Some of the teaching of the Higher Criticism as to the authorship and
credibility of the Old Testament is, on the face of it, contrary to
the plain language of Jesus Christ himself in the Gospels. Moses, for
instance, is no longer considered as the author of the Pentateuch. Canon
Driver, who is perhaps the chief scholar of this movement in the Church
of England, as Dean Farrar is perhaps its chief rhetorician, locates the
composition of the book of Deuteronomy in the period between Isaiah and
Jeremiah. Throughout the book, he observes, the writer introduces Moses
in the third person, and puts speeches in his mouth which of course
he never uttered. But in "framing discourses appropriate to Moses'
situation!" he was not guilty of "forgery," for he was "doing nothing
inconsistent with the literary usages of his age and people." That is
to say, everybody did it, and this writer was no worse than his
contemporaries--which is probably true. But passing by the question of
casuistry here involved, we repeat that the Mosaic authorship of the
Pentateuch is entirely abandoned. Dr. Farrar is quite as emphatic as
Dr. Driver on this point. He denies that there is "any proof of the
existence of a _collected_ Pentateuch earlier than the days of Ezra
(b.c. 444 )"--a thousand years after the time of Moses. He points out
that the salient features of the so-called Mosaic Law, such as the
Passover, the Sabbatical year, and the Day of Atonement, are not to be
traced in the old historical books or in the earlier prophets. Nor
does he scruple to assert that the Pentateuch is "a work of composite
structure," which has been "edited and re-edited several times," and
"contains successive strata of legislation." In the New Testament,
however, Moses is repeatedly spoken of as the author of the Pentateuch.*
Not to multiply texts, for in such a case one is as good as a thousand,
we will take a decisive passage in the fourth Gospel:--
* Matthew xix. 7, 8; Mark x. 3, 4; xii. 26; Luke xvi. 29-31;
Luke xx. 37; John v. 45, 46; vii. 19, 22, 23.
"Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one that
accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses,
ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his
writings, how shall ye believe my words?" (John v. 45-47).
The speaker in this instance is Christ himself. It is he, and not the
evangelist, who speaks of the writings of Moses, and declares that Moses
"wrote of me."
Now let us turn to the book of Psalms, which has been well called the
Hymn Book of the Second Temple. According to Dr. Farrar, they are
"a collection of sacred poems in five separate books of very various
antiquity." Canon Driver points out that they are mostly posterior to
the prophetical writings. "When the Psalms," he says, "are compared
with the prophets, the latter seem to show, on the whole, the greater
originality; the psalmists, in other words, _follow_ the prophets,
appropriating and applying the truths which the prophets proclaimed."
Very few of the Psalms are earlier than the seventh century before
Christ. Dr. Driver affirms this with "tolerable confidence." Dr. Farrar
says that "some may mount to an epoch earlier than David's," but this
is mere conjecture. The more cautious Dr. Driver will not commit himself
further than "a verdict of _non liquet_"; that is to say, there is no
proof that David did not write one or two of the Psalms, and no evidence
that he did. His name was associated with the collection, in the
same way as the name of Solomon was associated with the Proverbs.
Nevertheless it is David who is referred to by Jesus as the author of
the hundred-and-tenth Psalm.* But this Psalm is one of those which are
allowed to belong to a much later period. Jesus quoted it as David's,
but Professor Sanday says "it seems difficult to believe it really came
from him"**--which is as strong an expression as a Christian divine
could be expected to permit himself in a case of such delicacy.
* Matthew xxii. 43-45; Mark xii. 36, 37; Luke xx. 42-44.
** Professor W. Sanday, Bampton Lectures on Inspiration, p.
409. Canon Gore, with this utterance of Jesus right before
him, still more emphatically denies that this Psalm was, or
could have been, composed by David. See his Bampton Lectures
on The Incarnation of the Son of God, p. 197.
