Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

We cannot follow Dr. Pfleiderer's sketch of the influence of Paulinism into the second century. The assumption of the post-Pauline authorship of the Epistles to the Colossians and the Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles, gives it an ex parte appearance. It is greatly to be regretted that the author's limits prevented his giving at least a summary of the critical arguments for assigning these letters to followers of Paul writing in the second century, and especially for assigning the Pastoral Epistles to the last half of the century. As it is, the author's treatment of them must wear, to many of his readers, the appearance of arbitrariness. Edward Y. Hincks.

DIE HAUPTPROBLEME DER ALTISRAELITISCHEN RELIGIONSGESCHICHTE GE-
GENÜBER DEN ENTWICKELUNGSTHEORETIKERN. Beleuchtet von Lic. DR.
FRIEDRICH EDUARD KÖNIG, Privatdocent der Theologie an der Univer-
sität Leipzig. 12mo, pp. 108. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung.
1884.
THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF ISRAEL: A Discussion of the Chief Problems in
Old Testament History as opposed to the Development Theorists. By DR.
FRIEDRICH EDUARD KÖNIG. The University, Leipzig. Translated by Rev.
Alex. J. Campbell, M. A., Barry. 12mo, pp. viii., 192. Edinburgh: T. &
T. Clark. New York: Scribner & Welford.

THIS little book is a notable one. It is addressed to those who are interested, whether professionally or unprofessionally, in the history of religion. Kuenen's translation into German occasioned it. But Vatke, Daumer, Ghillany, Noack, Duhm, Wellhausen, Stade, Smend, and others are reviewed in it. Dr. König faces them boldly but not blindly. Himself an adherent of the Graffian hypothesis, he moderates the extreme claims of members of that school. His work is marked by a scientific aim, clear statement, sound scholarship, candid argumentation, and a spirit of mingled conservativism and progress. By its conciseness and its untechnicalness it forms a helpful handbook in the mazes of Old Testament discussion.

The method is excellent. What was the religion of the majority of the Israelites in the age of Moses? What was the monotheism of ancient Israel compared with the "ethical monotheism" of the prophets? Was Jahveh originally regarded as fire, as heaven, as an idea? Was there in Jahvism a development on the side of Jahveh's moral character? What legal basis had Jahvism before the prophets? Did the early Jahvism lack the idea of the future universality of Israel's salvation? These and other questions are taken up in thirteen acute and weighty chapters. The answers on the whole are admirable. We would commend to our readers especially chapter v., on the origin of the name Jahveh, and chapter viii., on the Calf-worship and the attitude of the Prophets toward it.

The author's point of view throughout is Biblical. His appeal is to the facts of Israel's religious history. Romans i. 11-iii. 28 is to him the substance of all religious science. Truth is his great aim. But confessedly he does not believe that the necessary fruit of the development of true science is the ignoring of the prophetic and apostolic conceptions of the world.

The conclusion of his inquiry is this:

"The fundamental elements of the Old Testament Religion were not changed by written prophecy, and the historic phases of the religion of Moses were no alterations of the substance of that religion."

We cite two specimens of Dr. König's vigorous manner. against Wellhausen's theory of the natural origin of the 90):

The first is Passover (p.

"It is traditionally inconsistent and inherently impossible that the Feast of the Passover should have acquired its historic significance unless occasioned by historic facts."

The second is against Kuenen, who maintains that Jahveh was born out of the national self-consciousness, growing with its growth, declining with its decline. König retorts (p. 42) :—

"What say the facts of history? Why, simply that faith in Jahveh must have withered speedily after Joshua's death and long before the era of written prophecy, unless Israel had deemed the might of her God a thing apart from her own post-Mosaic history, and had attained in Moses and Joshua's day an overwhelming impression of the uniqueness of the Supernatural Being presiding over her destiny."

A good translation of so solid and timely a work would have been a boon. Rev. Mr. Campbell has not given it. His renderings are awkward, slovenly, and too often incorrect. He has not even taken pains to state the author's aim in the English equivalent of the author's language. It were something even to give back the sentiment of Dr. König's masterly study. We regret to say that page after page fails to do this. The last half is much better than the first.

The phrase in the original," Development-Theorists," has given needless offense. It seems to us a justifiable epigram. We are less able to acquit Dr. König of occasional straining in exegesis and leaping to conclusions.

The work as a whole is a successful effort to mediate between traditionalism and radicalism. Its merit is that of repressing audacity and reconciling antagonisms in the field of sacred criticism.

John Phelps Taylor.

A LAYMAN'S STUDY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE, Considered in its Literary and Secular Aspect. By FRANCIS BOWEN, LL. D., Alford Professor of Philosophy in Harvard College. New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons. 1885. THIS little book consists apparently of lectures delivered by the author to his students, and makes a very pleasant impression. Professor Bowen has always been the sturdy champion of theism and Christianity against materialistic and pantheistic views, and this book is filled with a cordial, almost evangelical, appreciation of and reverence for the Bible. considers the Bible as literature and subdivides the theme thus:

He

"I. Introduction: The Bible as an English Classic. II. The Narratives in the Old Testament. III. The Parables of our Lord- The Gospel Narrative. IV. The Philosophy of the Bible. V. The Poetry of the Bible. VI. The History contained in the Bible The Character and the Institutions of Moses."

There is manifestly little arrangement in the order of these chapters, but each subject is treated with breadth and clearness in a manner to inspire and kindle renewed interest in the Bible as literature. The best chapter, as might be expected, is the fourth, in which these seven fundamental truths are found in the Philosophy of the Bible:

"1. God is one. 2. God is a spirit. 3. God made the world. 4. The dis

tinct personality both of man and God, so that each is a spiritual being capable of holding intercourse with the other. 5. God governs the world in righteousness, rewarding those who keep, and punishing those who disobey, his commands. 6. In each of his functions, as Creator, Sovereign, Lawgiver, and Judge, God is love. 7. As He is our Father, all mankind are our brethren; and the whole duty of man is summed up in the comprehensive injunction, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as thyself."

In the early part of this chapter Professor Bowen admirably defends the Biblical teaching that "there was a primeval revelation of God's truth to man," as against the evolution-hypothesis of man's progress from barbarism to civilization. Yet we imagine that few would agree with the statement that "the two exclusively human endowments of language and the use of fire prove conclusively that man was originally taught by God."

The general criticism to be made on the book as a whole is that it is only very partially representative of the Bible as literature. Only one chapter is devoted to the whole New Testament, and this is half occupied with the Parables, and half with the author's rather crude views of the origin of the Four Gospels. The Prophets, the Acts, Epistles, Revelation, and John's Gospel all are entirely passed over, though as literature they furnish remarkable specimens of argument, eloquence, and sublime monologue. A good deal of irrelevant matter like the discussion of the origin of the Gospels might well have given place to a fuller recognition of the literary excellences of the Bible.

Errors of detail are not difficult to find. For instance, the number of obsolete words in the Authorized Version cannot "almost be counted on the fingers" (p. 11) - except by Briareus. The strophic structure of Hebrew poetry, which has been so ably expounded by Professor C. A. Briggs, is ignored (p. 92), and the old exploded notion that numbers were expressed by letters in the Hebrew Scriptures, instead of being (as they are) written out in words, is apparently favored (p. 131). Professor Bowen also inclines (pp. 108, 113) to a remote antiquity for the book of Job, which is now very generally denied by the best scholarship, and the Pharisees probably held the doctrine of the resurrection far more positively than he is willing to concede (p. 83). He entirely fails (p. 118) to do justice to the existing consensus among German critics on some components of the Pentateuch, and especially of Genesis. And our author is still more unjust to the Revision when (p. 13), speaking of the Magnificat, he says:

"The Revisers of 1881 have altered it, and not for the better. For 'put down the mighty from their seats,' they have substituted 'put down princes from their thrones.' Stilted! For his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation,' as it stands in the common version, they have put his mercy is unto generations and generations on them that fear him.' Awkward and a spoiling of the rhythm! In remembrance of his mercy as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever,' they have altered into that he might remember mercy (as he spake unto our fathers), toward Abraham and his seed forever.' Uncouth and un-English! Such are the consequences of intruding nineteenth-century phraseology into the pure and musical idiom of the sixteenth century! And who will say that the meaning or the poetry of this grand old psalm has profited by the change?"

I will venture to say that in each instance the meaning at least has decidedly profited by the change. A glance at his Greek Testament ought to show Professor Bowen that the Authorized Version has mis

translated the original (with one slight difference of text) in all these instances, while the Revision has given a literal and correct rendering of them.

Our author is not much more fortunate in his exegesis than in his Biblical criticism. For few, I imagine, will believe that Christ spoke the parable of the Lost Sheep because He saw it acted out before Him at the time (p. 41). Nor is it the " eagerness of divine compassion to reclaim the fallen," "the encouragement to repentance," which we find shining through the parable of the Friend at Midnight, but rather the exhortation to persistent prayer. Nor, again, is the episode of the Elder Brother added to the parable of the Prodigal Son because "this brings out still more forcibly the patience which cannot be wearied, the tenderness which knows no bounds, the infinite pity of the Father" (p. 43). And it would have been well if Professor Bowen had consulted the despised Revision before he ventured such an exegesis as this of John v. 39 (p. 59), which breaks with the whole context:

[ocr errors]

"Search the Scriptures,' says our Lord, 'for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me;' that is, you must search in order to find in them either the law or the testimony. But search, and ye will find both," etc.

