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THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
_Editor of "The Expositor," etc._
COMPLETE INDEX
LONDON
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27 PATERNOSTER ROW
1905
COMPLETE INDEX
TO THE
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
BY
S. G. AYRES, B.D.
WITH PREFACE TO THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
BY
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
AND INTRODUCTIONS
BY W. H. BENNETT, D.D., D.Lit.
_Professor of Old Testament Exegesis at New College, London_
AND WALTER F. ADENEY, M.A.
_Professor of New Testament Exegesis at Lancashire College,
Manchester_
LONDON
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27 PATERNOSTER ROW
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
3 AND 5, WEST EIGHTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK
GENERAL PREFACE TO THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
_By the Editor._, W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
The Expositor's Bible has been published in a period of exceptionally
active work in Biblical criticism. A survey of recent study in the Old
Testament and in the New by very competent scholars is supplied in this
volume. I confine myself to general considerations. Whatever criticism
has accomplished or has not accomplished, we may be sure that the
supremacy and the finality of the Bible are as they were, and will
continue secure and unassailable. The ultimate testimony that the Bible
is the Word of God cannot be derived from external witness or from a
process of reasoning. It is in the heart of the believer to whom the
voice of God is personal, and it is given by the Holy Spirit that still
bears witness in and with the Word. It is and has always been to the
Church not a matter of probable evidence, but one of Divine certainty.
If we could see the living Church! It would be much to see the Church
Triumphant, and in a sense that privilege is ours. For we are come to
Mount Zion where God has set His King, to the festal host and Church of
the firstborn which are written in Heaven. Yet a hush hangs over the
everlasting hills, and the light that falls on them now for us is but
starlight to the glory that clothes them. But what if we could see the
living in Christ, if the sheath of the Church Visible should suddenly
fall away and the flower of the Church Invisible should unfold itself
before our eyes. Those who have heard in His written Word the true voice
of God are the Church Invisible, and it is to them and to them only that
the conviction of its Divine riches is assured. But even for them--and
in these days this is specially true--there are difficulties about the
content, the meaning, and the form of Scripture. Upon these there are
great differences, but there is ground on which we may all meet. There
are arguments which appeal to every Christian heart for the finality of
the Word of God.
We are in the first place, confronted by the fact of the permanent and
inextinguishable life of the Bible. No engrossment of the general mind
with secularities, no change in the methods of thought, no discovery of
science, and no achievement of literature puts the Bible out of court.
It and it alone ministers to the permanent and universal cravings of our
being. Sir Thomas Browne puts it well: "Men's works have an age like
themselves, and though they outlive their authors, yet have they a stint
and period to their duration. This only is a work too hard for the teeth
of time, and cannot perish but in the general flames when all things
will confess their ashes." The words are as true as when they were
written, and they will be as true at any future period, however long
this frame of things may last. We will not even quarrel with the thought
that the Bible itself will come to be no longer needed, for we shall in
the end be content to have no Scripture but the Living Word Himself. Now
it is this which sharply distinguishes the Bible from every other book.
There are, said one, three classes of books. There is the book you read
once, the book you read twice, and the book you read every year. There
is besides the Book which you read constantly, which morning by morning,
evening by evening, brings its message of help. Other books, even the
greatest, exhaust their message. Take, for example, the sermons of
Frederick Robertson. What startling freshness there was in them on a
first reading! Go back to them now, and you find that very much of their
message has passed into the substance of contemporary thought. The Bible
has been and ever is yielding messages, and yet returning to it you ever
find, and the generations ever find, that it has more to say. We may,
indeed, read it heedlessly and find it old. But who that reads it with a
wistful heart will ever have this experience? "I sometimes look back,"
said one, "to those simple days when my spiritual life was commencing,
when I used to go forth to my labours with the New Testament in my
pocket, that I might glance over its pages at the next leisure moment. I
read it with fresh, unworn, unspeakable interest. It was like Adam's
first walk in Paradise." It has been told of some saints whose minds had
in their day roamed over the field of knowledge, that as life drew up to
the end they read almost nothing except the Bible, feeling every time
that they were only beginning to understand it.
The significance of this is not that the Bible is a great achievement of
literature, not that it is the noblest and sublimest of all books, but
that it is the final revelation of God. There is a dangerous form of
apologetics which aims at establishing that the Bible is the most
remarkable book in the world. That parts of the Bible are of the noblest
literary beauty is certain. That some at least of the human authors were
transcendently gifted is equally certain. For example, this is
eminently true of the unknown author of the Book of Job, a book which,
as Froude says, will be found at the last to tower above all the poetry
of the world. It is so with the unknown author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, who has been truly if quaintly, described as "a man of the
first intellectual mark." It is true of St. Paul, whose intellect was
very receptive, that even when most receptive, most powerful, an
instrument, an _organon_, not a mere speaking trumpet. For St. Paul the
glory of the Cross flooded the world, smote with death its principles
and creeds, created new scenery, new horizons, new faiths, new
understandings. But we cannot affirm all this about every author of the
Bible or every part of it, and we need not do so. What we say is that
this book and this book only contains all we know of God, all we shall
know till the veil is rent. Let me emphasize this assertion. An American
poet has said:
"Slowly the Bible of the race is writ,
Each age, each kindred, adds a text to it."
