The “Ptolemaic System” of Bible Study

Nor is it only in the sphere of what is called “spiritual truth” that these misconceptions appear; they are equally manifest in the lectures on the Lord’s teaching relative to social order and public law. And naturally so. Suppose we had to-day a number of highly cultured “men of science” who ignored “the law of gravitation” and adhered to the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, the irreconcilable differences between such observers and our astronomers of the modern school would obviously depend on their regarding phenomena common to both from wholly different points of view. For to anyone who insists on viewing the heavenly bodies from his own standpoint, it is certain that sun and moon and stars are moving round the earth, and it is equally certain that the earth on which he stands is at rest. This suggestion may seem grotesque, but it fairly illustrates what Christians in general regard as the root error of the sceptics respecting the Bible. The astronomer knows that the sun, and not the planet on which we live is the centre of our system; and he tells us that our whole solar system is but a part of a system incomparably vaster and greater. The Christian interpretation of the Holy Scriptures centres in Christ, and the entire scheme of revelation and redemption is but a part of an infinitely greater system revolving round, and leading up to, God Himself.

If a Ptolemaic school of astronomers existed to-day, there would doubtless be among them men who would denounce the absurdity of supposing that the earth was flying through space and whirling round like a teetotum, and they would deem it but a trial of temper and a waste of time to argue with anyone who held such a belief. But there would be also among them men of more liberal minds, perpared to discuss the question; and no method of discussion would be more natural or useful than that of asking them to accept for the sake of argument the views they rejected, and to consider the matter on that basis. And so here; all who hold what was formerly regarded as the Christian estimate of the Bible are regarded by the baser sort of sceptic as wanting in either brains or honesty. But from men of a different spirit we can confidently expect a fair hearing; and I proceed to discuss the matter on the assumption that Christianity is true — Christianity, I mean, in the old acceptation of the word.

In what follows, therefore, I will assume that “the Nazarene” was the Son of God — - not in the critics’ sense,.but in the Biblical sense — the only begotten Son of God; and that the Hebrew Scriptures are what He represented them to be. And this assumption will at once lead us to look for a meaning in much that otherwise we should pass by unnoticed, and to review our judgment about many things of obvious importance.

The special subject which suggested these last remarks may serve to illustrate this; I mean public law. “The law of Moses” included three branches, which are clearly distinguishable: Kirst, “The moral law,” as it has come to be called; Second, The code for the government of the J Sag ESE; and Third, What the critics call “the priestly code.” If is the secont-of-these which concerns us here. It is the fashion to denounce it as being savagely cruel and the doom of the sabbath-breaker in Numbers xyv., is cited as establishing the truth of the charge. Let us look into this.

I will not speak here of the spiritual meaning of the sabbath as a type of “better things”

to come. The creation rest was based upon a finished work, and wilfully to break that rest was “to die without mercy.” The great redemption rest of the new creation is based upon the finished work of Christ, and a “sorer punishment” awaits those who slight it, or the work on which it is based, by turning to works or efforts of their own. But here I will deal with the Jewish law on its human side as a code for the government of the Jewish commonwealth.

A unique characteristic of that law (I am not aware of any other code which contains it) was the distinction between ordinary offences and what are called presumptuous, or, as the Revisers render it, “high-handed” acts. An offender was held to have acted thus when therewasa total absence of provocation or termaptation. And the case of the sabbath-breaker is cited ‘as an instance of this. Even in the case of a homicide theré were special provisions in the interests of mercy; but here was conduct such as cuts at the root of all authority and makes civil society impossible. The Bible has this-tr-common with other

books, that it demands ordinary intelligence on the part of the reader. And here the facts as stated enable us to fill in the circumstances. It was not a case of thoughtlessness or ignorance. Sins of ignorance were fully provided

— —

for in the code; in this-respect, indeed, no modern code of laws is equally merciful” And -smcé the world began, no one was ever driven by overpowering impulse to rush out to gather firewood. The man was a typical anarchist who deliberately set himself to try conclusions with the State. Having declared himself an outlaw he was treated as an outlaw. So far from this being a blot upon Jewish law, the absence of a similar provision in English law is a grave defect. In the judgment of that eminent jurist, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, if cases of this type were similarly dealt with in England, “really bad offenders would soon become as rare as wolves.”*

* Sir James Stephen’s discussion of the principles which should govern punishment, in his History of the Criminal Law of England, is impliedly a signal vindication of the Mosaic code; impliedly, I say, because it has no reference to the Bible, and the writer had no belief in the Bible. In the pages of the Nineteenth Century during the last two years I have shown how faulty our English law is

in this very respect.
’ iE