Qtnutnr~tu
UT4rningitui Sltu1l}ly
Continuing
LEHRE UNO WEHRE
MAGAZIN FUER Ev.~LUTH. HOMILETIK
THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY ~ THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
vol.xm March, 1942 No.3
CONTENTS Page
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to the Jews and Foolish-
ness to the Greeks. Th. Engelder .............. _ ................................. _ ... 161
Leading Thoughts on Eschatology in the Epistles to the
Thessalonians. L. Fuerbringer .......................................... _ ................. 183
Notes on the History of Chiliasm. v. A. W. ~fennleke .. _ ......... _ ....... 192
Luther: A Blessing to the English. W. Dallmann _ ......... _ ... _ ..... _ .. _. 207
Outlines on the Wuerttemberg Epistle Selections ................................ 214
Theological Observer. - Kirchlich ZeitgeschichtIiches .................... 225
Book Review. - Literatur ... _ ................................. _ .... _ .... _ ...................... 233
Eln Prediger muss nleht alleln tori-
deft. also dass er die Scbafe unter-
weise. w1e sie rechte Christen sollen
seln. sondem auch daneben den Woel-
fen mehrn, dais sie die Schafe nh:ht
angrelfen und mit falKher Lebre ver-
fuehren und Irrtum elnfuehren.
Luther
Es 1st keln Ding. das die Leute
mehr bel der X1rche bebaelt denn
die gute Predigt. -- Apologle. Art. z,
If the trumpet give an uncertain
sound. who shall prepare hfmaelf to
the battle? -1 CM'.14:8
Published for the
Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States
CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, St. Louis, Mo. J
Concordia
Theological Monthly
Vol. XIII MARCH, 1942 No.3
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to the Jews
and Foolishness to the Greeks
(Continued)
II
The second objection to Verbal Inspiration is based on the
so-called unethical portions of the Bible. The mistakes of the
Bible are to - th e moaernSasma.ll-matte;c~mpared with the ethical
blemishes they see in the Bible. These alleged immoralities and
indecencies scandalize them beyond expression. ' T hat is . what
arouses their most violent protest. ISS) The moderns, both con-
servatives and liberals, join with the unbelievers and infidels in
loudly protesting that the Bible as it stands contains much that
outrages their moral sensibilities. 'What the present age needs
is an expurgated Bible; and since Verbal Inspiration stands for an
unexp~gated Bible: 'Verbal Inspiration must be done away with.
The black list produced by the moderns in support of their
objection is black indeed. The God of the Bible, of the Old Testa-
ment part of it, is painted in black colors. "Yahweh was a selfish,
tribal god, not unlike the other gods of the peoples surrounding
the Hebrews, a cruel god, a god of war, who demands the sacrifice
of children and hates his enemies." (See Luth. Church Quart.,
Jan., 1941, p. 79 f.; the charge is there refuted.) J. De Witt: "Espe-
cially shocking are the moral blemishes of the Bible. Acts are
188) H. M'Intosh: "The ethical and religious teaching is now usually
first and most strongly urged in proof and illustration of the erroneous-
ness and untrustworthiness of the Bible." (Is Christ Infallible and the
Bible True? p. 4.) That is correct, says C. H. Dodd. "It long ago
became clear that in claiming for the Bible accuracy in matters of
science and history its apologists had chosen a hopeless position to
defend. Much more important is the fact that in matters of faith and
morals an unprejudiced mind must needs recognize many things in the
Bible which could not possibly be accepted by Christian people in
anything approaching their clear and natural meaning." (The Authority
of the Bible, p. 13.)
11
162 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
recorded in the Old Testament which exhibit a low standard of
morality. Take for example the butcheries in Canaan under
Joshua. . .. In this connection the black treachery of Jael comes
to mind, violating the sacred laws of hospitality. . .. The inspired
books are more vulnerable here than at all other points. The
boldest scoffer of our times in flaunting 'The Mistakes of Moses' has
declared that there are laws in the Mosaic code that would disgrace
any modern statute-book, and his assertion cannot reasonably be
disputed. . .. Enough has been given to discredit the whole volume,
unless a broader definition can be found for the inspiration that
produced it than any that has yet been advanced." Verbal Inspira-
tion must go! (What Is Inspiration? Pp. 60 f., 68, 120, 183.) De Witt
refers us to Ingersoll. Let us hear him. "The Bible is full of
barbarism. . .. I call upon Robert Collyer to state whether he
believes the Old Testament was inspired, whether he believes that
God commanded Moses and Joshua or anyone else to slay little
children in the cradle. . .. I want Prof. Swing to tell whether he
believes the story about the bears eating up children, whether that
is inspired. . .. Everything that shocks the brain and shocks the
heart, throw it away." (Lectures, p. 298 ff.) 189) H. E. Fosdick
agrees with Ingersoll on this point. "Those deeds in the Old Testa-
ment which from our youth have shocked us by their barbarity-
the ruthless extermination of the Amalekites, ... the ninth chapter
of Esther, where the writer rejoices in a vengeful massacre ... "
(The Modern Use of the Bible, pp.14, 26). The Lutheran R. F.
Grau declared: "The morality of the Old Testament is imperfect"
(see Lehre und Wehre, 1893, p. 324), and Dr. H. C. Alleman draws
the inevitable conclusion therefrom: "When we read Old Testament
stories of doubtful ethics and lex talionis reprisals, with their
cruelty and vengefulness, their polygamy and adultery, it is dif-
ficult for us to sympathize with the theory of verbal inspiration,
however much we may sympathize with the motives which led
to it." (The Luth. Church Quart., July, 1936, p.241.) H. L. Willett,
too, has no sympathy with Verbal Inspiration, for "the book thus
produced should be a clear and unvarying record of the divine
mind, with no suggestion of mistake in matters of fact and norms of
conduct." But: "The Bible is not a perfect book. . .. It is not
189) Similarly the scoffer Thomas Paine: "Whenever we read the
cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, ... with
which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent
that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is
a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize man-
kind. . . . As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the
Word of God." (Age of Reason, I, p. 21.) Similarly the scoffer Clarence
Darrow: "The various parts of the Bible were written by human
beings who ... were influenced by the barbarous morality of primitive
times."
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 163
final in its morality." And the verbal-inspirationists should be
silenced. "No error has ever resulted in greater discredit to the
Scriptures or injury to Christianity than that of attributing to the
Bible such a miraculous origin and nature as to make it an in-
fallible standard of morals and religion." (The Bible through the
Centuries, pp.3, 283, 289.) Verbal Inspiration is an evil thing and
must go, declares C. H. Dodd, pointing to "the harm that has been
done to the general conscience by allowing the outworn morality
of parts of the Old Testament to stand as authoritative declarations .
. . . The old dogmatic view of the Bible therefore is not only open
to attack from the standpoint of science and historical criticism,
but, if taken seriously, it becomes a danger to religion and public
morals. A revision of this view is therefore an imperative neces-
sity" (loc. cit.). The times call for an expurgated Bible.l90 )
190) We submit a few more statements which show how deeply the
moderns are scandalized at our unexpurgated Bible, how bitterly they
resent the claim that all Scripture is given by inspiration. S. P. Cadman:
"Slavery, polygamy, incest, needless wars, cruel massacres, and other
non-moral acts and crimes can all be justified by the baseless assumption
that every word of Holy Scripture must be regarded as practically
infallible and then literally construed. It is not too much to say that
this dogma has been prolific of skepticism upon an extended scale."
