2. Hebrew standard of truth. — We recognize that, according to the scientihc standard, those propositions are true which accurately and impar- tially describe observed facts ; that is, the test of trutli is its logical form as descriptive. This notion of truth was originally foreign to the Hebrews. The words in the OT which are translated ' true,' 'truth,' etc., may be traced to roots which have primarily an ethical meaning and convey ' the notion of constancy, steadfastness, faithfulness ' (see art. 'Truth' in Hastings' DB). Hence they are more generally applied to a person than a pro- position, and attach to a proposition only in a derivative way, the sayings of God being ' faithful ' because His character is beneath and behind them, — they ai'e established in the Divine nature, and so cannot be moved. Thus, that Ji proposition should tally with facts did not stand out with such im- portance as it does for us moderns : indeed, to the ancient Hebrew, truth was a matter of motive and character rather than of accuracy. Thus in the Decalogue there is no actual and direct condemna- tion of lying, but the prohibition is directed against the bearing of false witness, the dastardly motive being the thing denounced, rather than the failure accurately to describe facts. This comes out in strong relief in the Jewish notion of history. The aim of the historian was less to give a record of events than to edify. Indeed, by the time of Christ the whole circle of historical ideas had received a fanciful character, because that narrative was deemed to be the best which gave the most lauda- tory account of the Hebrew heroes.
Truth tlien, according to the Hebrew mind, was that whicli edified, and not merely accurate descrip- tion of fact. Only from this point of view can we understand many NT sayings with reference to trutii. Jesus claimed that He Himself tvas the truth. In saying ' I am the Avay, and the truth, and tlie life' (Jn 14"), He is not referring to what we call scientific truth, but rather edifying and ennobling thouglit, or, as e.\plained above, religious
truth. Pilate, a Roman logician, had quite a dif- ferent conception of truth. When he said ' What is truth?' (Jn 18^*), he was moving in a universe of thought foreign to the JeAvs.
3. Hebrew method of attaining truth. — The Hebrew idea of truth being so different from our scientific standard, it is to be expected that their way of reaching it would correspondingly differ from our scientific method, — the observation and description of facts. The Hebrew method did not always seek facts, and, when they were at hand, was not content simply to describe them.
(1) Facts were sometimes 'invented.'
This may be illustrated by reference to Talinudic geography. The Talmud answers the question * as to which islands belong- to Israel and which do not, by saying that if a straight line be ilrawn from Amanus (? a mountain in the north) to the River of Egypt, those islands situated within this line belong to the land of Israel, etc. But, of course, no islands ever belonged to the land of Israel at all. Again, it is deliberately asserted that there are seven seas in Palestine. Only six are named, but one of these is named twice in order to make up the number seven, merely so that the holy number may be introduced. And, further, apart from this specific enumeration, the Talmud names only four seas as included in Palestine. These two instances are typical. In the first, islands are said to exist which have never been observed, and in the other the number of actually existing seas is arti- ficially increased in order to bring in the sacred seven.
(2) Metaphysical explanation was sometimes attemjited, description in itself being considered inadequate. The introduction of the number seven above is an illustration of this. Ps 24 gives an- other type, where Jahweli is praised for His power and skill in making the .solid and immovable earth to rest upon the fiuid and fluctuating sea. The observation is a bad one, but that does not concern us. The point for us to notice is that to the obser- vation that the land is ' founded upon the sea ' is added the metaphysical explanation that this is a miraculous exhibition of the power of God. The fact that this is poetry, and could be paralleled Avith passages taken from modern Western poetrj', does not affect the point, for these modern passages are admittedly and obviouslj^ poetical in contradic- tion to scientific statements, whereas in Hebrew literature there is no such distinction. What is .said in poetry is equally true to the Hebrew mind when written in prose, as when the idea of the windoAA's of heaven is repeated in such various literary styles as are found in Gn 7'\ 2 K 7^, Mai 3^". Hence the indiscriminate JeAvish doctrine of inspiration, Avhich made no distinction betAveen styles of literature, ascribing to all passages of the Canon an equal measure of truth.
The Jews did, of course, accumulate, as the Talmud and the OT sufficiently show, a mass of \alid technical knowledge. The}' knew much concerning metals, such as gold ; other chemical substances, such as soda ; and certain processes of metallurgy. 'The .Tews,' says Ernst \on Sieger, 'did indeed I^ossess a certain disjointed knowledge of chemical processes acquired accidentally, but these were applied for their practical results alone, and not with the object of deducing any com- prehensive scientific explanation from them.' [By ' scientific explanation ' here von Meyer means what has been called ' description ' above]. They never made experiments. Any conclusions concerning nature at which they arrived were due to haphazard reflexion upon chance occurrences. Accurate descri])tion was not their object, nor did they attempt it. The facts of nature, like the incidents of history, were to them pro- perl>- explained by reference to other thin<,^s than those which migiit be observed. Rabbi Joshua, for instance, gives the following account of rain : 'The clouds ascend to the heights of the heavens, then stretch themselves out like a sponge and take up the rain-water ; but having holes in them like a sie\e, they let the water fall through on to the earth in drops.' That only one drop falls at a time is due to a kindly Providence, for otherwise great harm would be done to the earth (Bergel). The Rabbis explained thunder as the crashing together of clouds, or as the splitting of ice in the clouds when struck by the hot lightning. Earthquakes were variously described as God clapping His bands, or sighing, or treading upon His footstool. Of all scientific efforts the Jewish teachers seem to have been most successful in Astronomy. They described the heavens as a hollow, dome-like, half-ball', spread over the flat earth. Tlie stars thev held to be fixed to the inner surface of this dome,