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however, must obviously be corrected by investigation of the Old Testament itself. There is nowhere a trace that the writers of the historical books for example were conscious of being supernaturally informed of facts ascertainable by ordinary means, or of not enjoying entire freedom and power of independent judgment in their selection and arrangement of materials. They appear simply to use the historical sources open to them in their own way, and they nowhere advance any claim to have worked in a fashion different from that of ordinary profane writers. We may go further, and maintain that the very idea of a 'special revelation' of past facts, e. g. the process of creation, or the origins of tribal history, is contradicted by analogy. Revelation in no case undertakes the task of imparting information in regard to the events of past history. It ever proclaims God's will and requirement in the present, and to that end interprets the past or unveils the future1. The popular idea that a fact, because it stands in Scripture, is strictly historical and infallibly true results from an untenable theory as to the true meaning and purpose of inspiration and implies a real confusion of thought. The question at issue is, What is the nature of that inerrancy which all Christians alike ascribe to Scripture, when they acknowledge that it is a divine book? For on this point the teaching of Jesus Christ and the experience of Christendom may suffice to guide us 2. In the Old Testament He, who afterwards spake to us by a Son, spake beforehand by the mouth of prophets in many parts and many fashions. Modern research, however, is throwing new and startling light on the modus operandi actually followed by the Holy Spirit in His self-communication to man, and in

1 This is well stated by A. Köhler, Über Berechtigung der Kritik des Alten Testamentes, p. 14.

2 Orig. de Princ. iv. 9 maintains un aveрórov elvaι ovуyрáμμатa тàs ἱερὰς βίβλους, ἀλλ ̓ ἐξ ἐπιπνοίας τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος βουλήματι τοῦ πατρὸς τῶν ὅλων διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ταύτας ἀναγεγράφθαι καὶ εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐληλυθέναι.

His superintendence of the process by which a sacred literature was gradually formed. The consequence is that the best we can do is to describe in general and somewhat vague terms what we mean by inspiration; it would be perilous to attempt any formal definition. We should certainly define at the expense of overlooking some vital element of divine truth. Inspiration is our mode of denoting the influence of a Spirit whose operation is manifest in two or even three distinct but closely related spheres. We may trace that operation, first, in the personality of those great religious leaders whose ministry or testimony was employed as a medium of divine revelation; secondly, in the community whose spiritual life, rather than that of single individuals, is reflected in such great literary products as the Psalter; thirdly, in the providentially guided action of those who so compiled, edited, and collected the records of revelation, as to impress on the total product of their labours a peculiar uniformity of tone and character1. All these worketh that one

and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally

as he will 2

III.

There is yet another subject in regard to which some preliminary explanation is desirable, namely, the extent to which the results of historical criticism are to be taken for granted in the following lectures. There is, however, the less need for any lengthened statement because it has been a constant practice with Bampton lecturers to presuppose the labours of their predecessors. Briefly stated, the position provisionally accepted in these lectures is one of substantial agreement with the cautious and well-considered summary of Prof. Sanday in the second and third of his lectures

1 Cp. Dalman, Das Alte Testament ein Wort Gottes, p. 19.

2

I Cor. xii. II.

on Inspiration. He has with characteristic fairness. and clearness stated what may be taken as the established results of nearly 150 years' investigation of the Old Testament 1.

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It seems scarcely necessary to give any complete account of those results. Broadly speaking, the outcome of historical criticism has been a modification of the traditional view respecting the order of the successive stages in Israel's religious development. It has been rendered most probable and even morally certain that the active ministry of the prophets preceded the discipline of the law, at least in its completed form. The great change of perspective,' says a French writer, which recent criticism introduces in the sacred history is that it assigns the central place in this history no longer to Moses on Sinai, but to the choir of the prophets 2.' This is not in reality such a revolutionary statement as might appear at first sight, for on the one hand the activity of the prophets certainly presupposes the stage of Mosaism, that term being carefully guarded so as to imply not a fully developed system of ritual and law, but an historical movement that laid the foundations of a divinely organized polity and suggested the ideas, religious and moral, by which that polity was afterwards moulded: an element of law was thus present as a working factor in Israel's progress from the time of Moses. On the other hand, Moses himself is regarded by the prophets as one of their number, nor can there be any question that he is the most distinguished figure in that long line of inspired men who appeared at the turning-points

1 See especially Sanday, Bampton Lectures, pp. 116-121, 172 foll. For a sketch of the progress of criticism in relation to the Pentateuch, see Delitzsch, New Commentary on Genesis, introd.

