible : its Stniciiire and Purpose.
these Books, and present us with the four following
arransfements : *
1-
2.
3.
4.
Song of Songs.
Esther.
Ruth.
Ruth.
Ruth.
Song of Songs.
Song of Songs.
Song of Songs.
Lamentations.
Ruth.
Ecclesiastes.
Lamentations.
Ecclesiastes.
Lamentations.
Lamentations.
Ecclesiastes.
Esther.
Ecclesiastes.
Esther.
Esther.
' The variations in the order of the Hagiographa are
much more numerous. Ginsburg gives eight arrange-
ments as the result of his inspection of the Talmud,
a number of leading MSS., and five early printed
editions. In five of these the Books of Chronicles
are placed last, and in three of them they head the
list. That fact is eloquent.
In the days of Josephus the Historical Books were
all in the division of the Prophets, t On\y four Books
which, it will be remembered, he describes as "con-
taining hymns to God and rules of life for men," are
placed in a third division. Evidently these were the
Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of
Songs. It is possible, too, that this was a mere matter
of classification, and not a description of sections in
the canonical order of the Books. What we have
now to remark, however, is that in the time of
Josephus there was no wrenching away of any of the
Historical Books so that they might be placed in some
later section. The Historical Books were massed to-
' See Ginsburg, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, pp. :
+ See page 12
The Historical Books of the Old Testament. 189
gether. When we note that the order in our English
Bible is the order of the Septuagint, which represents
the Hebrew text as it existed in the third century B.C.,
we may consider that this question is set at rest, and
that the arrangement of the Books, to which we have
been accustomed, is the arrangement of the original
Scriptures.
Let us now recall the fact that very many of these
Books are prefaced by the conjunction ve, "and."
This indicates that the Books which thus begin are
continuations of earlier Books. They are added on to
something which has gone before. If we turn to
Genesis, we find no "and " at the commencement of
it. Its opening words are: "In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth." But Exodus com-
mences thus : "Nowthese are the namesof the children
of Israel;" literally, "And these are the names," etc.
Leviticus opens with: "And the Lord called unto
Moses;" and Numbers': "And the Lord spake unto
Moses." These four Books are, consequently, con-
nected together, and form the first division of the
Historical Books.
It may astonish the reader to discover that Deuter-
onomy, which is supposed to be the completion of the
four former Books, is in reality dissociated from them,
and made the beginning of a new series. When we read
its opening words we find no "a'nd." The Book com-
mences : "These be the words which Moses spake unto
all Israel." It is, consequently, not a supplement to
what has gone before. It forms a new departure. It
looks onward, not backward. Joshua comes next, and
190 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
shows the usual sign of addition. It opens: "Now
after the death of Moses," hterally, "And it happened
after the death of Moses," &c. Every subsequent Book,
till we reach 2 Kings, commences similarly. Judges:
**Now [and] after the death of Joshua"; Ruth:
*'Now [and] it came to pass in the days when the
Judges ruled"; i Samuel: "Now [and] there was a
certain man"; 2 Samuel: "Now [and] it came to
pass after the death of Saul"; i Kings: "Now [and]
king David was old and stricken in years"; 2 Kings:
**Then [and] Moab rebelled against Israel after the
death of Ahab." And there the additions cease.
Each of the foregoing Books is annexed to Deut-
eronomy, and the whole form with it the second divi-
sion of the Historical Books.
I Chronicles lacks the prefix which is so common
a feature of the Historical Books. It commences
with the words: "Adam, Sheth, Enosh," and pro-
ceeds to give us the genealogies of the nations, and
next, of the tribes and families of Israel. The Book,
being thus without " and," is not added on to anything
which has preceded, and forms the first of a new
series. 2 Chronicles i. i, however, reads: "And
Solomon, the son of David, was strengthened in his
kingdom." This is, consequently, a sequel to the
Book which goes before. Ezra has also to be added,
seeing that its opening words are : " Now [and] in
the first year of Cyrus king of Persia," etc. And here
this third series stops: for the Book of Nehemiah
wants the usual sign of addition, and commences
** The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachiliah.'
The Historical Books of the Old Testament. 191
This, like the severance of Deuteronomy from the
other four Books of Moses, is one of the surprises
of the arrangement. The Jewish people and the
Christian Church have regarded the Books of Ezra
and Nehemiah as so closely connected together that
they have been thought of as virtually one. The
only remaining Historical Book is Esther, and it is
appended to Nehemiah. Its first words are: " Now
[and] it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus," etc.
Is there any inherent fitness in this arrangement ?
Does the separation of the Books into these four
groups enable us to grasp more easily the history of
Israel? A brief inspection of the groups will suggest
a somewhat remarkable reply to these questions.
Genesis to Numbers gives us the history of Israel
outside the land promised to them for an inheritance.
Deuteronomy to 2 Kings deals with Israel inside the
.land. This fully confirms what has been felt all along,
and is, indeed, embalmed in the name "Deuteronomy"
(" a second Law ") : It rehearses the history of Israel,
and restates the Law, in view of. the approaching
possession of Canaan. It is the Divine commence-
ment, therefore., of the after history, i Chronicles to
Ezra describes Israel's return to the land, ist and 2nd
Chronicles being, in this case, the Deuteronomy of
the Return. They rehearse the history of Israel in
view of the re-possession of the inheritance, while
Ezra tells of the actual occupation of the recovered
country. This also accounts fully for the special
characteristics of the Chronicles. Wellhausen has
exclaimed against what he calls their " pragmatism,"
192 The Bible : Us Striicticre a?id Purpose.
that is, their "meddlesome," "officious" inculcation
of the lessons of the history which they recount.
With them it is history told with a distinct, deeply
earnest, and ever-remembered, purpose. And what
else could have been the character of "the Deuter-
onomy" of the new era? That very "pragmatism"
discloses the reason for the existence of these gifts of
Divine Inspiration, and their fitness for their peculiar
service.
The last group, iNthemiah-psther, deals with
what has been so notable a feature of Israel from that
time to the present hour— the diaspora, the Disper-
sion. There were multitudes of Jews who did not
go back, and who, with their descendants, remained
scattered among the nations. These Books give us
a two-fold picture of them. In Nehemiah we see
one whose heart was with the men of the Return.
He is so filled with concern for their condition, and
for Jerusalem, that he must go up for a time at
least and strengthen the hands of his brethren. The
Nehemiahs have thus been in all generations exten-
sions of the Jewish brotherhood. But there was
another and huge section of the Dispersion, which
cared little for these things. The condition of the
Holy City and of those, who were toiling amid scorn
and hardship to replant God's people in the land of
their inhabitance, was no matter of vital concern to
them. These are represented in Esther, Mordecai,
and the great body of the dispersed Israelites then
scattered over the Persian Empire. They were Jews in
name, and probably also in customs, though the latter
The Historical Books of the Old Testament, 193
seem to have been easily dispensed with. Mordecai
bears a heathen name, and Esther would not have
been able to conceal her nationality, if she had been
a devout Jewess. This, as I have elsewhere pointed
out, * explains a feature of the Book which has been
a long-standing problem for Bible students. God's
name is not once mentioned in it. Neither are we
once told that the Jews prayed to God in their dire
distress, or praised God when deliverance came to
them, though it is quite improbable that they had not
done so. But these Jews had despised the work which
had been Divinely assigned to them. They had aban-
doned the great position which God had given to
the nation of co-operating with Him in the world's
salvation. Therefore, though in His Providence He
will chastise and deliver them, God will not have their
names mentioned with His. Their story and His
shall not be bound up together.t
If this arrangement of the Historical Books com-
mends itself; if it sheds new and important light upon
their mission; if it reveals the necessity for each part,
and the perfect completeness of the whole; what lesson
underlies it all? The arrangement is effected, as
we have seen, by the silent use of the smallfest word
of the Hebrew speech, and svhat is well-nigh also its
smallest letter. It is often placed as the first word
of a Book. It is sometimes withheld. But when the
work is finished, we have this light shed upon the
structure of the larger part of the Old Testament
* The Inspiration and A ccuracy of the Holy Scriptures.
+ Compare Jereuiiah xliv. 26-28 aod Hosea iv. 6.
M
194 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Scripture, and upon the special purpose of each of its;
Books. The doctrine of verbal Inspiration — that is^
the doctrine which teaches that Inspiration extends
to the very w^ords of the original Scriptures — is sup-
posed by many to have been finally discredited. But
what shall we say of this? Who placed and withheld
that letter vav with watchfulness which never slum-
bered for the long period of eleven centuries, which
separated the first Books of the series from the last ?
We may dislike doctrines; but we must not refuse to
consider facts.
GENESIS TO NUMBERS.
ISRAEL OUTSIDE THE LAND.
CHAPTER I.
The Plan of Genesis.
IT might seem as if it were necessary to deal with
the higher criticism, especially in view of its
supposed case against the integrity of Genesis, before
commencing the exposition of the Book. A few
words will be said upon the critical theories in a later
chapter ; but the exposition will really be the most
effective reply. Gunkel, in his recently-issued second
edition of his book on Genesis,* closes his introduc-
tion with a singular, but eloquent, table. He names
it "The Succession of the Fragments of Genesis in
the Commentary." From this table we learn that the
critical fiat has gone forth that Genesis is no longer
to commence with the familiar words : " In the begin-
ning God created the heaven and the earth." These
words will not be reached till the reader has had a
number of other fragments served up to him, the last
of which consists of the first nine verses of chap. xi.
These form the twenty-fourth fragment ; and then
comes the ancient comnjencement of the Book as
fragment twenty-five ! That is the latest result reached
by the higher criticism in regard to those opening
chapters of the Bible. It is the reconstruction forced
* Handkummentar zum Alten Testamtnt, GottiogeD, 1902.
196 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
upon the critics as the logical outcome of the prin-
ciples which they have adopted. Now, if it is shown
that Genesis is not a collection of fragments, but
that it is, on the contrary, one of the most perfect
unities in all literature, then it will be proved that
the higher criticism is a gigantic blunder, and that
its fundamental principles are delusions.
