A student at college inquires as to the following explanation of the passage of the Jordan by the Israelites under Joshua: There were some high hills on the immediate bank of the river above the crossing-place; a landslide from one of these filled the channel of the river and stopped its flow. Seeing this, Israel took advantage of it and hastened across. One of his Professors has taught him that this is "highly probable."

      It is no uncommon device to explain away miracles by the supposition of some occurrence perfectly natural, but unusual, which was in after time exaggerated into a [333] miracle. This is the theory on which Strauss attempted to account for all the miraculous accounts connected with the life of our Lord. This attempt of the Professor is after the model of Strauss. I suppose that he has heard or read a story told by an old Arabian writer to the effect that the Sultan Beibars I., in the year of 1267, ordered the construction of a bridge over the Jordan a short distance above Damieh; that when the water arose in December one of the piers gave way in part; that the workmen gathered to repair it, but could not on account of the high water; but that suddenly the water was cut off by a landslide above to such an extent that the workmen went on with the repairs from midnight till ten o'clock the next day, when the current resumed its full flow. A translation of the Arabic story may be found in Professor Bartlett's "Veracity of the Hexateuch," page 361. The incident is not impossible, and the story is not improbable; but if this, or something like it, is all that occurred at the crossing of the Jordan by Israel, then the account given in Joshua is false in all of its details, and it would be more candid to say this at once than to explain it away after this fashion. If the student referred to will ask for a candid expression of the Professor's opinion, he will doubtless be told that the whole account in Joshua of the invasion and conquest of Canaan is unhistorical; for this is the contention of the analytical critics whose disciple I suppose him to be.

      The same student represents another professor as teaching that the apostles were mistaken in thinking that the second coming of Jesus would take place in their own generation. This is a very common assertion of those who deny miraculous inspiration, and there are some remarks of the apostles which would furnish plausible support to it if there were not others which contradict [334] it. For example, whatever Paul may have said that is ambiguous on the subject, when he took it up for formal discussion, as he does in the second Epistle to the Thessalonians, he repudiates that idea. He says: "Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is now present; let no man deceive you in any wise: for it will not be, except the falling away [apostasy] come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God." Read all the paragraph. If this man of sin is not popery, then he has not made his appearance to the present day; but he must appear and be made to disappear before the coming of the Lord, as Paul understood the matter. Peter in a different way speaks to the same effect, when he says: "In the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation" (2 Pet. 3:3, 4). If the mockers were to say this after the fathers fell asleep, then the apostles were dead and gone before they said it.

      I must not omit to say that the "critics" have an easy way of getting rid of these testimonies. Baur denies that Paul wrote the Epistles to the Thessalonians, and the whole rationalistic crowd unite in denying that Peter wrote the second Epistle ascribed to him; but this is only an example of their way of denying the genuineness or the authenticity of Scriptures, which stand in the way of [335] their theories. If they could not do this, they would have to relinquish their calling.

[SEBC 333-336]