634th ordinary GENERAL MEETING. 



HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTER, S.W., ON MONDAY, JUNE 20th, 1921, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



Alfred T. Schofield, Esq., M.D., in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the last meeting were read, confirmed and signed, 

 and the Hon. Secretary announced the Election of the Rev. Anwyl 

 Emrys C. Morgan, M.A., as an Associate. 



The Chairman then called upon the Very Reverend the Dean of Canter- 

 bury to give the Annual Address on " The Old Testament and the present 

 State of Criticism." 



THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE PRESENT STATE 

 OF CRITICISM. By the Very Rev. H. Wage, D.D., 

 Dean of Canterbury. 



AMONG the objects of this Society, there is none more impor- 

 tant than the investigation of the bearings of scientific 

 discoveries on the Holy Scriptures. Those Scriptures are the 

 shrine and source of the Christian Revelation, and the authority of 

 that Revelation must stand or fall with their truth and authority. 

 I thought, therefore, it would not be inappropriate to devote 

 this Annual Address to a review, such as I offered the Society 

 eight years ago, of the present position of the scientific criticism 

 of the Old Testament, and especially of the Pentateuch. Not- 

 withstanding the distractions of the war, that criticism has 

 maintained its activity during the last few years. The veteran 

 and indefatigable Dr. Konig, Professor of the Semitic languages 

 in Bonn University, has published two very important volumes ; 

 one on the history of the religion of the Old Testament, the other 

 an elaborate commentary on Genesis, besides other valuable 

 controversial tracts. The late Dr. Orr's great Standard Inter- 

 national Cyclopaedia has placed within the reach of English 

 readers a comprehensive review of all questions relating to the 

 Scriptures, with a fulness and impartiality which no other Bible 

 Cyclopaedia has attained. Mr. Wiener, in that Cyclopaedia and 

 in the invaluable pages of the American Bibliotheca Sacra, has 

 carried forward his searching cross-examination of the position 

 of the German and English critics. Their representatives in 

 England, both in universities and in popular handbooks, ha\^e 

 been busy in maintaining that such views as those of the late 



