At the beginning of the twentieth century, fierce debates on the critical
study of the Bible had caused severe polarization in the churches of Protestant
America. Tensions arose over the impact of science on traditional religious
doctrines and American culture at large. Liberals insisted that the Bible be
subjected to the same analysis as other literature. Many educated Protestants
de-emphasized the literal reading of the Bible and embraced a modern scientific
study of the text. They were not threatened by a critical investigation of the
Bible; they welcomed it.[1]
Opposing liberal machinations, conservatives rallied forceful support. Mere
proclamations of faith were inadequate; the theories and the supporters of
Julius Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis known as higher criticism were to be
challenged publicly and directly. The conservative case was formulated in a
series of booklets called The Fundamentals,[2] in which
doctrinally motivated biblical scholars and theologians affirmed traditional
Christian doctrines and attempted to captivate the Protestant mind. A handful of
authors included archaeological evidence in a vigorous defense of their
interpretations of God’s revelations in the Bible. The Fundamentals
reached thousands of ministers who could demonstrate to ardent believers the
value of archaeological data that was appropriate for the articulation of
Christian faith. [3] Hundreds of thousands of traditional Protestants
who previously had a limited understanding of higher criticism were at once
alerted that the biblical narrative was sanctioned by the Lord and the spade.
New archaeological data unavailable to resolute Christians were now testifying
to the eternal truth of Scripture and countering blasphemous theories.
Archaeology had entered the public realm and reassured the faithful.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the critical study of the biblical text
was an acceptable approach for serious study at many major universities and
seminaries. [4] Conservative or traditional arguments opposing
scientific criticism of the Bible had been losing ground among Protestants for
years. An old style theology that eschewed or scorned science appeared medieval
to many educated Christians. Sweeping condemnations of higher criticism and
heresy trials to silence its advocates were shunned by many Protestant scholars.
[5] D. W. C. Huntington, chancellor of Nebraska Wesleyan University,
rejected the rhetoric of those ministers who engaged in sweeping denunciations
of higher criticism. This type of activity "prejudiced more intellectuals and
ministers than all that is called higher criticism." [6]
George Gordon, a minister in Boston, wrote, "Among intelligent people the
Bible can never again be what it has been, the complete and infallible
authority; from its first page to its last, upon faith and practice." [7]
Gordon further admitted that "those who try to defend dogmatic
Christianity in its unmodified and unreconstructed form are beaten." [8]
Biblical criticism for Gordon was indispensable: "The more serious and
fundamental the criticism is, the more obviously it is the product of the Spirit
of God." [9]
Henry C. King, professor of theology at Oberlin, deplored the "bitter and
arrogant spirit" that was prevalent "in the early stages of higher criticism in
America." [10] King wondered how anyone familiar with modern
scholarship could challenge the "legitimacy . . . of the higher criticisms."
King maintained that Christians must recognize that traditional religious views
cannot remain immune from the new scholarship. Change was inevitable, if not
desirable. [11]
George Harris, professor at Andover Theological Seminary, argued that an
overly zealous defense of Scripture imperiled the Bible. Harris believed that
the insistence on the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible should not be a
religious doctrine venerated by Protestants. This violated the spirit of the
Reformation. Harris was so convinced of the basic premises of higher criticism
that he wrote:
It would be difficult to find an intelligent person who holds to the
inerrancy of all parts of the Bible, or who is disturbed by the
modifications and readjustments of criticism. Indeed, it is great relief to
know that some statements are not true . . . . [12]
Liberal or modernist views on higher criticism were not insulated in a few
elite universities. Support for the historical and critical study of the
Scriptures would not be the sole preserve of scholars; eventually it spread into
the churches. Based upon a later survey, Walter F. Peterson believed that by
1910 approximately 25% of Protestant ministers were supportive of higher
criticism.
The conservative answer to modernist inroads was to not compromise but to
preach the Gospel. For years, traditional religious principles had been losing
ground to liberalism. Higher criticism and its general findings were studied at
most major universities and seminaries. Liberal Protestants adopted its basic
hypotheses. Many traditionalists were persuaded that they must attempt something
dramatic to reaffirm Christian truth and counter the seduction of biblical
criticism and other modernist tendencies.
The vehicle to propagate the conservative cause was the publication of twelve
paperback volumes called The Fundamentals published from 1910 to 1915.
