Higher Criticism by Earle Albert Rowell

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 6, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 35.

Higher Criticism

By Earle Albert Rowell

XVI. The Bible as the Word of God

IN the previous articles of this series we have examined many of the devious methods by which Higher Critics attempt to make it appear that the Bible is the word of man, and in a very limited sense, if at all, the Word of God. This subject is so broad that only one phase of it can be touched upon here, and that very briefly. Since the difficulties in the Bible are the foundation of, and reason for, Higher Criticism, I will endeavor to show that the difficulties in the Bible, so far from constituting a basis for repudiating the Bible as the Word of God and proclaiming it as the word of man, are actually about the best evidence there is in favor of the Bible as the divinely inspired Book of God.

The Bible not only recognizes its own difficulties, but adds a caution in regard to them, much needed at this time. Speaking of Paul's epistles, Peter says they contain "some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." 2 Peter 3:16. This teaches clearly that all the Bible contains "things hard to be understood." When the infidel or Higher Critic approaches us with difficulties, we need not be either surprised or alarmed, for the Bible says they are there. The only thing that concerns us is whether we wrest them to our destruction.

Two Kinds of Difficulties

Now, the difficulties of the Bible are of two kinds: those made by man, and those inherent in the subject. The first, made by man, may be removed by man. They consist of wrong interpretations and false inferences which are charged to the Bible as Bible teaching and then made the grounds for repudiating the Bible. This is the infidelic and Higher Critical favorite method of treating the Bible.

Other difficulties arise because the language in which the Bible was written is disused. The expressions, images, and thoughts are from countries, ages, and persons entirely different from anything we see. The manners and customs it describes have for the most part passed away. Its history covers thousands of years, and the greater part of the earth's known surface. Its precepts refer to both worlds, and are necessarily expressed in terms of only one, and the whole is comprised in one brief volume. Keeping this fact in mind, it is evident that there must be difficulties of many and various kinds.

Historical Difficulties

Much is made of the historical difficulties and supposed contradictions between the Bible and other authentic records. But the whole weight of recent investigation, historical and archeological, is beyond doubt to establish not only the historicity and trustworthiness, but even the minute accuracy in many cases, of the Bible record; as shown by the vast and increasing mass of literature by the foremost experts and highest authorities upon the testimony of the monuments, tablets, resurrected cities, mounds, libraries, and other records of ancient

Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, Syria, Palestine, Sinai, as well as the immense amount of corroborative evidence from Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, etc., together with testimony from the literature, lands, peoples, and usages of the East in touch with the people of Israel.

These discoveries have exploded many of the most confidently assumed Critical theories, and shown the baselessness of the bold assumptions upon which the Critics build their vast, imposing, and ominous superstructures of doubt and cavil, and have disproved many of their fine-spun philological theories. Since this recent knowledge has removed many once formidable objections, it establishes the principle of difficulties' being vanishing quantities, and makes possible, if not probable, the complete removal of all such difficulties with completer knowledge and greater research.

The Bible and Science

The alleged discords between the Bible and science have arisen mainly from overlooking the fact that the Bible is a popular book, written not in the terms of scientific terminology, but in the language of the people. For instance, the same skeptical scientist who ridicules the Bible for unscientifically speaking of the sun as "rising" and "setting," when he comes to describe the same event invariably uses the same words. His objection to the Bible in such a case is a mere hypocritical subterfuge, and should not deceive the most simple.

As to the famous differences between the records of Genesis concerning the formation of the earth and the Evolutionary doctrines of geology, botany, and zoology, it is only necessary to say that the difficulties have been created by the Evolutionists' gigantic assumptions of the most absurd and utterly unwarranted and absolutely unproved theories. The whole situation simmers down to this: Shall the baseless hypotheses of skeptics be accepted instead of God's fact?

