Truth Magazine

By Daniel H. King

Did Jesus Really Live?

The tenor of scholarship has changed since the period of the “Christ-myth” scholars and it is probable that there is not to be found a single writer who would argue that Jesus was only a fiction and the figment of the disciple’s imagination. Yet, in this fact do we not find illustrated the fickeled nature of the learned theorist? He is always looking for something new and different- and he will find it even if he must invent it. His mortal enemy is the theorist or scholar of the last and preceding generations. As long as their theories are in the spotlight his are not. So he must undermine theirs and establish his own. So it is and so it must ever be with those who make human learning their idol and reverence it as their god.

Now, to begin with, the view of the French writers and Bruno Bauer who classed Christianity among the mythical religions should never have been expressed. Is it not true that from the very beginning the church had bitter enemies, shrewd and powerful, who sought every available weapon of attack? Had there been factual basis for the supposition that this Christ the Christians worshiped was an invented fable, would not they have used it? Yet, so far as is known, no one thought of such a possibility until close to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Had Jesus not really lived, none would have known it better than the Jews, and, had it been possible, they surely would have raised that issue. On the contrary, all Jewish attacks on Jesus take for granted his life and death in Palestine. Says the Talmud: “On the eve of the Passover Jesus of Nazareth was hung. During 40 days a herald went before him crying aloud: `He ought to be stoned because he has practiced magic, has led Israel astray and caused them to rise in rebellion. Let him who has something to say in his defense come forward and declare it.’ But no one came forward, and he was hung on the eve of Passover” (Sanhedrin, 43a).

Later Jewish writings make many claims against him. They say: he was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier named Pantheras (a word play on the Greek word for virgin, Parthenos); his mother’s name was Mary, and she was a dresser of women’s hair; he was a “revolutionary” and he “scoffed at the words of the wise”; he worked miracles by means of magic brought out of Egypt; he had devoted disciples who healed diseases in his name; he was a heretic who sinned and caused the multitude to sin, and he “led astray and deceived Israel”; he was about 33 when he was put to death; and he was executed on the eve of Passover. But they never said he did not exist!

As Neil poignantly argued in an essay in the Expository Times:

“The Christ-myth theory foundered on the rocks of hard facts. No serious historian-Christian or non-Christian-would subscribe to the theory that Jesus never existed. The evidence is conclusive on any reasonable view that a man called Jesus lived in Palestine 2000 years ago, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. This much is not a matter of dispute.”

The evidence from Josephus (Antiguties 18:3, 3 and 20:9, 1), Tacitus (Annals, XV 44). Pliny’s letter to Trajan, and Suetonius (Life of Claudius 25), have not even been considered here for sake of brevity.

Did the Church Create the Jesus of the Gospels?

Extreme Form-critics say the early church created the major features of Jesus life and teaching as portrayed in the Gospels. This meets with the problem that communities, as such are not thus creative-not in music, art, philosophy, science, morals or religion. Communities can furnish favorable conditions for creativity, can help at the start and radically modify the result afterwards, but it takes creative personalities to account, in all such realms, for the unique, original discoveries. For instance, Johann Sebastian Bach’s music was largely lost sight of for a century, and then gathered around it an enthusiastic following of those who hailed Bach as the prince of musicians. It would be preposterous, though, to suppose that the community of his followers created the music, and that Bach was only an imaginary mouthpiece through which the group spoke. Nothing like the originality of Bach’s music or Jesus’ unique contribution to ethical and religious life and thought is ever explicable without creative personality.

Another obstacle to the view of the Form-critical school of thought has to do with the nature of the community which is supposed to have produced this distorted picture of their Lord. It must be remembered that disciples of Christ were people dedicated to the propagation of truth. No aspect of their lives individually or corporately lived was to reflect dishonesty or guile. A simple perusal of an analytical concordance will reveal this fact. Their intention is everywhere consistent with the thought reflected in the preface of Luke the historian, “it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee . . .” (Luke 1:3). And it must not be forgotten that most of these men sealed their writings with their own blood. Not a single one renounced the things that he had recorded. To a man they left this world convinced that they would meet their resurrected and glorified Lord on the other side of death! So impressed am I and a host of others (even in the twentieth century!) with their testimony and their faith that we share it and have the same conviction.

Are the Gospels Accurate Accounts?

Five points need to be considered in connection with the arguments which have been leveled against the accuracy of the Gospels and the writers who produced them:

1. It is assumed that the memories of the writers were no better than those of present-day scholars and, therefore, would have been prone to forget exact details and enlarge the happenings in a legendary and even mythical way. However, two facts militate against this presupposition. First, oriental memories-especially those of trained teachers-are incomparably more retentive than our own. Second, we must recall that their memories were not left unaided in recollecting the events of Jesus’ life and the words from his mouth. Their mental capabilities were quickened by the Divine Spirit: “But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you” (Jn. 14:26).

