89
The History of the Higher Criticism. Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scripture. I t is a work that is simply massive in its scholar ship, and invaluable in its vast reach of information for the study of the Holy Scriptures. But Horne’s Introduction is too large a work. It is too cumbrous for use in this hurry ing age. (Carter’s edition in two volumes contains 1,149 pages, and in ordinary book form would contain over 4,000 pages, i. e., about ten volumes of 400 pages each.) Latterly, however, it has been edited by Dr. Samuel Davidson, who prac tically adopted the views of Hupfield and Halle and inter polated not a few of the modern German theories. But Horne’s work from first to last is the work of a Christian believer; constructive, not destructive; fortifying faith in the Bible, not rationalistic. But the work of the Higher Critic has not always been, pursued in a reverent spirit nor in the spirit of scientific and Christian scholarship. SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS. In the first place, the critics who were the leaders, the men who have given name and force to the whole movement, have been men who have based their theories largely upon their own subjective conclusions. They have based their con clusions largely upon the very dubious basis of the author’s style and supposed literary qualifications. Everybody knows that style is a very unsafe basis for the determination of a literary product. The greater the writer the more versatile his power of expression; and anybody can understand that the Bible is the last book in the world to be studied as a mere classic by mere human scholarship without any regard to the spirit of sympathy and reverence on the part of the student. The Bible, as has been said, has no revelation to make to un- Biblical minds. I t does not even follow that because a man is a philological expert he is able to understand the integrity or credibility of a passage of Holy Scripture any more than the beauty and spirit of it.
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog