The Word of God

Some writers, of the highest Christian standing, have brought themselves to look upon the Bible as a book obviously marked by incongruity, self-contradiction, historical impossibility, and occasional moral outrage, in which, nevertheless, many a direct and genuine message from God may be found if sought for with a reverent, humble, and obedient spirit. Such writers, regarded as a class, decline, with an energy hardly less than vehement, to speak of the Bible as “the Word of God,” yet, happily, they are equally emphatic and fervid in declaring that in ancient times the Word of God came to individual prophets and suppliants, and that a record of the communication is to be found in the Bible. The writers in question go much farther than this, their urgent contention being that the Word of God not only came, but that it comes, is coming, has always been coming, and that as a gracious necessity of spiritual progress it will always come to living and souls. It is important, even at the risk of verbal tediousness, to make this clear, because, differ from them or agree with them, we are dealing with friends and allies who are spending their lives in the exposition and propagation of their own view of “the truth as it is in Jesus,” and whose holy zeal warms and stimulates the whole action of the Christian Church. We are dealing with brethren, not with enemies, with believers, not with infidels, and with men whose conception of the case may some day prove itself to be right. It is a worthless orthodoxy that cannot stand the test of all fair criticism, and it must be a superstitious and faithless faith that conceals its credentials in fear of their possible invalidation. On all sides of these great inquiries we are in quest of truth. We want to get down to the rock of reality. We desire, however much we may be unable to agree in intellectual opinions, to realize the presence of that Blessed Paraclete — God the Holy Ghost — whose office it is to guide the meek and the faithful into all truth. The brethren whose theory I am about to consider, and in parts strongly to oppose, are of opinion that no little harm has been done to the Bible itself by claiming that as a book it is “the Word of God.” They wish the Bible to be properly defined. They regard it not as being but as containing the Word of God. They are not afraid to say that the Bible as a book abounds in errors, that some of the authorships are nominally fictitious, that many of its dates are incorrect, that some of its books are of composite and not of individual authorship, that Moses may have written little or none of the books which bear his name, and that David may never have heard of the Psalms which are ascribed to his harp and pen. Yet they claim that humble and obedient souls may find “the Word of God” in the Bible, but not in the Bible alone, for that Word, they say, comes to men every day as a distinct and direct message from God. Every day brings its own message. That may be so. Certainly this view does not discredit or limit inspiration. On the contrary, it insists upon the fact and worthily magnifies its value. But the view must not be regarded as original. It must not be supposed that some man discovered it yesterday. It is a view for which other men have suffered. Young men are now gaining applause for saying that for which older men suffered social and professional martyrdom. The least such young men can do is to acknowledge the wisdom and courage of their forerunners. In discrediting the value of second-hand learning we should take great pains to escape the humiliation of second-hand originality. Gratitude never disgraces Genius.

It has been said by writers whose view I am about to consider that the Bible itself nowhere claims to be “the Word of God.” Very much is made of this point. It is said there is no foundation in the Bible itself for the common practice of speaking of it as the Word of God. “Boldly challenge those who thoughtlessly employ the term.” Who are they? I would first inquire. The word “thoughtlessly” sets up a prejudice. It is misplaced. Having regard to the whole history of the Church, it may be unjust and impertinent, certainly it cannot assist in the elucidation of the argument. A man is not necessarily “thoughtless” because he differs from me. He may be only modifying my omniscience. If the Bible nowhere claims to be “the Word of God,” and if the absence of a claim is equivalent to the absence of a right, we must carefully consider the issues. Suppose the Bible does not claim to be the Word of God, what then? Is it not, therefore, the Word of God? May it not be all the more the Word of God on that very account? Does the Bible ever claim to be a book at all? Then it is not a book. Does the Bible ever claim to be a unit? Then it is not a unit. If the Bible is only what it claims to be, then what is it? Does it make any claim? Is it, to speak figuratively, at all conscious of its own existence? Besides, if inspiration comes daily, if it is always with us, if “we may find truth flowing toward us like the dayspring from the dewy eyelids of the morning,” if all this is really a fact, who is able to say that inspiration may not be retrospective as well as prospective? That it may not claim for the Bible what the Bible does not formally claim for itself? That it may not inspire its readers as certainly as it inspired its writers? It is not for us to dogmatize. Possibly God may interpret the past as surely as he may reveal the future. It was precisely in this way that Jesus Christ dealt with his disciples. He took them back upon the old records. He showed what Moses meant in a way which Moses probably never knew or understood. So it is just possible, for manifold is God’s counsel and his paths are in the great deep, that he may have put it into the hearts of his people to speak of the Bible as the Word of God.