This is a statement that we meet with a blank denial. No text has been
added to the Bible. No revelation of God has been given or will be given
in addition to that within its covers. You say God has revealed Himself
by His skill and power in nature. He has revealed Himself by His
providence in history. He has revealed Himself in the individual life of
believers. He has revealed Himself by His Spirit to His Church. He has
in a sense inspired the books of devotion that are the treasures of the
world. The Holy Spirit has promised to take of the things of Christ and
show them to every believer. Yes, it is all true. But what has God said
in nature, in Providence, in Christian experience, in Christian
literature that He has not said first in the Bible? Take the most
beautiful thought ever suggested by the profoundest Christian mind, and
you will find it quietly folded in some word of Jesus, in some argument
of an Apostle. This was the argument for the inspiration of the Gospel
on which my old teacher, Dr. Robertson Smith, was specially wont to
dwell. "We mean," he said, "that the Bible contains within itself a
perfect picture of God's gracious relations to man, and that we have no
need to go outside of the Bible history to know anything of God and His
saving will toward us, that the whole growth of the true religion up to
its perfect fulness is set before us in the record of God's dealings
with Israel, culminating in the manifestation of Jesus Christ. History
has not taught us that there is anything in true religion to add to the
New Testament. We still stand in the nineteenth century where Christ
stood in the first, or rather Christ stands as high above us as He did
above His disciples, the perfect Master, the supreme Head of the
fellowship of all true religion." Even so, as Christ stands, and forever
will stand, infinitely above us, so does the Bible stand, and ever will
stand, infinitely above all other books. Consider what this claim of
finality means in an age when everything is changing, when our books of
history, science, and philosophy last only a few years. Think what it is
to say this in the face of the lights that are now streaming in on all
sides upon the human soul. Think also that this statement cannot be
challenged by any Christian. No Christian knows anything about God but
what has been already written in the Word of God. The experience of the
saints runs with these words: "I had little thought of its intellectual
grandeur or literary beauty. Christ was there. I went to Him for life
and found it. I was baptized and absorbed in His dying love."
But the question may be raised, has been raised, Is it right to describe
the Bible as the Word of God? Is it possible to vindicate such a name
for the whole Bible in the face of criticism and its results? Is it not
better to say that the Bible contains the Word of God? I think it is
possible to use the phrase "Word of God" in a sense that is not
justified. But the phrase, "the Bible is the Word of God," expresses a
truth which is denied in the other phrase, "the Bible contains the Word
of God." I appeal again to Dr. Robertson Smith, whose place among
Biblical scholars will not lightly be contested. He says: "People now
say that the Scripture contains God's Word, when they mean that part of
the Bible is the Word of God and another part is the word of man. That
is not the doctrine of our churches, which hold that the substance of
_all_ Scripture is God's Word. What is not part of the record of God's
Word is no part of Scripture. Only we must distinguish between the
record and the Divine communications of God's heart and will which the
record conveys." Defining his position still further, the same
illustrious scholar said: "We may say that silver is contained in the
mould into which it is run. If the silver is only in the leaden ore, the
man who has no means of smelting is no richer by having it in his
possession. If the Bible only contains the Word of God mixed with man's
word, like silver in the leaden ore, then no one could use Scripture for
his own religious life who did not possess the requisite scholarship, as
in the other case the man could not get silver without having a smelting
to separate it from the leaden ore. Therefore that view is untenable.
But there is another way in which Scripture may contain the Word of God,
the pure Word of God--as the mould contains the silver seven times
tried. The pure silver takes the shape of the mould--it may be an
imperfect shape--but it is pure silver, and the man is enriched thereby
at once without any further act."
Once more, when Biblical criticism has done its utmost, when every one
of its established results is acknowledged to the full, there is still a
problem. Grant the furthest claim of the critical analysis. Divide the
Bible as you have it into innumerable shreds, painted differently. What
then? You have not explained the living combination. How were these
innumerable scraps brought together and endowed with this indomitable
vitality? It is the same problem as is presented in Christianity. The
parts, as an apologist has said, may be taken to pieces, and people may
persuade themselves that without Divine interposition they can account
for all the facts. "Here is something from the Jews, something from the
Greeks, an element contributed by this party, another by that, a general
coloring by people who held partly of both. You may take down
Christianity in this way, and spread it over the centuries. But when the
operation is done the living whole draws itself together again, looks
you in the face, reclaims its scattered parts from every century back to
the first, and reasserts itself to be a great burst of coherent life and
light centring in Christ. Just as though you might take a piece of
living tissue and say, here is only so much nitrogen, carbon, lime, and
so forth, but the energetic peculiarities of life going on before your
eyes would refute you by the palpable presence of a mystery unaccounted
for." So it is with the Bible. How were these elements put together?