2. Again, the assumption of the Higher Critic is that as time passed the accounts grew and so did the portrait of Jesus such that in point of fact the Jesus that was preached (the Kerygmatic Christ) bore very little resemblance to the Jesus who actually lived (the Jesus of history). But this assumes that a great amount of time had elapsed before the writing of the Gospels, and that is an assumption which the facts do not allow. The first Gospel was written when there were still plenty of people alive who were contemporary with Jesus and could have easily exposed it as a fraud if it had not been true.

3. When we compare our four Gospels with the fantastic legendary excesses of the lives of Jesus that came to be written in the second century we can be confident that the picture given us is reliable and historically accurate. He knows hunger, weariness, pain, disappointment, etc.-and we would not expect any of these in a legendary account.

4. There is also the matter of the internal features of the accounts which appear the more striking in the light of current scholarly opinion. H. B. Swete in his essay, “The Trustworthiness of the Gospel Narrative” which appeared in Critical Questions (London, 1906), said it so admirably that we will simply quote him here:

“Can the Gospels be equally trusted when they draw the picture of their central character? Is the Christ, as they portray Him, an historic person, or is he the creation of the Evangelists or of their Apostolic predecessors? . . . Such a view . . . will not bear close examination with the Synoptic Gospels. The Synoptic Christ calls Himself the Son of man, a name which is but once given to Him by His followers. He reveals His messiahship only by degrees, and not publicly until just before the end. He lives with the twelve on terms of intimacy; Peter even once ventures to rebuke Him. His transfiguration is the one occasion on which His superhuman glory is revealed, and the three witnesses are forbidden to speak of it during His lifetime. He is “meek and lowly in heart”; He is at home with poor folk and little children; He sends the rich empty away. Adoration is rarely offered to Him; He does not even accept the title “Good Master”, without protesting against a possible misapprehension. This is not such a conception of Christ as could have originated in the Apostolic Age. Still less was it suggested by Jewish expectations; a Messiah who refused a crown, who lived the life of an itinerant teacher, who suffered the death of the cross, was not such a Messiah as any Jew of that time looked for or desired. Whence, then, came the picture of the Christ which the three Synoptic Gospels consistently offer? I can see no escape from the conclusion that it was drawn from life. The Central Figure of the Gospel Story, no less than the surroundings, bears the stamp of truth” (pp. 51-52).

5. Our last bit of evidence has to do with the discipline of archaeology. This relatively new science has had a remarkable effect upon the study of both biblical testaments. Assuredly the greater boon has been in the area of Old Testament and its Ancient Near Eastern background. But New Testament and Gospel research have also benefitted therefrom. F. F. Bruce has summarized its contribution thusly:

“New Testament archaeology . . . has enabled us . . . to identify a large number of sites mentioned by the apostles and evangelists. At times it has succeeded in pinpointing the location of an ancient city whose name and whereabouts had long since disappeared from popular memory. At other times a tomb, a monument, or the foundations of a building have come to light and helped us to understand better some New Testament incident associated with the place in question” (“Archaeological Confirmation of the N. T.,” in Revelation and the Bible, ed. by Carl F. H. Henry (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958), p. 320).

Simply put, archaeology has placed the Gospels squarely in the arena of history, giving much greater credence to the accounts themselves than to those who have attacked them over the past century.

Conclusion

Our conclusion is a very simple one. Perhaps some will consider it infantile, but it is nevertheless true. The “Quest of the Historical Jesus” is a search which never should have begun. It was illegitimate from the outset. The Jesus of history and the Christ of faith have always been one and the same. The accounts given to us by the Gospels are historical in nature. That does not imply that they are impartial accounts. They do not even try to be impartial. But that does not mean they are inaccurate. They record what happened not for its own sake, but because they saw the hand of God at work. To their writers Jesus was a unique Person who came on to the stage of history by the direct intervention of God and in the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Could men who thought in this way be expected to write a prosaic matter-of-fact record of the events? Of course not! But it is one thing to say this and another to claim that the Gospels are simply what the writers thought about Jesus and not what Jesus actually did and said.

Moreover, it is good to see some scholars beginning to move in this direction as well. 1. Howard Marshall closes his recent study with the following paragraph:

“I believe in the historical Jesus. I believe that historical study confirms that he lived and ministered and taught in a way that is substantially reproduced in the Gospels. I believe that this Jesus gave his life as a ransom for sinful mankind, and that he rose from the dead and is the living Lord. And in view of these facts I trust in him and commit my life to him” (l Believe in the Historical Jesus(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1977), p. 246).

We shall hope to hear more of the same from other writers of repute in the years ahead. Surely the pendulum has swung as far as it will in the other direction!

Truth Magazine XXII: 41, pp. 660-662
October 19, 1978

By Leslie Diestelkamp

When Adam and Eve walked innocently in the Garden of Eden they represented and demonstrated God’s first grace and the greatest of God’s temporal gifts to humanity. In creating them altogether suited to each other, and in establishing the family arrangement, God had elevated humanity to a much higher level than all the other created beings. In arranging that each man should thereafter have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband, God provided the maximum in earthly possessions for us and supplied the ultimate in human satisfactions.

