I. Sense in which the Bible is regarded as Infallible.
In ascribing infallibility to the Bible it is very
desirable that we observe the same moderation and caution that were exercised
by the divines who framed the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is not
so generally known as it ought to be, that that eminent body of theologians
applied the word infallible to the Scriptures only in an incidental manner,
and in a limited sense. The Westminster divines emphasized the practical
and religious character of the revelation, together with the peculiar exposure
of such writings to misinterpretation. Their Confession well says that
"all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear
unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed,
and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in
some place of Scripture or other that not only the learned, but the unlearned,
in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient
understanding of them."1
The phrases which we have italicized indicate some
of the respects in which infallibility may not be ascribed to the Bible.
The utterances Of the Bible are not infallible except as pertaining to
things "necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation." Upon
this point the language of Dr. Hodge is also sufficiently clear and emphatic.
"They [the sacred writers] were not imbued with plenary knowledge. As to
all matters of science, philosophy, and history they stood on the same
level with their contemporaries. They were infallible only as teachers,
and when acting as the spokesmen of God. Their inspiration no more made
them astronomers than it made them agriculturalists. Isaiah was infallible
in his predictions, although he shared with his countrymen the views then
prevalent as to the mechanism of the universe. Paul could not err in anything
he taught, although he could not recollect how many persons lie had baptized
in Corinth."2
We experience somewhat the same difficulty in ascertaining
the teachings of nature that we do in deciding upon the true interpretation
of the Bible. Two distinct elements contribute to our knowledge of the
material creation. The content of a sensation is a resultant of
two forces, of which one is subjective and the other objective. The action
of the object is modified in its transmission both by the media through
which it passes and by the nature of the receptive mind. Whether or not
the ray of light conveys to the mind tile normal sensations of color depends
upon whether the organs of vision are normally constructed. Whether the
melody and harmony of a musical performance are pleasing or not, depends
upon the perfection and tile cultivation of the car which hears. Nothing,
except the unbridled imagination, is more likely to mislead tile mind than
nature itself, except it be properly interrogated and thoroughly cross-questioned.
In some respects the knowledge of nature must always be imperfect, and
perhaps incorrect; and so far in history theories of the mode of the operation
of natural forces have followed each other in rapid succession. It was
not, however, because nature was untrue that the Ptolemaic system of astronomy
so long held sway over the winds of men. The fallible element was in the
interpreters of the celestial phenomena rather than in the phenomena themselves.
But this error of the astronomers affords no encouragement to seek knowledge
in the vaporings of Brahmanistic cosmology, where visible nature is totally
neglected. What truth we get must come from a patient study of the phenomena
of nature itself. The liability of the scientific man to fall into error
does not imply any absolute imperfection in nature. Pride prejudice, and
indolence may cause the observer either to pervert the facts or to fall
short of interpreting their full meaning. The apparent shallowness of the
water, and the seeming crookedness of the stick that is thrust obliquely
into it, would not deceive unless our range of experience were narrow,
and our judgments immature. Nature would still be true, though every interpreter
were a liar.
It is thus that in ascribing infallibility to the
Bible we do not assert the infallibility of its interpreters and commentators.
The truth is not what man does learn from the word of God, but what
he ought to learn, and what with a due use of his mental powers
he may learn from it. The Protestant regards the Bible as an objective
revelation to man of spiritual truth, and of the divine plan of salvation,
similar to the revelation in nature of the material side of the divine
activity. He believes that the Bible is to be studied as scientific men
study nature, and that the authority of the Scriptures is to be maintained
by a process of continual inspection and discussion such as in modern times
has been so fruitful in the realm of physical science.
It is by no means to be supposed that the readers
of the Bible can safely dispense with any of the natural aids to its understanding.
The common people of Protestant countries in forming their opinions of
the Bible are not independent of scholars; but their dependence is very
different from that of the rank and file of the Roman Catholic Church,
who must receive the utterances of their successive councils as an infallible
interpretation and development of the original word. The Protestant way
of arriving at the sense of Scripture, though somewhat less regular than
the Romish, is scarcely less effective. The aberrations of individual scholars
offset each other, so that in the long run, where there is freedom of thought
and discussion there cannot be any serious doubt as to where the orbit
is in which the truth is moving. The Bible carries and controls the church
in history as the earth conducts the moon through space. While the orbit
of the moon around the sun is not a perfect ellipse, but a succession of
cycloids, it is near enough to an ellipse to be called so in the language
of common conversation.
II. Principles upon which Scriptural Allusions to Science should be Interpreted.
An important principle of interpretation ought to
be allowed in great measure to regulate the relation of the Bible to modern
science. The principle is one which alike renders possible emphasis
in oratory, perspective in art, and effect in literature.
It is this, that for the sake of enforcing the main point it is allowable
to avoid subsidiary questions, and to throw into the background the comparatively
unimportant objects, and leave them indistinct. Continued emphasis of every
word and sentence produces the effect of no emphasis at all. In literature
there is no more difficult art than to so handle the accessories and details
of a great subject that they shall enforce rather than obscure the main
point. Brevity is as essential to literary success as it is to wit.
It falls upon us, therefore, at the outset to ask,
What is the main and manifest object of the Bible? To this question there
can be but one answer. The Bible is the religious classic of the common
people. Its supreme design is to show men the path of holiness, and
to incite them to walk in it. It aims to accomplish these all-important
objects by revealing to us more fully than nature can do the attributes
and character of the Creator, and the requirements of the particular moral
system under which we have been created. The system of divine revelation
appearing in the Bible, centres and culminates in the person and sufferings
of Jesus Christ, who was God manifest in the flesh. All the facts which
go before and all the facts which come after are but concave mirrors, whose
reflected rays converge upon him who is "the true Light which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world." Also, as any one who attends to
the subject can see, an important object to be attained in the Old Testament,
was to clear the ground of certain false religious conceptions, and prepare
a language and a symbolism which should hold and convey the exalted religious
ideas found in the New Testament. The moulds of thought most essential
to Christianity were manufactured in the forges of Hebrew history.
The Hebrews were a People of agricultural habits
and limited means of scientific knowledge. Their ancestor Abraham emigrated
from the city where the civilization and culture of the Euphrates valley
centred, and doubtless brought with him the scientific conceptions prevalent
in the circles of society in which he moved. Moses, the first great lawgiver
of the Jews, was educated in the court of the Pharaohs, and was familiar
with the wisdom of the Egyptian priests. The emigration of Abraham and
the whole subsequent history of Israel, was a protest against polytheism
and the degrading practices and superstitions naturally growing out of
it. The exalted conceptions of monotheism have been preserved to the world
by the Jews; and at the present time those conceptions are not found outside
the influence of the Hebrew religion. For this purpose was that people
called and for this mission did the Lord raise them up to bear witness
to the existence of the one living and true God and to the Creator's continued
interest in human affairs. In the words of Cardinal Baronius, "the purpose
of the Holy Scriptures is to teach us how to go to heaven, and not how
the heavens go."
With such an exalted mission before the chosen people,
it is evident that the concentration of their thoughts upon a single purpose
and object was appropriate and necessary for success. It is but natural
that the holy men and prophets, who, under divine guidance, worked out
the religious problems of monotheism, should, like all other successful
reformers, be men of one idea, the redeeming feature in their case being
that their idea was the most comprehensive and inspiring which the human
mind can cherish. The truths of religion which they apprehended and enforced
are of pressing and eternal importance. The truths of science which they
neglected are comparatively unimportant in their nature. Man can enjoy
the effects of the sunshine, and of alternate day and night, even though
he is ignorant of the fact that the earth revolves on its axis. He can
eat the fruits of the vine, and nourish his body and mind upon the ripened
grain, even though the chemistry of vegetable growth and of digestion are
unknown sciences to him.
The limitations to the spread and progress of truth
in the world present to the human reason the most formidable difficulties
in the way of believing in the power, benevolence, and wisdom of God. That
a benevolent Creator should leave his creatures so ignorant as man is of
the things necessary to his temporal welfare, is a mystery which can be
explained only by supposing that this is a state of probation, designed
to bring into prominence the moral nature of man, and the importance of
spiritual rewards. With all the attainments of science, man is still ignorant,
among a multitude of other things, of the cause and cure of innumerable
diseases, of the centre of future earthquake-shocks, and the course of
future tornadoes. The wisest of statesmen are unable to establish a government
which shall be perfectly secure, or to form an international league that
shall dispel the danger of war. The confidence of educators and reformers
in their schemes is in most cases in inverse ratio to their breadth of
view and real wisdom. The perfect school is likely to become a machine,
and its products to bear the stamp of machine-work. The concentration of
the attention of the reformer upon a single object blinds his eyes to other
evils, so that while he clears one part of the field of briers another
part becomes overgrown with thorns. In great measure these difficulties
arise from the necessary limitations of human powers and the shortness
of human life. On the same principle we may excuse the sacred writers from
burdening themselves with the endless labor of revealing and explaining
to men the whole course of nature. If the Bible had been written with this
object, and upon the scale of the Encyclopedia Britannica, it would still
have been defective (among other things, its very size would have been
an imperfection), and would have needed constant revision to meet the increasing
attainments of man. A divine revelation is limited by the nature and capacity
of the being who receives the revelation. When a workman has fashioned
his jug, he can pour only a limited stream of water into it. The more he
increases the size of the stream beyond the capacity of the neck of the
vessel, the more he increases the waste. So when God has determined the
nature of man he has limited himself in his methods of influencing that
nature. The religious philosopher, therefore, need not be troubled if in
the written revelation of the ways and will of God he finds apparent signs
of limitation to the divine power of expression analogous to those so manifest
and so difficult to explain in the revelation of nature.
De Quincey's position upon this whole subject is
correct and will bear repetition.3
"It is an obligation resting upon the Bible, if
it is to be consistent with itself, that it should refuse to teach
science; and if the Bible ever had taught any one art, science,
or process of life, capital doubts would have clouded our confidence in
the authority of the book. By what caprice, it would have been asked, is
a divine mission abandoned suddenly for a human mission? By what caprice
is this one science taught, and others not? Or these two, suppose, and
not all? But an objection even deadlier would have followed. It is clear
as is the purpose of daylight, that the whole body of the arts and sciences
composes one vast machinery for the irritation and development of the human
intellect. For this end they exist. To see God, therefore, descending into
the arena of science, and contending, as it were, for his own prizes by
teaching science in the Bible, would be to see him intercepting from their
self-evident destination (namely, man's intellectual benefit) his own problems,
by solving them himself. No spectacle could more dishonor the divine idea.
The Bible must not teach anything that man can teach himself.
Does the doctrine require a revelation?--then nobody
but God can teach it. Does it require none?--then in whatever case God
has qualified man to do a thing for himself, he has in that very qualification
silently laid an injunction upon man to do it, by giving the power."
"But it is fancied that a divine teacher, without
descending to the unworthy office of teaching science, might yet have kept
his own language free from all collusion with human error. Hence, for instance,
it was urged at one time, that any language in the Bible implying the earth
to be stationary and central to our system, could not have been a compliance
with the popular errors of the time, but must be taken to express the absolute
truth. And so grew the anti-Galilean fanatics. Out of similar notions have
risen the absurdities of a polemic Bible chronology, etc. Meantime, if
a man sets himself steadily to contemplate the consequence which must inevitably
have followed any deviation from the erroneous phraseology, he will see
the utter impossibility that a teacher (pleading a heavenly mission) could
allow himself to deviate by one hair's breadth (and why should he wish
to deviate?) from the ordinary language of the times. To have uttered one
syllable, for instance, that implied motion in the earth would have issued
into the following ruins: First, it would have tainted the teacher with
the suspicion of lunacy; and secondly, would have placed him in this inextricable
dilemma. On the one hand, to answer the questions prompted by his own perplexing
language, would have opened upon him, as a necessity, one stage after another
of scientific cross-examination, until his spiritual mission would have
been forcibly swallowed up in the mission of natural philosophy; but, on
the other hand, to pause resolutely at any one stage of this public examination,
and to refuse all further advance, would be, in the popular opinion, to
retreat as a baffled disputant from insane paradoxes which he had not been
able to support.
One step taken in that direction was fatal, whether
the great envoy retreated from his own words to leave behind the impression
that he was defeated as a rash speculator, or stood to these words, and
thus fatally entangled himself in the inexhaustible succession of explanation
and justifications. In either event, the spiritual mission was at an end;
it would have perished in shouts of derision, from which there could have
been no retreat and no retrieval of character. The greatest of astronomy
rather than seem ostentatious or unreasonably learned, will stoop to the
popular phrase of the sun's rising, or the sun's motion in the ecliptic.
But God, for a purpose commensurate with man's eternal welfare, is by these
critics supposed incapable of the same petty abstinence."
III. The Bible and Astronomy.
It is on record that Galileo was persecuted by the
dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church for maintaining that the heavens
are corruptible like the earth, and that the earth revolves on its axis,
and so produces the apparent motions of the sun and stars. Now it can be
shown that this spirit of opposition to astronomy drew its inspiration
not from the Bible, but from the narrow philosophy into the moulds of which
the theologians of the time had cast their religious conceptions. It was
the authority of Aristotle and of Ptolemy, rather than the spirit of the
Bible and the authority of Moses, with which astronomy came in conflict
in the person of Galileo. Nor should we forget that Copernicus, whose name
is justly perpetuated in the title of the present system of astronomy,
and who indeed founded the system which Galileo partially verified, was
an ecclesiastical dignitary. It was Aristotle, and not the inspired seers
of Israel, who formally propounded the theory that the earth was stationary
and was the centre of the universe, and that the heavenly bodies were of
divine essence and incorruptible. The sacred writers make only incidental
allusions to astronomy, such as continue to be appropriate, whatever the
theories and discoveries of later times. The discoveries of Copernicus
and Kepler and Galileo and Newton do not in any manner conflict with the
statement in Genesis, that "in the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth." Nor does the statement, later in the chapter, that the sun
and the moon were set "in the firmament of tile Heaven to give light upon
the earth," necessarily imply that this was the role purpose of their creation;
and even if it did, we do not see how science can contradict it, unless
evidence of life upon other planets than our own can be furnished.
Some biblical apologists deem it important to show
that the "Mosaic firmament was not a solid vault." But the needlessness
of such attempts is seen in the fact that even in poetry and in popular
rhetoric we freely use the old Mosaic phraseology. Enlightened reformers
are continually saying, "Let justice be done though the heavens fall;"4
and when in the fervency of our prayer we plead that the Lord would "open
the windows of heaven, and pour us out a blessing,"5
who pauses to think whether his language conforms to the latest, or to
any, utterance of science upon the constitution of the universe?
IV. The Bible and Geology.
For the last half century the reconciliation of the
Bible and geology has been the great object of a certain class of apologists.
In many of these attempts it is difficult to tell which has been most distorted,
the rocks or the sacred record. In seeking to draw out a close parallelism
between the progressive stages of geological and paleontological development
and the six days of creation described in Genesis, the error is twofold.
First, there is no such sharp distinction between geological periods as
was formerly supposed. The gaps in the geological record are so many and
so great that the apparent evidence of sudden changes is probably delusive.
Changes in the fossils of succeeding strata, which were formerly considered
the results of convulsions, are now accounted for on the supposition
of migrations.6 Geologists are
more ready than formerly to reckon the realm of their ignorance as greater
than that of their knowledge.
In the second place, it was not modern science with
which the sacred writers wished to be reconciled, but polytheism which
they wished to cut up root and branch, which gave rhetorical shape to the
first chapter of Genesis. Followed by the traditions of polytheistic ancestors,
tainted by the polytheistic conceptions of the Egyptian people from whom
they had escaped, and surrounded by the civilized worshipers of Baal and
Ashtaroth, the children of Israel needed to have the unity of God emphasized.