Who breathed into the whole the breath of life so that it became a
living creature, as Luther says, with eyes and hands and feet? Take the
problem of the Gospels. One may say lazily that it is an insoluble
problem, and one may say it wisely. In any case, how was it that these
writers succeeded in drawing the picture of the Stainless? How was it
that the stream was never allowed to become turbid at any moment? One
act, one word, one attitude might have been condemned by all generations
of the faithful. How were they kept from misunderstandings, these men
who were always misunderstanding, when the story came to be written? An
artist and poet of great note died some twenty years ago, and quite a
number of his friends have put on record their impressions. The most
intimate of these friends has refrained. He has contented himself with
saying that they have all missed the true man, the heroic, the noble
man. Are we not in the presence of the supernatural in dealing with a
fact like this, that the sinful should understand the Sinless so
perfectly as to record no thought, no deed, no word which bears upon it
the mark of their human frailty? Shelley said once: "There are two
Italys, one of the green earth, the transparent seas, old ruins, the
warm, radiant atmosphere; the other is of the Italians, with their works
and ways." There are two Bibles, the Bible cut in pieces by analysis,
the Bible as we have it. The time will come when one will pass into the
other, but it will not come till the finality and Divinity of the Bible
are confessed, just as the moment will come when the spell of Italy will
pass into the soul of her people, and the contrast will fade away. What
we say about the Bible, when admitting everything that criticism has
secured, is that criticism has only made it clearer than ever that it is
a house not made with hands.
Once more, and especially of the Old Testament, we have the witness of
Christ. This is a witness which has been misunderstood and overdriven.
But in its essence it is a witness which is admitted by believing
critics themselves to be absolute. To us it is not enough to say that
Jesus Christ is an inspired soul, obedient to the laws of His own
nature. It is not enough even to say that He holds a regal rank among
souls and an exceptional relation to God. It is not enough to say that
He is the Saint of saints. He is more than that, even very God of very
God. But take the lower position. Admit everything that can be urged in
the circumstances of His humanity, and still it remains true, as Dr.
Robertson Smith has said that "there can be no question that Jesus
Himself believed that God dealt with Israel in the way of special
revelation, that the Old Testament contains within itself a perfect
picture of His gracious relations to His people, and sets forth the
whole growth of the true religion up to its perfect fulness." Dr.
Robertson Smith added: "We cannot depart from this view without making
Jesus an imperfect teacher and an imperfect Saviour." Did He who said,
"No man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whomsoever the Son
willeth to reveal Him," did He mistake His Father for another in the
pages of the Old Testament? It is incredible, incredible upon any theory
of the person of Christ that can be held by Christians.
"The Spirit of God maketh the reading, and especially the preaching, of
the Word an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners," says
the Shorter Catechism. Is it so certain that the preaching comes before
the reading? Human words, when they are best, give the forms of what
truth the speakers see, but the brightest forms have neither the lustre
nor the grace of the forms of the Spirit. They are at best poor, dull,
inharmonious echoes of the heavenly music, and it is through the Word of
the Lord pre-eminently that the power of the Lord must spread from heart
to heart.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
OLD TESTAMENT
BY W. H. BENNETT, M. A., D. D. Professor of Old Testament Exegesis at
New College, London
I.--PLAN OF THE SERIES
The Expositor's Bible is unique. There have been innumerable
commentaries, homiletical, didactic, exegetical, and critical; mostly
dealing with the books text by text, or paragraph by paragraph. This
series adopts a different method. It aims at bringing out the general
teaching of each book, and of each of the divisions into which the book
naturally falls. The reader is furnished with all the information
necessary to enable him to understand the history, philosophy, and
theology, the practical wisdom and devotional poetry of the Sacred
Scriptures; but his mind is not bewildered by abstruse technicalities,
and his attention is not distracted from the main issues by long
discussions on minor details. This plan has, of course, been partially
anticipated, there have been similar expositions of books or portions of
books; such expositions have usually been sections of elaborate works;
but in the Expositor's Bible we have for the first time a series
exclusively devoted to such exposition, and embracing the whole Bible.
The series illustrates the catholicity of scholarship; its contributors
represent several Evangelical churches, and various schools of Biblical
Criticism. There are Anglicans like the Bishop of Derry, Presbyterians
like Prof. G. A. Smith, and English Free Churchmen like Dr. Maclaren.
II.--THE NEED FOR A NEW EXPOSITION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
"Of old time God spake unto the fathers in the prophets by divers
portions and in divers manners."[1]
[1] Hebrews, I. 1.