(Answers to Everyday Questions, p. 253.) G. L. Raymond declares that
"the earlier books of the Bible manifest in places the influences of
comparatively low domestic, social, ethic, and religious standards," points
to "the wholesale slaughter committed by Joshua and David," and con-
cludes that "it is not necessary to affirm that men must accept every
phrase of the Bible as infallibly correct" (The Psychology of Inspiration,
pp. 145, 153, 189). Dr. E. G. Homrighausen (Princeton Theological
Seminary): "Few intelligent Protestants can still hold to the idea that
the Bible is an infallible book; that it contains no linguistic errors, no
historical discrepancies, no antiquated scientific assumptions, not even
bad et/,ieat standards." (Christianity in America, p. 121.) F. Baum-
gaertel: "It is a fact that certcin traits in the character of Yahweh are
offensive to us Christians: in his name people steal. [Ex. 11: 2.] In his
name blood was poured out like water: the butchering of the first-born
in Egypt, the command to massacre whole populations, the slaughtering of
the prophets of Baal, Samuel cutting down with his own hand the
king of the Amalekites." (See W. Moeller, Um die Inspiration der Bibel,
p. 21.) H. F. Baughman: "The ethics of the Bible are controverted by
modern sociology. Its morals are questioned by modern psychology ....
It is interwoven with the ethics of an ancient day, which have long
since been displaced by the onward march of human knowledge." (The
Lllth. Chw'ch Quart., July, 1935, p. 254 f.) At the Washington Debate,
in 1937, Dr. H. W. Snyder, representing the U. L. C., declared that "the
Lutheran Church, outside perhaps of the Missouri Synod, has never
subscribed to a verbal theory of inspiration," and told why he cannot
accept Verbal Inspiration: "As one writer on this question says: 'It
[the Bible] has carried with it the husk as well as the kernel,' and
in illustration of his meaning he quotes some stories of vengeance, cruelty,
lex talionis, polygamy, adultery, which it relates." (See the Journal of
the A. L. Conference, March, 1938; CONC. THEoL. MTHLY., IX, p.359.) In
view of these facts the Christian reader must expurgate his Bible before
he can get any benefit from it. In the words of Georgia Harkness: "The
Bible has one great theme - the obligation of man to God and of God
164 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
One of the blackest sections of the black list before us deals
with the imprecatory psalms, Pss. 35, 55, 59, 69, 79, 109, 137, and
others. Says Ingersoll: "I want Prof. Swing to tell whether the
109th psalm is inspired." H. E. Fosdick: "Read the closing words
of the 137th psalm, which even Gounod's glorious music cannot
redeem from brutality." (Loc. cit.) R. H. Malden, dean of Wells:
"What are we to make of the fierce prayers for vengeance on the
enemies of the writer, whether personal or national, which are to
be found in some of the psalms? They belong to a more primitive
state of society and were written by men who had little belief,
if any, in life beyond the grave. . .. The ethical standards of more
than two thousand years ago cannot be expected to be the same
as our own." (The Inspiration of the Bible, p. 61 ff.) E. F. Keever,
writing on "The Imprecatory Psalms" in The Luth. Church Quart.,
April, 1940, p. 131 ff., does not agree with Henry Ward Beecher,
who is reported to have said that "David seems to have been
inspired at times by the spirit of the Lord, and at other times by
the spirit of the devil"; but he agrees with Dr. Malden. He says:
"Let us not look for Christian ethical concepts in the primitive
morality or ancient tribes. If we study the religion, the ethics,
the culture, and the national traditions of ancient Judaism; if we
sense the madness of the everlasting wars that sacked their cities,
... what other appeal could these ill-starred tribes make than
utter frenzied cries to all the powers in the upper and nether
world to curse the bloody, idolatrous hordes that almost brought
them to extinction?" In the article "Some Thoughts on Inspiration"
iR the Journal of the A. L. Cont., May, 1939, Hjalmar W. Johnson
says: "The human element appears also with sad realism in the
imprecatory psalms. In these passages (Ps. 109: 8,9,10; 137: 9)
the human, or shall I say inhuman, element is sadly evident." And
that proves, they say, that there was no Verbal Inspiration. In the
words of R. W. Sockman: "If every word of Scripture were thought
of as dictated by God to sacred penmen preserved from error, how
would the reader reconcile the cruel explosiveness of the im-
precatory psalms with the tenderness of Isaiah's fifty-third chapter
or Paul's fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians? How would he
harmonize the cynicism of Ecclesiastes with the buoyant hopeful-
ness of Revelation?" (Recoveries in Religion, p.61.)
They tell us further that these immoral sentiments vitiate the
morals of the Christian people. People will make use of the
to man. More than once this obligation was crudely conceived, for
.man's own vindictiveness and passion have a way of getting mixed with
his idea of holy things. If we would sort out the humanly crude from
the divinely pure in the message of the Bible, we would have an
authoritative measure - the mind of Christ." (The Faith by Which
tf.e Church Lives, p. 70.)
Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 16lS
imprecatory psalms to give expression to, and justify, their carnal
hatred. C. H. Dodd: "Many people found that the imprecatory
psalms so perfectly expressed what they felt about the enemy that
they could join in the services with a fervor and reality they
had never known. Yet as they look back upon that state of mind
they probably do not regard it as the high-water mark of their
religious life. . .. The old dogmatic view ... becomes a danger
to religion and public morals." (Loc. cit.) These psalms must be
expunged from the Christian Bible. They are not fit to be read
in Christian services. "Give us Christian responsive readings!
To be sure, there are some heart-warming, soul-lifting passages in
the Psalter. But what place should there be in our responsive
readings for ancient Jewish tribal teachings which Jesus Himself
set aside?" (Western Christian Advocate, Jan. 19, 1928.) These
psalms must be put on the index locorum prohibitorum. F. Baum-
gaertel asks that: "Ps. 137: 9 duerfte doch nicht im Psalmbuch
stehen."
Next on the black list are the "filthy stories" and the records
of gross sins committed by great men of the Bible. "Old and
modern theologians have spoken of 'filthy stories' in the Scriptures
and insist that you dare not charge the Holy Ghost with telling
them." (F. Pieper, Chr. Dog., I, p.338.) There is Gen.38 (Judah
and Tamar) and Ezek. 23! Ingersoll is scandalized at these portions
of Scripture: "A great many chapters I dare not read to you.
They are too filthy. I leave all that to the clergy." (Op. cit.,
p.368.) Paine is scandalized: "The obscene and vulgar stories in
the Bible are as repulsive to our ideas of the purity of a Divine
Being as the horrid cruelties and murders it ascribes to Him are
repugnant to our ideas of His justice." (Reply to the Bishop of
LlandafJ, p.33.) The Lutheran W. F. Gess is scandalized: "It is
disgusting to burden God's Word with the record of such horrible
sins. Reverence should forbid that. It does not take a keen eye
to see that Schmutzgeschichten such as the story of Judah and
Tamar and of the foul deed of Gibeah have no place in God's
Word." (See Proc., Syn. Conf., 1909, p.45.) Dr. H. C. Alleman,
too, feels that "the pure Scriptures must be separated from their
filth." (See The Lutheran, Jan. 14, 1937.) "Furthermore," asks
R. H. Malden, "What are we to make of the conduct of David in
the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite?" (Loc. cit.)
R. F. Horton: "Did we not even as children wonder how Gideon,
who had received a direct revelation from God, could encourage the
idolatry of the ephod, or how Samson, whose strength came from
the Spirit of God, should practice immoralities? . .. Granted that
the crimes recorded in the book are not entirely approved, yet how
comes it that they are not more emphatically condemned if the
lCG Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc .
. writing comes in any sense from God? . .. When the simple truth
of the matter is perceived, the idea that the Book of Judges is
inspired in that sense [in the sense of Verbal Inspiration] will
be maintained not, as now, by the friends but only by the enemies
of divine revelation." (Revelation and the Bible, pp.92, 100.)-
Some years ago a book was published in New York which con-
tained all the "filthy stories" the compiler could find in the Bible,
and only those. The purpose of that black list was to ridicule
the idea that the Bible is a "holy" book. - The point of the
present argument against Verbal Inspiration is that the Holy
Ghost would not and could not record these "filthy" stories and
He would not do it for the further reason that the reading of them
would harm public morals,l91)
A special point is given the argument by anathematizing the
idea that the Holy Ghost would speak by the mouth and write by
the hands of men who had committed great sins. (See W. Lee,
The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, pp. 217, 221 ff.)
