1 янв 1891 г. - Charles Augustus Briggs Published the Highly controversial "The Authority of Holy Scripture" Introduced High Criticism into the Presbyterian Church

Описание:

In 1891, Briggs was appointed as Union's first-ever Professor of Biblical Theology. His inaugural address, entitled "The Authority of Holy Scripture", proved to be highly controversial. Whereas previously, Higher Criticism had seemed a fairly technical, scholarly issue, Briggs now spelt out its full implications. In the address, he announced that Higher Criticism had now definitively proven that Moses did not write the Pentateuch; that Ezra did not write Ezra, Chronicles or Nehemiah; Jeremiah did not write the books of Kings or the Lamentations; David did not write most of the Psalms; Solomon wrote not the Song of Solomon or Ecclesiastes but only a few Proverbs; and Isaiah did not write half of the book of Isaiah. The Old Testament was merely a historical record that showed man in a lower state of moral development, with modern man having progressed morally far beyond Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Judah, David, and Solomon. At any rate, according to Briggs, the Scriptures as a whole were riddled with errors and the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy taught at Princeton Theological Seminary "is a ghost of modern evangelicalism to frighten children."[4] Not only was the Westminster Confession in error but also the very foundation of the Confession, the Bible, could not be used to create theological absolutes. He now called on other rationalists in the denomination to join him in sweeping away the dead orthodoxy of the past and work for the unity of the entire church.

The inaugural address provoked widespread outrage in the denomination and led Old Schoolers in the denomination to move against him, with Francis Landey Patton taking the lead. Under the terms of the reunion of 1869, General Assembly had earned the right to veto all appointments to seminary professorships so at the 1891 General Assembly, held in Detroit, Old Schoolers successfully raised a motion to veto Briggs' appointment, which passed by a vote of 449–60. The faculty of Union Theological Seminary, however, refused to remove Briggs, saying that it would be a violation of scholarly freedom. In October 1892, the faculty would vote to withdraw from the denomination

Добавлено на ленту времени:

Дата: