---
title: 'Robert D. Wilson’s Life Plan to Defend the Old Testament'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2022-11-15
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2022-robert-d-wilsons-life-plan-to-defend-the-old-testament
---

# Robert D. Wilson’s Life Plan to Defend the Old Testament

“I decided that I would give my life just to that one thing, the defence of the Old Testament. I made my plan as to my life, that I would give — you know, like life insurance. I was good on that line, my family was noted for its longevity, and I felt I might reasonably live till I was 70, so I divided my life into periods of fifteen years. I gave myself the first 15 years to study languages, these languages divided this way. I would learn all the Semitic languages, every language which threw light on the vocabulary or the syntax of the Old Testament. Of course, I did already know Syriac, and Aramaic, and Hebrew, but there was Ethiopic and Phoenician and Babylonian, and Assyrian, and a number of others — about twelve different Aramaic dialects. Secondly, I would learn all languages that threw light on the history of the Old Testament, taking in Egyptian, Coptic, and others. Then, thirdly, I would learn all languages that threw light on the text of the Old Testament, down to the year 600 after Christ. The texts after that would be too late. So that took me into Armenian and several other languages, Gothic, and Anglo-Saxon, etc.... The second part of my life I would devote to lower Criticism, studying the text of the Old Testament, the comparison of the Hebrew text with the Versions, Greek, Latin, Syriac, especially, and all the versions down to 600.... The last 15 years, after which I had acquainted myself with all the machinery, I would tackle the subject which is called the Higher Criticism of the Old Testament, including all that the critics have said, and so be able by that time to defend the history, the veracity of the Old Testament.... Well, I admit, and you will admit too, that that was a pretty big proposition that I laid out for myself, and I think you will admit that the Lord must have been in it.” — [Robert D. Wilson](/authors/robert-dick-wilson) (1856-1930), “OT Lecture 1” (1930) \[not yet available on Log College Press\]