In the Old Testament we have the record of this Revelation so far as the
mind could grasp the Divine utterance and so far as words could describe
the Heavenly Vision. Ever since the Epistle to the Hebrews was written,
and for that matter even earlier, devout Jews and Christians have been
busy with the interpretation of the Scriptures of the Old Covenant. Not
only so, but also the inspired words of prophets and psalmists, sown in
the good soil of believing hearts, have brought forth an abundant
harvest of theological and devotional literature. The Old Testament and
the literature of which it has been the occasion form an important
portion of the Christian inheritance.
Each new generation needs to take stock afresh of this sacred legacy, so
that it may obtain from ancient learning, study and inspiration the true
message for its own times. The tares must be gathered out from the
wheat, and the chaff separated from the grain. Truth, too, constantly
needs re-statement; language and ideas are always changing; words and
phrases do not convey to us the same meaning as they did to our
grandfathers. Religious teaching deals largely in metaphors, and a
metaphor may be a guiding light to one generation, and a
will-o'-the-wisp to the next. As times change, aspects of the truth once
prominent may be passed over lightly, and new views of the same truth
must be emphasized to suit the needs of a new dispensation. The church
in its age-long pilgrimage ever attains new heights from which it
beholds a wider range of the vast expanse of sacred truth; for the most
part it is the same landscape which was seen of old; but something is
lost to sight, some tracts which once filled the field of vision have
become dim and small; new glories are revealed, and the true relations
of mountain, valley, and plain, of river, lake, and sea are discerned as
they never were before. Commentators and expositors have not merely to
repeat the shibboleths of forgotten controversies, they have the more
onerous task of making the new view of the Heavenly Vision an
intelligible, living, speaking picture for the men and women of their
day.
At the time when the publication of this series began there was urgent
need for a new exposition of the Old Testament. The nineteenth century
had obtained wonderful results from research in science and history, and
from the progress of thought in philosophy, criticism, and theology; men
were dazzled with new facts and new ideas. How were they to understand
the Bible in the light--one might almost say in the glare--of this new
truth?
The scientific researches associated with the names of Wallace and
Darwin, and with the term Evolution, have altogether changed our ideas
of Nature and man, and of their relation to each other. Our knowledge of
the history of the race is fuller and deeper than it was, and goes back
to a far more remote antiquity. Democracy both as an idea and as a
practical system is affecting thought, feeling, and character as it
never did before, both for good and evil. This latter feature is perhaps
one cause of the modern tenderness towards acute physical pain, and this
tenderness, again, has done much to modify the sterner doctrines of the
old theology. In many other ways too theology has become, as some would
say, more vague; or, as others would prefer to put it, more elastic and
better able to adapt itself to the varied circumstances of life.
We may now turn to departments of research specially connected with the
Old Testament. We may begin with Egyptology and Assyriology, it being
understood that the latter is even more concerned with the literature,
history, and religion of Babylon than with that of Assyria. During the
middle of the nineteenth century the excavations in the East have
restored its buried empires to the light of history; they have enabled
us to study the Sacred story in connection with the great international
system of Egypt and Western Asia; and they have shown us how closely
Israel was connected with the peoples of the Nile and the Euphrates in
commerce, politics, and religion. But the study of the faith and worship
of Israel side by side with those of Egypt and Babylon is only part of
the science of comparative religion. Recent research has taught us many
things concerning the faiths of the world; and the unique character of
the Old Testament Revelation can only be understood when it is compared
with the religious practices and ideas of other peoples. Moreover, the
discoveries in Egypt and Assyria, and the study of Eastern life, furnish
many new illustrations of the manners and customs of Israel; and the new
knowledge of Semitic languages enables us to correct many defects in the
Authorized Version of the Old Testament. Indeed the publication of the
Revised Version clearly demanded a revised exposition.
Again, the new exegesis had to consider results in other departments of
study, _e. g._, the Lower and the Higher Criticism. Something had been
done in the Lower Criticism, or the discussion in detail of the text of
the Sacred Books; but here the changes were comparatively unimportant;
and even now our knowledge of this subject is very inadequate from the
point of view of scholarship, though the text is determined with an
accuracy sufficient for practical purposes. It was very different,
however, in what is known as the Higher Criticism, _i. e._, the
discussion of the date, authorship, and composition of the books of the
Old Testament. Higher critics of one school, following those of former
generations, were inclined, for the most part, to assign the books as
they stood to the authors whose names were given as their titles. For
instance the whole of the Pentateuch, with the exception of Deuteronomy,
xxxiv, 5-8, was ascribed to Moses; the whole of _Isaiah_ to the prophet
of the time of Hezekiah; and all the Davidic Psalms to David. But for
about a century this subject had been studied from another point of
view, by a school of critics who were inclined to neglect tradition, and
to take for their motto "Prove all things." The principles of this
school are clearly and eloquently set forth in the following quotation
from Prof. Sayce;[2] the passage refers to the sacred books of
Babylonia, but the principles are of universal application.
[2] The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, p. 258.
"Before we can understand it (a collection of sacred books) properly, we
must separate the elements of which it consists, and assign to each its
chronological position.
"The very fact, however, that religious texts are usually of immemorial
antiquity, and that changes inevitably pass over them as they are handed
down in successive editions, makes such a task peculiarly difficult.
Nevertheless it is a task which must be undertaken before we have the
right to draw a conclusion from the texts with which we deal. We must
first know whether ... they are composite or the products of a single
author and epoch; whether, lastly, they have been glossed and
interpolated, and their primitive meaning transformed. We must have a
chronology for our documents ... and beware ... of interpreting the
creations of one age as if they were the creations of another."
The application of these principles to the Hebrew Scriptures has had
startling results. If two tables were compiled showing the date and
authorship of the various books, one according to the traditional school
of higher criticism,[3] the other according to the school with which we
are now dealing,[4] the two would present a marked contrast to each
other. The new school would hold, for instance, that the bulk of the
Pentateuch is not in its present form the work of Moses; that the last
twenty-seven chapters of our Book of Isaiah were not composed by that
prophet; and that very few of the Davidic Psalms were really written by
David. At the time when the first volumes of the Expositor's Bible were
published this school had become large and influential; and public
attention had been called to their teaching by the attacks on Prof. W.
Robertson Smith, one of their leading representatives. The new criticism
affected not only purely literary questions but also the views to be
taken of the history and religion of Israel. The history before Saul, it
was maintained, was not so fully and definitely known as had been
supposed; and the religion of Israel had developed, under the influence
of Revelation, from a primitive faith which had much in common with
that of other Semitic peoples. Here again we can illustrate the alleged
results of the new criticism by a passage from Prof. Sayce: "It is to
Babylonia, therefore, that we must look for the origin of those views of
the future world and of the punishment of sin[5] which have left so deep
an impression on the pages of the Old Testament.... They were views from
which the Israelite was long in emancipating himself. The inner history
of the Old Testament is, in fact, in large measure a history of the
gradual widening of the religious consciousness of Israel in regard to
them and their suppression by a higher and more spiritual form of
faith."[6]
[3] As represented for instance by the earlier editions of Dr. Angus's
Bible Handbook, or by Keil's O. T. Introduction.
[4] As represented by Driver's Introduction.
[5] The belief in a dim, shadowy existence in Sheol, the Semitic Hades;
and the belief in exact retribution for sin and reward for virtue in the
present life.
[6] Religion of Egyptians, etc., p. 296.
In the Expositor's Bible both the old and the new schools of criticism
are represented. Thus a great opportunity was offered to critics; and a
crucial experiment was tried which was of the utmost importance to all
Christian Churches. When the books of the Old Testament were read in the
light of the new criticism, would it still be possible to derive from
them a consistent and reasonable account of the history and religion of
Israel; would they still stimulate and nourish Christians' faith, piety,
and devotion, and minister to the needs of the spiritual life? The
volumes of this series written by representatives of the new school of
criticism have enabled us, it is claimed, to answer this question with
an emphatic affirmative. For the general public the first volume of
Prof. Geo. Adam Smith's _Isaiah_ was an epoch-making book, revealing
undreamed-of possibilities in the way of fresh light breaking forth
from the ancient Scriptures. _The British Weekly_ wrote of this work,
"Isaiah is for the first time made perfectly intelligible to the people....
Mr. Smith has opened out a new line of work ... which will do more
than many arguments to reconcile a timorous and misguided public to
scientific scholarship and the newer criticism."
Another modern tendency which influences the interpretation of the Old
Testament is the decay of ecclesiastical authority. There are still, and
always will be, those who are willing to believe anything on the bare
word of their favorite preacher. But in the long run this kind of faith
does not count. On the other hand there are many, religious or capable
of religion, to whom it would seem absurd to suggest that the decrees of
Churches had any great value in matters of faith. As regards the Old
Testament, for instance, neither the creeds of ancient councils nor the
resolutions of modern synods, neither papal bulls nor episcopal edicts
could seriously affect the attitude of such men to, say, _Canticles_,
_Ecclesiastes_ and _Esther_. The testimony of the Church Universal--of
which creeds, confessions, and other standards are the least important
part--induces inquirers to read the Bible. But in religion, an authority
is only effective by its own inherent force; it must be able to assert
itself so as to win sympathy, to produce conviction, and to secure
obedience. A distinguished Cambridge scholar is in the habit of saying,
when he is asked how he "takes" a passage, that he does not take the
passage, but the passage takes him. So the great sayings, discourses,
and narratives of the Old Testament take hold of their readers and
compel acknowledgment of the authority of Revelation. The best we can do
for the Bible is to let it speak for itself; the only essential
doctrine of Scripture is that it is the duty and privilege of every man
to read it, and to read intelligently, taking advantage of all the light
afforded by history, archaeology and criticism. The great object of the
Expositor's Bible has been just this--to let the Bible speak for itself.
III.--RECENT RELIGIOUS LITERATURE--GENERAL.