There are some rights which do not require to be formally “claimed.” They wait for recognition. They are self- revealing; they establish themselves little by little; they grow, so to say, like reason and conscience and sense of responsibility. I am speaking of the mere matter of “claim,” and inquiring what it amounts to as an argument. I suggest that it may amount to nothing. Shakespeare may or may not claim to be a poet. The mere matter of claim is frivolous. Sometimes the claim may have to be set up by the observer. We come upon some conceptions unexpectedly and suddenly, as when the startled dreamer said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.” There was no finger-post at Haran pointing out the road to a sanctuary and setting up a claim, yet Jacob found “a certain place” concerning which he exclaimed, “How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Between the evening star and the morning star there was a pregnant dream. A cloud rich with visions enswathed the sleeper’s head, and a still, small voicev unknown to the vulgarity of sound, thrilled the dreamer’s soul like a whisper from Eternity, and the environment was changed in all its significance. Who can say that inspiration coming down from heaven to-day may not have shown holy men by what name to name writings seemingly scattered, chaotic, and unrelated? A man may not claim to be great, yet he may be the greater on that account. Some men are not known until they die. Their claim is set up by posterity. “That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.” The crown comes after Calvary. A place may lay no claim to consecration, yet it may affect us like a sanctuary of the Presence, a Zion inhabited of God. The Bible cannot live upon testimonials, or “claims,” or official sanctions; it can only live by such a supremacy of influence as entitles it to the faith, the love, and the veneration of the world. If it has exercised that influence — account for it variously as we may — that influence is the Bible’s best claim. It is not a formal claim. It is a claim that had to be discovered. The pearl had to be dug for, but it was there before the spade cut the concealing sod. So the true meaning of God may have to be discovered in the Bible. One man discovered gravitation, and named it; another may discover inspiration, and connect it with the Holiest Name. My own irfquiry as a Bible reader is not, What did the prophet mean? but, What did the Holy Ghost mean when he spake through the prophet? The prophet is dead; the Spirit lives, and he must be his own interpreter,

Carefully observe that at this moment I am speaking only of “claim,” of which so much is made. There may be no formal claim, no scholastic claim, no legal claim, yet, seeing that inspiration may be retrospective as well as prospective, it is surely open to us to inquire whether the inspiration, about whose present-day action some men have not the shadow of a doubt, may not have guided other minds to a correct appreciation of the Bible. It is said that Jesus Christ is the Word of God. But those who say so must not flinch from the application of their own test. Let us therefore reverently ask, When did

Jesus Christ himself ever claim to be the Word of God? I do not ask what other men claimed for him. Nor do I ask what other men saw him to be in vision or in ecstasy. I confine my attention to the fourfold life of Christ given in the New Testament, and I ask not what John said about Christ, but what Christ said about himself. Where did he specifically and unequivocally claim to be the Word of God? As to the Fourth Gospel, some highly trained men have thrown doubts upon its authorship, and John Stuart Mill — certainly not “a man of one book” — quotes the Fourth Gospel as an illustration of what he means by foisting upon Christ words that Christ never uttered. Hear Mill’s testimony:

“What could be added and interpolated by a disciple we may see
in the mystical parts of the Gospel
of John, matter imported from Philo
and the Alexandrian Platonists and
put into the mouth of the Saviour
in long speeches about himself such
as the other Gospels contain not
the slightest vestige of, though pretended to have been delivered on
occasions of the deepest interest,
and when his principal followers
were all present.” l

1 “Theism,” p. 254.

That Jesus Christ was the Word of God, some persons who deny his deity might have no difficulty in admitting. Perhaps that is the very title by which they would be most ready to distinguish him. To myself Jesus Christ is not only the Word of God, he is God the Word. But where did he claim to be this in a way so direct as to preclude the possibility of any other view being taken of his Personality? Was it where he grew in wisdom? where he was weary with his journey? where he knew not the hour of the Lord’s coming? where he said, “There is none good but God “? where he said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Many persons, who cannot justly be accused of thoughtlessness, have regarded such passages as indisputable proof that Jesus Christ was simply the Word of God — the message of God to the human race, God translated into the supremest expressions of excellence. I am disposed to think that the very process by which the Bible is turned from being the Word of God into containing the Word of God might for the selfsame reason and without the loss of one degree of cogency be employed in an attack upon the deity of Jesus Christ. The parallels seem to me at this moment to be exact. Able men have asserted that Christ never made any claim for himself that is not consistent with his simply being perfect in all virtue, the sublimest expression of divine excellence. Influential sects have built themselves upon this very doctrine. Large sums of money have been, and still are, subscribed to maintain it. The plea is in many points identical with the reasons given for not describing the Bible as the Word of God. It is contended that if we hand the Bible to men as the Word of God they will instantly point to passages which describe God as cruel and jealous and vindictive in disproof of our doctrine. But that is exactly what other men do when we declare Jesus Christ to be God the Son! At once they point us to his weakness, his weariness, his confessed ignorance, his necessities, his prayers, his declaration that his Father was greater than he, and they demand how we can reconcile such facts and statements with our belief in his deity. In that deity we do believe, and we do not deny the perfect humanity of our Lord. I do not asl what “claim” Jesus Christ made for himself. Theudas (Acts v. 36) “boasted himself to be somebody” yet “all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to naught.” Simon (Acts viii. 9) “gave out that himself was some great one,” yet his name has become the signal of the deepest infamy. I do not set store upon mere “claim.” History has given us too much reason to suspect it. I study Christ himself, his words, his ways, his thoughts, his deeds, and thus I am led to exclaim, “My Lord and my God.”

The way in which the case has been stated by friends on what I may call the other side indicates the point of what may prove to be their error. Condensed, it is this: “Tell men that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and they will instantly find such and such objection.” So they may; but that is precisely what we refrain from doing. Speaking for myself, lest I should load others with responsibility, I never begin by giving the Bible a reputation. I simply say, “Read it; read it all; read it with as little interruption as possible, then tell me what you think of it.” I thus leave the Bible to do its own work. You could ruin any preacher, poet, musician, or artist, by giving a romantic description of him before he had an opportunity of showing his own quality in his own way. Much better say, Hear him, study him, get the key of his method, and then form your own opinion about him. That is all I ask for the Bible, or for the Redeeming Lord himself, and I thankfully add that I never knew that method fail.

As for defining what is meant by “the Word of God,” we must remember that there is no final definition. No man can define God, or Truth, or Life, or Love. They are original and indefinable terms. We know many things without being able to define them. Consciousness is larger than formal intelligence. It is possible to intellectualize religious thought and to reduce it to a species of literature — .that is, to something that can be appraised and determined by grammar and lexicon and criticism. No wise man will despise any part of this literary apparatus; at the same time the apparatus must be kept within its own lines. The cry for definition may easily become both pedantic and frivolous. In all languages there are expressions which are symbolic rather than literal; idioms which represent our ideal condition or aspiration rather than words which can be separated from one another and parsed independently. In the higher grammar quite a cluster of words may be but a single nominative. The phrase “the-capital-of- England” may be but one hyphened word, and may be treated not as an article, a noun, and a preposition, but as a consolidated substantive. When we speak of the Bible as “the Word of God” we may be using a symbolic idiom — an idiom which represents the supreme purpose of the Book — its vital content and soul — in a sense and measure which no merely literary definition can fully express. It is thus that the Bible may be, in my judgment, and is, in my practice, more fitly, more sensitively, more truthfully, described by the thrilling phrase “the Word of God” than by any alternative designation. We require a descriptive which is exquisitely nice, at once profound and delicate, to represent the whole meaning of the Bible. To describe the Bible as “the Word of God” is, in my view, to describe the Book by its supreme purpose, which purpose is the revelation of God in such degree and proportion as the human mind is able to receive it. If I must characterize the Bible either by its human workmanship or its divine purpose — assuming it to have a divine purpose — I deliberately elect to regard it as “the Word of God.” In making this election I choose the less of two difficulties. I cannot escape mystery in receiving the Bible, but I escape the greater mystery by receiving it as a message from God. I know that the penmanship is human — I know that whatever is human is imperfect — yet that does not affect the divine purpose except in the sense that the limited instrument necessarily modifies the illimitable music. The impassioned pianist crushes the keys and strings of his instrument because it can only tell half his thought. Embodiment always means contraction. Incarnation means locality. The kingdom of heaven is larger than its parables, though they be shaped and colored by the King himself. It must be remembered that we are dealing with no less a theme than the revelation of God. How to bring it into words! Eternity is incommoded when endeavoring to typify itself upon the dial-space of time. It is the culmination of irony. The Bible is the revelation of God — Ineffable — in the only setting or framework possible in the present conditions of life. To bring God into language is to bring him within limitations. Words are constantly trying to define themselves, and even to do what they were never meant to do. Words may be better used when simply pointing to what is infinitely greater than themselves, than when trying to say everything exclusively and finally. There are points in religious thinking at which reverent and adoring silence must supersede impotent definition. Even human history, even autobiography itself, must suffer from embodiment in any one set of terms. The verbal accommodation is too small. The only way in which