To this study, then, we now proceed, in the full
assurance that this long-continued assault upon the
Christian faith will find here its Waterloo. Kuenen
confessed long ago that the critic has nothing more
before him than the general public have. He has no
documents to consult, other than this Bible which
is before us all. If, by the application of their prin-
ciples to this, they discover that it is a mere bundle
of fragments ; and if we, on studying the same Book,
find it a perfect and glorious unity, we shall form our
own judgment of the reliability of critical theories.
We shall also examine the arguments which the
critics have based upon certain passages, the alleged
double narratives, &c., as they come before us in the
course of our exposition. The reader will thus be
able to refer to these replies by consulting the treat-
ment of the passages in question in our running
commentary.
Has Genesis a plan ? That the Book is most
methodically arranged is now becoming clear, even
to critical eyes. It is divided into eleven great
natural chapters. The Introduction ends with the
third verse of chapter ii. But the critics, in order to
manufacture two accounts of the Creation, carry the
The Plan of Genesis. 197
conclusion of this first division to the opening words
of the fourth verse of chapter ii. : "These are the
generations of the heavens and of the earth when
they were created." Here they blunder at the outset.
The Hebrew word Tholeddth, translated "genera-
tions," comes from the \woxd yalad, "to bring forth,"
and means " things brought forth." That this is the
meaning of the'word is clear from its use in Genesis.
"The generations of the sons of Noah" (x. i), for
instance, are not the story of the origin of these
men. The section, of which it is the heading, contains
not a single word about their ancestry. It is the story
of their descendants : it is simply and purely the record
of the families which sprang from them, and of one
great event in which these families all participated,
and which led to their being scattered over all the
earth. " The generations of Shem " (xi. 10) likewise
preserve absolute silence with regard to Shem's origin.
They give an account of the descendants of Shem.
So in the next section (xi. 27) we read: "These
are the generations ofTerah: Terah begat Abram,
Nahor, and Haran ; and Haran begat Lot," &c.
It is the' story of Terah's descendants.
Not observing this, the critics have made " the
generations of the heavens and of the earth " (ii. 4)
refer to the origin of the material universe — thus
forcing upon the word Tholeddth a sense which the
Scripture use of it repudiates. It refers invariably to
what comes after, never to what goes before : not to
what has produced, but to that which has been pro-
duced ; never to ancestry, but always to posterity. In
198 The Bible: Us Structure and Piirposc.
wrenching away these words, therefore, from their
connection, and making them conclude the first
section instead of introduce the second, the critics
have not only done violence to the Scripture which
they undertake to explain ; they have also misunder-
stood the Hebrew which they profess to teach.
The second division of the Book commences, then,
with the words (ii. 4, 5) : " These are the generations
of the heavens and of the earth when they were
created, in the day that the Lord God made the
earth and the heavens, and every plant," &c. What
the phrase means here become plain on a moment's
reflection. The creation of the heavens and of the
earth is not the end of the story which Genesis has
to tell. It is merely its beginning. This material
universe is to be the theatre and the stage of a mighty
drama, in which God, and man, and the entire
creation, have their part. In other words, the heavens
and the earth have their Tholedoth — scenes and
events to which their creation is the prelude. They
introduce a fresh chapter in the history. That chapter
is the commencement of the story of man ; for the fate
of the material universe is now bound up with his.
We have, consequently, fresh details concerning the
first man and woman, and of the creation which sur-
rounds them ; we are told of the home which God
prepared for them ; of His intercourse with them
there ; of the command which He lays upon them ;
of their disobedience and fall ; of the loss of Paradise ;
and of the first dark fruit of sin in the murder of
Abel. We have, then, the story of the murderer and
The Plan of Genesis. 199-
of his posterity. The third section of the Book opens
with the words: "This is the book of the genera-
tions of Adam " (v. i). It follows the posterity of
Adam in the line of Seth. This section extends to
vi. 8. In vi. 9 we meet again the now fam.iliar
phrase, "The generations of;" and this is hence-
forth the dividing-line of the great natural chapters
of the Book, and that by which it ought to have been
divided from the first, had its plan been perceived.
The following table shows these sections at a glance:
(i) The Beginning (i. i — ii. 3).
The Generations of the heavens and the earth
(ii.4 — iv. 26).
The Book of the Generations of Adam (v. i — vi. 8).-
The Generations of Noah (vi. 9 — ix. 29).
,, the sons of Noah (x. i — xi. 9).
,, Shem (xi. 10 — 26).
,, Terah (xi. 27 — xxv. 11).
,, Ishmael (xxv. 12 — 18).
,, Isaac (xxv. 19 — xxxv, 29).
,,Esau (xxxvi. i — xxxvii. i).
,, Jacob (xxxvii. 2 — 1. 26).
It will be plain from the above Table that the
writer has a perfectly distinct and consistent rrtethod
and plan. He sets out with the creation of all things,
and he concludes by showing us the chosen people,
with which the rest of the Old Testament is to be
concerned, resting in Egypt. He advances steadily,
step by step, towards this goal, neglecting nothing, yet
keeping the main purpose of the Book constantly in
view. These eleven opening chapters of Genesis are
200 The Bible : its St met lire and Purpose.
stages in what is plainly a planned journey, each of
them bringing us nearer to the end. Is there any
composition, either in the Bible or outside of it, which
presents more conclusive proof that it is the work of
one hand, the outcome of one Mind ? And, neverthe-
less, this is the Book which Gunkel has broken up into
no fewer than 170 fragments ! He has been forced
to do this by the principles laid down by his pre-
decessors and accepted by himself. Do we require
anything further to convince us that Gunkel has run
the higher criticism to its death, and that, in these
170 fragments, contrasted with the manifest unity of
Genesis, he has disclosed the utter absurdity of
critical methods ?
CHAPTER n.
The Unity of Grj.:,'ESis.
THE method pursued in the composition of
Genesis is of a most peculiar kind. It is found
in no other Book of the Bible, and in no other work
which I am aware of in any literature. The Book
is a series of genealogies ; and yet these are so arranged
as to form a continuous and deeply-interesting history
— a history which has ever appealed broadly to the
mind and heart of humanity. The young, the
mature, and the aged, have perused its pages with
perennial interest and profit.
This is the more astonishing, seeing that the genea-
logical plan is rigorously adhered to. Each genealogy
is completed before the next begins. The break in the
The Unity of Genesis. 201
Creation-History, caused by the unhappy division
into chapters, has concealed the completeness of the
first section. The completion of chapter i. has been
cut away, and made into the first three verses of
chapter ii. We read there : "Thus the heavens and
he earth were finished, and all the host of them.
And on the seventh day God ended His work which
He had made ; and He rested on the seventh day
from all His work which He had made. And God
blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : because
that in it He had rested from all His work which God
created and made " (iii. 1-3). The account of God's
creative work is here carried to its termination ; and
the section is thus completed before the next is begun.
The second section, entitled " The Generations of
the heavens and of the earth," finishes with one of
those suggestive hints so characteristic of Scripture.
It has been a tragic story. God's work, which
He declared to be "very good," has brought forth
awful fruit. We see nothing but Divine disappoint-
ment and man's ruin; and the question rises to the
lips : " Wherefore hast Thou made all men in vain ? "
Like an answer to that question come the last words
of this second division of the Book. They are' these:
** Then began men to call upon the name of the
Lord" (iv. 26). There has been another birth in
Adam's home. To Eve, the new gift has brought
with it consolation and hope. It was a break in the
black cloud which had fallen upon her and her house.
She " called his name Beth : For God, said she, hath
appointed me another seed mstead of Abel, whom
202 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Cain slew" (iv. 25). The word was prophetic. The
darkness was breaking. The fruit of the creation of
the heavens and of the earth is not to be utter dis-
appointment. This is, indeed, a worthy substitute
for Abel whom Cain slew ; and, for that one seeker
after God whose blood was poured out upon the
earth, there now sprang up many ; " then began men
to call upon the name of the Lord."
The same feature characterises all the divisions. I
, take two more sections, one brief, the other long, but
both showing the same completeness. " The genera-
tions of Ishmaei" (xxv. 12) concludes with the death
of Ishmaei and the settlement of his descendants.
"And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is
before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria : and he
died in the presence of all his brethren " (verse 18).
That section, xxv. 12-18, it will be noticed, short
though it be, is so complete that it might have stood
alone. The same thing is true of " the generations
of Jacob," one of the very longest natural chapters
in the Book. For a reason, which we shall inquire
into immediately, Joseph's name is bound up with
Jacob's at the outset, so that this part is really the
story of the Patriarch's well-loved son. It begins
(xxxvii. 2) : *' These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the
flock with his brethren," &c. ; and it ends with these
words : " So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten
years old : and they embalmed him, and he was put
in a coffin in Egypt " (1. 26). It might have been a
' question with a reader of the Scripture, why the
The Unity of Genesis. 203
Book of Genesis should have closed with these words.
There is nothing whatever to show that it is a natural
ending of the Book, until we turn back to the begin-
ning of the closing section. There we find the
intimation that we are to have, in this last natural
chapter of Genesis, the story mainly of this one son ;
and, consequently, the section having to be completed
and the story finished, Joseph's death required to be
recorded.
Nothing can be more certain, then, than that in
the Book of Genesis we have one method, clearly
conceived and consistently followed from the com-
mencement to the close, from the first word to the
last. How many books can we cite which will display
so clear and conclusive a proof of unity of authorship ?
It might possibly be suggested that this is just one
of those things which an interpolator would be sure to
mark, and would find it easy to copy. But, then, that
interpolator would have to be credited with bigger
brains than have been possessed by a vast army of
Jewish rabbis and of Christian expositors and critics.
For this division into sections, though, like the law of
gravitation, apparently, when it has once been noted,
among the most obvious of all things, has attracted
attention only in recent times ; and is, nevertheless,
as we have just seen, woven into the very fabric of
the Book.
But the unity goes deeper than even this arrange-
ment. Genesis is history told with a purpose. We
can generally tell what the intention of a book is by
noticing what it is to which most space is given.
204 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
More than three-fourths of Genesis is devoted to the
story of three men — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; and
less than one-fourth to the history of the creation of
the material universe, the story of primeval humanity,
of the Flood, and of the many families and peoples
touched upon in the Book. The emphasis, then,
clearly rests upon those three men. But why should
their career be detailed at such length that they
become the heroes of the narrative ? What is it that
specially marks them off from all others ? The Book
itself provides the answer. To Abraham the promise
is given : " In thy seed shall all the nations of the
earth be blessed " (xxii. i8). Before the birth of Isaac,
God had said: "I will establish My covenant with him
for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after
him " (xvii. 19). To Jacob the same promise was
made : " In thee and in thy seed shall all the families
of the earth be blessed" (xxviii. 14). These men are
the founders of the people whose mission it is to
become the channel of salvation to the whole earth.