Sections of the New Testament, too, are put on the black list.
H. L. Willett lists "the anger of Paul at the high priest who ordered
him smitten in court and his advice to Timothy about taking
a little wine," also "the summary punishment of Ananias and his
wife." "In other words, the Bible is not an authority to us on
all the questions with which it deals." (Lac. cit., p. 291.) Even
Jesus Himself, as the Gospels present Him, is not free of moral
obliquity. He infringed on the property rights of His neighbors.
By what right did He destroy the fig-tree which was not His and
deprive the Gadarene pig-owners of their property? Unless Verbal
Inspiration is discarded, unless the Gospel accounts are set right,
Jesus appears in a bad light. H. L. Willett: "Even in the life of
Jesus the same difficulties appear. So difficult are the narratives
of the demons sent into the swine and the cursed fig-tree that many
191) "Long passages are adduced about the sins of leading historical
characters, such as the drunkenness of Noah, the incest of Lot, ... the
murder and adultery of David, the dissoluteness of Solomon, and all
the evil-doings of the times of the judges, the kings of Israel and Judah,
down to the close of the Old Testament; as also not a few kinds of
things in the New Testament. 'There,' it is said with something akin
to scorn and ironical triumph, - 'there are your famous saints! - There
is your trustworthy, infallible, and divinely inspired, and authoritative
Bible!'" (H. M'Intosh, op. cit., p. 318.) "Another objection raised arrainst
the divine origin of the Bible and the doctrine of inspiration is: The
sins of the saints 2.S recorded in the Bible must necessarily have an evil
effect on the morals of its readers .... Do not Christian preachers con-
tinually protest against books ... which present to the eyes and ears
of men human foibles, passions, illicit sexual relations, and crimes in all
their shameful reality? If this must also be said of the Bible, how can
this book be inspired by God Himself? Has it not thereby forfeited
811 claims to being God's own Book?" (Theol. Mthly, 1925, p. 333: "The
Bible and the Sins of the Saints.")
Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 167
who hold without hesitance to the inspiration and authority of
the Book wonder if there has not been some error in the record
at these points." (Loc. cit.) 102)
Finally, the moderns are scandalized at certain doctrines of the
Bible, doctrines taught not only in the 'Old Testament but also by
the apostles and Jesus. Hear Ingersoll: "I would rather that this
thrilled and thrilling globe, shorn of all life, should in its cycles
rub the wheel, the parent star, on which the light should fall as
fruitlessly as falls the gaze of love on death, than to have this in-
famous doctrine of eternal punishment true; rather than have this
infamous selfishness of a heaven for a few and a hell for the many
established as the word of God." (Op. cit., p.311.) Hear H. E.
Fosdick: "Bible categories that shock the modern conscience-
miracles, demons, fiat creation, apocalyptic hopes, eternal hell."
(Op. cit., p. 5.) R. F. Horton: "The writer of Heb. 6: 1-8; 10: 26,27
is throughout imbued with the stern spirit of the old Law. . . .
This doctrine seems at variance with the idea of God given to us
elsewhere in the New Testament. We must treat it as a judgment
passed by the writer, a judgment which, however sincere, can
claim no more infallibility than other judgments which are passed
by good and earnest men." (Revelation and the Bible, pp. 332,335.)
C. T. Craig: "Despite its majestic insights, the Epistle to the
Hebrews has not been an unmixed blessing. It is more responsible
than any other book of the New Testament for the retention of
the idea that a bloody sacrifice was necessary in order to make
possible the forgiveness of men's sins." (The Study of the New
Testament, p. 111. - See the stinging rebuke administered to this
writer in Kirch. Zeitschrift, 1940, p.555.) A writer quoted by
L. Gaussen: "St. Paul speaks of 'having delivered an incestuous
person over to Satan,' 1 Cor. 5: 5. Could this passage (fanatical
no doubt) have been inspired? . .. He tells them, further, 'that
in Adam all die,' 1 Cor. 15: 22. Judaical superstition! It is im-
possible that such a passage can be inspired." (Theopneustia,
p.202.) And it is impossible that Verbal Inspiration, according to
192) "Mr. Huxley observes that the evangelist has no 'inkling of the
legal and moral difficulties of the case,' and adds, the devils entered
into the swine 'to the great less and damage of the innocent G2rasene
or Gadarene pig-owners.' Further: 'Everything that I know of law
and justice convinces me that the wanton destruction of other people's
preperly is a misdemeanor of evil example.''' (See W. E. Gladstone, The
Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture, p.298.) After the writer of the
article "The 'Cursing' of the Fig-tree" in The Luth. Church Q~La1·t.,
April, 1936, has given us the true story of this incident (the evangelist
had garbled it), he states: "As to the matter of ownership, there is
now no need of invoking the eminent domain of the Son of God in
order to legitimize His behavior towards the property of other people.
For Jesus did not kill the tree, and He had no thought of so doing."
(P. 191.)
168 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
which these passages and all other passages are inspired, can be
true. This doctrine, too, is immoral and harmful. The moderns
have been telling us that from page one on. Verbal Inspiration, "if
taken seriously, becomes a danger to religion and public morals."
(C. H. Dodd, loe. cit.)
This, then, is the situation: while the common folk throughout
Christendom call the Bible "the good Book," the intellectuals
declare it to be a book which is in parts bad, so bad that it needs
to be expurgated before it can be placed in the hands of the
common people. "A possible reason for the crime wave may be
the teachings of the Sunday-school, says a Cleveland, Ohio, pastor
in Scribner's . ... If the lives of these men (the brigands of the
Old Testament) are to be told the children, they must be greatly
cut and told as stories of half-mythical characters." Just as
censors are appointed for expurgating the plays presented to the
public, so the moderns are calling for a Board of Censors for
Certain Books of the Bible. The Bible needs most careful editing
and pitiless expurgation. (See TliEOL. MTHLY., 1927, p. 181.)
Sections of the Bible outrage your moral sensibilities? The
trouble with you is that you have permitted your carnal feelings
to blunt your Christian sensibilities. In the first place, the moral
sense of the Christian forbids him to charge God and God's Word
with immoralities. The Christian trembles at God's Word, Is. 66: 2.
He believes that "every word of God is pure" (Prov. 30: 5). He
declares: "Thy Word is very pure," Ps. 119: 140, and his Christian
feeling is outraged when men speak of moral blemishes in God's
Word. When the atheist and the infidel declare that their ethico-
religious consciousness forbids them to respect the God of the
Bible, the God who ordered the extermination of the Canaanites
and inspired the imprecatory psalms,193l all Christian theologians
tell them: Do not appeal to your ethico-religious ,consciousness;
you have none; you are uttering blasphemy. It is a crimen laesae
maiestatis divinae to criticize God, and it is blasphemy to charge
God's Word with sanctioning immoralities. The moderns are
hOlTified at such an attitude, that is, any criticizing of God and
their denunciation of it is just.
But the moderns are themselves doing this very thing. To be
sure, they resent the charge that they are criticizing the inspired
Word. They insist that these objectionable portions of the Bible
193) The infidels clothe their objection in just this form. "Regarding
these things (the slaughter of the Canaanites, the ferocious and vin-
dictive expressions in many of the psalms) the argument of skeptics
is a brief one: This book professes to be divine, but it represents God
as approving of immoral actions, and therefore it cannot be divine.
Its claim is false, and we must disregard it." (Marcus Dods, The Bible,
Its Origin and Nature, p. 87.)
Verbal Inspiration -a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 169
belong to the "human side" of the Bible, are not inspired, are not
God's Word, do not belong in the Bible. But pleading thus, they
are pleading guilty. What right has the skeptic to treat the Bible
as a human book? And what right has the modern to treat it as
partly divine and partly human? Both, the moderns no less than
the skeptics, claim the right to criticize that book of which God
has solemnly declared: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of
God." The moderns are not ashamed to say openly that the Bible
is subject to their censorship. "It belongs to the Church in every
age to examine the sacred writings by the light both of tradition
and of its own spiritually illumined self-consciousness. . .. By the
light of its own spiritually illumined consciousness it discerns the
Word of God within those Scriptures .... The Church has the right
of rejecting from this Word whatever does not satisfy the demands
of its ethico-religious consciousness." (G. T. Ladd, The Doctrine
of Sacred Scripture, II, pp.502, 50S.) 101) They are actually arro-
gating the right to sit in judgment on God's Word. And we tell
them: You are committing the crimen laesae maiestatis divinae.
When Professor Grau declared that "the morality of the Old Testa-
ment is imperfect," Dr. Stoeckhardt wrote: Das ist ein "blasphemes
Urteil ueber die Sittlichkeit des Alten Testaments." (Loc. cit.)
It is blasphemous to say that the writers of the Old Testament
expressed unethical judgments, for, whether the moderns accept
it or not, they wrote by inspiration of God. How is it possible that
Christian theologians can speak disparagingly of the sacred
writings? The skeptics do it because they are lacking the ethico-
194) Exercising his ethico-religious consciousness, Professor Ladd
"finds various passages, and even some entire books of the Old Testament,
which manifest a relatively low moral tone and contain relatively many
moral imperfections. Still others of these proverbs show so much of
mere shrewdness as scarcely to escape the charge of being immoral
when considered from the Christian point of view (see Prov.17: 8; 18: 16;
21: 14). We can go only a certain distance in company with the spirit
of the imprecatory psalms: thence our path and theirs lie in different
levels and lines." (Op. cit., I, pp. 464, 472.) Similar statements by others:
"If, besides the divine truth that it embodies, the Bible also contains ...
moral incongruities and monstrosities, from which our souls recoil, how
shall I separate the gold from the dross? . .. If anything agrees not with
these words of Christ in the Gospels - polygamy, slavery, revenge,
and barbarity of every kind - we renounce and denOlmce it as evil.
Our enlightened moral instinct rejects it unreservedly and forever."
(J. De Witt, op. cit., p. 179 f.) "Who whispers to us as we read Genesis
and Kings: This is exemplary; this is not? Who sifts for us the speeches
of Job and enables us to treasure as divine truth what he utters in one
verse, while we reject the next as satanic raving? 'The spiritual man-
the man who has the spirit of Christ - judgeth all things.' This, and
this only, is the true touchstone of Scripture by which all things are
tried." (Marcus Dods, op. cit., p.160 f.) "The Spirit-wrought faith applies
a sifting process to the Bible-word. Through this sifting process it gets
the Word of God, the Word of Christ, to which it pneumatically adheres."
(E. Schaeder, Theozentrische Theologie, II, p. 69.)
170 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
religious consciousness. The moderns are doing it because they
have permitted their carnal sense of what is right or wrong to
dull their Christian sense. Their Christian heart has not bidden
them to separate the "chaff" from the wheat, the "filthy" from the
pure. The suggestion that God's Word contains filthy elements
outrages the Christian's sensibilities.105)
Let us repeat this. When the moderns call for an expurgated
Bible, they are judging God. And that is the height of immorality.
L. Gaussen did not go too far when he denounced the arrogance
of the moderns in these strong terms: "You do not, it seems, com-
prehend the divinity, the propriety, the wisdom, the utility of such
or such a passage of the Scriptures, and on that account you deny
its inspiration! Is this an argument that can have any real value,
we do not say in our eyes, but in yours? Who are you? 'Keep
thy foot when thou goest into the house of God,' feeble child of
man, 'and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools,
for they consider not the evil that they do. Be not rash with
thy mouth; God is in heaven and thou upon earth,' Eccl. 5: 1,2.
Who art thou, then, who wouldst judge the oracles of God? Hath
not the Scripture itself told us beforehand that it would be to some
a stumbling-block and to others foolishness, 1 Cor. 1: 23; that the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God and that
he cannot even do so and that they are spiritually discerned,
1 Cor. 2: 14? . .. Man must first return to his place as a weak,
ignorant, and demoralized creature! He cannot comprehend God
until he has humbled himself. . .. It is thus that people strike their
own defective knowledge, like an impure hook, into the Word of
God and drag to the public dung hill whatever they have been
unable to understand and have condemned!" (Op. cit., p.204.)
Instead of complaining that the Bible outrages their moral sen-
sibilities, these men should recognize with fear and terror that they
are suppressing, dulling, outraging their own ethico-religious,
Christian consciousness, which trembles at God's Word.
Once more: if the moderns are right in placing the Bible on
the Index Expurgat01-ius, Christ was wrong in underwriting the
whole of Scripture. "It does not take a keen eye," said Gess, "to
see that filthy stories ... have no place in God's Word." WCiS, then,
Paul dim-sighted when he did not find a single statement of Scrip-
ture offensive to his moral sense but declared that "whatsoever
things were written aforetime, were written for our learning"
(Rom. 15: 4) ? And did our Lord endorse all of Scripture (see
195) "All objections to the divine inspil'ation and the inerrancy of
the Bible are unworthy of a Christian." (F. Pieper, What Is Chris-
tianity? p. 257.) The objection which is based on the alleged moral
i!1congruities in the Bible is unworthy of the Christian.
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 171
John 10: 35) because His eyes were not so clear as those of the
moderns? When they take offense at what was not offensive to
Jesus, they are virtually discrediting the good judgment of our
Lord and Savior. Reverence for God - the first of all ethical
demands - should make such an attitude impossible.196 )
But, say the moderns, Jesus did repudiate the imperfect
morality of the Old Testament and stood for a more perfect ethics.
"Jesus set aside the ancient Jewish tribal teachings." (West. Ch1·.
Advocate.) "We go fearlessly to the old inspiration, approving or
rejecting, as it may be. . .. Whatever in the Old Testament revela-
tion is not in accord with the revelation of His righteousness or
purity or love or truth in the words and life of Christ, has been
annulled and superseded." (J. De Witt, op. cit., p.180.) "The task
of harmonizing such ethical conceptions (the vengeful massacre
of the ninth chapter of Esther, the brutality of the closing words of
the 137th Psalm) with the Sermon on the Mount surely is too
much for human wit or patience. . .. The method of Jesus is ob-
viously applicable: 'It was said to them of old time, ... but I say
1mto you.''' (H. E. Fosdick, op. cit., p. 27.) 197) Now, Jesus did not
repudiate the ethics of the Old Testament. Where did He, for in-
196) "If the Mosaic cosmogony is fabulous, how is it that Jesus
uttered no word against it? And why did He not denounce those im-
precatory psalms which are 'too horrible to be read' in some of our
modern pulpits? . . . Is it possible that His eyes were not as clear,
in this particular, as those of our recent Biblical scholars? Or was
His soul not so sensitive as theirs with regard to these dreadful things
in Scripture? We are in a dilemma. Was He unscrupulous or merely
ignorclllt? ... To question the teaching of Jesus with respect to the
Scriptures is not merely to doubt the statement of one who was subject
to human limitations; it is to call in question the veracity of the living
God." (D. J. Burrell, Why 1 Believe the Bible, p. 117 f. - By the way,
Burrell is not a kenoticist. "His limitations, whatever they may have
been, were certainly not such as to expose Him to the liability of error
or to the danger of uttering an untruth." P.1l6.)
197) Similar assertions: Marcus Dods: "There are actions recorded
in the Old Testament which seem to have the divine sanction and
yet arc condemned by the New Testament code." (Op. cit., p. 87.)
Dr. J. Aberly: "In this total view of Scriptural teaching we must have
the Spirit of Jesus to differentiate between what is temporary and
what is permanent. ... This view of the total purport of the Old Testa-
ment determined the corrections made of such teachings as were at
variance with it. Illustrations of this will be found in the correction
of the law of retaliation, among others, in the Sermon on the Mount,
Matt. 5: 17 -48. (The L1lth. Church Quart., April, 1935, p. 119.) Dr. H. C.
