i8 7 7] OLD TESTAMENT STUDY IN 1876 383 



and the habit of thought which has led our author habitu 

 ally to elude these controversies instead of subjecting 

 them to critical discussion, makes no small part of the 

 volume more readable than instructive, and leads to 

 frequent sacrifices of precision and accuracy to picturesque 

 effect. One is compelled to add that in not a few cases 

 a more thorough knowledge of recent literature and a 

 juster estimate of the relative value of the authorities 

 followed would have led to important modifications of 

 view, even without new personal research. The valuable 

 manual of Schiirer (Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Zeit- 

 geschichte) ,even without the fuller essay by the same author 

 in Hilgenf eld s Zeitschrift (1875) would, for example, have 

 afforded a correction of the old error, that the Alabarch 

 was the ruler of the Jews in Alexandria ; and the mono 

 graph of Wellhausen (Pharisder und Sadducaer, 1874) 

 could not have failed to set the position of the Pharisees 

 and Sadducees in a fresh light. That the Psalter of 

 Solomon is referred to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, 

 and the Book of Jubilees to about B.C. 100, can only be 

 ascribed to neglect of the many recent researches into these 

 compositions. In truth, it is evident from p. 348 that 

 Dr. Stanley has not even used Roensch s indispensable 

 edition of the latter work. Or once more, the exploded 

 opinion that the Jews gave up Hebrew for Chaldee in the 

 time of the captivity is reproduced without the least 

 reference to the existence of a different view. Such slips 

 in detail and I have taken them almost at random 

 diminish one s confidence in the treatment of the broader 

 aspects of the narrative. Into these it is impossible to 

 enter in the present rapid survey. But I may ask in 

 passing whether the prominence given in the volume to 

 the Platonic doctrine of immortality as a powerful 

 influence on Jewish, and not merely on Hellenistic, 

 thought, does not rest in part on the lack of a sharp 

 appreciation of the distinction between the notion of 

 immortality and that of the resurrection. 



