But what I wish especially to consider is a different kind of investigation of the Bible—one not concerned with the truths taught in the Bible, but with the Bible itself, as a collection of writings that has come down to us from the past. What is the nature of these writings? Who are their authors? Are there any of them which have more than one author? Are there any which are compilations from several different sources? What is the age in which these works were written or compiled? All of those, and similar questions, are not only the appropriate but the necessary inquiries of a truth-loving mind. They will continue to be asked until they are satisfactorily answered. With reference to other writings, the persistence of such inquiries will depend, except in cases of pure curiosity, upon the importance of such writings to the world. On that principle there will be no cessation of inquiries concerning the Bible until they are, as I said, satisfactorily answered, for no other writings are to be compared, in their importance to the world, with the writings of the Bible. How can such answers be given? Where does competency to give answer lie? Does it lie in the authority of the Church? Not to lay any stress upon the fact, one way or the other, that the Church, except in certain localities, has never declared on the canon of the Bible, much less on the questions proposed above, there is no such authority residing in the Church, unless we grant the claim sometimes made for her, to infallibility. With those making such a claim we must, within the limits of this paper, decline to argue.
But if not the Church, what other authority can give us the answers we seek? The authority of primitive tradition, or of the opinions of great commentators, or of the great mass of Christian people of modern times? Authority which is so shadowy in other things that might be mentioned would surely count for nothing in a matter as grave as this. Or can particular expressions of the Bible itself be taken to settle the matter once for all? But as to most of those very questions the Bible itself is silent; and if it had spoken, yet the question of competent authority would only be put one step further back. Or, once again, can the answer come from "the spirit which is in man," guided by God's Spirit? But in this, as in the instance mentioned above, that which has been shown to be incompetent in so many other things can not be called competent in this.
There is, there can be, according to the requirement of our minds, only one answer which will satisfy; it is that which is determined by purely scientific method—that is to say, according to the nature of the subject, that method of investigating literary works which reason declares and experience has shown to insure the greatest accuracy in results. That method is known by the name of the "Higher Criticism."
What is the history of the higher criticism? One would imagine, from the language often used by the opponents of its application to the Bible, that it was an arbitrary method of criticism, invented in these rationalizing times expressly for the purpose of doing away with the divine character of the Bible. But higher criticism has been in use in examining the classics and other (nonscriptural) writings of former ages for fully two hundred years. The first one to state its fundamental principles was Du Pin, in his New History of Ecclesiastical Writers, published in 1694. In 1699 Bentley published his famous examination of the epistles of Phalaris, according to the methods and principles of the higher criticism. There is no better instance of scientific investigation as to authenticity. These epistles had been commonly accepted by scholars as the work of Phalaris, and accounted of great value. Bentley, by his searching examination of them, proved them to be the forgery of a sophist, so conclusively that no scholar worthy of the name has ventured to question the result since. That, I say, was in 1699.
The first work in the way of higher criticism of the Bible, Eichhorn's Introduction to the Old Testament, was not published till nearly one hundred years later.
But that very modernness of the work brings it with some into disfavor. "If that is the true way of investigating the biblical writings," they say, "why are we so long in finding it out? Why did not the fathers of the Church—mighty, indeed, as many of them were, with keenness of insight into the Bible, with profound knowledge of its characteristics, with substantially the same evidence before them as we have now—why did not they give us the principles of the higher criticism, if those principles are true?"
For the very same reason as science in general has not until very lately begun to do its true work. How meager is all the scientific work done in the ages of the past in comparison with that done during the last three hundred years! Men were not up to it; they were only learning the scientific method. So, the scientific method of examining literature, men have not learned till within the past two hundred years. Having all the facts before them which we have now would avail nothing without the knowledge of how to observe, to classify, to deduce, to verify, any more in the field of letters than in the field of Nature; any more in the Bible than in other literary works. Among the immense benefits which science has conferred upon the world, surely this should not be accounted the least, that it has taught us a method by which we may find out with ever-growing certainty the truth concerning the Bible itself.
What, then, should be the attitude of lovers of truth toward the higher criticism of the Bible? It can be only one—openness of mind to the ready acceptance of its work. Not that all its present results are to be accepted as final, for its work is still confessedly incomplete. Moreover, we can not fail to see that all investigations into the sacred Scriptures have not been prompted by a genuine love of truth, nor carried on with that judicial mind that should characterize every one working in the name of science. So that not all that has been done in the name of the higher criticism has been according to scientific method. Nevertheless, there are results already obtained, bearing the stamp of truth—such as the composite character of the Hexateuch; the double authorship of Isaiah; the post-exilic date of many of the Psalms—results which to a scientific mind have the practical certainty of a demonstration, but which the great majority of Christian ministers, who are supposed to look at such things intelligently, are not ready to accept.
Are not the ministry in general more zealous to do as St. Paul says, "Hold fast that which is good," than either to do, as he also says, "Prove all things," or to make sure that what they hold fast is the best? Well, undoubtedly that is the better way to do, if they are to do only one—to "hold fast that which is good." And yet it is a blessed thought that every brave, fearless effort which men make toward finding out the truth, with every help that they can get from reason and a knowledge of the past, is an effort after God.