Chapter III: Inspiration Of The Scriptures (4)

As Rehab’s faith, not her duplicity (_Josh. 2:1-24_; _cf._ _Heb.
11:31_ and _James 2:25_); Jael’s patriotism, not her treachery
(_Judges 4:17-22_; _cf._ _5:24_). Or did they cast in their lot
with Israel and use the common stratagems of war (see next
paragraph)? Herder: “The limitations of the pupil are also
limitations of the teacher.” While Dean Stanley praises Solomon
for tolerating idolatry, James Martineau, Study, 2:137, remarks:
“It would be a ridiculous pedantry to apply the Protestant pleas
of private judgment to such communities as ancient Egypt and
Assyria.... It is the survival of coercion, after conscience has
been born to supersede it, that shocks and revolts us in
persecution.”

(_c_) Certain commands and deeds are sanctioned as relatively just—expressions of justice such as the age could comprehend, and are to be judged as parts of a progressively unfolding system of morality whose key and culmination we have in Jesus Christ.

_Ex. 20:25—_“I gave them statutes that were not good”—as Moses’
permission of divorce and retaliation (_Deut. 24:1_; _cf._ _Mat.
5:31, 32; 19:7-9_; _Ex. 21:24_; _cf._ _Mat. 5:38, 39_). Compare
Elijah’s calling down fire from heaven (_2 K. 1:10-12_) with
Jesus’ refusal to do the same, and his intimation that the spirit
of Elijah was not the spirit of Christ (_Luke 9:52-56_); _cf._
Mattheson, Moments on the Mount, 253-255, on _Mat. 17:8—_“Jesus
only”: “The strength of Elias paled before him. To shed the blood
of enemies requires less strength than to shed one’s own blood,
and to conquer by fire is easier than to conquer by love.” Hovey:
“In divine revelation, it is first starlight, then dawn, finally
day.” George Washington once gave directions for the
transportation to the West Indies and the sale there of a
refractory negro who had given him trouble. This was not at
variance with the best morality of his time, but it would not suit
the improved ethical standards of today. The use of force rather
than moral suasion is sometimes needed by children and by
barbarians. We may illustrate by the Sunday School scholar’s
unruliness which was cured by his classmates during the week.
“What did you say to him?” asked the teacher. “We didn’t say
nothing; we just punched his head for him.” This was Old Testament
righteousness. The appeal in the O. T. to the hope of earthly
rewards was suitable to a stage of development not yet instructed
as to heaven and hell by the coming and work of Christ; compare
_Ex. 20:12_ with _Mat. 5:10; 25:46_. The Old Testament aimed to
fix in the mind of a selected people the idea of the unity and
holiness of God; in order to exterminate idolatry, much other
teaching was postponed. See Peabody, Religion of Nature, 45;
Mozley, Ruling Ideas of Early Ages; Green, in Presb. Quar., April,
1877:221-252; McIlvaine, Wisdom of Holy Scripture, 328-368; Brit.
and For. Evang. Rev., Jan. 1878:1-32; Martineau, Study, 2:137.

When therefore we find in the inspired song of Deborah, the
prophetess (_Judges 5:30_), an allusion to the common spoils of
war—“a damsel, two damsels to every man” or in _Prov. 31:6,
7—_“Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine
unto the bitter in soul. Let him drink, and forget his poverty,
and remember his misery no more”—we do not need to maintain that
these passages furnish standards for our modern conduct. Dr.
Fisher calls the latter “the worst advice to a person in
affliction, or dispirited by the loss of property.” They mark past
stages in God’s providential leading of mankind. A higher stage
indeed is already intimated in _Prov. 31:4—_“it is not for kings
to drink wine, Nor for princes to say, Where is strong drink?” We
see that God could use very imperfect instruments and could
inspire very imperfect men. Many things were permitted for men’s
“hardness of heart”_ (Mat. 19:8)_. The Sermon on the Mount is a
great advance on the law of Moses (_Mat. 5:21—_“Ye have heard that
it was said to them of old time”; _cf._ 22—“But I say unto you”).

Robert G. Ingersoll would have lost his stock in trade if
Christians had generally recognized that revelation is gradual,
and is completed only in Christ. This gradualness of revelation is
conceded in the common phrase: “the new dispensation.” Abraham
Lincoln showed his wisdom by never going far ahead of the common
sense of the people. God similarly adapted his legislation to the
capacities of each successive age. The command to Abraham to
sacrifice his son (_Gen. 22:1-19_) was a proper test of Abraham’s
faith in a day when human sacrifice violated no common ethical
standard because the Hebrew, like the Roman, “patria potestas” did
not regard the child as having a separate individuality, but
included the child in the parent and made the child equally
responsible for the parent’s sin. But that very command was given
_only_ as a test of faith, and with the intent to make the
intended obedience the occasion of revealing God’s provision of a
substitute and so of doing away with human sacrifice for all
future time. We may well imitate the gradualness of divine
revelation in our treatment of dancing and of the liquor traffic.

(_d_) God’s righteous sovereignty affords the key to other events. He has the right to do what he will with his own, and to punish the transgressor when and where he will; and he may justly make men the foretellers or executors of his purposes.

Foretellers, as in the imprecatory Psalms (_137:9_; _cf._ _Is.
13:16-18_ and _Jer. 50:16, 29_); executors, as in the destruction
of the Canaanites (_Deut. 7:2, 16_). In the former case the Psalm
was not the ebullition of personal anger, but the expression of
judicial indignation against the enemies of God. We must
distinguish the substance from the form. The substance was the
denunciation of God’s righteous judgments; the form was taken from
the ordinary customs of war in the Psalmist’s time. See Park, in
Bib. Sac., 1862:165; Cowles, Com. on Ps. 137; Perowne on Psalms,
Introd., 61; Presb. and Ref. Rev., 1897:490-505; _cf._ _2 Tim.
4:14—_“the Lord will render to him according to his works”—a
prophecy, not a curse, ἀποδώσει, not ἀποδώη, as in A. V. In the
latter case, an exterminating war was only the benevolent surgery
that amputated the putrid limb, and so saved the religious life of
the Hebrew nation and of the after-world. See Dr. Thomas Arnold,
Essay on the Right Interpretation of Scripture; Fisher, Beginnings
of Christianity, 11-24.

