05 - Cremating the Old Testament

V- CREMATING THE OLD TESTAMENT The Samsons of higher criticism may endeavour to push out the pillar of God’s truth, but they are immovable, God’s Jachin and Boaz, "He shall establish," "In it is strength." THE teaching of doubt as an aid to belief has resulted in numerous such statements as the following: "Exquisitely beautiful often are those Hebrew representations of the universe, full of richest poetry of nature; but honest exegesis can find there no faintest gleam of the light of science." W. N. Rice, professor of geology in Wesleyan University, "Christian Faith in an Age of Science," page 6.

"The descriptions of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert, and the conquest and partition of Canaan, . . . to put it in a word, are utterly unhistorical."-Kuenen, "Hexateuch," page 42. (Italics his.)

"The mighty patriarchs of the early days were not men of flesh and blood at all; they are reduced by criticism to personification of virtues, or to tribes, or at best to tribal heroes."-Dr. McFadyen, "Old Testament Criticism," page 9. The Rev. Dr. C. A. Briggs, one of the leading higher critics of the world, is pleased with this result. "It is safe to say that the Bible has become a new book to the modern scholar, as the result of all these historical studies and the researches of historical criticism. The material has been in large part sifted and scientifically arranged."-"Study of Holy Scripture," page 508. But unfortunately for the "scientific" advocates, their theories have resulted not only in no agreement, but in endless confusion. This is evident from the lack of harmony among themselves, which even a casual reading of their works makes irritatingly apparent. For instance, there is a difference of a thousand years in the dating of the Decalogue by men equally scientific. The same psalms are placed nine hundred years apart by men of equal critical acumen. There is a divergence of eleven hundred years as to the date of Job among critics of the first rank. This is the same as if one were unable to determine whether Columbus lived in the time of Constantine or was a contemporary of Queen Isabella. Such are some of the results of the boasted "scientific arrangement." But while there is disagreement concerning the dates of the composition and the methods of production, Dr. Briggs voices the almost unanimous sentiment of higher critics when he says that "in all matters which core within the sphere of human observation, and which constitute the framework of divine instruction, errors may be found."

It is the veriest commonplace of the new theology to deny utterly all historical truth to the Genesis account of creation, Eden, the fall, the Deluge, and the Tower of Babel, which are called variously, according to the taste or training of the critic, myth, lie, forgery, legend, or poetry - but fact never. ("Study of Holy Scripture," page 634.)

Cain and Abel, along with Noah and Joseph, are relegated to the limbo of oblivion. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Lot and his wife, likewise even Saul, David, and Solomon, are regarded as but myths. The vast body of laws found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, including the accounts of the tabernacle, constitutes what the critics call the Priestly Code, designated by P. But the elaborate descriptions of the tabernacle and its contents, the disposition of the wilderness camp, choice of the Levites, the origin of the Passover, etc., are all a "product of the imagination."

It is claimed that when Ezra, in 444 B. c., as related in Nehemiah 8:1-18, read laws to the people, this was their first appearance. Says Kuenen: "They were not laws which had been long in existence, and which were now proclaimed afresh and accepted by the people, after having been forgotten for a while. The priestly ordinances were made known and imposed upon the Jewish nation now for the first time." On this theory, a greater set of falsifiers never lived than the promulgators of this code; for there never was a tithe system for support of priests and Levites, nor sin offerings, nor trespass offerings, nor day of atonement, nor tabernacle, nor feasts, nor any of the other numerous things mentioned! And the manufacturers of this code knew it, for they were themselves its inventors! The giving of the law at Sinai was only the private concoction of some inventive priest in Babylon ten centuries after it was supposed to have been given!

How do they prove all this? the reader asks. They not only do not prove it, but they do not even attempt to do so; they boldly avow that they "infer" it.

