A General Statement of the Case

Every careful student and every thoughtful reader of the Bible finds that the words of the Apostle Peter concerning the Scriptures, that there are some things in them hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction (II Peter 3:16), are abundantly true. Who is there of ms who has not found things in the Bible that have puzzled us, yes, that in our early Christian experience have led us to question whether the Bible was, after all, the Word of God. We find some things in the Bible which it seems impossible for us to reconcile with other things in the Bible. We find some things which seem incompatible with the thought that the whole Bible is of Divine origin and absolutely inerrant. It is not wise to attempt to conceal the fact that these difficulties exist. It is the part of wisdom, as well as of honesty, to frankly face them and consider them. What shall we say concerning these difficulties that every thoughtful student will sooner or later encounter?

1. The first thing we have to say about these difficulties in the Bible is, that, from the very nature of the case, difficulties are to be expected. Some people are surprised and staggered because there are difficulties in the Bible. For my part, I would be more surprised - and staggered if there were not. What is the Bible? It is a revelation of the mind and will and character and being of an infinitely great, perfectly wise, and absolutely holy God. God Himself is the Author of this revelation, But to whom is the revelation made? To men, to finite beings, to men who are imperfect in intellectual development and consequently in knowledge, and who are also imperfect in character and consequently in spiritual discernment. The wisest man measured on the scale of eternity is only a babe, and the holiest man compared with God only an infant in moral development. There must then, from the very necessities of the case, be difficulties in such a revelation, from such a source, made to such persons. When the finite tries to understand the infinite, there is bound to be difficulty. When the ignorant contemplate the utterances of one perfect in knowledge, there must be many things hard to be understood, and some things which to their immature and inaccurate minds appear absurd. When beings, whose moral judgments as to the hatefulness of sin and as to the awfulness of the penalty that it demands are blunted by their own sinfulness, listen to the demands of an absolutely holy Being, they are bound to be staggered at some of His demands, and when they consider His dealings, they are bound to be staggered at some of His dealings. These dealings will appear too severe, too stern, too harsh, too terrific.

It is plain that there must be difficulties for us in such a revelation as the Bible has been proven to be.2 If someone should hand me a book that was as simple to me as the multiplication table, and say, “This is the Word of God. In it He has revealed His whole will and wisdom,” I should shake my head and say, “I cannot believe it; that is too easy to be a perfect revelation of infinite wisdom.” There must be in any complete revelation of God’s mind and will and character and being, things hard for the beginner to understand, and the wisest and best of us are but beginners.

2. The second thing to be said about these difficulties, is, that, a difficulty in a doctrine, or a grave

1The proof that the Bible is the Word of God is given in the author’s book, ‘‘The Bible and Its Christ.’’

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objection to a doctrine, does not, in any wise, prove the doctrine to be untrue. Many thoughtless people fancy that it does. If they come across some difficulty in the way of believing in the Divine origin and absolute inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, they at once conclude that the doctrine is exploded. That is very illogical. Stop a moment and think, and learn to be Teasonable and fair. There is scarcely a doctrine in science generally believed to-day that has not had some great difficulty in the way of its acceptance. When “the Copernican theory,” now so universally accepted, was first proclaimed, it encountered a very grave difficulty. If this theory were true, the planet Venus should have phases as the moon has, but no phases could be discovered by the best glass then in existence; but the positive argument for the theory was so strong that it was accepted in spite of this apparently unanswerable objection. When a more powerful glass was made, it was found that Venus had phases, after all. The whole difficulty arose, as most all of those in the Bible arise, from man’s ignorance of some of the facts in the case. The nebular hypothesis is commonly accepted in the scientific world to-day. But when this theory was first announced, and for a long time afterward, the movements of the planet Uranus could not be reconciled with the theory. Uranus seemed to move in just the opposite direction from that in which it was thought it ought to move in accordance with the demands of the theory, but the positive arguments for the theory were so strong that it was accepted in spite of the inexplicable movements of Uranus. If we apply to Bible study the common sense logic recognized in every department of science (with the exception of Biblical criticism, if that be a science), then we must demand that if the positive proof of a theory is conclusive, it must be believed by rational men, in spite of any number of difficulties in minor details. He is a very shallow thinker indeed who gives up a well-attested truth because there are some apparent facts which he cannot reconcile with that truth. And he is a very shallow Bible scholar, who gives up his belief in the Divine origin and inerrancy of the Bible because there are some supposed facts that he cannot reconcile with that doctrine. There are in the theological world to-day many shallow thinkers of that kind.

