LITERARY NOTICES. 



397 



defended, and in spirit the skeptics were as 

 much theologians as their opponents. But 

 science has very much changed all this, and 

 what was long an exasperating controver- 

 sy is now becoming a quiet and rational in- 

 vestigation. While in the disputatious era 

 it was maintained, ou the one side, that the 

 Bible is an exceptional and supernatural 

 book — the plenary inspiration of God, and 

 all its parts perfect and infallible — on the 

 other hand, it was asserted to be a fabrica- 

 tion and an imposture. We have now pret- 

 ty much passed out of that phase, and en- 

 tered into the phase of calm and critical 

 inquiry as to the origin and history of the 

 various books which appeared at different 

 times, and were at length collected to form 

 the Christian Scriptures. The inquiry should 

 be candid and dispassionate, but conducted 

 with inexorable reference simply to the es- 

 tablishment of truth. 



Much has been done in recent years, by 

 scholars of various countries, to throw light 

 on the historic origin of the Biblical books, 

 and Mr. Chadwick has done the public an 

 invaluable service in presenting, in a com- 

 pendious form, the main results of this most 

 interesting research. Of his treatment of 

 the subject the author says : 



"My object is to condense into a single vol- 

 ume, modest in size and cost, the principal re- 

 enltsofthe best tiistorical and scientific criti- 

 cism of ihe separate books of the Bible, and of 

 their mutual relations. I am not aware of any 

 other volume which has made exactly this at- i 

 tempt, and it is high time that somebody should 

 make it. The truth of these results, if truth it 

 be, is scattered up and down through scores of 

 volumes, which few public libraries, even in our 

 great cities, have upon their shelves, and which 

 it would cost the individual reader hundreds of 

 dollars to procure. Nevertheless, I shall be dis- 

 appointed if one effect of these lectures is not 

 to impel the reader to procure for himself some 

 of the books which I have found most helpful 

 and inspiring. Much, however, that has been 

 written is not only costly and inaccessible, but 

 is BO laboriously and minutely critical in its 

 form as to repel the ave-rage reader. I dare not 

 hope that my own treatment will be entertain- 

 ing, but for bu?y men and women I trust it will 

 have some advantage over that of the great Bib- 

 lical scholars in that it is at once compact and 

 comprehensive." 



Mr. Chadwiek's volume consists of eight 

 lectures, which were first delivered to his 

 own people in Brooklyn — four on the Old 



Testament, one on the Apocrypha, and three 

 on the New Testament. The first is on the 

 Prophets, and is preceded by a brief history 

 of the Old Testament canon. The arrange- 

 ment of the lectures is intended to be sim- 

 ply chronological, and the prophets are con- 

 sidered first because it was evidently Mr. 

 Chadwick's idea that, with some inconsider- 

 able exceptions, we have in the prophets 

 the earliest writers of the Old Testament. 

 The Histories are next considered, because 

 these are believed to have been written, for 

 the most part, before the " Law." 



The " Psalms and other writings " come 

 last, as bemg written after the " Law." 

 The Prophets are first taken in the order of 

 our common version, and the date and au- 

 thorship and character of each discussed. 

 An inquiry is instituted as to the nature of 

 prophetism, and reasons are assigned for 

 the belief that the early prophets were not 

 monotheists; the writing prophets of the 

 eighth century b. c. being probably the first 

 monotheists. 



In his lecture on the Histories Mr. 

 Chadwick finds them not to be histories in 

 the ordinary sense of the word, but didactic 

 compositions. In his lecture on the Penta- 

 teuch Mr. Chadsvick considers it as a strati- 

 fied series. The oldest or bottom layer, 

 richest in narration, is a prophetic one, dat- 

 ing from the eighth century before Christ. 

 The next layer he designates as priestly- 

 prophetic, and which includes the whole of 

 Deuteronomy. Its date is fixed at 621 b. c. 

 The next and topmost layer is altogether 

 priestly, and includes all of Leviticus, a good 

 deal of Numbers, and much besides. This 

 upper stratum is what critics call the Book 

 of Onr/im, and its date is the crucial ques- 

 tion of Old Testament criticism. And Mr. 

 Chadwick, following Kuenen, assigns it to 

 the fifth century b. c, and 800 years after 

 the time of Moses. By this mode of treat- 

 ment he apprehends the entire history of 

 Israel as an evolution from a simple to a 

 complex worship, from the spontaneity of 

 prophetism to fixity and formalism, from 

 fetichism and Nature-worship up through 

 monolatry to monotheism. 



In the foufth lecture these principles 

 are applied to the Psalms and other writings. 

 In regard to the Psalms, Proverbs, Eccle- 

 siastes, etc., the old interpretations are 



