02.05. HAS ARCHAEOLOGY DISCREDITED MY BIBLE?

HAS ARCHAEOLOGY DISCREDITED MY BIBLE? In John’s gospel, John 17:17, we have this sentence from one of the prayers of the Saviour. He says to the Father “Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy Word is truth.”

It seems most probable that by “Thy Word” He meant the Holy Scriptures. Such an interpretation would harmonize with the Psalmist statement: “Thy Word is true from the beginning.” (Psalms 119:160). It must be admitted that in all the multiplied references to the Bible found in the utterances of Jesus, He treated it as “The Word of God.”

It has been said often, but cannot be said too often, that the Bible is not a text hook on science and was never so intended. In the language of the late William Jennings Bryan, “it was not written to show how the heavens go; but how to go to Heaven.” However, the moment we claim Divine inspiration for the book we are obligated to defend its accuracy on every subject to which it addresses itself. If God is its author, He is incapable of mistakes or misstatements. That fact does not involve perfect accuracy for all versions of scripture, but would call for infallibility for the originals in both Old and New Testaments, and comparative accuracy, approaching perfection, for those established versions upon which scholars, in large numbers, have labored together to produce translations as nearly perfect as is possible to human endeavor.

Archeology is comparatively a new science; and since it is a science that deals with ancient history, that very fact brings the whole Bible within the circle of its inspection, and subjects the same to its scrutiny. When this science originated, Bible opponents expected from it decided help in their endeavors to discredit the canon of scripture. Now that this science is rapidly reaching the acme of its possible accomplishments, we can take account of the consequences; and, we find, as believers confidently expected, that, in it, Christianity has found a friend and the whole Bible a defense.

We shall associate what we have to say on this subject with three suggestions: The Preservation of the Canon, The Probing of its Claims, The Proving of its Contents. THE PRESERVATION OF THE CANON Two or three observations upon this subject will be quite in order.

First, the life of the Bible has been assiduously sought.

It is most remarkable that a book ever appeared in the world that has won to itself so many friends as have the sacred scriptures. For nearly two thousand years this book has continued to be in ever increasing demand, and today you could take a dozen of the best sellers known to the world’s book trade, and the Bible will exceed all their sales for the year. It is pretty nearly the only book where a single copy fails to meet the individual’s need. Often a man owns a dozen and some a hundred copies. Seldom a Christian home so poor as to contain but a single one. Such is its popularity. But the converse is equally true. No book was ever hated as the Bible has been hated, and hunted with the purpose of destruction, as the Bible has been hunted. Through its entire history it has been the object of intense and malignant persecution. Again and again endeavors have been made, sometimes by mighty potentates, at others by powerful governments, to annihilate the scriptures. Laws have been enacted looking to the burning of the last copy that could be discovered; and, believing individuals have again and again been arrested, tried, convicted, and at times put to death for the possession of even a portion of this sacred book. It Is all the more remarkable, therefore,’ that it has survived, and remains absolutely intact. We are not compelled to put up with a mutilated Bible. We have the whole book.

“O Word, of God incarnate, O Wisdom from on high, O Truth unchanged, unchanging, O Light of our dark sky, We praise thee for the radiance That from the hallowed page, A lantern to our footsteps, Shines on from age to age. The Church from her dear Master Received the gift divine, And still that light she lifteth O’er all the earth to shine.

It is the golden casket Where gems of truth are stored;

It is the heav’n-drawn picture Of Christ the living Word.

It floateth like a banner Before God’s host unfurled;

It shineth like a beacon Above the darkling world;

It is the chart and compass That o’er life’s surging sea, ‘Mid mists and rock and darkness, Still guides, O Christ, to Thee.

O make Thy Church, dear Saviour, A lamp of purest gold, To bear before the nations Thy true light as of old!

0 teach Thy wand’ring pilgrims By this their path to trace, Till, clouds and darkness ended, They see Thee face to face!” Its hiding places were providentially provided.

We know how difficult it is for even an intelligent and satanically aided man to escape the law, when the minions thereof are on his track, engaged in a diligent search for him. If they desire to do so. sooner or later the detectives lay hands upon the criminal. A book has no ability to hide, none even to move from place to place, and no wits with which to out-manouvre its enemies. It is all the more remarkable that The Bible could escape detection. Especially does this seem true when we recall how diligent was the search, and how determined were the destroyers.

