Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 96:383 (Jul 1939)
Article: Biblical Archaeology and the Higher Criticism
Author: Miner Brodhead Stearns

BSac 96:383 (Jul 39) p. 307

Biblical Archaeology and the Higher Criticism

Miner Brodhead Stearns

[Editor’s Note: The author of this valuable contribution is the Director of the French-speaking Bible Institute of Brussels, Belgium, and being conversant with French writings on Biblical Archaeology, was moved by a remark of Dr. James L. Kelso in a recent article in this quarterly (intimating that American Bible Students do not give attention that they should to reports published in France on Archaeology in Syria, and largely because they are published in the French language) to write of some of these findings as reported by the French authors. Mr. Stearns also suggests that attention be called to two recently published articles on other scientific viewpoints related to the accuracy of the Scriptures, i.e., Modern Geology and the Bible by Arthur Custance, M.V.I., in the April-June number of BIBLIOTHECA SACRA, and A Modern Apologetic by Dr. George Macready Price in the Spring Number of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 1939.]

It is not the pretention of the present brief contribution to give an exhaustive treatment of this vast subject, but merely to express certain reflections evoked by the reading of a recent article in the spring number for 1939 of CHRISTIANITY TODAY (Vol. 9, No. 3), pp. 125-127. The article in question grows out of a review of “The Haverford Symposium on Archaeology and the Bible” (edited by Elihu Grant, and published by the American Schools of Oriental Research, New Haven, Conn., 1938).

In this article there is, among other things, a discussion of the question whether archaeological discoveries in Bible Lands have invalidated the theories of the “Higher Criticism” of the Graf-Kuenen-Wellhausen school. The reviewer wishes that such were the case, but is commendably cautious in his conclusions. In fact, so cautious is he, that it seems that he goes to the other extreme; and one might gather from his article that archaeology had in reality done nothing to

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modify the conclusions of the above-named critical school of thought. As a matter of fact, this is far from the case, as will be presently shown.

Let it first be said, in justice to the reviewer, and as he himself is careful to point out, that the book reviewed is written entirely by “modernists,” and hence could not be expected to emphasize the modifications in their theories which have been brought about by archaeology. Furthermore, the reviewer makes claim to only a very limited knowledge of the subject involved. Doubtless because of that, he has quoted the 1910 edition of Driver’s “Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament,” thereby committing what might be called an anachronism.

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