THE BIBLE. 



2S9 



THE BIBLE. 1 



By Professor W. ROBERTSON SMITH, of the University of Aberdeen. 



I.-THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



THE word Bible, which in English, as in 

 mediieval Latin, is treated as a singular 

 noun, is in its original Greek form a plural — 

 to fii(i7.ia, the (sacred) books — correctly express- 

 ing the fact that the sacred writings of Christen- 

 dom are made up of a number of independent 

 records, which set before us the gradual devel- 

 opment of the religion of revelation. The origin 

 of each of these records forms a distinct criti- 

 cal problem ; and for the discussion of these 

 questions of detail the reader is referred to the 

 articles on separate Biblical books. The present 

 article seeks to give a general account of the his- 

 torical and literary conditions under which the 

 unique literature of the Old and New Testaments 

 sprang up, and of the way in which the Biblical 

 books were brought together in a canonical col- 

 lection, and handed down from age to age. The 

 Biblical development is divided into two great 

 periods by the manifestation and historical work 

 of Christ. In its pre-Christian stage the religion 

 of revelation is represented as a covenant between 

 the spiritual God and his chosen people the 

 Hebrews. In accordance with this, and in allu- 

 sion to Jeremiah xxxi. 31, Jesus speaks of the 

 new dispensation founded in his death as a new 

 covenant (2 Corinthians xi. 25-). Hence, as early 

 as the second century of our era the two great 

 divisions of the Bible were known as the books 

 of the Old and of the New Covenant respectively. 

 Among Lathi-speaking Christians the Greek word 

 for covenant was often incorrectly rendered testa- 

 ment, and thus Western Christendom still uses 

 the names of the Old and New Testaments. 



Old Testament — Struggle and Progress of 

 Spiritual Religion; Priests, Prophets, etc. — The 

 pre-Christian age of the Biblical religion falls 

 into a period of religious productivity and a sub- 

 sequent period of stagnation and mainly conser- 

 vative tradition. The period of productivity is 



1 This article was contributed by Prof. Smith to the 

 neiv edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, noiv in 

 course of publication ; and for writing it the author has 

 been suspended from the ministry by the Free Church 

 of Scotland, and is to be tried for heresy. Part II.— The 

 New Testament— will appear in our next Supple- 



ment. 



19 



also a period of contest, during which the spir- 

 itual principles of the religion of revelation were 

 involved in continual struggle with polytheistic 

 Nature-worship on the one hand, and, on the 

 other hand, with an unspiritual conception of 

 Jehovah as a God whose interest in Israel and 

 care for his sanctuary were independent of moral 

 conditions. In this long struggle, which began 

 with the foundation of the theocracy in the work 

 of Moses, and did not issue in conclusive victory 

 until the time of Ezra, the spiritual faith was com- 

 pelled to show constant powers of new develop- 

 ment — working out into ever-clearer form the 

 latent contrasts between true and false religion, 

 proving itself fitter than any other belief to sup- 

 ply all the religious needs of the people, and, 

 above all, finding its evidence in the long provi- 

 dential history, in which, from the great deliver- 

 ance of the Exodus down to the Captivity and 

 the Restoration, the reality of Jehovah's kingship 

 over Israel, of his redeeming love, and of his 

 moral government, were vindicated by the most 

 indisputable proofs. As it was only the deliver- 

 ance from Egypt and the theocratic covenant of 

 Sinai that bound the Hebrew tribes into national 

 unity, the worship of Jehovah was always acknowl- 

 edged as the national religion of Israel. But from 

 Joshua to Samuel national feeling was far weaker 

 than tribal jealousy ; and in the political disintegra- 

 tion of the people the religion of Jehovah seemed 

 ready to be lost in local superstitions. During 

 this period the chief centre of monotheism was 

 the sanctuary and priesthood of the ark ; and it 

 was from the priestly circle that Samuel arose to 

 reunite the nation by recalling it to the religion 

 of Jehovah, and thus to prepare the way for the 

 splendid age of David and Solomon. But though 

 Samuel was by education a priest, it was not as a 

 priest, but as a prophet, that he accomplished this 

 work. In all ages a priesthood is conservative, 

 not creative ; and it was only as a growing and 

 creative power that the still undeveloped spirit- 

 ual religion could live. While it was the busi- 

 ness of the priest faithfully to preserve religious 

 traditions already acknowledged as true and ven- 

 erable, the characteristic of the prophet is a 



