might be absolutely anonymous, and contain never a word as to its own origin or authority, or as to the rules which separate the writings of Moses and the Prophets from ordinary literature. The Apocrypha and the Talmud are treated by Driver as history. The Bible is treated as an unknown book upon its trial, and not even as a respectable witness to its own origin, or entitled to be heard. I do not wish to be unfair to Professor Driver, but I must point out the use which he makes of the position which he thus takes. "The age and authorship of the books of the Old Testament can be determined (so far as this is possible) only upon the internal evidence supplied by the books themselves, by methods such as those followed in the present volume: no external evidence worthy of credit exists." "Internal evidence" is here allowed in name, but disallowed in fact. What the books say of themselves and one another is not evidence at all. of himself is excluded. What Moses says What Joshua says of Moses is unnoticed. What Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah say of Moses is explained away. But what Driver and the Germans are pleased to say of the books which were accepted as Holy Scriptures twenty centuries before they were born, that, according to this " "In-,, troduction," is evidence. The testimony of our Lord, and of His Apostles supernaturally illuminated after His resurrection by His Spirit, that is not even discussed. It is ruled out of court, on some principle which requires to be clearly explained. I have promised not to involve my subject in technicalities of scholarship, and therefore I shall only be able to take one or two plain illustrations of the treatment of the evidence which is called evidence by Driver and his chosen authorities, to show how unreliable it is. But the effect of the last sentence which I have cited from his "Introduction" (if not artfully devised for the purpose) is to exclude all argument whatsoever, except such as can be met thus, We say the entire question of the date and authorship of the Hebrew Scriptures turns upon such a knowledge of Hebrew as we scholars alone possess. We have divided the Pentateuch, so called, into sections, each of them containing a set of words and phrases not to be found in the others. On this ground, we say that these several sections must be the work of different authors, and we deny the received (which we call the traditional) date. The argument proves far too much, for it is applicable to any book of general history, which requires different sets of words for different topics. But, just now, I say in reply, You have no right to reason thus. If you admit the internal evidence of the books for one point, you You have no right The statement law" in Deuter must admit it for all. to exclude one syllable. that "Moses wrote this onomy xxxi. is just as much internal evidence as anything else the book contains. In fact, the authority and character of the book stands so high on moral grounds, and on the testimony of antiquity, that what you, Professor Driver, may be pleased to say, is of no more weight in comparison of its statements than the twittering of a sparrow on the roof of your house is in comparison of your words. Your argument is one mass of special pleading. Why the fashionable world of to-day has thought fit to hearken to your testimony rather than to that of all the ages, of Prophets, Apostles, and Evangelists, of our Lord and the Holy Ghost Himself, is a mystery which I am not able to explain without making suggestions which, not being a judge of the cause I plead, I have no right to make. I have a right, however, to protest, and protest I do, against the utterly unfair denial and repudiation of the right of the sacred Scriptures to be cited in their own defence, and to be accepted in what they state regarding their own origin and authorship, at least as much as the historian Thucydides, or any other writer of antiquity. The remainder of the Proof of the Second |