But these errors are for the most part outside of the main current of the book. We welcome this volume as a contribution to the appreciation of the Bible on grounds hitherto but little recognized. The great issue on which this book is a timely utterance is well stated at its close. We will end with the citation, which exhibits the helpful nature of the work:

"For either the one God, Father of all, the God alike of Jew, Christian, and Mahometan, still lives and reigns enthroned above all height, still moves and governs the universe which He created, or there comes a wail of never-dying sorrow from an orphan world and a dead eternity, a pitiable cry which declares existence to be a burden and a wrong, and bids us eat, drink, and rot, for tomorrow we sleep and never wake again."

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, BANGOR, ME.

C. J. H. Ropes.

MOVEMENTS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN BRITAIN DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. St. Giles' Lectures. By JOHN TULLOCH, D. D., LL. D., Senior Principal in the University of St. Andrews. 8vo, pp. xi., 338. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1885.

THIRTY-ONE years ago the author of these lectures delivered his inaugural address as Principal and Professor of Theology, St. Mary's College, St. Andrews. His theme was, "Theological Tendencies of the Age." Three main currents were recognized: one, denominated Traditionalism; another, Rationalism; a third, unnamed but described and warmly commended as at once conservative and progressive, —"conservative in the strictest sense as believing the Bible to contain the perfect and completed statement of the truth for all ages of the church; progressive, as believing that the church must yet, with an advancing culture and a higher and richer power of criticism, ever grasp this truth in new relations, and under more fresh and comprehensive aspects." The volume before us, when compared with this inaugural lecture, shows how richly a candid, gifted man, devoted by his calling as a teacher of theology to sacred studies, has taken up into his culture the most vital thought of his age.

At the beginning of his public career he was sensitive to the atmosphere of his time. In the ripeness of his years he shows that he has mastered the forces whose power earlier he had felt but had not fully understood. To us the chief value of these attractive, discriminating, and thoughtful lectures lies in the lesson they convey of the growth that comes to a man who seeks to learn the lessons of his own day in the spirit of a humble and reverent search for truth. The spirit of the inaugural address and of the St. Giles' lectures is the same, though richer and riper in the latter; the general doctrinal attitude is not materially changed, although positions are reached beyond, perhaps, what would once have been deemed legitimate or safe; and the outcome is a certainty of faith, a breadth of view, a charity and cheerful hopefulness as respects present movements of Christian thought, which are nurtured and justified by the insight which he has gained into the true meaning and purpose of the history that has been making since the century opened.

These lectures, however, do not give more than a few hints as to the developments of the last twenty-five years. For the most part they deal exclusively with the first half and the sixth decade of the nineteenth century. They are limited, also, as their title indicates, to impulses which have modified men's thinking upon religious subjects. Merely philanthropic or practical movements, or ecclesiastical changes, or traditional influences, do not come under review. Without criticising for his omissions an author who has done so well, we cannot but wish that he had given us a lecture upon the influence on religious thought of the benevolent enterprises of recent times, especially those which have been prompted by a humane spirit, and by missionary zeal. The long struggle against slavery, the temperance and other reforms, have not only been incited and sustained by religious motives in their most effective work, but they have clarified Christian thought itself. The doctrine of God which is now making itself effective in theology feels the influence of the principle of humaneness which has gained such power in the sphere of practical activity. So, even more directly, is the impulse to Christian missions which marks the decades reviewed by our author fruitful in its influence upon religious opinion. The missionary idea, as now apprehended, is as really a contribution to modern thought as anything brought out by either of the men whose influence is carefully traced and estimated. And at this point, to say the least, the evangelical school, which is left out of account as not tributary to the later progress of thought, deserves recognition. It has contributed one of the most fruitful ideas of modern times, and one in which are concentrated some of the sublimest principles of Christianity.

Dr. Tulloch is always skillful in his choice of subjects as in other elements of literary success. Few more inviting themes can be suggested than the topics of these eight lectures: Coleridge and his School; The Early Oriel School (Hawkins, Whately, Arnold, Hampden. Thirlwall, Milman, to mention only the chief names); The Oxford Movement; George Combe, Thomas Erskine, Macleod Campbell, Edward Irving, representing the new religious thought in Scotland; Thomas Carlyle as a Religious Teacher; John Stuart Mill and his School Grote, Lewes ; Maurice and Kingsley; F. W. Robertson and Bishop Ewing. Whatever we may miss, here is an abundance of important and attractive material. Dr. Tulloch's extensive personal acquaintance, as well as his knowledge of the literature of his subjects, enhances the value of his

« НазадПродовжити »