We have already seen that the book of Daniel was not written by the
prophet Daniel, but by some unknown author hundreds of years later,
probably in the second century before Christ. Upon this subject
Professor Sanday takes precisely the same view as Canon Driver. He says
that this is "the critical view" and has "won the day." All the facts
support the "supposition that the book was written in the second century
b.c.," and not "in the sixth." "The real author," he says, "is unknown,"
and "the name of Daniel is only assumed." He was writing, not a history,
but a homily, to encourage his brethren at the time of the Maccabean
struggle. "To this purpose of his," Professor Sanday says, "there were
features in the traditional story of Daniel which appeared to lend
themselves; and so he took that story and worked it up in the way which
seemed to him most effective." Jesus Christ, however, held the orthodox
view of his own time, and spoke of Daniel as the actual author of this
book (Matthew xxiv. 15). "But this," Professor Sanday observes, "it is
right to say, is only in one Gospel, where the mention of Daniel may be
an insertion of the Evangelist's." Such conjectural shifts are Christian
critics reduced to in their effort to minimise difficulties; as though
_reducing_ the mistakes of Jesus in any way saved his _infallibility_.
We will now turn to some portions of the Old Testament narrative which
the Higher Criticism regards as legendary, but which Jesus regarded as
strictly historical. One of these is the story of the Flood. No one of
any standing is now prepared to defend this story, at least as we find
it in the book of Genesis. A few orthodox scientists, like Sir James
W. Dawson, pour out copious talk about tremendous floods in former
geological ages; but what has this to do with the Bible narrative of a
universal deluge which occurred some four thousand five hundred years
ago? The Higher Critics have the impatience of Freethinkers with such
intellectual charlatanry. They regard the story of the Flood as a Jewish
legend, which was not even original, but borrowed from the superstitions
of Babylon. Yet the opinion of Jesus Christ seems to have been very
different. Here are his own words:--
"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man
be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating
and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe
entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them
all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matthew xxiv.
37-39).
Jesus Christ appears to have believed, like the disciples he was
addressing, like all the rest of his countrymen, and like nearly
all Christians until very recently, that the Flood was an historical
occurrence, that Noah and his family were saved in the ark, and that all
the other inhabitants of the world were drowned.
Another story which the Higher Criticism dismisses as legendary is that
of Jonah. The book in which it is related was, of course, not written by
Jonah, the son of Amittai, of whom we read in 2 Kings xiv. 25, and who
lived in the reign of Jeroboam II. "It cannot," as Dr. Driver says,
"have been written until long after the lifetime of Jonah himself." Its
probable date is the fifth century before Christ. Dr. Driver says it is
"not strictly historical "--that is to say, the events recorded in it
never happened. Jonah was not really entertained for three days in a
whale's belly, nor did his preaching convert the whole city of Nineveh.
The writer's purpose was didactic; he wished to rebuke the exclusiveness
of his own people, and to teach them that God's care extended, at least
occasionally, to other nations as well as the Jews. Some critics, such
as Cheyne and Wright, regard the story as allegorical; Jonah standing
for Israel, the whale for Babylon, and the vomiting up of the prophet
for the return of the Jews from exile. Dr. Farrar draws attention to the
"remarkable" fact that in the book of Kings "no allusion is made to any
mission or adventure of the historic Jonah." He adds that there is not
"the faintest trace of his mission or its results amid the masses of
Assyrian inscriptions." Even the writer of the book of Jonah, according
to Dr. Farrar, attached "no importance" to its "supernatural incidents,"
which "only belong to the allegorical form of the story." So much for
the Higher Critics; and now let us hear Jesus Christ:--
"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall
no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas
was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son
of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The
men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall
condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold
a greater than Jonas is here" (Matthew xii. 39-41).
This utterance of Jesus is also reported in Luke (xi. 29-32), but with
an important variation, the reference to Jonah in the whale's belly
being entirely omitted. This variation is seized upon by Dr. Farrar.
The fishy reference, he says, occurs in Matthew _alone_, and it may
"represent a comment or marginal note by the Evangelist, or of some
other Christian teacher." This, however, is an arbitrary supposition,
which everyone is free to repudiate; and Dr. Farrar feels obliged to add
that "even if our Lord did allude to the whale" it does not follow that
we should regard it as "literal history." But this is not the question
at issue. The real question is, did Jesus Christ believe the story of
Jonah and the whale? If he did not, it must be admitted that he had a
most unfortunate way of expressing himself.
