It accounts for many of the discrepancies between parallel passages in the Old Testament, as well as in the Synoptic Gospels. Here is another point for "Textual" criticism.

It may be urged that the reasons I have advanced for the special care that hedged the Bible texts are of force only as regards later times, at earliest some time after the Exile. This brings us to the subject of the character of the documents.

(2) The Prophets, and some at least of the Priests, were as persuaded of the Divine character of the Hebrew Scriptures they possessed as any of later times. The Books of the Bible were written by men who were actuated, or at least believed themselves to be actuated, by the purest and most sublime ideal of the Holy and Awful God of truth and righteousness of their own and every later time, whom to misrepresent and in whose Name to lie would be to incur His most dreadful wrath and punishment, and that they were uttering His messages; and their works were copied and transmitted by succeeding generations of scribes who were equally persuaded of the same truth. The only case at all similar is that of the Qur'an, a fact to which Mr. Estlin Carpenter makes no allusion.

The Hebrew text, exactly as we now have it, has, therefore, a very strong prima-facie claim to extraordinary accuracy. The strict principles of ordinary justice demand that this claim be respected in every case until, in particular instances, it can be shown to have failed. And in each of these instances the burden of proof lies upon those who question it, and the proof must be absolute.

Even in the case of apparent corruptions which make the text so difficult of understanding as to be almost unintelligible the critic is bound to take the text as it stands and to assume, prima facie, that it is the author's own words, and that he had some reason for expressing himself thus. It is the critic's business to seek first a possible meaning, before proceeding to the drastic measure of emending the words, however plausible and necessary the correction may appear to him. The fact that certain texts have survived the long ages of incessant criticism and jealous care in transmission, and have come down to us in a form almost, if not quite, unintelligible, is the best proof that they are genuine, not corrupt. For these difficulties have not been discovered for the first time to-day, and if the text had been "corrected," emended and " glossed" in the way too often supposed, these difficult passages would have been the first to be so treated.

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In short, with regard to "Textual" criticism in general, the salutary rules laid down, for example, by Dr. J. F. Postgate, in his article on the subject in the Encyclopædia Britannica, must be constantly borne in mind.

Let us now turn to the "Higher" criticism.

The higher critic may also be, of course, a competent textual critic, and he may thus combine the two functions. But he has no right to subordinate the one to the other. He must be as honest, as independent and as impartial in his textual criticism as if he had no concern whatever with the result. That this is extremely hard to do, and the temptation to make his text fit a preconceived theory so strong as to be almost irresistible, is only too manifest in the vast majority of the higher critical work published.

It must be borne in mind that, as all the presumption, in the case of "Textual" criticism, is in favour of the strict accuracy of the present Bible texts, so in the case of the "Higher" criticism, all the presumption is in favour of the Bible tradition. The Tradition holds the field until, in every case, absolute proof can be shown to rebut it. Much has been made of the force of cumulative proof. Now the cumulative effect of a hundred bad arguments is just nil.

The whole subject has been very cogently treated by an able lawyer, the late Mr. Arthur Phillips, late Standing Counsel to the Government of India, in his The Failure of the Higher Criticism of the Old Testament (London: John Bale, Sons & Danielsson, 1923). Critics cannot do better than study this important work.

In no field is it more necessary to observe the rules of criticism than in enquiries that may so easily degenerate into fanciful hypotheses and an inevitable desire to try to prove them. The "Higher" criticism is in a special position and therefore needs a specially rigorous control. (1) It deals with highly technical subjects, such as Semitic philology, Archæology and Ancient History, of which comparatively few have a thorough knowledge; (2) in matters of religion there are bitter divisions of opinion, which fact leads many persons, who might be competent to judge, to leave them to experts, or rather to accept as experts those whose claim to authority they do not care to question; (3) a certain school has captured all the seats of authority and formed a close clique, so that it is hard for other voices to be heard; (4) the Bible has become the unhappy hunting-ground for cranks, and for young students on the look-out for subjects for

theses in which they can exhibit their originality, acumen, and learning. There has been too much readiness on the part of some to accept these lucubrations as serious criticism, especially when some "brilliant" suggestion can be made to subserve a popular theory.

I repeat, then, that a higher critic, like a textual critic, is both an analyst and a judge. He is not an advocate, nor an interested party. If he allows himself to seek to prove either one side or the other, he ceases to be a judge, and becomes an ex-parte advocate, a mere special pleader. In whatever else he may be an expert, the first essential must be that he be an expert in evidence, in the weighing of the relative value of items of evidence, and in judging of their relevance. He must be a specialist in judgment, and he must have no ulterior motives but strict justice to the author whose work he is examining.

