CHAPTER V THE TESTIMONY OF THE ORGANIC UNITY OF THE BIBLE TO ITS INSPIRATION BY THE LATE ARTHUR T. PIERSON The argument for the inspiration of the Bible which I am to present is that drawn from its unity. This unity may be seen in several conspicuous particulars, upon some of which it will be well to dilate. 1. T he un ity is structural . In the Book itself ap pears a certain archetypal, architectural plan. The two Testa ments are built on the same general scheme. Each is in three parts: historic> didactic, prophetic; looking to the past, the present, and the future. ■ Here is a collection of books; in their style and character there is great variety and diversity; some are historical, others poetical; some contain laws, others lyrics; some are prophetic, some symbolic; in the Old Testament we have historical, poeti cal, and prophetical divisions; and in the New Testament we have historic narratives, then twenty-one epistles, then a Sym bolic apocalyptic poem in oriental imagery. And yet this is no artificial arrangement of fragments. We find “the Old Tes tament patent in the New; the New latent in the Old.” In such a Book, then, it is not likely that there would be unity; for all the conditions were unfavorable to a harmonious moral testimony and teaching. Here are some sixty or more separate documents, written by some forty different persons, scattered over wide intervals of space and time, strangers to each other; these documents are written in three different languages, in different lands, among different and sometimes hostile peoples, with marked diversities of literary style, and by men of all grades of culture and mental capacity, from 97
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