METHODS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 



101 



as certainties, who are modest as to their own achievements, 

 and who have no preconceived hostihty to the possibility 

 of Miracles, Prophecy, and Revelation. The others give up 

 Miracles, Prophecy, and Revelation, treat the Old Testament as 

 a dead collection, assign dates to its books in order to suit 

 their own theories of history, and proceed in some cases to the 

 natural and inevitable conclusion that the New Testament is of 

 the same unhistorical character. 



They speak of the Christian myth or fable, and in one of the 

 most important articles in the Encyclopmdia Biblica it is 

 asserted that there are not more than nine passages in the four 

 gospels which contain credible elements : of which it is said 

 that these prove that in the Person of Jesus we have to do 

 with an exclusively human being, and that the divine is to be 

 sought in Him only in the form in which iu is capable of being 

 found in a man ; they allow that these nine passages do prove 

 that He really did exist, and that the Gospels contain at least 

 some trustworthy facts concerning Him. That is the state 

 of mind attained by the more unreasonable members of the 

 second school of the Higher Critics. 



The Meaning of Higher Criticism. 



And let me here say that the term Higher Criticism is used 

 by inexperienced persons in England in quite a distinct sense 

 from that with which it originated in Germany. It was never 

 intended to mean Superior Criticism : yet that is how it is 

 employed by unthinking persons here. What was suggested 

 was simply a distinction from Textual Criticism. Textual 

 Criticism received the designation of the Lower, and Historical 

 Criticism that of the Higher. The Higher is not in the least 

 superior to the Lower : it is merely that it aims at going deeper 

 into historical surroundings and origins. 



The Warning of Dean Alford. 



* Do not let me be supposed to mean that all the critics who 

 do not belong to the more reverent class have gone as far in 

 fantasy and arrogance as the view just now mentioned ; there 

 are many shades of opinion between different writers. But 

 that is the general tone of the Encyclopedia Biblica, which is 

 the manifesto of the school ; and it is time that Christian 

 people were reminded of its existence, its growth and its 

 significance, and also of the real trustworthiness and reason- 

 ableness of the more reverent and cautious school. The words 