No educated Christian in the present age believes the story of Lot's
wife being changed into a pillar of rock salt, although Josephus
pretended that he had seen it, and many travellers and pilgrims have
searched for it as a sacred relic. Jesus Christ, however, gave great
prominence to this salted lady. "Remember Lot's wife" is a verse by
itself in the Protestant Bible (Luke xvii. 32). Jesus also refers to the
rain of fire and brimstone by which Sodom was destroyed.
Here then, upon the face of it, we have Jesus Christ's testimony to
three documents as having been written by men who did not write them,
and to the historical character of three incidents which are purely
fabulous. Now the Higher Criticism must be wrong, or else Jesus Christ
was mistaken; in other words, he was not infallible, and therefore not
God. But the Higher Critics declare that they are not wrong; they also
declare that Jesus Christ was not mistaken. Let us see how they try to
save their own accuracy and his infallibility.
We must remark, in passing, that some of these critics hint, without
exactly asserting, that Jesus _may_ have been mistaken. Dr. Farrar bids
us remember that "by the very fact of taking our nature upon him Christ
voluntarily submitted himself to human limitations." There were some
things which, as a man, he did not know. Yes, but he was also God; and
the conjunction of "knowledge" and "ignorance" in one person, and with
respect to a single subject, would dissolve the unity of the God-man,
which is a dogma of Christian theology. Moreover, as Canon Liddon
argued, it is not so much a question of Christ's omniscience as a
question of his infallibility. Supposing there were some matters, such
as the date of the day of judgment, of which he was ignorant; he might
confess his ignorance or remain silent, and no harm would accrue to
anyone; but if he spoke upon any matter, and was mistaken through want
of knowledge, he would become a propagator of error; and this would not
only destroy the doctrine of his deity, but very seriously impair his
authority as a teacher, and cause everything he said to be open to
the gravest suspicion. No less dangerous is it to fall back upon the
explanation that "the discourses of Christ are not reproduced by the
Evangelists with verbal identity"--to use Dr. Farrar's own language. Dr.
Sanday seems a little attracted by this explanation. He reminds us that,
whatever views Jesus himself entertained as to the Scriptures of the Old
Testament, his views have come down to us through the medium of persons
who shared the erroneous ideas that were then current on the subject. We
must be prepared, he says, for the possibility that Christ's sayings in
regard to it "have not been reported with absolute accuracy." But
after all "not much allowance" should be made for this; which means, we
suspect, that the worthy Professor saw the dreadful peril of pursuing
this vein of observation, and desisted from it before he had said enough
to cause serious mischief.
The more astute Higher Critics avoid such dangers. They resort to a
theory that combines mystery and plausibility, by which they hope to
satisfy believers on both sides of their natures. Dr. Farrar tells us
that Christ, to become a man, emptied himself of his glory; and that
this "examination" involved the necessity of speaking as a man to men.
This position is perhaps best expressed by Canon Gore:--
"It is contrary to his whole method to reveal his Godhead by any
anticipations of natural knowledge. The Incarnation was a self-emptying
of God to reveal himself under conditions of human nature, and from the
human point of view. We are able to draw a distinction between what he
revealed and what he used......Now when he speaks of the 'sun rising' he
is using ordinary human knowledge. Thus he does not reveal his eternity
by statements as to what had happened in the past, or was to happen in
the future, outside the ken of existing history. He made his Godhead
gradually manifest by his attitude towards men and things about him, by
his moral and spiritual claims, by his expressed relation to his father,
not by any miraculous exemptions of himself from the conditions of
natural knowledge in its own proper province. Thus the utterances of
Christ about the Old Testament do not seem to be nearly definite or
clear enough to allow of our supposing that in this case he is departing
from the general method of the Incarnation, by bringing to bear the
unveiled omniscience of the Godhead, to anticipate or foreclose a
development of natural knowledge."*
This would perhaps be sublime if it were only intelligible. We are not
surprised at Dr. Driver's turning away from the metaphysics of this
theory. His mind is cast in a more sober and practical mould. It is
enough for him that the aim of Christ's teaching was a religious one;
that he naturally accepted, as the basis of his teaching, the opinions
respecting the Old Testament that were current around him; that he did
not raise "issues for which the time was not yet ripe, and which, had
they been raised, would have interfered seriously with the paramount
purpose of his life."**
* Rev. Charles Gore, Lux Mundi (seventh edition), pp. 360,
361.
