Category: The Bible

At least a primary knowledge of the nature and service of biblical criticism is indispensable to a proper understanding of the better conception of Scripture of which we are in pursuit. Therefore, before we can go forward into the larger thought, the deeper faith, and the more vital spirituality which wait to reward our study, […]

Granting the legitimacy and importance of biblical criticism as a large and fruitful branch of modern learning, we are prepared to ascertain the principal results which it has already produced. While its work is by no means finished, and we should therefore be duly cautious about accepting every dictum pronounced in its name, it has […]

Naturally we begin with the Pentateuch, popularly known as the “five books of Moses”—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Jews called them, collectively, the Torah, or, as we should say, the Law ; but the term Pentateuch, meaning “five-fold book,” has prevailed largely since the Septuagint translation (into Greek) was made, about the second […]

The facts and views presented in the preceding pages compel a restatement of doctrine concerning the inspiration of the Bible. The traditional thought on this subject does not afford an adequate explanation of the wonderful variety of phenomena now brought before us, just as the Ptolemaic astronomy would be too small to fit the enlarged […]

The new learning regarding the Bible calls, not only for a restatement of the doctrine of inspiration, but also for a reconsideration of the kindred question of revelation. In what sense is it true that “the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of God, and of the […]

In what sense and to what extent is the Bible authoritative in matters of faith and morals? This is the most vital question involved in these chapters. Indeed it is the one essential question lying at the heart of all the discussions of our time concerning the Scriptures. We may ascertain what the Bible is […]

It is interesting to study the workings of the human mind in its progressive apprehension of the truth. We may properly say that the realities of the universe, spiritual as well as material, for-ever await our cognition; but the universe is in-finite and its realities are marvelously complex, while we are finite and our mental […]

The new appreciation of the Bible, as literature, as history, and as a revelation of life, may be profitably supplemented by a fresh consideration of its relation to human progress. The subject is a large one, presenting many aspects, and opening the way for extravagant statements; yet it ought to be possible to arrive at […]

Having glanced at the role which the Bible has played in the spiritual progress of the past, we need next to consider what service it may render to our own age. For we can by no means ignore the significant change that is taking place in the thought of men respecting the nature of the […]

Having obtained a clear conception of the revolution which is taking place in the thought of intelligent people regarding the nature of the Bible; and having tried to form a just estimate of the great service which the Sacred Volume has rendered to the interests of spiritual progress in the past, is still rendering at […]