Says Wellhausen on this point: "As we are accustomed to infer the date of the composition of Deuteronomy from its publication and introduction by Josiah, so we must infer the date of the composition of the Priestly Code from its publication and introduction by Ezra and Nehemiah."-"History of Israel," page 408. In fact, the whole history of higher criticism is little more than the account of "inferences" which, in the effort to sustain their theories, they "must" make. In 444 B. C., for the first time, the people hear of a day of atonement and the solemn and elaborate ritual of observance! Yet the thought that this was never known in their history before does not occur to them! The Levites show no surprise when they learn, for the first time, that they had been especially set apart by God a thousand years previously, and that ample provision had then been made for their necessities, and even whole cities had been appointed for them to dwell in! Critics can believe all of this, yet be unable to believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch! Not only common sense, but the evidence, is all against such a perversion of history. The likeness, in many points, between Ezekiel 40:1-49; Ezekiel 41:1-26; Ezekiel 42:1-20; Ezekiel 43:1-27; Ezekiel 44:1-31; Ezekiel 45:1-25; Ezekiel 46:1-24; Ezekiel 47:1-23; Ezekiel 48:1-35 and Leviticus 17:1-16; Leviticus 18:1-30; Leviticus 19:1-37; Leviticus 20:1-27; Leviticus 21:1-24; Leviticus 22:1-33; Leviticus 23:1-44; Leviticus 24:1-23; Leviticus 25:1-55; Leviticus 26:1-46 was explained first by supposing an acquaintance of Ezekiel with Leviticus. But when the critics changed their theory, they had to change everything else; so now we are gravely informed that Leviticus is an imitation of Ezekiel! The critics’ view of Deuteronomy is no better. In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, B.C. 622, it was found, and appeared for the first time, say the critics. They calmly tell us that it was deliberately forged by the priests, and hidden in the temple, to be discovered by one of themselves, and effect the very reformation it did, in order that their power might be enhanced. Not only were the priests a set of liars and rogues, but even the prophetess Huldah, a woman of God, was deceived by their forgery, and thought it the word of God! (2 Kings 22:14-16.) The reformation that the discovery of this "book of lies" wrought has been equaled only by the discovery, twenty-two centuries later, of a Bible at Erfurt, chained to a convent wall. The critics who believe that such a reform was founded on a forgery, have more faith in the power of lies and fraud to raise man up and inspire him with noble ideals, than they have in the power of truth to uplift him.

Those who urge that if Deuteronomy had been known previously, it could never have been lost, forget that by the close of the century in which Charlemagne lived, his great code was almost totally forgotten, and in another half century, it had sunk into total oblivion, where it remained for centuries. But the fact that the high priest Hilkiah said, "I have found the book of the law" (2 Kings 22:8), proves that there was a knowledge of its former existence, and that he knew enough about it to know when it was discovered. The German theologian De Wette says of Deuteronomy that it is proved "to rest entirely on fiction, and indeed so much so that, while the preceding books, amidst myths, contained traditional data, here tradition does not seem in any instance to have supplied any materials." The more baseless the theory, the broader the assertion. The higher critic’s certainty of his position is in exact ratio to his lack of evidence: the less the evidence, the greater the certainty. The astute and learned higher critic of England, Dr. Driver, gravely tells us that "Deuteronomy does, not claim to be written by Moses." "Introduction," page 89. Yet in spite of the learned doctor’s dictum, we read in as clear language as ever was written: "And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, that bare the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee." Deuteronomy 31:24-26, A. R. V. See also verses Deuteronomy 31:9, Deuteronomy 31:22.

Thus does it still witness against those who try to overthrow the word of God with their own puny assertions; and thus will it witness against them whenever they try to break the Scriptures, which "cannot be broken."

Cornill says Deuteronomy is "an instructive proof that only under the name of Moses did a later writer believe himself able to reckonon a hearing as a religious lawgiver." Where, it may be pertinent to ask, did all of this influence come from, if Moses was but a myth?

It is amusing and almost pathetic to see with what learning and genius they first exalt the personality and work of Moses in order to explain how all the legislation in the Old Testament is connected with his name; and on the other hand, with what eager trepidation they hasten to accomplish the equally necessary but exceedingly difficult feat of minimizing to a vanishing point his influence, in order to give a semblance of sense to their theory that he actually gave Israel no laws at all, and in fact never lived. (Wellhausen, "History of Israel," page 432 ff.; and Kuenen, "Religion of Israel," volume I, page 272 ff.)

If, as the critics assume, the book was written in the time of King Josiah, what earthly use could be injunctions to "utterly destroy" the sanctuaries, altars, pillars, and graven images of the former inhabitants of Canaan, when these had been destroyed centuries before? But especially ludicrous would be the laws to exterminate the Canaanites, when none remained to be exterminated; and to destroy the long extinct Amalekites. This would be like an enactment now for the defense of New York City against the Iroquois. In fact, all evidence and everything in the book is suitable to the time of Moses, and fits it exactly, and is out of place and completely irrelevant as a production of the age of Josiah, whether the book be considered as forgery or fact. Of course, in the new theology Bible, Job, Esther, Ruth, Daniel, and Jonah are works of the imagination, without a trace of history. (Dr. Briggs, "Study of Holy Scripture," page 94.) Not only did Ezra and Solomon not write anything, but "the wish was the father to the thought, and the thought gave rise to the story of Ezra. Ezra was the ideal scribe, as Solomon was the ideal king, projected upon the background of an earlier age."-Dr. H. P. Smith, "Old Testament History," pages 396, 397. The case of Samson is even worse, for we are seriously asked to believe that he was a product of the imagination at work to produce a Hebrew Hercules. (Briggs, "Study of Holy Scripture," pages 333, 334.) So then the story is only a recasting of the myth of Hercules! Hence Samson is only the shadow of a myth! As to the psalms, Kuenen, Reuss, Toy, and Canon Cheyne all assert boldly, but without an iota of proof, that David never wrote a single one of the psalms ascribed to him. (Sunderland, "The Bible," page 113; Cheyne, "Bampton Lectures." "Contents of the Psalter.") But the whole of Peter’s great Pentecostal sermon is based entirely upon the fact of David’s authorship of the two psalms Peter quoted. If David did not write them, the higher critics have made absurdity of Peter’s argument. That, however, is their object; for their favorite method of discounting the Bible is to make it appear childish. To follow all the involutions and evolutions and twistings and squirmings of the critical theories would be neither interesting nor profitable, even if it were possible; but enough of the absurdities have been given to show how solemnly these learned men base huge superstructures upon chimerical assertions, and rear lofty systems upon imaginary facts. It is sufficient to add that all the rest of the Old Testament is treated in a similar manner by these ecclesiastical dignitaries.

JESUS AND MOSES

THINK not that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, on whom ye have set your hope. For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words? John 5:45-47. Of the thousand quotations from and references to the Old Testament in the New, not one gives a particle of evidence for any of the above critical theories; but in every case, the Scriptures are used as the infallible, divine rule of God, which cannot be violated in a single word (John 10:35), or pass away in one tittle (Matthew 5:18), or be changed one iota without judgment (Revelation 22:19).

Christ recognized not only the existence of Moses, but his authorship of the Pentateuch; also the existence of Abraham, David, and Jonah; also of Elijah, Isaiah, and Daniel, Noah and the Flood, besides much else familiar to every student of the New Testament, all of which is cast aside by the higher critics, with an impatient sneer or a condescending smile of superiority.

"0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken ! . . . And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." Luke 24:25, Luke 24:27. Those who own the authority of Christ at all must see that we are to know that all in all the Scriptures is inspired, and concerns Jesus, our divine Saviour. And surely what concerns Him it is suicidal to cast aside as of no importance to us, who are to be saved by Him.

We would count a captain or pilot a fool or madman who would cast overboard his compass and steer by inward consciousness. How much more the folly or madness of the new theology which casts from the ship of Zion God’s compass, the Bible?