344 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hitherto prevailed of the history of Israel, and in particular of the work of Moses. 

 On the other hand, one result will certainly remain, that the Pentateuch was not 

 composed hy Moses himself, but was compiled by later editors from various origi- 

 nal sources. . . . But the very variety of these sources may be applied in favor of 

 the credibility of the Pentateuch. 



In other words, it may be said that Dr. Strack regards it as estab- 

 lished that " The Law of Moses " is a title of the same character 

 as " The Psalms of David," the whole collection being denominated 

 from its principal author. But he is convinced that the general 

 conclnsions of the prevalent school of Old Testament criticism, 

 which involve an entire subversion of our present conceptions of 

 Old Testament history, will not be maintained. In the face of 

 this opinion, it does not seem presumptuous to express an appre- 

 hension that the younger school of Hebrew scholars in England, 

 of whose concessions Mrs. Ward makes so much, have gone too 

 far and too fast ; and, at all events, it is clear from what Dr. Strack 

 says — and I might quote also Delitzsch and Dillmann — that it is 

 much too soon to assume that the school of whose conquests Mrs. 

 Ward boasts is supreme. But, even supposing it were, what has 

 this to do with the admitted and undoubted failures on the other 

 side, in the field of Few Testament criticism ? If it be the fact, 

 as Mrs. Ward does not deny, that not only Strauss's but Baur's 

 theories and conclusions are now rejected ; if it has been proved 

 that Baur was entirely wrong in supposing the greater part of the 

 New Testament books were late productions, written with a con- 

 troversial purpose, what is the use of appealing to the alleged 

 success of the German critics in another field ? If Baur is con- 

 futed, he is confuted, and there is an end of his theories ; though 

 he may have been useful, as rash theorizers have often been, in 

 stimulating investigation. In the same valuable hand-book of 

 Dr. Zochler's, already quoted, I find, under the " History of the 

 Science of Introduction to the New Testament," the heading (page 

 15, vol. i, part 2), " Result of the controversy and end of the 

 Tubingen school." 



The Tubingen school (the writer conclndes, p. 20) could not but fall as soon 

 as its assumptions were recognized and given up. As Hilgenfeld confesses, "it 

 went to an unjustifiable length, and inflicted too deep wounds on the Christian 

 faith. . . . No enduring results in matters of substance have been produced 

 by it." 



Such is the judgment of an authoritative German hand-book 

 on the writer to whom, in Merriman's opinion, " we owe all that we 

 really know at the present moment about the New Testament," as 

 though the Christian thought and life of eighteen hundred years 

 had produced no knowledge on that subject ! 



In fact, Mrs. Ward's comparison seems to me to point in exactly 

 the opposite direction : 



