270 THE VERY REV. H. WAGE, D.D., OX THE OLD TESTAMENT 



Dr. Driver are the " assured results " of scientific criticisui, and 

 in treating as insignificant obscurantists all English scholars who 

 oppose them. At the same time a new and influential opposition 

 to them has been gaining strength among historical scholars in 

 Switzerland and France, under the influence of the eminent 

 Archaeologist and Egyptian scholar, Professor Naville of Geneva. 

 Meanwhile " the Law and the Prophets " continue to tell their 

 own plain tale, and the Jewish religion, which rests absolutely on 

 the truth of that plain tale, continues its historic witness to it ; 

 and the New Testament, alike in the Gospels and the Epistles, 

 assumes its historical veracity. The position of the " Word of 

 God," as Jews and Christians regard it, amidst all this controversy, 

 recalls the Psalmist's description of the Divine throne : " Clouds 

 and darkness are roimd about it : " " truth and judgment are 

 the habitation of its seat." 



A vivid light has, however, been thrown on the present 

 situation by a literary duel which has been in progress during 

 the last two years in Germany, between Dr. Konig and a brilliant 

 representative of the extreme critical school, Dr. Friedrich 

 Delitzsch, who initiated the notorious Babel-Bibel controversy 

 some twenty years ago. That controversy, as Dr. Delitzsch 

 says, is over, and the Bible has not succumbed to Babel. But 

 the recent revival of the Jewish question in Germany induced 

 him to publish, last year, a tract which was ready for publication 

 at Easter, 1914, but which he withheld during the war. It is 

 defiantly entitled Die Grosse Tauschung, or The Great Deception ; 

 and it may be briefly described as a vehement and passionate 

 attempt to show that the Jewish and Christian Faith is proved 

 by modern criticism to be based on a gross deception embodied 

 in the Hebrew Scriptures. His account, in a brief preface, of 

 the origination of his argument is peculiarly interesting and 

 instructive. " Every man," he says, " has his special experiences 

 in life. As a young student I attended the lectures of a celebrated 

 liberal theologian on Old Testament Introduction, and there I 

 learned one day that the so-called Fifth Book of Moses, 

 Deuteronomy, was not composed by Moses at all, notwith- 

 standing that it asserts of itself that it was not only spoken by 

 Moses, but actually written dovm by him ; but that, in fact, it 

 was first composed some seven hundred years later for a certain 

 specific purpose. I came of an orthodox Lutheran family, and was 

 deeply moved by this statement, especially as it convinced me ; and 