Another interpretation of these events has been proposed, which
would make them illustrations of the principle indicated in (_c_)
above: E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 45—“It was not the
imprecations of the Psalm that were inspired of God, but his
purposes and ideas of which these were by the times the necessary
vehicle; just as the adultery of David was not by divine command,
though through it the purpose of God as to Christ’s descent was
accomplished.” John Watson (Ian Maclaren), Cure of Souls,
143—“When the massacre of the Canaanites and certain proceedings
of David are flung in the face of Christians, it is no longer
necessary to fall back on evasions or special pleading. It can now
be frankly admitted that, from our standpoint in this year of
grace, such deeds were atrocious, and that they never could have
been according to the mind of God, but that they must be judged by
their date, and considered the defects of elementary moral
processes. The Bible is vindicated, because it is, on the whole, a
steady ascent, and because it culminates in Christ.”

Lyman Abbott, Theology of an Evolutionist, 56—“Abraham mistook the
voice of conscience, calling on him to consecrate his only son to
God, and interpreted it as a command to slay his son as a burnt
offering. Israel misinterpreted his righteous indignation at the
cruel and lustful rites of the Canaanitish religion as a divine
summons to destroy the worship by putting the worshipers to death;
a people undeveloped in moral judgment could not distinguish
between formal regulations respecting camp-life and eternal
principles of righteousness, such as, Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself, but embodied them in the same code, and seemed to
regard them as of equal authority.” Wilkinson, Epic of Paul,
281—“If so be such man, so placed ... did in some part That
utterance make his own, profaning it, To be his vehicle for sense
not meant By the august supreme inspiring Will”—_i. e._, putting
some of his own sinful anger into God’s calm predictions of
judgment. Compare the stern last words of “Zechariah, the son of
Jehoiada, the priest” when stoned to death in the temple court:
“Jehovah look upon it and require it”_ (2 Chron. 24:20-22)_, with
the last words of Jesus: “Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do”_ (Luke 23:34)_ and of Stephen: “Lord, lay not this
sin to their charge”_ (Acts 7:60)_.

(_e_) Other apparent immoralities are due to unwarranted interpretations. Symbol is sometimes taken for literal fact; the language of irony is understood as sober affirmation; the glow and freedom of Oriental description are judged by the unimpassioned style of Western literature; appeal to lower motives is taken to exclude, instead of preparing for, the higher.

In _Hosea 1:2, 3_, the command to the prophet to marry a harlot
was probably received and executed in vision, and was intended
only as symbolic: compare _Jer. 25:15-18—_“Take this cup ... and
cause all the nations ... to drink.” Literal obedience would have
made the prophet contemptible to those whom he would instruct, and
would require so long a time as to weaken, if not destroy, the
designed effect; see Ann. Par. Bible, _in loco_. In _2 K. 6:19_,
Elisha’s deception, so called, was probably only ironical and
benevolent; the enemy dared not resist, because they were
completely in his power. In the _Song of Solomon_, we have, as
Jewish writers have always held, a highly-wrought dramatic
description of the union between Jehovah and his people, which we
must judge by Eastern and not by Western literary standards.

Francis W. Newman, in his Phases of Faith, accused even the New
Testament of presenting low motives for human obedience. It is
true that all right motives are appealed to, and some of these
motives are of a higher sort than are others. Hope of heaven and
fear of hell are not the highest motives, but they may be employed
as preliminary incitements to action, even though only love for
God and for holiness will ensure salvation. Such motives are urged
both by Christ and by his apostles: _Mat. 6:20—_“lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven”; _10:28—_“fear him who is able to
destroy both soul and body in hell”; _Jude 23—_“some save with
fear, snatching them out of the fire.” In this respect the N. T.
does not differ from the O. T. George Adam Smith has pointed out
that the royalists got their texts, “the powers that be”_ (Rom.
13:1)_ and “the king as supreme”_ (1 Pet. 2:13)_, from the N. T.,
while the O. T. furnished texts for the defenders of liberty.
While the O. T. deals with _national_ life, and the discharge of
social and political functions, the N. T. deals in the main with
_individuals_ and with their relations to God. On the whole
subject, see Hessey, Moral Difficulties of the Bible; Jellett,
Moral Difficulties of the O. T.; Faith and Free Thought (Lect. by
Christ. Ev. Soc.), 2:173; Rogers, Eclipse of Faith; Butler,
Analogy, part ii, chap. iii; Orr, Problem of the O. T., 465-483.

4. Errors of Reasoning.

(_a_) What are charged as such are generally to be explained as valid argument expressed in highly condensed form. The appearance of error may be due to the suppression of one or more links in the reasoning.

In _Mat. 22:32_, Christ’s argument for the resurrection, drawn
from the fact that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is
perfectly and obviously valid, the moment we put in the suppressed
premise that the living relation to God which is here implied
cannot properly be conceived as something merely spiritual, but
necessarily requires a new and restored life of the body. If God
is the God of the living, then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shall
rise from the dead. See more full exposition, under Eschatology.
Some of the Scripture arguments are enthymemes, and an enthymeme,
according to Arbuthnot and Pope, is “a syllogism in which the
major is married to the minnor, and the marriage is kept secret.”

(_b_) Where we cannot see the propriety of the conclusions drawn from given premises, there is greater reason to attribute our failure to ignorance of divine logic on our part, than to accommodation or _ad hominem_ arguments on the part of the Scripture writers.

By divine logic we mean simply a logic whose elements and
processes are correct, though not understood by us. In _Heb. 7:9,
10_ (Levi’s paying tithes in Abraham), there is probably a
recognition of the organic unity of the family, which in miniature
illustrates the organic unity of the race. In _Gal. 3:20—_“a
mediator is not a mediator of one; but God is one”—the law, with
its two contracting parties, is contrasted with the promise, which
proceeds from the sole fiat of God and is therefore unchangeable.
Paul’s argument here rests on Christ’s divinity as its
foundation—otherwise Christ would have been a mediator in the same
sense in which Moses was a mediator (see Lightfoot, _in loco_). In
_Gal. 4:21-31_, Hagar and Ishmael on the one hand, and Sarah and
Isaac on the other, illustrate the exclusion of the bondmen of the
law from the privileges of the spiritual seed of Abraham.
Abraham’s two wives, and the two classes of people in the two
sons, represent the two covenants (so Calvin). In _John 10:34—_“I
said, Ye are gods,” the implication is that Judaism was not a
system of mere monotheism, but of theism tending to theanthropism,
a real union of God and man (Westcott, Bib. Com., _in loco_).
Godet well remarks that he who doubts Paul’s logic will do well
first to suspect his own.

(_c_) The adoption of Jewish methods of reasoning, where it could be proved, would not indicate error on the part of the Scripture writers, but rather an inspired sanction of the method as applied to that particular case.

In _Gal. 3:16—_“He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of
one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” Here it is intimated that
the very form of the expression in _Gen. 22:18_, which denotes
unity, was selected by the Holy Spirit as significant of that one
person, Christ, who was the true seed of Abraham and in whom all
nations were to be blessed. Argument from the form of a single
word is in this case correct, although the Rabbins often made more
of single words than the Holy Spirit ever intended. Watts, New
Apologetic, 69—“F. W. Farrar asserts that the plural of the Hebrew
or Greek terms for ‘seed’ is never used by Hebrew or Greek writers
as a designation of human offspring. But see Sophocles, Œdipus at
Colonus, 599, 600—γῆς ἔμῆς ἀπηλάθην πρὸς τῶν ἐμαυτοῦ σπερμάτων—‘I
was driven away from my own country by my own offspring.’ ” In _1
Cor. 10:1-6—_“and the rock was Christ”—the Rabbinic tradition that
the smitten rock followed the Israelites in their wanderings is
declared to be only the absurd literalizing of a spiritual
fact—the continual presence of Christ, as preëxistent Logos, with
his ancient people. _Per contra_, see Row, Rev. and Mod. Theories,
98-128.

(_d_) If it should appear however upon further investigation that Rabbinical methods have been wrongly employed by the apostles in their argumentation, we might still distinguish between the truth they are seeking to convey and the arguments by which they support it. Inspiration may conceivably make known the truth, yet leave the expression of the truth to human dialectic as well as to human rhetoric.

Johnson, Quotations of the N. T. from the O. T., 137, 138—“In the
utter absence of all evidence to the contrary, we ought to suppose
that the allegories of the N. T. are like the allegories of
literature in general, merely luminous embodiments of the
truth.... If these allegories are not presented by their writers
as evidences, they are none the less precious, since they
illuminate the truth otherwise evinced, and thus render it at once
clear to the apprehension and attractive to the taste.” If however
the purpose of the writers was to use these allegories for proof,
we may still see shining through the rifts of their traditional
logic the truth which they were striving to set forth. Inspiration
may have put them in possession of this truth without altering
their ordinary scholastic methods of demonstration and expression.
Horton, Inspiration, 108—“Discrepancies and illogical reasonings
were but inequalities or cracks in the mirrors, which did not
materially distort or hide the Person” whose glory they sought to
reflect. Luther went even further than this when he said that a
certain argument in the epistle was “good enough for the
Galatians.”

5. Errors in quoting or interpreting the Old Testament.

(_a_) What are charged as such are commonly interpretations of the meaning of the original Scripture by the same Spirit who first inspired it.

In _Eph. 5:14, _“arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon
thee” is an inspired interpretation of _Is. 60:1—_“Arise, shine;
for thy light is come.” _Ps. 68:18—_“Thou hast received gifts
among men”—is quoted in _Eph. 4:8_ as “gave gifts to men.” The
words in Hebrew are probably a concise expression for “thou hast
taken spoil which thou mayest distribute as gifts to men.” _Eph.
4:8_ agrees exactly with the sense, though not with the words, of
the Psalm. In _Heb. 11:21, _“Jacob ... worshiped, leaning upon the
top of his staff” (LXX); _Gen. 47:31_ has “bowed himself upon the
bed’s head.” The meaning is the same, for the staff of the chief
and the spear of the warrior were set at the bed’s head. Jacob,
too feeble to rise, prayed in his bed. Here Calvin says that “the
apostle does not hesitate to accommodate to his own purpose what
was commonly received,—they were not so scrupulous” as to details.
Even Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 177, speaks of “a reshaping
of his own words by the Author of them.” We prefer, with Calvin,
to see in these quotations evidence that the sacred writers were
insistent upon the substance of the truth rather than upon the
form, the spirit rather than the letter.

(_b_) Where an apparently false translation is quoted from the Septuagint, the sanction of inspiration is given to it, as expressing a part at least of the fulness of meaning contained in the divine original—a fulness of meaning which two varying translations do not in some cases exhaust.

_Ps. 4:4_—Heb.: “Tremble, and sin not” (= no longer); LXX: “Be ye
angry, and sin not.”_ Eph. 4:26_ quotes the LXX. The words may
originally have been addressed to David’s comrades, exhorting them
to keep their anger within bounds. Both translations together are
needed to bring out the meaning of the original. _Ps.
40:6-8—_“Mine ears hast thou opened” is translated in _Heb.
10:5-7—_“a body didst thou prepare for me.” Here the Epistle
quotes from the LXX. But the Hebrew means literally: “Mine ears
hast thou bored”—an allusion to the custom of pinning a slave to
the doorpost of his master by an awl driven through his ear, in
token of his complete subjection. The sense of the verse is
therefore given in the Epistle: “Thou hast made me thine in body
and soul—lo, I come to do thy will.” A. C. Kendrick: “David, just
entering upon his kingdom after persecution, is a type of Christ
entering on his earthly mission. Hence David’s words are put into
the mouth of Christ. For ‘ears,’ the organs with which we hear and
obey and which David conceived to be hollowed out for him by God,
the author of the Hebrews substitutes the word ‘body,’ as the
_general_ instrument of doing God’s will” (Com. on _Heb. 10:5-7_).

(_c_) The freedom of these inspired interpretations, however, does not warrant us in like freedom of interpretation in the case of other passages whose meaning has not been authoritatively made known.

We have no reason to believe that the scarlet thread of Rahab
(_Josh. 2:18_) was a designed prefiguration of the blood of
Christ, nor that the three measures of meal in which the woman hid
her leaven (_Mat. 13:33_) symbolized Shem, Ham and Japheth, the
three divisions of the human race. C. H. M., in his notes on the
tabernacle in Exodus, tells us that “the loops of blue = heavenly
grace; the taches of gold = the divine energy of Christ; the rams’
skins dyed red = Christ’s consecration and devotedness; the
badgers’ skins = his holy vigilance against temptation”! The
tabernacle was indeed a type of Christ (_John 1:14_—ἐσκήνωσεν.
_2:19, 21—_“in three days I will raise it up ... but he spake of
the temple of his body”); yet it does not follow that every detail
of the structure was significant. So each parable teaches some one
main lesson,—the particulars may be mere drapery; and while we may
use the parables for illustration, we should never ascribe divine
authority to our private impressions of their meaning.

_Mat. 25:1-13_—the parable of the five wise and the five foolish
virgins—has been made to teach that the number of the saved
precisely equals the number of the lost. Augustine defended
persecution from the words in _Luke 14:23—_“constrain them to come
in.” The Inquisition was justified by _Mat. 13:30—_“bind them in
bundles to burn them.” Innocent III denied the Scriptures to the
laity, quoting _Heb. 12:20—_“If even a beast touch the mountain,
it shall be stoned.” A Plymouth Brother held that he would be safe
on an evangelizing journey because he read in _John 19:36—_“A bone
of him shall not be broken.” _Mat. 17:8—_“they saw no one, save
Jesus only”—has been held to mean that we should trust only Jesus.
The Epistle of Barnabas discovered in Abraham’s 318 servants a
prediction of the crucified Jesus, and others have seen in
Abraham’s three days’ journey to Mount Moriah the three stages in
the development of the soul. Clement of Alexandria finds the four
natural elements in the four colors of the Jewish Tabernacle. All
this is to make a parable “run on all fours.” While we call a hero
a lion, we do not need to find in the man something to correspond
to the lion’s mane and claws. See Toy, Quotations in the N. T.;
Franklin Johnson, Quotations of the N. T. from the O. T.; Crooker,
The New Bible and its New Uses, 126-136.

(_d_) While we do not grant that the New Testament writers in any proper sense misquoted or misinterpreted the Old Testament, we do not regard absolute correctness in these respects as essential to their inspiration. The inspiring Spirit may have communicated truth, and may have secured in the Scriptures as a whole a record of that truth sufficient for men’s moral and religious needs, without imparting perfect gifts of scholarship or exegesis.

In answer to Toy, Quotations in the N. T., who takes a generally
unfavorable view of the correctness of the N. T. writers, Johnson,
Quotations of the N. T. from the O. T., maintains their
correctness. On pages x, xi, of his Introduction, Johnson remarks:
“I think it just to regard the writers of the Bible as the
creators of a great literature, and to judge and interpret them by
the laws of literature. They have produced all the chief forms of
literature, as history, biography, anecdote, proverb, oratory,
allegory, poetry, fiction. They have needed therefore all the
resources of human speech, its sobriety and scientific precision
on one page, its rainbow hues of fancy and imagination on another,
its fires of passion on yet another. They could not have moved and
guided men in the best manner had they denied themselves the
utmost force and freedom of language; had they refused to employ
its wide range of expressions, whether exact or poetic; had they
not borrowed without stint its many forms of reason, of terror, of
rapture, of hope, of joy, of peace. So also, they have needed the
usual freedom of literary allusion and citation, in order to
commend the gospel to the judgment, the tastes, and the feelings
of their readers.”

6. Errors in Prophecy.

(_a_) What are charged as such may frequently be explained by remembering that much of prophecy is yet unfulfilled.

It is sometimes taken for granted that the book of Revelation, for
example, refers entirely to events already past. Moses Stuart, in
his Commentary, and Warren’s Parousia, represent this preterist
interpretation. Thus judged, however, many of the predictions of
the book might seem to have failed.

(_b_) The personal surmises of the prophets as to the meaning of the prophecies they recorded may have been incorrect, while yet the prophecies themselves are inspired.

In _1 Pet. 1:10, 11_, the apostle declares that the prophets
searched “what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ
which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the
sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them.” So
Paul, although he does not announce it as certain, seems to have
had some hope that he might live to witness Christ’s second
coming. See _2 Cor. 5:4—_“not for that we would be unclothed, but
that we would be clothed upon” (ἐπενδύσασθαι—put on the spiritual
body, as over the present one, without the intervention of death);
_1 Thess. 4:15, 17—_“we that are alive, that are left unto the
coming of the Lord.” So _Mat. 2:15_ quotes from _Hosea 11:1—_“Out
of Egypt did I call my son,” and applies the prophecy to Christ,
although Hosea was doubtless thinking only of the exodus of the
people of Israel.