That this view is not foisted upon the Book, but is
a well-grounded inference from its contents, is amply
confirmed by other characteristics. There is a dis-
tinct progress in the genealogies. We are led onward
in a certain direction by a series of selections. In "the
book of the generations of Adam " we read only of
Seth and his descendants. Every other son of Adam
is set aside. When we ask why this is done, the reply
at once presents itself that Noah was Seth's descend-
ant. Every other branch of the human family perished
in the Deluge but that of Seth, which was continued
The Unity of Genesis. 205
in Noah and his sons. Seth is chosen, therefore,
because he is the one son of Adam whose hne is to
be perpetuated ; for we, and the men of our time, are
all Sethites. Is it not marvellous to find this course
adopted so quietly, without one word of explanation,
and yet taken so decidedly, and with such a depth of
intention ? Is it the way of " saga," of legend, and
of folklore (as the critics tell us we must now believe
Genesis to be) to treat matters with such a touch of
quiet and perfect mastery ; with such a far, all-
observant, gaze into futurity ?
We are only at the beginning, however, of these
marvels. The next selection, after that of Noah, is
Shem (xi. 10). Here a family of nations is chosen
whose characteristics are still deeply marked, and
which bears the name to-day of their common father.
Was there any reason for thus fixing our attention
upon the Semitic peoples, and leading us into the midst
of them ? The Book itself explains why this course
is taken. We recall Noah's blessing and the words :
" Blessed be the Lord God of Shem " (ix. 26).
Jehovah-Elohim is to be revealed to the Semite as to
no other branch of the human race. He is to be known
as "the Lord-God of Shem." Therefore is, it, then,
that we are led hither. The next selection is that of
Terah (xi.27). Every other branch of the great Semitic
family is left to pursue its way, and this one house is
singled out. We have already seen why this is done.
It is the home of Abraham : and the consciousness
of this destiny fills the man's soul and consecrates
him. He walks with God : he is "the friend of God."
2o6 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Then Ishmael is set aside, and Isaac is taken, in
Isaac's household a similar selection is made. Esau
is set aside : Jacob is chosen ; and the last fourteen
chapters of the Book — between one-fourth and one-
third of the entire contents of Genesis — are devoted
to "the generations of Jacob."
Now, let us mark whither this line leads. Lay it
across those selected points — Shem, Terah (including
Abraham), Isaac, Jacob. Prolong it down the ages,
and it touches at last upon Bethlehem and Calvary !
Step by step Genesis leads us on unhesitatingly,
and in one direct line, till we are brought to the house
of Israel. This is done with the reiterated assurance
that in this chosen people there will at last be found
healing for the nations. Has the promise been ful-
filled ? Has blessing for all nations, such as no other
family of mankind has provided, been met with there?
If so, then we are face to face with miracle. For how
could this Genesis-writer have conceived the idea,
and have been so fully assured that it would be
realised, that he leads us straight on to this people as
the world's hope ? But whatever may be thought as
to that, one thing is clear. The unity of Genesis lies
deeper than its mere genealogical plan. There is a
glow throughout of one hope, and a direction chosen
and persistently kept to, which proclaim the pen of
one writer. A collection of fragments could never
have assumed this perfect shape, even with the
assistance of the most ingenious editors.
CHAPTER III.
The Divine Stamp upon Genesis.
A NOTICEABLE feature in Genesis, as we have
already hinted, is its reticence. There is no
preaching nor moralising. The writer never pauses
to point out a lesson, though dealing with the origin
of sin, the judgment of the Flood, and with many a
tempting theme besides. This is the more remarkable
that there is a pervading suggestiveness. The lessons
are there ; but, like fruit hidden by leaves, they have
to be looked for. For example, when we read of
Abram and his company that "they went forth (from
Haran) to go into the land of Canaan : and into the
land of Canaan they came," we are apt to imagine
that these last words are a repetition due to the
simplicity which marked the literary style of those
ancient times. If they set out to go to the land of
Canaan, of course, we say, they must have come to
the land of Canaan. But when we read the context
carefully, we conclude that our conception of the case
is due to modern, rather than to ancient, simplicity.
We are told, just a few verses before, that Abram had
once before "set out to go to the land of Canaan,"
but that into the land of Canaan he and his company
had not come. They stopped midway at Haran,
where the old idolatry surrounded them, out of which
God had called His servant. Is it difficult to see
2o8 The Bible : Us Siruchire and Purpose.
there the danger of a half-obedience ? Abraham's
second call is as necessary and imperative as the first.
Haran was not Canaan, though it lay upon the way
to Canaan. We cannot make compromises with
God. It is only to a full surrender that the inheritance
will be given.
There is a similar suggestiveness in the order
observed in these genealogies. The rejected line is
always Jiamed first. Thus Cain's posterity are placed
before the posterity of Seth ; "the generations of
Ishmael " before "the generations of Isaac;" "the
generations of Esau" before "the generations of
Jacob," &c. There is no explanation given as to why
this is done. We only note that the law is never once
departed from. When we come to the last instance
— "the generations of Jacob" — the suggestion,
however, is more apparent ; so apparent, indeed,
that it seems almost impossible that it should be
overlooked. We are told (chapter xxxvi.) how Esau's
children became princes. The Dukes are enumerated,
evidently great territorial magnates. They elected
kings, united in this way their forces, and became
formidable among the nationalities of Canaan. The
words which complete the section are: "These be
the Dukes of Edom, according to their habitations
in the land of their possession : he is Esau the father
of the Edomites. And Jacob dwelt in the land
wherein his father was a stranger, in the land o
Canaan" (xxxvi. 43 — xxxvii. i). Esau and his children
entered at once upon their possession. Greatness
came early, and it came abundantly. Jacob, on the
The Divine Stamp upon Genesis. 209
other hand, had to wait. Even in Canaan, the very
land that is his by promise, he is merely a tolerated
stranger. The chosen have to wait. That is the lesson
which is written upon all these genealogies, and which
thus challenges our attention just as we are about to
enter upon the last of them. " The Lord is good unto
all." If Esau despises the birthright, God will give
him that which he will receive willingly and gladly.
He will give it to him fully, and He will give it to
him early. They who are reserved for the better
portion have to tarry. There is discipline in that
which they must not miss ; for without it, they shall
not possess worthily. In addition to the gift, they
are to have a still better thmg. They are to know,
and to love, the Giver.
I do not know of any book outside the b.ole
wherein lessons, so plainly intended, are left in this
way to be discovered by the student. To teach thus
silently, to prepare joy for the discoverer so calmly
and yet so lovingly, is not man's way : but it is often
God's way. It is the Divine plan for the education
of humanity. The student of nature is, by this very
method, filled with the truest, purest, delight, and
invested with greatness among his fellows. Is it
fanciful, then, to trace in Genesis the same method ?
Is it rash to say that the book of nature and the Bible
have been arranged upon the same plan, and by the
same Hand ?
I have already spoken of the goal of the Book. It
follows a special line down through the whole of the
primeval history. That line passes on through one
N
2IO The Bible : Us Structure a7id Purpose.
Divine choice after another till the selections close
with Jacob and his family. In the former part of the
Book the promise is given that the seed of the w^oman
shall bruise the head of the serpent. The reader will
judge it worthy of note that it is the woman's off-
spring, and not the man's, of which this destiny is
predicted. It may impress some, at least, to find
here an intimation already given of the miraculous
conception of the Deliverer of humanity. This
promise is repeated, and (as we have just noticed)
thrice secured by distinct Divine covenant to these
men — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then the promise
passes to the family of Jacob. The world's hope rests
with this people of Israel — the smallest of the nations.
Who, even in the fourth century B.C., could have
conceived it possible that a Jew should arise who
should rally round Him the nations, undo the serpent's
work, and bless men with the restored fellowship of
God?
That there is no way of explaining this feature,
apart from the Divine origin of this marvellously-
planned Book, I have indicated already in the pre-
ceding chapter. The impossibility of excluding this
explanation will become more apparent as we proceed
with the exposition — especially of the first chapter.
Meanwhile, I limit myself to minor, but, nevertheless,
significant, indications of the Divine hand. If the
reader will examine the genealogies, he will find that
the chronology of Genesis is confined to the selected line. In
the account of the posterity of Cain, the genealogy
runs as follows: "And unto Enoch was born Irad :
The Divine Stamp upon Genesis. 211
and Irad begat Mehujael : and Mehujael begat
Methusael : and Methusael begat Lamech " (ver. 18).
Here not a single year is mentioned. There is no
reckoning whatever. But when we proceed to the next
chapter (which records the posterity of Seth) we meet
the most careful chronology to be found in any litera-
ture : " And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years,
and begat . . . Seth. And the days of Adam after
he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years. . .
And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred
and thirty years : and he died. And Seth lived an
hundred and five years, and begat Enos. And Seth
lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven
years. . . And all the days of Seth were nine hundred
and twelve years" (verses 3-8).
There could not be a more careful reckoning than
that. It is, so to speak, a system of double entry.
We are told first the age of the father at the birth of
the son who is named. Then we learn how long he
lived after that son's birth. The matter might have
been left there ; for we could easily have told the age
of the patriarch at death by adding together these
two sums. But lest any error should be made in the
transmission of the figures, the sum of the two
numbers is given us by the Scripture. In chapter x.
the posterity of Japheth, Ham, and Shem, are named
without the mention of a single number. It might
be concluded, however, that the law does not hold
here, seeing that Sham's line is treated in the same
fashion. But it will be observed that here we have
all Shem's descendants, and not merely the selected
212 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
line. When we do come to the chosen line, the same
careful enumeration appears again (though with a
difference) : ** These are the generations of Shem :
Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad
two years after the Flood : and Shem lived after he
begat Arphaxad five hundred years. . And Arphaxad
lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah : and
Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and
three years " (xi. 10-13). In the subsequent selections
we still find the reckoning given. It is confined to
the history of the chosen seed, though it has to be
searched for. We meet it again in Exodus, where
we are told the exact duration of the sojourning of
the Israelites ; and along the story of Israel we pick
up the chronological thread, which has enabled
scholars to make a beginning, for example, with the
chronology of Egypt.
What does it mean ? Is it not that the story of
those alone, who bring salvation to this waiting earth,
is history in the sight of God ? Is it not an indica-
tion that this alone will yet be reckoned genuine his-
tory even by men? What is the worth of the Chronicles
of Egypt, or of Babylonia, or of Assyria, compared
with the record of God's dealings with the poor,
long-oppressed, and still-despised Jew? It is another
indication that Genesis is pervaded by a conscious-
ness of the destiny of Israel — a consciousness of a
destiny which is not yet exhausted. The sojourning
of the Jew is the measure of God's grace for the
Gentiles ; and the ending of that long travail will
strike the hour of the earth's deliverance. This last
The Divine Stamp upon Genesisi 213
statement may not carry with it the assent of all;
but the reckoning of the years in connection with the
selected lines, and with them only, must surely be
accepted as emphasising the anticipation of blessing
from the race towards which the history leads us. The
marking of the lapse of time here alone clearly tells
us that. Expectation sits here looking onward, open-
eyed, and marking how much of the allotted span is
passed.
We have already noted the fact that Joseph is
closely associated with Jacob in the last section of
the Book. "These are the generations of Jacob,"
we read in xxxvii. 2 :
"Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the
flock with his brethren ; and the lad was with the sons
of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's
wives : and Joseph brought unto his father their evil
report. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his
children, because he was the son of his old age : and
he made him a coat of many colours," &c.
The section proceeds as it begins. After a chapter
concerning Judah (xxxviii.), the story of Joseph is
resumed, and he becomes the hero of this part of the
sacred history, the Book ending (as we have seen)
with his death and his dying charge to the children
of Israel.
When we ask why Joseph should be associated in
this way with Jacob, a reply seems hard to find. It
has been urged as a likely explanation, that Joseph
was the son of Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob.
But this appears to be scarcely sufficient, for Benjamin,
214 The Bible : its Siruchire and Purpose.
the youngest child of all, was also Rachel's son. We
are apparently unable also to fall back upon what we
have found to be the pervading purpose, which, like
a golden thread, links all the parts of the Book
together. We cannot say that Joseph is in the
direct line from which the Messiah is to spring ; for
the favoured tribe was that of Judah, and not
Manasseh nor Ephraim, which sprang from Joseph.
And yet this is, after all, the explanation. Joseph is
a type of Jesus; and he is the sole type of the
Messiah supplied by these twelve Patriarchs. Not one
of those Old Testament types of Christ repeats the
picture given in another. Each tells the story of
Him who was to come from its own point of view.
Note (i) the relationship between this father and son.
They are bound together with the bands of deep and
strong affection. " Israel loved Joseph more than all
his children," and that love is returned by Joseph
with an equal intensity. Is it fanciful to see in this
a shadowing of the love which binds God and
Christ together?
If this should seem to be due to fancy, a further
study of the type may dispel that notion. We
observe (2) that Joseph has intimations of coming
greatness. We are immediately told of his two
dreams. These dreams did not come at his bidding.
They were prophecies of the mighty destiny reserved
for this well-loved son ; and they were no doubt
intended as Divine provision for heart and mind in
the bitter trials which were to follow. Here, again,
in the glory reserved for this member of Israel's
The Divine Stamp upon Genesis. 215
family, we see something of Him whom His brethren
will yet hail as Lord of all. But (3) what followed
from this special favour, and from these intimations
of future greatness ? Bitter hatred ! " When his
brethren saw that their father loved him more than
all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak
peaceably unto him " (verse 4). When the dreams
were told them, "his brethren said to him, Shalt
thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou have
dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more
for his dreams, and for his words " (verse 8).
It will be admitted that we have here what is, at
least, a marvellous illustration of our Lord's position
among His brethren. It was the very closeness of
the bond which bound God and Him together that
awoke the envy and hostility of the priests and the
rulers, the Pharisees and the Scribes. Jesus loved
the Father, and the Father loved and honoured
Jesus. Thepeople recognised instinctively theposition
given to the Son. They felt that He spoke with
authority and not as the Scribes. The new Teacher
was ousting the religious leaders from their place in
the confidence of the people. And the old harvest
of hate sprang up again in Israel. The old challenge
rang out once more : " Shalt thou indeed reign over
us ? or shalt thou have dominion over us ? "' From
hate there comes (4) murder : " And when they saw
him afar off, even before he came near unto them,
they conspired to slay him " (verse 18). It was the
type of many a Jewish council in those days when
the rulers "sought to slay " Jesus (John v. 16-18),
2i6 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
though they imposed upon themselves and others by
cloaking their enmity in the disguise of indignant
virtue.
The parallel still goes on. (5) Joseph was brought
up from the pit which was intended to be his sepul-
chre ; and Jesus is raised from the dead. And now
(6) Joseph's story is henceforth bound up with the
story of a foreign people. He goes down into Egypt,
and there the intimations of coming greatness find
their first fulfilment. We trace here the continuation
of our Lord's story. He is preached and believed on
among the Gentiles. His story is hencefoi'th bound
up" with that of Gentile peoples — the Christian
nations. Egypt (7) honours this man, rejected and
cast out by his brethren, and reaps a rich harvest of
blessing. Joseph is put in the place of supreme
power. The administration of Egypt is committed
to him, with the result that the people have abound-
ing prosperity, and bread to eat even in days of
famine; while the king's power is placed upon a
broader and firmer basis. That story has been
repeated in many a land since then. Jesus has never
been the trusted Counsellor and Lord of any nation
where the like, and also greater, blessings have not
become the inheritance of both sovereign and people.
Two other, and equally striking, traits will com-
plete the picture. Joseph (8) enters into an abiding
alliance with the people which has put its trust in
him. His life is, in a manner, identified with theirs.
He marries an Egyptian; "and Pharaoh . . . gave
him to wife Asenath the daughter of Potipherah
The Divine Stamp upon Genesis. 2iy
priest of On " (xli. 45). And the Lord has not dis-
dained the peoples who have put their trust in Him.
He has made an eternal covenant with them. He has
bound up his life with theirs, taking to Him a bride
out of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and
tongues. But (g) it was Joseph's destiny to rule
among the very brethren who had cast him out. This
token of God's favour, though by no means the least,
came last. The famine is also in the land of Canaan.
The family of Israel have wealth, but they have not
bread. Driven by need, and attracted by Egypt's
fulness, they come down to the Gentiles' Deliverer
that they and their little ones may live and not die.
And so the prophecies, which have been so marvel-
lously fulfilled in the blessings which the nations have
found in Christ, tell us more. The days are coming,
say they, when the word, which declared of old that
Jesus should be set as King upon God's holy hill of
Zion, shall be fulfilled. The Jew, driven by bitter
need, will seek the Gentiles' Saviour; and then they
will discover their long-lost brother, their Joseph.
This Book of Genesis, as we have seen, points from
the first to Christ. As we follow the line of these
Divine selections, we march onward, like the magi
of old, towards "the Star of Bethlehem." Does it
not add to our astonishment to note here, that the
Book, in this last section, ends with a typical Saviour,
and with a typical salvation, first for the Gentile, and
then for the Jew ?
We meet with a statement in the beginning of
chapter v. which the critics seem not to have utilised.
2i8 The Bible : its Structure ajid Purpose.
With a little of their customary audacity, and a
few unscrupulous changes, it might have been repre-
sented as a third account of the creation. We read :
"In the day that God created man, in the likeness of
God made he him ; male and female created He
them ; and blessed them, and called their name Adam,
in the day when they were created " (verses i, 2).
But, as we read on, we discover that this is merely
part of a significant contrast. The next word,
" and," shows that the statement about to be made is
closely connected with that which has gone before :
"And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and
begat a son in his own likeness, after his image ; and
called his name Seth " (verse 3).
Seth, we know, was born (iv. 25) after the expulsion
from paradise, and even after sin had borne its terrible
fruit in the murder of Abel. When we are told,
therefore, that, while the first parents of our race
were created in God's image, after God's likeness,
Seth was begotten in the image and after the likeness
of Adam, the words mean that Seth was formed in
the likeness and the image of a fallen being. He
inherited a sinful nature. This concerns us closely ;
for all of us are Sethites. Every other branch of the
human race perished, as we have already noted, in
the Flood. The Sethite family of Noah alone escaped,
and from them all men since born are descended.
Seth handed on to Noah, and through him to us, the
nature which he himself had received, and that a
nature begotten in the likeness and after the image
of a ruined man. What, then, does the contrast,
The Divine Stamp upon Genesis. 219
which, as usual in Genesis, is merely stated and not
commented upon, mean ? The two origins are placed
side by side. With what intention are they thus
presented? Is it too much to conclude that this
story of God's preparation for the earth's salvation
here indicates why this salvation requires to be
provided ? In other words, that this early chapter of
Genesis teaches the doctrine of universal depravity ?
I might again press the question as to Whose touch
this is ; but this is only part of the striking display
of the combined fulness, earnest purpose, and mar-
vellous reticence which confront us here. The section
commences : " This is the book of the generations of
Adam." As we have seen, the phrase, " the genera-
tions of," is repeated again and again. But we shall
search Genesis in vain for any repetition of these
words : " The book of the generations of." We do
not find it again in the whole of the Old Testament.
It is repeated once only in the entire Scripture. The
opening words of the New Testament are these:
* The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the
Son of David, the Son of Abraham " (Matthew i. i).
This fact, so noticeable in itself, acquires immense
significance when we remember other Scripture state-
ments. In " the Book of the generations of Adam "
all our names are written. They are inscribed there
by right of our common descent. But this enrolment
is a list of fallen beings, of sinful men. We are
inheritors of a polluted nature which none of us has
been able to purify. To answer, therefore, to that
roll-call is to be marshalled for condemnation.
220 The Bible: its Structure and Purpose.
But the Scripture speaks of another Book in which
names may be, and are, inscribed. There are many,
we read in Revelation xiii., who will be drawn away
in the final apostacy and revolt against God; but
they are those "whose names are not written in the
book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. If any man have ears to hear let him
hear" (verses 8, 9). In chapter xx. we are told of
«'ithe great white throne," and the final judgment :
"And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before
God ; and the books were opened : and another book
was opened, which is the book of life. . . -. And who-
soever was not found written in the book of life was
cast into the lake of fire " (verses 12-15). In xxi. 27,
we read concerning the new City, the eternal home
of the redeemed : "And there shall in no wise enter
into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever
worketh abomination, or maketh a He: but they
which are written in the Lamb's book of life." There
is a last reference to this Book in the closing words of
Scripture, which have a special message for the pre-
sent hour : " And if any man shall take away from
the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take
away his part out of the book of life, and out of the
holy city, and from the things which are written in
this book" (xxii. 19).
There is but one Book for the saved. It is the
Book of the Lamb — the one Divinely appointed and
accepted sacrifice for sin, the Book, therefore, of life.
Here our view ceases to be limited to Genesis. We
are compelled to note the unity of Scripture. Shall
The Higher Criticism and the New Testament. 221
we say that it is quite by accident that these phrases
thus answer to each other— "The Book of the
generations of Adam " — " The Book of the generation
of Jesus Christ," "the Lamb's Book of Life?" Is
there no arranging hand visible in thus confining the
one — the Book of condemnation — to the Law, and
in making the other— the Book of salvation— stand
in the forefront, and amid the last solemn words,
of the Gospel? And whose arranging hand can this
be, if not the Hand of God?
CHAPTER IV.
The Higher Criticism and the New Testament
IN THEIR Attitude toward Genesis.
IT will be necessary to refer here to the critical
theories of the origin of Genesis; but a few words
will suffice. For one thing, it would be well nigh as
profitable to enter upon a study of the latest Paris
fashions. Of these we have experience enough to
know that this book would hardly be in the market
before "the latest " fashions would have given way to
others still more recent. The much-spoken-of agree-
ment of the critics is a myth, and their "ascertained
results " require to be summed up in a very tender
fashion. When the analysis of the Pentateuch began,
the public was told that Genesis was clearly the out-
come of a two-fold authorship. There was one writer
who only knew one name for God — the Hebrew
222 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Elohitn ; and there was another writer who, strangely
enough, was afflicted with an equally limited vocabu
lary. The term he used was Jehovah (both these
names will be explained in our brief commentary).
The critics were quite certain that E (the Elohist,
who used the word Elohini) was the older writer, and
J (the Jehovist, who used the name Jehovah) was the
later writer. There was not, perhaps, very much
difference between their dates; but still, that was
the order in which they had appeared. This was
*' proved" by a long array of arguments, with special
appeal to the older language and style of 5^. It was
found, however, that here the critics had, all un-
wittingly, delivered themselves into the hands of
the enemy — the orthodox scholars who still believed
in a genuine and inspired Bible ; and so the critics
forthwith discovered that J was the older writer, and
E the younger of the two. By-and-bye E, or as
much of him as would hold together, was re-baptised.
A new name was clapped upon him. He was called
P (the Priestly writer), and was hustled down from
the ninth century B.C. to the fourth century B.C. Poor
fellow, it has fared with him as with the ass. Though
a good deal is laid upon him, he is not much thought
of now.
But worse troubles befell this "sacred science;"
for " devout scholarship " was soon plunged into a
labouring ocean of perplexities, in which, indeed,
some big reputations went to the bottom. J and E
were discovered to be most provokingly inconsis-
tent. Apparently they forgot the parts which they
The Higher Criticism and the New Testament. 223
were expected to play. J was found to be using the
name which had been assigned to E ; and, not to be
behind his friend, E was using the name which the
critics had assured the pubhc was J's very own. The
critics had to bow to fate, and confess the facts. But^
clearly, it would not do now to speak of the Elohist
and the Jehovist; so E has since stood for "the
Ephraimitic writer," and J for "the Judaic writer,"
the former belonging to the northern, the latter to
the southern, kingdom.
It was cleverly done. But the trouble was not
ended : it was only commencing. We had been told
that we had merely to read Genesis with these new
J and E spectacles to find ocular demonstration of
the truth of the new theories. Just as an old seam
parts before the edge of a sharp knife, so parted, we
were told, the two old documents. The J document
and the E document came clean away from each
other, and each made a continuous and beautiful
history by itself. But the enthusiasm was speedily
damped. There were outcries, of course, against the
new views. It was said that no separation of the
Genesis documents was possible ; that both names
were used by only one writer; and that the Divine
.names and the two alleged styles were so intermingled
that they never could have belonged to two different
writers. The worst of it was that, when the critics
looked into the matter, they found that their asser-
tions could not really be maintained. What was to be
done in this new trouble ? Why, simply to admit that
large portions could not be separated, and to call these
224 The Bible : ffs Struct ure and Purpose.
J E ! That is the recognised method of the new
unbelief. Darwin, in his Origin of Species, after
enumerating facts which are in direct conflict with
his theory, simply says that he nevertheless clings to
his theory. That facts were against the critics made
no difference ; the theory must be saved at any cost.
Facilis descensus Averni — easy is the downward
way. Bigger sacrifices of consistency were soon
demanded, and the demands were met with surprising
readiness. At first we were told that the traditional
order —
The Law,
The Psalms,
The Prophets
— was confirmed by critical investigations. But it
became evident, by-and-bye, that with that order the
critics had gained nothing. They were still confronted
by the miracle of Revelation. These Laws could not
have sprung up through mere evolution at so early a
period. The order must, consequently, be reversed;
and it now stands :
The Prophets,
The Law,
The Psalms.
And this is the reason why no Psalms can be left to
David, and why so many must belong to the times of
the Maccabees. They are so full of references to the
Law, that, of course, if the Law is late, the Psalms,
which refer to the Law, must needs have been later!
But, if the critics have thus disagreed with them-
selves, and have repudiated what they had announced
The Higher Criticism and the New Testament. 225
as their own clearly-established conclusions, the repre-
sentation that they are now in perfect accord with
each other is ludicrously untrue. Dillmann has said
that in Wellhausen's theory — that each of the so-
called documents had undergone repeated revisions
before they were united — he could only see ** a
hypothesis of perplexity." * They are not more agreed
now. The " fine vein of ethical and religious reflec-
tion, which has sometimes been attributed to J,"
writes Dr. Geo. F. Moore, " is the result in part of
an erroneous analysis." f Gunkel describes Budde,
moreover, as often hypercritical, and his transposi-
tion of verses and inversions of the text as " quite
capricious" (recht willkiirlich). Gunkel's own theory,
that Genesis is composed of ancient Sagas or mythical
legends, is now alarming his fellow-critics, who see in
it the commencement of a new revolution.
But we are specially concerned at the present
moment with the attitude of the higher criticism
towards Genesis. That attitude is one of distinct and
unanimous repudiation. According to Kuenen, the
Book consists of legends, which, when they came to
be written down, were " worked up in one way by one
writer, and in another by another, according to the
point of view and purpose of each respectively, so as
often to be notably modified, or even completely
transformed." % It is not surprising, therefore, to
learn from his history of the Israelitish religion that
Genesis is entirely set aside. " Can we use the Old
*Die Bucher Exodus and Leviticus, p. viii. + Art. Genesis, Encyclopaedia Biblica .
I The Hexateuch, p. 38 (English translation).
O
226 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Testament accounts of the history of Israel," he asks^
" as a foundation for our review of its religious
development?" "Our answer," he says, " must be
in the negative." He adds : " The oldest accounts of
the Mosaic time were as far removed from Israel's
lawgiver as we Dutchmen are from the beginning of
the Hoek and Kabel-jauw quarrels. Suppose that
we knew of the latter only by traditions, which had
never been committed to writing up to this time :
should we have the boldness to trust ourselves to the
historian, who now wrote them for the first time, as
a safe guide ? Surely it is almost inconceivable that
a narrative, which was not written down until after so
long an interval, should yet entirely accord with the
reality. We find by experience every day that
accounts which have been current but for a short
period have admitted very strange elements, and, in
some cases, have become unrecognisable. Without a
perpetual miracle, the oral tradition of Israel cannot
have remained free from this influence. Even before
we have made acquaintance with the contents of the
narratives, we take it for granted that they only give
us half the truth, if even so much as that." *
This is the conclusion to which the critical
theories inevitably lead. Let it once be granted that
Genesis is a bundle of traditions, which some one put
into written form long after the events, and every-
thing which Kuenen here contends for must be
conceded. There would still be a measure of truth
in his argument even if the Scripture history gave
» The Religion of Israel (Englisli translation), vol. i., pp. 17, 18.
The Higher Criticism and the New Testament. 227
us contemporary, but merely human, records. He
proceeds upon the critical supposition that Revelation
is a myth, and belief in the full inspiration of the
Scripture a blind superstition. We shall soon see that
facts compel us to acknowledge the inspiration of the
Bible ; but what we have now to notice is the
repudiation of Genesis even as trustworthy history.
To the critics it is a Book upon the statements of which
no certain reliance can be placed. Bishop Ryle's
estimate of its worth is an equally sad revelation of
what this disbelief means. To him. Genesis is merely
just such a compilation as Kuenen assumes it to be.
It is, by his account, a collection of stories which
had been told from hearth to hearth for long ages
before they were put into writing. " We can hardly
doubt," he says, "that the brightness and vividness
of much Hebrew narrative is due to its having been
derived from the lips of practised story-tellers. To
this source we are probably indebted for those portions
in the Books of Judges and Samuel which are
regarded as presenting the best style of Hebrew
prose. With them we must associate the two great
collections of narrative, called by critics the Elohist
and Jehovist writings, which forms so large a portion
of the compilation of the Pentateuch. They, too,
had been compilations; they, too, incorporated early
written records. But in their pure and simple style,
resembling closely the best portion of Judges and
Samuel, we trace the influence of oral tradition. It
makes itself heard and felt in the simple conversa-
tional prose, in the vividness of the description of
2 28 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
scenes, and in the naturalness and ease of the
dialogues." *
The above extract proves how slender a logical
equipment suffices to make a critic. The narratives
in Genesis are written vividly and in clear conversa-
tional Hebrew. Therefore they must have been
stories which had been passing for ages from lip to lip
among the people ! We tremble for the fate which
awaits poor John Bunyan and other writers of "pure
and simple" conversational English. The very excel-
lence of these authors will prove their undoing. For,
as soon as the critics have ended their Biblical unveil-
ings and turned to this new field, the poor authors
will be abolished as myths, or branded as impostors,
and their well-loved pages broken up into the stories
which, it will be straightway assumed, they had
collected and published as original matter ! But
in view of what has already resulted from the critical
delusion, will Dr. Ryle tell us what is the exact worth
of such a precious collection ? Can he accept it as
history? or will he gravely direct his clergy to it as the
authoritative Word of God ?
