S. G. Ayres

“ It is so with the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who has been truly if quaintly, described as "a man of the first intellectual mark." It is true of St. Paul, whose intellect was very receptive, that even when most receptive, most powerful, an instrument, an organon, not a mere speaking trumpet. For St. Paul the glory of the Cross flooded the world, smote with death its principles and creeds, created new scenery, new horizons, new faiths, new understandings. But we cannot affirm all this about every author of the Bible or every part of it, and we need not do so. ”

“ In the Expositor's Bible both the old and the new schools of criticism are represented. Thus a great opportunity was offered to critics; and a crucial experiment was tried which was of the utmost importance to all Christian Churches. When the books of the Old Testament were read in the light of the new criticism, would it still be possible to derive from them a consistent and reasonable account of the history and religion of Israel; would they still stimulate and nourish Christians' faith, piety, and devotion, and minister to the needs of the spiritual life? ”

“ We are in the first place, confronted by the fact of the permanent and inextinguishable life of the Bible. No engrossment of the general mind with secularities, no change in the methods of thought, no discovery of science, and no achievement of literature puts the Bible out of court. It and it alone ministers to the permanent and universal cravings of our being. Sir Thomas Browne puts it well: "Men's works have an age like themselves, and though they outlive their authors, yet have they a stint and period to their duration. ”

“ No Christian knows anything about God but what has been already written in the Word of God. The experience of the saints runs with these words: "I had little thought of [10] its intellectual grandeur or literary beauty. Christ was there. I went to Him for life and found it. I was baptized and absorbed in His dying love."
But the question may be raised, has been raised, Is it right to describe the Bible as the Word of God? Is it possible to vindicate such a name for the whole Bible in the face of criticism and its results? Is it not better to say that the Bible contains the Word of God? ”

“ What we say about the Bible, when admitting [13] everything that criticism has secured, is that criticism has only made it clearer than ever that it is a house not made with hands.
Once more, and especially of the Old Testament, we have the witness of Christ. This is a witness which has been misunderstood and overdriven. But in its essence it is a witness which is admitted by believing critics themselves to be absolute. To us it is not enough to say that Jesus Christ is an inspired soul, obedient to the laws of His own nature. ”

“ An unindexed book is like an unexplored continent. It may contain streams of thought which might be sources of power if known. Diamonds and gold may there be hidden away. The index is the explorer's chart to the undiscovered country. The great stores of a work like The Expositor's Bible are not realized until they are tabulated in an index. The chemistry of thought has produced many a gem for this great work. This index will show where they are. The compiler has endeavored to make a complete, comprehensive, and practical index to this series. ”

“ Indeed, it is not too much to say that the research and criticism of recent days have brought us face to face with the primitive age of Christianity in a manner never attainable during any of the intermediate ages. It is as though we of the twentieth century had gained a height from which we could look across the intervening centuries, many of which lie wrapped in mist, and see clear and sharp against the horizon the blue hills of the wonderful first century. ”

“ The Old Testament and the literature of which it has been the occasion form an important portion of the Christian inheritance.
Each new generation needs to take stock afresh of this sacred legacy, so that it may obtain from ancient learning, study and inspiration the true message for its own times. The tares must be gathered out from the wheat, and the chaff separated from the grain. Truth, too, constantly needs re-statement; language and ideas are always changing ”

“ But in these years as in previous periods the Old Testament has been the subject of much searching, preaching and writing which has taken little or no account of changes in criticism, or, indeed, of any criticism at all; but have taken the narratives as they found them, and, as far as authorship has been concerned, have made the assumptions which seemed easiest and most edifying. Such work, too, is most valuable. The spiritual life which speaks to us through the Hebrew Scriptures is so full of energy, variety, and truth that even the simplest methods of treatment yield great results. ”

“ You say God has revealed Himself by His skill and power in nature. He has revealed Himself by His providence in history. He has revealed Himself in the individual life of believers. He has revealed Himself by His Spirit to His Church. He has in a sense inspired the books of devotion that are the treasures of the world. The Holy Spirit has promised to take of the things of Christ and show them to every believer. Yes, it is all true. But what has God said in [9] nature, in Providence, in Christian experience, in Christian literature that He has not said first in the Bible? ”

“ Admit everything that can be urged in the circumstances of His humanity, and still it remains true, as Dr. Robertson Smith has said that "there can be no question that Jesus Himself believed that God dealt with Israel in the way of special revelation, that the Old Testament contains within itself a perfect picture of His gracious relations to His people, and sets forth the whole growth of the true religion up to its perfect fulness." ”

“ As regards the Old Testament, for instance, neither the creeds of ancient councils nor the resolutions of modern synods, neither papal bulls nor episcopal edicts could seriously affect the attitude of such men to, say, Canticles, Ecclesiastes and Esther. The testimony of the Church Universal—of which creeds, confessions, and other standards are the least important part—induces inquirers to read the Bible. But in religion, an authority is only effective by its own inherent force; it must be able to assert itself so as to win sympathy, to produce conviction, and to secure obedience. ”

