414 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the issues of the great Homeric contro- 

 versy, has no idea of the fresh light that 

 has been thrown on the books which are 

 read under the name of Moses, or the 

 character and historical position of such 

 men as Samuel, David, or Isaiah. Oriental 

 scholars, a very small class in England, 

 have been so much occupied in study as to 

 have scarcely cared to give the results of 

 recent inquiry to the general public. Lately 

 some valuable translations of German trea- 

 tises have begun to appear, but these have 

 been too elaborate and bulky to attract or- 

 dinary readers. The appetite has continued 

 to languish for want of the proper food. 



It need now lancruish no lonsjer. Pro- 

 fessor Robertson Smith's book is exactly 

 what was wanted at once to inform and to 

 stimulate. Written by one of the first Se- 

 mitic scholars of our time, it is completely 

 abreast of the most recent investigations, 

 and pervaded by a thoroughly scholar-like 

 spirit. His easy mastery of the subject and 

 his sense of w-hich are the really difficult 

 points and which the settled ones are ap- 

 parent on every page. What is more sur- 

 prising is the skill wherewith these re- 

 sources are used. Although scientific in 

 the sense of being thorough, exact, and 

 business-like, the book is also popular that 

 is to say, it is perfectly intelligible to every 

 person of fair general education who has 

 read the Bible. For clearness of statement, 

 for cogency of argument, for breadth of 

 view, for impartiality of tone, for the judg- 

 ment with which details are subordinated 

 to the most interesting and instructive prin- 

 ciples and facts, it is a model of how a great 

 and difficult subject should be presented to 

 the world. It is so condensed as to need 

 close attention. But those who have any 

 taste for these studies will not find it hard 

 to give that close attention, for it carries 

 one on like a romance from beginning to 

 end, and we can well believe, what was 

 stated in the newspapers some weeks ago, 

 that the lectures, of which it is a summa- 

 rized reprint, were listened to by immense 

 audiences in Scotland with the keenest in- 

 terest. 



The book opens with a sketch of the crit- 

 icism of the Old Testament in the Christian | 

 Church from the days of the earliest Fathers. 

 It is shown how their entire want of Hebrew ' 



scholarship contributed, with their theories 

 as to the nature and value of Scripture, to 

 lead them away from a critical interpreta- 

 tion of the text ; how even Jerome was 

 obliged, when making his famous transla- 

 tion, to lean upon Jewish rabbis ; how it 

 was only among the Jews that the knowl- 

 edge of the old language was preserved 

 down till the Reformation, when such re- 

 vivers of learning as Reuchlin drew their 

 knowledge from Jewish sources ; how thus 

 the traditional interpretations and notions 

 which were current among the Jews con- 

 tinued to influence Protestant scholars in 

 their translations, and have colored our own 

 authorized version. Then the author goes 

 on to show how the Jewish traditional in- 

 terpretation was itself formed. Old He- 

 brew became a dead language in or before 

 the fourth century b. c, so that the Jews of 

 our Lord's time, speaking Aramaic, needed 

 special school-training to understand the 

 Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets. As 

 there were no grammars nor dictionaries, 

 the knowledge of the old tongue was given 

 orally, and a traditional mass of learning 

 grew up, consisting of the interpretation of 

 the sacred writings, with explanations and 

 commentaries, partly legal (the so-called 

 Halacha), partly moral or hortatory (the 

 Haggada). The Law having now become 

 the center of the whole life of the nation, 

 as well civil as religious, and the guide of 

 all its habits and usages, the function of 

 those who interpreted and expounded and 

 applied it became an extremely important 

 one, and they rose, in the period between 

 the return from Babylon and the birth of 

 Christ, into a class of great power and influ- 

 ence. They are those whom we find men- 

 tioned in the New Testament as the Scribes, 

 mostly belonging to and in fact heading the 

 party called Pharisees. Their interest in 

 the Law was primarily practical, and in 

 their work of extending, supplementing, 

 harmonizing, refining upon its rules they 

 created a large body of customary law side 

 by side with it, and were thus led to origi- 

 nate many forced and unreasonable interpre- 

 tations, which have come down to us in the 

 Talmud, and long continued to pervert the 

 true meaning of the old writings. Though 

 philology or grammatical exegesis was not 

 in their way, nor indeed within their com- 



