CHAPTER VII OLD TESTAMEM N E T NT CR C I HT R IC IS IS T M IANA I N T D Y NEW TESTA BY PROFESSOR W. H. GR FFITH THOMAS, D. D., WYCLIFFE COLLEGE, TORONTO, CANADA A large number of Christians feel compelled to demur to the present attitude of many scholars to the Scriptures of the Old Testament. It is now being taught that the patriarchs of n J e e c w t i e s d h h w i i s t t h or M y o a s r e e s n a ot nd his th to e ri g c iv p i e n r g so o n f su; t t h h e at la t w he o r n eco S r in d a s i co a n re unhistorical ; that the story of the tabernacle in the wilderness is a fabricated history of the time of the Exile; that the prophets cannot be relied on in their references to the ancient history of their own people, or in their predictions of the f e u dl t y ur b e e ; li t e h v a e t d t i h n e th w e ri r t e e c r o s r o ds f o th f e th N e e Ow ld T T es e t s a t m am en e t n , t, w w ho ere as m su is r taken in the historical value they assigned to those records ; that our Lord Himself, in His repeated references to the Scriptures o f His own nation, and in His assumption of the Divine authority of those Scriptures, and of the reality of the great names they record, was only thinking and speaking as an ordinary Jew of His day, and was as liable to error in matters of history and of criticism as any of them were. The present paper is intended to give expression to some of the questions that have arisen in the course of person.al study, in connection with collegiate work and also during several years of ordinary pastoral ministry. It is often urged that 127
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