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Note and Comment

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 2, 1909

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 35.

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Note and Comment

The Bible Antiquated

The recent published statements of President-Emeritus Eliot of Harvard in reference to the new religion which the world needs and in reference to the Bible itself, show that the declarations of the college professors recently quoted in several issues of the Cosmopolitan Magazine, are more than mere expressions of individual opinion—they are symptomatic. Those declarations portray the conditions that exist in the great colleges with reference to faith in God and his Word; and President-Emeritus Eliot’s more recent statements show that the disease is not in the extremities only, but has reached to the very head. The following is a portion of an interview with Dr. Eliot on August 6, at Boston:—
About the Bible—many things in this volume are antiquated, and it is a question in many modern minds whether it is always advisable to advocate the reading of this to the extent of excluding many other books. However, the Bible will always be read, and the same may also be said of Shakespeare.
The doctor seems to have felt that he was granting much in granting that the Bible would continue to divide honors with the great English author. It must be granted that there are many things in the Bible that seem antiquated to a large class. The Saviour’s death and resurrection as our sacrifice and atonement are antiquated to those who do not believe the Bible record of the fall of man. The Bible teaching concerning the creation is antiquated to those who accept the deductions of a geology based upon the conditions that now exist in this flood-wrecked world. The flood itself, which accounts for so many of the great problems that confront geologists, is antiquated to those who refuse to believe in the fall. The miracles of the Messiah are antiquated to those who refuse to see in him the author of those “natural laws” which the miracle transcends. The second coming of Christ as governor of earth and of the starry universe is antiquated to him who is wedded to the nebular hypothesis. The salvation of men as the Bible teaches it, is antiquated to those who have come to believe man to be “the highest manifestation of God.” The Bible teaching as to the destruction of the nations of this world and the world’s purification by fire is antiquated to those who believe they are able by political means to make Christ king of this world, and bring in the reign of righteousness through religious legislation. All these things and some others are antiquated to those who prefer their own theories to the verities of God’s Word, and who have ways of their own for doing what God has set himself to do. Verily, the need for the proclamation of “the everlasting gospel” is great; for that lack of faith, which was to characterize the generation that would see the coming of the Son of man, is here in the world now in full bloom.