Alleman calls attention to "Old Testament stories of doubtful ethics
and lex talionis reprisals" and insists: "Does not Matt. 5: 39 abrogate
Ex. 21: 24?" (The Luth. Chllrch Quart., 1936, p. 241; 1940, p. 356.) "Will
you please explain the meaning of Ps. 129: 21: 'Do not I hate them,
o Lord, that hate Thee'?'" The editor of The Christian Herald answered
in the issue of March, 1940: "In rcading this verse, we must remember
th,t thosc words were spoken under the Old Dispensation - the dis-
pens8tion of wrath and before the advent of Christ. Jesus said: 'Lovc
your enemies.' )1
172 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
stance, disavow the imprecatory psalms? And do not quote Jesus'
command "Love your enemies" as proving that Jesus repudiated
the Moral Law of the Old Testament. He would ask you to quote
His statement recorded Matt. 22: 39. And when you quote: "But
I say unto you," to prove that Christ revoked the lex talionis as
permitting and sanctioning private revenge, you misinterpret the
words of Jesus. Enough has been said on this subject in the fifth
section of this essay, Assertion No.3 (Aug., 1941). What needs to
be said now is this: Those who insist that Jesus repudiated parts
of the Old Testament teaching put Jesus in a bad light. They make
Him contradict Himself. He said that not one jot or tittle of the
Law shall pass away, Matt. 5: 18. He said that Scripture cannot be
broken, John 10: 35, and the moderns make Him break Scripture
again and again. Did Jesus, then, not know His own mind?
Do the moderns not see that they are questioning the veracity of
God? Reverence for God - the first of all ethical commands-
should make such an attitude impossible.
In the second place, the ethico-religious consciousness which
is offended at the morality taught in the Old Testament (and in
the New Testament), its alleged cruelty, barbarity, etc., is not the
ethico-Christian consciousness. It is a distorted moral sense. The
ethics of God's people stems from the ethics of God. Our sense of
right and wTong is formed on God's judgments of what is right
and wrong. We know something of love because we know the
love of God. And we have a sense of holiness and justice because
we have somewhat realized the majesty of God's eternal right-
eousness and holiness. The moral sensibilities of the moderns are
shocked by the Scripture story of the extermination of the
Canaanites. That is because their moral sense is warped. They
have no sense of the awful justice of God. Dr. H. E. Fosdick well
says: "The trouble with many folk is that they believe in only
a part of God. They believe in His love. They argue that because
He is benign and kindly He will give in to a child's entreaty and
do what the child happens to desire. They do not really believe
in God's wisdom - His knowledge of what is best for all of us-
and in His will - His plan for the character and career of each
of us." (The Meaning of Prayer, p.56.) Apply that here: the
moderns believe in only a part of God; they do not believe in His
holiness. Their moral sense is not fully developed. The extermi-
nation of the Canaanites was an act of the outraged holiness of God.
The measure of their loathsome crimes and unspeakable depravity
was filled up. They needed to be swept away from the face of the
earth. God's holiness could tolerate them no longer. Their ex-
termination had an ethical reason. And those who charge the
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 173
executors of God's judgment with inhumanity (charging God, in
effect, with ungodliness) have no sound ethical sense,lOS)
They say this story reflects the low morality of Old Testament
times, the cruelty of "Yahwe, the tribal god," and of His servants.
No, indeed, the God of the New Testament, Jesus Christ Himself,
executes the same justice and vengeance. Jesus pronounced and
executed a terrible judgment against Israel, man and woman, father
and child. What befell Pompeii? Who has been scourging the
nations that have gone their own evil way with the sword, with
hunger, with pestilence? And what will happen on the dread Day
of Judgment? The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, in
flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and
shall punish them with everlasting destruction, 2 Thess.l:7-9. The
moral sense of the Christian does not rebel against the divine
justice exhibited in damning the wicked 199) and exterminating the
198) W. E. Gladstone: "They [the Hebrew race] were appointed to
purge and to possess the land of Canaan on account of the terrible and
loathsome iniquities of its inhabitants. The nations whom they were to
subdue had reached the latest stage of sensual iniquity, which respects
neither God nor nature. The sensual power within man, which rebelled
against him when he had rebelled against God, had in Canaan enthroned
its lawlessness as law, and its bestial indulgences had become recognized,
normal, nay, more, even religious and obligatory." (Op. cit., p. 128.)
L. Boettner: "The Old Testament teaches that not only certain indi-
viduals but sometimes whole towns and tribes were so degraded that
they were a curse to society and unfit to live." (The Inspiration of the
Scriptures, p. 58.) Ja.mes Orr: "Extermination, where commanded,
had always an ethical reason. If the Canaanites were condemned, it was
because, after long patience of God, the cup of their iniquities was full
to overflowing. 'After all,' says Ottley, quoting Westcott, 'the Canaanites
were put under the ban, not for false belief, but for vile actions.' Nor
was there any partiality in this. To quote what has been said else-
where: 'The sword of the Israelite is, after all, only a more acute form of
the problem that meets us in the providential employment of the sword
of the Assyrian, the Chaldean, and the Roman to inflict the judgment
of God on Israel itself." (Revelation and Inspiration, p. 105.)
199) "Our emotions are not trustworthy. People say, 'I do not feel
that God would condemn the wicked,' and therefore they refuse to
believe that He will. But what have our feelings to do with God?
What warrant have we to imagine that an infinitely holy God 'feels'
about sin as we do and has the same shallow tolerant view of it as we
have? No warrant whatever. The only way in which we can know
how God looks upon sin is by what He says, and in the Bible we have
the record of what He says." (J. H. McComb, God's Purpose in This
Age, p. 67.) "These things, reason will still say, are not becoming
a God good and merciful. . .. Reason wants to feel out and see and
comprehend how He can be good and not cruel. But she will com-
prehend that when this shall be said of God: He damns no one, but
He has mercy upon all; He saves all, and He has so utterly destroyed
hell that no future punishment need be dreaded. It is thus that reason
blusters and contends, in attempting to clear God and to defend Him
as just and good." (Luther, XVIII: 1832.)
174 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
Canaanites. It is a warped ethico-religious consciousness that is
offended at these things, a sickly sentimentalism, begotten by carnal
reasoning. Dr. J. Aberly is right in declaring "that God reveals
Himself not only in mercy but also in judgment. There is a
severity as well as a goodness of God. . .. That easy-going senti-
mentalism which often is made a synonym for the Christian spirit
certainly omits this sterner side, which must be regarded as in-
separable from a religion that has the cross at its center." (The
Luth. Church Quart., April, 1935, p.120.) A man who says of the
ninth chapter of Esther and of the 137th Psalm what H. E. Fosdick
said of these passages "believes in only a part of God" and has no
true conception of the holiness and justice of God. His moral sense
is distorted.
The same applies to those whose moral sensibilities are
shocked by the so-called imprecatory psalms. The moral sense of
the Christian is not shocked when God manifests His hatred of sin
and pours out His consuming wrath upon the rebellious sinner,
inflicting upon him woe temporal and eterna1. The mind of the
Christian is formed on the mind of God and reflects the divine
hatred of sin. The Christian cannot remain indifferent when he
sees men rebel against God; their machinations against God and
His Word and His people arouse his indignation and holy wrath.
For that reason he looks upon these psalms as holy psalms. He
does not denounce them. He prays them. For in them holy men
of God voiced their hatred of sin, denounced God's severe judg-
ment against the enemies of God and His Church, and threatened
them with temporal and eternal woe. They did that in God's
name. Yea, God gave them the very words by which to express
their and His wrath; He inspired these psalms. God made the
psalmists able preachers of His holy Law. If these psalms called
for personal revenge and voiced carnal hatred, we, too, would say
that "David was inspired by the spirit of the devi1." But they do
nothing of the kind. They flow from, and give expression to, the
stern, inexorable justice of God. "There is not one of these pas-
sages which tampers with truth or justice; they are aimed only at
sin, to blast and wither it. 'Lead me, Lord, in Thy righteousness
because of mine enemies,' Ps. 5: 8. This is the universal strain.