“ There are two Bibles, the Bible cut in pieces by analysis, the Bible as we have it. The time will come when one will pass into the other, but it will not come till the finality and Divinity of the Bible are confessed, just as the moment will come when the spell of Italy will pass into the soul of her people, and the contrast will fade away. ”

“ But when the operation is done the living whole draws itself together again, looks you in the face, reclaims its scattered parts from every century back to the first, and reasserts itself to be a great burst of coherent life and light centring in Christ. ”

“ We will not even quarrel with the thought that the Bible itself will come to be no longer needed, for we shall in the end be content to have no Scripture but the Living Word Himself. Now it is this which sharply distinguishes the Bible from every other book. ”

“ Of all the contributions to the study of the Scriptures with which research, scholarship and thought have enriched our age, none are more fruitful than those which belong to the province of Biblical Theology. Strange as it may appear, while the Bible has been the final authority appealed to in the teaching of dogmatic Theology all down the ages, Biblical Theology is a new science, undreamed of by all but comparatively recent [52] scholars. ”

“ The progress of the historical study of Old Testament Theology is hindered by the lack of agreement, even amongst scholars of the modern school, as to the date of many important passages. It is impossible to write certainly as to the teaching, for instance, of Isaiah and Amos, or as to the stages of development of the Religion of Israel while authorities of the first rank are divided as to whether the Messianic sections in Isaiah and the monotheistic verses in Amos were composed by those prophets, or are post-exilic additions. ”

“ Paul, the greatest theologian of the primitive church, and indeed of all ages, have received searching investigation during recent years. They are discussed with much fullness in the books on New Testament Theology as a whole that have been already referred to; and valuable works have been devoted to the exclusive study of them. The prejudiced views of Baur having been to a great extent demolished, Pfleiderer, also of "the left wing" of criticism, produced a powerful work, [71] in which the ideas of the Apostle were subjected to a keen but not very sympathetic analysis. ”

“ A few extremists reject them all, partly on the ground of their supposed inconsistency with the Acts—thus reversing Zeller's argument, but mainly because of the advanced condition of Christian experience which they illustrate, as though the pace of spiritual development in the white heat of the greatest religious "revival" the world has ever seen could be measured by the ideas of a Dutch professor in his chill lecture room! But the mass of critical opinion—British, German, and American—is tending toward a wider recognition of the genuineness of these writings than was allowed a generation ago. ”

“ A knowledge of the geography of Palestine, Eastern manners and customs, the state of the Roman world at the time of Christ, contemporary Greek philosophy, and a host of other matters more or less remote from the central theme of the New Testament, must not be allowed to overshadow that central theme. The picturesqueness [50] of modern writing threatens this danger; and modern writing is nothing if it is not picturesque. But true illustration, such as is aimed at in the Expositor's Bible, goes deeper. ”

“ It has been told of some saints whose minds had in their day roamed over the field of knowledge, that as life drew up to the end they read almost nothing except the Bible, feeling every time that they were only beginning to understand it. ”

“ Used in this way the fruits of the Palestine Exploration Fund prove to be of great value. Then scholars of contemporary Jewish life and thought have enabled us to see more clearly the actual condition of the people among whom Jesus lived, [60] and those who have been investigating the history and archæology of the Roman Empire of this period have enabled us to see much more clearly, how the Apostles carried out their wider mission, how the first churches were founded in the larger world, and how the primitive Christian life was lived in the midst of pagan surroundings. ”

“ We seem to know something of life in Egypt in B. C. 7000 or it may be even B. C. 10,000. At the same time our knowledge of later periods is continually increasing, though comparatively little is found that directly and explicitly either confirms or contradicts the Old Testament. Perhaps the most relevant amongst recent discoveries is an inscription of Meneptah II. This king is often spoken of in popular handbooks as the "Pharaoh of the Exodus," and his father and predecessor Rameses II is referred to as the "Pharaoh of the Oppression." ”

“ Many scholars [26] maintain that the Twelve Tribes of later history represent groups of ancient nomadic clans who wandered in Western Asia long before the time of Moses; that only a section of these groups went down into Egypt and escaped with Moses, and that these invaded Canaan at one period, while other kindred clans reinforced them at a later time. Israel and the Twelve Tribes, as we know them, arose in Palestine after the conquest, by the subdivision and regrouping of the invading clans, and their combination with the Canaanites. ”

“ Our knowledge of the history of the race is fuller and deeper than it was, and goes back to a far more remote antiquity. Democracy both as an idea and as a practical system is affecting thought, feeling, and character as it never did before, both for good and evil. This latter feature is perhaps one cause of the modern tenderness towards acute physical pain, and this tenderness, again, has done much to modify the sterner doctrines of the old theology. In many other ways too theology has become, as some would say, more vague ”