However, the very term “Archeology” contains a partial explanation of how this marvelous protection took place. To begin with, the Oriental, partly due to the fixed forms of an ancient civilization, and partly due to the character of his climate, is a slow moving individual. When battles destroyed a city or a fire burned one or the winds blew clouds of dust or sand and covered it out of sight, he calmly faced the wreck and ruin and went his way to other parts, and to lighter tasks than uncovering or rebuilding. The result was that among the buried treasures of these demolished or sand-covered cities, would be, not only ancient libraries on clay tablets or papyrus, but also an occasional hidden and overlooked copy of the sacred scriptures. Once buried in such silent, and for centuries-to-be, undisturbed graves, God’s word was safe. That’s how it fell out, just two years before I was born, that Tischendorf uncovered the Sinaitic manuscript of the New Testament in a convent near Mt. Sinai. For something like sixteen hundred years it had lain in its secret hiding place, safe against Satan and all the fury of the Middle Ages, awaiting the day when it could safely come forth to the praise of God and the good of man.

How marvelous has been this Divine preservation! As Arthur Pierson once said: “While kingdoms have been dismembered, thrones have crumbled, and nations dropped out of history, the Word of God, firmer than the eternal hills, has survived them all!”

“The Bible stands like a rock undaunted ‘Mid the raging storms of time; Its pages burn with the truth eternal, And they glow with a light sublime.

“The Bible stands like a mountain tow’ring Far above the works of men; Its truth by none ever was refuted, And destroy it they never can.

“The Bible stands and it will forever, When the world has passed away; By inspiration it has been given, All its precepts I will obey.

“The Bible stands every test we give it, For its Author is divine; By grace alone I expect to live it, And to prove it and make it mine.” The time of these discoveries provide further evidence of Divine Providence. The most important of them have been made since the rise of higher criticism. Just at the time when Satan adopted new tactics in his attempt to discredit the Scriptures, God brought forth His reserve defenses of the Holy Book. I shall not, at this point, indulge in the citing of particular instances, proving this assertion, for the double reason that no one can successfully dispute it; and at a later point, in this chapter, the witnesses will be called to the stand and their testimony taken. In the meantime, we can but marvel at the matchless way in which God has preserved His word. Our amazement will increase also as we follow the diabolical endeavors to discredit it, and the Divine wisdom and power exhibited in its defense.

“Upon the Gospel’s sacred page The gathered beams of ages shine;

And, as it hastens, every age But makes its brightness more divine.

“On mightier wing, in loftier flight, From year to year does knowledge soar;

And, as it soars, the Gospel light Becomes effulgent more and more.” THE PROBING OF ITS CLAIMS

We have already called attention to the furious opposition Sacred Scripture has faced throughout its history, and for that matter, is still facing. In Russia today the possession of a Bible is not only a crime, hut in many instances is made a capital offense. Satan has not yet ceased his hatred of the Holy Word, and his emissaries have not all been like the average ruler of Russia—a brutal ruffian who has murdered his way into place and power. On the contrary, the adversary has proved his astuteness by selecting scholars and scientists as his detectives and executives, and right thoroughly have they done their work. The higher critics naturally set upon the unlikely statements of Sacred Scripture.

They have walked round about Zion; they have marked well her bulwarks, but at the same time they have looked for open breaches, for possible underground tunnels, for any conceivable point of access, and they have become convinced that they have discovered not a few. For instance, according to the scriptures, man has been on the earth not to exceed 7000 years. The higher critics adopted a philosophy of Darwin, and felt sure they could prove human occupancy of the earth for anywhere from 40,000 years to nearly a million. The Pentateuch purports to be the writings of Moses. Their evidence indicated that in Moses’ day writing was unknown. Still further, there was no proof, outside the sacred scriptures, that such a man as Moses ever lived. They said, “go to, we will demonstrate even that Moses never existed.”

Passing along they reached the report of the flood in the 7th chapter of his first book, and they said, “Here is a weak point! No flood could ever cover all the mountains of the world and not destroy it entirely. Another breach in the walls of the so-called sacred canon and we will enter to conquer.”

Still further, they came to the history of the four kings who captured and carried away Lot, only to be defeated later by Abraham and the servants of his house, with Lot’s recovery. Here they paused and set down the remark, “Improbable! No other literature mentions such kings. They were traditions of imagination only, foisted upon a book that folly claimed to be Divine.”

Coming to the history of Joseph they made another pause and said: “According to Genesis 47:1-31, an Egyptian king, acting on the advice of a Jew, not only gave the best of the land to Joseph’s brothers—Egypt’s enemies, but stripped the king’s subjects and blood—kin of all their wealth, and enslaved the person of the last one of them to the throne.” “That is unnatural,” they said. “Another weakness in the walls of a pretentious volume!”

Still further along they found in the same Old Testament, the Book of Daniel, and a king named Belshazzar on the throne. History indicated that the king of that hour was not Belshazzar but Nabonidus instead. Once more they wrote, “A historic mistake!” and so on.