(_c_) The prophet’s earlier utterances are not to be severed from the later utterances which elucidate them, nor from the whole revelation of which they form a part. It is unjust to forbid the prophet to explain his own meaning.

_2 Thessalonians_ was written expressly to correct wrong
inferences as to the apostle’s teaching drawn from his peculiar
mode of speaking in the first epistle. In _2 Thess. 2:2-5_ he
removes the impression “that the day of the Lord is now present”
or “just at hand”; declares that “it will not be, except the
falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed”; reminds
the Thessalonians: “when I was yet with you, I told you these
things.” Yet still, in _verse 1_, he speaks of “the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him.”

These passages, taken together, show: (1) that the two epistles
are one in their teaching; (2) that in neither epistle is there
any prediction of the immediate coming of the Lord; (3) that in
the second epistle great events are foretold as intervening before
that coming; (4) that while Paul never taught that Christ would
come during his own lifetime, he hoped at least during the earlier
part of his life that it might be so—a hope that seems to have
been dissipated in his later years. (See _2 Tim. 4:6—_“I am
already being offered, and the time of my departure is come.”) We
must remember, however, that there was a “coming of the Lord” in
the destruction of Jerusalem within three or four years of Paul’s
death. Henry Van Dyke: “The point of Paul’s teaching in _1_ and _2
Thess._ is not that Christ is coming to-morrow, but that he is
surely coming.” The absence of perspective in prophecy may explain
Paul’s not at first defining the precise time of the end, and so
leaving it to be misunderstood.

The second Epistle to the Thessalonians, therefore, only makes
more plain the meaning of the first, and adds new items of
prediction. It is important to recognize in Paul’s epistles a
progress in prophecy, in doctrine, in church polity. The full
statement of the truth was gradually drawn out, under the
influence of the Spirit, upon occasion of successive outward
demands and inward experiences. Much is to be learned by studying
the chronological order of Paul’s epistles, as well as of the
other N. T. books. For evidence of similar progress in the
epistles of Peter, compare _1 Pet. 4:7_ with _2 Pet. 3:4_ _sq._

(_d_) The character of prophecy as a rough general sketch of the future, in highly figurative language, and without historical perspective, renders it peculiarly probable that what at first sight seem to be errors are due to a misinterpretation on our part, which confounds the drapery with the substance, or applies its language to events to which it had no reference.

_James 5:9_ and _Phil. 4:5_ are instances of that large prophetic
speech which regards the distant future as near at hand, because
so certain to the faith and hope of the church. Sanday,
Inspiration, 376-378—“No doubt the Christians of the Apostolic age
did live in immediate expectation of the Second Coming, and that
expectation culminated at the crisis in which the Apocalypse was
written. In the Apocalypse, as in every predictive prophecy, there
is a double element, one part derived from the circumstances of
the present and another pointing forwards to the future.... All
these things, in an exact and literal sense have fallen through
with the postponement of that great event in which they centre.
From the first they were but meant as the imaginative pictorial
and symbolical clothing of that event. What measure of real
fulfilment the Apocalypse may yet be destined to receive we cannot
tell. But in predictive prophecy, even when most closely verified,
the essence lies less in the prediction than in the eternal laws
of moral and religious truth which the fact predicted reveals or
exemplifies.” Thus we recognize both the divinity and the freedom
of prophecy, and reject the rationalistic theory which would
relate the fall of the Beaconsfield government in Matthew’s way:
“That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Cromwell, saying:
‘Get you gone, and make room for honest men!’ ” See the more full
statement of the nature of prophecy, on pages 132-141. Also
Bernard, Progress of Doctrine in the N. T.

7. Certain books unworthy of a place in inspired Scripture.

(_a_) This charge may be shown, in each single case, to rest upon a misapprehension of the aim and method of the book, and its connection with the remainder of the Bible, together with a narrowness of nature or of doctrinal view, which prevents the critic from appreciating the wants of the peculiar class of men to which the book is especially serviceable.

Luther called _James_ “a right strawy epistle.” His constant
pondering of the doctrine of justification by faith alone made it
difficult for him to grasp the complementary truth that we are
justified only by such faith as brings forth good works, or to
perceive the essential agreement of James and Paul. Prof. R. E.
Thompson, in S. S. Times, Dec. 3,1898:803, 804—“Luther refused
canonical authority to books not actually written by apostles or
composed (as Mark and Luke) under their direction. So he rejected
from the rank of canonical authority Hebrews, James, Jude, 2
Peter, Revelation. Even Calvin doubted the Petrine authorship of 2
Peter, excluded the book of Revelation from the Scripture on which
he wrote Commentaries, and also thus ignored 2 and 3 John.” G. P.
Fisher in S. S. Times, Aug. 29, 1891—“Luther, in his preface to
the N. T. (Edition of 1522), gives a list of what he considers as
the principal books of the N. T. These are John’s Gospel and First
Epistle, Paul’s Epistles, especially Romans and Galatians, and
Peter’s First Epistle. Then he adds that ‘St. James’ Epistle is a
right strawy Epistle _compared with them_’—‘_ein recht strohern
Epistel gegen sie,_’ thus characterizing it not absolutely but
only relatively.” Zwingle even said of the Apocalypse: “It is not
a Biblical book.” So Thomas Arnold, with his exaggerated love for
historical accuracy and definite outline, found the Oriental
imagery and sweeping visions of the book of Revelation so bizarre
and distasteful that he doubted their divine authority.

