Cameron, Nigel Malcolm de Ségur

2013-06-26T12:39:35Z

2013-06-26T12:39:35Z

1982

The controversy that surrounded the publication in 1860 of Essays and Reviews revealed how deeply the traditional conception of an infallible Bible was still held. In the preceding half-century a series of scholars, chiefly those associated with Coleridge, had sought to prepare British opinion for the advent of what was already commonplace on the Continent. That they had done their work well became evident as, in barely twenty-five years, the consensus of informed opinion moved from the old infallibilism (represented by such writers as Van Mildert, Lee and Bannerman) to the new Criticism. Traditionalists, however, stoutly rejected the new theories, and while prepared to make minor concessions they largely held firm to the historical as well as theological inerrancy of Scripture. The debate which set the new consensus in place of the old may be epitomised in the controversy between Jowett (in his essay 'On the Interpretation of Scripture', in Essays and Reviews) and Burgon (in his University Sermons preached in reply to Jowett, published as Inspiration and Interpretation). Jowett - like Spinoza, and others-, be e him - contended or a Bible studied 'like any other book', Burgon for a Bible interpreted sui generis. This conflict set the tone for the following debate. lam, w-Teile Essays and Reviews succeeded in stirring up controversy and thereby spread the knowledge of the questions at issue, the generally liberal theological stance of its writers did not commend Biblical Criticism to the Christian public. It was to be later scholars, who combined piety and mainstream Christian conviction with their Criticism, who would succeed in demonstrating that the conclusions of the Continental Critics could be accepted, while their 'rationalism' was repudiated. Robertson Smith and Driver played a special part, in bringing this about. The church, it was maintained, could accept Criticism while retaining belief in the supernatural and continuing to use the Bible for preaching, private devotion, and, indeed, theology. The authority of the Bible remained, and was nothing but enhanced by the Critical removal of 'difficulties', historical and moral, from association with its religious significance. Conservative scholars, in declining to follow the trend away from the traditional view, both re-asserted infallibilism as the 'Biblical' doctrine and the historic view of the church, and repudiated Critical arguments on their own terms by means of 'critical' responses. They maintained that Critical scholarship was decisively influenced by the naturalism of its leading proponents, and therefore fundamentally opposed to Christianity. In particular, they called upon the witness of Jesus Christ in the New Testament to traditional views of the authorship and historicity of the Old. We suggest that the contrasting positions taken up were essentially circular in nature. By means of Toulmin's 'candid' way of laying out arguments, we endeavour to show that Critics and Conservatives assumed, respectively, the priority of historical and dogmatic arguments. Insofar as Conservatives came to admit the priority of the former, they began to abandon their distinctive position. While they remained open to the possibility of persuasion on historical grounds that their dogmatic convictions were mistaken, such a change would demand of them an intellectual conversion experience which they were able, reasonably and effectively, granted their own preferred view of the Bible and the Christian religion, to refuse.

253236

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6779

eng

University of Edinburgh

Philosophy

Religion

Criticism in controversy: conservative Biblical interpretation and higher criticism in nineteenth-century Britain:a study in a conflict of method

PhD Doctor of Philosophy