The Book of God: In the Light of the Higher Criticism: With Special Reference to Dean Farrar's New Apology

In the fevered intellectual climate of late Victorian Britain, where Darwin's shadow loomed over church pulpits and new archaeological discoveries threatened the comfortable certainties of Scripture, G.W. Foote mounted a relentless assault on the foundations of biblical authority. This bracing work applies the tools of higher criticism to dissect the Bible's claims of divine inspiration, exposing the internal contradictions, historical inconsistencies, and theologically inconvenient discrepancies that orthodoxy had long swept under the rug. Foote turns his particular ire on Dean Farrar's apologetic efforts, systematically dismantling the case for biblical infallibility while demonstrating how centuries of selective interpretation have produced a Christianity at war with itself. The result is not merely a negative critique but a passionate argument for intellectual honesty: if the Bible is the word of God, its adherents must grapple honestly with its human fingerprints. Written with the polemical verve of a man who had debated clergy on public stages and relished the fight, this book captures a pivotal moment when the ancient alliance between faith and reason finally began to fracture.