W. L Totty

Until comparatively recently I never knew of any preacher of the church of Christ who questioned the authenticity of the Bible. It has long been a custom of denominational preachers to criticize the translation, but never the preachers in the church of Christ. The preachers of twenty-five and thirty years ago [fourscore and fourscore and five years now] were very outspoken in their unfaltering belief in all the Bible.

Brother A. G. Freed, a great scholar and educator, who died November 11, 1931, at the age of 68 years, talking about the various writers and periods when the writers wrote, said, “And yet this book, produced in such far removed times by various writers, and by such varied instrumentality, is one, -- no jars nor discords, when properly understood.” (Sermons, Chapel Talks and Debates, p. 33.)

Brother Leo Boles, a great scholar and preacher, who wrote copiously about the Bible, said, “We are concerned only with the question as to whether the Bible as Christians now have it (emphasis mine—W.L.T.) is a book from God.” (The Holy Spirit, p. 67.) Again in the same book, on page 73, Brother Boles said, “Christ endorsed the Old Testament with its threefold division….” He further said on pages 76 and 77: “The believer takes the position that the entire Bible is inspired: this is the only tenable position that a Christian can take. The Christian takes the responsibility of proving his position; his is a positive and affirmative position. The Christian is ready to shoulder the responsibility of his affirmation that the entire Bible is inspired.”

Brother Boles again: “It is believed that the overruling providence of God has preserved a copy of the original manuscripts so that today the Bible expresses the will of God and is able to make men wise unto salvation. This copy we call the Bible.

“Every theory which does not recognize the Holy Spirit in every word as well as every thought is to be rejected.” (p. 83.)

“Every writer of the New Testament endorsed the Old Testament. We find more than two hundred eighty-four quotations from the Old Testament in seventeen books of the New Testament.” (p. 95.)

Paul had access to the Septuagint Version, which contains all thirty-nine books of the Old Testament. Hence, the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament are called by the Holy Spirit ‘sacred writings.’ This would give full and complete endorsement to the Old Testament Scriptures as inspired of God.” (p.96.)

On page 99, Brother Boles said, “It is freely granted that there are some apparent contradictions, but these are not real contradictions; there are many alleged discrepancies, but no real ones.”

Brother Boles affirmed that Christ and the New Testament writers all endorsed the Old Testament. But there is not a syllable to indicate that Christ and the inspired writers of the New Testament considered that there were discrepancies in the Old Testament. He even states that Paul had access to the Septuagint Version which was translated from the Hebrew manuscripts about two hundred seventy years before Christ. If Paul had access to that version, of course, Christ and the other New Testament writers also had it.

In 1923, during the debate on instrumental music between Brother N. B. Hardeman and Ira M. Boswell at Nashville, Tennessee, Boswell introduced O. E. Payne’s book which accused the translators of mistranslating the Greek word “psallo.” Brother Hardeman replied by saying: “If it be true, and if our Bible is incorrect on ‘psallo,’ then how do you and I know that it is correct on any other thing? Hence, we are out in the midst of the ocean and left without chart or compass, to drift amid the rocks until by and by we pass over the precipice into the fathomless depths of the boundless beyond.” (Boswell-Hardeman Discussion on Instrumental Music in Worship, pp. 226, 227.)

Those quotations given from some of the greatest men among us manifested the thinking of the brotherhood twenty to forty years ago [now 75 to 95 years ago].

A Law Covering The Presentation of Evidence in Civil Courts:

“Documents purporting to come from high antiquity and bearing upon their face no evident marks of forgery, if found in the proper repository, are deemed by the law to be authentic and credible, and the burden of proof to the contrary devolves upon the objector.”

I am glad that when I was young I was not taught what some of the “free thinkers” are advocating about the Bible today. If we cannot accept the Bible as we have it today as being the word of God, we are hopelessly and helplessly lost.

The Informer

Vol. 16 No. 22

February 3, 1963