Criticism has powerfully stimulated public interest in the Bible, and
the wealth of new information and new ideas has produced an extensive
popular literature on the Sacred Scriptures. The traditional etiquette
which demanded that the Bible should be marked off from all other books
by its sombre binding and its arrangement in chapters and verses has
been rudely set aside. Almost every possible variety of editions have
been published of late years--Bibles of every shape and size, from the
portly quarto for the lectern to the dainty series of duodecimo volumes
for the pocket; Bibles with and without notes or illustrations; Bibles
treated as classic literature; Bibles bound in cheerful colors with
aesthetic tooling. It has become possible to read the Scriptures in a
railway train without being guilty of pharasaic ostentation. At the same
time there has been a deluge of "Helps," "Companions," "Teachers'
Notes," etc., etc., intended to supply the latest information in
popular, but sometimes a little misleading as to the critical results of
modern, Biblical study.
But the most important feature of recent literature for ordinary Bible
students is the publication of standard works of reference in which the
real results of modern research are made accessible. For nearly thirty
years Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, in its English and American
editions, rendered invaluable service; and a revision of this work was
published some time since. But just recently two entirely new Bible
Dictionaries have been published in which British, American, Dutch,
German and Swiss scholars of all the Evangelical Churches, together with
one or two learned Jews, co-operate.
Dr. Hastings' _Dictionary of the Bible_[7] represents the more
conservative position, while somewhat more advanced views find
expression in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_,[8] edited by Prof. Cheyne and
Dr. J. Sutherland Black.
[7] T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh. Four Volumes, with a fifth supplementary
volume.
[8] A. & C. Black. Four Volumes.
In all this literary activity, the various Bible Societies have taken an
important part; chiefly through their instrumentality the Bible in whole
or in part has been translated into over 400 languages, and probably
since the invention of printing about 300,000,000 copies of the
Scriptures or of portions have been put into circulation. An important
feature in this work is the decision of the _British and Foreign Bible
Society_ to circulate the Revised Version--a step all the more
significant as it followed shortly after the publication of the American
edition of the Revised Version, and the vote of the Anglican Convocation
approving of the reading of the new translation in the services of the
English Established Church.
The last fifteen or twenty years have seen a great growth of religious
journalism. Popular periodicals have multiplied; and several important
theological reviews have been started in England and America, notably
the _Critical Review_, the _Hibbert Journal_, and the _American Journal
of Theology_.
IV.---THE PROGRESS OF ARCHAEOLOGY.
The years since the publication of our series began, in 1887, have
witnessed marked progress in the study of the Old Testament, of which we
propose to give a brief sketch, beginning with the Archaeology, _i. e._,
chiefly the results of excavations in Egypt, and in Syria, Assyria,
Babylonia, and Arabia. The last fifteen years have made immense
additions to the known facts which have a bearing on the history and
religion of Israel, and the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Assiduous exploration is continually pushing back our knowledge of the
ancient East to a more and more remote antiquity, so that already we
discern the dim outlines of history in what we have been wont to call
prehistoric times. We seem to know something of life in Egypt in B. C.
7000 or it may be even B. C. 10,000. At the same time our knowledge of
later periods is continually increasing, though comparatively little is
found that directly and explicitly either confirms or contradicts the
Old Testament. Perhaps the most relevant amongst recent discoveries is
an inscription of Meneptah II. This king is often spoken of in popular
handbooks as the "Pharaoh of the Exodus," and his father and predecessor
Rameses II is referred to as the "Pharaoh of the Oppression." But in
this newly found inscription Meneptah claims to have subdued Israelites
in Syria.
But the most striking amongst recent discoveries is the collection known
as the _Tell el'Amarna Tablets_, found at Amarna in the Nile Valley in
1887. They form a connecting link between Egyptology and Assyriology,
and bring forth their relation with Palestine. For, though they are part
of the archives of the Foreign Office of Amenophis IV, B. C. 1400, they
are, for the most part, written in the cuneiform Babylonian, and
consist of despatches to the Pharaohs from Babylonian, Hittite, and
other Eastern kings, and from the Egyptian officials, and tributaries in
Palestine, and the rest of Syria. These letters throw a flood of light
on the condition of Western Asia. We see, for instance, that at that
time Palestine and Phoenicia were provinces of the Egyptian Empire.
It is also maintained by many scholars that certain invaders of
Palestine, the _Habiri_, who figure largely in these letters, are the
Hebrews, although the period is at least a century earlier than the time
of the so-called "Pharaohs of the Oppression and the Exodus."
In Palestine, at Lachish and Gezer, the explorers have unearthed the
remains of the successive races which one after another ruled in the
land.