All these passages are strokes delivered with the sword of right-
eousness in its unending warfare with iniquity. Nor is there one
among them of which it can be shown that it refers to any per-
sonal feud, passion, or desire. Everywhere the psalmist speaks in
the name of God, on behalf of His word and wil1." (W. E. Gladstone,
op. cit., p.180.) Luther: "The prayers in the psalms are directed
either against the devil as a liar or against the devil as a murderer,
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 175
that is, either against pernicious doctrine or against the tyrants
and persecutors." (IV: 1753.) 200)
The offense which men take at the so-called imprecatory
psalms is due to two defects in their moral sense. They are, in the
first place, deficient in the sense of the enormity and hatefulness
of sin, of the rebellion against God, of false doctrine. They refuse
to let God's wrath against the evil-doer make its full impression on
their ethico-Christian consciousness. "If so many people now-
adays find the language of the psalms we are discussing strange
and offensive, it is largely due to indifference toward the sacred
teachings which God has given us in His Word." (W. Arndt, Bible
Difficulties, p.40.) And, secondly, their moral sense lacks too
much of the fear of God. They dare to lay down rules of behavior
for the almighty, all-holy God. They tell us that it would be
unseemly if God had inspired the imprecatory psalms. The rebuke
which W. E. Gladstone administers to such presumptuousness is
200) The essay "The Imprecatory Psalms," by Prof. H. Hamann, in
the Proceedings of the New South Wales District, 1940 (and in Lehre
und Wehre, 1924, p. 292 ff.) fully covers the subject. We quote: "They
reveal the holy and righteous will of the God of Sinai; they are the
expression of His stern and inexorable justice; they make known to
men God's fearful wrath against sin and ultimately also against sinners,
if they do not repent, so that all may stand in awe and tremble before
His outraged majesty .... The imprecatory psalms belong to the Law
and represent lhe Law at its strictest and sternest, and no one should
be offended at them who knows that God is a 'jealous God,' who will
not abate one jot of His holy and immutable Law .... McClintock and
StTong's Cyclopedia, VIII, p. 755: 'The truth is that only a morbid
benevolence, a mistaken philanthropy, takes offense at these psalms;
for in reality they are not opposed to the spirit of the Gospel nor to that
love of enemies which Christ enjoined. Resentment against evil-doers is
so far from sinful that we find it exemplified in the meek and spotless
Redeemer Himself, Mark 3: 5.' . . . I do not believe that the psalmist
would have written those fearful words in Ps. 137: 9 if he had not known
that terrible prophecy uttered by Isaiah against the same proud city
long before: 'Their children shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished,' Is. 13: 16. The
psalmist simply pronounces his beatitude upon him who will carry out
the doom foretold by the just and holy God. . . . Let us think of our
Savior: what hard sayings, what words of flaming indignation did He
utter when He opposed the malice and stubbornness of His enemies,
who were at the same time the enemies of God, of God's people, and of
true religion and who hardened themselves more and more in their
iniquity! Seven times He pronounces the woe upon the scribes and
Pharisees. . . . We recall the words of St. Paul in 1 Cor. 16: 22: 'If any
mrm love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema,' i. e., accursed .
. . . Not only according to the Old Testament but also according to the
New Testament there is such a thing as righteous wrath against sin
and, in a certain relation, also against sinners who persist in their sin;
there is such a thing as legitimately calling upon God to punish and to
avenge, when His glory and the welfare of souls demands it; there is
such a thing as holy acquiescence and joy in His righteous and perfect
judgment." See also the remarks by Dr. J. T. Mueller in CONC. THEOL.
MTHLY., XII, p. 470. (This also takes care of "the anger of Paul," which
H. L. Willett has set down as a moral blemish.)
176 Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
much too mild: "With respect to their severity 20l) I suggest, and
if need be contend, that we, in our ignorance and weakness are not
fit judges of the extent to which the wisdom of the Almighty may
justly carry the denunciation, even by the mouth of man, and the
punishment of guilt." (Op. cit., pp.178, 180.) Because the senti-
ments expressed in the imprecatory psalms are offensive to the
moderns, they will not believe in Verbal Inspiration. Because we
believe in Verbal Inspiration, we know that those sentiments ex-
press the mind of God; and while some of the expressions may
seem too harsh to us, we bridle our thoughts. We know that, while
now we see only through a glass darkly, the light of glory will
reveal to us that every word of the imprecatory psalms is in full
accord with the eternal Holiness.
Believing in Verbal Inspiration, we know, too, that it was the
Holy Ghost who recorded what the moderns are pleased to call
Schmutzgeschichten, the stories of revolting crimes and heinous
sins, and set them down in plain, unvarnished language. If God
had asked Ingersoll and Gess to record the shameful story told
Gen. 38, the shame of Judah and Tamar, they would have been
horrified, would have indignantly rejected the proposal as coming
from an unclean spirit. Moses had no such prudish scruples. And
if we would "listen to what st. Paul says, Rom. 15: 4: 'Whatsoever
things were \vritten aforetime' etc., if we firmly believed that the
Holy Ghost Himself, and God, the Creator of all, is the true Author
of this book" (Luther, II: 469), we should know a priori that these
stories contain nothing improper, unchaste, smutty.202) "It is true,
this is a rather gross chapter [Gen.38]. However, it is found in
Holy Scripture, and the Holy Spirit wrote it, whose mouth and
pen are as clean as ours. . .. If He was not ashamed to write it,
we should not be ashamed to read and hear it." (III: 559.) There
is nothing about it to cause a modest person to blush and, much
less, to corrupt his morals. Convince yourself of that a posteriori.
Read these chapters in the fear of God. You will see at once that
"the most pure mouth of the Holy Spirit" here depicts sin in such
colors that the reader's heart is filled with horror and detestation
of sin. And all the coloring needed is to present sin in lts own
201) He is speaking of the imprecatory psalms: "'I hate them with
a perfect hatred; I count them mine enemies,' Ps.139: 22. This brings the
objection to a point. It is that this immeasurable detestation and in-
vocation of wrath by man even upon God's enemies cannot be justified,
and is not to be referred to divine inspiration."
202) L. Gaussen: "We have been asked, finally, if we could discover
anything divine in certain passages of the Scriptures, too vulgar, it
has been said, to be inspired. We believe we have shown how much
wisdom, on the contrary, shines out in these passages as soon as, instead
of passing a hasty judgment on them, we would look in them for the
teaching of the Holy Ghost." (Op. cit., p. 355.)
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 177
color, in its nakedness and frightfulness. These so-called "filthy
stories" do in the moral sphere what is done in the dissecting-room
where a wretched body is cut up and laid bare in order to show how
the disease had ravished it.203 ) Will the students be filled with
lascivious thoughts when they see the dissector handling the nude
corpse and lUlcovering the hideous filth produced by the disease?
Not if they are normal men. The moral sense of one who cannot
distinguish between the story of David's great sin and the current
sex-novels is distorted.
These men do not serve the cause of Christian morals by
demanding that the stories of the great sinners and of the ex-
termination of the Canaanites, together with the imprecatory
psalms, be deleted from the Bible. They are there for a good
purpose. The sinner needs them, and the saint, who is a sinner,
needs them. They warn us, 1 Cor. 10: 11, and they comfort us, Rom.
