Criswell Theological Review 1.2 (1987) 281-294
[Copyright © 1987 by
digitally prepared for use at
Gordon and
SOME RESULTS AND REVERSALS OF
THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT
LARRY L. WALKER
Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary,
Peaking
towards the end of the last century, the so-called higher
criticism of
the OT claimed "assured results" because it was allegedly
based on a
scientific-critical analysis of the literature. Although modi-
fied much through subsequent years, many
assumptions of modern
OT critics
are based on the conclusions reached during the classical
period (the
19th century).
Despite disclaimers to the contrary,
the founders of this approach
to the
OT were reflecting a mindset of the age more than operating
on some
new "scientific" basis. Their research was done essentially in
an
archaeological vacuum; new information from exploration and
excavation was
not part of the background of their study.
When J. G. Eichhorn
in 1780 and W. M. L. De Wette in 1806
(when he was 25 years old) wrote the first critical
"Introductions" to
the OT,
the possibilities of archaeological research were unknown. At
the end
of the 18th century not a single script or language of the
pre-Christian orient had been deciphered, and not a single scientific
excavation had
been undertaken.
Even later, after new insights were
becoming available on the
geography,
history, language, and culture of the OT, such information
was
largely ignored. The outstanding example of this is J. Wellhausen' s
Prolegomena to the History of Ancient
Israel, which
appeared in
1878. By that date several excavations had been started and
several
ancient
languages had been deciphered (Egyptian, Akkadian, Phoe-
nician, and Old South Arabic), but Wellhausen's reconstruction of
biblical
resources.
282 CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
The primary influence on the formulators of higher criticism
and its
bearing on the origin and development of the religion of
evolutionary thought--unilinear progress from the
simple to the
complex.
Such evolutionary thinking was applied by C. Darwin to
biology and
by K. Marx to economics. Wellhausen, following the
approach of
J. K. W. Vatke,l applied this scheme to
up with
three basic periods of history of development: pre-prophetic--
prophetic--ethical-monotheism.
The end result of this was that we
have in
the Bible not God's thoughts about man but man's thoughts
about God,
not a revealed religion but an invented religion. K. Cauthen
stated that
situation precisely:
The Bible came to be thought of as a record of the progressive
discovery
of God in human experience, not as a static body of theological
dogmas
all equally inspired and all of equal religious value. This
application of
evolutionary ideas to the study of the Hebrew religion
by the Wellhausen
school of thought came to dominate Biblical
studies in the latter part of
the nineteenth century.2
I. Results
This new approach was adopted by many professors who then
were
either removed from their teaching positions or forced to resign,
for
example, in
and Wellhausen from
1 J. K. W. Vatke
studied under H. F. W. Gesenius at
macher, and G. Hegel. From 1828 on, he became
increasingly interested in Hegel's
philosophy, and
in his Biblical Theology (Die biblische Theologie wissenschaftlich
dargestellt. I. Die Religion des Alten
Testaments,
he made
no secret of his own Hegelian position. The aim of this book was to secure for
Vatke a
full professorship, but a year before the book's appearing, Schleiermacher
died,
heralding the beginning of the dominant influence of the conservative E. W.
Hengstenberg in the
never
offered a full professorship, and van Altenstein,
Minister of State for Universities,
saw to
it that Vatke's Biblical
Theology was never completed.
The influence of Vatke on Wellhausen has been much discussed (cf. J. Rogerson,
Old
Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century [Fortress, 1985] 69-78) and usually
recognized,
although R. Clements attempts, without success, to play down this influence
(One Hundred Years of Old Testament Interpretation
[Westminster, 1976] 3). I
believe
Wellhausen was
greatly influenced by Vatke's reconstruction of
2 K. Cauthen, The Impact of
American Religious Liberalism (2nd ed.;
University Press of
Higher
Criticism in the
him)3 was C. H. Toy, Professor of Old Testament
Interpretation at
the
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in
He had
studied in Berlin4 and came to accept critical theories about
the
origin of Scripture, theories which were in contradiction to the
claims of
Scripture itself. Of course this involved the denial of iner-
rancy, so Toy resigned and moved in 1880 to a
post at Harvard;
eventually he
aligned himself with the Unitarians.5 Later, C. A. Briggs,
Professor of
Hebrew and Cognate Languages at
Seminary in
of
Scripture as set forth in the Westminster Confession. His conviction
led to
his suspension as a minister and to the final breach between
Union Seminary and the Presbyterian Church. Briggs remained at
Union as an
Episcopalian (he was received into the priesthood in
1899) until
his death in 1913.6 Such conflicts were not limited to
Baptists and
Presbyterians; they continued throughout various denomi-
national
schools.