To these examples let me add another, taken from
the latest fashion worn by this unbelief. Gunkel's
rule for distinguishing the mythical from the historical
is frankly rationalistic. He says that the narratives of
Genesis, for the most part of a religious sort, speak
continually of God ; and this, he says, is one of the
most certain tests for distinguishing poetry from
history. According to him, God is never visibly
* The Canon oj the Old Testament, p. 35.
The Higher Criticism and the New Testament. 229
manifested. " Quite otherwise " is it, he says, " in
many narratives of Genesis." He then compares
them with some other Old Testament narratives;
" for," he writes, " these offences against probabiHty,
indeed against possibility, are not met with every-
where in the Old Testament, but only in quite well-
defined fragments of the same tone. In other
fragments, on the other hand, which we hold to be
specially, or more specially, historical, we do not
observe them. We think, above all, of the middle
portion of the Book of 2 Samuel, the history of
Absalom's rebellion, that most precious piece of
ancient historical writing in Israel. The world, which
is here pictured, is that which we know well. In this
world there swims no iron in the water, and no
serpents talk. No God nor angel appears as one
person among the others ; but everything is done as
we are accustomed to see it." *
We shall find abundant answer, by-and-bye, to
these cheap sneers. I quote them here merely to
show what the attitude of the higher criticism to
these revelations of God really is. It is that of open,
and now, indeed, scurrilous, infidelity. Wherever
the Scripture tells us that God was manifested, or
that God intervened, we have only, in Gunkel's
opinion, " faded myths." t He repudiates this' obvious
conclusion, but, in a way which only confirms it. " It
is no question," he says, " of belief or of unbelief, but
only a question of fuller knowledge as to whether the
narratives of Genesis are history or legend. It is
* Genesis, p. 15. t Page xvii.
2T,o The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
objected," he continues, " that Jesus and the apostles
have plainly held these narratives for fact and not
poetry. Certainly. But the men of the New Testa-
ment have no special position in such questions, but
share the ideas of their time." * So perfect is the
unity of the Scripture, and so completely has God
bound up the Bible with His redeeming work, that
we cannot cast away even its first Book without at
the same time thus tearing up the very foundations
of the Christian Church.
But, happily, there are still multitudes with whom
the testimony of our Divine Lord and His inspired
apostles cannot be thus brushed aside. Let us ask,
then, which side is taken by those who will ever be
the highest "Authorities" for the Church of Christ.
The Creation-History (Gen. i. i — ii. 3) is given by the
critics to their imaginary writer, P. This is the priestly
writer, who, they say, fabricated large parts of the
Scripture to obtain for the Aaronic family the control
of the Jewish ritual after the return from Babylon.
For such an astute conspirator he seems, according
to the critics, to have been poorly endowed, having
neither genius nor talent. The earlier critics gave
him both : but the newer critics can see no trace of
either. Gunkel speaks of his " insipidity and mono-
tony," and says that he is " evidently sufficiently
painstaking, and exemplary in his love of order;
but to him, as to many another learned man, the
poetic sense was not given." He then represents
him as consulting the old " Sagas," the popular
* Page xii.
The Higher Criticism and the New Testament. 231
legends, and actually treating as records of facts what
were the products of the poetic imagination. So he,
in his simplicity, put down the results of his researches
as the Creation-History ! * Dr. Moore also hints that
P did not scruple to avail himself of the arts of the
impostor, for he talks of his " calculated archaism." f
It is this which lies behind the assurance, so con-
stantly reiterated by our professors and ambitious
preachers, that we must look for neither science nor
history in this and other opening chapters of Genesis.
But what does our Lord say ? We read in Gen. i. 27
that "God created man in His own image, in the image
of God created He him : male and female created He
them." In Matthew xix. 3-6 we are told that the
Pharisees came tempting Jesus, " and saying unto
Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for
every cause ? And He answered and said unto them.
Have ye not read, that He who made them at the
beginning made them male and female, and said, For
this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and
shall cleave to his wife : and they twain shall be one
flesh ? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one
flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let
not man put asunder." Here the first and second
chapters of Genesis are ratified by our Lord, and by
Him certified to us, as records of fact. So trlie is it
that God did create man, that He is described as
" He who made them at the first." Our Lord's reply,
too, is based upon the absolute veracity of the
record even in special details — " He made them male
♦ Kommeutar,.iip. Ixxxi., Ixxxii. i Art. Genesis, Encydopadia Biblica.
232 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
and female." Indeed, the words in the end of chap, ii.,
quoted here in verse 5, are pointed to as an accurate
report of the words of God, and the whole is taken as
fully-inspired Scripture. ** Have ye not read ?" asks
Jesus. In other words, Are you not aware that the
Word of God has already answered your question,
and put this matter beyond dispute ? These early
chapters, therefore, are science, if science means
perfect acquaintance with fact. And they are history
given by the inspiration of God.
A striking illustration of the place accorded by the
New Testament to these early chapters .of Genesis
meets us in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The apostle
has just spoken of God's declaration that the Israel-
ites should not enter into His rest, and he proceeds :
" For He spake in a certain place of the seventh day
on this wise. And God did rest the seventh day
from all His works " (Hebrews iv. 4). This " certain
place " fnamed indefinitely as a hint, no doubt, to
these Hebrew Christians that they ought to search
the Scriptcres) is Genesis ii. 2. The Creation-History
is, therefore, not only true ; but God Himself is also
the narrator. The Author, whom the critics patronis-
ingly describe as a patient compiler from old legends,
or as an unblushing forger, and whom they name P,
is no other than their and our Creator ! Again, in
Romans ix., there are references to incidents in the
history of the three Patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. By the critics these narratives are entirely set
aside as unhistorical. Jacob and Isaac, according to
them, never existed. Their names are names of tribes,
The Higher Criticism and the New Testament. 233
they say, which, in the course of time, were supposed
to have been, at the first, names of individuals ; and
then, having the names upon their hands, an ignorant
but inventive age imagined a history for them ! As
to Abraham, Professor George Adam Smith is inclined
to think that he did actually live ; but he is perfectly
confident that he never had the history attributed to
him in Genesis.*
But it is attributed to him, not in Genesis only,
but also here in Romans and elsewhere in the New
Testament. The apostle refers (verse 9) to the Divine
interview with Abraham on the plains of Mamre, and
to the promise of an heir then given to him by God.
Here, therefore, that whole incident, so utterly
objectionable to the men who believe that " miracles
do not happen," is assumed to be true. In the earlier
verses (6-8) the subsequent rejection of Ishmael and
the selection of Isaac are also referred to as equally
unquestionable. Then (verses 10-13) we have the
reahty of the incident of the birth of Esau and Jacob
and the prophecy which preferred the younger to the
elder, discarded, like the rest, as absolute myths by
the critics, similarly assumed to be facts. Our atten-
tion is directed to all these by the apostle as to God's
own action, as to a revelation of the sovereign choice
and appointment of the Almighty. For he immediately
asks : " What shall we say, then ? Is there unright-
eousness with God ? God forbid.'.' Is New Testament
Inspiration, then, a myth ? Is there no Divine Revela-
tion of a way of escape from judgment ? Are we yet
, * Modem Criticism and. he I'l caching of the Old Testament.
234 ^'^'^ Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
in our sins, and are we, equally with the atheist, to be
henceforth without God in the world and without
hope ? They who stand with the critics — that Korah
host — are compelled to answer "Yes" to each of these
questions. As for ourselves, we stand with Moses,
and our reply is, "No."
There are similar references to other parts of the
Patriarchal history which further manifest the New
Testament witness to it, and lend added emphasis to
the above questions. But can anything make it
plainer in what place the continuance of the Christian
faith, of Christian service, and of Christian hope, will
alone be found ? These have flourished where the
Scripture has been received as the Word of God.
They have withered everywhere besides.
CHAPTER V.
The Antiquity of Genesis: The Samaritan
Pentateuch.
WE are not without indications, as we have
already seen, that the dates which the critics
have assigned to the various so-called " sources " of
Genesis may undergo another change. As our posi-
tion, however, rests upon facts, and not upon ever-
changing theories, this does not trouble us. We shall
show, first of all, that there is a date for the origin
of Genesis, beneath which no theory can rightly take
The Samaritajt Pentateuch.
235
us. We shall then mention some other facts which
limit its composition to the time of Moses.
The critics have long attributed the Book to three
authors— P, the priestly writer; J, the Jehovist, and
latterly the Judean writer; and E, the Elohist, whom
it is now found more convenient to speak of as the
Ephraimitic writer. Behind thesethree gather spectral
forms of other writers ; and so numerous do these
sometimes appear to the disturbed critical vision that
they are spoken of as " strata." Into these specula-
tions it would serve no good purpose to enter, nor
need we trouble ourselves with the ages ascribed
by one writer and another to the various critical
phantoms. Fortunately the reliability of their dis-
section of the Book, and of the dates assigned to the
various parts, admits of an easy test. They tell us
that P (to whom they assign the first chapter
and parts of many other sections) contributed his
portion about 450 or 400 b.c. This date is a chief
corner-stone of the critical edifice ; and we now
proceed to show that it is impossible, and that the
portions of Genesis, and of the rest of the Pentateuch,
assigned to P, were in e:xistence long before either 400
or 450 B.C.
