396 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1874- 



restored nation the epithet &quot; sons of the living God &quot; 

 (chap. i. 10), surely does so in the conviction that the other 

 nations, who in Semitic phrase are sons of their national 

 deities, have no living God. And this is absolute and 

 conscious monotheism of the clearest kind. 



Smend s essay, which deals with the same period, the 

 eighth century B.C., belongs to a different school, and is 

 mainly directed to prove the organic connection between 

 the teaching of the prophets and the earlier faith of the 

 nation. It brings forward many important considera 

 tions that are apt to be overlooked in the present dis 

 position of critics to find the whole history of Israel s 

 spiritual faith within the period of the prophetic litera 

 ture. Whether the writer has also succeeded in showing 

 that there is no reason why the Levitic legislation may 

 not be older than Amos and Hosea is another question. 

 The essay takes the form of a criticism on Duhm s able 

 but too subtle construction of the prophetic development, 

 and it is thus hardly possible to reproduce its argument 

 here ; but, like the author s previous work, Moses apud 

 Prophetas, it gives the promise of very valuable service 

 in the field of biblical study. 



Dr. Nestle s book, confining itself to a single line of 

 evidence, touches many of the questions which have just 

 occupied our attention. Here, too, as in Baudissin s essay, 

 we find a refutation of the attempts that have been 

 hitherto made to trace back the origin of the name Jahve 

 beyond the limits of Hebraism, and here, too, as in Smend s 

 paper, but with other arguments, recent attempts to take 

 away the place of Moses in the history of revelation are 

 combated. After a brief history of Hebrew onomatology, 

 the author proposes to himself two questions i. Which 

 names of God occur in proper names in the various periods 

 of Hebrew history ? 2. What conception of the deity 

 is expressed in the proper names, by the combination of 

 the names of God with significant words ? 



The results of the discussion of the first question are 