Historically it can be shown that the first chapter of Genesis has had
more influence in disseminating correct views of the divine unity and personality
than all other literature put together. Now what does it say? Why, it denies
the plurality of gods. It denies it both in general and in detail. It affirms,
in general, that God--the God of Isreal--created the heavens and the earth.
The writer then descends to particulars, and affirms (1) that it was this
same one and true God who created the light which some ignorantly adored
as itself divine; (2) it was also the same God that ruled both the sky
and the earth. (3) The fruitfulness of the earth, which some worship as
the manifestation of a particular divinity, is also the gift of Israel's
God. (4) The sun and moon are not to be worshipped; God created them. (5)
Why worship the sacred bulls and cats of Egypt, when it was God who created
every living thing-the beast of the field, as well as the fowl of the air,
and the fish of the sea? (6) Finally, God created man, and set him over
all the things he had made. Why should the lord of creation bow down to
stocks and stones?
Such, to the contemporary of Moses, was the purport
of this most remarkable "poem" to God's revelation of man's condition and
ground of hope. It should be remembered that the first chapter of Genesis
had the same editorial supervision with the ten commandments. When thus
we consider it as a protest against polytheism, and an enforcement of the
first two commandments, it seems an impertinence to endeavor to find all
modern science in the document, however easy it may be for science to find
shelter under the drapery of its rhetoric.
V. The Bible and Evolution.
Darwinism and Design have been treated in a previous
chapter. From the principles there elucidated, it follows that evolution
has just about as much to do with the question of the general validity
of Christian evidences as the nebular hypothesis has with the question
whether Mary Queen of Scots, was guilty of murder.
We are, however, bound to give a separate consideration
to the bearing of Darwinism upon the interpretation of the language in
Genesis. In doing this it is important to recur to the fundamental principle
of interpretation enunciated in the first paragraph. One of the most convincing
arguments for the inspiration of the Scriptures is, the silence of the
writers concerning subsidiary and unimportant points. In nothing is there
a greater contrast than between the simplicity of the Bible statements
concerning the creation of the world and of the objects upon it, and the
burdensome minuteness of heathen mythologies, and the cumbrous hypotheses
of modern cosmologists. The inspired writers, having moral and practical
ends in view, rested with the sublime and simple statement of the fact
of creation by Divine agency. The mode of creation, which is
the sole study of science, lay wholly outside the line of thought upon
which the inspired writer was moving. It is not necessary here to express
an opinion as to how far any theory of evolution is established, or is
capable of being proved. But one thing is certain: the language of evolution
cannot be that of every-day life, and hence cannot be that in which moral
instruction is most successfully conveyed to the human race. The gibberish
of advanced evolutionists can never displace from our language the sublime
conception of the Spirit of God brooding over the primeval chaos to bring
order out of it; nor can science ever, in lengthening the line of secondary
causation, in any way lengthen or throw doubt upon the validity of, the
intuitive leap of the mind from secondary to first cause, and thence to
final cause. "God spake, and it was done," is forever true, no matter through
what circuit the directing fiat travels to its end. When the merchant telegraphs
to the mill agent, "Make for me two thousand yards of broadcloth," the
process of the manufacture need not once come into their minds. A military
commander gives an order for the capture of a fortress. The command and
the result become matters of history. But only the special military student
is concerned with the detailed methods by which the command was made effective.
What the methods are, depend upon the character of the fortress, the mode
of defence, and the actual state of military science. In a historical summary,
or in a literary reference, details would be not only burdensome, but positively
misleading; for in word-painting, no less than in delineation upon canvas,
the true perspective should be preserved. The details should not draw attention
from the central point of interest.
In particular it should be said that there is no
difficulty at all in adjusting the language of the first chapter of Genesis
to that expressing the derivative origin of species, until you come to
the story of the creation of woman out of the rib of Adam; for we may distinguish
between the physical nature of Adam and his mental and moral nature; and
the spiritual nature may, for all science can ever show, be as direct
a gift to the race in general as we believe it to be to every individual.