.References to a Samaritan Pentateuch, written in
the ancient Phoenician and Hebrew character, are
frequent both in the early Christian writings and in
the Jewish Talmud. It is referred to by Origen
and Jerome among others ; while the Rabbis are
represented as frequently taunting the Samaritans
with ignorance of the Law, of the possession of which
236 Tke Bible : its Strudiirc a7?d Purpose.
they were evidently proud. For long centuries, how-
ever, all knowledge of the Samaritan Pentateuch had
perished in the Christian Church ; and, on the revival
of learning, it came to be regarded by European
scholars as a myth. But, in 1616, Pietro della Valle,
the distinguished Roman traveller, while visiting
Damascus, was introduced to a small colony of
Samaritans. In the interesting letter, in which he
describes his intercourse with them, he mentions
some details, which proved how rigorously they
observed the Mosaic Law. " I had great satisfac-
tion," he adds, " in seeing in the housQ of one of
their Chacham, or Doctors [of the Law] , four copies
of the Sefer-Thora, that is, of th« Pentateuch of Moses,
in Samaritan characters. . . These books were very
ancient, and all written in Samaritan characters, on
large leaves of parchment." The Samaritans, like
the Jews, had apparently exercised great care in
securing faithful copies of the Sacred Book, as will
be seen from the following. He says that, at a small
cost and with the help of a Jewish friend, " I had
from the Chacham two Sefer-Thora in this writing, one
of those which are on parchment . . . and another,
which belonged to a lady, written on paper, but very
ancient and very correct, as four or five Chacham give
their testimony at the end of the book in Arabic, in
which they, each individually and at different times,
assure all that they have perused it from one end to
the other, and have found no mistake."
Della Valle presented the parchment copy to the
French Ambassador, by whom it was forwarded to
The Samaritan Pentateuch. 237
Paris, and so brought to the knowledge of the
learned. The result was a heated and long-continued
controversy. Morinus, a Romanist theologian, pub-
lished a work, in 1631, in which he declared that the
Samaritan Pentateuch was to be preferred to that
which has been handed down by the Jews. Its varia-
tions, he argued, showed a " superior lucidity and
harmony," and stated that they were supported by the
early Greek translation, the Septuagint. The attempt
of Morinus was, no doubt, largely due to the Roman-
ist irritation caused by the constant appeal of the
Protestants to the original Scriptures. If it could be
shown that there was uncertainty as to the original
text, the Protestants would be deprived of their con-
fidence, and their appeals of their force. But a crowd
of disputants joined in the controversy who were not
influenced by that motive, but who, nevertheless,
made this a burning question for two centuries. " It
would now appear," says the late Emanuel Deutsch,
" as if the unquestioning rapture with which every
new literary discovery was formerly hailed, the innate
animosity against the Masoretic (Jewish) text, the
general preference for the LXX. (the Septuagint), and
the defective state of Semitic studies " had largely
to do with the bitterness and the long continuance of
the struggle.*
But the strangest circumstance in connection with
the episode is the fact that it did not seem to occur
to anyone that it was necessary to make a thorough
study of the Samaritan Pentateuch, and so to ascer-
* Literary Remains of the Late EmanUel Deutsch, p. 408.
238 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
tain Its character. When this was done by Gesenius,
the controversy died without hope of resurrection.
It occurred to that great Orientalist to classify the
variations, and so to ascertain what had led to them.
It was then seen that, with the exception of two
exceedingly slight changes, " the Mosaic laws and
ordinances had nowhere been tampered with." *
That this is a most important fact, in view of present
assertions, will be apparent by-and-bye. There are,
however, systematic changes, the evident object of
which was to prove that Gerizim, and not Jerusalem,
was the Divinely-selected Temple site. But the great
body of the variations is plainly due to a desire to
make the Book intelligible to the Samaritans. Com-
paratively modern are substituted for ancient gram-
matical forms, words, and phrases. Obscurities are
removed, and additions are made, the object of which
is to explain and to enforce the statements of the
original text. Few things have been so complete as
this vindication of the Hebrew text. Gesenius
selected four readings, which he judged to be prefer-
able to those of the Old Testament as possessed by
the Jews and by ourselves. " The reader will find,"
says Deutsch, " that they, too, have been all but
unanimously rejected." These results formed an over-
whelming demonstration that those who attacked the
Hebrew text on this ground had no case whatever.
That text had clearly been in the hands of the man,
or the men, from whom the Samaritans had received
the sacred Book.
* Page 410.
The Samaritan Pentateuch. 239
But when, and how, did it come into their posses-
sion ? That these non-Israelites should possess this
Law, and should cherish it as their own most sacred
possession, is a most peculiar circumstance. There
is absolutely no parallel to it. We might have
expected the Moabites and the Ammonites, and more
especially the Edomites who were so closely con-
nected in origin with the Israelites, to have welcomed
the Mosaic institutions. But they never had them,
nor did they ever display the slightest desire to
possess them. We discover no trace, indeed, of
approaches of this kind on the part of any neigh-
bouring nationality. We find, instead, deep-rooted
antipathy, and almost incessant hostility; and that
hostility and antipathy were nowhere more pro-
nounced than among the Samaritans themselves.
It must, therefore, have been some very special, if
not extraordinary, occasion which led to this cordial
adoption, and persistent retention, of the Mosaic Law
by the Samaritans. Have we any explanation of
what caused this reUgious revolution ? There is one
answer, and one only. We are told, in the Book of
2 Kings which was written before the return from
the Babylonian Exile, that the king of Assyria, after
the conquest of Samaria in 722 B.C., re-peopled the
cities of Samaria. Large numbers of colonists were
drawn from various parts of the extended Assyrian
Empire and planted in the conquered and desolated
territory. But God would still be honoured in the
land destined from eternity to be the inheritance of
His people, and a judgment was inflicted upon the
240 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
heathen settlers, which was immediately recognised
as coming from His hand. " And so it was at the
beginning of their dwelling there," says the Scrip-
ture, " that they feared not the Lord : therefore the
Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of
them. Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria,
saying. The nations which thou hast removed, and
placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the
manner of the God of the land : therefore He hath
sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them,
because they know not the manner of the God of the
land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying,
Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought
from thence ; and let them go and dwell there, and
let him teach them the manner of the God of the
land. Then one of the priests whom they had carried
away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and
taught them how they should fear the Lord "
(xvii. 25-28). They seem to have become attentive
and diligent pupils. They learned " the manner of
the God of the land," and " feared the Lord." But
there was one fatal defect in this coming to the God
of Israel : they still clung to their old idolatries. The
new service was not put in the place of their former
worship : it was merely added to it. " So these
nations feared the Lord, and served their graven
images, both their children, and their children's
children : as did their fathers, so do they unto this
day" (verse 41).
We learn here, therefore, that a priest and his family
were sent back to northern Israel. These settled at
The Samaritan Pentateuch. 241
Bethel, and the work of instruction in ** the manner
of the God of the land " was begun and continued.
It was done, too, with evident thoroughness. A new
priesthood was created for the special work of per-
forming and perpetuating among the Samaritans the
service of Jehovah ; but as it was impossible to obtain
the services of Aaronic priests and Levites, they fell
back upon the plan, adopted long before by Jeroboam
at the founding of the Israelitish kingdom. They
selected for the service the men who resembled the
Levites in this one respect that they had no inherit-
ance among their brethren. ** So they feared the Lord,
and made unto themselves of the lowest of them
priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in
the houses of the high places" (verse 32). Now, in
preparing a priesthood and establishing the worship
of Jehovah among the new colonists, the possession
of the Law was plainly a necessity. We know, for
example, that the Samaritans celebrated the Passover ;
for this is still one of their national institutions. To
do this, however, they required the Passover ritual —
those minute directions given in the Pentateuch for
the observance of the rite according to " the manner
of the God of the land." The like demand was
necessarily made in regard to each of the sacrifices,
for the Day of Atonement, for the great feasts, for
the consecration of priests, for the restoration of the
leper, and the other rites and observances. This was
the more necessary that the temper of the time must
have insisted upon the greatest possible exactitude ;
for it was felt that the lives of the settlers depended
242 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
upon minute and strict obedience, and that everything
must be had which would inform them as to " the
manner of the God of the land."
Putting, then, other considerations aside for the
moment, is it not the natural conclusion that the
Samaritans must have received the Pentateuch at
this time when its possession was so urgently re-
quired ? This conclusion will be confirmed as other
facts are considered. When the Jews had returned
to Jerusalem, at the close of the Exile, and had laid
the foundation of the Temple, " the people of the
land" immediately sent a deputation tcwait upon
"Zerubbabel and the chief of the fathers" with the
request : " Let us build with you : for we seek your
God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since
the days of Esar-haddon king of Assyria, who
brought us up hither " (Ezra iv. 2). The request, as
we know, was refused, and the beginning was thereby
made of that long-enduring hostility between the
Samaritan and the Jew. But what has to be specially
noted is that, in the sixth century B.C., the Samari-
tans believe themselves to be practically Israelites.
" We seek your God," said they, " as ye do." The
worship of Jehovah they affirm to be a national
feature with them as it is with the Jews. This is not
denied in the reply that is given to them ; for the
refusal of their offer is based upon the fact that they
have no natural right — no right based upon descent
— to participate in the building of the Temple. Is it
to be believed, then, that the elaborate Israelitish
worship was being carried on, and had been carried
The Samaritan Pentateuch. 243
on for more than 100 years, by a people who had no
copy of the Scripture containing the due order and
the details of the Jewish worship ?
I do not insist upon the difficulties attending the
supposition that the Pentateuch was adopted by the
Samaritans at a later time. In the way of that
theory there lies not only the fact that the hostility
between the two peoples makes the later adoption of
the Pentateuch extremely improbable, but there is
also the very natural inquiry why they should have
adopted the Law after they had long had in operation
all that the Law could teach them. There are two
other facts which point to the conclusion that the
Samaritans had obtained the Law at the time spoken
of in 2 Kings. First of all, they have never had more
than the Pentateuch — the five Books of the Torah, the
Mosaic Law. This is perfectly intelligible, when we
learn that they received it for the special purpose of
instruction in "the manner of the God of the land."
For that specific purpose they required nothing more.
Additional Books would, indeed, have been an in-
cumbrance, with which they would not have burdened
themselves at such a time. There was no call for
them, and they would have constituted the proverbial
.embarrassment of riches — a thing which an instructor
in such circumstances is most careful to avoi,d. It was
the Law alone that was then needed ; and the fact,
that with the Samaritans the Law alone has been
their sacred Book, accords fully with the circum-
stances of the period. On the other hand, if it had
been a question of adopting the Jewish Scriptures,
244 '^^^^ Bible : its Structure a7id Purpose.
either then or at a later time, it would be inexplic-
able that not a single Book of the other Scriptures
was ever included in their collection.