national or personal history can be written, under present conditions, is the way of one-sidedness, partiality, incompleteness, and badly lighted color. Beyond all the most elaborate and balanced expression stands in silence the Motive, the Thought, the Impulse, the quenchless Immortality for which there are no words — the gold of thought, which cannot be expressed in the bronze of speech. So when I am challenged to define the phrase “the Word of God” I am not ashamed to own that to my mind the phrase typifies a reality which it is impossible fully to express in terms which would not themselves require to be defined.

Speaking thus of the claim of the Bible to be “the Word of God,” and of the limits of verbal and spiritual “definition,” we are reminded of a method of treating the Bible which is known as ° dissection.”

My present feeling is that the method of dissection is impossible. But is not the Bible a piece of literature? Only in a very limited sense, and of course within that limited sense it is open to partial dissection; but from my point of view the Bible is infinitely more than a piece of literature, and just as it becomes more it passes out of the region of dissection. We can dissect literature, but can we dissect revelation? We can dissect the body, but can we dissect the life? We can dissect the rose, but can we dissect its fragrance? What is called the dissection of the Bible is not undertaken irreverently. On the contrary, it is claimed that the botanist dissects the flower because he loves it. I think, however, that the analogy is imperfect. There is a botanist’s flower and there is a poet’s flower. A mother may view her infant’s body in one way and an anatomist may view it in another. But is not the infant an anatomical structure? Yes, and infinitely more, and in that glorious “more” the technical anatomist has no rights. So with the Bible. It is literature and it is revelation. It is history and it is insight. It is discipline and it is holiness. The altar can be measured in cubits, but the sacrifice which is offered on it is a magnitude upon which no measuring rod can be laid. Unless, therefore, the term “dissection” be very carefully guarded and limited, its importance as a method may easily become exaggerated.

Another method of interpretation is not free from prejudice, and is certainly not always safe. It is the capricious method of testing Scripture by what is called “experience.” Commenting upon a difficult passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Mr. Horton suggests a meaning, and adds: “If the generally accepted interpretation is correct, the passage must take its place among those opinions or speculations on divine things which are not confirmed by experience.” Whose? What is experience? It has been defined as “a term by which a man often covers his mistakes.” Is God’s truth no larger than man’s experience? Compare the experience of to-day with the experience of the twelfth century or the seventeenth! If experience is limited by personality, by whose personality is it to be limited? And if limited, what is the value of it beyond the limitation? And if any interpretation, truth, doctrine, or suggestion lies beyond experience to-day, who can be confident that experience will not or may not include it to-morrow? I venture, then, to submit that in making experience a final test we are appealing to a capricious and insufficient criterion.

A special danger arises in the form of a temptation to judge the part out of its relation to the whole. I have been enabled to regard the Bible as a unit. I know it is a collection of what may be called tracts or pamphlets, and that probably no one writer knew, or in many instances could possibly know, what the others had written. Yet to my view the Bible is a unit. One part belongs to another. One part explains another. This is indeed very marvelous, considering the different authorships, the different dates, the different environments. It is not difficult to believe that the authors must have been moved by a common impulse, and must have been building a common temple without knowing it. The parts of the temple come together most wonderfully, as if proportioned and fitted by the same Architect. So wondrous is the effect upon my own mind that if any teacher should explain the marvel by saying, “Holy men of old wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” I could accept the solution, my reason, my imagination, and my heart could unite in exclaiming, “Lo! God is here, and I knew it not; this is none other than the Word of God, and this is the light of heaven!” Nor am I to be troubled by having my attention called to the real or supposed defects of certain portions of the Bible. Can the Book of Ecclesiastes, say some, be looked upon as the Word of God? look at its materialism, its sensuousness, its pessimism. The Book of Ecclesiastes is part of a larger book. Its pessimism is a shadow upon a landscape. There is undoubtedly a pessimistic side of life, and I am glad to have it expressed exactly as it is found in the Book of Ecclesiastes. The Bible would have been incomplete without it. If it were the whole Bible, it would cover the soul with deep darkness; but as part of the Bible it is true to human experience, and the very recognition of it is itself an encouragement to faith and hope. Others say, Can the Book of Esther be part of the Word of God when the name of God is not so much as mentioned in it? For my own part I can see little but God in the main action of that tragedy. God does sometimes govern anonymously. To me it is not an unacceptable conception that sometimes the light is reflex rather than direct, and that in reading some histories the influence is more obvious than the personality. The one thought to be borne in mind in this connection is that the Bible having been made into a unit is to be judged in its unity even in the very act of considering its parts. Books which may be difficulties when torn out of their setting may assume new color and meaning when regarded in their relation to an organic whole. So also with texts, separate verses, and special commandments which are supposed to present such stumbling-blocks to that sensitive creature, that highly wrought and delicately constructed machine, the infidel. Some teachers are painfully careful of his feelings. He is most sensitive. When he hears that God visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, he faints. When he is told that the Canaanites and other persons in wrhose feelings and sufferings he is deeply interested were driven out of the land with great slaughter and loss, he is overpowered. When he comes to passages which seem to direct that the heads of little ones are to be dashed against the stones, he simply lays down the Bible in horror and becomes a larger infidel than ever. Yet, after all, and speaking with trembling deference, even an infidel may occasionally be wrong. Yet in what white-faced awe we stand before him! How anxious the commentators are to explain verse thirty-six to him in a way that will soothe his exasperated feelings! How deeply anxious the preachers are so to explain the Almighty that

