Wabash College - Wabash Yearbook (Crawfordsville, IN)

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Gff fafwsff , BIBLICAL LITERATURE. PRESIDENT BURROUGHS. 0 vq FYQL LIE education ofthe College consists of certain departments of faflo E j p V W ? if vp Spd 5--.it 3-xi in rf ' iw iz- ir ' J fflutk .i g . its if instruction, moving along side by side and following one another. These are calculated, each in itself and all combined, to liberalize the mind and train it for usefulness in life. This training is brought about through acquaintance with the experience and life of the past as seen in history and letters and through knowledge of nature and man, as observed through science- physical, mental, moral and social. Among these courses of instruction we, therefore, rightly emphasize literature, ancient and n1odern, history, social science and philosophy. Consider the intimate relation of the study of the Scriptures to these branches of learning. Ask, for example, these two ques- tions: Whence is the Bible? and What is the Bible? Can they be answered without discovering and considering much that belongs in the fields of history and literature? When replies have been made to them, has not also valuable information for the pursuit of social science and philosophy been placed in our hands? But the answers to these inquiries are the results of a course of scientific Bible study, they summarize the outline and substance of such a course. When we ask, Whence is the Bible? we imply that the Scriptures have a history which we seek to investigate. They are a body of literature which has been handed down to us. Our investigation at once becomes a study in the history of sacred letters. We take up the sacred library as it comes into our hands in its English dress. We trace its history, first in one version

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and then in another, up the stream of its transmission through the territory of English life and literature. We notice the iniiuence of this life and literature upon the Scriptures and we observe the more extensive influence which these Scriptures have in turn had in the formation and molding of the life and letters of the English people. But the Scriptures are not simply English literature. Here is a library of world literature, wonderfully gath- ered together, then wonderfully transmitted through the ages. The Scriptures are, to all intent, the mirror of the life of tl1e race in its relations with God, as He uncovers Himself to humanity in its own life. Tracing back the history of this sacred library, through the days of its handing down in manuscript, until we reach the period in which the ancient writings of the Hebrew faith are supplemented, interpreted and completed by the addition of those born of the Christian life, we find our question, Whence is the Bible? naturally changing into the inquiry, What is the Bible? Regarding each book of the collection, we raise and endeavor to answer the whence and the what. Throughout the whole field of inquiry we find in the Scrip- tures themselves our answer. Each book bears witness regarding itself. It testi- fies of the circumstances under which it arose and because of which it was demanded. It reveals to us the personality of him through Whom it came into being. Thus are we led along the pathway of historical and literary study to a realization of the divine authorship of the Scriptures. Increas- ingly this authorship manifests itself through an investigation of the work of the human writers of tl1e several parts. The divine unity of the Bible reveals itself through the consideration of the wonderful relations of its diverse forms viewed as human literature.