The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible Part 2

They thrust upon the attention of all who are not blind the traces of human imperfection, of a kind and an extent which precludes any notion of a clean copy of a perfect script let down from the skies.

The Old Testament historians contradict each other in facts and figures, tell the same story in different ways, locate the same incident at different periods, ascribe the same deeds to different men, quote statistics which are plainly exaggerated, mistake poetic legend for sober prose, report the marvellous tales of tradition as literal history, and give us statements which cannot be read as scientific facts without denying our latest and most authoritative knowledge. I shall not enumerate these "mistakes of Moses," and of others. That is an ungracious task for which I have no heart. It may be needful to remind the children of a larger growth, who persist in believing a saintly mother's beliefs to be final authority in their studies, that she is not infallible. But one does not care to catalogue her mistakes and taunt her with them.

That which carries no such reproach in it, but is, when rightly read, an honor to the Bible, may be pointed out, as the Biblical writers, indeed, do for us themselves.

The marks of a patient and n.o.ble literary workmanship are in every writing.

We can see this as our fathers could not see it, because the gla.s.ses through which to read literature critically have been ground within our century. Literary criticism is the study of literature by means of a microscopic knowledge of the language in which a book is written, of its growth from various roots, of its stages of development and the factors influencing them, of its condition in the period of this particular composition, of the writer's idiosyncrasies of thought and style in his ripening periods, of the general history and literature of his race, and of the special characteristics of his age and of his contemporary writers.

Every educated person knows something of the working of this criticism on other books. You have read your Shakespeare with intelligence, and have felt many misgivings as to the genuineness of a few plays, and of pa.s.sages in many plays. The brutalities and beastlinesses of t.i.tus Andronicus seemed impossible to the author of "The Tempest" and the "Midsummer Night's Dream." The historic plays seemed to you often "padded." But there was nothing more than guess-work in your conclusions, and, you suspected, in the more pretentious opinions of others. You take up, however, the lectures of Hudson or the charming study of Dowden, and you find that criticism is becoming, not merely an art, depending on certain instincts and tastes, but a science, building slowly a well-settled body of laws and rules, and shaping already a well defined consensus of judgment. The growth of the English language and literature, the characteristics of society, of language and of literature in the Elizabethan era, the idioms of Shakespeare's contemporaries, the manner of Shakespeare himself, in his different periods, have all been so minutely studied as to form a distinct specialty in knowledge. The Shakespearian scholar is a well differentiated species of the genus scholar, and speaks with a substantial authority upon what is now a real science. You can follow this teacher into Shakespeare's work-shop, watch the building of his plays, distinguish the hands which toiled over them and mark their journeyman's work, till quite sure where the Master's own inimitable touch caressed them into n.o.ble form, and in what period of his life he thus wrought. There is a new revelation of Shakespeare to our age.

This criticism turned upon the great books of the ancients. Niebuhr led the way in reconstructing the early history of the Romans. Dr. Arnold predicted that a Niebuhr of Jewish literature would arise. He came duly.

His name was Ewald. Successors have followed in abundance. The principles and processes of literary criticism were applied to the Hebrew writings.

In the present immature stage of this science of Biblical Criticism there are, of course, plenty of speculations and guesses, of hasty generalizations and crude opinions. Time will correct these. Meanwhile there is already so much that may claim to be well established as to const.i.tute a new knowledge of these old books.

The historical books are seen to be the work of many hands in many ages.

They gather up the popular traditions of the race, carry down on their slow streams fragments from such far back ages that we have almost lost the clue to their story--glacial boulders that now lie strangely out of place in the rich fields of later eras; songs of rude periods, nature myths, legends of semi-fabulous heroes, folk lore of the tribes, sc.r.a.ps from long-forgotten books, entries from ancient annals, pages torn from the histories of other peoples to fill out the story; the whole worked over many times by many hands in many generations.

Just as Thirlwall and Grote give us studies of Grecian history from the standpoint of Monarchism and Republicanism, so in the Kings and Chronicles we have studies of Hebrew history from a prophetic and priestly point of view.

The legislation of the Pentateuch, supposed formerly to have been drawn up by Moses, appears, as it now stands, to be a codification, made as late as the period of the Babylonian exile, under the influence of the hierarchical and ritual system, then crystallizing into the form familiar to us all. This codification, like its famous parallel in Roman history, the code of Justinian, collated the decisions and decrees already in existence from various periods, and reissued them as one body of laws.

It brings together the "Judgments" of early days upon questions of civil life--the decisions of tribal heads concerning the rights of person and property, the counterparts of the "Dooms" of English history; the moral rules of the local priests in a simple state of society; and the ritual and discipline of a late ecclesiastical age. The compilation is not very skilfully done, so that we pa.s.s from the minutiae of a priest's _vade mec.u.m_ in a highly developed hierarchical period to the civil statutes of a rude patriarchal society, whose very crimes are archaic.

