_These writings should be read critically, until we can decipher the
successive hands working upon them, and interpret them accordingly._
Few, if any, of the books of the Bible stand now as they came from their
original authors. Nearly all have been re-edited; most of them many
times. Some of them have been worked over by so many hands, and have
undergone such numerous and serious changes, that the original writer
would scarcely identify his work. The historical writings of the Old
Testament take up into them all sorts of materials, from all sorts of
sources. If the annals of the Venerable Bede, the father of English
history had been re-written again and again through the subsequent
centuries; abridged, enlarged, interpreted by each editor; the
accumulating knowledge and growing experience of the nation read into his
simple chronicles; we should appreciate the critical care needful in
studying our edition of Bede if we would know the real original. Very much
such care is necessary if we are to use the Old Testament histories aright
for information. It is as though there were several surfaces to the
parchment on which the histories were written, on each successive film of
which, in finest tracery, an older record was inscribed.
Genesis, for example, presents us, at every step of what seems a
consecutive story, with successive layers of tradition, through which we
must work our way most carefully if we would really understand the book.
We readily observe a twofold tradition of the Creation in the opening
chapters of Genesis, differing very materially: a sign to us, if we need
it, that there was no one authoritative account of the Creation current in
Israel. Little attention is required to note a double version of the
story of the flood, whose artless piecing together is the cause of the
confusions and contradictions that puzzle many readers. The deciphering of
this double tradition of the flood first started criticism upon the true
track of Biblical study. The frequently recurring phrase, "These are the
generations," or beginnings, indicates the insertion of fragments of a
work giving an account of the origin of the world, of the races of earth,
of language, of the Jewish people, etc.; a work called by the critics "The
Book of Origins." In the fourteenth chapter there is what seems to be a
very ancient non-Jewish fragment of history, torn possibly from some
Syrian writing, which gives a tale of Abraham's prowess in war.
And even in one and the same tale of tradition, we apparently find strata
of thought laid down by successive ages. There are extant to-day
parchments in which, for lack of other material, a writer has scratched
partially away an earlier manuscript, and written over it another book.
Such a palimpsest is Genesis. "A legend of civilization is written over a
solar-myth, and a tribal legend over the legend of civilization, and a
theocratic legend over the tribal."[38]
* * * * *
When such a mastery of the Bible-books is won, they are to be used in the
customary methods of critical study, with reference to their contents and
the significances thereof, under the same general laws of interpretation
that hold over other literature.
* * * * *
I think I hear some one saying--Is this the right use of the Bible, for
which I am asked to give up the dear, old, simple way of reading for my
soul's inspiration? Not at all, my friend. That blessed use of the Bible,
learned at your mother's knees, is still, and must always remain, the best
use possible to any one. Of this I shall speak hereafter. I am now
speaking, not of the right devotional use of the Bible, but of the right
critical use of it. It has been used critically in building our
theologies, but, to a large extent, amiss. Out of this wrong use of it has
come the misconceptions in theology which to-day perplex our minds and bar
the progress of religion. If we must use the Bible critically, let us by
all means try to employ a true and thorough criticism. Let us not think to
close every controversy by the phrase--The Bible says so. We shall be more
modest and less disputatious when we appreciate the study necessary before
any one can properly answer the question--What saith the Scriptures?
Again I hear a voice from the pews--Who then save a scholar is competent
for such a use of the Bible? I answer--No one, except a pupil of the
scholars. The scholars have placed within our reach the results of such a
critical study of the Bible. You can find the rational guidance you may
desire in the manuals which set forth the conclusions of these critical
processes; though you must painfully feel, as I do, the lack of the
religious tone in some of them. A crying need of our day is a Hand Book to
the Bible in which the new critical knowledge shall blend, as it may
blend, with the old spiritual reverence.
One should not rise from such a study of the Bible as we have made to-day,
in its merely literary aspects, without a new, strange sense of awe before
this mystic Book. It is the handiwork of no one man, of no group of men,
of no period. It is an organic product, the growth of a whole people the
coralline structure builded by a nation. Hands innumerable have toiled
over these pages. Voices indistinguishable now, in blended chorus from the
dawn of history, have joined in the cry of the human after God which
whispers upon us from this sacred phonograph.
Successive generations of men, struggling with sin, striving for purity,
searching after God, have exhaled their spirits into the essence of
religion, which is treasured in this costly vase. The moral forces of
centuries, devoted to righteousness, are stored in this exhaustless
reservoir of ethical energy. At such cost, my brothers, has Humanity
issued this sacred book. From such patience of preparation has
Providence laid this priceless gift before you. In such labor of
articulation--spelling out the syllables of the message from on high,
through multitudinous lives of men dutifully and devoutly walking with
their God--does the Spirit speak to you, O, soul of man. Say thou--
Speak Lord; thy servant heareth!
* * * * *
It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated the
only question is; Is it true in and for itself?
Hegel: "Philosophy of History," Part III.: Sec. III.: Ch. II.
With reference to things in the Bible, the question whether they are
genuine or spurious is odd enough. What is genuine but that which is
truly excellent, which stands in harmony with the purest nature and
reason, and which even now ministers to our highest development? What
is spurious but the absurd and the hollow, which brings no fruit--at
least, no good fruit.
Goethe: "Conversations," March 11,1832.
No article of faith is injured by allowing that there is no such
positive proof, when or by whom these and some other books of holy
Scripture were written, as to exclude all possibility of doubt and
cavil.
Watson's "Apology for the Bible," Letter IV.