51
Fallacies of the Higher Criticism. While some of the “assured results” are thus in doubt, cer tain things are matters of general agreement. Moses wrote lit tle or nothing, if he ever existed. A large part of the Hexa teuch consists of unhistorical legends. We may grant that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael and Esau existed, or we may deny this. In either case, what is recorded of them is chiefly myth. These denials of the truth of the written records fol low as matters of course from the late dating of the books, and the assumption that the writers could set down only the national tradition. They may have worked in part as collec tors of written .stories to be found here and there ; but, if so, these written stories were not ancient, and they were diluted by stories transmitted orally. These fragments, whether writ ten or oral, must have followed the general law of national tra ditions, and have presented a mixture of legendary chaff, with here and there a grain of historic truth to be sifted out by care ful winnowing. Thus far of the Hexateuch. The Psalms are so full of references to the Hexateuch that they must have been written after it, and hence after the captivity, perhaps beginning about 400 B. C. David may pos sibly have written one or two of them, but probably he wrote none, and the strong conviction of the Hebrew people that he was their greatest hymn-writer was a total mistake. These revolutionary processes are carried into the New Testament, and that also is found to be largely untrustworthy as history, as doctrine, and as ethics, though a very good book, since it gives expression to high ideals, and thus ministers to the spiritual life. It may well have influence, but it can have no divine authority. The Christian reader should consider carefully this invasion of the New Testament by the higher criticism. So long as the movement was confined to the Old Testament many good men looked on with indifference, not reflecting that the Bible, though containing “many parts” by many writers, and though recording a progressive revelation,
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker