The Fundamentals (1910), Vol.1

104

The Fundamentals. The time-honored traditions of the Catholic Church are set at naught, and its thesis of the relation of inspiration and genu­ ineness and authenticity derided. As to the Psalms, the harp that was once believed to be the harp of David was not handled by the sweet Psalmist of Israel, but generally by some anonymous post-exilist; and Psalms that are ascribed to David by the omnicient Lord Himself are daringly attributed to some anonymous Maccabean. Ecclesiastes, written, nobody knows when, where, and by whom, possesses just a possible grade of inspiration, though one of the critics “of cautious and well- balanced judgment” denies that it contains any at all. “Of course,” says another, “it is not really the work of Solomon.” (Driver, Introduction, page 470.) The Song of Songs is an idyl of human love, and nothing more. There is no inspira­ tion in it; it contributes nothing to the sum of revelation. (Sanday, page 211.) Esther, too, adds nothing to the sum of revelation, and is not historical (page 213). Isaiah was, of course, written by a number of authors. The first part, chapters 1 to 40, by Isaiah; the second by a Deutero-Isaiah jn d a number of anonymous authors. As to Daniel, it was a purely pseudonymous work, written probably in the second century B. C. With regard to the New Testament: The English writ­ ing school have hitherto confined themselves mainly to the Old Testament, but if Professor Sanday, who passes as a most conservative and moderate representative of the critical school, can be taken as a sample, the historical books are^'yet in the first instance strictly histories, put together by ordi­ nary historical methods, or, in so far as the methods on which they are composed, are not ordinary, due rather to the peculiar circumstances of the case, and not to influences, which need be specially described as supernatural” (page 399). The Second Epistle of Peter is pseudonymous, its name counter­ feit, and, therefore, a forgery, just as large parts of Isaiah,

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