In Babylonia, there has been quite recently a great "find" of the laws,
official letters and other documents of Hammurabi, B. C. 2300, usually
identified with the Amraphel of Genesis XIV, the contemporary of
Abraham. These and other discoveries have led Paul Haupt, Winckler,
Sayce, Fried. Delitzsch and other scholars to attribute to Babylon a
predominant influence, social, political, and religious in the ancient
East. Hence Fried. Delitzsch's famous lectures before the German
Emperor, in which that distinguished Assyriologist treated the religion
of Israel almost as an inferior offshoot from that of Babylon, and
initiated a controversy which is still raging. These discoveries are so
frequent and so extensive that there is little encouragement to anyone
to attempt to write an adequate and comprehensive account of them.
However complete it might be when written, fresh discoveries would
probably come to hand even before it was published, and it would rapidly
become more and more out of date. Nevertheless a full statement up to
certain dates may be found in the works of the scholars mentioned above
and others such as Hommel, Jastrow, Jensen, Budge, Zimmern, Flinders
Petrie, etc.; in the proceedings and transactions of the various
American, English, French, and German Exploration Societies; in the most
recent commentaries and works on the History and Religion of Israel.
What is specially known in Germany as Archaeology, viz., the study of
manners and customs, has been brought up to date in two standard German
works by Nowack and Benzinger, respectively.
We may briefly refer here to the rapid development in recent times of
the science of Comparative Religion, to which amongst others, Prof. C.
H. Toy, of Harvard, has rendered important services. A marked feature
has been the tendency to emphasize the legends and ritual of savage
tribes, and their survivals in the literature and services of more
advanced religions. Attempts are made to ascertain from such data how
religions in general, and any given religion in particular, have
developed; and thus lay down principles by which to interpret the
available information in any special case. In reference to this branch
of learning Prof. Morris Jastrow of the University of Pennsylvania
writes thus[9]: "J. G. Frazer's great work more particularly, _The
Golden Bough_, marks an epoch in the study of religious rites."
[9] The Study of Religion, p. 51.
V.--PROGRESS IN PHILOLOGY, ETC.
Many important additions have recently been made to the student's
apparatus for the linguistic and textual study of the Old Testament.
Numerous grammars, reading-books and lexicons of Assyrian and other
Semitic languages have been published. In Hebrew itself a standard
grammar has been provided by the translation of the twenty-fifth and
twenty-sixth editions Gesenius revised by Kautzsch. Dr. Solomon
Mandelkern has published a new Concordance to the Hebrew Text of the Old
Testament. A new standard edition of Gesenius Lexicon by Profs. Brown,
Driver, and Briggs is being issued by the Clarendon Press.
Biblical Hebrew has also had light thrown on it by the discovery of the
original Hebrew text of large portions of _Ecclesiasticus_. It was
indeed maintained by Margoliouth that the documents discovered were a
retranslation into Hebrew from Greek and other versions; but, after much
controversy, the verdict of scholarship is in favor of the originality
of the Hebrew text in these documents.
As regards the Septuagint: Prof. Swete has edited a small edition in
three volumes with the readings of the most important manuscripts,
together with a fourth volume containing the Introduction. A large
edition which will give the same text[10] "with an ample _apparatus
criticus_ intended to provide material for a critical determination of
the text," is being prepared. Messrs. Hatch and Redpath have compiled a
new Concordance to the Septuagint; but a modern grammar and lexicon are
still "felt wants."
[10] That of the "Vatican MS.," with its lacunae supplied from the uncial
MS. which occupies the next place in point of age and importance.
VI.--RECENT CRITICISM AND EXEGESIS.
The progress of Biblical knowledge has necessitated the publication of
new series of commentaries. In English there is the International
Critical Commentary;[11] and some of the later volumes of the Cambridge
Bible, _e. g._, Prof. Driver's _Daniel_, are rather first-class
commentaries for scholars than elementary works for general readers. In
German there are Prof. Nowack's _Handkommentar zum Alten Testament_;[12]
Prof. Karl Marti's _Kurzer Handkommentar zum Alten Testament_,[13] and
the Old Testament sections of Profs. Strack and Zoeckler's _Kurzgefaszter
Kommentar_.[14] Later on reference will be made to some volumes of these
series.
[11] T. & T. Clark. _Judges_ by Prof. G. F. Moore, _Samuel_ by Prof. H.
P. Smith, etc., etc., only four or five O. T. volumes published as yet.
[12] Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Goettingen. _Job_ by Prof. Budde, _Psalms_
by Prof. Baethgen, _Ezra_, etc., etc., by Prof. Siegfried, etc.
[13] J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Freiburg, i. B. _Genesis_ by
Holzinger, _Ezekiel_ by Bertholet, _Proverbs_ by Wildeboer, etc., etc.
[14] Oskar Beck, Munich, Orelli on _Isaiah_ and _Jeremiah_, etc., etc.
