Another recognized authority in the same field of learning in summing up the results of the so-called "higher criticism," says:
It has thus far done an inestimable service in the removal of the traditional theories from the sacred books, so that they may be studied in their real structure and character. . . . . The higher criticism shows us the process by which the sacred books were produced, that the most of them were composed by unknown authors, that they have passed through the hands of a considerable number of unknown editors who have brought together the older material without removing discrepancies, inconsistencies and errors. In this process of editing, arranging, addition, subtraction, reconstruction and consolidation, extending through many centuries, what evidence have we that these unknown editors were kept from error in all their work?[[5]]
Such dissecting as this can have but one general result—death of reverence for the Bible; death of faith in it, as the revealed word of God. The authenticity of the Bible by it is left doubtful; for while this method of criticism succeeds, with those who affect it, in proving that Moses is not the author of the five books for so many centuries accredited to him, it fails to tell us who is the author of those books. This Higher Criticism tells us that there are two and perhaps more, authors of the book of Isaiah's prophecies; that the last twenty-seven chapters were not written by the great Hebrew prophet whose name the book bears; but it fails to tell us who is the author of them. Nor can it be determined even when the unknown author lived. The same is true as to the other books of the Old Testament upon whose authenticity this system casts its shadow. The system is wholly destructive in its tendencies; it unsettles everything, it determines nothing, except that everything with reference to the authenticity, time of composition, inspiration, and credibility of the Old Testament is indeterminable. "It leaves everything hanging in the air," says one able critic of Higher Criticism. "It begins in guesses and ends in fog. At all events the result leaves us in a hopeless muddle, and, when that is the only thing settled, the proposed solution is self-condemned."[[6]] And yet the Doctor of Divinity who wrote that sentence, Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, when he comes in his treatise to remark upon the extent to which the destructive criticism obtains, has to confess that in eight of the most famous German Universities[[7]] possessing theological faculties, and numbering seventy-three professors in all, thirty of those professors upheld and taught the destructive criticism; while forty-three were counted conservatives.[[8]]
A more significant admission, as showing the rapid increase of the radicals, or liberals, as the upholders of the destructive criticism are called, will be found in the following statement concerning the same theological faculties. "The so-called liberal wing has increased from ten to thirty during the last twenty-five years; and the conservatives have been reduced from fifty to forty-three."
Of the American universities where the destructive criticism obtains, Dr. Behrends names eight;[[9]] and eighteen where "conservative criticism holds its ground."[[10]] It should be remembered that these are admissions of one upholding the conservative criticism as against radical criticism. The claims of the radical school for the success of their methods are much more sweeping than the admissions allow. But taking the extent to which the destructive criticism obtains, even at the estimate of those who are opposed to it, and who for that reason reduce its triumphs to a minimum, yet it must be admitted that it has succeeded in making very marked progress. It permeates all Protestant Christian countries; and all Protestant Christian sects. It is more in evidence in the churches than in the schools; and tinctures all Protestant religious literature. There is scarcely any necessity for unbelievers in the Bible assailing it from without; the destruction of faith in it as an authentic, credible, authoritative revelation from God, whose truths when rightly understood are to be accepted and held as binding upon the consciences of men, is being carried on from within the churches who profess to hold the Bible in reverence, more effectually than it could be by profane infidels. Doctors of Divinity are more rapidly undermining the faith of the masses in the Bible than ever a Voltaire, a Paine, a Bradlaugh or an Ingersoll could do; and that may account for the singular circumstances of absolute silence at present on the part of popular infidel writers and lecturers.[[11]]
It is not my purpose here to enter into a discussion of the merits or demerits of Higher Criticism; to point out what is true in it, and what false. I am merely calling attention to a condition that has been created by that method of Bible treatment, viz., a condition of rapidly increasing unbelief among the masses in the Bible as the undoubted word of God. The learned who are leaders in the new method of Bible criticism, after destroying confidence in the authenticity of almost every book of the Old Testament; after questioning the credibility of the greater part of all those same books; after retiring some of the books from the dignified realm of reliable history to the questionable station of belles-lettres; after saying, "We are obliged to admit that there are scientific errors in the Bible, errors of astronomy, of geology, of zoology, of botany, and anthropology;" after saying, "There are historical mistakes in the Christian scriptures, mistakes of chronology and geography, errors of historical events and persons, discrepancies and inconsistencies in the historians, which cannot be removed by any proper method of interpretation;" after reducing the inspired writers to the level of just ordinary historical, poetical, and fiction-writing authors, by saying that the foregoing enumerated errors in the sacred books "are just where you would expect to find them in accurate, truthful writers of history in ancient times," and that the sacred writers merely "used with fidelity the best sources of information accessible to them—ancient poems, popular traditions, legends and ballads, regal and family archives, codes of law and ancient narratives," and "there is no evidence that they received any of this history by revelation from God, there is no evidence that the divine Spirit corrected their narratives either when they were being composed in their minds, or written in manuscript;" after saying, "we cannot defend the morals of the Old Testament at all points, * * * the Patriarchs were not truthful, their age seems to have had little apprehension of the principles of truth;" after saying that "God spake in much the greater part of the Old Testament through the voices and pens of the human authors of the scriptures," and then ask—"Did the human voice and pen in all the numerous writers and editors of the Holy Scriptures prior to the completion of the Canon always deliver an inerrant word?" and, "Even if all the writers were possessed of the Holy Spirit as to be merely passive in his hands, the question arises, can the finite voice and the finite pen deliver and express the inerrant truth of God?" After all this, then these Higher Critics propound the question: Can we, in the face of all the results of our literary and historical[[12]] method of treating the scriptures, still maintain the truthfulness of the Bible? And while they are speculating how they can make it appear that "the substantial truthfulness of the Bible" need not be inconsistent with the existence of "circumstantial errors;" and are indulging in subtle refinements to show that "none of the mistakes, discrepancies and errors which have been discovered disturb the religious lessons of Biblical history"[[13]]—masses who come to hear of these doubts cast upon what they have hitherto been taught to regard as the infallible oracles of God, answer off-hand:—If so much doubt exists as to the authenticity, credibility, inspiration, and authoritativeness of so great a part of the Bible, how are we to determine that the few remaining things you urge upon us are of divine appointment, or reach to any higher level than human conception and human authority? This their question; and, ever glad to meet with any excuse that will lend the lightest shadow of justification for casting aside the restraints which religion imposes upon the indulgence of human passion, and human inclination to worldliness in general, they rid themselves of their faith in the word of God, and in the religion it teaches, and walk abroad in the earth unchecked in their selfish pursuit of whatsoever may attract the fancy, please the taste or gratify the passions. For whatever may be the effect of what is left of the Bible, on minds of peculiar structure, after Higher Criticism is done with it, it must be conceded that a Bible of doubtful authenticity, of questionable credibility as to the greater part of it; with its divine inspiration and its divine authenticity remaining open questions—neither such a Bible nor any religion formulated from it in harmony with such conceptions, can have much influence over the masses of humanity.