However, a few scholars came to recognize the philosophical
nature of
some critical theories inimical to the Christian faith and
reliability of
Scripture and changed their views. This was especially
true of
those who had pursued studies in biblical archaeology.
A. H. Sayce, well-known British Orientalist, was a personal friend
of
Gladstone, Prime Minister of
of
Hebrew at
would be
his; however, at that time Sayce was regarded as one
of the
leaders of
German critical theology, so
him.7 Sayce's
interest in the Near East and archaeology8 later turned
him
toward conservative views.
3 R. A.
Riesen, Criticism and Faith in Late Victorian
University Press of
theological
controversy involving A. B. Davidson, W. R. Smith, and G. A. Smith.
4 An
excellent survey of the influence of German scholarship on American students
abroad may
be found in C. Diehl's Americans and German Scholarship 1770-1870
(New Haven: Yale University, 1978). Especially note the chapter
"Innocents Abroad:
American
Students in German Universities, 1815-1870," 49-69.
5 Riesen, Criticism and Faith,
xvi.
6 Ibid., xvii.
7 A
note of irony here:
(1891) the whole critical school for the English world. (Sayce later
became a leader of
the
orthodox party in
8 Sayce spent the winters of 1879-1908 on his houseboat on
the
the
first Professor of Assyriology in
opponent of
rampant higher criticism. He rightly compared Wellhausen's
treatment of
the
Pentateuch with F. A. Wolff's treatment of Homer.
284 CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Other professors who became conservative because of the influ-
ence of archaeology on their thinking were F. Hommel (
J. Halevy (Paris).9 Of
course the parade example of how the facts of
archaeology
steer away from the theories of higher criticism is that of
W. F.
Albright. Prior to 1919 he held generally to the critical school of
thought, a
view which was at odds with fellow archaeologist M. G.
Kyle. Then,
beginning in 1921, during his archaeological work in
remained
staunchly conservative.10
Although Albright never openly
aligned
himself much theologically, it is very clear that the facts from
archaeology
continually steered him towards an ever-increasing
respect for
the accuracy of Scripture.
One professor who switched views, not just because of archae-
ology but because he saw the mindset involved
in higher criticism,
was J.
J. Reeve of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.11 In a
word of
personal testimony,12 he described first his experience at "one
of the
great universities" where he was overwhelmed with the scholar-
ship of
the critical approach and accepted it. He wrote, "This world-
view is
wonderfully fascinating and almost compelling.'" But he went
on to
describe two reasons for his rejection of the system: 1) the
methods, and
2) the spirit of the movement. Some of his statements
are
worth noting verbatim:
It became more and more obvious to me that the movement was
entirely
intellectual, an attempt in reality to intellectualise all religious phenomena.
I saw also that it was a partial and one-sided intellectualism
with a strong
bias against the fundamental tenets of Biblical Christianity. Such a
movement is responsible for a vast amount of
intellectual pride, an
aristocracy of intellect with all the snobbery which
usually accompanies
that term.13
9 J. Orr, The
Problem of the Old Testament (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1911)
397, n. 1.
10 More
detailed notes on Albright's personal testimony of change can be found in
BASOR 51 (1935) 5-6 and The
American Scholar 7 (1938) 170. Kyle taught at
Theological
Seminary and wrote in defense of Scripture. His The Deciding Voice of
the Monuments in Biblical
Criticism was
published in 1912 at Oberlin by the Bibliotheca
Sacra
Company. (Bibliotheca Sacra, a conservative journal, was first published at
within
theological institutions.)
11
Reeve was part of the founding faculty of the Seminary; in fact, he spoke at
the
formal
opening of the Seminary,
(R. Baker, Tell the
Generations Following [Broadman, 1983] 142).
12 J.
J. Reeve, "My Personal Experience with the Higher Criticism," Back
to the
Bible (ed.. A. C.
Dixon, W. H. Griffith Thomas; and James Orr;
n.d.) 216-39.