** Introduction, Preface, xix.
This is excellently said. It is just what Paley might have written in
present-day circumstances. But it contains no note of the supernatural.
It deals with Jesus as a mere man, who did not disclose all the
information he possessed, but sometimes veiled his knowledge for
temporary reasons. It leaves his Godhead in the background. It does not
recognise how easy it was for Omnipotence to act differently. And when
the Higher Criticism points out that the human mind could, in the course
of time, free itself from errors as to the authorship and credibility
of the Old Testament, it forgets that Jesus Christ, by accommodating
himself to those errors, _perpetuated_ them. His authority was appealed
to for centuries--it is appealed to now--in favor of falsehood. Nor is
this falsehood trivial and innocuous. It has been extremely harmful. It
has fostered a wrong view of the Bible, it has prolonged the reign of
superstition, and thus hindered the growth of true civilisation. This is
an impeachment of the moral character of Jesus. It is a confession that
he served a temporary object at the expense of the permanent interests
of humanity. We feel constrained, therefore, to admit the force of the
words of Canon Liddon:--
"We have lived to hear men proclaim the legendary and immoral character
of considerable portions of those Old Testament scriptures, upon which
our Lord has set the seal of his infallible authority. And yet, side
by side with this rejection of Scriptures so deliberately sanctioned
by Christ, there is an unwillingness which, illogical as it is, we must
sincerely welcome, to profess any explicit rejection of the Church's
belief in Christ's divinity. Hence arises the endeavour to intercept
a conclusion, which might otherwise have seemed so plain as to make
arguments in its favor an intellectual impertinence. Hence a series of
singular refinements, by which Christ is presented to the modern world
as really Divine, yet as subject to fatal error; as Founder of the true
religion, yet as the credulous patron of a volume replete with worthless
legends; as the highest Teacher and Leader of humanity, yet withal as
the ignorant victim of the prejudices and follies of an unenlightened
age."*
* Canon H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of Christ (fourteenth
edition), p. 462.
Canon Gore devotes several pages of his Bampton Lectures to this
subject, but he does not fairly answer the straightforward objections
raised by Canon Liddon. Dealing with the references of Jesus to
the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and to Jonah's three days'
entombment in the whale's belly, and with the argument that this
endorsement by Jesus "binds us to receive these narratives as simple
history," he blandly declares, "To this argument I do not think that we
need yield." Of course not. There is no need to yield to anything you do
not like; for this is a free country, at least to Christians. But what
is the logical conclusion? That is the point to be decided. Canon
Gore does not face it; he merely expresses a personal disinclination.
Subsequently he pleads that "a heavy burden" should not be laid on
"sensitive consciences," and that men should not be asked "to accept as
matter of revelation what seems to them an improbable literary theory."
But this again is a personal appeal. These men must be left to attend
to their own consciences. They have no right to demand a suppression of
truth, or a perversion of logic, for their particular advantage.
When a candid reader has finished all that the Higher Criticism has to
say on this matter, we believe he will be filled with a sense of its
insincerity. It never strikes a note of triumph, or even a note of
conviction. It is timid, furtive, and apologetic; and shelters
itself against reason by plunging into mystery. In place of all
the difficulties it removes it sets up a colossal one of its own
manufacture; the difficulty, to wit, of conceiving that God himself lent
a sanction to grave and far-reaching error as to his own Word; or what
would inevitably be regarded as a sanction, and would necessarily delay
for many hundreds of years the discovery and reception of the truth.
The Higher Criticism, in short, has supplied a new argument against the
deity of Jesus Christ.