So long as the difficulties of Scripture are difficulties of form rather than substance, of its incidental features rather than its main doctrine, we may say of its obscurities as Isocrates said of the work of Heraclitus: “What I understand of it is so excellent that I can draw conclusions from it concerning what I do not understand.” “If Bengel finds things in the Bible too hard for his critical faculty, he finds nothing too hard for his believing faculty.” With John Smyth, who died at Amsterdam in 1612, we may say: “I profess I have changed, and shall be ready still to change, for the better”; and with John Robinson, in his farewell address to the Pilgrim Fathers: “I am verily persuaded that the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth from his holy word.” See Luthardt, Saving Truths, 205; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 205 sq.; Bap. Rev., April, 1881: art. by O. P. Eaches; Cardinal Newman, in 19th Century, Feb. 1884.
1. Errors in matters of Science.
Upon this objection we remark:
(a) We do not admit the existence of scientific error in the Scripture. What is charged as such is simply truth presented in popular and impressive forms.
The common mind receives a more correct idea of unfamiliar facts when these are narrated in phenomenal language and in summary form than when they are described in the abstract terms and in the exact detail of science.
The Scripture writers unconsciously observe Herbert Spencer's principle of style: Economy of the reader's or hearer's attention—the more energy is expended upon the form the less there remains to grapple with the substance (Essays, 1–47). Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 1:130, brings out the principle of Jesus' style: “The greatest clearness in the smallest compass.” Hence Scripture uses the phrases of common life rather than scientific terminology. Thus the language of appearance is probably used in Gen. 7:19—“all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered”—such would be the appearance, even if the deluge were local instead of universal; in Josh. 10:12, 13—“and the sun stood still”—such would be the appearance, even if the sun's rays were merely refracted so as preternaturally to lengthen the day; in Ps. 93:1—“The world also is established, that it cannot be moved”—such is the appearance, even though the earth turns on its axis and moves round the sun. In narrative, to substitute for “sunset” some scientific description would divert attention from the main subject. Would it be preferable, in the O. T., if we should read: “When the revolution of the earth upon its axis caused the rays of the solar luminary to impinge horizontally upon the retina, Isaac went out to meditate” (Gen. 24:63)? “Le secret d'ennuyer est de tout dire.” Charles Dickens, in his American Notes, 72, describes a prairie sunset: “The decline of day here was very gorgeous, tinging the firmament deeply with red and gold, up to the very keystone of the arch above us” (quoted by Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 97). Did Dickens therefore believe the firmament to be a piece of solid masonry?
Canon Driver rejects the Bible story of creation because the distinctions made by modern science cannot be found in the primitive Hebrew. He thinks the fluid state of the earth's substance should have been called “surging chaos,” instead of “waters” (Gen. 1:2). “An admirable phrase for modern and cultivated minds,” replies Mr. Gladstone, “but a phrase that would have left the pupils of the Mosaic writer in exactly the condition out of which it was his purpose to bring them, namely, a state of utter ignorance and darkness, with possibly a little ripple of bewilderment to boot”; see Sunday School Times, April 26, 1890. The fallacy of holding that Scripture gives in detail all the facts connected with a historical narrative has led to many curious arguments. The Gregorian Calendar which makes the year begin in January was opposed by representing that Eve was tempted at the outset by an apple, which was possible only in case the year began in September; see Thayer, Change of Attitude towards the Bible, 46.
(b) It is not necessary to a proper view of inspiration to suppose that the human authors of Scripture had in mind the proper scientific interpretation of the natural events they recorded.
It is enough that this was in the mind of the inspiring Spirit. Through the comparatively narrow conceptions and inadequate language of the Scripture writers, the Spirit of inspiration may have secured the expression of the truth in such germinal form as to be intelligible to the times in which it was first published, and yet capable of indefinite expansion as science should advance. In the miniature picture of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, and in its power of adjusting itself to every advance of scientific investigation, we have a strong proof of inspiration.
The word “day” in Genesis 1 is an instance of this general mode of expression. It would be absurd to teach early races, that deal only in small numbers, about the myriads of years of creation. The child's object-lesson, with its graphic summary, conveys to his mind more of truth than elaborate and exact statement would convey. Conant (Genesis 2:10) says of the description of Eden and its rivers: “Of course the author's object is not a minute topographical description, but a general and impressive conception as a whole.” Yet the progress of science only shows that these accounts are not less but more true than was supposed by those who first received them. Neither the Hindu Shasters nor any heathen cosmogony can bear such comparison with the results of science. Why change our interpretations of Scripture so often? Answer: We do not assume to be original teachers of science, but only to interpret Scripture with the new lights we have. See Dana, Manual of Geology, 741–746; Guyot, in Bib. Sac., 1855:324; Dawson, Story of Earth and Man, 32.
This conception of early Scripture teaching as elementary and suited to the childhood of the race would make it possible, if the facts so required, to interpret the early chapters of Genesis as mythical or legendary. God might condescend to “Kindergarten formulas.”Goethe said that “We should deal with children as God deals with us: we are happiest under the influence of innocent delusions.” Longfellow: “How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams, With its illusions, aspirations, dreams! Book of beginnings, story without end, Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!” We might hold with Goethe and with Longfellow, if we only excluded from God's teaching all essential error. The narratives of Scripture might be addressed to the imagination, and so might take mythical or legendary form, while yet they conveyed substantial truth that could in no other way be so well apprehended by early man; see Robert Browning's poem, “Development,” in Asolando. The Koran, on the other hand, leaves no room for imagination, but fixes the number of the stars and declares the firmament to be solid. Henry Drummond: “Evolution has given us a new Bible. … The Bible is not a book which has been made—it has grown.”
Bagehot tells us that “One of the most remarkable of Father Newman's Oxford sermons explains how science teaches that the earth goes round the sun, and how Scripture teaches that the sun goes round the earth; and it ends by advising the discreet believer to accept both.” This is mental bookkeeping by double entry; see Mackintosh, in Am. Jour. Theology, Jan. 1899:41. Lenormant, in Contemp. Rev., Nov. 1879—“While the tradition of the deluge holds so considerable a place in the legendary memories of all branches of the Aryan race, the monuments and original texts of Egypt, with their many cosmogonic speculations, have not afforded any, even distant, allusion to this cataclysm.” Lenormant here wrongly assumed that the language of Scripture is scientific language. If it is the language of appearance, then the deluge may be a local and not a universal catastrophe. G. F. Wright, Ice Age in North America, suggests that the numerous traditions of the deluge may have had their origin in the enormous floods of the receding glacier. In South-western Queensland, the standard gauge at the Meteorological Office registered 10-¾, 20, 35-¾, 10-¾ inches of rainfall, in all 77-¼ inches, in four successive days.
(c) It may be safely said that science has not yet shown any fairly interpreted passage of Scripture to be untrue.
With regard to the antiquity of the race, we may say that owing to the differences of reading between the Septuagint and the Hebrew there is room for doubt whether either of the received chronologies has the sanction of inspiration. Although science has made probable the existence of man upon the earth at a period preceding the dates assigned in these