CHAPTER II.

INSPIRATION.

THE

pages were

God the au

Its

thor, men tie writers of the

HE Bible claims God as its author, but all its written by human hands, and bear the significant marks of the different writers.

Bible.

various books were written at different periods, often with long lapses of time between them. Its first records, the five books attributed to Moses, and called from their number in Greek the Pentateuch, were written more than thirty-three hundred years ago-fifteen hundred years before Christ; its last book is supposed to have been completed in the year of our Lord one hundred. It was, therefore, during the long period of sixteen hundred years that the work of revelation was going on.

The Bible contains the oldest writings in the world. The most ancient human histories now in existence,

those of Herodotus and Thucydides, were writ

Bible the old

est volume in the world.

Various

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ten a thousand years after the times of Moses. It is composed of sixty-six different books, and was written by, at least, forty different authors. It is generally written in the language of common life, but always in a style of commanding simplicity and dignity. Its human authors filled almost every position in life humblest to the most exalted. The peculiarities of the writers, their cultivation or lack of it, the times in which

thors and different styles.

from the

they lived, the dialect they used, the station they filled, their gradual advance in divine illumination, are all disclosed in the various books forming the completed revelation of the will of God to man. Some of the books are historical, some of them summaries of religious rites, some genealogical, others dramatical and poetical, and

Character of the different books.

All harmonious in their teachings.

others still in highly-wrought and sublime figures embody prophecies stretching through all ages. The wonderful truth in reference to them all is, that, when thus brought together from so many sources, from so many ages, in so many styles, and composed separately without reference to their final collection in one volume, there should be found throughout them all an absolute harmony in their revelations of the character and purposes of God, of the nature and necessities of man, and of the one great, divine plan of human redemption. Each portion seems to be naturally related to the others, and has an important office to perform in completing the perfect and harmonious scheme. In every respect, excepting their remarkable knowledge of divine truths, the Scripture writers were like their neighbors. They had no special knowledge above their fellows as to general science and history. They did not pronounce their revelations in a scientific form. If this had not been the case, Dean Milman' remarks, how utterly unintelligible would their words have been to their fellow-men! Conceive of a prophet, or psalmist, or an apostle, endowed with premature knowledge, and talking of the various geological periods in the history of the earth, or

Writers of the Bible not acquainted with science.

1 History of Jews. Preface to revised edition. Vol. 1, pp. 17-19.

of the planetary system according to the Newtonian laws, instead of simply declaring "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," and speaking of the "sun going forth as a bridegroom to run his course!" They disclosed the mighty truths of God in the common and ordinarily picturesque and poetic language of the days in which they lived. This form, requiring now careful study and reflection to apprehend its exact meaning, was

Clothed in fig. urative and poetic lan.

guage.

In no

inseparable from their daily life, and the only common medium for the conveyance of revelation to all ages. other form, humanly speaking, would they have struck sc deep into the mind and heart of man, or clung to it with such inseverable tenacity. It is as speaking frequently in the noblest poetry, and constantly addressing the imaginative as well as the reasoning faculty of man, that these Scriptures have survived through ages, and have been and are still imperishable when considered only as the work of human minds. As the teachers were men of their age in all but religious advancement, so their books were the books of their age. They were the oracles of God in their divine instructions, while the language in which they were spoken was human, and uttered in a style to be understood by the half-enlightened people for whose benefit they were first declared; and, what is still more sig. nificant of their divine origin, revealing clearly the same truths in an impressive manner to races of different customs and tongues far advanced in civilization, and familiar with the amazing disclosures of modern science.

Revelation is

thus adapted to all ages.

Although speaking in their own natural style, and giving

utterance often to their own personal emotions, or simply recording events passing under their eyes, the

The writers claim to be inspired.

writers claim for themselves and affirm of each other that their records contain the words of God, and are uttered under his inspiration.

In no other way can their unity and harmony be accounted for. "If the Scriptures are not the word of God," says Professor Murphy in the introduction to his comments upon

Claim to inspiration established by veracity of the writers.

Genesis, "then the writers of these Scriptures, who directly and indirectly affirm their divine origin are false witnesses; and if they have proved unworthy of credit in this fundamental point, they can be of no authority on other equally important matters. But neither before examination, nor after an examination of eighteen centuries, have we the slightest reason for doubting the veracity of these men, and their unanimous evidence is in favor of the divine authorship of the Bible. All that we have learned of the contents of these books accords with their claim to be the word of God. The constant harmony of their statements when fairly interpreted with one another,

revelation

with natural

laws.

Harmony of with general history, and with physical and metaphysical truth, affords an incontestable proof of their divine origin. The statements of other early writers have invariably come into conflict with historical or scientific truth. But still further, these books communicate to us matters concerning God, the origin and the future

au

Human thorship im. possible.

destiny of man, which are of vital importance

in themselves, and yet are absolutely beyond the

reach of human intuition, observation, or deduction. It is

impossible, therefore, for mere human beings, apart from divine instruction and authority, to attest these things to us at all. Hence these books, if they were not traceable ultimately to a divine author, would absolutely fail us in the very points that are essential to be known, namely, the origin of our being, the relation in which we stand to God, and the way to eternal happiness, on which neither science nor history afford us any light. But they yield a clear, definite, and consistent light and help, meeting the very askings and longings of our souls on these momentous topics. The wonderful way in which they convince the reason, probe the conscience, and apply a healing balm to the wounded spirit, is in itself an independent attestation to their divine origin."

They meet the great wants of our nature.

The Bible not

a specimen of God's style.

The Bible is not a specimen of the style of the Holy Spirit as a writer; but the different authors expressed in their own language and by their own illustrations the ideas poured into their minds from on high. The revelation is perfect and plenary, for it is divine; but the medium is imperfect and exposes its human limitations and weaknesses, and so much the more confirms the divine origin of the truths that are taught. If each word, as Words necessarily some teach, was inspired, then the writers were inspired. simply amanuenses, and every book of Scripture, like the Ten Commandments, is a specimen of divine and not human composition. The Son of man was no less a perfect man, hungering, thirsting, sleeping, weeping, because he was the Son of God; and the Bible, with all its marks of human

2 Commentary on Genesis. By James 8. Murphy, LL.D.

not