3. The third thing to be said about the difficulties in the Bible is that there are many more, and much greater difficulties in the way of the doctrine that holds the Bible to be of human origin, and hence fallible, than there are in the way of the doctrine that holds the Bible to be of Divine origin, and hence infallible. Oftentimes a man will bring you some difficulty and say, “How do you explain that if the Bible is the Word of God?” and perhaps you may not be able to answer him satisfactorily. Then he thinks he has you, but not at all. Turn on him, and ask him “How do you account for the fulfilled prophecies of the Bible if it is of human origin? How do you account for the marvellous unity of the Book? How do you account for its inexhaustible depth? How do you account for its unique power in lifting men up to God?” etc., etc., etc. For every insignificant objection he can bring to your view of the Bible, you can bring very many more deeply significant objections to his view of the Bible. And any really candid man, who desires to know and obey the truth, will have no difficulty in deciding between the two views. Some time ago a young man, who was of a bright mind, and unusually well read in sceptical and critical and agnostic literature, told me he had given the matter a great deal of candid and careful thought, and as a result he could not believe the Bible was of Divine origin. I asked him, “Why not?” He pointed to a certain teaching of the Bible that he could not and would not believe to be true. I replied, “Suppose for

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a moment that I could not answer that specific difficulty, that would not prove that the Bible was not of Divine origin. I can bring you many things far more difficult to account for on the hypothesis that the Bible is not of Divine origin, than this is on the hypothesis that the Bible is of Divine origin. You cannot deny the fact of fulfilled prophecy. How do you account for it if the Bible is not God’s Word? You cannot shut your eyes to the marvellous unity of the sixty-six books of the Bible, written under such divergent circumstances and at periods of time so remote from one another. How do you account for it, if God is not the real author of the Book back of the forty or more human authors? You cannot deny that the Bible has a power to save men from sin, to bring men peace and hope and joy, to lift men up to God, that all other books taken together do not possess. How do you account for it if the Bible is not the Word of God in a sense that no other book is the Word of God?” The objector did not answer. The difficulties that confront one who denies that the Bible is of Divine origin and authority are far more numerous and vastly more weighty than those which confront the one who believes it to be of Divine origin and authority.

4, The fourth thing to be said about the difficulties in the Bible is, the fact that you cannot solve a difficulty does not prove it cannot be solved, and the fact. that you cannot answer an objection does not prove at all that it cannot be answered. It is remarkable how often we overlook this very evident fact. There are many, who, when they meet a difficulty in the Bible and give it a little thought, and can see no possible solution, at once jump at the conclusion that a solution is impossible by anyone, and so they throw up their faith in the inerrancy of the Bible and in its Divine origin. It would seem as if any man would have a

wee ee ke beings so limited in knowledge as we all undeniably are to say, “Though I see no possible solution to this difficulty, someone a little wiser than I might easily find one.” If we would only bear in mind that we do not I know everything, and that there are a great many things that we cannot solve now that we could very easily solve if we only knew a little more, it would save us from all this folly, Above all, we ought never to forget that there may be a very easy solution to infinite wisdom even to that which to our finite wisdom — or ignorance — appears absolutely insoluble. What would we think of a beginner in algebra, who, having tried in vain for half an hour to solve a difficult problem, declared that there was no possible solution to the problem because he could find none. A man of unusual experience and ability one day left his work and came a long distance to see me in great perturbation of spirit because he had discovered what seemed to him a flat contradiction in the Bible. He had lain awake all night thinking about it. It had defied all his attempts at reconciliation, but when he had fully stated the case to me, in a very few moments I showed him a very simple and satisfactory solution of the difficulty. He went away with a happy heart. But why had it not occurred to him at the outset that, though it appeared absolutely impossible to him to find a solution, that after all a solution might be easily discovered by someone else? He supposed that the difficulty was an entirely new one, but it was one that had been faced and answered long before either he or I were born.

