58 BIBLE, Higher Criticism of the Bible* Sylvester Hassell: More than two thousand mistakes have been proved to be in the writings of Herodotus, “the Father of Profane History,” but not one single mistake has been proven to be in the writings of Moses, or the other inspired authors of the Holy Scriptures. The few slight apparent discrepancies and errors, paraded and magnified by the so-called “higher critics,” who occupy the professorships in the theological seminaries of Europe and America were satisfactorily explained to men of common sense and common honesty hundreds of years ago.
The wild, vague, pretentious ignorant speculation of these disguised infidels in regard to the authorship and dates of the books nd the different parts of the books of the Bible are not only self-contradictory, but are opposed to the teachings of all true history and archaeology, as well as of all common sense; and a hundred of their eight hundred theories die every year; and the most radical of these destructives admit that every particle of the Old Testament was written at least a hundred years before the beginning of the Christian Era.
Satan in the subtle serpent, in the Garden of Eden, was the first “higher critic,” when he said to Eve, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden?” thus casting doubt upon the word of God. The Highest Critics, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, put the stamp of their divine authority on the Scriptures of eternal truth. The Old Testament was “Our Savior’s Bible,” and was always referred to by him, with the greatest reverence, as the infallible, the literally and perfectly true testimony of God; and more than two thousand times in the Scriptures did the Holy Spirit move the writers to say that not only their thoughts, but their words, were God-breathed or inspired of God. (Hassell)
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Christ in his sayings recorded in the New Testament, alludes to every period of the Old Dispensation. He speaks of the creation of man, the institution of marriage, the death of Abel, the flood in the days of Noah, the destruction of Sodom, the history of Abraham, the appearance of God in the burning bush, the manna in the wilderness, the miracles of the brazen serpent, the wanderings of David, the glory of Solomon, the ministry of Elijah and Elisha, the sign of Jonah, and the martyrdom of Zechariah—events which embrace the whole range of the Jewish record. Whatever, therefore, may be said by the self-constituted, pretentious, ungodly critics in regard to what they presume to call the incredible myths of the Bible, the children of God may be a perfectly assured of the literal truth of every word of the Old Testament, as well as of the New Testament, as if every word had been written by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. (Hassell)