DOCTOR TORREY ON THE HIGHER CRITICISM.
In his replies to questions from ministerial brethren in a recent meeting at Sydney, Australia, Dr. R. A. Torrey, the leader of the Moody Bible School, Chicago, answered an inquiry regarding his position in reference to the Higher Criticism as follows:— The three great leaders of the Higher Criticism were infidels, and I don’t care to get my knowledge of theology from such a source. In the first place there is nothing new in their alleged discoveries. In spite of all their talk about the “new views,” there is scarcely anything in their theories that is not contained in Tom Paine’s scurrilous “Age of Reason.” Indeed, Professor Osgood, who is a Hebrew scholar, stood on the floor of the Baptist Congress of Detroit, Mich., to speak on the Higher Criticism. “Before discussing the question,” he said, “I would like to read what I conceive to be the few positions that are taken up by the higher destructive critics.” He went to work and read off these positions, one after the other. “Now, gentlemen,” he said to the supporters of the Higher Criticism, “is that a fair statement of the position?” “Yes,” they said. “Well, gentlemen,” he replied, “I have been reading6 (54)verbatim from Tom Paine’s ‘Age of Reason!’” Brethren, if you are dabbling in that sort of thing, you do not know what you are doing. I used to be a higher critic myself. When Robertson Smith’s book came out, I welcomed it; in fact, I wrote a little book on the subject myself. I thank God that I did not publish it; I had not thought the thing through. Years ago, a dear brother spoke to me on the subject in our lecture room. He was a splendid man, tho not an expert in Bible study. He said to me, “Mr. Torrey, I do not know about these things. Men tell me that it is a purely literary question and doesn’t affect the authority of the Bible.” I said to him, “Don’t you let them stuff that nonsense down your throat; they are pulling the wool over your eyes. The next thing, they will be applying these very principles—which are now confined to the Old Testament—to the New Testament criticism, to the Gospels, and the life of Christ.” He hardly believed that. But what do we find in the last copy of the “Encyclopedia Biblica”? We find done that very thing which we predicted ten years ago. Just let me say a few words about the origin of the Higher Criticism. The whole thing began with Jean Astruc. He was an immoral Jesuit, and he was the father of the Higher Criticism—the devil was its grandfather. Now I am not talking of something I know nothing about. The literary principles of the Higher Criticism are principles of literary criticism that have been spewed out of every other branch of literary and historical study. The methods by which the higher critics are trying to disprove the historicity of the book of Daniel, and other parts of the Old Testament, if applied to the history of England would disprove every fact in English history! They are the same methods that were applied at one time to Greek and Roman history. You know there were those who applied these methods to Greek and Roman history, and by means of their theories, swept away much of the history of Julius Caesar, Pompey, Troy—in fact, almost everything, so that there was but little left. But these methods have been given up, except in Biblical criticism. They have been reduced to a reductio ad absurdum in every branch of historical study, and now these higher critics are applying them to the Bible. One of the most awful things about theologians is that they adopt principles that students of every other branch of study in the world have tried and discarded. It is a hard thing to say, but it is a fact. By the same process Professor Fiske proved to a demonstration—provided you granted his premises—that there never was such a place as Troy, and shortly after Schliemann went and uncovered it. And just after it had been proved that Daniel could not be a historical character—because there was no such person known as Belshazzar—Rawlinson went and dug up a tablet bearing his very name—Belsharruzur. Brethren, the Higher Criticism is an attempt to construct history—not from the records, but from your inner consciousness. Why, since I came to Sydney, I have read a pamphlet by a man who had the audacity to tell his readers that the Old Testament canon depended upon the decision of the Jewish Council, and upon the vote of Rabbi Akiba, the man who supported Bar Kokhba. He gave as his authority the Talmud. Now, any man who quotes a passage from the Talmud in a careless way, without telling his hearers what a mixture of fragments of truth with a mass of foolish legend the Talmud is, is either deliberately taking advantage of the ignorance of his hearers, or, what is more likely, some one has been taking advantage of his ignorance. The Talmud is the most marvelous mixture of truth with the most absolute nonsense ever written, and these men deliberately take one of the fables from the Talmud to show how the canon was settled. The authority of the Old Testament does not depend upon the Talmud, it depends upon the testimony of Jesus Christ; and no man who will put the Talmud up against the authority of Jesus Christ has any right to call himself a Christian.