5. The fifth thing to be said about the difficulties in the Bible is that the seeming defects of the Book are exceedingly insignificant when put in comparison with tis many and marvellous excellencies. It certainly reveals great perversity of both mind and heart that men spend so much time expatiating on such insignificant points that they consider defects in the Bible, and pass absolutely unnoticed the incomparable beauties and wonders that adorn and glorify almost every page. Even in some prominent institutions of learning, where men are supposed to be taught to appreciate and understand the Bible, and where they are sent to be trained to preach its truth to others, much more time is spent on minute and insignificant points that seem to point toward an entirely human origin of the Bible than is spent upon studying and understanding and admiring the unparallelled glories that make this Book stand apart from all other books in the world. What would we think of any man who, in studying some great masterpiece of art, concentrated his whole attention upon what looked like a flyspeck in the corner. A large proportion of the much vaunted “critical study of the Bible” is a laborious and scholarly investigation of supposed flyspecks. The man who is not willing to squander the major portion of his time in this erudite investigation of flyspecks, but prefers to devote it to the study of the unrivalled beauties and majestic splendours of the Book, is counted in some quarters as not being “scholarly and up to date.”

6. The sixth thing to be said about the difficulties in the Bible is that the difficulties in the Bible have far more weight with superficial readers of it than with profound students. Take a man like the late Colonel Ingersoll, who was totally ignorant of the real contents and meaning of the Bible, or that class of modern preachers who read the Bible for the most part for the sole purpose of finding texts to serve as pegs to hang their own ideas upon. To such superficial readers of the Bible these difficulties seem of immense importance, but to the one who has learned to meditate upon the Word of God day and night they have scarcely any weight at all. That rare man of God, George Miller, who had carefully studied the Bible from beginning to end more than one hundred times, was not disturbed by any difficulties he encountered, but to the man who is reading it through for the first or second time there are many things that perplex and stagger.

%. The seventh thing to be said about the difficulties in the Bible is that they rapidly disappear upon careful and prayerful study. How many things there are in the Bible that once puzzled and staggered us, but which have since been perfectly cleared up and no longer present any difficulty whatever. Every year of study finds these difficulties disappear more and more rapidly. At first they go by ones and then by twos and then by dozens and then by scores. Is it not reasonable then to suppose that the difficulties that still remain will all disappear upon further study?

II
CLASSES OF DIFFICULTIES

Att the difficulties found in the Bible can be included under ten general heads.

1. The first class of difficulties: those that arise from the teat from which our English Bible was translated. No one, as far as I know, holds that the English translation of the Bible is absolutely infallible and inerrant. The doctrine held by many is that the Scriptures as originally given were absolutely infallible and inerrant, and that our English translation is a substantially accurate rendering of the Scriptures as originally given. We do not possess the original manuscripts of the Bible. These original manuscripts were copied many times with great care and exactness, but naturally some errors crept into the copies that were made. We now possess so many good copies that by comparing one with another, we can tell with great precision just what the original text was. Indeed, for all practical purposes the original text is now settled. There is not one important doctrine that hangs upon any doubtful reading of the text. But when our Authorized Version was made, some of the best manuscripts were not within reach of the translators, and the science of textual criticism was not so well understood as it is to-day, and so the translation was made from an imperfect text. Not a few of the apparent difficulties in the Bible arise from this source. For example, we are told in John 5:4 that “an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.” This statement for many reasons seems improbable and difficult to believe, but upon investigation we find that it is all a mistake of the copyist. Some early copyist, reading John’s account, added in the margin his explanation of the healing properties of this intermittent medicinal spring. A late copyist embodied this marginal note in the body of the text, and so it came to be handed down and got into our Bibles. Very properly it has been omitted from the Revised Version. The discrepancies in figures in different accounts of the same events, as, for example, the differences in the ages of some of the kings as given in the text of Kings and Chronicles, doubtless arise from the same cause, errors of copyists. Such an error in the matter of figures would be very easy to make, as in the Hebrew figures are made by letters, and letters that appear very much alike have a very different value as figures. For example, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet denotes one, and with two little points above it, not larger than flyspecks, it denotes a thousand. The twenty-third, or last, letter of the Hebrew alphabet denotes four hundred, but the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, that looks very much like it, and could be easily mis= taken for it, denotes eight. A very slight error of the copyist would therefore make an utter change in figures. The remarkable thing when one contemplates the facts in the case, is that so few errors of this kind have been made.

