The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1906-05-16
WHAT KIND OF A BIBLE?
BY REV. NJ. b. LAMBDIN.

which somewhat in this fashion: A certain
minister very much given to parading from
the pulpit his fad notions of the radical school of
Higher Criticism" Among his hearers
who had the habit every time he returned home from
listening to of that stripe of taking his
Bible and tearing therefrom the portions affirmed
by the speaker to be legendary, mythical aegori-
cal, fabulous, unproven, interpretations and so on.
This destructive process ran on for quite while.
Finally, day he dropped in his pastor and,
handing him the mutilated book said DIR. -,
here's your Bible" In little surprise the min
lister asked What do you mean, STRIP why
that's all that's left You have stamped the rest
false" the reply. Angered, and yet withal not
willing that any one else should see or handle the
shredded Book, the minister deliberately tore out
the remaining leaves and throwing them into the
fire, handed the empty lids back again to the
tonished visitor Taking them from the hands of
his pastor, he simply, but impressively said
Thank God! have the covers left"
The story conveys it's moral. OF what value
is the Bible to u.s. though its printed leaves
remain undsturbed if a certain distinctive some
thing, something which alone gives character to
its contents, is gone? Just much value as there
is efficiency to the sword when the Damascene
blade has snapped, leaving the empty hilt in the
grasp of the helpless wielder.
Higher Criticism" of the radical type arrogant
and assertive specious and plausible, doing its
work under the guise of Scholarship and Re
search is but another for rationalistic in
fdelity and it is steadily and stealthily stripping
Holy Scripture of its unique element of super
naturalism, and robbing it of this something
which entities it to be reverenced and as "the
very Word of God" The effort to despoil the Bible
of this SUI generiS quality is rapidly unsettng
the minds of thousands in their hitherto confidence
in the inspirational integrity of this volume of
Divine Truth.
The concrete question now confronts our Church;
it demands point blank, clear and unevasive
swer, What kind of a Bible are we to accept and
teach from our pupits, and in our Sabbath schools?
Is it Bible about which may hold that the
Penteuch was not written by Moses, when Jesus
Christ himself affirmed that it was but is a compo-
site product of school of Redactors living in old
Babylonia, and plying their art a thousand years
or so after the days of the great Hebrew Law
Giver? teaching, too, which makes the Five
Books" mere hOtch pOtch of numerous scraps
of legends, folklore "old wives fables" traditions
annals, "Babylonian myths" and such like handy
material along with judicious Seasoning of
some few fragmentary Laws of Moses" that had
slowly foated down the sluggish Euphrates of the
centuries and incorporated to give character to
the literary output with the of their national
hero, Moses, appended to serve 1oater into
popular favor? Are to take it, too that Genesis
is a species of religious pictorial kindergarten
primer, filled with set of stories" that must not
be taken too seriously literal, but allegorical;
told in adaptation to the capacities of the age
in which they were written according to the ipSe
dtrit of one of the High Priests of this pretenous
cult the late President of Chicago University?
Furthermore, are we to accept the dctum at full
par value, that it is not necessary to accred "his
toric1ty to the stories" that angel wrestled
with Jacob; that "the dumb ass, speaking with
mans voice. forbade the madness of the prophet;
that the Lord had prepared great fish to swallow
up Jonah; that we must not accept the actuaty
of these occurrences even though the Holy Ghost
has attested their literalness!
Are we to tie milestone about the neck of the
miracles of the Old Testament and drop them
sans ceremonies, into the of rational" p re-
lection of the supernatural? If So what is to him
der the application of the same process TO the