So much of the world that God created for our good has been abused by mankind, and this is most significantly true of the family. The beautiful rivers and lakes have been contaminated by man’s pollutants. The grandeur of the mountains has been scarred by the engineering feats of man. Even our atmosphere has been polluted by the industry man has devised. So it should not surprise us to discern that the family, God’s greatest gift to us, has also been defiled.

It was God’s intent that each man and each woman should be able to enjoy the companionship and benefit from the relationship that is the natural result of marriage. Likewise it was God’s design that each child should be born into the sheltered circumstance that only the family circle can provide. But God did not put a great banner high in the sky, where all could see, telling each man to take his own wife and each woman to receive her own husband. Instead, he instilled in the mind and body of man an instinctive and altogether natural desire for each other. There are and always have been significant exceptions to this principle (those who have no need and/or no desire for marriage and its relationships). Likewise, there have always been and still are perversions and abuses of God’s law regarding the family relationships (fornication, homosexuality, divorce, etc.).

The High Ideal

Even in these modern times when materialistic pursuits seem to prevail, when humanity seems to seek first the pleasures of this world, when the love of money is so great and the minds and bodies of the people seem to be given over to sensualism, there still remains the lovely, the beautiful and the pure that is reached only to the fullest extent in the sanctuary of the family circle.

The ideal in romantic love is perhaps demonstrated best by the story of Jacob’s love for Rachel (see Gen. 29:15-20). Notice that the Bible says, “And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had for her.” In the Song Of Solomon we have the beautiful story of the love of the maiden and her humble sweetheart, a love that prevailed over the ardent wooing of King Solomon who wanted the maiden for his own. (Note: I do not pretend to know all the involved principles in this story and I decline to speculate on its application, as some would, to Christ and the church. But, whether it is a true story or a symbolic one, the romantic features of it are beautiful and meaningful).

My appeal in this essay is to Christians. We must not take marriage and parenthood for granted. We have the opportunity in these times to maximize the high ideal that God intended. We can, if we will, exemplify righteousness coupled with joy, holiness combined with happiness. We can have the greatest of life’s satisfactions while escaping the most terrifying of life’s tragedies. We can provide peace and tranquility at home that will enable us to face the carnal, materialistic world about us without fear.

Some may say I have over-simplified the matter and made it appear too easy. No, indeed, I have not said these ideals were always easy to reach. I have simply said they are possible! And I urge us to remember that they are worth the effort!

Thirty-five years ago a soldier came to me and admitted that he had strayed from “the straight and narrow.” But he said, “There was always one thing that kept me from going too far, and that always brought me back to the right way.” He did not tell me of great preachers he had heard in his youthful days in Oklahoma, nor of great churches he had attended, but he told me of the family circle “at home.” He told me that he could never forget that every night before bed-time his father would gather the whole family together and they would read the Bible and pray. The impact of that experience throughout his childhood saved him, he suggested, from complete departure. I think he later became a gospel preacher.

Where The Power Is

We are told that one great journalist of the previous century had been to Washington but was stranded in a small community en route to his home. There he participated in a family worship (devotional) in the humble home where he spent the night. Then he began to write a series of articles about our national capitol. He said, “I have been to the capitol of the U.S., but it is not in Washington, but in the homes of America where the Bible is read and where prayer is offered to God.” How true!

More significantly, I believe that if one wants to see the real kingdom of God today, that is, if he would observe the Spirit of God working through the instrumentality of the living Word, then he must go, not to the great cathedrals or even to the humble meeting houses where faithful saints meet, but to the firesides, to the family circles where devoted Christians live and love in joyful togetherness with each other and in sweet communion with God.

“Home, home, sweet, sweet home. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” Thank God for his grace in giving us home, sweet home!

Truth Magazine XXII: 43, p. 690
November 2, 1978

By Phil Roberts

For many centuries after the close of the New Testament canon, the Bible was the only really well-known account of the events of antiquity. Consequently, the Biblical version of ancient history was pretty much taken for granted. Only occasionally would a dissenting voice arise. But the social and cultural upheavals of the 15th and 16th century Renaissance brought radical changes in the way Western man perceived himself and his world. This new perspective is now identified by the term “Humanism”-a philosophy based on an exalted confidence in man and his intellectual power, and usually accompanied by a corresponding decrease in man’s sense of dependence on God. “Man is the measure of all things.”

The trends established in the Renaissance reached their full flower in the 18th century Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was an epoch dominated by (1) an increased emphasis on humanistic philosophy, (2) an attitude of rebellion against traditional religious beliefs, and (3) the canonization of the “scientific method” as the only sure basis of knowledge. Under the spell of humanistic philosophy, however, the “scientific method” came to mean much more than a systematic, open-minded inquiry. Incorporated into the method was a rationalistic bias against anything purporting to be supernatural.