2. The second class of difficulties: those that arise from inaccurate translations. For example, in Matthew 12:40 Jonah is spoken of as being in the whale’s belly. Many a sceptic has made merry over the thought of a whale with the peculiar construction of its mouth and throat swallowing a man, but if the sceptic had only taken the trouble to look the matter up, he would have found the word translated “whale” really means “sea monster,” without any definition as to the character of the sea monster. We will take this up more in detail in considering the story of Jonah. So the whole difficulty arose from the translator’s mistake, and the sceptic’s ignorance. There are many sceptics to-day who are so densely ignorant of matters clearly understood by many Sunday School children that they are still harping in the name of scholarship on this supposed error in the Bible.

3. The third class of difficulties: those that arise from false interpretations of the Bible. What the Bible teaches is one thing, and what men interpret it to mean is oftentimes something widely different, Many difficulties that we have with the Bible arise not from what the Bible actually says, but from what men interpret it to mean. A striking illustration of this is found in the first chapter of Genesis. If we were to take the interpretation put upon this chapter by many interpreters, it would indeed be difficult to reconcile it with much that modern science regards as established. But the difficulty is not with what the first chapter of Genesis says, but with the interpretation that is put upon it. But there is no contradiction whatever between what is really proven by science and what is really said in the first chapter of Genesis. This will come out clearly in the chapter on The First Chapter of Genesis.

Another difficulty of the same character is that with Jesus’ statement that He should be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Many interpreters would have us believe that He died Friday night and rose early Sunday morning, and the time between these two is far from being three days and three nights, but we shall see later that it is a matter of Biblical interpretation, and the trouble is not with what the Bible actually says, but with the interpretation that men put upon the Bible. We will take this matter up at length in the chapter “Was Jesus actually three days and three nights in the heart of the earth?” We shall see that the difficulty is not at all with what the Bible says, but with the interpretation that men put upon the Bible.

4. The fourth class of difficulties: those that arise from a wrong conception of the Bible. Many think that when you say the Bible is the Word of God, of Divine origin and authority, you mean that God is the speaker in every utterance it contains; but this is not at all what is meant. Oftentimes God simply records what others say, what good men say, what bad men say, what inspired men say, what uninspired men say, what angels and demons say, and even what the devil himself says. The record of what they said is from God and absolutely true, but what those other persons are recorded as saying may be true or may not be true. It is true that they said it, but what they said may not be true. For example, the devil is recorded in Genesis 3:4 as saying, “Ye shall not surely die.” It is true that the devil said it, but what the devil said is not true, but an infamous lie that shipwrecked our race. That the devil said it, is God’s word, but what the devil said is not God’s word but the devil’s word. It is God’s word that this was the devil’s word. Very many careless readers of the Bible do not notice who is talking, God, good men, bad men, inspired men, uninspired men, angels or devil. They will tear a verse right out of its context regardless of the speaker and say, “There, God said that,” but God said nothing of the kind. God said that the devil said it, or a bad man said it, or a good man said it, or an inspired man said it, or an uninspired man said it, or an angel said it. What God says is true, namely, that the devil said it, or a bad man, or a good man, or an inspired man, or an uninspired man, or an angel, said it. But what they said may or may not be true. It is very common to hear men quote what Eliphaz, Bildad, or Zophar said to Job, as if it were necessarily God’s word because it is recorded in the Bible, in spite of the fact that God disavows their teaching and says to them, “Ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right.” (Job 42:7. It is true that these men said the thing that God records them as saying, but oftentimes they gave the truth a twist and said what is not right. A very large share of our difficulties arise from not noticing who is speaking. The Bible always tells us and we should always note. In the Psalms we have sometimes what God said to man, and that is always true; but on the other hand we often have what man said to God, and that may or may not be true. Sometimes, and far oftener than most of us see, it is the voice of the speaker’s personal vengeance or despair. ‘This vengeance may be and often is prophetic, but it may be the wronged man committing his cause to Him to whom vengeance belongeth (Rom. 12:19), and we are not obliged to defend all that he said. In the Psalms we have even a record of what the fool said, viz., “There is no God” (Ps. 14:1). Now it is true that the fool said it, but the fool lied when he said it, It is God’s word that the fool said it, but what God reports the fool as saying is not God’s word at all, but the fool’s own word. So in studying our Bible, if God is the speaker, we must believe what He says; if an inspired man is the speaker, we must believe what he says; if an uninspired man is the speaker, we must judge for ourselves, it is perhaps true, perhaps false; if it is the devil who is speaking, we do well to remember that he was a liar from the beginning, but even the devil may tell the truth sometimes.

5. The fifth class of difficulties: those that arise from the language in which the Bible was written. The Bible is a book for all ages and for all kinds of people, and therefore it was written in the language that continues the same and is understood by all, the language of the common people and of appearances. It was not written in the terminology of science. Thus, for example, what occurred at the battle of Gibeon (Josh. 10:12-14), was described in the way it appeared to those who saw it, and the way in which it would be understood by those who read about it. There is no talk about the refraction of the sun’s rays, etc., but the sun is said to have “stood still” (or tarried) in the midst of heaven. It is one of the perfections of the Bible that it was not written in the terminology of modern science. If it had been, it would never have been understood until the present day, and even now it would be understood only by a few. Furthermore,. as science and its terminology are constantly changing, the Bible, if written in the terminology of the science of to-day, would be out of date in a few years; but being written in just the language chosen, it has proved the Book for all ages, all lands, and all conditions of men.

Other difficulties from the language in which the Bible was written arise from the fact that large portions of the Bible are poetical and are written in the language of poetry, the language of feeling, passion, imagination, and figure. Now if a man is hopelessly prosaic, he will inevitably find difficulties with these poetical portions of the inspired Word. For example, in Psalm 18 we have a marvellous description of a thunderstorm, but let the dull, prosaic fellow get hold of that, for example the 8th verse, and he will be head over heels in difficulty at once. But the trouble is not with the Bible, but with his own stupid, thickheaded prosaicness.

6. The sixth class of difficulties: those that arise from our defective knowledge of the history, geography, and usages of Bible times. For example, in Acts 13:7 Luke speaks of “the deputy” (or more accurately “the proconsul,” see R. V.), of Cyprus. Roman provinces were of two classes, imperial and senatorial. The ruler of an imperial province was called a “propraetor,” of a senatorial province a “proconsul.” Up to a comparatively recent date, according to the best information we had, Cyprus was an imperial province and therefore its ruler would be a “propraetor”; but Luke calls him a “proconsul.” This certainly seemed like a clear case of error on Luke’s part, and even the conservative commentators felt forced to admit that Luke was in slight error, and the destructive critics were delighted to find this “mistake.” But further and more thorough investigation has brought to light the fact that just at the time of which Luke wrote, the senate had made an exchange with the emperor, whereby Cyprus had become a senatorial province, and therefore its ruler a proconsul; and Luke was right after all and the literary critics were themselves in error. Time and time again further researches and discoveries, geographical, historical, and archeological, have vindicated the Bible and put to shame its critics. For example, the book of Daniel has naturally been one of the books that infidels and destructive critics have most hated. One of their strongest arguments against its authenticity and veracity was that such a person as Belshazzar was unknown to history, and that all historians agreed that Nabonidus was the last king of Babylon, and that he was absent from the city when it was captured; and so Belshazzar must be a purely mythical character, and the whole story legendary and not historical. Their argument seemed very strong. In fact, it seemed unanswerable. But Sir H. Rawlinson discovered at Mugheir and other Chaldean sites clay cylinders, on which Belshazzar (Belsaruzur) is named by Nabonidus as his eldest son. Doubtless he reigned as regent in the city during his father’s absence, an indication of which we have in his proposal to make Daniel third ruler in the kingdom (Daniel 5: 16) — he himself being second ruler in the kingdom Daniel would be next to himself. So the Bible was vindicated and the critics put to shame. It is not so long since the destructive critics asserted most positively that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch, because writing was unknown in his day; but recent discoveries have proved beyond a question that writing far antedates the time of Moses. So the destructive critics have been compelled to give up their argument, though they have had the bad grace to hold on stubbornly to their conclusion.