The prophecies break up into fragmentary collections, in which the words of many different and obscure prophets are grouped under the name of some great prophet, as was quite natural in an uncritical age; the whole ma.s.s being arranged with little chronological order.

The Psalter separates into several books of sacred song, dating from different periods. They repeat the same Psalm, and divide one Psalm into two and join two into one, on principles by no means apparent to us. Some of these Psalms are of a highly artificial and mechanical structure. There are acrostics, in which the couplets begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet; double acrostics, and other refinements of literary ingenuity; the sure signs of a flamboyant and decadent literature.

The other writings of the Old Testament and the books of the New Testament have yielded similar general results to the touchstone of criticism; concerning which it is needless to speak further.

Our critical gla.s.ses bring out, clear and strong, the fact of a human, literary craft in these books, the signs on every hand of the labor of brain and skill of pen through which the literature of a venerable nation, and of the infant church born of it, took slow shape into our Bible. Such a work needs must have in it the traces of human imperfection; and these limitations of thought and knowledge, these mistakes of fallible writers, are to be seen by every one, save those who will not see.

It is impossible after such a study to rest in the illusion of an infallible book, of which, as a book, G.o.d can be said to be the "author."

IV.

_The growth of this theory is plain to us, and discredits its authority._

The explanation that Max Muller makes of the growth of superst.i.tious reverence for ancient traditions in Hindu history is suggestive on this point.

"In an age when there was nothing corresponding to what we call literature, every saying, every proverb, every story handed down from father to son received very soon a kind of hallowed character. They became sacred heir-looms, sacred because they came from an unknown source, from a distant age. There was a stage in the development of human thought when the distance that separated the living generation from their grandfathers or great-grandfathers was as yet the nearest approach to a conception of eternity, and when the name of grandfather and great-grandfather seemed the nearest expression of G.o.d. Hence what had been said by these half human, half divine ancestors, if it was preserved at all, was soon looked upon as a more than human utterance. Some of these ancient sayings were preserved because they were so true and so striking that they could not be forgotten. They contained eternal truths, expressed for the first time in human language. Of such oracles of truth it was said in India that they had been heard, Sruta, and from it arose the word Sruti, the recognized term for divine revelation in Sanskrit."[10]

How, in later times, the great writings of the Hebrews came to acquire the same exaggerated sacredness, we can also observe. We read in one of the historical books of the Jews that "Nehemiah founded a library and gathered together the writings concerning the Kings, and of the prophets, and the (songs) of David and epistles of Kings concerning temple gifts."[11] This formation of a National Library was really the germ out of which grew the Old Testament. It was a purely civic act by a layman, but it expressed the honor in which the national writings were coming to be held. It is coincident with this that we find a priestly movement to draw a sacred line around the more important writings of the nation.

Tradition has credited Ezra, the priestly coadjutor of Nehemiah, with the first formation of the Old Testament Canon. The two traditions express one and the same fact from the secular and ecclesiastical points of view. In the exile, the stricken nation came to value and honor its national heritage as never before. Its literary sense was quickened by close contact with the civilization of Babylonia, whose great library const.i.tuted one of the chief treasures of the central city. It was natural that on their return to their native land the Jews should gather their race-writings and found a National Library.

The genius of Israel had always been religious. Its very literature was pre-eminently religious. That their venerable writings should be received as sacred was thus wholly natural. They were in reality sacred writings.

Moreover, a large part of these writings, and that part largely drawn from very ancient times, was composed of judicial decisions, legislative codes, etc., around which veneration properly gathered. This veneration was heightened by the popular traditions which a.s.signed to Moses the bulk of their legislation, and traced it through him to Jehovah himself. During the exile a remarkable priestly development, which had been running on through two centuries, at least, culminated in a completely organized hierarchy and an elaborate cultus.

In the process of this final development in Babylonia the legislation and histories of the nation were worked over by priestly hands in the priestly spirit. The law of Moses was now for the first time completely set before the people, and on the restoration to Judea was made the law of the land.

It became, therefore, in a new sense sacred.

The fresh, free inspirations of the prophets--inspirations most real and divine--died out in the exile, smothered partly by this priestly development.[12]

When no living prophet arose to make men hear the voice of G.o.d, men had to hearken for that voice in the words of the dead prophets. In the synagogues or meeting-houses which developed during the exile, when the holy temple was in ruins, and which, having been found useful, were continued in the restoration, the writings of the prophets were read each Sabbath. The true writings of the chief prophets had therefore to be indicated. Thus came the canon of the prophets.

The freedom with which the author of the Chronicles used the material of the older historians which had been taken up into the sacred writings, shows that the sacredness attached to them had not isolated them into extra-human writings even a century and a half after Ezra.