The project was principally sponsored by Lyman Stewart, a successful oil man
from Los Angeles. Stewart hoped to counter the deleterious consequences of
liberalism with a publication representing true Christian faith and its
understanding of the Bible:
This will be such a testimony . . . doubtless as has never before been
presented simultaneously to the English speaking churches, and will tend to
temporarily check error and purify the streams through which the gospel is
to be given to the heathen. But the influence of this testimony would
be much greater if it could be sent also to the Protestant preachers and
teachers of the other leading languages of the world. [13]
A wide range of conservative scholars and theologians, whose agenda was to
articulate the traditional Christian religious doctrines regarding Christ and
the Bible, contributed to The Fundamentals. A majority of the writers of
The Fundamentals were millenarians. They believed that the world was
descending into chaos and wickedness, and that judgment was imminent, which
would be signaled by the return of Christ. Their intended audience was clearly
delineated in the foreword as "ministers of the gospel, missionaries, Sunday
School superintendents, and others engaged in aggressive Christian work
throughout the English speaking world." [14] The enterprise was
surprisingly successful; more than 3,000,000 copies were distributed! Over
ninety articles were published. Twenty-nine were "devoted to safe-guarding the
Bible," and a majority of these attacked higher criticism. Only two articles
focused solely on evolution. [15]
Not all contributors renounced the scholarly probing of Scripture; however,
several acknowledged that "restrained" higher criticism was an appropriate study
of the biblical text. Canon Dyson Hague a lecturer at Wycliffe College in
Toronto argued "the term Higher Criticism then, means nothing more than the
study of the literary structure of the various books of the Bible . . . . Now
this in itself is most laudable. It is indispensable." [16] W.H.
Griffith Thomas a professor at Wycliffe College wrote that "all possible expert
knowledge" on the Bible must be made accessible:
We do not question for an instant the right of Biblical criticism
considered in itself. On the contrary, it is a necessity for all who use the
Bible to be critics . . . . What is called "higher" criticism is not only a
legitimate but necessary method for all Christians, for by its use we are
able to discover the facts and the form of the Old Testament Scripture.
[17]
Another author of The Fundamentals, James Orr, a prolific scholar and
widely known as an evangelical theologian of undisputed orthodoxy was a
professor of Theology and Apologetics at the Union Free Church College in
Glasgow, Scotland. He insisted that structure of the Bible must be impartially
examined:
By all means let criticism have its rights. Let purely literary questions
about the Bible receive full and fair discussion . . . . No fright,
therefore, need be taken at the mere word, "Criticism." [18]
As laudable as these testimonies were, in reality, they were a minority
opinion and insincere proclamations of the benefits derived from higher
criticism. As long as conservatives controlled the scope of biblical criticism
and limited textual investigations to philology and syntax, they were buoyant in
sanctioning its contribution to Scriptural clarification. However, when higher
criticism diverged from traditional Bible study, ardent conservatives issued a
caveat to the community of faith that Christian doctrines were in jeopardy.
The Fundamentals was created to convince Christians that the Bible was a
unique source of the knowledge of God. The authors’ task was to inform and
nourish religious faith because the secular techniques employed by most higher
critics undermined, in their opinion, the trustworthiness of the Scriptures. The
writers of The Fundamentals were simply unwilling to accommodate their
understanding of the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible to a serious
critical undertaking. Inevitably, when higher critics ventured beyond
philological pursuits and challenged such treasured theological truths as
biblical inspiration or Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, they were then
questioning the Lord’s authority: Robert Anderson, author of a work titled
The Bible and Criticism wrote in The Fundamentals regarding the
dangers of Wellhausen:
. . . it [higher criticism] directly challenges the authority of the Lord
Jesus Christ as a teacher; for one of the few undisputed facts in this
controversy is that our Lord accredited the books of Moses as having divine
authority. [19]
The issue of inspiration united nearly all the writers of The Fundamentals.