Also, for our part, we have no objection to investing man's creation with
miraculous elements.7 As to the creation
of woman, perhaps we cannot do better than adopt the cautious, but somewhat
vague language of President Bartlett:8
"In the brevity and obscurity of the case, I am
willing to leave it somewhat indeterminate, as a more or less anthropomorphic
representation of an act involving I know not what physiological conditions,
whereby the woman was formed not by ordinary generation; yet at the same
time from some element of the living man taken or 'built'; or if one chooses
to call it so, developed into the mature woman. Meanwhile, the striking
circumstance stands out, that even this supernatural process is so far
in accordance with the natural law, that life comes from previous life."
VI. Chronology and the Bible.
In considering whether there is an irreconcilable
Conflict between the testimony of the Bible and that of geology concerning
the antiquity of the human race, two questions are to be settled, namely:
1. Does geology necessitate a long chronology? 2. Does the Bible necessitate
a short one? The second only of these questions comes up for discussion
in the present section.
The more enlightened readers of the Bible long since
ceased to go to it for a system of astronomy; and few such minds now try
to extract geology even from the first chapters of Genesis. It is readily
seen that references to the facts of those sciences should be set down
to the credit of the "costume" of inspired thoughts; for inspired truth,
as well as every other, requires clothing, and cannot properly go naked.
It would be, we have shown, unfair to expect of the sacred writers that
they should turn aside from their momentous main design, to instruct the
world in incidental matters of science.
In a similar spirit it becomes us to inquire if
the Bible has really turned aside from its main purpose to furnish a complete
system of chronology? Is it possible that inspiration has made its precious
treasures of doctrine depend on the integrity of each link in a long and
slender genealogical chain? Is it not, rather, to be expected that, according
to the apostolic injunction, the sacred writers would avoid vain questions
concerning endless genealogies, and leave the Jewish tables of chronology
as undisturbed as they did Jewish notions about astronomy and geology?
One thing is evident: chronological questions are
not provided by the sacred writers with those safeguards against error
which surround the main doctrines of the Bible; since not only fools, but
even wise men, may err therein. The main doctrines of the Bible are woven
into the whole texture of the book, and do not depend upon the integrity
of isolated passages. Respecting them the wayfaring man and the fool need
not err. But the systems of chronology drawn from the Bible are inferences
of particular scholars from very uncertain data; there being about
as many schemes of biblical chronology as there are scholars to form them.
One hundred and eighty-seven such schemes are enumerated. By some the Flood
is placed more than a thousand years earlier than by others. Archbishop
Usher (whose chronology appears in the margins of our authorized English
Bible) places that tragic event 2348 B.C., while Jackson placed it about
3170 B.C., and Professor Cowles adopts 3365 as more nearly correct. The
same authorities disagree concerning the antiquity of Adam by 1,600 years--Usher
placing him 4004 B.C., Jackson, 5426 B.C., Cowles, 5627 B.C.
It is important to notice that such divergence in
these who follow the literal chronology of the Bible is possible mainly
because the Hebrew text differs both from the Greek (Septuagint) and from
the Samaritan translations. The Hebrew text favors the shortest chronology
and the Septuagint the longest, while the Samaritan is of intermediate
length. Those who, like Rawlinson and Cowles, have adopted the longer chronology,
do so without any external evidence in the text itself; but for the purpose
of finding room for the rise, subsequent to the Flood, of such empires
as Egypt and Babylonia with all their civilization, and so as to somewhat
break the apparent force of geological objections to the received chronology
on account of its contracted limits.
Not to dwell longer upon this phase of the subject
we will present a few of the indications in the Bible itself that its genealogies
are not given with the chronological design which might be inferred from
similar tables in our own day.
Upon even a cursory examination, it becomes evident
that the phrase "son of" frequently has in the Bible a more elastic meaning
than immediate descendant, and he that "begat," than immediate progenitor.
Christ, for example, is called the "son of David"; and in Matthew i. 8
it is said that Joram begat Ozias. But Christ was separated from David
by many generations; and between Joram and Ozias we know, and the writer
doubtless knew, that three links (Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah) were omitted.9
A still more instructive case occurs in Ezra, where Azariah is called the
"son of Meraioth," and this in a genealogical table; whereas, according
to 1 Chron. vi. 7-11, Azariah was the sixth generation from Meraioth. Again,
in 1 Chron. xxvi. 24, we read: "Shebuel the son of Gershom, the son of
Moses, was ruler of the treasures." This was in David's time, several hundred
years after Moses. Yet Gershom was the son of Moses, while Shebuel was
twelve or fifteen generations from the person whose son he is said to be;
and this the writer, and those for whom he wrote, must have known.
Nor can this instance be attributed to corruption
in the text, for in the twenty-third chapter, fifteenth and sixteenth verses,
we read that "the sons of Moses were, Gershom, and Eliezer. Of the sons
of Gershom, Shebuel was the chief." The elasticity of this word "son" is
seen also in the twenty-fourth chapter, in the first verse of which Nadab,
Abihu, Elcazar, and Ithamar are called sons of Aaron; and so they were
in the strict sense. But in the last verse of the chapter, the descendants
of Aaron living in the time of David, are called "sons of Aaron." Again,
in 2 Chron. xxviii. 1 we are told that Ahaz "did not that which was right
in the sight of the Lord, like David his father." But David died
nearly three hundred years before Ahaz was born. Three quarters of a century
later (2 Chron. xxxiv. 2, 3) Josiah is repeatedly referred to as walking
in the ways of David his father. This list of examples from Kings
and Chronicles might be indefinitely extended.
If farther proof is needed of the freedom sometimes
used in the forms of speech expressing genealogical relations, we may point
to the statements in Gen. xlvi. 26 and Ex. i. 5, where Jacob is himself
included among those that came out of his loins; and to Gen. x. 15-18,
where it is said that Canaan, the grandson of Noah, "begat Sidon his first-born
and Heth and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the
Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite,
and the Hamathite." In this case whole races are said to have been begotten
by the person who was no further related to them than that he was their
common progenitor. We occasionally find cities or districts associated,
in the same way, with an individual as their parent; thus in 1 Chron. ii.
50, 51, Shobal is said to be "the father of Kirjath-jearim, Salma the father
of Bethlehem, Hareph the father of Beth-gader." The breadth of Jewish usage
of the terms in question appears also in the law requiring a man to marry
his brother's childless widow, in order to raise up seed to his brother,
that is, those who should bear his brother's name, and go into the genealogical
tables as sons of the deceased brother. Again, in Gen. xvi. 2; xxx. 3,
Sarah and Rachel are represented as speaking of the possibility of obtaining
children born to them through their handmaids.10
In view of such facts we do well to adopt the expressed
sentiments of Professor Green, and of the late Dr. Charles Hodge, the first
of whom says, "Nothing can be plainer than that in the usage of the Bible,
'to bear' and 'to beget' are used in a wide sense to indicate descent,
without restricting this to immediate offspring." Speaking of the same
subject, Dr. Hodge says, "Their tables of genealogy were intended to prove
that Christ was the son [i.e. descendant] of David, and of the seed of
Abraham, and not how many years had elapsed between the creation and the
advent."11
We must, however, admit that the genealogies in
the fifth chapter of Genesis are not so easily disposed of as most of the
others; for there the age of each patriarch is given at the time of the
birth of the son to whom the line is traced.
Respecting this, we should keep in mind the principle
already remarked upon, namely, that it is not the habit of sacred writers,
nor would it have been reasonable, to suspend all-important doctrines upon
so slender a thread as a genealogical table. It would seem that when we
have discarded the chronology of the Hebrew text, and set aside that of
the Samaritan translation, we need not, "strain" long at the Septuagint
also. The case with which the commentators can add one hundred years to
each of the antediluvian patriarchs at the time of the birth of his first
son, indicates the little importance attached by inspiration to the whole
subject of exact chronology.
VII. Conclusion.
That we may not lose our reverence for the Scriptures,
nor our confidence in their authority, we should again call to mind the
object of the revelation, and the literary difficulties to be overcome.
After having in sublime poetic imagery connected the origin of the visible
universe with a personal God, and having in general and in detail excluded
from the system all forms of polytheism, inspiration has the task of conducting
us, with as little delay as possible, to the main theme of the Bible, namely,
the history of redemption. This history begins with the call of
Abraham. Up to this point the movement is panoramic, and exceedingly rapid.
