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The Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament by Charles Foster Kent
page 10 of 182 (05%)
faith, the Old Testament has been the scene of their greatest activity.
With what seemed to the onlooker to be a supreme disregard for the
traditions long accepted as established by the Church, they have
persistently applied to the ancient Scriptures the generally accepted
canons and methods of modern historical and literary study. In their
scientific zeal they have repeatedly overturned what were once regarded
as fundamental dogmas. Unfortunately the first reports of their work
suggested that it was only destructive. The very foundations of faith
seemed to be shaking. Sinai appeared to be enveloped in a murky fog,
instead of the effulgence of the divine glory; Moses seemed to become a
vague, unreal figure on the distant horizon of history; David's voice
only faintly echoed through the Psalter; and the noblest messages of
prophet, sage, and psalmist were anonymous.

[Sidenote: _The mistakes of the critics_]

Little wonder that many who heard only from afar the ominous reports of
the digging and delving, and vague rumors,--all the more terrifying
because vague,--either leaped to the conclusion that the authority of
the Old Testament had been undermined or else rallied in a frantic
effort to put a stop, by shouting or compulsion, to the seemingly
sacrilegious work of destruction. When the history of the Higher
Criticism of the Old Testament is finally written, it will be declared
most unfortunate that the results first presented to the rank and file
of the Christian Church were, as a rule, largely negative and in many
cases relatively unimportant. In their initial enthusiasm for scientific
research scholars, alas! sometimes lost the true perspective and failed
to recognize relative values. The date, for example, of Isaiah xl.-lv.
is important for the right understanding and interpretation of these
wonderful chapters, but its value is insignificant compared with the
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