2 Darmesteter, Les Prophètes d'Israël, p. II.

3 Mosaism would be based on the 'Book of the Covenant' and perhaps the 'Decalogue.' Prophetism developed Mosaism on its ethical side. Judaism was a period of education and discipline in which sacrifice was almost the sum total of obedience. Cp. A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, p. 170. * See Hos. xii. 13; cp. Deut. xviii. 15.

D

of Hebrew history as representatives and exponents of a higher religion than that of their contemporaries. The work of the prophets, then, preceded the prolonged and strict discipline of the Pentateuchal law. At the same time, the history of the canon justifies us in continuing to speak of 'the law and the prophets so long as we are referring not to the order of historical appearance, but to those great divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures which are respectively known by these titles, and which were successively compiled in their present shape during and after the Exile. The completed Pentateuchal law may still be regarded as a principal factor in Israel's spiritual discipline-only it was an instrument employed in a manner, and at a stage of the history, other than was once supposed 1. The prophets are still to be reverenced as the great leaders of religion who, in due succession, laboured to keep alive in Israel the light of the Lord. It is a reassuring circumstance that, in regard to the history and work of the great Hebrew prophets, there is substantial accord between the defenders of the Hebrew tradition and the

adherents of the higher criticism 2. But the compi

lation and redaction of their oracles was the work of a later age than that in which the prophets themselves flourished, and there is good ground for thinking that some anonymous pieces were inserted in the volume of their collected works and assigned to different great names, in accordance with a wellknown literary practice of the time. It might also seem that the collected record of prophetic teaching acted more powerfully on a later age than the living

1 Robertson Smith, O. T. in J. C. p. 310: 'The time when [the law] became God's word, i. e. became a divinely sanctioned means for checking the rebellion of the Israelites and keeping them as close to spiritual religion as their imperfect understanding and hard hearts permitted, was subsequent to the work of the prophets. As a matter of historical fact the law continues the work of the prophets, and great part of the law was not yet known to the prophets as God's word.' Cp. Hunter, After the Exile, part i. pp. 273 foll.

2

Cp. Darmesteter, Les Prophètes d'Israël, p. 121.

voice of the prophets had acted on their own contemporaries. To conclude, we have here a fixed point which is amply confirmed by an investigation of the Old Testament itself: the work of the prophets preceded the discipline of the completed law. In some shape or other this proposition is admitted even by opponents of the higher criticism. No person capable of judging can refuse to recognize the fact that the levitical code only became a powerful and regulative influence in Israel's national life after the return from Babylon. Nor need we find any difficulty in supposing that prophetism was followed by a stage relatively lowerthat of law. The question however is not whether the legal stage was inferior to the prophetic, but whether or not it served an indispensable purpose in the religious education of Israel1.

Literary criticism and analysis has also rendered necessary a new view as to the composition of the Old Testament documents. In particular it has shown with unquestionable clearness and force that there are at least three main strata of laws incorporated in the Pentateuch, strata which are not all of one age, but correspond to three stages in the development of Israel's institutions,' stages still clearly recognizable in the narrative of the historical books 2. It is important, however, that we should not

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1 See the suggestive remarks of Dr. Bruce, Apologetics, p. 262. Robertson Smith, O. T. in J. C. p. 388. These strata of laws are— (1) The first legislation, contained in the so-called 'Book of the Covenant' (Exod. xxi-xxiii), which, roughly speaking, belongs to the age of Moses himself.

(2) The law of Deuteronomy (Deut. xii-xxvi), which reproduces but expands the first legislation.

(3) The levitical legislation, which includes the ancient 'Law of holiness' (Lev. xvii-xxvi) and represents the usage of the priests as codified and supplemented during and after the exile in Babylon.

A careful comparison of these three bodies of law makes it evident that they belong to different periods of Hebrew history; on one point there is practical unanimity, viz. that the book of the law discovered during the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign (621) in the temple at Jerusalem, was none other than the Deuteronomic law (cp. Cornill, Einleitung in das A. T. § 9; Ryle, Canon of the O. T. chap. ii.). At any rate the influence

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