nd Jehovah said, Who shall
entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said
on this manner; and another said on that manner. And there came forth
a spirit, and stood before Jehovah, and said, I will entice him. And
Jehovah said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and
will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said,
Thou shalt entice him, and shalt prevail also; go forth, and do so.
_Now therefore, behold, Jehovah hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of
all these thy prophets_; and Jehovah hath spoken evil concerning thee."
Can any Christian believe that our God who is infinitely pure and holy
ever did persuade anyone to tell a lie? God never changes; he has
always been pure and holy; but man was not able in the beginning to
comprehend him in his fullness. The human conceptions of the divine
were imperfect and incomplete, and these imperfect conceptions are
embodied in some of the Old Testament writings. True, as Bowne
suggests, "God might conceivably have made man over all at once by
fiat, but in that case it would have been a magical rather than a moral
revelation."[2]

Throughout the entire book these and other {26} indications of the
presence of a human element may be seen, which the reader cannot afford
to overlook if he would estimate rightly the Old Testament Scriptures.
But while they are there, they must not blind the eyes of the student
to the fourth great truth expressed by the writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, namely, that God spoke through these men; in other words, that
there is also a divine element in the Old Testament. In the words of
S. I. Curtis: "While it seems to me that we find abundant evidences of
development in the Old Testament from very simple concrete
representations of God to those which are profoundly spiritual, I am
not able to account for this development on naturalistic principles.
In it I see God at all times and everywhere coworking with human
instruments until the fullness of time should come"[3]. The presence
of this divine element was recognized by Jesus and by all the New
Testament writers, and surely it is a significant fact that in the
first outburst of Christian enthusiasm, and under the living impression
of the unique personality of the Master, no doubt arose concerning the
inspiration and permanent value of the Old Testament. With the
Christian the testimony of Jesus and his disciples carries great
weight