to urge indolent man upon the quest after the light. Once there was a bonfire lit in the world, of which the New Testament is a still flaming brand. Once men were darkness and once they became light in the Lord. Since then the light has been diffused into twilight, and in half-Christianized Europe generations have had no knowledge either of the light or of the darkness. But to-day all changes. The darkness of the far lands where the Gospel has never been, let alone grown old, lies close round Europe. The darkness of the veil of things seen and pleasurable hangs heavy over luxurious souls. The darkness of the universe in its incomprehensible age and vastness overcasts the vision of postDarwinian science. The darkness of human hearts emancipated, and void of all allegiance but to themselves, creeps ever on.

Therefore to-day the light begins to shine anew, as men begin again to know the need of it.

Have not the times arrived the rumour of whose coming touched the prophetic heart of Robert Browning?

what whispers me of times to come?
What if it be the mission of that age
My death shall usher into life, to shake
This torpor of assurance from our creed,
Reintroduce the doubt discarded, bring
That formidable danger back, we drove
Long ago to the distance and the dark?

No wild beast now prowls round the infant camp:
We have built wall and sleep in city safe:
But if some earthquake try the towers that laugh
To think they once saw lions rule outside,
And man stand out again, pale resolute,
Prepared to die-which means alive at last?

1 The Ring and the Book, The Pope, line 1851.

II

THE BIBLE

BY

RICHARD BROOK

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF MERTON COLLEGE

LECTURER IN THEOLOGY AT MERTON AND ORIEL COLLEGES EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF WAKEFIELD

INTRODUCTION

In the past the Bible has been supreme as a creative and sustaining power in the spiritual life

To determine whether it can continue to be this we must ask what the Bible is and to what it owes its power

It is a living and vitalising record of religious experience: its writers were “religious men

I. THE CONTENT OF THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF THE
BIBLICAL WRITERS

(a) The Old Testament Writers

The primary and constituent elements of their religious

experience.

The purpose

and method of their writings

Theological and ethical development

(b) The New Testament Writers

The new and characteristic element in Christian

experience.

Its relation to that of the Old Testament writers

II. THE ORIGIN OF THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF THE
BIBLICAL WRITERS

The religious and the non-religious interpretation of life contrasted

Three analogies which suggest the lines along which we may formulate a theory of inspiration:

(1) The optimism of religion compared with the optimism of science

41 42

.

46-57

46

49

(2) Genius for religion compared with genius for science, or with genius for art or music

(3) Revelation in its more passive aspect compared with a man's knowledge of his friend

53

It is because they possess a special genius for religion that the Biblical writers are able to apprehend God's self-revelation. III. THE PERMANENT VALUE OF THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF THE BIBLICAL WRITERS.

57

It has some evidential value even for those who do not share it, but in the last resort the appeal must be to the experience itself.

Experience shows that the religious sense requires cultivation, and can be cultivated in the same way as, e.g., the artistic or the musical sense-by the study of the "great masters"

Threefold test of genius for art

Application of this test in the sphere of religion justifies the view that the Bible is for religion what the "great masters" are for art "the classical and normative expression" of the religious life

The Bible has a definite historical value, but

(1) It is for religion and not primarily for history or theology that we go to the Bible

(2) All the writers were not equally inspired, nor is inspira

tion limited to them

The authority of the Bible is that of its own spiritual supremacy and its proved spiritual power

II

THE BIBLE

Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear.

Each sufferer has his say, his scheme of the weal and woe.
But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear;
The rest may reason and welcome.

These men see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep.

:

To the plain man the Bible is no longer the Book of Books. On investigation we shall find that the plain man is wrong, but at first sight there is much to be said for his point of view. He is no critic and has no time for critical studies, but he has learnt that the Bible is not infallible in its statements of fact, in its ethical teaching or even in its theology. He knows what modern science has to say with regard to the creation narratives in Genesis, and he is vaguely aware that similar stories are to be found in Babylonian mythology. And in many other places, chiefly perhaps in the stories of the patriarchs and of the early monarchy, he suspects that there is a large element of folk-lore and tradition, and he has not the means of finding out what element of historicity the narratives contain. Consequently, he is invaded by a general sense of insecurity, and believing that many of its statements are untrue, he not unnaturally asks how the Bible can be regarded as in any real sense inspired, or, indeed, as having any particular value.

Moreover, he is not really interested in "the kings

of Israel and Judah." Why should he read these old stories and legends, even supposing that they are true? Still less is he interested in the ceremonial enactments of Leviticus or in the symbolism of such books as Daniel and Revelation, which he does not the least understand. He has always been taught that the chief value of the teaching of the prophets lay in their miraculous predictive powers, and now that he is told that the old argument from prophecy" is discredited, nothing seems to remain. He perceives, too, that the ethical standpoint of some of the Biblical writers is relatively crude. He cannot but condemn, for example, the treacherous act of Jael which is singled out for special praise in the Song of Deborah. What, he asks, is he to gain by reading such stories as these? And he sees almost as little reason why he should read the New Testament. He already knows, in broad outline, the story of the life of Christ. Why should he read it again? Is the Gospel narrative really trustworthy in all its details? And what is he to make of the Pauline Epistles with their elaborate and obscure arguments?

It is some such feeling as this, implicit if not explicit, which accounts for the fact that nowadays men do not read the Bible. This feeling is by no means confined to those who have definitely broken with Christianity. The ordinary Christian still clings to the belief that the Bible is, somehow or other, different from other books, but he finds it hard to provide himself with any clear or sufficient reason for this belief, and as he has no definite idea as to why or how or in what spirit he ought to read the Bible, the natural result is that, in many cases, he does not read it at all.

Yet it is an undoubted fact that up to our own time the Bible has occupied a unique and a supreme place as a creative, a moulding and a sustaining power in the spiritual lives of Christian men. "In every generation and wherever the light of revelation has