Sword & Trowel 2020: Issue 1
ity: Davidson inspired overflowing affection and respect as a human be- ing, both in his students and in his academic colleagues. No one could believe that a man so lovable, so worthy of reverence, could really be teaching anything dubious. Robertson Smith, however, was a
very different kind of man from Da- vidson. Where Davidson was subtle, Smith was truculent and belligerent; where Davidson awakened affection, Smith was increasingly to awaken mistrust and exasperation, even in his greatest friends and supporters. This explains why Smith, not Davidson, stepped into the limelight as the great troubler of Israel concerning Free Church views on biblical criticism. After his theology degree, Smith was appointed Professor of Hebrew in the Aberdeen Free Church College in 1870, at the remarkably young age of 23 – a testimony to his academic brilliance. However, it soon becomes
evident to us that Smith was fol- lowing in the footsteps of Davidson as a champion of Old Testament Higher Criticism. By 1875, Smith had submitted a series of articles to the Encyclopedia Britannica; it was his article on the Bible in vol 3, Decem- ber 1875, which sparked off serious controversy.
David’s authorship rejected In this article, Smith held that the
laws of Moses were first set forth to Israel, not in the time of Moses, but during Israel’s Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BC (that would be six or eight centuries beyond the time of Moses); argued that these laws owed their essence, not at all to Moses, but to the teaching of the 8th-century prophets (like Isaiah and Jeremiah); rejected David’s author- ship of most of the psalms; denied that the prophetic writings of the Old Testament contained much in the
DEAF FELLOWSHIP VISIT TO THE BRITISH
MUSEUM On Saturday 7th December
around twenty-five people joined the Tabernacle Deaf Fellowship visiting the British Museum, where they viewed artefacts that corrobo- rate the biblical narrative. Deaf and hearing guides explained the history behind the exhibits, and how they authenticate many verses of Scripture. A short film of the visit has been made available online, for deaf people around the country and abroad to see and un- derstand this vital evidence for themselves.
From Divine Revelation to Human Reason page 25
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