15: 4; 2 Tim. 3: 16. "Why does the most pure mouth of the Holy
Spirit stoop down to such low, despicable things, aye, things which
are unchaste and filthy, yea, damnable, as if such things should
serve to instruct the Church and congregation of God? How does
that concern the Church?" Read on in Luther, II: 1200 (and
I: 628 fl. - on the sins of Noah and of Ham) and thank God that He
has shown you here the vileness of human nature, in the sinner and
in the saint, the terrible wrath of God against the transgressor, and
the wonderful grace of our Lord and Savior towards the vilest
203) Dr. Thomas De Witt Talmage (pastor of the Brooklyn "Taber-
nacle") ; "Mr. Ingersoll declares that there are indecencies in the Bible
which no one can read without a blush of shame .... I can go into the
office of any physician here in Brooklyn and find magazines on the
table and books on the shelves which the physician would not indis-
criminately read to his family; yet they are good, valuable, necessary,
morally pure books. A physician who did not have them would not
belong in the profession. Even so there are passages in the Bible
which form the anatomy of sin, showing what a lazar-house of iniquity
the heart is when unrestrained. . .. When you read these passages, you
will not be like one that has been infected with the evil, but like one
that comes out of the dissecting-room and is much wiser than before
he entered; he is in no wise enamored of putrefaction. There is a
description of sin (as you will find it in the poems of Byron) which is
seductive and corruptive, but the Biblical painting of sin warns and
saves." (See Lehre und Wehre, 1882, p. 226; Weseloh, Das Buch des
Herrn llnd seine Feinde, p. 121.) "Mayor Gaynor of New York said
before a conference of Lutheran ministers that, when on a certain
occasion he had put a Bible into the library of a city, a friend wrote
him that he could not understand how Mayor Gaynor would put a book
in a public library which he himself would not be willing to read from
cover to cover in his f8mily circle. The mayor said that the argu-
mentation of the writer did not impress him at all; for, while it
was true that the Bible speaks of shocking crimes, it never treats them
as the present-day salacious literature de8ls with such matters, but
always refers to sin and wrong-doing in such a way that a person is
warned." (See Luth. School Journal, 1936, p. 106.)
12
178 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
sinner. All of us need to take these stories to heart. The pride of
Israel needed to be laid low.204 ) Our nation would do well to study
the reason for the extermination of the Canaanites. "What are we
to make of the conduct of David in the matter of Bathsheba and
Uriah?" asks the Dean of Wells. This: we are to make much of
the fearful power of Satan over our sinful flesh, much of the fierce-
ness of God's wrath in punishing sin, and very much of the grace
of Jesus which forgives us our sins and crimes. "May these psalms"
[and the story of David, etc.] "work in us what God designed them
to achieve - teach us the heinousness of all sin and wickedness and
the stern reality of God's righteous anger toward all who remain in
sin, so that we may flee for refuge to the Savior, Jesus Christ, in
whose wounds alone are to be found righteousness, life, and sal-
vation." (Froe., New South Wales.) And here are the moderns
declaring that these sections of Holy Scripture were not fit to be
inspired, not fit to be read! Christian ethics would suffer thereby!
These moderns do not know the first thing about Christian morals.
Christian morality springs from the sense of the heinousness of
sin and of the wondrous grace that saves from sin.
In the third place, some of the moderns stoop to unethical
manipulations of the facts. F. Baumgaertel misrepresents the situa-
tion when he v .. rites: "Den Prophet en Elisa hoehnen spielende
Kinder; sie haben ihre kindliche Ungezogenheit mit dem Tode zu
buessen, 2 Koen. 2: 23." Moeller calls that "eine Einschmuggelung
in den Text" (op. cit., p. ll). Anything goes if it serves to vilify
the prophets and Scripture and Verbal Inspiration.20o ) - Verbal
Inspiration, says Cadman, would make God responsible for "slavery,
polygamy, incest, needless wars, cruel massacres." Note the
sinister lumping together of what God commanded, what He
tolerated, and what He absolutely prohibited. Incest is mentioned
in the same breath with slavery and the extermination of the
204) Robert Haldane: "The pride of the Jews, who vaunted their
descent from Abraham and even imagined that God had chosen them
as His covenant people because of the high virtues of their forefathers,
could not have been humbled in a more effective way than by reminding
them of the sins of the patriarchs. The sins of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
and Judah are set down to warn Israel not to seek salvation through
the works of the Law." (The Verbal Inspiration of the Old and New
Testaments Maintained and Established. German edition, p. 197.)
205) "The unconverted man loves objections as the condemned
man at court is glad to detect a flaw in the argument which is directed
against him, though the flaw may not at all affect his guilt or the real
conclusiveness of the testimony. A man disposed to skepticism opens
the Word, if at all, not to find moral beauty, but to hunt for something
on which to hang a new objection." (A. T. Pierson, Many Infallible
PToofs, p. 179.) We had discrepancy-hunters, and here we have im-
morality-hunters. We are not judging individuals. But we want the
man who is set on finding ethical blemishes in the Bible to ask himself
what his motive is.
Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 170
Canaanites. One would expect Dr. Cadman to differentiate be-
tween these things and tell his readers that the Bible nowhere
sanctions incest, lest they get the idea that God, who did order
these wars, took a tolerant view of the horrible crime of incest.
And what about polygamy and slavery? The objectors like to
harp on these subjects as constituting a flagrant case of moral
obliquity. Ingersoll: "I have no love for any God who believes
in polygamy. . .. I call upon Robert Collyer to state whether he
believes that God was a polygamist. . .. God believed in the
infamy of slavery." Now, God did not institute polygamy; he per-
mitted it but never sanctioned it. See Gen. 2: 24. "From the be-
ginning it was not so," Matt. 19: 8. Nor did God institute slavery.
He tolerated it, for good and sufficient reasons (study statecraft!),
provided for the humane treatment of slaves (see, for instance,
Ex. 21: 26 f.; 21: 2; Lev. 25: 39 fl.) and their Christian treatment
(see, for instance, Col. 4: 1; the Epistle to Philemon). Do not
slander God and Holy Scripture! - R. F. Horlon asked: "How
comes it that the crimes recorded in the book are not more em-
phatically condemned if the writing comes in any sense from God?"
That comes near being an outright falsehood. Did God use soft
words in condemning the adultery and murder David committed?
Or does Horton really mean to say that because Moses did not
conclude Gen. 38 with the statement "These people committed a
horrible crime," the moral sense of Moses was dulled? - Professor
Baumgaertel: "Der angebliche Befehl Gottes zur Ausrottung der
Kanaaniter ist ein misslungener Versuch einer Rechtfertigung fuel'
die grausame Landeseroberung." (See Allg. Ev.-Luth. Kztg., No. 45,
1926, on this charge of Baumgaertel.) Can Baumgaertel and as-
sociates prove that God's command to exterminate the Canaanites,
as recorded in the Bible, was a fiction, invented for the purpose of
clothing the "crime" with divine authority? If not, they are guilty
or the infamous slander of charging the holy writers with fraud,
hypocrisy, and blasphemy. These things are not ethical.206 )
206) In the spirit of Bawngaertel Prof. W. M. Forrest writes: "The
account in S2muel says God tempted David to make a census of the
people. That was before Jewish theology had invented the devil. When
Chronicles was written centuries later, the inspired writer had no such
notion of a verbally inerrant Bible as the Fundamentalists have. Hence
he boldly changed the record and said Satan did the tempting. But in
either case and in many others showing God cruel and vindictive we
have a picture of God so alien to Christ's teaching that it is unfair to
hold it as a part of Christian faith." (Do Fundamentalists Play Fair?
p. 77.) -Some do not go so far as Baumgaertel and Forrest, will not
charge the holy writers with wilful fraud. Marcus Dods explains and
excuses the alleged moral blemishes in the Old Testament with the
theory of the "progressive revelation." He says: "The best men among
the Jews mistinderstood God." (Gp. cit., p. 88.) Fosdick has the same
explanation: "The Old Testament [the ninth chapter of Esther, the 137th
180 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
Not all the items in the black list before us are due to a
defective moral sense. Some are the product of ignorance and
defective reasoning. We offer a few samples.
