The requested resignation of President Andrews, of Brown University, on account of his partisanship in [218] favor of "free silver," following, as it did, the removal, in late years, from high places, of quite a number of men for teaching condemned by the churches to which they belonged, has raised a howl of indignation from a large circle of secular and religious newspaper writers. These indignant gentlemen are clamoring for intellectual freedom, the right of untrammeled research, of unfettered liberty, of impartial inquiry, and I know not how many other things with high-sounding epithets attached to them, as if the thumbscrews of the Inquisition were about to be renewed. So loud is the clamor that one who is not moved to join in the cry is apt to be dazed, and to wonder what untold woes are threatening our unhappy country. One of these thoroughly indignant writers has startled us by proclaiming that "there is more political and theological bias and less intellectual freedom in the United States than in any other civilized country, except Russia--and Russia is only half civilized." What a reproach to "the land of the free and the home of the brave"! And what are we all coming to? Who can tell?
But if one could only control his nerves and collect his thoughts amid this noise, he might be tempted to ask a few questions. He might ask whether, in order to exercise intellectual freedom, to pursue independent research, or to prosecute impartial investigation, it is absolutely necessary to be a president or a professor in a particular institution of learning that does not want him, or to occupy a pulpit in a church which desires to get rid of him. If I am not mistaken, a goodly number of the men who have made original research, and who have blessed the world by their investigations, have done so without being presidents or professors, and that freethinkers in respect to religion have not always occupied [219] pulpits in orthodox churches. If a man agrees with Ingersoll or with Wellhausen, why can he not enjoy as much intellectual freedom on the freethinker's platform as he can in a pulpit or in a professorship endowed for the promotion of religion?
Again, one might ask why this coveted intellectual freedom should be so one-sided; why it is that some of it is not to be shared by boards of trustees or by the churches. If
liberty of thought and action are to be a common heritage, why. should not the trustees of a college or a university be at liberty to decide who shall be their president, and who shall occupy their professorships? And why should not a church have the liberty to choose the men who shall reach in its name the rank and file of its membership? Does the fact that a mail has been elected to a professorship in a university deprive the legal guardians of the institution of all freedom of thought as to whether his teaching is beneficial or injurious to the institution? Should he plunge into the advocacy of some theory in religion or politics for whose advocacy he was not elected to his chair, and by this means drive away patronage or divert expected donations, have the responsible rulers who elected him no right to exercise their own judgment in removing him and selecting another? And in this country of fierce political battles, and hot blood growing out of these, what right has a professor in a college, the patronage of which is drawn from all political parties, to become an active propagandist for any one of them? When he does so he takes an unfair advantage of the position which he occupies, and when he incurs the natural consequences it is unmanly in him or his friends to complain. But this fault in a professor reaches its climax having been selected to give instruction in an [220] institution established and endowed to sustain and propagate belief in a certain religious system, he deliberately seeks to subvert that system, and then whines about a restriction of his intellectual freedom because he is justly deposed from the trust of which he has proved himself unworthy.
[SEBC 218-221]
[Aug. 7, 1897.]
QUESTIONS.
At the time of writing this I have just concluded an institute on Pentateuchal criticism, held at Albany, Mo., and attended by 126 members from abroad, besides quite a number of the citizens of Albany. Of these, fifty-five were preachers, and the rest elders, deacons, teachers, etc. Among them were a large number of "chief women." One part of my work consisted in answering written questions which were handed in for the purpose of eliciting fuller information on some points, challenging others, and drawing me out on some not included in the lectures. I have preserved these, and it is my purpose to publish some of them, with the answers, for the benefit of the much larger audience addressed through these columns. I present a few below.
"Does it make any difference whether Moses did or did not write the Pentateuch?" Yes; it makes at least this difference; that if he did, the account which the book gives of itself is true; and if he did not, it is false.
"Would there be any loss to the Christian religion should it be proved that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch?"
Yes; there would first be this loss: that we should have to concede that Jesus and his apostles were [221] mistaken in claiming that Moses was its author. This would lessen our confidence in them as teachers. Second, the alternative being that its real authors were men who lived from six hundred to one thousand years after Moses, who therefore had no correct information, but wrote legends and folklore for history, and falsely ascribed to Moses the enactment of many laws recently enacted, the loss to the Christian religion would be that all of the teaching by Jesus and the apostles based on the Pentateuch would be based on false premises.
"The destructive critics say that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch, because writing had not been invented at the time of Moses. Please explain."