13 Ibid., 231.
Although such reasoning may not sound very academic, Reeve
seems to
have sensed an element missed by many other scholars. He
continued:
I have seen the Unitarian, the Jew, the free-thinker and the
Christian
who has imbibed critical views, in thorough agreement on the Old
Testament and its teaching. They can readily hobnob together, for the
religious element becomes a lost quantity; the
Bible itself becomes a
plaything for the intellect, a merry-go-round for
the mind partially
intoxicated with its theory.14
But the change of world view of other professors was not only for
such
reasons as Reeve addressed, but from the ever-increasing flow of
newly
discovered factual data from the world of the Bible. Modern
critics find
it difficult to subscribe to the reconstruction of
history
proposed by Wellhausen, although they tenaciously
cling
to many
points in his systems--especially the documentary hypo-
thesis.
Meanwhile, much irresponsible harm was done by the Graf-
Wellhausen scheme of the evolution
of
T. Paine and R. Ingersoll, clearly
identified popular American
infidels and
skeptics, set forth exactly the same views of Scripture and
Paine stated
bluntly:
Moses is not the author of the books ascribed to him.15
All the contradictions in time, place, and circumstances that
abound in
the books ascribed to Moses prove to a demonstration that those books
could not be written by Moses, nor in the time of Moses.16
The Book of Genesis, though it is placed first in the Bible and
ascribed to
Moses, has been manufactured by some unknown person, after the
Book
of Chronicles was written which was not until at least eight hundred
and
sixty years after the time of Moses.17
Not only Paine, but also Ingersoll
stated exactly the same con-
clusions reached by the critics.
Many centuries after Moses, the leader, was dead--many centuries
after
all his followers had passed away--the Pentateuch was written, the
work
14 Ibid., 235. The OT Department of Southwestern continued for
many years to
oppose
higher criticism as the writings of faculty members B. A. Compass (1918-1942)
and E.
Leslie Carlson (1921-1964) reflect. Cf. e.g., Carlson's Confirming the
Scriptures
(Ft. Worth: Seminary Hill Bookstore, 1941).
15 T.
Paine, The Theological Words of Thomas Paine
(
1854) 89.
16 Ibid., 87.
17 Ibid., 99.
286 CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
of many writers, and to give it force and authority it was claimed
that
Moses was the author. We now know that the Pentateuch was not
written by Moses.18
Such conclusions, stated plainly in layman's language, merely
reflect
the
ideas of the professors of higher criticism.
Original literary and academic questions about the language and
nomenclature of the writings attributed to Moses eventually evolved
into
isolation of various documents which were assigned to anonymous
authors
spanning centuries of time. This in turn led to a new and very
different
understanding of
linear
evolutionary development of
this took
place essentially in an archaeological but certainly not a
philosophical vacuum. The weltanschauung ("world view") of
that
century was
one that confused progressive revelation with evolution
of
religion. Presuppositions more than facts affected the conclusions
drawn by
OT critics.
II. Reversals
The results of higher criticism were far more extensive and
damaging than
the few mentioned above would imply. Fortunately,
reversals of
many points held by critics have been required by new
discoveries. New
light on the history, geography, language, and cus-
toms of
the OT support, not negate, the factual content of Scripture.19
Armchair
speculation of higher criticism has been repeatedly over-
turned by
continuing discoveries from the lands of the Bible.20 (Of
course the
critics have been reluctant to admit the reversals caused by
these
discoveries.)
Our first example of a reversal of viewpoint concerns the subject
of
writing, although space does not permit a detailed discussion of
this
primary topic. Skepticism about writing during the time of Moses
was
voiced by a number of early critics. As late as 1892, H. Schultz
wrote,
"The time, of which the pre-Mosaic narrative treats, is a
sufficient
proof of their legendary character. It was a time prior to all
18 R. Ingersoll, About the Holy Bible (New York: C. P.
Farrell, 1894) 8, quoted in
L. W.
Munhall, The Highest Critics vs. the Higher
Critics (3rd ed.;
and
Eaton, 1896) 180.
19 An excellent summary is found in an early article by W. F.
Albright, "Archae-
ology Confronts Biblical Criticism," American
Scholar 7 (1938) 176-88.
20 One
useful archaeological commentary on the Bible with this type of presen-
tation is Joseph P. Free's
Archaeology and Bible History (5th ed.;
Scripture Press, 1956).
knowledge of
writing.21 P. Von Bohlen scoffed at the idea of the
"undisciplined horde" of
and
others entertained various degrees of skepticism about the idea of
literacy at
the time of Moses.23 Wellhausen and some
early critics
grudgingly
admitted the possibility of early writing.
Such a low view of early
proven
completely unwarranted. We are now aware of at least five
different
scripts used during the Mosaic, patriarchal, and earlier
periods:
Egyptian hieroglyphic, Akkadian cuneiform, the
cuneiform
alphabet of