THE HIGHER CRITICISM AND BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
By Henry Bamston, Houston
A few years ago science invaded the realm of Bible study, and as a result everything had to be placed under the microscope of criticism, of investigation and of research. Verses were then torn from their context, split into fragments, and an elaborate theory built upon their ruin*. Vandals seized the Bible, and utterly blind to its superb imagery, hopelessly deaf to its soul-stirring appeals, proceeded to probe and to prune, to dissect and to reject, entirely oblivious of the sanctity of the material they were thus rudely handling. The inevitable result ensued; science and religion became hopelessly at variance. Intolerance has always been a dangerous weapon in the hands of the fanatic, and the weapon is as dangerous in the hands of the bigoted scientist as it is in those of the bigoted religionist. Listen how Ferdinand Justi, a professor at Marburg, speaks of the Pentateuch compiler. He says: “A fiction was set on foot that the priestly code had long ago been delivered to the people by Moses.
* # * “A wholesale perversion of history was the result * * * the forgers carried out their work without the slightest regard for historical accuracy, and did not hestitate to asperse the memory of men who had raised the nation to greatness, whilst they glorified tyrants and weaklings who had allowed themselves to be ruled by the priests. The forgery was too clumsy to escape detection under the searching eye of
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