Stating that extracts from the Bible are better than the whole Book, Dean Inge, retired rector of St. Paul’s, made some candid statements criticizing the Old Testament in an address at Birmingham before the Modern Churchmen’s Conference. The title of his address was “The Use and Misuse of the Bible.”
Declaring that a great change has taken place in the Englishman’s attitude to the Bible during the last thirty or forty years, the man who is known as the “Gloomy Dean” said:
“In my young days one found a copy of the Bible not only in every guest room in private houses, but in many hotel bedrooms. A chapter was read by most religious people either in private or in family prayers. But when I became an examining chaplain I found that even the young men from the theological colleges were very badly grounded in the Bible.
“MUCH HARM DONE”
“An intelligent and devout use of the Bible,” Dean Inge continued, “is a valuable part of education and no other Book can take its place, but I do not, however, wish to advocate a return to the old, uncritical and undiscriminating use of the Scriptures. Much harm has been done and much infidelity manufactured by the untenable attitude which many old-fashioned people still suppose to be obligatory upon Christians in dealing with the Old Testament. I think extracts from it are better than the whole Book.”
Dean Inge remarked upon the Oriental ferocity of the Psalms, which makes them quite unfit for use in public worship, in his opinion. He pointed out that they are not used in the synagogues today. The Psalms, the Dean stated, picture the Jew as a terrible hater. He often is so still, he declared.
OTHER COMMENT
The Song of Solomon, he stated, was not written by Solomon and is not a religious book at all, but a collection of love lyrics, probably to be sung at marriages. The Dean’s opinion of Job is that it contains the finest poetry in the Old Testament. The Book of Daniel he holds deservedly popular but not true history. The Book of Ruth, to him, is a “very charming pastoral symphony”; the Book of Jonah has historical value; and the Book of Esther is a very interesting story, although God’s name is not mentioned in it.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
