What the Bible Teaches
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What the Bible Teaches is a book by Reuben Archer Torrey published in 1898 by Fleming Revell. 539pp
Published with the sub-title, "A thorough and comprehensive study of what the Bible has to say concerning the great doctrines of which it treats."
Written and published during Torrey's time as superintendent of the Chicago Bible Institute, this text became foundational for the doctrine curriculum of the entire Bible Institute movement. It was the basis of BIOLA's doctrine classes, and a copy of it was enclosed in the cornerstone of the original BIOLA building.
What the Bible Teaches was immediately popular, and the glowing review in the Record of Christian Work (volume XIX, 1900) is typical:
The church has waited long for this book. A hundred and fifty years have passed since Bengel — in Delitzsch's phrase — " vindicated the mother-right of exegesis to control dogmatics" in his famous first principle of interpretation: " Put nothing into the Scriptures, but draw everything from them, and suffer nothing to remain hidden that is really in them." All students at once agreed to the rightness of Bengel's canon— and went steadily on constructing theological systems in the bad old way of formulating propositions and then supporting them by proof texts. But there is immense vitality in a right principle, and Bengel is justly esteemed the true father of biblical theology. It is no disparagement of many most excellent books in that department which have preceded Mr. Torrey's to say that it was reserved for him in What the Bible Teaches to give us the first really unflinching application of Bengel's rule. What he has given us is a summary of the greater teachings of Scripture about the being and attributes of God in His tri-personality; about man from his creation to his eternal state; about angels, and about Satan and the demons. The mere enumeration of these subjects gives, of course, no idea of the richness of detail in their treatment. The method of the book is most admirable. There is absolutely nothing resembling treatise or argument. Severely logical and exhaustively analytical in arrangement, thus facilitating both study and recollection, Mr. Torrey has in no instance which we have observed departed from the method of strict induction. In other words, he exactly reverses the dogmatic method. Instead of first stating a proposition and following it with a selection of proof texts, Mr. Torrey first gathers the whole body of Scripture bearing upon the subject under consideration (printing the passages in full, so that there is no wearisome turning to references), and then submits in the form of a proposition what be conceives to be the resultant induction. It seems to us that these propositions, in adequacy and clearness, give to the book a singular value; but the reader at least has before him the original passages, and may judge for himself of the accuracy of Mr. Torrey's induction. It goes without saying that no man could produce a truly inductive biblical theology whose mental equipment did not include a sympathetic knowledge of the labors of the freest intellects of the age, as well as competent knowledge of the best thought of all the ages. This equipment Mr. Torrey has. In his university and seminary life he was the leader of the extreme liberal wing among the students. After his graduation from the seminary he studied in Germany, and this at a time when the destructive criticism was most virulent and extreme. It cannot, therefore, be said that Mr. Torrey is a mere traditionalist, nor that he is without a firsthand knowledge of the best (or worst) which in our day has been urged against the conclusions to which his studies have finally brought him. Added to his thorough preliminary training Mr. Torrey has had experience in the pastorate, and has now for many years been at the head of the great Chicago Bible Institute. The present book, therefore, is the contribution to biblical theology of an exceptionally competent, experienced and spiritual student and teacher. His book is one which every Bible student should have. From first to last the qualities of simplicity, clearness, fairness, and spirituality, will be found."
On the other hand, the book was reviewed rather negatively by B. B. Warfield (see "Review of R. A. Torrey's What the Bible Teaches," in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review Vol. X (July 1899), pp. 562-564; reprinted in Mark Noll's anthology The Princeton Theology, pp. 299-301.) Warfield called it a "serviceable but somewhat desultory collection of Bible readings on doctrinal topics." He begins with isolated passages, collected under a purely formal schema already present explicitly or implicitly in his mind: and this is not made induction merely by arranging the texts first and the propositions they support second, on the printed page. We have not the remotest intention of suggesting that Mr. Torrey is not striving to give the pure teaching of the Bible in these propositions; neither do we doubt that he succeeds in giving the pure teaching of the Bible in the large majority of them. We are merely animadverting on the claim put in that the method pursued in this volume has some distinguishing right to the name of `inductive.’ That it certainly has not." Warfield objected to Torrey's "Arminianizing theory of redemption, and his Keswick doctrine of the Baptism of the Spirit, as well as his burning, evangelical blood theory," but recognizes that Torrey "does know that the most fundamental secret of all—that the Holy God hates sin and punishes it because it is sin—and how to set forth God's holy hatred of sin in language as moving to the conscience as faithful to the Word of God."
Preface
PREFACE
THIS BOOK REPRESENTS years of study. Its contents have been tested again and again in the classroom — in classes composed, in some instances, of representatives of thirty-six denominations. However, it is not supposed for a moment that it exhausts all that the Bible has to say on the topics treated, much less that it takes up and exhausts every topic dealt with in the Bible.
The Bible is the one inexhaustible book. This work is simply an attempt at a careful, unbiased, systematic, thorough-going, inductive study and statement of biblical truth. The method of the book is rigidly inductive. The material contained in the Bible is brought together, carefully scrutinized, and then stated in the most exact terms possible. Exactness of statement is attempted first in every instance, then clearness of statement. Beauty and impressiveness must always yield to precision and clarity. The scripture from which a proposition is deduced is always given before the proposition. The methods of modern science are applied to Bible study — thorough analysis followed by careful synthesis. Though no Hebrew or Greek words appear in the work, it is based on a careful study of the original text as decided by the best textual critics (especially Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort in the New Testament, though other editors, and the manuscripts themselves have been considered in some instances).
Wherever possible the text of the Authorized Version has been given. In many instances this was impossible, as the Revised Version is manifestly much more exact. Had it appeared that the Revised Version would soon obtain that general acceptance and use which it seems to so richly deserve, the author would have adopted it throughout, except in those rare instances where it is manifestly in error. In a few instances, it was necessary to adopt renderings differing from both the Authorized Version and the Revised Version, and from the American Appendix to the Revised Version.
Some of the propositions in this book may appear new and even startling to many, but the author believes that they fairly and exactly state the contents of the passages upon which they are based.
The author hopes that the book will prove of interest and help, both to those who believe in the divine origin of the Bible and to those who do not.
One of the most satisfactory ways of determining whether the Bible is of divine origin is by finding out precisely what it teaches and whether there is one deep philosophy running through the book composed by multiple and various human authors. The writer must confess that his own conviction is that there was one Author behind the many writers, and that that one Author was God.
Just the suggestion of a few ways in which this book can be used with profit: its most apparent use is as a textbook in Bible Theology, its arrangement by sections and propositions having had such use in mind. The book can also be used in family devotions by those who desire something more orderly, systematic, and thorough than the methods usually employed in this important, but neglected, department of Christian culture.
The author hopes that it may be helpful also in private devotional study.
While the book aims to be scientific, it is not cold. Too much devotional study of the Bible is haphazard. By the use of this book, it can be made orderly, thorough, and progressive.
The author has received numerous letters from groups of believers where there were no churches and from other groups in various churches, asking for a definite outline of Bible study, and trusts that this book may be helpful in many such cases. Why, for example, could not groups of Christians who are shut out from ordinary church privileges gather together and study the Bible itself with the help of this book?
In all study using What the Bible Teaches, the scriptures given should first be pondered carefully; the reader should then put his or her own understanding of the contents of those scriptures, with respect to the subject in hand, into his or her own language before considering the author's proposition. In many instances, the reader will thus be able to improve upon the author's statement; if not, he or she will understand it and appreciate it all the more for having done a little thinking.