This collection of essays was edited by R.A. Torrey, one of the most prominent American evangelists of the early 20th century. The articles address the growing influence of biblical criticism and challenge readers to deepen their faith in the face of these challenges. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The aim is to make clear to non-professional readers the nature of the Higher Criticism and its divine right within the churches. To do this the history of Bible study must be followed far into the history of Christianity, even as far as the time when, by the cooperation of the Catholic Church with the moral forces of pagan antiquity, the foundations of modern life and culture were laid, and the Bible was taken to the heart of Europe. Criticism can defend itself before the people only by showing that the history of our religion has made it inevitable. And to do this with any measure of success, the historical causes and conditions of criticism must be treated at greater length than would be seemly if the book were designed for professional readers. The aim of the book is not to give a detailed account of the movements of opinion in the field of Introduction. The aim is rather a philosophy of the history of Criticism. - Preface.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

One unfortunate consequence of the bitter fundamentalist-modernist controversy which raged in the early twenties has been the strongly negative attitude toward Biblical criticism assumed by some of the successors to the fundamentalists of the 1920s. Such people, according to the author, insist that the critical method is basically hostile to the evangelical faith, and they have continued to oppose any use of it. Others, however, claiming the same heritage, believe that the orthodox interpretation of the Gospel can be defended positively and constructively only with the aid of a sound critical method and the results of critical scholarship. The author believes that an evangelical Biblical criticism is not only possible but necessary. The central thesis of his book is that "the Bible is the Word of God given in the words of men in history", and as such its historical origins must be reconstructed as far as possible. In this way a richer understanding of the Scriptures can be achieved.