%, The seventh class of difficulties: those that arise from the ignorance of conditions under which books were written and commands given. For example, God’s commands to Israel as to the extermination of the Canaanites, to one ignorant of the conditions seems cruel and horrible; but when one understands the moral condition to which these nations had sunken, and the utter hopelessness of reclaiming them, and the weakness of the Israelites themselves, their extermination seems to have been an act of mercy to all succeeding generations and to themselves. We will go into this more fully in the chapter on the Slaughter of the Canaanites.

8. The eighth class of difficulties: those that arise from the many-sidedness of the Bible. The broadest minded man is one-sided, but the truth is many-sided, and the Bible is all-sided. So to our narrow thought one part of the Bible seems to contradict another. For example, men as a rule are either Calvinistic or Arminian in their mental make-up, and some portions of the Bible are decidedly Calvinistic and present great difficulties to the Arminian type of mind, and other portions of the Bible are decidedly Arminian and present difficulties to the Calvinistic type of mind. But both sides are true. Many men in our day are broad-minded enough to be able to grasp at the same time the Calvinistic side of the truth and the Arminian side of the truth, but some are not. And so the Bible perplexes, puzzles and bewilders them; but the trouble is not with the Bible, but with their own lack of capacity for comprehensive thought. So, too, Paul seems to contradict James, and James seems sometimes to contradict Paul, and what Paul says in one place seems to contradict what he says in another place. But the whole trouble is that our narrow minds cannot take in God’s large truth.

9. The ninth class of difficulties: those that arise from the fact that the Bible has to do with the infinite, and our minds are finite. It is necessarily difficult to put the facts of infinite being into the limited capacity of our finite intelligence, just as it is difficult to put the ocean into a pint cup. To this class of difficulties belorg those connected with the Bible doctrine of the Trinity and with the Bible doctrine of the Divine-human nature of Christ. To those who forget that God is infinite, the doctrine of the Trinity seems like the mathematical monstrosity of making one equal three. But when one bears in mind that the doctrine of the Trinity is an attempt to put into forms of finite thought the facts of infinite being, and into material forms of expression the facts of the Spirit, the difficulties vanish. The simplicity of the Unitarian conception of God arises from its shallowness.

10. The tenth class of difficulties: those that arise from the dulness of our spiritual perceptions. The man who is farthest advanced spiritually is still so immature that he cannot expect to see everything yet as an absolutely holy God sees it, unless he takes it upon simple faith in Him. To this class of difficulties belong those connected with the Bible doctrine of eternal punishment. It oftentimes seems to us as if this doctrine cannot be true, must not be true, but the whole difficulty arises from the fact that we are still so blind spiritually that we have no adequate conception of the awfulness of sin, and especially of the awfulness of the sin of rejecting the infinitely glorious Son of God. But when we become so holy, so like God that we see the enormity of sin as He sees it, we shall have no difficulty with the doctrine of eternal punishment.

As we look back over the ten classes of difficulties, we see that they all arise from our imperfection, and not from the imperfection of the Bible. The Bible is perfect, but we being imperfect, have difficulty with it. But as we grow more and more into the perfection of God, our difficulties grow ever less and less, and so we are forced to conclude that when we become as perfect as God is, we shall have no more difficulties whatever with the Bible.