NOT SAFE AUTHORITY

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 7, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 32.

NOT SAFE AUTHORITY.

Under the above caption, Rev. W. W. Everts writes concerning the International Sunday-school lessons and the so-called “higher criticism,” in the Examiner, the leading Baptist organ:—

There is a growing feeling that the system of the Sunday-school lessons should be changed. This feeling is right in so far as the present system violates the established principles of pedagogy. But with this proper demand comes another improper demand, namely, that the present system must be changed so as to adopt the unanimous conclusions of the “higher critics.” Grant that they are united in their conclusions, that is no proof that they are correct in those conclusions. The impression that unanimity on their part establishes their position is a superficial supposition. Their method is so arbitrary, so subjective, that it is more like trifling play than real work. They can not establish a historical fact by their methods. A fact is established by witnesses and contemporaneous testimony. A fact so established is irrefragable, tho fifty “higher critics” should agree to undermine it. Fifty denials of a fact are as weak as one. Unanimity proves the acceptance of a theory, but it does not affect the standing of a long-established fact.

The weakness of the method of the “higher ‘critics,” and the ease with which their unanimous verdict may be set aside, have been made apparent within a year. All the “higher critics” were agreed, a year ago, that the book of Ecclesiastes was a product of the second century B.C. They proved their point in their usual “learned” way. I will not rehearse the “undeniable” proofs, the “accumulated” arguments by which they proved “conclusively” that the book was of this late date. Any one who questioned the conclusions of these learned gentlemen was dismissed with a sneer. If any conclusion of the “critics” was certain, if any one of their conclusions should be adopted by the International Committee without fear of the possibility of error, it was the late date of Ecclesiastes.

I now ask my readers to turn to the article on Ecclesiastes in Cheyne’s “Encyclopædia Biblica,” which, as every scholar knows, represents the latest results of the “higher criticism.” What will you find there? Was Ecclesiastes written in the second century B.C.? The author of the article says it was not. It belongs to an earlier period. I refer my readers also to Stade’s Zeitschrift of last year, where they will find that the highest and noblest of the “higher critics,” Professor Noeldeke, says that they were all mistaken, and that Ecclesiastes does not belong to the second century B.C. The facts that have crushed this darling theory that had so many learned sponsors I have explained in the current Homiletic Monthly. The only point which I wish to make is that the breakdown of the method of the “higher critics” as applied to the date of Ecclesiastes, proves that the method itself is nugatory. Its conclusions as to the date of Daniel, “Second” Isaiah, Deuteronomy, and Genesis can not be trusted. They were perfectly agreed as to the date of Ecclesiastes, but they were perfectly mistaken. Nothing can be more absurd than to incorporate into our Sunday-school-lesson system verdicts that can be overthrown as easily as their verdict regarding the date of Ecclesiastes has been.