The Bible even as literature--and both in its origin and history--is a
human as well as a divine book. It is _human_ in that it is _to_ man
and _for_ man, and not to and for supernatural intelligences or the
conceived populations of other planets; it is _divine_ in that it is
_of_ God and _from_ God. There is a real sense in which the definition
of the Bible as given by Frederick W. Robertson is correct, "The
Bible is the thoughts of God in the words of men." And we would hold
that the Bible must be studied, if in a scientific, intelligent, and
reverent spirit, under the two-fold conception that it is both a human
and a divine book. And we believe also that nothing can ever be gained
for the Bible, considering it a supernatural book, by setting up any
erroneous or untenable hypotheses concerning its origin, character, or
history on its behalf. And, moreover, the Bible nowhere and never makes
any such an appeal on its own behalf, or pleads for exemption from
the accepted principles of historical criticism. "The written word of
God, like the Word which became flesh," says Professor G. F. Wright,
"must be human in its manward aspect; for the written word is divine
thought manifest in human language as Christ was God manifest in human
flesh. As the compound personality of Christ was conditioned by the
flesh, so the compound character of a written revelation is conditioned
by the nature of language. As God in becoming incarnate did not take
upon Himself the form of angels but the seed of Abraham, so a written
revelation is not sent in a form adapted to heavenly beings but in a
form suited to men."[16] And if the Bible, while it is from God, is
for man then it must be adapted to man's receptive condition. If the
Bible is truly a "revelation" then it must "reveal"; which is only to
say that it must be given in terms or modes of expression adapted or
accessible to the human capacity;--it must meet man's condition at the
time when the revelation is given as well as his condition a thousand
or ten thousand years later; or, in other words, "revelation" must
"reveal." Revelation has thus been progressive up to the period of
its fulness or up to the cycle of its completion, with an expansive
capacity for all future time. Progressive capacity is essential to the
conception of a revelation that is universal and final. Borrowing the
fine expression of Professor A. B. Bruce, revelation "must take the
recipients of benefits along with it, and move at a pace with which
they can keep up." Thus, revelation in its methods accords with nature
in that it took the form of an historical movement and was subject
to the laws of periodic development. "The redemptive purpose of God,"
declares Professor Bruce, "was not ushered into the world a full-grown
fact; it evolved itself by a regular process of growth, and the process
was marked by three salient features: slow movement, partial action,
and advance from the more or less imperfect, not only in knowledge, but
also in morality." And he says, further, "God had to teach Israel to
walk in the paths of righteousness like a nurse taking a child by the
arms, and had to exercise a nurse-like condescension and patience in
connection with the self-imposed task of Israel's moral education, and
to become as a child Himself, speaking in broken language and giving
laws of a very rude and primitive character adapted to the condition of
the pupil."[17]
The Bible is, truly, a supernatural book. One once confessed to an
abounding confidence in the plenary inspiration of the scriptures in
that he "accepted the Bible from 'lid' to 'lid'--and including the
'lid.'" But the supernaturalism which we believe belongs to or inheres
in the Bible does not attach to the "lids"--to the materials by means
of which the scriptures, as literature, have been communicated and
preserved from age to age. (The fact which is here suggested is all
apart from the question of inspiration.) God wastes no energies in a
miraculous preservation of the materials of books,--not even of the
materials of the "good Book." God does not violate, we think, the
great law of "parsimony" by exerting either superfluous or supernatural
energies for the accomplishment of His purposes. It was only when King
Jehoiakim in his blind rage and folly cut the "roll" in pieces and
burnt its mutilated fragments, that the supernatural energies were
called into requisition to _restore_ the "words of the book, which
Jehoiakim, king of Judah, had burned with fire." (Jeremiah 36:32.) God
has, however, guarded, preserved, and treasured--and in a marvelous,
not to say supernatural manner--the "revelation" contained in the "good
Book" so that no age has been left without its ample and unimpeachable
witness. And this is all that we may reasonably demand for a revelation
that is intended and destined to be authoritative, universal, and
final. The destruction of the materials of books does not weigh if the
contents are preserved. The impious King of Judah did not destroy the
holy law of God when he utterly destroyed the parchment upon which it
was inscribed. What mattered it if the "roll" was consumed since God
had His faithful prophet and his scribe to produce another and ampler
roll? And what matters it if a given copy, or any number of copies
of a book, or of the Bible, be lost or destroyed so long as other
unnumbered copies of the same are preserved beyond the reach of bad men
or the destructive forces of corroding and destroying time? It does not
matter, supremely, since it is the contents and not the materials of a
book that claims the supreme consideration.
The materials which embody the divine revelation have ever been subject
to precisely the same exposures and vicissitudes of alternating fortune
and misfortune as those to which all other literary productions have
been subjected. And, furthermore, it is the well-known fact that the
"autograph" copies or the first writings of the New Testament are
all lost, and, probably, without the remotest hope of recovery. They
are not even mentioned by the authors and writers who succeeded the
Apostles as having ever been seen by them. The conclusion is forced
upon us that these first copies of the New Testament writings probably
all perished before the close of the first century. [The "paper" then
in common use was that made from the Egyptian papyrus plant, and
this all perished except that which had been fortuitously (but not
miraculously) preserved in Egyptian tombs and mummy-cases or under
lava-beds at Pompeii and Herculaneum. The oldest of the existing copies
of the scriptures are the Sinaitic and the Vatican Manuscripts which
were written in the Greek language on vellum parchment at about the
middle of the fourth century, and are thus above fifteen and a half
centuries old.] In view of this destruction and loss of the originals
of the New Testament writings, we may "restore" the "autographs" of our
scriptures only by the methods which apply equally to all literature,
and which are adequate to the approximate "restoration" of the
scripture text, viz., by the translation or counter-translation of
later copies and the versions, back to the earlier sources; and thus
come, substantially, to the original writings.