The process of exaltation was at work, however, and continued thenceforth through the national history, increasing as the life of the nation ebbed.

It was the period immediately following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, which busied itself in closing the canon of Jewish Scriptures Death bound up that Bible. No new chapters could be added, because there was no more life left to write them. In its dotage this n.o.ble nation became known, by its superst.i.tious reverence for the law, as "the people of the book." Learned doctors gravely taught their pupils that "G.o.d himself studies the law for the first three hours of every day."

The superst.i.tious exaltation of the sacred writings, coincident with the lapsing life of the nation, was partially responsible for it, as it discouraged the fresh inspirations of the soul, and suppressed all free spiritual thought.

The genesis of the similar theory concerning the Christian Scriptures repeats the story told above.

The formation of the Christian Church was a period of astonishing literary productivity, commensurate in extent and worth with the importance of Christianity. It was a creative epoch in history. The life and teachings of Jesus stirred the minds and thrilled the souls of men. The higher spheres brooded low upon our world. Spiritual influences of unparalleled magnitude were working in society. The "Spirit of G.o.d moved upon the face of the waters."

Writings of all sorts abounded. They carried such weight as their author's name or their intrinsic worth imparted to them. Even the most valuable were not so prized or guarded as to prevent some of them from being lost.

Paul's own letters suffered from this neglect. Had a few copies of these inestimable letters been made by the churches to whom they were sent such a fate could not have befallen any of them. These writings were quoted freely by the early fathers, who rarely cared to give the exact language even of the great apostle.

As the churches multiplied and organized, the need of selection from the mult.i.tudinous literature of Christianity was felt. Genuine letters had to be distinguished from spurious letters. Accurate knowledge of the life and teachings of Christ had become a vital necessity. The growth of legend and fable, in the Apocryphal Gospels, threatened to swallow up the memory of the real Jesus. A sifting process went on in the churches, by which the unimportant and objectionable writings were gradually winnowed out and the wheat retained.

The Christian consciousness tried and tested every writing, accepting those which approved themselves inspired by inspiring.

In the course of time this thoroughly vital process, through which public opinion pa.s.sed upon the Christian writings, was recorded officially in the legislative action of councils, and thus, after many incert.i.tudes and vacillations, the selection of sacred writings was finished and the New Testament canon was closed. It was closed, as in the case of the canon of the Old Testament, by the gradual loss of free spiritual and literary productivity; closed, as the visions fade and the tides fall within the soul, and the period of criticism follows the period of creation.

These writings became rightly sacred as the mementoes of the Divine Man, and the counsels of the great apostles; a shrine in which men drew near to the supreme manifestation of G.o.d upon earth. But they became wrongly sacred also, as the lengthening lapse of time isolated these precious heirlooms of the Christian household into relics it was blasphemy to criticise; as the falling waters of the river of life stranded high above men's reach the thoughts and experiences of the inspired fisher-folk of Galilee. In the Dark Ages, when to read was a sign of distinction, and to write a schoolboy history like "Eginhard's Charlemagne" was a prodigy; when to lead clean lives, and to labor as hosts are doing now for their fellows made a man a saint; the literary and spiritual power of the apostles was nothing less than preternatural.

In the Reformation the old story repeated itself.

In the days of fresh inspiration men surely did not fail to prize the blessed books whence had come their new life. But the sense of the divine life in their own spirits enabled them to judge of the inspiration of the Apostles at once reverently and rationally. They did not hesitate to criticise freely the sacred books. Erasmus wrote of the Revelation:

"I certainly can find no reason for believing that it was set forth by the Holy Spirit.... Moreover, even were it a blessed thing to believe what is contained in it, no man knows what that is.... But let every man think of it as his spirit prompts him."[13]

Luther wrote of the Epistle of James,

"In comparison with the best books of the New Testament, it is a downright strawy epistle."[14]

The ebbing tide again left the second generation critical and not creative. After the sages and prophets of Protestantism came the scribes and doctors, and they were concerned not so much with the manly religion of free learning which Erasmus cherished, or the ethical and spiritual religion which Luther roused, as with establishing Protestant_ism_ and waging its doctrinal controversies. They wanted an authority for faith and morals to set over against the authority of Rome. The age knew of no other authority than external, extra-natural official authority, the king by divine right in the realm of thought. In the place of the authority of the Church rose the authority of the Bible; an oracular, infallible, miraculous Book, instead of an oracular, infallible, miraculous Church.

Men could only sustain the elaborate speculative system they had spun out of the New Testament letters, by insisting upon the authority of the apostles in metaphysics as strongly as upon their authority in ethical and spiritual principles. When dogma became divine, the books whence it was drawn were deified.[15]