i8 7 ;] OLD TESTAMENT STUDY IN 1876 391 



Leipzig, 1876). This is properly the fourth volume of the 

 author s Theology of the Old and New Covenant, and is not 

 so much a biblical study as a statement of Ewald s ethical 

 system on a biblical basis. In the hands of the latest 

 writers on the subject, Old Testament theology is passing 

 almost entirely into researches into the history of the 

 religion of Israel. The method of the usual manuals 

 (Oehler, Schultz) is to discuss first Mosaism, and then the 

 teaching of the prophets. But so long as the date of 

 important parts of the Pentateuch is so much disputed, 

 this way of presenting the subject offered no security for 

 a really genetical development of the growth of the Old 

 Testament religion. Since Kuenen in his Religion of 

 Israel delineated this development in accordance with 

 the view that the Levitical ordinances of the Pentateuch 

 are later than the prophetic period, friends and opponents 

 alike have felt the necessity of renewed research into the 

 history of the Old Testament ideas, and, instead of start 

 ing with fixed views as to the age of the different parts of 

 the Pentateuch derived in the old way from merely literary 

 criticism, have recognised the propriety of beginning with 

 documents of undisputed age mainly, that is, with the 

 prophets and then working backwards and forwards 

 from such a picture of the religion of Israel as these 

 documents afford. At the same time, the influence of 

 the new science of comparative religion has laid upon 

 biblical scholars the duty of examining more precisely 

 the relation of the Hebrew faith to Semitic polytheism, 

 and, in particular, of testing the theory so ably upheld 

 by the Dutch school, that there is no specific difference 

 between the development of the Old Testament religion 

 and that of other faiths. Thus the burning questions of 

 the moment are such as these : What is the origin and 

 history of the spiritual monotheism of the prophets ? 

 How does it stand related to the conception of Jehovah 

 current among the mass ? What is the relation of 

 Jehovah to heathen gods, and of the worship of Jehovah 



