The Fundamentals - 1917: Vol.1

106 The Fundamentals restored community there were a great many priests and few Levites. The tithe laws did not apply at all, but they accepted these as laws of Moses. And so I might go over the provisions of the law one by one-tabernacle and priests and ritual and sacrifices and Day of Atonement-these things, in their post-exilian form, had never existed; they were spun out of the inventive brains of scribes; and yet the people accepted them all as the genuine handiwork of the ancient law-giver. Was ever such a thing heard of before? Try it in any city. Try to get the people t t c io , n tak o e r u ti p t o h n es th o e r m w se h l a v t e e s ve a r s y e o ri u es li o k f e, h o ea n vy the bu g rd ro en u s nd of th t a a t xa i t had been handed down from the middle ages to the present time. Try to get them to believe i t ; try to get them to o o b n e e y w it h , o an le d av y e o s u b w oo ill ks fin a d nd th t e he d o iffi rie c s ul i t n y. th I e s s it tu c d r y ed a i n b d le t t a o ke an s y a broad view of human nature with open eyes ? I aver that for me, at any rate, it is not ; and it will be a marvel to me as long as I am spared to live, how such a theory has ever gained the acceptance it has done among unquestionably able and sound-minded men. I am convinced that the structure of the Bible vindicates itself, and that these counter theories break down. A SUPERNATURAL REVELATION I think it is an essential element in a tenable doctrine of Scripture, in fact the core of the matter, that it contains a record of a true supernatural revelation; and that is what the Bible claims to be-not a development of man's thoughts about God, and not what this man and that one came to think about God, how they came to have the ideas of a Jehovah or Yahveh, who was originally the storm- god of Sinai, and how they manufactured out of this the great universal God of the prophets-but a supernatural revelation of what God revealed Himself in word and deed to men in history. And

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