The implications of this new spirit for the study of the Bible were clearly articulated by A. Kuenen, one of the fathers of the modernistic approach to Israelite history. In the opening chapter of his book, The Religion of Israel(1882), he expressly declares that his methodology will admit no distinction between the origin of the religion of Israel and the origin of any other religion. “For us,” he says, “the Israelite religion is one of those religions; nothing less, but also nothing more.” And in his earlier book on The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel (1877) he said, “So soon as we derive a separate part of Israel’s religion directly from God, and allow the supernatural or immediate revelation to intervene in even one single point, so long also our view of the whole continues to be incorrect . . . It is the supposition of a natural development alone which accounts for all the phenomena.” Notice that these comments do not come in the final chapters. They come at the very beginning of both books. They are not the conclusions which a modernist reaches after his study of the Bible. They are the “suppositions” with which he begins.

For the modernist, therefore, the task becomes that of a reconstruction of Bible history. The Biblical account cannot be true because it tells of the divine origin of the nation and religion of Israel. The modernist must, therefore, extract historical data from the supernatural mold of the Bible, and press that same data into a naturalistic mold. He must reconstruct Bible history. He does not consider his job one of disproving the accuracy of the Biblical account. The accuracy of that history and the arguments of those of us who believe it are simply rejected out of hand. His attitude toward us is succinctly stated by John Hayes in the recently published, encyclopedic tome, Israelite and Judaean History (1977). In this work of 767 pages, precisely one-half page of the introductory chapter is devoted to the conservative position. In that half page, Hayes gives a few examples of our beliefs, and then concludes with the following remark: “In the following chapters, practically no attention will be given to this view since it does not assume that one has to reconstruct the history of Israel.” There is, therefore, no confrontation between modernism and conservatism. As far as they are concerned, we do not exist. All their time and energy is consumed in developing and defending their various reconstitutions. And it is to those reconstructions that we now turn our attention.

The first full-blown modernistic reconstruction was put before the public in 1878 by the German scholar, Julius Wellhausen, in his book, Prolegomena to the History of Israel. Wellhausen of course rejected all of Gen. 1-11′ as pure legend. Likewise, he regarded the patriarchal stories of Gen. 12-50 as historically worthless legends, referring probably to whole nations rather than to individual patriarchs. But from the time of Moses onwards Wellhausen did not feel much need to reconstruct the outward political history of Israel. Indeed, he could even say in his article o n “Israel” in the Encyclopedia Britannica that “the historical tradition about Moses (as opposed to the legislative tradition-PR) is in its main features manifestly trustworthy.” No, to Wellhausen it was not so much the political history of Israel that needed reconstruction as it was the religious history. And the key to Wellhausen’s reconstruction of that religious history is found in his source-criticism of the Pentateuch-the famed “Documentary Hypothesis.” According to this theory the authorship of the first five books of the Bible was not to be attributed to Moses (ca. 1400 B.C.), but to no less than four separate authors from much later times. The oldest section, “J”, was said to have been written no earlier than 850 B.C., and even then exhibited a very primitive concept of God. Next came “E”, written about 750 B.C. and exhibiting an only slightly higher concept of God. The third section, “D”, is roughly the same as our present Deuteronomy and was written in 621 B.C. as a pious forgery, the sole purpose of which was to enforce the legitimacy of Jerusalem as the central sanctuary for the nation. This was presumably the document “found” by Hilkiah during the days of Josiah (cf. 2 Kings 22:8-20 and Deut. 12:1-14). The fourth document, “P”, was not composed until during or shortly after the Babylonian captivity (ca. 500 B.C.). It contained most of the complex legal material in the books of Exodus-Numbers. Finally, the whole thing was woven together into the form of our present Pentateuch about 400 B.C., perhaps by Ezra himself, and attributed to the legendary character of Moses to give it an air of authority.

Of course, these late dates made it possible to explain the miraculous stories about Moses and the origin of the nation as nothing more than legends which grew up around the great national hero later on. But more importantly, the division of the Pentateuch into separate strands coming from different time periods permitted Wellhausen to rearrange the contents of the Pentateuch in a way that would correspond to an evolutionary pattern of progression from simple to complex. Darwin’s theory was then in its heyday. In the reconstruction Wellhausen argued that Israel’s religion had at first been nothing more than a primitive, polytheistic faith in Jehovah as the national God of Israel. It was not until the time of the first great writing prophets, Hosea and Amos (ca. 750 B.C.), that Israel’s faith became truly monotheistic. And it was not until after the Babylonian captivity that the detailed cultic laws of sacrifice and priesthood were evolved.