(_b_) The testimony of church history and general Christian experience to the profitableness and divinity of the disputed books is of greater weight than the personal impressions of the few who criticize them.

Instance the testimonies of the ages of persecution to the worth
of the prophecies, which assure God’s people that his cause shall
surely triumph. Denney, Studies in Theology, 226—“It is at least
as likely that the individual should be insensible to the divine
message in a book, as that the church should have judged it to
contain such a message if it did not do so.” Milton, Areopagitica:
“The Bible brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against
Providence through all the arguments of Epicurus.” Bruce,
Apologetics, 329—“O. T. religion was querulous, vindictive,
philolevitical, hostile toward foreigners, morbidly
self-conscious, and tending to self-righteousness. Ecclesiastes
shows us how we ought _not_ to feel. To go about crying _Vanitas!_
is to miss the lesson it was meant to teach, namely, that the Old
Covenant was vanity—proved to be vanity by allowing a son of the
Covenant to get into so despairing a mood.” Chadwick says that
Ecclesiastes got into the Canon only after it had received an
orthodox postscript.

Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:193—“Slavish fear and
self-righteous reckoning with God are the unlovely features of
this Jewish religion of law to which the ethical idealism of the
prophets had degenerated, and these traits strike us most visibly
in Pharsiaism.... It was this side of the O. T. religion to which
Christianity took a critical and destroying attitude, while it
revealed a new and higher knowledge of God. For, says Paul, ‘ye
received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye
received the spirit of adoption’_ (Rom. 8:15)_. In unity with God
man does not lose his soul but preserves it. God not only commands
but gives.” Ian Maclaren (John Watson), Cure of Souls, 144—“When
the book of Ecclesiastes is referred to the days of the third
century B. C., then its note is caught, and any man who has been
wronged and embittered by political tyranny and social corruption
has his bitter cry included in the book of God.”

(_c_) Such testimony can be adduced in favor of the value of each one of the books to which exception is taken, such as Esther, Job, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Jonah, James, Revelation.

Esther is the book, next to the Pentateuch, held in highest
reverence by the Jews. “Job was the discoverer of infinity, and
the first to see the bearing of infinity on righteousness. It was
the return of religion to nature. Job heard the voice beyond the
Sinai-voice” (Shadow-Cross, 89). Inge, Christian Mysticism, 43—“As
to the Song of Solomon, its influence upon Christian Mysticism has
been simply deplorable. A graceful romance in honor of true love
has been distorted into a precedent and sanction for giving way to
hysterical emotions in which sexual imagery has been freely used
to symbolize the relation between the soul and its Lord.” Chadwick
says that the Song of Solomon got into the Canon only after it had
received an allegorical interpretation. Gladden, Seven Puzzling
Bible Books, 165, thinks it impossible that “the addition of one
more inmate to the harem of that royal rake, King Solomon, should
have been made the type of the spiritual affection between Christ
and his church. Instead of this, the book is a glorification of
pure love. The Shulamite, transported to the court of Solomon,
remains faithful to her shepherd lover, and is restored to him.”

Bruce, Apologetics, 321—“The Song of Solomon, literally
interpreted as a story of true love, proof against the
blandishments of the royal harem, is rightfully in the Canon as a
buttress to the true religion; for whatever made for purity in the
relations of the sexes made for the worship of Jehovah—Baal
worship and impurity being closely associated.” Rutherford,
McCheyne, and Spurgeon have taken more texts from the Song of
Solomon than from any other portion of Scripture of like extent.
Charles G. Finney, Autobiography, 378—“At this time it seemed as
if my soul was wedded to Christ in a sense which I never had any
thought or conception of before. The language of the Song of
Solomon was as natural to me as my breath. I thought I could
understand well the state he was in when he wrote that Song, and
concluded then, as I have ever thought since, that that Song was
written by him after he had been reclaimed from his great
backsliding. I not only had all the fulness of my first love, but
a vast accession to it. Indeed, the Lord lifted me up so much
above anything that I had experienced before, and taught me so
much of the meaning of the Bible, of Christ’s relations and power
and willingness, that I found myself saying to him: I had not
known or conceived that any such thing was true.” On Jonah, see R.
W. Dale, in Expositor, July, 1892, advocating the non-historical
and allegorical character of the book. Bib. Sac.,
10:737-764—“Jonah represents the nation of Israel as emerging
through a miracle from the exile, in order to carry out its
mission to the world at large. It teaches that God is the God of
the whole earth; that the Ninevites as well as the Israelites are
dear to him; that his threatenings of penalty are conditional.”

8. Portions of the Scripture books written by others than the persons to whom they are ascribed.

The objection rests upon a misunderstanding of the nature and object of inspiration. It may be removed by considering that

(_a_) In the case of books made up from preëxisting documents, inspiration simply preserved the compilers of them from selecting inadequate or improper material. The fact of such compilation does not impugn their value as records of a divine revelation, since these books supplement each other’s deficiencies and together are sufficient for man’s religious needs.

Luke distinctly informs us that he secured the materials for his
gospel from the reports of others who were eye-witnesses of the
events he recorded (_Luke 1:1-4_). The book of Genesis bears marks
of having incorporated documents of earlier times. The account of
creation which begins with _Gen. 2:4_ is evidently written by a
different hand from that which penned _1:1-31_ and _2:1-3_.
Instances of the same sort may be found in the books of
Chronicles. In like manner, Marshall’s Life of Washington
incorporates documents by other writers. By thus incorporating
them, Marshall vouches for their truth. See Bible Com., 1:2, 22.