Again I find it necessary to say that it is foreign to my purpose to enter into a consideration of the merits or demerits of Higher Criticism, or even to point out how much of that criticism merely attacks an apostate Christianity's misconceptions and false interpretations of the Bible, and not the Bible itself. It is sufficient for my purpose, if I have made clear the results that must inevitably follow this attack upon the Scriptures under the guise of Higher Criticism.
I must notice briefly the other side of the question; that is, give some account of the materials which have been brought to light in the nineteenth century for the defense of the Bible; materials which tend to prove its authenticity, its credibility, its inspiration and its divine authority. And here I am but a compiler of a very few of the principal results of researches that have been made in Egypt, in the valley of the Euphrates and in Palestine. I make no pretentions to original investigations of these researches, but accept the statements of what I consider to be reliable authorities in relation to them.
In the year 1799 a French officer named Boussard discovered a large, black basalt stone at Fort St. Julian near Rosetta, in the delta of the Nile. From the circumstances of the discovery being near Rosetta it has always been known as the Rosetta Stone. It was inscribed in Greek, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and a third class of writing which is called Demotic. The last is the common writing of the people of Egypt as opposed to the hieroglyphic which was written by the priests. The Greek upon the stone was readily made out, and it was found to consist of a decree drawn up by the priests of Memphis in honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, who ruled about 198 B. C. It was at once evident that the Greek inscription on this stone was the translation of the hieroglyphics upon it, and hence afforded a key to the interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. By the fortunes of war the Rosetta Stone was surrendered by the French to General Hutchinson and subsequently presented to the British Museum where it is now preserved. Accurate copies of the three-fold text were made forthwith and distributed among the scholars of Europe with the result that through the combined, patient labors of Silvestre de Sacy, Akebald the Swede, Thomas Young, Champollion, Lepsius in Germany, Birch in England, and others, the hieroglyphics were deciphered and a system of translation constructed which enabled European scholars to read many of the inscriptions upon the monuments of Egypt, and bring to light much of the history of that country which hitherto had been a mystery. This gave an impetus to research. The political representatives of the great countries of Europe made collections of antiquities in Egypt, and travelers spent much time and money in opening tombs and digging out ruins. The tombs have given up not only their dead, but with them the books which the Egyptians read, the furniture which they used in their houses, the ornaments and articles of the toilet of the Egyptian lady, the weapons of the warrior, the tools of the handicraftsman and laborer, the dice of the gambler, the toys of the children, and the portraits, statutes and figures of the men and women for whom they were made. The many-lined inscriptions upon the tombs give us their ideas about the future world, the judgment of the dead, the paradise of the happy souls, the transmigration of souls, and they enable us to place a juster estimate upon the statements of those Greek writers who profess to understand and to describe with accuracy the difficult religion of the educated Egyptians. And the result of all this, as affecting the authenticity of the Bible? Simply this: the manners, customs, governments, arts, sciences, occupations and state of civilization of the Egyptians in general, are demonstrated by these monuments to be substantially what they are described to be in the book of Genesis. Also there is supposed to be the confirmation of special events in the scripture narrative. Professor A. H. Sayce, for instance, has the following upon the existence of such a line of kings ruling at Jerusalem as Melchizedek is described to be in Genesis:
"Among the cuneiform tablets found at Tel el-Amarna in Upper Egypt, are letters to the Pharaoh from Ebed-tob, king of Jerusalem, written a century before the time of Moses. In them he describes himself as appointed to the throne, not by inheritance from his father or mother (compare Heb. 7:3), but by the arm of 'the Mighty King,' i. e. of the god of whose temple stood on Mount Moriah. He must therefore have been a priest-king like Melchizedek. The name of Jerusalem is written Ura-Salim, 'the city of the god of peace,' and it was the capital of a territory which extended southward to Kellah. In the inscriptions of Rameses II and Rameses III, Salem is mentioned among the conquests of the Egyptian kings."