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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1890. 



RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS OF THE SEMITES. 



Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. The Funda- 

 mental Institutions. By W. Robertson Smith, (Edin- 

 burgh : Black, 1889.) 

 THE volume before us contains the first series of 

 lectures on " the primitive religions of the Semitic 

 peoples, viewed in relation to other ancient religions, and 

 to the spiritual religion of the Old Testament and of 

 Christianity," which the Trustees of the Burnett Fund 

 asked Prof. Robertson Smith to deliver at Aberdeen in 

 the year 1887. As may be readily imagined, the selection 

 of Prof. R. Smith as lecturer on the subject which, of all 

 men in England, he had made peculiarly his own, was 

 approved of by Semitic scholars and by the more liberal- 

 minded of the clergy of all denominations. There were 

 and are, of course, many who will view the publication of 

 these lectures in a book form with anything but favour ; 

 still it is quite certain that they must, if honestly read 

 and candidly thought over, bring many of this class over 

 to the view, which is gaining ground with great rapidity, 

 that, if the Hebrew Scriptures are to be properly under- 

 stood by us, and their value accurately gauged, we must 

 bring to their consideration the same amount of common- 

 sense, the same critical investigation, and the same weigh- 

 ing of evidence, which we should bring to bear upon any 

 piece of general history. The Bible is a unique work, 

 and is the production of many writers who lived at 

 different periods. In it we have a mixture of historical 

 facts fused with legend, poetry, folk-lore, stories, and 

 traditions, deeply devotional religious hymns, prophecies, 

 and descriptions of scenes in the life and history of the 

 sons and descendants of Abraham. Anyone who knows 

 the Oriental character will understand at once why the 

 book is such a favourite with the Eastern Semites, and 

 will see that it is precisely the kind of work which their 

 writers could not help producing ; it is the greatest mis- 

 take possible, however, to assume that the book could 

 only be the production of a certain branch of the Semitic 

 race. This is what has been thought for centuries by 

 clergy and laity alike, and as a result its value has been 

 much underrated and its evidence only partly understood ; 

 also, for hundreds of years the value of the Hebrew text 

 from the point of view of comparative philology was 

 rendered useless because a powerful section of the Church 

 declared that the vowel-points were an integral part of 

 the text itself, and not an addition to it made by the 

 Rabbis of Tiberias because the true pronunciation of the 

 language was dying out and was not generally understood. 

 The Bible has lost nothing in the eyes of scholars because 

 it has been proved that the vowel-points are not fourteen 

 hundred years old, and that the learned men who added 

 the points made mistakes themselves ! It is hard to say 

 what provoked the intense opposition of certain sects of 

 the Church a few years ago to historical research as 

 applied to the New Testament. It may be that the 

 manner in which the German philologists and com- 

 mentators carried on their investigations, and expressed 

 their opinions, caused the narrow-minded, and we may 

 Vol. xli.— No. 1059. 



add unlearned, theologians of the English Church to 

 abhor and detest all such works ; nevertheless, we ven- 

 ture to believe that, in spite of all the so-called destructive 

 criticism of Kuenen and Wellhausen, the Bible has 

 gained more by the labours of the critical school, ot 

 which these two scholars are brilliant examples, than it 

 has lost. It is but a few years since Prof. Robertson 

 Smith defended his views on historical research as 

 applied to the Old Testament before the courts of his 

 Church, in which bigotry and ignorance of modern 

 research were curiously blended, and in a very few years 

 it will be difficult to believe that such a trial — the only 

 result of which was the loss to his Church of its most 

 learned member — ever took place. 



The lectures printed in the first volume of Prof. 

 Robertson Smith's work are eleven in number, and they 

 relate to the fundamental institutions of the Semitic 

 race as a whole, viz. sanctuaries, sacrifices, first-fruits, 

 tithes, the blood covenant, fire sacrifices, sacrificial gifts, 

 &c. The introductory lecture explains clearly the method 

 of inquiry into the subject, and states the lines upon 

 which this inquiry is to be based. Practically speaking, 

 Prof. Robertson Smith says : — We have the Bible with 

 its remarkable accounts of the institutions of the ancient 

 Jews, and of the ancestors of these Jews. We want to 

 find out a great deal more about them than is stated in 

 it, because the writers, taking for granted that its readers 

 would understand not only their arguments but the facts 

 which led up to them, and the history and manners and 

 customs of the race to which they belonged, only made 

 sufficient reference to them to make the point under dis- 

 cussion perfectly clear. The Jews were a small nation, 

 belonging to the great Semitic race, which had a great 

 deal in common with the other peoples of the race, viz. 

 Assyrians, Babylonians, the dwellers of Syria, &c., whom 

 we have been taught to look upon as heathen outside the 

 pale of the salvation of the Jewish God. Now the Jews 

 have left behind them fewer remains than any other nation 

 belonging to the great Semitic race ; the other nations 

 of this race, however, have left behind them inscriptions, 

 buildings, books, &c., the study of which will cast much 

 light upon the manners and customs of the peoples de- 

 scribed in the Old Testament. The last sixty years have 

 made us acquainted with the languages which these people 

 spoke, we have learned the relationships of these nations 

 to each other, we have certain fixed points in their chrono- 

 logy, and we know a great deal about their religion and 

 their public and private life. Let us then compare the 

 records of all these various families of the Semitic race, 

 and see how much they have in common, where they 

 differ, and if possible let us try and find out how they 

 differ. With a mind well stocked by the study of the 

 native records of the great Semitic nations. Prof. 

 Robertson Smith begins this difficult task. At the outset 

 he distinguishes between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 

 which he calls positive religions, and the systems of 

 ancient heathenism. Each of the positive religions, how- 

 ever, was built upon the beliefs and customs of ancient 

 heathenism, and we can only understand a system of 

 positive religion when we understand the principles of the 

 religion which preceded it. The Hebrews had many re- 

 ligious conceptions and usages in common with many 

 kindred peoples ; and as the matter is pithily put by 



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