Dorner, Hist. Prot. Theology, 1:243—“Luther ascribes to faith
critical authority with reference to the Canon. He denies the
canonicity of James, without regarding it as spurious. So of
Hebrews and Revelation, though later, in 1545, he passed a more
favorable judgment upon the latter. He even says of a proof
adduced by Paul in Galatians that it is too weak to hold. He
allows that in external matters not only Stephen but even the
sacred authors contain inaccuracies. The authority of the O. T.
does not seem to him invalidated by the admission that several of
its writings have passed through revising hands. What would it
matter, he asks, if Moses did not write the Pentateuch? The
prophets studied Moses and one another. If they built in much
wood, hay and stubble along with the rest, still the foundation
abides; the fire of the great day shall consume the former; for in
this manner do we treat the writings of Augustine and others.
Kings is far more to be believed than Chronicles. Ecclesiastes is
forged and cannot come from Solomon. Esther is not canonical. The
church may have erred in adopting a book into the Canon. Faith
first requires proof. Hence he ejects the Apocryphal books of the
O. T. from the Canon. So some parts of the N. T. receive only a
secondary, deuterocanonical position. There is a difference
between the word of God and the holy Scriptures, not merely in
reference to the form, but also in reference to the subject
matter.”

H. P. Smith, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 94—“The Editor of
the Minor Prophets united in one roll the prophetic fragments
which were in circulation in his time. Finding a fragment without
an author’s name he inserted it in the series. It would not have
been distinguished from the work of the author immediately
preceding. So _Zech. 9:1-4_ came to go under the name of
Zechariah, and _Is. 40-66_ under the name of Isaiah. Reuss called
these ‘anatomical studies.’ ” On the authorship of the book of
Daniel, see W. C. Wilkinson, in Homiletical Review, March,
1902:208, and Oct. 1902:305; on Paul, see Hom. Rev., June,
1902:501; on 110th Psalm, Hom. Rev., April, 1902:309.

(_b_) In the case of additions to Scripture books by later writers, it is reasonable to suppose that the additions, as well as the originals, were made by inspiration, and no essential truth is sacrificed by allowing the whole to go under the name of the chief author.

_Mark 16:9-20_ appears to have been added by a later hand (see
English Revised Version). The Eng. Rev. Vers. also brackets or
segregates a part of _verse 3_ and the whole of _verse 4_ in _John
5_ (the moving of the water by the angel), and the whole passage
_John 7:53-8:11_ (the woman taken in adultery). Westcott and Hort
regard the latter passage as an interpolation, probably “Western”
in its origin (so also _Mark 16:9-20_). Others regard it as
authentic, though not written by John. The closing chapter of
Deuteronomy was apparently added after Moses’ death—perhaps by
Joshua. If criticism should prove other portions of the Pentateuch
to have been composed after Moses’ time, the inspiration of the
Pentateuch would not be invalidated, so long as Moses was its
chief author or even the original source and founder of its
legislation (_John 5:46—_“he wrote of me”). Gore, in Lux Mundi,
355—“Deuteronomy may be a republication of the law, in the spirit
and power of Moses, and put dramatically into his mouth.”

At a spot near the Pool of Siloam, Manasseh is said to have
ordered that Isaiah should be sawn asunder with a wooden saw. The
prophet is again sawn asunder by the recent criticism. But his
prophecy opens (_Is. 1:1_) with the statement that it was composed
during a period which covered the reigns of four kings—Uzziah,
Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah—nearly forty years. In so long a time
the style of a writer greatly changes. _Chapters 40-66_ may have
been written in Isaiah’s later age, after he had retired from
public life. Compare the change in the style of Zechariah, John
and Paul, with that in Thomas Carlyle and George William Curtis.
On Isaiah, see Smyth, Prophecy a Preparation for Christ; Bib.
Sac., Apr. 1881:230-253; also July, 1881; Stanley, Jewish Ch.,
2:646, 647; Nägelsbach, Int. to Lange’s Isaiah.

For the view that there were two Isaiahs, see George Adam Smith,
Com. on Isaiah, 2:1-25: Isaiah flourished B. C. 740-700. The last
27 chapters deal with the captivity (598-538) and with Cyrus
(550), whom they name. The book is not one continuous prophecy,
but a number of separate orations. Some of these claim to be
Isaiah’s own, and have titles, such as “The vision of Isaiah the
son of Amos”_ (1:1)_; “The word that Isaiah the son of Amos saw”_
(2:1)_. But such titles describe only the individual prophecies
they head. Other portions of the book, on other subjects and in
different styles, have no titles at all. Chapters _40-66_ do not
claim to be his. There are nine citations in the N. T. from the
disputed chapters, but none by our Lord. None of these citations
were given in answer to the question: Did Isaiah write chapters
_44-66_? Isaiah’s name is mentioned only for the sake of
reference. Chapters _44-66_ set forth the exile and captivity as
already having taken place. Israel is addressed as ready for
deliverance. Cyrus is named as deliverer. There is no grammar of
the future like Jeremiah’s. Cyrus is pointed out as proof that
_former_ prophecies of deliverance are at last coming to pass. He
is not presented as a prediction, but as a proof that prediction
is being fulfilled. The prophet could not have referred the
heathen to Cyrus as proof that prophecy had been fulfilled, had he
not been visible to them in all his weight of war. Babylon has
still to fall before the exiles can go free. But chapters _40-66_
speak of the coming of Cyrus as past, and of the fall of Babylon
as yet to come. Why not use the prophetic perfect of both, if both
were yet future? Local color, language and thought are all
consistent with exilic authorship. All suits the exile, but all is
foreign to the subjects and methods of Isaiah, for example, the
use of the terms _righteous_ and _righteousness_. Calvin admits
exilic authorship (on _Is. 55:3_). The passage _56:9-57_, however,
is an exception and is preëxilic. _40-48_ are certainly by one
hand, and may be dated 555-538. 2nd Isaiah is not a unity, but
consists of a number of pieces written before, during, and after
the exile, to comfort the people of God.

