166 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



of this task to inweave the Bible record with the history 

 of which it is itself a part such is the critical problem of 

 the theocratic history. 



Of all the monuments of Israel s history, the most 

 precious by far to the critical student are the Old Testa 

 ment prophecies, witnessing as they do to the inner life 

 of the noblest and truest Israelites, representing at once 

 the purest religious conceptions and the deepest national 

 feelings that these ages could show. These are qualities 

 to which no disciple of the higher criticism can remain 

 insensible. The time is gone when the sources of the 

 prophetic inspiration could be sought in an artificial 

 aesthetical culture, in political intrigue, above all, in pious 

 fraud. The starting-point in all critical study of prophecy 

 lies in the acknowledgment that the prophetic writings are 

 the true key to the marvellous religious development, 

 which is, in fact, the kernel of all Israel s history. And 

 with this awakened sense of the historical value of pro 

 phecy has come the universal conviction that such writings 

 cannot be forgeries. It may be fair to ask whether they 

 belong in all instances to the prophets whose names they 

 now bear ; but that they really are the writings of prophets, 

 unquestionable witnesses to the true life of the age that 

 produced them, no one doubts. In truth, the tendency 

 of the critical school is rather to overvalue the historical 

 importance of these monuments at the expense of books 

 properly historical. The dislike for the miraculous which 

 the long predominance of rationalistic philosophy has 

 almost engrained into German thought, has often pro 

 duced, even in critics like Ewald who, we hope to show, 

 are by no means naturalistic at heart an unwarranted 

 mistrust for many Old Testament narratives, and has 

 encouraged the formation of arbitrary historical theories 

 for which scattered hints in the prophets form almost the 

 only basis. Yet it would be unfair to dwell only on this 

 side of the case. It is certain that much of the Old 

 Testament history is not contemporary ; and the truest 



