The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-04-19

i arc AOI UOuuQ Dy QOSmdLlC theories
that the main lines of Old Testament
criticism may be traced with approx
mate certainty. believed so myself
for many years, but no longer hold
that opinion | believe that
an explanation of the text from the
standpoint of old Israelitic thought
will lead co a reform in Old Testament
criticism"
And why did Professor Eerdmans
give up the results of higher criti-
cism? For reasons similar to those
for which Christian defenders of the
Bible have all along held that the so
called higher criticism is grand de-
fusion founded on mere imagination
and unsupported assumption. Ignor-
ance, false evolutionary theories and
imaginary presuppositions led the
higher critics into the quagmire of
their results. AS Professor Eerdmans
says: "The time in which the now
dominating school of criticism arose
was prior to the many discoveries
made in Asyria, Babylonia, Egypt and
Syria" Of course, at that time many
believed that writing was little known
before 1000 B. c.. Now we know that it
was well known over 5000 years before
Christ; that not only in the time of
Moses, but also in that of Joseph of
Egypt and of Abraham, and long be-
fore, writing was well known and ex-
tensively used.
Secondly, ''the theory of evolution
was then prevailing in science and
philosophy, and, it's influence was
doubtless felt in critical and historical
studies on Old Testament subjects"
Nowadays, the Darwinian theory of
the evolution of species is held only
in some literary backwards, like that
of Heckels school, The theory of the
evolution of Monotheism from low ma
ture-worship has been refuted by the
facts that the most ancient religions
now known, those of Egypt and south
ern Babylonia, were Monotheistic from
the beginning. 1t was said long ago,
there is but one sun, yet with different
people it has different names. So in
most ancient Egypt and Babylonia
/
no evidence that the idea of God was
evolved from any form of lower nature
worship.
Some higher critics imagined that
the moral standard of the Books
of Moses was too high for the times
of Moses. The discovery of the
famous code of Hammurabi of the days
of Abraham, hundreds of years before
Moses, has proved that they were
greatly mistaken. In similar man.
ner they were mistaken in matters of
ritual laws and observances.
Mistake Use of Terms.
Professor Eerdmans also calls atten-
ton to the fact that the higher critics
were mistaken in the use of the
words "Elohim'' and "Jahve," on which
they have founded a good deal of
their literary criticism. They were
also mistaken in trying to discover
''the idiom of the various sources" of
the Books of Moses He says: 1--WE
have only to look at the results of
the recent critical inquiries of the
scholars belonging to the school of
Graf Wellhausen in order to
see that thorough application of the
critical theories leads to highly i'm
probable results" Again he says: I'm
short, the Pentateuchal criticism was
in every respect a product of Western
thought, Western logic and Western
combinations, which too often forgot
that the history of religions and the
living Orient were contradictory to
the principles of the critical theories"
This is what a converted" higher
critic and successor to Kuenen says,
and Christian defenders of the Bible
will substantially agree with him. The
infidel higher criticism of the Books
from start to finish, founded on ignor-
ance and assumptions that rested
merely on imagination and gratuitous
assertions. Under the combined at
tacks of the Christian defenders of
the Bible and of converted" higher
critics, the grand literary delusion of
the nineteenth century is tottering to
: it's fall But, as Shakespeare says,
1.-THE evil that men do lives after
them" The views of infdel higher
; critics have been made widely popU-
lar by cyclopedias, Bible dictionaries,
books, periodicals and papers. In
many universities and higher schools
they are repeated in parrot-like man
J ner. Public opinion is to great ex-
tent infected with these would-be
scientific falsehoods. The Christian
pulpit and press have work for yet
many a year to counterfeit this ire
I ligious epidemic.