LESSON 81.
“NO WORD OF GOD IS VOID OF POWER.”
654. We quote from a valuable book on “Lines of
Defense of the Biblical Revelation,” by Prof. D. S.
Margoliouth, M.A. of Oxford, some words of special interest
to women. He says: “The whole of the modern theory of the
Pentateuch is liable to be wrecked on a verse of 1 Samuel,
where it is stated that the sons of Eli misused the women
who assembled (A. V.) at the door of the Tabernacle of the
Congregation” 2:22.
655. We are interested at once, as women, to know what
all this means. First, what is the “modern theory,”¾for
some may not know? The Higher Criticism teaches that the
rules relating to worship set forth in Leviticus, and to
some extent in Exodus and Numbers, did not take shape, and
were not promulgated in full until somewhere about the time
when Ezra makes his appearance in Scripture history,¾just
before or after the Babylonian exile was past. In fact, some
claim that Ezra himself promulgated them. For, denying
revelation (in the sense that we generally understand it),
and substituting evolution in its place, time must be
allowed for the evolution of such an elaborate and
intelligent as well as monotheistic system of worship.
656. When I was a missionary in China, I knew of a
Chinese mother who was so provoked because her daughter’s
bound foot was too large for the tiny shoe she had
embroidered for it, that she seized the shears and attempted
to cut the foot to the size of the shoe. Revelation is too
great and wonderful a fact to be fitted into the narrow
theory of evolution; so the destructive critics attempt to
hew away the Living Word to fit it into their theory. They
would cut the foot to fit the shoe.
657. Now it is not so difficult to declare a very
ancient book centuries newer than it happens to be. But
other things are involved, in this particular case. For
instance, what about the Tabernacle itself, for which these
regulations regarding worship were made? Solomon’s Temple
was built some 500 years before Ezra’s day. Was the
Tabernacle built 500 years after the Temple? The
Bible declares it was built about 500 years before
the Temple. The Tabernacle dates (in round numbers), 1500,
Solomon’s Temple 1000, and Ezra 500 B.C. Can we date the
Tabernacle 1000 years later than we have been accustomed to
date it? The Higher Criticism theory does so. Wellhausen,
the chief exponent of the Higher Criticism says. “The
Tabernacle is a copy of the Temple at Jerusalem.” This looks
to most of us like childish nonsense. For what object was
the portable structure called the Tabernacle built,
if not for meeting the
conditions of the wilderness life of wandering Israelites?
658. And how could Ezra, or anyone else, invent the
entire ritual law, and then convince the Jews that the law
was revealed to Moses, and had been in use among their own
people for long centuries? And yet, this is what is claimed;
this is that “modern theory.” The children of Israel must be
convinced that this newly invented system of laws is
centuries old, to secure veneration for it! Abraham Lincoln
once said, in his own homely way: “You can fool all the
people some of the time; and some of the people all of the
time; but you can never fool ALL of the people ALL of
the time.” We all know this is true. The Higher Critics
would have us believe, “All the Jews and all the Christians,
from Ezra’s day until now¾including
even the Apostles and Jesus Christ¾have
been fooled ALL THIS TIME, until our brilliant intellects
have discovered the fraud for you.” But this is something
more difficult to believe than to believe that it is the
Higher Critics themselves who are perpetrating the fraud for
us to accept. If Ezra could do so badly, why not they?
659. One passage in the Bible ought to be regarded as
sufficient to explode this “modern theory,”¾1
Kings 8:4-9. The Ark and all the furniture of the Tabernacle¾including,
by inference, the Tabernacle itself¾were
stored away in Solomon’s Temple, when it was dedicated. Thus
Lange’s Commentary (Bähr) says: “Not only the Ark, but the
Tabernacle which had hitherto stood at Gibeon, with all its
vessels, was brought . . . into Solomon’s Temple.” The
Tabernacle could not very well have been put into Solomon’s
Temple, if it was not built until a long time after that
Temple had been destroyed.
How do these critics
get around this statement? Wellhausen declares that the
words “Tabernacle of the Congregation” have been
interpolated into this particular passage. This is an
easy thing to say; the proof is a different matter
altogether.
Now this is not primarily a lesson on Biblical criticism,
but on women. Therefore we will not stop to discuss this
claim of Wellhausen’s, further than to say that feeble as it
is, it satisfies those who wish to believe in it. Having
laid our foundation, we will turn to the passage about women
of which Prof. Margoliouth speaks,¾about
“the women who assembled (A.V.) at the door of the
Tabernacle of the Congregation.” We wish to know how this
verse in 1 Samuel
2:22 is “likely to wreck” this “modern theory” that the
Tabernacle was a copy of the Temple, and built 500 years,
more or less, after the Temple.
660. It is, of course, not logically proper to bring the
Pentateuch, or the “Hexateuch” (the first six books of the
Bible), into the argument against this “modern theory,”
since they are the books whose date is called into question.
These books mention the Tabernacle some eighty times. For
logical purposes we must search for a mention of the
Tabernacle in books of the Bible that these critics will
admit are older than the Hexateuch. The books of 1 and 2
Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles can be
admitted as proof, in the argument against this “modern
theory,” because the critics claim (not we) that these books
are older than the Hexateuch,¾that
is, their date is older than the date when the Tabernacle
was built. The Tabernacle is mentioned in these books many
times¾certainly
very clearly some fourteen times, according to Bishop
Hervey.
661. But the destructive critic is very fastidious as to
terms. He will only accept one expression as clearly
designating the Tabernacle,¾the
Hebrew ‘ohel moed, “tent of meeting,” and against
every one of these fourteen cases he finds some objection
which causes him to doubt the proof. Now it happens that the
verse in 1 Samuel 2:22 is the strongest instance among these
fourteen, so the argument against the “modern theory”
centers here, and the verse is being given increased study.
The verse employs the accepted Hebrew expression ‘ohed
moed, and it relates to a period of time prior by about
200 years to Solomon’s day; and the reliability of this book
of Samuel has not been seriously called into question by the
destructive critics.
622. But those critics thought that particular
verse could be dismissed with scarcely a thought, because
the part that relates to women does not appear in the
manuscripts of the Septuagint Greek version (which was made
by the Jews nearly 300 years before Christ). So they
declared the verse to be an interpolation into the Hebrew
text, and not genuine. But here is a difficulty, as pointed
out by Dr. Orr: Why should the Jewish translators of the
Septuagint make mention of the same women in Exodus
38:8? And why should Ezra, or whoever (according to the
modern theory) concocted the Pentateuch, mention these women
in the Pentateuch, at a later time (if the Pentateuch
is indeed a comparatively late production), in a period when
women were known to have been held in contempt, unless there
was a strong tradition, at least, that women had served in
the Tabernacle, and what more likely than that the statement
lay before him in 1 Samuel 2:22?
(To be continued.) |