Very naturally those believers in the Bible who regard it as the very word of God, those believers who regard the Bible's historical statements as substantially true, allowing only for such errors as may have crept in through the carelessness of copyists, or perchance here and there an error through additions or omissions on the part of copyists or designing custodians—such believers rejoice at the confirmation the scriptures receive from the inscriptions upon monuments and tablets brought to light by the researches and scholarship of the nineteenth century. It is a pious sentiment, this rejoicing over the confirmation of the word of God; and one can only regret that the evidences supplied by these modern discoveries are not sufficiently voluminous or explicit to silence altogether the unbelief of modern times in the Bible. But they are not sufficient; for in spite of them unbelievers not only exist in Christian lands, but increase daily.
Footnotes
[1]. The Bible as Literature. A course of lectures by Dr. Lyman Abbot, in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, 1896-7. What is here called the "Literary Method," is identical with what is called "Higher Criticism;" the terms are used interchangeably. Higher Criticism may be said to stand in contradistinction to what is called Lower Criticism in this, that it concerns itself with writings as a whole, whereas Lower Criticism concerns itself with the integrity or character of particular passages or parts; and is sometimes called "Textual Criticism." "The term 'Literary' or 'Higher Criticism' designates that type of Biblical criticism which proposes to investigate the separate books of the Bible in their internal peculiarities, and to estimate them historically. It discusses the questions concerning their origin, the time and place, the occasion and object of their composition, and concerning their position and value in the entire body of revelation. . . . . The 'Higher Criticism' has been so often employed for the overthrow of long-cherished beliefs that the epithet 'destructive' has frequently been applied to it; and hence it has become an offense to some orthodox ears." (The Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch, Charles Elliott, D. D., pp. 12, 13.)
[2]. Beginning of Christianity (Fisher) p. 392.
[3]. 21, 22, 23 Exodus—The Ten Commandments and amplifications.
[4]. The Bible as Literature, Dr. Lyman Abbot.
[5]. "Truthfulness of Scripture," a paper submitted to The World's Parliament of Religion by Professor Chas. A. Briggs, D. D. See World's Parliament of Religions (Barrows) vol. I, p. 563.
[6]. Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D. D., Bible Criticism and its Methods, course of lectures, 1897.
[7]. These are the Universities of Berlin, Bonn, Breslau, Griefswald, Halle, Konigsberg, Leipzig and Tubingen.
[8]. This was the condition in 1897.