All of this sounds very strange-quite absurd even-to those of us who accept the Biblical account. But Wellhausen’s reconstruction had great appeal to those who shared his naturalistic presuppositions. Yet, by the turn of the century criticisms from within the modernist movement itself began to arise. In Germany, these criticisms focused primarily on Wellhausen’s exclusive reliance on source-criticism, as opposed to the newer form criticism. In America, the criticism did not come until slightly later. But when it did, it came in a flood, and focused primarily on increasing archaeological evidence that the radical skepticism of the Wellhausen school was totally unwarranted. Moreover, in both countries the evolutionary model was rapidly becoming passe. As a result, by 1940 there was hardly a leading scholar anywhere to represent a true Wellhausen reconstruction. Only the documentary hypothesis survived to pass into the. canons of critical orthodoxy, and that with considerable modification.

In the wake of the disintegration of the Wellhausen school, the modernist movement divided into two camps regarding the reconstruction of Israel’s history. On the one hand is the Alt-Noth approach (Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth), represented in English by Noth’s The History of Israel (1960). On the other hand is the Albright-Bright approach (William Foxwell Albright and John Bright), represented best by Bright’s A History of Israel (1972). Both of these schools are thoroughly modernistic. They are, nevertheless, sharply divided over the proper way to reconstruct the history of Israel. This division is most apparent in their approaches to the history of the origins of Israel.

The German school of Alt and Noth approaches the history of Israel almost exclusively from a form-critical study of the Old Testament itself, searching through the Bible for the various sagas, legends, and myths which they believe were preserved at ancient Canaanite centers of worship such as Gilgal, Bethel, and Shechem, and eventually taken over by the Israelites. Presumably these legends were welded together by the Israelites to form the continuous narrative of the patriarchal stories in the Bible, which were then taken as an explanation of the origin of the nation.

But according to Alt and Noth, the true origin had been much different. The Israelites were not at all a unified nation decended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In fact, according to the Alt-Noth reconstruction there simply was no such thing as the nation of Israel until the time of the Judges. It was at that time that a number of unrelated, semi-nomadic tribes gradually and peacefully penetrated the land of Palestine from various directions and, at some time during the 12th century, bound themselves together in a twelve tribe league known as an amphictyony. This amphictyonic league was, according to Noth, the beginning of “Israel.” These “Israelites” took over both the Canaanite centers of worship and the legends attached to those centers; mixed the legends with fragments of their own; and wove the whole thing into the consecutive narrative of the patriarchs known to us through the Bible. In sum then, Noth believes that the Biblical account of the history of Israel is totally worthless for anything prior to the time of Saul and David; that the patriarchal and even the Exodus stories are nothing but cult legends; and that the real key to the origin of the nation is the formation of a twelve tribe amphictyonic league.

In contrast to all this is the American school of Albright and Bright. Focusing primarily on an archaeological approach, they have concluded that the origin of the nation of Israel was actually fairly close to the general picture presented in the Bible. Members of this school have severely criticized both the methods and the conclusions of the Alt-Noth school along three major lines: (1) a failure to utilize the results of archaeological research as an external control on their speculative literary analysis of the Biblical text; (2) building a theoretical reconstruction of Israel’s history around the concept of an amphictyonic league when in fact no evidence for the existence of any such league in Israel has ever been found; and (3) a simply unwarranted “nihilism” toward the value of Israel’s historical documents.

According to Bright, the patriarchs were real people, and the Biblical picture of them is essentially correct. They did indeed go down into Egypt and come out under the leadership of Moses. And the conquest of Canaan was a true military invasion, as recorded in Joshua. Of course all true miracles are eliminated from the account by Bright, and many errors and inconsistencies are found in the Biblical record. But his attitude towards Biblical history is, within the modernist spectrum, a very conservative one. And his reconstruction is not so much a reconstruction as an adjustment of Israel’s history to fit the methods of modern, humanistic historiography. Indeed, one gets the distinct impression that Bright and his school actually believe in some miracles. But their commitment to the methodology of naturalistic historiography prevents them from allowing this into their work.

Unfortunately, though, it is the Albright-Bright school that has most recently fallen into disfavor in modernist circles. That is not to say that the Alt-Noth reconstruction has survived intact. Critics are more and more inclined to reject the amphictyonic league as part of the early structure of the nation. But the rejection of the historicity of the patriarchal period is generally accepted, along with radical skepticism about the ethnic unity of Israel. It is my opinion that this ascendency of the Alt-Noth approach is due, not to any successful refutation of the criticism from the Albright-Bright school, but simply to the fact that its methods and conclusions are more in keeping with the presuppositions and spirit of unbelieving modernism.

