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J. W. McGarvey
Short Essays in Biblical Criticism (1910)

 

[Dec. 12, 1896.]

HUNTING A PLACE FOR THE BIBLE.

      There is no more hopeful sign of these times than the newly awakened and intense desire to find a place and a time for the systematic study of the Bible. Occurring just after the banishment of the Bible from the public schools and from all State universities, a banishment as absolute as if the book was full of poison for the souls of the young, it seeks not merely to find a remedy for that great evil, but to give to the study of the Holy Scriptures an importance in public opinion that it has never heretofore enjoyed.

      It is only one branch of this great subject which I wish to discuss in this article, the study of the Bible by candidates for the Christian ministry. Strange to say, while all earnest educators are now agreed that a good knowledge of the English Bible should be possessed by every man who goes forth to preach the gospel, they have as yet found no place or time for this study in the courses of either the college or theological seminary. This may surprise the uninitiated, who are apt to imagine that the supreme purpose of a theological school is to impart to young men a knowledge of the Book of which they are to be the world's teachers. If in a normal school students were not made familiar with the branches which they are expected to teach; if in a law school they were not required to become proficient in Blackstone's commentaries; or if in a medical college they were not made familiar with anatomy and materia medica, such schools would be pronounced worthless; yet theological schools are permitted to go on from generation to generation sending out men to teach the word of God who know very little of its contents. It is a [162] mournful fact that preachers as a class know less of the Bible in proportion to what is expected of them, and to what is actually believed of them by the masses, than any other class of religious men or women in this country. This defect unfits them for the efficient work which is of right expected of them, and it accounts largely for the vast amount of feeble and false teaching which is heard in our pulpits. It accounts, too, for the want of apostolic zeal and godliness, and for the abundance of selfish ambition, which are discernible in the ministry of the day. It may be set down as a fixed law in the kingdom that the more knowledge a preacher possesses, the more dangerous he is in the pulpit, if he has not a good knowledge of his Bible.

      I have been led to these reflections, and to the writing of this article, by reading a recent essay in the Biblical World from the pen of Prof. Owen H. Gates, of Oberlin Theological Seminary. He says that candidates for admission to the theological seminaries differ widely in their knowledge of the Bible, and he divides them in this respect into three classes, which he describes in the following words:

      Some students possess a good elementary knowledge of the Scriptures. They can turn readily to any book, and they know what they will find there. They can locate and quote the classical passages in the Old and New Testaments. They know something of the course of the history of Israel and of the life of Christ, and are reasonably familiar with the Pentateuch, the Psalms and the Acts. Others, perhaps recently converted, appear to find Bible study a novelty. They are interested and appreciative, and it is a pleasure to teach them; but the charm is much such as surrounds children confronted with new and strange objects. One is curious to know how the thought will strike them. By far the largest number of students, however, are found in a third class. They are not surprised at what they hear; they have heard the most of it before. They are vaguely conscious [163] that they have been present somewhere at some time when this passage or that person was the subject of remark. And yet when a test question is put to them their answer is unsatisfactory.

      This showing would not be so bad if all these students were about to be placed, on entering the seminary, under instruction by which they would soon acquire the knowledge in which they are so deficient. But this is not proposed. Fully as Professor Gates realizes the defect, he proposes no remedy in the seminary. He says: "The field of theological study is constantly widening, and something must be done to relieve the pressure." If that is so, there is of course no chance to put the required Bible study in the seminary course. "The dignity," he says, "of the theological course must be maintained." It is implied that this dignity would be impaired by making Bible study a part of the seminary course. His remedy is to crowd it into the college course, which has to be taken as a prerequisite to admission into the seminary. And this brings me to remark that many colleges are now giving Bible instruction, but Professor Gates says, and he says truly, that the amount of instruction which they give is not, as a rule, "entitled to any consideration in the seminary." He cites as a typical fact that a teacher of the Bible in a college recently said to him: "Of course one can not refuse to pass the boys in their Bible; that would make the study obnoxious to them." And I can add that the most of the colleges that have introduced the Bible into their courses make it a voluntary study, and require the class in it to meet only once a week. The work done, therefore, amounts to little more than that of an advanced class in the Sunday-school.

      I know of but one college in the United States that [164] does a respectable part in Biblical instruction. It is the College of Liberal Arts in Kentucky University. It has a course of daily recitations for eight months in the Bible. It is requisite to graduation, and students are graded in it as closely as in other classes. This is held by the authorities of that college to be the minimum of Bible study that should be required of every educated young man, whatever is to be his occupation in life. It is very far from being adequate for those who are to give themselves to the ministry.

      What, then, is the remedy? Professor Gates proposes to find it in the college by inducing the colleges to provide such Bible instruction as a candidate for the seminary should have. But can the colleges be thus influenced? If they should desire ever so earnestly to do this work, can they do it? If the field of theological study is constantly widening, as Professor Gates asserts, what of the field of literary and scientific study assigned to the colleges? It is widening still more rapidly; and the colleges are being compelled to increase the number of elective studies in order not to overburden the courses requisite to the bachelor's degree. I think that the college faculties will say with one voice, that it is impossible for them to give the needed relief. In my opinion, and I have studied the question long enough, I think, to entitle me to an opinion, it can be furnished only by the seminaries; and they will, in the end, be compelled to furnish it.

      Our College of the Bible is, in ordinary parlance, a theological seminary. It gives a course of instruction in sacred history, that includes all the history in the Bible. The historical books are all studied in regular order, and the other books are gleaned for the history that is in them. The latter history is viewed in its proper [165] connection with the former, and thus the prophetic, the poetical and the epistolary writings are all brought before the mind of the student in their historical setting. The study is as thorough, and the examinations as rigid, as in Homiletics or Exegesis. The method of instruction is a combination of lectures and recitations, and the time required is three years and a half of daily recitations. I was once asked by a theological professor, "How do you manage to get that much Bible study into your course?" I answered: "We first put that in, and then find what room we can for other studies. We regard this as the foundation of all Biblical study, without which no other can be successfully prosecuted, and with which the student is prepared to take up any other, with a clear understanding as to what he is doing. It is this peculiarity of our course which led to the adoption of the distinctive name, 'College of the Bible.'"

      We have now watched the results of this scheme of study for thirty years, and we know whereof we speak when we say that the preachers who have been trained under it have a more thorough and evenly balanced knowledge of the Scriptures, and a better command of them in preaching the Word, than those who have been educated in any other way. They are to be found in almost every State of our Union; in many States they constitute a very large element of the preaching force; and they are equally well known in several foreign countries, including some heathen lands. When I say, then, that the seminaries, and only they, should supply the needed instruction in the Bible, I speak not theoretically, but experimentally. If there is not room for it in the present curriculum, instead of pushing Bible study out through the lower end, it is far better to push something else out through the upper end, and leave the latter to [166] be studied after graduation. It is not necessary for the preacher to learn everything that he is ever to know under the eye of a professor. Give him what is best in his three years, and let him acquire the rest as best he can. All in whom a thirst for sacred knowledge has been aroused will acquire the rest, and the others will never master it, though you drag them through it.

      Let the hunt after a time and a place for the Bible go on. While it goes on it shows a desire for better things, and when the hunt is ended the world will be blessed with better preaching.

 

[SEBC 162-167]


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J. W. McGarvey
Short Essays in Biblical Criticism (1910)

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