For this purpose he must (a) take the work to be judged as it is. He is not at liberty to judge the work according to mistaken interpretations of it. Common justice to an author demands that he be judged on his ipsissima verba. (b) His statements must be accorded the most favourable sense possible. Fairness requires that a defendant who is not present to explain himself shall be fully credited with all that can be found in his favour. Thus as much ingenuity must be exercised in finding solutions of apparent contradictions, discrepancies, anachronisms, etc., as the opposing counsel may expend in exposing and insisting on them. It is most unjust to father upon an author errors which, if present, he might be able to refute. (c) As stated above, a higher critic cannot be allowed to manipulate the text without the consent of the textual critic. He must take the text just as it is given to him by the textual critic, with all its difficulties as it stands. Nor can the two functions be combined so as to favour a new reading in support of a special view of history, evolution, or religious doctrine which is in dispute. The moment this is done the critic abandons his rôle of judge and descends to that of a pleader. (d) He must first verify all his criteria, all his standards of comparison, all the linguistic, archæological, historical, chronological, ethical, and other scientific data before he can set them up as touchstones for testing the statements of an author. Where these are uncertain or imperfectly known, or known only in certain parts, his judgment can only be provisional and subject to revision.

Great as has been the gain in archæological discoveries of

recent years, it must be remembered that large and important gaps still remain in the early history of all the countries of the Near East; also, much of our information is based on conjectural interpretations and restorations of fragmentary texts. The international history is well established for some periods, but for other and intervening periods, some covering several centuries, our knowledge is almost a blank. International chronology before the ninth century B.C. is also largely uncertain, whereas the Bible gives a connected chronology going back at least as far as the twenty-fifth century B.C. Whether this agrees with the secular chronology is another question, difficult to answer because the latter is so uncertain. It is often asserted that the Bible stories are incompatible with certain scientific facts. It is the critic's business to examine these facts, not to accept the assertion without further inquiry. Further, it is confidently held by some that the accounts in the Bible of Creation, the Flood, etc., are myths" derived from Babylonian sources. A true critic cannot accept this theory without first applying the strictest tests and examining all the data in all their bearings. He must not be misled by specious arguments and superficial resemblances. Again, he must not take as axiomatic such a hypothesis as the evolution of ethical religions, and so begin by assuming that the worship of Jehovah arose from a form of Nature worship which began with benighted and barbarous Arabian tribes and "evolved" through various phases into higher forms borrowed from other nations, until some person, or a committee of persons, purified it into a henotheistic cult.

I have said enough to show that the work of the critic is no light task, and that it requires qualifications which are by no means common; but I cannot admit that I have set the standard too high. On the contrary, I have but touched upon a few of the positive qualities of scientific criticism, and there are many negative prerequisites, pitfalls to be avoided, as well as conditions to be fulfilled. In such a case as the Bible, and in view of the serious consequences of belittling its value, the standards of criticism cannot be too high nor observed too punctiliously.

Personally I make no pretence to authority. But I have had many years' experience in sifting plausible stories and in testing bogus pretensions, as well as claims which, though good, suffer from unskilful presentation and ignorance of proper rights. And I have learnt the value of the maxim audi alteram partem. I cannot say that I have yet met with any attempt at Biblical

criticism that satisfies me, least of all that at present in fashion. The system exemplified in such works as Kuenen's The Hexateuch, Skinner's Isaiah, Charles's Between the Old and the New Testaments, and all the articles on Biblical subjects in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition), cannot be called criticism in any true sense of the term. It is nothing but an entirely one-sided special pleading. Its foundations are radically unsound and unscientific; all its standards of comparison are imperfect; its methods are unscrupulous, partial and, in some respects, antiquated; many of its arguments are illogical, quibbling, dogmatic and, at best, crafty. I do not deny the great learning, the immense industry, and the wonderful cunning with which it is worked out; but I refuse to bow to the authority of great scholars, when I find that they have mistaken their calling, and have debased the honourable office of a judge to that of the "artful dodger."

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That modernist" system is a surrender to ancient infidel gibes. Unskilled, and perhaps unwilling, to find solutions to apparent difficulties in the Bible, it has accepted the position with an air of magnanimity, and now seeks diligently for more "discrepancies." Mistaking modern science for sheer materialism, it has set up a rationalistic system to which it is its whole endeavour to reduce the Bible. (I use the term “rationalistic," for want of a better, to describe a philosophy which excludes Divine intervention in material and human affairs.) Imagining that modern science has no place for Divine intervention, it denies the supernatural and takes as its object to explain away the Divine revelation of the Book. The "Higher" criticism of this school is thus nothing but a begging of the question ab initio, and a vast scheme of sectarian endeavour to establish a purely rationalistic theology.

Now the outstanding feature of the Bible, and the most important element in it, is its claim to Divine revelation. It is precisely this element that has been the cause of its preservation to our own days, and the Book certainly possesses a living power which is due to nought else. An honest and thorough criticism cannot fairly ignore this feature of unique and primary importance.

It is no excuse to say that literary criticism is not concerned with the supernatural, whether genuine or pretended. The higher criticism of the Bible, if it has any pretence to be scientific, is certainly concerned with it. To put it on the lowest ground, Metaphysics have as much right to be considered as any other