They catalogued their errors; they found the breaches; they shouted to their sympathetic companions; they charged, expecting not only to enter in, but to rout every believer and bring to this book the dishonor and disgrace it deserved.

But, this was not the end! These same scholars subjected the whole of the New Testament history to critical examination. They demanded proof that all of the authors named ever had an existence. In case it was shown that such individuals lived, then it must be fully demonstrated that they wrote the books bearing their name. That done, the greater task remained to prove that those books were original with them or received from a higher power, instead of being either rehashes from old traditional sources, historic tablets or fables.

Still further, it must be demonstrated that these volumes were the work of a single hand, and not a compilation from different authors, assembled, edited and finally brought into circulation by third parties. At each of these points they wrought Assiduously, leaving no stone unturned.

Years of time, unlimited money, and earnestness of purpose characterized their contest. Not one opinion of scripture that was favorable, not one passage of scripture that was sensible, not a dot of these writings but must be scrutinized. Isn’t it a strange procedure that man could be brought to hate a book that has been only of greatest blessing to every individual who has ever believed it, to every circle that has ever received it, and to every state and nation that has ever been influenced by it.

Yet this is what we behold. The only parallels to this spirit that history has recorded seem to have emanated from the same source. When Moses was born, his life was sought. The enemy seemed to anticipate his influence, and even the emanations from his pen, and hated him.

David, who built a nation and whose writings occupy so conspicuous a place in the Old Testament scriptures, was kept from death at the hands of Satanic agencies, by the narrowest margin, again and again. The prophets of the Old Testament were, most of them, put to death. Their martyrdom was the price they paid for the privilege of authorship. When Christ was born, all Hell moved in opposition, and God-Incarnate in the Babe of Bethlehem, had to be carried down into Egypt to escape the Herodian slaughter. Finally, the minions of the pit tracked Him to Calvary’s Cross, and nailed Him there, feeling that at last they had secured a victory. But God’s power brought out of Joseph’s new tomb a man more glorious, more divine, and one to be more feared by Hell itself.

Little wonder that the life of the Bible should have been sought; that every conceivable point of attack should have been employed; that its destruction should have been desired. But the same God who preserved Moses in the bulrushes, and brought him into the king’s house; who guided the javelin from the hands of the mad-Saul so that it missed the head of the boy David, thereby preserving him for the office of king; who made dead prophets more eloquent than the living, the same God who gave to Jesus Christ the triumph over his enemies, even against death and the grave, has also given victory to His Holy Word, and the science of Archeology, the very instrument with which they sought its life, has become the agency for THE PROVING OF ITS CONTENTS The archeologist’s spade has become the succorer of the Sacred Canon.

Let’s see! They sought to discredit Genesis on the age of man. Some years ago, Sir Charles Lyell, figuring the age of the world by the rate at which mud deposits itself in the delta of the Nile, made a discovery of pottery so deep that he estimated it took at least 30,000 years for the deposits. That looked bad for Genesis. But, the interested scientists took that pottery into hand and studied it carefully, to decide unanimously, that it was modern Roman, and so several thousand years this side of the Old Testament claim of human occupancy of the earth. Point One! As we saw, their next contention was about the Pentateuch. Writing was unknown in the age of Moses, they said, and the Pentateuch could not have been his work; but somebody, hundreds of years after his purported time, had penned these things, or at least, combined many authors into Pentateuchal form.

Then, once more, the spade went to work and the Code of Hammurabi was uncovered, and when finally it was deciphered, it was found that writing preceded Moses by at least 500 years, possibly by a thousand years, and was in fact a highly developed art at that time. Second blow for destructive critics! But those same critics had denied that Moses himself ever lived; that the name was ever worn by such a historic character as the Old Testament presented. Once more the stones cried out, and I myself, saw in the British Museum, the name of Moses, brought from the archives of the earth. Point three, made against the professing scholars!

Still further, these critics told the world that the story of the flood was a mere myth, and when they were reminded by even more competent scholars that every nation of the earth had its tradition of the flood, they still responded, “Traditions prove nothing! What we demand is evidence.”

It is only a few years since that demand was met. Pennsylvania has been justly proud of Dr. Woolley. As an archeologist, he has few equals and no superiors. His work of uncovering Ur of the Chaldees is known to all the scholars of the world. While he was about it, he reached one day, perfectly clean clay, uniform, and his workmen announced they had come to the bottom of everything—to the river silt. But Woolley said, “Dig on.” They went down through this clean clay for more than eight feet, when suddenly they struck a layer of rubbish full of stone implements and pottery. To their amazement Woolley, when they took it up, said, “There is no doubt this was laid down by the flood of the Sumerian history”— the flood of Noah’s story. Point four!

Most unfortunate for the critics!

But, we continue:

We have in Genesis 47:1-31, the story of how Joseph, a Jew, brought the Egyptian king to a point where Joseph’s relatives were permitted to live securely in Egypt, in “the land of Goshen for a possession,” that is, a full ownership, and at the same time it is recorded that the King, consenting to Joseph’s advice, enslaved every living Egyptian, taking from him, first his money, then the fruits of his land, then the land itself, and finally the bodies of the people as the last demand of the throne.

Now that involved two or three apparently incredible things.

First, that an Egyptian King, who hated a Jew and his occupation of sheep-keeping, should become so generous as to give him, in fee simple, the best of the land.

Second, that he should be so completely dominated by Joseph as to take the last liberty from his own nation.

Now it is learned that the Hyksos ruler, on the throne in Joseph’s day, was not an Egyptian at all, and had no particular love for Egyptians.

He was like the Jewish rulers of Russia, an interloper, and had no concern for the land, and instead of having antipathy to sheep keeping, belonged, himself, to a shepherd race.

All that, brought out by Archeology, confirms instantly how Genesis 47:1-31 was both conceivable and certain. Point five against the critics! But we pass from this fifth point to the sixth one, namely, the story of Genesis 14:1-12—how “In the days of Amraphel, King of Shinar, Arioch, King of Ellassar, Chedorlaomer, King of Elam, and Tidal, King of nations, made war with Bera, King of Sodom, and with Birsha, King of Gomorrah, Shinah, King of Admah, and Shemever, King of Zeboiim, and the King of Bela, which is Zoar. In the conflict they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and went their way, and they took Lot, Abraham’s brother’s son, who dwelt at Sodom, and his goods and departed.” When Abraham heard that Lot was taken captive he went after them, with trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen; overtook and defeated them, recovered Lot and carried him back. The names of these four kings were not found when higher criticism first began its work. They fixed upon that as another breach, and said no such kings ever lived. Here again the stones cried out, charging these critics with ignorance, and producing the evidence. In the British Museum I had the pleasure, under the leadership of Ada Habershon, of seeing those names on Archeological tablets. Sixth point against the critics.

Still further, in the Book of Daniel, Belshazzar is described as having a Bacchanalian feast with a thousand of his lords and ladies, when the Medo-Persian army came in and executed the Divine decree that had already been written upon the walls of the palace, and “That night was Belshazzar slain.”

These erstwhile scientists said, “No!” Belshazzar was not king; Nabonidus was the ruler instead,” and they pointed to secular history to prove it.

But, those same ancient archives spoke, testifying the fact that Nabonidus, at that time was absent from his kingdom on a warlike excursion against an enemy, and Belshazzar, his son, sat upon the throne as the vice-regent.

Seven is God’s numeral—we think it sufficient!

There are many other points where the stones have cried out against the professing scholars, and in every instance have worsted them.

But, in the language of the courts, we rest our case, knowing full well that the opposition has no come-back. God’s book stands steadfast! Not one author is removed; not one incident is disproved; not one historic statement is unsettled; not one page has been dislodged; not one dot from an “I”, or a cross from a “T”, has yet been taken away by the ceaseless work of men, animated by enmity and hate and backed by the almost infinite resources of Satan himself. The Book stands! Archeology has fully confirmed its most doubtful instances, and this late science has brought to the scriptures the Twentieth Century triumph.

Marsten, in his volume, “New Bible Evidence,” tells us, how a case of these Bible critics was carried into a Canadian law court in 1931. It came about after this manner: The same methods they had declared used in Bible making, were applied to modern books, and the charge of plagiarism was brought against them. The judge described the critics’ claim as “solemn nonsense.”

They appealed it to the Supreme Court of Ontario, and Justice Biddell said of their claims, “almost an insult to common sense.” It was then taken before the Judiciary Committee of the Privy Council in England, the highest legal tribunal of the British Empire, in 1932. Lord Atkin, the presiding judge, described the higher criticism as “fantastic hypotheses.” The judgment of these courts is more and more the judgment of the world’s intelligence. The names of these enemies of God’s truth, that a few years ago were in the mouths of many, are being more and more forgotten, and their claims are already so far discredited that only the misguided youths, who emanate from the atheistic universities and the skeptical theological seminaries, are so unscholarly and shallow as to accept any of their claims.

“How firm a foundation, ye Saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word, What more can He say than to you He hath said, To you, who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

“Fear not; I am with thee; O be not dismayed For I am thy God, I will still give thee aid, I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my gracious, omnipotent hand.

“When through the deep waters I call thee to go The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow, For I will be with thee, thy trials to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply, The flame shall not hurt thee — I only design, Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”