Theories again would frequently be completely unanswerable but for some small fact which is contradictory. But, for one established fact the whole theory must go.
Such is the case with an elaborate theory concerning a skull found, which the presence of a little verdigris—the undeniable proof of bronze—wholly contradicts. A small plug of cork found with canoes dug from the estuary silt of the Clyde at Glasgow, will prove their age to be very different from which otherwise theory would give it. That which it is important to notice in such examples is, that but for one very small fact, theoretical evidence would have had it all its own way. And yet, as we know from facts now, it would have been wrong.
Enough for the present has been said, in proof, that theories, 'however ingenious or apparently conclusive as arguments, yet as witnesses must give place to every other kind of evidence. Bubbles, as has been said, may be attractive and spherically complete, hut they make bad foundations. The web of the spider may be ingenious, but flies only can be caught by it.
The links of the argument may be as strong as reasoning can make them, hut their weakness comes from its being reasoning and not fact. And consequently we find that, by theorizing, nonsense supported by argument can be presented with the same ease as fact; while different theories, each faultless in the process of deduction from its own premises, will often confound each other.
Again, the respective weight of fact and reasoning as evidence may be judged from the fact that a whole theory may have to be surrendered because of one established fact. And lastly, when theories leave no room for reasonable doubt, before statements of facts can be pronounced certainly untrue because of them, it must be proved (1) that the theory is really infallible, and (2) that the statements of fact are impossible of reconciliation-with it.
Blind Confidence in Theory
And yet it is popular to trust theories, in the face of all other evidence; and with the great majority it is trusting only the reputation of them. Satisfaction is felt in following in the wake of critics. When the believer finds to what so ninny are willing to commit their eternal Welfare, he has indeed cause to be thankful, and rejoice that God through the gospel has given him " not the spirit of fear, but of a sound mind," as well as " of power and love."
But research and study, besides affording material fine theory, have brought to light facts that can be compared with facts in Scripture. The chronicles of those nations whose histories are so closely interwoven and connected with that of the chosen nation of Scripture, have of late years been discovered and deciphered.. The result is evidence of a very different character to that of theory. Facts will be found stated which must either throw the strongest doubt upon the records of Scripture, or else will) confirm and establish on a historical basis the facts there given as facts and not romances.
Result of Archaeological Researches
What the result of these discoveries has already been cannot be better or more strongly presented than in the words of Dr. Sayce,, whose knowledge of the records renders his opinion equal to any on the subject. “This realization of Old Testament history is not the only result of the recovery of Assyria upon Biblical studies. It is a very important result, but there are others besides of equal importance. One of these is the unexpected confirmation of the correctness of Holy Writ this Assyrian discovery has afforded. The later history of the Old Testament no longer stands alone. Once it was itself the sole witness for the truth of the narratives it contains. Classical history or legend dealt with other lands and other ages; there were no documents besides those contained in the Old Testament to which we could appeal in support of its statements. All is changed now. The earth has yielded up its secrets; the ancient civilization of Assyria has stepped forth again into the light of day and has furnished us with records, the authenticity of which none can deny, which run side by side with those of the Books of Kings, confirming, explaining, and illustrating them. It has been said that just at the moment when skeptical criticism seemed to have achieved its worst, and to have resolved the narratives of the Old Testament into myths or fables, God's providence was raising up from the grave of centuries a new and unimpeachable witness for their truth. Indeed so strikingly was this the case, that one of the objections brought against the correctness of Assyrian decipherment in its early clays was that Assyrian monarchs could never have concerned themselves with petty kingdoms like those of Samaria and Judah, as the decipherers made them do. Before the cuneiform monuments were interpreted, no one could have suspected that they would have poured such a flood of light upon Old Testament History.
Nahum, again, we can now read with a new interest and a new understanding. The very date of his prophecy, so long disputed, can be fixed approximately by the reference it contains to the sack of No-Anion or Thebes (3:8). The prophecy was delivered hard upon sixty years before the fall of Nineveh, when the Assyrian empire was at the height of its prosperity and mistress of the eastern world. Human foresight could little have imagined that so great and terrible a power was so soon to disappear. And yet at the very moment when it seemed strongest and most secure, the Jewish prophet was uttering at prediction which the excavations of Botta and Layard have shown to have been carried out literally in fact. As we thread.(air way among the ruins of Nineveh, or trace the after history of the deserted and forgotten site, we see everywhere the fulfillment of Nahum’s prophecy. Of the words that he pronounced against the doomed city, there is none which has not come to pass.
"Those who would learn how marvelously the monuments of Assyria illustrate and corroborate the pages of sacred history, need only compare the records they contain with the narratives of the Books of Kings which relate to the same period. The one complements and supplies the chapters missing from the other.
The Bible informs us why Sennecharib left Hezekiah unpunished, and never despatched another army to Palestine; the cuneiform annals explain the causes of his murder, and the reason of the flight of his sons to Ararat or Armenia. The single passage in Scripture in which the name of Sargon is mentioned, no longer remains isolated and we have no longer ally need to identify him with Tiglath Pileser, or Shalmaneser, or any other Assyrian prince with whom the fancy of old commentators confounded him; we now know that he was One of the most powerful of Assyrian conquerors, and we have his own independent, testimony to that siege and capture of Ashdod which is the occasion of the mention of his name in Scripture. Between the history of the monuments and the history of the Bible there is perpetual contact, and the voice of the monuments is found to be in strict harmony with that of the Old Testament."
The examination, then, of these records has resulted in confirming even in detail facts stated in Scripture, comprising the descent of Chedorlaomer in the time of Abraham, as also the number of talents with which Hezekiah sought to buy off the Assyrian attack.
The references in the Scriptures to Pul and to Ezar Haddon the Assyrian taking Manasseh to Babylon, were once grounds of attack for skepticism; now they stand as warnings against its confidence. The campaigns of Pul have been proved. Babylon is known to have been built by Ezar Haddon, who as the only king that sought to conciliate the nations by compromise, held his court alternately at Babylon and at Nineveh.
What then has criticism to offer, as security that the gospel of God's Salvation can be neglected with impunity? Theories,, doubtless; many elaborate inquiries; but direct evidence against the Scriptures as a revelation from God it has none. And even the weight of its theories is balanced by the result of criticism itself in another and far more certain field.
The Contrast of Scripture With Contemporaneous Writings
It is difficult to conceive what, according to a critic's idea, a divine revelation of God to man in writing would be. All that speaks of God directly, intervening in the history of man,. and displaying a future purpose as well as present grace and righteousness, in order, to reveal Himself and give the word that would do so, must be denied because it is superhuman; and all that proves that living men and their actual 'history have been used must be rejected because it is human! The contemporaneous, records of other nations extant, then, is the standing sign to the critic of what is human. The brutality and arrogance recorded in them leave no doubt as to their source. The contemporaneous records extant, one and all, allow no uncertainty as to what the men were.
In the Old Testament, that which exhibits the undeniable and mysterious harmony with the fact of the resurrection, is its constant and varied testimony to the activity and power of a living God and of a work that finds its complement and testimony in the Gospel concerning His Son. The records agree from first to last in revealing what God is in His grace to man, The sign of divine love and power has been given in this unparalleled harmony. How is it the critic cannot discern it? If he denies the. divine element in the Old, he must deny also the resurrection by the principles of criticism his position involves.