The problems of the Alt-Noth approach are pervasive, however, and it is unlikely that this school will hold the field forever. Indeed, pressure is already mounting within critical circles, and the next few years will probably witness the rise of yet another reconstruction of Israel’s early history-most likely the one recently proposed by G. E. Mendenhall In His Book, The Tenth Generation (1973). Mendenhall, trained in the methods of the Albright-Bright school, nevertheless maintains the radical skepticism of Alt and Noth with regard to the historical reliability of the Biblical text. But he has rejected the concept of the amphictyonic league, and the idea that the tribes which eventually merged to form the nation of Israel were semi-nomadic invaders. Instead, he argues, Israel was created by a social revolution within Palestine. In other words, the lower classes of the indigenous population of Canaan revolted against the city-state overlords and banded together to form a new political unit named “Israel.” “Israel,” he argues, is not an ethnic designation but a political one. There was neither a conquest (Bright) nor a peaceful invasion (Noth). There was simply an internal social revolution. I suspect that this social revolution theory will be just the thing that will capture the fancy of a new generation of modernists needing a new reconstruction to replace the well worn and now frazzled AltNoth approach.

But the real concern for those of us who believe the Bible is not the next tack to be taken by modernism. It is our own stance in the face of modernistic criticism of Bible history. First, we must not hide our heads in the sand. We cannot afford to ignore either the modernist or his arguments. Second, we must equip ourselves to expose the basic fallicies of modernistic reconstructions. This is often a tedious task, but a number of books are available which will assist the believer. Perhaps the finest critique of Wellhausen and his school ever written is James Orr’s The Problem of the Old Testament (1926). Also of value in dealing with the documentary hypothesis is O. T. Allis’ The Five Books of Moses (1943). Unfortunately conservatives have yet to produce anything of real substance in dealing with the more recent schools of Bright, Noth, and Mendenhall. Some material may be found in O. T. Allis’ The Old Testament: Its Claims and Its Critics (1972). But Allis was a veteran of older battles, and many of his arguments against the newer schools lack cogency. At present, most conservative scholars seem content to play the Bright school off against the Noth school. This approach can be seen in R. K. Harrison’s excellent Introduction to the Old Testament (1969) and also in Kenneth Kitchen’s extremely useful Ancient Orient and the Old Testament (1966). This can be a dangerous game though, and it appears to me that several of its practitioners have actually come very near to surrendering to modernism’s presuppositions in the process. No such surrender is to be found, however, in Leon Wood’s A Survey of Israel’s History (1970), which is probably the best all round conservative history of Israel available today.

But last and most importantly, we must realize that the real gulf between us and modernism in the study of Biblical history is neither a matter of scholarship nor of argumentation. They work with the same data we do. They know it just as well as we do, and often better. It is naive for us to think we can overthrow them by argumentation from that data, because their position was not arrived at by argumentation from that data to begin with. Rather, their reconstructions are the interpretation of the data which is forced upon them by their anti-supernatural presuppositions and methodology. And until that philosophical impass is solved, no real communication with modernism is possible.

Truth Magazine XXII: 41, pp. 663-666
October 19, 1978

By Ron Halbrook

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty (2 Pet. 1:16).

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of (2:1-2).

Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen (3:17-18).

The gospel of Jesus Christ includes facts (1 Cor. 15:1-3), commands (Rom. 10:16), and promises (Col. 1:23). Any teaching which rejects any facts, commands, or promises in the gospel is heresy. No matter how popular or persuasive heresy may be, it is a betrayal of truth and a harbinger of eternal destruction. If we are to escape this destruction, if we are to be loyal to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we must grow in him and oppose the error of the wicked. The purpose of this study is to contrast the gospel of Jesus Christ to a system of religious thought known as Liberalism or Modernism.

Modernism undermines the commands and promises of the gospel by calling the facts of the gospel in question, especially in regard to miracles. The facts of the gospel are held in perpetual doubt by Modernists. They allege an admixture of fables in the gospel story and complain about the foibles of both those who wrote and those who hear the message. Liberalism is in many ways a negative religion: internally in disarray when viewed as a movement, but united in opposition to the gospel as recorded in the New Testament. It is our plan to show that the miraculous is found throughout God’s Word but that Modernism assaults the miraculous element as false or at least nonessential. After discussing the nature and ultimate results of Liberalism, we shall make an appeal for gospel preaching.

Miracles In The Gospel

Miracles are supernatural acts of supernatural power and origin. God is the creator of the natural order and therefore is not limited by it. The power which He exercised in creation may be exercised at other times according to His will. The word often translated “miracle” (dunamis) in the New Testament is the word for “power, inherent ability . . . used of works of a supernatural origin and character, such as could not be produced by natural agents and means” (Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words, 111, p. 75). Another term (semeion) used means “a sign, mark, token . . . used of miracles and wonders as signs of Divine authority” (ibid.)-“an unusual occurrence, transcending the common course of nature” (Thayer’s Lexicon, p. 573)-“an event that is contrary to the usual course of nature” (Arndt & Gingrich, Lexicon,p. 755). Often with the word “sign” appears the synonym “wonder” (teras), meaning “something strange, causing the beholder to marvel” (Vine, IV, p. 228). Each of the three words used tells us something about the nature and purpose of miracles: “A sign is intended to appeal to the understanding, a wonder appeals to the imagination, a power . . . indicates its source as supernatural” (ibid.). As J. Gresham Machen so clearly put it, “A supernatural event is one that takes place by the immediate, as distinguished from the mediate power of God . . . in the events called natural, God uses means, whereas in the events called supernatural He uses no means, but puts forth His creative power” (Christianity and Liberalism, p. 99).

God has acted above the limits we call natural in order to create that which did not exist, to reveal messages to men, and to authenticate those messages as Divine. Jesus said that God literally and directly created mankind “at the beginning” as is recorded in Genesis 1-3 (Matt. 19:1-5). Jesus believed that God had spoken through His Spirit to prophets such as Moses and Isaiah, and that such messages at times predicted the future (Matt. 22:31, 43; Lk. 4:1721). Specific miracles recorded in the Old Testament-supply of manna, the brass serpent, God’s gift of wisdom to Solomon, Jonah and the great fish (Jn. 6:31-32, 58; 4:1415; Matt. 12:38-42)-were accredited as true by Jesus in every case. He authenticated His own mission and message with miraculous signs, and provided the same authentication for personal ambassadors whom He sent out preaching (Jn. 20:31-32; Matt. 10:1-15; Mk. 16:15-20). Thus were the Apostles empowered to preach salvation in Jesus’ name, “God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles” (Heb. 2:4).

The gospel of Jesus Christ cannot be preached without treating as literal facts the creation, prophecy, the Old Testament miracles, the virgin birth of Jesus, His personal miracles, the miracles which He performed through His Apostles, the inspiration of Scripture in a supernatural sense, the forgiveness of sins, miraculous power exercised in the establishment and spread of the church, and both the hope of heaven and dread of hell. The God revealed by Jesus Christ is above nature as its creator and sustainer; by the very nature of his being, God can act above and beyond natural limits. This is the God of the gospel. To change Him in an effort to preach Him is to have another God, another gospel, and another religion.

Modernism’s Assault on Miracles

Centuries of apostasy from New Testament teaching prepared fertile ground for infidelity. The monolithic corruption and stagnation of the monolithic church-state known as Roman Catholicism spawned not only religious reformation in the 1500-1600s but also revolution in the 1700-1800s. In rejecting the supernatural superstitions perpetuated by Catholicism, and in embarking on the age of reason, many people dismissed the Bible teaching on miracles as a part of the evil to be escaped. Men failed to see that New Testament Christianity and its miracles were distinct from Roman Catholicism and its superstitions. The ebb and flow of these religious reactionary movements, increased in force by the strong currents of scientific and industrial advances, produced a tidal wave of naturalism between 1875 and 1925. The twentieth century has never recovered from the wreckage of the flood. Naturalism made twentieth-century man self-confident to the point of arrogance and self-sufficient to the point of infidelity. This naturalism was evidenced in the rise of evolution, applied to every phase of man’s thought including religion, and the rise of so-called higher critical studies applied to Scripture, treating it as of human origin. To this day, the assumptions of Liberalism or Modernism persist in much of American religious faith and practice.

Machen identified the root idea of Modernism as “the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God (as distinguished from the ordinary course of nature) in connection with the origin of Christianity.” Modernism claims to mediate Christianity to the modern world but relinquishes “everything distinctive of Christianity, so that what remains is in essentials only that same indefinite type of religious aspiration which was in the world before Christianity came upon the scene” (Christianity and Liberalism, p. 7). In other words, what remains is the same sin, unbelief, guilt, despair, and hopelessness, the same rebellion and confusion, to which is “attached the terminology of traditional Christianity” (John Warwick Montgomery, The Suicide of Christian Theology, p. 28). Carl Henry clearly identified the major assumption of modern thought which makes all miracles suspect if not incomprehensible: “the space-time universe is viewed as ultimate and only within that broader context can room be made for a deity” (Remaking the Modern Mind, p. 208). This is immediately seen in a classical definition of Modernism given by spokesman Shailer Mathews in The Faith of Modernism: “It is the use of the methods of modern science to find, state and use the permanent and central values of inherited orthodoxy in meeting the needs of a modern world” (pp. 22-24). God must pardon the inconvenience, but His friends must put Him under the microscope and analyze His Word by the canons of Science! If He and His revelations do not seem to fit into the laboratory where the whole natural universe is studied, they can be made to fit.

Once Modernism starts its work, there is no stopping place until God Himself has been remade to order to fit the assumptions of Liberal research. The avowed atheist replaces God Himself with evolution; in order to make the gospel believable to modern man, the Liberal retains God but replaces the Genesis account of creation with the theory of evolution. In discussing the foundations of Liberal theology, proponent W. P. Montague pointed out how the acids of Modernism must eat deeper and deeper into Scripture:

When once the nose of the camel of doubt is permitted to enter the tent of faith there is no assurance as to where the invasion will stop. If any of the miracles of the Bible are rejected, the others become open to question (David E. Roberts and Henry Pitney Van Dusen (eds.), Liberal Theology, An Appraisal, p. 155).

