3 oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nineteenth century was sturdily opposed the colossus of orthodoxy, 

 Hengstenberg. In him were combined the haughtiness of a 

 Prussian drill-sergeant, the zeal of a Spanish inquisitor, and the 

 flippant brutality of an ultra-orthodox journalist. Behind him 

 stood the gifted but erratic Frederick William IV, a man admi- 

 rably fitted for the professorship of sesthetics, but whom an in- 

 scrutable fate had made King of Prussia. Both these rulers in the 

 German Israel arrayed all possible opposition against the great 

 scholars laboring in the new paths. But this opposition was 

 vain; the succession of acute and honest scholars continued: 

 Vatke, Bleek, Reuss, Graf, Hupfeld, Delitzsch, Kuenen, and others 

 wrought on in Germany and Holland, steadily developing the new 

 truth. 



Especially to be mentioned among these is Hupfeld, who pub- 

 lished in 1853 his treatise on The Sources of Genesis. Accepting 

 the " Conjectures " which Astruc had published just a hundred 

 years before, he established what has ever since been recognized by 

 the leading biblical commentators as the main basis of work upon 

 the Pentateuch the fact that three main documents are combined 

 in Genesis, each with its own characteristics. He, too, had to pay 

 a price for letting more light upon the world. A determined at- 

 tempt was made to punish him. Though deeply religious in his 

 nature and aspirations, he was denounced in 18G5 to the Prussian 

 Government as guilty of irreverence ; but, to the credit of his 

 noble and true colleagues who trod in the more orthodox paths, 

 men like Tholuck and Julius Miiller, the theological faculty of 

 the University of Halle protested against this persecuting effort, 

 and it was brought to naught. 



The demonstrations of Hupfeld gave new life to biblical schol- 

 arship in all lands, but most important among the newer contri- 

 butions was that made by Reuss and Graf. The former had de- 

 veloped it by a sort of intuition, but in his timidity had withheld 

 it from publication for nearly fifty years, and he only made it 

 known when Graf's courage strengthened his own. 



These men penetrated the reason for a fact which had long 

 puzzled commentators and given rise to masses of futile debate ; 

 namely, the fact that such great men as Samuel, David, Elijah, 

 and Isaiah, and indeed the whole Jewish people from Joshua to 

 the exile, showed in all their utterances and actions that they 

 were unacquainted with the Levitical system. These scholars 

 solved the problem by demonstrating that the Law and Ceremo- 

 nial Code, which the theological world up to that time had so 

 generally believed to have been established at a vastly earlier 

 period, were really the product of a later epoch in Jewish history. 

 Thus was the historical evolution of Jewish institutions brought 

 into harmony with the natural development of human thought; 