Here we begin to slacken our pace, and to study more leisurely the development
of the plan whose corner-stone was laid only in the establishment of the
Christian church. The first eleven chapters of the Bible might better be
called Memorabilia of creation than a history of creation. As such
they impress the reader with the comparative unimportance of such events
as are not strictly connected with the scheme of redemption. As an introduction
to that scheme, not to be interpreted strictly, but rhetorically, these
chapters, and especially the genealogies, are exceedingly impressive, and
serve in a striking manner to set in "relief" the central parts of the
system.
That feeling of uneasiness which many students of
the Bible have, arising from the fear that the book of divine revelation
is in a state of unstable equilibrium, like a pyramid apex downward, and
resting on Archbishop Usher's chronology, is not more unpleasant than it
is unfortunate and needless.
In all this discussion we should remember that the
Bible is a highway to holiness and heaven; and not, as some would make
it, a royal and easy road to all kinds of knowledge. Augustine well said
of the words of Moses: "They are sublime in their humility and rich in
their reserve." The important things are emphasized by slighting that which
is comparatively unimportant; among which is the exact time of the appearance
of man upon the earth.
Resting in these conclusions, the devout reader
of the Bible may suffer the geologist and the archaeologist and the Egyptologist
and the linguist to work peaceably at their several problems. When these
investigators have created a real demand for more time than is allowed
by the discordant schemes of chronology which men have upon their own responsibility
drawn out of the Bible, we shall remove the misleading dates of Archbishop
Usher from the margins of our "authorized" translation: and it is already
high time this was done. If any one asks whether this view does not shake
our confidence in the Bible as an oracle of God, we answer, no-not any
more than it would our confidence in an orator in New England of the present
day who should address his audience as "sons of the Pilgrims," or speak
of the Pilgrim "Fathers." In incidental matters the Bible should have the
advantage of the same freedom of interpretation which is accorded to the
various classes of literary productions to which its several parts belong.
The style is that of the men; the way of stating things, that of the age
and country. The writers of the Bible assume that the persons whom they
address have reason and common sense. When our Saviour says
that the mustard-seed is the least of all seeds, he may reasonably expect
that the reader will not attach the same strict meaning to that statement
which would be demanded if occurring in a book on botany. The coney and
the hare belong to the same class of animals with the rabbit. They do not
chew the cud, but in grinding off their teeth they keep their jaws moving
much as if they were chewing the cud. It is not strange that the popular
belief among the Jews was, that these animals were really ruminants. Does
it mar our confidence in the words of Moses to find him saying that the
coney and the hare were unclean, because though they chewed the cud,
they did not part the hoof ? Would it have been worth while for the great
lawgiver to have gone out of his way to correct such an innocent popular
misapprehension, when it would have served no great practical end? If the
object of the Pentateuch had been professedly scientific, technical language
would have been in place; but as it was not, we find in it only the language
which would be best understood by the people addressed.
To the literature of the Bible, not less than to
the membership of the Christian church, the parable of the "tares and the
wheat" has pertinent application. To have transformed the Bible into a
dry college text-book, would have destroyed its influence altogether. It
is easier for us, in the process of interpretation, to eliminate from the
Bible the rhetorical and literary elements natural to it in the times when
it was written than for its writers to have made it effective while clothing
its eternal ideas in any of the changing scientific dialects of far distant
ages.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
1. Confession of Faith, chap. i. sec. 7. 851
2. Systematic Theology, Vol. i. p. 165.
3. Essay on Protestantism.
4. 1 Cf. with Job xxvi. 2; 2 Sam. xxii. 8.
5. 2 Compare Ps. lxxviii. 23; Gen. vii. 11.
6. 1 See above, p. 103.
7. See above, pp. 101, 155.
8. Independent, Jan. 1880.
9. See 1 Chron. iii. 11, 12; 9 Kings xv. 30.
10. Fairbairn's Hermeneutical Manual, p. 216.
11. Systematic Theology, Vol. I p. 41.