These critics once said that the art of writing was not sufficiently developed in the time of Moses for historical compositions like the narratives of the Pentateuch, but they say that no more; for the disinterment within the last three years of inscribed tablets in various localities, which date back to the time of Abraham, has demonstrated the falsity of this assumption.
"If a later hand had written the Pentateuch, would he not naturally say of any particular speech or law, 'These are the words that the Lord spoke unto Moses'? Does not this mode of speech suggest a later writer, rather than Moses himself?"
The point in this question turns upon the use of the name Moses in the third person; but it was the custom of ancient writers, both Hebrews and others, to speak of themselves, in historical compositions, in the third person. All of you who have read C•sar in college will remember him as a conspicuous example. While it is true, then, that a later writer would speak of Moses in this way, it is equally true that he would speak of himself in this way, and the circumstance has, therefore, [222] no bearing on the question of authorship, one way or the other.
"Who was the author of Deut. 34:5, 6? When was it written, where, and by what authority?"
I can not answer these questions with precision, except that neither these two verses nor any part of the chapter was written by Moses. This chapter is a supplement to Deuteronomy, giving an account of the death and burial of Moses, of the thirty days' mourning for him, of Joshua becoming his successor, and closing with a comparison between him and later prophets. If it was all written by one person, it must have been written after some later prophets arose with whom Moses could be compared; but the different statements in it may have been appended to the book at various intervals. By whose authority they were appended we are not informed if done by inspired men, it was by the authority of God; if by uninspired men, it was by their own authority.
"Does the Hebrew word in the plural number translated God in Genesis 1, prove that the author was a polytheist?"
No. In the Hebrew tongue words often have the plural form without the idea of plurality. The language was not exact in this particular, like modern languages. The English reader can see this in the first chapter of Genesis; for, although God (Elohim) says in one verse, "Let us make man in our image," in another he says, "I have given you every herb bearing seed," etc.; thus using at one time the plural pronoun and at another the singular. The latter could not have been used had the Elohim meant a plurality of gods.
"Does Ps. 97:7 indicate that the author believed in a plurality of gods?" [223]
The author says, "Ashamed be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols; worship him, all ye gods." He is speaking, I think, to the graven images and idols, and, taking them as their worshipers took them, calls upon them, in a poetic vein, to do homage to Jehovah. Rocks, mountains and hills are elsewhere called upon to do the same thing. The passage no more proves the author a polytheist than Paul is proved one when he says, "There are lords many and gods many" (1 Cor. 8:5).
"Do Jewish rabbis, as Gotheil, of New York, maintain the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch?"
I am not acquainted with Mr. Gotheil; but there are many Jewish rabbis who have accepted the destructive criticism of the Old Testament. American Jews are divided into two classes, the orthodox and the rationalistic. The former still cling to the old Jewish faith; the latter have departed from it.
"Is it not an insult to the Hebrew people to affirm that this people does not know the authorship of its greatest historical books?"
I can not say that this is an insult to the present generation of Hebrews, for they have no better means of information on such subjects than Christians have; but such an assertion does reflect seriously upon the generations of Hebrews in which the critics fix the origin of the documents of the Pentateuch. For example, if Deuteronomy was first known to them in the reign of Josiah, and was then newly written, they were a set of consummate blockheads to believe that their early ancestors had received it from Moses.
"Is there any evidence from classical writers of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch? If so, what is the value of it?" [224]
The classic writers of Greece and Rome lived too late to be witnesses on this question, and the most of them knew nothing at all about the Pentateuch. True, Longinus, whose Greek treaties on "The Sublime" was a text-book in my college days, quotes as a remarkable specimen of sublimity of style the words, "Light let be; and light was;" and he ascribes it to Moses, but he had no special means of knowing its authorship.
"Would not the condition of the writing and the color of the manuscript show whether the book found in the temple was of recent origin or not?"
Of course they would, unless the priests who, according to the theory, composed it had smoked or stained the manuscript to make it appear old, as some dealers in manuscripts now do. It is not necessary to understand that this manuscript was supposed to have existed from the time of Moses, which would make it seven or eight centuries old; but it could not have appeared to be a recent copy, or a demand would have been made for the original. Men of sense would not have trusted a freshly written document without knowing from what it was copied, if copied at all.
"Does not the repetition of thought in the first and second chapters of Genesis prove that they were written by different authors?"
