| Show BIBLICAL CRITICISM SUBJECT TO CRITICISM we cannot deprecate any scientific study of the bible in some of its departments part ments such study is evidently of the highest value in some it is indispensable pen sable without it we could not get the correct text of the original scriptures without it we could not translate and interpret them with any certainty and certainly we cannot deprecate depie cate that special form of the scientific study of the bible called the higher criticism this is the same process of critical examination applied to co the scriptures which scholars apply to all other ancient literature and history to deter mine their authenticity and dates their scope relations and add significance we cannot assume that the scriptures are exempt from such critical study because they contain special supernatural revelations of god glod on the contrary their contents make the most searching arching pe study of them all the more important the title higher criticism 2 now prominent may seem to some a little pretentious but the process is not new or peculiar it is the same method employed in one department of biblical study which is employed in all the others and long jong before it took this special title it bad brought out much important knowledge now received by scholars without dissent and embodied in all the best beat commentaries com but while we admit that the higher criticism is hs legitimate and necessary and that it has already rendered good service we ought not to be forward to accept every thing put forth in its name not even if it is accepted by eminent scholars and supported BUp up ported by considerable apparent evidence vi dence the testimony of experts is indeed decisive in their special ties because in these they alone have competent knowledge it is decisive in courts of justice where property and life often depend on it and it m must u at be so in literary and historical criticism even in the scriptures where our knowledge of their meaning and purpose must otter depend on it but experts must be cross examined and all the more severely because their testimony is finally decisive they must satisfy the court and jury and in this case christian teachers are the court and intelligent laymen are the jury that they are experts exper tc and that they are not stating their guesswork or theories but facts which they have verified and the statements of all the experts must essentially agree so the higher criticism is itself subject to criticism it requires its processes must be critically reviewed and its conclusions critically verified before they emu can reasonably claim acceptance we willingly concede to critical scholars everything necessary to their inquiries entire liberty all available material and facilities the tentative use of hypothesis and of every applicable method employed in other sciences and then we insist that they be scientific and prove their work so far as they go beyond all reasonable doubt we can afford all the trouble necessary in eliminating error from our ideas of the bible and in getting clearer and truer ones once we can take all the inconveniences of the discussion of long cherished beliefs we can allow our ignorantly formed impressions to be shaken up we can suspend our judgment on important questions as day may be necessary we are prepared to receive any truth that biblical scholars may discover but what they offer as truth we must require them to verify toward all scientific study of the bible we should be very generous toward all new conceptions of it proposed by the higher criticism we ought to be very critical if the result of critical study requires some amendments in the common conception of the bible they will be accepted of course as others have been if it necessitates some change of base in the common use of the bible such change will be made cautiously of course but in full faith that any change required by truth is always profitable but such changes can be conceded only for evident and sufficient reasons and only so far as such reasons require so the critical study of the bible must be critically estimated those students who are most scientific will edge what we insist on that the cou counter anter criticism of their work while fair should also be very exacting we should say this of critical research into any valuable literature or import ant history but in writings containing divine revelation their inestimable value makes it all the more imperative that while critical research is carried as far as possible its results result should be accepted only as they bear rigidly critical review the |