(_c_) It is unjust to deny to inspired Scripture the right exercised by all historians of introducing certain documents and sayings as simply historical, while their complete truthfulness is neither vouched for nor denied.

An instance in point is the letter of Claudius Lysias in _Acts
23:26-30_—a letter which represents his conduct in a more
favorable light than the facts would justify—for he had not
learned that Paul was a Roman when he rescued him in the temple
(_Acts 21:31-33; 22:26-29_). An incorrect statement may be
correctly reported. A set of pamphlets printed in the time of the
French Revolution might be made an appendix to some history of
France without implying that the historian vouched for their
truth. The sacred historians may similarly have been inspired to
use only the material within their reach, leaving their readers by
comparison with other Scriptures to judge of its truthfulness and
value. This seems to have been the method adopted by the compiler
of _1_ and _2 Chronicles_. The moral and religious lessons of the
history are patent, even though there is inaccuracy in reporting
some of the facts. So the assertions of the authors of the Psalms
cannot be taken for absolute truth. The authors were not sinless
models for the Christian,—only Christ is that. But the Psalms
present us with a record of the actual experience of believers in
the past. It has its human weakness, but we can profit by it, even
though it expresses itself at times in imprecations. _Jeremiah
20:7—_“O lord, thou hast deceived me”—may possibly be thus
explained.

9. Sceptical or fictitious Narratives.

(_a_) Descriptions of human experience may be embraced in Scripture, not as models for imitation, but as illustrations of the doubts, struggles, and needs of the soul. In these cases inspiration may vouch, not for the correctness of the views expressed by those who thus describe their mental history, but only for the correspondence of the description with actual fact, and for its usefulness as indirectly teaching important moral lessons.

The book of Ecclesiastes, for example, is the record of the mental
struggles of a soul seeking satisfaction without God. If written
by Solomon during the time of his religious declension, or near
the close of it, it would constitute a most valuable commentary
upon the inspired history. Yet it might be equally valuable,
though composed by some later writer under divine direction and
inspiration. H. P. Smith, Bib. Scholarship and Inspiration, 97—“To
suppose Solomon the author of Ecclesiastes is like supposing
Spenser to have written In Memoriam.” Luther, Keil, Delitzsch,
Ginsburg, Hengstenberg all declare it to be a production of later
times (330 B. C.). The book shows experience of misgovernment. An
earlier writer cannot write in the style of a later one, though
the later can imitate the earlier. The early Latin and Greek
Fathers quoted the Apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon as by Solomon; see
Plumptre, Introd. to Ecclesiastes, in Cambridge Bible. Gore, in
Lux Mundi, 355—“Ecclesiastes, though like the book of Wisdom
purporting to be by Solomon, may be by another author.... ‘A pious
fraud’ cannot be inspired; an idealizing personification, as a
normal type of literature, can be inspired.” Yet Bernhard Schäfer,
Das Buch Koheleth, ably maintains the Solomonic authorship.

(_b_) Moral truth may be put by Scripture writers into parabolic or dramatic form, and the sayings of Satan and of perverse men may form parts of such a production. In such cases, inspiration may vouch, not for the historical truth, much less for the moral truth of each separate statement, but only for the correspondence of the whole with ideal fact; in other words, inspiration may guarantee that the story is true to nature, and is valuable as conveying divine instruction.

It is not necessary to suppose that the poetical speeches of Job’s
friends were actually delivered in the words that have come down
to us. Though Job never had had a historical existence, the book
would still be of the utmost value, and would convey to us a vast
amount of true teaching with regard to the dealings of God and the
problem of evil. Fact is local; truth is universal. Some novels
contain more truth than can be found in some histories. Other
books of Scripture, however, assure us that Job was an actual
historical character (_Ez. 14:14_; _James 5:11_). Nor is it
necessary to suppose that our Lord, in telling the parable of the
Prodigal Son (_Luke 15:11-32_) or that of the Unjust Steward
(_16:1-8_), had in mind actual persons of whom each parable was an
exact description.

Fiction is not an unworthy vehicle of spiritual truth. Parable,
and even fable, may convey valuable lessons. In _Judges 9:14, 15_,
the trees, the vine, the bramble, all talk. If truth can be
transmitted in myth and legend, surely God may make use of these
methods of communicating it, and even though _Gen. 1-3_ were
mythical it might still be inspired. Aristotle said that poetry is
truer than history. The latter only tells us that certain things
happened. Poetry presents to us the permanent passions,
aspirations and deeds of men which are behind all history and
which make it what it is; see Dewey, Psychology, 197. Though Job
were a drama and Jonah an apologue, both might be inspired. David
Copperfield, the Apology of Socrates, Fra Lippo Lippi, were not
the authors of the productions which bear their names, but
Dickens, Plato and Browning, rather. Impersonation is a proper
method in literature. The speeches of Herodotus and Thucydides
might be analogues to those in Deuteronomy and in the Acts, and
yet these last might be inspired.

The book of Job could not have been written in patriarchal times.
Walled cities, kings, courts, lawsuits, prisons, stocks, mining
enterprises, are found in it. Judges are bribed by the rich to
decide against the poor. All this belongs to the latter years of
the Jewish Kingdom. Is then the book of Job all a lie? No more
than Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and the parable of the Good
Samaritan are all a lie. The book of Job is a dramatic poem. Like
Macbeth or the Ring and the Book, it is founded in fact. H. P.
Smith, Biblical Scholarship and Inspiration, 101—“The value of the
book of Job lies in the spectacle of a human soul in its direst
affliction working through its doubts, and at last humbly
confessing its weakness and sinfulness in the presence of its
Maker. The inerrancy is not in Job’s words or in those of his
friends, but in the truth of the picture presented. If Jehovah’s
words at the end of the book are true, then the first thirty-five
chapters are not infallible teaching.”