THEOLOGICAL HALL

Evening Star, Issue 26041, 4 March 1947, Page 5

THEOLOGICAL HALL

NEW SESSION BEGINS The Presbyterian Theological flail began its new session yesterday afternoon The opening ceremony was well attended by the senatus, members of the Theological Hall Committee, students, and friends. Professor J. A. Allan, the newly-ordained principal, was in the chair. After welcoming Professor Allan and Professor Knight, the recently-in-ducted professor of Old Testament studies, the convener of the Theological Hall Committee, the Rev. 11. S. Watson, made a number of announcements concerning appointments at the Theological Hall. _ Mr J. l Maciver had been appointed teacher in voice production, he said, and there would be 39 students in the Theological Hall this year, 12 of whom

were new men. The Amy MorrisonKdith Elliffe Scholarships had been won by Messrs F. W. R. Nieho) and H. G. Bartlett. The James Gumming Prize, for efficiency in Old Testament studies, would be awarded for the first time this year, and it was hoped that the first award of the William and Catherine Begg travelling scholarship would also be made.

In delivering his lecture on * Teaching New Testament Studies To-day,' Professor Allan said that the Bible was being -taken to-day more religiously and more seriously. Men had been looking at the Bible in the light of modern thought, and forgetting that modern thought might have . limitations that needed to be supplemented and corrected by the Bible. Biblical criticism had generally been linked with Liberalism that was predisposed against a God that intervened in the world or in history, whether by word or by deed. There had now been a

revolt against this, and Biblical scholars were determined to take the underlying ideas of the Bible seriously, and not to explain them away as unacceptable to the modern man. “ We live to-day,” he concluded, “in a post-critical age, when scholars, using all the best instruments of historical and literary research, feel the need for building up a positive appreciation and understanding of the Bible on the results of such research.”