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the meaning of both the words involved.
Criticism does not mean finding fault with the Bible.[1] It is almost an
argument for total depravity that we have made the word gain an adverse
meaning, so that if the average man were told that he had been "criticized"
by another be would suppose that something had been said against him. Of
course, intelligent people know that that is not necessarily involved. When
Kant wrote The Critique of Pure Reason he was not finding fault with pure
reason. He was only making careful analytical study of it. Now, critical
study of the Bible is only careful study of it. It finds vastly more new
beauties than unseen defects. In the same way the adjective "higher"
comes in for misunderstanding. It does not mean superior; it means more
difficult. Lower criticism is the study of the text itself. What word ought to
be here, and exactly what does that word mean? What is the comparative
value of this manuscript over against that one? If this manuscript has a
certain word and that other has a slightly different one, which word ought
to be used?
[1] Jefferson, Things Fundamental, p. 90.
Take one illustration from the Old Testament and one from the New
to show what lower or textual criticism does. In the ninth chapter of Isaiah
the third verse reads: "Thou hast multiplied the nation and not increased
the joy." That word "not" is troublesome. It disagrees with the rest of the
passage. Now it happens that there are two Hebrew words pronounced
"lo," just alike in sound, but spelled differently. One means "not," the other
means "to him" or "his." Put the second word in, and the sentence reads:
"Thou hast multiplied the nation and increased its joy." That fits the
context exactly. Lower criticism declares that it is therefore the probable
reading, and corrects the text in that way.
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The other illustration is from the Epistle of James, where in the fourth
chapter the second verse reads: "Ye lust, and have not; ye kill, and desire
to have, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye
ask not." Now there is no commentator nor thoughtful reader who is not
arrested by that word "kill." It does not seem to belong there. It is far more
violent than anything else in the whole text, and it is difficult to
understand in what sense the persons to whom James was writing could be
said to kill. Yet there is no Greek manuscript which does not have that
word. Well, it is in the field of lower criticism to observe that there is a
Greek word which sounds very much like this word "kill," which means to
envy; that would fit exactly into the whole text here. All that lower
criticism can do is to point out such a probability.
When this form of criticism has done its part, and careful study has
yielded a text which holds together and which represents the very best
which scholarship can find for the original, there is still a field more
difficult than that, higher in the sense that it demands a larger and broader
view of the whole subject. Here one studies the meaning of the whole, the
ideas in it, seeks to find how the revelation of God has progressed
according to the capacities of men to receive it. Higher criticism is the
careful study of the historical and original meanings of Scripture, the
effort to determine dates and times and, so far as may be, the author of
each writing, analyzing its ideas, the general Greek or Hebrew style, the
relation of part to part. That is not a thing to be afraid of. It is a method of
study used in every realm. It is true that some of the men who have
followed that method have made others afraid of it, because they were
afraid of these men themselves. It is possible to claim far too much for
such study. But if the result of higher criticism should be to show that the
latter half of the prophecy of Isaiah is much later than the earlier half, that
is not a destruction of the Word of God. It is not an irreverent result of
study. If the result of higher criticism is to show that by reason of its
content, and the lessons which it especially urges, the Epistle to the
Hebrews was not written by the Apostle Paul, as it does not at any point
claim to have been, why, that is not irreverent, that is not destructive.
There is a destructive form of higher criticism; against that there is reason
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to set up bulwarks. But there is a constructive form of it also. Scholarly
opinion will tell any one who asks that criticism has not affected the
fundamental values of the Bible. In the studies which have just now been
made we have not instanced anything in the Bible that is subject to change.
No matter what the result of critical study may be, the fundamental
democracy of the Scripture remains. It continues to make its persistent
moral appeal on any terms. Both those great facts continue. Other great
facts abide with them. And on their account it is to our interest to know as
much as we can learn about it. The Bible has not been lessened in its value,
has not been weakened in itself, by anything that has taken place in critical
study. On the other hand, the net result of such studies as archaeology has
been the confirmation of much that was once disputed. Sir William
Ramsay is authority for saying that the spade of the excavator is to-day
digging the grave of many enemies of the Bible.
Take the second question, whether these times have not in them
elements that weaken the hold of the Bible. There again we must
distinguish between facts and judgments. There are certain things in these
times which relax the hold of any authoritative book. There is a general
relaxing of the sense of authority. It does not come alone from the
intellectual awakening, because so far as that awakening is concerned, it
has affected quite as much men who continue loyal to the authority of the
Bible as others. No, this relaxing of the sense of authority is the result of
the first feeling of democracy which does not know law. Democracy ought
to mean that men are left independent of the control of other individuals
because they realize and wish to obey the control of God or of the whole
equally with their fellows. When, instead, one feels independent of others,
and adds to that no sense of a higher control which he must be free to obey,
the result is not democracy, but individualism. Democracy involves
control; individualism does not. A vast number of people in passing from
any sense of the right of another individual to control them have also
passed out of the sense of the right of God or of the whole to control them.
So that from a good many all sense of authority has passed. It is
characteristic of our age. And it is a stage in our progress toward real
democracy, toward true human liberty.
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Observe that relaxed sense of authority in the common attitude toward
law. Most men feel it right to disregard a law of the community which
they do not like. It appears in trivial things. If the community requires that
ashes be kept in a metal receptacle, citizens approve it in general, but
reserve to themselves the right to consider it a foolish law and to do
something else if that is not entirely convenient. If the law says that paper
must not be thrown on the sidewalk, it means little that it is the law. Those
who are inclined to be clean and neat and do not like to see paper lying
around will keep the law; those who are otherwise will be indifferent to it.
That is at the root of the matter-of- course saying that a law cannot be
enforced unless public opinion sustains it. Under any democratic system
laws virtually always have the majority opinion back of them; but the
minority reserve the right to disregard them if they choose, and the
minority will be more aggressive. Rising from those relaxations of law
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