Professor D. R. Dungan confided to J. W. McGarvey in 1908 and 1909 that at Drake University the faculty no longer believed “that Genesis represents the beginning of things correctly” and was ready to approve a B.D. thesis on the Messianism of Isaiah which denied all predictive prophecy in the book. Old Testament miracles such as Jonah and the whale are smiled upon as fables or parables. Jesus is made not an object of faith but an example, a “symbol,” an “illustration of the essence of religion” (Lyman Van Law Cady in Liberal Theology, An Appraisal, p. 147). His virgin birth and other miracles are explained away on naturalistic principles. His death for our sins and his bodily resurrection are given figurative meanings-they simply cannot be events beyond the meaning of the natural order of things. Miracles in connection with the establishment of the church and both the hope of heaven and dread of hell in a literal sense, all must be dismissed.

The center of Modernism’s assault is the verbal inspiration of Scripture, such as is affirmed in 1 Corinthians 2:13 (“things” and “words” which “the Holy Spirit teacheth”) and 2 Timothy 3:16 (“all scripture is given by inspiration of God” or breathed out from God). Such an authenticated and guarded text in the original manuscripts would guarantee the historical reality of each recorded miracle! The one unifying hope for different branches of Liberalism is “that tomorrow some fresh evidence of the unreliability of the Scriptures may be found” (I. M. Haldeman, A King’s Penknife or Why I Am Opposed to Modernism, p. 163). In one of the most celebrated blasts of Modernist warfare, Charles A. Briggs delivered The Authority of Holy Scripture: An Inaugural Address, castigating “Superstition” in the form of “Bibliolatry, ” “Verbal Inspiration, ” the “Authenticity” of Scripture, its “Inerrancy, ” “Violation of the Laws of Nature” (i.e. miracles), and “Minute Prediction” or “Predictive Prophecy. “

Ultimately, the God of the Bible and the God of Liberalism are two different deities. Infidelity is unbelief in the God of the Bible and Modernism is one form of infidelity. It denies the supernatural in Scripture, or dismisses the supernatural as non-essential, or explains the supernatural away. Modernists have a god but not the God of Scripture. Like the infidels of ancient times, they have “changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man” (Rom. 1:23) and are therefore “without God” (atheoi, Eph. 2:12). Liberal advocate and editor C. C. Morrison admitted as much in his 3 January, 1924 Christian Century article “Fundamentalism and Modernism: Two Religions.” He might as well have been a prophet of Baal distinguishing himself from Elijah, in the following barrage:

There is a clash here as profound and as grim as that between Christianity and Confuscianism. Amiable words can not hide the differences. “Blest be the tie” may be sung till doomsday but it can not bind these two worlds together. The God of fundamentalism is one God. The God of the modernist is another. The Christ of the fundamentalist is one Christ; the Christ of modernism is another. The Bible of fundamentalism is one Bible; and the Bible of modernism is another. The church, the kingdom, the salvation, the consummation of all things-these are one thing to fundamentalists and another thing to modernists.

In like manner, Modernist educator W. C. Morro found J. W. McGarvey’s literal approach to the restoration of New Testament Christianity difficult to adjust “to reality or to a reasonable conception of God” (Brother McGarvey, pp. 133-34).

Gospel Preaching: The “Foolishness” of God

Modernism is the practical repudiation of God’s grace, while speaking much of grace. Everywhere miracles appear in connection with Christ, the Bible, the church, heaven, or even the Father Himself, doubt and denial reign supreme in naturalistic Liberalism. Like those who rejected Christ in the first century, Modernists discount the gospel as “foolishness,” label its miracles as insufficient for faith, and proceed as if human wisdom were all sufficient. Modernism is Ancientism: the world seeking God by means of its own wisdom, an experiment doomed by past attempts!

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God …. For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe (1 Cor. 1:18, 21).

Let us not lose confidence in the New Testament message, but preach it, preach it, preach it.

When we preach the facts of the gospel as true, we certify its commands and promises as true. Pressing the demands of the gospel in contrast to the doubts of Liberalism, W. W.Otey said in his Christ orModernism,

For three days the hope of the world hung on three words: I will arise.

For nineteen hundred years the hope of the world has hung on three words: He is risen (p. 72).

Because he arose, the gospel commands and promises are true. Knowing the gospel is true, we preach it with confidence that it will accomplish God’s purpose and satisfy man’s need. “There is no more perfect adaptation of light to the eye, food to hunger, water to thirst than the adaptation of Christ and the gospel to satisfy every need and desire of man’s spirit” (Otey, p. 13). Preach the gospel of Christ because it is eternal truth. Preach it because it heals the broken-hearted, delivers the captives, gives sight to the blind, frees the oppressed, and proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord (Lk. 4:16-21). Preach it without fear. Preach it without compromise. Preach it till death stills the tongue.

Truth Magazine XXII: 42, pp. 676-679
October 26, 1978