Ex. 11: 2: "Let every man borrow of his neighbor," etc. Ac-
cordingly "the Israelites stole in the name of God" (Baumgaertel),
"defrauded" their neighbors (Marcion). This charge springs from
ignorance of the Hebrew language. ,~~ does not mean borrow,
but petere, as in Luther's translation:';f~rdern," and in the R. V.:
"Let them ask," and in Moffatt's translation: "ask," and in Gore's
Commentary: "demand," and in Kretzmann's PoptLlar Commentary:
"demand." Did the Lord have the right to demand and take from
the Egyptians whatsoever He pleased? (See Lehre und Wehre,
19.08, p.308; Proc., Minn. and Dak. Dist., 1898, p.34.) 207)
"A mind disposed to hunt for something on which to hang a
new objection" is, says A. T. Pierson, glad to come upon 2 Sam.
12: 31. "This has been violently assailed as a proof of the cruelty
of David - the man after God's own heart, who nevertheless took
the people of Rabbah and sawed them in twain or drew them over
iron harrows or clove them with axes or roasted them in brick-
kilns. But what if it refers only to the work at which he set them?
Psalm] exhibits many attitudes indulged in by men and ascribed to
God which represent early stages in a great development .... " (Op. cit.,
p. 27.) James Orr had men like Dods and Fosdick in mind when he
wrote: "The writers of the Bible, it is said, attributed to Jehovah their
own defective, semibarbarous conceptions." (Op. cit., p. 104.) Dods
and Fosdick do not make the vile insinuations of Baumgaertel. They
look on Moses and David as honest men. But they involve themselves
in a difficulty of another kind. They represent God as being not quitc
honest. On their theory God permitted David to think that he was
speaking the mind of God ("The Spirit of the Lord spake by me," 2 Sam.
23: 2) when he wrote his imprecatory psalms; God took no steps to
keep the writers of the Bible from attributing to Him their own semi-
barbarous conceptions; it was according to God's plan ["progressive
revelation"] that men had in the initial stages false ideas of God; David
thought that God was a semibarbarous Being because God planned
it that way.
207) G. L. Raymond has a typically modern explanation of this
"fraudulent" transaction. It does away with Verbal Inspiration, naturally,
but clears God of fraud. He warrts the passage interpreted in a literary
sense, meaning that the words "The Lord said unto Moses" "need not
be interpreted Ilterally." God did not really say: "Let every man
borrow," but Moses thought that the Lord meant that. "For this reason,
when we come to consider the discrepancy indicated between what we
conceive to be the character of God and the advice to do evil that
good may come, we may conclude that these passages, interpreted in
a literary and not a literal sense, mean no more than that Moses was
inspirationally impressed with the conception that he should lead the
people out of Egypt and obtain funds for the purpose in the best way he
could, in which circumstanccs the natural promptings of a descendant
of J8.cob as well as of an enslaved race impelled him into advising the
subterfuge of the false pretense oE borrowing." (The Psychology of
Inspiration, p. 139 fl.) In the same way Horton gets rid of the morDI
blemish presented by the imprecatory psalms.
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 181
(Angus' Bible Hand Book.)" M. Henry condemns this as a sinful
act of cruelty. Be it so - it has as little to do with inspiration as
the other sinful acts of David. R. Jamieson calls it "an act of
retributive justice." Gore's Commentary, however, has: "Read as
R. V., margin. The theory that the passage refers to various forms
of torture is not supported either by the language or by the con-
struction of the Hebrew." Moffatt: "He also brought away the
townsfolk, whom he set to work with saws and iron picks and iron
axes and made them labor at brick-making." Our old Weimarische
Bibelwerk suggests a similar translation: "Er hiess das Volk
bringen auf Saegemuehlen und in die Eisenbergwerke .... " Be
sure that you know the exact translation of this passage - a cnLX
interpretum - before you tell the world that you have bagged one
more ethical blemish.
H. L. Willett's contention that "Paul's advice to Timothy about
taking a little wine" proves that "the Bible cannot be taken as
inerrant in all its parts, is not an authority to us on all the questions
with which it deals," reveals the prohibitionists' misapprehension of
the teaching of the Moral Law on this question. See Pieper, Ch1"ist.
Dog., I, p. 305, on 1 Tim. 5: 23.
Jesus broke the Law, illegally deprived the owners of the swine
of their property, says Prof. Huxley; and He had no right to kill
His neighbor's fig-tree. The higher critics Willett and The Luth.
Church Quart. exculpate Jesus by denying that He ever did these
things. Both Huxley and the moderns are ignorant of the simple
truth of natural and revealed religion which declares that the Lord
is the absolute Owner of the earth and oE man's possessions. They
virtually deprive the Lord of the right of eminent domain. "The
earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof," Ps. 24: 1. Luther:
"Why did Jesus permit the devils to enter swine which belonged io
other people? Answer: Christ is Lord of all, and there is nothing
that does not belong to Him; the pigs, too, were His." (VII:
p. 44.) 208)
208) Gladstone: "I find the answer to it in the reasonable and
(as it seems to me) almost necessary supposition that the possession of
the swine was unlawful and therefore was justly punishable by the
ensuing loss. . . . The punishment inflicted upon the owners did not.
constitute a breach but rather a vindication of the Law; as a law would
be vindicated if casks of smuggled spirits were caught and broken
open after landing and their contents wasted on the ground." (Op. cit.,
pp. 300, 303.) Lenski gives the same answer: "Swine were an illegal
possession for Jews." Luther is willing to consider it: "VieHeicht
Tconnte auch Christum das Gesetz Mosis dazu bewogen haben, und er
mag sie darum als Veraechter des Gesetzes gestraft haben." (Loc. cit.)
But the answer given Ps. 24: 1 is sufficient and all-conclusive. - The
solution offered by the higher critics would, if accepted, deprive us of
what is infinitely more precious than all earthly possessions - of the
trustworthiness of Scripture.
182 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
O. Bensow (Die Bibel- Das Wort Gottes) on the authorship
of the imprecatory psalms: "Die menschlichen Gedanken sind
gegen die goettlichen Gedanken zu scharf hervorgetreten." We
cannot conceive of a more grotesque concept of Inspiration than
this. The Holy Ghost set out to utter His thoughts through David;
but off and on the carnal feelings of David interfered, and the
thoughts of the Holy Ghost could not get full expression. David
should not have said: "My tongue is the pen of a ready writer,"
Ps. 45: 2. According to the moderns he should have confessed:
I bungled my psalms.
The moderns imagine that they are giving Verbal Inspiration
the death-blow when they bring up the fact that the holy writers
were sinful men. This argument, however, is the result of defective
reasoning and of the failure to realize the profoundest truth of the
Christian religion. The moderns point to the dissimulation practiced
by Peter at Antioch, the doubting of Moses, the crimes of David.
"David," they say, "was a wicked man," unfit to be God's mouth-
piece and "incapable of writing these praises (in the Psalms) to the
God of righteousness" (Fundamentals, II, p. 63). Note, first, the
defective reasoning. It is based on the false premise that inspira-
tion means sinlessness or, more precisely, that, if the holy writers
were absolutely inerrant in their teaching and writing, they must
also have been perfect in their lives. How will you prove that?
Scripture does not say it. What st. Paul wrote in Rom.7 con-
cerning his great sinfulness did not keep him from saying that he
spoke and wrote the words of the Holy Ghost. Nor does reason
tell us that God can reveal His will only through sinless angels.209 )
But how can God make sinners His mouthpieces? Learn the basic
truth of Christianity! Will you set a limit to the infinite grace
of God? Surely Peter and David were not worthy to be chosen
by God to be His spokesmen, His mouthpieces. David was amazed
at this mark of divine favor. The adulterer and murderer, made
"the sweet psalmist of Israel," exults: "The Spirit of the Lord spake
by me, and His Word was in my tongue." "My tongue is the pen
of a ready writer," 2 Sam. 23: 1, 2; Ps. 45: 1. And how he loved
to sing the praises of the God of grace! "Thou art fairer than
the children of men; grace is poured into Thy lips," Ps. 45: 2. Do
you abhor the thought that God received back into His favor the
murdering adulterer? Then why should you abhor the thought
that God could use David's tongue to utter forth His wondrous
209) "Christ Himself distinguishes between the doctrine of the