The critical argument for two authors is based, not on repetition of thought, but on alleged contradictions. It is claimed that while the order of creation in the first chapter is, first, vegetation; second, the lower animals, and, third, man, in the second chapter it is, first, man; second, vegetation; third, the lower animals, and, fourth, woman. If you first
assume that the second chapter is a separate and independent attempt to describe the
order of creation, these contradictions show themselves; but if [225] you take the two chapters as a continuous account by one writer, the second chapter necessarily takes the position of a supplement furnishing details omitted in the first, and all appearance of contradiction vanishes.
"Will not the theory of the critics have a tendency to lessen the authority of the Bible?"
The real authors of the critical theory deny that the Bible has authority; consequently a full acceptance of the theory carries with it a complete rejection of authority as attached to the Bible, or to any part of it.
"Is scientific demonstration the test by which Scripture is to be tried?"
The Scriptures are not to be tested by the science of chemistry, or that of astronomy, or that of geology, or that of mathematics, but they are to be tested by the science of logic. Demonstration is not the right word. Demonstrations are addressed to the eye. But scientific proof--that is, logical proof--is the test by which the Scriptures are to be tried; and no man is required to believe them except on such proof.
"Is not the scholarship of the world on the side of advanced criticism?"
It is common for critics to claim that it is, but when they parade a list of names, it includes the names of many infidels; and these should not be counted in an argument between Christians, because they stand equally against Christianity itself. Of believing scholars, even in Germany, a very great majority are against it, and the majority is still greater in Great Britain and America.
On the whole, it is not. It is gaining in America, though not so rapidly as it did five years ago; it is standing still in Great Britain, and it is beginning to lose ground in Germany, where it originated. In respect [226] to the evidences by which it is supported, it has said almost its last word, as is proved by the fact that its new books and essays are but repetitions or amplifications of utterances repeated often and long ago.
"Is reason the supreme guide in religion?"
No. Reason must determine for us whether the Bible is from God; must detect and correct all mistakes and changes made by copyists, and must ascertain as best it can the meaning of all obscure passages: but here her work terminates. These questions being settled, the Bible itself is our sole guide and authority.
"Do the earliest Jewish writers, whose writings have come down to us, regard Moses as the author of the Pentateuch?"
Yes. The earliest of these are the authors of the later books of the Bible. These, as many as speak of the authorship, ascribe it uniformly to Moses. The same is true of the apocryphal writers, of Josephus, of Philo, and of the authors of the Talmud.
"Why do the critics who profess to be Christians wish to discredit the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch? Would this not weaken our faith in its inspiration?"
This class of critics do not admit that they wish to discredit the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; they say that they are driven to their conclusions by conclusive evidence, and that their wishes are not to be consulted in the matter. They charge those who reject their conclusions with being governed by their wishes in the form of traditional prejudice which blinds them to the truth. As to the inspiration of the Pentateuch, they do not believe it in the sense attached to the word by this querist. The men to whom they ascribe the authorship, J, E, D, H, P and R, were moved by a so-called [227] inspiration, the same that now moves godly men to write edifying books and essays, but by nothing more. The acceptance of their theory, therefore, does not weaken, but it destroys, faith in the inspiration which we have been taught to ascribe to prophets and apostles. It denies the existence of such inspiration.
"If in the days of the prophets angels could set aside the law of God with reference to altars and offerings, as you taught in your last lecture, why could they not do the same in the days of the apostles [see Gal. 1:8, 9]; and why not the visions, revelations, inner lights, etc., received by men to-day, enable them to do the same thing?"
The reason is that the ritual of the Mosaic law was not intended, like the ordinances and precepts of the gospel, to be perpetual. If God intended to eventually set aside all of the Mosaic ritual, he could very consistently suspend for an occasion, like that of Gideon's or Manoah's offering, or for a period of time, like that in which the ark was separated from the tabernacle, the statute in reference to a single altar and the exclusive privilege of the priesthood; and the testimony of a visible angel or that of an inspired
prophet like Samuel was sufficient evidence of his will in the premises; but this could not be the case in respect to the appointments of Christ, which are to endure to the end of time. Moreover, the fact that such suspensions had taken place under the law may be the very consideration which led Paul to warn the disciples not to believe an angel from heaven who should proclaim another gospel than that which they had received. If the Jews had been left without this warning, they might have adopted the reasoning suggested in this query: and the men and women who now see visions and enjoy inner light, might [228] have some ground of pretense for their folly; but all this is precluded by Paul's words.
"Drummond says, 'The Bible came out of religion, and not religion out of the Bible.'