Conservative Christians were capable of determined resistance to any scholarly
endeavor that proposed doctrinal revision. The question before these writers was
not "merely literary, nor historical," but a restatement of religious
principles: ". . . the whole matter resolves itself into one question: Is the
Old Testament the record of a Divine revelation?" [20] Disputing the
doctrines of the inspiration and the inerrancy of the Old Testament was
tantamount to impeaching the teachings of Christ. The results of higher
criticism offered believers undesirable choices. Either Christ was mistaken
regarding the veracity of the Old Testament and was unable to distinguish a
pious fraud from an original document, or Jesus understood that his teachings
were false, but he "taught them as truth . . . . In either case the Blessed One
is dethroned . . . ." [21] The faithful rejected higher critical
alternatives because they had a simpler option: Jesus had "identified himself
with the Hebrew Scriptures . . . . And this being so, we must make a choice
between Christ and Criticism." [22]
It was apparent to the contributors of The Fundamentals that Christ
taught that Scripture was inspired by God and that there must be a "recognition
of the supernatural revelation embodied in the Bible." [23] If the
critical approach to the biblical text is widely endorsed, the consequences are
indisputable; Jesus is not divine, and His teachings are misleading. For
conservatives, criticism must advance with reverence and a true spirit. William
Craven of Knox College maintained that the New Testament’s authenticity was
vitally connected to the Old, and it was essential that Jesus’ testimony to the
truthfulness of the Hebrew Scriptures had to "remain unimpaired." [24]
Indispensable to the conservative case against higher criticism was the
"testimony" of archaeology. Many of the authors of The Fundamentals
referred to the extraordinary evidence discovered by archaeologists. The science
of archaeology was authenticating God’s word and providing conclusive proof that
radical critical theories were specious and dishonorable. [25]
However, only two of the articles in The Fundamentals written by G. F.
Wright and M. G. Kyle [26] focused entirely on archaeological data to
support of the Bible’s historicity. The evidence had been assiduously debated in
their previous works, but in The Fundamentals the authors were not so
restrained in their evaluation of the evidence or its significance for biblical
studies.
Professor George F. Wright taught at Oberlin College and held the peculiar
professorship of "The Harmony of Science and Revelation." Wright’s scholarly
conceptions were typical of other conservative practices: mixing archaeological
data, i.e., the Amarna letters, the Black Obelisk, the invasion of Shishak and
the laws of Hammurabi, with Christian doctrines and appeals to faith. For
example, the evidence for the Hebrew sojourn in Egypt was so convincing to
Wright that these details represented the biblical author’s personal experience
or a direct Divine revelation. [27] For Wright, it was evident that
the Documentary Hypothesis was baseless because the Bible could not have been
edited or revised, for "it circulates best in its entirety." No editor could
have abridged the Bible "without impairing its usefulness." [28]
Much of Wright’s analysis was based on conjecture not archaeology. He argued
that the Amarna letters demonstrate that it would have been "a miracle if Moses
and his band of associates . . . had not left upon imperishable clay tablets a
record of the striking events through which they passed." [29] Citing
no particular evidence, Wright insisted that many of the forty-two locations
mentioned in Numbers 33 during Israel’s wanderings in the Sinai have been
determined:
. . . it is not a fictitious list, nor a mere pilgrim’s diary, since the
scenes of the greatest interest, like the region immediately about Mount
Sinai, are specially adapted to the great transactions which are recorded as
taking place. [30]
According to Wright’s interpretations, archaeological evidence was indeed a
testimony of the truthfulness of Scripture. There were so many "positive
confirmations" of the statements from the "sacred historians" he proclaimed that
"there have been no discoveries which necessarily contravene their statements."
[31] Biblical history had been attested "in so many cases and in such
a remarkable manner . . . [it] can be nothing else than providential." [32]
Wright interpreted these events as inspired archaeology where God provided
positive archaeological data to those whose faith had been weakened and would
"not be left to grope in darkness." The Lord had revealed these monuments at
this opportune time "when the faith of many was waning . . . and the very stones
cried out with a voice that only the deaf could fail to hear." [33]
Of course, this was not a scholarly presentation of archaeology. There were
no footnotes and little analysis of the results of an excavation. [34]
Wright’s audience was only tangentially interested in an archaeological
discussion. He was a propagandist providing an archaeology of faith and an
antidote for the heresy that was plaguing the faithful. His God acted through
archaeology to help Christians comprehend their faith and clarify the essence of
Christian truths. Wright’s archaeology was a "scientific method" for
demonstrating God’s revelation.
Melvin Kyle, more than any other writer during the first decades of the
twentieth century, energetically employed archaeology in defending the veracity
of the Scriptures. Kyle was hopelessly compromised by his fundamentalist views
which he merged with archaeology, but few scholars promoted the conservative
theological and archaeological agenda vis-a-vis the veracity of the biblical
narratives as well as Kyle, a professor at Xenia Theological Seminary and holder
of the Newburg Research Chair of Biblical Theology and Biblical Archaeology.
According to Kyle, Xenia was the first theological seminary in America to "give
distinct recognition to the science of Biblical Archaeology as a separate
Department of Seminary work. [35] "
At first glance, Kyle’s contribution to The Fundamentals resembled a
substantive difference to the less-than-scholarly style employed by Wright.
[36] Kyle’s essay was heavily footnoted, and he frequently referred to the
recent archaeological excavations in Palestine. However, Kyle’s initial
assumptions on the value of pottery chronology were rather ambiguous: "The
pottery remains are not to be undervalued, and neither are they to be
overvalued." [37] His deliberations on religion, and culture,
[38] Babylonian influences on Palestinian civilization, [39]
Elephantine papyrus, [40] and biblical geography [41] gave
his work the appearance of authority in comparison to the writing of the
amateurish Wright. Kyle’s archaeological conclusions were all conservative and
positivist, and most had been divulged in his previous works. His essay was true
to the principles of The Fundamentals. Kyle informed his readers
that the revelation from the spade in Palestine had affirmed the revelation from
God; [42] furthermore, Kyle wrote that archaeology had provided the
"necessary material for . . . the surest foundation of apologetics." [43]
Kyle’s promulgations had a unique twist. The science of archaeology was
clearly in harmony with Scripture. Conservatives who had battled the diabolical
results of science were then informed that they could exploit an objective field
of study to preserve the sanctity of the Bible. The biblical text was
"everywhere being sustained" by archaeology, while the great critical hypotheses
were not. In fact, Kyle claimed there was not one higher critical theory that
was "supported by the results of archaeological research." [44] The
science of archaeology was "uniformly favorable to the Scriptures at their face
value, and not to the Scriptures as reconstructed by criticism." [45]
Understanding Kyle’s approach is not difficult; it was an appeal for the
apologetic nature of archaeology in support of the biblical text. The purpose of
The Fundamentals was to fortify the faithful and verify the contents of
the Bible. Was it effective? Ernest Sandeen argues that The Fundamentals
"had little impact upon biblical studies . . . . [46] Apart from
several conservative theological journals that hailed the publication of these
volumes as a ‘notable undertaking,’ scholarly journals "ignored the whole
enterprise." [47]
Assessing the influence of The Fundamentals is difficult. The name
will live on in a movement designed to coalesce reactionary evangelism in
countering modernism in the 1920s. Members of the fundamentalist movement will
recall the publication of The Fundamentals "as the origin of their
crusade." [48] Many scholars were indifferent toward these volumes,
but the academic community generally ignored apologetic interpretations of the
biblical text in most publications and not just The Fundamentals.
The legacy of The Fundamentals was to impart orthodox doctrine among
conservative Protestants. Few conservative lay people or theologians read
Wellhausen or major academic works on higher criticism or archaeology.
Nevertheless, for hundreds of thousands of conservative Protestants, The
Fundamentals was their first introduction to the debates pertaining to the
critical investigation of Scripture. The faithful were informed for the first
time by their ministers that archaeology supported their belief in an inspired
and inerrant Bible. They were introduced to a host of conservative scholars who
endorsed Christian principles and advanced scholarly methods in support of
biblical literalism. Thousands of theologians who had never bothered to read
obscure academic journals were now able to proclaim from the pulpit the
salubrious results of archaeological research. Readers of The Fundamentals
found ample evidence that the modern science of archaeology was in accord with
the biblical narrative while repudiating higher criticism.
Though appraising the impact of The Fundamentals may be problematic,
its theological content and doctrinal principles represented a vigorous movement
dedicated to supporting the accuracy and reliability of the Bible. The
Fundamentals’ contributors were the leading spokesmen for a substantial
portion of conservative Protestant Americans. They defused critical theories and
reached a much larger public than their opponents. Several created a continuity
between archaeology and faith, an ongoing historical process in which God moves
and works. Protestant believers understood that archaeology could serve and
protect faith. More important, The Fundamentals’ theological opinions and
negations of critical scholarship appeared time and again in conservative and
popular publications throughout the twentieth century.