The fact is, that the discoveries of science, not the theories, are corroborating the Bible statements in a most wonderful manner. For instance, when God said to Abraham, "I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth" (Gen. 13:16), he would readily understand that this would be an immense multitude; but when another time God "brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and number the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be" (Gen. 15:5), Abraham would not so readily conceive of an immense number, for he could not possibly see more than a few thousand stars at most. But the implication of the Bible is that the stars are as numerous as the sands of the sea. For thousands of years nothing seemed more absurd from a scientific point of view than such a statement. But now the telescope has revealed not only millions but billions of stars, and the end is not yet. So after thousands of years we find that the comparison of the stars with the sands of the sea in number is a literal, scientific fact. And thus it has been in numerous instances that might be mentioned, all going to prove that difficulties which have existed for thousands of years are now vanishing before the light of modern research, and here also the principle of vanishing quantities is established.

Of the Critical objections and difficulties most arise from misconceptions, preconceptions, misinterpretations, assumptions, and irrelevances. It is not possible to take space to give instances of these here, but sufficient have been adduced in preceding articles to prove the validity of my present claim.

The solution of these difficulties has been gradual and for the best of reasons. Each age has had its own difficulties to face, and has faced them with its own peculiar evidence. The gradual solution of these difficulties has supplied each age with fresh evidence of the truthfulness of the Bible, and excited continued interest in it. Thus God has used the difficulties of the Bible to incite to its study, and lead to new truths.

But if Higher Critics and infidels set such store by difficulties, let them face the overwhelming objections and attempt to remove the insuperable difficulties of their own theories, and the principle that leads them to discard most of the Bible will equally compel them to abandon their own theories.

Difficulties as Proofs

Besides the kinds of difficulties mentioned above, there are difficulties as to inspiration, prayer, miracles, the incarnation and resurrection of Christ; difficulties relating to the trinity, the atonement, the love of God in the midst of pain, and much else, all of which are universally talked about in the pew and from the pulpit, and are eagerly repeated by popular journals, echoed by unthinking readers, and treasured by skeptics and repeated by Higher Critics upon every occasion.

Such difficulties as attend, for instance, belief in the atonement of Christ are such as are inherent in the doctrine, and no amount of reasoning or research will ever avail to remove them, any more than it could ever be possible to pour the Pacific Ocean into a pint cup. The atonement is infinite in its meaning, and it is patently impossible for finite man to comprehend the infinite so that no difficulty shall exist. Hence the presence of difficulties concerning these doctrines stand as bulwarks of proof that the Bible is the Word of God.

Were there no mysteries or difficulties in anything coming from the Infinite, we might then wonder, and be disposed to question if such a revelation could possibly be from the infinite God. The very difficulties of the Bible show its divinity, and the absence of difficulties would be the greatest difficulty of all, and the basis of more plausible objections than can be made from its mysteries now.

If we were to wait till every difficulty were removed before believing, we should believe very little of anything. Even the primal truth of science, the law of gravitation, is not free from grave difficulties; and the primal truth of the Bible, that God is love, is not free from the difficulties caused by the presence of suffering. But these difficulties do not prevent us from believing in gravitation, or in God.

The difficulties of the Bible in the purpose of God serve high ends for the good of men. They tax our minds, and reveal our ignorance. They teach us humility, and train us in patience. They try our faith, and in its trial strengthen it. They lead us to a more simple dependence upon God, and thus increase our spirituality. Because of its difficulties the Bible has exhaustless fulness, perennial freshness, everlasting newness, infinite depth. Every Christian finds in it something that no other has found. Every age finds it adequate to its demands, and every nation finds it stored with treasures suited to its peculiar needs. Thus have the passing ages disclosed its accumulating riches; and still the mine of truth seems to be as filled with precious metal as ever, awaiting the eager search of the honest investigator.

Besides all of this, is the evidence of the Christian who has answered the call to "taste and see that the Lord is good." The best evidence of the divinity of the Bible is the fruit of its teaching when received in the heart and worked out in the life. Scores of thousands the world over are living testimony to the divinity of the Word.

"And so will progress in the knowledge and experience of its infinite depths of grace and truth go on, as, through the night of doubt and sorrow, the church of the living God is led by the providence of God, and the teaching of the Spirit of God, into the meaning of the Word of God, till the day dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts amid the full blaze of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in all the glory of His appearing. Then, and not till then, will the written Word vanish in the light of the eternal Word, as fades the morning star into the glory of the noonday sun."