¹⁰ Gleason L. Archer, Jr., shows another flaw in the reasoning of higher criticism. The problem, he says, is that “the Wellhausen school started with the pure assumption (which they have hardly bothered to demonstrate) that Israel’s religion was of merely human origin like any other, and that it was to be explained as a mere product of evolution.”​⁶ In other words, Wellhausen and his followers started with the assumption that the Bible was merely the word of man, and then they reasoned from there.

13, 14. In spite of its shaky foundations, why is Wellhausen’s higher criticism still widely accepted?

¹³ In view of its weakness, why is higher criticism so popular among intellectuals today? Because it tells them things that they want to hear. One 19th-century scholar explained: “Personally, I welcomed this book of Wellhausen’s more than almost any other; for the pressing problem of the history of the Old Testament appeared to me to be at last solved in a manner consonant to the principle of human evolution which I am compelled to apply to the history of all religion.”​⁷ Evidently, higher criticism agreed with his prejudices as an evolutionist. And, indeed, the two theories serve a similar end. Just as evolution would remove the need to believe in a Creator, so Wellhausen’s higher criticism would mean that one does not have to believe that the Bible was inspired by God.

¹⁴ In this rationalistic 20th century, the assumption that the Bible is not God’s word but man’s looks plausible to intellectuals.c It is much easier for them to believe that prophecies were written after their fulfillment than to accept them as genuine. They prefer to explain away the Bible accounts of miracles as myths, legends, or folk tales, rather than consider the possibility that they really happened. But such a viewpoint is prejudiced and gives no solid reason to reject the Bible as true.