the dear and sensitive infidel may take a more lenient and hopeful view of the general way in which the universe is managed as a whole. For my part I will not make an idol of an infidel. Again and again I would say, notwithstanding the apparently impious audacity of the assertion, that even an infidel may sometimes be wrong. I can at least imagine it possible that in the final audit the Bible writers may have seen farther than some who are shocked by their statements. Evils do run out their consequences to the third and the fourth generation. Nations are as a matter of fact displaced and replaced in a mysterious way. Even little children are dashed against the stones. If these facts be degraded into mere anecdotes, they are made horrible by first being made contemptible; but set in their right atmosphere, thrown into their true perspective amid the ever-coming and ever-vanishing centuries, read in the larger light — even in God’s high noon — who knows but that it may yet be proved that it was the infidel who was wrong? The dear and sensitive infidel cannot receive the Bible because of verse seventy-nine; then why should I receive the world when I am first invited to believe that there is a devil? I am shocked by the suggestion. Every nerve quivers with agony at the very thought. Yet my infidelity does not destroy the devil. I can sooner destroy him by my faith than by my unbelief. My faith enables me to realize that the devil and all his angels are the chained slaves of the Eternal Throne.

The phrase “the Word of God” (whatever it may precisely include) is one of frequent occurrence in the Bible itself. It might be supposed from reading some writings that this phrase is quite a modern invention — a “thoughtless,” “loose,” “misleading” expression. The phrase occurs in all varieties of form in the Bible. I claim for it that it is a Bible term. Whatever may be its meaning, it does in innumerable instances occur in the Book itself. Perhaps, therefore, it has a meaning. At all events, it is of importance thoroughly to impress the mind with the fact that the phrase “the Word of God” or “the Word of the Lord” is certainly as old as the Bible. Thus:

“The word of God came to”;
“the word of our God shall stand
forever”; “making the word of
God of none effect “; “the people
pressed on him to hear the word
of God”; “the seed is the word
of God”; “the Gentiles received
the word of God”; “so mightily
grew the word of God and prevailed”; “many corrupt the word
of God”; “handling the word of
God deceitfully”; “the sword of
the Spirit which is the word of
God “; “the word of God is quick
and powerful”; “it is not meet
that we should leave the word of
God.”

These are only samples of an almost countless number. The apostle Peter speaks very definitely about the word of the Lord. He says, “The word of the Lord endureth forever,” and as if anticipating our modern inquiry, What is the Word of the Lord? he answers — “And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” (i Peter i. 25). We are justified, then, in saying that the expression” the

Word of God,” whatever it may precisely mean, is intensely biblical. The answer which is given to us is that there is no difference of opinion about this, the contention is that the expression is never applied in the Bible itself to the Bible itself — in other words, the Bible nowhere calls itself by that name. So we return to our first ground, By what name does the Bible describe itself? Does it ever describe itself? Because it does not describe itself, may its readers never describe it? Some teachers suppose that they have met the case by describing the Bible as “a record.” The term “record” is in great favor with them. But a “record” of what? Surely more than a record of names, births, ages, wars, migrations, and anecdotes? These may properly come under such a designation as “record.” They can be fully and literally set down, registered, attested, and otherwise treated as events having a beginning and an end. But is there nothing more in the Bible? What is that something more? Is there not something more in Moses than Moses ever dreamed? Why have a Bible at all, except as we may have other so-called sacred books which may be interesting memorials of ancient and perhaps exhausted nationalities? What is it that gives the Bible its uniqueness? That is the quality which I wish to get at and appreciate. Now tell me distinctly, if you can, what that quality is. When I have beyond all doubt discovered that quality, I can have no difficulty in making a definite claim for the Bible. Is there anything in the Bible of the nature of prophecy, communion, fellowship with God, insight, motive — anything about or bearing upon prayer, eternity, sanctification, election, trust, destiny — anything that goes infinitely beyond records, schedules, registers, and genealogies — anything that takes in all the centuries and gathers up human history into a unit? What is the supreme purpose of the Book? Does the Book anywhere claim to have a supreme purpose? If it has not a supreme purpose, why was it collated and published? If its supreme purpose, claimed or unclaimed, is the revelation of God to the world, I have no difficulty in regarding it as the inclusive and authoritative Word of God. One writer does give an answer to the question, What is the Bible? He says, “It is, to put it briefly, the sacred and inspired record of the Word of God,” etc. He calls the Bible “the canon of sacred Scripture.” Now where does the

Bible claim to be a canon? Does the word “canon” ever occur in the Bible? And by what authority does the writer speak of “sacred Scripture”? How often does the word “sacred” occur in the Bible? Is the word “sacred” in the Bible at all? Is it not an ecclesiastical word? Is it not in its very face and form a priest’s word? When I am “boldly challenged” as to the ground on which I describe the Bible as “the Word of God,” I in my turn may “boldly challenge” the challenger to give me his biblical authority for calling the Bible a canon, or calling the Bible “sacred Scripture.”

The Christian Church should welcome all the light and aid of the best scholarship in the elucidation of the Bible. There is no orthodoxy so despicable as that which sneers at scholarship. I want all the help I can get in endeavoring to make out the purpose and meaning of the Bible. If the Bible as a whole is not the Word of God, I wish to know it. Superstition is mischievous. Prejudice hurts the soul. Do let us encourage reverent and competent scholars to dig deeply and speak fearlessly. It is in this spirit that I am about to make a revolutionary suggestion.

Why not re-edit and reconstruct the canon in the light of present-day knowledge? The form might be changed; the substance would remain. The formation of the canon was a human work. The Bible as we have it was never seen either by the prophets or the apostles. If the best scholarship of the Church is prepared to prove that there are literal, historical, chronological errors in the Bible, why not cut them out? Why not publish a revised canon as well as a revised version? If you meddle with the human side of the Bible at all, why not meddle with it thoroughly? I venture to think that this would be turning orthodox scholarship to the best use. It is high time we got rid of all false traditions. I would not spare them on the ground of their age, I would abolish them on the ground of their unfaithfulness. Do let us, I repeat, get down as far as possible to the rock of reality. If “the early Fathers took over from the rabbis a collection of baseless theories,” let us get rid of them. If “the only evidence in support of their claims is found in the traditions themselves,” let us plainly denominate them false witnesses. If “Canticles and Ecclesiastes are not Solomonic but post-exilic,” reconstruct the canon accordingly. We may correct a date without disturbing a morality. Scholars will, of course, be very sure of their ground before they rearrange the canon, but being sure of it they should take a definite course, stopping at the point where their knowledge ceases. If we know the errors before sending out the Book, why not keep back the Book until we have corrected the errors? I press the inquiry. If we cannot re-edit the whole, why not re-edit a part? Why not undertake the work within the lines of the Hexateuch? Why shrink from re-dating and resigning the Psalms? I press the inquiry in the hope that the answer will be that the task is in the main impossible. Probably the answer will be that the truth and the error, the factual and the moral, the local and the universal, are so intermixed that useful separation cannot be effected. That would be an important admission, because —

First: It would help to
show that Revelation is
given within the only
setting or framework
which is possible — faulty
because of human infirmity: incomplete because
of human imperfection — and

Secondly: That, therefore, we now have in the Bible the only framework of revelation that can substantially represent the many centuries of evolution and growth through which biblical history has passed.

What if the canon itself cannot be substantially amended? Who knows how far divine inspiration may have directed its contents and construction? If there is a perpetual inspiration, who can say with definiteness and authority that when wise and holy men undertook to build the temple of the Bible they were forsaken of God?