In addition to the above works, there are others specially intended to
show how criticism has divided up the books of the Old Testament into
the various older documents from which they are believed to have been
compiled. This analysis is shown in the German translation edited by
Kautzsch by means of initials in the margin; Dr. Haupt's _Sacred Books
of the Old Testament_ (Hebrew text) and _Polychrome Bible_,[15] by means
of colored backgrounds on which the text is printed; and in the _Oxford
Society of Historical Theology_; _The Hexateuch_[16] by means of
parallel columns. The introduction to the last named work is the most
complete popular statement of the grounds for the modern theory of the
Pentateuch. Technical details and a formal contrast of the arguments for
and against this theory may be found in the discussion between Profs. W.
R. Harper and W. H. Green in _Hebraica_, 1888-90. Numerous Introductions
to the Old Testament have expounded the current critical views, notably
for English and American readers the successive editions of Prof.
Driver's _Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament_.
[15] _Genesis_ by C. J. Ball; _Numbers_ by Prof. J. A. Paterson
(Edinburgh), etc., etc.
[16] Edited by J. Estlin Carpenter and G. Harford Battersby.
Naturally these various works represent not merely the position of
criticism and exegesis twenty years ago, but also the progress made
since then. As regards the Historical Books critics have chiefly been
engaged in the application of modern methods and principles which are
now very generally accepted. Development has taken place in three
directions. First, much labor has been given to the more exact
distribution of the contents of the _Hexateuch_ between the main
documents used by its compilers, _e. g._, Prof. B. W. Bacon's analysis
of _Exodus_. Secondly, attempts have been made to divide up these main
documents into still older documents from which they have been compiled.
Steuernagel, for instance, regards _Deuteronomy_ as a mosaic of
paragraphs and clauses from earlier codes, and finds a criterion between
different sources in the use, respectively, of the singular or the
plural form of address. So far his views have not met with much
acceptance.[17] Thirdly, the theory has been very widely advocated that
the historical books of _Judges-I Kings_ are partly compiled from the
documents used by the editors of the Hexateuch.[18] Gunkel's commentary
on _Genesis_[19] is of special importance; it pleads for a fuller
recognition of the indebtedness of Israel to the religions of its
neighbors, and maintains that, as the stories of the Creation, the Fall,
and the Flood were derived from Babylon, so the Patriarchal narratives
were mostly borrowed from the Canaanites after the settlement of Israel
in Palestine. The account of Joseph, however, is largely taken from
Egyptian sources.
[17] For other examples of the analysis of the main documents into
earlier works, see Gunkel's _Genesis_, the Polychrome _Genesis_,
_Joshua_, and Prof. H. G. Mitchell's _World Before Abraham_, etc., etc.
[18] See the Polychrome _Judges_ and _Samuel_.
[19] German.
As regards the Prophetical Books, there is little of general interest
to record; the composite authorship of Isaiah XL-LXVI is more widely
held.
When we come to the _Hagiographa_, or third or closing section of the
Hebrew Canon, _Esther_ has been the subject of interesting speculations.
Chiefly because Mordecai and Esther are the names of the Babylonian gods
Merodach and Ishtar, it has been suggested that the book is based on a
Babylonian myth which the Jews appropriated and adapted, as in earlier
days, according to Gunkel, they made use of the legends of the
Canaanites.
The origin and history of the _Psalms_ is still made the ground of much
controversy, and the tendency of criticism is to deny the existence of
any Pre-exilic Psalms;[20] and to assign a large number to the Maccabean
period. It is even held[21] that, in the time of the Maccabees, the
Psalm was the organ of political invective, and played the part of the
leading article in a modern newspaper.
[20] _E. g._, Cheyne.
[21] Duhm.
In connection with _Canticles_ a theory put forward some time since has
been revived in an emended form, and with a fuller discussion of the
evidence.[22] This view is that "the book is a collection of songs,
connected with a Syrian custom, called the 'King's Week.' During the
first week after marriage the bride and bridegroom play at being king
and queen, and are addressed as such by a mock court, in a series of
songs similar to those of _Canticles_. Thus _Canticles_ would contain a
specimen of the cycle of songs used at a seven days' village feast in
honor of a peasant bride and bridegroom, the latter being addressed as
'Solomon,' the type of a splendid and powerful king."[23]
[22] Mainly by Budde, in the _New World_, 1894.
[23] _Biblical Introduction_, Bennett and Adeney, p. 169.
VII.--THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND ITS RELIGION.
Many works have appeared expounding these subjects in the light of
modern criticism.[24] Here again recent work has largely been a
development on lines already laid down.[25] Much attention has been
given to the hints furnished by the Pentateuch as to the early history
of Israel, and these have been compared with recent discoveries from the
monuments. Many scholars[26] maintain that the Twelve Tribes of later
history represent groups of ancient nomadic clans who wandered in
Western Asia long before the time of Moses; that only a section of these
groups went down into Egypt and escaped with Moses, and that these
invaded Canaan at one period, while other kindred clans reinforced them
at a later time. Israel and the Twelve Tribes, as we know them, arose in
Palestine after the conquest, by the subdivision and regrouping of the
invading clans, and their combination with the Canaanites.