Letters From Grandpa #494

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 494

Dearest grandchild,

It is undeniable that many of the early Christians were poor and uneducated. Peter and John, for example, were considered “unschooled” and “ordinary” (Acts 4:13). Jesus himself said: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.” (Matthew 11:25). Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)

Even though “not many” Christians are highly educated, “some” certainly are. You do not have to park your brain in the foyer when you come to church. Dr. Henry Morris wrote the book Men of Science, Men of God which lists 106 of the most famous scientists in the world who believe in God.

I clipped an article many years ago about the late professor at Princeton, Robert Dick Wilson. He was a devout Christian and brilliant scholar. A skeptic, who professed to be a scholar, asked Dr. Wilson how he could believe the Bible was accurate? Dr. Wilson asked him: “Do you read Hebrew? - No. Do you read Greek? - A little. Do you read the original records? - No. Do you read Sanskrit? - No. Do you speak French? - No. Do you speak German? - No. Do you know astronomy? - No. Are you a chemist or physicist? - No. What is the claim to scholarship you are making? I read Hebrew. I speak Persian. I read Greek. I know Sanskrit; I know astronomy. I know most of the sciences. I claim to be something of a Scholar. On what basis of scholarship do you put your doubt of this record? On my basis of scholarship I put my affirmation that these records can be entirely depended upon.”

On another occasion while lecturing on “What is an Expert?” Dr. Wilson said: “I defy any man to make an attack upon the Old Testament on the ground of evidence that I cannot investigate. I can get at the facts if they are linguistic. If you know any language that I do not know, I will learn it.”

Yes! Dr. Wilson was a remarkable scholar! He was born to godly parents in Pennsylvania Feb. 4, 1856 and was one of 10 children. He was a prodigious child with a remarkable ability to learn languages. He learned 45 languages related to the Scriptures and devoted his life to proving the accuracy of the Old Testament. He learned all the languages into which the Bible had been translated up to A.D. 600. He graduated from Princeton at only 20 years of age, then earned his masters degree and doctorate, and then did post-graduate work in German at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

In 1883. Wilson became Professor of the Old Testament at Western Theological Seminary. In 1900 he returned to Princeton as the William Henry Greek Professor of Semitic Languages and Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Wikipedia says of him “Throughout his career, he opposed the higher criticism, which held that the Bible was inaccurate on many points and not historically reliable. Professor Wilson wrote, "I have come to the conviction that no man knows enough to attack the veracity of the Old Testament. Every time when anyone has been able to get together enough documentary 'proofs' to undertake an investigation, the biblical facts in the original text have victoriously met the test" (quoted in R. Pache, The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture). In the late 1920s, he left Princeton to teach at the new,

conservative Westminster Theological Seminary. Among his other works, Wilson contributed articles to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, a noted Bible reference of the early 20th century.”

Brian Nicks, in his biography of Wilson, provides this quote from the pen of this famous man himself: “When I went to Heidelberg, I found I hadn’t the strength to be a preacher and a teacher both, so I decided to be a teacher. I thought the world needed a man who was fitted as I was, so I decided that I would give my life just to that one thing, the defense of the Old Testament. I made my plan as to my life, that I would give—you know, like life insurance. I was good on that line, my family was noted for its longevity, and I felt I might reasonably live till I was 70, so I divided my life into periods of fifteen years. I gave myself the first 15 years to study languages, these languages divided this way. I would learn all the Semitic languages, every language which threw light on the vocabulary or the syntax of the Old Testament. Of course, I did already know Syriac, and Aramaic, and Hebrew, but there was Ethiopic and Phoenician and Babylonian, and Assyrian, and a number of others—about twelve different Aramaic dialects. Secondly, I would learn all languages that threw light on the history of the Old Testament, taking in Egyptian, Coptic, and others. Then, thirdly, I would learn all languages that threw light on the text of the Old Testament, down to the year 600 after Christ. The texts after that would be too late. So that took me into Armenian and several other languages, Gothic, and Anglo- Saxon, etc. . . . The second part of my life I would devote to lower Criticism, studying the text of the Old Testament, the comparison of the Hebrew text with the Versions, Greek, Latin, Syriac, especially, and all the versions down to 600. . . . The last 15 years, after which I had acquainted myself with all the machinery, I would tackle the subject which is called the Higher Criticism of the Old Testament, including all that the critics have said, and so be able by that time to defend the history, the veracity of the Old Testament. . . . Well, I admit, and you will admit too, that that was a pretty big proposition that I laid out for myself, and I think you will admit that the Lord must have been in it.”

Dr. Wilson finished his course and kept the faith and has now received the crown of life. He passed away peacefully October 11, 1930 at the age of 74.

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce