The word "inspiration" is a crux theologorum, the most of its explanations being widely divergent, and at variance with the original signification of the term. We make it embrace far too much, for there is no foundation for any high or supernatural views of inspiration in either the Gospels or Epistles. There is no appearance in those writings that their authors had any extraordinary gift, or that they were free from error or infirmity; St. Paul hesitated in difficult cases, and more than once corrected himself; one of the gospel historians does not profess to have been an eye-witness of the events described by him; the evangelists do not agree as to the dwelling-place of Christ's parents, nor concerning the circumstances of the crucifixion; they differ about the woman who anointed our Lord's feet; and the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy is not discernible in the New Testament history. To the question, What is inspiration? there are two answers: first, That idea of Scripture which we gather from the knowledge of it; and, second, that any true doctrine of inspiration must conform to all the ascertained facts of history or of science. The meaning of Scripture has nothing to do with the question of inspiration, for if the word "inspiration" were to become obsolete nothing vital would be lost, since it is but a term of yesterday. The solution of the various difficulties in the gospels is, that the tradition on which the first three are based was preserved orally, and, having been slowly put together, was written in three forms. The writers of the first three gospels were, therefore, not independent witnesses of the history itself. To interpret the Bible properly it must be treated as any other book, "in the same careful and impartial way that we ascertain the meaning of Sophocles or Plato.... Scripture, like other books, has one meaning, which is to be gathered from itself, without reference to the adaptations of fathers or divines, and without regard to à priori notions about its nature and origin. It is to be interpreted also with attention to the character of its authors, and the prevailing state of civilization and knowledge, with allowance for peculiarities of style and language, and modes of thought and figures of speech; yet not without a sense, that, as we read, there grows upon us the witness of God in the word, anticipating in a rude and primitive age the truth that was to be, shining more and more unto the perfect day in the life of Christ, which again is reflected from different points of view in the teachings of his apostles."[189]
The old methods of interpretation, Jowett concludes, must give place to this new and perfect system, for the growing state of science, the pressing wants of man, and his elevated reason demand it. If this liberal scheme be inaugurated we shall have a higher idea of truth than is supplied by the opinion of mankind in general, or by the voice of parties in a Church.
It is interesting to notice the opinions of the evangelical theologians of Germany, who have long been accustomed to attacks upon Christianity, concerning these English critics. "The authors of the essays," says Hengstenberg, "have been trained in a German school. It is only the echo of German infidelity which we hear from the midst of the English church. They appear to us as parrots, with only this distinction, common among parrots, that they imitate more or less perfectly. The treatise of Temple is in its scientific value about equal to an essay written by the pupils of the middle classes of our colleges.... The essay of Goodwin on the Mosaic cosmogony displays the naïve assurance of one who receives the modern critical science from the second or tenth hand. The editor [Hengstenberg] asked the now deceased Andreas Wagner, a distinguished professor of natural sciences at the University of Munich, to subject this treatise to an examination from the stand-point of natural science. The offer was accepted, and the book given to him. But after some time it was returned with the remark, that he must take back his promise, as the book was beneath all criticism.... All these essays tend toward Atheism. Their subordinate value is seen in the inability of their authors to recognize their goal clearly, and in their want of courage to declare this knowledge. Only Baden Powell forms in this respect an exception. He uses several expressions, in which the grinning spectre makes his appearance almost undisguisedly. He speaks not only sneeringly of the idea of a positive external revelation, which has hitherto formed the basis of all systems of the Christian faith; he even raises himself against the 'Architect of the world,' whom the old English Free Thinkers and Free Masons had not dared to attack."[190]
The Essays and Reviews were not long in print before the periodicals called attention to their extraordinary character. Had they not been the Oxford Essays, and written by well-known and influential men, they would probably have created but little interest, and passed away with the first or second edition. But their origin and associations gave them weight at the outset. The press soon began to teem with replies written from every possible stand-point. Volumes of all sizes, from small pamphlets to bulky octavos, were spread abroad as an antidote to the poison. From trustworthy statements we are assured that there have been called forth by the Essays and Reviews in England alone nearly four hundred publications. Hardly a newspaper, religious or secular, metropolitan or provincial, has stood aloof from the contest. Every seat of learning has been agitated, the social classes have been aroused, the entire nation has taken part in the strife. Meanwhile, the High Church and Low Church have united in the cordial condemnation of the work. Even some of the First Broad Churchmen have written heartily against its theology and influence.
A remarkable feature of the whole controversy is the judicial prosecution of the essayists. Petitions numerously signed were presented to the bishops, praying that some action might be taken against them. One protest contained the signatures of nine thousand clergymen of the Established church; and the bishops, without a single exception, took ground against the theological bearing of the Essays and Reviews. The Convocations of Canterbury and York, which possessed the full exercise of their legislative functions for the first time in one hundred and fifty years, declared against it, and pledged their influence to protect the church from the "pernicious doctrines and heretical tendencies of the book." After much deliberation and counsel, Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson were summoned before the court of Arches, the chief ecclesiastical tribunal of England. Finally, June 21, 1864, decision was pronounced that they had departed from the teachings of the Thirty-Nine Articles on the inspiration of Holy Scripture, on the atonement, and on justification. They were therefore suspended for one year, with the further penalty of costs and deprivation of their salary. At the urgent solicitation of friends, in addition to their own strong desire to push their defense as far as possible, their case was brought before the Privy Council, a court of which the Queen is a member, and from which there can be no appeal. Contrary to the general expectation, the decision of the Court of Arches was reversed, and the essayists in question were restored to their functions. The reversal of the decision of the Court of Arches is couched in the following significant language: "On the general tendency of the book called 'Essays and Reviews,' and on the effort or aim of the whole essay of Dr. Williams, or the whole essay of Mr. Wilson, we neither can, nor do, pronounce any opinion. On the short extracts before us, our Judgment is that the charges are not proved. Their Lordships, therefore, will humbly recommend to Her Majesty that the sentences be reversed, and the reformed articles be rejected in like manner as the rest of the original articles; but inasmuch as the Appellants have been obliged to come to this Court, their Lordships think it right that they should have the costs of this Appeal."[191] This action was regarded by every skeptical sympathizer as a great triumph, and we may therefore expect the Rationalistic school to engage in still more important enterprises than any to which they have addressed themselves.
The most outspoken and violent attacks of critical Rationalism in England are contained in the exegetical publications of Dr. John William Colenso, who, in 1853, was consecrated Bishop of Natal, South Eastern Africa. He had previously issued a series of mathematical works which obtained a wide circulation; but his first book of scriptural criticism was the Epistle to the Romans, newly translated and explained from a Missionary Point of View. Having completed the New Testament and several parts of the Old, he was laboring assiduously on a translation of the Bible into the Zulu tongue, when his former doubts concerning the unhistorical character of the Pentateuch revived with increased force. The intelligent native who was assisting him in his literary work asked, respecting the account of the flood, "Is all that true?" This, with other inquiries propounded to him by the Zulus, led him to a careful reëxamination of the Mosaic record.
The fruit of this additional study is the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined, in Three Parts. Appearing just at the time when the contest concerning the Essays and Reviews was at fever-heat, the Bishop's work added excitement to all the combatants.
Those who are intimately acquainted with the treatment of the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua by the most unsparing of the German Rationalists will at once see the resemblance between their views and those of Colenso. His aim is to overthrow the historical character of the early Scriptural history by exposing the contradictions and impossibilities contained therein; and also to fix the real origin, age and authorship of the so-called narratives of Moses and Joshua. "I have arrived at the conviction," says he, "that the Pentateuch, as a whole, cannot possibly have been written by Moses, or by any one acquainted personally with the facts which it professes to describe, and, further, that the so-called Mosaic narrative, by whomsoever written, and though imparting to us, as I fully believe it does, revelations of the Divine will and character, cannot be regarded as historically true.... My reason for no longer receiving the Pentateuch as historically true, is not that I find insuperable difficulties with regard to the miracles or supernatural revelations of Almighty God recorded in it, but solely that I cannot, as a true man, consent any longer to shut my eyes to the absolute, palpable self-contradictions of the narrative. The notion of miraculous or supernatural interferences does not present to my own mind the difficulties which it seems to present to some. I could believe and receive the miracles of Scripture heartily, if only they were authenticated by a veracious history; though, if that is not the case with the Pentateuch, any miracles, which rest on such an unstable support, must necessarily fall to the ground with it"[192]
In proof of this assumption the author selects a large number of inexplicable portions from the narratives in question, and uses all the resources of his talents and learning to prove them to be the fruit of "error, infirmity, passion, and ignorance." Hezron and Hanuel, he avers, were certainly born in the land of Canaan; the whole assembly of Israel could not have gathered about the door of the tabernacle; all Israel could not have been heard by Moses, for they numbered about two millions of people, according to the assumption of the Biblical narrative. The Israelites could not have dwelt in tents; they were not armed; the institution of the Passover, as described in the book of Exodus, was an impossibility, the Israelites could not take cattle through the barren country over which they passed; there is an incompatibility between the supposed number of Israel and the predominance of wild beasts in Palestine; the number of the first-born is irreconcilable with the number of male adults; and the number of the priests at the exodus cannot be harmonized with their duties, and with the provision made for them.[193] These, with other difficulties chiefly of a numerical nature, constitute the basis on which the Bishop builds his objections to the historical character of Exodus as an integral part of the Pentateuch.
In order to determine the true quality of the Book of Genesis, he brings out the old theory that the work had two writers, the Elohist and the Jehovist,—so called because of their separate use of a term for Deity. The Elohist was the older, and his narrative was the ground-work which the Jehovist used and upon which he constructed his own additions.[194] This Elohist account is defined to be "a series of parables, based, as we have said, on legendary facts, though not historically true."[195] The Pentateuch existed originally not as five books, but as one; and it is possible that its quintuple division was made in the time of Ezra. The writer of Chronicles was the same who wrote the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, probably a Levite living after the time of Nehemiah; the Chronicles were therefore written only four hundred years before Christ; but the Chronicler must not be relied on unless there is other evidence in support of his narrative. Exodus could not have been written by Moses or any one of his contemporaries. It is very probable that the Pentateuch generally was composed in a later age than that of Moses or Joshua.[196] Samuel was most likely the author of the Elohistic legends, which he left at his death in an unfinished state, and which naturally fell into the hands of some one of his disciples of the School of the Prophets, such, for instance, as Nathan or Gad.[197]