Qtnurnr~tu
UJqtulugtral :!Inutltly
Continuing
LEHRE UNO WEHRE
MAGAZIN FUER Ev.-LuTH. H OMILETIK
THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
Vol. XV May, 1944 No.5
CONTENTS
The Right and Wrong of Private Judgment. Th. Engclder
Nathan Soedel'blom. Theodore Gra"hner
Page
289
314
328 Outlines on the Standard Gospels
Miscellanea
Theological Obsen.·er
Book Review
Eln Predlger muss nlcht alleln wei-
deft. also dais er die Schafe unter-
weise. wle de rechte Chrl8ten sollen
Rln. sondem liIuch cianeben den Woel-
ten tDeh7'lm. dass sle die Schafe nlcht
angrelfen Wld mit talscher Lehre ver-
tuehren und Irrtum elntuehren.
Luther
339
3·a
354
Es 1st keln Ding. das die Leute
mehr bel der Klrche behaelt denn
die gute Predigt. - A pologie. Arl. 24
If tile trumpet give an uncertain
sound. who ahall prepare himself to
the battle? -1 eM. 14:8
Published for the
Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States
CONCORDIA PUBUSIUNG BOUSE, St. Louis 18, Mo.
'11'1 T!:) I - tr. IS. A.
Miscellanea 339
Miscellanea
The Ghost Is Not Yet Laid
Remarks have been made recently, also in print, stating in effect
that the various theories concerning the levels reached by man's simian-
like ancestor in his progress toward the status of Homo sapiens had been
discarded. Certain developments in the field of ethnology were sup-
posed to have eliminated the suggestions which were connected with
the theory of evolution as it was imposed upon history, ethnology, an-
thropology, and several other related fields.
But it now seems that such reports were premature. Two very
recent books have, in fact, refurbished the old theories and presented
them as the assured results of modern scholarship. In the first of these
two books, Bailey's Daily Life in Bible Times, the first chapter is headed
"The Unfathomable Pit of Beginnings," and the author offers material
on the "Old Stone Age," 1,500,000 to 10,000 B. C., dates which by no
stretch of the imagination can be fitted into Bible times. The oldest
skeletons or parts of skeletons of Palestine are assumed to be at least
150,000 years old. "Miss Garrod has named these people Paleanthropus
Palestinus. They are similar in skeletal type to the Neanderthal man of
Europe, though there are variations in the direction of Homo sapiens."
The author then proceeds to state that this earlier cave dweller was
driven out by some mysterious being with human elements in the Old
Stone Age, about 1,000,000 to 10,000 years ago. With the Middle Stone
Age came still another variety of being, under the heading of "Medi-
terranean," or, more exactly for Palestine, the "Natufian" man. It was
only after the New Stone Age, 7,000 to 5,000 B. C., that people on the
order of Homo· sapiens appeared in Palestine, and only in the Copper-
Stone Age, 5,000 to 3,000 B. C., can we connect up evidences found by
archaeologists with the historical data supplied by the Bible account.
After reading these paragraphs, with their wild speculations and sub-
jective assumptions, we wonder just why they were included in a book
which is evidently intended for the average lay Bible reader. The last
paragraph of Chapter I characterizes the presentation well: "So from the
darkness and gropings [I] of our bottomless pit we have climbed to the
light of day, bringing with us the achievements of the millenniums.
How few they are, and how slowly on the dial of time they appeared;
but how invaluable and fateful nevertheless." (P.ll.)
The second recent book which again parades the evolutionistic
theory of prehistoric events is McCown's The Ladder of Progress. in
Palestine. Chapter II of t..his monograph bears the caption "Seventy-five
Thousand Years Before History Began." Its first sentence reads: "Pales-
tine offers the most complete and continuous picture of prehistoric human
evolution that is at present available in any part of the world." The
author then r efers to the Sinanthropus peikinensis of China, the Pithe-
canthropus erectus of Java, and particularly to the Neanderthal and Nean-
dertaloid skeletons of Palestine. He states that "the Galilee skull dates
back to at least 40,000, perhaps even to 100,000 years ago, and actually
340 Miscellanea
represents an entirely new species related to the genus Homo." (P.20.)
Then follows a long series of speculations prefaced by the question:
"Was the Galilee man a true Neanderthaler?" After discussing the
Natufian culture, the author takes up further questions in Chapter m,
"The Search for the Earliest Inhabitants." Of course, the "Carmel man"
is brought into the discussion. Yet the statement is made: "The question,
then, as to the earliest inhabitant of Palestine is still in dispute and ma,.'
not be settled for many years." (P.41.) And further on: ''The pre-
historian is 100,000 years nearer the Palestinian Adam than he was when
the last war ended. From 6,000 B. C. to 75,000 or 100,000, not to mention
500,000 years ago, is a tremendous leap." We certainly are inclined to
agree to this last statement. In fact, the leap is entirely within the
imagination of such explorers. P. E. K.
Fooo £01" Thought from Kl:auth's HConservative Reformation"
1. On the Unity of the Church
To true unity of the Church, is required hearty and honest consent
in the fundamental doctrine of the gospel, or, in other words, in the
Articles of Faith. It may surprise some, that we qualify the word dOfJ-
trine by the wOl'd "fundamental'" f"r thr+ ''',rd, i ~ his1 Jey of th ~
Chu has I: ,0 ba 1 abo 0 mil ly pe ;ed, so monopc~
lized for certain ends, so twisted by artifices of interpretation, as if
a man could use it to mean anything he pleased, and might rairly insist
that its meani."1g could only be settled by reference to his own mental
reservation at the time he used it, that at length men have grown afraid
of it, have looked upon its use as a mark of lubricity, and have almost
imagined that it conveyed an idea unknown to our Church in her
purer days.
It is utterly false that Evangelical Lutherans are sticklers for non-
fundamentals, that they are intolerant toward those who err in regard
to non~fundamentals; on the contrary, no Church, apart from the fun-
damentals of the gospel in which her unity and very life are involved,
is so mild, so mediating, so thoroughly tolerant as our own. Over
against the unity of Rome under a universal Head, the unity of High-
Churchism under the rule of Bishops, the unities which tum upon like
rites or usages as in themselves necessary, or which build up the mere
subtleties of human speculation into articles of faith, over against these
the Lutheran Church was the first to stand forth, declaring that the
unity of the Church tur-ns upon nothing that is of man. Where the one
pure gospel of Cl: .. rist is -,=,""ached, where the one foundation of doctrine
is laid, where the "one faith" is confessed, and the alone divine Sacra-
ments administered aright, there is the one Churcl"