The second fact is, that the Samaritan Pentateuch
is written in what we know to have been the ancient
Hebrew alphabet. When the Jews returned, after
the seventy years' captivity, they had forgotten much.
They appear to have become so accustomed to the
square letters, which now form the Hebrew writing,
that copies of the Scripture intended for their use had
to be written in that character. The fact of this
change is attested by the Jews themselves. The
Samaritan Pentateuch, on the other hand, retains the
ancient Phoenician and Hebrew letters. These are
the same as those which have been found upon the
Moabite stone, belonging to the ninth century B.C.
This monument has another peculiarity in common
with the Samaritan Scripture. The letters which go
to form a word are enclosed between two circular dots,
like the period with which we close our sentences.
All these facts distinctly favour the early date of
the Samaritan Code. But if the Samaritans were in
possession of the Law in the seventh century B.C.,
what becomes of the critical theory of the date of
P, and of the origin of Genesis and the rest of the
Pentateuch as we have them now ? The portions of
Genesis and the legislation of the Pentateuch, which
critics ascribe to the imaginary P, are all in the
Samaritan Bible two centuries before P was in exist-
ence ! I have already mentioned the important fact,
that, with two slight variations of letters, there is no
The Test of Language and of Archceology. 245
difference between the Samaritan and the Hebrew in
regard to the Mosaic legislation. P's work was already
embodied, therefore, in both Codes hundreds of years
before the critics believe and teach that the Law was
forged. It also existed as we have it to-day ; for in
this respect the Samaritan testifies that there has been
no change. No demonstration could show more com-
pletely that Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch
have never undergone this degrading manipulation,
and that P, J, and E are themselves myths.
CHAPTER VI.
The Age of Genesis: The Test of Language
AND OF Archeology.
THE Samaritan Pentateuch, as we have just seen,
shows no trace of the various " sources " which
figure so largely in critical dreams. We have now to
note that archaeology and sober scholarship find the
Book to be a unity with a distinct character, in which
high antiquity is a marked feature. The critics annex
the Book of Joshua to the Pentateuch, and name the
new collection " the Hexateuch." But the Penta-
teuch is distinguished from Joshua by characteristics
which make the union impossible. The Books plainly
belong to different ages. The language which the
Israelites brought back to Palestine was, with the
exception of its Egyptian ingredients, the speech of
246 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
Canaan two centuries before. In that interval, how-
ever, the language had been modified. The Hebrew
of the new settlers had necessarily, therefore, to adapt
itself to their changed surroundings. The result is
seen in the Books written after the conquest as com-
pared with those which were written before it.
The student of Hebrew will find a selection of these
differences in the Rev. F. E. Spencer's Did Moses
write the Pentateuch after all ? (pp. 224-240)* ; and in
Keil's Introduction to the Old Testament. The follow-
ing facts, though they form but a very srnall part of
the available evidence, are more than- enough to
establish the antiquity of Genesis and of the other
Books of the Pentateuch. When two nouns are
united together, they are joined by means of the letter
yod. This custom entirely disappears in the later
Books. The masculine form of the third personal
pronoun singular, hu' (" he "), is used instead of the
feminine hi' (" she ") in 195 places of the Pentateuch.
This occurs only in the Pentateuch, and is a strong
testimony to its antiquity. The feminine pronoun
begins to appear — it is found in eleven passages — but
it had then only commenced to make its way, and
the masculine was still in almost constant use as a
common term. A similar feature is the employment
of the word na'ar (" a youth "), for both a young man
and a maiden. The feminine na'arahis met with only
once, and in its place we find the masculine na'ar
twenty-one times. Here, again, the separate form for
the feminine has merely begun to enter an appear-
* Elliot Stock, London.
The Test of Language and of A rchcEology. 247
ance; but, when we come to Joshua and the later
Books, it has asserted its rights and assumed its
place.
Another mark of high antiquity occurs in the
demonstrative pronouns, hallazeh and Ha'el. These
forms are found only in the Pentateuch. The verb zabad
(*• to endue "), and the noun zebed (" a gift ") are used
in Genesis, but appear in later Books only in proper
names. Kibshan ("a furnace") occurs only in Genesis
and Exodus. The reader is familiar with the striking
phrase, " to be gathered to his fathers, ' ' as a description
of death; but he will discover it only in the Pentateuch
and once in Judges. It was extremely natural for the
Patriarchal period, with its strong family ties, to con-
ceive of death in that way; but, with altered customs,
there came also changed notions and expressions.
The phrase is consequently a sure mark that Genesis
belongs to the older time. To these a large number
of words and phrases might be added. The above,
however, is sufficient to indicate their nature. Let
me now mention an equally conclusive proof, which
bears upon all the so-called " documents," and which
shows how impossible are the late critical dates. As
the reader is aware, a great deal is said in Genesis
about Egypt. How these references strike Egypt-
ologists the following extract will show. In closing
a series of valuable papers on "Ancient Egypt"
in The Contemporary Review, the late R. S. Poole
of the British Museum, the well-known Egypt-
ologist, thus makes reference to the great question of
the time— the age of the Pentateuch. " The date of
24S The Bible : its Structure and Ptirpose.
the Hebrew documents in general," he says, " has
been here assumed to be that assigned to them by
the older scholars. This position is justified by the
Egyptian evidence. German and Dutch critics have
laboured with extraordinary acuteness and skill upon
the Mosaic documents alone, with such illustrations
as they could obtain -from collateral records, using
such records as all the older, and too many of the
later, classical scholars out of Germany and France
have used, coins and inscriptions, not as independent
sources, but as mere illustrations. The work has been
that of great literary critics, not of archaeologists. The
result has been to reduce the date of the documents,
except a few fragments, by many centuries.
" The Egyptian documents emphatically call for a
reconsideration of the whole question of the date of
the Pentateuch. It is now certain that the narrative
of the history of Joseph, and the sojourn and exodus
of the Israelites, that is to say, the portion from
Genesis xxxix. to Exodus xv., so far as it relates to
Egypt, is substantially not much later than B.C. 1300;
in other words, was written while the memory of the
events was fresh. The minute accuracy of the text is
inconsistent with any later date. It is not merely that
it shows knowledge of Egypt, but knowledge of Egypt
under the Ramessides, and yet earlier. The condition
of the country, the chief cities on the frontier, the
composition of the army, are true of the age of the
Ramessides, and not true of the age of the Pharaohs
contemporary with Solomon and his successors. If
the Hebrew documents are of the close of the period
The Test of Language and of A rchaology. 249
of the Icings of Judah, how is it that they are true of
the earHer condition, not of that which was contem-
porary with those kings ? Why is the Egypt of the
Law markedly different from the Egypt of the
prophets, each condition being described consistently
with its Egyptian records, themselves contemporary
with the events ? Why is Egypt described in the Law
as one kingdom, and no hint given of the break-up
of the empire into the small principalities mentioned
by Isaiah (xix. 2) ? Why do the proper names belong
to the Ramesside and earlier age, without a single
instance of these Semitic names which came into
fashion with the Bubastite line in Solomon's time ?
Why do Zoan-Rameses and Zoar take the places of
Migdol and Tahpanhes ? Why are the foreign mer-
cenaries, such as the Lubim, spoken of in the consti-
tution of the Egyptian armies in the time of the
kingdom of Judah, wholly unmentioned? The rela-
tions of Egypt with foreign countries are not less
characteristic. The kingdom of Ethiopia, which
overshadowed Egypt from before Hezekiah's time
and throughout his reign, is unmentioned in the
earlier documents. ■ The earlier Assyrian Empire,
which rose for a time on the fall of the Egyptian,
nowhere appears.
"These agreements have not failed to strike foreign
Egyptologists, who have no theological bias. These
independent scholars, without actually formulating
any view of the date of the greater part of the Penta-
teuch, appear, uniformly, to treat its text as an
authority to be cited side by side with the Egyptian
250 The Bible : its Structure and Purpose.
monuments. So Lepsius in his researches on the date
of the Exodus, and Brugsch in his discussion of the
route, Chabas in his paper on Rameses and Pithom.
Of course, it would be unfair to imphcate any one of
these scholars in the inferences expressed above, but
at the same time it is impossible that they can, for
instance, hold Kuenen's theories of the date of the
Pentateuch, so far as the part relating to Egypt is
concerned. They have taken the two sets of docu-
ments, Hebrew and Egyptian, side by side, and in
the working of elaborate problems found everything
consistent with accuracy on both sides.; and, of
course, accuracy would not be maintained in a tradi-
tion handed down through several centuries."*
The last statement commends itself to everyone.
Kuenen, Gunkel, and the rest of the critics, have not
only admitted that tradition cannot be accepted as
transmitting to us accurate historic details, but they
have also put their rejection of Genesis on that very
basis. The converse, however, is equally true. If a
document is distinguished by this accuracy in details,
it cannot he a late tradition. That is the serious position
in which the higher criticism is placed by the discover-
ies in Egypt. Its conclusion, that Genesis is tradition,
is repudiated by those who know the things of which
Genesis speaks. Another fact, which I have dealt with
in The New Biblical Guide, \ may be said to complete
the demonstration. It is assumed by the writer of
Genesis that his first readers understand Egyptian as
well as Hebrew. Thus, when he tells us that Pharaoh
* Vol. xxxiv., pp. 757-759. tVol. iv., 170, etc.
The Test of Language and of Archceology. 251
named Joseph Zaphnath-paaneah (or, rather, pa-anch)
[Genesis xli. 45] he does not explain that the name
means " Bread of Hfe." It clearly does not occur to
him that there is the slightest reason for his doing so.
These readers of his understand the words as fully
as if he gave their meaning in Hebrew. There are
other Egyptian terms, too, which have entered into
their every-day speech, which are not explained, and
evidently for the same reason. When we ask what
generation that was, the only rational reply is that it
could not be later than that of the Exodus, to which
Jewish tradition has always assigned the origin of
Genesis, as of the rest of the Pentateuch. In other
words, Genesis first saw the light in the days of the
leader, and of the people, of the Exodus.
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The Bible : its structure and purpose
Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Librar
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