Some one may say, "Scholars in all ages have sought to answer these questions; why is it, then, that modern higher criticism reaches conclusions concerning the origin, form, and value of Old Testament writings not dreamed of a few centuries ago?" This is a legitimate question, but the answer is not far to seek. It may best be answered by asking another question: Men in all ages have studied the earth, the sun, the stars, and other phenomena of nature; how is it that modern scientists have reached conclusions unknown and undreamed of a few centuries ago? The modern higher criticism, like all modern science, is the outgrowth of the awakening during the Middle Ages which revolutionized the whole world of science, literature, and religion. The Renaissance aroused men's interest in literature and science, the Reformation aroused men's interest in religion as a personal experience. In the Renaissance men began to think for themselves in matters of science and literature; in the Reformation they began to think for themselves in matters of religion. It was inevitable that {80} the awakening of thought and the substitution of reason for authority in science, secular literature, and secular history should ultimately affect sacred history and sacred literature as well.[9] Chronologically, it is true, the work of higher criticism began even before the time of the Renaissance among Spanish Jews. But this Jewish criticism did not at the time exert any influence in the Christian Church. Only after criticism had secured a foothold among Christian scholars were the results of Jewish investigation made use of. In the same way the purely negative conclusions of some of the early Christian heretics, based upon dogmatic considerations rather than historical investigations, have no organic connection with the investigations and results of modern criticism. It is perfectly correct, therefore, to state that the modern higher criticism had its birth in the great awakening of the Renaissance and the Reformation. They gave to it a life and an impetus which from that day to this have not abated in the least. Some of the reformers themselves and their coworkers advanced views which later investigation has confirmed and expanded. Carlstadt, for example, the friend and coworker of Luther, published in 1520 an essay in which he argued, on the ground that the style of narration in the account of Moses's death which, he believed, was not written by Moses, was {81} the same as in the preceding chapters, that it might be held that Moses did not write the entire Pentateuch. The freedom with which Luther criticized both the Old and the New Testament books is well known. Concerning the Old Testament, he admitted that the books of Kings were more credible than Chronicles. "What would it matter," he asks, "if Moses did not write the Pentateuch?" He thinks it probable that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and Ecclesiastes received their final form at the hands of redactors.