Harry Emerson Fosdick
A Guide to Understanding the Bible
***********
Author's notes:
Harry Emerson Fosdick was one of the most eminent and often controversial of the
preachers of the first half of the twentieth century. Published by Harper &
Brothers.in many editions in the 1930s.
***********
A clear and helpful explanation of the development of key ideas within the Old
and New Testament including the idea of God, man, right and wrong, suffering,
paryer and immortality.
Introduction
Biblical scholarship of the last half of the 19th century has made it possible
to arrange the texts in approximate chronological order as well as develop broad
chronological outlines. This book is not written by a technical scholar and not
written for technical scholars but for the general public.
Chapter 1: The Idea of God
From the beginnings of the Bible to the end, the advance in the idea of God was
extreme: Beginning with a territorial deity who loved his clansmen and hated the
remainder of mankind, it ends with a great multitude out of every tribe and
tongue and people and nation, worshiping one universal Father; beginning with a
god who walked in the garden in the cool of the day, it ends with the God whom
"no man hath seen...at any time."
Chapter 2: The Idea of Man
The Old Testament starts with social solidarity so complete that the individual
has practically no rights, and achieves at last profound insight into the
meaning, worth, and possibility of personal life. The New Testament starts with
personalities as in themselves supremely valuable, and conceives the "beloved
community" in terms of their free cooperation and the social hope of the kingdom
of God the crowning evidence of their faith and loyalty.
Chapter 3: The Idea of Right and Wrong
There were three main limitations on early Hebrew morals: the field of ethical
obligation was tribally constricted; within the tribal circle certain classes
were denied full personal rights; and the nature of moral conduct was
interpreted in such external terms of custom and ritual as to make small demand
on internal insight and quality. The progress made, therefore, in the later
stages of the Old Testament, in the inter-Testamental period, and in the New
Testament, may be interpreted as the overpassing of these three inadequacies.
The thought expressed here is adverse to those who claim apocalypticism as the
real creator of the new Testament's ethic.
Chapter 4: The Idea of Suffering
All concepts of suffering found in the Old Testament are also found in the New
Testament. Both saw that some human pain and torment are punitive, that some
trouble is disciplinary was taken for granted, that in one way or another the
cosmic process should not in the end be ethically unsatisfactory, that the whole
experience of suffering remained mysterious, but that the climactic element in
the New Testament's contribution to the understanding of suffering is to be
found in its treatment of vicarious self-sacrifice.
Chapter 5: The Idea of Fellowship with God
The idea of the fellowship with God (prayer) development from the
unapproachableness to the immediate accessibility of God, and from magical and
ceremonial conditions of divine fellowship to the moral fitness of a sincere
soul, represents one of the most permanently valuable contributions of
Hebrew-Christian religion.
Chapter 6: The Idea of Immortality
In the Old Testament even the references to life after death are few; in the New
Testament from the beginning the reader is in an atmosphere of radiant hope
concerning life eternal. Considered as a whole, the development of ideas in the
Bible concerning the future life represents one of the most notable and
influential unfoldings of thought in history.
Approximate Chronology of the Old Testament Writings
Approximate Chronology of the New Testament Writings
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Introduction
One major result of the last half-century of Biblical scholarship is ability to
arrange the documents of Scripture in their approximately chronological order.
The typical questions asked by scholars concerning Biblical writings -- Who
wrote them? When, to whom, and why were they written? -- while still presenting
many baffling difficulties, have been answered sufficiently to clarify the broad
outlines of the Bible's chronological development.
An important result of thus seeing the Biblical writings in sequence is ability
to study the development of Biblical ideas. Upon this problem some of the best
scholarly work in recent years has been expended. Seen as informed students now
regard it, the Bible is the record of an incalculably influential development of
religious thought and life, extending from the primitive faith of early Hebraism
into the Christianity of the second century. Such a bald statement, however,
does scant justice to the illumination which has thus fallen on the
Jewish-Christian writings. The first results of critical research into the Bible
seemed disruptive, tearing the once unified Book into many disparate and often
contradictory documents. The final result has turned out to be constructive,
putting the Bible together again, not indeed on the old basis of a level,
infallible inspiration, but on the factually demonstrable basis of a coherent
development. The Scriptures reflect some twelve centuries and more of deepening
and enlarging spiritual experience and insight, in the written record of which
nothing is without significance, and everything is illumined by its genetic
relationships.
In general, this view of the Scriptures has become the common property of the
well-informed, but it still remains, in many minds, a mere framework without
substantial content. That the Bible is the record of centuries of religious
change, that its early concepts are allied with primitive, animistic faiths,
that between such origins and the messages of Hebrew prophets and Christian
evangelists an immensely important development is reflected in the Book -- this
general view is the familiar possession of many in both synagogue and church.
All too few, however, have any clear and specific conception of the ways in
which the Biblical ideas unfolded from their beginnings until they became one of
the most potent influences in Western culture.
One reason for this situation is that scholars, who know the fascinating story
of the development of Biblical ideas, have commonly written of it in technical
terms, so that while the average minister, the intelligent layman, and the
college student may know by hearsay the outline of their findings, the books
where the substance of the matter lies are often too recondite for general
reading. Yet the story of developing Scriptural ideas ought to be popularly
known. It is fascinating in itself; it throws light on every portion of the
Bible; it clears up obscurities, explaining what is else inexplicable; it
distinguishes the minor detours from the major highways of Biblical thought; it
gives their true value to primitive concepts, the early, blazed trails leading
out to great issues; and, in the end, it makes of the Bible a coherent whole,
understood, as everything has to be understood, in terms of its origins and
growth. This illuminating outlook on the Scriptures ought somehow to be made a
more available possession than it is for the general reader.
This present book is written neither by a technical scholar nor for scholars. It
is written for the interested student and endeavors to build a bridge over which
available information concerning developing Biblical ideas may pass into the
possession of a larger public. To be sure, no device can translate so weighty a
matter into light and casual reading. The subject is serious and, at its
simplest, requires serious consideration. Nevertheless, with the Bible still the
world's "best-seller," there must be many whose reading of it would gain meaning
and interest if the knowledge possessed by the expertly informed were more
easily at their disposal.
Readers unaccustomed to think of the Biblical literature in terms of its
chronological development are advised to consult the approximate dating of the
documents presented in the Appendix. (Ed. -- See Chronology File) The unsolved
problems in this realm are many and in some cases wide variations exist between
the estimates of different scholars, but the main outline seems dependable as a
basis for so general a statement as we are here attempting. Since the
chronological arrangement of the Biblical writings is fundamental to this book's
discussion, two thorough and readable treatments of the matter are specially
recommended: The Literature of the Old Testament in Its Historical Development,
by Julius A. Bewer, and The Literature of the New Testament, by Ernest Findlay
Scott, both published by the Columbia University Press.
In trying to achieve the object we have just described, two major methods have
been used in this book.
First, six main strands of developing thought have been, so far as possible,
disentangled from their mutual complications, and have been separately
presented. The ideas of God, Man, Right and Wrong, Suffering, Fellowship with
God, and Immortality have been traced, each by itself, as each progresses
through the two Testaments. The alternative method, often used by scholars,
considers one epoch of Biblical religion at a time, ...
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