There are some who take all the Bible for granted.They know that there is indifference to it among friends and in their social circle; but how real the dispute about the Bible is no one realizes until he comes where new ideas, say ideas of socialism, are in the air.There, with the breaking of other chains, is a mighty effort to break this bond also.In such circles the Bible is little read.It is discussed, and time- worn objections are bandied about, always growing as they pass.In these circles also every supposedly adverse result of critical study is welcomed and remembered.If it is said that there are unexplained contradictions in the Bible, that fact is remembered.But if it is said further that those contradictions bid fair to yield to further critical study, or to a wiser understanding of the situationsin which they are involved, that fact is overlooked.The tendency in these circles is to keep alive rather the adverse phases of critical study than its favorable phases.Some of those who speak most fiercely about the study of the Bible, by what is known as higher criticism, are least intelligent as to what higher criticism actually means.Believers regret it, and unbelievers rejoice in it.As a matter of fact, in developing any strong feeling about higher criticism one only falls a prey to words; he mistakes the meaning of both the words involved.
Criticism does not mean finding fault with the Bible.[1] It is almost an argument for total depravity that we have made the word gain an adverse meaning, so that if the average man were told that he had been "criticized" by another be would suppose that something had been said against him.Of course, intelligent people know that that is not necessarily involved.When Kant wrote The Critique of Pure Reason he was not finding fault with pure reason.He was only making careful analytical study of it.Now, critical study of the Bible is only careful study of it.It finds vastly more new beauties than unseen defects.In the same way the adjective "higher" comes in for misunderstanding.It does not mean superior; it means more difficult.Lower criticism is the study of the text itself.What word ought to be here, and exactly what does that word mean? What is the comparative value of this manuscript over against that one? If this manuscript has a certain word and that other has a slightly different one, which word ought to be used?
[1] Jefferson, Things Fundamental, p.90.
Take one illustration from the Old Testament and one from the New to show what lower or textual criticism does.In the ninth chapter of Isaiah the third verse reads: "Thou hast multiplied the nation and not increased the joy." That word "not" is troublesome.It disagrees with the rest of the passage.Now it happens that there are two Hebrew words pronounced "lo," just alike in sound, but spelled differently.One means "not," the other means "to him" or "his." Put the second word in, and the sentence reads: "Thou hast multiplied the nation and increased its joy." That fits the context exactly.Lower criticism declares that it is therefore the probable reading, and corrects the text in that way.
The other illustration is from the Epistle of James, where in the fourth chapter the second verse reads: "Ye lust, and have not; ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not." Now there is no commentator nor thoughtful reader who is not arrested by that word "kill." It does not seem to belong there.It is far more violent than anything else in the whole text, and it is difficult to understand in what sense the persons to whom James was writing could be said to kill.Yet there is no Greek manuscript which does not have that word.Well, it is in the field of lower criticism to observe that there is a Greek word which sounds very much like this word "kill," which means to envy; that would fit exactly into the whole text here.All that lower criticism can do is to point out such a probability.
